Western Hearts: A sweet, cowboy romance (Cowboys of Aspen Valley Book 1)

by Carolyne Aarsen

  “Dead?” Nicole frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “He died when he got on Uncle Kip’s horse.”

  Tristan’s comment was said in all innocence, but again the guilt associated with his brother’s death washed over Kip.

  “Your father is dead?” Nicole said, one hand pressed to her chest, eyes wide with what looked like shock.

  “He died when the horse he was on flipped over,” Justin continued. “But we know he’s in heaven with Jesus. I talk to Jesus and tell him what to say to my daddy every night.”

  “That’s…interesting. You think your daddy is in heaven?” A faint note of skepticism entered her voice that concerned him. He didn’t like the way she said ‘think’.

  “We go regularly to church,” Kip said by way of brief explanation. “I hope that’s not a problem.” He wasn’t about to get into a theological discussion about what Jesus meant to him. If he decided to hire her, then she’d find out that faith was woven into every aspect of the Cosgroves’ life.

  Nicole waved her hand as if dismissing his concerns. “No. Of course not. I’m sorry. It’s just, I feel bad for the boys.” She gave him a cautious look of sympathy. “And for your family of course.”

  “And our mommy is gone,” Tristan offered, unwilling to let Justin do all the talking. “She just left us one day. All alone with the babysitter.”

  “Then Daddy rescued us. He was a good daddy,” Justin said.

  “What do you mean your mommy left you?” A faint edge had entered her voice as she glanced up at Kip. “Do you know where their mother is?”

  Kip shook his head, wondering why she wanted to know.

  The reality was, no one in the Cosgrove family knew where Hayes was or whether she was dead or alive. His brother, Scott, and Hayes had been living in Nova Scotia when Hayes took off without a word six months after the boys were born.

  Scott and his sons then moved back to the ranch.

  “Do you want to see our dog’s puppies?” Justin tugged his shoulder free of Kip’s grip and reached out to Nicole.

  “Shouldn’t you go and say hi to your gramma?” Nicole asked.

  Kip was pleasantly surprised at her consideration, but he also knew the boys would rather be outside.

  “They can go.” He’d had them all day. It might be nice to have a break.

  Tristan grabbed Nicole’s other hand and before she could lodge a protest, the three of them were off.

  Kip watched them head down the sidewalk toward the barn, still unsure. Hiring her would give him a break from the constant nagging he did to get Isabelle to help.

  He sighed, glancing at his watch. He needed to contact Isabelle then make sure the boys didn’t get into any trouble. Supervise his new housekeeper with them.

  Then he had to see what he could do about his tractor.

  What had she done?

  Nicole bit her lip as she looked down at the sticky faces of the two boys looking up at her, jabbering about cows and puppies and Uncle Kip and Auntie Isabelle and other relatives.

  She tried to stifle her guilt.

  She was no housekeeper. Nor had she come because of an advertisement. Her real reason for coming to the ranch was to see her nephews. Her sister’s boys.

  That Kip’s sister Isabelle assumed she was the housekeeper had been a coincidence she had impetuously decided to capitalize on.

  She was surprised that Kip was even considering hiring her, but the opportunity to be with Hayes’s twins was a chance too good to pass up. She would have to text Winona to get some references should that be needed.

  But she guessed, from the chaos that greeted her when she came to the house, that Isabelle and her mother especially, were happy that someone, anyone, had come.

  Though Kip didn’t seem too thrilled, he seemed to have accepted the situation once he spoke to his poor mother.

  Now she was walking with her nephews and as she clung to the boys’ hands, a wave of love buffeted her. Justin. Tristan. Hayes’s twins. A remnant of the true Williams family now that Hayes was dead.

  When Hayes had stormed out of their lives all those years ago, yelling that she’d never come back, Nicole had clung to the hope that her beloved sister would someday relent and return.

  Nicole had prayed and had clung to this hope for years.

