Page 41 of The Cowboy's Secret Babies

My intention is to open an actual shelter, she had told Rosie repeatedly.Not have my own in the backyard.

It had long since become necessary to pretend that she didn’t know how many creatures were out there, as it was that or get in pointless fights with Matilda, who never reallyengagedin that sort of thing. She agreed with everything andmea culpa-ed all over the place and then did exactly as she pleased anyway.

Still, Rosie was usually a lot more snippy about the strays that Matilda collected, despite knowing that it got them both nowhere. But last night? What a welcome distraction to have a furry, orange-colored little demon to take her mind off her own troubles.

Why are you lying around like an opera heroine?Matilda had asked before unveiling the cat.

I have never in my life been operatic, Rosie had retorted. Darkly.

Though it was true that last night she had come awfully close to singing her first aria.

Then, this morning, when what she really would have liked to do was wallow about in bed in much the same way she’d done after that night in Austin, she’d had to get up. She’d had to be one hundred percent a mom, because neither one of her beautiful little boys needed to know a thing about her heart.

Aside from how much she loved them, that was.

What made it even trickier was that today was a special day for the boys, because they were going over to stay at Ryder’s place for the first time.

She and Ryder had been preparing them, but she reviewed it with them on the way over in her regrettably much smoother-handling vehicle, because he lived in an Airstream and she knew they would think that was fantastic. She kind of thought it was fantastic herself, to tell the truth. There was something so appealing about thinking that at any moment you could simply hitch up your home to a truck and drive off somewhere.

What she’d told him last night was true. She liked it here. She intended to stay here and raise her children here. That didn’t mean she didn’t also understand the lure of the open road.

Rosie’s battered heart got a workout on the drive over, because it had snowed again in the night. Everything looked pristine and perfect, because the hesitant March sun made everything sparkle. She remembered this exact view from the times in her childhood she’d climbed around in the lodge and had gazed out into these far-off hills. She knew these ripples of snowcapped mountaintops like waves all the way to the horizon, as far as the eye could see and then some.

It was all home, and it hurt and it was beautiful and she supposed that was an easy way to describe how it felt to love. Too hard for her own good.

Though it wasn’t the prettiness of the view that was getting to her, not really. It was beautiful, but today was also a major moment in this thing that she and Ryder were doing. Or had been doing before he’d thrown a wrench in it last night.

But no, this parenting thing would continue no matter what. Rosie was certain of that. And this was the first time she was taking the boys to him, so that they could stay at his place.

The first of many times if she didn’t marry him, she told herself as she drove, singing songs with the boys as she went.

She really wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Not that she was concerned about them staying with him, because she knew he would keep them safe. It wasn’t that. But it was one thing to think in reasonable, practical terms about the fact that they would have two homes and quite another thing to think that she was potentially heading toward a future where she only had her babies part of the time.

Rosie already knew that the years went by fast. There were only fifteen years left before they could leave the house entirely if they wanted, and she was supposed to find a way to be okay with that when the truth was, she wasn’tokaywith letting them go to their father’s. That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to do it. She knew it had to be done. She knew Ryder deserved time with his kids just as much as she did, and she certainly knew the boys were head over heels for their shiny new daddy.

That didn’t make herokaywith any of it.

It all seemed too precarious, suddenly. Like they were being snatched away from her and she was once again being left alone—

But there, on that drive down the far hill past the lodge and on into the hills, she caught herself.

Because first of all, that wasn’t what was happening. Second, and possibly more importantly, he had offered her something to fix this problem, hadn’t he?

She didn’t let herself think about it as she turned into High Mountain Ranch and followed the tracks that had already been laid in the new fallen snow deeper into Carey land. She had never been here before. Or if she had, she didn’t remember it. She followed the directions Ryder had given her, bumping up along the main road and counting off the smaller roads that snaked off of it until she found his. And then took the correct fork, or so she hoped.

For a while there was nothing but the thick forest all around, and the twins shrieking with excitement.

Then, soon enough, they were coming out of the trees to find themselves in a clearing so beautiful that Rosie actually caught her breath.

There was a blue sky today and the sun felt like a miracle after the last little while of snow and gloom. Everything sparkled. The snow on the ground, the snow in the trees, the snow blanketing the mountains in the distance. And Ryder’s gleaming Airstream sat in the middle of all of it, a snow-dusted silver bullet looking out over the roads she’d just driven, back toward the lodge and farther on to Copper Mountain rising in the distance.

And all around them, on all sides, the mountains kept their secrets from mortals and told their stories only to the sky and the wind.

Rosie could have stayed there, staring, forever. She had the strangest feeling as she looked out at this view, almost as if—

But she couldn’t indulge her feelings. Not today.

She drove the last little way, pulling up close to the Airstream. And by the time she got out of the car and went to get the boys out of their car seats, Ryder was there.

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