Fortune's June Bride

Not to himself and definitely not to his pack of siblings and siblings-in-law.

He tried changing the subject again. “What about Delaney?”

“In Red Rock with the new fiancé.” That came from Christopher. “Cisco’s still getting some training with the Fortune Foundation there. We sent Rachel, also. Matteo flew ’em over.” Matteo was Cisco’s brother and a pilot at the Redmond Flight School and Charter Service. And Rachel Robinson was Matteo’s fiancée and an intern with Christopher.

“You’re going to be playacting the besotted groom for the next six weeks?” Jude wasn’t swayed by their baby sister’s whereabouts and was looking at Galen as if he’d announced he’d started building castles on the moon.

“Hell no,” Galen assured emphatically. “Cowboy Country’s got a whole department of people hiring folks. They’ll get a replacement in a few days, I’m sure.” And he was anxious to get off the subject. “I’m getting a beer.”

“You are not,” Jeanne Marie said, sailing into the room. She was taller than average and wearing her usual cowboy boots, which added a good inch and a half, 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 while before you came along. Then, whoosh. The floodgates opened and next thing I knew, we had seven of you.” The corner of his lips lifted. “Now it’s like that all over again, what with all of you getting married.” He gave Galen a look. “’Cept you, of course. Now that Delaney’s planning on getting hitched to that young Mendoza, you’re the last holdout.”

“Never met anyone who put me in the mind to marry.”

Deke chuckled. “Now I hear you’re doing it a bunch a times a day out at Cowboy Country.”

Galen tugged his ear, hating that he felt a little foolish about it in front of his dad. “Playing Rusty pays even more than the ‘authenticity consultant’ business.”

“You’re still doing that, though, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “For now. More money I sock away in the bank, the more I can think about buying that bull of Quinn Drummond’s that he knows I want.” Another bull would mean covering more cows to produce calves. More calves, more money. Better to focus on the financial aspect than on making Aurora happy.

“Seems like you must be spending a lot of your day at Cowboy Country, then. How you managing to spare all the time?”

Badly, Galen thought. His sink was full of dirty dishes, his laundry hadn’t been done in a solid week, and his cupboard was bare. The only thing he hadn’t neglected entirely was his small cow-calf operation. He couldn’t afford to neglect them, or he’d end up coming back home to live with his folks, his tail tucked between his legs. No number of prizewinning bulls would help then, and becoming a failure at thirty-four wasn’t one of his aspirations in life.

“I’m managing,” he said shortly. Then honesty got the better of him. “Only because we’ve got a few more weeks before I’ve gotta start working ’em and sorting. Just glad that Ma doesn’t drop by my place too often these days. She’d have a conniption fit and fall right in it over the mess it’s in.”

Deke let out a bark of rare laughter. “’Spect she would, son. I expect she would.” He jerked his chin. “Finish that up so we can go in and eat.”

Galen took another pull on his beer, and set the still half-full bottle on the green, green grass beside his father’s. Just as he straightened, the back screen door of the house slapped open and Jeanne Marie hung out. “Deke Jones, you get your hind end in here right now, or this roast is going to be shoe leather! Should’ve known better than to send Galen after you. Two peas in a pod, you are.”

“Keep your apron on, Jeanne Marie,” Deke returned without heat. “We’re getting there.”

Even across the spacious yard, they could hear her harrumph before she let the screen door slap shut again.