One of my brows rose. “Because I want to take your clothes off?”
“In this context, yes.”
“God, I love you,” I said, laughing again.
“Good thing. You’re stuck with me now.”
“Never wanted anything more.”
I’d only just started kissing her before the music changed again, and Presley’s voice came over the speakers, directing everyone to our designated exit. Olivia disappeared for a minute, coordinating her things with Presley, and I shook hands with those who offered, accepting kisses on the cheek and well wishes from the rest as they flowed toward the wide path they’d marked with lanterns in the grass. Presley appeared and began passing out sparklers. The sun hung low enough to kiss the treetops when Olivia slipped her arms around my waist and smiled up at me.
“You ready for this to be over?” she asked.
“Over? We’re barely getting started.”
She beamed. “See? Romantic.”
“It’s your fault. You made me love you like this.”
“It was the boots, wasn’t it?”
“A hundred percent the boots.”
I leaned in to kiss her again, but Presley yelled, “Come on, lovebirds!”
“I swear to God if I get interrupted kissing my wife one more time …”
Olivia just laughed and grabbed my hand, and together we ran down the path toward the pink tractor where it sat waiting for us with cans dangling from the back. I climbed up first, then helped her into my lap. And when I turned it on, Olivia waved behind us, squealing through the lurch when I put it into gear.
And then there was nothing but me and her.
Off we bumbled, leaving the party behind us. I wondered for a minute what we looked like—her skirts took up almost the entire cab.
She smiled at me like she knew a secret.
“What?” I asked.
“We’re married.”
“Damn straight we are. You’re all mine.”
“Oh, I’ve been all yours forever.”
“Yeah, but now there’s a ring on your finger that tells everybody else. I want the whole world to know that you belong to me just like I belong to you.” With one hand on the wheel, I tipped her so I could gaze upon the face I loved so desperately.
When I kissed her, I kissed her good and well. Kissed her like a man who owned the world. Kissed her like I was the luckiest man to ever walk the earth.
And this time, there were no interruptions.
Thank you so much for reading Bet The Farm! I hope you’re ready to put on your rain boots and head out to find some baby cows to love on.
Want to read Jake and Olivia’s prequel? Click here to download it for FREE! Interested in reading Presley’s story? Check out Friends With Benedicts and find out if Presley gets her happily ever after!
And if you love Pride and Prejudice, be sure to get your hands on Pride and Papercuts and/or the Bennet Brothers for a fun twist on the classic! And book one of the Bennet Brothers is FREE, so really, you have no excuses. Go! Run!
Three of my besties also just released new books, and I can’t recommend them enough. Get ready for the angst with Close Quarters by Kandi Steiner, Hold The Forevers by KA Linde, and Eastern Lights by Brittainy C Cherry.
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Turn the page to read a sneak peek of Friends With Benedicts!
SNEAK PEEK: Friends With Benedicts
PRESLEY
The amount of coffee Texans consumed in hundred degree weather astounded me.
I made my eleventyith turn about the diner with the steaming coffee pot in my hand, smiling my Tip Me smile, praying to the grease gods that the backup pot I had going would be finished brewing by the time I made it back behind the counter. This one was nearly dead.
It was unnatural, really. How anyone could drink anything besides water, beer, or sweet tea in this heat was beyond me, but here they all sat, swigging their drug of choice faster than science should have allowed.
Ding. “Order up!”
“Perfect timing,” I said to my empty pot as I hurried to the window where breakfast plates waited to be swept away to their forever homes.
Seconds later, plates were stacked up one arm, and I whirled back onto the floor for distribution.
It was my third day of work at Betty’s Biscuits in the bustling metropolis of Lindenbach, Texas, population eleven hundred and two. Eleven hundred and five as of last week when my mother, my kiddo, and I rolled into town after three hard days of driving. In the heat. With no A/C.
It was a real treat, let me tell you. My four-year-old, Priscilla, was sticky on a normal day, but after eight hours without air conditioning and nothing but gas station junk to eat? Forget about it. The kid had eaten so many lollipops, she could stick to the wall like one of those jelly spiders. Not that I would stick my child to the wall. I mean, on most days, anyway.
As I divvied out pancakes and eggs, I listened to the hill country twang in everyone’s voice, finding it charming and familiar. I’d spent summers here as a kid with my cousins, running around their thousand-acre bee farm here in town, but I hadn’t been back in near five years.
I don’t know when I would have visited again if we hadn’t lost our house in Northern California. I certainly never thought I’d live in Texas under any circumstance. But here we were, gratefully accepting the handout from the Blum side of the family until we got back on our feet.
I wondered if my mom’s cousin Dottie knew we’d never been on our feet and decided not to be the one to tell her.
It was nine in the morning, but I figured it was already a hundred and twenty degrees outside. Maybe an exaggeration, but for a California girl used to a coastal breeze, this land-locked hellscape was an abomination of nature.
And yet, the coffee flowed like wine.
Texans were their own breed.
“Can I get you anything else?” I asked, hoping they’d say no.
“More coffee, if you’d be so kind,” a leather-faced man with cowboy hathead said with a smile that made me think of grandparents and the sweet scent of tobacco and ice cream on summer nights.
“Absolutely,” I answered.
It was my go-to canned waitress answer to any given question. Every server had one. Some people said you bet, or sure, or be right back with that, but found absolutely really sounded like it was a top priority. Nobody said absolutely and then didn’t do what they promised.
I mean, except servers. But only when they were really busy. Or when their patrons were dicks. The dicks got their coffee last.
Marlboro man would get his pronto.
I scuttled around the room picking up plates on my way to the back, humming along to “All Shook Up.” It was a classic 50s diner—pastel pink and that minty Tiffany shade of blue-green that the pervs at Crayola called “Sea Foam Green.”