Taming A Texas Heartbreaker (Bad Boy Ranch Book 4) Read online

  She folded the sweater and carefully placed it in her suitcase, then she sat down on the bed and patted the spot next to her. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about, Aunt Gertie.” She should’ve known her aunt would ignore her and keep standing.

  “I’m not a dog, Reba Gertrude. If you have something to say, say it.”

  Reba took a deep breath and tried to find the words that wouldn’t set her aunt off on a tangent. She finally decided that no matter how she said it, Aunt Gertie wouldn’t like it. So she gave it to her straight.

  “You aren’t a spring chicken anymore, Aunt Gertie. I know you planned the entire heart attack thing to get me and Valentine together, but you have fallen twice in the last six months.”

  “Because some idiot kicked up the rug and didn’t smooth it down. And the last time, I didn’t fall. I plopped. There’s a difference.”

  Reba tried not to roll her eyes. “Okay, but when you . . . plop, you need to have someone around to help you get back up. While I’m gone, Mike said he’ll make sure to keep an eye on you. And I intend to ask my friends to take turns stopping by every day.” She’d been so busy making flight arrangements and getting everything at the boardinghouse squared away with Mike that she hadn’t told any of her friends she was headed to New York. Not even Evie. She planned to tell them tonight at the Halloween party. Something she needed to start getting ready for. But first, she had to make sure her aunt understood how her going to New York could change things.

  “I know you love this boardinghouse, Aunt Gertie. I love it too. But you brought up a good point. It’s just a pile of sticks and bricks. What matters more than the building itself is all the memories we made in it.” Tears pricked at her eyes at the thought of all those memories. “And we made a lot, didn’t we?”

  Aunt Gertie snorted. “Is there a point to this poignant story, Reba? If there is, would you move it along? We need to start getting ready for the party.”

  Reba sighed. “I don’t know what’s going to happen between me and Valentine, Aunt Gertie. He might not want a relationship with me at all. But if he does, there’s a good possibility that I’ll be living in New York City.”

  “A relationship?” Aunt Gertie pointed a finger at her. “If you’re even thinkin’ about givin’ away the honey before Valentine buys the hive, you’ve got another think comin’, Reba. If he loves you—which I know he does—then he’ll marry you. And if he marries you, I realize you might live in that city of sin with him. If that happens, we’ll need to sell the boardinghouse. Is that what you can’t seem to spit out?”

  She nodded as tears leaked out of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. As much as she’d tried to convince herself the boardinghouse was just sticks and bricks. It was so much more to her.

  Aunt Gertie turned her walker around and sat down next to her and took her hand. “I know, girlie. It’s hard to say goodbye. But you’re right. We have made a lot of happy memories in this old house and those we’ll carry with us until the day we die. Then, who knows, maybe we’ll both come back as ghosts and join Granny Dovey in the garden. But until then, we’re going to live. You’re going to live with that handsome writer and I’m going to live in Galveston and make your mama and daddy’s retirement miserable.”

  So Aunt Gertie had had a plan all along. It figured.

  “Oh, Aunt Gertie.” Reba pulled her tight as she allowed the tears to fall. “I love you so much.”

  Aunt Gertie thumped her on the back. “I love you too.”

  Reba drew back. “But what about Lucas? You can’t leave him now that you’ve gotten back together.”

  “Maybe I’ll talk him into coming with me. Or maybe we’ll just have one of those long-distance relationships. Now stop with the waterworks. We have a party to get ready for.” Aunt Gertie winked. “And since this might be our last, I think we should make it a doozy.”

  The party turned out to be quite the doozy. Most of the townsfolk stopped by to enjoy a cup of hot apple cider and the food Reba had laid out on the dining room table. Thanks to Valentine’s story, there were also numerous guests staying at the boardinghouse. All of them hoping to catch a glimpse of Granny Dovey’s ghost.

  Aunt Gertie and Reba presided over the gathering as Miss Scarlett and Miss Melanie. They both wore southern-style gowns, but Aunt Gertie’s was always the hit of the party. It was a replica of the green velvet gown and matching hat that Scarlett had made out of the drapes.

