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

Foreplay with no chance of making it to “play.”
Not when she was just the kid sister of an old friend he used to have.

“Extra hot,” she called after him a little too loudly, but thankfully, her words merely blended into the overall noise of the bar.

He heard, though, and gave a wave of his black cowboy hat as he shuffled back through the herd. Sighing a little, she continued onward and managed to secure two bar stools at one of the high-tops where Cabot Oakley, who played Sal the Sheriff, was sitting with his girlfriend, Sue.

“Crazy busy in here, isn’t it?” Sue leaned toward her and raised her voice just to be heard. She was a comfortably plump woman in comparison to Cabot’s extreme thinness, and worked as a teacher’s aide at the elementary school. Until Caitlyn Moore had realized that the success of Cowboy Country relied on inclusiveness where Horseback Hollow residents were concerned, Sal’s part had been played by a slick performer from Florida whose main interest was his next role. Preferably a bigger one.

He’d been even more self-involved than Frank, and Aurora hadn’t been sorry to see him go. As far as she was concerned, Cabot did a much better job in the role of Sal. He wasn’t aiming to gain anything personal but to give a good show and earn enough income to buy a ring so he could finally propose to Sue.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen it this crowded,” Aurora agreed. “Maybe it’s proof that Cowboy Country is doing what they promised to do. Bringing more revenue in general into Horseback Hollow.”

Sue was nodding. “Cabot’s been telling me how hard a time they’re having filling Joey’s spot in the show. Says he figures they’ve already tapped out all the locals. Good thing you were able to talk Galen into helping out.” She grinned and patted Cabot’s arm. “Cab can’t carry a tune in a bucket and he darn sure can’t wear a saloon girl outfit. He’d be back to pumping gas part-time at his cousin’s filling station in Vicker’s Corners if it weren’t for the wedding show.”

Aurora smiled ruefully. “I don’t think I, personally, had anything to do with Galen’s decision. Maybe he wishes he’d played in more high school drama productions than football games.”

Sue propped her chin on her hand and smiled reminiscently. “He
was
fun to watch wearing those tight football pants, wasn’t he? Talk about a fine hiney. Him and your brother both, Aurora. Heartthrob material.”

“Sue, honey,” Cabot complained. “I’m right here.”

“I know, sweetie.” She patted his arm again. “Wouldn’t want you anywhere else, but a girl still has her memories. Don’t we, Aurora?”

Aurora smiled. “I’m not touching that one with a ten-foot pole,” she assured. Galen might not wear football gear anymore, but as far as she was concerned, he looked even better nowadays in his typical blue jeans.

Sue chuckled and sat up again when Galen arrived bearing a pitcher of beer and several mugs. “Hero rides to the rescue yet again,” she said brightly, reaching out to help untangle the mug handles from his long fingers.

He smiled crookedly. “Sue. Cab.” His gaze fell on Cab’s hand, circling Sue’s shoulder. “Didn’t realize you two were an item.”

“Then you must be living under a rock,” Sue accused good-naturedly. She looked at Cabot. “How long we been together now?”

“Three years.”

The two were giving each other besotted smiles, and Aurora looked away, her gaze colliding with Galen’s.

“Wings shouldn’t take too long,” he said, tucking the bar stool under him. The table was so small and the space around them so crowded that his thigh—warm even through his denim jeans—rested alongside Aurora’s.

No amount of shifting was going to create space where there was none, but Aurora tried anyway as she pulled some folded cash out of her front pocket and handed it to him.

He didn’t take it. “What’s that for?”

“The hot wings. My share of the beer.” She dropped the folded bills on the table in front of him and started filling the mugs.

“Keep your money.” He nudged it back toward her.

She stopped the progress with her fingers. “Everybody splits, Galen.” And she definitely didn’t want him thinking
she
was thinking they were on a date, when they most definitely were not. “Frankly, we all should be buying your beer tonight. Right, Cabot?”

The skinny man nodded and lifted his soda, which was all Aurora had ever seen him drink. “Amen to that. To Galen!”

Frank, several chairs away at the next table, heard that, and picked up his squat glass. “To Galen!”

“Oh, Christ,” Galen muttered, looking pained. “Shoot me now.”

She held up her mug, too. “To Galen,” she said firmly. “Without whom
Wild West Wedding
would have been put in mothballs this past week.” She bumped her shoulder against his. “Smile, neighbor, and let us be grateful.”

