“You’re a good man, Kip, and you’re an even better brother.”

She smiled. “I don’t know many men who would let their brother and two little boys move in with him when he already had a mother and a sister to take care of.”

Kip glanced over at Nicole, her soft smile easing into his soul. Then puzzlement took over. “Why are you telling me this? Aren’t you supposed to be making me out to be the bad guy?” His eyes skimmed over her face, then met her gaze.

She didn’t look away. “You’re not the bad guy.”

Kip didn’t reply, not sure what to make of her. Was she flirting with him?

“You just happen to be caught in a bad situation.” Then she looked away.

What was she doing? Was she playing him?

He wasn’t sure what to think. Then he glanced over at her. She was watching him again. That had been happening a lot lately, but this time as their eyes met, he felt a deeper, surprising emotion.

More than appeal. More than attraction….

CAROLYNE AARSEN

and her husband, Richard, live on a small ranch in northern Alberta, where they have raised four children and numerous foster children and are still raising cattle. Carolyne crafts her stories in her office with a large west-facing window through which she can watch the changing seasons while struggling to make her words obey.

Cowboy Daddy
Carolyne Aarsen

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

—Matthew 11: 28

To Elin and Annely, who have brought a new dimension of love to our lives.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Letter to Reader

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One

What in the world was this about?

“Housekeeper wanted.” The words were handwritten, and the notice was tacked up on the bulletin board in Millarville’s post office.

Kip Cosgrove ripped the notice down and glared at it, recognizing his younger sister’s handwriting. What was Isabelle doing? Where did she get the idea that he needed a housekeeper?

Kip crumpled the paper and threw it in the garbage can of the post office, hoping not too many people had read it.

He spun around, almost bumping into an older woman.

“Hey, Kip, how’s your mom?” she asked. “I read on the church bulletin that she had knee surgery.”

“She’s in a lot of pain,” Kip said with a vague smile, taking another step toward the door. He didn’t have time for Millarville chitchat. Not with two rambunctious five-year-old boys waiting for him in his truck parked outside the door and a sister to bawl out. “I’ll tell her you said hello.”

He tipped his cowboy hat, then jogged over to his truck. He had to get home before anyone responded to the advertisement.

“What’s the matter, Uncle Kip?”

“Are you mad?”

Justin and Tristan leaned over the front seat of the truck, their faces showing the remnants of the Popsicles he’d given them as a bribe to be quiet on the long trip back from Calgary.

“Buckle up again, you guys,” was all he said. He started up the truck, too many things running through his head. Besides looking after his mom and his rebellious younger sister, he had a tractor to fix, hay to haul, horses’ hooves to trim and cows to move. And that was today’s to-do list.

He managed to ignore the boys tussling in the backseat as he headed down the road, lists and things crowding into his head. Maybe his sister wasn’t so wrong in thinking they needed a housekeeper. Even just someone to watch the boys.

No, he reminded himself. Isabelle could do that.

He hunched his shoulders, planning his “you’re sixteen-years-old and you can help out over the summer” lecture that he’d already had with his sister once before. Now he had to do it again.

The road made a long, slow bend, and as it straightened, he sighed. The land eased away from the road, green fields giving way to rolling hills. Peaks of granite dusted with snow thrust up behind them, starkly beautiful against the warm blue of the endless sky.

The Rocky Mountains of Southern Alberta. His beloved home.

Kip slowed, as he always did, letting the beauty seep into his soul. But only for a couple of seconds, as a scream from the back pushed his foot a little farther down on the accelerator.

“Justin, go sit down.” Kip shot his nephew another warning glance as he turned onto the ranch’s driveway.

“Someone is here,” Justin yelled, falling over the front seat almost kicking Kip in the face with his cowboy boots, spreading dirt all over the front seat.

Kip pulled to a stop beside an unfamiliar small car. It didn’t belong to his other sister, Doreen, that much he knew. Doreen and her husband, Alex, had gone with a full-size van for their brood of eight.

Probably one of his mother’s many friends had come to visit. Then his teeth clenched when he noticed that the farm truck was missing, which meant Isabelle was gone. Which also meant she hadn’t cleaned the house like he’d told her to.

The boys tumbled out of the truck and Kip headed up the stairs to intercept them before they burst in on his mother’s visit. No sense giving the women of Millarville one more thing to gossip about. Kip and those poor, sad little fatherless boys, so out of control. So sad.

Just as he caught their hands, the door of the house opened.

An unfamiliar woman stood framed by the doorway, the late-afternoon sun burnishing her smooth hair, pulled tightly back from a perfectly heart-shaped face. Her porcelain skin, high cheekbones, narrow nose and soft lips gave her an ethereal look at odds with the crisp blue blazer, white shirt and blue dress pants. It was the faintest hint of mystery in her gray-green eyes, however, that caught and held his attention.

What was this beautiful woman doing in his house?

She held up her hands as if to appease him. “Your sister, Isabelle, invited me in. Said you were looking for a housekeeper?” The husky note in her voice created a curious sense of intimacy.

Kip groaned inwardly. He’d taken down the notice too late. “And you are?”

“My name is Nicole.”

“Kip Cosgrove.” He held out his hand. Her handshake was firm, which gave him a bit more confidence.

“I’m sorry about coming straight into the house,” she said, “but like I said, your sister invited me in, and I thought I should help out right away.”

She looked away from him to the boys. Her gentle smile for them softened the angles of her face and turned her from attractive to stunning.

He pushed down his reaction. He had to keep his focus.

“So how long have you been here?” Or, in other words, how long had Isabelle been gone?

“A couple of hours. I managed to get the laundry done and I cleaned the house.”

In spite of his overall opposition to Isabelle’s hare-brained scheme, Kip felt a loosening of tension in his shoulders. He and Isabelle had had a big argument about the laundry and housework before he went to Calgary. Now it was done.

He’d had too many things going on lately. His responsibility for the boys, his mother, Isabelle. The ranch seemed to be a distant fourth in his priorities, which made him even more tense.

Maybe the idea of hiring a housekeeper wasn’t so far-fetched.

“You realize my mother has had surgery?” he asked, still not sure he wanted a stranger in the house but also fully aware of his sister’s shortcomings in the housekeeping department.

“I’ve already met her.” Her smile seemed to underline her lack of objection. “Isabelle gave me some of the particulars.”

“Will you be able to come only certain hours, or do you have other obligations?” He still had his reservations, but since she had come all the way here and had done a bunch of work already, he should ask a few questions.

“I’m not married, if that’s what you’re asking,” Nicole said, brushing a wisp of hair back from her face with one graceful motion.

The gold hoops in her ears caught the sun, as did the rings on her manicured hands.

She didn’t look like she’d done much housekeeping. His first impression would have pegged her as a fashion model or businesswoman.

But then he’d been wrong about people before. Case in point: his one-time girlfriend, Nancy. The one who took off as soon as she found out he had been named the guardian of his nephews.

Nicole looked back at the boys, who hadn’t said a peep since she had appeared in the doorway. “I’m guessing you are Justin and Tristan?” she asked.

The boys, while boisterous and outgoing around family, were invariably shy around strangers, especially since their father, Scott’s death. They clung to Kip and leaned against his legs.

“It’s really nice to meet you at…meet you.” Nicole crouched down to the boys’ level. He caught the scent of lilacs, saw the curve of her cheek as she glanced from one boy to the other. Her hand reached out, as if to touch them, then retreated.

Something about the gesture comforted him. She seemed drawn to the boys, yet gave them space.

“My nephews are five. They’ll be going to school this fall.” He tightened his grip on the boys’ hands. “Though I hate the thought of putting the little guys on the school bus.” Why he told her that, he wasn’t sure.

“I told Uncle Kip we have to stay home. To help him with the chores,” Tristan said.

“I don’t know much about farm chores,” Nicole said, glancing from one boy to the other. “What kinds of things do you have to do?”

