Her Cowboy Inheritance

“What are you guys doing?”

A wide grin filled Ryan’s face. “We play horse.”

Shane started to sit up, but Dylan grabbed his neck. “The phone didn’t ring yet. It’s still my turn.”

Reaching around and patting Dylan on the leg, Shane said, “He has a point. I told the boys we could play horse, and I set a timer to let them know when their turn was over. You don’t mind waiting until we finish, do you?”

She often used that tactic with them, giving them clear boundaries with which to set their expectations. It was nice to see that Shane automatically did the same. The only other person to do it was Nicole, and she had taught preschool for a living.

“Not at all. I’ve got to finish the garlic bread, and Erin isn’t back yet. You guys finish your game, then you can join us in the kitchen.”

She barely got the assent from Shane because the three of them had already jumped back into their game.

As she returned to the kitchen, Nicole linked arms with her. “I know we’ve all sworn off men, but it’s nice to see a man who will play with the children for a change. Half of the moms in my classes complained that the dads weren’t very active with their kids.”

“Yes, but just because he’ll entertain a couple of boys for a few minutes doesn’t mean that’s how he’ll be as a father.”

Nicole sighed. “True. It’s amazing how people change when you get to know them. I’m sure when you and Jason first got together, you would have never imagined how things would end up.”

No, she hadn’t. Nicole had been the one to get a call from a concerned neighbor the first time Jason had been passed out, high on drugs, and the boys were screaming. Leah had been at work, and, as a salesperson in a busy store, hadn’t been allowed personal calls. Sometimes Leah wondered if things would have turned out differently had the neighbor not been able to reach Nicole and called the police instead. Would Jason have gotten help rather than fighting with Leah about it? Or would he have charmed them with lies and false promises the way he had everyone else?

It didn’t matter. Jason was dead. And Leah was left to pick up all the pieces of all the broken things he’d left behind. Her sons would heal, and, even though it was nice to see them enjoying a man’s company, their lives would not hinge upon him being there.

The two sisters finished preparing the meal. A few minutes later, Shane and the boys came in, laughing about horses.

Erin had texted to let them know she was going to be late and to go ahead and eat without her, so Leah started serving the meal, enjoying the camaraderie everyone seemed to share. Though earlier in the week it had annoyed her to be subject to Shane’s easy grins and charming demeanor, it didn’t bother her so much this evening. Maybe it was because he seemed just as focused on making her sons smile as he was on her.

After dinner, Nicole volunteered to clear the table so Leah and Shane could sit in the living room with the boys.

“Let’s play horse again,” Dylan said, tugging at Shane’s hand.

“Not now,” he said. “It’s time for grown-up talk. Your mommy has some papers to go over with me, so we need to do our business, and if you’re good, when we’re done, we can find a game that everyone can play.”

Dylan didn’t argue, then he ran over to the train table where his brother was already playing.

“I would have killed to have a train set like that what I was a kid,” Shane said.

Leah couldn’t help smiling at the longing look he gave the boys. “We started the collection as soon as I knew I was having a boy. It’s expensive to buy the trains all at once, but if you buy them bit by bit and look for them at resale stores, you can often find pieces at reasonable prices. The train tables were all too expensive, so I built one based on plans I found online.”

One thing she had learned in her marriage was that she was far more capable than she gave herself credit for.

“Your sister mentioned you were good with tools and things,” he said, looking impressed. “How did that happen?”

“When my husband and I bought our first house, we both fell in love with an old Victorian that needed a lot of work. We didn’t have much money, so we learned to do most of the work ourselves. Once you remodel a house, everything else is easy.”

It was good to remember that her past with Jason wasn’t all bad. She didn’t want the bitterness to eat her up, and even though her sons were young, she wanted them to have happy stories about their father. Before his drug addiction had taken control of his life, he’d been a good person.

But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to be guarded in her interactions with men in the future. Shane might be charming, and he might be good with her boys. But she wasn’t going to let the charming smile he kept flashing at her distract her from what was truly important in her life.

Shane handed her a stack of papers. As she read through the contract, she already knew, without having to discuss it with her sisters, they would have to reject the offer. Most people would jump at the idea of taking money for nothing. But they weren’t most people. They needed to make a living somehow, and even though Erin was excited about going to work again, it wasn’t fair for Erin to have to support the whole household. Unfortunately, the amount Shane was giving them for the lease wouldn’t be enough for them to survive on.

“What do you think?” Shane asked, an earnest look on his face. It seemed cruel to tell him no when he acted like he was doing them a favor.

“I’ll have to talk to my sisters. It all sounds very reasonable though.”

It did sound reasonable. The number was higher than what he’d paid Helen. But, sometimes, reasonable wasn’t enough. Not when you needed so much.

Leah turned to watch the boys play with the trains. At least she hadn’t had to sell those precious keepsakes. She’d done her best to keep the boys’ belongings since they’d lost so much already. Their house, the playhouse and swing set she and Jason had built them, even their college fund. How Jason had managed to drain it for drugs without her finding out, she didn’t know. She supposed it didn’t matter. The money was gone.

“I can’t believe you made that,” Shane said. “While I know my way around a set of tools, I don’t think I could come up with anything so detailed. It looks like you put a lot of effort into it.”

“You’d be surprised at what a person can do when they put their mind to something. I know you’re worried about us making it on our own. I’ll admit we have much to learn. But each night, after we put the boys to bed, my sisters and I read the ranching books from Helen’s library. We discuss what we learn and how it might apply to our ranch. That’s how I learned to do so much work on my old house.”

Looking around the room, Leah couldn’t help but smile. “I’ve already done a number of much-needed repairs here. The back porch was falling down, and unsafe for the boys. Many of the windows were either sealed shut or leaked so badly that they wasted precious energy. I painted the room, refinished the floor, and I’m slowly working on updating the plumbing. And, of course, I’ve given the place a good scrubbing.”

Shane nodded slowly. “Helen let things go over the past year. I did my best to help her, and a bunch of us from church put a new roof on the place a few months ago. But I know there was still a lot of work to be done.”

He sounded so apologetic, like it was his responsibility to fix up the ranch. Odd, since Helen wasn’t even his relative. Clearly, he took the idea of being a neighbor a little too seriously. Sure, it was nice to know that the old woman hadn’t been alone and helpless in her later years. But Leah and her sisters were not helpless old women.

“We appreciate everything you’ve done, but now you know we can take care of ourselves. You probably think you’re saving us, with your white horse and all, but we don’t need saving.”

She had to giggle at her own words because his horse literally was white. If she’d made up a stereotypical cowboy hero, he would look a lot like Shane.

Shane chuckled. “Actually, Squirt is a gray.” Then a more serious expression crossed his face. “And I’m doing nothing of the sort. I’m just being neighborly.”

Neighborly. She’d admit that, in many ways, he had been helpful. But she didn’t want to rely on him too much. At some point, he’d have his own life to live, his own children to take care of. She’d learned that the only person you could count on was yourself. And her sisters, of course, but that was because they’d spent so much of their lives with only each other to count on. So many people had come and gone, women the Colonel would gleefully announce as being their newest mother, most of whom never stuck around for very long. Not that Leah blamed them. As soon as she turned eighteen, she took the money she’d been saving from her after-school job and rented an apartment, taking her younger sisters with her so they would finally be out from under his thumb.

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