Chapter Five

G iving Andee and Reece a pad and paper, and taking one for himself, Blake got them started on the tack room inventory. The twins’ enthusiasm reminded him of Timmy and how much he missed Tina’s little brother, and the fact that he still had to come up with an idea for the next superhero book. Without a book that was more successful than the others in the series, he would have a hard time taking care of the boy financially, and in the end, finally prove that he wasn’t the same screwup who’d made such a disastrous mistake when he wasn’t much older than Timmy. The monthly paycheck that Nathan had promised would help.

“This is a bridle, right?” Andee held up a brown leather headgear she’d taken off the wall.

“Yes. There should be more somewhere.” Blake frowned. There used to be several dozen left hanging in the tack room. He looked around but couldn’t find any that weren’t already hanging from hooks on the center aisle walls next to the stall doors. It was the same for blankets and saddles. The racks and racks of equipment that he remembered from his childhood were gone. “There’s a storage room at the other end of the barn. I’ll check that out and be right back.”

Andee and Reece hardly acknowledged his departure. They were very focused on the task he’d given them, which made him smile. Only a year older than the twins, when Timmy was working on a project, he was just as focused.

There was no lock on the storage room. Blake pushed open the heavy door but didn’t find what he was looking for. All that was left were odds and ends of unusable bits and pieces that should have been tossed years ago.

It didn’t make sense. Maybe, with just three horses, Nathan didn’t need extra hands, but surely he could have kept the ranch up to date and made improvements. There had to be a lot of ways to make one hundred acres pay for itself, like it used to when his parents were alive.

Finding no answers in the dusty storage room, Blake went back to the tack room. The twins were still working diligently. “How’s it going?” he asked them.

Andee smiled. “We’re almost done.” She was Malorie’s mini-me and looked so much like her mother while she was making marks on her paper.

“Good. I told your mom I’d have you back in time for dinner.”

Reece handed him his pad and pencil. The list the boy had made was a little uneven, but readable. That’s all Blake needed. “Mom said you’re coming for movie night.”

“If that’s okay with you guys. I don’t want to intrude on time with your mom.” He had to be very careful not to overstep his bounds. The last thing he wanted was to start something with Malorie and her kids he couldn’t finish—not that she’d given him any signals that she’d be interested in anything personal. It was just that any involvement had the potential to interfere with writing his next book, which, thanks to Jonas’s summons, he still hadn’t started.

Andee waived aside his caution. She shared a look with her brother that Blake could not interpret.

“You could come to dinner. If you want. I’m sure it would be okay with Mom.” She handed over her list, the notations and amounts perfectly straight between the lines.

Blake smirked. He was just as sure Malorie would mind. “Thank you for the invitation, but I need to check on my brother and make sure he eats. I’ll come over after that, okay?”

Keeping to his word, he knocked on the guesthouse door at exactly six. Nathan hadn’t made his timely arrival easy. He was still cranky with Blake over his return to the ranch, and he hadn’t been happy being questioned about how much income the ranch was producing.

Nathan’s low growl rang in his mind. Don’t you need to get back to Sedona? He hadn’t told either of his brothers that he only had until he picked Timmy up at camp to find a solution to the ranch and Nathan’s problems.

Blake took a deep breath as he waited for one of the Harpers to answer the door. He’d forgotten how magical the hours before sundown could be during the summer. It wouldn’t turn dark until eight thirty or so. There was certainly enough work to be done on the barn to keep him busy for the next couple of hours. He just couldn’t bring himself to turn down Malorie’s invitation.

She opened the door and nearly took his breath away. Instead of the scrubs she usually wore, she had on a mid-calf, flowing summer dress that matched the color of her cinnamon eyes. Her shoulder-length hair was loosely stacked on her head. The tense woman who’d scolded him and his brothers when she first arrived had disappeared. At least for the time being.

“Hi. Am I too late?” He knew he wasn’t, but he’d learned from Tina that women appreciated men who were at least semi-aware of being on time.

“You’re fine.” Malorie opened the door wider and stepped back. “We’re just about ready to start.”

Andee and Reece put four bowls of popcorn on the coffee table. They secured the spots on both sides of their mom on the couch. Blake made himself comfortable in the overstuffed chair to the side, where he had a good view of the television and the sweet family snuggled together.

