The Rancher's Texas Twins

by Allie Pleiter

  Trying not to laugh at Gabriel Everett draped in tiny pinkness, Avery said, “What do you say, girls?”

  A chorus of thank-yous erupted, complete with one girl clutching each of Gabe’s pant legs so tightly he couldn’t even walk. He stood there, enduring the outburst, with a face that was mostly long-suffering but not without a tiny sliver of amusement. “I hope it’s nice to be appreciated,” she offered.

  He opened his mouth to say something, then simply shut it again, adjusting his hat, which had come askew in the assault of happiness.

  “How about we go help Mrs. Frank with lunch and let Mr. Everett get some peace and quiet to settle in before we eat? I want to see these octopuses before I let you eat them.”

  Dinah giggled. “They’re really hot dogs,” she whispered.

  “I sure hope so,” Gabe said as he tenderly, but firmly, peeled each girl from his legs.

  “Swings, Mama,” Debbie said with wide eyes as she gleefully peered into the box.

  “I like swings,” Dinah agreed.

  The happiness on the two girls’ faces caused a giant lump to form in Avery’s throat. Danny had always said he would put up swings but never did. Now, someone she barely knew was erecting swings just for Debbie and Dinah. Yes, it might be to gain her cooperation, but the weight of the gesture still touched her. I’ll buy the swings from him when we leave, she promised herself. I’ll pay someone to put them up in our backyard. Little girls ought to have swings.

  Chapter Five

  Saturday morning, Avery stared at the group of boys who had gathered on Gabe’s front lawn to help put up the swings.

  It was hard enough to see all those people gathered to do something just for her girls, but the boys themselves tugged at her heart in exactly the way she feared. It bothered her how she could see right into their hearts. That “I’m unwanted” look that lurked behind the eyes of every child in foster care, even on their happiest of days. Could other people see it? Or just those who, like her, had lived it?

  “Morning, ma’am,” they said in coached tones, as if boys ranch foreman Flint Rawlings had rehearsed them to greet her with good manners.

  “Good morning, boys. These are my daughters, Debbie and Dinah.” The girls waved, and the boys waved back, sort of. With a collection of boys between twelve and seventeen—near as she could guess—just a shuffle and a grunt was almost too much to hope for.

  “Are you building our swings?” Dinah said, squinting up at one tall, lanky teen.

  “They are,” Flint said, placing a large tool kit down with a thud beside the boxes Gabe had purchased yesterday. “We figured it was the least we could do seeing as to how you’ve agreed to stay until the celebration.”

  She hadn’t actually agreed. She’d only agreed not to leave yet. No one seemed to recognize the distinction. The assumption—and now the swings—made her feel cornered, but she could never quite voice her growing concern. Maybe you could try just being grateful, she told herself as she forced a smile in the direction of the makeshift construction crew. Maybe it won’t be so bad to stay and find out what Grandpa Cyrus is up to.

  “I’ll be back in two hours to pick ’em up,” Flint said as he peered at his watch. “That’ll be enough time?”

  “I expect so,” Gabe replied as he pulled the assembly instructions from the larger of the two boxes. “Five sets of hands ought to be able to get it done in half the time.”

  Avery settled down on the porch with the girls to watch the spectacle of the slowly rising swing set. She had two sets of paint colors and four other website addresses to send to another client to view products, as well as two estimates to send to potential customers, but it felt wrong not to at least watch since she couldn’t hope to help.

  Not that the girls didn’t want to try. Avery was grateful for the porch rail to keep them corralled away from the sawing of beams and hammering of nails.

  One of the older boys stopped and stared at her as he came back from using the ranch house washroom. “So you’re her? The r-real her?”

  Avery felt—again—the absurd sensation of having been impersonated. No one in Tennessee would ever believe a woman had come to Haven claiming her identity. Quite frankly, no one in Tennessee would think her important enough to warrant an imposter. And they’d be right; if there was any Culpepper fortune in the offing, she had yet to see any sign of it. “The genuine article,” she answered the shy teen, who had a bit of a stutter. She tried to laugh off his question, but didn’t quite succeed.

