The Cowboy's Unexpected Family

“You don’t want me to leave,” she whispered.

“Don’t, Sandra. You can stay if you want, but don’t do this—”

She stopped in front of him. His chest touched hers with every breath and he looked so terribly pained that she reached up for his cheek, but he caught her hand, crushing her fingers in his grip.

“I’m sorry Lucy sold your condo,” he said.

And she froze. From the inside she went totally numb. Lucy had sold the condo?

“And you can stay here, if you want, but don’t do this to me. I beg you.”

He squeezed her fingers once and then dropped them before turning and walking out.

Shaking, she sat down at the empty dining room table while the kettle whistled a warning.

Late Saturday night, Jeremiah walked back into his house feeling like a new man. Whistling even. A swagger in his step.

Thank you, Lucy Alatore, he thought.

The house was dark, quiet, and he suspected Ben was asleep. Casey had a sleepover and Aaron was at an overnight hockey tournament, under the eagle eye of Kathy Owens.

Maybe Cynthia had bunked down in Aaron’s room, since Jeremiah was so late. He glanced at his watch and winced. Two hours later than usual, but not yet midnight.

Lucy had more than understood when he’d told her he had to leave.

“I’d better get back too,” she’d said, shimmying into her skinny jeans. “My sister is worried about my intentions toward you.”

“She thinks you’re going to use me for sex?” he asked. “Because I really don’t have a problem with that.”

She’d hummed, but changed the subject, and after dropping her off at the Rocky M, he’d driven home wondering if Lucy was beginning to feel like things were more than just casual between them.

That wedding band thing had been weird.

His stomach growled and he was reminded that they’d never gotten to the dinner part of their date. He smiled at the thought and headed into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. That’s when he saw the floodlights were on, illuminating the entire backyard.

Strange, he thought and then about jumped out of his skin when there was a knock on the sliding glass door.

It was Cynthia, wrapped up in a quilt, sitting out on the deck.

He tugged open the door and stepped outside.

“What—”

“Look.”

The light flooded the far back of the lawn where the old garden had been. Nothing but weeds since Annie died, but not even that now. Someone had pulled everything up.

“Ben’s been working out there all night,” Cynthia whispered.

“Is he cleaning it up?” Jeremiah asked, squinting into the shadows for a glimpse of the boy. But then he heard the lawn mower start. “What the hell is he doing?” He headed for the steps but Cynthia stopped him. Her wide, sad eyes were damp behind her glasses.

“He picked it clean and he’s mowing it down,” she said.

Annie’s garden. Granted, he hadn’t had time to take care of it, but she’d poured her heart and soul into that thing. Every spring and all through the summer she’d put the boys to work out there. Ben had been good at it, seemed to like it more than the other two. Annie had called him Green Fingers.

“He’s destroying it,” he whispered.

“Dry-eyed,” she said and then took a deep breath. “I know you have him over there gardening with one of those Alatore girls—”

“Lucy.” He swivelled to look at her. “I had to cancel Friday afternoon with her. But what’s that got to do with this?”

She opened her eyes wide. “You don’t think there’s a connection?”

He rubbed a hand over his face, clinging with everything in him, with his fingernails and teeth, to the good mood he’d had walking in here. “No,” he sighed, though the connection was pretty damn obvious. “He’s been working hard for her over there.”

“Is that what Ben says?” she asked.

“Why? What did he say to you?”

“That he hangs out in the barn.”

It felt like his stomach bottomed out. Like a punch to the side of his head. “No,” he said, not wanting to believe it. Lucy wasn’t lying to him. “Ben’s lying.”

Cynthia shrugged. “Could be. He has before.”

Jeremiah collapsed back into one of the deck chairs, watching the far corner of his lawn where Ben was pushing the mower over what was left of Annie’s tomatoes.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked.

Cynthia unwrapped herself from the quilt she’d surrounded herself in and threw a corner over his lap. Warmth he clung to, pulling it up over his suddenly cold chest. “Be here when he’s ready to come in.”

Jeremiah nodded, numb. Another twenty minutes passed and Ben put the lawnmower back in the far shed by the barn and trudged up through the shadows to the porch.

Jeremiah stood, the blanket slipping off his lap.

“Ben,” he said when the boy started up the stairs. In the white floodlights Jeremiah saw the scratches and blood on his arms, the dirt on his hands, the broken nails. Ben had been in his own fight tonight, but when he looked up at Jeremiah, his eyes were dry.