  Until four weeks ago when a police officer showed up at the Williamses’ home in Rosedale, Toronto, to ask them if they knew a Hayes Williams.

  He was there to find more information and, ultimately to tell them the tragic news that Hayes, her sister, had been dead for over three years. It had taken them this long to track down Hayes’s parents.

  The news hit Nicole hard and her father, harder. He demanded to know why they hadn’t been informed earlier but the officer could only tell them that Hayes had been killed while she was struck by a car late at night. She had no identification. It wasn’t until Hayes’s roommate, Stacy, registered her concern with the police over Hayes’s absence that an investigation was launched.

  Stacy was the one who identified Hayes but wasn’t able to give the police any more information. The only thing she knew about her elusive roommate was that she had two boys by a man whom Hayes was now estranged from.

  Then, a few weeks ago, Stacy was getting ready to move. While she was clearing out the apartment, she moved out a desk in the room Hayes had stayed in. Behind it was a diary that had belonged to Hayes.

  Her father had obtained the diary, which gave them missing details about Hayes’s life.

  They found out that previous to living with Stacy, Hayes was living with a man named Scott Cosgrove. While living with him, she cheated on him and got pregnant. She was going to move in with him. She ultimately kept that information from Scott because the man she cheated with left.

  She had given birth to Justin and Tristan and didn’t tell Scott that the boys weren’t his. They had a home. She had a home. And she grew to love Scott.

  But the boys were her life.

  However, the diary also chronicled the continuing cycle of Hayes’s increasing drug use, her remorse, her desire to change for the sake of her boys and Scott, only to fall into the same cycle again.

  Then, one day, she had come back after a long binge and Scott and the boys were gone.

  She checked herself into rehab. When she came out, she moved in with Stacy, determined to find the boys. However, she was killed crossing a busy street a few weeks later.

  Tucked in the diary was a handwritten will, dated after the twins were born, stating that if something happened to her, she wanted her parents, Sam and Norah, to take care of the boys.

  But Norah Williams had passed away two years previous, still grieving the loss of her beloved daughter, not knowing about Hayes’s boys.

  After they got the diary, Nicole had done some detective work of her own and had discovered that Scott had moved back to his family’s ranch in Alberta with Justin and Tristan before Hayes put herself in rehab. It took little work from there to discover a Cosgrove family in Aspen Valley, Alberta. Nicole decided to go to the ranch to see if Scott lived there. If not, to discover where he and the twins were.

  Nicole’s father desperately wanted to come along, but his emphysema prevented him from flying and his doctor discouraged him from taking the trip. So Nicole came alone to get some more information.

  And now, apparently, she was a housekeeper.

  She had gone along with it all, seeing a need to help out when she arrived. She had felt badly for Mary, especially when Isabelle left without a backward glance.

  Then Kip came striding up the sidewalk with his long legs, his eyebrows lowered over narrowed gray eyes shadowed by his cowboy hat, his mouth set in grim lines, and fear clutched her midsection.

  She was about to come clean.

  Then she saw the boys, and she knew beyond a doubt they were Hayes’s twins. Everything changed in that moment, but she couldn’t tell the Cosgroves who she was. Not yet.

  She didn’t want her first introd
uction to the boys to be fraught with conflict. Because as soon as Kip and his mother, Mary, found out her true purpose for being here, there would be antagonism and battles.

  “We have our own kittens, too,” Justin said, swinging her hand as if he’d known her for all of his five years.

  Nicole tightened her grip on the boys’ hands, a surprising wave of love and yearning washing over her.

  Why couldn’t Hayes have asked for her family’s help?

  But even as the questions danced through her head, Nicole knew the answer.

  Knew it was because of her. Knew it was because she had sent Hayes away.

  Well, here was her chance to make up for it all. To right the wrong that had caused her father such grief and erase the mountain of guilt that lay on Nicole’s heart.

  “There are five of them,” Tristan said, his innocent words breaking into the morass of guilt surrounding any memory of Hayes. “One of them died, though. Do you think that kitten is in heaven with my daddy?”

