Page 3 of Cowboy SEAL Homecoming

Stop thinking about him being hot. All three of them could have been Captain America and it wouldn’t have mattered. They were going to be partners in this business endeavor she was totally, one hundred percent committed to above all else.

She’d wanted to start a therapeutic horsemanship arm of the ranch long before Burt had suffered his stroke. She’d originally planned on focusing on kids going through illnesses, but after Alex’s injuries, she hadn’t been able to get him out of her head. It was better than wallowing in her grief over Burt. So she’d started thinking of her dreams in a different light.

When Alex had called to talk about taking his half of the ranch, she’d had an idea ready for him. He’d jumped on it with an enthusiasm that had surprised her.

Now, they were here. On the Maguire ranch, barely knowing each other, ready to start a business together. A nonprofit. It filled her with so much joy and hope and bone-numbing fear.

“Well, here it is—your new home. Well, your old home. Home. It’s…home.” She pushed the truck into park and hopped out. She knew she sounded like a bumbling idiot, and she didn’t plan on seeing how they reacted to it.

Ranger and Star came running from the porch, yipping and barking in happy welcome.

“Stop. Stay.” The dogs wiggled into a sitting position, barely containing their excitement over new people. They wagged their tails and panted happily at the three men who assembled next to her.

Becca took a step next to the dogs, resting her hands on their silky heads. She let out a steadying breath.

“Where’s Clark?” Alex asked.

It was amazing the way waves of grief could hit out of the blue. Burt’s dog dying so close to Burt had intertwined the two deaths in her heart. “I’m so sorry,” she croaked. “I guess…no one told you. A few days after the funeral, Clark passed too.”

If Alex had a reaction to the information, he didn’t show it. Not in his face, not in his dark eyes. He was completely and utterly blank.

But maybe that was a reaction in and of itself.

“We have Star and Ranger here,” she offered, pointing to each dog in turn. “We have a lot of random animals around these days. I should show you around the house. I mean, I know you know the house. But I have a room, and you have… Well, I didn’t know what room you would want and—”

“Becca?”

She blinked up at him, trying to get a handle on her fraying nerves. This was all so weird, and she was alone. She’d convinced her mom she could handle this, so she had to. Didn’t make it particularly easy. “Yeah?”

“You don’t have to fuss.”

“Right. Right. I just… You… I can just get out of your way, and you can explore and do whatever you want, and I’ll just go to the stable. I have chores and horses and…” They were looking at her like she was insane, and she probably sounded like it, babbling nonsense. But she didn’t know what to do when they were all staring at her. Alex knew stuff about the ranch, but she didn’t know what her role was, what he expected.

She backed away and eventually turned and tried not to run for the stable, but her pace was quite fast.

Ranger followed her, but Star stayed behind with the guys. Which was fine. Good. Great. This was all half Alex’s. Why wouldn’t he get half the dogs too?

Becca paced the middle pathway of the stables trying to get a handle on her breathing. There were no pressing chores, but on a ranch with cattle and horses, there was always something to do.

She’d wanted to send Hick to pick up Alex and the other men instead of going herself, but this was all part of being an adult. Proving to her mother she could handle real life. Proving it to herself. She could handle her business, handle having partners she shared a property with. She could handle being a woman.

She wasn’t the sickly little girl anymore who needed all the protection in the world.

“Becca?”

Becca jumped and whirled to find Alex and only Alex in the stable doorway. “Is everything okay?” he asked.

“It’s great,” she said with far too much false enthusiasm. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You’re acting…a little off.”

She felt defeated. Not like the strong, capable woman she was supposed to be. “Well, that’s something you’d better settle in and get used to.”

His mouth curved—not a smile exactly, but something soft. “This is going to be awkward at first.”

She wanted to say no shit, Sherlock, but she was trying very hard not to be any more off-putting.

“We’ll work through it. We have a common goal.”

Becca nodded, but she didn’t say anything. They did have a common goal, but that didn’t mean things were going to get any less awkward or any less hard.

That was a lesson she’d learned a long time ago.

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