Page 52 of No Place for Single Cowboys

Holden looked her up and down. “Chance never mentioned you.”

“Oh.” It wasn’t rude exactly, but Cordy was taken aback. Maybe she shouldn’t have come over here. Maybe there was a reason Chance didn’t talk about his dad. “Well, he’s helping me out. I’m staying with him until I find a place of my own. I was living above the Swing Inn, and…”

She trailed off as Holden’s face fell.

“Laura used to love that place,” he whispered.

He looked so deeply unwell, his face going gray, that Cordy panicked.

“Do you need to sit down?” She took his elbow, wondering what she would do if he collapsed on her. Cordy was strong but not that strong. If he did…

A pregnant lady falling with an older man was going to be a mess. One or both of them would end up hurt.

Oh crap, where was Chance? She looked wildly around for him on the off chance he’d come up to the house without her noticing. He was nowhere to be seen, though.

“I’m all right.” Holden straightened up with effort. “It still hits me bad sometimes, realizing she’s gone.”

Cordy’s eyes stung. This man missed his wife terribly. Chance’s mom had died years ago, but Holden’s grief felt fresh and deep. Not a bit healed over.

And yet Chance had never mentioned his mom beyond telling Cordy that she’d passed away. Chance mentioned his dad even less. Something was wrong here, but Cordy couldn’t see what.

“Well, I’d like to sit down,” she said. “This belly gets heavier by the day.”

She actually felt great, but she wasn’t above using her pregnancy to get her way.

Holden’s gaze ran up and down her in a way that made her skin prickle. Suddenly, he didn’t seem so harmless.

“You’re staying with Chance, huh?” He gave a soft snort.

Cordy couldn’t tell if he thought the baby was Chance’s or not. Surely Chance had told his dad everything that was going on… hadn’t he?

Before she could clear anything up, Holden turned. “House is this way. Got some coffee on.”

“Coffee would be great,” Cordy said before remembering that she wasn’t supposed to have any. She’d have to pretend to sip it to be polite. “Are the goats and chickens yours?”

He nodded. “Rye helps me with the chickens. I can’t drink cow’s milk anymore, so I got the goats.”

He slapped his thigh, and Pard got up to follow him. The dog’s ears swung with each waddling step he took. His jowls flapped, too. The basset hound was Iggy’s opposite in every way—it was hard to imagine they were even the same species. Pard looked back and gave her a doggie smile, his tail thwacking along.

Iggy looked up at her, one eyebrow raised. He wasn’t too sure about this other dog. Cordy doubted Iggy had ever even seen an animal like that before.

Well, he’d have to get used to it.

“Come on,” she told him.

They came around the side of a massive shed filled with heavy equipment, and the main house appeared. Up close, it was… haphazard-looking. It seemed to have started as something smaller and humbler, and each generation added what they needed as they came along. An entire wing joined up to the east side, a second story was over only one half of the house, and a porch wrapped around the front as best it could.

Cordy had never seen anything quite like it. She was immediately charmed.

“How long has this house been in your family?” she asked.

Holden smiled at the admiration in her tone. “About five generations. So maybe… a hundred and fifty years? Give or take a decade.”

“It’s amazing.”

Holden’s expression darkened. “None of my boys want to live here, though. Bowie’s way off in Missoura, Quint went to live in town, Chance built himself a whole damn house as far away as he could get. Rye’s close, I guess, there in the bunkhouse. No one knows where Lane is.”

Cordy’s rote assurances died on her lips. Telling Holden that his boys probably wanted to give him privacy wouldn’t work as even a polite lie.

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