The Trouble with Texas Cowboys (19 page)

Jill shoved a knee against his, and he sat up straight, eyes wide open.

“Is it over?” he asked.

“No,” she whispered. “The preacher isn't even winding down. I didn't want you to start snoring.”

“Finn asked us all to dinner. Got a problem with that?”

She shook her head. “I'd love to spend the afternoon with them, long as we can go home in time to catch a nap.”

The preacher's gaze started on the Brennan side of the church and moved across the center section to the Gallagher side. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!” He raised his voice as he leaned closer to the microphone.

“Amen,” an old-timer yelled from the back of the church.

“There comes a time to let go of the past and move toward a bright new future,” he whispered.

Finn's newly adopted son Ricky asked a little too loud, “What's wrong with him, Granny Verdie? Is he yelling to wake us all up and then talking all soft to make us pay attention?”

Verdie nodded. “Something like that.”

* * *

Jill clamped her teeth shut to stifle the giggle.
Out
of
the
mouths
of
babes
, she thought. Those kids were so cute all lined up on the pew. Finn sat on the end with Callie next to him, and then the kids, starting with Martin and ending with Sally, who sat right beside Verdie. Looking at them, no one would ever believe they hadn't been a family since the children were born.

Callie and Finn had to have big hearts to take on the raising of four children and to let Verdie move in with them too. Jill examined her own heart and came up short. She wanted kids, but she wanted them to be her own. She glanced up at Sawyer, who was smiling at the comment too. He'd make a wonderful father.

Whoa, woman! One night of wild sex doesn't give you the right to start thinking about babies with him.

She made herself concentrate on the kids sitting in front of her. She'd been to enough church services also to recognize the preacher's tactics, and she wouldn't want to be up there behind that pulpit. No, sir! With a congregation split into three parts, it couldn't be easy to attempt to unify them, not even with scripture. And especially not when the two major factions had refused his offer of help that week.

In an attempt to keep her carnal thoughts at bay, she glanced across the room toward the Gallaghers' side to see Naomi staring straight past her. She followed Naomi's gaze to Mavis, who was firing daggers across the church. Evidently God did not hold the copyright on vengeance.

“When we forgive others, it brings peace to our own lives as much as it gives them peace for their wrongdoings,” the preacher said.

Forgiveness was not anywhere in the near future. It would take a lot more than a strong Sunday morning sermon for that to happen.

As long as they didn't mess with her or with Sawyer anymore, it wasn't her problem, so she wasn't going to worry about it.

* * *

Sawyer's phone made a buzzing noise that said a text was coming through, but he ignored it. It was probably his sister, Martina. She and her family attended a church that started earlier and ended before the customary twelve o'clock.

He loved his family, even his bossy sister and overprotective brothers. He'd really like to take Jill to Comfort to meet them, but to drive that far and back in one day wouldn't work. They had promised to visit Fiddle Creek over Easter, so he could look forward to that. They would bring their RVs and park behind the bunkhouse, and he could show his brothers the ranch while his sister, his mother, and his brothers' wives got to know Jill better.

You
take
your
woman
home
to
meet
the
mama
only
if
things
are
getting
serious
, that smart-ass voice in his head said.
And
it
might
be
a
good
thing
to
tell
Jill
that
they
are
planning
to
visit. That means tell her before the weekend they are arriving.

Sawyer nodded when everyone around him was shaking their heads. Jill poked him on the thigh. “Are you listening to the preacher?”

He shook his head.

“It looked like you were disagreeing with the Bible, nodding like that,” she said.

“I was thinking about something else,” he admitted.

She blushed.

“Evidently you were too.”

The blush deepened, and his hand dropped from the back of the pew to her shoulder. He squeezed and leaned over to say softly, “After lunch with Finn and Callie, want a repeat of last night?”

She didn't nod, but then she didn't shake her head, but the slight upturn to her full mouth was a yes in his books.

The preacher wound down, making his final plea in veiled words to both families that the feud would consume them if they didn't make peace. Sawyer didn't see either side softening up a bit.

Jill suddenly jerked her cell phone from her purse, which was sitting on the floor right beside her foot. She read the text message, tapped Sawyer on the shoulder, and said, “We've got to go right now.”

Sawyer's blood turned to ice. The only reason a person left the church was if a catastrophe had occurred. “Is it Polly?”

“No, but it was Aunt Gladys. She'll meet us at the store. There's a problem on the ranch.”

The congregation stopped listening and stared at them as they left the church. When Sawyer opened the squeaky double doors, suddenly a whole sea of Gallaghers hurried outside behind them.

