Page 14 of A Forever Kind of Rancher

And I’m with her every time I’m with anyone.

I’m with her when I’m home. When I’m on the road.

Always.

He didn’t say any of that. But he wanted to jump through the phone and strangle Daniel.

“She deserves better than you,” Boone said, his voice rough.

“What? She deserves you?”

And that cut him deep because right then he knew Daniel wasn’t as oblivious as he pretended to be. He only played like it when it suited him.

But of course he couldn’t be as dumb as he played. He was a pretty big success and that didn’t come on accident.

“No,” Boone said. “But she does deserve someone who’s honest with her.”

“Is that why you brought her out to your place? Have you been screwing my wife, Boone?”

“When the hell would your wife have time to screw around on you, Daniel? She’s busy raising your kids and holding your life together. Say what you want about me, slander me all you want, but don’t project your bullshit onto her.”

Boone hung up then.

He shouldn’t have, maybe.

Because if Daniel was going to make up a story about him and Wendy it would probably only be reinforced by him hanging up like that.

But he just didn’t care to speak to that asshole for another second.

He couldn’t bear it.

Instead, he drove home, and when the phone rang again, he ignored it.

Chapter Three

The alarm went off too early and Wendy wondered at the wisdom of making the girls start school right away. Or at all.

If they were only going to be here a month...

But maybe they’d stay in Lone Rock for longer. Or maybe not. But it would be normal for them to have a school day and ultimately, that was what she wanted. For them to have something that felt normal.

She couldn’t promise them a long time here, or forever or anything close to that, but she could give them something that felt like childhood.

She’d discovered last night that the fridge was fully stocked, and she wondered who had done all this. Boone? It didn’t seem likely since he’d said he needed a house cleaner and had acted like he couldn’t perform basic tasks without help because he was so slammed with setting up the new ranch.

Maybe one of his sisters-in-law had helped.

She’d have to thank someone for it. For the miracle of waking up to having coffee in the house and having bacon and eggs to fix the girls.

And she really didn’t count on Boone showing up right when they were about to walk out the door.

“I thought, if you’d like, I could drive you because I know the way to both schools.”

And she could have figured it out with GPS, she knew, but she very dangerously wanted to take this easier option.

Couldn’t she? For just right now?

“Okay, if...if the girls don’t mind.”

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