Chapter 7

SEVEN

TULLY

I watched Dev carefully as I explained Katie’s wishes.

“She left full custody of Lellie to you. All of her financial assets were left in trust to Lellie, and as Lellie’s guardian, you will be the trustee. That means if you keep her, you can use whatever money you need from those funds for her expenses.” I took a breath. “Lellie also has her own trust that predates Katie’s death. Between the two trusts, there is… quite a bit of money.”

Dev refused to take his eyes off Lellie as she explored the large climbing shapes. He didn’t speak for a few minutes. “Why didn’t Katie leave her to someone else?”

Good question.

“I’m not sure. I mean… I can tell you that she wasn’t particularly close to her parents. They had some… ideological differences.”

He huffed out a breath. “I’m very clear on why she wouldn’t want them to raise her. I just thought… a friend, maybe.”

Again, he didn’t look at me while he spoke. His attention was completely fixed on his daughter, and his entire body was coiled as if to spring up and bolt toward her at any moment.

Memories of his muscular body tried worming their way to the front of my brain, but I refused them. It was hard enough keeping my distance from the man as it was. The minute I replayed our night together two years ago, I would be in serious trouble. Lellie , I reminded myself. You’re here for Lellie .

“Katie’s closest friends are either single with no kids or already have as many children as they can handle,” I explained. “And I… well, she knows I’m focused on my career. I plan to make partner in the next year or two, and the firm I work for has incredibly high standards. Katie had the same ambition, but she wanted a family, too. It became clear after she had Lellie that the firm wouldn’t trust a single parent to be able to handle the demands of a partner track.”

Dev’s jaw ticked, and when he spoke, it sounded more like he was talking to himself than me. “I just don’t understand why she would have thought I was a good choice.”

“You’re her biological parent,” I said carefully. “Her closest living relative. As her only surviving biological parent, you have prima facie right to custody, which means you’re basically the default choice even without her will. If someone wanted to challenge the will, it would be much more difficult going up against that.”

He finally took his eyes off Lellie long enough to meet my gaze with his dark eyes. “ Does someone want to challenge the will?”

I could tell he already knew the answer to that question. I nodded. “Katie’s parents are definitely not happy.”

His jaw ticked again as he returned his attention to the playground. “They can fuck off.”

While I agreed with him on a personal level, I knew better than to say so. They were Lellie’s grandparents, not to mention one of the largest clients at my law firm… and unlike some people, they knew for sure that they not only wanted to raise Lellie, but they had the capability to do so.

“I’d make a terrible father,” Dev said. Again, this was muttered almost under his breath, and I wondered if he even realized he was saying it out loud.

Part of me—probably the same part that couldn’t stop noticing Dev’s large, callused hands and the sandalwood scent of him—wanted to disagree. To comfort and reassure him that he could handle it. It wouldn’t even be a total lie because after watching him with her last night, I felt like his heart was in the right place.

But at the same time, Devon McKay was still too much of an unknown. Being intimately familiar with the oddly square-shaped mole low on his left hip and feeling my heart go pitty-pat at the sight of him snuggling a baby wasn’t the same as knowing whether or not he paid his bills on time and was likely to be around when his daughter needed him.

“Say what you want about Katie’s parents, but they do want to raise Lellie,” I ventured. “She could do worse?—”

“ No ,” he barked. A young mother from a few benches down glanced over at us in surprise. I winced and shot her an apologetic look. Her eyes remained suspicious as she glanced between the children on the playground and the two of us.

After a moment, Dev spoke in a much lower voice. “I’m not leaving her with those righteous homophobes.”

“So, then…” I hesitated before continuing. “It sounds like you don’t want to keep her yourself…”

He snapped his head around to glare at me. “Of course I want to keep her myself. Jesus Christ. Lellie’s my daughter. She’s Katie’s daughter, and I’d want to be there for her for that reason alone. But I’m not stupid, Tully. This isn’t just about what I want. It’s about what’s best for Lellie. And I’m definitely not what’s best for her.”

His words surprised me, but more than that, they concerned me. If Dev didn’t take her, and he didn’t want the Scotts to have her, what did that mean for her future?

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lellie begin to tumble off the turtle, but before I could move a muscle in that direction, Dev was already up and sprinting across the playground, scooping her up before any part of her could land on the rubberized mulch below.

“It’s okay, baby,” he cooed, holding her close to his chest and rocking from side to side. “D-Dev’s here.”

The woman who’d been eyeing him suspiciously before now gazed at him with a soft expression in her eye before glancing over at me and smiling. She clearly thought we were a couple, and more than that, she seemed to think we were adorably overcautious new parents since Lellie’s fall from the turtle would have been a simple two-inch drop onto a soft surface.

I probably should have corrected her. I didn’t.

