Page 7 of Dependable Cowboy

“Kara, there’s something we need to talk about.”

Kara had been watching TV when Joy came in and turned the show off.

“Awww, Mommy! I was watching that!”

“I know and we’ll turn it back on in a minute.” Joy took a long beat and then let out a breath. “We’re going to move to a new place. Montana.”

“Where?” Kara’s nose scrunched up as she clearly wasn’t sure about any place outside of the city she’d been raised in.

“Montana. It’s where your grandparents live.”

Kara looked at Joy and blinked. “Your mommy and daddy?”

“Yes. You’re going to love them and my goodness they’re going to be crazy about you!”

Kara broke into a big smile. “I think so, too!”

“So, sweetheart, about your daddy… um, he’s not going to go with us.”

Kara sat somberly with her hands in her lap. Finally she looked up at Joy and nodded. “But why not?”

“Well, sweetie, he must have had some important things to do and I guess he’s been doing those things.” Joy shrugged and smiled weakly. “I haven’t heard from him in a while. I wish it wasn’t like that, but it is.” She scooted over to Kara and put her arms around her. They sat together like that for a while until Kara asked if she could watch her show. And that was the end of their conversations about Kara’s father.

Joy took a deep breath and forced all this out of her mind. Her heart was racing and her breaths shallower than they should be. The last thing she needed to do was upset herself. Was she haunted by his husband’s unknown status? Yes. But could she do anything about it that hadn’t already been done? No.

All she could do was what she had done. Start over. It was just too bad she hadn’t considered how Aaron might fit into that scenario.

Randomly, she considered how it might’ve been if hadn’t been so rebellious. What if her feelings for her best friend had evolved into something more? If she’d never left her hometown? What if she’d been content and had settled down with him and hadhischild instead?

Would she be in a better place in her life right now? But there hadn’t been a magic looking glass back then to help her make better decisions. So she’d have to be more careful from here forward.

CHAPTER FOUR

Aaron was distractedall during the subsequent week thinking about Joy. Luckily, his increased duties on the ranch kept him so busy he couldn’t think about her much when he was at work. The ranch doubled in size a few years back due to a neighboring ranch owned by Levi Mason challenging them to a competition which Sam’s wife won.

Aaron still heard tales about that competition, about the uniqueness of the situation in general. Especially from Sam who was clearly still proud of Whitney. Every time he talked about her, his features lit up as if he’d just won the lottery. In a way, maybe he had.

Whitney Duncan had become something of a legend on the ranch and within her husband’s family.

Putting the backhoe into reverse, Aaron continued to widen out a spring-fed pond on what used to be the Mason Ranch. With this heat, it was grueling work, but he felt thankful for the machinery making the job so much easier. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he contemplated how it might be to climb into thepond to clear it out by hand. The getting wet part didn’t honestly sound half bad, but the rest wouldn’t be as fun.

The engine on this piece of equipment clanged noisily, so it took Aaron a couple of minutes to realize that his walkie-talkie was beeping at him. Sam came over the channel they used, his voice fuzzy and rushed. But the reason for that soon became apparent.

“It’s Whitney,” he said. “She’ s experiencing preterm labor, so I’m taking her to the hospital in Billings as we speak.”

Aaron turned off the engine altogether. Would she be all right? Whitney was a strong woman, he’d seen the evidence of that himself. But going into labor early could be a real problem.

“We’ll hold down the fort,” he told Sam, hoping to bolster him.

“Well, I’m leaving that up to you. I know I just gave you the apprentice position, so this might be a trial by fire. But I trust you. You pretty much know what to do. If anything crazy comes up, just call Bryce.”

“He’s staying?”

“He is. He insisted. Everyone else is going, though.”

Everyone else likely meant the retired Duncan grandparents, Josh and Maddie, Pete and Lilliana, and possibly Bryce’s wife. The Duncans took family seriously, and anytime something scary cropped up, they circled all the wagons. Aaron’s own family was the same way.

The hardest thing about being left in charge of the ranch hands was the reaction of some of them. When Aaron gathered them all together to make the announcement about Sam leaving him temporarily at the helm, a handful of the hands balked.

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