The Boss Lady's Man

{Chapter} 24

{Chapter 24}

Toni took one last deep breath of the Georgian air. She was going home today! She refrained from jumping up and down in excitement.

“Excited?” Erik asked from beside her.

She nodded as they both mounted their horses and rode out of town, away from Georgia, away from where she didn’t belong, but toward home.

**********

The long ride home seemed longer than it had been on the way to Georgia, probably because Toni wished it was over so she could finally hear the Texas dirt crunch under her boots, hear the jingle of her spurs when she walked, and sleep in her own bed. The hours seemed to stretch on for days, the ride nearly excruciatingly long, but they finally arrived in Desperado, only an hour or so from Sundance.

Toni exited the train and nearly giggled as the dry Texas heat assailed her. It felt so good to be home.

“Welcome home, Mrs. McBride” Erik grinned at her.

That was the only thing that had changed since she left. Erik’s devastating smile nearly made her hardened heart skip a beat. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

Toni smiled back at him and stuck her hands in her back pockets. “It’s sure good to be nearly choked on dust again,” she said.

Erik laughed and handed her suitcase to her. “I’ll go get the horses.”

Toni nodded. “While you do that, I’ll be checking the mail. I doubt those boys even thought about it while I was gone.”

She somewhat dreaded to see what they had done to her ranch while she was away. With Katie around there was probably no telling. She shifted her suitcase in her arms and walked toward the post office.

Judd Garret sat in his usual position behind the counter in the post office, flipping through a tack of envelopes. He looked up.

“Ah, Toni Curtis… or should I say McBride now? I see you’re finally back from your excursion” He smiled.

“Finally. It’s good to be home, Judd,” Toni said with a smile.

Judd narrowed his eyes at her and handed her a pile of envelopes. “You look different.”

The statement shocked Toni. That was the last thing she had wanted people to say to her when she arrived back home. She hadn’t wanted Erik to change her, but he had and now she had to fix it.

“Married life must agree with me” Toni heard herself saying.

Judd nodded and Toni was reminded of Emily’s husband, who shared the same name. There were reminders of Georgia everywhere in Sundance, and she didn’t know what to think of them. Reminders of Georgia reminded her of Erik and that one evening when everything was perfect for just once in her life.

She thanked Judd and stepped outside to see Deputy Adam Sterling rushing toward her.

“Miz Curtis…er…McBride, I’ve been waiting on you to get back” he said.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, shoving the mail in the back pocket of her jeans.

“It’s that gang I told you about, you know, the ones targeting unprotected ranches occupied by women and not very well staffed?”

“Yeah, what about them? You thought that was the gang targeting me.”

“Well, I just got word that they’d been in jail for about six months” Deputy Sterling was hesitant about telling her the information, and she knew exactly why.