Roping the Cowboy Billionaire - Emmy Eugene Page 0,37

shoes. “I can wear these?”

“With that dress?” He looked down to her toes and back to her eyes. “Sure,” he said. “You look beautiful, by the way.”

“Beautiful?” Tam took a step toward him, but she did not want their first real kiss to be in her bathroom. He’d kissed her on the front porch and then a hospital bed, and neither of those were her first choice for kissing a handsome cowboy.

The wedding was at the ranch, and Tam had decided that an amazing kiss next to the white fences at Bluegrass Ranch would be perfect.

“Yes,” Blaine said, swallowing.

“You’ve never said I’m beautiful.”

“You are.”

Tam ran her fingers along his collar, which lay perfectly flat, and trailed her fingertips down his silk tie the color of ripe peaches. “No tuxedoes for the brothers?”

“Thank the Lord,” Blaine said, his voice barely above a whisper. “If I had to wear a tuxedo for someone else’s wedding, I definitely wouldn’t go.”

“Even for one of your brothers?”

Blaine looked torn, and Tam knew he’d go. His devotion to his family was ironclad, and he’d told her about how he’d started to rebuild the bridge that had been splintered between him and his mother. Tam was mildly terrified of Julie Chappell, though Blaine said she was starting to mellow out a little.

She hadn’t been terribly mellow at the family dinner Spur and Olli had hosted a couple of weeks ago, but there’d been enough people there for Tam to avoid her. She supposed that Duke and Ian had gotten injured on the same day, and that had probably been stressful for her.

“Are you listening to me?” Blaine asked.

“No,” Tam said. “Am I late?”

“Yeah.” He checked his watch. “We need to go so we’re not late.”

“I told you I could drive over,” she said.

“And I said you weren’t meeting me at my brother’s wedding.” He put a smile on his face and his arm around her shoulders. “I think you’re really going to like a wedding on the ranch.”

“You do?”

“Oh,” he said. “I saw something you need to make.” He pulled out his phone and started tapping. Tam went out into the living room, everyone following her. Her dogs liked Blaine, and that was probably why they hadn’t barked when he’d come inside.

He showed her the phone. “Look at that.”

She took his phone as she sat down on the couch so she could slip on her heels. It was a saddle that had been made into a tree swing. “This is incredible.” She abandoned her shoes, studying the picture. “Where is this?”

“A ranch in Texas,” he said. “You could make those, right?”

“Definitely.” Tam’s mind whirred, because she could see so many possibilities with this. “It’s like a tire swing, but a saddle.”

“A complete saddle,” Blaine said. “The chains are laced with reins.”

“Can you send me a picture of that? Or that website?”

“Yep,” Blaine said, taking his phone back. “Trey just texted that if I’m not back in five minutes, something bad is going to happen.”

Tam slipped into her shoes and stood. “Let’s go.”

They hustled out to his truck, and he drove quite fast on the way back to the ranch. He pulled up in front of the house and somehow made it through the parked cars that were already there to a spot closer to the garage.

“I think we made it in six minutes,” he said, reaching for the door handle.

“Blaine,” Tam blurted out. “Can you wait another minute?”

“If my mother or Spur loses their mind because we’re not back there, I’m going to throw you under the bus.”

Tam smiled and waited until he’d turned fully back to her. “I, um. I’m just wondering when you think you might uh…” She couldn’t say it now, and she felt like an idiot. “Let’s just go.”

She got out of his truck and met him at the front of it. She reached for his hand, ignoring his curious look. He led her through the garage to the back yard, and Tam paused on the threshold of the cement on the patio.

“This is incredible,” she said, drinking it all in. She’d been in this yard before, but it hadn’t looked like this. Now, it seemed like a place where dreams came true and where fairies lived.

White tea lights lit the space, where hundreds and hundreds of chairs had been set up. Everywhere Tam looked, she saw money. It dripped from the white seat covers with the bright coral ribbons tied around the backs. Every bow was identical, and Tam marveled at how