by Nicole Helm
“Because you’re his daddy?” Boone asked, giving Shane a hard shove as he released him. A bubbling fury in his gaze that stoked Shane’s own.
“Because I’m the only adult around here. I’m the only one who takes responsibility for anyone else. You’re going to listen to me because I’m the foreman. Because I’m the oldest. Because I damn well know what I’m talking about. You ran away, Boone. You played with your bulls and got your ass handed to you. Now, you’re back. Well, you’re going to have to prove you belong.”
“Fuck you,” Boone said, limping toward the stable doors.
“Yeah, right back at you,” Shane muttered, scrubbing his hands over his face. That had all been so out of control, so out of hand, and what had he been thinking, letting all that old, buried shit slip to Boone of all people?
Shane gave himself a few minutes to get it back together. To calm himself. To focus on what needed to be done. A nice dinner. Getting to know Cora’s family. Hopefully smoothing things over with Micah.
And Boone could go straight to hell.
Chapter Twenty
Cora knew something was seriously up. If she hadn’t noticed Micah running out of the stables, then insisting nothing was wrong, or Boone’s follow-up storm out of the stables after which he went into the house with a loud slam of the door . . . and never came back throughout the whole meal, she’d still have known something was wrong.
Shane was tense. Oh, he tried to hide it with smiles and idle conversation with Brandon and Lilly, but everything in his posture, in the way he held himself was iron-rod straight. Painfully controlled.
Throughout the whole meal Micah was silent and sullen, sending Shane nasty looks when he thought Cora wasn’t watching him.
Cora didn’t want to make a big deal about it in front of Lilly, so she had to squash her curiosity best she could and fake her smiles and ease just like Shane was doing.
She helped the Tyler girls clear up the dishes while Shane cleaned the grill and Micah and Brandon took care of the babies. Lilly and Brandon and crew said their good-byes, and Cora knew she should too, but she needed to hear about what had happened from Shane as much as she needed to hear about it from Micah.
Micah was playing with Ben’s dog, and most of the cleanup was accomplished. She caught Shane’s gaze across the yard, and one corner of his mouth ticked up.
He crossed to her, and, before she even had to say anything, he held out a hand. “Walk?”
She nodded, noting that Shane nodded over at Molly, a clear sign to keep her eye on Micah.
“So, what happened?” she asked as they slowly walked what was becoming their normal path. Away from the house, toward the mountains, in the pretty glow of a fading summer day.
Shane sighed, adjusting his hat. Funny, he always seemed to do that when he wanted a little more control of the situation. She squeezed his hand, because she wanted to be here for him, and she liked that she could read him.
“Maybe I should let Micah tell you, but I’m afraid he might color my role in it a bit.”
“I want the Shane version and the Micah version. I’m also curious about the Boone version.” She smiled at him, hoping for a softening.
She didn’t get it. If anything, Shane only got tenser. His jaw hard, that determined, almost cold look in his eye she remembered from their first meeting, when he’d been dead certain his mother wouldn’t be marrying Ben.
But then he brought their joined hands to his mouth and brushed his lips across the top of her hand. He smiled ruefully. “Unfortunately, Micah was the middle man in a pissing match I shouldn’t have gotten into with my brother.”
They walked toward the mountains, hand-in-hand, and there was something so picture-perfect about it. Yeah, there was a problem, but she was talking it out with a good, honest man who held her hand. Someone who wanted to fix it, not cast blame or land punches.
“Boone suggested taking Micah on a cattle drive the ranch is doing next week. I refused. We don’t let kids on this kind of thing. Unfortunately, even if we did, Micah isn’t experienced enough with the horses yet. So, I had to put my foot down. It’s too dangerous. We can’t risk his safety like that.”
Emotion clogged Cora’s throat. Micah’s own father had once pushed Micah into a wall, Cora’s last straw in the Stephen department. But this man, who was nothing to Micah all in all, wanted her baby to be safe even if it made Micah and Boone mad. Not because he was trying to impress her, but because it was good and right.
