by Emmy Eugene
“Janelle,” he said, her name scratching in his throat. “What are you doing here?”
Sneak Peek! Chapter Two of The Cowboy Billionaire’s Christmas Crush
Janelle couldn’t believe she had the courage to be standing on Russ’s front porch. She also couldn’t believe she’d heard his entire conversation with his brother.
“Janelle?” Russ said again, and she blinked.
“Yeah—yes,” she said, clearing her throat. Her heart had been pounding for a solid hour, and she just wanted to calm down.
He came closer, and it was so unfair that he was so tall, with such broad shoulders, and that caring glint in his dark eyes. Janelle had always loved his eyes, from the very first moment she’d sat down across from him at the speed dating event during Chestnut Springs’s Octoberfest.
“You have another dog with you,” he said, looking down at the mutt panting at her feet.
“Yeah, uh…” She’d maybe used the dog to get herself out to the ranch. Somehow, she could deal with cheating husbands and angry wives as they became exes. She could argue for the rights of one of those parents in court until she got what she wanted. She owned and ran the biggest family law practice in the country.
And Russ Johnson made her heart flutter and her nerves fray. He could also make her laugh faster than anyone else, and the man kissed her like she was worth something, and Janelle had been miserable for almost a week now.
“Look,” she said, brushing her loose hair out of her eyes. “Someone brought the dog over, and they brought him to me, because they thought we were together.”
Russ started nodding, the pain etched right on his face. He ducked his head, that dark gray cowboy hat hiding his eyes. She hadn’t meant to hurt him, and she wanted to tell him she was miserable too. “And I brought him over here, because I want us to be together.”
I like her a whole lot.
Janelle knew Russ liked her. When she’d called him to say she wanted to take a break, he’d gone silent. He accepted what she said, and she liked that he didn’t argue back. Her ex would’ve argued back. In fact, she’d taken Henry back three times because of his excellent argumentative skills.
She should’ve never married another lawyer.
“You want us to be together,” Russ said, lifting his eyes to hers. “You know what you’re saying, right?”
“Yes,” Janelle said. “And I told you last week, I just wanted a break. It wasn’t a full break-up.”
“No, what you said was that you didn’t want me to meet your daughters.” He held up one hand. “Which I’m fine with, sweetheart. Honest.”
“It’s not fair for you to call me sweetheart,” she said, teasing him now. And he knew it.
“It’s just me,” he said, saying what he’d always said. “And when you meet my momma—”
“I know, I know,” Janelle said, smiling. “She’ll call me baby and sugar and sweetheart too.”
Russ bent down and picked up the leash Janelle had put around the dog’s neck. “I’ll take him out to the enclosure, but I don’t know where we’re going to put him. We’ve got at least eight more dogs than we can house.”
Janelle saw another opportunity zooming toward her, and she snatched at it. “I could take some,” she said.
Russ’s eyebrows went up, and she desperately wanted to swipe that cowboy hat from his head and kiss him. She licked her lips instead, her fantasies going down a path she couldn’t follow. At least right now.
“You could take some?” Russ repeated. “Where are you going to put them?” He leaned in the doorway, easily the sexiest man alive in that moment.
“I have an old stable in my backyard,” she said. “Maybe you could come help me fix it up, and I could probably put six or seven dogs back there.”
Russ considered her, the corners of his mouth twitching up.
“What?” she asked, smiling at him.
“Do you know what to feed a dog?” he asked. “Or how often they need to go out? Or any of that?”
“No,” she said. “That’s why my awesome, handsome cowboy boyfriend will come help me…and the girls.”
Russ’s eyebrows went all the way up, and he folded his arms. She loved that he stayed silent during key moments, because the mystery of what he was thinking was hot.
“I get to meet the girls?” he asked.
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Janelle wanted that too. She was just overprotective of Kelly and Kadence.
“No, Janelle,” he said, oh so soft and oh so sexy. “I don’t know what you did or didn’t hear. But I’m pretty sure it’s obvious that what I want…is you.”
