Fortune's June Bride (Mills & Boon Cherish) (The Fortunes of Texas: Cowboy Country, Book 6) (15 page)

“Casting still doesn’t have a freaking replacement for Joey.” He jerked the tie into a knot. “I’m stuck in this godfor—” He broke off when the trailer door opened and Cammie and two other girls entered, giggling over something.

Aurora smiled tightly and stepped aside so they could get through.

“If you’ve hated playing Rusty so much,” she said carefully, “why haven’t you stopped?”

He didn’t answer. Just shoved open the trailer door again. “Show’s gonna start in a few minutes.”

She almost didn’t care. Only a semblance of professional pride made her leave the trailer ahead of him. “Galen, I’ll explain what happened. There’s no reason for your family to believe we’re...involved.”

Particularly when he was making it abundantly clear that they were not. No matter what had happened between them over the past week.

“And the love of your life?” His lips were thin. “He got the job, by the way. But it isn’t in Chicago.”

Her stomach started to fall away.

“It’s right here in Horseback Hollow.” He threw out his arm. “Hell, it’s right over there beyond some hedges and a fence. He’s gonna be working on the Cowboy Condo project.”

She stared. “I didn’t know the hotel project was back on track.”

“That’s all you’ve got to say?”

She spread her hands, helplessly. “What do you
want
me to say? Do you think I
knew
anything about this? Maybe you’re like Roselyn and think
I’m
the one he’s messing around with!”

A sharp whistle drew her attention toward the buckboard, where Frank was waving at her impatiently, and Aurora realized the announcer was giving their cue over the loudspeaker. She could see Galen realized it, too.

“I don’t want you to say anything,” he said flatly and turned toward where Cabot was waiting with the horses.

Stymied for a solution to anything, least of all a Galen she couldn’t figure out, she picked up her skirts and ran to the buckboard. She clambered up beside Frank and hastily donned her mic and barely got her veil on before Blackie shot out from the gate.

When she looked back to see Galen, though, and share the same thumbs-up they shared before every show, he wasn’t looking her way at all.

Chapter Twelve

L
ater, though Aurora wasn’t sure how, they got through all four shows without some fresh disaster falling on her shoulders.

But when it came to climbing in Galen’s truck to go home, she nearly balked.

Did she just tell him outright to drop her off at her own place?

Did she wait to see if he automatically took her to his the way he’d been doing for days now?

She did neither.

She just climbed up in the seat beside him and stared out the window, not saying anything.

They drove past the hotel construction site that, for the past few months at least, had been surrounded by chain link while the unfinished framing itself sat abandoned to everything but the weeds sprouting up around it.

She closed her eyes against the sight.

And when she felt the truck bounce over a cattle guard several minutes later, she had one answer at least.

Because Galen was driving up to her place.

He stopped at the base of the hill, but didn’t put the truck in Park. Didn’t turn it off. Just hit the brakes and eventually the tires stopped crunching over the graveled drive as they rolled to a stop. “You need a ride to Cowboy Country tomorrow?”

She breathed slowly through the hollowness that yawned open inside her.

Because there was her other answer.

“I’ve got the truck.” Feeling older than she should, she pushed open the door and slid out. “Thanks for the ride.” The words sounded choked, but there was nothing she could do about that, except slam the door shut and hurry up the hill to her front door.

Once she got behind the privacy of that, she could fall apart.

She walked blindly because of the tears glazing her eyes, but since she’d been walking up and down the same hill her whole life, it didn’t much matter. And between every step, she expected to hear the sound of him driving away.

He waited, though, until she reached the front door and fumbled with the damn fool key, because he’d insisted she start locking it, so she had.

She finally managed to unlock it, though, and stumbled inside, slamming the door shut behind her so she didn’t have to hear him drive away, too.

“Should have paid more attention to the woman in the mirror,” she said thickly.

Then she sat down on the floor and cried.

* * *

The next afternoon, Galen stared at the blonde coming out of the wardrobe trailer wearing Aurora’s wedding gown.

He’d deliberately gone by to pick up his Rusty gear earlier, just so he wouldn’t run into her any sooner than he had to.

But now there was another woman wearing her costume?

He looked at Cabot. “Who the hell is
that
?”

Cabot shrugged. “Sophie somebody-or-other.”

He ground his molars together. “She’s wearing Aurora’s costume.”

Cabot gave him a strange look. “Looks like. Maybe she called in sick or something.”

“And this
Sophie
just magically appears?”

“She’s Aurora’s understudy. Think she usually dances in the saloon show.”

He felt like something had shaken loose in his brains. “Aurora has an understudy? Why didn’t Joey have one?”

“Rusty’s a bit part in comparison to hers. Same as mine,” Cabot said. “You gonna be all right?”

