Page 10 of The Rancher's Heart

Jonas couldn’t let the bone go. “What I mean is, what’s with her using a dating app?”

“I don’t know, brother.” Nathan gave him a stern side-eye. “You could ask her, but my guess is that she’s looking for someone she can spend the rest of her life with. Maybe it’s easier than going to the bars to meet someone. She’s not getting any younger, you know. And neither are you.”

Sloane wouldn’t appreciate being told she was approaching a use-by date.

Jonas narrowed his gaze on the garden. Sloane and Izzy didn’t come out.

Nathan sent a calculating look in his direction. “If you’re so worried, you should ask Sloane out, though I don’t think she would go on a date with you.”

“Did she say that?” All he got was a grin and a shrug from his ornery brother.

After his last conversation with her, he wondered what Sloane would say if he asked her to go on a date. For dinner or a movie. They could even go to the zoo in Durango. She’d had breakfast with him without too much fuss. Internally, he made the argument—that had to prove she didn’t object to him too much, right?

However, she’d accused him of not being willing to give her love and kids and to do all the things a family did together. He could give a woman all those things, he argued. It was just that now wasn’t the best time to start a romantic adventure with anyone. And especially not with his BFF.

So, why did he care if she was using a dating app to find a guy, anyway? Sloane wanted all the trimmings. Somewhere out there was a guy who could give her that dream right now.

He should let her go for it. She was a grown woman who’d always known her mind, even when she was a kid.

Taking one of the colas, he sat at the table. “What’s the deal with Duke’s Pride and his registration papers?”

That wiped the smirk from Nathan’s face. With a heavy sigh, he sat. “It’s never been my story to tell.”

“We’re listening.” Whatever secret Nathan was keeping, it couldn’t stay hidden any longer.

Grabbing the remaining cola bottle in both hands, Nathan frowned. “A month before he died, Dad sold half the ranch and Duke’s Pride to pay off a poker debt.”

“That was a lot to pay.” Jonas studied Nathan intently. “I don’t remember him ever playing for money.” Jonas turned to Blake. “Did you know about this?”

“I knew he had monthly poker games, but he never talked about them. It upset Mom too much.” Blake sat straighter, watching them both.

Nathan rose to pace around the kitchen. “I didn’t know until I read Mom’s letters. After he sold Duke’s Pride, feeling guilty that he’d lost so much, Dad burned his breeding records, including Duke’s Pride’s pedigree and registration papers, and stopped his breeding program altogether.”

Stunned that he’d known nothing about this, Jonas stood and faced Nathan. “Mom wrote letters? When?”

“About six years ago, a bill came for Mom from the Equine Reproduction Laboratory for two straws of frozen sperm.” Before Jonas could interrupt, Nathan held up his hand and pushed on. “I couldn’t find any mention of an account for ERL in the ranch books, so I went looking in Mom’s bedroom, which I’d moved into a few months before.”

Jonas asked quietly, “And you found letters?”

“Mom’s treasure box. The one she kept all of Dad’s letters that he wrote to her in.”

Jonas nodded. He also remembered he hadn’t wanted to go into her and their dad’s room to clean things out after she was gone. So, he’d pulled his disappearing act.

“It was on the top shelf in her closet. I’d pushed it into a back corner because I didn’t want to have anything to do with their things. After Dad died, she wrote letters to him. Before he let Duke’s Pride go, she talked him into taking two sperm samples and freezing them. After Dad was gone, she paid for ten years of storage in advance. Other than the name of the facility, she didn’t say who bought the stud, the land, or if she had copies of Duke’s Pride’s papers.” Finally, Nathan came back to the table. The look on his face was one Jonas readily recognized.

When Nathan was determined to do something, it took an act of the Almighty to change his brother’s mind.

Blake came to stand next to Jonas, his expression as shocked as Jonas felt. “So, what did you do?”

“I took what money I could scrounge up and bought a Rangerbred mare. I had to use both straws for the pregnancy to take. She didn’t have papers, but I thought after her foal was born, I would figure out how to register her. Then the mare died giving birth to Duke and everything else started to fall apart. Since there was nothing more I could do but try to keep the Triple L afloat, I let it go.”

“And you didn’t think to tell us?” Jonas couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice.

Blake reminded Jonas, “He couldn’t tell me. I wasn’t here.”

“Yeah, but later, when we were trying to figure out a way to save the ranch—” Jonas insisted, rare resentment boiling in his gut.

How could his dad do that to his mom? Get so far into debt gambling that he’d nearly lost their dream?

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