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Fortune's June Bride
Allison Leigh
COULD A WEDDING FOR A WEEK…For weeks now, sexy-as-heck Galen Fortune Jones has been playing the ardent groom in the Wild West Wedding show at Cowboy Country USA. The bride? His sweet red-headed neighbor, Aurora McElroy. Of course, Aurora has had a hidden crush on the rancher for years, but she’s been careful to keep that secret close to the vest!…LEAD TO MARRIAGE FOR A LIFETIME?Things get a little out-of-hand, however, when Galen agrees to pretend he and Aurora are real-life husband and wife. It’s only temporary, of course, and it’s for a good cause. But being Aurora’s hubby “off stage” is starting to mess with the confirmed bachelor’s head. He’s having far-from-friendly feelings for his in-name-only spouse, and it’s freaking him out! Has love finally found Horseback Hollow’s last unfettered Fortune?


MEET THE FORTUNES!
Fortune of the Month: Galen Fortune Jones
Age: 34
Vital Statistics: Tall, dark and muscley, he’s a fine, upstanding rancher—and stubbornly single.
Claim to Fame: The oldest of Jeanne Marie Fortune’s seven children and possibly the sexiest boy of the bunch.
Romantic prospects: He is currently getting married to Aurora McElroy four times a day in the Wild West Wedding stage show. You tell me!
“I keep telling you, it’s all for pretend. I can’t help it if people think that ‘Rusty’ and ‘Lila’ look like a real couple. I’m just doing this to help out a friend. Aurora is like my little sister. A little sister with long red hair, big blue eyes, a little bitty waist … uh … The other part? Agreeing to be her fake husband for a week? I’ll admit, it’s complicated. But it’s only until her college roommate leaves town. And we are not playing house. What do you mean I’m protesting too much? We’ve known each other forever. We are just friends. I. Am. Not. Getting. Married.”
The Fortunes Of Texas: Cowboy Country Lassoing hearts from across the pond!
Fortune’s June Bride
Allison Leigh


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
A frequent name on bestseller lists, ALLISON LEIGH’s high point as a writer is hearing from readers that they laughed, cried or lost sleep while reading her books. She’s blessed with an immensely patient family who doesn’t mind (much) her time spent at her computer and who gives her the kind of love she wants her readers to share in every page. Stay in touch at www.allisonleigh.com (http://www.allisonleigh.com) and on Twitter, @allisonleighbks (http://www.twitter.com/allisonleighbks).
For my daughters—as beautiful on the inside as they are on the outside.
Contents
Cover (#ua81a4584-a8b6-594d-b2d5-f48125c482db)
Introduction (#ua00aa642-a7a3-5f5f-93b9-60ef73f3f0f0)
Title Page (#ufac1538a-e725-5bdb-8011-22a87532029b)
About the Author (#u95cde29b-2c98-5b91-baf2-69e632059c2f)
Dedication (#ub37d14e7-84eb-537e-afaf-fe31830f1113)
Chapter One (#ulink_4572cf0c-eee1-59de-8149-0c1899f935dd)
Chapter Two (#ulink_59750d9d-1535-54d5-8085-dc322419b22f)
Chapter Three (#ulink_86e093dd-01ca-594a-a087-3c2e191f1085)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ulink_f12f0670-2ccf-57f7-8fd2-6ae4271ddebf)
“I need you to marry me.”
The words came out of left field.
Literally.
Galen Fortune Jones stared down at Aurora McElroy. He was pretty sure the last time he’d seen his neighbor had been a few months ago. They’d run into each other at the Horseback Hollow feed store. There had been no romance involved, considering that at the time he’d paid more attention to helping her daddy, Walt, load up his truck, before tending to his own business there.
Now he looked from her hand, clutching his left arm, back to her dark blue eyes. “Beg your pardon?”
She huffed, pushing a shining red ringlet out of her face. “It’s an emergency, Galen. I need a groom. Right now!”
You will marry a woman in white and be married within the month.
The words echoed inside his head and he wanted to shake it hard, just to see if something had come loose inside.
Instead, he glanced around where they were standing on a side street of Cowboy Country, USA, the Western-style theme park where just last week—in a moment of apparent insanity—he had agreed to be an “authenticity consultant.” And where, just a few weeks prior to that, one of the “Wild West” fortune-tellers had told him he would soon be hitched.
He’d laughed it off then as nonsense for two simple reasons. One, he didn’t believe in fortune-tellers, and two, he’d reached the age of thirty-four without once entertaining the idea of marrying someone.
So he looked back at Aurora and adjusted his hat. “You’re dressed for the part,” he allowed. “I’ll give you that.”
In fact, she looked downright pretty. All dolled up in an old-fashioned-looking dress with beads and lace hanging off her slender shoulders and her eyes made up to look even bigger than they already were.
She gave him a look that ought to have scorched his toes. “Of course I’m dressed for the part.” Her hands spread a little wider. “Wild West Wedding!” She raised her eyebrows, clearly waiting for some response. “The...noon...show,” she elaborated at his blank look.
She twitched her skirt, drawing his attention. It was some sort of filmy, lacy thing about the same color as the doily his mom had had forever sitting underneath a vase in the front parlor of the house he and his four brothers and two sisters had grown up in. Sorta white. Sorta beige.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Galen.” Aurora sounded exasperated. “The noon show! I’m playing Lila, the Wild West bride. But I just found out my groom, Rusty, was hauled off a little while ago to see Doc Shoemaker, because he went and fell off his horse.” She shook her head. “Lord save me from city boys who think they know everything about a horse just because they’ve watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
Comprehension finally dawned. Maybe it would have more quickly if Galen hadn’t gotten distracted thinking about that fool fortune-teller business.
“Wild West Wedding,” he repeated. “That’s the show you put on at the center of the park.”
“Yes.” Looking relieved that he’d finally gotten a clue, she lifted her other hand and shoved a dog-eared script at him. “It’ll take ten minutes of your time, Galen. Please.”
“I’m no good at playacting.”
“How do you know? Have you ever tried?” She stepped closer and her shoulder brushed against his ribs as she flipped open the pages, seeming to take his compliance as a foregone conclusion. “It’s not complicated. I’m Lila. You’ll be Rusty.” Her slender finger jabbed at the words on the page. “There’s not really much time for you to memorize before we need to start, but the premise is simple. Lila and Rusty are in love. Frank, the villain, is determined to have Lila for himself, but what he really wants even more is the deed to her daddy’s ranch so his railroad can go through.”
“Original,” Galen drawled.
“It’s a ten-minute attraction at a Western theme park,” she countered. “Be glad it’s not Shakespeare or we really would be in trouble. Are you willing to do this or not? After all the problems we’ve had since Cowboy Country opened last month, the last thing this place needs is another canceled show. It’s bad publicity when we’re finally having a week where nothing seems to go wrong.”
The “bad” was one of the reasons for Galen’s presence. But agreeing to answer a bunch of questions about tending cattle and horses and walking around the park taking note of anything that belittled the ranching community didn’t involve filling in for somebody who probably shouldn’t have been on a horse in the first place.
“Weren’t you always in the school plays when you and Toby were kids?” His younger brother had gone to school with her. When Galen had been that age, he’d have been one of the kids sitting in the auditorium, hooting over every flubbed line. Though when he thought about it, he couldn’t recall Aurora ever flubbing hers. Even as a kid, she’d been memorable with her flaming red hair.
“If you want to walk down memory lane, we can do that later.” She grabbed his arm again and was dragging him toward the rough-hewn gate at the end of the make-believe street. “Right now, you need to get into costume.”
He grimaced, eyeing the mass of sausage curls streaming down the middle of her back. Her waist below that seemed cinched down even smaller than usual. “Just what all does that mean?”
She pulled open the gate and shot him a grin. “You’re not going to have to fit into a corset, if that’s what you’re worried about. They save that torture for the girls.” She tugged him through the gate, pushed it closed, and headed toward a trailer that was a century more modern than anything visible within the guests’ portion of Cowboy Country. Even the thrill rides were couched in Old West touches.
Aurora lifted her skirts and darted up the two metal steps, disappearing inside the trailer. “Come on. We’ve only got a half hour before we’re on.”
He went up into the trailer and found himself standing inside a miniature warehouse, crowded on all sides by racks loaded with costumes and props. He pulled a bull whip off a hook. “Ohhh-kay.”
“That’s for Outlaw Shootout,” she said. “The show’s shelved temporarily until they work out some kinks with the stunts. Here.” She whisked his black cowboy hat off his head and plopped a creamy white one in its place. “Rusty wears a white hat. Naturally.”
