Fortune's June Bride (Mills & Boon Cherish) (The Fortunes of Texas: Cowboy Country, Book 6) (9 page)

Chapter Seven

T
he cattle were nowhere near the house, of course, since his herd was grazing along with his pop’s in their summer pasture several miles away, getting nice and fat for sale in the fall.

“What the hell’s she doing here?” he asked softly through the smile on his face.

“How should I know?” Aurora answered similarly. “She’s a nut job?”

Roselyn was picking her way across the green grass as if it were a foreign substance to her high-heeled shoes. Despite the basketball bump under her clinging bright blue T-shirt, she was dressed as if she were expecting pictures to be taken. Her black hair was loose today, reaching all the way down her back, and her snowy-white jeans were stuck to her legs like they’d been painted on.

Aurora leaned closer to the window and Galen had an uncomfortable jolt, wondering whether she was looking out to see if Roselyn was accompanied by the husband.

Aka Aurora’s
ex
-boyfriend.

But when she spoke, all she asked was, “What are you doing here, Roselyn?”

“I couldn’t find a phone listing for you, so I had to come in person.”

Galen took a step back, realizing he was comparing the glossiness of Aurora’s nut-job roommate to Aurora’s easy—and preferable to him—look of fraying jeans shorts and a cotton plaid shirt with the sleeves pulled off.

And the way she was leaning against the sink, stretching forward a little to reach the window...

Well.

He looked away and decided he needed a shirt of his own. One with long shirttails hanging out to disguise the fact that he’d gone harder than a rock. “I’ll be back,” he muttered and bolted like a kid caught doing something he shouldn’t. Like getting turned on by an old friend’s kid sister.

“Coward,” Aurora’s whisper followed him.

“Damn straight,” he returned, but not for the reason she obviously figured.

A woman more unaware of her own appeal, he’d never met.

He took the stairs two at a time, stopping off long enough to grab a towel from the hall bathroom to swipe over his chest before yanking on a clean shirt from the pile of laundry he’d yet to put away. He started to leave the room, but the unmade bed stopped him.

Growling under his breath, he flipped the quilt up over the mattress. It wasn’t neat by any stretch, but at least it was a small improvement. Aurora already figured he lived like an animal.

He stopped dead in his tracks, narrowing his eyes on the bed. Thinking about her and his bed in one thought process was more than a little disturbing.

He shook it off and headed back downstairs. Aurora’d already told Roselyn they were married for real. He was a little concerned that if he stayed away for too long, they’d have six kids together by the time he got back downstairs.

Roselyn was in the kitchen when he got there, leaning back against the counter with one spiky heel crossed over the other, and her eyes followed him the second she noticed him. “I was just telling Aurora about our home in California.”

He couldn’t have cared less about it, but he managed a vaguely interested grunt. “How’d you find this place?”

“It was easy enough.” She languidly smoothed her hair over her shoulder, running her hand down the shining length of it. “Even Anthony recognized the Fortune name. So I asked around town where Galen Fortune Jones and his wife lived.” She sent Aurora what seemed to be a calculating look. “Strange, though, that not too many folks thought he
had
a wife.”

The expression in Aurora’s blue eyes reminded him of a cornered kitten.

“We eloped a few weeks ago,” he said abruptly. “News is still working its way around town.”

“Well.” Roselyn’s sudden smile was blinding white and he felt a little surprised that the teeth weren’t sharpened into points. “That explains it, then.”

Aurora, on the other hand, was looking at him as though he was the one to have suddenly sprouted horns.

“So we’re both brides who eloped,” Roselyn said, looking back at Aurora. “Isn’t that funny?”

Aurora nodded, her lips stretched in a humorless smile. “Funny,” she parroted.

Roselyn gestured at the kitchen’s disarray. “Obviously, you’re still in the process of moving in your stuff, Aurora. I remember the mess Anthony and I had when we got our first place. At least he took time to get a ring, though.” She waved her hand. “Of course, that first one was replaced as soon as we had the money.”

“Of course.”

Galen wondered if Aurora even realized that she was holding a plate, dripping water on her pink-tipped toes showing through her casual flip-flops.

