Page 36 of A Sweet Deal for the Cowboy

“I can’t possibly get them there by tonight.”

Gunner stood, taking Nova’s hand with him. He didn’t pull on her, but he didn’t ease his grip either. “We want them there tonight, for their own good.” He paused. “We could go pick them up if that would simplify things for you.”

Uh-oh. Nova didn’t have her van back, and he didn’t have room in his truck. Was he planning to bring the livestock trailer?

“That will not be necessary.” Priscilla looked at Nova. “What is your new address?”

Nova had no idea. She looked at Gunner again, and he rattled it off. Priscilla rolled her eyes, but she wrote it down. Then she looked up at Gunner. “They will not be here tonight. Call your lawyer if you want to. I’m not scared of lawyers.” She looked at Nova. “I will call you with my decision once I’ve had time to make it.”

Chapter 25

When Gunner put his hands on the steering wheel, he realized they were shaking. This embarrassed him, and he tried to steady them, hoping Nova hadn’t noticed.

That had been the most unnerving fifteen minutes of his life. He really hadn’t liked that woman. He’d felt her looking down on Nova, felt her looking down onhim, and she didn’t know anything about him.

Her attitude had brought a rare rage out of him, and he hadn’t enjoyed that feeling one bit. How dare she be on some power trip when there were kids involved? How dare she flex her power at the expense of these kids? Even if they were the kindest foster parents in the world, they still weren’t family. These kids were grieving their mother, and this woman was forcing them to do it away from the only other family they knew.

He had to stop thinking about it. He was only getting angrier.

“I had no idea you were so eloquent,” Nova said, sounding awestruck.

“I’m not,” he said and chuckled. “I think that was mostly God.”

She looked at him quickly. “Mostly God?”

“Yeah.” Gunner was too overwhelmed to care if she thought this was weird. It was a little too late for her to back out now. “I prayed before I went in there that I wouldn’t have to talk. Then I felt guilty about that prayer because if you needed me, if those kids needed me, then I didn’t want to be unwilling to speak.” Hetook a breath. “So I prayed that if I should talk, then God would give me the words.”

“Uh ... yeah. I would say he did.”

“Yeah, he did.”

“Doesn’t that happen in the Bible to someone?”

His understanding was that it had happened to a lot of people in the Bible, but he didn’t want to make her feel bad. “You mean Moses?”

“I don’t know. Anyway, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I guess I need to bone up on my Bible knowledge if I’m going to be raising kids, huh?”

“I would imagine that it would help, yeah.” His hands were finally starting to calm down, for which he was grateful.

“Do you really have some scary lawyer on call?”

“No. I do know him, and whether she is scared of him or not, there’s no way that she’d want to deal with him.”

“Why is that?”

“The guy is a pompous pine cone.”

Her guttural snicker made him feel good about himself.

“Anyway, whether I could get him to do anything or not, I know his daughter Jenna would help. She’s not technically my sister-in-law yet, but that’s how I think of her. I didn’t mean to lie. It just came out that way. I know she will marry Denver eventually. Anyway, I know she’d be on a plane in a heartbeat if we called her.”

“Maybe we should call her.”

“Yeah, maybe we should.” He wasn’t looking forward to telling any of the brothers about his new bride just yet. Ryker had been a good sport, but Gunner didn’t expect similar treatment from the others.

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