“Naturally,” he repeated drily, even though he was wondering what the hell had gotten into him. He hung the whip back in place.
“You need to change your shirt, too.” She shoved a hanger at him that held a rough cotton button-down. “At least Joey—he’s the guy who plays Rusty—hadn’t changed into his costume before he fell off a darn horse.” She tsked as she pulled open one drawer after another. “Being the big-budget show that we are, we’ve only got one.”
She glanced at him. “What’re you waiting for?” She waved her hand at the hanger he was still holding and turned back to the drawers she was pawing through. “You can get by with wearing your own Levi’s and boots, but that shirt’s gotta go.”
Stifling a passel of misgivings, since he’d yet to actually agree, he dumped the script on a pile of folded Mexican blankets, set the white hat on top and pulled his NASCAR T-shirt over his head.
“Ah. Success.” Aurora pushed the drawer closed and turned to him, a black string tie in her hand.
Her eyes seemed to widen a bit at the sight of his bare chest, and she dropped the tie on top of the white Stetson, then quickly turned back around to yank open another drawer while he pulled on the shirt. “It’s a little Wyatt Earp–ish, à la Tombstone,” she chattered, “but what it might lack in historic accuracy is at least recognizable for the customers. So I hope it passes muster on your authenticity scale.”
She pushed the drawer closed again without removing anything and turned back to face him. Her cheeks looked excessively pink to him. Like she wasn’t all that used to seeing a guy shirtless. “Anyway, about the, uh, the show.” She pulled the script out and muttered under her breath when the cowboy hat fell on the floor, quickly followed by a cascade of colorful woven blankets.
He crouched down to help her right the mess. “Relax, Aurora. The show’s still gonna go on. Though I seriously think you’d do better with just about anyone besides me.”
“You fit the shirt,” she said with a shrug.
He let out a wry laugh. “Well, hell, then. Guess that makes me feel real good.”
She smiled. “And soon as I saw you, I knew you wouldn’t let me—the park, I mean—down. If you weren’t already on staff, we could never get away with this, though. I’m sure there’d be insurance issues and all of that.”
They reached for the same blanket at the same time, knuckles knocking, and she snatched her hands back, straightening quickly to swipe her hands down the sides of her dress.
“Thanks.” She sounded breathless. “I’ll, uh, just wait for you outside.” She shoved open the trailer door and brushed past the guy who was coming up the steps. “Hey there, Frank,” he heard her say. “I found us a Rusty, so we’re still on.”
“Cool.”
Blankets stacked once more, Galen straightened and stuck his hand out toward the newcomer as he came into the trailer. “Galen Jones,” he offered, and sent a silent apology to his mom for omitting the “Fortune” part that they’d all been adding to the “Jones” ever since his mom’s birth family had found her. He was trying to get used to the addition. But it still didn’t come all that naturally. Not because he was opposed to acknowledging the Fortune connection. But to him, it just all sounded sorta...fancy. Which he wasn’t.
The other man shook his hand briefly before grabbing a black hat—a whole lot cleaner and dandier-looking than Galen’s usual one—and setting it on his gleaming blond head. “Frank Richter,” he said, studying his reflection in the mirror over the drawers. “I play Frank, the dastardly villain. Nice to have the right name already for a part.” He adjusted the hat so it sat at an angle, dipping low over his right eye. “Haven’t seen you around here before. You been with Moore Entertainment for long?”
“Not all that sure I’m technically ‘with’ Moore Entertainment.” Galen didn’t need to adjust his hat. He dropped Rusty’s Stetson on his head the same way he did with his own cowboy hat every single day. Didn’t matter if it was black or white or straw. For him, the covering wasn’t a matter of costume, but nature. Same as his leather Castleton boots that he got resoled every few years. “I’m the authenticity consultant.” He felt more than a little stupid just saying the words, same way he felt using Fortune Jones as his last name when all his life, “Jones” had been plenty, and he flipped up the collar of Rusty’s shirt and started on the tie. He didn’t need a mirror for that, either. He’d worn a similar one to the Valentine’s Day wedding when three of his brothers and one of his sisters all got hitched on the same day.
The powers that be for Moore Entertainment considered him a cowboy. So he guessed that made the tie authentic enough for the theme park.
“Heard they’d hired something like that.” Frank was running some dinky comb covered with clear goop through his eyebrows, and Galen nearly stared. “You’re supposed to make sure Cowboy Country rings true.” Frank air-quoted the word and looked over his shoulder at him. They were about the same height, though Galen damn sure never once combed his eyebrows, with goop or without.
“That’s about it.” Galen finished tying the tie and flipped down the collar.
“Well, make sure your punch during today’s show doesn’t ring entirely true,” Frank said, looking back at his reflection. “I don’t need to end up with any real bruises. I’m getting new head shots done tomorrow. I’m trying to get into the Moore Dinner Theatre in Branson. Lot more exposure there than in Hicksville Horseback Hollow.” He made a face in the mirror, then pulled another, and another, stretching his face into comic proportions before he fixed on a dark handlebar mustache over his top lip. “Most any one of Moore’s other Coaster World locations would be better than here. Not surprised they’re having a hard time getting Cowboy Country off the ground in a little Texas backwater like this.” He glanced over his shoulder again. “Know what I mean?”
“Wouldn’t know,” Galen said with irony. He, for one, was glad that the company had chosen not to follow the Coaster World model like the rest of its theme parks. Horseback Hollow was special.
Any park that was going to be there needed to be special, too.
He grabbed the script and reached for the trailer door. “Seein’ how I’m one of the hicks.”
He stepped outside and spotted Aurora leaning over her old-fashioned buttoned boot that she’d propped on a picnic bench. The curls of her hair hung over her shoulder, leaving the crisscross laces on the back of her dress visible. They cinched together down the center of the lacy fabric hugging her torso, seeming to make a point of showing off the way her waist nipped in all small and female, and swelled out again over her hips.
He frowned, yanking his eyes away.
He’d always lumped Aurora in the same category as his little sisters. She’d been the kid sister of one of his best friends. Noticing anything about her waist or hips, or anything else for that matter, wasn’t something he was altogether comfortable with.
He settled his hat more squarely on his head and made some noise thumping down the metal steps, and as he’d hoped, she lowered her foot and straightened as he approached.
Her blue eyes ran over him. “I knew Rusty’s costume would fit you.” She gave a quick smile. “You don’t know how much I appreciate you doing this.”
“Don’t y’all put on this wedding show more than once a day?” The other shows he’d noticed in his week working here had repeated themselves several times a day. There was a bank robbery thing that happened out on Main Street as Aurora’s show did, a stunt show that was held at the far end of the park in the corral set in the shadows of a wooden roller coaster complete with two loop-the-loops, a saloon girl dancing show held almost hourly inside the Texas Rose restaurant, and a few others that seemed to alternate, all designed to keep the guests entertained.
Aurora was nodding. “You and I...well, Rusty and Lila get to pledge their troth four times daily.” She pulled on the thin gold chain hanging around her neck and a locket emerged from the front of her dress. He realized it was a watch when she flipped it open. “Which we’ve got to do in ten minutes.” She slid the locket back into her cleavage.
Somehow he’d missed the fact that Aurora McElroy even possessed cleavage. That time at the feed store he was certain she’d been wearing a plaid work shirt that had been big enough to fit her daddy.
He dragged his mind away from cleavages. They were fine in their place. He was even a man who enjoyed his fair share of ’em.
But not when their existence seemed to come out of the same left field as Aurora’s “I need you to marry me” had.
“Seems to me missing one show wouldn’t be the end of Cowboy Country,” he said, keeping his eyes well above her neckline.
“We get paid by the show,” Aurora said. “Maybe it wouldn’t be the end of Cowboy Country. But it cuts into the performers’ paychecks, believe me.” She gestured at the script. “Did you look through it?”
He grimaced and dutifully opened the script. Fortunately, it was easy to read. Only a few words per line, running down the center of the page. The action took up more space than the dialogue and attested to what he already knew—that the show involved stagecoaches, racing horses, and a lot of melodrama. “I guess I can manage,” he muttered.
Even a hick rancher could read a few lines of dialogue.
He scanned through the pages, easily grasping the gist. He was to escape Frank’s goons who were holding him captive and race to Aurora’s rescue with the deed to her daddy’s ranch in Rusty’s name, narrowly preventing Frank from forcing her to say “I do” in front of the preacher.
Like Aurora had said. It wasn’t Shakespeare.
It was just a ten-minute show that took place in the middle of the whole dang park since someone, in their brilliance, had recently decided the Wild West Wedding stage needed to be relocated there.
