Rugged Cowboy - Elana Johnson Page 0,88

toward him, and behind him, he heard Nate and Ted getting out of the truck too.

“Hey, hey,” Slate said, plenty of swagger in his step. He laughed, and Dallas reached him first. They embraced, and Ted came up behind them and grabbed Luke in a hug.

Nate arrived, and everyone was laughing about their little band of brothers being back together again.

“I am so hungry,” Luke said, and Dallas wasn’t surprised at all. The man was always hungry. Jess liked everything but seafood, and Dallas thought maybe he could just ask her to dinner and present her with the ring.

He hadn’t realized how much pressure he was under to produce the perfect proposal.

“Let’s go to breakfast,” Nate said, leading the group back to the truck.

“I have to be on the ranch by five o’clock,” Luke said, and Dallas remembered that he wasn’t quite a free man yet.

“How long?” Dallas asked.

“Three months,” Luke said with a sigh. A smile followed, and he looked up into the sky. “Would you look at that? It’s amazing how many clouds you can see when there aren’t any fences in the way.”

Dallas knew exactly how that felt. Everyone there did, and a sense of camaraderie descended upon them.

“Somewhere nice,” Ted said. “I don’t want fast food.”

“That’s what I got when Ginger picked me up,” Nate said.

“And I’m sure it was just amazing,” Ted said dryly. “Somewhere nice. Let’s try that Grits and Grub we passed on the way in.”

“Your wish is my command,” Nate said, and he got the truck moving.

“Okay, I need some fresh ideas,” Dallas said, twisting in his seat to look at Luke and Slate in the back. They were both clean-shaven, as required in prison, and Slate watched him with eyes the same color as his name. Luke had piercing blue eyes, and they both looked at him, clearly eager to help.

“Dallas, I’m going to ask her for you,” Ted said. “Just to get you to stop.”

“Shh,” Dallas said. “Don’t listen to him.” He grinned at Slate and Luke. “Say you had this amazing woman you were in love with. How would you ask her to marry you?”

“I’m calling her right now,” Ted said, and he actually lifted his phone to his ear.

“Don’t you dare,” Dallas said, knocking the phone from his hand. The truck erupted after that, and Dallas ended up laughing while Nate yelled at them all to knock it off or he was going to pull the truck over and they wouldn’t get any breakfast.

Another month passed, and Dallas had finally come up with an idea he hoped would work. He paced in the new house, which required more steps than his rental had to get from the front door to the back, while the line rang.

Finally, a woman answered with, “Hello?”

“Is this Abi?” he asked, his nerves practically searing through his brain.

“Yes,” she said.

“This is Dallas Dreyer,” he said. “I’m in love with your sister, and I need a really great way to ask her to marry me. I was hoping we could brainstorm a little bit….”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Jess didn’t drive her truck very often, especially because it tended to break down on her in the worst places. If she went in to see Dallas, she used a ranch truck. Sometimes, he drove her in so they could spend the evening together, and then he brought her back to the ranch.

The new house he’d bought was only a few miles from the ranch, on the far eastern edge of Sweet Water Falls, where Hope Eternal was too.

Today, though, she had an eye appointment, and all the trucks were being used. The boar hunt was on, and the ranch was extraordinarily busy.

Dallas said he’d checked her truck, and that while he could continue to patch her up, she was likely going to die in the next several months. She’d nodded and accepted the truck’s fate, but she hadn’t bought a new car yet.

She found the truck parked outside the stables, just like Dallas had promised. Upon opening the door, she froze at the scent that hit her in the face.

Someone had filled the truck cab with flowers. Roses, sunflowers, tulips, bluebonnets, poppies. A smile filled her face, and she reached for one of the delicate purple-blue flowers that symbolized Texas.

This had Dallas written all over it.

She found a yellow sticky note on the steering wheel, with a tiny smudge of grease in the corner. Also Dallas, and tears gathered in her eyes. The note read, Jess, come “see” me when