Overwhelmed by memories of him and Tina watching movies with Timmy after his therapy sessions, he stretched his legs out. Timmy’s favorite was Toy Story . They’d watched it so many times, Blake could practically recite the movie word for word. Since Tina’s passing, and as hard as he’d tried for Timmy, he’d forgotten how nice it felt to be part of a happy family.

But he hadn’t come to the Triple L to forge a new family, or to make any kind of a new start. He’d made a bargain with Jonas that he intended to keep. For a month and a half, give or take a week or two, he would run the ranch for his brothers. If he decided it was possible, they could stay after he picked Timmy up at camp.

After that, he didn’t know what Malorie had planned, but he would go back to Sedona and his books, and making sure Timmy had as good a life as he could without Tina being there to share the days with them—good and bad. He would have school and his therapies, but like Nathan, Timmy didn’t handle changes very well.

Watching Malorie with her twins only reinforced how important it was that Timmy was his top priority and that someday, maybe, Timmy would thrive and have more than his brother-in-law for family.

By the time the movie ended, Blake had the beginnings of a plan. Two weeks wasn’t long enough for Nathan to heal, but six weeks was enough time—hopefully—to complete his other reason for coming to the Triple L. He could make amends with his brothers if Timmy was okay with coming to stay on the ranch for part of the summer. That would also give him the time he needed to figure out what had happened to the thriving ranch that had been in his rearview mirror when he left.

The credits rolled. Andee and Reece yawned. Malorie tugged them up from the couch. “Say goodnight to Blake.”

“Goodnight,” they both mumbled, then dragged themselves upstairs.

Malorie walked him to the door. “They had a busy day. Thanks for that. It was all they could talk about during dinner.”

Blake stood on the threshold. If he weren’t carrying so much baggage, he would like to kiss her. But kissing would lead to talking. She didn’t know what he’d done to get himself kicked off the ranch, and since he didn’t want to talk about it, or Tina, kissing was not a good idea.

“Tomorrow, then,” he said, not too abruptly, he hoped, and headed for the barn. He still had to put the horses in their stalls for the night.

Not long after night descended, he got Duke, Angel, and Bella settled with fresh water. Off in the distance, an owl hooted. The haunting sound brought back memories Blake hadn’t expected to have when he returned to the ranch. Memories of his mom and dad and of the day he’d had to leave everything he knew behind.

Leaning against Duke’s stall, he scratched the stud’s face. “Hey, pal. Where are all your buddies?”

A vehicle pulled into the ranch yard with a soft rumble. Before Blake could investigate—it was late for visitors—Jonas walked into the barn.

“You’re a long way from Denver, brother.” Blake pulled a carrot out of his pocket and gave it to Duke.

He’d done some research the night before to see what Jonas and Nathan had been up to while he was stumbling his way through life. Jonas was easy to trace since he was a high-powered prosecutor with an office in Denver. Nathan, not so much.

“Don’t you trust me to stick to your plan?” Jonas’s brow shot up.

So he didn’t let slip about his two-week limitation—Blake wasn’t ready yet—and before Jonas could respond in his usual know-it-all way, Blake had his own questions to ask. “What’s going on here? Where are the rest of the horses? The housekeeper? I’m assuming, with only these three to take care of, the extra hands were let go, but why? And why won’t Nathan talk about it?”

Jonas leaned against the empty stall next to Duke’s. He eased aside his suit jacket and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He studied Blake closely and was slow to answer. “That’s a long story that ends with Nathan blaming himself for the current state of the ranch, and I’m tired. It’s been a crazy day. Can we talk tomorrow morning?”

Blake shrugged. “At least tell me what happened to Mrs. Daniels.”

“She retired last year. It was just him, so Nathan decided he didn’t need a housekeeper. I couldn’t do more than throw money at the place, which at the time, Nathan didn’t want, so I agreed.” Jonas turned away. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

There were a lot of things about the ranch and how it had gotten into the shape it was in that Blake didn’t understand, but he would figure it out, no matter how many secrets his brothers kept.

Following Jonas, Blake watched as he pulled luggage from a shiny black Mustang. Very appropriate for a successful lawyer and his brother’s taste for all things shiny. That was the case when they were kids too.

Going back to Duke, Blake gave the stallion another scratch. “What do you think, boy?”

Without more stock and the things to make a ranch run smoothly, he was beginning to get an idea why the Triple L was under the weather financially. Upstairs, he sat on the couch and perched his feet on the coffee table.

He called Timmy. The boy, as usual, was quick to pick up. “Hey there, kiddo.”

“Hi.”

