Chapter 3
CADE
Lily really was the cutest baby I had ever seen.
She slept with her eyelashes swept closed, her cheeks pink, fingers curled into fists.
I couldn’t imagine a human that small, bundled so close.
My eyes wandered to her often, then away.
I didn’t want to be a creepy guy staring at the baby, but I couldn’t help it.
It had been a long time since I’d seen one so little.
The physical proof of dreams held so far away was drawing, fascinating.
I stuffed aside my soul-deep desire for children and stared straight ahead. My thoughts meandered far from the dim airplane and purring engines. Three hours remained, which gave me time to figure out this new problem.
Where would Lily and Noelle sleep?
Marsha, Morgan’s daughter-in-law, mentioned Noelle was staying at a hotel when we spoke weeks ago. The house wasn’t technically mine yet, so I hadn’t officially moved in. All but moved in, though.
Normally, I slept with Cody and Wyatt in an extension built off the barn.
Their side was plenty secure and warm, but there was an issue with a cracked window in my room, making the room impossible to heat.
We sealed it as best we could, and I’d been crashing inside the ranch house for the last week.
I pulled up my phone, connected to the free wi-fi, and shot off a text to Wyatt.
Cade: Get the master bedroom cleaned up and cleared out, please. Noelle brought her one-month-old baby and will be sleeping in Morgan’s old room.
Wyatt immediately replied.
Wyatt: You got it, hoss.
I snorted. His willing energy wouldn’t last forever, but I’d promised to keep him on as a ranch hand before I left for Florida, so he’d do anything I asked for another week or two.
Well, Wyatt would do just about anything I asked, as long as it had some element of danger.
Cody would do whatever I asked because he was Cody, and obedient and loyal as a hound.
Cade: We’ll arrive just after 10:00. How’s the broken window in my room in the barn?
Wyatt: Not good.
Cade: Still not fixed?
Wyatt: Nope.
The only room with any space for a woman and a baby was the master bedroom. But Morgan had a hint of hoarder in him. Decisions overwhelmed him, so he stuffed all his junk into the other rooms, and in the basement, instead of dealing with it.
Well, we’d figure it out. We always did. Fixing the window was the first in a long list of necessary improvements.
The weight of responsibility was a real thing.
A tightening.
A noose.
I tucked my phone in the pocket. With Lily being so young, we could make the situation work, but there was no crib. No support for an infant. How had a baby slipped Marsha’s mind? She hadn’t sent me a heads-up. She probably didn’t think it was necessary if Noelle planned to stay in a hotel.
Clearly, she didn’t plan that anymore. And that was fine. I didn’t like the idea of a newborn in a hotel. Bart called me a week ago, and he had been arrogantly certain that Morgan left him the ranch, but I knew better. I’d seen the paperwork.
At least, I thought I had. When it came to old man Morgan, one never quite knew.
Morgan grumbled constantly about his absent children, their absent gratitude, and their lack of know-how around the ranch. It’s why he relied so heavily on me. I had a feeling things were about to get dicey in the Morgan family.
And then what?
I had to kick out a woman with a baby?
Exhaling, I closed my eyes and rubbed a hand over my face. I probably wouldn’t get much sleep on the couch, with a baby and a beautiful woman in the nearby master bedroom.
Flight attendants bustled around, handing out water, coffee, and collecting garbage, while Noelle dozed lightly in the seat, head drooping near my shoulder. Lily hadn’t budged once, lost to a milk-induced torpor.
What am I going to do with you both? I silently asked them.
The house that Noelle planned to inherit was no place for a young baby and new mother. And if I had to place my bets, ownership of the ranch wasn’t going anywhere near Noelle, Bart, or Marsha.
Tomorrow, we would meet with the attorney, Kinoshi, and find out.
I had a feeling we faced a sticky situation.
Noelle yawned four times between the moment she sat in the truck and I pulled out of the airport parking lot.
Her bleary-eyed expression didn’t clear as we hurtled down the county highway, lined with fresh snow and powdery skies.
Evening lay across the mountains like a blanket, and clouds built up like foam against the stone behemoths.
My bunched-up insides finally settled.
Home.
Space and sky. Hay and horses. Ditches and durangos.
All the things that settled my wild pulse when surrounded by too much civilization.
Suitcases rattled behind my seat, and Lily snoozed in the stroller that converted into a car seat, which I’d hauled through the Jackson City airport.
The truck was warm; snug against the bitter Wyoming winter.
“It’s an hour drive,” I said as I flipped on the brights, but Noelle had already fallen back to sleep.
Chuckling, I placed my attention on the road.
An hour later, I pulled onto the mile-long driveway.
Cody, the calmer of the two ranch hands, had turned the porch light on, because Wyatt’s mind wouldn’t settle long enough to think of that detail.
I rolled the truck to a stop right next to the porch, reached for Noelle’s shoulder, and set my hand lightly on top.
“Noelle?”
She jerked awake with a gasp, eyes wide. I nudged my hat higher so she could see my eyes.
“We’re at the ranch.”
“Where’s Lily?”
“In the back. Sleeping. She hasn’t stirred.”
Noelle relaxed against the seat. “Okay, thanks,” she whispered in a breathy voice, and brushed the bangs out of her eyes. I let my hand drop from her shoulder.