  Later in the evening, Reba’s friends started showing up. Devlin came as Dr. Frankenstein and Holden was her creature. Penny and Cru came as Annie Oakley and Wild Bill Hickok. Logan, Evie, and their fourteen-year-old son, Clint, came as the Three Musketeers. Raynelle and Luanne made a perfect Cher and Dolly Parton. But the costume Reba loved the most was Lucas Diamond’s. He wore an old fashioned suit with a brocade vest and had shoe polished his white hair black and drawn a skinny mustache on his top lip.

  Reba knew immediately who he was. And so did Aunt Gertie.

  “Mr. Butler, I presume,” her aunt said in a perfect southern drawl. Lucas’s drawl was much more Texan.

  “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a hot damn.”

  Everyone laughed, including Aunt Gertie. “I bet Scarlett never had two Butlers.” She patted her cat’s head. “Although everyone knows who my favorite is.”

  “Ugly cat,” Lucas grumbled as he followed Aunt Gertie into the dining room to get some cider.

  Reba wanted to tell the entire book club about her leaving, but Emma and Jolene had come down with colds, Sadie had decided to stay at the Gardener Ranch with Evie and Penny’s father, and Maureen was taking her kids trick or treating. So she could only gather Raynelle, Luanne, Devlin, Penny, and Evie into the kitchen to tell them.

  “Why did you bring us to the kitchen to help you, Reba?” Raynelle flipped the long black hair of her Cher wig over her shoulder and glanced around. “There doesn’t seem to be anything you need done in here. Except maybe slice that apple pie.”

  “Actually, that pie’s for Valentine.” Reba had made it using her grandmother’s special love potion recipe. If it turned out Valentine didn’t love her, she planned to force him to eat every last crumb.

  “Then why are we here?” Devlin asked. “Is ‘helping in the kitchen’ code for something else?”

  Reba laughed. “Actually, this time, it is. I have something to tell you. I’m leaving for New York tomorrow.”

  “Hallelujah!” Evie gave her a big hug while the other women seemed confused.

  Reba finished returning Evie’s hug before she cleared up their confusion. “I’m in love with Valentine Sterling and I’m going to New York to see if he loves me too.”

  Luanne’s eyes widened. With the Dolly Parton fake eyelashes, they looked twice as big. “I knew it! I knew there was something going on between you two.” She hurried over to hug Reba. “And don’t you worry about him loving you. If you want, I’ll come over and give you a Lulu makeover before you leave. If it got Devlin a Double Diamond bad boy, I figure it will get you one.”

  Every one of her friends came over to hug her and wish her well. Which made her misty eyed. She was going to miss all of her wonderful friends. The only one who didn’t hug her was Devlin. She stood back still looking confused.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Why would you go to New York when Valentine is here?”

  Reba stared at her. “Valentine is here?”

  Devlin nodded. “He’s been staying out at the Double Diamond. I thought everyone knew.” She looked at Penny and Evie. “Logan and Cru were there painting the barn with him this morning.”

  “Logan never mentioned a word about Valentine still being here.” Evie scowled. “That’s what I get for marrying a man who doesn’t talk much.”

  “Cru didn’t say anything either,” Penny said. “And he talks nonstop. Which means our guys are up to something.”

  But Reba didn’t care what they were up to. All she cared about was that Valentine was still there. She gra
bbed her truck keys off the hook. “Can y’all help my aunt with the party? I’m going to the Double Diamond.”

  “You don’t worry about a thing, Reba,” Evie said. “We got this.”

  “That’s right,” Penny said. “You go get that man. We want you to be one of our Double Diamond sisters.”

  “Dammit straight we do,” Devlin said.

  “It’s damn straight, honey.” Luanne corrected her.

  Reba laughed as she headed out the back door. She passed numerous guests who had staked out the garden to catch Granny Dovey’s ghost and a couple of high school kids making out in the hammock. She waved at the guests, but ignored the kids. She was on a mission to get her man and she wasn’t going to let anything stop her.