The single dejected word sank Blake’s heart. He glanced out the window into the starlit night and dropped his feet to the floor. Blake did his best to keep the worry out of his voice, but that wasn’t always easy.

Timmy should be getting ready for bed. “What’s going on?”

“A couple of the dads came to go on our hike today.” Timmy always said exactly what was on his mind. “I don’t have a dad.”

He’d had a dad. It was just that Timmy was a late-in-life baby and both his mom and dad had passed, one after the other. Tina was nineteen when she took over her brother’s parenting.

Because the kid mostly missed social cues and instructions in conversation, the twelve-year-old didn’t always pass on important information. Blake dropped his chin to his chest. Had he been notified there was a father-son hike today? Had he missed an email while coming to terms with Jonas’s demand to show up at the ranch?

God, he hoped not. He hated not being there for the boy. He pushed the phone closer to his ear. “You have me. I’m your brother.” That’s how Tina had explained Blake to Timmy. “But really, I’m kind of like your dad.”

“How come I don’t call you ‘Dad’?” Timmy asked, his voice weaker.

Blake’s heart thumped. “Do you want to?”

“Yes.” The word came across the phone slow, soft, and unsure.

It took Blake a nanosecond to decide. Timmy might not be his biological son, but he was his son in every way that counted. “I’d like it if you called me Dad.”

“Can I?”

“Absolutely. Hey, I’ve been thinking.” It was time to share his plan with the boy and see if he could cope with such a big change. “I’m at a horse ranch.” He would explain how he and his brothers owned the Triple L later. “How about if instead of staying at Camp Elwood, I come to pick you up tomorrow? You can be here with me, and I’ll introduce you to some new friends.” Blake crossed his fingers. Making friends was hard enough for Timmy without throwing in a change of plans too. “We could be here most of the summer. What do you think?”

“What time will you come?” Timmy asked, his sudden excitement streaming across the line. The kid had always wanted to see a ranch. At least he’d talked about it a lot, especially since his sister died.

“I’ll pick you up at eight.” His talk with Jonas would have to wait.

“Promise, Dad?”

“I promise.” Blake choked back emotion at how quickly Timmy accepted that they could be the equivalent of father and son. It was scary too. Solo parenting was one thing that Blake did not have enough experience in. Especially when it came to taking care of Timmy. He could organize his life and get him to school and his therapies. But when it came to the day-to-day emotional support, Tina was always the one who took that on.

“I’ll be ready.” He would be too. Timmy was so literal that Blake didn’t dare break a promise he made to the boy.

After leaving a note for Jonas by the coffeepot, bright and early the next morning, with the sun barely coming up over the horizon, Blake got on the road. A few minutes before eight, he pulled up in front of the camp office. Timmy was sitting on the steps, duffel bag beside him, waiting. A woman sat beside him.

Blake’s chest puffed up. Who wouldn’t want a son as good as Timmy?

“Hi, Dad.” He jumped down the steps to stand next to Blake, then turned to the woman, who’d stood with him, and said proudly, “I told you my dad was coming to get me.”

“Hi, I’m Heather Dean, Timmy’s counselor.” She held her hand out to Blake. “We’re sorry that Timmy’s leaving before summer camp is over. He’s been a joy to have with us.”

Heather couldn’t have been more than in her early twenties. One of the reasons Blake had chosen Camp Elwood was because they had college interns to help with the kids.

“I’ve got a new summer job, on a ranch, and I think Timmy will enjoy being there with me.”

“If he wants to come back, he can. We would be glad to have him.”

“Thank you, Heather. We’ll keep that in mind.” Blake grabbed Timmy’s bag. “We’d better hit the road, kid.”

The drive back to the Triple L sped by. Timmy wanted to know everything. Blake told him about his summers on the ranch when he was younger, the horses, Timmy’s uncles, and the young family staying at the ranch, all of which inspired more questions.

Jonas and Nathan didn’t know about Timmy. Blake just hoped his brothers would be welcoming, as Timmy was curious to discover that his adopted dad had brothers. Parking in front of the main house, he faced Timmy. “Are you ready to meet your uncles?”

“I think so.” Timmy balled his hands into nervous fists. “Will they like me?”

“Of course they will.” His breath bottled up in Blake’s chest for a second before he could continue speaking. “After you meet them, I’ll show you the horses. And you can meet Andee and Reece.”

That seemed to reassure his boy. Timmy unraveled his hands. “I hope they do.”