People could be eating hot dogs in the Main Street Grill, watching a demonstration over in the smithy or buying hand-dipped candles in Gus’s General Store; they’d catch the wedding.
“It’ll be fun,” Aurora promised.
He snorted softly. “Getting my teeth drilled appeals more than making an ass out of myself in front of Cowboy Country’s paying customers.”
“You’re not going to make an ass of yourself,” she assured dismissively. She reached up and adjusted his tie, then stepped back, her hands tucked behind her back. “You actually look perfect for the part.” She smiled, but her eyes didn’t quite meet his. “Better than Joey, even, but don’t tell him I said so.” She smiled a little impishly. “His ego is a tad delicate.”
“Well, it’s probably dented pretty good now he’s fallen off a horse. Where’d it happen? Here at the park?”
“No, thank goodness.” She rolled her eyes. “Can you imagine the publicity we’d get about it after already having a horse stampede during the soft opening? But from what I heard, he might have sprained his ankle. And I can’t see him resuming Rusty’s role if he’s sporting a modern splint. Don’t worry,” she added quickly, seeming to recognize Galen’s alarm, “the casting department will be able to find someone to replace him. Right now, I’m concerned with getting us through today.”
“Hold on.” He closed the script and tossed it on the picnic table. “I remember something about this taking ten minutes of my time.” The authenticity-consultant business was temporary and only took up part of his day. He might not have been a real fan when the park first opened, but even a man like him could recognize that the park’s success meant success for Horseback Hollow as well.
He hated change, but he loved his hometown more. So he was willing to do his part. And the fact that Moore Entertainment was willing to pump some serious money into the town contributed to that willingness.
Nevertheless, he still had his own ranch to run, and even at the best of times, that was a 24/7 job.
“That’s all I agreed to,” he said. “Once I embarrass myself in the noon show, your—” what had she called it? “—casting department better be finding someone else in the two hours before the next show.”
“I’m sure they will,” she soothed. She slipped a tube out of some mysterious pocket hidden in the side of her skirt and ran it quickly over her lower lip, leaving it pinker than it ordinarily was and intriguingly shiny. “In the meantime, we’ve got a crowd to entertain. Okay?”
He dragged his eyes away.
What the hell was wrong with him? A corner of the McElroys’ spread had butted up next to his folks’ property his whole life. He wasn’t all that sure that his little brother Jude hadn’t dated Aurora once upon a time. Before Jude fell for Gabriella Mendoza last year, he’d changed girlfriends more often than Galen changed shirts.
“Yo, yo, yo,” Frank hailed, joining them. He dropped a proprietary arm around Aurora’s shoulders and squeezed. With his free hand, he twirled one side of his fake mustache and leered at her. “Ready to become my wifey, my dear?”
Aurora’s smile thinned a little. She unhooked Frank’s arm from her shoulders and stepped away from him. “Save it for the crowd, Frank.” She sent Galen a smile and marched ahead of them to climb into a buckboard that would carry them down the center of Main Street while the guests were safely held back from the action with ropes carried by security guards dressed as old-time railroad workers.
As he watched, she worked a small headset into her riotous curls and he felt a fresh wave of misgivings. That headset was a microphone. She followed up the headset with a lacy veil held onto her head by a band of white roses.
“Rory likes playing hard to get,” Frank was telling Galen in a man-to-man tone that set Galen’s teeth on edge. “Makes the gettin’ all that much more fun.”
Galen eyed Frank, realizing he wore a tiny microphone, as well. “Am I gonna have to wear one of those?”
“Nah. Your important lines are picked up by the stage mics. Just remember they don’t kill the audio until right before you kiss Lila.” He clapped Galen on the shoulder. “Break a leg,” he said before sauntering ahead to climb up beside Aurora. She had her head tilted back, seeming to be looking up at the sky.
Another young man whom Galen didn’t know handed Frank the reins for the horse’s harness, then moved up to the front to lead the horse around toward a wide gate that he swung open.
Over the loudspeaker, a deep-voiced announcer was telling all comers to hold on to their chaps ’cause they were in for a hog-tying good time down on Main Street.
On cue, Aurora looked back at Galen and gave him an encouraging thumbs-up. Then Frank flicked the reins and the buckboard rattled out of the gate just as adventurous music blasted over the loudspeakers. A moment later, Galen could hear Aurora’s and Frank’s voices as the show began in earnest.
“Good grief,” he muttered, feeling a strong urge to sit on the picnic bench and stick his head between his knees. What the hell had he agreed to do?
But there was no time for second thoughts. Over the speakers, he could hear “Lila” proclaiming her faith in her beloved “Rusty.”
“You’re the new Rusty?” A vaguely familiar-looking skinny guy wearing a ten-gallon hat and a bright, shining sheriff’s star on the chest of his blue shirt got his attention.
“Only for this show,” Galen allowed.
“Come on, then. I’m Sal the Sheriff.” He shoved a bedraggled-looking scroll into Galen’s hand. “That’s the deed you need to wave in Frank’s face before you knock him out and kiss Lila. Try not to drop it like Joey keeps doing when we’re riding down Main Street.”
Galen started, but Sal was already hurrying him to another gate farther along than the one the buckboard had gone through. There were ten horses waiting, eight of them already mounted with riders. Some were dressed like Frank. Some like Sal.
He tucked the deed inside his shirt and swung easily up into the saddle.
But his thoughts were nowhere near so calm.
He should have paid more attention to the end of the script. He’d gotten to the punching Frank part. But he’d clean missed seeing that he got to kiss the fair Lila at the end.
Galen had never gone to school to study acting the way Aurora had. As far as he was concerned, kissing Lila would be as good as kissing her.
And even though he was rapidly realizing that wasn’t an entirely unappealing notion, it wasn’t something he necessarily wanted to do in front of an audience!
Chapter Two (#ulink_94bea334-4c9c-5432-9ff6-9396eb933695)
Aurora didn’t have to work too hard to look dismayed as she fended off Frank’s advances when he pulled her unwillingly toward the wooden stage at the end of Main Street, where a preacher paced back and forth in front of the old west building facade of a bank, a boardinghouse and a feed store. Frank had been making advances toward her for the past two weeks—ever since he’d joined the cast—and didn’t seem to take the hint that she wasn’t interested.
“I don’t want to marry you,” she cried out loudly for the crowd who’d been following them along Main Street as her trials and tribulations were extolled. “I love Rusty. He’d never desert me like you claim!”
Frank pulled her close, his leer exaggerated for the audience. “He’s gone off to Dodge City, my dear.” He twirled his mustache for added effect. “He’s never going to come back. Your only hope to save your departed daddy’s land from the railroad—”
The crowd booed on cue.
“—is to marry me!” He swept her off her feet, carrying her, kicking and struggling, up the steps and onto the stage. “That’s it, Preacher Man,” he boomed and set her on her feet. “Get us wedded and hurry up about it.”
Behind them, the onlookers sent up a cheer as horse hooves pounded audibly down Main Street, accompanied by the triumphant music swelling over the loudspeakers.
Lila tried to pull away from Frank, but he held her arm fast.
“Dearly beloved,” Preacher Man started off in a quaking voice. “We are gathered—”
“Get on to the vows,” Frank demanded, looking nervously over his shoulder.
Preacher Man gulped. “Do you, sir, take this, ah—”
“Lila,” Frank growled loudly. He pulled out his pistol and waved it, and a sharp crack! rent the air. Down the facade in front of the feed store, a bag of seed exploded. “Hurry it along, Preacher Man, or the next one goes in you.”
Preacher Man’s eyes widened. “Take Lila, to be your wife—” His fast words practically fell on top of each other.
“I do,” Frank yelled, “and she does—”
“Not!” Rusty had vaulted from his horse and stormed up onto the stage, sweeping Lila away from Frank. “She’ll never be your wife, Frank. No more than that land’ll ever be yours.” He pulled the deed from inside his shirt and waved it in the air. “They’re both mine, and I’ll never let either one go!”
“Oh, Rusty.” Lila nearly swooned as the audience hooted. Aurora caught the faint grin on Galen’s face before he turned to take on the villain of the piece, and felt a little bit swoonish inside for real.
She’d gotten over her schoolgirl crush on him ages ago, but Galen Fortune Jones was still the kind of man that could make a girl’s heart stutter.
She clasped her hands together over her breast, crying out as Frank aimed his pistol at Rusty’s chest.
But Lila’s white-hatted hero fought off the hand holding the gun and swung his fist into Frank’s chin, knocking him comically right off the stage where he fell ignominiously on his butt in a pile of fake horse poop.
Sal the Sheriff and his men stood over Frank and his goons, whom he and Rusty had already dispatched, looking satisfied at the turn of events.