“Aurora’s ring’s still being sized,” he lied and went over to her, lifting the plate out of her hand to swipe the dish towel over it. “Where are your kids today, Roselyn?” He figured that was a safer change of topic.

“They’re having their naps with their daddy.” Roselyn went from smoothing her hair over her boobs to smoothing her hand over her belly. “Anthony loves a little time to himself with them. I’m glad to say, though, that this one—” she tapped her belly “—is a single. A boy. Are you two going to have kids?” She laughed lightly. “Aurora, you’re the same age as me. You’re going to want to get a start on things. We’re not getting any younger, after all.”

“We haven’t really talked about it,” Aurora said faintly. “Um...Galen, could I have a moment? You don’t mind, do you, Roselyn? You should probably sit, too. Have a, uh, have a cinnamon roll.” She quickly set the newly washed and dried plate on the table next to the rolls that Galen hadn’t quite yet decimated.

“Oh, Aurora,” Roselyn chided. “I haven’t eaten bread in years.” But she did take one of the chairs at the table and crossed her legs, bouncing her high-heeled shoe that was white on the outside but had a dark red sole. He was pretty sure he’d heard his sisters talking about shoes like that, and that they were expensive as hell.

Guess they probably went with that fancy ring on Roselyn’s finger.

Aurora grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the kitchen and well out of their intruder’s earshot, into his den at the opposite side of the house.

He closed the door for good measure and as soon as she did, she rounded on him.

“Why on earth did you tell her that we’d eloped?”

“Should I have made up a church wedding with half the town present at our imaginary ceremony?”

“No.” She thrust her fingers through her red hair and actually pulled on it. “I need to just tell her the truth. This lying business is getting out of hand.”

“What does it matter?” he reminded. “You said yourself that she’s here for a day or two and will be gone again for good. I think it bugs the hell out of her worrying that you’re
not
married—”

“What?” She looked startled. “Why would she worry about that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she’s making sure you’re all tied up before she lets her husband within twenty feet of you.”

Aurora shook her head. “That’s ridiculous.”

“And yet she keeps pursuing it. Are you saying it’s because the two of you were such good friends?”

“Hardly.” Aurora pressed her lips together. “I would have switched roommates, except I was afraid at the time that I would get stuck with someone worse. And, much as I don’t want to admit it, in the beginning, being roommates with her wasn’t awful. I didn’t know a soul, and everyone wanted to know her. We went to a lot of functions.”

“Parties?”

She gave a reluctant smile. “Well, yes, there were parties, too.”

“That how you met Anthony?” He had a hard time saying the name without wanting to sneer. “At a party?”

“A fraternity party. Yes.”

“Did you love him?”

Her eyes shied away from his. “It was a long time ago.”

“Aurora.”

She huffed. “I was engaged to him,” she admitted flatly. “For all of three months. I thought he was the love of my life. Then he eloped with
her
.”

He went still, not hearing much beyond the “engaged” part. “You only said before he was your boyfriend.”

“Yes, well, what does it matter what I called him? He tossed me aside like a used tissue for Roselyn.”

“I never heard you were engaged.” Ten years before, he’d been working two jobs in addition to cowboying for his dad, trying to earn enough for a down payment on some acreage of his own. He’d been in Horseback Hollow all right, but he’d been damn busy, too, so he supposed it wasn’t unlikely that he’d missed that nugget of local news.

“I don’t imagine my parents had much time to brag about it. Mark killed himself a few months later.”

He started. “He didn’t
kill
himself. It was an accident.”

She raised her brows. “Really? Mark, who’d been holding his liquor since long before he was legally of age to have any? Who’d been driving one vehicle or another since he was probably ten years old? He just
accidentally
drove his truck head-on into a tree? Don’t kid yourself, Galen.” Her voice was thin. “Instead of telling our daddy that he hated everything to do with ranch life—that he didn’t
want
to inherit everything that Dad had ever worked for his whole life—he took the only way out of it that he thought he could. He never got a chance to go to college. He didn’t know anything else. You were his friend. How could you not know that?”

“I was his friend,” he agreed flatly. “And I’m telling you, he didn’t do it deliberately. The guy I knew was too self-involved to hurt himself like that. He had his chances, too. He just didn’t take them.” Just because they’d been friends since childhood didn’t mean he’d been blind to Mark’s faults. But once the guy was gone, Galen preferred remembering the good over the bad. “Is that what your parents think, too?”