“I’ll grab Lily.”
“Thanks.”
Eyes glued outside, Noelle reached for the door handle and slid out.
She huddled in her coat, drinking in the terrain.
There wasn’t much to see this late at night.
I unsnapped the car seat while Noelle regarded the house with a sleepy mixture of nostalgia and not-quite-awakeness.
Lily stirred when I draped a blanket over the top and delicately hauled her out.
Noelle drifted across the porch, eyes dragging across the patio furniture and rugs draped over the railing.
Morgan had burned his dinner and then spilled it all over the kitchen rug weeks ago.
After cleaning it up, we didn’t know what to do with the rug, so we draped it across the porch railing.
Winter froze it in place, and I doubted we’d peel it free soon.
When we stepped inside the house, the smell of canned meat and burned green beans wafted out, hitting like a sucker punch.
Until I considered the house through Noelle’s eyes, I hadn’t realized what a man cave it had become.
An old-man cave, which was worse by innumerable measures.
I simply slept here, and that was it. Once the ranch became mine, I’d start renovations immediately.
Noelle hesitated in the doorway for only a moment before pressing on. With the blanket still over Lily, I set her off to the side, near a mustard yellow couch beneath a clock with arms shaped like cat paws.
“My goodness,” Noelle said, “they didn’t change a thing.”
Her fingertips ran over yellowing wallpaper. Floorboards creaked beneath her weight. You couldn’t make a subtle movement in this house—the floor announced everything. It was worse in the basement.
“When were you last here?” I asked.
“Years ago.”
Had to be more than eight, because I’d never met Noelle. Morgan hired me while Cora was in high school, and paid me enough to keep food on the table after our Mom left without a word of explanation. A decade later, and we still had little information about her.
Noelle chuckled under her breath as she meandered into the kitchen. The light over the oven flickered with a yellow glow, highlighting the old range, a fridge that whirred with a high-pitched whine, and a lime-green sink with a chipped bottom.
Her hand landed on the cast-iron tea kettle.
“Grandma loved this.”
She spun in a circle, eyes illuminating with a smile as she viewed decorations that must have originated in the eighties.
A fake bird nest filled a shallow diorama nailed into the wall.
A painting of a hayfield with distant horses stretched wide over the table, which had hollow legs, rusting chairs, and a wobbly top.
Noelle giggled.
I couldn’t believe her response. What was funny about this place? Nothing. It was old, tired. Every part of it needed updating, and she hadn’t seen the basement yet. Stained drywall, soggy ceilings, cracked foundation. I’d anticipated terror and overwhelm, but instead she seemed . . . delighted.
She moved closer to a bookshelf stacked with cookbooks, recipes snipped from magazines, and a frosting-thick layer of dust. Lovingly, she withdrew one tome and flipped through it. The old pages crinkled as they passed.
“It’s like a museum of my childhood.”
It was a museum all right.
Of dreams.
Anything in this house had died from obscurity.
Once she saw the basement, she’d feel differently.
The mess down there would also explain why the place smelled like old beans and old man.
But the finances would drive her off for good.
Morgan’s financial affairs weren’t catastrophic, but they weren’t great.
Give me forty thousand dollars, he once said, and I’ll sink it into the ranch without a blink. It just cycles through, Cade. Money. Time. Ranches need everything, and all at once.
Noelle wrapped her arms across her chest. Cody must have started the fire, because a gentle glow came from the wood-burning stove on the other side of the kitchen, and the air had no bite.
I crossed the room, fed the stove a few logs.
The clock overhead showed 11:45. Cody would have come in here last hours ago.
“If you want to put Lily to bed, the master bedroom has a heater. I can get some better heaters for the other rooms tomorrow. There are a few . . . ah . . . of his things in there. I don’t think he has a crib—”
“What about the sewing room?”
I paused, my hand halfway to the fire with another piece of wood.
“Sewing room?”
“Grandma had a whole room dedicated to her machine, threads, fabrics. She loved to sew. It’s the one across from the master.”
“No idea.”
She gave a sheepish, but happy, smile. “No problem. I’m sure you aren’t in the house much, as the foreman. Anyway, I’ll figure that out tomorrow. Grandma and Grandpa used to let me sleep in their bed when I visited, so it’ll be fun to revisit that space again.”
I tossed the log on the flames and shut the door. “There’s no heat in my room out in the barn, so I’ve been sleeping on the couch in the living room. We’re trying to fix a window. Anyway, if that’s—”
“No problem. Thanks, Cade.”
She bustled around the kitchen, rummaging through a suitcase of baby things splayed open on the table.
I grabbed a sleeping bag from the front closet, tossed my pillow on the couch.
She didn’t seem to notice the ministrations, humming to herself as she moved around the kitchen, opening cupboards, the ancient fridge, laughing over Morgan’s favorite spicy mustard.
After I brushed my teeth, changed into old sweats and a loose shirt, and found my earplugs, I peeked my head inside the kitchen.
“Noelle?”
“Hmmm?”
“The attorney, Kinoshi, will arrive at 11:00 in the morning.”
She called with a sleepy tint, “Sounds good! Thanks for everything today, Cade. I’ll see you in the morning.”