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

by Carolyne Aarsen

  He had to stay back here and fight for his boys and let her go back to where she thought she belonged.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t have the best news, Kip,” Aria said.

  Kip clutched his phone, glancing over at his mother, who stood by the sink, peeling potatoes.

  Since Nicole had left two days ago, his mother had been working harder and harder on her exercises. It was as if she wanted to get strong enough to stand up for her grandsons.

  But they’re not her grandsons.

  Kip pushed the traitorous thought away. The boys were as much a part of his family as they were part of the Williams family. More, in fact.

  “They’ve filed for legal custody of the boys.” Aria’s voice was a disembodied sound as Kip realized what had happened. No wonder she took off so quickly.

  After Nicole had left, some part of him had nurtured the faintest hope that she would come back and tell him she had changed her mind.

  But he heard nothing. No phone call, no email. Just a long, frustrating silence that grew more oppressing each day. A silence that choked off the brief moment of enthusiasm he’d experienced when he hitched up the horses.

  A silence that slowly eroded at the hope she would come back and tell him she would help him fight for the boys.

  Instead she had chosen her father over them.

  What did you expect? A few kisses and a few declarations of affection and she was going to throw over nearly a lifetime of obligation to a man who required more than she could give?

  “What’s the next step?” Kip asked, fear and frustration and confusion warring in his gut.

  “We can fight back,” Aria said. “Claim that Scott acted in the best interests of the boys when he took them. I’m still working on the validity of her will, but I’m warning you, it’s uphill now that it’s been proven the boys aren’t Scott’s.”

  Kip sighed and tunneled his hand through his hair.

  “So, what do you want me to do?” Aria pressed.

  “I can’t think right now. I’ll have to get back to you.” Kip disconnected the phone and released a heavy sigh.

  “I take it that’s not good news,” Mary said, her voice small.

  Kip glanced her way, wondering how much to tell her. “Nicole’s father has filed for custody of the boys,” Kip said, preferring to break things to his mother one piece of bad news at a time.

  His mother flipped her tea towel over her shoulder and came to sit beside him. “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t think there’s anything we can do,” Kip said. “I’m sure that’s why Nicole hightailed it back to Toronto so fast. She didn’t want to be around when everything imploded.”

  Mary laid her hand on his arm. “I know that you cared for her,” his mother said quietly.

  Kip sighed. “Yeah. I did.”

  “Did?” his mother pressed.

  “Do.” He tapped his fingers on his arm. “I don’t know what to do. Don’t know what to think.”

  “Why?”

  Kip held his mother’s gaze, then looked past her to the kitchen with its worn cupboards, stained linoleum and scarred countertop. He had only seen pictures of the outside of Nicole’s home, but he was sure the countertops were granite, the floor solid hardwood, and the cupboards crafted from some exotic wood that he’d never heard of.

  “Even before Nicole came, I often wondered how I would take care of everyone.” He hated to admit this to his mother, but he had to be honest with her. “I wondered especially about the boys. Would I be able to give them the life I thought they should have?” He looked up at her. “I don’t think I can give them the life that I know the Williams family can.”

  His mother gave him a tired smile. “I know how you feel. I’ve thought the same.”

  Her admission gave Kip some measure of relief. At least he didn’t feel like he was giving up on the boys.

  “You’ve taken on a lot since your father died. You’ve always taken everything on yourself.” Mary put her hand on his shoulder. “Now you’ve got the boys.”

  “Not for long, it seems.”

  He caught a glimmer of tears in his mother’s eyes. “I don’t want to see them go either, but you can only do so much.” She caught his hands in her own, turning them over. “We’ve all depended on you a lot. Depended on you to take care of us. To do what needed to be done. Then Nicole came and it was as if a burden shifted off your shoulders. She seemed to take some of what you were carrying on herself. The boys, me. Even Isabelle.” She released a short laugh and squeezed his hands. “What is more important, I saw you smile. I saw you happy. I saw you falling in love again. That hasn’t happened in a long time.”

  “I was in love with Nancy.”

  Mary shrugged. “I never saw you smile at Nancy the way I saw you smile at Nicole, and I never saw you as upset about Nancy leaving the way you have been since Nicole left.”

  Kip eased out another sigh.

  “I don’t know what to do, Mom.”

  His mother squeezed his hands. “You can’t ‘do’ anything anymore. Now, I think you have to let go and let God.”

  The familiar adage had always seemed lame and empty, but now, in the face of a situation that Kip could not control, he knew he had to do exactly what his mother suggested.

  “Can we pray together?” his mother asked.

  He nodded and together they bowed their heads.

  “Please Lord, You know what is in our hearts. You know that we are concerned over what will happen to our boys, but at the same time, You know better what they need. Help us to trust that You will take care of them. Help us to realize that they were Yours before they were ever ours. Amen.”