“They think the sun rose and set on him. The only thing they regretted was not being able to pay for him to go to college.” She pressed her lips together. Then sighed. “What are we going to do about Roselyn?” She jerked her head toward the hallway leading to the kitchen.

“Toss her a celery stick and send her on her way?” Sooner or later, he’d straighten her out about her brother, but for now, Roselyn’s presence was a ticking bomb. So he lifted Aurora’s chin with his finger. “Invite her to dinner,” he suggested calmly. “Get it over with. Two hours of playing newlyweds for her in exchange for getting her out of your hair forever.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Because I like your hair.” He gave her an encouraging smile. “Besides, she strikes me as a bully. If you invite her, she might back down. Come up with a half dozen excuses why she—”
and your ex-fiancé
“—can’t make it, after all.” In fact, he liked that possibility best of all.

“And if she doesn’t?”

“Then she doesn’t.”

“But it’s not going to be just her,” Aurora muttered. “She’ll have her husband and the kids.”

He watched her face carefully. “Is that a problem?”

She lifted her chin a little. “No.”

He almost asked if she was sure. But decided he wasn’t sure he wanted to know that, either. Not when it was going to take some time to digest the fact that she’d been involved enough with the guy to be engaged to him.

The love of her life.

It made him want to punch something.

“So it’s settled,” he said evenly instead.

She pressed her lips together and nodded. Then she stepped away from him, squaring her shoulders as though she was preparing to face a firing squad.

That alone was enough to make him tell Roselyn whatever lies were necessary to send her quickly on her way even if it did mean having to meet Aurora’s ex.

“Sorry about that,” Aurora said when they returned to the kitchen.

“I remember what being a newlywed was like.” Roselyn stroked her belly meaningfully. “Of course, Anthony still likes to act as if we are, too.”

Galen managed not to grimace. He leaned against the cluttered counter while Aurora took the chair opposite Roselyn at the table.

“How did his interview go with Moore Entertainment?” Aurora asked politely.

“Beautifully.” Roselyn’s hand started straying toward the redolent cinnamon rolls sitting so near to her elbow, but veered away to rub against the metal edge of the table instead. “In fact, they’ve asked him to stay here for another couple days to meet with Mr. Moore himself. He’ll be in town soon to see his daughter, Caitlyn.

“I hear she’s almost engaged,” she offered the news like someone doling out treats. “To Brodie Hayes. He’s practically
royalty
. His mother is Lady Josephine Chesterfield. I saw her on television at William and Kate’s wedding. Anthony tells me that they’re all pretty much living here in Horseback Hollow, which is just unfathomable to me. Her daughter, Lady Amelia, started it off, no doubt, what with all that scandal last year when she was engaged to that duke or whatever he was.”

“Amelia was never engaged to Lord Banning,” Galen corrected. “The only reason there was a scandal was because the tabloids cooked one up.” He could easily envision Roselyn courting those sorts of stories about herself, whereas Amelia had been desperate to avoid them.

“Your hubby certainly stays up on the local gossip,” Roselyn told Aurora.

“I just stay up on the family news,” Galen drawled. “Amelia and Brodie? They’re my cousins. Lady Josie is my auntie,” he added, just to see her reaction.

Which was pretty priceless. He even saw Aurora bite back a smile at Roselyn’s slack expression.

“You don’t actually
call
her that, do you?”

“I call her Josephine. She’s my mother’s sister.” Immaterial to him at that moment that none of them had known that fact until recently.

“Look at you, Aurora.” Roselyn recovered quickly. “Rubbing elbows with famous people after all.”

“Strange how life turns out, isn’t it?” Aurora’s voice was smooth, but he still heard the irony underneath. “I’m surprised you would even consider living somewhere other than California. Or does Moore Entertainment have an operation there that I’m not remembering?”

Roselyn’s lashes drooped as she studied her nails. “We’re tired of California, actually. But Moore’s headquarters is in Chicago. So—” she lifted her shoulder “—hopefully. Did you ever get back to school to get a degree?”