“So she came back lame last night?” In a roomy stall at Whisper Creek Ranch, Daniel kept one hand on Sky Dancer’s withers while he skated his other down her front leg.
His friend Cole paced the stall, muttering. “We let a Chicago gal take her out alone yesterday. She denies anything happened, but that leg says otherwise.”
Daniel shook his head. Whisper Creek might finally be turning its first profit, but week after week, inexperienced riders arrived in Montana thinking they were going to be bona fide cowboys and cowgirls by the time they left. Cole and his brother Decker had their hands full keeping their horses safe from the city yokels.
“Poor girl.” Daniel kept one eye on the horse and one on the twins, who were at the other end of the stable, checking out the goats. Sky Dancer flinched as Daniel got to a tender spot, but he kept his voice low and his hands steady as he checked her out. “So how’s business this week? Looks like you’re full up, even with the wedding next weekend.”
“We’ve been booked all summer, thanks to that damn website Ma put up. I just wish they were here as much for the horses as they are to score a cowboy fling.”
Daniel laughed. Cole, Decker, and their mother were joint owners of Whisper Creek Ranch, but everyone knew Ma held the proverbial reins. “What’d you think was going to happen when she put those sunset-cowboy shots up on the site?”
“In my defense, we didn’t even see her take those pictures. And I never thought we’d end up listed as one of the top ten girls’ getaway places in Montana.”
“Cole, those pics practically have a Come to Montana—Do a cowboy caption.”
Cole socked him in the arm. “Enough.” He rubbed Sky Dancer’s nose. “So what do you think?”
Daniel straightened up and palmed a carrot nub into the horse’s mouth. “I think this gal gets a vacation for a few days, but she should be fine. Light exercise, no riders, and I’ll check her at the end of the week. Sound good?”
“That’s what I figured, but I wanted your eyes on her.”
Cole led the way out of the stall, then called to Bryn and Gracie. “Hey, girls. Want to see something?” He beckoned toward a stall at the other end of the barn, and the girls leaped up to follow him.
When they got to the last stall, Cole lifted them both up to peer over the top, and they both squealed their little-girl shrieks.
Daniel came up behind them and watched as Bryn and Gracie took in the foal that had been born just days ago. Bryn’s mouth was a perfect O, and her eyes were shining. “Is it a boy? Or a girl?”
“A girl.”
Gracie nodded. “Good. What’s her name?”
“We haven’t decided yet. Do you two have any ideas?”
Bryn wrinkled her nose in concentration. “How about Ariel?”
“Or Jasmine?” Gracie added.
“Rapunzel? She has pretty hair!”
Cole raised his eyebrows at Daniel, only half-suppressing a smile. “Movie week again?”
Daniel shook his head as the names flew out of his girls’ mouths, evidence that they’d spent way too much time in front of the television yet again this week. They were kids’ shows, but still. Guilt clawed at him every time he turned that damn TV on so he could finish his paperwork at night or answer a call from a concerned client.
As if he’d conjured it, his phone started ringing. He cringed, though Cole laughed when he heard it. “Your mother-in-law had better never find out you assigned her that dun-dun-dun-DUN ringtone.”
Gracie picked the phone up from the shelf before Daniel could grab it and send the call to voice mail. “Hi, Nana! Guess what? We’re at the barn, and there’s a baby horse! We’re going to name it Jasmine!”
“Rapunzel!” Bryn muscled in.
Daniel heard Evelyn’s shrill voice, but couldn’t make out the words. She was about two years shy of admitting she needed hearing aids, so in the meantime, she just made like a megaphone and accused everyone else of speaking too quietly.
“Yup! Daddy’s here. Do you want to talk to him?”
Daniel grimaced as he took the phone and headed away from Bryn and Gracie. With the girls, Evelyn was syrupy sweet. But for him, speaking with Evelyn was like chipping at an igloo three miles thick. She’d thawed a bit for the six years he’d been married to her daughter, but after Katie had died and he’d decided to move Gracie and Bryn back to his Montana hometown, the ice walls had thickened considerably.
Nevertheless, she was the girls’ grandmother, and he was determined to keep her in their lives, for Katie’s sake. He and the girls flew back to Denver once a month, and Evelyn had an open invitation at his house, though she rarely used it.
That worked out pretty well for both of them.
He put the phone to his ear. “Hello, Evelyn.”
“Daniel. Looks like no church again this week?”
“Horses trump hymns once again, yes.”
“I don’t appreciate your tone.”
“I know. What can I do for you, Ev?”
“Are the girls ready for the wedding? You had no trouble getting the dresses? Shoes?”
“They’re ready. It’s been flower girl central around here all week.”