She waited until the cheers died down slightly. “I knew you’d save me, Rusty!”
“I’ll always save you, Lila.” Galen’s voice was deep and loud and definitely heroic as he tossed the “deed” to the sheriff, who caught it handily. “Will you finally be my wife?”
She fanned herself, simpering. “You know I will, Rusty.”
They turned to Preacher Man, who stopped gaping comically at Frank and flipped open his oversize Bible again. “Dearly beloved,” he began again.
“I do,” Lila burst out. “And he does, too!”
The audience laughed and Preacher Man held out his hands as if to say, what could he do? “Then I now pronounce you husband and—”
Galen swept off his hat with one hand and grabbed her around the waist with his other. “Wife,” he finished loudly, then bent her deep over his arm, while she buried her face against his chest.
“Am I s’posed to kiss you for real?” Galen whispered in her ear as the crowd cheered and the music crescendoed from the loudspeakers to its triumphant conclusion.
Something inside Aurora’s tummy fluttered. The way Galen held her, nobody beyond the stage would be able to see that Rusty and Lila weren’t actually locking lips. She shook her cheek against his, though she wished he hadn’t asked. That he would have just gone ahead and done it.
It was as close as she’d ever get to actually kissing the man for real, that was for certain.
Sal the Sheriff and his men pulled Frank from the horse manure and clapped him in chains before leading him and his goons off at rubber gunpoint through the audience.
As they did after every show, the onlookers dispersed quickly, anxious to get to the next attraction. The next cotton candy. The next roller coaster.
She didn’t mind the quick loss of attention.
She was just happy to be part of a show again. Playing Lila in Wild West Wedding was a far cry from the acting career she’d once dreamed of having, but for a rancher’s daughter who spent day in and day out helping her father, it was more than she’d thought she’d ever have.
And being held in a close embrace against a seriously handsome cowboy wasn’t anything to sneeze at, either.
Feeling breathless inside, Aurora patted Galen’s shoulders. “You can let me go now,” she whispered. It was safe to break character, because the mics were cued to be killed at Rusty’s last word, “wife.”
“Yeah. Right.” Galen straightened, letting her loose. All around them, people were streaming away from the stage, calling out smart remarks and still clapping.
She beamed at them and tucked her arm through Rusty’s, clinging to him as they and Preacher Man left the stage and strolled in the opposite direction from where Frank had been taken by the sheriff to the jail across the street. As long as any of the cast members were in costume out in the public areas of the park, they remained in character.
Over the loudspeaker, the music had softened to a background melody of “Yellow Rose of Texas.”
When they passed through a gate once more to the backstage area, though, she forced herself to let go of Galen’s arm. “You did a good job,” she said, slipping past him. “Didn’t he make a good Rusty, Harlan?”
“Hell,” Galen said, stopping short. He peered at Preacher Man’s face. “I didn’t even notice that was you, Mayor.”
Harlan Osgood grinned, pulling off his bottle-glass round spectacles and the fake gold caps on his front teeth. “Got myself a helper at the barbershop these days,” he said. “Been having some fun doing this a few times a day.”
“Harlan switches off with Buddy Jepps playing Preacher Man,” Aurora provided. She pulled off the veil and microphone, then the hairpiece she wore over her own pinned-up hair, and saw Galen’s look.
She laughed a little awkwardly, holding up the thick fall of ringlets that perfectly matched her own dark red hair. “My hair is straight as a stick. It would take hours to curl like this. And pretty as this is,” she held out one side of her skirt and gave a quick curtsy, “it’s about as comfortable as a straitjacket. So I’m going to change.” She headed toward the costume trailer, leaving the two men still talking.
The corseted wedding dress wasn’t quite as uncomfortable as she’d made out.
But she had no intention of admitting that she was finding it a tad difficult to breathe normally after being clasped up against Galen.
Being held by Frank was a requirement of the role she was playing.
Being held by Galen Fortune Jones was something entirely different...
She left her veil and microphone out so the production crew could reset them in the buckboard for the next show, then stepped behind the changing screen to peel down the hidden zipper in the side of the old-fashioned-looking dress. She hung it on the hanger and tucked it, as well as her boots, away in the corner of the wardrobe trailer she’d purloined for her own use. Then, changed once more into her own knee-length sundress and cowboy boots so she’d be free to move throughout the park until the next show, she left the trailer again.
Galen was still talking to Harlan, and his dark brown eyes crinkled a little as she approached them.
Her gauzy white tiered dress wasn’t at all confining, but she still felt a constriction in her chest when he looked her way.
It was a little annoying, actually. And embarrassing.
Because if Galen had been at all interested in her ever, he’d have had ample opportunity to do something about it. It wasn’t as if they lived on opposite ends of the planet, after all. A corner of her daddy’s ranch bordered his daddy’s, and she’d spent nearly all thirty years of her wholly single life living there.
Which was vaguely depressing, when she really thought about it.
Thirty years old.
She wouldn’t say she’d never been kissed, because she had. She’d even been in love until he’d been stolen away from her. But that time with Anthony Tyson had been years and years ago, back during the days when she’d still had dreams in her eyes about a life that held something more than cows, cows, and more cows.
And certainly more than little ol’ Horseback Hollow.
But life, at least Aurora’s, was about more than dreams. It was about loving her family and hard work and trying to replace a brother who was never coming back.
She added some briskness to her pace. “I’m going to head over to casting and see how they’re coming along on replacing Joey,” she said when she reached the two men. All around them, the performers for the next show, The Great Main Street Bank Heist, were beginning to arrive and the backstage area was becoming increasingly noisy.
“I should probably get back into my own stuff first,” Galen said, plucking the shirt.
She nodded. “Thanks again for pinch-hitting on such short notice.”
She still could hardly believe that he had. But then, she still had a hard time believing that he was helping out at Cowboy Country at all, considering that—like a good number of Horseback Hollow residents—at first he hadn’t even been a proponent of the theme park opening.
Tall, dark and swoonworthy he might be. But Galen Fortune Jones had ranching in his roots and ranching in his blood. And he’d never made any secret that he liked their little town just fine the way it was. He didn’t want to see outsiders and fat wallets coming in and gentrifying things.
She, however, had been practically champing at the bit to get her name added to the list of supporters. And as soon as she’d discovered that Moore Entertainment wanted to hire as many local performers as it could for the live entertainment at Cowboy Country, she’d hustled her tush right into line.
Yes, Wild West Wedding was as campy as it got. But in the two weeks since they’d opened, the guests had been enjoying it, and so was she.
“If you hold up a sec, I’ll walk with you,” Galen offered, surprising the heck out of her.
She realized she was twisting one toe of her prized Castleton boots into the dirt and made herself stop. “Sure.”
He smiled and strode away toward the trailer, all long legs and brawny shoulders.
“How’s your mama and daddy doing, Aurora? Haven’t seen Walt and Pru in months, it seems.”
Glad for the distraction, she smiled back at Harlan. “Real fine, Harlan. They’re going on a cruise, actually. To Alaska. They leave week after next.”
The mayor-slash-barber beamed at her. “That’s good news. I can’t remember a time when your folks ever went off on a real vacation. Not since—” He broke off and his smile turned a little awkward. “Not in a long time,” he amended. He patted her shoulder like a benevolent old uncle. “Be sure and give ’em my best, will you?”
“I will.” If her daddy hadn’t been bald as a cue ball and her mama hadn’t always cut her own hair, they’d have spent a little time in the Cuttery, the barbershop/salon where Harlan usually spent most of his time when he wasn’t acting as mayor, or playacting as Preacher Man.
Harlan headed off and Galen returned, wearing his own shirt and usual hat. On him, the black hat wasn’t the least bit villainous. It was just authentic.
“You even wore a cowboy hat back in high school, didn’t you?” she said aloud.
“Huh?” His fingertips lightly touched her back as they set off for the closest gate.
Her cheeks felt warm, but it was nothing compared to the shiver spiraling down her spine. “Nothing. Just thinking that Cowboy Country did a good job choosing you to make sure all things cowboy around here are actually believable.”
He grimaced, looking self-conscious. “It’s extra money in the bank,” he muttered. They’d reached the gate and he pulled it open for her, waiting for her to walk through first. “Every smart rancher knows it’s good to set some aside for leaner times.”
She watched him from the corner of her eye. “Your spread’s doing okay, though, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” He stopped outside Gus’s General Store where a selection of leather goods was on display. “My mom would like this,” he said, lifting a leather purse. But when he looked at the price tag, his eyebrows shot up. “Holy Chr—” He bit off the rest. “Even with all the Fortune money she refused to take from her newfound brother, that’s a ridiculous price.” Shaking his head, he dropped the purse back in place and continued down the boardwalk fronting the stores, the heels of his boots ringing out.
