Jeremiah (Stud Ranch 5)

“Fine by me. I never give a shit what people say about me.”

I think he even meant it. Which was infuriating. Everyone in a small town was conditioned to care what other folks thought about you. Gossip was our bread and butter, occasionally even our currency.

When Maria brought out Jeremiah’s burger a few minutes later, it wasn’t in a to-go box. When I made an exasperated noise, he just looked my direction and picked up his burger. “It’ll take me five minutes to eat it. Five minutes ain’t gonna kill any dead things.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, fine,” I said and reached over to snatch a hot, salty fry. And then another.

“Get your own,” Jeremiah said with his mouth full, yanking his plate away.

“I’ve barely eaten today and you’ve got a plateful.”

“Kitchen’s open.” He gestured toward the menu plastered on the wall. “No one’s stopping you.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “No, I’m fine. I’ll just wait and eat after we’re done with our errands like I’d planned.”

“Suit yourself.” He shoved another huge bite of burger in his mouth. He’d already downed almost half of it in two bites. He really would be done in five minutes. Still, any gentleman would’ve shared his fries.

Ha. Who was I kidding. Jeremiah Walker? A gentleman?

“Oh, fine,” he sighed. “If you’re gonna make eyes about it.” He shoved his plate back toward me.

I grinned and grabbed two fries, dipping them in the little bowl of ketchup at the edge of his plate.

We finished off the food and then headed out, covering our heads and dashing to the truck through the rain. We stopped off at the dress shop and then got to the caterers right before they closed—but at least I’d made it and the last check was delivered.

I climbed back up into the cab, slightly damp, and breathed out in relief. “All done.”

“Good,” Jeremiah said, “Cause I told Raul I’d be by his ranch before sunset to pick up the horse trailer I just bought off him.”

“Why do you need a—”

“It’s my boss’s wedding present for Reece. He’s driving a gelding down with him when he and his family come. And I’m buying a roan off him. Always meant to have horses around the place.”

I nodded. I guess I’d known they were fixing up the stables. There just hadn’t been horses on the HB Ranch for over a decade. Not since I was a kid. I had a horse named Winnie till I was eleven and we had to sell her cause we couldn’t afford her upkeep. It was stupid that it made me swallow down a lump in my throat even thinking about it after all this time.

“Cool,” I said, looking out the passenger seat window.

The views were spectacular as we crested hill after hill and the vista of the entire valley was spread out before us. I tried to enjoy the view since for once I wasn’t driving.

The rain got harder though, really driving, and soon there wasn’t much to see. There were a couple rainy seasons in Texas—the usual one, spring, and then again in fall sometimes during hurricane season, when any came through the Gulf Coast. I thought I remembered them talking about a tropical depression or something on the news this morning. I hadn’t paid much attention because it’d been downgraded from a hurricane and it wasn’t landing during the actual wedding.

I religiously stalked the ten-day forecast and while there were supposed to be showers late today, the furthest of the ten day was still clear with sunny skies, thank God.

When the road dipped down to cross one of the many streams that was usually a trickle, if not bone dry by this time of year, there was water rushing underneath the bridge.

Jeremiah grimaced as he slowed the truck down. “I don’t like the look of that.”

“How much farther is it?”

“Another twenty minutes.”

I pushed up so I could look over my shoulder at the stream. It was still about two feet below the road but I’d lived in the area long enough to know how quick flash-flooding could hit with rain like this. At the same time, we were on a tight schedule. It wasn’t like Jeremiah had another half day to waste coming all the way back out here.

I looked back at Jeremiah. “If we’re quick it should be fine.”

He nodded and we kept on going forward.

When we came to another low water crossing—I wasn’t sure if it was the same stream curving back around again or a different one—I looked to Jeremiah, expecting him to second-guess the decision to keep going forward. But he didn’t even slow down this time. He barreled on ahead; if anything, stepping on the gas even more.

Okay. Well, apparently, we were doing this.

I held onto the door as the truck bounced along the uneven road and we climbed back up another hill out of the valley.