“We have to feed the dog,” Tristan offered quietly. “She has puppies.”

“You have puppies?” Nicole’s eyes grew wide. “That’s pretty neat.”

“And we have to help with the baby calves,” Justin added, as if unwilling to be outdone by his brother. “But we’re not allowed to ride the horses anymore.” He shot a hopeful glance Kip’s way but he ignored it. The boys had been campaigning all summer to ride again, but there was no way he was putting anyone he loved on a horse. Not since Scott’s accident.

They were too young and too precious.

“Now all I have to do is figure out which one of you is Tristan and which is Justin.” Nicole looked from one to the other, and the tenderness in her smile eased away Kip’s second thoughts.

“He’s Tristan,” Justin said, pointing to his brother. “And I’m Justin. We’re twins.”

“I see that. So how should I tell you apart?” Nicole asked.

“Justin has a little brown mark on his back. In the shape of a horseshoe,” Tristan offered.

“Do you think it was because you were born on a ranch?”

“Wasn’t borned on the ranch. I was borned in the hospital in Halifax.” He sighed. “My daddy is dead, you know.”

“Dead?” Nicole frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He died when he got on Uncle Kip’s horse.”

Tristan’s comment was said in all innocence, but again the guilt associated with his brother’s death washed over Kip.

“Your father is dead?” Nicole said, one hand pressed to her chest.

Why did she sound so shocked? Kip wondered.

“He died when the horse he was on flipped over,” Justin continued. “But we know he’s in heaven with Jesus. I talk to Jesus and tell him what to say to my daddy every night.”

“That’s…interesting.” A faint note of skepticism entered her voice that concerned him.

“We go regularly to church,” Kip said by way of brief explanation. “I hope that’s not a problem.” He wasn’t about to get into a theological discussion about what Jesus meant to him. If he decided to hire her, then she’d find out that faith was woven into every aspect of the Cosgroves’ life.

Nicole waved her hand as if dismissing his concerns. “No. Of course not.”

“And our mommy is gone,” Tristan offered, unwilling to let Justin do all the talking. “She just left us one day. All alone with the babysitter.”

“Then Daddy rescued us. He was a good daddy,” Justin said.

“How do you know your mommy left you?” A faint edge had entered her voice as she glanced up at Kip. “Do you know where their mother is?”

Kip shook his head, wondering why she wanted to know.

The reality was, no one in the Cosgrove family knew where Tricia was or whether she was dead or alive. His brother, Scott, and Tricia had been living in Nova Scotia when Tricia took off without a word six months after the boys were born.

Scott and his sons then moved back to the ranch.

“Do you want to see our dog’s puppies?” Justin tugged his hand free of Kip’s and reached out to Nicole.

“Shouldn’t you go and say hi to your Gramma?” Nicole asked.

Kip was pleasantly surprised at her consideration, but he also knew the boys would rather be outside.

“They can go.” He wanted a few minutes alone with his mother to get her impression of Nicole.

Tristan grabbed Nicole’s other hand and before she could lodge a protest the three of them were off.

Kip watched them head down the sidewalk toward the barn, still unsure. Hiring her would give him a break from the constant nagging he did to get Isabelle to help.

He sighed, glancing at his watch. He should go see his mother and then make sure the boys didn’t get into any trouble. Then he had to see what he could do about his tractor.

What had she done?

Nicole bit her lip as she looked down at the sticky faces of the two boys looking up at her, jabbering about cows and puppies and Uncle Kip and Auntie Isabelle and other relatives.

She tried to stifle her guilt.

She was no housekeeper. Nor had she come because of an advertisement. Her real reason for coming to the ranch was to see her nephews. Her sister’s boys.

That Kip’s sister Isabelle assumed she was the housekeeper had been a coincidence she capitalized on.

She clung to the boys’ hands as she felt buffeted by a wave of love. Justin. Tristan. Tricia’s twins. A remnant of the true Williams family now that Tricia was dead.

When Tricia had stormed out of their lives all those years ago, yelling that she’d never come back, Nicole had hoped her beloved sister would someday return. Nicole had prayed and had clung to this hope for eight years. However, four weeks ago a police officer showed up at the Williamses’ home in Rosedale, Toronto, with the news of Tricia’s death and crushed that hope.

Three years ago Tricia had been struck by a car while out walking late at night. She had no identification. It wasn’t until Tricia’s roommate registered her concern for the missing Tricia that the police were able to identify her body. The roommate knew only that Tricia had recently moved to Halifax and when she had earned enough money she planned to head out west. Then Tricia had had her accident.

The years had slipped by. Then, a month ago, the roommate moved out of her apartment and in the process had found an envelope behind a desk.

Inside the envelope were letters from Tricia to someone named Scott Cosgrove, a man Tricia apparently had been living with after the boys were born. From what Nicole and her father, Brent, understood from the letters, the boys’ biological father was dead. Scott, who was just her boyfriend, had somehow taken Tricia’s boys away from her while she was in a drug-rehabilitation program.

These letters had been mailed but returned, marked Address Unknown. These envelopes also contained letters to her sons expressing her love for them and how much she missed them. The final paper was a last will and testament addressed to her parents, asking Brent and Norah Williams to be her sons’ guardians in case something happened to her.

The roommate brought all this to the police, who were finally able to inform Nicole and her father what had happened to Tricia. It was also the first time Norah and Brent found out about Tricia’s sons.

Nicole had done some detective work and had discovered that Scott had moved back to his family’s ranch in Alberta. It took little work from there to discover a Cosgrove family in Millarville, Alberta. Nicole decided to go to the ranch, to talk to Scott about the boys and to see them.

Nicole’s father desperately wanted to come along, but his emphysema was especially bad and his doctor discouraged him from taking the trip. So Nicole came alone.

When Nicole came to the ranch house she wasn’t sure what she would do or say or if she was on the right track. She just knew she wasn’t leaving until she saw the boys for herself.

When Isabelle answered the door, she assumed Nicole was the housekeeper she’d advertised for and left within seconds of her arrival.

What could Nicole do? She couldn’t leave Mrs. Cosgrove, who had been sitting in a wheelchair, alone, nor could she tell the poor woman why she was here. So she stayed and cleaned up and helped where she could.

Then Kip came striding up the sidewalk with his long legs, his eyebrows lowered over narrowed grey eyes shadowed by his cowboy hat, his mouth set in grim lines, and fear clutched her midsection.

She was about to come clean.

Then she saw the boys, and she knew beyond a doubt they were Tricia’s twins. Everything changed in that moment, but she couldn’t tell the Cosgroves who she was. Not yet.

She didn’t want her first introduction to the boys to be fraught with conflict. Because as soon as Kip and his mother, Mary, found out her true purpose for being here, there would be antagonism and battles.

“We have our own kittens, too,” Justin said, swinging her hand as if he’d known her for all of his five years.

Nicole tightened her grip on the boys’ hands, a surprising wave of love and yearning washing over her.

How could Tricia have left these boys? How horrible her life must have been to make that sacrifice? Why couldn’t Tricia have asked for her family’s help?

It was because of me, Nicole thought. I sent her away.

“There are five of them,” Tristan said, his innocent words breaking into the morass of guilt surrounding any memory of Tricia. “One of them died, though. Do you think that kitten is in heaven with my daddy?”

“I think so,” Nicole said, hesitantly. She didn’t want to destroy their little dreams of heaven or of the man they thought of as their father. But Scott wasn’t their father.

As for God? When Tricia left eight years ago, Nicole’s faith in God had wavered. When Nicole’s adoptive mother died of cancer three years after that, Nicole stopped thinking God cared.

God, if he did exist, was simply a figurehead. Someone people went to when they didn’t know where else to turn and even then a huge disappointment.

“How about we check out the kittens,” she said, brushing aside her anger. All that mattered was that she had found the boys.

“I don’t want to see the kittens,” Justin said with a pout. “I want to see the horses.”