“I’ve heard a little about that,” Aurora said, skipping a few times to keep up with his long-legged pace. “Mostly that Jeanne Marie found out she’s twin sisters to British royalty?”
“She’s one of triplets,” he corrected. “Lady Josephine Chesterfield and James Marshall Fortune. Separated when they were babies. Josephine grew up in England. James in Atlanta. Mom here. Their birth mother only gave up the girls.”
She made a face. “I’m sure there’s a reason, but that sounds terrible.”
“She’s dead. It was only ’cause James started looking that they know anything about each other at all.”
“What’s it feel like finding out that you have scads of family across the world that you never even knew existed?”
“Pretty much the same way it felt not knowing they existed. I know it’s been important to my mom finding out about her birth family. The fact that both Josephine and James and their other brother, John, are all loaded is beside the point. But to me, it just means more cousins around the dinner table.” He gave her a sideways look. “You’re not one of those folks who got all het up about the royalty thing, are you?”
She shrugged and shook her head, even though it was a lie. She’d been just as fascinated as every other person in Horseback Hollow when their one-horse town first brushed up against royalty. “I ran into Quinn and Amelia Drummond the other day outside of the Hollows Cantina. They had little Clementine Rose with them. She’s a doll.”
“I guess so. Haven’t given the baby much thought.”
She tsked. “Just like a man.”
“What?” He frowned. “I know my new cousin had her in January. And I know things sure got interesting around these parts last year when the media found out Lady Amelia was pregnant.”
That was certainly true. A person hadn’t been able to get through town without running into one of the reporters camping out everywhere trying to get a shot of Lady Amelia and her rancher lover.
“Besides that,” he continued, “it’s like I said. Another person around the dinner table.” He shot her a grin. “Only the little munchkin is sitting in a high chair with strained peas all over her face.”
She smiled. “Still, I’d think it would feel pretty strange,” she said.
“Ending up with a passel of cousins?”
“Finding out I have more family than just Mama and Daddy.”
Galen shot her another glance. His grin died. “I still think about your brother,” he said quietly. “About Mark.”
“Me, too.” She was glad they’d reached the end of the block and gestured. “Casting is back this way.” She turned the corner and walked even more quickly down the street. She didn’t want to talk about Mark. Didn’t want to think about him, actually.
Maybe that made her the worst sister in the history of the world, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to forgive her big brother for dying the way he had. For leaving her parents so broken it had taken them a decade before they were managing to find a little joy in life again.
In silence, she passed the Olde Tyme Photography studio, where guests could dress up in vintage clothing to have their portraits done, and went through another wooden gate, this one manned by a uniformed security guard.
“Afternoon, Tom,” she greeted as they passed from the nineteenth-century cowboy town back into the very modern present of steel and glass and asphalt.
Thanks to the park’s clever designers, neither the stark building housing Cowboy Country’s business offices nor the large employee parking lot were visible to Cowboy Country guests.
Excruciatingly aware of Galen following close on her heels, she went inside the office building and made her way back to the casting office.
“Hi, Diane,” she greeted the sleek, black-haired young woman sitting at the main desk in front of a half dozen hard chairs, most of which were occupied by people clutching comp cards in one hand and job applications in the other. “Have you gotten any word yet on how Joey Newsome is doing?”
Diane shook her head, barely looking at Aurora because she was too busy visually devouring Galen. “Who are you?” she asked in her throaty voice.
“Cowboy Country’s authenticity consultant. Galen Fortune Jones,” Aurora said abruptly. In her dealings with the casting department so far, she knew that Diane used to work at a modeling agency located in Chicago, where Moore Entertainment’s corporate headquarters was located.
Undoubtedly, the woman was stripping Galen down in her mind to chaps and nothing else.
Then Aurora wished she’d left off the “Fortune” part, because Diane’s eyes seemed to grow even more interested, if such a feat were possible.
“Galen Fortune Jones,” she purred, rising slowly from her desk, putting Aurora in mind of a cobra rising from her nest. “I’ve been learning lots about the Fortunes.” She actually put her slender hand on Galen’s shoulder and circled around him, giving every inch of him a closer look.
And while it made Aurora’s nerves itch as though they’d been dipped into fire ants, he didn’t seem to be bothered one little bit.
“I’m more Jones than Fortune,” he drawled. He’d removed his cowboy hat the second they’d entered the building, and he gave Diane the same crooked smile that used to have cheerleaders and bookworms alike swooning back when Aurora was a high school freshman and he and her brother were the senior football stars. “Haven’t seen you around Horseback Hollow. I’d have remembered if I had.”
Diane laughed, low in her throat. “I drive over from Vicker’s Corners,” she said, as if doing anything else was insane. “Offers a little more civilization for my tastes.”
Aurora hid a sudden smile, for there was nothing more certain to turn off Galen Jones than to compare Horseback Hollow unfavorably against its nearest neighbor, Vicker’s Corners.
“Well,” Galen settled his hat back in place, even though they were indoors. “Always have said there is no accountin’ for taste.” His easy tone took the insult out of the words, even though Aurora was certain he meant each one. Then he looked at Aurora. “I’d better head back out there. I’ve only got a few more hours before I need to get back to my place. I’ve got chores piling up by the minute and I don’t have anyone to help me around the place right now like your daddy has you.”
“Okay.” She rubbed her hands down the sides of her dress, wishing she had even a tenth of Diane’s confidence. “Thanks again for helping out today.” She glanced at the other woman. “He filled in for Joey so we didn’t have to cancel the show.”
Diane’s red lips curved. “The hero rides to the rescue in more ways than one.”
Galen looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, well.” He glanced at the applicants sitting in the chairs who’d been following their exchange like viewers at a tennis match. “See you around, Aurora.” He pulled open the office door. “Might grab a root beer at the Foaming Barrel later if you’re interested.”
She had to struggle not to look surprised, much less too interested. “Sure.”
But the door was already swinging shut after his departure.
“That was a fine specimen of cowboy,” Diane breathed.
Aurora couldn’t get overly annoyed with the other woman for that, since she happened to agree.
But oohing and ahhing over Galen Jones hadn’t gotten her anywhere when she’d been fourteen to his eighteen, and it wasn’t going to get her anywhere now.
“So,” she addressed Diane once more, “about Joey’s part. Any chance you can find a temporary replacement for the rest of the shows today?”
The one guy sitting in the chairs perked up visibly.
Aurora could have told him not to bother. “Rusty” was written for a specific physical type and the hopeful applicant was about half the size he needed to be.
Diane returned to her desk and flipped open a folder. “I’ve been through all the performers on file.” With Galen out of the room, she was all business. “We’ve got two who fit the type, but neither can ride a horse.” She shook her head a little. “Casting shows for Coaster World’s other locations is a lot easier than casting here,” she murmured, tapping the end of her pen against the desk. She glanced at Aurora. “You can dance, right? Tap, ballet, that sort of thing?”
The question seemed to come out of nowhere. “Yes.” She’d listed all of her skills on her application months earlier, well before Cowboy Country had opened to the public, even though they’d been learned as a little girl taking lessons over in Vicker’s Corners. She’d also listed the few college parts she’d been able to play before she’d had to leave school after Mark died. “So, about Rusty’s part?”
Diane lifted her shoulders and tossed down the pen. “If Joey’s not back in the saddle tomorrow or the next day, it’s possible we can bring in someone from another location,” she said. “But that’ll take some time.”
“Which means, what?”
“Without a Rusty, there’s no Wild West Wedding,” Diane said with another shrug. “No worries, though.” She picked up her phone and punched a few numbers. “Yeah, this is Diane in casting. Let me talk to Phillip.”
Aurora winced, knowing she was calling Phillip Dubois, the production head.
Diane tucked the receiver in her shoulder and looked back at Aurora again. “I hear Outlaw Shootout will be set to go by the end of this week. It’ll replace Wedding, and in the meantime we’ll fill in—”
“—replace Wedding!”
Diane lifted her hand, speaking into the phone again. “Hi, Phil. We’re going to need to pull Wild West Wedding from the sched—” Her jaw dropped when Aurora’s fingers slammed down on the phone hook. “Excuse me?”
Aurora retracted her hand, flushing. “You can’t just cancel the show.”
Diane gave her a pitying look. “Stuff happens, hon.”
“But Joey might well be back in the saddle, as you say, tomorrow.”
“That doesn’t solve the problem for three more shows today.” Diane started dialing again.
“Please don’t,” Aurora begged.
