Page 22 of Cowboy Bear's Hope

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t completely bereft. I’d worked all my life, and I’d saved some money. More than some. I mean, I could never spend it all on my own. But it was enough to care for a family.

My family.

If I were lucky enough to have one, of course.

“Is this your cabin?” Avery asked, moving closer to the window so she could see.

Inside me, pride and nerves were having an all-out slap fight. Like the reels of Eastern European traditional slap contests that Kian kept showing everyone when we were supposed to be working.

What a fuckhead.

But honestly, it was the best metaphor I had for my battling emotions.

It wasn’t clear who was winning.

Pride stood there, all smug and confident. Like it had this whole situation under control.

Meanwhile, Nerves was panicking in the corner. Shouting things like don’ let her in and she’s gonna hate it.

It felt like a sitcom playing out in my chest—if sitcoms involved way too much sweating and a stomach that couldn’t decide if it was doing flips for love or sheer terror.

But I was in it now, and there was no going back. I just had to ride out this wave of emotional stupidity and see for myself how Avery would react.

“Um, yeah. This is mine. Max worked it out with the Crew. We each get a place with an option to own it ourselves if we stick it out on the ranch. He also gave us all percentages of the ranch.”

“Wait. So, you like own part of the ranch?” Avery asked as we exited the truck.

“Yeah. I do,” I said and stood a little straighter as I unbuckled Rosie from her car seat and handed her to Avery.

I might not have understood at the time why a man like Max, someone who had money, power, and an ivy league education, was giving a bunch of slobs like me a stake in his place.

But I understood it now.

He was tying us to the ranch, to him, and giving our beasts something to work for.

I said it before and I’d say it again, the Devil was smart.

“This doesn’t look like Uncle Emmet’s cabin, Mama. Danny’s is better,” Rosie observed, and I grinned as pride finally won the war inside me.

“It sure is,” Avery said, offering me a shy smile.

“You can go inside. Door’s unlocked. And I’ll, um, get the bags and everything.”

“Okay. Thanks,” she replied, holding only her pocketbook and Avery.

My heart constricted, squeezing me to death as I watched Avery walk inside my home with Rosie in her arms for the first time.

Heat filled me and a sense of rightness. Having them here was everything I’d ever imagined it would be.

I just had to figure out how to make it permanent.

Mine.

Chapter Seven-Avery

The snow was really coming down as I tucked Rosie into the full-sized bed inside Dante’s guest room.

Strange, I expected dark, masculine colors to dominate the big man’s home, but I was wrong. The entire place was bright and cozy, with large windows facing the forest that seemed to edge along the entire property.

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