He gave her a sidelong look she couldn’t read, and exhaled. Then he lifted his mug in salute, too.
“
To
Wild West Wedding
!”

All around them, glasses clanked together and people cheered.

Aurora did, too.

But mostly she was thinking about the feel of his thigh against hers underneath the table, and wishing he wouldn’t just see her as “kiddo.”

Chapter Five

“Y
ou want me to walk you up?” Galen was peering at Aurora’s house situated up the hill from where he’d pulled into the gravel drive. “It’s pretty dark.”

“I’m not ten,” she protested grumpily.

“Yeah, I know. Ten-year-olds don’t drink as much beer as you.”

“I had three,” she said, carefully distinct. And they’d been at the Two Moon nearly three hours.

“I know,” Galen said in a soothing, indulgent tone that only added to her general sense of irritation. “And you were tipsy after just one.” He handed her the foil container with the hot wings she hadn’t been able to finish.

“Fortunately, I knew I didn’t have to drive.” She stared at him in the faintly blue light coming from his truck dashboard. “I’m not planning on following in my brother’s footsteps.”

He patted her shoulder. “I know.”

All night, he’d sat next to her, his body heat searing down her whole left side.

And now he was reaching a long arm across her, pushing open the door for her.

“I’m not a kid, either.”

He drew back more slowly and pulled off his cowboy hat, pushing it up onto the dash. “Trust me, Aurora. I know that, too.”

The air had finally cooled off and now it was almost chilly. But she couldn’t blame the shivers skipping up and down her spine on the temperature. Those were owed strictly to him.

Her mouth felt dry and she swallowed, unable to look away from him, still leaning half across her, so close. “Galen—”

Suddenly, the porch light up at the house went on and her mother was hanging out of the front door. “That you, Aurora, baby?” Her voice was loud enough to carry two counties over. “Getting kind of late, isn’t it?”

Aurora wanted to sink through the floorboard of Galen’s truck. “Not really,” she muttered.

“It’s midnight,” Galen murmured, sitting back fully in his own seat. “Time for Cinderella to get inside.”

“Only because she has to get up in the morning to drive her parents to the airport,” she said. “Not because she believes in fairy tales anymore.” She unclipped her seat belt. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Guess you won’t need anyone picking you up tomorrow to get to Cowboy Country. You’ll have the ranch truck?”

“Right.” She pushed the door open a little wider with the toe of her tennis shoe, but some devil made her lean across the console and press a quick kiss to his lean cheek.

He reared back as if he were stung, though. “What’s that for?”

Trying not to gulp like some inexperienced ninny, she lifted the foil container between them. “Keep your shirt on,” she said tartly. “Giving me your share of wings, of course.” Then before she could make a bigger fool out of herself than she already had, she scrambled out of the truck and slammed the door.

“Hold the door, Mama,” she called out, heading blindly up the familiar dark hill dotted with sweet gum trees to the bright light shining from the porch.

When she reached it, her mother tucked her arm around her. “Have fun, baby?”

Aurora looked over her shoulder, watching Galen’s taillights as he drove back down the sloping gravel driveway. “Not as much fun as you and Daddy will be having starting tomorrow.”

Pru McElroy’s eyes were as excited as Aurora could ever remember seeing. “I still haven’t finished packing,” she said. “Your daddy’s been snoring asleep for the past two hours, and I still can’t decide what all I need to take!”

Aurora gave her a quick hug. “Well, let’s go figure it out, then,” she said. “So we can both get some sleep, too!”

Her mother squeezed her back. Then laughed again, and clutching Aurora’s hand, pulled her into the house.

It was only later, after the two suitcases were fastened tight and waiting by the back door to be loaded into the truck in the morning, that Aurora stood staring out the dark window in her bedroom.

Sleep was the furthest thing from her mind. Because she couldn’t stop thinking about what might have happened in Galen’s truck if her mother hadn’t chosen that particular moment to open the front door and yell down at her.

* * *

“Oh, my stars and body!”

Aurora flinched a little at the expression she hadn’t heard in years and warily looked over the hot dog she was just lifting toward her mouth.

“Is that you, Aurora McElroy?”

She lost her appetite for the hot dog altogether and carefully set it in the paper basket sitting on the round umbrella-covered table in front of her.