“Well, we’ve decided to come up a bit early to help out, so don’t worry about a thing.”
“Early?” His gut sank. “How early?”
“We’ve changed our flight from Friday to Wednesday.”
“Really, we’re fine. You don’t need to come up early.”
Please don’t come up early.
“Well, you’re in the wedding, too. I’m sure you have a lot to do. We’ll just be there to help. You’ll hardly know we’re there.”
Daniel stifled a bitter laugh. Right.
He sighed. “Wednesday’s…fine.”
Crap. That was two less days than he needed to get the house into some semblance of order.
“We’re anxious to see the girls. It’s been quite some time.”
“Sixteen days, Evelyn. We were there two weeks ago.”
“Well, it feels longer now that you’re so far away.”
Daniel rolled his eyes as he pictured her doing a dramatic sniff that was completely wasted on him.
Evelyn and Patrick had been destroyed when their only daughter had died, and in the months afterward, Ev had been a constant presence in his home. At first he had welcomed the help, but as the days passed and Daniel had started to see how Evelyn was insinuating herself more and more into their lives, he’d realized it was time for him to draw the line and figure out how to make his new three-person family work.
In the end, making that work had meant moving back to Montana, and though it’d been a year since they’d left, Evelyn was just as bitter as the day she’d stood sobbing beside the U-Haul truck, making Daniel pry the girls away from her. He wished there’d been another way, but he’d needed to be where he could heal, where he could work, where he could make a fresh start and move past the clouds of grief that still crept into the corners of his vision if he wasn’t careful.
And that had meant leaving Denver behind.
Evelyn sniffed delicately. Again. “Don’t trouble yourself with picking us up at the airport. We’ll rent a car and drive up. Oh! And before I hang up, I wanted to let you know we’ve heard some very good news from Southwick Academy.”
He stopped abruptly. “Southwick Academy? What kind of news?”
“Good, good news. They may have two openings for fall.”
“I thought we were done talking about this.”
“It’s an excellent school. An amazing opportunity.”
“I’m sure it is, but I am not sending my girls to boarding school. It’s not an option.”
“Katie always dreamed of sending them to her school, Daniel.”
Katie hated that school, Evelyn.
“Not an option. Wasn’t six months ago, wasn’t three months ago, and isn’t now.”
“They wouldn’t necessarily have to live on campus. We could work out another arrangement.”
Daniel sighed. “There is no arrangement to work out, Evelyn. They live with me, they have always lived with me, and they will continue to live with me. I’m sure the Academy has a stellar reputation, but I’m not sending Bryn and Gracie to school back in Denver.”
“But we’ve pulled a lot of strings to get them in, and we received news yesterday about these unexpected slots.”
“I never wanted you to pull any strings.”
Evelyn performed her classic long-suffering sigh. “Southwick doesn’t have openings. Ever.”
“Well, it looks like they do now. The girls will not be attending Southwick, and they will not be moving back to Denver. I can’t believe you went ahead and did this without my knowledge.”
“We just want the best for them. We’re just trying to help them get the best education possible.”
Daniel knocked his palm against his forehead. The nerve. He took a deep breath, working to keep his voice level. “I appreciate your concern, and I understand that you want the best for the girls, but it’s my job to make these types of decisions, not yours. Home is here in Montana now, Evelyn. Not in Denver. Not anymore.”
She was silent for a few long seconds. “We can discuss this when we get there. We have some other ideas we’d like to run by you. Perhaps I shouldn’t have gotten into this over the phone.”
“Perhaps,” he couldn’t help but echo, his tone hollow.
“We’ll see you on Wednesday. Good-bye, Daniel. Love to the girls.”
As he pocketed his phone, Daniel took a moment to gather himself before he turned around and pasted on a smile for Gracie and Bryn, who were now running his way.
Over his dead body would his little girls go back to Denver to friggin’ boarding school.
Cole caught his eye, brows raised in concern. Must be his fake smile wasn’t holding water. Cole pointed toward the main lodge. “Girls, you’ll never believe what Ma was baking this morning.”
“What?” They chorused in stereo.
“Chocolate chip cookies!”
Gracie’s eyes widened at Cole. “With the super-big chocolate chips?”
“Huge ones! Biggest I’ve ever seen!”
“Bryn, let’s go!” Gracie grabbed her sister and took off for Ma’s kitchen.
After the girls had scampered away, Cole turned on the faucet and started filling huge water buckets. When the first one was full, he looked at Daniel.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Think maybe you could dump one of those on Evelyn’s head while she’s here, though? Maybe she’d melt.”
“What’d she say?” Daniel summarized the conversation, and Cole shook his head. “What the hell, Danny? When is she going to realize that you aren’t coming back?”