She stopped walking, and he stopped too, looking at her with something like pain in his dark brown eyes. “I’m sorry. I am. But I feel strongly about this. It’s too dangerous.”
She moved her arms around his neck, giving him a tight squeeze, afraid words like love would tumble out of her mouth if she dared open it.
Shane hugged her back. “What’s that for?”
She kept her arms around him, but pulled back enough that she could look at him. Oh, she wanted to tell him she was head over heels in love with him. She wanted to tell him everything that had ever happened to her and have him soothe it away with his sympathy, his care.
That would never do. “You’re the best man I know, Shane,” she said, irritated with herself when her voice broke a little.
“Cora.” He reached up, cupping her face with his big, rough hands, those brown eyes serious and intent on hers. As if he was going to say something important. Meaningful.
Oh, God, say it, maybe I’ll feel a little less out of my mind.
“Cora, I—”
“Mom, can we go?” Micah demanded in a shout from a few yards off.
Cora eyed her son. Angry. Vibrating with it. She sighed. A year ago she might’ve given in to it. But Lilly and Dr. Grove had both encouraged her to set limits, to discuss anger rather than give in to it.
So, she pressed her mouth to Shane’s, in a much more chaste display of affection than she would have given if they were alone. “Thank you for dinner. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
Shane looked over at Micah, and there was such a gentleness and an understanding in this man. “I hope I see both of you.” He gave her one last brief hug before releasing her. He tipped his hat at Micah before walking back toward where his family was gathered.
“He’s a jerk,” Micah spat.
Cora couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him this angry. Sad or detached. Hurt or grumpy, yeah, but not . . . this. But he also wasn’t used to not getting everything he wanted when he wanted it. She’d set a bad precedent of giving him too much leeway to try to make up for all the mistakes she’d made.
But she was a different woman now, and she would be a better mom. Like Deb. “You don’t mean that,” Cora returned calmly. “You’re only mad he said you couldn’t do something.”
“Boone knows more than he does.”
“Maybe about riding bulls or whatever it was he did in the rodeo, but I trust Shane’s judgment when it comes to ranch things. I really trust his judgment when it comes to keeping you safe.”
“Boone said—”
“Micah, I know you like Boone. I like him too. But Shane has your safety at heart, and that’s the most important thing to me.”
Micah didn’t say anything, and she wouldn’t allow herself to go further and apologize for not keeping him safe when he was younger. She’d made those apologies. She might never forgive herself completely, but she had to move on from that guilt-driven space. In the here and now she had to be the mom she hadn’t been then.
“I know you’re upset you can’t be involved, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ever be. If you take your lessons seriously for the next few years—”
Micah scoffed. “Like we’ll be around in the next few years.”
“You don’t know—”
“I know,” Micah muttered, stomping off. “I’ll wait in the car.”
Cora stood in the middle of the Tyler ranch, wholly at a loss, but she looked back at the pretty house where Boone, Molly, and Gavin were sitting around t
alking with their mother and Ben. Not perfect, by any means, but good. Kind.
That existed in the world, and she would do everything in her power to keep it a part of her life. She couldn’t expect Micah to believe her. He’d been through too many years of her worst, but she could prove it to him. Day after day. Year after year.
They finally had something good, and Cora was going to keep it.
* * *
Shane didn’t head back to his family, though he’d started to. But before he’d reached them, Boone had come outside. Shane didn’t feel like smoothing that over right now. He was too raw.
He’d never been the kind of guy to get worked up if someone didn’t like him. Being in charge of his siblings, of ranch hands, he was used to making some enemies along the way.
It ate him up that Micah didn’t like him, and yeah, maybe that was wrapped up in not knowing how to reach Boone. How to bridge that gap of bitterness Shane didn’t understand.
Shane sighed and kept walking aimlessly around the ranch. He hadn’t meant to end up at the family cemetery, but somehow that’s where he was.