“It is!” The woman who’d been speaking was waving madly as she pushed a giant baby stroller across Cowboy Country’s Main Street toward Aurora. Her black hair was a glossy sheen under the brilliant sunlight, and even before she reached Aurora’s side and pulled off the überstylish sunglasses she wore, Aurora knew the eyes behind would be equally dark and shining.

She swung her legs around the bench and stood. “Roselyn,” she greeted before her old college roommate yanked her close for the same quick kiss-kiss-hug-hug embrace she’d favored even a decade earlier. “This is a surprise.”

“Isn’t it?” Roselyn tucked her glasses on the top of her head, her eyes widening for emphasis. “Here I bring little Toni and Tiffani to the park for a speck of entertainment with some furry creatures, and look who I find? Never in a million years would I have expected to see
you
here. What are you even doing in Texas?”

“I come from here,” Aurora said drily. “I guess you don’t remember. And I could say the same about seeing
you
here.” Anthony had hailed from Red Rock, Texas. A town that was nowhere near as small as Horseback Hollow, but still one that didn’t have the cachet that he desired. It was their common Texas background that had drawn them together at the beginning.

“Oh.” Roselyn was waving her hand around. “Anthony’s always teasing me about my memory. You haven’t changed a bit!” She smiled brilliantly and her white teeth were so straight and bright that Aurora felt like squinting. “Mind if I sit?” She ran her hand—perfectly manicured as always and wearing a gloriously oversize wedding set on her ring finger—over the front of her scarlet blouse and Aurora realized the other woman was pregnant.

There was certainly no other reason Roselyn St. James—ever successful, and ever
perfect
—would have a bump the size of a basketball beneath her undoubtedly silk shirt.

Aurora automatically gestured to the other bench. In contrast to Roselyn’s hands, hers bore calluses on the palm and her nails were perpetually short and unvarnished. “You’re pregnant.”

Roselyn smiled beatifically as she sat. She was wearing a short white skirt with her scarlet blouse that not even
un
pregnant women would be able to carry off so well, and her long legs were as shapely as ever. “Seven months.” She practically purred with contentment. She rested a languid hand on her belly and her diamonds glinted in the sunlight. “Anthony and I are both thrilled, of course. We didn’t think we’d have any more children after the twins, but—” She lifted her shoulder and gave a throaty little laugh. “They’re nearly three now. And you know how these things happen. Wait until he hears about you.”

Aurora felt a nervous start. She hadn’t seen Anthony since he’d broken the news to her that he needed his diamond ring back, because he’d just eloped with her college roommate. “He’s here?”

“Didn’t I say?” Roselyn rolled the expressive eyes that had helped land her a successful run on a daytime soap opera before she’d even finished her second year of college.

A run that had ended only a few years ago when she’d chosen to give it all up to focus on her family, a decision that Roselyn had somehow managed to turn into a minor media event.

“He has a big meeting with Moore Entertainment,” she was continuing. “They brought him here for a few days to see what he thinks of Cowboy Country. We’re staying in Vicker’s Corners, of course. They’ve put us up in a charming little B&B there.” She pulled the stroller closer to her and peeked beneath the awning at the two cherubic children sitting inside.

Naturally, they had to be perfect, too.

Then Aurora chided herself mentally for being uncharitable. Little Toni and Tiffani couldn’t help it that their mother was unquestionably Aurora’s least favorite person on the planet.

So she leaned closer and smiled at the toddlers. They really
were
cute. A perfect combination of Roselyn’s olive-skinned exoticness and their father’s brilliant blue eyes. “How
is
your husband?” she asked casually.

“Fabulous,” Roselyn said immediately. She squeezed Aurora’s forearm. “We have
got
to get together. It’s been such a long time. There is so much to catch up on!”

Like what?
Aurora wanted to ask, but figured the irony would be lost on Roselyn. Besides, her onetime friend surely didn’t mean it. Since she’d left UCLA with a soap opera contract in one hand and Aurora’s fiancé in the other, Aurora hadn’t heard from her once.

Not even when Mark had died two months later and Aurora had left school for good, too.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when Galen appeared next to the table, his cowboy hat pulled low over his brow. “Surprised to see you out here, wife of mine,” he drawled humorously. “Better get moving, don’t you think?” He tugged lightly on her ponytail as he strode past, seeming not to give Roselyn even a second glance.

