Stone Cold Cowboy(95)

CHAPTER 24

Sadie hugged Colt at her front door. “Thanks for coming.” Her father’s funeral took everything out of her today. Having everyone to the house after the short graveside ceremony fried her last nerve. She didn’t want to answer any more questions about her brother’s absence and anticipated arrest, or talk about her father’s illness and his last days. She didn’t want any more advice about what she should do with the ranch, or hear one more order that she better not sell it to some rich actor or businessman who wanted to pretend to play cowboy out here in the country only to drive up land prices.

“It was a nice service,” Colt said, releasing her. “See you back home, sis.” Colt walked out the door and joined Ford and Sammy at their truck.

Luna stared after Colt, trying not to make it look like she watched him. They’d done this same strange dance the whole day. They didn’t talk to each other, but the awkward way they avoided each other grew thick with tension until they were both quiet, tense, and scowling at each other.

Luna wrapped Sadie in a tight hug. “I love you, lady.”

“I love you, too. Thanks for helping out today. I needed you here.”

“What are friends for? But you don’t really need me, you’ve got a sexy, hot boyfriend,” Luna whispered in her ear. “I’m so happy for you. You two are really great together.”

“Thanks.” Sadie squeezed Luna close, then let her go.

“I’d say I’ll stay the night and we’ll have one of our legendary ice cream–movie–girl talk sleepovers, but you’ve got all you need.” Luna eyed Rory. “Take care of her.”

“Always.”

“I’ll see you soon.” With that, Luna walked out the door, leaving her and Rory alone together again.

Grateful for the quiet and Rory’s comforting presence, she sighed and tried to let the stress of the day go.

She and Rory had spent the last three days and nights together and settled into a strange routine. She worked with her father’s lawyer in town to settle the estate and file for the life insurance. She turned in her schoolwork, took a test, and studied. While Rory worked the ranch, she took a few hours each day to work on her novel.

Rory fell back into work with his brothers and came up to the house for lunch and dinner, and to spend his evening with her. It seemed she fit into his family. In fact, they sat around the dinner table chatting about their day and watching TV in the evening like they’d done so for years. The men included her in their discussions, asked her opinion, and generally treated her like she belonged. She loved it.

So much so that she looked around her family home feeling like it didn’t quite fit her anymore.

“Where’d you go, sweetheart?”

She shook off her tumultuous thoughts and focused on him and the question in his eyes. “Sorry. I guess I’m tired.” She stared into the kitchen and at the mountain of food platters, casseroles, and desserts. “We should have sent some of this home with your brothers.”

“Granddad and my brothers took a bunch of stuff out to the truck to take back to our place.”

Was that our place, as in hers and Rory’s? Or his and his family’s? She let it go for now.

“I go back to work tomorrow. Poor Luna can’t keep covering all my shifts.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

“Why wouldn’t I go back to work?”

His gaze dipped to her stomach for a split second, then shot back to her eyes. “With the money your father left you, you could stay home, finish school.”

“Rory, I’m nearly done with school.” Instead of talking about the baby and her being a stay-at-home mom or a working mom, she changed the subject because she was too exhausted after her father’s funeral to talk in circles about something they weren’t even sure about yet.

“If I cleaned all the personal items out of this place, maybe I could rent it out furnished.” She left off the part about how she’d be living with him.

“That’s a great idea. If you rented it to someone who wanted to use the land, you could take part of the profits from that, too. Ford would probably love something like this.”

“He doesn’t want to stay on your ranch and work with you and Colt?”

“I imagine that’s fine with him, but to have his own place, something of his own, he might like that a hell of a lot more. We could work both ranches together. Plus it’d still be in the family, right?

See, right there was where it got complicated. He said things like that, exactly what she wanted to hear. She was a part of his family, but still, his gaze dropped to her belly and made the elation she felt being included and an intricate part of his life deflate, because it now felt conditional on her being pregnant. Like would he be saying that if they were just together and nothing happened the first time they made love.