“Who wouldn’t like you?” He gently rubbed the boy’s shoulder.

In the main house, Blake followed the sound of his brother’s voices. Jonas stood at Nathan’s bedside. Malorie had already been there. Nathan was groomed, his stubble no longer visible. He had changed into a clean tee shirt, this one with a Tardis logo. As a kid, Nathan had been a huge fan of Dr. Who . Apparently, that hadn’t changed.

Blake gently urged Timmy forward. Nathan saw Blake at the same moment and frowned. “I thought you left.”

He stared his cranky brother down, shooting a warning look at both men. “I went to pick up my son. This is Timmy. He’s been at summer camp.”

“Your son?” Jonas’s brows pulled together, matching Nathan’s frown.

“Hi.” Timmy hesitated, tucking his hands behind his back as he tried to move out of sight behind Blake.

There was a short silence before Nathan’s scowl disappeared, but it was Jonas who stepped forward, hand outstretched. A rare smile stretched across his brother’s face, luring Timmy into the open. “It’s nice to meet you, Timmy. My name is Jonas.”

Timmy looked at Jonas’s hand, then looked at Blake. Blake nodded encouragingly.

“Um... nice to meet you too.” Timmy shook Jonas’s hand with a hard up-and-down motion, then quickly let go, rubbing his hand down his pant leg as he switched his gaze to Nathan. “Are you my Uncle Nathan? My dad said you fell off your horse and broke your bone.”

“I did.” Nathan looked at Blake before switching his gaze back to Timmy. Blake took a step forward, intending to protect the kid if his brother’s temper got out of hand. “But it was my fault.”

“Why?” Timmy followed Blake to the end of the bed, repeatedly rubbing one finger back and forth on the footboard. Blake was surprised, but glad he seemed excited to meet his uncles.

Nathan studied Timmy’s face. He wouldn’t find a resemblance. Not all families were made up of only the people born into them. Nathan should know that.

“It turns out Duke had a rock wedged in the bottom of his foot. I was in a hurry and didn’t check his feet before I tried to ride him.”

“Will you teach me to ride?”

A flash of humor lightened Nathan’s reserve. He pushed on his hands to sit straighter and flinched. “I’m not supposed to ride horses for a couple of months, but if you’re still here, and your dad”—he glanced at Blake—“hasn’t already taught you, I’d be glad to.”

Blake arched a brow at his hard brother. He gently tugged Timmy away from the bed. “Let’s let Uncle Nathan rest and go find Andee and Reece.”

“I’ll come back later,” Jonas said to Nathan, then walked out with Blake and Timmy. “Malorie said they were going to take a walk to the pond.” While Timmy went out to the porch, Jonas pulled Blake aside. “Looks like you have a story to tell.”

Jonas didn’t mean a middle-grade superhero story. But when it came to Timmy’s well-being, Blake didn’t trust anyone. “Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, you have a story to tell too.”

Leaving Jonas behind, Blake followed the path to the pond, with Timmy exclaiming at all the things Blake had taken for granted before being given the boot.

Malorie and her kids were at the pond. Reece saw them first and waved. Malorie walked toward them, more relaxed than Blake had seen her since she walked in on a Lohmen brothers’ fight on the verge of turning ugly.

“Hi, guys. I want you to meet my son.” He wasn’t used to being someone’s dad. “Timmy, this is Miss Malorie and Reece and Andee.”

Timmy peeked out from behind Blake. “I’m a superhero.”

As the sun added a glow to the brown curls stopping just short of her shoulders, Malorie’s brows slid up. “Hi, Timmy. It’s very nice to meet you.”

And because she didn’t hesitate for a second, Blake broke his own rule and fell for her. Just a little.

“See, Mom. I told you Timmy was a real boy,” Andee crowed with a triumphant grin.

A breeze gently moved tall grasses. Butterflies fluttered around them. Birds screeched overhead. And against his express order, Blake’s heart expanded.

To distract himself from the longing filling his chest, he looked around, taking in the pond. Wild vegetation had grown up around the edges. Even though the ranch was a shadow of its former self, the awesomeness of the surrounding mountains reminded Blake of how much he’d loved growing up here.

He didn’t look at Malorie, but instead breathed in the ranch sights and sounds he’d practically forgotten. And in that moment, he decided it couldn’t hurt to give the three kids running to the water’s edge to look for frogs the same experience he had growing up. Maybe while he was at it, he could share life on the ranch with Malorie too. If she was interested.