No, he wasn’t going to be all right. The only reason he was doing this infernal show was for Aurora’s benefit.

And now she wasn’t even there?

The theme music was already playing and Cabot was swinging up into his saddle. “We’re gonna miss our cue if you don’t get a move on.”

Galen swore under his breath and mounted Blaze.

The next ten minutes, give or take, were some of the worst Galen had ever experienced. He plowed through it with grim determination, pledging Rusty’s troth to an unfamiliar Lila who didn’t smell like flowers or smile with her whole body.

And the second he got backstage after that particular misery, he strode off for his pickup truck in the parking lot. But when he got to her place, her ranch truck was gone. The front and back doors to the house both locked up tight and leaving him wanting to tear the damn things off their hinges.

He should never have agreed to play Rusty in the first place. It had only ended in a snowball of complications.

Feeling fouler than he could ever remember feeling, he returned to Cowboy Country and went straight to the casting department.

For three weeks he’d been visiting Diane’s office. For three weeks he’d ignored her blatant come-ons while she’d insisted she couldn’t find someone to play Rusty.

A “bit” part.

“Get somebody else,” he said the second he entered her office. He stared her down. “By the end of the week, or else you’re gonna be explaining to Caitlyn Moore and her daddy why you’ve been sitting on your thumbs about it all this time.”

“Now where’s the fun in that?”

“I mean it, Diane.” He planted his palms flat on her desk and was glad that, for once, there weren’t any hopeful applicants sitting in the chairs in front of her desk. “All those suggestive comments of yours that I’ve been ignoring? Some might consider ’em harassment. And I’m pretty sure Moore Entertainment isn’t going to want
that
embarrassment hitting them on top of everything else they’ve dealt with. Do you?”

She pressed her lips together, then she just looked bored. “
Outlaw Shootout
can replace
Wedding
in a heartbeat. Something I reminded your girlfriend of just this morning.”

His nerve endings sharpened. He straightened, pulling his hands off her desk so he didn’t succumb to the temptation to wrap them around her neck. “Aurora was here this morning?”

“When she came in positively begging me to find a new Rusty.” She propped her chin on her hand. “Trouble in paradise?”

“Get a replacement,” he said through his teeth. “Or put this Joey guy back on a horse whether he’s wearing a cast on his leg or not. And if I hear one word about
Outlaw Shootout
replacing
Wedding
, I’m still gonna add your name to the top of my next report to Caitlyn.” There were other people than just Aurora who were depending on the show. “Are we clear?”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I don’t know why you’re getting so upset. Like I told Aurora, Sophie Maxwell can play Lila perfectly well while she’s in Branson—”

He slapped his hands on her desk again so fast she actually rolled back in her chair.
“What?”

“She’s in Branson.” Startled or not, Diane recovered quickly. She picked up her pen and tapped the end of it on her desk between his hands. “Flew her out on a charter a few hours ago so she could meet with the producer there for the new show the dinner theater is opening.”

He snatched the pen out of her hand when she ran it up the inside of his wrist, and tossed it down in disgust. “She’s auditioning.”

“More like discussing rehearsal schedules. It’s a foregone conclusion that she’ll get the lead. The director wants her and he usually gets what he wants.” She waited a beat. “Still anxious to save the day where the rest of your cast mates are concerned?”

He turned on his heel and walked out of the office.

At the best of times, being around the woman made him feel like he needed to be doused in disinfectant afterward. Now was no different even though she’d unintentionally answered the question of Aurora’s whereabouts.

And confirmed what Galen had known all along.

That she wanted a life beyond Horseback Hollow.

Beyond him.

He was still wearing his Rusty costume, but he flouted the rules and walked straight through the public areas, intent on getting across to the wardrobe trailer the fastest way possible.

He was so intent on his goal, he nearly ran right over his little sister Delaney where she was standing in the middle of Main Street having her palm read by the same fortune-teller who’d read his.

Delaney laughed when he bumped into her and caught his sleeves to steady herself. “Cowboy Country is a small world. Where are you off to in such a rush?”

He glared at the fortune-teller, who just smiled slightly and moved off, her belt jingling.

“Galen?” Delaney cocked her blond head. “You all right?”

“What are you doing here?”

Her eyebrows rose a little. “Cisco’s meeting with Caitlyn’s father about the hotel project.”

At one point, before the project had been mothballed, Cisco had been on the development team. Though he hadn’t admitted it at first, which was one of the reasons why Galen still had some reservations about the guy being good enough for Delaney. She might have forgiven him for nearly breaking her heart along the way, but Galen hadn’t.

Which meant there were now two men on the project he had a problem with.

“I thought Cisco quit Cowboy Country.” That’s what the guy had claimed when he’d been trying to win back Delaney’s trust. “Guess that was a lie, too.”