The air left Janelle’s lungs, because Russ Johnson always knew what to say and how to say it. Her fingers twitched toward his cowboy hat, and Russ chuckled.
“I saw that.” His eyes twinkled like stars, and he took off his own cowboy hat this time. Janelle slipped one hand along the waistband of his jeans, his body heat so welcome. He enveloped her in an embrace, pressing his cowboy hat to her back.
“Russ,” she whispered. “I like you a whole lot too.”
“So you heard everything.”
“I need to go slow,” she said, closing her eyes and tipping her head back, an open invitation for him to kiss her.
“I know that, baby,” he said, sliding his fingers around the back of her neck and into her hair. His lips touched hers in the next moment, and kissing Russ was like coming home. He took his time like he’d really missed her, and Janelle knew that he had. She hoped he could feel that she’d missed him too, and that she was sorry she’d freaked out about him meeting her kids.
The following afternoon, she picked the girls up from school and said, “Okay, we have a new project.”
“Another one?” Kelly asked, adjusting her backpack between her feet. “Mama, we’re still making the brownies tonight, right?”
“Yes, yes,” Janelle said, smiling at her oldest. “Chocolate and caramel swirl.”
Kelly smiled. “So what’s the new project?”
“It has to do with that dog someone brought over last night.” Janelle made the left turn out of the school pick-up lane.
“You took it over to the ranch,” Kelly said. “And then brought it back.”
“They don’t have room over there, and I told Russ we could put a few dogs in our stable. So we need to get it cleaned up for them.” Janelle knew seven was more than “a few,” but she didn’t want to think too long about it. Otherwise, she’d wonder how she was going to keep them all happy and fed.
But it couldn’t be that hard. The girls could help her put out fresh food and water morning and night. She had a fenced backyard they could romp around in while she went to work and the girls went to school. And then she wouldn’t have a canine sleeping in her bed, like she’d had last night.
She turned onto their street while the latest and greatest song came on. “Mama, turn it up,” Kadence said from the back seat. Janelle smiled as she did, so glad she’d been pulling her hours back at the firm so that she could be there to pick up her girls in the afternoons.
She’d had a nanny for the past three years—since Henry had moved out—but she didn’t want Mallory to be the one who knew her daughters. She didn’t need to work as much as she did, and she wanted to be as good of a mother as everyone believed she was as a lawyer.
So she put up with the tween pop song her daughters knew every word to. Even Janelle could sing along, because the song was completely overplayed. She pulled into the garage and waited for the song to finish before turning off the car and getting out.
“Everyone in,” she said. “Wash your hands and change your clothes. We’ll work for an hour in the stables, and then it’s brownie-making time.”
Kelly cheered, and Janelle smiled at her. She’d taken off a huge bite this holiday season, but her ten-year-old loved baking and cooking, and Janelle had said they could put a post up every Sunday, asking all the clients and followers of the Bird Family Law social media to
suggest the things they should make that week. And they’d make at least three of them.
The fun had only been going for a week, and since there hadn’t been school last Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, they’d made five of the dozens and dozens of suggestions.
This week, they’d chosen caramel swirl brownies, carrot cake muffins, and mini cheesecakes. They’d already made the carrot cake muffins last night, and Janelle wouldn’t be surprised if they made five additional desserts that week.
The employees at the firm enjoyed the leftovers, and now that Janelle had gotten Russ to forgive her, she’d have another reason to pay the sixteen-year-old next door ten dollars to sit with her sleeping kids while she ran out to the ranch after dark.
She felt giddy at the idea of seeing him again that night, and she told herself that a woman her age shouldn’t be sneaking off to see her boyfriend. As if on cue, her phone chimed and it was Audrey from next door, asking if she was still coming over that night.
Yep, Janelle sent. Thank you so much.
She got a smiley face and a thumbs up in return, and she put the step-stool in front of the sink so Kadence could reach to wash her hands. “Kel, did you wash?”
