Page 12 of A Forever Kind of Rancher

Even cleaning his house for a few weeks would feel like rest.

And then she would have to figure out what to do with her life.

But until then, she was going to take the shelter he was offering. Since the man she’d made vows to had kicked her out into the elements.

So why not have this? Even just for a time.

“Why don’t we get our things put away and then explore town?” she asked.

She knew Lone Rock was small, and the exploration wouldn’t take long, but they needed to find some food, and a distraction would be good for everyone.

Her daughters smiled at her a little too bravely, and right then she hated Daniel. Because he’d done this to them.

“Great,” she said. “This will be great.”

“You did what?”

“I gave her a place to stay,” said Boone, looking down the bar at his brother Jace, who was staring at him incredulously. His sister-in-law Cara leaned over the bar and stared at him as if she was waiting for more details.

“What, Cara?” he asked. “There’s nothing to say.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said. “The whole breakup was headline news, and he’s your best friend.”

“He is not my best friend,” said Boone. “I was friends with him. More importantly, I was friends with the man I thought he was. But I didn’t think he was out there betraying his wife every week out on the road.”

“You really didn’t know?” Chance, his other brother, who was seated next to his wife, Juniper, asked.

“No,” he said.

And he left off the part about how he’d never wanted to know because it wasn’t simple and never could be.

“Sounds unlikely,” said Shelby, his other sister-in-law, from beside her husband.

Shelby and Kit had recently had a baby, but Boone’s mother was always so happy to babysit that the happy couple could go out whenever they wanted. And were practically forced out by the well-meaning grandma even when they didn’t want to go.

All his siblings—except Buck, as far as he knew—were coupled up now. And the only couples not present were his younger sister Callie and her husband, Jake, who lived out of town, and his brother Flint and his wife, Tansey, who was a famous country singer currently on tour. Flint was with her.

Talk about revenge songs, Tansey had written a hell of a song about her and Flint’s first go-round that had made him infamous. Flint would probably have measured words for the whole situation since he knew how the media could whip up personal issues.

But Flint wasn’t here, so no one was being measured.

“Good for her, I say,” Shelby said to her husband. “But I’d leave your truck intact and take it. Your dick on the other hand...”

“Same,” said Juniper.

It served his brothers right for marrying sisters who were as pretty as they were badass. Boone loved them. He loved it even more when they gave his brothers hell. His brothers seemed to get something out of it too.

His brothers had all married pretty badass women.

Bar owner Cara was no shrinking violet. And Tansey, well she’d gotten rich with her revenge, and made his brother infamous in the process.

He thought of Wendy and how fragile she’d looked today. He’d wanted to tell her he’d done all that for her. The flowers, the new paint, the new furniture. He also hadn’t wanted to say a damned thing because he didn’t want her to think she owed him, and he didn’t want her to thank him for something a man ought to just do for her because she was there and breathing and her.

He didn’t want to do anything to crack her open when she was working so hard at holding it all together.

She was badass too. Hell yeah, she was.

She’d smashed the hell out of Daniel’s truck.

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