The Texas Cowboy's Triplets by Cathy Gillen Thacker

Author:Cathy Gillen Thacker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2018-03-07T16:57:43+00:00

Chapter Nine

Dan had not needed Kelly to pick up the folding tables and chairs. He easily could have texted photos for her approval—the same with the coordinating linens—and moved them over to his place for safekeeping. But he had asked her to go because he had wanted her to see she would be welcomed by his parents in a way she hadn’t been by her ex-husband’s.

He hadn’t expected her to come out of that casual introduction so unsettled, though. Her quiet mood worried him a little. He’d expected the meeting with his parents to help their relationship along. “Everything okay?”

“Yes.” She leaned back in the passenger seat and watched him back the trailer into the barn. “Why do you ask?”

He hopped out to unhook it, shut the barn doors, then got back in to drive his truck over to the ranch house. “You haven’t said much since we left my parents’ ranch.”

She made a soft, noncommittal sound. “I was thinking about something your mother said.”

He bit down on a curse. And here they went. “Which was...?” He circled around to hold her door open for her.

She climbed out, smiling a little at his gallantry.

“That you had every right to be bitter after the way your life blew up there.”

The thing was, his bitterness had faded—not when he’d moved back home to Laramie, as he had expected—but when he had met Kelly, and decided he wanted to go out with her. Dan grabbed the cooler and carried it into the house, turning on lights as he went. Kelly followed him into the kitchen and at his invitation settled down on an island stool. Kelly’s expression was so concerned, he had to ask. “Did she tell you the whole story?”

“Just that she had worried you wouldn’t ever be really ready to settle down again.”

Initially, he hadn’t been.

Dan opened the cooler and brought out labeled packages, putting some in the freezer, a few in the fridge. One, he kept out on the counter.

He frowned, irritated by his mom’s meddling. Going back to the fridge, he got out a can of whipped cream. “You’d think I hadn’t recently bought a ranch with a seven-bedroom house.”

She tilted her head. “You don’t have to talk about it.”

He begged to differ. “Clearly, my mother wants me to.” Kelly, too, if he was reading her mood accurately.

“Yeah, well...”

He brought two plates and two forks over to her, along with a huge piece of his mother’s decadent triple chocolate layer cake. He cut it in half and plated each.

It was hard to address her fears when he didn’t know precisely what had been revealed. “Yeah, well, what?” he prodded.

Kelly flushed. “I had the feeling she assumed I already knew that you’d been serious about another woman and that it had ended badly.”

He paused to put a generous amount of whipped cream on each piece of cake. “Relationships always end badly.” He took the stool next to hers. “Otherwise they wouldn’t end.”

Kelly moaned in ecstasy as she took her first bite of cake.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.