Because the soft and gooey look in her eyes was exactly how I felt at the sight of muscular cowboy Devon McKay gently cradling his baby girl on a playground. It was enough to make me want to have his baby.

He rocked his way over and glared down at me. “We’re leaving. This place is a danger pit.”

I bit my lip against a smile. “Why don’t we try out the swings? They have the ones for babies over there.” I pointed behind him where there were several kinds of swings in a long row near a statue of a cowboy riding a bucking bronc. “They’re practically impossible to fall out of.”

He eyed the swings for a moment before reluctantly agreeing. I grabbed the backpack and followed him over.

It took both of us to wrangle her wriggling legs into the leg holes, but then she squawked out a happy noise and pumped her legs in excitement. I was relieved to see her retaining her usual cheerful mood despite her bad night. But then again, Katie had always said that babies were resilient creatures.

Dev pushed the swing gently to get it started. “Who’s managing the money right now?”

It took me a moment to change gears and realize what he was asking. “Oh, ah… Katie had a wealth manager. I notified him of her passing and let him know I was notifying next of kin.”

He nodded. “I imagine it’s mostly in the stock market?”

“Not all of it. The trust also includes her house in Dallas, her SUV, and some jewelry.” I deliberately didn’t share the value of her estate with him. Not here and not right now. The very fact he was asking me about the money made me uncomfortable.

Nothing he’d said should have felt like a red flag—it was smart to determine whether you could afford a child before deciding to have one—but I could hear the Scotts’ voice in my head and Orris’s, too. Could they have been right about him? Would he change his mind about keeping Lellie when he learned just how much money she brought with her?

“But you trust this wealth manager? The money is in good hands?”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest and tried to keep my tone neutral. “If I had any wealth to speak of, I’d hire him.”

He scoffed. “You’re an attorney at the same firm where Katie worked. You can’t tell me you’re not raking in some cash.”

His words and tone set my back teeth on edge. “And you’re a Yale graduate. Should I make assumptions about how much money you have?”

Dev’s eyes widened. “You saying you don’t make a good living on the partnership track at one of Dallas’s most prestigious firms?”

“I’m saying I’ll be paying off school debt until I retire regardless of how well I’m paid, and I have… things… I need to pay for.”

He looked me up and down, from my high-end haircut to my brand-name clothes. “I see.”

Dev didn’t see, not at all, but I wasn’t going to explain that I was paying for my brother Nolan’s college tuition or that my father’s greatest talent was his ability to misspend and/or drink away every dollar he earned. It was none of Dev’s business how I spent my salary, and I didn’t care what he thought of me.

At least, I shouldn’t .

I set my jaw. “Can we stop talking about money, please?”

He shrugged and continued to push Lellie. “You’re the one who brought it up.”

“Because I wanted to explain Katie’s estate and Lellie’s trusts, not because I wanted your commentary on my life.”

Dev was silent for a moment. “I’m glad Lellie’s protected financially,” he said finally. He turned to me. “Do you think that’s why the Scotts want custody? For the money?”

I shook my head. “Definitely not. They have more money than god, for one. And secondly, they were demanding custody before they learned about her wealth.”

“But they did learn about her wealth?”

I started to nod but hesitated. “Well, they don’t know how much she’s worth, but the will obviously revealed Lellie as the sole beneficiary of Katie’s estate. Which I’m sure most people would have assumed anyway. And the Scotts most likely knew Katie still had a good portion of her own trust fund. They…” I thought back to the meeting. “They did express a desire to try and reclaim her trust fund money. But it’s not something they’ll ever accomplish.”

“Assholes,” Dev muttered.

“Yeah.” I reached out to touch his arm but stopped before making contact. “But they really seemed to care about their granddaughter, Dev. I don’t think that was fake. They seemed to want to raise her and make sure she was loved and cared for properly. If you don’t plan on keeping her…”

He didn’t say anything for a little while. I thought he might be done with the conversation, but then he spoke up again, surprising me.

“Did you know that Katie tried to tell them she was asexual in high school, and they sat her down and explained there was no such thing? And then they actually worried that the purity pledge she’d taken in middle school had somehow caused her to fear relationships?”

I hesitated but nodded.

“So then they pressured her to date, and she ended up with a string of total assholes.” Dev pushed Lellie through a few more swings before continuing. “She tried telling them again in college after she joined an LGBTQ student group, but her parents said she just hadn’t met the right man yet. They tried to get her to change colleges to get away from that ‘woke propaganda.’” He shook his head. “Thank god she had a strong personality.”

I knew how much her parents’ rejection had pained Katie. But I also knew she’d been rock solid about her own sexuality by the time she’d decided to become a single mom. “When she told them she was pregnant, they freaked,” I said with a grin. “She said it was kinda fun, actually. She told them in a coffee shop near their church where there were people from the congregation around.”

