Texas Brides: The Rancher and the Runaway Bride & The Bluest Eyes in Texas by Joan Johnston

Author:Joan Johnston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQN
Published: 2005-11-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

ADAM HAD AMPLE TIME all through the day and overnight to regret his outburst. Tate had spent the rest of the day in the office, then retreated to her own bedroom for the night. He had decided it would be best to meet her over the breakfast table and try to mend fences when Maria was there to act as a buffer.

But morning sickness had once again brought Tate to the kitchen early. Instead of waiting to have coffee with Adam, she left the house to go for a walk, hoping it might settle her stomach. Buck waved to her from the loft of the barn, where he was forking down hay. After looking back once at the house, Tate headed toward the barn to talk to him. She had better give him fair warning that Adam was on the warpath and looking for scalps.

Adam’s mood wasn’t improved when he realized, after sitting at the table for half an hour alone, that Tate wasn’t coming to breakfast. He had snapped at Maria like a wounded bear when she started asking questions, and now she wasn’t talking to him, either. He shoved his hat down on his head and headed out to the barn to work off some steam by cleaning out stalls.

Adam’s eyes had barely adjusted to the shadows in the barn when he spied Tate standing next to the ladder that led to the loft. His heart gave a giant leap—then began to pump with adrenaline when he realized that Buck was standing right beside her. And that the lanky cowboy had his arm around Tate’s shoulder.

Adam marched over to Buck and ordered, “Get your hands off my wife.”

Buck grinned. “Jealous, huh? You’ve got no reason—”

Adam thought he had damned good reason to be jealous. After all, his wife was carrying Buck’s child. His fist swung hard and fast, straight for Buck’s nose.

Buck fell like a stone, his nose squirting blood. Tate quickly knelt beside him, grabbing the bandanna out of her back pocket to staunch the bleeding.

“You idiot!” she snapped at Adam. “Go stick your head in a bucket of water and cool off!”

Adam wanted to yank Tate away from the other man’s side, but it was plain he would have a fight on his hands if he tried. His pride wouldn’t allow him to ask her nicely to come with him. Not that he could have forced the words past the lump in his throat. “Do as you please,” he snarled. “You always have.”

With that, he turned and marched right back out of the barn. They heard gravel fly in the drive as he gunned his pickup and drove away.

“Who put a burr under his saddle?” Buck asked, dabbing gently at his nose with the bloody bandanna.

“How did you like the way he treated you?” Tate asked.

“Damn near hated it,” Buck replied.

“Think about it the next time you see Velma with another man and decide to take a punch at him. Because that’s what an unreasonable, mistrustful, paranoid sonofabitch looks like in action.

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