Diane sighed loudly and looked up through her lashes at her. “Why?”
“The show means so much to, uh, to so many people,” she said weakly. “We’ve got one of the largest casts in all of Cowboy Country’s productions.” The only shows with more parts were the Sunday Go to Meeting House with their choir show and the How the West Was Won Saloon Show, both of which were musicals.
Diane made a face. She replaced the receiver and folded her hands together, leaning across the desk toward Aurora. “You found yourself a Rusty for the noon show,” she advised. “Get him to finish out the day. After that, we’ll see.”
Aurora nodded quickly. “Thanks, Diane.”
The other woman shooed her away with a flick of her fingers before looking at the applicants waiting in her chairs. “You,” she barked at the middle-aged woman sitting closest to her. “Can you yodel?”
Aurora quickly ducked out of the office while the applicant was still stammering.
Being cast as Lila was one of the brightest spots in Aurora’s life right now. If that meant somehow talking Galen into repeating his part in the role of Rusty three more times that day, she was going to do it.
Even if it meant offering to take care of his ranch chores herself!
Chapter Three (#ulink_c01ff514-34d7-5514-b135-765fa942d9f0)
“No way.”
It had taken her a solid hour, but Aurora had finally found Galen out by the Twin Rattlers.
The roller coaster was the premier attraction at Cowboy Country, and after a start plagued with mechanical difficulties, it was now running perfectly. The line that wound like a serpentine around the base of the behemoth attested to its popularity.
“No way,” he said again. “I agreed to play Rusty once, and that was enough for me.”
“Galen, please. If you don’t, they’re going to cancel the rest of today’s shows.”
“And what happens if Joey’s not back tomorrow? Or the next day?”
“Diane says they can probably bring in a performer from another one of their locations.”
“Probably.” He gave her a steady look. “That’s not a certainty.”
“No,” she agreed unwillingly. She absolutely didn’t want to share with him just how easily the management could supplant one production with another. “It’s not a certainty.” Her hands latched onto his forearm. “But you did a really good job as Rusty,” she said quickly. “And it wasn’t as awful as you thought it would be, was it?”
His gaze flickered over her hands. “I’ve got other responsibilities, too, kiddo,” he said almost gently.
“I’ll help,” she promised even more quickly, letting go of him. She hadn’t even realized she’d grabbed him like that. But now her palms felt all warm and tingly. “You know I’m a good ranch hand. One of me is equal or better to two of someone else,” she added. “Daddy’s always telling people that. You know he is.”
“Why is it up to you to find a replacement for this Joey fella?”
“It isn’t,” she admitted. There was an entire production team, headed up by Phillip Dubois. And he wouldn’t care any more than Diane did which show ran in Wedding’s time slots, as long as something did. She chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment. “I’m helping to pay for Mama and Daddy’s cruise with the money I’m earning here,” she finally admitted.
It was true. But it wasn’t the only reason why keeping Wild West Wedding going was so important to her.
Somehow, she just couldn’t bring herself to admit to him that being in those four performances every day was about the only thing she looked forward to these days. It would make her sound about as piddlin’ pathetic as she’d been feeling until the role of Lila came along.
He exhaled and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well, hell, Aurora.”
Relief swept through her. She very nearly grabbed him again, but managed not to. “You’ll do it, then?”
He nodded, though he didn’t look any too happy about it. “I’ll do it for today,” he cautioned.
“Today will do,” she said quickly. “Today will do just fine. And, uh, I meant it. About helping you out at your place. Whatever you need, I’m your girl. I can get Daddy to drop me by, or once they go on their trip, I’ll be able to use the ranch truck.”
His eyes sharpened a little. “You don’t have your own transportation?”
She cursed her nervous blathering. “Until I started working here, I didn’t really need my own vehicle, did I? I mean, it’s not like I do much of anything besides helping out at home.”
Galen eyed her. Her long red hair was pinned into a knot at the back of her head. She wore a pretty white dress that left her knees bare, and a pair of brown, blue-stitched boots that reached halfway up her calves. And even though he had heard Walt McElroy extoll the prowess of his only remaining offspring when it came to ranch work, right now the only thing Galen could imagine Aurora doing was clutching a bunch of daisies in her hands, dancing through some field.
He shook off the wholly ridiculous—and unwelcome—fancifulness.
“You’ve got enough work over at your place,” he said gruffly. “Just consider today my contribution to your folks’ vacation. It’s been too long since they had some fun. And, you know, if you ever need a ride or something, just give a shout.” He had to come to Cowboy Country anyway, at least until Caitlyn Moore, who’d been the one to hire him, decided his job was no longer needed.
“Thanks, Galen.” She brushed her hands down the sides of her dress in the way he was beginning to recognize as nervousness. “They’ll probably add some to your paycheck, too,” she added brightly. “Every little bit helps for that rainy day, right?”
“Right,” he said wryly.
He glanced around the area. There were at least fifty people lined up for the Twin Rattlers. He’d only jotted down two items for his daily report for Caitlyn. It was a huge improvement over the pages-long reports he’d started out with only a week earlier.
Caitlyn had wanted to make the park everything that her father, Alden Moore—a huge John Wayne fan—had ever dreamed of creating, and Galen was beginning to think Caitlyn might just pull it off. Considering she’d been summarily handed the job to get the place up and running when her daddy had some health troubles, Galen had to give her a lot of credit. She’d also lassoed one of Galen’s new cousins, Brodie Fortune Hayes, along the way.
“Everything seems to be turning up roses these days, doesn’t it?”
Aurora’s words seemed to echo his own thoughts and before he knew it, “Want to grab that root beer?” came out of his mouth.
She smiled. And he realized that when she did, it seemed to show all over her entire person. From her eyes that seemed even brighter a blue, to her toes, which she went up on a little. “That sounds great.”
“You always were a good kid.” He wasn’t sure what made him say the words. Except that, maybe, he was noticing the way the sunlight was shining through her dress, outlining the slender figure underneath. “Even Mark used to say so.”
Her smile dimmed a little. Not on her lips.
But in her eyes.
“That’s me,” she said in a tone he couldn’t quite read. “The good kid.” She gestured at the line of people waiting for the roller coaster as they left it behind. “Have you ridden it yet?”
“Nah.”
“You like roller coasters, though, don’t you?” She gave him a sideways look. “Every time the fair came through when we were kids, you and my brother were all over the thrill rides.”
He took her arm briefly as they stepped up onto the boardwalk, continuing down Main Street. Unlike other redheads Galen knew, the only freckles on Aurora that he could see were a few spots across her nose. The rest of her seemed to be a smooth, creamy gold.
What he could see, anyway.
He shoved his hand into his pocket, reminding himself not to ponder too long or too well about what he couldn’t see.
He’d never had trouble with the opposite sex, but since he had no intention of joining the passel of folks in his family taking the marriage bit between their teeth, he didn’t tend to get involved with women who were right there under their noses.
In a small town, things got complicated in a hurry when a person did that. Wondering too hard what all delights Aurora McElroy hid beneath that pretty dress was a sure way to invite those kinds of complications.
And he liked things just fine the way they were.
“I don’t think I’m much of one for loop-the-loops anymore,” he said. “I’m a whole lot older than I used to be.”
She snorted softly. “Please. You’re thirty-four. Same age—”
“As Mark would have been,” he finished when she broke off.
Her lips twisted. “Yes.” She fell silent for a moment, watching a little girl nearby purchase a huge yellow helium balloon from one of the street vendors. “It’s strange,” she finally said, once the girl dashed off with the balloon bobbing in the air after her, “the more I don’t want to think about him, the more I seem to dwell on him.”
He couldn’t help himself. He slid his hand against the back of her slender neck. “I’ve got six brothers and sisters. I can’t imagine losing one of them.” Particularly in such a senseless way as getting behind the wheel of a big-ass pickup truck when he was three sheets to the wind drunk. “Maybe talking more about him will help the dwelling.”
She exhaled loudly and shook her head as though she was shaking off a bothersome fly. “He died a long time ago.” She pointed. “Looks like the lunch rush has hit the Foaming Barrel.”
Sure enough, a line extended from the popular concession stand and Aurora had tugged her locket watch out from inside her sundress. “I don’t think we’ve got time to wait before we need to get set for the next show. Rain check?”
“Sure.”
She gave him that winning, whole-body smile again and started walking back the way they’d come.
Galen settled his hat down harder on his head and shoved his hands back into his pockets and away from...complications. Then he followed Aurora as she made her way from Main Street to the backstage area once again.
