The Cowboy Billionaire's Neighbor Next-Door: A Johnson Brothers Novel (Chestnut Ranch Romance Book 1)

by Emmy Eugene

  “Yeah,” Travis said. “I remember that.”

  “So, in San Antonio, I worked for a golf course and country club, doing all of their events. I have a degree in hospitality management with a specialization in outdoor events. Up here, I’ve opened my own business doing the same thing. Outdoor event planning, and I’ve been shadowing some of the established businesses who do events.”

  “But this is an indoor event,” Travis said, his eyebrows furrowing.

  He was devilishly good-looking when he did that, and Millie smiled at him again. “True. I was just getting a sense of what a Texas Hill Country wedding would look like. I’m meeting with Serendipity Seeds on Monday to look at their spaces, indoor and outdoor. I’m hoping to have my website done by Friday next week, and then…I’m taking on clients.”

  Millie felt a little bit sick to her stomach just thinking about it. But she pushed past the nerves, the butterflies, and the fear. “But the event planning gives me some flexibility with Momma, and I need that right now.”

  She also needed to get paid, but she kept that part buried under her tongue.

  “Sounds amazing,” Travis said. “My brother does dog adoptions once a month. Does that qualify as an outdoor event one might need a planner for?”

  Millie laughed again and shook her head. “I don’t think so, Travis.”

  “Hmm. He might have to do them every week the way people have been bringing him dogs.”

  Millie tilted her head to the side, hearing something in his voice. “You don’t sound happy about that.”

  “He’s leaving for two weeks,” Travis said, glancing over to where Seth and Jenna danced, obviously hopelessly in love with one another. “And we get a few new dogs each week. We have nowhere to put them.” He met Millie’s eye again, and she had the inexplicable urge to help him.

  “Do you need more housing for them?” she asked. “My mother has a huge backyard, and it’s just going to waste.”

  “We have lots of space on the ranch,” he said. “Just not the physical facilities. Seth needs to build a much bigger place.”

  “Maybe you should hire someone to come do it while he’s gone,” she suggested. “Like a wedding gift for him.”

  Travis looked at her, his expression thoughtful. “That’s actually a good idea.”

  Millie smiled and tucked herself right into his personal space. “And Travis, I hope you won’t wait another two months to call me again.” The last notes of the music faded, this dance over. “Or for the first time.” She slipped her hands down his arms and backed up one step, and then another. “I enjoyed dancing with you.”

  With that, Millie turned and left the dance floor. Her internal temperature could only be labeled as scorching hot, and she needed to check in with Paige anyway. She reminded herself that she was working tonight, not there to dance the night away with a sexy cowboy.

  Still, she felt Travis’s eyes tracking her as she wove through the tables to the exit. Once there, she turned back, but he was nowhere to be found. A sigh slipped from her mouth, and all she could do was hope and pray that he would call her this time.

  Travis did not call that weekend, but Millie told herself it was because it was a holiday weekend. Her brothers had gathered for a Thanksgiving Day meal, but they each lived within a couple hours’ drive of their mother, and they hadn’t stayed the night.

  So it was that Millie woke on Monday morning, her meeting with Serendipity Seeds still hours away. Darkness still coated everything, and she was alone in the house where she’d grown up. Well, her mother was here, too, but Millie felt like she was alone.

  Her mother had just turned seventy years old over the summer, and Millie hated seeing her feeble and weak. She’d always been rail thin and somewhat sickly from an autoimmune disease that she simply lived with. But she’d been diagnosed with ovarian cancer the week after her birthday, and things had gone downhill from there.

  In and out of the hospital, her mother had needed help. So Millie had tied up her affairs in San Antonio, and moved the hour and a half north.

  She sighed as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. At least her mother had converted the bedrooms where her children had grown up into adult sleeping spaces. Millie had a nice queen-sized bed, with gray curtains on the windows and a desk for her business work.