  “Jake said the fake one was a money hunter, but there wasn’t any for her to get, seeing as she wasn’t the r-real Avery.”

  “I suppose so.” Avery was of the opinion there wasn’t any money for her to get, either, regardless of her genuine pedigree.

  “But all you g-got is the house way over on the west side of the new ranch.”

  “Yes, that old cabin is mine now,” she answered.

  Even old cabin was a bit of an overstatement. In its current state, shack was a little bit closer to the truth, but the house had good bones, from what she could see from the outside. Some updating, a lot of large-scale repairs, a vigorous cleaning and a fresh coat of paint could make the place livable, but not for her and the girls. The best she could hope for would be sellable.

  “The whole thing’s crazy,” the boy said, scratching his chin. “It’s like one of them m-mystery movies on TV.”

  “I agree with you there.” Wanting to shift the conversation, she looked at the tall, lanky boy with a head of curly brown hair, trying to remember which boy it was Gabe said had the speech impediment. “You’re Johnny?”

  He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Are you happy living on the ranch?”

  “I’ll be sorry to leave when I turn eighteen soon.” The boy shifted his weight on his long legs. “Dr. Wyatt’s been r-real good to me. I ain’t always d-deserved it. The ranch is the only place where I ever felt like I had a chance, you know?”

  He was trying not to show the depth of emotion he felt for the place, and it pulled at Avery’s heart. She knew this would happen if she met the boys—it’s why she had resisted it. That hollow place in a heart where it feels like no one cares? She recognized that hole, knew that particular strain of hopelessness.

  I don’t have to stay to help them out, she reminded herself. I don’t owe these people anything. I get to decide where life goes from here, not Cyrus. Not Danny. Not some scheme.

  None of that was the fault of the boy in front of her. “I’m glad things have worked out for you, Johnny.”

  “Dr. Wyatt says he’ll h-help me go to vet school. I’ll live with him and Miss Carolina.”

  Sometimes, all you need is someone believing in you, Avery thought as she saw optimism fill Johnny’s features. She couldn’t argue that the ranch did that. It would have been nice if I’d had the chance for Grandpa Cyrus to believe in me. She knew that wasn’t exactly fair—Cyrus had evidently looked for her, although it didn’t feel like he had tried very hard since the anniversary committee found her in a handful of months—but hearts didn’t always play fair. These days, still smarting from all the wounds of Danny’s abandonment, Avery had begun to wonder if she’d married Danny just because he was the first person to show her even glimpses of affection, rather than having been the best man to share her life. Some day my girls will grow up with a daddy who treasures them. If her prayers were answered, it wouldn’t matter that the man wasn’t their father.

  “Sounds like you’re moving toward a fine future, Johnny.”

  Debbie looked up from the plastic craft beads Avery had laid out on the porch table for the girls to make bracelets as they watched. “Are the swings done? It’s taking forever.”

  Avery was glad Johnny laughed. “I figure we’re about halfway d-done.” He hunched down to Debbie’s height. “Fine swings, t
hough. I think they’ll be worth the long wait.”

  “Okay, I’ll wait.” Debbie said it as if the wait would stretch a thousand years.

  “You do that.” With a smile that lit up his features, the boy adjusted his hat and returned to the work crew just as Gabe was coming up the porch steps.

  “You met Johnny Drake,” he said, looking toward the young man as he settled into work again.

  “Sounds like he has quite a story,” she offered.

  “He’s one of our better successes over at the ranch. Not that it’s been a smooth ride for him. A while back lots of people were ready to think the worst of him. Wyatt’s pretty much turned him around—and turned him into a vet, I think.” Gabe took off his work gloves and whacked them against his jeans, sending sawdust floating into the air. “We don’t always get happy endings like that.”

  Avery thought of the dozens of unhappy endings she’d seen in the foster homes where she’d stayed. “I expect you get more of them than some other places.”

