The Cowboy's Baby Blessing

by Deb Kastner

  * * *

  Seth led everyone into Tracy’s old office, which was little more than an offshoot built onto one side of the stable. The front room held a desk with an ancient computer monitor. The back room contained the printer and a couple of metal filing cabinets. Zooey laid down a blanket for Caden in the back room and pulled a few books out of her backpack to read to him.

  “Here’s Tracy’s old work computer.”

  The smell of old leather and fresh horse assaulted his nostrils, as it did every time he entered the stable. He was slowly getting used to it.

  Old tack, mostly bridles and neck yokes used for pulling wagons, decorated one wall, featuring an antique wooden wagon wheel as a centerpiece. The opposite wall sported a large display of spurs, some polished to a high shine and others rusty with wear. Seth suspected some of them might even go back a hundred years or more.

  There was some serious history in this building.

  Including the computer.

  The monitor was a gigantic box type that reminded Seth of an old-time television set. Seriously. How long ago had the flat screen been invented?

  Apparently, Luke and Tracy hadn’t been interested in upgrading to anything made in this century.

  “Do you see what I’m working with here?” he complained. “I know how to use a computer, obviously, and I enjoy playing games on my console—but this? This is one intimidating piece of software.”

  “Hardware, actually. The software is the program we’ll use to help with the accounting.”

  His face heated. He was a soldier. He didn’t like exposing his weaknesses.

  “But this monitor?” she said, smiling to cover his faux pas. “Yes, it’s a dinosaur, all right.”

  “Yeah. A T. rex.”

  “Let’s conquer this thing, shall we?”

  He pulled back the office chair for her, then pushed a second chair up beside her. She turned on the computer and the monitor snapped and crackled to life.

  “Fortunately, it looks like the CPU itself is a relatively new model,” she explained, “one that can easily host an up-to-date accounting software.”

  “And that’s a good thing?”

  “That’s a great thing.” She held up the finance CD lying on the desktop and waved it at him. “I use this very same program with my day care. This little guy here is going to make your life considerably easier.”

  “I hope so,” he muttered, but didn’t really believe it would help him much.

  Any math was too much math in his book.

  Rachel sifted through the piles of invoices, separating those that had been paid from those yet due, as well as taking a quick gander at the bookkeeping program’s spreadsheets to look at the accounts payable and receivable, as well as the payroll.

  “Since the printer has a scanning feature, we’ll start by scanning all of these documents into the computer. The software will automatically sort your receipts into categories, and by the time we’re finished, we’ll have most of the documents you’ll need to give your tax accountant—profit and loss, balance sheets and detailed lists of receivables and payables.”

  “What I’ve learned so far is that ranching is a long game. Cows are bred in the spring and fall and delivered eight months later. When the calves get weaned, we sell them. The rest of the year we’re working with that profit.”

  Even though he’d managed to learn that much, Seth’s head was still spinning. As a soldier, he’d been kept comfortably fed and bedded, or as much as possible for a man on tour to the Middle East. He hadn’t had much reason, or opportunity, to use the money he was accruing, so most of what he’d made had gone straight into his savings accounts. He wouldn’t know a financial balance sheet if it bit him in the nose.

  Rachel was staring at him curiously. “You look green around the gills.”

  Great. Wonderful. So he looked as bad as he felt.

  And of course Rachel had noticed.

  “I’m good.” He straightened his shoulders and made direct eye contact with her. His stomach might be lurching, but that was his business and his alone.

  “Like I said, the software does most of the work for you. Once you get familiar with the categories Luke and Tracy set up to run the ranch, the bookkeeping shouldn’t take much more than a couple of hours a week, max.”

  “That’s better than the entire day I spent last Wednesday. As you can see, I didn’t make a dent in it at all. The only thing I got was a headache.”

  Her head tilted in concern as she observed him. “You don’t have to learn this. You could hire someone to come in and keep the books for you.”

  Seth shook his head. “No way. Tracy always did this on her own. She said it was the best way to know what was really going on with the ranch. I’m not going to pass that baton just because it’s a little confusing. If I’m going to do this thing, I’m in it for all or nothing.”

  “Good for you.” She laid a hand on his shoulder and smiled up at him. “You’re just psyching yourself out. It’s like you said to Zooey about parkour. Accounting is really not as hard as it looks. You’ll get the hang of it. Most of what’s holding you back is in your mind.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve never been good at math.”

  He was itching in discomfort. She must think he was a dumb jock, able to swing through trees but not add two plus two together.

  Her gaze met his, and to his amazement, he didn’t see a trace of ridicule or disdain in its depths. Only encouragement and reassurance.

  “Keep in mind that Zooey has never done a backflip in her life. Yet with your help, she did it today. Twice. Think of this software as your backflip. I’m going to help you get through it.”

  Seth lowered his brow in concentration. “You’re saying I need to explore new ways to see the obstacles in my world.”