  But she didn’t want to be alone the way she felt now. She didn’t want to grow old alone, the way her mother had. She wanted a family, and children, and lots of grandchildren, and a husband that would stick with her through thick and thin.

  Every time Millie thought about her father, she grew a little angry. She’d worked to overcome the feelings of abandonment he’d left her with, and she closed her eyes and breathed in deep, the way one therapist had taught her to do.

  Her father had left because of something inside him, not anything to do with her. She continued to meditate, working through the feelings that seemed more prevalent in the few months since she’d returned to Chestnut Springs.

  Eventually, she showered and went into the kitchen, where her mother sat nursing a cup of tea. She’d been a vegan for Millie’s whole life, but when she’d been hospitalized, she’d been told that she was severely malnourished and needed to eat protein. She’d been eating small servings of chicken and fish since, and she had come out the other side of the bloating and inflammation well.

  “Morning, Momma.” Millie dropped a kiss on her mother’s forehead. “Want to go for a walk after my meeting? We need to get in our mile.”

  “Yes, baby,” her mother said, which is what she said to pretty much everything Millie asked. She used to have beautiful, blonde hair that Millie knew she dyed to keep it the color she wanted. But since the chemotherapy treatments, she’d stopped doing that, and now her hair was a lovely shade of silver. She’d cut it too, and the natural curls made her look almost childlike.

  “Did you eat breakfast?”

  She lifted her teacup, and Millie suppressed a sigh. Her mother was often nauseous in the morning, but she still needed to eat. “I’ll make a protein pancake, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Millie set to work doing that, glad they were going walking later. “All right, Momma. I have to go now.”

  “Knock ‘em dead, baby,” she said, and Millie gave her mom a warm smile. She kept her confidence as she drove over to Serendipity Seeds, but the moment she got out of her car, she felt like a shell of who she should be. Why would they want to partner with her, an event coordinator they’d never worked with before?

  Because they need someone, Millie told herself. And you’re good. You have a decade of experience, at a venue much more upscale than this.

  She glanced around at the storefront, but she continued past it to the event center farther from the parking lot. The gardens back here would be glorious in the spring, and she really wanted to be here to see them. She wanted to plan a company party here. A wedding. A reception. The monthly meeting for the classic cars club in Gillespie County. Anything and everything.

  Taking a deep breath and tugging on the bottom of her robin’s egg blue jacket, she opened the door and went inside.

  All they could tell her was no. Millie was used to that word, if her dating history counted. Armed with the knowledge that no wouldn’t break her, she approached the woman sitting at the reception desk. “Hello, ma’am,” she said. “I’m here to speak with Mildred White about the event planning coordinator position?”

  She put on her most professional smile at the same time her phone rang. She didn’t want to look at it, so she ignored it while the woman glanced at the large desk calendar on the desk in front of her.

  Millie’s fingers fumbled over the phone in her purse, silencing it with the buttons on the side.

  “Millie, right?” The woman glanced up.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You can go right on back,” she said. “Mildred is waiting for you.”

  For a terrifying moment, Millie thought she was late, but a quick glance at
the clock behind the desk told her she wasn’t. “Thank you.” She stepped past the desk as the woman rose to open the door for her.

  Once behind the safety of it, a hallway stretched for several yards, with another door waiting for her there. She quickly took out her phone, just to make sure Momma hadn’t called with a dire need.

  One swipe, and she saw a number she didn’t recognize. So not Momma. Maybe it had been someone looking to hire her, and hope filled her chest before she could tell herself that few things were more dangerous than hope.

  As she stared at the phone number with a Texas area code, a text came in.

  Hey, Millie. This is Travis Johnson. Call me after your meeting, would you? Sorry if I interrupted you.

  The two numbers matched, and Millie’s elevated pulse shot right through the roof.

  He’d called. Travis Johnson had called, and Millie lifted her head high and strode toward the door at the end of the hall. Even if she didn’t get this job, today was the brightest one she’d had in a long time—because Travis had called.

