by Nicole Helm
“It’s nothing. I was bored. It was lame.”
That was all such bullshit. “Please, Micah. I need to . . . I’m your mother, and I love you, and I need to understand you. I want to understand so I can help or support or do whatever I need to do.” She blew out a breath as she came to a stop in front of the Tyler house. She looked over at her son, who half the time seemed like this alien she’d never understand.
He didn’t look at her, but he also didn’t beg her off again. He sat there, staring out the window, obviously thinking things through.
“Dad knew,” he finally said on little more than a whisper.
It was a sledgehammer to the chest. So hard and painful she could hardly speak. “What?” she managed to gasp.
“He sent me a basketball. At camp. I didn’t want to be there anymore.” He stared hard out the window. “I didn’t want you to freak,” he muttered, pressing his forehead to the glass.
“You have to tell me if he contacts you. It’s important you tell me. You know that.” She wasn’t sure any of those words actually came out of her mouth. Everything felt too tight and painful, so much so she could barely breathe.
Micah flicked a glance her way. “You’re crying,” he said, and his tone was so flat and detached she knew she was making this worse, but how could she not cry when her baby was in danger and he didn’t want to tell her?
“Yeah, but I’m not broken, Micah. I’m upset.” She was terrified, but she didn’t want to tell him that. “It does upset me that he tried to contact you when he isn’t supposed to, but I have to know so we can deal with it.”
“I got kicked out. It solved the problem. Besides, this is all cool. I want to do this.” He pointed toward the Tyler stables.
“Baby, I need you to promise me. Really promise me, with no caveats, that if something like that ever happens again you will tell me. Right away. I might cry. I might freak, but then I’ll calm down, and I’ll handle it.” She thought about how old he was getting. How he was trying to protect her and how he shouldn’t have to. He was still a boy and shouldn’t have to do this, and yet he was so mature.
She took his hand in hers, and though he didn’t hold on, he didn’t pull away. So, she squeezed. “We’re in this together. You have to tell me not just so I can handle it, but so that we can handle it together. We’re a team, baby.”
“So, if Dad sent you something, you’d tell me?”
Hell. “Would you want me to?” she asked, praying the answer would be no.
“Yeah.” Micah looked at her then, and she saw some spark of the boy who’d started to emerge since they’d moved here. All this time she’d been worried about giving him space, and his father had contacted him. “I don’t want him to hurt you again.”
Oh, God. If hearts could break, hers was a thousand pieces on the floor. She held Micah’s hand in hers and looked directly into his eyes. “He doesn’t get to hurt us anymore. Neither of us.” She didn’t want to say the next part, but maybe she did need to start treating Micah like a partner.
It felt wrong, but it was what she’d wanted all those years of feeling insignificant and pointless. She’d wanted someone to consider her a partner, not a thing to be hurt or protected.
“After my appointment, I’m going to call our lawyer and ask what we should do about this. Okay?”
Micah nodded.
“And you’ve told me everything?”
He nodded again.
Cora pulled him into a hug and held on tight. “I love you, baby. I promise, I’ll do everything in my power so he can never reach you again. I promise you that.” Whatever it took. No matter the cost, emotional or financial.
Weirdly, she thought of Shane and his reaction to Ben’s lying. She would lie, steal, cheat, fight to keep her baby safe and unharmed. She would do anything. Shane would never fully understand that. He was too good, and had maybe had things a little too easy in his life.
But this wasn’t about Shane, even as he stepped out of the house, shading his eyes against the rising sun as he stared at their car with a frown.
Cora cleared her throat and pulled away from Micah. “All right, my little cowboy, time for you to get to work.”
“Gross, Mom.”
She grinned at him, gratified when he gave her a little smile. “I love you.”
He rolled his eyes and moved out of the reach of her arms, pushing the door open. “Love you too,” he muttered so quietly she almost didn’t hear it.
But hearing it was a balm to her soul. He loved her. Wanted to protect her. She was raising a good kid, and she’d made mistakes, but she was overcoming them. And that bastard Stephen wouldn’t touch Micah’s life again. Even if she had to ask Lilly and Brandon for help.
She got out of the car, ignoring the little hitch in her chest at the sight of Shane and Micah talking on the porch. Micah looked up at him, clear hero worship all over his expression, and Shane just had the kindest smile with everyone.
Shane Tyler. Still a major problem.
She walked across the yard and up the steps. Micah had disappeared inside.
“I sent him to get a jug of water from Mom. Real cowboys stay hydrated.”
“How very responsible,” Cora returned with a chuckle.
“You okay?”
It was then she realized she hadn’t fixed her makeup, and it was probably clear as day she’d had a teary moment there in the car. Oh well. She looked out over the mountains, taking some solace in their sturdy strength. Was she okay? “I’m still working on it,” she murmured.
She glanced at him then, noticing the shadows under his eyes and the hint of stubble on his chin. “Are you okay?”
He raked a hand through his hair before pulling the cowboy hat onto his head. “You ever wanted to be a spy?”
She laughed, surprised by the odd question and maybe even a little charmed by it. By him. He won’t understand you. You swore off men.
