“Here we go. Let’s see what we can find.”
He didn’t have high hopes of finding a kids’ show on at 7:00 p.m. on a Friday night, but he was pleasantly surprised when the next click of the remote landed them on what looked like a stop-action animated holiday show featuring an elf, a snowman and a reindeer wearing a cowboy hat.
“How’s this?” he asked.
“Okay,” Ty said, agreeable as always.
“Looks like a little kids’ show,” Jazmyn said with a sniff, but he noticed that after about two seconds, she was as interested in the action as her younger brother.
Jaz was quite a character, bossy and opinionated and domineering to her little brother and everyone else. How could he blame her for those sometimes annoying traits, which she had likely developed from being forced into little-mother mode for her brother most of the time and even for their mother if Sharla was going through a rough patch?
He leaned back in the chair and wished he had a cowboy hat like the reindeer so he could yank it down over his face, stretch out his boots and take a rest for five freaking minutes.
Between the ranch and the kids and now Tricia, he felt stretched to the breaking point.
Tricia. What was he supposed to do with her? A few weeks ago, he thought she was coming for only Thanksgiving. The kids, still lost and grieving and trying to settle into their new routine with him, showed unusual excitement at the idea of seeing their aunt from California, the one who showered them with presents and cards.
She had assured him her doctor said she was fine to travel. Over their Skype conversation, she had given him a bright smile and told him she wanted to come out while she still could. Her husband was on a business trip, she told him, and she didn’t want to spend Thanksgiving on her own.
How the hell was he supposed to have figured out she was running away?
He sighed. His life had seemed so much less complicated two months ago.
He couldn’t say it had ever been uncomplicated, but he had found a groove the past few years. His world consisted of the ranch, his child support payments, regular check-ins with his parole officer and the biweekly phone calls and occasional visits to wherever Sharla in her wanderlust called home that week so he could stay in touch with his kids.
He had tried to keep his head down and throw everything he had into making Evergreen Springs and his horse-training operation a success, to create as much order as he could out of the chaos his selfish and stupid mistakes had caused.
Two months ago, everything had changed. First had come a call from his ex-wife. She and her current boyfriend were heading to Reno for a week to get married—her second since their stormy marriage ended just months after Ty’s birth—and Sharla wanted him to meet her in Boise so he could pick up the kids.
Forget that both kids had school or that Cole was supposed to be at a horse show in Denver that weekend.
He had dropped everything, relishing the rare chance to be with his kids without more of Sharla’s drama. He had wished his ex-wife well, shook hands with the new guy—who actually had seemed like a decent sort, for a change—and sent them on their way.
Only a few days later, he received a second phone call, one that would alter his life forever.
He almost hadn’t been able to understand Sharla’s mother, Trixie, when she called. In between all the sobbing and wailing and carrying on, he figured out the tragic and stunning news that the newlyweds had been killed after their car slid out of control during an early snowstorm while crossing the Sierra Nevada.
In a moment, everything changed. For years, Cole had been fighting for primary custody, trying to convince judge after judge that their mother’s flighty, unstable lifestyle and periodic substance abuse provided a terrible environment for the children.
The only trouble was, Cole had plenty of baggage of his own. An ex-con former alcoholic didn’t exactly have the sturdiest leg to stand on when it came to being granted custody of two young children, no matter how much he had tried to rebuild his life and keep his nose out of trouble in recent years.
Sharla’s tragic death changed everything, and Cole now had full custody of his children as the surviving parent.
It hadn’t been an easy transition for any of them, complicated by the fact that he’d gone through two housekeepers in as many months.
Now he had his sister to take care of. Whether her ankle was broken or sprained, the result would be more domestic chaos.
He would figure it out. He always did, right? What other choice did he have?