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

by Carolyne Aarsen

  When she got to the car, she shot a quick look over her shoulder, but she was out of sight of the shed. She pulled out the bag of tools and grabbed her cell phone at the same time.

  “That’s one sweet cell phone.”

  Nicole jumped, then spun around in time to see Isabelle sauntering down the stairs with all the confidence of a sixteen-year-old girl.

  “You got any fun apps or games on it?” she asked.

  “I don’t play games on my phone.”

  Isabelle slanted her head to one side, her eyes narrowed. “No, but you play games with us. Pretending to be a housekeeper. You know how much trouble I got into because of you?”

  Nicole took the young girl’s measure. Decided she had nothing to lose by challenging her.

  “You seemed happy enough to leave me alone with your mother and all the work,” Nicole countered.

  “I don’t think I like you,” Isabelle said, crossing her thin arms over her chest.

  “I don’t think that matters.” Nicole was sure she wasn’t well-liked by the rest of the Cosgrove family either. She wasn’t here to win a popularity contest. She was here to get her father’s grandchildren back to him. Her atonement for what happened with Hayes.

  “My brother won’t let you take Justin and Tristan away from here, you know. He’ll fight you and he’s got a great lawyer. Aria Waldren is one of the best.”

  “I know he will resist,” was all she said, checking her voice mail while she spoke.

  Five new messages. She listened to them as she walked back to the shed, taking the bag of tools with her.

  Isabelle followed a few steps behind her.

  “Don’t you have work to do?” Nicole asked, feeling like was being spied on.

  “I’m supposed to vacuum but my mom is sleeping, and I don’t want to wake her up.”

  Nicole gave her a vague nod as she skipped through the messages from her assistant, Heather. She could deal with those when she got back to the motel, but the one from the lawyer…

  “No news to report yet.” Her family’s lawyer’s voice was brisk and businesslike, and he didn’t waste any words or time. “Still working on the legalities of the will. Should have more information in a couple of days.”

  Isabelle took a quick step to get ahead of Nicole. “You can’t do this to my mother, you know,” she said, her voice intense. “She’ll die if you take Justin and Tristan. Those are Scott’s boys and he’s gone. They are all she’s got left of him.” This was followed by a dramatic sniff.

  Nicole caught a flash of her own intensity in the young girl’s eyes. Her own reasons for reuniting the boys with her father.

  Her step faltered, but for only a moment. “I’m sorry, Isabelle, but I can’t discuss this with you.”

  She walked past Isabelle toward the garage, shoving her phone into her pocket. As she came near, she saw Kip watching her, wiping his hands on a rag. Had he been looking at her the entire time?

  “What did you say to my sister?” he asked, pointing his chin toward Isabelle.

  Nicole shot a quick glance over her shoulder. Isabelle stood in the middle of the yard, her arms wrapped around her middle, staring at Nicole, her expression tight with anger.

  “I told her I wasn’t discussing the legalities of what’s happening.” She handed him the tools. “Where are the boys?”

  Kip angled his head to the back of the shop and without a word to him, Nicole walked toward them even as he called out his thanks to her.

  But even as she did, her stomach twisted with old, familiar emotions. Again, she was on the outside of a family looking in. Sure, she hadn’t expected to be accepted and greeted with warmth, but she hadn’t counted on how much their antagonism would bother her. Especially when, for a few hours, she had been welcomed by them.

  “Auntie Nicole, there you are.”

  Nicole smiled and looked around. “I can’t find you, Justin,” she called out, warmth flooding her heart at the sound of his voice.

  Then a pair of arms flung themselves around her waist and she looked down onto the blond head of a little boy.

  As she hugged him back, she felt her own heart crack open just a little wider. She could not let the feelings of the Cosgrove family stand in the way of what she had to do.

  Her father’s needs came before theirs.

  Chapter Six

  Nicole pushed the accelerator further down as her car climbed the hill. She had Vivaldi on the stereo, the windows open and her car headed in the direction of the ranch and Hayes’s boys.