Aurora pulled out her watch locket, checking the time. It had taken her longer to get back from the airport in Lubbock than she’d planned, so she’d come straight to the park, thinking she’d have just enough time for a dog and a root beer before getting ready for the noon show.

“I’m sorry, Roselyn.” Though she wasn’t. “I’ve got to go.” She gathered up her hot dog basket. “Hope your kids have fun here today. If you want furry entertainment, try the petting zoo. There are three baby piglets there right now that I hear are supercute.” And the petting zoo was on the opposite side of the park, as far away from
Wild West Wedding
as it was possible to get.

Roselyn was staring at her with a shocked expression. “You’re actually
married
?” She said it with such astonishment that Aurora’s teeth immediately set on edge. “To that hunk of cowboy?”

“What’s so surprising?” Aurora managed with false cheer. “That I could find a man who’d stick, or that he’d look like Galen?”

Roselyn’s mouth was open.

“Like you said,” Aurora continued, saccharine sweet. “It’s been a long time.” She dropped her hot dog in the trash and leaned over Roselyn, airbrushing her cheek with a kiss-kiss. “Take care now.”

Then she straightened and walked away, following Galen’s route. A part of her felt silly for not correcting Roselyn.

The other part felt more than a little gleeful over rendering the woman speechless.

Even a decade after their time at college, being able to do
that
felt pretty darn good.

She quickened her step and turned up one of the side streets that would take her backstage. By the time she reached the wardrobe trailer, she was actually whistling.

Though that stuck between her teeth when she entered and found Galen in the process of pulling on his Rusty shirt, giving her an eyeful of very,
very
bare abs.

“Hey,” she greeted a little breathlessly, and quickly squeezed past him, grabbing her wedding dress from the rack.

“Get your folks off okay?”

“Yup. The plane was late, so my mother was all worried they’d miss the cruise departure. Which is
tomorrow
. Needless to say, she’s really excited.” She stole a glance at his suntanned chest, intriguingly dusted with a swirl of dark hair, before stepping behind the changing screen. Would that chest hair be soft under her palms, or crisp?

She shook her head sharply and hurriedly kicked off her discount-store tennis shoes, which Roselyn would’ve never been caught dead in. Then she was annoyed for still allowing the other woman to even intrude on her thoughts. She yanked down her khaki Bermuda shorts and bumped her head loudly against the wall when she leaned over to pick them up.

“You okay back there?”

She straightened, rubbing her head. “Yes. Just clumsy. You ever had anyone in your life who gets on your nerves no matter what?” She draped her shorts over the top of the screen, which was much too tall for anyone to see over. “Probably not,” she answered her own question. She tugged her T-shirt over her head and flipped it, too, on the top of the screen, then unclipped her bra since she couldn’t wear it without the straps showing with the costume.

“Why probably not?”

She could hear him rummaging through the drawers. “If you’re looking for your string tie, try the bottom drawer on the left.” She unzipped the wedding gown and stepped into it, wiggling the boned corset up over her hips until she could slip her arms through the lace band that served as the top of the dress, stretching from one shoulder to the other. “The director for the
Sunday Go to Meeting
choir uses it and that’s where he always sticks it.” She heard him slide open another drawer. “Because you’re so even-tempered I can’t see anyone ever getting on your nerves.”

“Good call. On the tie, that is.”

She pushed aside the long strands of glass beads that hung from the lace band and began working up the hidden zipper beneath her arm.

“But I don’t know about being all that even-tempered,” he added.

She twisted her torso until she could see what she was doing in the narrow excuse for a mirror that someone had tacked against the sliver of wall in the confined space. “Seriously? Even when you went to the town meetings about Cowboy Country and were adamantly against it being opened here, you didn’t lose your cool.” The zipper stuck partway up as it often did, and she carefully worked it back downward again to start fresh. “Daddy, now. He was another story. When I told him I was coming to work here, I thought he’d split a vein.”

“Didn’t want to lose his best ranch hand?”

“I s’pose.” The zipper caught a second time and she exhaled. Began again.

“So who is it that’s getting on your nerves?”

She twisted a little more and realized the zipper was catching on a thread where the satin stitching was becoming frayed. “It was more rhetorical,” she muttered. Her neck was starting to hurt from craning her head around the way she was and she lowered her arms, shaking it loose again. “Cowboy Country brings people from far and wide. That woman I was with at the Foaming Barrel was my old college roommate.”