The Cowboy's Texas Heart (The Dixons of Legacy Ranch 3)

Prologue

August 2016

The band devolved into laughter, their guitarist ass-over-head drunk. The crowd hooted and shouted as the bassist tried to help him off the stage floor as feedback whined through the speakers. Tyler Dixon winced at the sharp sound. Why in the hell had he let his cousin talk him into coming out? What was he, a twenty-one-year old dumbass again?

Tyler shook his head at his cousin’s band making fools of themselves, nursed a sip from his longneck, slouched his forearm on the bar and crossed his boots at the ankle as the clapboard walls lined with aluminum beer signs rattled from the train rumbling by. He dug beneath his loose plaid shirttails and pulled his phone from his pocket to check the time. Only nine? Felt like midnight. But then again, some of us get up for J.O.B.s at the ass crack of dawn.

The band continued their frolic to the laughter of the crowd, a mix of young and middle-aged locals straight off the farm and college kids from nearby Stephen F. Austin University.

“Amateurs,” a nearby man chuckled at the band.

Naw, those guys weren’t amateurs; they were just immature kids who’d never grown up. Some were Tyler’s age, or thereabouts. T.R.—his cousin and foreman, the band’s front man who’d dragged him out tonight, who was flirting shamelessly with the ladies crowded around the stage in skimpy skirts—was several years younger than Tyler but still old enough to know how to hold his beer and at least check for an over-eighteen wristband before winking at a chick. No excuse for being so piss-faced, and yet, a sliver of Tyler’s subconscious envied T.R. At least he had the freedom Tyler had never had, to cut loose, have fun, be himself—

“He’s gonna need a minute, ladies!” T.R. laughed, flashing his megawatt smile as more ribbing, and this time, some booing, increased the cacophony. “Booing? Actually…” T.R. leaned out, shielding his eyes and scanning the room, pretty-boy blues squinted.

“Naw, man,” Tyler grumbled, knowing his cousin’s probing stare.

Tyler stepped back into the dark perimeter out of the dance lights’ reach—

“Ty!” his cousin shouted into the mic, his gaze honing in on him like a probation officer on an ankle monitor. The crowd silenced a degree.

“Nope,” Tyler muttered. He didn’t do “spotlight” of any variety, big or small. Didn’t do front and center, had some damn good reasons for it.

“No? Aw, don’t hide, man!” T.R. teased. “Come fill in a riff or two while our boy here takes a breather and gets another beer!”

Just what your guitarist needs. Another beer.Tyler chuckled wryly.

He was too old for this shit. It was like hanging out with Toby, his littlest bro, playing that super fun game where Tyler was always the babysitter and Toby the little troublemaker. Trav, their middle bro, didn’t play that game anymore, thankfully. He’d lost his innocence in the worst possible way in Afghanistan, but at least he’d grown the hell up.

“Come on, Ty! Won’t take no for an answer!” T.R. turned to the crowd, flashing lights distorting their shadowed faces. “You guys wanna hear some music!”

The dance floor pulsated, whooping. The sound grated on Tyler’s eardrums as horribly as the feedback had. There was a dangerous storm brewing on the weather Doppler, ready to hit tomorrow. He and T.R. ought to be back at the farm, preparing, before it swept across the county. That geophysical surveyor from the state would also be there tomorrow to check into Tyler’s guest cabin, and Tyler needed to be there ready to greet him and then follow him like a bloodhound to make sure the fucker didn’t nose around his property where he didn’t belong—

“Hear that, Ty? Get your ass up here!” T.R. cut through Tyler’s mental planning. Again, Tyler shook his head. “He’s shy, y’all!” Cue laughter. Cue Tyler’s exasperated eye roll and another sip of beer. “C’mon, man, it’s your, like, one night out of the decade! Get your ass outta your bubble and live a little!”

He grunted at the public shaming and ensuing cheering. He liked his bubble and frowned as eager patrons turned his way, searching for the guy T.R. was shouting at.

He nursed another lazy bottle tilt, slouching his hand on his work-worn denim, ignoring the ladies who’d spotted him, eyeing him up and down as if they wanted to climb him like a tree.

“Naw, don’t gimme that indifference! Ladies and gents, my cousin is mean as hell on the guitar! He can play literally anything! Used to play at SXSW and Austin City Limits! And around the Boy Scout campfire, y’all!” More laughter. Tyler inhaled hard for patience. “C’mon, chant with me. We want Ty! We want Ty!”

What the hell? Did T.R. think he was some country music star plying millions of adoring fans instead of playing for tips in a dingy honky-tonk on the outskirts of Nacogdoches? Yet the room responded. The crowd crammed into this petri dish chanted. He scowled at T.R. who flashed that shit-eating grin and folded his arms smugly, glowing in his local stardom.

Tyler exhaled. Hard. Set down his beer and eyed it longingly, then swiped a bottle of water off the bar, climbing onto the plywood stage. The crowd erupted. He tilted his Stetson over his eyes. Why was he capitulating? To shut my cuz the hell up, that’s why.

He took the guitarist’s instrument from where the man sat swaying on a stool, slinging the strap over his shoulder as he yanked the man’s beer out of his hands. “Hey man, I was—”

“Sober the hell up,” Tyler grumbled, thrusting the water at him and jabbing the beer onto a 2x4 ledge in an unfinished portion of wall studs, strumming his fingers over the strings to familiarize himself with another man’s guitar and fine tuning the D string he could hear had been the tiniest degree flat, unnoticeable to most.

“Hell yeah, cuz!” T.R. crowed as he leaned against Tyler’s shoulder.

“Thanks a lot, Thaddeus,” Tyler grumbled through the side of his mouth.

T.R. laughed but pulled the mic away from his mouth. “Don’t ‘Thaddeus’ me, asshole. Just play and have fun for once in your life. Seth and Stevie are safe at summer camp. You’re a single dude with two weeks of freedom. Use ’em.”

Correction: divorced dad, not single dude. He ought to check on the boys again—

The drummer cracked his sticks together while Tyler deliberated on a reply, leading into a country cover. Tyler worked the frets, ad-libbing until he found the melody and his flow, keeping his head shadowed and averted from the crowd dancing as if he didn’t have a care in the world, when purplish waves, bouncing haphazardly flashed in his periphery. He side-eyed the girl to whom they belonged. Willowy, toned arms that she pumped over her head, sensual twists of her hips, tie-dyed tank top that had some sort of…dinosaur on it? His side-eye honed in. A tattoo flared across her shoulders. An over-twenty-one wristband dangled among a twining of leather bracelets. Completely in her element in her flirty skirt, sexy ankle boots… Okay, so he wasn’t side-eying her. He was full-on eye-screwing her expanse of bare skin, legs that didn’t stop, like she was some ethereal creature he couldn’t look away from. The platinum-blond woman she was dancing with, in equally mismatched clothes—like the two had robbed a thrift store—nudged her, eying him, having caught onto his staring.