A Nanny for the Cowboy

Picking up the crowbar, Luke set it against the feed mixer he’d been working on and wiped his hands on his jeans, doing his best to keep his temper in check. “I’ve had a lot on my mind, what with you running off and leaving the ranching to me. Add that I didn’t expect you back for another week, and I sure wasn’t ready for somebody to come sneaking up on me.”

“Okay, okay,” Dylan said, scowling. “Next time I’ll come whistling a tune.”

Luke recognized his brother’s mood and knew better than to push it. Stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans, he leaned against the mixer. “Did you see Erin?”

Dylan shook his head and joined his brother, leaning his hip against the machine. “Nope. I didn’t make it that far. I got as far as Dallas, spent a few nights in a motel and decided that leaving you with all the work isn’t fair.”

“I’ve always managed okay.”

“I never figured you couldn’t.”

Luke could see the worry in his brother’s dark eyes, but he suspected it didn’t have anything to do with how he’d managed with the ranch. “Wanna talk about it?” he asked, prepared for a blast of mind-your-own-business from Dylan.

Shoving away from the mixer, Dylan shook his head. “Nah. Nothing to talk about.”

Luke watched his brother walk away, but couldn’t let him go. “Why don’t you stay for supper?” he called to him. “There’s usually plenty.”

Dylan turned back. “Plenty? I’ve never known you to keep anything more than the makings for a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a few cans of beer in the fridge.”

“Hayley always makes a big supper.”

One dark eyebrow arched above Dylan’s eye. “Hayley?”

“Brayden’s nanny.”

“So you hired her, huh?”

Luke shrugged. “It wasn’t like I had a choice.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“So you’ll stay for supper?”

Dylan shook his head. “Not tonight. Maybe another time.”

Luke knew better than to insist. “Typical Dylan,” he muttered under his breath as he watched his brother leave the building. Dylan was a grown-up, and Luke knew he shouldn’t worry, but he did. He’d hoped his brother might come home a changed man, but that was asking too much. At least he was home again, and that would ease the workload. It would also mean there’d be more time spent with Hayley around, and Luke knew that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

* * *

HAYLEY LEANED BACK in her chair, stretching her arms above her head, and smiled to herself, thinking of how, in just one week, she and Brayden—and even Luke—had fallen into a comfortable schedule. With Brayden still sleeping since they’d arrived home from lunch at the café, she had to admit that she enjoyed his nap time as much as a mother would. It was her quiet time of the day, when she could clean up the kitchen, straighten the clutter from playtime or concentrate on her studies, without interruption.

But her alone time was shattered when she looked up to see Luke walk into the family room, through the sliding glass door that led to the deck. “Is something wrong?” she asked, when he turned to silently stare out the glass.

He turned to look at her. “No, I don’t think so.”

She marked her place and closed her book. “You don’t sound convinced.”

He stared outside at the deck again. “My brother is back, but I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” he said, more to himself than to her.

“Seems to me it would be good,” she answered.

Luke turned to look at her again, his face set in a deep, worried frown. “I’m not sure. Something is wrong and has been for a long time. I just wish I knew what.”

She folded her hands in front of her. “Why don’t you ask him?”

Luke snorted. “Ask him? Sure, if I want him to bite off my head.”

She shrugged and stood, moving to the sink, her back to him. “What makes you think that?”

“You have to know Dylan. He’s... He’s broody. And that’s normal for him. But lately he’s just been— I don’t know.”

She turned on the faucet to fill a glass of water, and replied, “I guess you’d know that better than me.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

He sounded a little bewildered. And close. Without turning around, she cleared her throat. “And that’s a bad thing, why?”

“It just isn’t Dylan, that’s all. You’d probably have to know where he’s coming from to understand.”

She felt more than heard him move away and relaxed. Shutting off the water, she began putting a few odds and ends in the dishwasher, then closed the door to it before turning to look at him. “What do you mean? Coming from where?” She didn’t miss his frown. “Or maybe I shouldn’t be asking.”

He shook his head as he walked back to the sliding door. “It’s a long story.”

“I have time, if you want to share. Sometimes it helps just to talk it out.”

Luke’s sigh was heavy with worry. “I wish Dylan would talk it out or at least try. I don’t know exactly what it is, but he’s been like this for a long time. This year, he’s been more quiet than usual. He’s always been quiet, but...” He turned to look at her. “I guess that sounds pretty crazy.”

“Not really.” She returned to her seat and waited, wondering if it might be better to let this go. After all, it wasn’t her problem, except that what affected her employer might also affect her and her job. She chose her words carefully. “Everybody reacts to things differently. Obviously something about him has you concerned. While others might not notice, for someone who knows him well, any small shift in his usual behavior would bring up a red flag.” She looked up to see him studying her.

“You’re pretty smart, you know that?”

She felt her face heat with embarrassment. “Not really, but I’ve taken some psych classes. And growing up in a big family gave me a little personal insight.”

“I’ll bet it did.”

She didn’t know if she could help him with his brother, but she hoped she could. From her own experiences, she knew that, in a family, one person’s mood often affected others. “There are three of you in the family?” she asked.

He nodded and joined her at the counter. “Erin is the oldest, then Dylan, then me. Our folks—” He avoided looking at her and ran his hand through his hair. “Well, that’s part of the story, I guess.”

“Aunt Rita said you lost your folks in an accident when you were in high school.”

“I was fifteen.”

It was clear that he still carried a lot of emotional pain from his parents’ deaths. She knew she’d been lucky. Everyone in her family was alive and fairly well, except for the usual ranching-related broken bones and cuts along the way. Her younger brother had been in a car accident two years before and her father had suffered a stroke the year before that, but as a whole, they were all doing well.

“That must have been hard. For all of you,” she said quietly.

“Yeah. But it was hardest on Dylan. He still takes time off every year near the anniversary of when it happened.” He clasped his hands on the table in front of him and looked at her. “He was a senior and captain of the baseball team, so he left early for the first game of the season. The game was canceled though, when a storm moved in, but by the time they thought the storm had passed, Dylan hadn’t come home. He was usually pretty responsible about that sort of thing. When they didn’t hear from him, they went to look for him. They didn’t know that a second storm behind the first was even worse. The rain was so bad, they could barely see the road, and they were broadsided by a semitruck.”