Her Cowboy's Twin Blessings

“Family counseling.” And yes, she noted the irony that she, a dirty little secret for so long, would want to devote her life to helping other families be more functional than hers had been.

“And what do you want the land for?” he asked.

“I want to open a family counseling center—a resort-style environment where families can get away from the pressure of their everyday lives, enjoy some outdoor activities together and talk out their issues.” She smiled, wanting him to see and understand her vision.

“So if you bought this place, you wouldn’t run the ranch,” he clarified.

“No. I’m not a rancher. I’m a therapist.”

“Gotcha.” Casey chewed the side of his cheek. Was he worried about his own job? Likely. Who wasn’t in this current economic climate? She hadn’t grown up rich, and she’d only recently come into any kind of money, so she wasn’t unfeeling when it came to these issues.

“Casey—may I call you Casey?”

“Might as well,” he replied.

“Casey, obviously, I don’t even know if I’ll buy this place, but if I do, I’ll need a manager for the land. I wouldn’t be running a full ranching operation, but there’d be horses, some cattle—”

“What would you do with the cattle?” he interjected.

“Do with them?” she said. “Raise them, I suppose. Cattle are very soothing. I think a lot of my clients would benefit with some time in nature.”

“So...” Casey squinted. “You’d just feed them? And...keep them?”

“I suppose, yes.”

“So your vision is to have fields full of elderly cattle?” He eyed her with a veiled expression on his face, and she was relatively certain he was mocking her.

“I’m not a complete fool,” she retorted. “I know where the meat on my plate comes from, but I’m not looking to run a cattle ranch. I suppose those are all decisions I’d have to make later on.”

“Fair enough.”

“What I was trying to say,” she said, “is that if I buy this place, I’ll need a manager, and I understand that the prospect of losing a job is a daunting one. You wouldn’t need to worry about that.”

“I’ll land on my feet,” he replied tersely. “No need to worry about me.”

“Okay.” That definitely didn’t sound like gratitude for job security. In fact, he sounded like he had no interest in working for her at all. “Is there a reason you don’t like me?”

“Let’s just say that this county has been hit hard by your father’s corporation,” he replied.

“My father’s corporation provides a lot of good jobs to this county,” she shot back.

“Your father’s corporation pushed my family out of our ranch,” he snapped. “And yeah, the Reed ranches provide jobs—jobs I don’t want. I want my land back. But that’s not happening, is it? You’re an outsider—don’t think you know people around here or how we think.”

Ember swallowed. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know.”

“Yeah?” He shook his head. “Great. Thanks.”

His tone dripped sarcasm, and some anger simmered deep inside. She might not know him or the people around here, but he didn’t know a thing about her, either!

“Hey—my mother was the housekeeper in the Reed house,” she said. “I wasn’t raised in some mansion. My mother gave me the Reed last name on my birth certificate, but my father didn’t publicly acknowledge me until I was twenty! We lived in a basement apartment and wore secondhand clothes. My mom worked hard in order to provide for us. I’m no spoiled heiress.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” he replied curtly. “But you’re still crossing lines you know nothing about around here. There’s such a thing as family pride. We don’t want to work for someone else. We want land that’s connected to us...land we can pass down.”

“And in that, we can finally agree,” Ember replied with a tight smile. “I want what you want—land connected to my family. And for the record, the family connection is on my mother’s side, not my father’s.”

Casey met her gaze for a moment. Then his cell phone rang and he dug it out of his front pocket.

“Yeah...” he said, picking up the call and turning away from her.

This ruggedly handsome man didn’t like her, but there was more to the anger and frustration he was showing—she could sense it. If he were a client, she’d ask him how all this made him feel. And he likely wouldn’t answer. She knew Casey Courtright’s type—stubborn, reticent, silent. They were the hardest kind of man to get to open up—the kind that clammed up during appeals to talk inside a therapist’s office, but became more relaxed and responsive during outdoor activities like horseback riding or long hikes. Or work.

She eyed Casey as he talked on his phone, his tone low. Yes, Casey Courtright would be the kind of man who valued his work higher than anything else. And she was threatening to change it. Was that his problem with her?

Casey hung up the phone and turned back toward her. “That was one of my ranch hands. He’s got to head out to check on a herd, so I need to take over for him.” Casey nodded toward his truck. “I can’t start the tour until I take care of this, I’m afraid. Care to come along?”

“Take over what?” she asked, her interest piqued.

“Childcare,” he replied with a small smile. “I’m the new guardian of twin baby boys, and one of my ranch hands was staying with them, but it looks like he’ll have to report back to work.”

Baby boys...that hit her right in the heart. She’d had her own baby boy and held him in her arms for one long night, and her memories of him made her heart ache. She sucked in a ragged breath. Casey wasn’t the only one to pour himself into his work. She did the same. This trip to discover her family’s land was the closest she’d come to anything like a vacation in ages. She was out here until her car was fixed, and she had a mission to discover whether this was the land her family had settled or not. Now was not the time to delve into her own personal issues.

“So you’re—” she began.

“Heading back to my place,” he said. “It’s five minutes down the road.” He paused, regarding her with a thoughtful look on his face.

“What?” she asked with a small smile.

“You and I might be able to help each other, Ember. You’re obviously going to need some time on this property to figure out if it’s the right place. And I need some help with those babies.”

“I’m no nanny,” she said with a short laugh.

“I’m not asking you to be. I can show you around this ranch properly, but my availability is going to be hit-and-miss. We run a really efficient operation here without a lot of extra employees hanging around, and I’m in a unique situation being a new guardian of these babies. Everything is in a knot right now. Seeing this ranch is going to take you more than one day, and if I’m going to give you a proper tour, I’d need to scrounge up a ranch hand to babysit while I take you around, and I can’t always spare the man. My niece helps out, but she’s got school and a part-time job of her own, so I can’t really count on her. But if you were here on the ranch so you’d be available when I manage to get everything lined up, and if I had some extra help with the babies in the meantime, we could both have our needs met.”

“I’m not a long-term solution,” she countered.

“I’m not looking for one. My aunt is coming in two weeks to help me out full-time. All I need is a bit of help until then. Plus, your car is in the shop for a week at least, isn’t it?”

Ember licked her lips and looked away. He was right—if she was going to get the time on this property that she needed to make an informed purchase, she’d have to make some kind of arrangement to stay. This setup made the most sense. But it didn’t take that aching part of her heart into account. Baby boys...she wasn’t ready to reopen that wound. Not yet, and not with an audience.

Ember looked back at the house, over at her wrecked car and up into the face of that rugged cowboy. His expression didn’t betray any of his feelings, and he raised an eyebrow at her.

“What do you say? You can think about it, if you want. But I’ve got to head back to the house. Coming or staying?”

This wasn’t about old wounds and sad regrets. And she couldn’t avoid babies forever. As much as she hated being pushed into a corner like this, she had a priceless opportunity to look at this land with the attention to detail she required. Could she set aside her personal issues long enough to make her dreams for her future work come true? She sucked in a breath, her limited options circling her mind.

“I’m coming,” she said.

Somehow, Ember needed a fresh start...and this land held a promise of just that.