Rugged Cowboy - Elana Johnson Page 0,6
said, smiling. She seemed softer today, and Jess was glad. Ginger had so much to be in charge of around the ranch, twenty-four-seven. She had to wear the stern expression and ask the hard questions.
But not today.
Jess hurried into the main tent, where thankfully, the misters and fans had the temperature at a tolerable level. Hannah and Michelle had saved her a seat in the front row, and she heard Dallas’s footsteps behind her as Ted had saved him and his kids seats there too.
So she sat down next to Hannah with a whispered, “She’s beautiful,” and her skin tingled as Dallas sat right beside her and drew his daughter onto his knee.
She glanced at him, that electricity between them still crackling. She wondered if he could feel it too. Spencer had, and they’d tried going out several times. He’d even tried to kiss her—and it hadn’t been horrible.
It just hadn’t been memorable. By then, the snap, crackle, and pop between them had fled.
Jess had no reason to think this attraction between her and Dallas would last longer than it took for Ginger and Nate to say, “I do,” so she faced the front, determined not to make a fool of herself again.
Chapter Three
Dallas wasn’t sure why his heart was bumping quite so violently in his chest. Maybe it was because the last half an hour had been a lesson in how to rush through things to be on time. Maybe it was because he’d picked up a wrench and done something useful for someone else for the first time in a long time.
He got to work on cars in River Bay, but he didn’t know who they belonged to. His time in the mechanic bay was limited, mostly to when he taught his weekly classes to other inmates.
Maybe it was the magnificent sight of Nate atop a gorgeous, gray horse, his hand clasped in Ginger’s as her creamy white horse pranced perfectly beside the gray one.
The crowd stood and Dallas slipped Remmy into his arms as he joined everyone on his feet. His legs ached, and his back twinged with pain, reminding him of his first major interaction with Nathaniel Mulbury.
He’d saved him from a gang fight. Broken it right up as if Nate wore the badge of the warden. Dallas hadn’t seen anything like it, but the other men—even the rougher ones—respected Nate. So when his face had hovered above Dallas’s and asked, Are you going to lay there all night? Dallas immediately wanted to get to his feet.
He hadn’t been able to, and Nate leaned closer, his mouth hardly moving as he whispered. Don’t let them see you like this. I’ll help you stand up. He’d put his hand out, and Dallas had used the man’s strength to help him do everything after that.
Stand. Walk inside. Get cleaned up. Get his bunk and trunk set up. All of it. He hadn’t left Nate and Ted’s shadow for longer than it took to shower and use the bathroom for the first three months of his prison term.
After that, the leader of the gang who’d beaten him got released, and everything in Dallas’s life had improved. Apparently, the guy’s sister had been impacted in the medical malpractice suit that had ultimately landed Dallas at River Bay.
He’d been married, with a family. Some men lost all of that when they went to prison, and Dallas had counted himself as one of the lucky ones whose wife stuck to his side, brought the kids to see him, and held everything together while she kept her head high.
In the end, though, he had lost everything the day Martha had filed for divorce, dropped the children at her sister’s, and fled Texas.
Nate and Ginger arrived at the altar, which had seemed so big to Dallas when he’d first sat down. But now, it made sense. The pastor climbed a few steps and stood at their level, his face smiling and beaming first at them, and then out at the crowd.
Even Texas couldn’t ruin this wedding with her wickedly hot temperatures, still breezes, or buzzing insects. Inside the tent, the fans and misters had managed to keep things relatively cool, and Dallas glanced at Jess as everyone started settling back into their seats.
Maybe his pulse had started to skip because of her. He frowned at himself and faced the altar again. He felt the weight of Jess’s eyes on the side of his face, but he refused to look at her.
He wasn’t anywhere near