  “Precisely. Now, as I was saying, one very nice feature of this particular software is its ability to read and organize scanned documents. Back before the advent of the computer, everything had to be written into paper ledgers. When computers came on the scene, those numbers could be manually entered into an accounting software program. That was definitely less of a hassle than scribbling on paper and easier to keep organized, but it still took a fairly significant amount of time. Now we just stack—” she demonstrated by straightening the pile of invoices in front of her “—and scan. The software sorts and categorizes line items into categories for you.”

  “Awesomesauce,” Seth said drily. “Which reminds me. I’m getting hungry. I have veggies all cut up and ready to eat back at the ranch house. Aren’t you ready for a snack?”

  “No, and neither are you, at least until you get a feel for the categories Luke and Tracy used. Stop dangling carrots in front of me,” she teased. “Now, if we also take a quick look at how they had their personal accounts organized, we will have a clearer picture of what was important to them, both in the short-term and in the long-term. You’ll be able to discover not only how they wanted their ranch to be run but also what they considered the most important investments.

  “You can see here where they set aside the money for Caden’s college trust fund and how they funneled money into it on a regular basis. And hey, look here.”

  Rachel sounded excited, and Seth leaned in over her shoulder, his palm on the desk next to hers, so he could see what she was pointing at.

  A sweet scent wafted across his senses, clouding his mind. It was her shampoo, he realized, and it smelled a great deal better than the office around them.

  Coconut.

  He liked coconut.

  It was all he could do not to lean in closer, just to get another whiff.

  “See here?” She pointed at a line item.

  “‘Caden’s horse.’” Seth’s throat tightened and he had to clear it in order to speak. “They were saving to buy him h
is first horse.”

  “Looks like.”

  “But why? There are more than a half-dozen horses in the stable already.”

  “Yes, but they’re used by the wranglers who work your cattle, aren’t they? Did any of them even belong to Luke and Tracy? And even if some of them do, Caden’s horse would have to be especially gentle when he was first learning to ride. Maybe they were looking for something special, just for him.”

  Seth shrugged. She had a point. He lifted his hat by the crown and tossed it onto the side of the desk, then jammed his fingers through the thick ends of his hair, which was only just beginning to grow out to where he liked it, now that he was no longer in the military.

  He blew out a breath. It seemed like every time he turned around, he found out something else he didn’t know, and he was getting weary of it.

  “I haven’t been able to work all that out yet,” he admitted. “The horses, the cattle. Pigs. Chickens. I really don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it all. I do know that at least a couple of the horses stabled now are—were—Luke and Tracy’s personal mounts. I’ve been riding Luke’s horse, Windsong. I’ll have to check on the rest, whether the ranch owns them or if they are the wranglers’ personal mounts.”

  “We can get those details later. I think for right now it’s enough to be aware that the Hollisters wanted Caden to have a horse in his future. Maybe somewhere around his third birthday next month. Unless you’d rather start looking now.”

  “Isn’t Caden a little young for a horse?”

  Rachel laughed. “I’m no expert, of course, having never ridden myself, but Caden is likely to grow up to be a rancher, after all, since this land is his legacy. I think most of the children in Serendipity start out riding fairly young.”

  “I’ll ask Wes,” he said, referring to the ranch manager who’d been patiently walking him through all the many facets of owning a ranch. “He’ll know when will be the right time for us to start looking for a gentle horse, and more important, where to find one, because I haven’t got a clue.”

  “That sounds like a reasonable plan.”

  He felt as if his head was going to burst.

  “Would it be too much for me to ask you to accompany me when the time comes?”

  Her beautiful brown eyes widened. “I’d be happy to go with you, but I don’t know what kind of help I can give you. I know less about horses than you do.”

  “True, you may not know anything about horses, but you do know children. I think you’d be better able to recognize a bond between Caden and his potential horse than I would.”

  That was the rational reason, if a little flimsy, and it was the only one he was going to admit to.

  “Do you mind if I make a suggestion?” She turned slightly in her chair so she was looking up at him and she rested her palm over the top of his hand on the desk.

  Her expression exuded empathy and her touch somehow calmed him as much as her gaze did. The tension in his shoulders eased and the pounding in his head decreased until it was down to a dull roar.

  “Please do.”

  “Start making lists of things you plan to do. Write stuff down. Don’t try to keep it all straight in your head. There’s too much for you to remember and you’re getting overwhelmed.”

  “I’m way past overwhelmed. But I have been making lists.”

  She smiled softly and tapped his temple with the tip of her finger. “Yes, I know. Up here, right?”

  Was that why his head always felt ready to explode?

  “Use your cell phone. I’ve got a good app I can show you how to use. You can divide your projects into categories so you don’t forget anything and tick items off as you go.”

  “And psychologically make myself feel as if I’m accomplishing something.”

  “Exactly.” She grinned, and he chuckled.

  He’d had enough of standing and staring at numbers. He wanted to climb on something, stretch his back and legs and work out the kinks in his muscles.

  But because he was stuck in a musty old office that smelled of horsehair and leather, he did the next best thing.