“Yes,” her daughter called as she ran down the hall, and Janelle had the suspicion that her daughter had not washed her hands. Janelle was a bit of a germaphobe, and she worked with a lot of people. Always in and out of her building, with their kids, and their babies, and her daughters went to school with a plethora of kids who could have anything.
Her rule to wash hands after school eased her mind, though it probably didn’t do anything to actually eliminate the germs she could be exposed to.
“Snacks?” she asked.
“That white popcorn,” Kadence said, soaping up really good.
Janelle pumped some soap into her hands too and shared the running water with her daughter. “White popcorn comin’ up.” She washed, dried, and got down the bag of white popcorn before Kelly came back down the hall. She now wore an old pair of plaid pajama pants and a T-shirt that had been bleached at some point. “What do you want for a snack?”
“Cheese quesadillas,” Kelly said.
“That’s a meal,” Janelle said. “We’ll eat dinner while the brownies bake.” She didn’t have time for cheese quesadillas either.
“Granola bar,” Kelly said.
“Great,” Janelle said, giving her daughter the side-eye. “Wash your hands and get the box down. Let’s go change, Kade.” She gave Kelly a don’t even try to lie to me again look as she guided Kadence out of the kitchen. “Pick something that can get dirty, okay?”
Kadence skipped into her room, and Janelle went into hers to change out of her pencil skirt and silky blouse. She kicked off her shoes, missing the cute heels she used to wear. But she had bunions now from all those adorable shoes she’d worn in her twenties. She’d been wearing orthopedic flats for over a decade now, and she actually really liked them.
Several minutes later, she and her daughters went outside, where the dog that had been dropped off last night came over to greet them. He jumped away when Kelly reached for him, and Janelle said, “Go on back to the stable, girls.” She herded them out of the gate, because Russ had warned her that stray dogs were unpredictable.
“What should we name the dog?” Kadence asked.
“Name him?” Janelle stepped through the gate too.
“Yeah, if we’re gonna keep him, he should have a name.”
“Oh.” Janelle took her daughter’s hand. “What do you want to name him?”
Kadence thought while they walked back to the stable. “King.”
“King it is,” Janelle said, smiling. She wished she could bottle up seven-year-olds, because they seemed to have the magic of the world inside them. Kadence skipped everywhere, and even mundane things like dandelions intrigued her.
Janelle reached the stable and opened the door, the smell of something old and dusty coming out. “Oh, boy,” she said, looking at the wreck that existed inside the stable. Her first thought was to call Russ and invite him over. But that wouldn’t be fair, because he had a ton of work to do at his own ranch. With his brother gone, Russ was working more than usual, and she’d agreed to go consult with him about taking on half a dozen dogs that night, after the girls were down for the night.
Janelle turned back to her kids. “Kelly, go grab the broom from the garage. Kadence, see if you can get the garbage can we use for weeds.”
The girls turned to go do the things she wanted, and Janelle reached for a pair of gloves on the shelf by the door. She could do this for one hour, just to be able to tell Russ that she hadn’t done nothing that day. She didn’t want him to think she was using him, and though he’d kissed her last night and said they were good, Janelle knew he didn’t trust her completely.
She also knew trust was built one brick at a time. One day at a time. One good experience at a time. So she’d put the girls to bed, drive out to the ranch, and hope she could have another amazing night with Russ Johnson.
Her phone blitzed out a high-pitched noise, and her heartbeat leapt over itself. She’d assigned that chime to Russ, and while she could hear Kadence pulling the garbage can across the cement, she hurried to pull out her phone.
I have something to show you tonight.
Great, she tapped out. Can’t wait.
Oh, and how does hot chocolate sound?
“Amazing,” she whispered, a smile crossing her face.
“What, Mama?” Kadence said, arriving behind her out of breath.
“Nothing.” Janelle pocketed her phone and reached for the garbage can. “Nice job, Kade. Now, we’re going to fill this thing up.”