  Before he raised his head, Kip added his own prayer for Nicole. For his own feelings for her. Because right now he was having a harder time putting her into God’s hands than he was the boys.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The room was everything a little boy could want and, Nicole guessed, no expense was spared. Nicole adjusted the pillows of the bed, shaped like a car, then eased out a sigh. The past couple of days she’d felt as if she were hurtling down a road she had no control over.

  I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

  The verse from Phillipians resonated through Nicole’s mind. Since arriving here, she had found an old Bible of her mother’s. She had brought it into her room and read it whenever she had the chance. Yesterday she had read this verse.

  Nicole clung to the words. She knew she would need the encouragement she had gotten from reading that in the next couple of days.

  She gently closed the door of the large room and walked down the carpeted hall and down the stairs, her hand trailing over the wooden banister. Hayes used to slide down it, but Nicole never dared be that rebellious.

  She glanced around the large foyer with its sparkling chandelier and windows that stretched up two and a half floors. Her mind slipped back to the jumbled porch of the Cosgrove household, the worn flooring in the kitchen and the faded paint on the outside of the house. Despite the general air of neglect, that house felt more like a home than this house ever did.

  Her heart faltered. Though she had been gone from the ranch only two days, it seemed like two weeks. She hadn’t dared call Kip, but he had not called her either.

  She missed him so much it hurt her heart. She wondered what he was thinking right now. She wondered if he thought of her. If he missed her as much as she missed him.

  She wanted to talk to him, and chances were good she would one way or the other. The boys still had to be dealt with. But before she talked to Kip, she had to try one more thing.

  Please Lord, help me through this, she prayed, one hand clutching the wooden banister. Then she took a breath and strode down the long hallway to the sunroom where her father waited for her.

  “What do you think of the changes I’ve made for the boys?” Sam asked, looking up as she came into the room.

  Her father sat in a wicker chair, his cheeks shining an
d his eyes bright. He looked better than he had in months.

  And no wonder. He had a project and a purpose. Making plans and getting the house ready for Hayes’s boys, as he’d been calling them since Nicole came back. He’d already managed to find a school they could attend come fall and had looked into various sports programs they would be able to participate in.

  He was like a one-man freight train, pulling everyone along.

  “I love the playroom, and I’m sure they would too,” Nicole said quietly, settling into the padded wicker love seat across from her father.

  “Would?” Of course Sam would have caught that tiny slip of the tongue. “What do you mean by that?”

  Nicole wound a loose thread around the button on her cardigan, inarticulate words and thoughts piling up in her mind as she tried to sort out how to voice them.

  She was about to speak when her father gestured to the pile of envelopes sitting on the table between them. “Heather brought this for you to look at.”

  Nicole frowned. “I had asked Heather to take care of the mail at the office.”

  “Heather did mention something like that when I asked her to bring it.” Her father frowned. “You know all the ins and outs of the foundation’s correspondence better than she ever will.”

  “I won’t always be around,” Nicole said, trying to lead into one of the things she wanted to talk to her father about.

  “Nonsense. You’re my right-hand man.”

  I would prefer to be your daughter, Nicole thought.

  Instead, she picked up the mail and started sorting through it.

  She glanced at the return address of a large envelope, wondering what this was about. The corner was emblazoned with the name of a clinic that was unfamiliar to her.

  She held up the envelope. “What’s this?” she asked. “Test results?”

  Her father looked up from the papers he was going over, then nodded. “I think that’s the DNA test I had to do. The same test that messed up the expectations of that Cosgrove family.”

  Nicole’s heart beat heavy in her chest at the contempt in her father’s voice.

  “That test didn’t mess up that family that much,” Nicole murmured, struggling against years of training that taught her to never, ever talk back to her father either as father or boss.

  “What do you mean?” her father growled, then began coughing.

  Nicole jumped to her feet and handed him a glass of water. He took the glass, took a drink, then stared up at Nicole. “They thought they had a biological claim on the boys, but they didn’t. We won.” He coughed again and took another drink.

  Nicole put the glass back, then returned to her seat. She picked up the letter and stared at it. “Won what?” she asked.

  “What is going on with you? Ever since you came back from Alberta you’ve been distracted. Like your mind is somewhere else.”

  It was, Nicole thought, slitting opening the envelope with her father’s silver letter opener. Her mind was with Kip and Tristan and Justin and Kip and Mary…and Kip.

  “I think you need to do something other than foundation work this afternoon,” her father said. “Why don’t you go out to one of those toy places and buy some kind of jungle gym for the yard,” her father said. “Get something for the boys to play on.”

  Nicole glanced through the windows of the sunroom to the yard beyond. Though it was large by Toronto standards, it suddenly looked small and restrictive compared to what she knew Tristan and Justin were used to.

  “Would they love it?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  Nicole pulled the letter slowly out of the envelope, still staring at the yard. “The only place those boys have known is the ranch. I wonder what it will be like for them to be uprooted from that.”

  Her father waved his hand, as if erasing her concerns. “You said yourself the Cosgroves were broke.”

  “I never said that. I said it didn’t look like they had an abundance of ready cash.” Which, when they thought the Cosgrove family might be willing to fight them in court, had been a concern.