  The highway made a curve, then topped a rise, and Nicole’s breath left her. The valley spread out below her, a vast expanse of space yawning for miles, then undulating toward green hills and giving way to imperious mountains, their peaks capped with snow, blinding white against a blue, blue sky.

  Despite her hurry to get to the ranch, she slowed down, taking it all in. The space, the emptiness.

  The freedom. She felt the faintest hitch in her soul.

  She was a city girl, but somehow this country called to her. Yesterday she’d almost got lost on her way to the ranch because she kept looking around, taking in the view.

  She took in a deep breath and let the space and quiet ease into her soul.

  Yesterday, after seeing the boys, she’d come back to a raft of emails all dealing with the foundation banquet she and her assistant had been planning.

  Nicole first sent a quick update to her father, then waded into the work, dealing with whatever came out of them until two. This morning she’d gotten up early and finished up. Then, still tired, she’d grabbed a nap, only she forgot to set her alarm. Now she was an hour and a half late for her meeting with the boys.

  The ringing of her cell phone made her jump. She blew out a frustrated sigh, glanced at the caller ID and forced a smile.

  “What did the lawyer say?” her father asked.

  Sam Williams may have been ill, but he hadn’t lost his capacity of getting straight to the point.

  “The usual lawyer stuff,” Nicole said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear that the wind coming into the car had pulled free from her ponytail. “Things are going to take time. She needs to verify Hayes’s will. Wait for the DNA test. Nothing definite yet.”

  “How are the boys?”

  “I wish you could see them in person. They’re so cute.” The sight of them pushing the oversized broom in their uncle’s shop yesterday made her smile. She had snapped a picture of them and sent it to her father for an update. “They’re such little cowboys.”

  Her father didn’t say anything to that, and Nicole guessed it was the wrong response.

  “I’ll try to call from the ranch today,” Nicole said. “See if you can talk to them.”

  “The new school year starts in three months,” her father said as Nicole turned onto the road leading to the ranch. “I’m looking into schools for them.”

  As Sam spoke, Nicole’s thoughts slipped back to Kip’s comment about putting the boys on the bus and his obvious regret. At least he wouldn’t have to deal with that come September.

  “I’m getting to a bad area, and I’ll be losing reception. I’ll try to call you from the ranch.”

  “If I was feeling better, I’d be there…”

  The rest of her father’s words were cut off when Nicole’s car dropped into the valley.

  As Nicole turned onto the ranch’s driveway, she felt another clutch of frustration at Kip Cosgrove’s insistence that she visit the boys only at the ranch.

  How was she supposed to get to know her nephews in two and a half hours under his watchful eye? But as she came around the corner, her frustration gave way to anticipation at the thought of seeing the boys again.

  As Nicole parked her car beside Kip’s huge pickup she got out of the car, looked around, but didn’t see anyone. She walked to the house and knocked on the door.

  Nothing.

  Where was everybody? She lifted her hand to knock again when she saw a note on the door addressed t
o her.

  “In the field. Moving bales. Mom sleeping.” The words were hastily scribbled on a small piece of paper and stuck to the door with a piece of masking tape.

  Nicole blew out a sigh. Which field? How was she supposed to find them? She could almost hear the clock ticking down the precious seconds on her visit.

  She paused, listening, then heard a tractor. Thankfully, it sounded like it was coming closer.

  She jogged across the yard, past the chuck wagons. As she ran around a corner of the barn, a tractor lurched into view pulling a wagon loaded up with hay. Smoke billowed from the stack and the engine roared, a deafening sound in the once-stillness.

  The sun reflected off the glass of the closed-in cab of the tractor, but as it came closer, Nicole saw Kip driving and Justin and Tristan standing behind the seat.

  With a squeal of brakes, the tractor came to a halt beside her and Kip opened the side door. “You’re late,” he yelled over the noise of the tractor’s engine.

