Chapter 14 #2
“I did.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the worklist with her notes on the back. “I need to put some things up on the maintenance board. I took a look but couldn’t find it. Adam said to check with you.”
Frank’s face folded into a frown. “A what?”
Sasha blinked. “Whiteboard or clipboard to write down small repairs they notice need doing? Gate dragging in the east alley. Trough valve that’s sticking. Stuff like that.”
Her uncle reached forward. “I’ll take the list.”
“I don’t mind writing it up,” Sasha offered.
“I keep the lists in my office,” Frank informed her as he took the paper from her fingers and tucked it into his front pocket. “Thanks.”
Sasha sat for a moment, considering. She was here to learn but also to figure out if this entire idea was going to work. She couldn’t hold back and wait for permission. Politely, though—
“At Silver Stone we’ve found it helpful to have the board where everyone can see what needs doing. Oftentimes people add on a task when they’re headed the same direction or doing a similar task nearby. Knocks off a lot of little tasks faster that way.”
Uncle Frank huffed. “Silver Stone has twice the staff and half the common sense some days.”
Sasha froze.
Without another word, Frank turned his attention to the table next to him and a couple of cowboys asking about the afternoon training session.
Dustin’s gaze flicked to Sasha.
He’d noticed but didn’t rescue her. She was grateful for that even if a small part inside wished he’d have stepped in. He got along with Uncle Frank.
But that was the point though. This wasn’t Dustin’s fight.
And right now? It wasn’t Sasha’s either.
She focused on her meal and worked to get her temper under control. Her face felt flushed and hot as she thought it through.
Uncle Frank hadn’t argued with her or snapped. He hadn’t even told her she was wrong. He’d taken her suggestion, flattened it with a rude comment, and gone on to what he thought was more important.
Fine. She was here to listen and learn.
Maybe what she was going to learn was the answer to her moving to Crooked Creek needed to be no.
Over the years there had been plenty of times Luke had felt exhausted. Working the ranch through all sorts of weather conditions and emergencies, sometimes short-handed, meant being ready to do what needed to be done and keep going.
Babies in the house put exhaustion into a whole new light.
Across the room, Tucker folded his arms over his chest and offered Ginny his most competent smile as Demi danced around his knees. “It’s okay, goddess. You and Kelli go ahead. We got this.”
The babies were a month old now, and they’d just been fed. While there was no reason the ladies couldn’t simply pack them up and take them across the yard to Tamara’s, Luke wanted time with his new little girl. Tucker wanted David around.
“The babies are sleeping. It’ll be fine,” Luke assured Kelli.
She raised a brow but didn’t say anything.
Next to Kelli, Ginny obviously tried to fight the urge, but finally gave in. “Call if you need us.”
“Like hell,” Tucker muttered under his breath the instant the ladies closed the door. He turned to Luke. “We got this, right?”
“Absolutely. Just don’t say something like ‘how hard can it be?’ and curse us, okay?”
For nearly twenty glorious minutes, it seemed as if they actually knew what they were doing.
David stirred first, making soft little snuffling noises. Tucker lifted him to his chest, and the baby settled almost immediately, his tiny fist curled against Tucker’s shirt.
“There,” Tucker said as he met Luke’s gaze smugly. “Natural talent.”
Luke snorted as he scooped Kayla from her bassinet. Yeah, she was quiet, but he needed to hold her. “Mine is asleep before you even finish bragging.”
Tucker grinned. “That’s because you’re so damn boring.”
Kyle and Demi barely glanced up from the collection of toy trucks spread across the kitchen floor. The entire area was surrounded by the child-safety gates Luke had installed after discovering Kyle’s crawling speed doubled when adults weren’t looking.
“The fortress holds,” Tucker observed.
“The fortress is a work of genius.” Luke paced, swaying gently from side to side. “Coffee?”
“Love one.”
They wandered between the kitchen and living room, each gently bouncing a sleeping infant while nursing mugs of coffee.
“You know what I’m looking forward to?” Tucker asked. “Taking them camping.”
Luke nodded. “Dad took us every summer.”
“I remember.” Tucker smiled. “Mostly because my dad never took me so the only camping I ever did was tagging along with your family.”
Tucker was as good as a brother, and their history went so far back…
A memory slid in. “You remember the year I insisted I could start the fire by myself?”
Tucker pretended to consider. “Hmmm. You mean the year you smoked us out for two hours straight?”
Yeah. That was about it. “I got it going eventually,” Luke protested.
“Of course you did.” Tucker’s smile softened. “You don’t know this, but remember your dad sent us out for more kindling? I went back faster than you and spotted him quietly rebuilding the whole thing while you were gone.”
Luke went still. “He never said a word.”
Tucker shrugged. “Nothing to say. We were learning, and that was enough.”
For a moment they smiled at the memory.
“I want these guys to have that,” Tucker said more quietly, laying David back down on the couch and arranging a pillow to hold him in place. “Not the smoky campfire but those weekends. Learning stuff from people who care enough to let you figure things out without making you feel stupid.”
Luke nodded, placing Kayla down as well. He stroked a finger down her cheek as he considered. “Fishing with Dad was like that too. Half the time we barely caught anything.”
“But he’d still tell everyone we’d had a great day.”
“Because we had.”
Tucker looked down at David sleeping peacefully. “I never realized when we were kids that those little things were the memories that would stick.”
Luke followed his gaze to Kyle and Demi, who were now carefully parking every toy truck in a perfectly straight row. That was Demi’s influence, all the way.
“They’re going to think this is normal,” he said. “Fishing. Horses. Camping. Having cousins over every day.”
“They’ll have no idea how lucky they are.”
“Good,” Luke said with a smile. “That’s exactly how it should be.”
Silence settled for a moment. For Luke, thoughts of his father and the legacy he’d left behind in both his and Tucker’s lives rushed in. Luke still missed the man, but after all these years, and all the other mentors he’d had, it was mostly gratitude he felt when the past knocked.
“Hey.” Tucker frowned. “Shouldn’t there be more noise?”
Luke stopped mid-sip. The house had gone completely still. “Shit.”
The kitchen was empty. All the trucks were lined up neatly, the last one a monster of a thing tipped on its side. A white Demi-sized shoe lay abandoned on top of it, next to the now open safety gate.
A clue to their missing children’s location lay in a baby wipe abandoned in the hallway.
Then another. Followed by a diaper.
“Shit.” Luke repeated.
The trail led straight to the nursery, where the diaper bag lay exploded across the floor. Wet wipes decorated the floor like stepping stones, and the larger package of diapers—helpfully open across the top for easy access—had been enthusiastically emptied from one end of the room to the other.
A muffled bark came from Luke and Kelli’s bedroom.
Luke swore. “What the heck? Who let a dog in the house?”
They hurried into the room in time to see Kyle disappear into a bottom dresser drawer. Demi squeezed into the one beside him, every bit of Luke’s clothing scattered on the floor.
“Woof!” she announced.
“Woof!” Kyle answered.
Tucker burst out laughing.
At that exact moment an indignant wail rose from the living room. David at full screech.
Impossibly, half a heartbeat later, Kayla joined in the protest.