The edges of Dev’s lips turned up. “I would have liked to have seen that.”

“At first, she said she’d gotten drunk on a trip to Miami for a friend’s bachelorette party and slept with several men in the same night. She told them she had no idea the names of any of them and wouldn’t even know where to start searching for the father. They lost their minds. Then she admitted that it had actually been a very planned and careful decision made over the course of two years, which had included extensive counseling. She’d selected the kindest, smartest man she knew to donate his sperm, and then she’d used artificial insemination in a well-respected clinic. Pastor and Mrs. Scott calmed down a little, but not by much. I, ah, don’t know if they entirely believed the Miami thing was a lie,” I said, thinking of their reactions earlier this week.

He glanced at me. “Did she tell them it was me?”

I shook my head. “No. They didn’t find out until they learned you’d been given custody of Lellie.”

“They must have flipped.”

I gave him a look, confirming his assumption. “They remembered you as a ranch hand.”

He scoffed. “Hell, I’m still a ranch hand. They’d love that. I can’t imagine them allowing someone like me to raise their precious grandchild. Their only grandchild. I can guess how upset they are.”

“Take that and multiply it. They’re also big clients of my firm, which means my boss is keeping a close eye on this situation.” I hesitated. “I represent Katie, which includes Lellie now, but the managing partner, my boss, represents Pastor and Mrs. Scott. Needless to say, it’s a little… tricky.”

Before I could explain further, Lellie began fussing and wriggling to get out of the swing. Dev stopped its motion, allowing me to lean over and pull her out. “She’s probably hungry,” I said. “We should head back and feed her and then see if she’ll nap.”

While I was secretly enjoying playing happy family with Dev, I knew my time in Wyoming was short, and we needed to have some serious conversations about Lellie’s future. Whoever ended up with custody would have to decide what to do with Katie’s house and set up a new will for themselves stipulating custody of Lellie in case of their own death. I owed it to Katie to make sure her daughter’s future was fully protected, but those conversations wouldn’t be easy… and I wouldn’t attempt them while Dev was distracted with his vigilante toddler surveillance.

We loaded her up in the car and made our way back to the ranch. When we pulled up outside the barn, I heard a muffled curse come from Dev and noticed several unfamiliar vehicles parked out front. I glanced at him, but before I could ask what was going on, he threw the rental into Park and hopped out.

When I got Lellie out of the car seat, she immediately fussed to be put down so she could walk on her own. By the time we approached the barn doors at toddler pace, two of the men from last night were heading in our direction with a frustrated Dev in their wake. Thankfully, the sheriff wasn’t one of them.

“I’ll explain later,” Dev called to them, but it was clear no one was listening.

“Hey, sweetie,” a friendly-looking blond cowboy said, squatting down to meet Lellie on her level. “How’re you doing? I’m Uncle Waylon.”

A gorgeous man with short brown hair and an intense vibe gazed at the cowboy fondly. “Don’t get too close in case fatherhood is contagious, baby. First your sister, and now this.”

Lellie’s arm wrapped around my leg as she moved closer to me.

“You’re scaring her,” Dev said, shoving the brown-haired man back and nudging the cowboy. “She’s not fond of strangers.”

“Then introduce us,” the brown-haired man said, but he was looking at me instead of Lellie.

Dev’s annoyance was palpable. “Tully, this is Silas Concannon and Waylon Fletcher. Silas and Way, Tully Bowman. He’s… ah…”

“The attorney,” I said, holding out my hand to shake.

Dev let out a breath and looked up at the sky as if praying for patience. What had he expected me to say, exactly? I’m a onetime hookup and the man who’s never forgotten the taste of your friend’s skin…

“Attorney,” Silas repeated, as if trying to decide what exactly that meant.

I bit my lip against giving him a snarky response. For some reason, the idea that Dev was surrounded by beautiful gay men at this ranch made me want to punch something. Hard.

Dev’s eyes flicked between me and Silas before settling on the latter. “Can you please back off? I don’t have the energy to explain this right now.”

“Do you want me to call Kenji?”

Dev took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That’s… probably not a bad idea.”

“Who’s Kenji?” I asked.

The cowboy, Waylon , crouched back down and asked Lellie about the halter she was still holding. “Looks like you have Buttercup’s halter. Do you like horses? She’s right over there. Can you see her?” He gestured to a paddock off to the side of the barn, where a mare was standing.

“Foss!” She let go of my leg a little and pointed with her other hand. “Foss!”

Waylon held out his arms. “Want to go meet her?”

Dev shifted on his feet. I couldn’t interpret the expression on his face, but I could tell something was bothering him. Silas noticed also, reaching out to put a staying hand on the man’s shoulder. “Way, baby. Let Dev take her.”

