Fortune's June Bride (Mills & Boon Cherish) (The Fortunes of Texas: Cowboy Country, Book 6) by Allison Leigh Read Free Book Online Page B

bringing her silver head to merely a few inches below Galen’s. “We’re just about ready to sit down and eat and I’m not having beer at my Sunday dinner table.” She propped her hands on the hips of blue jeans that were mostly hidden behind her old-fashioned apron. “Christopher, get your boots off the furniture. Just because I’m pleased as punch you’ve moved back home to Horseback Hollow doesn’t mean you’re getting away with that nonsense.”
    Chris grinned and dutifully put his feet down on the floor again. “Yes, ma’am.”
    Jeanne Marie turned her eyes back on Galen. “Where’s your father?”
    “Out back working on the truck.”
    “As usual.” But the amusement in her eyes belied any annoyance her tart words carried. “Go and get him, would you please?”
    Glad for an excuse to escape a room that was uncomfortably brimming over from matrimonial bliss, his “Yes, ma’am” was likely a mite enthusiastic.
    Plus, he was able to grab a beer along the way, though he winced like a guilty teenager when he twisted off the bottle cap and the sound seemed to echo around the kitchen.
    His mom didn’t come after him with a wooden spoon, though, so he hustled out the back door and across the green expanse of lawn that was his mom’s pride and joy every summer, over to his pop, who was leaning over the opened hood of his ancient pickup truck. Galen took up a spot on the other side. “What’s the problem now?”
    Deke Jones pulled off his sweat-stained ball cap, rubbed his fingers through his thick iron-gray hair and replaced the cap once again. “Running like a top for once,” he drawled and lifted the beer bottle hidden in the depths of the engine. “Just didn’t feel much like cleaning fresh green beans with your mama in that hot kitchen.”
    Galen chuckled. He and his father had done two things together while Galen had been growing up. Work on this same truck. And work the cattle. Now he was an adult, neither thing had really changed. “It is hot. Not even the middle of summer yet.” He turned around and closed his eyes to the sunlight. But that only made him think about seeing Aurora do pretty much the same thing every time she climbed up in the buckboard, ready for another show to begin.
    She’d tilt her head back, eyes closed, for a good minute or two right before she, Frank and the buckboard blasted beyond the gate while the
Wild West Wedding
theme song roared over the loudspeakers.
    “How many years you and Ma been married now?”
    His dad gave him a strange look. “Forty-one years.”
    “It’s a long time.”
    “You’d think.” Deke took another pull on his beer, glancing over his shoulder to the house some distance behind them. A bed of white and yellow flowers lined the whole back side of the house. “The longer we go, the shorter the time seems to be. Like there’s not enough years left to spend together.” Then he made a face at his beer. “Listen to me. Must be still a hangover from the
big
wedding.” He eyed Galen. “You got girl trouble or something?”
    Galen snorted softly. “You think I’d come to you if I did?”
    Deke grinned slightly. As a father, he’d been a pretty silent authority figure. A hardworking rancher who’d passed on his work ethic and much of his stoic personality to Galen. Sometimes, Galen was grateful for that.
    Other times, he sometimes wished he had the gift of gab like Jude, or the slick smarts like Christopher.
    “Not exactly an answer, son,” Deke drawled.
    “No, I don’t have girl trouble,” he assured, swiping mentally at the image of Aurora in a white dress and cowboy boots, dancing in some damn daisy field. “Ma wants you in for supper.”
    “I know.” Deke swirled the base of his bottle in the air a few times. “Crowded as heck in the house these days.”
    “That a complaint?”
    “Nope. Just stating a fact.” His father squinted slightly and looked back at the house again. “When your mama and I got hitched, it took a