  “I think so,” Nicole said, hesitantly. She didn’t want to destroy their little dreams of heaven or of the man they thought of as their father.

  But Scott wasn’t their father.

  Hayes’s diary had said as much. She had been pregnant when she moved in with Scott. Pregnant by another man.

  As for God? When Hayes left, Nicole’s faith in God had wavered. When Nicole’s adoptive mother died of cancer despite Nicole and her father’s many prayers for healing, Nicole stopped thinking God cared.

  God, if He did exist, was simply an idea. Something people went to when they didn’t know where else to turn and even then a huge disappointment.

  “How about we check out the kittens,” she said, brushing aside her anger. All that mattered was that she had found the boys.

  “I don’t want to see the kittens,” Justin said with a pout. “I want to see the horses.”

  “Uncle Kip won’t let us,” Tristan said, placing his hands on his hips. “You know that.”

  “We won’t go into the corrals.” Justin tugged on her hand. “Uncle Kip won’t get mad if we just look.”

  Nicole easily remembered Kip Cosgrove’s formidable expression. Best not cross him sooner than she had to. “Maybe another time,” she said. “We should go back to the house.”

  She wanted to see how Mary was doing.

  “I want to see the horses.” Justin pulled loose and took off.

  “Justin, come back here,” she called, still holding onto Tristan as Justin disappeared around the barn.

  Nicole turned to Tristan. “You stay here, okay?” She spoke firmly so he understood.

  Tristan nodded, his blue eyes wide with uncertainty.

  “I have to get your brother.” She patted him on the shoulder, allowed herself a moment to cup his soft, tender cheek, then turned to get Justin.

  Nicole ran around the barn in time to see Justin with his foot on the bottom rail of the corral. She ran over the uneven ground and caught him by the waistband of his blue jeans just as he took another shaky step up.

  “I can go up myself,” he said, trying to pull free.

  “If your uncle said no, then it’s no,” Nicole said, shifting her grip from his pants to his shirt. No way was she bucking Uncle Kip on this. She needed all her ammunition for a much bigger battle. “So let’s go.”

  “What’s going on?” Kip’s deep voice, edged with anger, reverberated through the quiet of the afternoon.

  Nicole’s heart stuttered at the latent fury in his voice.

  Still holding on to Justin’s arm, she turned to see Kip standing behind her, Tristan beside him.

  “Justin, get down from that fence. You and Tristan are to go back to the house right now,” Kip said, his tone brooking no argument. “Gramma is waiting for you.”

  “I want to stay with Nicole. She said I could see the horses with her.”

  Nicole was about to correct that when Kip spoke again.

  “I need to talk to Miss Nicole,” he said. “Alone.”

  His anger seemed extreme for the circumstances. That could mean only one thing. He knew about her momentary deception.

  Time to come clean. She had seen the boys and was ready to face him down. She had Hayes’s will and the law on her side.

  Justin jumped down and scampered around the barn, Tristan close behind.

  Kip watched them leave, then walked toward her, his booted feet stirring up little clouds of dust. The utter stillness of the air felt fraught with uncertainty and a feeling of waiting.

  He stopped in front of her, crossed his arms over his chest and angled his head to one side.

  Fear trembled in her midsection, threaded with a peculiar awareness of him. She pushed her reaction aside and focused on the job she had come here to do.

  “We need to talk,” he said quietly.

  “I know—”

  “I’ve decided to hire you,” he said.

  This wasn’t what she had expected when he came storming around the barn, anger and fury in his eyes.

  “I’ve got a lot going,” he said. “And I can’t stay on top of everything. I really could use your help.”

  The appeal in his voice and the confusion of his expression created an answering flash of sympathy. When she first came into his house, she felt overwhelmed at the mess. When she saw poor Mrs. Cosgrove, trying to fold laundry from her wheelchair, she knew she couldn’t walk away.

  So, she pitched in and started cleaning. Mrs. Cosgrove’s gratitude made her momentary subterfuge seem worthwhile.

