Cowboy Underneath It All. Delores Fossen

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       Chapter One

      “I guess you’re not feeling too good about your girlfriend getting married, huh?” the bartender said to Captain Kane Bullock.

      Kane didn’t know the bartender’s first name, but he was one of the Fletcher boys, probably barely old enough to tend bar. But he should be old enough to know that it was a stupid-ass thing to say.

      Of course Kane wasn’t feeling “too good” right about now. It felt as if he’d been kicked in the teeth by an eight-legged bull. All because his girlfriend was apparently about to be wed...

      And she didn’t have plans to say that “I do” to him.

      Not that Kane wanted an “I do.” He didn’t. But he darn sure hadn’t expected to come home and find Violet Wright, his flame of more than ten years, wearing another man’s engagement ring.

      “Heard about you getting out of the Army,” Fletcher went on.

      “Air Force. I fly fighter jets. Flew fighter jets,” he corrected.

      Kane had to get used to saying that because once his terminal leave was up in a month, he would no longer be a captain, a fighter pilot or on active duty. It was the right thing to do, giving it up, because it was finally time to put down some roots. Also the right thing to move home to the ranch where he’d grown up. The very place where he thought he’d see Violet again. And he had seen her all right. He just hadn’t counted on seeing her like this.

      “You know for a fact that Violet’s marrying a good fella,” the bartender went on. “For what it’s worth.”

      Well, it was better than her wedding a bad one, Kane supposed, but hell in a handbasket, it still stung.

      Violet could have at least called or emailed to give him a heads-up before he’d gotten back to town. That way he wouldn’t have been blindsided ten minutes earlier when he’d literally walked in on her bachelorette party at Calhoun’s Pub. All Kane had wanted was a beer after the two-day trip where he’d driven from the base in South Carolina and then here to Spring Hill, Texas.

      He’d gotten a lot more than just the beer, though.

      After all that driving, Kane had learned of his girlfriend’s engagement from Sissy Donovan, the senior-citizen cocktail waitress who had blurted out the news before he’d even been able to sit down at the bar. It wouldn’t be long before that same waitress pointed out to Violet that Kane was there. In fact, it was a shocker that she hadn’t already done it. Maybe Sissy was the sort who liked to watch a train wreck play out in slow motion. Or perhaps she was just too busy calling every single person she knew to come to the bar for a showdown.

      “Hate to say it, but my cousin, Charlene, is plenty happy about you and Violet breaking up,” the bartender went on. “She’ll be calling you real soon to give you a sweet deal. On some cows,” he added with a knowing wink.

      Yeah, Kane was betting Charlene would be calling, and the sale of cows might be involved, but Charlene would have a lot more than that on her mind. Even when Kane had been with Violet, Charlene had made open plays for him, once even offering him sex when Kane had been at a party with Violet. Despite that, Kane might have to deal with Charlene, along with fending her off, because he did need her livestock.

      “Guess you gotta have some time to work through this.” The bartender again. Fletcher had been wiping the same spot on the bar—the spot directly in front of Kane—since he’d served him his beer.

      Kane decided to keep his response simple, and he gave the guy a look that could have frozen the hottest corners of hell. Fletcher was obviously too young or too stupid to pick up on facial cues because he stayed close.

      He ignored the bartender, sipped his Lone Star and watched the goings-on in the mirror above the bar. Normally, it was a pretty good place to take in the action in his small hometown even late on a Wednesday afternoon when there wasn’t much to see.

      But right now there was plenty in the seeing department.

      Kane wished there had been a different scene playing out behind him other than a giggling Violet who hadn’t even noticed him. Wished, too, that he could just leave, but if he did now without finishing his beer, it’d be all over town that he was jealous.

      Of course, the jealousy would get blown to epic proportions, and by the time the gossips were done, it’d be all around town that he had been crying in his beer. No tears, but he was well past the being pissed-off stage.