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“You actually have to ask why?”
“I’m not the enemy, Cara.”
“You’re not my friend, either.” She moved in front of him. “And I don’t need your help.”
He ignored her and lifted the remaining flakes as if they weighed nothing. “We’re going to be living together for the next year, at least. It would serve us both to get along.”
“We’re not living together.” Apparently, he didn’t carry a pocketknife, for he waited for her to cut open the next bale. “You’re staying in the guest suite.”
“Living at the ranch, then.”
“I get along with you.” As best she could. He didn’t make it easy.
“You tolerate me.”
“August promised the ranch to Gabe.” She stood back, hands on her hips. “He’s the one who worked alongside August. The one August trained to take over.”
Josh took advantage of her irritation and lifted half the bale into the next feeder. “So I’m told. By you and Gabe and Raquel. Repeatedly. Yet he left the ranch to all three of his sons.” The remaining hay followed.
The man was persistent, and she didn’t like persistent people. Too reminiscent of her ex-husband. Though in all fairness to Josh and anyone else, her ex went above and beyond. If not for him demanding she stay and continue their argument, Javier might not have—
“I’m sorry,” Josh said between armfuls. “I know you don’t like the situation.”
“None of us do.”
“You have your sanctuary.”
She crossed her arms and eyed him. “Which you want.”
He stopped. “The cattle operation is barely getting by. The sanctuary pastureland is some of the best on the ranch.”
“Grass wouldn’t be in such sort supply if you hadn’t bought four hundred steer last month.”
“That wasn’t my decision alone. Gabe is the one who suggested we buy the steer.”
“And it’s his fault they were sick with red nose?”
Josh’s expression hardened. “I didn’t say that. Don’t put words in my mouth.”
She had. Mostly because she understood why Gabe had pushed for the purchase of the steer. He wanted his half brothers gone more than Cara did.
With the help of their neighbor, Theo McGraw, and the money Cole had received from selling his championship horses, the steer were now healthy and thriving, recovered from the virus. They were also eating. A lot.
“Cattle are what put the roof over our heads and the food on our table,” Josh said.
“I’ll pay rent,” Cara answered stiffly. Donations were down, but she’d find the money somehow.
“We don’t want your money.”
She resisted lashing out. The fact was, she did depend on Dos Estrellas for her room and board. The arrangement hadn’t felt one-sided when August was alive. Cara had contributed to the household by running errands, cooking and cleaning so that Raquel could devote herself entirely to August’s care.
Since his death, Cara had poured herself even more into the sanctuary, her contributions at home not needed as much. She supposed it was possible for others, like Josh, to view her as a freeloader. He didn’t see her as part of the family like Raquel and Gabe did. The way August had. They’d taken in her and Javier without a single qualm or hesitation after she and her ex separated. She loved them for it.
“What do you want?” she asked testily.
“If this ranch goes under, you’ll lose the sanctuary.”
“Hmm. Either I lose the sanctuary by giving the land back to you and your brother, or I lose it because the ranch goes under.” Her voice dripped sarcasm. “Let see, which option do I pick?”
Josh’s expression remained hard. “You’d be giving the land to Gabe, too.”
“He doesn’t want it.”
She had Josh there. Gabe was her staunchest supporter. He’d fought his half brothers tooth and nail, insisting she be allowed to continue using the five hundred acres August had granted to her in his will.
“Not yet.” Josh arched one brow. “He may change his mind when we go broke.”
“He’ll sell off some of the cattle first. He’s done it before.”
“Cole and I weren’t here then.”
She tensed. “Are you threatening me?”
“I’m asking you to see reason.”
“Ah.” She nodded. “Your version of reason.”
“Let’s not argue. That’s not why I came here.”
“Why did you?”
“First we finish feeding.” He hoisted a bale from the flatbed trailer.
She started to protest, again, that she didn’t need help. The pain shooting up her arm from her sore hand changed her mind.
They labored side by side for several minutes and were almost done when he asked, in a far more amiable tone, “What got you started rescuing mustangs?”
She considered making an excuse about why she didn’t feel like talking. Instead she said, “The Powells.”
“The family who owns the horse stables up the road?”
She nodded. “We’re friends with them. They rescued Prince a few years ago. He was the last wild mustang in the valley. Up until the 1950s, wild herds continued to roam the mountains. After Prince, the Powells began rescuing other mustangs from all over the state. Ones that were starving or in overpopulated herds or sometimes abused and neglected.”
“But how did you become involved?”
“The Powells needed help, and I had time.”
That was true. It was also true she’d started volunteering after things between her and Manuel had turned bad. Javier was a baby. The Powells hadn’t minded that she brought him along, as they were simply happy for another set of hands. But Josh didn’t need to know that part, and she wasn’t about to tell him.
“When did you acquire the sanctuary and move it here?”
Leave it to Josh to ask the hardest question. “Three years ago. The Powells were running out of room and busy with—” She hesitated, not wanting to say “having babies and raising their children.” That had been an activity Cara and the Powell wives once had in common. “With work,” she finally said. “I started with a few mustangs. Then more. Eventually, they all came.”
That was after her son died. Without the sanctuary, Cara was convinced she’d have gone quietly crazy.
A loud clattering made them turn around. They were met by twenty or so mustangs, their heads hanging over the gate and their tails swishing.
“Looks like the natives are getting restless.” Josh smiled at the horses ready to storm the feeding station and chow down.