He slipped off his hat and walked the well-worn path to Dad’s grave. He’d spent something like twenty years coming here: apologizing, bargaining, promising, begging for guidance.
Tonight he didn’t feel much like doing anything. Twenty years of never quite explaining the whole of what happened with Dad. Keeping it buried below protecting and responsibility and a million other things.
“I don’t know why I said anything,” Shane murmured, gaze trained on his father’s name. Owen Todd Tyler: Beloved Son, Husband, Father, and Rancher. “Doesn’t change anything, does it?” Except maybe talking did change things. Could it heal the rift between him and Boone, or was it always going to be anger, bitterness, and blame?
“Hell if I know,” Shane muttered. “Hell if I know anything, but you always told me to keep going. So, that’s what I’ll do.”
“You really think the dead can hear you?”
When Shane whirled on Ben, he held his hands up.
“Don’t try to hit me, your ma sent me.”
“I wasn’t going to hit you,” Shane grumbled. He rocked back on his heels and sighed. “Who knows? Maybe the dead can hear you. Maybe they can’t. I figure the talking is more for the alive anyway.”
“Huh. You might be right.”
Shane eyed the man, not at all trusting his solicitous tone. “Why did my mother send you?”
Ben raked a hand through his hair. “She’s got me doing all sorts of shit. Help Molly with a lesson. Go shooting with Gavin. Talk bulls with Boone. You know, I fell in love with your mother. Didn’t mean I planned on being some kind of fucking stepdad. I hate kids.”
“You’re literally ten years older than me.”
“Yeah, well, she doesn’t see you all that way.”
“Why are you here, Ben?” Shane asked, too tired to fight or beat around the bush or whatever this was.
“Deb wants me to be part of this Denver trip you’re all planning for next week. I put up a good fight, but she’s having none of it, and I’m already in the doghouse for . . . Well, none of your damn business.”
Shane tensed. “You’re not—”
“She wants me to go, and I’m going. But I’ll mostly keep my mouth shut.”
“Mostly,” Shane returned wryly. Because he needed Boone and Ben up his ass, while he took Micah to a baseball game, while the kid probably still hated him.
Silence stretched around them, just the breeze through the trees and the heavy quiet of the dead.
“You know, I had a brother just like you,” Ben offered conversationally after a while of not taking the hint to disappear.
“Let me guess, you were best buddies,” Shane said dryly.
“Couldn’t stand the prick. Told him and the rest of ’em where to stuff it. Haven’t been back in something like twenty-five years.” He glanced at the gravestones. “Didn’t think I’d ever care if they were dead or alive,” he murmured. “Your mom is one hell of a confusing woman. You think you’re forty-some years old and you’ve got your ways stuck deep down in you, then a woman comes along and messes it all up.”
“Are we having a heart-to-heart, Ben?”
“Fuck no.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Hell, maybe. And it’s all Deb’s fault. Always on me about feelings. Opening up. Being a better man. Spent forty years not wanting to be a better man. Then she comes along and . . . fuck.”
Shane didn’t want to be amused, didn’t want to have to see all this human in Ben at this particular moment in his life. But, he hadn’t wanted to lose Dad. Hadn’t wanted a lot of things in this life, and yet he had a pretty good one.
“I know you don’t see what I give her,” Ben said, his voice hushed in the quiet solitude of the tree-lined cemetery. “But that’s because she’s your ma. She’s not Deb to you. Just like I’m not the bad seed to her. Labels, good or bad, they make you lose yourself sometimes, and the people who remind you of who you are beyond it tend to . . . Well, it feels good.”
Shane stared at his father’s grave, thought of Cora and Micah and thought maybe he understood that a little bit. Here at the ranch he was the annoying older brother, or the boss man, but he wasn’t often just Shane.
When Cora looked at him, hell even when Micah was pissed at him, Shane felt like something other than an automaton or dictator. He just felt like a . . . guy.
