“Oh boy.” Aubrey looked around Cash’s new office and grimaced. “I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
“Don’t go overboard.” He kissed her. Her kisses had become an addiction with him. Scratch that; she’d become his addiction. “I’m an inspector for the Bureau of Livestock Identification, not a corporate executive.”
“No worries. I’ll decorate it superalpha. Lots of wanted posters of cattle rustlers.” She rolled her eyes, and he chuckled.
He placed a box on his desk and figured he’d get around to unpacking eventually. He’d been on the job three weeks and had been called out so many times, he hadn’t had a chance to move into his new office.
“Come here.” He crooked his finger, and Aubrey slid into his arms. “Don’t worry about the office; focus on your business—and on us.”
Back in the town’s good graces, she’d started her own design company, teaming up with an architecture firm in Nevada City. She had projects in three counties. In Aubrey’s spare time, she put the finishing touches on her cabin to make it more comfortable for the three of them. Cash and Ellie had moved in and were planning to someday build their dream home.
“I can multitask, you know?” She wrapped her arms around his neck and reached up to kiss him. “You deserve a nice office, a manly office.”
“What I don’t deserve is you.” She was the best thing that had ever happened to him besides Ellie. Sometimes, he’d wake up in the morning and hold her close just to make sure she was real. And the nights…she fulfilled every one of his fantasies. Needless to say, the nightmares of Casey Farmington were gone.
Ellie’s too.
During the holidays, he planned to take his daughter to Boston to visit her mother’s grave. But for now, she was settling in nicely at school. She, Travis, and Grady took the bus together every morning and either he, Aubrey, Jace, or Sawyer picked them up in the afternoon. She’d made a few nice friends, and Mary Margaret was planning to come for a week in the summer.
Cash checked his watch. “We’ve got to get going if we want to be on time for Sawyer’s big surprise.” He suppressed an eye roll. His cousin, up to something, had been sneaking around the ranch for weeks.
“I’m ready when you are. Should we pick up the kids?”
“Jace got them and is meeting us at home.”
They crossed the City Hall complex to the parking lot and drove to Dry Creek Ranch. Cash still marveled that the countryside was not only his backyard but the place where he went to work every day. Being a cow cop had its perks. Though he hated to admit it, Jace had been right. He loved the job and was currently investigating a large-scale interstate cattle-theft operation that was drawing on his experience as a special agent. And to think he’d thought his new position would be dull.
“What are you daydreaming about over there?” He tapped Aubrey’s leg.
She rested her head on his shoulder. “That we have a very nice life.”
And he was going to make damned sure it stayed that way. By Christmastime, he planned to put a ring on Aubrey’s finger, and by summer to make her Mrs. Dalton. Ellie was in on the plan and was constantly showing Cash pictures of engagement rings on the Internet.
As they passed through the ranch gates, a rush of nostalgia for Cash’s grandfather came over him. He didn’t know how long it would last, but for now, he, Jace, and Sawyer were living the life Grandpa Dalton would’ve wanted for them, and that made Cash proud.
“Sawyer just texted.” Aubrey studied her phone. “He wants us to meet him in the south pasture.”
“Why there?” Cash had no idea what this surprise of Sawyer’s was.
“I don’t know. But we’ll find out soon enough.”
Cash bypassed the cabin, taking a dirt road to an old structure that used to be the main barn for the ranch. He stared into the sun at the building.
“Well I’ll be damned.” Someone had rehabbed the decrepit old barn. It now had new siding, a new roof, and a new paint job.
He pulled in next to Jace’s truck, and he and Aubrey got out to find Ellie, Travis, and Grady sitting on the top rail of the fence, staring out into the distance.
“You fixed up the barn,” Cash called to Sawyer, and Jace pointed to the field that had the kids’ attention.
There were at least three dozen head of cattle that hadn’t been there before. Cash and Aubrey joined everyone at the fence. “These yours, Sawyer?”
Sawyer poked Cash in the shoulder. “They’re ours, the beginning of a solid breeding herd for a cow-calf operation.”
Cash shook his head but couldn’t help grinning. “You don’t give up, do you? Where’d you get ’em?”
“Auction,” Sawyer said. “I did my research. The rancher who sold them was leaving the business, but he kept good records.” He watched a few stragglers that had found a patch of green grass to munch on. “They’re excellent producers. I figure we can keep some of their calves in the beginning to build the herd.”
They still had no way of paying the property taxes, so investing in cattle seemed crazy to Cash. At the very least, it was premature until they sorted out the future of Dry Creek Ranch. He glanced at Jace, wondering if he was thinking the same thing. But his cousin had a smile on his face as big as California.
Damned cowboy.
Cash had to admit that their excitement was infectious, though. Even he felt a pang of anticipation at the prospect of preserving the life their grandfather had worked so hard for.
Still, he couldn’t help being a naysayer. “How do we plan to pay for it?” he asked, feeling like a broken record.
Sawyer hitched his shoulders. “We’ve still got a few months to figure it out. We’ll come up with something.”
They stood at the fence a long time, gazing out over Dry Creek Ranch, remembering how it used to be.
How it could be.
Sawyer and Jace were right: it was a good place to raise a family.
Cash looked at Ellie, perched on the wooden railing with her cousins, then at Aubrey, who grew more beautiful every day.
“Yep,” he said. “We’ve got a few months. We’ll figure it out together,” because right now, his heart was so full of love that anything was possible.