  But something did stop her. Right before she got to the side gate that led to the parking lot, she caught sight of something white and billowing disappearing down the winding path that led to the gazebo. At first, she thought it was the sheet she had asked Ty and Mike to put up. But then the snap of cotton in the wind had her glancing up at the sheet draped in the tree above her.

  Which meant the billowing white she had seen was . . .

  She wanted to talk to Valentine in a bad way, but she couldn’t pass up the one and only chance she might have to see Granny Dovey’s ghost. She hurried down the winding path and ran smack dab into her. Reba dropped the pie and her car keys as arms surrounded her with the scent of musty old mothballs. Which was what she figured a ghost probably smelled like.

  But when she drew back, it wasn’t the ghostly face of her grandmother she saw.

  “Valentine,” she whispered on a puff of surprised breath.

  His familiar topaz gaze took in her face. “Reba? What are you doing in the garden? I thought you’d be inside with your guests.”

  “What are you doing here? I thought you had gone back to New York.” She suddenly noticed the gray coat he wore with the gold collar and buttons. “And what do you have on?”

  “It’s a confederate soldier’s uniform that belonged to one of Chester and Lucas’s relatives. Chester had it in an old trunk in the barn, which explains the smell. I just thought since you were going to be Melanie that I would be Ashley Wilkes. But a mothball-smelling Ashley probably wasn’t the best idea.” He hesitated. “You were okay with me going back to New York?”

  Ashley. He had dressed up like Ashley. A bubble of joy burst inside her, and she looped her arms around his neck. “Yes, I’m okay with you going back to New York—as long as I can come with you. It just so happens that I have a ticket.”

  He blinked. “You bought a ticket to New York?”

  “Right after I read your story about Granny Dovey. It’s a beautiful story, Valentine. One that made me realize I’ve been running from love. When Mike told me that you had been planning to leave before Aunt Gertie was taken to the hospital, I was scared. Scared that what I thought we had, we didn’t have at all. Scared that I had made a complete fool out of myself like I did with Billy Bob. So I decided to break things off between us before you could. I thought that would prove I was a strong woman who didn’t need a man. But all it made me was more of a fool.” Tears clogged her throat and burned her eyes. “Because I do a need a man. But just one man. You.”

  A slow smile spread across Valentine’s face, and he reached up and brushed a tear from her cheek. “You have me, sweetheart. You pretty much had me from the moment you showed up in my room in a see-through nightie and holding a Colt .45.” He cradled her tear-damp face in his hands. “Because you’re real, Reba. You’re the realest thing I’ve had in my life in what feels like forever. And you were right. I was hiding from that fat kid who got bullied. I was hiding behind the pretentious author who drove fast cars and pretended like he hated carbs. But you didn’t fall for my disguise. You looked deeper and you found Marvin. And you helped me to find him too.”

  “Marvin?”

  “My real name is Marvin. Marvin Valentine. I’m not a suave writer with a smoldering look. I’m a geek who wears glasses and likes doing dishes and baking and writing silly ghost stories. You not only found me, but you accepted me. Thank you, Reba. Thank you for being the woman you are. Not my woman, but your own woman.” He stepped closer as if to kiss her, but then stopped and looked down. “Is that an apple pie?”

  She glanced down to see the splattered pie smashed beneath Valentine’s boots. “Shoot. I baked it for you using Granny Lovey’s recipe and I didn’t leave out one ingredient. I was hoping it would help you fall in love with me.”

  Valentine pulled her into his arms and kissed her before he drew back. “You don’t need a love potion to make me love you, Reba Dixon. You did that all by yourself. Somehow I have a feeling your grandmother didn’t need a love potion either. Maybe one of these days, we’ll finally catch her and ask her.”

  She cuddled close to him, not caring a bit that he smelled like old mothballs. “Hopefully, the next owners won’t get rid of the garden.”

  “What?” He stepped out of her arms. “You sold the boardinghouse?”

  “No, but I’ll have to if I move to New York.” She paused as her insecurities caught up with her. “Unless you don’t want me to move to New York with you.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t.” Before she could feel hurt, he pulled her back into his arms. “I want you to stay right here in this sprawling old house cooking in the cozy kitchen and serving meals in the dining room on your traditional family china, and gardening with Roo and Butler and your grandmother’s ghost. And I want to stay right here with you. I want to bake in the kitchen and write in the garden and make love to my wife in our little cottage.”

