Rugged Cowboy - Elana Johnson Page 0,50

thinking about her family, and if she was ready to take Dallas home to meet them.

She honestly didn’t know. She hadn’t quite made it to this stage of a relationship before. Once Christmas arrived, Jess would be in purely uncharted waters, as by then, he would be the longest romantic relationship she’d ever had.

Her stomach squeezed, and she moved down the row of stalls to the next one. “Hey, Momma,” she said to the horse there. Her real name was Weeping Willow, but she was due with a foal in a few months. Jess stroked Willow’s neck and up to her ears. “You doing okay today?”

The mare blew her breath through her lips, and Jess smiled at her. “Yeah, I can imagine.” She wasn’t exactly sure what the horse had said, but she didn’t think Willow was very comfortable these days. She’d started getting bigger and bigger, her belly obviously swollen with new life.

Jess thought about Thomas and Remmy and the candy turkeys she’d bought for them. She hadn’t been able to give them to the children before they’d left to visit their grandparents, and she mentally reminded herself to take them with her to Dallas’s that night.

“Maybe you won’t go,” she told herself.

During their serious talk, they’d agreed to go slow. Jess had been fine with it at the time, but lately, she felt like she initiated every conversation. She was the one stopping by his office during the day to see him. She was the one bringing him and the kids dinner and staying to watch a movie or play a board game. She was the one texting him questions about heart surgery, or prison, or tractors, or his kids, or dogs.

He responded, and he sometimes asked her about Montana or her time in Calgary with the rodeo horses there, but not much. Jess felt like her life was very boring—that she herself was very boring—and soon enough, Dallas would realize it and break up with her.

At the same time, Jess wanted time to get to know Dallas and his children. She wasn’t just taking on a boyfriend or a husband. She’d be a mother to two kids instantly, and she had a lot to think about when it came to this relationship.

Thomas and Remmy deserved a mother figure who loved them deeply, as they’d already had a lot of trauma surrounding their family life. Jess didn’t want to add to that; quite the opposite, in fact. She wanted to allow them the opportunity to heal from that, and she knew that would take time.

Dallas had called a few days ago to say his father had received him better than Dallas could’ve hoped for, and Jess couldn’t stop smiling about that. He’d also said he’d seen some things in his son he hadn’t realized, and that he wanted to look into getting someone for the boy to talk to once they returned to Sweet Water Falls.

Jess didn’t know much about therapy or therapists, but Nate did, and she was sure Dallas would get the help he needed.

She hadn’t seen anyone fishy hanging around the ranch. No one had come looking for Dallas in weeks now, and she’d stopped asking about his ex-wife. Still, a certain sense of curiosity ate through her from time to time, and Jess couldn’t stop herself from looking at the clock.

Only noon.

She sighed and moved down the row to the next horse. She didn’t mean to lunge for her phone when it chimed, but lunge she did. Dallas’s name sat on the screen, and she smiled widely as she swiped and tapped to open the message.

Dinner tonight? he’d asked. Just me and you. I’m feeling disconnected from you.

She couldn’t type out the word yes fast enough, and he sent back a smiley face and nothing more.

“At least he can feel it too,” she muttered to herself. That meant something, right? She asked horse after horse as she visited them to make sure they were all doing well, and then she went back to the West Wing, where Ginger and Nate were hosting the final stage of the cook-off they’d started on Thanksgiving night.

They’d taken all the leftovers and separated them into individual portions with turkey, mashed potatoes, yams, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and gravy. They’d challenged three people to come up with the best use of Thanksgiving leftovers in a “battle to the death,” that had really ended in laugher and some of the most delicious mashed potato cakes Jess had ever tasted.

Emma had entered,