  “Flint Rawlings? The man who dropped them off? He’s a big part of the reason why. And Bea Brewster—she’s been running the place for over twenty years. And a whole mess of house parents. And volunteers.”

  “And half of Haven, it sounds like.”

  He smiled. “I suppose that’s true. Might even be closer to all of Haven.”

  And there it was: the constant, subtle reminder that all this good work was riding on her shoulders. Well, hers and a bunch of old men who now had to be collected for reasons no one had quite figured out. Cyrus had boxed her in but good, and she didn’t much care for the feeling.

  “Is that why you brought these boys out here to build the swings?” That came out a little sharper than she would have liked, but she had good reasons to question his motives, didn’t she?

  “The swings are mostly for my sanity, like I said.”

  “You didn’t bring them out here so I could meet them?”

  “Well, now, I won’t say I didn’t consider it might be good for you to meet them,” Gabe admitted. “Mutually beneficial, so to speak. I needed it done and they needed something to do. But mostly, I’m just quickly ensuring your girls have something better to do than finding my study or my library or any of the other places they’d be better off not finding.”

  He didn’t mention the lamp Dinah had knocked over and broken yesterday, but he didn’t have to.

  “Well, it seems an awfully long way to go for sanity. Especially on a temporary basis.” Again, she probably should have left off that last remark, but it bothered her how easily everyone seemed to think she’d become enamored of Haven and never leave.

  “That depends. I value my sanity very highly.”

  “I think you valued your peace and quiet very highly, too.” She placed an emphasis on the past tense. “Don’t think I don’t know how badly we’ve put you out.”

  “Maybe, but then there are hot-dog octopuses. Kind of balances out.”

  It does not, Avery thought, raising one suspicious eyebrow rather than voicing the words.

  “I love hot-dog octopuses,” Dinah chimed in. “We should make some for those boys.”

  “I don’t think Mr. Everett would ever live it down if we did that,” Avery said, watching the horror on Gabe’s face at the suggestion. “Let’s just keep that our special meal. But I think we could muster up some cookies and lemonade if we asked Mrs. Marlene nicely and helped, don’t you think?”

  The girls squealed their approval—unfortunately scattering beads all over the porch in the process. Peace and quiet indeed.

  “I like that idea much better,” Gabe agreed.

  * * *

  As the swings were nearing completion, Gabe walked up to where Avery was sitting going through big books of fabric swatches on the porch steps. The girls were playing some beanbag game Jethro had set up for them in one corner of the porch. “So now you met the boys. Some of ’em, at least. You should go see the ranch.”

  She looked up at him as she aside set the book. “You really are the persistent sort.”

  Gabe settled himself on the top stair across from her. “Good work gets done over there. It deserves to be expanded.”

  “So maybe Grandpa Cyrus got his motives right. As for his methods...”

  Gabe shook his head. “Yeah, well, I can’t say much for those.” He looked at Avery. “Your grandpa was a grouch in life. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me he found a grouchy way to pass.” He cringed as he heard his own words. He hadn’t slept well the last few days—the new noise all over the house was shaving the edges off his patience. Gabe valued his silence, and that was in desperately short supply right now. “That was a lousy thing to say. I’m sorry.”

  She gave him a thin smile. “Oh, no, you’re absolutely right.” Shrugging, she added, “I had this picture of Grandpa—a daydream, I suppose—of the friendly, happy old man who would come and save me. Take me on trips, read me stories, take me out for ice cream—” she motioned out to the construction taking place in the yard “—push me on the swings...the whole perfect grandpa package. Because of my dad and then my own lack of family, I built him up into this perfect antidote to everything wrong in my life. And then I watched as nothing happened. And no one came. And I got sadder and angrier.” She hugged her knees. “You can say anything you want about Grandpa Cyrus and it won’t bother me. I expect I’ll agree with most of it.”

  She paused for a dark moment and then added, “He’s my least favorite person right now.”

