Page 8 of The Cowboy's Bullfighter
“Yeah. Yeah, I got the news finally.” He scrubbed his hand over his unshaven chin. “So Benji took it all on?” God. Ben was just now turning nineteen. He’d been seventeen when?—
He sucked in a hard breath, trying not to double over with the pain of it. His brother. God, his brother was gone.
“Hey. You need anything stronger for your coffee, you just say.”
Brooks cleared his throat. “No. I’m pretty much a beer-only guy these days, mate.”
“I love how you’ve become like, exactly half Aussie, man.”
“Fuck off,” Brooks said without heat.
“Anyway, Andy had the kids up in Chama in a travel trailer. You remember that one Channing Krause had?”
His eyebrows shot up. “That fucking thing was tiny!”
“It still is.” Wacey sighed, turning his coffee mug in his hands.
“Where had they been living?”
“I think they called it being ‘digital nomads’? They were just sort of everywhere and nowhere, all at once.” Wacey sighed softly and shook his head. “Benji took a hit, though. Broke his pelvis. He was on the job for me, so I covered most of his medical, and what I didn’t, rider relief did. But the kids couldn’t be alone up there.”
“So where are they?” Dammit, he needed to know!
“Up by the Chiaras. Coop has them, I think.”
“Cooper Adams.”
“Yeah. He’s retired now.”
“No shit.” Coop had always been…well, Brooks had only met the man twice to shake hands, but the guy was a freaking legend at the national rodeo level, always getting voted in at the finals.
“I shit you not.” Wacey shrugged at him, rolled his eyes. “He bought himself this humongous house near the Chiara ranch—one of the cowboys who had lived there for generations wanted out, and Coop got it for a steal and gutted it.”
“Ah.” Like he cared where Cooper Adams was. “Why are my nieces and nephews there?”
“Well, Benji’s been training to be a bullfighter when he’s not riding. Coop had been teaching him the ropes, sort of mentoring him, so when Benji got hurt so bad, he called Coop. Coop ran down there and brought the kids home. He’s got them all settled, Benji’s there with them doing rehab.”
He didn’t understand. “So this stranger just took six kids in?”
“Yeah. That’s Coop. He’s a decent type.”
Still, he didn’t like it. Children needed to be with their family. He’d go up there, talk to Benji, and then find out what he needed to do to take care of these babies. A nineteen-year-old didn’t need to be raising his brothers and sisters. It wasn’t fair to any of them.
He was family. He was going to make this work for Andy. He wasn’t going to let them swing in the wind.
That way Cooper Adams could have his house back.
“Well, I appreciate his help and all, but I’ll get the kids and we’ll set up back down by Albuquerque or Santa Fe.”
“Mmmhmm.”
He glanced sideways at Wacey. “What’s that tone?”
“Oh, nothin’. Just, you know, once the Chiaras assimilate someone…”
He chuckled. “I’m sure it’s not all that.”
“Well, if you say so. Want that other burrito?”