  Travis and Millie are going to be so much fun! Find out if they can take their mistletoe kiss to lasting love in THE COWBOY BILLIONAIRE’S MISTLETOE KISS.

  Sneak Peek! Chapter One of The Cowboy Billionaire’s Christmas Crush

  Russ Johnson stood outside, the faint music from the wedding dance behind him. He couldn’t go back inside, not with his chest as deflated as it was. He was thrilled for Seth and Jenna, who’d been friends for a very long time. And he owed his last two months of dating the beautiful Janelle Stokes to Seth, who’d encouraged him to get out there and meet someone.

  And he had. He and Janelle may not have seen each other every day for the past two months. Some people would call their relationship slow.

  Russ didn’t mind either of those things. When something awesome happened, he wanted to tell Janelle. When she had something to celebrate, he wanted to be the one who showed up with a cake.

  And he’d thought they’d been getting along really well since the speed dating event in October. Slow and steady wins the race, he’d told himself.

  Except he was losing. Big time.

  Janelle had called him on Tuesday, and Russ had known from the moment she said his name that he wouldn’t like what she was about to say.

  And he hadn’t. Because she’d broken up with him, citing her daughters as the reason why. He’d wanted to meet them. She’d freaked out.

  It’s fine, he’d texted her after she’d told him she didn’t want to see him anymore. I don’t have to meet them until you’re ready.

  He hadn’t heard from her since.

  He took a big breath and looked up into the starry sky. Behind him, the music stopped, and the door opened. People began piling outside, and Russ wanted to disappear again. But he joined the crowd instead, stepping over to Griffin and Rex while he scanned the crowd for Travis. He didn’t see his brother, and Rex stepped out to help their parents get out of the fray.

  The photographer came out and raised both of his hands. “Okay, everyone,” he yelled. “Sparklers for everyone. Don’t light them until I say, and you’re going to hold them up like this.” He held the sparkler right up above his head. “And wave them in short bursts. We only get one shot at this.”

  He started passing out sparklers, as did his assistant. Russ had no way to light the sparklers, but the photographer and his assistant started handing out matches too. He backed up to the doors and opened them a couple of inches. “Is the bride and groom ready?”

  He must’ve gotten the go-ahead, because he turned back to the crowd outside. “All right, light ‘em up.”

  The buzzing and fizzing of sparklers started, and the photographer called for Seth to bring Jenna outside. He did, and Russ could feel his brother’s joy all the way at the back of the crowd. A cheer went up, and everyone lifted their sparklers and started waving them as taught.

  The camera went click, click, click as the photographer walked backward, capturing the sparkler sendoff. He turned and took several pictures of the car, which Rex and Griffin had decorated. The décor was barely appropriate, but Seth and Jenna laughed at the cookies stuck to their car and ducked inside.

  With them gone, the event concluded, and the vibrant atmosphere fizzled along with the sparklers. Russ watched his burn all the way down, and then he put it in the pile with all the other burnt-out fireworks. He and his brothers still had an hour of clean-up to do, and he still didn’t know where Travis had gotten to. Probably with Millie, Russ told himself, and he’d told his brother to go ask her to dance.

  Russ found him inside, alone, folding up chairs. “You didn’t come out for the sparkler thing?”

  Travis shook his head, looking a bit dazed. Russ didn’t have time to wonder what that was about, because they had to be out of the posh castle where Seth and Jenna had gotten married in exactly one hour.

  He started helping with the chairs too, while others pulled down decorations, picked up centerpieces, and loaded everything into boxes to be taken outside. When everything was finally done, he got in the truck with Travis and started back to Chestnut Ranch.

  Neither of them spoke, and Russ was grateful Travis wasn’t the kind of brother who needed to know every detail of everything the moment it happened. He alone knew that Janelle had broken up with Russ—well, until that disastrous dinner conversation. Now everyone knew, and Russ was actually surprised his mother hadn’t cornered him during the dancing to find out what had happened and then offered advice for how to fix it.