“Uncle Kip won’t let us,” Tristan said, placing his hands on his hips. “You know that.”

“We won’t go into the corrals.” Justin tugged on her hand. “Uncle Kip won’t get mad if we just look.”

Nicole easily remembered Kip Cosgrove’s formidable expression. Best not cross him sooner than she had to. “Maybe another time,” she said. “We should go back to the house.”

“I want to see the horses.” Justin pulled loose and took off.

“Justin, come back here,” she called, still holding onto Tristan as Justin disappeared around the barn.

Nicole turned to Tristan. “You stay here, okay?” She spoke firmly so he understood.

Tristan nodded, his blue eyes wide with uncertainty.

“I have to get your brother.” She patted him on the shoulder, allowed herself a moment to cup his soft, tender cheek, then turned to get Justin.

Nicole ran around the barn in time to see Justin with his foot on the bottom rail of the corral. She ran over the uneven ground and caught him by the waistband of his blue jeans just as he took another shaky step up.

“I can go up myself,” he said, trying to pull free.

“If your uncle said no, then it’s no,” Nicole said, shifting her grip from his pants to his shirt. No way was she bucking Uncle Kip on this. She needed all her ammunition for a much bigger battle. “So let’s go.”

“What’s going on?” Kip’s deep voice, edged with anger, reverberated through the quiet of the afternoon.

Nicole’s heart stuttered at the latent fury in his voice.

Still holding on to Justin’s arm, she turned to see Kip standing behind her, Tristan beside him.

“Justin, get down from that fence. You and Tristan are to go back to the house right now,” Kip said, his tone brooking no argument. “Gramma is waiting for you.”

“I want to stay with Nicole. She said I could see the horses with her.”

Nicole was about to correct that when Kip spoke again.

“I need to talk to Miss Nicole,” he said. “Alone.”

His anger seemed extreme for the circumstances. That could mean only one thing. He knew about her momentary deception.

Time to come clean. She had seen the boys and was ready to face him down. She had Tricia’s will and the law on her side.

Justin jumped down and scampered around the barn, Tristan close behind.

Kip watched them leave, then walked toward her, his booted feet stirring up little clouds of dust. The utter stillness of the air felt fraught with uncertainty and a feeling of waiting.

He stopped in front of her, crossed his arms over his chest and angled his head to one side.

Fear trembled in her midsection, threaded with a peculiar awareness of him. She pushed her reaction aside and focused on the job she had come here to do.

“We need to talk,” he said quietly.

“I know—”

“I’ve decided to hire you,” he said.

This wasn’t what she had expected when he came storming around the barn, anger and fury in his eyes.

“I’ve got a lot going,” he said. “And I can’t stay on top of everything. I really could use your help.”

The appeal in his voice and the confusion of his expression created an answering flash of sympathy. When she first came into his house, she felt overwhelmed at the mess. When she saw poor Mrs. Cosgrove, trying to fold laundry from her wheelchair, she knew she couldn’t walk away.

So she pitched in and started cleaning. Mrs. Cosgrove’s gratitude made her momentary subterfuge seem worthwhile.

Now a man who looked like he could eat bullets and spit out the casings was launching an appeal for her help.

He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “So tell me what you want to get paid, and we’ll see if we can figure something out.”

Nicole held his gaze, and when he gave her a half smile, her heart shifted and softened. For a moment, as their eyes held, a tiny crack opened in her defenses, a delicate pining for something missing in her life. As quickly as it came, she sealed it off. Opening herself up to someone would cost too much.

Besides, he was the enemy. The one who stood between her and her beloved sister’s boys. When he found out who she was, the warmth in his eyes would freeze.

She took a breath and plunged in.

“You may as well know, I didn’t come to apply for the housekeeping position.” Nicole spoke quietly, folding her hands in front of her and forcing herself to hold his gaze. “I’m Tricia’s adoptive sister. Justin and Tristan’s aunt. I’ve come to take the boys.”

Chapter Two

Kip stared at the woman in front of him, her words spinning around his head.

Tricia’s sister? Come to take his boys? His brother’s sons?

“What are you talking about? What do you mean?” His heart did a slow flip as the implications of what she said registered.

He had come here to offer her a job, and when he saw Justin climbing the fence of the horse corral, he’d lost it. In front of his very attractive prospective employee.

Now, with his heart still pounding from seeing Justin up on the fence, he was sandbagged with this piece of information.

“When were you going to tell me that you weren’t applying for the job?” Kip growled, unable to keep his anger tamped down.

“I just did.” Nicole raised her chin and looked at him with her cool gray-green eyes. “I had no intention of fooling anyone.”

Kip gave a short laugh. “So how do you figure you’re taking the boys? How does that work?”

Nicole pressed her lips together and looked away. “It works because Tricia wrote up a will stating that our parents get custody and now she’s…now she’s dead.”

Kip took a step back, the news hitting him like a blow.

“What? When?” His poor nephews. How was he going to tell them?

Nicole didn’t answer right away, and Kip saw the silvery track of a tear on her cheek. She swiped it away with the cuff of her tailored jacket.

“Tricia died about three years ago. We found out a only few weeks ago.” Her voice sounded strangled, and for a moment Kip sympathized with her. The first few weeks after his brother Scott died, he could barely function. He went through the motions of work, hoping, praying, he could find his balance again. Hoping, praying the pain in his heart would someday ease. Hoping the guilt that tormented him over his brother’s death would someday be gone as well.

His brother had died only six months ago, and they had only recently found out about Tricia. Her pain must be so raw yet…

He pulled his thoughts back to the problem at hand. “Why did it take so long for you to find out about Tricia’s death?” he asked, steeling his own emotions to her sorrow.

“She hadn’t told anyone about her family. Apparently she had just come out of a drug-rehab program. Then she was going to find her boys.”

“Drug rehab?” Kip’s anger returned. “No wonder Scott came back with the boys.”

Nicole shot him an angry glance. “According to Tricia’s diary and letters, he took them away without her knowledge or permission. Tricia had moved out of the apartment she shared with Scott and had taken the boys with her. She had brought the boys to a friend’s place so she could go into rehab. She was in for two weeks, and when she came back to see the boys, Scott had taken them and was gone.”

Kip laughed. “Really.”

Nicole shot him a frown. “Yes. Really.”

“And you believe a drug user?”

Nicole’s frown deepened. “I truly believe that after the boys were born, Tricia had changed. I also believe my sister would not willingly abandon her children.”

“But she did.”

“Scott took them away from a home she had placed them in so she could get her life together.” Nicole drew in a quick breath. “Something he had no right to do.”

“How do you figure that?” Kip’s anger grew. “He was their father.”

“According to what Tricia wrote, the boys were born before she moved in with Scott. He wasn’t their father.”

Disbelief and anger battled with each other. “That I refuse to believe,” he barked. “My brother loved those boys. They are his. You can’t prove otherwise. Your sister is a liar.”

Nicole’s eyes narrowed, and Kip knew he had stepped over a line. He didn’t care. This woman waltzes into their lives with this complicated lie and he’s supposed to be polite and swallow it all? And then let her take the boys away?

Over his dead body.

“So how do you want to proceed on this?” Nicole asked, arching one perfectly plucked eyebrow in his direction.

Kip mentally heaved a sigh. For a small moment he’d thought this woman was the solution to part of his problems.

Not only was he was back to where he started, even if she was lying, he now had a whole new legal tangle to deal with.

Dear Lord, I don’t need anything else right now. I don’t have the strength.

He held her steady gaze, determined not to be swayed by the sparkling in her eyes that he suspected were tears. “The boys were left with me as per my brother’s verbal request,” he said. “I’m their guardian, and until I am notified otherwise, they’re not going anywhere and you’re not to come back here.”

He turned and walked away from the corral. The corral that brought back too many painful memories.

Well, add one more to the list. Somehow he had to tell his nephews that their mother, who had always been a shadowy figure in their lives, was officially dead. If he could believe what this Nicole woman had told him then he had to tell his mother that the woman they had thought was their salvation was anything but.