Cara would have replied except she couldn’t. Josh’s smile, and the laughter lighting his eyes, literally captivated her. He was so handsome, more rugged than movie-star pretty despite his classic blond hair and blue eyes. Not that she hadn’t noticed his looks before now. But their effects on her were new.
She and Josh didn’t usually stand this close. That must have been the reason. If she moved her hand a mere inch, it would graze his shoulder. She wasn’t tempted. More like curious. It had been a long time since she’d touched a man with anything other than innocent casualness.
Wait. Wait. Wait! This was seven kinds of wrong. Josh Dempsey was the last man about whom she should be entertaining romantic notions. Correction: she should not be entertaining such notions about any man. Her son had died two years ago in an entirely preventable accident. She wasn’t entitled to feel anything but grief and guilt. She might never be entitled.
“Ready?” Josh’s bright smile hadn’t dimmed one small watt.
“Sure.” Cara hesitated, worried her wobbly knees would buckle. “Can, um, you get the gate?”
He spared her the briefest of odd glances before doing as she’d asked. “Stand back,” he called. “Here they come.”
She had only enough time to duck behind the nearest feeder before the horses clambered through the gate and headed straight for the hay, pushing and shoving and nipping at one another in their haste.
The sight was a comical one, and Cara almost laughed. She didn’t, though. Like romantic attraction, happiness wasn’t possible. The mechanism inside her responsible for manufacturing it had broken.
Josh did laugh. The sound, loud and rich and full, caused a pleasant ripple to course through her. She tried to tamp it down and failed.
Suddenly afraid and not sure of what, Cara cut a zigzag path through the horses toward her pickup truck.
“Wait,” Josh called.
She reluctantly stopped. The next instant, he was beside her, and her awareness of him intensified.
“I want to talk to you about one of the horses.” He waited until she met his gaze, which was hard to resist.
She steeled herself. “Which one?”
“The small, homely gelding. What did you call him?”
“Hurry Up.”
“He’d make a great horse for my kids.”
She knew Josh had recently won custody of his children and would soon be bringing them to Mustang Valley. It was something she tried not to think about.
“Please,” he continued. “I haven’t been the best dad before now. It’s a situation I’m determined to change.”
“Kids need more than a pet.”
“I get that. But a love of horses is something I can share with them, teach them about, and I’m not above bribing them.” He added the last part with a guilty grin.
Cara nodded. Speaking was difficult because of the large, painful lump lodged in her throat.
“You mentioned an adoption process. Can we start it? I fly out tomorrow to pick up the kids from their grandparents’ in San Jose.”
Young children. Underfoot. In the way. She wouldn’t be able to escape them and the constant reminder of what might have been if not for that terrible day.
“Look,” he said. “If you won’t let me adopt Hurry Up, maybe I can sponsor him. I’ll pay for his food and care. In exchange, you let me use him for my kids. He can stay in the sanctuary. I won’t move him to the horse stable.”
He was being more than reasonable. To refuse him simply out of spite was unfair to him, his children and the sanctuary, which was always in need of extra money.
“All right, you win,” she said, but it sounded like someone else talking.
Chapter Three (#ulink_d939b3c5-4ca7-59f7-84dc-8bb4e6269c66)
Josh had no idea how much room was needed for two little kids. Eight hundred square feet? Two thousand? The apartment above the horse stable seemed small to him, what with its one bedroom, living room/dining room, kitchen and bath.
Raquel had been kind, offering him use of the apartment and helping him move in. Okay, technically the apartment, along with all of Dos Estrellas, was one-third his. But she had been the matriarch of the ranch for over twenty years, and he didn’t want to appear rude or ungrateful.
“If you ask me...” Raquel let the sentence drop.
“I am.” Josh carried a crib mattress under one arm and a merry-go-round lamp under the other.
The remainder of his kids’ furniture was in the stock trailer parked below, including a youth bed, dresser, changing table and toy chest. There was also a mobile, playpen, stroller, linens, nursery monitor and several dozen boxes yet to be unloaded. After six weeks in storage, everything was dusty and dirty.
“I’d put the crib and youth bed in the bedroom.” Raquel pointed down the short hall. “You could sleep in the living room. The couch converts to a bed.”
Josh expelled a long sigh. This, more than unpacking and cleaning, was exactly the help he needed. “Good idea.”
He’d been spoiled. Living half of the last fourteen years on the road, he’d relied first on his mother, then his ex-wife, then his mother again to keep his home in order.
Maybe Cole was right to doubt his parenting abilities. Josh had a lot of growing up to do, and quickly.
After carrying the crib mattress and lamp to the bedroom, he returned to find Gabe lifting two large boxes. For every load Josh had carried up from the trailer, Gabe had carried one down. In recent years, the apartment had become a dumping place for odds and ends. Raquel was overseeing the clearing out.
“Take this, too.” She added a shoe box to her son’s load, though, from the bulging sides, the box didn’t look to contain shoes.
Gabe peered around the stack in his arms. “Where do I put all this stuff?”
“The spare bedroom for now. I’ll figure out what to do with it later.”
As Josh watched Gabe and Raquel conversing, he was struck with a strange sense of surrealism. He’d often imagined having sole custody of his children, but never living with them in an apartment on his late father’s ranch. Nor had he imagined his half brother and his father’s longtime companion being the ones to help him clean and ready the apartment.
He blinked, but nothing changed. Raquel and Gabe continued to chat in the living room.
“What’s in these, anyway?” Gabe pretended to buckle, as if the boxes were heavy.
His mother smiled. “Old clothes, mostly. From the hall closet.”