But he grinned down at her, and she forgot all that. It was nice to forget, and nice to know good men existed somewhere in this world. In her world.
“I had some Nancy Drew fantasies. I guess that’s more sleuthing than spying.”
“It’ll do, Nancy. Call me Joe Hardy and come solve a mystery with me.”
* * *
Cora’s expression turned skeptical, but Shane noted she also didn’t stop smiling. There was probably something a little wrong with him given that he was still asking for her help after she’d been very clear she wasn’t looking for a romantic complication to her life.
And neither are you.
Except he couldn’t quite remember that in her general proximity. All he could think about when she was within viewing distance was the fact he liked being around her. He liked making her smile, and the way she studied him. She didn’t outright argue with him like his siblings always did. She listened, even when she didn’t agree.
When it came to this stuff with Ben and spying and investigators, siblings couldn’t be counted on to deal with it rationally. Gavin went too far, and the girls went not far enough. Boone’s being home only made it more complicated. There was too much going on inside of his family, a family who didn’t understand what it was like to be used by someone for what you had.
He needed a little outside help. And if that was some kind of rationalization to be in Cora’s orbit more often than not, so be it.
“What exactly did you have in mind?” she asked, still skeptical, but listening.
“So, I suggested hiring a private investigator to the kids last night.”
Cora wrinkled her nose. “The kids?”
Shane winced a little. “I’m the oldest. Old habits. Et cetera. Sometimes I call them kids.”
She pressed her lips together, but she couldn’t hide the smile. “Okay, Dad.” When he glared, she laughed. “But isn’t a private investigator kind of heavy-handed?”
“Maybe. Maybe it is, but I’ve been trying to get my mom to see the truth about Ben for a while now, and I can’t seem to.” He
couldn’t let time run out. Couldn’t let this happen to Mom. “The suggestion of a private investigator was something of a last resort.”
“But your siblings don’t agree?”
“They can’t decide how they feel about it. The thing is, it would be an answer. If an investigation came back clean and there was truly nothing in Ben’s past that might make me think he’s a threat to my mother, I would drop this. I would find a way to get along with the guy. It would be an answer. I need an answer, and neither Mom nor Ben will give it.”
“And, you, being you, you’ve asked in a hundred different ways.”
“I have. All I ever get is they love each other, and maybe they do, but that doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous.” God knew. “Cora, I don’t know how to let her make this mistake. And you said if there was any evidence that he might hurt her, you would help.”
“Yes. Yes, I would.” Her smile had died, and she looked so grave. Off in some other world. There was a heaviness about her that he’d thought he’d seen when she’d walked up, but she’d pushed it away. It was back now.
“Because someone hurt you once?” he asked gently, hoping to get to the bottom of her as much as he hoped to get to the bottom of Ben.
She didn’t meet his gaze. Instead she stared at the mountains like he so often did when he didn’t know what to say or do. When he was looking for answers that didn’t seem to appear anywhere in this world. He always hoped the mountains had the answers. They never did, but that never kept him from looking.
“I know what it’s like to have someone make you think he cares about you when he doesn’t.” She smiled sadly. “Shane, I can’t imagine your mother being that person.”
“I wish I couldn’t. But even the most invincible people aren’t immune to losing sight of the truth when feelings are involved.” He’d witnessed that firsthand. Experienced it. “Everyone has a weakness, and there’s always someone to pay for that weakness. Even the invincible.”
She cocked her head. He had the urge to explain it all to her. To sit her down and tell her everything that had happened to this family and how he couldn’t let it happen again. But he was selfish enough to want to keep his weaknesses from her. His failures.
“I suppose that’s true,” she said after awhile. “But I don’t know how I can help you spy.”
“Ben doesn’t trust me. He doesn’t like me.”
He was gratified to see a spark of humor back on her face. “Gee, I wonder why.”
“Regardless of why,” he replied with feigned sternness, “I can’t go snooping around him or his stuff. Neither can my siblings. He knows that we’re out to get him.”
“Ah. But he doesn’t know I am.”
“Exactly. With Micah doing chores for us and stuff, plus the wedding planning, I figure you’ll be around a lot. You could do some eavesdropping and potentially some snooping.”
“That sounds . . . not wholly on the up-and-up.”
“It isn’t.”
“I didn’t know you had it in you,” she said, with something like admiration in her voice. As if doing something wrong was something to admire.
He wasn’t proud of any of this, but it had to be done. “I don’t want to do anything sordid, but I’ll do anything if it means I might protect my mother from hurt. I don’t just mean emotional hurts. If they get married, this ranch is part his. That might sound cold, but this ranch is my blood as much as my mother is. It’s my life. My father is buried on this land, my grandparents. My life, my family, and my history are all here in this ground, and I can’t trust someone with part of that until I know for sure he or she is worthy of that trust.”
“It must be very special to have all that,” she said quietly.
“It is. And it’s important to me.” He didn’t add that he felt bad for her that she clearly didn’t have anything like this to belong to. “I know you care about my mother.”
“I do. She’s been very good to me for absolutely no reason at all.”