“Oh, Galen,” Delaney tsked. “Relax. Cisco isn’t working for Cowboy Country. All he’s doing is explaining the original plan he had for the project. The one that never got submitted in the first place but should have. For heaven’s sake, you know all he could talk about the other night over tamales was his work with the Fortune Foundation. So what’s got your tail in a twist?”

He grimaced. “Nothing.” He realized he was watching the fortune-teller, who’d stopped to talk with a pregnant woman holding a little boy by the hand, and looked away. “Nothing,” he repeated more firmly. “So you’re just hanging around waiting for Cisco?”

“I thought I’d finally take in your and Aurora’s show while I’m waiting.” She glanced at the old-fashioned clock hanging on a pillar outside the Main Street Post Office, which—aside from the displays of collector’s stamps that a person could purchase—operated as an honest-to-goodness post office. “Doesn’t it start at two?”

His mood darkened even more. “Yes. But Aurora’s not here.”

Her brows pulled together. “Why not?”

“Because she’s in Branson. Learning about her fancy new part she’ll be playing there.”

Delaney’s eyes widened. “But I thought you two were—”

“What?”

She made a face. “Dial down, Galen. Good grief. You didn’t really think any of us were fooled by that act the other night, did you?” She lowered her voice in what he assumed was supposed to be an imitation of his. “Just helping each other out. Like neighbors do.” She gave him a deadpan stare. “Neighbors who are
crazy
about each other, maybe.”

“There’s nothing serious between us.” He eyed the clock, but in his mind, he was seeing the way Anthony-the-ass had grabbed Aurora.

And she’d let him.

“Right. And there was nothing serious between Cisco and me.” She waved her left hand, which sported an engagement ring. “Why can’t you just admit you’re not as committed to the big bad bachelor club as you always claimed?”

He exhaled impatiently. “What good would that do, Delaney? Aurora’s always wanted more than Horseback Hollow. And now, after too many years of waiting, she’s finally out there getting it.”

“I don’t know, Galen. The other night I thought she looked like a person who wanted nothing more than
you
.”

He shook his head.

She looked impatient. “How do you know?”

“Because she would have said!”

“Did
you
?”

He glared down at her. What was it about little sisters that left you either wanting to protect them from every scrape and bruise or lock ’em in the basement to keep them from bugging the crap out of you? “There’s nothing to say.”

She exhaled noisily. “Right. Color me corrected, then.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Carry on with your enduring bachelor nonsense, then. I’m sure you and the twenty cats you’ll have some day will be very happy together.” Her annoyed expression dissolved, though, when she spotted Cisco heading toward them.

Galen’s mood, however, found a fresh sinkhole of brand new depths, because Aurora’s ex-fiancé was walking alongside Cisco. “Perfect,” he muttered.

“Don’t you go running away,” Delaney said from the corner of her mouth. “You’re gonna stay and be polite to Cisco. Someday, he’s going to be the father of my babies.”

He shot her a look.

“Oh, for...I said
some
day.” She tilted up her cheek for Cisco’s kiss when he reached them. “You were quicker than I expected.”

“Yeah.” Cisco nodded at Galen. “Galen. Good to see you.” He gestured with his hand toward Anthony. “This is Anthony Tyson. He’s—”

“We’ve met,” Galen cut him off. “How’s your wife?”

Anthony’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Fine,” he said cautiously. “And
your
wife?”

Both Delaney’s and Cisco’s heads swiveled around to Galen at that.

Crud. Crud on a huge freaking cracker.

“Wife?”
Delaney asked carefully.

“She’s not my wife,” he gritted. “And if she were, I damn sure wouldn’t be cheating on her.”

Anthony stiffened. “That was a long time ago. Aurora and I were just kids, practically. I never meant to hurt her.”

“I’m talking about Roselyn.”

Anthony waited a beat. “Excuse me? You want to run that past again? Because it sounds like you’re accusing me of cheating on Roselyn.”

Delaney and Cisco were both watching with something akin to morbid fascination.

“I’m not accusing you of anything. Just repeating what your own wife believes.”

Anthony’s head snapped back. If Galen weren’t inclined to loathe the guy on general principal, he would have given him props for looking genuinely shocked.

“Um, Galen?” Delaney tugged at his sleeve. “Maybe this isn’t something for—”

He shrugged her off. “She thought it was Aurora, you know. Maybe figuring things had gone full circle or something.”

“The first time I’ve seen Aurora in ten years was yesterday!”

“Galen—”

“Not now, Delaney.” He didn’t take his eyes off the other man. “And maybe I’ve wondered more ’n a little that she was still hung up over you, but Aurora’s no cheat. She’ll put everybody’s needs before her own, and she damn sure deserves whatever shot she’s taking, but she’s...no...cheat.”

“Galen!” Delaney yanked harder on his arm.