One Night with a Cowboy - Sara Richardson Page 0,100
little adventure with me.”
“Of course she will,” Kelly answered for her.
Thea swatted her friend. “I will.” She would go anywhere with this man, especially knowing their time together was short.
“I’ll pick you up at your cabin at seven thirty.” He caressed her shoulder, and the touch made her shiver with longing. “Wear something comfortable. And make sure you have sturdy shoes.”
She grabbed his hand and held on. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” He brushed a kiss onto her hand and then walked away and disappeared into the kitchen.
“All right.” Thea leaned in Kelly’s direction. “Spill it. What are we doing tonight? You’re obviously in on it.”
Her friend shrugged. “We only knew about the campout. Wes kept everything else a secret. But I bet it will be good.” She stood up and slipped on her sweatshirt. “And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go get ready for my own romantic date with that man right there.” She pointed out Cal, who was over joking around with the kids.
“I should get ready too.” Abby pushed back from the table. “After this, who knows when we’ll get another date night.”
“Hey, maybe we should do date night swaps with the kids when we get back home.” As had become her custom, Luciana stacked the plates. “We could each take turn to host all the kids once a month, giving us the chance to have a date night.”
“Love it!” Kelly glanced at Thea. “And you know you could leave your kids with us for a weekend, if you needed to make a trip to Colorado. Or East Texas. Or Oklahoma.”
“Us too,” her other friends agreed.
A week ago, Thea would’ve told them no, thank you. She would’ve wanted to keep her world small. But right now life seemed to be expanding in the best way possible. “That would be amazing.” She’d never had close enough friends to watch her kids before.
“Mom!” Ryan waved his arms from across the room. “We have to go! We have to get ready for the sleepover!”
The kids started to disperse in a chaotic flurry of activity, imploring their parents to hurry. Thea joined up with her kids near the doors. “Are you sure you want to sleep outside?” She was mainly asking Liv.
“Are you kidding?” Ryan answered for both of them. “It’s going to be awesome! August even told us he’d make us popcorn and we could have some candy.”
“It’ll be cool.” Her daughter was the epitome of cool. “The twins and Preston and I are going to be next to each other so we can play games on our phones too.”
“Sounds like fun.” She tried not to appear too overeager to have a night off of her own.
“What’re you gonna do, Mom?” Ryan suddenly looked concerned. “You want to sleep out with us?”
“Oh, no. I think I’ll stick to my nice soft bed, thank you very much.” Or Wes’s nice soft bed? “You need to listen to August, though.” She couldn’t believe the man was taking on all the kids.
“We will,” Ryan assured her before bounding down the hill to talk to Timothy.
Thea slipped her arm around her daughter. “You can keep an eye on your brother too?”
“After what he pulled on the fishing trip?” Liv shook her head. “Don’t worry. I’ll watch him like a hawk.”
“Thanks, honey.” She wasn’t sure how she’d been blessed to get such amazing children, but she was grateful.
For the next hour, she and the kids spent time packing up most of their things so they’d be ready to head back to Texas in the morning. Ryan grumbled about leaving the whole time, and Thea let him. She didn’t want to go either.
Just before seven thirty, she walked them to the lawn behind the lodge, where August had set up an outdoor movie screen and seven sleeping bags. She told her kids good night and stopped by the table where August was setting out pop and snacks. “You’re sure you’re up for this?” She eyed the copious amounts of sugar.
“How hard can it be?”
She decided not to answer that. “I’ll have my cell phone on if you need anything.”
“I won’t need anything.” Wes’s brother held up a bag of M&M’s. “I have all the leverage I need to get them to behave.”
She couldn’t argue with that. “Thanks for doing this.”
“I’m glad I can help.” Like Wes, August had a genuineness about him, and she got the sense that he always said what he meant. “I couldn’t be happier for you two.”