“Damned Brennans,” Betsy said. “They've cut the fences between Wild Horse and Fiddle Creek. Our cattle is all mixed up with Fiddle Creek's cows again. We've got to get this sorted out, or we'll have mixed breeds on both ranches if they've let Granny's Blonde d'Aquitaine in with your Angus.”

“Shit! I don't want that breed mixed with our stock. They've messed with the wrong woman,” Jill declared.

If it was the truth that they'd involved her even more in this crappy pig-shit war, or if they used it as a ruse to try the kidnapping stunt again, she fully intended to join the war and wipe both families off the map. Now they'd spend the whole damned afternoon sorting out cattle, when she could be over on Salt Draw, having dinner with Callie and playing with those kids.

Gladys was fuming by the time they reached the ranch, cussing like a veteran sailor as she showed them the area where more than two hundred head of Wild Horse cattle roamed over a field of sprouting winter wheat. If it hadn't been for the difference in the brands on the hips of the black cows, they wouldn't have been able to tell them apart.

Betsy frowned and yelled at Tyrell. “Someone got it wrong. This isn't our Blonde d'Aquitaine herd. This is just our regular Angus stock.”

“What are you doing with that breed?” Sawyer asked.

“It's something Granny wanted to try. But these are our regular Angus cows. Not even a bull amongst them. It won't take long to get them sorted out, and then we'll take all three of you over to Wild Horse for dinner,” Betsy said.

Gladys checked the barbed wire. Yes, sir, it had been cut smooth right in the middle between the two metal fence posts. The Brennans had had her sympathies more than the Gallaghers down through the years, but now they'd lost every bit of it.

It took a lot longer than they thought it would. When the job was done and the fence fixed, it was well past two o'clock. Gladys refused to go to Wild Horse but did offer to take Jill and Sawyer down to Gainesville to a little café that made the best chicken-fried steak in North Texas.

“What about Polly?” Jill asked.

“She and Verdie decided to watch movies all afternoon. She'll be fine,” Gladys said.

While the Gallaghers were busy herding cattle and fixing fence on the south side of Wild Horse, four Brennan men simply opened the gate on Wild Horse Ranch, down next to the Red River and herded the light-colored, floppy-eared bull and his harem across the shallow stream and up over the bank on the Oklahoma side, where two cattle trucks waited.

The last cantankerous old heifer refused to get into the truck like her cohorts, so they shooed her back across the river and into the pasture before they shut the gate. Careful not to touch anything without gloves, they damn sure hoped the weatherman and the sky weren't lying to them. They needed the driving, hard rain to wash away the hoofprints leading over into Oklahoma.

“Ready?” Russell Brennan asked when his nephew, Quaid, climbed up into the cab.

“Across to the bridge crossing back into Texas, through Gainesville, and to our destination. We should be there in an hour,” he answered.

“Maybe they'll think twice before they steal any more of Mama's hogs. The new stock are arriving this week. She's buying Herefords this time.” Russell fired up the engine and drove toward the dirt road leading to Highway 32, which would take him to Marietta where he'd catch I-35 south into the outskirts of Gainesville.

“Herefords?”

“Looks just like a Hereford cow. White face, white feet, red body. They're supposed to grow off quick and produce quality meat. But the important thing is no one within a hundred miles of Burnt Boot has them. No one would dare steal them,” Russell explained.

They listened to the country music countdown. Russell kept time with his thumb on the steering wheel. It was about time they did some serious damage to the Brennans after the hog-stealing business. He'd told his mother then that they should strike back and strike hard, but she wanted to wait a spell until a time came when they'd least expect it. He had to give it to the old girl, she flat-out knew her way around a feud. When it was his time to rule the family, though, he intended to do things different. He would retaliate immediately, and the Gallaghers would soon learn not to mess with him.

“What would you do, Uncle Russell, say if Leah got it in her head she wanted to get hitched to a Gallagher?” Quaid asked.

“There'd be one dead Gallagher. Do you know something I don't?” Russell's thumbs went still.

“No, sir. It's just that it's been all these years, and it's going to happen someday.”

“Not on my watch, it's not. And it damn sure won't be my daughter,” Russell said.

An hour later he backed the first of two trucks up to the Salt Holler bridge. Wallace opened the gates, and cattle meandered out at a slow speed, wary of the old wooden bridge under their feet, eyes rolling at the deep ditch beneath them.

Wallace removed his hat and slapped a cow on the flank. She took off, and the rest followed her lead, bawling the whole way to the other side, where they split seven ways to Sunday. Some going to the left, some to the right, some in a hurry, some slowing down to taste what little grass they could find.

