Page 48 of The Rancher's Heart

He had a backup plan. His brothers wouldn’t like it, but he had a suspicion that Blake did too. Nathan’s plan was Duke. Always had been. Or maybe Bella and Duke’s foul if it was a colt. The problem with that was the little one wouldn’t mature fast enough to save the Triple L.

That left the rodeo competition and the DNA testing and somehow merging them.

His dad had given up a lot when he let his gambling debts become more than he could handle. Jonas stared out the kitchen window at the ranch he loved. He would never risk everything like his father had.

That included Sloane and Clara. He’d made his mistakes along the way—not understanding that his feelings for Sloane ran deeper than mere friendship, not staying when his mother needed him to be there for her, kicking Blake off the ranch, then taking sixteen years to bring his brother home. That was not any different from his dad’s gambling habit. Both caused the people they loved pain.

He’d thought his brothers were crazy for being slow about acting on their feelings for the loves of their lives. And now, here he was making a mess with Sloane.

He slapped the mail on the counter where he’d found it and took the stairs two at a time up to his room. He would fix that. All he had to do was come up with the right words to change her mind.

Turning on his computer, he went straight to her profile page... and got an error message. He tried again. It was still gone. She’d deleted her page.

From experience, he knew that once Sloane’s temper fired up, it took a whole lot to bring her around. Like the time when he’d promised to take her to a musical play for her thirtieth birthday. He’d been busy with a case and somehow forgotten what day it was. When she got there, she’d walked into the middle of a pop-up poker game at his apartment. She’d turned right around and headed back to the hotel she usually stayed at when she came to Denver.

Nothing he said could stop her. He remembered her disappointment as she stared at him and said, “It’s not so much that you forgot, Jonas, it’s just that... maybe one of these days you’ll get your priorities straight.”

It had taken a bunch of her favorite flowers delivered the next morning and trading the tickets in for the next night to get into her good graces again. This time, he probably needed more than daisies and tickets to a play to make things right between them.

Priorities. Six years later, he still didn’t have it together. The same way that his dad hadn’t been able to keep on top of his impulses. He was just like the old man, something he never wanted to be. Yet, here he was.

He did not sleep easy that night.

See you aroundsounded too dang final, but it could also mean that he could show up unexpectedly, bearing her favorite chicken burrito from the food carts. If Sloane wouldn’t come to him, he would go to her, bearing gifts she couldn’t refuse.

And there was Clara. Sloane hadn’t said he couldn’t be friends with her sister or that he couldn’t still handle the kid’s court case. That, at least, was something.

Before starting breakfast for his brothers, he texted Sloane.“What are you doing today?”

“Working.”

Okay.“I’ll bring your favorite burrito for lunch.”

“Thanks, but I won’t get a lunch break today. Too many cars to fix.”

Before he could text back, Nathan and Blake came in, and their breakfast meeting was on.

They were halfway through the stack of pancakes he’d made when Blake said, “I got an offer on the Sedona house.”

“You’re not thinking of selling it, are you?” Nathan asked, laying his fork on his empty plate, the tines swimming in the maple syrup that was left.

“Maybe. We”—Blake indicated the three of them—“can use the money.”

Blake’s backup plan. Since they were going there, now was the perfect time to disclose his own. Nathan wasn’t going to like it. “I’m putting my condo in Denver on the market.”

“Let’s take this discussion into the living room.” As Jonas expected, Nathan pressed his lips into a disapproving line. Carrying his coffee, he led the way and sat in the overstuffed chair closest to the fireplace. “I don’t approve of you guys pouring tons of money into the ranch. If we had no other choice, I guess that would be one thing. And yes, the Triple L is still teetering on the edge of financial viability, but we’re getting close to making the ranch pay for itself.”

Knowing that all three of them were their mother’s sons—decisive, fiercely independent and loyal, tough enough to fight their way through the worst—Jonas hadn’t been able to tell Blake and Nathan before he moved back to Strawberry Ridge, especially Nathan while he was healing from his injury, that he’d intended all along to sell all his assets in Denver if that’s what was required to keep the property in the family. He would have had a humungous fight on his hands.

Moving property was typically too slow. Selling real estate wouldn’t necessarily be the immediate answer to their cash flow problem, depending on how much they came away with, but it was a place to begin.

He couldn’t force Blake and Nathan to use the money he might make from the sale of his condo. He knew his brothers. They would insist on matching him dollar for dollar. If he were in their boots, he would feel the same.

He made his argument, anyway. “Consider this,” he said to Nathan. “All the years when Blake and I were gone, you were here, working the ranch. I sent money when I could, but you can’t tell me it even came close to being a living wage for you. You never took a salary. You just made do.”

“I’ve done okay,” Nathan said in a defensive tone that did not encourage any argument. He grumbled at Blake, “You need the Sedona money for your family.”

Blake came right back. “Don’t you worry about my family. We’re fine.”

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