Texas Size Passion (A Cowboy's Heart Book 2) Read online

  “I believe…You need to sit down.” He barked at the stranger that gave off a very uneasy vibe to him. His once friendly and sensual tone he had used with Emily had turned into that of an animalistic, deep growl dripping with an overprotective nature for the young woman in the shop. “Now that we are face to face with one another…Perhaps you can tell me why you were looking in the window of the shop.”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything, you dumb piece of shit.” The man replied, attempting to sound fearsome in his shaky, slightly higher pitched voice. “What I do is none of your damn-“

  Before he could finish the sentence, John wrapped his large hand around his throat, and gripped onto it with enough strength to where it would hinder him from completing his sentence. He brought his head in closer to his own, and narrowed his piercing emerald stare into that of the pale blue one that the individual sat before him possessed as he lowered his voice to sound much more threatening that it really was.

  “I am going to ask you this only one more time, you pathetic poser…and then I am going to either let you go or pop your head off your neck with just a squeeze of my hand if you want to keep playing this little game with me.”

  In that very moment, his gaze found the person that had tried miserably to appear tough as nails quickly turning into that of mush the very second he had issued his deadly serious threat to him. He struggled to keep from smirking at him as he spoke to him once more, finding how he was behaving now to be quite entertaining.

  “Now…I am going to ask you this one…last…time. Why were you looking in the window of the shop?”

  “I…” The traveling voyeur said, “I was looking for my friend.”

  “Who is your ‘friend’?”

  “Emily Withers.”

  John immediately grew concerned when he uttered Emily’s name, and could tell that this wasn’t the type of person that Belle’s grand-daughter would be associating with. The way he was greasy and shady was enough to tell him that he was still lying to him, and that was grounds enough to rough him up a bit.

  He gripped onto his neck a little tighter, and pushed his head back against the window that he was in front of, causing the back of it to bounce off of it with enough force to make his intent to take things to the next level even further. John waited for him to focus on him once more before he spoke to him with his anger coming out of his voice.

  “How about we try this again?”

  * * *

  Walking out of the dressing room that she had been inside of, Emily had herself dressed in the clothes she was wearing when she left her grandmother’s home earlier that day. She kept the dress she planned on getting for the party that night on the elbow of her right arm as she approached the front counter of the store. The smile that John had caused to dance across her face still remained, as well as the feeling of excitement and contentment that he had brought on by his presence and how special he made her feel.

  John certainly is one of a kind. He can make me feel like I am the only woman in the world that he has eyes for, and no one else but me will do for him.

  I am pretty sure it is quite clear that what you just said is actually an accurate statement about how he feels about you, Emily.

  She couldn’t agree with her conscience better. Her grandmother’s ranch hand had been around her and involved with her time at the farm ever since he had arrived there the previous month and he had shared a passionate moment with her in the loft of the barn above where the horses are kept in their stalls.

  There was something else that was very obvious and she couldn’t deny: She had started to develop feelings for John. Ever since the moment that things took an intimate turn for the two of them in the privacy of her grandmother’s horse barn, her mind had not let her have a second to herself. The thoughts that ran through her mind in her spare time were full of nothing but of having another encounter with John without anyone interrupting them.

  Reaching the front desk, Emily showed a kind smile to the lady at the register as she placed the dress down before her, and reached into her pocket.

  “Is this all for you today, miss?” The cashier asked, getting the dress and scanning the code on the tag of it.

  “That is correct.” Emily replied, smiling. “This is the only thing I need to get today.”

  “Very well…It will be twenty-five dollar even.”

  Wow. Really? Only twenty-five dollars? I thought that maybe it would cost more than that…but all the better for me to hear.

  Emily pulled out a twenty and a five from her pocket, and handed it towards the woman behind the counter. She watched her smile to her after she took the money and placed it inside of the cash register prior to easing the dress into a nearby bag for her. Her eyes moved away from her, and focused towards the direction of the large window that was in front of the shop.

  On the other side of the glass, John was clearly seen with a look to kill on his face towards the individual that was sitting before him on the bench while one of his hands were wrapped around base of their neck.

  John? What is he doing out there to that guy?!

  The feeling of contentment and excitement she had felt went flying away from her and was replaced by that of confusion and fear from the sight of her grandmother’s helper manhandling an unknown person right outside of the dress shop she had went into.

  “Here you go, miss.”

  Emily snapped herself out of the stare she had fallen under at what John was doing, and focused on the store clerk. She kept her attention on her for a brief moment as her right hand accepted the bag from her while at the same time her head nodded to her.

  “T-Thanks.”

  “You are welcome, miss, and have a nice day.”

  I am not sure how nice it is going to be with John out there trying to hurt someone on one of the benches that belong to the store.

