Page 25 of A Nice Day for a Cowboy Wedding

“That so?”

“Far as I can tell. Arson brother was always telling me I was a goody-two-shoes.”

“Youarea goody-two-shoes.”

Shane nodded to where Micah was entering the stables behind Gavin. “He doesn’t need to know that.”

Shane could tell she was trying to suppress a grin, and it made him want to see it full-fledged. They stepped into the stables, and he nodded toward the tool wall.

“Grab a shovel. Part of telling someone what to do is showing them you’re not afraid of doing the hard work yourself.”

Cora scoffed. “I’m not shoveling. . . . You can’t be serious!”

“Dead serious. Everyone in my stable works. Troublemaker or not.”

He left her there at the entrance to the stables looking a little shell-shocked. He was all too pleased with himself.

Chapter Seven

He wasn’t serious. He couldn’t be. Shane didn’t actually expect her to do any of the work.

But he walked over to a wall full of tools and picked out a shovel and held it out toward her.

“But . . .” Cora couldn’t think of anything to say. Except that it was Micah’s punishment, not hers. But Micah was watching her with big eyes, and Shane was clearly trying to hide a smile, and she somehow wanted to prove to everyone in this awful-smelling building she could shovel a bunch of horse poop if need be.

“Every morning we muck out the stalls and put in fresh hay. Most of the horses get a good workout since they’re used to get us around the ranch, but we have to keep track so we know each horse is getting enough exercise.”

Shane moved to one . . . thing. Stall, Cora guessed. She didn’t know the terminology, but it was like a pen, closed in on all sides, but with plenty of room for a horse.

A gigantic, hairy beast with giant eyes she thought could swallow her, even though they were only eyes, stood there. Cora couldn’t bring herself any closer.

“Whoa. It’s huge,” Micah said, sounding awed and clearly forgetting himself for a minute because he quickly affixed a scowl to his face when Cora looked his way.

“So’s the shit,” Gavin said, clearly having a hell of a time.

Cora couldn’t sayshewas having much fun, or that she particularly cared for either of the Tyler men in this moment, though they stood there with grins and shovels.

She didn’t mindlookingat them, truth be told, no matter how irritated. Shane and Gavin looked an awful lot alike. Same height and build—broad shoulders, toned arms, and . . . well, other things Cora couldn’t allow herself to notice or think about in the presence of her son. They had the same dark hair and eyes, but the way their faces were arranged was different. Shane had a square jaw and wide-set eyes and a nice mouth. He was a sort of classic kind of handsome. Like that cowboy in an old black-and-white movie she’d fallen asleep to last night. Gavin’s features were more rugged, she supposed. His nose was crooked and his mouth was all sharp angles—whether smiling or frowning or, more often, scowling. More brawler type, whereas Shane was clearly the peacemaker.

She liked that about him. Also the way his butt looked in those jeans, which she wasnotthinking about in the presence of her son.

“There are eight stalls, so we’ll each clear out two. Shovel it all out here, then we’ll show you how to spread in the new hay.”

“Wait. . . . We’reallgoing to do it?” Micah asked, looking from Shane to Cora and then back again, openmouthed enough he couldn’t scale his expression back to a scowl.

“When everyone pitches in, we get more work done,” Shane said simply, as if there was no question.

Cora didn’t know why that touched her, or seemed like such a big, good thing for Micah to learn.

“Then I get to go home?”

Shane’s mouth curved. “Your mom’s in charge, kid. We’re working you till she calls it quits.”

“Settle in, buckaroo,” Cora offered with a smile. “You’ve earned some hard work.”

“You’re going to have to do it too,” Micah returned with that kind of patented disgust only kids could manage.

“I can handle it. Let’s see if you can.” Then she set about doing something she had never dreamed in a million years she’d end up doing: she shoveled poop. Considering she’d cleaned up leaky diarrhea diapers, projectile vomit, and the like in the years of being Micah’s mom, it really wasn’tespeciallyawful.

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