Summertime on the Ranch by Carolyn Brown (leveled readers txt) 📗

If I don’t, I’ll see you before dawn. Hold down the fort. I left the cartoon channel on for you.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “And thanks for this morning, ole boy. You done good, sneaking into the wine shed so I could see Becca. That woman has gotten under my skin, and I’m running out of excuses to go over there and talk to her.” He patted the dog on the head one more time. “You’re a good wingman, Tuff, but the Broken Bit don’t let us cowboys bring our four-legged buddies with us.”

Dalton was whistling as he got into his truck and drove west through the tiny town of Terral. He’d grown up in Bowie, Texas. Strangely enough, Becca had lived in Ringgold, just twenty minutes up Highway 81, and he’d never met her until she came to work for Austin last December.

Dalton had known from the time he could take his first steps that he wanted to be a rancher. By the time he was a freshman in high school, he was on the payroll at his grandfather’s ranch a few miles south of Bowie in Fruitland. When he graduated, he went to work full time for his grandfather, and then two years ago, he met Rye at a rodeo. Rye was looking for a foreman. Dalton was wanting to spread his wings, so he took the job in Terral, Oklahoma, when Rye offered it to him. The only bad thing about jumping over the Red River to live in Terral was that Dalton sure had to endure a lot of teasing during the Texas-Oklahoma football weekend. Dalton was a die-hard Texas fan, and there was no way he’d ever turn his back on the Longhorns.

He had turned on the radio even before he adjusted the air conditioner. Good country music would get him in the mood for some two-stepping and beer drinking that evening, and maybe, like he’d told Tuff, he would even get lucky and not be home until after breakfast.

There’s not a woman in the world who can satisfy that itch you’ve got for Becca. His father’s voice popped into his head just as Blake Shelton began to sing “Honey Bee” on the radio.

He ignored his late father’s advice and sang along with Blake. Dalton had always thought love at first sight was a bunch of overfried bologna. Rye had told him all about how he’d been downright love drunk when he first met Austin, and Dalton had thought he was crazy. Now, he wasn’t so sure, because he was feeling what Rye described for Becca.

“And she’s not even my type,” he muttered when he turned south. “She’s too tall. She’s a redhead and everyone knows they’ve got a temper. To top it all off, she’s got those green eyes that I could drown in.”

A mile down the highway, he glanced over at the new casino that had gone up three years ago. Sitting right on the edge of the Red River, it drew people in from all over north Texas and provided a few jobs for the folks around the little town of Terral. He almost stopped there to have a drink or two and blow a twenty-dollar bill at the slots, but that would put him late getting to the Broken Bit, which would mean all the ladies would already be taken. Besides, he wanted to flirt with a cute little brunette and maybe get lucky enough to get Becca off his mind.

He crossed the river bridge into Texas and drove another five miles to Ringgold. There he made a right-hand turn on Highway 82 and headed toward Henrietta. In another ten minutes, he pulled into the Broken Bit’s dimly lit parking lot. Judging by all the pickups and cars and the loud music that seemed to be raising the roof a few inches, the place was booming—just the way he liked it. He got out of the truck, locked it, and shoved the keys into his pocket.

“Hey, Dalton,” a feminine voice called out behind him.

He turned around to see Lacy Ruiz not ten feet away. “Hey, girl. You just now getting here?”

“Yep,” she answered. “You want to save me the last dance?”

A broad grin covered his face. Lacy was his kind of woman—short, brunette, a good dancer, and he had spent enough nights with her to know that she made a mean western omelet the next morning.

“We’ll have to see about that,” he said as he pulled a ten-dollar bill from his pocket and gave it to the man at the door for both their cover charges. “Never know what might happen between now and closin’ time.”

“Ain’t that the truth, but we could be each other’s backup plan,” she suggested.

“Sounds good to me.”

She disappeared into the crowd of folks doing a line dance. The female vocalist was doing a credible job of the band’s rendition of “Any Man of Mine,” by Shania Twain. Dalton followed Lacy inside, slid onto the last empty barstool, and ordered a longneck Coors.

“How about you, Dalton?” Tessa, the bartender, grinned. “You goin’ to ever walk the line like the song says, or are you going to go to your grave still chasin’ women?”

“Haven’t decided,” Dalton answered. “All the good ones like you are done taken.”

“Honey, I’m old enough to be your mama,” Tessa told him. “And there’s plenty of good ones still out there. I just doubt you’ll ever find the one for you in a place like this.”

“You’re here,” he said.

“Yeah, but my husband and I met at a church social. It wasn’t until we’d been married twenty years that we bought this place, and for your information, we’ll both be in church tomorrow morning,” she told him.

“So will I,” Dalton said.

“Sure, you will,” Tessa giggled.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dalton asked.

“You’ll sow wild oats tonight. Tomorrow mornin’, you’ll be sittin’ on the back pew praying for a crop failure. You can’t fool me, cowboy,” she said. “I hear that Austin and Rye