Page 54 of A Forever Kind of Rancher

And because of how she loved she could trust everything to flow from there.

Because she loved her girls, and their happiness would feed hers. She could trust herself.

To make the best decisions she was capable of making—not perfect ones, but not wholly selfish ones either.

She just had to hope that in the end, Boone wanted the same things she did.

But if not...

She was strong. And she had a lot of things to live for, and smile for.

She knew how to hold happiness and sadness in her hands at the same time.

So, if she had to, she’d just hold it all, and keep living.

Chapter Nine

When his phone rang, he half expected it to be Daniel because he had heard from the disgruntled asshole more times in the last few days than he would like to. Actually just twice, but that was more than he would like, and he especially didn’t want to speak to him after having incredible transformative sex with the guy’s soon-to-be ex-wife. Not because Boone was ashamed, and not because he found it weird. It was because, as angry as he had been before, he was even angrier now. Wendy deserved better. She deserved a whole lot better, and he wasn’t going to be able to restrain himself from saying that. Because she was everything.

It wasn’t Daniel, however, it was Flint.

“Hey. Calling from your private jet?”

“She doesn’t travel by private jet. She thinks that’s problematic for the environment.”

“Wow. Not because you can’t afford to.”

“She’s very famous,” said Flint.

“You don’t find that threatening to your masculinity?”

His brother laughed. The sound deep and rolling across the phone line. “No. My masculinity is good. Anyway. Tansey and I are coming into town tomorrow, and I was hoping we could get together for a family barbecue.”

“Yeah. Sounds good.”

That would be time spent away from Wendy, though. He could bring her, of course, but that would be integrating her into the family in a way that...

Hell.

“I hear your hesitation. I’m wondering if it’s because of your houseguest.”

“I don’t have a houseguest,” he said, mentally trying to determine which person might have told Flint what was going on.

“I talked to Jace,” he said. “He mentioned you had Wendy Stevens staying with you.”

“Not with me. Wendy and her daughters are staying in the cottage on my property, and Wendy is doing some work for me. I’m paying her, and I’m giving her a place to stay while she works on extricating herself from that situation with her cheating husband.”

“Got it. And it has no connection whatsoever with your personal feelings for her?”

“Of course it does. I don’t just go offering a place to any random woman.”

There was no point lying about it.

“Yeah. Well. Maybe you should bring her.”

“Yeah, I was thinking...”

“I know you were thinking. I could practically hear you thinking. But you might as well bring her. And the kids.”

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