He shot a quick glance behind him.

Nicole stood by the corral fences, her head bent and her arms crossed over her midsection. Dusty fragments of sunlight gilded her hair and in the silence he heard a muffled sob.

Sympathy for her knotted his chest. Regardless of what he felt, she’d found out about her sister’s death only a few weeks ago. Not long enough for the pain to lose that jagged edge. Not near long enough to finish shedding the tears that needed to spill.

For a moment he thought he should go over to her side and offer her what comfort he could. Then he stopped himself.

She wants to take the boys away, he reminded himself. She claimed they weren’t his nephews. And that reminder effectively doused his sympathy.

“I’m sorry, Nicole, but I’d like you to leave,” he said, hoping his voice projected a tiny bit of sympathy.

She drew in a shuddering breath and looked up, a streak of mascara marring her ethereal features.

“I have pictures,” she said.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I can prove who I am.” Nicole wiped at her cheeks with the tips of her fingers, a delicate motion belying the strength of conviction in her voice. “I also have a signed letter from my sister along with a copy of her last will and testament.” Nicole took a few steps toward him, wrapping her arms around her waist. “So I’m not without ammunition myself.”

“I’d like to see all that.”

“Fine.” She walked past him, the scent of lilacs trailing behind her.

Kip followed her as regret lingered a moment.

She was a beautiful woman. When he still thought of her as his future housekeeper, he had thought having her around every day might have been a distraction. He was lonely, she was beautiful. Maybe not the best mix.

But now?

Right now she was a complication he didn’t know how to work his way around.

She yanked a key ring out of her coat pocket, pointed it at the car and unlocked the door. Ducking inside, she pulled out a briefcase, which she set on the trunk of the car.

Kip came closer as she drew an envelope out of the case, opened it and took out a picture.

“This is my sister, the boys and your brother. I think the boys are about six months old there.”

Kip took the laminated photo, and as he glanced at it he felt as if spiders scuttled across his gut.

The picture was identical to one he’d had blown up, then framed and hung in the boy’s room. The only picture the boys had of their mother.

As he handed the picture back, sorrow mixed with his anger. Two of the people in the picture were dead. The boys were officially orphans.

Nicole tucked her hair behind her ears, tugged on her jacket and looked him in the eye. “I’m leaving your ranch like you asked me, but I’m not going far. I have a room in a motel in Millarville and I intend on coming here every day to see my nephews.”

“I’m not discussing anything to do with the boys without my lawyer present. So until then, as I said before, I’d like you to stay away.”

She looked like she was about to protest, then gave a delicate shrug. “Fine. When do you want to see your lawyer?”

Never. He had cows to move to other pastures. A tractor to fix, a stock waterer to repair and a sister who would be peeved when she discovered they didn’t have a housekeeper after all.

“Tomorrow,” he said, mentally cringing. He’d just have to work later in the evening to make up for lost time. Hopefully he could get in with Ron, his lawyer. If not, well, she’d have to wait.

“What’s his name and number?” She pulled out a phone, then punched in the information he gave her. “And what time?” she asked, looking up.

“I’ll give you a call.” He wondered what Ron would have to say about the situation.

Nicole put the phone away, then reached into a side pocket of the briefcase she had taken the papers from.

She pulled out a business card and handed it to him.

He glanced down at the name embossed on the card.

Nicole Williams. Director, Williams Foundation. The information was followed by several numbers—home, office, fax, cell—and an email address and a website.

Very official and a bit intimidating.

“Director of the Williams Foundation?” he asked, flicking the card between his fingers.

“My adoptive parents started it.”

“Adoptive?”

“Brent and Norah Williams adopted me when I was eight,” Nicole said, her voice matter of fact. “My father started the nonprofit in memory of my adoptive mother.”

“Admirable.” He tucked the card in the back pocket of his worn jeans, hoping this wasn’t the pair with the hole in the pocket. “I’ll let you know what’s up.”

“Can I come tomorrow to see the boys?”

“Let’s wait to see what my lawyer says.”

Nicole squeezed the top of her briefcase, averting her eyes. “They’re my nephews too,” she said quietly. “My sister’s boys.”

“Boys she abandoned, that no one bothered to find.”

Nicole’s eyes grew hard. “They were taken away from her. The lack of communication is hardly my fault considering we found out about these boys only a few weeks ago.”

Kip was about to say something more when a truck turning onto the yard caught his attention. Isabelle.

His younger sister pulled up beside Nicole’s car, putting it between her and her brother. A strategic move he thought, fighting his anger and frustration with her.

“Hey, Nicole. How’d things go today?” Isabelle called out as she jumped out of the truck. “Had to get groceries,” she said to Kip holding up a solitary plastic bag as if to underline her defense.

“Dressed like that?” Kip asked, eyeing her bright red lipstick, snug T-shirt that sparkled in the sunlight and her too-tight blue jeans.

Isabelle’s face grew mutinous. “I didn’t think I had to stick around here. Especially since Nicole showed up.” She pulled another bag out of the truck and flounced up the walk to the house, her dark hair bouncing with every step.

Kip bit back whatever he wanted to say to his little sister, fully aware of his audience.

Too many things going on, he thought, fighting his frustration with his sister and this new, huge complication.

“I’m going now,” Nicole said, her voice quiet, well modulated. She gave him a tight smile, then pulled her briefcase off the trunk of the car. “I’ll wait to hear from you.”

Without a second glance, she got in, started the engine and roared away from him in a cloud of dust.

Kip pushed back his hat as he watched her leave, frustration clawing at him.

Please Lord, don’t let my family be broken up, he prayed. Don’t let her take my boys away from me.

And please don’t let me lose it with my sister.

He stepped into the house just as his mother wheeled herself into the kitchen. Her long, graying hair was brushed and neatly swept up into a ponytail, her brown eyes sparkled, and the smile on her face was a welcome respite from the resignation that had been his mother’s default expression since her surgery.

“Where did Nicole go?” his mother asked, sounding happier than she had in a while. “She seems like a lovely girl. I’m looking forward to having her around to help out.”

Kip glanced at the clean countertop and shining sink. When he first saw how clean the house was he couldn’t believe that businesslike woman had done all this. Now he knew she was simply trying to weasel her way into his mother’s good graces.

“Where’s Isabelle?”

“In her room.”

“When did she leave the ranch?”

Mary Cosgrove tapped her finger against her lips. “About one.”

Three hours to pick up one bag of groceries. He was so going to talk to his little sister. Leaving his mother alone with a stranger, even if she had come here because of an advertisement, was irresponsible.

Not only a stranger, a woman who had come to completely disrupt their lives.

“I’m so glad you decided to take on a housekeeper,” his mother continued, sounding hopeful. “She seems so capable and organized.”

Kip hated to burst her bubble. “I still think Isabelle should learn to pull her share of the housework.”

His mother sighed. “I know, and I agree, but it’s so much work to get her motivated and Nicole seems so capable.” Mary looked past Kip. “Where is Nicole now?”

“She left.” Kip blew out his breath and dropped into a chair across from her mother. “Truth is, she didn’t come for the housekeeping job. She came…” he hesitated, glancing up at his mother, who seemed more relaxed than she had in months. Scott’s death had been devastating for her. This new piece of information wouldn’t help. “Nicole, apparently, is Tricia’s sister.”

His mother frowned. “Tricia? Scott’s girlfriend?”

“Yep. The mother of the boys.”

Mary’s fingers fluttered over her heart, her eyes wide in a suddenly pale face. “What did she want?”

Kip wrapped his rough hands around his mother’s cold ones. “She claims she has a will granting her custody of Justin and Tristan.”

“But the boys’ mother…Tricia…” Mary squeezed her son’s hands. “Where is she?”

“She’s dead.” The words sounded harsh, even though he’d never met the woman. But she had been the mother of his nephews.