  Emily gave one more nod of her head, and slowly turned her attention back to the front window. Finding John to still be having his hand around the throat of the person she could only see the back of, she made a quick walk in the direction of the front door of the shop with the intention of finding out what he was doing.

  Chapter Four

  Rushing outside of the front door of the store, Emily made her way to where John was nestled with the person she had seen through the front window, and locked her eyes onto that of the individual she had only seen the back of.

  No…It can’t be…

  Her entire body froze in fear from realizing that the person that her granny’s helper on the farm had by the throat was that of her ex-boyfriend, Johnathan Warrens. She had been working so hard to keep herself from being found by him again since he had been stalking her and attempted to viciously attack her before the police had to get involved.

  Knowing that he had found the place she had come to for the summer and that he was already tracking her down, Emily couldn’t help but feel nervous at the same time highly frightened by this revelation.

  She took a moment to gather her strength before her voice managed to find its way out of her mouth while her hands clung to the bag that had her dress for the party inside of it.

  “Let him go, John.” She said, firm yet softly. Her voice shook on its way out of her mouth, revealing how anxious and scared she was at that very moment.

  “Do you know him, Emily?” John asked, keeping his eyes on the person that was on the bench in front of him while his hand remained firmly on his throat.

  “He…He is Johnathan Warrens, my ex-boyfriend.”

  She watched John turn his head in her direction, and focus up the fear that had manifested itself on the fair complexion of her face. Emily drew in a breath of air, and tightened all over from seeing how protective he had become in both his outer appearance and in his voice.

  “Do you know why he would be here in Oleander, and telling me that he is your friend?”

  Her heart sank at the mention of him telling lies to John about him being a ‘friend’ of hers when he was
nothing of the sort. If anything, he was a pain in the ass that would not leave her alone, and just refused to take ‘no’ as an answer from her.

  “He is not my friend, John!” Emily exclaimed, desperate to get the truth out and into the open. “He has been stalking me ever since I broke up with him, and he had been in jail for beating me so bad one night that I was close to the point of death.”

  Oh shit…What did I just do?

  In that moment, she just realized the fatal mistake she had committed when she told him about what Johnathan had done to her previously by catching a fiery look of hatred boiling in John’s eyes shortly before he snapped his head in the direction of where the individual in question was still sitting on the bench in front of him. She tried to get the words she wanted to say out of her mouth, but found her vocal cords fighting against her, and silencing her. While she couldn’t speak, her ears could hear John utter some words in a tone that could kill.

  * * *

  “So…This little worm placed his hands on you, has he?”

  Even though the question itself seemed it was being sarcastic, his voice was nothing but business and contained a lethal amount of seriousness to it that no one would dare to mess with.

  With his attention now fixated on that of Johnathan Warrens, John shifted his hands, quickly, to the collar of the jacket he had on over his body, and hoisted him up from the bench to where the tips of his toes were barely brushing against the surface of the ground in front of the store that he was just in with Emily. He narrowed his eyes in the man’s direction with all the intensity of a wolf looking at its prey.

  “You made the biggest mistake of your life, boy, when you touched Emily.”

  “W-W-Wait!” Johnathan pleaded to him, looking down at him with pure and unadulterated fear pouring out of his voice towards him while his body squirmed to get out of the grasp that he had him in. “H-How do you know Emily?”

  “I just so happen to work on her grandmother’s ranch, and…She is a very special person to me.”

  He chose to place his cards on the table for Emily, as well as the stranger, to see. His feelings for her were strong, and couldn’t be ignored or kept deep inside anymore. They had to come to the surface for anyone that happened to be in the area.

  Even though his eyes were focused on Johnathan’s body in the air, John managed to look out a corner of his eyes in her direction to find her possessing a look of awe there that told him all that he needed to know about how she was feeling at that moment in time from him having been so open about his emotions involving her.

  He returned his full attention back towards his target, and proceeded to continue making his point to him.

  “Emily is a very sweet, kind, caring…and beautiful young woman that doesn’t need someone as slimy as you bringing her life down with yours. She deserves only the best…and that is what she is going to get.”

  “Oh really? And you think that you are going to be able to do that? You are just a stable boy while I work in sales back in Houston. I have the means to afford to give her the life she is fit for while you can’t even match up to me financially.”

  Okay…This is it. I have had enough of listening to this prick telling me that I am not man enough to make Emily happy. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

  With his words lingering on in his mind and giving his anger fuel to the fire that was already raging deep inside of him, John made a sweeping motion as he turned, and slammed Johnathan’s body into the hood of an expensive looking, black sports car. He looked down at his sprawled out body as a faint smirk started to form across his face.

  Even though I am not really a violent person…I have to say…I really enjoyed dropping that no good son of a bitch onto the hood of his own vehicle, and shutting his mouth up.