  His momma meant well, he knew that. But she didn’t understand that Janelle was as stubborn as the day was long.

  She was smart too, and beautiful, with a wit that spoke right to Russ’s sense of humor. She outclassed him in every way, and he told himself he should be grateful he got two months with her. But he couldn’t help wanting more time. Wanting forever.

  “How was the dance with Millie?” he asked when he went through the gate and onto the ranch.

  “Good,” Travis said.

  “You gonna call her?”

  His brother sighed and looked over at Russ. “Yeah. How do I do that?”

  Russ grinned at Travis, who was a couple of years younger than him. “You just put in the numbers, and when she answers, you ask her to dinner. Easy.”

  “Easy,” Travis said, scoffing afterward. He got out of the truck when Russ parked, but Russ stayed in the cab for another moment. Could he just tap a few times to pull up Janelle’s contact info, call, and ask her to dinner?

  “Yeah,” he said to himself darkly. “If you want another slash on your heart.” And he didn’t. It was already hanging in shreds as it was, and Russ rather needed it to keep breathing.

  Russ survived Saturday and Sunday, because Travis was there. They did minimal chores on the ranch on the weekends, and he and his brother could get the animals fed and watered in a couple of hours. He’d napped, and he’d stared at his phone, almost willing it to ring and have Janelle on the other end of the line.

  Monday morning, Travis loaded up with the ranch hands that lived in the cabins along the entrance road, and they left to go move the cattle closer to the epicenter of the ranch.

  Russ was glad he hadn’t drawn that chore this time, but his loneliness reached a new high in a matter of hours. Griffin and Rex worked somewhere on the ranch, but Russ wasn’t as close with them as he was Seth and Travis. He certainly didn’t want to talk about Janelle with Rex, who thought it was fun to go out with one woman on Friday night and a different one the next evening.

  Evening found Russ standing on the back edge of the lawn, looking out over the wilder pastures of the ranch. In the distance, dogs barked and barked and barked. Russ normally loved dogs, but the increase of them on the ranch over the course of the last month had been too much.

  And with Seth gone for the next couple of weeks, and Russ didn’t even find the puppies cute anymore. Winner barked, as if she was the mother hen and was telling the other dogs to settle down. They
didn’t, and she ran along the grass line, barking every few feet.

  “Enough,” Russ told her. Eventually, he turned back to the house. He ate dinner, showered, slept. Then the next morning, he got up and did everything all over again. Travis returned that afternoon, and Rex ran to town for pizza and their mother’s homemade root beer.

  “To a successful relocation,” Rex said, his voice so loud that it echoed through the kitchen.

  Travis just grinned at him and took a bite of his supreme pizza. Russ was just glad there were more people in the homestead that night. It was a giant house, and he didn’t like being in it alone.

  “I’m goin’ to shower,” Travis said, and Russ picked up another piece of pizza. Griffin started telling a story about something Darren had said, and Russ was content to listen and laugh. A few minutes later, Travis came thundering down the stairs, his cowboy boots loud on the wood.

  Rex was practically standing in the doorway already, and he ducked out to see what Travis was doing. He whistled and said, “Hoo boy, where are you off to?”

  Russ exchanged a glance with Griffin, and said, “He’s so loud.”

  “Try living with him,” Griffin muttered, and they both moved into the living room, where Travis was putting one of his nicest dress hats on. He turned toward everyone and said, “I’m goin’ out with Millie.”

  A smile crossed Russ’s face. So he’d called her.

  “Good for you, bro,” Rex said.

  “You look like you’re going to throw up,” Griffin said.

  “Go,” Russ said, stepping in front of the younger brothers. “Don’t listen to them. Have fun.” He smiled at Travis and nodded, because his brother needed to go out, and he needed the encouragement.

  “What if—?”