The space around the costume trailer was considerably busier now than it had been earlier. A half dozen leggy women were sitting on top of the picnic table, looking like a rainbow, dressed as they were in their colorful ruffled saloon-girl getups. Frank—handlebar mustache already in place—was hanging over one buxom girl in particular. She looked a lot more receptive to him than Aurora had earlier.
Galen followed Aurora into the trailer. It was now crowded not only with the racks of clothes and props he’d already seen, but bodies in various stages of undress, as well.
Maybe it was the hick in him, but he couldn’t help doing a double take at one young woman, only realizing belatedly that she wasn’t quite naked. The nude-colored bodysuit she wore just made her look like it as she stepped into a flaming red ruffled dress. She obviously had no problem not stepping behind the changing screen that was situated at one end of the trailer.
He realized he was sweating a little as he reached for Rusty’s shirt and tie where he’d left them hanging, until he saw Aurora step safely behind the screen and he breathed a little easier.
Until a moment later when her white sundress was flung up to drape over the top of the changing screen and his temperature seemed to shoot up several notches.
He grabbed Rusty’s white hat and brushed past several bodies, clomping down the trailer steps. Out in the open, he pulled in a long breath and exchanged his T-shirt for Rusty’s button-down once again.
“Galen Jones, I thought that was you.” One of the saloon girls had left the picnic table and was sashaying toward him in frilly peacock blue. Her hair was a pile of blond curls down the back of her head. “Serena Morris!” She patted her hand against her tightly fitted bodice, smiling widely. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember me. I’ll be crushed forever.”
“Serena?” He squinted at her face. Then couldn’t help but laugh. “Last I saw you, you were—”
“—nine years old and mad as hops that my folks were moving us to Missouri.” She propped her hand on her shapely hip and grinned. “You look just the same.”
He spread his hands wryly. “And here I thought the last two and a half decades might’ve made some difference.”
She laughed. “What can I say? A girl never forgets her first kiss. You’ll always be nine years old in my eyes.” Her humorous gaze looked past him and Galen realized Aurora had come up behind him. “You’re the new Lila,” she greeted, sticking out her hand. “I’ve been hearing what a great job you’ve been doing.”
Aurora warily took the other woman’s hand, returning the greeting. “Aurora McElroy,” she offered, watching Galen from the corner of her eye.
He was watching the other woman with nothing but pleasure on his face.
“And you,” she hurriedly focused elsewhere, “are obviously in the saloon show.”
“Serena,” the other woman offered, moving her hip up and down. “This is how the West was won,” she added, smiling mischievously. She glanced back at Galen. “Galen and I were quite the item once upon a time.”
“Yeah. Fourth-grade time,” he drawled. His hand slipped up Aurora’s spine in a seemingly absentminded way. “Serena used to live in Horseback Hollow,” he provided. “They moved away a long time ago.”
“Don’t remind me just how long.” Serena ran her hands down her hourglass sides. “Getting harder every year to fit into these costumes.”
“You look spectacular,” Aurora said truthfully. The woman had enviable curves to spare.
“Well, after two kids, I guess I can be glad I am even competing with the likes of them.” She tossed her feathered headdress in the direction of the other saloon girls. “They’re still so young they’re wet behind the ears.” She focused again on Aurora. “You’re from right here in Horseback Hollow, aren’t you?”
Aurora nodded. She was finding it hard to think of much of anything other than the feel of Galen’s hand still resting lightly against the small of her back. “Born and raised,” she managed. “Did you move back here just to work at Cowboy Country?”
“Transferred here from the Coaster World in St. Louis,” Serena said. “I was with the dance corps there for years. But after my divorce last year, I figured it’d be easier raising my two boys in small-town USA.” She looked back at Galen again. “We should get together. Catch up on old times.”
Aurora could feel her jaw tightening, which was beyond ridiculous. It was none of her business who or what Galen went out with. But she also didn’t want to stand there, with his hand on her back, while he made the plans. It was too eerily reminiscent of her brief college career when she’d been with Anthony.
So she pulled out the locket watch that had once belonged to her maternal grandmother and glanced blindly at the time before snapping the locket shut. “I’ll leave you two to catch up,” she said brightly, edging away from them. “I need to, ah, grab Frank for a minute before the show starts. Nice meeting you, Serena.”
She barely stayed long enough to hear Serena’s “you, too” before she hurried over toward Frank Richter where he was holding court among the other saloon girls. She wanted to talk to him about as much as she wanted a spike puncturing a hole in her head, but his was the only name that had come to her mind, so she was stuck.
She stopped next to him. “We should get moving.”
He sent her a careless smile. “We’ve got a few minutes yet. And Cammie here was telling me all about herself.”
Cammie giggled, looking naively thrilled by Frank’s notice.
Aurora wanted to warn the girl—whose face looked like she still belonged in grade school despite her eye-popping bosom—not to get too excited, since she’d already had plenty of time to witness his alley-cat tendencies. But she said nothing. When she’d been as young as Cammie, she hadn’t been interested in hearing what anyone had to say about the object of her affection, either.
From the corner of her eye, she could see Galen and Serena still conversing, so she made her way over to the buckboard and fit her microphone into place where it was mostly hidden in her hair. She wasn’t donning the veil until she absolutely had to.
She patted her hand over the black horse already in harness. “Hey, pal. Ready for another show?” The horse, imaginatively named Blackie, jerked his head a few times before shaking his mane and turning his attention back to the few weeds sprouting up in the dirt underfoot. “I know. You’ve got a tough job,” she murmured. “Running down Main Street a few times a day.” The rest of the time, the show horses for Cowboy Country spent their days in pampered comfort in air-conditioned barns located behind the lushly landscaped public picnic grounds.
She gave him a final pat before hiking her wedding dress above her knees to work her toe onto the edge of the front wheel so she could pull herself awkwardly up onto the high wooden seat. She didn’t mind portraying a nineteenth-century Western bride, but she sure was glad she hadn’t been one for real.
But then again, she wasn’t exactly a twenty-first-century bride, either.
She propped the thin sole of her old-fashioned boot on the edge of the wood footrest at the front of the wagon, pulled her heavy skirt above her knees, then lifted the curls of her hairpiece off her damp neck. It was early June in Texas, and the sun was high and hot overhead. And buckboards didn’t come equipped with air-conditioning any more than they came with upholstered, padded seats and running boards to make climbing in easier.
Eventually, she saw her cast mates start assembling and Galen finally tore himself away from Serena the chatterbox to walk with Sal the Sheriff toward their own gate.
“You’re getting grumpy in your old age, Aurora,” she muttered under her breath, and sat up straighter, letting her dress fall back down where it belonged while she fit the brain-squeezing band of her veil around her head. The springs beneath the wood seat squeaked loudly as Frank climbed up beside her and fixed his mic into place.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Just hot.” She looked over her shoulder. Serena had returned to the rest of her dance line and the women were all standing around, adjusting the straps of their vibrant dresses and tugging at the seams running down the back of their fishnet stockings.
She faced forward again. “You should leave Cammie alone,” she told Frank. “She looks too young for you.”
His shoulder leaned against hers. “Then stop saying no to me every time I ask.”
She shifted as far to the right as she could without falling off the seat altogether. “I don’t date people I work with.” The statement was almost laughable, since she didn’t date, period.
Over the loudspeaker, they heard their cue, which meant whatever Frank might have said in response had to go unsaid since their microphones had gone live.
She swallowed, tilting her head back and closing her eyes as she willed away the surge of stage fright that made her feel nauseated before every single performance.
Frank took up the reins, lightly tapping them against the wood as he clucked softly to Blackie. The horse immediately lifted his head and shook his mane again as he started forward toward their gate.
And the next show began.
* * *
“And here, straight from his Academy Award–worthy stretch playing the ooh-la-la hero, Rusty, is our very own Galen—”
Galen shoved Liam’s shoulder hard enough to push his brother—a year younger and four inches taller—right off the arm of the couch where he was propped. “Give me a break,” he growled.
Liam laughed silently and moved around to sit properly next to his new wife, Julia, on the couch in their mama’s front parlor.
It was Sunday afternoon, and Jeanne Marie Fortune Jones had called all her children home for a proper family meal. As if they didn’t have one damn near every weekend to begin with. If Wild West Wedding didn’t take a reprieve on Sunday afternoons so that the Sunday Go to Meeting House choir could use its stage, Galen would’ve missed out entirely on the only home-cooked meal he’d had in days.
Julia was smiling at Galen. “I still can’t believe you’ve been playing a part at all at Cowboy Country.”
“It’s temporary.” He pushed Christopher. “Get outta my spot, man.”