The nephews that Nicole claimed didn’t belong to Kip’s family. Kip’s heart turned over in his chest.

There was no way he was telling his mother that piece of information. He didn’t believe that fact for one minute anyhow. Scott had loved those boys. Doted on them.

Since Scott died, Kip had fought to keep this family together, but lately he felt as if everything he worked so hard for was slipping out of his fingers.

There was no way he was letting Nicole take his mother’s only connection to Scott away. No way.

Chapter Three

“I found them. I found the boys.” Nicole tucked the phone under her chin as she sorted through her clothes. The motel room held a small dresser and minuscule closet she could hang some clothes in. She had packed a variety of clothes, unsure what she would need.

She closed the closet door and glanced around the room. It was the best, supposedly, in Millarville, and she guessed it would do. She hoped she wouldn’t have to stay here long. Staying here resurrected memories she had relegated to the “before” part of her life.

Before the Williams family took her in.

“Are they okay? How do they look?” Her father sounded a bit better, as if the news sparked new life in him.

“They’re fine.” Nicole thought of Justin and Tristan, and her heart contracted.

She knew the Cosgroves wouldn’t simply hand over the boys to her as soon as she had arrived. From what she had discovered, the boys had been at the ranch since Scott took them away.

Kip’s family was the only one the children knew. A family, she discovered, which included Kip’s mother, a younger sister and a married sister with six children.

Nicole couldn’t stop a nudge of jealousy at the thought of Kip’s large family, then quashed it. She’d had a full life with the Williams, and she owed her adoptive parents more than she could ever repay. That Brent’s natural daughter was the one gone only increased her guilt.

“Is the family treating them okay? Do they seem to have a stable home life?”

“The farmhouse is a bit of a wreck,” Nicole said, thinking of the worn flooring, and the faded paint. “It looks as if no money had been spent on the house in a while.”

Yet in spite of the mess, when she walked into the spacious kitchen of the Cosgrove house, she felt enveloped by a sense of home. Of comfort and peace.

Something she seldom experienced in her father’s cavernous house.

“They’re well taken care of.” She tucked the phone under her ear, pulled her laptop out of the bag and plugged it in. Thankfully, she would be able to do much of her work for the family’s foundation while she was here.

“You sound like you think they should stay.” Her father’s voice held an accusatory tone.

“No. I don’t,” Nicole assured him. “But we can’t simply remove them immediately.” She knew she sounded practical, however, her feelings were anything but.

When she saw the boys, a feeling of love, almost devastating in its intensity, bowled her over. She wanted to grab them, hold them close, then run away with them. She couldn’t understand or explain the unexpected power of these feelings. The only time she’d experienced this before was when she saw her little sister, Tricia, for the first time.

“It was what your sister wanted,” her father said, a hard note entering his voice.

“I know. It’s what I want as well, but we have to proceed carefully. The boys don’t remember their mother and they most certainly don’t know who I am.” She highly doubted Kip would tell them in the next few days.

“I should be there,” her father said, his voice harsh. “I should be meeting with that lawyer.” This was followed by a bout of coughing that belied his insistence.

“You know yourself that once lawyers get hold of things, the process grinds to a halt.” She ignored a sliver of panic at the thought. When she arranged to come here, she had given herself three weeks to bring the boys back. Sure, she could work here, but she also needed to spend time with the boys so the transition from here to Toronto wouldn’t be so difficult.

“Who do the boys look like?” Brent asked, a thread of hope in his voice.

“They look exactly like Tricia.” Nicole pressed her fingers to her lips, restraining her sorrow.

“You have to bring my boys back, Nicole. They are all I have left of Tricia. Those boys don’t belong there. They’re not even blood relatives.”

Nicole knew her father spoke out of sorrow, but his words struck at the foundations of Nicole’s insecurities. Tricia was Sam and Norah’s natural daughter.

Nicole was simply the adopted one.

“Tomorrow I’ll see Mr. Cosgrove’s lawyer,” Nicole said, opening her laptop and turning it on. “We’ll have to take this one step at a time.”

“When you talk to that lawyer you make sure to let him know that James Feschuk is working for us. His reputation might get things moving a bit. I also want a DNA test. If they don’t believe us, then we’ll get positive proof that Scott Cosgrove was not the boys’ father.”

“How will that happen?” Nicole asked.

“James told me that you can get DNA tests done locally. He suggested one called a grandparent’s test. Get that grandmother to get tested and we’ll find out. I’ll get tested too. Then we’ve got some teeth to our argument.” His voice rose and Sam started coughing again.

“I’m saying goodbye,” Nicole said. “And you should go to bed. Make sure you take your medication and use that puffer the doctor gave you.”

“Yes, yes,” Sam said. “I’ll get James to phone that lawyer. Tell him we insist on a DNA test. Give me his name and I can take care of it.”

Nicole pulled out her cell phone and called up the name and number and gave that information to her father. “I’ll let you know the minute I hear anything.”

Nicole said goodbye. She turned back to her computer, but only sat and stared sightlessly at the screen, her work suddenly forgotten as she thought of Justin and Tristan. Tricia’s boys.

Seeing them had been heartwarming and heartrending at the same time.

Again she felt the sting of her sister’s betrayal when Tricia had left without a word those many years ago. Nicole had hoped and prayed for an opportunity to talk to her face-to-face, to apologize. But the only letter in the envelope was one to her parents pleading for forgiveness. Nothing for her.

Nicole glanced around the room as memories of other evenings in other motel rooms crowded in.

Nicole tried to push the memories away, but the emotions of the past day had made her vulnerable and her mind slipped back to a vivid picture of herself, sitting on a bed in a motel room, a little girl of five, waiting while her aunt smoked and strode back and forth, watching through the window.

When Nicole’s natural mother died, her father, a long-distance trucker, put Nicole into the care of his sister, a bitter, verbally abusive woman.

Whenever he came into town, Nicole’s aunt would bring her to a motel where they would meet her father. She would stay with him for a couple of days and then he would be gone.

That evening they waited until the next morning, but he never came. His truck had spun out of control and he had died in the subsequent accident.

After six months, her aunt had her moved to an already-full foster home.

Four years later, she was adopted by the Williams family at age eight, and her life went from the instability of seven foster homes in four years to the stability of a wealthy family. She was told enough times how blessed she was, and she knew it.

Yet each night as she crawled into her bed, she would wonder when it would all get taken away. People had always left her. It would happen again.

Then something magical and miraculous happened to her and the Williams family. Norah, who was never supposed to be able to conceive, became pregnant. When Tricia was born, Nicole bonded with this little baby in a way she couldn’t seem to with Norah and Sam. Tricia became as much Nicole’s child as her parents’.

Nicole took care of her with a fierce intensity. She stood up for her in school, listened to her stories of heartbreak and sorrow. Defended her to Sam and Norah whenever Tricia got into yet another scrape. She was Tricia’s confidant.

Then Tricia turned thirteen. She withdrew. Became sullen and ungrateful. She started hanging around with the wrong crowd and staying out late. Nicole had tried to reason with her, to explain that she was throwing her life away.

But Tricia kept up her self-destructive lifestyle. Finally, in frustration, Nicole fought with her.

Then Tricia, too, left and never came back.

Nicole got up, grabbed her purse and walked out of the motel. She walked down the street, then up it again. She let the cooling mountain air soothe away the memories. She bought a sandwich, returned to her motel room and dove into her work. A few hours later she took a shower and crawled, exhausted, into bed. She needed all the rest could she get.

Tomorrow she would be seeing Kip Cosgrove again.

Tomorrow she would have other battles to fight.

“So she has some legitimacy?” Kip leaned his elbows on his knees, then frowned at the grass stain he saw on his blue jeans. He should have checked before he put the pants on. Of course he was in a hurry when he left the ranch. Of course he had to go through a mini battle to get Isabelle to agree to take care of her nephews while he was gone.