When they were all across, Russell pulled his truck forward so the second one could park and do the same thing. Within half an hour, both trucks were on their way to Bonham, Texas, to pick up twenty new brood sows and one boar for River Bend ranch, and the fancy Blonde d'Aquitaine cattle were roaming all over Wallace Redding's property in Salt Holler.

“You know we could have done this with them in church,” Quaid said to his driver.

“Yes, but the ones who were not in church were standing guard. When the church goin' ones got the message about the fences, they put out calls for the guards to come help them herd the cattle. Granny had it all figured out, and it worked like a charm. Wonder if they've got the fence fixed and the cattle rounded up yet?”

Quaid chuckled. “I hope that Wallace Redding has a butcherin' day down there in the holler.”

* * *

Lightning zigzagged through the sky, and thunder rolled so close to the top of Sawyer's truck that Jill covered her eyes at one point. Dark clouds boiled up from the southwest, covering the blue sky like black smoke from a wildfire.

The rain hit with gale-force winds after Jill, Sawyer, and Gladys were seated in the small café on the outskirts of Gainesville, going toward Bonham. It completely obliterated any of the traffic on Highway 82 going east or west, but they weren't interested in trucks and cars. They were too hungry to care who was going where that Sunday afternoon.

Gladys picked up the menu the waitress put before her. “We barely dodged gettin' soaked to the skin before we got those cows all sorted out, didn't we?”

“Looks like a toad strangler to me. I'll have sweet tea,” Sawyer told the middle-aged waitress.

She looked at Jill, who nodded. “Me too.”

“Coffee. Hot and black,” Gladys said. “We all agreed on chicken-fried steaks?”

“Comes with mashed potatoes and sawmill gravy, two biscuits, and a side salad, and your choice of okra, black-eyed peas, or corn on the cob,” she said.

“Okra,” Sawyer said.

“Same,” Jill said.

“Peas,” Gladys said. “Y'all might want to change your minds. Their peas are like Granny used to make, with plenty of bacon.”

“Then bring us an extra side of peas, and we'll share it,” Sawyer said.

“Just to get something straight here before we finish and she brings the ticket, this dinner is on me. Y'all are supposed to have Sunday off,” Gladys said.

“Make a deal with you.” Sawyer grinned. “I'll help take care of feeding this evening if you'll throw dessert in too. I saw pecan pie on the menu.”

“Ahh, man!” Jill groaned.

“You don't have to help.” Sawyer touched her knee under the table.

She covered his hand with her own and squeezed. Her hand was cold, even through the denim of his jeans. Was she telling him that she wanted to help so that they'd have time to engage in wild, passionate sex? He smiled at that thought and mentally went about undressing her right there in the restaurant.

“Yes, I do have to help,” Jill said. “Pecan pie is my favorite dessert ever, and I'll help with chores for a slice of it. It's raining so hard, we won't even be able to see where we are driving when we start home. I hope it's slacked off before it's feeding time.”

Another squeeze. Which kind of driving was she talking about? He'd be willing to crawl into the backseat of his truck in the pouring rain and drive in a whole different way than making a truck go forward or backward.

“You'll be able to see just fine in about thirty minutes. Those clouds are on the move. They aren't settling down to stay. They're passing through,” Sawyer said. “I should tell you that Finn called before we left and offered to come help if we needed it. He'd heard that the rain was headed our way and didn't want us to get all the cattle sorted out in vain because we couldn't see to fix the fence in the downpour. I told him we'd take a rain check on dinner at Salt Draw.”

Jill picked up his hand and moved it into his own lap. When he glanced her way, it was evident that the warmth in the café had little to do with the high color in her cheeks. So her mind had plummeted straight into the gutter, or was it the bedroom in this case too? He grinned and turned his attention to the food the waitress set before him.

“Yes, ma'am, they are some fine peas,” he said when he tasted the black-eyed peas.

“Yep, just like Granny made, both of my grannies,” Jill agreed.

If every thought hadn't been sexual in the last ten minutes, it might not have felt like they were sharing a hell of a lot more than a bowl of Southern-style black-eyed peas. The feeling they shared over that bowl of peas solidified his thinking—that he was right where he should be at this time in his life and everything was going down the right path.

The rain had slowed to a few sprinkles when they left the café, and the sun was shining brightly when Sawyer parked the truck in front of the bunkhouse. “It's four o'clock. I'll load the feed, and we'll get the evening chores done, and then I need to give my mama a call.”

“Too late for a nap, though,” Gladys said. “I'm going to help you kids with the chores. If I sleep now, I'll be awake half the night.”

“I'm going inside and putting on a pair of jeans and an old shirt. It's a wonder I got any kind of job done in this straight skirt when it came to fixin' fence,” Jill said. “And then I'm going to play with Piggy and Chick. I bet they missed us, Sawyer. I won't be long, and I promise to pet them only one time before I come back out to help with chores.”

