Page 5 of His Texas Claim

“Why wouldn’t you keep it?”

“Because it needs to go back to its family,” I shrugged. “This is a critically small species. And…I only have room in my heart for George.”

Stetson frowned. “Boyfriend?”

“No,” I snorted. “George is a lizard I caught when I was a child. I’ve been raising her offspring ever since—ten generations now.”

He pulled into a gravel drive, dust rising behind the truck. Buck sat up, ears forward.

“So no boyfriend,” he said.

“Ex. Recently.”

“Recently recently?”

“Last month,” I said, plastering a smile on my face. “But…why do you ask?”

“Just don't like the idea of a man letting his girl go off into the middle of nowhere alone.”

I laughed out loud. “Thank goodness I had a cowboy with a gun to save me!”

He scowled. That seemed to be his typical mode of existence. “Actually, though. Could’ve gotten stuck out there and drowned.”

“I’m sure I would have found some way out.”

“Confident,” he huffed. “Dangerous thing to be when you’re in land you don’t know.”

He parked in front of the main house—a picturesque ranch home with cedar posts, a wraparound porch, and a dog bed tucked in next to a porch swing. He got out without a word, then opened the door for me.

Glanced down.

Saw I was bleeding through my sock.

“I’m carryin’ you in,” he said. “Won’t take no for an answer.”

“I’m fine.”

“Foot’s a mess.”

“Thank you, but really I’m⁠—”

I clutched my frog to my chest as he pulled me out by the waist and slung me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Didn’t say a word; I was too stunned to speak, quite frankly. Buck jumped out of the car after me, and I watched his tail wag in delight at my misfortune.

Then we were through the door, the whole space alive with movement and sound. First thing I heard was the happy shrieking of a baby—then another one. Then a woman’s voice, then footsteps coming toward the door. We turned left in the entry, into a kitchen with a table covered with large styrofoam puzzle pieces, and Stetson put me down on a chair.

I was still getting my bearings when a woman with brown skin and curly black hair came into view, her belly swollen, another baby on her hip.

“Who’s this?” she asked.

“Millie,” Stetson nodded. “This is Bryn Donnelly. She was trespassing out at the creek and got hurt. Haven around?”

“Willa and I are on babysitting duty today while Haven and Wyatt tend to the cattle, but I can give her a call,” Millie said. “But…do we need to call the police⁠—?”

“I wasn’t trespassing,” I cut in. “I’m a biologist—I was looking for frogs.”

A little girl rocketed out from behind Millie like she’d been summoned. “FROGS?!”

“Yes, frogs!” I confirmed, nodding vigorously. I put my cup down on the table. “Do you want to see?”