“As an aunt to the boys, she has as much right as you do,” Ron Benton, his lawyer, said, leaning his elbows on the desk. “As for her claim about Scott not being the father, unfortunately it’s a matter of her word against yours now that both the principals in this case are dead. We’ll need more information.”

“Tricia abandoned the boys, Ron. She left them with Scott. She was gone for three years.”

“Well, now we know she was dead for three years.”

Kip blew out a sigh of frustration at that irrefutable truth. When Nicole had told him that, he felt as if his world had been realigned. Ever since Scott showed up at the farm with the two boys, Kip had burned with a righteous indignation that a woman could leave these boys all alone. An indignation that grew with each year of no communication.

Now he found out she’d been dead and possibly didn’t know where Scott was.

If what Nicole said was true.

“The trouble is we don’t have a legal document that grants custody to you,” Ron said. “And it sounds like this Nicole might have one that gives it to her. Though you’ve been the primary caregiver—and any court would look at that as well—the reality is you don’t have legal backup for your case. As well, we don’t know why Tricia left.”

“I know what Scott told me.”

Ron blew his breath out, tapping his fingers against the sleeve of his suit jacket. “She and Scott got along? He never did anything to her?”

“Of course not.” Kip barked his reply, then forced himself to settle down. Ever since Nicole had walked into their lives, he’d been edgy and distracted.

He had too much responsibility. The words dropped into his mind with the weight of rocks.

How could he think that? He loved his nephews dearly. He wasn’t going to let Nicole take them away. Especially not after promising his dying brother that he would take care of them. There was no way he was backing out on that. Not after what had happened to Scott.

Guilt over his brother’s death stabbed him again. If only he hadn’t let him get on that horse. The horse was too green, he had told him, but Scott was insistent. Kip should have held his ground.

Should have. He shoved his hand through his hair. The words would haunt him for the rest of his life.

“Trouble is, we don’t have a lot to go on,” Ron continued. “Your main weapon is the primary-caregiver option. You’ve been taking care of Justin and Tristan. That’s what we’ll have to go with if this gets to court.”

“Court? Would it get that far?”

Ron lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “I’ll have to do some digging to see if I can avoid that, but no promises.”

No time. No time.

The words bounced around Kip’s mind, mocking him. He didn’t have time to fight this woman.

“Whatever happens, I’m not letting some high and mighty Easterner come and take the boys simply because she has some piece of paper and I don’t,” Kip said as the door to the office opened.

He stopped mid rant and turned in his chair in time to see Nicole standing in the doorway, the overhead lights of the office glinting off her long, blond hair and turning her gray-green eyes into chips of ice.

Chapter Four

Nicole glared at Kip Cosgrove, wondering if he could read the anger in her eyes. She doubted it. He sat back in the chair, looking as if he was completely in charge of the situation and his world.

I’ve got a legal will, she reminded herself.

The boys are Tricia’s.

“Good morning,” she said, projecting pleasant briskness into her voice. She’d dressed with care this morning. Her tailored suit was her defense in the boardroom of her father’s foundation and it became her armor now.

Her gaze ticked over Kip and moved to the man sitting on the other side of the desk. He certainly didn’t look like any lawyer she had ever met with his open-necked twill shirt, blue jeans and cowboy boots. She was definitely not in Toronto anymore. “My name is Nicole Williams, but I’m sure you already know that.”

“Ron Benton.” He stood, gave her a slow-release grin and shook her hand. At least he looked friendly, which was more than she could saw for Kip Cosgrove with his deep scowl.

Ron sat back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. “I understand we have a problem that we need to resolve.”

Nicole shrugged as she set her briefcase on the floor beside her chair. “No problem as far as I can see. I have a will from Tricia Williams giving her parents, Sam and Norah Williams, full custody of the boys, Justin and Tristan Williams. Norah Williams has passed away, but Sam is very much alive.” Nicole took out a copy of the will and placed it on the wooden desk in front of Ron. “You can keep that for your records.”

Ron glanced over the papers. “This will hasn’t been filed with any legal firm, or put together with the help of a lawyer?”

Nicole shook her head. “No, but it is witnessed and dated.”

“By whom?” Ron kept his eyes on the papers, flipping through them as he frowned.

“I don’t know the woman. Apparently it was someone that Tricia lived with.”

Ron’s slow nod combined with his laissez-faire attitude grated on Nicole, but she kept her temper in check. She had to stay in control.

Then Ron sat back in his chair, his hands laced behind his head. “We could easily contest the legality of this will.”

Now it was Nicole’s turn to frown. “What do you mean?”

“How do we know this is Tricia William’s signature? And who was this friend? Anyone could have put this together.”

Kip leaned forward and she couldn’t help glancing his way, catching a gleam in his eye.

“So you’re saying this isn’t as cut-and-dried as some people think?” Kip asked.

Hard not to miss the pleasure in his voice. Nicole fought back her concern. She had too much riding on this situation. Sam was expecting her to bring these boys back. It was what she had to do.

“Unfortunately, no.”

“So that makes things a bit easier,” Kip said with an obvious note of relief in his voice.

“We have our own lawyer working on this case,” Nicole added, just in case Kip thought she was simply rolling over. “We have copies of Tricia’s handwriting and photographs of the boys.”

“Birth certificates?” Ron asked, his chair creaking as he leaned forward, glancing over the will again.

Nicole had to say no. “Again, that’s something our lawyer, James Feschuk is working on.” Dropping James’s name, however, got no reaction.

“So things are still in limbo?” Kip asked. He tapped a booted foot on the carpet, as if he couldn’t wait to get out of there. Nicole wasn’t surprised.

He looked as if he was far more at home on the back of a horse than sitting in an office.

Which made her wonder why he wouldn’t let the boys on the horses. He seemed so unreasonably angry with her when she took them to the horse corrals.

And why did she care? The boys were leaving this life as soon as possible.

Ron tapped his fingers on the desk, shaking his head as if to negate everything Nicole had said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think anything can happen until we get all our questions answered.”

“Great.” Kip got to his feet. “Then we’ll wait.”

“Not so fast, Kip,” Ron continued. “The other reality is we can’t completely negate Ms. Williams’s claim on these boys. She does have some rights for now.”

Nicole’s frustration eased off. She had been ready to do battle with this small-town lawyer.

Kip had already grabbed his denim jacket but clutched it now, his grey eyes staying on Ron, ignoring Nicole. “What rights?”

“Visitation, for one,” Ron said.

Kip blew out a sigh and shoved his hands through his hair as he glared at his own lawyer. “How will that work?”

Time to take control. “I would like to visit the boys every day,” Nicole said.

Kip finally turned his attention to her. “Every day? For how long?”

“I think that’s something we can settle here and now,” Nicole said. “I was thinking I could come and pick up the boys and take them for a visit either morning or afternoon. Whichever is convenient.”

Kip made a show of looking at his watch, as if he was the only one in this room with a schedule to keep. Then he sat down and leaned back in his chair. “Okay, I’m thinking something else. I’m thinking you can see the boys every day, but the visits have to happen on the ranch and under my supervision.”

Nicole frowned at that. “Why?”

Kip held her gaze, his frown and piercing gaze giving him a slightly menacing air. “I only have your word that you are who you are, and until Ron is satisfied, I’m not letting Justin and Tristan out of my sight.”

His antagonism was like a wave and for the briefest moment, fear flashed through Nicole. He reminded her of a wolf, defending its pups.

Then she pushed her fear down.

“And how would these visits be apportioned?”

“I’m guessing you mean how much time and when?”

“Precisely.”

Kip raised an eyebrow and Nicole knew she was putting on her “office” voice. She couldn’t help it. She felt as if she needed the defense.

“You come from 2:30 until 5:00 every afternoon. That’s what works best for me.”

She bit back her anger. Two and a half hours? Was that what he considered a visit?

“Take it or leave it,” he added.

She didn’t have much choice. Right now she may hold a legal will, but until it was proven legitimate, he had the right of possession—if that was the correct way to term guardianship of the boys.