She’d work, and she’d bake with the girls, because there would be nothing better with hot chocolate than caramel swirl brownies.
Can Russ learn to trust Janelle, or will his Christmas crush stay that way? Find out in the THE COWBOY BILLIONAIRE’S CHRISTMAS CRUSH.
Sneak Peek! Chapter One of The Cowboy Billionaire’s Secret Baby
Rex Johnson liked weddings, because there was always a lot of available women clamoring for the bouquet. They had their hair done up, their makeup perfect, and those high heels he liked a whole lot.
He sat in the front row with the rest of his family, his mother already weeping and Travis hadn’t even come out to the altar yet. As the baby brother, Rex had a special relationship with his momma, and he reached over and took her hand in his.
She squeezed his hand, and he knew she wanted this marital bliss for all of her sons, including him. He didn’t want to disappoint her, but he wasn’t going to get married. That was why he kept the women he dated at arm’s length, why he only went out with them for a maximum of two months, whether he liked them or not. And most of the time, he knew after the first or second date if a woman would even get that long on his arm.
His brothers thought he was a player. Even Griffin, the next oldest brother and the one Rex lived with full time in town, thought Rex was a bit cruel to women. What they didn’t know was that Rex had given his heart away five years ago. He couldn’t give away what he didn’t have, but he didn’t want to stay home every weekend either.
Most of the women he went out with knew what they were getting, and those that didn’t, Rex told them the rules.
Yes, he had rules, and he wasn’t sorry about them.
The twittering in the crowd increased, and Rex looked to his right to see Travis had come outside. Finally. The sooner this wedding got started, the sooner it would end. His brother took his spot at the altar, shook hands with the preacher, and nodded as the other man said something.
Rex hadn’t gotten the fancy ranch wedding, with miles of flowers and lace and the rich, black tuxedo with the matching cowboy hat. He hadn’t had people rushing around to make sure all the chairs were perfectly aligned or that the guest book sat at a perfect forty-five-degree angle from the five-tier cake.
He’d dressed in the nicest clothes he had and met the woman of
his dreams at City Hall in downtown Bourne. Her sister and her husband had been there as witnesses, and Rex had smiled through the whole thing.
He’d smiled when Holly told him she was pregnant. Smiled at her parents when they’d gone to tell them. Smiled, smiled, smiled.
Rex was tired of smiling.
He hadn’t been smiling when Holly had lost their baby. Or when she’d said she’d made a mistake and then filed for divorce only two months after they’d said I-do. Or when she’d left for work one morning and never came home.
He’d packed up everything they’d owned and put it in storage, where it still remained in a facility on the outskirts of Chestnut Springs. He wasn’t sure why he’d chosen to store it so close, as he hadn’t heard from Holly in the five years since all of that had happened, and he wasn’t living in his hometown at the time.
Maybe for distance. In the end, he’d returned to Chestnut Springs a few years later, and he’d been living with Griffin in the downtown home they’d gone in on together for three years now.
The music started, and a hush fell over the crowd as they stood. Rex did too, going through all the motions. He was happy for Travis and Millie. He was. They made the perfect couple, and Travis had always been a bit quiet when it came to women.
Rex, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. He smiled at Millie as she came down the aisle with his father. Hers apparently lived somewhere else, and they didn’t have a great relationship.
Every step his father took over the white river rock was slow and looked painful. Rex really didn’t know how he was going to leave in a few short months to work a service mission in the Dominican Republic, but Mom insisted they were going, that the doctors said it was okay.
Daddy kissed Millie’s cheek and passed her to Travis, who hugged him. Rex’s heart—the little he had left—swelled, and he felt a brief flash of the perfect family love he shared with his parents and brothers.
He did love them, and he enjoyed the Thursday night dinners at his parents’ house and the Sunday afternoon meals and activities that still took place at the ranch. Seth and Jenna came every week, and with Travis and Millie living in the front corner of the ranch, Rex assumed they’d keep coming too.