  He savored the work that he had just got done doing to Johnathan Warrens, Emily’s former boyfriend and current stalker. The moment that he had heard her tell him that this pervert that had been looking in the store window on her had been her ex and that he had been stalking her, as well as physically abusive with her, he wanted nothing more than to put him in his place once and for all.

  “John…”

  The sweet sound of Emily’s gentle voice pulled him out of his thoughts, and caused his eyes to travel over to where she was standing with a slightly nervous and afraid expression upon the fair complexion of her face. Seeing the angelic beauty that he had become very fond of in a short amount of time to be distressed by what he had just done caused every fiber of his being to tense up on the spot, and send his emotions and feelings into a whirlwind, ending with his guilt being the overwhelming factor of them all.

  Unable to stop himself, John moved back towards her direction from where he was nestled, and cupped a side of her face in the palm of one of his large hands. His eyes gazed deeply into hers with only unconditional love for her nestled within them, as well as in his voice as he started to speak.

  “Emily…I know you didn’t wish for me to do that and for your eyes to not have witnessed that…but I am not going to stand by, and let some…some bastard try to hurt you anymore or worse…take you away from me.”

  “You…You were afraid of him doing something to me, John?”

  “Of course I was, darling.”

  “I am sure that he wouldn’t have been able to do anything. After all, you were here and-“

  “He couldn’t have done anything with me here if he even tried…but what if I wasn’t around? What if he came here when I wasn’t here and did something to you? I couldn’t live with myself if something horrible happened to you, Emily.”

  “Do you really mean that, John?”

  “Sweetheart…You have no idea how much I care for you. Hell, I would gladly turn my soul over to the devil if it meant saving you from getting hurt again by that asshole.”

  Chapter Five

  He didn’t have to say anything else to her in order for her to understand the severity of how strong he felt for her. Emily clearly saw how he had very intense, unconditional love for her without him having to try really hard at doing just that. His words were enough for her.

  She lifted one of her hands up from her side, and pressed the palm of it against the back of his hand that was resting on a side of her face, allowing some of her warmth to resonate from the center of her hand and seep through his skin so that he could feel how she was at the moment.

  The very second that her skin met his, John’s eyes lit up and glowed with a unbridled happiness that had never been experienced by him before. He kept his eyes solely on her while she started to speak up and break their silence.

  “I can clearly see how you truly do care for me, John.” Emily said, keeping her voice at a soft, sincere whisper. “The way that you speak to me with your words and your body language…It is enough for me to see how much you feel for me, and wish to keep me from getting hurt again.”

  “There is nothing that I wouldn’t do for you, Emily.” John’s words flowed out of his mouth, rolling off the tip of his long tongue, in his deep, Texan accent. “I would move heaven and earth to keep someone from taking you away from me when we just found each other a little over a month ago.”

  “I know that you would do that and so much more for me, John…and I am grateful for that.”

  She was more than grateful for that. She admired him for how opened he was being with her about the emotions that had been wreaking havoc on his system, and finally made their presence known to her by slipping out of his mouth during the confrontation with Johnathan. The fact that he would so willingly and openly bring his feelings for her out into the light and in the face of her former boyfriend like he did made her reassure her current thoughts about how he felt for her.

  Her eyes drifted over to where her ex had been slammed down onto the hood of his vehicle, and found him to be slowly moving around. The sight sent her into a momentary wave of fear and anxiety. She focused on it for only a brief second before her attention drifted back towards John with a similar sound gr
owing in her voice.

  “I think we better get out of here before he gets up, John.”

  “He is not going to do anything, darling.” John spoke to her in a reassuring tone with a hint of a chuckle in his deep, southern voice. “I just sent him flying down onto the hood of his own vehicle with enough force to knock him out for a little while.”

  “Although that might be the case, John, I still think we need to get going all the same since I have to get ready for my grandmother’s party tonight…and I am sure you have to do the same thing.”

  “You are right on that, Emily. I have to take her alcohol back to her before I-“

  “Alcohol? Did you just say that you have to take her alcohol before you start to get ready?”

  “It is in the bed of the truck.”

  Curious about his response, Emily walked over to a side of his truck and sure enough found several crates of booze nestled in the bed of it with tie downs around them to keep them securely in place. She moved her eyes back towards him as her anxiety turned more into confusion.

  “I didn’t know that there would be drinking at my grandmother’s party. Is there always drinking?”

  “Only at her Midsummer party. She lets everyone have fun and let loose at it while at her other ones she holds throughout the year she doesn’t have any booze in them.”

  Well…At least that reassures me that my grandmother is not a complete alcoholic then.

  “Okay…I think we should head on back now.”

  “Hop in the truck, and I’ll take you back there myself since I am heading that way.”

  “But…I drove myself down here. What about-“

  “I will call a buddy of mine to get your car, and bring it to the ranch safe and sound without any scratches to it.”