“Those terms are…fine with me,” she said, trying to sound reasonable. She wasn’t fighting him over this. Not yet. In the end, she knew she would be proven right, but in the meantime the boys were in his care and on his ranch and she could do nothing about that.

“So we should draw something up,” Ron said, pulling out a pen. “Just in case there are any repercussions.”

Fifteen minutes later, papers were printed up and signed and everyone given a copy.

Kip folded his over and shoved them in the back pocket of his jeans. She put hers in her briefcase.

“There is one more thing,” Nicole said quietly. “My father insists that we do a DNA test.”

“What?” The word fairly exploded out of Kip’s mouth. “What do you think this is? CSI Alberta?”

“It’s not that complex. There is a test that can be ordered, and I’ve checked into the locations of the clinics where they can be brought. We would require your mother to take a test and my father, given that the parents of the boys are dead.”

“Is this legal?” Kip asked his lawyer.

Ron leaned back in his chair, tapping his pen against his chin. “Might not be a bad idea. It could bolster your case, Kip.”

More likely ours, Nicole thought.

Kip narrowed his eyes as he looked at Nicole, as if he didn’t trust her. “Okay. If you think it will help, Ron, I’ll get Mom to do it.”

“I’ll find out more about it and let you know what has to happen,” Ron said.

“So that’s settled.” Kip shrugged his jacket on and gave Nicole the briefest of nods. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Nicole gave him a crisp smile. “Actually, I’d like to come now.”

Kip faltered, his frown deepening. “As in today?”

“As in, I have just been granted visitation from 2:30 to 5:00 every afternoon.” Nicole gave him a cool look as she too got to her feet. She didn’t like him towering over her, but even in her heels, she only reached his shoulder.

“I thought we’d start tomorrow.”

“I have every right to start today.” She had signed a paper giving her those rights. He had no reason to deny her.

Kip blew out a sigh as he dropped a tattered cowboy hat on his head. “I don’t have time today.”

Nicole lifted her shoulder in a delicate shrug. “You’re the one who set out the terms of the visits.”

Kip held her gaze, his eyes shadowed by the brim of the cowboy hat. Then he glanced down at her tailored suit and laughed. “Okay, but you’d better change. The boys are helping me fix a tractor this afternoon.”

“Should I bring a hammer?” she said, determined not to let him goad her.

“Just a three-eighth-inch wrench and a five-sixteenth-inch socket,” he returned.

“Excellent. I just happened to bring mine along.”

“In your Louis Vuitton luggage?” This was tossed back at her underlined with the arching of one of his eyebrows.

“No. Coach.” And how would a cowboy like him know about Louis Vuitton?

“Cute.” He buttoned his jacket. “This has been fun, but I’ve got work to do,” he said in a tone that implied “fun” was the last thing he’d been having. “See you when we see you.”

When he closed the door behind him, it was as if the office deflated. Became less full, less dynamic.

Nicole brushed the feeling off and turned to Ron. “I’ll get my lawyer to call you. He’ll bring you up to speed on his side of the case, and the two of you can discuss the DNA tests.”

Ron got to his feet and pursed his lips. Then he sighed. “I’m not speaking as a lawyer anymore, but as a friend of Kip’s. You may as well know that Kip Cosgrove dotes on those boys. He goes everywhere with them. Does everything with them. He has since those boys moved to the ranch with his brother.”

“They’re not even his.” As soon as Nicole spoke the words she regretted giving her thoughts voice. She knew how coldhearted that must have sounded to Ron.

The reality was she knew firsthand what it was like to be the one pushed aside. She had been in enough homes as the “outsider,” the nonbiological child, to know that no matter what, biology always won out. The “natural” children were always treated differently than the “foster” child.

Ron shot her an angry look. “That is the last thing on Kip’s mind,” he snapped. “Those boys have been in his life since they were one year old. Living on the ranch is the only life they know.”

Nicole held his angry gaze, determined not to let his opinion of her matter. “They only know this life because Scott took them away from their biological mother.” She picked up her briefcase and slung her trench coat over her arm. “Now all I need to know is where I can buy some tools.”

This netted her a puzzled look from Ron. “Why?”

“Because I fully intend on helping fix that tractor.”

Chapter Five

Kip pulled off his “town” shirt and tossed it onto his unmade bed. He grabbed the work shirt from the floor where he’d tossed it. He’d been in too much of a rush to clean up before he left for town.

He buttoned up his shirt as he headed down the stairs to where the boys were playing a board game at the kitchen table with his mom.

Isabelle stood at the kitchen sink, washing dishes from lunch, her expression letting him know exactly what she thought of this chore.

“Oh, Gramma, you have to go down the snake,” Justin shouted, waving his arms in the air as if he had won the Stanley Cup.

“Oh dear, here I go,” Kip’s mother said, reaching across the board to do as Justin said. “This puts me way behind.”

Kip caught her grimace as she sat back in her wheelchair and wondered again how long it would be before his mother was mobile. Though the kitchen was still clean from Nicole’s visit on Saturday, he knew it was simply a matter of time before things slowly deteriorated.

“Isabelle, that laundry that got folded yesterday is still in the laundry basket upstairs,” Kip said.

“Yeah. I know.”

“So what should happen with it?”

Isabelle set a plate on the drying rack with agonizing slowness, punctuated her movement with a sigh, then shrugged. “I guess I should put it away.”

“I guess,” he reiterated.

“I think someone is here,” Tristan said, standing up on his chair.

Kip groaned. Probably Nicole. Well, she’d have to tag along with him. He had promised the boys they could help him fix the tractor. They weren’t much help, but they were slowly learning how to read wrench sizes and knew the difference between a Phillips and a flat screwdriver. Plus, it was a way to spend time with them.

“It’s Nicole,” Justin yelled, confirming what Kip suspected. “I’m going to go say hi.” He jumped off his chair, Tristan right behind him. The porch door slammed shut behind them, creating a momentary quiet in the home.

His mother turned in her wheelchair, wincing as she did so. “Now that the boys are gone, what did Ron tell you?”

Kip glanced out of the window. Nicole was barely out of her car and the boys were already grabbing her hands. Their hasty switch in allegiances bothered him in a way he didn’t want to scrutinize.

Isabelle stopped what she was doing and turned around, listening with avid interest.

“For now we have to allow her visits with the boys,” Kip said, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. “He’s looking into how legitimate Tricia’s will is, but nothing has been settled And…” he hesitated, wondering what his mother would think of this new wrinkle. “She and her father insist on you taking a DNA test.”

His mother frowned. “Is that hard? Do I have to go to the hospital?”

“Apparently there’s a test for grandparents. You can order it and then bring the results to a couple of clinics not far away. It’s nothing to worry about. Just a formality so we can prove that Scott is as much a parent to the boys as Tricia was.”

Kip stopped there. Until Nicole brought the news she had, Kip hadn’t been able to think of Tricia without a surge of anger. She’d left her boys behind. But knowing she had been dead the past years changed a lot.

And raised a few more questions.

Kip brushed them aside. The boys were Scott’s. He knew it beyond a doubt. Scott wouldn’t have taken them with him back to the ranch if they weren’t.

“So Nicole is really the twins’ aunt too?” Isabelle asked.

“I think so.”

“Is she taking the boys?”

Kip shot Isabelle a warning glance. “No one is taking the boys anywhere. They belong here.”

His mother placed her hand on his arm. “But if she’s their aunt—”

Kip squeezed his mother’s hand in reassurance. “I won’t let it happen. I promised Scott I would keep the boys on the ranch, and I keep my promises.”

“You always have,” Mary Cosgrove said with a wan smile. “You’ve been a good son. I’m so thankful for you. I still hope and pray that you’ll find someone who sees past that gruff exterior of yours and sees you for who you really are.” She gave his hands a gentle shake. “Nancy Colbert didn’t know what she gave up when she broke up with you.”

