Page 8 of Christmas with the Cowboy
“That’s why I came.” A simple truth. His dad needed help, and even if he and Lex hadn’t needed a place to stay during Gregg’s cancer treatments, he would have come back.
“Good. Take Henry and dismantle that fence. I want it gone before I call my lawyer, who will no doubt tell me not to take it down.”
“It’s on our property.”
“And Seth is a lawyer. T’s crossed, i’s dotted. No chances taken.”
Reed nodded. “Let me have a word with Lex. She’ll want to come with me, you know.”
“I’ll sidetrack her.”
Reed smiled. “Good luck with that.”
“Yeah.” Daniel sent Reed a curious look. “Is she good coming here?”
“Surprisingly so.” On the outside anyway. But Reed was watching her closely—to the point that she’d commented on it on the drive, so he’d have to be more careful in the future. “But she’s a kid and these are rough times.”
“Yeah. We’ll muscle through this.”
Daniel jerked his head toward the door as soon as the last word was out of his mouth, and there was an immediate shift in his demeanor. Sharing time was over. They’d had a good talk, but Reed knew that his dad needed to escape before there was a group hug or something. Daniel had never been comfortable with situations that got too close to feelings territory, never been comfortable letting his emotions hang out. Reed understood, having once had the same issue. He was better about it after the many parenting lessons Lex had taught him, but talking to his own dad about emotional stuff…yeah. Still hard to do.
“I’ll go find Henry,” he said. “Get the tools.”
“Take the side-by-side. Leave the wire and posts for Carter to deal with.”
Meaning, dump them on his side of the historical boundary fence.
Reed nodded, realizing that five or six years ago, he would have bristled at having every step laid out for him. Now he heard a boss lining out a worker, not a father trying to control his son’s life. A major step forward. “Will do.”
“Then I guess I’ll go see about sidetracking Lex.”
*
“Wow.” Trenna pushedhair back from her forehead with one hand as she scanned the overstuffed boxes of materials dating from the first days of the ranch. “This will be a project.”
“I tried to throw it all out, but Dan caught me and made me put it back,” Audrey said in an overly innocent voice.
As if.
Audrey was nuts about history, and had encouraged Trenna to follow her dream of becoming a historian while she was dating Reed. Daniel, on the other hand, was more interested in the here and now. Trenna imagined that they could stack the boxes and put a match to them, and Daniel wouldn’t blink an eye. But he was totally supportive of Audrey’s passion, and she with his—a lesson Trenna’s dad could have used.
“Next time, wait until he’s on an overnight buying trip,” Trenna replied, playing along.
“The bull sale in Denver this spring. Perfect. Thank you.”
“Glad to help.”
Trenna had always liked Reed’s mom, who’d served as the calm at the center of the storm that was Reed and Daniel. Reed’s younger siblings butted heads with their parents, like all kids do, but Spence, the brother closest to Daniel’s age was essentially free to do as he pleased, since Daniel and Reed were focused on one another, and Cade, who was most like his mom, grew up in the shadow of his twin, Em, who went her own way regardless of what anyone said. Em and Reed had a lot in common, except that as the oldest, and the most like Daniel, whose wild ways were legend, Reed got the most attention. By the time Em came along, Trenna suspected that Audrey and Daniel were too tired to keep her firmly in line. Or perhaps Reed had taught them that they needed to choose their battles.
And while she was on the subject of Reed, how had the man gotten even sexier? It wasn’t right. Old flames were supposed to change to the point that made you question what you ever saw in them. That had been Trenna’s hope, anyway, when she’d started to hear rumors of Reed returning to the area.
“Trenna?”
“Excuse me?” Trenna pushed her hair back from her forehead as she realized that Audrey had said something to her.
“I just wondered aloud if we have time to get this stuff in order before you start classes.”
“Maybe not in order, but you’ll have a better idea of what you have, how to sort it, and what you want to do with it. Right now, the important thing is to examine everything, discard stuff that isn’t needed, decide how we want to arrange things, figure out how to store them, make backup copies, then chart the next steps.”
