“Hey, you don’t have to make excuses, Logan,” Val said. “Reba and I use the gazebo quite a lot . . . to be alone.” He glanced at Holden. “And what were you and Devlin doing there?”
Holden shrugged. “Maybe keeping a few of our wild ways isn’t such a bad thing.”
All the boys laughed. When the laughter died, Lincoln took the opportunity to say something he should’ve said a long time ago. “I love you guys.”
The other boys exchanged looks before Cru squinted at him. “Are you drunk?”
“No. I just wanted to let y’all know that you mean a lot to me.”
Sawyer flung an arm around Lincoln and tugged him close. “You mean a lot to me too. Without you, I would’ve gotten my ass whipped on more than one occasion for my smart mouth.”
“Because you were a punk,” Cru said.
Logan laughed. “We were all punks. Thank God we found women who loved us regardless. And speaking of those women, I’d like to get back to mine. We only have another hour before Helen will need to eat.”
“Please don’t tell me you’re keeping a nursing schedule,” Cru said.
“In a couple more months, you’ll be keeping one too, bro.” Logan glanced at Holden. “And you won’t be far behind.”
Cru and Holden had announced their wives were expecting within weeks of each other. Lincoln figured there would soon be lots of little bad boy babies toddling around. But tonight there was only one baby he was interested in. His baby. And it was time to get back to her.
The line dancing had ended and Dixie was now dancing with her daddy. Not wanting to cut in on the senator, he stood at the edge of the dance floor to wait his turn. But when Dixie spotted him, she stopped dancing, kissed her daddy, and came straight over to pull him out on the dance floor. He’d never been a good dancer, but he felt like one in Dixie’s arms. Especially when she looked at him with love in her eyes.
“Hey, stranger. Long time no see.”
“I was talking with the boys.”
“And what plans have you bad boys been hatching?”
“No plans . . . except maybe living happily ever after with the women we love.”
“Mmm.” She snuggled closer. “I like the sound of that.”
“Me too.” He kissed her forehead. “And if we’re going to live happily-ever-after, we probably should build us a house.”
“About that. Daddy gave me a little surprise just now.”
He drew back to look at her. “Oh, no. Your parents aren’t giving us a house.”
She swatted him. “Of course not. They already gave us our honeymoon to Hawaii. Daddy’s just giving me the money my grandma wanted me to have and I thought I’d build a house right smack dab in the middle of that piece of land you don’t seem to know what to do with.”
He started to argue, but then realized he didn’t have anything to argue about. Dixie had solved two problems at once. She was a smart woman and he was one lucky man. He kissed her long and deep, communicating all the love he felt in his heart. When he drew back, she swayed on her feet as if dizzy. He planned to make her dizzy for the rest of his life.
“Please tell me that you’re ready to take me back to our room and make love to me, Officer Hayes,” she said.
“I couldn’t be more ready, Sheriff Hayes.”
Dixie kept her eyes closed and smiled. “Sheriff Hayes. That has a nice ring to it.”
After Sheriff Willaby had been arrested, the town had an emergency election and had chosen Dixie as their new sheriff. Lincoln wasn’t surprised. She had turned out to be one damn fine law officer.
He stopped dancing. “What do you say we leave this party and go see how well a sheriff and a Texas Ranger fit together?”
Her green eyes twinkled with love and happiness. “Somehow, I think they’ll fit perfectly.”
The End
Turn the page for a Sneak Peek of
Katie Lane’s next Texas Bad Boy . . .
Sneak Peek!
Special Sneak Peek of Taming a Texas Rascal!
Coming your way December 2020!
Sawyer Dawson woke with a bad feeling that he’d done something he shouldn’t have. But since he woke with this feeling most mornings, he didn’t pay too much attention to it. He’d spent his life doing things he shouldn’t do. If something was forbidden, that usually meant it was a whole helluva lot of fun.
And Sawyer was all about having fun.
Sometimes he had to pay for it.
Like this morning.
His stomach felt queasy and his head felt like it might explode. That’s what happens when you downed an entire bottle of tequila all by yourself.
Or had he?
A weak memory of two pretty full lips on the rim of a shot glass fluttered through his mind. He tried to pull up the rest of the image, but his head hurt too much. When his cellphone rang, it felt like a toy monkey was inside his head banging its cymbals. He moaned and blindly reached out for his phone on the nightstand. When it wasn’t there, he opened his eyes. The sunlight coming in through the tinted hotel windows had him squinting. After a few blinks, he focused and spotted his cellphone lying on the floor next to his jeans. He leaned over the edge of the mattress and grabbed it.
“What?” he answered grouchily.
There was a chuckle on the other end of the phone. “Bad night, I take it.”
Even with a major hangover, he couldn’t help smiling when he recognized Lincoln Hayes’s voice. Lincoln had been his friend since they’d been pain-in-the-ass teenagers. Now Linc was a Texas Ranger who had gotten Sawyer out of more than a few jams over the years . . . all from doing things