  “You know we can give the boys a better life.”

  “In one way, yes we can, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to uproot them.”

  Her father almost snorted. “You were moved around a lot and you turned out fine. Because we gave you a better place than any of the places you lived before. We gave you the best home you ever had.”

  Something that had been pointed out to her daily.

  Something that never happened at the Cosgrove home.

  Tristan and Justin would grow up never knowing what Kip had sacrificed to be a father to them and to give them a home.

  She thought of his chuck-wagon racing and her mind ticked back to her ride with him. How his eyes, no, his entire face lit up with excitement and the pure pleasure of working with the horses. He gave all that up for the boys, but she never got any sense of regret from Kip.

  She riffled the papers in her hand, forcing herself to meet her father’s piercing gaze. “I’m not sure we can do the same for Tristan and Justin,” she said, quietly.

  “What do you mean?”

  Nicole kept her eyes on his, putting voice to the uncertainties that had grown in intensity in the past week. Uncertainty that had grown into a reality. “I’m not sure we can give them a better home than they have in Alberta. I think they have everything they will ever want or need there. They belong in Alberta. With the Cosgroves.”

  “What are you talking about?” Her father looked baffled, as if he wasn’t sure he had heard her properly.

  “They’ve lived with that family for four years. They are the only family they know.” Nicole’s voice faltered as she tried to articulate what she had to say.

  “What does that matter? Those boys don’t even belong to them. Never will, no matter what they may think. They belong here. They belong to me. They’re my only daughter’s sons.”

  Only daughter. Why, after all this time, could those words still hurt so much?

  Because she’d seen something else. She’d seen another kind of love. A kind of love that didn’t depend on biology. The kind of love that was a pure gift.

  Just like God’s love.

  “I don’t think Tristan and Justin belong to anybody,” Nicole said carefully. “We have been treating them like they are possessions. They are people. Little boys, who only know what it’s like to live on a ranch, with wide-open spaces, an uncle who loves them and a huge family who cares for them deeply. I think it’s selfish to take them away from all of that.”

  “Are you saying I’m selfish for wanting to have my daughter’s children living with me? Especially after this is what she wanted?” Her father’s voice rose with each question, as if he could hardly believe that she would question him.

  Please Lord, help me find the right words, she prayed. Sam is still my father.

  “I think we have to step back from the situation, and forget about what Hayes wanted, what we want, I think we need to look at the boys’ situation for their sake, not ours.”

  “Are you daring to question me?” Her father struggled to his feet, staring at her as if she didn’t understand who he was talking to. “What kind of daughter does that?”

  For a moment remorse clung to her.

  You’re a good daughter. You’re a good daughter.

  Kip’s words resonated through her mind, washing away the guilt her father could so easily resurrect in her.

  Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

  She clung to those words as she turned to her father.

  “The kind of daughter who thinks she should tell the truth. I can’t support you in your fight to bring the boys back here. I can’t help you with that and I won’t.”

  Her father stared at her, as if he didn’t recognize her. “Are you saying you would fight me?”

  “I’m saying I would fight for what is best for Tristan and Justin,” she amended. “If that puts me against you, the
n that’s the way it has to be.”

  “You would choose that family over me?”

  “It’s not about choosing, Father. It’s about doing what’s best for the boys.”

  Sam’s eyes narrowed and his expression grew thunderous. “After everything I’ve done for you, after all I’ve given you, this is how you repay me?”

  “Repay you?” Nicole spoke quietly. “I didn’t think love came with a cost.”

  Her father looked taken aback, but changed tactics. “You’ve done much damage to this family—”

  “Hayes made her own choices, Father,” Nicole said quietly, drawing on the words Kip had told her. Words she had held close in the past few days.

  “You pushed her. Your fight with her made her leave.”

  “You pushed her too,” Nicole snapped back. Her outburst surprised her as much as it surprised her father, judging from the shocked look on his face. “I think she was leaving regardless. My fight with her was simply bad timing,” she continued, suddenly tired of her father’s endless condemnation.

  In the shocked silence that followed Nicole’s outburst, she looked down at the letter she still held in her hands. She skimmed over the words, giving herself something to do other than face her father’s anger. She came to the end of the letter.

  What in the world?

  She read it one more time, to make sure she had read correctly.

  “What’s wrong?” her father asked, obviously distracted by her puzzlement. “What’s in the letter?”

  She cleared her throat and looked at her father. “It says that the DNA from you doesn’t match the boys’, either.”

  Sam snatched the papers from her hand, his eyes racing over the letter. Then again. “I don’t understand.” He looked up, his once ruddy face, ashen. “The boys didn’t belong to that man Hayes was living with and we know they are Hayes’s. The detective’s reports showed that.”

  Nicole frowned. “Detective’s reports?”

  “I hired a private detective to find a few more things out about Hayes and Scott.”

  This was news to her. Not that it mattered anymore. Now they were faced with an entirely different puzzle.