Rugged Cowboy - Elana Johnson Page 0,61
jaw, and earlobe.
Heat flared through her whole body, and she actually giggled as he pulled away.
He lifted his arm around her shoulders, and she sighed as she settled into his chest. She wanted more moments, minutes, and months with Dallas Dreyer. Moments like this, where there were no white trucks to fix, no locks on doors to keep crying children safe, and no worries that every time he went home, he’d find some angry man demanding something from him.
Jess hadn’t even realized how stressed she’d been until that weight had been removed from her shoulders. “I told you about the horse show, right?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, his voice low and his mouth right against her temple. “January twentieth, in San Antonio.”
“You and the kids could come,” Jess said, though she knew he wouldn’t commit to it. He didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, or Christmas, and he couldn’t make a judgment about January twentieth.
“I’ll look at their calendar,” he said. “Thomas has a band concert in January sometime.”
“Okay,” she said. “You never said when you were going to Miami.”
“Tomorrow, Jess,” he said. “We’re leaving in the morning.”
She stayed very still for a few seconds. “You don’t give a woman much time to prepare, do you?”
“All you need is clothes,” he said. “I’ll change the sheets for you in the morning, and you can sleep in my bed.” He kneaded her back into his chest when she started to rise. “Fair warning, though. Both kids usually end up in the bed with me.”
“Oh, wow,” Jess said, because she hadn’t shared a bed with anyone in decades. “Do you think they’ll do that with me?”
“I guess you’ll see,” he said, chuckling. “You can take them back to the ranch if you want. They know where their suitcases are and how to pack. School is out at noon tomorrow, and then it’s the holiday break.”
“Right,” she said, suddenly needing to start writing down some details. “Allergies or food things I need to know?”
“I made you a sheet,” he said. “Thomas has therapy on Monday.”
“You won’t be back by Monday?” That was four days. What did they need to do for four days in Miami? Another dose of fear reminded Jess that she had no idea what they were getting into.
When Dallas said, “We don’t know, Jess. I’ve told Nate and Ted that I absolutely have to be home by Christmas, so I know it won’t be longer than that.”
“My mother asked me to come for Christmas,” Jess said. “I was going to talk to you about it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I know you can’t go, but I think I will. If you’re back.”
“I can’t imagine we’ll even be gone until Monday, but I did make you a quick cheat sheet of Thomas’s and Remmy’s favorite places to order. I’ll leave you money for that. And there’s just the one appointment on Monday.”
“The kids would like to go horseback riding, I bet,” Jess said.
“Absolutely,” Dallas said. “And Thomas has been talking about a friend named Henry that you’d probably score some points with if you let him come over.”
“Henry,” Jess said. “Got it.” They fell silent again, and Jess closed her eyes and enjoyed being with Dallas. She thought she’d like to bottle moments like these and unstop them when the hard times came, because she knew there was a dark, brewing, bubbling cloud on the horizon. She just wasn’t sure when it would burst and send down the winds and rains.
Chapter Seventeen
Dallas followed Ted off the plane, his backpack already hitched over his shoulders. The flight from San Antonio to Miami hadn’t taken nearly long enough, because Dallas wasn’t nearly settled enough.
They had some idea of what they were getting into, because the Warden had been the one to identify the drug gang that Martha had gotten involved with, and he’d described them as “nasty.”
Jesus had also provided a lot of information about Josh, who wasn’t the leader of the gang, but he was the one who did the dirty work. Dallas had thought it sure was a long drive to bring a broken down truck from the tip of Florida to the Texas Coastal Bend.
He surely had gotten that truck somewhere else, because it had had a lot of problems.
Josh was unmarried, not addicted to the stuff his goons sold across the city, and the enforcer within the group. He’d been in prison before, and he wasn’t afraid to go back. That was the main difference between him, Nate, and Ted, none