  Reba stared at him. “Your wife?”

  He got down on one knee. “Let me be your Ashley, Miss Melanie. We have the house and we have the love. All we need are the rings and the forever vows.”

  Reba was so overwhelmed with joy that she couldn’t speak. She had thought she had to release one dream to catch another. But as it turned out, she’d caught both.

  “Well, don’t just stand there lookin’ stupid, Reba Gertrude.” Aunt Gertie appeared out of the darkness with her hot pink walker and her favorite Rhett Butler. “Answer the man.”

  “Yes!” She pulled Valentine to his feet, then flung her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Yes, Marvin Valentine, I’ll marry you.”

  As Valentine swung her around in a circle, Aunt Gertie snorted. “Marvin. Now that’s a masculine name.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The wedding was held in the Dixon garden. With it being late November, Reba had worried and fretted about rain. But as she walked down the brick pathway on the arm of her father, there was not a cloud in the clear blue Texas sky. The sun reflected off Reba’s pile of red curls like flames dancing in a halo around her head.

  It was fitting.

  She was an angel. An angel who had saved Val from himself.

  As he watched her walk toward him in the beautiful white wedding gown Aunt Gertie had made, he couldn’t help but thank God for the gift he’d been given. He also thanked Granny Dovey. Call him sentimental or superstitious . . . or just a creative-minded writer with an overactive imagination, but he truly believed that the woman had wanted Val and her granddaughter to get together. He wanted to think she was there right now, watching as Reba walked down the aisle with tears in her eyes.

  When Reba reached him and her father handed her over, Val looked into those eyes and the rest of the world disappeared. Like Adam and Eve, it was just the two of them standing in the garden. Two imperfect halves that made a perfect whole. He had stayed up all night trying to come up with just the right words to say when they exchanged their vows. He’d written several drafts, but ended up throwing them all away. As it turned out, there were only a few words that were fitting. And when it was his turn, he said them with conviction.

  “I love you, Reba Gertrude Dixon. And I will love you for the rest of my life and beyond.”

  More tears filled her eyes and she crumpl
ed the paper she held in her trembling hand and smiled a wobbly smile. “I’ll be right there loving you back for eternity, Marvin Alexander Valentine.”

  “Well, you can’t get any better vows than that,” Aunt Gertie, who was sitting in the front row with Butler, said. “Now move it along, preacher. I’m sure everyone would rather eat and dance than listen to any more from you.”

  Everyone laughed, except the preacher. But he did move it along. Val, on the other hand, took his time kissing his new wife to the cheers and whistles from his bad boy groomsmen. He wanted to whisk her away for a few more kisses before the reception, but the photographer caught them and he was forced to spend the next thirty minutes taking pictures. While Reba was getting pictures with her attendants, he waited for his turn with his attendants.

  “I told you there was something in the water,” Lincoln teased.

  “It’s not the water,” Cru said. “It’s the women. One sip and you might as well buy a ring and rent a tux. If you want to stay single, Linc, you might want to stay completely away from Simple.”

  Lincoln’s smile faded. “That will be a little difficult with Sam Sweeney now officially considered a missing person.”

  After a good month of looking, Lincoln hadn’t found Sam. Now Val wasn’t the only one with a funny feeling about what had happened to Sam. All the Double Diamond boys were worried.

  “At least we don’t have to worry about the Sheriff Willaby coming out to the ranch and getting into it with Chester and Lucas,” Holden said.

  Sheriff Willaby had posted a racial comment on his Facebook page and had been suspended until an investigation could take place. Val figured the investigation would uncover other unethical behavior and Willaby would lose his job permanently. No one seemed too upset about the prospect.

  “I have a pretty big caseload right now,” Lincoln said. “But when I get it whittled down, I plan to spend some time here to see if I can find anything else out about Sam. It will also give me a chance to do my part for Chester and Lucas.” He held up his hands. “But absolutely no tap water or women.”