  Now a man who looked like he could eat bullets and spit out the casings was launching an appeal for her help.

  He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “So tell me what you want to get paid, and we’ll see if we can figure something out.”

  Nicole held his gaze, and when he gave her a half smile, her heart shifted and softened. For a moment, as their eyes held, a tiny crack opened in her defenses, a delicate pining for something missing in her life. As quickly as it came, she sealed it off. Opening herself up to someone would cost too much.

  Besides, he was the enemy. The one who stood between her and her beloved sister’s boys. When he found out who she was, the warmth in his eyes would freeze.

  She took a breath and plunged in.

  “You may as well know, I didn’t come to apply for the housekeeping position.” Nicole spoke quietly, folding her hands in front of her and forcing herself to hold his gaze. “I’m Hayes’s adoptive sister. Justin and Tristan’s aunt. I’ve come to take the boys.”

  Chapter Two

  Kip stared at the woman in front of him, her words spinning around his head.

  Hayes’s sister? Come to take his boys? His brother’s sons?

  “What are you talking about? What do you mean?” His heart did a slow flip as the implications of what she said registered.

  He had come here to offer her a job, and when he saw Justin climbing the fence of the horse corral, he’d lost it. In front of his very attractive prospective employee.

  Now, with his heart still pounding from seeing Justin up on the fence, he was sandbagged with this piece of information.

  “When were you going to tell me that you weren’t applying for the job?” Kip growled, unable to keep his anger tamped down.

  “I just did.” Nicole raised her chin and looked at him with her cool green eyes. “I had no intention of fooling anyone.”

  Kip gave a short laugh. “So how do you figure you’re taking the boys? How does that work?”

  Nicole pressed her lips together and looked away. “It works because Hayes wrote up a will stating that our parents get custody and now she’s…now she’s dead.”

  Kip took a step back, the news hitting him like a blow.

  His poor nephews. How was he going to tell them? They still assumed their mother was around. That she was just ‘sick’ and when she got better she would come and get them.

  He didn’t know any different so he couldn’t tell them what he suspec
ted.

  Now he knew for sure.

  “When did this happen? Why weren’t we told?”

  Nicole didn’t answer right away, and Kip saw the silvery track of a tear on her cheek. She swiped it away with the cuff of her tailored jacket.

  “Hayes died over three years ago. My father and I just found out ourselves. Just a few weeks previous.” Her voice sounded strangled, and for a moment Kip sympathized with her. The first few weeks after his brother Scott died, he could barely function. He went through the motions of work, hoping, praying, he could find his balance again. Hoping, praying the pain in his heart would someday ease. Hoping the guilt that tormented him over his brother’s death would someday be gone as well.

  His brother had died only six months ago, and they had only recently found out about Hayes. Her pain must be so raw yet…

  He pulled his thoughts back to the problem at hand. “Why did it take so long for you to find out about Hayes’s death?” he asked, steeling his own emotions to her sorrow.

  “She hadn’t told anyone about her family. Apparently she had just come out of a drug-rehab program and was trying to pull her life together. Then she was going to find her boys.”

  “Drug rehab?” Kip’s anger returned. “No wonder Scott came back with the boys.”

  Nicole shot him an angry glance. “According to Hayes’s diary, he took them away without her knowledge or permission.”

  “Scott took them because she was using drugs.”

  Kip had heard stories from Scott about Hayes.

  They weren’t pretty.

  Nicole’s frown deepened. “Hayes would not willingly abandon her children.”

  “But she did. With her lifestyle.”

  Nicole was quiet. “According to her diary, she was using drugs, yes, when Scott moved out with the boys. But she went into a drug rehab program and when she came out, she didn’t know where the boys were. Where Scott was. He had no right to do that to her.”

  “How do you figure that?” Kip’s anger grew. “He was their father. He was protecting them.” Scott had told him about the boy’s mother. What a struggle it was for him to watch her spiraling deeper into her drug habit.