Page 55 of Snowed in with the Rancher

Tate wanted a second date—soon. It had been one of the best nights he'd had in as long as he could remember. And if the way Olivia kissed him at the front door to his parents' house was any indication, she felt the same way. But when calendars were consulted and texts were traded, neither he nor Olivia had a free moment for another week.

On Monday the girls started at their new preschool, and Tate was there with Olivia to walk them into the building, telling them he'd attended in the very same classroom when he was four. He was surprised at how memories of his mother came back to him while he showed them around. And at how good it felt to talk about her.

“So Grandma Anne brought you here when you were four?” Jackie asked.

“She did,” he told her, smiling as she climbed up on his knee while he sat in a very small chair at a very small table in contrast to all the new students and parents milling around the room. “And I remember she made me a lunch just like your mom made you a lunch.”

“What'd she make you?” Melissa asked, wrapping her small hands around his biceps.

“Peanut butter and jelly,” he told them. He'd eaten peanut butter and jelly every day for years. And not once since his mother had passed away.

“Mommy made us turkey and 'merican cheese,” Jackie informed him. “But tomorrow, I'm asking for peanut butter and jelly so I can be like you.”

“Me, too,” Melissa agreed solemnly.

Tate laughed and kissed each girl in turn before leaving them to start their day. At lunchtime, he drove in from the acreage he'd been inspecting with his foreman and knocked on the door to his dad's house.

“Tate!” Lucy said with a smile as she opened the door. “Your dad's gone into town for some dog food. You need something I can help you with?”

He scratched his head, feeling a little foolish now that his idea was becoming reality. “Uh, I'm stopping for lunch…” He gave her a shy smile. “I was wondering…do you have any peanut butter and jelly?”

Lucy smiled brightly. “I do! Want me to make you a sandwich?”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “If it wouldn't be too much of an imposition?”

“Don't be ridiculous! I make lunch for your dad and me every day. I've been telling him for years that you should join us. Come on in.”

And every day after that, if Tate wasn't in town at lunch time, he ate at his dad's house. Sometimes Lucy had leftovers, sometimes she made him a meat sandwich, but his favorite days were when she slapped some peanut butter and jelly on white bread and handed it to him as he was rushing between one task and the next.

The following Tuesday, Olivia had her first meeting with the board of Dreams for Disabilities. She explained that yes, she was going to be one ofthosedirectors—the ones who come in and want to make changes immediately. Then she outlined her plan to focus their work on fulfilling dreams that took advantage of the Montana environment—fishing, hiking, skiing, snowshoeing, horseback riding, ice skating, rodeoing, camping.

“We can become the experts on adaptive outdoor sports. We'll partner with bioengineering firms who develop prosthetics for things like skiing, we'll work with organizations who build adaptive trails, we'll create the model for giving differently abled people access to the natural environment including working with ranch animals.”

By the time she was done, the board was applauding, and she knew she'd started something significant. And Tate's federal lease lands were going to be the centerpiece of the whole effort.

On Wednesday, Tate and Lucy took the girls to their first doctor's appointment in Montana. They got shots—Jackie wailed, Melissa was stoic while two little tears slipped down her cheeks—found out they were in the fiftieth percentile for height and the seventy-fifth for weight, and then each got a sticker. Afterward, Tate took his stepmother and the girls out for ice cream. He was surprised when he realized he'd been gone from work for three hours by the time they were done, and he hadn't worried about it once.

Thursday was the day Olivia had set aside to set up her grant-writing program for the year. She worked with two of her staff members and the consultant in Butte all day long, putting together their lists of applications, data, and needs. And for the first time since the girls had been born, Olivia didn't have to leave an all-day meeting to go get them, didn't have to find a way to keep them busy while she continued to work, didn't have to wonder what she'd feed them when they all stumbled home after dark. She knew the girls were being well-taken care of by their grandparents and their father. When five o'clock rolled around and she had that moment of panic that she needed to leave. After she took a breath and realized she could keep working along with everyone else, she nearly cried tears of relief.

On Friday, Tate, his father, Vince, and two of the ranch hands loaded up five pickup trucks at Olivia's storage unit and drove all her belongings back to town where her newly refurbished rental house was waiting. She left work at two o'clock and met all the guys at the house. There was nothing like spending an afternoon bossing a bunch of cowboys around as they lifted heavy objects. It sure beat having to haul around everything herself, the way she had when she'd boxed her life up to move it to Montana. And it made for quite the added bonus to watch as they filled her house with all the items she'd been missing since she and the girls had moved. Vince and Thomas spent more time bullshitting and less time carrying, but even the older cowboys were a fine sight as they lifted heavy furniture and hefted boxes full of the stuff that makes a house a home.

Lucy picked the girls up from school, and once the three of them arrived, they all helped unpack. Olivia left the girls to unpack their toys in their new room, knowing it would be like Christmas all over again. The short span of a four-year-old's memory ensured that most of those toys had been forgotten over the last several weeks. Now it would be like rediscovering a treasure trove.

“The boys are putting my bedframe together,” Olivia said as she walked into the kitchen.

Lucy unwrapped another dish and put it in the cabinet. “It's good for Thomas to have some more to do. When he had the heart attack, we thought he wouldn't be able to do much ever again. But the fact is, he's healthy as can be now and really doesn't have enough to occupy him. You and the girls have been such a godsend.” She smiled. “We're both blessed to have you three.”

Olivia gave the older woman a hug. “We feel the same way,” she told her honestly. “And things finally feel like they're coming together. Getting moved in, starting my new job. I feel so much more hopeful than I did a few weeks ago.”

Lucy handed her a dish to put away and bent back down to unwrap another. “And how about things between you and Tate?” she asked casually. “Do things seem better there, too?”

Olivia couldn't help the smile that crossed her lips as she thought about that kiss the previous weekend after their date.

“I think things are…better.”

Lucy grinned. “So the date went well, then?”

Olivia laughed softly. “The date went well, and if we can find a few free hours, we're hoping to have another.”

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