  He reached for Rachel’s hands, drew her to her feet and twirled her around until they were both laughing and out of breath.

  “What would I do without you?” he asked, hoping he never had to find out. At least, not for a long time to come. At the moment he couldn’t imagine being able to conquer all those lists without her. She was his number one go-to person where Caden was concerned. “You’ve got my six, and I really appreciate it.”

  She squeezed his hands.

  “No worries there. I’ll be around to help you as long as you need me.”

  She winked and Seth’s breath caught in his throat.

  He’d known Rachel long enough to be sure she wasn’t the flirtatious type, and they’d both established that they weren’t in the market for a relationship.

  But right this second, he couldn’t seem to remember any of the reasons why. She touched his heart in a way no other woman ever had.

  Granted, he hadn’t had many relationships in his adult life, since he’d enlisted in the army straight out of high school and had served two tours overseas. He wasn’t sure if he’d know true feelings if he tripped over them.

  But this thing with Rachel? It felt real.

  She must have read his thoughts in his expression. Her face pinkened and she pulled her hands away.

  He cleared his throat. “We...uh...probably ought to go check on Zooey and Caden. They must be getting hungry for a snack. I know I am.”

  “Sure,” Rachel agreed, her eyes glowing. She’d recovered quicker than he had. He couldn’t even tell she’d been flustered only moments earlier. “I’ll let you off the hook this time. But next time we’re going to go over your balance sheet.”

  One more reason to like her. She knew when to push him and when to back off, and she wasn’t afraid to do either.

  He suspected they would be friends long after he’d straightened out this mess with the ranch, and even when he was more confident in raising Caden.

  As if she guessed what he was thinking, she grabbed his cowboy hat from the edge of the desk and reached on tiptoe to plant it on his head, tilting her chin and appraising him before giving the brim of his hat a little tug.

  “There,” she said, sounding pleased with herself. “You have the looks, and soon you’ll have the know-how. We’ll make a cowboy out of you yet.”

  Chapter Six

  Exactly one week and one day later, Rachel sifted through her blouses on the hangers in her closet, looking for the perfect shirt for the day ahead. Ultimately, she settled on a soft-pink cotton pullover. She needed something to match her oldest pair of jeans and the brand-spanking-new pair of burgundy-colored riding boots she’d purchased from Emerson’s Hardware earlier in the week.

  She had no intention whatsoever of actually riding a horse, but since she was spending an increasing amount of time on the Bar H ranch with Seth, it only made sense to dress like the ranchers did. She didn’t want to ruin her good running shoes trudging through mud and cow pies.

  So now she had a pair of riding boots she’d never use to ride a horse and a pair of running shoes that would never see so much as a single run.

  Irony was her middle name.

  “I’m going out,” she told Zooey, who was lying across the couch with her feet propped up higher than her head, chatting away on her cell phone to one of her friends about a new boy in town named Dawson.

  Rachel wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, exactly, but it was hard to miss Zooey’s excited giggle when she exclaimed how cute he was and asked her friend if he would be at the party.

  Typical teenage conversation.

  Nothing to be concerned about. As much as she wanted to put a large rock on Zooey’s head to ke
ep her from growing up, it was happening whether she liked it or not.

  In two years Zooey would be off to college and Rachel would still be here. Only, in the evenings, the house would be too quiet.

  She would be alone.

  If she didn’t think about it, would it go away?

  She wished that she had more time, that she could do it all over again. But this was the way the Lord had made the relationship between parents and their children. Parents nurtured their kids into adulthood. And the older the kids got, the less they needed their moms.

  Or in Seth’s case, dad. In some ways she envied Seth, being able to cuddle little Caden in his arms whenever he wanted to, having so many more years ahead of them before Caden, too, was grown and gone.

  Zooey was long past the cuddling stage. Once in a great while she still wanted or needed a hug from her mom, but that was happening less often, especially after she’d started hanging out with that questionable group of friends.

  She’d been doing better for the past few weeks, putting effort into summer school and spending more time playing with Caden than she did out by the pool.

  Rachel wondered if that was one of those friends she was speaking to now. And what was that about a party?

  Rachel waved to get Zooey’s attention and indicated for her to put the phone on mute. Instead, she surprised Rachel by telling her friend she’d talk to her later and hanging up, giving Rachel her full attention.

  “Seth’s picking me up in a minute. We’re going out to the McKenna ranch to see about getting Caden a horse. According to Seth’s foreman, the earlier a future rancher learns to ride, the better. Make sure you get your homework done. You know I don’t like it if you have to study on a Sunday.”

  “Yeah. I know. I finished my homework last night. Can I come along with you to see the horses?”

  “I’ll have to ask Seth, but I don’t see why not. We can probably use the help with Caden.”

  “Awesomesauce,” Zooey replied, flashing Rachel a sassy grin.

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “No,” Zooey agreed. “In fact, I think it will go viral. I’ll make a video. ‘Moms Using Out-of-Date Vernacular.’ Pretty soon everybody’s mom will want to make a video and upload it online.”