Dev crouched down next to Lellie. “Do you want to see the horse? Can D-Dev take you?”

We all stood and watched as Lellie reached her arms up for Dev to pick her up. Something tightened in my chest as I noticed the relief on his face. He carried her over to the paddock, out of earshot from the rest of us.

Silas turned back to me. “What’s the deal with the kid?”

Waylon rolled his eyes. “Easy, tiger.”

Silas ignored him and crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s clear she’s Dev’s daughter. And if he’d known he had a daughter, I would have known, too.”

“Not my story to tell,” I said. “You’ll have to ask him.”

“How long is she staying?”

“That depends on Dev,” I admitted.

“Are you…” He hesitated. “Are the two of you… Is this baby yours, too?”

Heat flooded my face and neck. “No.”

“So the two of you don’t have a history together.”

I hesitated too long before stumbling over my response. “I’m not… Not the way you… I’m Kathryn Scott’s attorney. Her friend.”

Silas’s eyebrows rose. “Ohhh.”

Waylon rubbed a hand over his face. “Can you butt out of Dev’s business for one freaking minute and let him decide how much to tell you?”

Silas looked offended. “I’m Dev’s best friend.”

“One of several,” Waylon muttered.

“Fine, I’m one of his best friends. And I’m entitled to?—”

“No, my love, you’re not,” Waylon said with a laugh. “And I think it’s time to go and give these guys and little lady some space.”

“Who’s Kenji?” I blurted again. Because ever since they mentioned calling him, I’d wondered if maybe Dev had a current relationship, possibly in addition to… whatever he had going with the sheriff. And if so, that would have implications. To… to the custody situation.

The cowboy shot me an understanding smile. “Their Girl Friday.”

“He’d tell you he’s more like Q,” Silas muttered.

Waylon shook his head. “That would make one of you James Bond, sweetheart, and I hate to break it to you. Bond would be Bash in this scenario, not you.”

Silas scoffed. “He wishes.”

Waylon turned back to me. “Anyway, Kenji keeps their lives organized. He’s like an executive assistant on steroids.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” I asked, annoyed at how little I knew about Dev. “Why does a ranch hand like Dev need a personal assistant?”

Silas and Waylon both looked at me before exchanging some kind of silent message with each other. “We’ve gotta go,” Silas said and yanked his partner toward one of the vehicles before I could stop them.

Once they were gone, I headed over toward the paddock just as another man sauntered out of the barn, heading in the same direction. He was college-aged with sun-streaked, shaggy hair and was wearing a half-open Hawaiian shirt, loose linen trousers, and flip-flops. “Hey, my dude. Are you Devon McKay?”

Still holding Lellie, Dev looked toward him in confusion. “Uh… yes?”

“Cool, cool.” The man hitched a thumb at his own chest. “Indigo.”

Dev stared at him. “I… don’t understand.”

“Indigo. Your new hand? You know, for, like, roundup? Way got me all set up in the bunk room—massively chill vibe in there, dude. Magnificent energy. Like, seriously, all the good feels—and he said to find you to get started on whatever you need.”

“Your… name… is Indigo?” Dev scowled like he was trying to translate a foreign language. “And you’re… here for ranch work?” he guessed.

I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. This kid looked about as handy on a ranch as a squid… if that squid was prone to smoking dope out of a homemade bong.

Dev glanced at me, and we shared a look of unspoken understanding, similar to the one Silas and Waylon had exchanged a moment before. This guy was an added complication Dev definitely didn’t need right now.

“I can help,” I offered stupidly. “With ranch stuff. If you need me to.”

Dev’s frown intensified. “You?”

He made it sound like this was slightly less believable than the stoner kid helping.

I straightened to my full height and tried to ignore the fact that I was still shorter than Dev. “I’m from Texas, in case you’ve forgotten.”

The edge of his lip twitched. “And that’s your ranching resume in its entirety, is it?”

I shot him a look that hopefully said, I’ll bet it’s a better resume than this guy’s.

He sighed. “I could use your help, Tully… Watching Lellie.”

For some reason, his rejection of my offer to help with ranch work stung. I’d sworn long ago never to return to boots caked in horse shit and long days in the saddle, but I felt the need to prove something to Dev. The fact that a day on horseback with Dev seemed like something I would enjoy was neither here nor there.

Belatedly, it occurred to me that I didn’t know when roundup was or whether or not I’d still be in town. That thought reminded me I needed to check in with the office to let them know I’d found Devon McKay.

I excused myself to make a phone call while Dev asked Indigo a few more questions.

And that was when I learned that Pastor and Mrs. Scott had officially filed a petition for custody of Dev’s daughter.