  Gabe felt a pinch in his chest at all that pain. He hadn’t any notion of how difficult it would be for Avery to come here. He’d have thought she’d be curious, even eager, to see her grandfather’s ranch. It was clear Avery had lots of baggage where her grandfather was concerned—and rightfully so. He knew a thing or two about baggage like that, so he couldn’t judge. As a matter of fact, Gabe couldn’t say he wouldn’t have been far darker and angrier had he been in her shoes. But if he could just get her on the grounds, show her all the fine work and amazing outcomes the place made possible...

  “Least favorite person, huh?” He laughed at her carefully softened choice of words. “Is that a step up from the ‘I hate him’ of the other night?”

  He was glad that made her laugh even a little bit. “Not really. Maybe just a more polite choice of words.” Her gaze slanted toward Debbie and Dinah, who were a few yards away. “I’m trying to watch how I phrase things, you know? About Cyrus. About my ex-husband.”

  Again, Gabe sensed a lot of pain lurking behind that very short list of “things which must be carefully worded.” He decided not to respond, but joined her in watching the girls as they played.

  He heard Avery suck in a “that’s enough of that” breath, and shift her weight. “Girls, come over here please.”

  The way Gabe was raised, a request like that—and now that he thought about it, it would never have been a request but always a command—would have been met with an immediate and often nervous “yes, sir.” Gabe’s stepfathers hadn’t been affectionate men. It bothered him that he couldn’t remember how his mother would have worded it. It bothered him that he couldn’t call up the sound of her voice anymore, only the weary set of her eyes.

  He found himself drawn by the way the girls reacted. Their eyes lit up, they dropped what they were doing and skipped—skipped, really, when was the last time he saw anyone skip?—over to stand next to their mother. There was something effortlessly joyous about it that fascinated him in a way he couldn’t explain.

  “Girls,” Avery said as she smoothed out each girl’s set of braids, “let’s say thank you to Mr. Boots and the boys for building your swings, okay?”

  Dinah looked out at the nearly finished construction. “Are they done yet?”

  The girls were very much alike in many ways, but even he could already see their dis
tinct personalities. Dinah was the thinker, the analyzer, while Debbie was the feeler, the instigator. That insight alone stumped him, because he didn’t think of himself as a particularly perceptive man. Cattle, balance sheets, logistics, yes. People and personalities? Not so much. Children? Not at all. And yet these girls intrigued him on some level—not that he’d ever admit that.

  “We can still thank them,” Avery explained. “So let’s start right now. What do you want to say to our host?”

  Almost in unison, the girls straightened themselves up and recited a very perfunctory “Thank you, Mr. Boots.”

  As heartfelt praises went, it wasn’t much, but he couldn’t deny it had an adorable charm. Gabe surprised himself by extending a hand. “You’re welcome.”

  Dinah put her tiny hand in his—the sight almost comical with those small pink fingers wrapped in his large tanned hand—and shook it with pint-size importance. Debbie did the same, but added a vigorous shake and wildly happy grin to her gesture. Gabe ended up laughing despite himself.

  There was an oddly warm moment where all the irritation dropped and everyone smiled at each other. He hadn’t expected that, and it unsettled him enough to push himself up off the steps and back to the construction.

  Debbie and Dinah followed him like a pair of puppies, skipping up to the pack of working boys with Avery trailing behind them. The girls went through the same routine with each of the boys, offering thank-yous and tiny handshakes to all of them.

  He expected the usual grunts and nods, but the boys seemed as charmed as he had been. They laughed and smiled in response to the gratitude. Two of them tipped their hats, earning a fresh ripple of giggles from Debbie. Two of them invited the girls out to the ranch to see the baby goats—something that made them squeal with delight and turn back to their mother with a chorus of “Please, Mama, can we?”

  Gabe began to think the impulse buy of the swings—actually more of a desperate act than an indulgent impulse, if he was honest—wasn’t such a mistake after all. He hoped Avery wouldn’t be able to refuse the boys’ offer given the girls’ enthusiasm.