“So, you don’t have to consider this a favor for me. You can consider this a favor for her. I don’t want you doing anything you’re uncomfortable with. If you say no, you want nothing to do with this, I’ll never ask again. But I had to ask.”
“And this is definitely not flirting?” she asked, and clearly she tried to ask it seriously, but she ended up smiling mischievously at him instead.
“Not yet anyway.”
She laughed a little. “Well, I’m going over to the flower farm with your mother this morning. Then I have a meeting in the afternoon with a future bride. I don’t know when we could make this happen.”
“Leave Micah with us for the whole day. Come back to pick him up around five. Mom will insist you both stay for dinner without my even having to put the idea in her head. I’ll figure out something to get us all together—a fire pit and s’mores or something. While that’s going on, you and I can sneak off and do a little digging.”
“That sounds like flirting.”
He grinned. “First you have to find something on Ben.”
She shook her head, but the lightness and easy humor were back. “This is kind of ridiculous, you know?”
“Yeah, but I’m willing to do a lot of ridiculous things to keep my family safe. To keep this place whole.”
She met his gaze then, her blue eyes serious and searching. “I guess that’s one of those things I like about you, Shane.”
He realized then how close they stood on the front porch. The beautiful pearly light of dawn teasing the red of her hair into prominence, the delicate blue of a morning sky reflected in her eyes. He couldn’t remember a time in his entire life when he’d wanted to press his mouth to someone else’s so badly. It was something akin to a stabbing pain, wanting to know what she felt like under his palms. Wanting to inhale her scent until he couldn’t smell anything else.
The front door slammed open, knocking him back to the here and now and some sense. Micah bounded out, Gavin following at a much slower pace. And then, to Shane’s surprise, Boone limped out behind Gavin.
“Don’t look so surprised, big brother.”
Shane wasn’t sure he’d ever stop being surprised to see Boone here. To see all the physical evidence of his brother’s injuries.
Boone’s gaze flicked to Cora, and there was a little flare of something in his eyes that Shane did not care for at all.
“Boone, this is Mom’s wedding planner and Micah’s mother. Cora, this is my youngest brother, Boone.”
“Oh, the troublemaker,” Cora said with a bright smile. “I’ve heard a little bit about you.”
“I just bet,” Boone said with a grin.
Shane attempted not to tense, but it was hard when he noticed that Micah was looking back and forth between Boone and his mother with something akin to interest.
“Let’s get those chores done,” Shane said gruffly and abruptly. He tipped his hat to Cora. “Enjoy the flower farm.”
“I will.” She reached out and ruffled her hand over Micah’s hair. “Take care of my baby.”
“Ugh, Mom. Come on,” Micah groaned, slapping her hand away and hurrying down the stairs and away from his mother.
But Shane held her gaze, because he could see all her concern and worry and he knew that concern and worry all too well. “I will. I promise.”
Her smile warmed, and she nodded before disappearing inside to find Mom. When Shane turned to go down the stairs, he found both of his brothers staring at him. Micah was a few yards ahead, happily playing with Ben’s dog, King.
His brothers didn’t budge. Just blocked his way and stared.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing,” Gavin said in a tone that was clearly not nothing.
“So, have you actually made a move or are you still the pine in silence type?”
“Fuck off, Boone.” Shane didn’t push past his brother like he would have liked to have done, mostly because he was a little afraid even a friendly nudge would send his brother toppling over.
“Pine in silence type it is.”
“Who said I’m pining, silent or otherwise?”
“The grin she flashed at me. You’d made a move on her, she wouldn’t be looking at me.”
It burned, but Shane knew Boone was after a reaction, and he wouldn’t give it. “If you want to believe that, you go right ahead.” Shane, for one, wouldn’t.
He would try really hard not to believe that.
Chapter Ten
Cora could hardly believe what stretched before her. Rows and rows of colorful, delicate blooms. It was like a Pinterest picture, complete with little red barn in the distance that apparently acted as Lou Anderson’s florist shop.
“I can’t believe this exists,” Cora offered to Deb.
Deb smiled, though Cora noticed the woman wasn’t her usual cheerful self this morning. Not that she was sullen, or even quiet, just a little muted.
“The Fairchild girls had it a bit rough growing up. Their grandparents did everything they could to give them the opportunity to do what they really wanted with their lives.” Deb sighed. “Poor Lou,” she murmured as a young woman stepped out of the barn.
Cora didn’t have time to ask what was poor about her, because Deb was propelling them forward, calling a greeting to the woman.
“Morning, Lou. This is my wedding planner, Cora,” Deb said, pushing Cora forward.
Cora smiled and held out a hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Lou smiled politely, but there was something off about the right side of her mouth. The right side of her face was mostly obscured by the flap of a bandana that seemed to hold back a short cap of blonde hair. When she shook Cora’s outstretched right hand, Lou used her left hand, which made it awkward.
“Welcome,” Lou offered.
“Your place is amazing,” Cora said enthusiastically. “I’ve never been to a flower farm before.”
Lou’s one visible green eye radiated pride and excitement. “We’re very proud of it. Obviously what we’ve got blooming now won’t be available in September, but I’ve got some pictures and mock-ups in the office.”