Kip sighed. He didn’t want to think about his ex-girlfriend either. “Nancy was never cut out to be a rancher’s wife,” he said.

“I never liked that Nancy chick,” Isabelle added. “She reminded me of a snake.”

“Thanks for that, Izzy. Maybe those dishes could get done before the day is over.”

This piece of advice netted him an eye roll, but she turned back to the sink and plodded on.

“I still wonder, if you hadn’t agreed to take on the boys, if she would have stayed with you…” his mother’s voice trailed off, putting voice to the questions that had plagued Kip for the first two months after Scott had died.

“Scott begged me, Mom,” Kip reminded her. “He begged me to keep the boys on the ranch. I owed him. It was because of my horse—” he stopped himself there. He still couldn’t think of his brother’s death without guilt. He wondered if that would ever leave. “Besides, if Nancy had really loved me, she would have been willing to take on the boys as well as me.”

Mary nodded, but Kip could see a hint of sorrow in her assuring smile.

“I know you really liked her, but the reality is anyone who wants me will have to take the boys and the ranch as well—”

“And your mother and your little sister,” Mary added. She shook her head. “You took too much on when you took over the ranch after Dad died. You take too much on all the time.”

Kip gave her a quick hug. “I do it because I love you, and anything taken on in love isn’t a burden.” He heard the noise of the boys’ excited voices coming closer. “And now I’d better deal with Ms. Williams.”

He gently squeezed his mother’s shoulder, squared his own and went out the door.

Nicole was leading the boys up the walk, holding both boys’ hands. She looked up at him and Kip felt a jolt of surprise.

She had completely transformed. Gone was the suit, the tied-back hair, the high-heeled shoes. The uptight city woman had been transformed.

She wore blue jeans, a loose plaid shirt over a black T-shirt and cowboy boots. And she had let her hair down. It flowed over her shoulders in loose waves, softening her features.

Making her look more approachable and, even worse, more appealing.

He put a brake on his thoughts, blaming his distraction on his mother’s mention of his old girlfriend. Though he didn’t miss Nancy as much as he’d thought he would, there were times he missed having someone special in his life. Missed being a boyfriend. He’d always wanted a family of his own.

“Hello,” Nicole said, her voice as cool as it had been in Ron’s office.

He acknowledged her greeting with a curt nod. “Okay boys, let’s go work on that tractor.”

“Yippee.” Justin jumped up and down. “Let’s go, Tristan.”

Kip glanced at his other nephew who was staring up at Nicole, looking a little starstruck. “I want to play with the puppies,” Tristan said. “Can you play with the puppies with me?” he asked Nicole.

“I thought you wanted to help me,” Kip said to Tristan with a forced jocularity. Tristan was never as adventurous as Justin, but he always came along.

Tristan shook his head still looking up at Nicole. “I want to be with Auntie Nicole.”

Auntie Nicole? The words jarred him, and he stifled a shiver of premonition. She had already staked a claim on his boys.

“So do I,” Justin shouted out.

Nicole glanced from Kip to the boys. “Your Uncle Kip said I had to help him with the tractor.” She shot him an arch look. “Unless he was kidding.”

“Nope,” he said, deadpan. “Absolutely serious.”

“Then I’ll come,” Justin said, turning on his allegiances as quickly as he turned on his feet.

“What are those,” Nicole asked, as they walked past two of his wagons parked beside the barn. Grass had grown up a bit around them. He’d parked them there last fall and hadn’t touched them since.

“Chuck wagons.”

“What do you use them for?” Nicole asked.

“Uncle Kip used to race them,” Tristan said. “Before my daddy died.”

“Race them? How do you do that?”

“You don’t know?” Justin’s astonishment was a bit rude, but Kip didn’t feel like correcting him.

“I’m sorry. I do not.”

Kip wasn’t surprised. Chuck-wagon racing had originated in Calgary, and while it was an integral part of the Calgary Stampede, it wasn’t a regular event in all the rodeos scattered around North America. He’d grown up with it, though. His father and his uncle and his grandfather all competed in the chuck-wagon races. It was in his blood.

He knew he should be teaching the boys so they could carry on the tradition. It was in their blood too. They were as much Cosgroves as he was.

“Uncle Kip will have to show you, won’t you, Uncle Kip?” Justin said.

“Maybe,” was his curt reply.

Since Scott died, he hadn’t worked with his horses. Hadn’t competed in any of the races. Chuck-wagon racing took up too much of the time he didn’t have anymore.

He felt a pinch of sorrow. He missed the thrill of the race, the keenness of competing, the pleasure of working with his horses.

“Uncle Kip was one of the fastest racers,” Tristan said, pride tingeing his voice. “But he doesn’t race anymore. He says it’s not ’sponsible ’cause now he has us.”

“Well, that sounds like a good way to think,” Nicole said.

Kip shot her a glance, wondering if she was serious. But he caught her steady gaze and she wasn’t laughing.

“So where’s the tractor?”

“Just over here.” He was only too glad to change the subject. Chuck wagons were in his past. He had enough going on in the present.

“What do we need to do?” Nicole asked as they walked across the packed ground toward the shop.

Kip gave her a curious look. “You don’t have to help.”

“Of course I do.” She gave him a wry look, as if to say “you asked for it.”

Their eyes held a split-second longer than necessary. As if each was testing the other to see who would give. Then he broke the connection. He didn’t have anything to prove.

Yet even as he thought those brave words, a finger of fear trickled down his spine. Actually, he did have something to prove. He had to prove that Justin and Tristan’s were Scott’s boys. That they belonged here on the ranch.

Kip pulled on the chain and the large garage door creaked and groaned as light spilled into the usually gloomy shop. He loved working with the door open and today, with the sun shining and a bright blue sky, was a perfect day to do so.

“This is where the tractor is,” Justin said. “Uncle Kip took it apart and he said a bad word when he dropped a wrench on his toe.”

“Did he now?” Nicole’s voice held a hint of laughter and Kip made a mental note to talk to the boys about “things we don’t tell Ms. Williams.”

“Tristan, you can wheel over the tool chest. Justin, you can get me the box of rags,” Kip said, shooting his blabbermouth nephew a warning look as he rolled up his sleeves.

“I got the rags the last time,” Justin whined. “How come Tristan always gets to push the tool chest? I never do.”

As Kip stifled his frustration, he caught Nicole watching him. As if assessing what he was going to do.

“Just do it, Justin,” he said more firmly.

But Justin shoved his hands in his pockets and glared back at him. Kip felt Nicole’s gaze burning on him. For a moment he wished he hadn’t insisted that she visit the kids here. Now everything he did with the boys would be with an audience. A very critical audience who, he was sure, would be only too glad to see him mess up.

He tried to ignore her presence as he knelt down in front of Justin. “Buddy, I asked you to do something. You wanted to help me, and this is part of helping.”

“But…my dad always…” Justin’s lower lip pushed out and Kip could see the sparkle of tears in his eyes and his heart melted.

“Oh, buddy,” he whispered, pulling Justin in his arms. He gave him a tight squeeze, his own heart contracting in sorrow. It had been only six months since they stood together at Scott’s grave. In the busyness of life, he sometimes forgot that. He held Justin a moment longer and as he stood, he caught Nicole looking at them both, her lips pressed together, her fingers resting on her chin.

She understood, he thought, and he wondered if she was remembering her own sister.

Their gaze held and for a moment they shared a sorrow.

The rumbling of the tool chest broke the moment. “I got it. I got it.” Tristan called out.

Kip gave Justin another quick hug, patted him on the head and turned back to the tractor with a sigh.

“What do you have to do?” Nicole asked.

“It’s a basic fix,” Kip said as he pushed a piece of cardboard under the tractor. “Replace a leaky fuel line, but whoever designed this tractor has obviously never worked on one.” Kip bent over, squinting at the nuts holding the old line. Then he grabbed the tools he needed, lay on the cardboard and pulled himself under the tractor.

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