Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Not likely to comply.
—Beau’s secret thoughts
BEAU
I’d dropped them off at home, even though every instinct in my body screamed at me to keep them close.
I went to bed early, my mind exhausted and jumbled as I thought about ways to kill my sister without getting pinned for it.
By the time that I woke up the next morning, my mind wasn’t in a better place.
My first thought was to head to Magnolia’s house to find out how Iris made it through the night.
But that would be the wrong choice.
I couldn’t smother them with my overprotectiveness. Nor could I force my way into their life if they didn’t want me there.
And she’d made sure to let me know that they needed to get back to normal, and that meant not having me there hovering twenty-four-seven.
So, I did the next best thing.
I went to Denver’s place to lend a hand.
He’d made an offhand comment a couple of days ago, talking about how tired the crew was rounding up cows from the public lands and bringing them to closer pastures. They’d also wean babies from their mamas and either keep them or sell them off.
To do that they had to separate them, and that took a lot of time and manpower.
Getting dressed in jeans, my dusty old cowboy boots, shirt and sweatshirt, I grabbed my Jesper County Baseball cap and headed out the door without letting Denver know that I was coming.
I didn’t bother stopping for coffee.
Denver always had plenty on hand for his ranch hands, as well as enough food to feed an army.
Today was no different.
I pulled up and caught my old Carhartt that I’d had since high school before heading toward the light at the barn.
I saw several familiar faces, including Major and Hux.
I offered them handshakes on the way to the coffee.
After pouring myself a black with two sugars, I snatched a couple of Kolaches and headed to Denver who was tacking up a horse. “Where do you want me?”
He grinned. “Thanks for the help. We could use it. You can come with me. I think the kids have the others covered.”
I jerked my chin up at him and headed to a stall to find a horse.
Of course, my baby was there.
“You crazy son-of-a-bitch,” one of the hands muttered. “I can’t believe you trust her.”
“She’s the sweetest, aren’t you?” I cooed at the older girl as the ranch hand walked away. “It’s not his fault he tried to ride you and you didn’t want him to.”
She didn’t get to ride much anymore unless it was with me. She’d gotten quite cantankerous in her old age.
I’d first gotten her when I was seventeen.
Gosling—Goss for short—was a racehorse. She’d competed—and won—in the Kentucky Oaks—the female only version of the Kentucky Derby—and I’d won a shit ton of money off of her.
However, when she was done with her racing days, I’d brought her home with me where I’d been stationed at the time. She followed me all over the country for the last decade until I’d settled back home in Sawtooth.
Since she loved having attention, and I hadn’t been able to give that to her as much over the last eight months, I’d boarded her with the club president so he could keep a closer eye on her.
She was just past the eighteen-year mark and only got more defiant with age.
But she loved me and didn’t miss a chance to show it.
I slipped her a carrot that I’d picked up out of the fridge on the way to her stall, and she crunched it with happiness as I got her saddled up.
Fully ready to go, I led her out into the pre-dawn light and smoothed my hand over her jaw when she got too close to Denver’s horse.
“Swear to God, you’re a miracle worker,” he murmured as he moved his horse away. “Sometimes I feel like she hates the world.”
“She’s just selective.” I chuckled. “Ready?”
“As ever,” he grumbled.
I pulled my work gloves on and mounted Goss, who quivered with excitement.
“No racing today,” I ordered.
Her ears pinned back.
“No,” I repeated. “Maybe when we’re done with the day, we can open it up, but not until then.”
The horse gave a grumbling whinny, causing Denver to chuckle.
“Where to?” I asked.
“Everyone else is headed south, but I have seventeen unaccounted for cows that were grazing on public land that I’d like to find today,” he relayed. “We’ll have a couple of helpers later when the new parents finally peel their eyes open after their rough night, but just us two for now.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “How’s the new grandbaby?”
“Bastien is the sweetest little baby ever.” Denver paused. “Until it’s time to sleep like a normal person. Then he turns into this little hellhound that seems quite possessed. If I had a first kid that acted like him, I would never have any more.”
I chuckled. “Hell on young parents.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” he muttered. “Just glad they are staying in the bunk house together. I’m past those barely-getting-any-sleep days.”
I’d always wanted children. But I’d never thought it’d happen for me.
Until Magnolia and Iris came into my life, I thought I might be alone forever.
Once upon a time when I was barely seventeen, I’d had a girlfriend.
That girlfriend had relationship material written all over her, so for the first time in my life I was thinking about life beyond the military.
If my high school girlfriend and I had become what she’d wanted it to be before that terrible accident that had taken my sister’s life, we’d have been married and she’d have followed me around the country. We’d have seven kids, be living paycheck to paycheck and would have never come back home.
But that wasn’t how life had gone for me.
My sister had died, and I’d broken up with my girlfriend because she’d said I was being too hard on Seraphina.
Hell, I hadn’t thought about Lezlie in years.
When I’d come home from the Marines after retiring, I’d found out that she had her seven kids and was indeed living paycheck to paycheck with her now-husband. She looked unhappy as hell, and I’d taught several of her children how not to live like their parents did.
But yeah, one time I’d wanted kids.
I’d wanted to come home to a woman and our kids every night.
I hadn’t thought about having that life for a long, long time.
But the thoughts were creeping back in the longer that I gravitated toward Magnolia’s orbit.
“What’s with that face?” Denver asked after a few long moments of quiet.
“Thinking about what-ifs.”
“What ifs with a certain brown-eyed woman that has a cute little four-year-old that seems to be overly attached to you?” Denver teased.
I shot him a look. “Maybe.”
“I like her,” he stated. “I haven’t had much time to get to know her since y’all have been in season. But when I have had time, and when I met her at the clinic, I really enjoyed it. She’s a box of laughs.”
“She is,” I agreed.
Magnolia was funny.
Not always intentionally.
A lot of her hilarity sometimes came at her own expense.
She was not the most coordinated on the team, and sometimes her mouth spoke before her brain caught up.
But she worked her awkwardness.
I loved it.
I loved every random trip.
I loved every random fall.
And there were a lot of those.
I couldn’t tell you how many times I’d watched her trip over a ball.
Which was hilarious, seeing as she was a professional soccer player.
Funny enough, Iris took after her.
I’d watched the two of them walking across the soccer field toward me, and both would trip on the same patch of air at different intervals.
“Are you ever going to do anything more?” he asked.
I grinned. “I will. Am. At first, it was because I was trying to be professional.”
We finally spotted our wayward cows and started to herd them back, picking up the conversation where we’d left off once we’d gotten them headed back in the right direction.
“And now that Court owns them, you’re going to make your move?”
That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it?