  Like she needed him to tell her that.

  “Yes. Sorry.” What else could she say?

  Justin leaned over Kip’s shoulder and waved at her. “Hey, Ms. Williams,” he shouted.

  Ms. Williams? What happened to Auntie Nicole?

  Nicole just smiled and waved; quite sure Kip had something to do with the change.

  She walked to the tractor, raising her arms to take the boys out. “Hey, Tristan. You boys helping Mr. Cosgrove?”

  Two could play that game.

  Tristan gave her a puzzled look. Nicole could tell that Kip understood exactly what she was doing.

  “We just have to unload these bales.” Kip closed the door before she came any closer and before the boys could get out. He put the tractor in gear and drove away.

  She was left to trail behind the swaying wagon, fuming as bits of hay swirled around her face. With each step her anger at his pettiness grew. He was depriving her of valuable time with her own nephews so he could prove a point.

  She easily kept up with the tractor and followed it to where she assumed he was going to pile up these bales. But neither he nor the boys got out of the tractor. Somehow, he unhitched the wagon from inside, turned the tractor around and started to unload the bales. One at a time.

  She was reduced to watching as the clock ticked away precious minutes of her visiting time.

  Kip reminded her of her biological father and how he used to make her wait in the motel room while he busied himself with who knew what in his truck while her aunt fumed.

  Older, buried emotions slipped to the fore. As she had done the first few years at Sam and Norah’s, she fought them down. She was here and she had a job to do for her father. That was all she had to focus on.

  She waited until the last bale was unloaded and then she marched over to the tractor before Kip could decide he had to go for another load and leave her behind.

  But just as she reached the tractor, Kip shut it off and the door opened.

  “You finally came,” Tristan called out.

  The “finally” added to her burden of guilt, and she gave them a quick smile. “Yes, I’m sorry I was late,” she said as Kip lifted Tristan up and over the seat.

  “Got busy with work?” he asked as she reached up to take Tristan from him.

  “Forgot to set my alarm,” was her terse reply as she set Tristan down on the ground. He didn’t need to know that to some degree he was right, and she was surprised that he had guessed, at least partially, why she was late.

  He made a show of looking at his watch. “You city people keep crazy hours.”

  “I was working late and grabbed a nap,” she said, trying not to rise to his goading.

  “So, you were working.”

  “I have to do something while I’m waiting around for my appointed visiting times,” she snapped. “Justin, honey, tell Mr. Cosgrove that he’s working on a Saturday too and we’re wasting time here.”

  Justin frowned, then laughed. “He is Uncle Kip,” the little boy said with a grin.

  “He is many things,” Nicole returned, her gaze still on Kip.

  His eyes narrowed as if he caught the inference but wasn’t sure what to do with it. Instead of saying anything, he handed Justin down to her.

  “I’m taking the boys to see the puppies. Is that okay?” she asked.

  “Just stay away from the horses. I’m going back for another load of hay,” he said, his voice brusque. “Make sure you keep the boys away from the tractor too when I come back.”

  Before she could think of a suitable reply, he had closed the door and started up the tractor again.

  She bit her anger back, took a breath to calm herself, then looked down at the boys. No sense in letting them know how angry she was with their uncle.

  “Let’s go,” the boys said, dragging her by the hand toward the barn. “But Uncle Kip said we should check on Grandma.”

  “Of course. We’ll first go see your grandmother and then we’ll go see the puppies,” Nicole said.

  They ran across the yard ahead of her, laughing and leaping like two young colts.

  Nicole smiled at the picture of utter freedom.

  When Nicole and the boys got to the house, Mary was watching television. She brightened when the boys came into the living room.

  “Hey, there, my boys. Do you want to watch a movie with me?” she asked.

  Nicole was about to protest.

  “Can we watch Robin Hood?” Justin asked before she could speak.

  “I’ll go get it,” Tristan said.