* * *

Something Sawyer said about the clouds being on the move and not settling down stuck in Jill's mind as they fed and watered the cattle that evening. Was she like that? Would she tire of the whole Burnt Boot scene and hurry to another place and another job before spring?

Sitting so close to him in church, working side by side with him to get the cattle taken care of and the fence fixed, then pressed up against his side in the café, had put nervous flutters in her gut. She wasn't sure if the message was to fly or plant roots. Maybe feeling right was nothing more than an elusive butterfly.

“Did you call your mama?” she asked as she cut open the last bag of feed.

“I did, but it went to voice mail. She forgets her cell phone most of the time when she leaves the house. I left a message,” Sawyer answered.

“Oh. My. Sweet. Jesus.” Gladys pointed over the fence into Wild Horse territory.

“What? Is another one cut? Dammit to hell!” Jill said.

“I don't see any dangling barbed wire,” Sawyer said.

“Stop the truck. Those big old fancy blondie cattle of Naomi's are all gone. That means they're in with my cows,” Gladys said.

Sawyer hopped out of the back of the truck and opened Jill's door. “Why are we stopping here? The cattle are used to being fed closer down to the end of the pasture.”

“Naomi's fancy cows are missing from the pen, and Aunt Gladys is checking to see how they got out.”

He put his hands on her waist and helped her out like an old-time cowboy would take his woman from a wagon seat. “Well, shit! We'll be out here past dark.”

“Y'all two drive on down to the feeding spot, and I'll walk the fence line,” Gladys yelled.

Sawyer brushed a quick kiss on Jill's lips and said, “I've been wanting to do that all day.” He picked her up and settled her back into the passenger's seat and whistled around the truck.

“So why didn't you?” she asked when he'd buckled into the old work truck.

“Are you getting testy with me?”

“Maybe, if you're too ashamed of me to kiss me in public,” she said. “Or hold my hand in church.”

“Are you picking a fight because you don't want to continue this relationship?” he asked.

“Why would you ask a fool question like that?”

“Because I've done the same thing more than once the past two years. Start getting close to a commitment and then do some serious backpeddling. You've probably done the same thing since your last breakup, so I understand if you want to slow this wagon down. But let me say something, right now and right here. I'm not ashamed to kiss you, hold your hand, or to stand up in church and tell the whole damn lot of the people in Burnt Boot that we are dating and we are an item,” he said. “I'll be damned!”

“What?” she mumbled.

He was out of the truck and pointing before she realized what he was talking about.

“The cattle on this side of the fence all have Fiddle Creek brands. There's not a fancy blondie in the mix,” he said. “We might as well feed our herd and tell Gladys to stop walking the fence row. And, Jill, I meant what I said.”

Jill inched her phone up out of her hip pocket and called Gladys. “There's nothing down here but Fiddle Creek cows,” she said when Gladys finally answered on the fourth ring.

“Looks like their herd, all but for one rangy old heifer, has disappeared like the Brennans' hogs. I wonder if Wallace will be giving us a good price on beef next week.” She laughed.

“Aunt Gladys! Have you been buying stolen pork?” Jill asked.

“Wallace told me he bought those pigs fair and square, and he had the receipts to prove it,” Gladys said. “I was making a joke. Rain has probably washed away any tracks, and I'll bet you that the fence problem up close to the road this morning was a distraction to bring all the guards to the south for help.”

“Smart Brennans,” Jill said.

“Oh, honey, Naomi Gallagher is going to shit little green apples when I make the call to tell her that her precious new breed is all gone but one heifer,” Gladys said.

“Ain't life a bitch?” Jill hit the “end” button and turned around to find Sawyer so close that she had to put out her hands to keep from crashing into him.

His arms circled her waist, and he gazed down into her eyes. “What's a bitch?”

“Life. Looks like the Brennans created a diversion and stole all those highbred cattle. There's only one lonesome old heifer left over in that pasture.”

Sawyer set her up on the tailgate of the truck. “You give a damn about that heifer right now?”

She shook her head.

He lowered his lips to hers, claiming them in a blistering-hot kiss that cold afternoon. When he broke the kiss, his brown eyes still captured hers and held them without blinking. “I mean it, Jill. I like where we are headed, and I don't want to stop, but I will slow down.”

She put a gloved hand on each of his cheeks and drew his lips to hers for another searing kiss. When she broke, her eyes bored into his. “I'm not sure what I want, but I know I don't want to stop completely.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Let's kick this hay off the truck and go get Gladys. Damned pig war sure has a habit of getting in my way.”