Mom had run this family and this ranch on her own for so long, and she’d done it all without ever appearing as a real, individual woman to Shane, or probably any of the kids. She was Mom. She was the boss lady. Maybe Ben was right and she deserved to be Deb every now and again.
“You came to me the other day, and you were upfront and honest,” Ben continued. “I haven’t been around that much in my life, so it’s hard to trust it. Rather have a pissing match, have people think the worst so you can’t fuck it up, but I’m . . . Well, I’m . . . Hell, I’ll never be a good man, but for Deb I’ll at least try. That’s all I’m saying about this shit. You don’t like it, that’s your own damn problem.”
And it was that, the way Ben had let his guard down and flung it back up, just like Boone and even Gavin were forever doing, that really got to Shane. Because guards were for safety, to keep your heart from being bruised or from hurting other people. It was why he’d never told the whole story of Dad’s dying to anyone. It was why he’d only ever told Cora everything about Mattie. A guard around himself.
Ben was certainly not a good man, no, and Shane figured his mother deserved the best. But maybe the best out there was a man who would try, just for her.
Shane cleared his throat. “I want to be the one to tell her, but just FYI, I’ll walk her down the aisle.”
There was a long silence in the fading twilight, and for the first time since the fight with Boone, Shane felt a little peace. Maybe it was for the living to read signs into things, but he’d allow himself to believe it was Dad letting him know everything would be okay.
“I told her I’d sign a prenup,” Ben grumbled, barely audibly. “Oh, she got all up in arms about it, but I don’t want this ranch. Who wants that kind of responsibility? I’d rather shovel shit till I bite the dust.”
“You know, if we’d talked this all out a few months ago, we could have avoided a lot of frustration and arguments.” Shane slid a look at Ben.
Who grinned that irritating, don’t-give-a-shit grin. “Where’d be the fun in that?” he asked, clapping Shane on the back once, and hard, before he walked away, out of the trees that shaded the cemetery.
Shane reached out and touched his father’s grave. He still didn’t know what to do about Micah or Boone, but at least progress had been made on one problem. “Thanks,” he murmured, before heading back to the house himself, at least a little more determined to fix the problems still in front of him.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cora was nervous. If it had just been Shane and her driving to Denver and takin
g Micah to a baseball game, she’d have been fine, but this was a whole Tyler family excursion. There’d been talk of Micah “riding with the boys” and her “riding with the girls” and everything felt . . . big.
Weighted.
Which was her own head stuff.
“Can’t we drive ourselves?” Micah grumbled as Cora checked the contents of her bag. This was technically a work excursion as she’d be accompanying Deb and the girls to try on dresses. They were way behind on that front with the moved-up wedding date.
“Not if you want to go to the baseball game. We’re meeting you boys there. Would you rather come with me while the girls try on dresses?” Cora asked sweetly.
He merely groaned, flopping dramatically onto the couch for about the fiftieth time. She peered over the back of the couch at him.
“Is there something you want to talk about?”
His irritated expression blanked. “No.”
“Because you can talk to me.”
“Why? So you can take his side?”
“No.” Cora breathed through her frustration, reminding herself twelve-year-olds weren’t known for common sense. “I know you think agreeing with Shane is taking his side, but I’m on your side. I want you to be safe. So, on this, I have to agree with Shane.”
“Whatever.”
“Oh, gee, I just love that word,” Cora muttered. “Next time you ask for dinner I’ll just say whatever and move on.”
Micah’s mouth twitched, so she kept going. “Mom,” she said, mimicking him. “I ran out of TP. Bring me some?” She adopted her own voice. “Sounds like a you problem. Whatever.”
He made a sound, clearly trying very hard to make it not a laugh.
“Believe it or not, I have a mind of my own. It’s not infallible, but it does have your best interest at heart. You won’t always agree, and when you’re an adult you’re free to do any number of things I don’t agree with and break my heart.”
