Page 7 of The Cowboy Who Came Home
Finn simply grinned at her. “I’ll do it for the family party this weekend. It’ll just be a family thing, right?”
Momma didn’t answer, which meant the weekend welcome home party could be as big as the one tonight. She’d invited everyone who lived or worked here on the ranch, and with the number of chairs they’d set up, Finn expected a big crowd.
“Finn, let’s take a look at that closet door,” Daddy said. He motioned to Finn from the mouth of the hallway, and Finn saw his escape.
“Sure thing.” He headed that way, his eyes hooked on his father’s. “Thanks,” he murmured as he went past him into the darker, cooler, calmer hallway. He continued around the corner and down the steps to the basement, where he’d be living. Again.
He tried not to feel like he was moving backward. He wasn’t. He’d taken control of his career in the Army, and he’d retired. He’d be thirty-one in a couple months, he had a decent amount of money saved, and the doors to his life were wide open.
If only he knew which one to walk through.
“Okay.” Dad sighed as he walked into the basement bedroom where Finn had put his two duffle bags on the made and ready-to-sleep-in queen-sized bed. “Let’s see if we can get this door to close all the way. It might just need a new knob.”
Finn sat on the bed, then laid back between his bags. “What time is dinner tonight?”
“Your momma told everyone six.”
“Six,” Finn repeated.
“I told her not to expect more than an hour out of you.”
“I can do it,” Finn said, his voice quiet. His dad didn’t respond, and only the sound of clicking came from the faulty doorknob. Finn closed his eyes, and he felt the serenity and peace that had always existed on this ranch, in this house.
“Dad, I’m really happy to be home.” Finn’s voice broke again, but he didn’t care if his daddy heard it. He wanted them to know how glad he was to be there, how appreciative he was for their sacrifice, for having this bedroom ready for him at a moment’s notice, for taking him in so completely.
Squire Ackerman had done that for Finn every day of his life since he’d met him when he was four years old. “I’m so glad you’re my dad.”
“I love you, son,” Daddy said, and Finn’s tears ran down from the corners of his eyes toward his ears. “It’s so good to have you home.”
Finn took a big breath and steeled his nerves. “Now, it would be great if I could figure out what to do with my life.”
Chapter Three
Edith groaned as she lifted several bags of groceries up onto the counter in the kitchen. “Alex,” she called, for his truck had been parked beside the garage. He could go past it and out onto the ranch, and sometimes he parked going the other direction too.
“I’m on the back deck,” he called. “Bandit got into the burrs again.” He sounded cross and disgruntled, and Edith wiped her bangs off her forehead before going to see how she could help.
She went by Gumbo, her gray fat cat she’d brought from Long Island, hoping he’d become a barn cat. He hadn’t, and he meowed at her as she went by. “Come on, then,” she said. Alex refused to have a litter box in the house, so Gumbo had to go outside with the dogs to take care of his business.
Edith wasn’t surprised to find her two dachshunds—Frankie and Otto—laying on one of the loungers on the deck, in the full sun. Gumbo meowed his way over to them, a yowl for every step, and hopped up with the dogs before lying down.
Alex, in all his tow-headed glory, looked up from where he had one of his border collies pinned to the ground. “He won’t stay out of the burrs. I’ve got to get them cleared out from the raspberries, because Bandit loves them as much as he loves chasing cows.” He bent down and picked out another burr.
“Where’s Olive?” she asked, because she didn’t see Alex’s other collie. Edith looked over the backyard, where she and Alex had already planted their vegetable garden. Past the shed in the corner of the yard, and out to the barn. A stable stood beyond that, and then the fields opened up. Pasture upon pasture, where Alex raised his beef cattle.
Edith fed the two dozen chickens they had, took care of the cats and dogs since the majority of them were hers, and took care of the four horses that lived on the ranch with them. She helped Alex with anything she was strong enough to do, which admittedly wasn’t much, and she loved taking walks on the ranch out to the bridge that crossed over the middle of the three rivers that flowed through town and gave it its name.
This far north and east, and the water petered out to a stream that they used to water their animals and not much more. The left-hand branch extended north, all the way to Three Rivers Ranch, something Edith knew from her horseback explorations with Finn as a teenager.
She could lift a hay bale one at a time, and she could paint houses, barns, and stables. The work on a ranch never seemed to end, and Edith had to set limits for herself to avoid becoming overwhelmed, a skill she’d become quite adept at since her fiancé had been diagnosed with an aggressive and advanced form of brain cancer.
So much had overwhelmed her then, and she and Levi had planned and executed a cross-country move, mostly due to her ability to compartmentalize, work until she felt like dropping, and her utmost faith in God.
But Edith was tired. She was tired of managing so many pieces, from picking up the prescriptions to making sure all the living things at Coyote Pass got fed, stayed healthy and accounted for, or keeping the floors swept.
Her eyes caught on movement near her she-shed, her one condition for living at Coyote Pass. She’d needed help with Levi, and Alex had needed help, period. She’d requested a twelve-foot by twenty-four-foot shed, and Alex had delivered.
She’d decorated it with posters of her book covers, a large couch where she could lie down or relax, her favorite throw pillows and blankets and scented candles, and of course, her writing desk.