  Nicole stifled a beat of disappointment. She’d hoped to spend her time with the boys alone, just the three of them. She had looked forward to being outside with them, walking around the ranch, not sitting inside a stuffy house watching television.

  But Mary was their grandmother, and she was simply the outsider, so she said nothing.

  The boys popped the movie in and settled on the couch to watch. Nicole sat with them for a bit but got fidgety. She’d never enjoyed watching television like her sister did. She had preferred reading and doing crafts.

  “Do you mind if I tidy up?” she said to Mary.

  “You don’t have to do our work,” Mary protested, pushing herself up as if to get up out of her wheelchair.

  “I don’t mind. I’m not much of a television person, and I don’t mind, really. You sit with the boys, and I’ll wander around here.”

  Though she had grown up with a housekeeper, years of living in foster homes had given Nicole a measure of independence, and she had always kept her own room neat and later, she did her own laundry.

  So, Nicole tidied and cleaned, washed dishes and did another load of laundry while the boys sat mindlessly in front of the television.

  What a shame, she thought, wishing she had enough authority to turn off the television and make them come outside.

  Finally, the movie was over, and Nicole came into the living room. “I think we should go outside now.”

  “I’ll have a nap,” Mary said. She smiled at the boys. “Now don’t go and tell your Uncle Kip.” She winked at them, and they giggled. Then she glanced at Nicole. “Kip doesn’t let them watch television during the day.”

  If she’d known that, Nicole thought, she wouldn’t have let them. But she didn’t know the politics and the hierarchy of this particular household, though she was learning.

  She turned to the boys. “Now you’ll have to show me where those puppies are,” she said. They each took one of her hands and as she looked down at their upraised faces a wave of love washed over her.

  It surprised her and, if she were honest, frightened her. Each time she saw them it was as if one more hook was attached to her heart. The pain of letting go could be too much.

  But that wouldn’t happen, she reminded herself, holding even more tightly to their hands. The boys were Hayes’s and were never Scott’s, no matter what Kip might believe. She and her father had the law on their side.

  They stepped outside and Nicole inh
aled the fresh, pure air. It was so wonderful to be outdoors.

  “I want to see the horses,” Justin said as they stepped off the porch.

  “Your uncle said it wasn’t allowed.” And there was no way she was running afoul of Kip while on his ranch.

  “If we’re real careful, it will be okay.”

  “Not on your life,” Nicole said firmly.

  Justin sighed. “That’s what Uncle Kip always says too.”

  One more thing we have in common, Nicole thought with a sense of irony.

  “So where are these puppies?” she asked.

  “They’re in the barn.”

  As they walked, the boys, mostly Justin, brought her up to date on what Uncle Kip had done this morning—first he cut himself shaving, then he listened to the market report and made breakfast, then he tried to get Gramma to do her exercises.

  What their grandmother had done—sat and watched television.

  What Isabelle had done—slept in and got into trouble with Uncle Kip.

  “Auntie Isabelle is fun. Uncle Kip says she has to grow up, but she’s pretty big already.”

  Nicole suspected that Uncle Kip had his hands full with his sister. Isabelle needed a firm hand and guidance. Something, she suspected, Kip was at a loss to enforce.

  Justin pulled open the large, heavy barn door, then he stopped and held his finger to his lips. “I better go in first because we don’t want to scare the mommy dog,” he whispered. “I’ll call you when you can come in.”

  He walked slowly into the barn and Tristan seemed content to stay behind with Nicole.

  The only sound breaking the stillness was the shuffle of Justin’s feet on the barn floor and the song of a few birds that Nicole couldn’t identify. She listened, and the quiet pressed down on her ears.

  The silence spread out everywhere, huge and overwhelming. For the briefest moment, icy fingers of panic gripped her heart. They were far away from the nearest road, the nearest town.

  All alone.

  Then she looked down at Tristan, smiling shyly up at her. She watched Justin creeping into the dusty barn. They were completely relaxed here, at home and at peace.

  “And a little child shall lead them.”