Rugged Cowboy by Elana Johnson

Author:Elana Johnson [Johnson, Elana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AEJ Creative Works
Published: 2020-08-20T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Jess refused to allow herself to look toward the clock hanging in the stables. Dallas would call her when he got back to town. They’d spoken that morning, and he’d said he was going to eat breakfast with his family and then hit the road. From Temple, Sweet Water Falls was just under four hours, and he had children who might need to stop.

She missed him, that was all.

Jess knew it was a little bit more than that, as she’d had a serious discussion with Dallas when he’d brought up the idea of going to see his family for Thanksgiving. She’d thought he was inviting her along and wanted to know her opinion on what they should do.

Turned out that no, he just wanted her opinion on what he should do. He’d told her that he didn’t get along great with his father, and perhaps him making the drive and showing up for the family feast would put too much tension and awkwardness on everyone else, himself included.

Once she’d learned that, she’d been flustered. He said he wasn’t ready to introduce her to anyone in his family yet, and Jess supposed she could respect that. She’d spent a lot of time thinking about her family, and if she was ready to take Dallas home to meet them.

She honestly didn’t know. She hadn’t quite made it to this stage of a relationship before. Once Christmas arrived, Jess would be in purely uncharted waters, as by then, he would be the longest romantic relationship she’d ever had.

Her stomach squeezed, and she moved down the row of stalls to the next one. “Hey, Momma,” she said to the horse there. Her real name was Weeping Willow, but she was due with a foal in a few months. Jess stroked Willow’s neck and up to her ears. “You doing okay today?”

The mare blew her breath through her lips, and Jess smiled at her. “Yeah, I can imagine.” She wasn’t exactly sure what the horse had said, but she didn’t think Willow was very comfortable these days. She’d started getting bigger and bigger, her belly obviously swollen with new life.

Jess thought about Thomas and Remmy and the candy turkeys she’d bought for them. She hadn’t been able to give them to the children before they’d left to visit their grandparents, and she mentally reminded herself to take them with her to Dallas’s that night.

“Maybe you won’t go,” she told herself.

During their serious talk, they’d agreed to go slow. Jess had been fine with it at the time, but lately, she felt like she initiated every conversation. She was the one stopping by his office during the day to see him. She was the one bringing him and the kids dinner and staying to watch a movie or play a board game. She was the one texting him questions about heart surgery, or prison, or tractors, or his kids, or dogs.

He responded, and he sometimes asked her about Montana or her time in Calgary with the rodeo horses there, but not much.

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