Page 42 of A Nice Day for a Cowboy Wedding

“Your grandmother collects swords?” Cora said, because maybe if she repeated it, she could wrap her head around it.

“Yes. She has one that dates back all the way to the French and Indian War. She’s quite proud of it,” Shane said seriously.

Cora shook her head, and Shane grinned. She couldn’t help but smile back. He had a handsome smile, with a warmth to it that made her heart give one slow, delicious flip. She thought back to when they’d walked in and she’d caught him checking out her ass.

She’d never been with a good, decent man before. There were a lot of reasons for that, mostly her own insecurities and issues, but there was also this odd assumption that good and decent had to be boring.

The things Shane sparked in her chest were hardly boring, and just because someone was good and decent didn’t mean he couldn’t be a little bad....

Cora jumped a little when someone cleared his throat. Her cheeks heated when she realized Ben was still sitting at the table.

“Guess I’ll go get the fixings and take them outside,” Ben announced, making it somehow sound like a challenge.

All that smiling warmth from Shane had faded, but there wasn’tsomeof the tension and anger she usually saw in him at just the mention of Ben. There was almost a thoughtfulness in his expression. “That’ll be fine, Ben,” he said.

Which was clearly not the reaction Ben expected, since he blinked at Shane and frowned. Still, instead of explaining himself or anything else, Ben simply stood from the table and walked stiffly into the kitchen.

Leaving Shane and her alone in the dining room. Not alonealone,because she could hear the sounds of Deb and Molly and Ben in the kitchen.

“Let’s take a little walk.”

She nodded, knowing what he really meant.Let’s go spy. If it hadn’t been for this morning and seeing Deb cry, and Cora’s overlong conversation with the lawyer about what they could do to further protect themselves from Stephen, she might have felt a little bad about the idea of spying on Ben.

But she was churned up, and the idea of stepping in and protecting people felt like something shecoulddo. If she could stop Deb from facing even a modicum of the unhappiness Cora’d had with Stephen, she would gladly do some spying.

Shane led Cora out the front door and into the early twilight. The warm summer air smelled like sunlight and something flowery, likely Deb’s garden. Then there was always that faint hint of manure on the breeze. It was oddly appealing as a mixture.

He led them across the yard, but instead of a right toward the stables, he took a left. A part of the ranch she hadn’t seen much of. But his steps were slow and easy, and the silence was comfortable.

Still, Cora wasn’t one to revel in a lot of silence. “Micah was good?”

“Micah was great,” Shane said without hesitation. “He’s got a good understanding that if he does the chores well, he earns more time with the horses, and he takes that seriously. A few more weeks, we’ll be able to give him some unsupervised chores. If he wants. Ifyouwant.”

Cora took a deep breath. She’d been accepting help Micah’s whole life, because she hadn’t been in the kind of place to help her child. Now she could, and there was a selfish part of her that wanted to do it alone for once. No help from Lilly, no help from a handsome man she one hundred percent had the biggest crush on.

But thatwasselfish, and she wanted Micah to have everything. She’d never be able to give him a horse, but she could give him this access. She could take Shane up on his generous offer, especially since itwasgenerous. And Micah would be working to earn something.

“As long as it’s what Micah wants, it’s what I want.”

Shane nodded. He pointed ahead to a large building Cora hadn’t seen before since it was tucked away behind the barns and stables and a cluster of trees that must have been planted a while ago. “This is the bunkhouse. We have a variety of men who work for us. Some seasonal. Ben’s got his own cabin over there. Typically it’d be the foreman’s, but . . .” Shane shook his head. “It’s things like this. I don’t want to hate Ben, but he conned Mom into letting him live there when he should be in the bunk like the other men.”

“Do you have a key? I don’t know if breaking and entering is our best bet for snooping.”

Shane took a deep breath, staring hard at the cabin they were slowly walking toward. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” he muttered.

“It was your idea.”

“I know but . . . between some things Molly said to me, and some things I said to Micah, I’m starting to think I’ve gone about this all wrong.”

She was going to give him a bit of a good-natured hard time about being a goody-two-shoes, afraid of doing something wrong in order to do something right, but he’dsaid some thingsto her son.

What did that mean?

Cora stopped in her tracks, and Shane stopped with her, looking at her questioningly. Cora took a deep breath so she didn’t overreact.

“What did you say to Micah?” she asked, trying to sound curious instead of demanding. Interested instead of panicked.

“Boone was telling him stupid bullshit stories about the rodeo, about fighting, and I told him to ignore it. That trouble wasn’t worth it.”

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