At twenty-seven, Chris was the baby of the boys. But his days of letting Galen order him around were apparently over, judging by the dry look Galen got in return. Chris, like Liam, Jude and their little sister Stacey, had gotten hitched just that Valentine’s Day in the same big wedding. And marriage to the gorgeous Kinsley had definitely helped settle him, same as finding his footing in business with the Fortune Foundation. “Pretty sure your name’s not stitched in the upholstery now any more than it ever was.” To prove that he was staying put, Christopher propped his boot heels on the coffee table in front of his chair. “Get your own chair, brother.”
Typically, when the whole family was around, seating was at a premium. Particularly now that his siblings had started adding spouses—and in the case of his brother Toby and his wife of a year, Angie, the three foster kids they’d adopted. Which meant every seat cushion in the parlor was wholly occupied by the backside of a Fortune Jones. Even the floor was taken up by Toby’s two youngest, Justin and Kylie, where they were working a big old puzzle.
“I don’t know how temporary,” Julia was saying on a laugh. “Haven’t you been playing Rusty all last week?”
Galen almost tugged at his collar, but managed to restrain himself. “’Bout that. Where’s Stace?”
“Piper’s got a summer cold,” Angie said, speaking of Stacey’s toddler. “She didn’t want to expose anyone.”
“Thought you told ’em you were only going to play Rusty for that one day.” That came from Jude, entering the room with more brains than Galen had, since he was carrying a chair from the dining room table with him. He set it in the corner and promptly pulled his petite wife, Gabriella, down on his knee. “That’s what you said last time I talked to you. What was it?” He and his bride shared a look that spoke of intimacies Galen didn’t even want to contemplate. “Last Wednesday?”
“They were in a pinch,” he muttered grumpily. “The original guy, Joey somebody-or-other, broke his leg. He’s out for the next six weeks, at least.” And Galen still couldn’t explain his reasons for giving in when Diane in the casting department still hadn’t produced a permanent replacement for the guy. It damn sure hadn’t been because Diane was outright propositioning him.
But attributing it to keeping Aurora’s whole-body smile going wasn’t something he wanted to admit to, either.
Not to himself and definitely not to his pack of siblings and siblings-in-law.
He tried changing the subject again. “What about Delaney?”
“In Red Rock with the new fiancé.” That came from Christopher. “Cisco’s still getting some training with the Fortune Foundation there. We sent Rachel, also. Matteo flew ’em over.” Matteo was Cisco’s brother and a pilot at the Redmond Flight School and Charter Service. And Rachel Robinson was Matteo’s fiancée and an intern with Christopher.
“You’re going to be playacting the besotted groom for the next six weeks?” Jude wasn’t swayed by their baby sister’s whereabouts and was looking at Galen as if he’d announced he’d started building castles on the moon.
“Hell no,” Galen assured emphatically. “Cowboy Country’s got a whole department of people hiring folks. They’ll get a replacement in a few days, I’m sure.” And he was anxious to get off the subject. “I’m getting a beer.”
“You are not,” Jeanne Marie said, sailing into the room. She was taller than average and wearing her usual cowboy boots, which added a good inch and a half, bringing her silver head to merely a few inches below Galen’s. “We’re just about ready to sit down and eat and I’m not having beer at my Sunday dinner table.” She propped her hands on the hips of blue jeans that were mostly hidden behind her old-fashioned apron. “Christopher, get your boots off the furniture. Just because I’m pleased as punch you’ve moved back home to Horseback Hollow doesn’t mean you’re getting away with that nonsense.”
Chris grinned and dutifully put his feet down on the floor again. “Yes, ma’am.”
Jeanne Marie turned her eyes back on Galen. “Where’s your father?”
“Out back working on the truck.”
“As usual.” But the amusement in her eyes belied any annoyance her tart words carried. “Go and get him, would you please?”
Glad for an excuse to escape a room that was uncomfortably brimming over from matrimonial bliss, his “Yes, ma’am” was likely a mite enthusiastic.
Plus, he was able to grab a beer along the way, though he winced like a guilty teenager when he twisted off the bottle cap and the sound seemed to echo around the kitchen.
His mom didn’t come after him with a wooden spoon, though, so he hustled out the back door and across the green expanse of lawn that was his mom’s pride and joy every summer, over to his pop, who was leaning over the opened hood of his ancient pickup truck. Galen took up a spot on the other side. “What’s the problem now?”
Deke Jones pulled off his sweat-stained ball cap, rubbed his fingers through his thick iron-gray hair and replaced the cap once again. “Running like a top for once,” he drawled and lifted the beer bottle hidden in the depths of the engine. “Just didn’t feel much like cleaning fresh green beans with your mama in that hot kitchen.”
Galen chuckled. He and his father had done two things together while Galen had been growing up. Work on this same truck. And work the cattle. Now he was an adult, neither thing had really changed. “It is hot. Not even the middle of summer yet.” He turned around and closed his eyes to the sunlight. But that only made him think about seeing Aurora do pretty much the same thing every time she climbed up in the buckboard, ready for another show to begin.
She’d tilt her head back, eyes closed, for a good minute or two right before she, Frank and the buckboard blasted beyond the gate while the Wild West Wedding theme song roared over the loudspeakers.
“How many years you and Ma been married now?”
His dad gave him a strange look. “Forty-one years.”
“It’s a long time.”
“You’d think.” Deke took another pull on his beer, glancing over his shoulder to the house some distance behind them. A bed of white and yellow flowers lined the whole back side of the house. “The longer we go, the shorter the time seems to be. Like there’s not enough years left to spend together.” Then he made a face at his beer. “Listen to me. Must be still a hangover from the big wedding.” He eyed Galen. “You got girl trouble or something?”
Galen snorted softly. “You think I’d come to you if I did?”
Deke grinned slightly. As a father, he’d been a pretty silent authority figure. A hardworking rancher who’d passed on his work ethic and much of his stoic personality to Galen. Sometimes, Galen was grateful for that.
Other times, he sometimes wished he had the gift of gab like Jude, or the slick smarts like Christopher.
“Not exactly an answer, son,” Deke drawled.
“No, I don’t have girl trouble,” he assured, swiping mentally at the image of Aurora in a white dress and cowboy boots, dancing in some damn daisy field. “Ma wants you in for supper.”
“I know.” Deke swirled the base of his bottle in the air a few times. “Crowded as heck in the house these days.”
“That a complaint?”
“Nope. Just stating a fact.” His father squinted slightly and looked back at the house again. “When your mama and I got hitched, it took a while before you came along. Then, whoosh. The floodgates opened and next thing I knew, we had seven of you.” The corner of his lips lifted. “Now it’s like that all over again, what with all of you getting married.” He gave Galen a look. “’Cept you, of course. Now that Delaney’s planning on getting hitched to that young Mendoza, you’re the last holdout.”
“Never met anyone who put me in the mind to marry.”
Deke chuckled. “Now I hear you’re doing it a bunch a times a day out at Cowboy Country.”
Galen tugged his ear, hating that he felt a little foolish about it in front of his dad. “Playing Rusty pays even more than the ‘authenticity consultant’ business.”
“You’re still doing that, though, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “For now. More money I sock away in the bank, the more I can think about buying that bull of Quinn Drummond’s that he knows I want.” Another bull would mean covering more cows to produce calves. More calves, more money. Better to focus on the financial aspect than on making Aurora happy.
“Seems like you must be spending a lot of your day at Cowboy Country, then. How you managing to spare all the time?”
Badly, Galen thought. His sink was full of dirty dishes, his laundry hadn’t been done in a solid week, and his cupboard was bare. The only thing he hadn’t neglected entirely was his small cow-calf operation. He couldn’t afford to neglect them, or he’d end up coming back home to live with his folks, his tail tucked between his legs. No number of prizewinning bulls would help then, and becoming a failure at thirty-four wasn’t one of his aspirations in life.
“I’m managing,” he said shortly. Then honesty got the better of him. “Only because we’ve got a few more weeks before I’ve gotta start working ’em and sorting. Just glad that Ma doesn’t drop by my place too often these days. She’d have a conniption fit and fall right in it over the mess it’s in.”
Deke let out a bark of rare laughter. “’Spect she would, son. I expect she would.” He jerked his chin. “Finish that up so we can go in and eat.”
Galen took another pull on his beer, and set the still half-full bottle on the green, green grass beside his father’s. Just as he straightened, the back screen door of the house slapped open and Jeanne Marie hung out. “Deke Jones, you get your hind end in here right now, or this roast is going to be shoe leather! Should’ve known better than to send Galen after you. Two peas in a pod, you are.”
“Keep your apron on, Jeanne Marie,” Deke returned without heat. “We’re getting there.”
Even across the spacious yard, they could hear her harrumph before she let the screen door slap shut again.

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