Page 197 of Beat of Love
Her eyes moved to their three, now busy stuffing their faces. “Do they know?”
“Yeah. We worked through a lot over the break.” He hesitated, then asked, his eyes flicking briefly to Rafferty — who speared him with a hard look — before settling on hers again. “Is his … stuff sorted?”
“The drugs? Or the danger?”
Irritation flickered across Richard’s face, but he quickly masked it. “Both.”
“The addiction was never his choice, Richard. And it’s over.” She held his gaze. “As for that woman — she’s no longer a danger.” He didn’t need to know the details of how it happened.
“Our kids … they really like him.”
“He’s a good man.”
Richard looked away, his gaze drifting over the bucolic scene. The kids, the laughter, the easy joy in the air. “I get it now,” he blurted.
“Get what?”
“You … wanting to be here. Belonging here.”
The quiet ache in his voice wasn’t hard to miss. He’d been raised in a house of silence and cold looks — a far cry from the open warmth of Lawson’s Landing.
“You and Nolan are welcome here. Anytime.”
To her surprise, Brandy realized she meant it. The past was done, settled. And Richard — father of her children — would always have a place in their future. Holding on to hostility only muddied the waters. And she was done with that.
“You mean that?”
“Well, I’m not offering you a home on the ranch,” she said wryly. “And don’t expect an invitation to our wedding. But yeah — you’re welcome here.”
“Thank you,” he said, his voice gruff with something that might’ve been humility. Then he stiffened, eyes flicking past her shoulder. “And I think I’ve overstayed this visit.”
An arm slid around her shoulders, warm and solid. “Everything good here?” Rafferty asked.
“We’re good,” she reassured.
Richard cleared his throat. “I’ll be on my way.”
The two men regarded each other for a long moment before Richard added, “I apologize for the things I said in the past.” He extended his hand.
It took Rafferty a beat, then he clasped it firmly. “Thank you.”
Another pause. Then, quietly but with conviction, Rafferty said, “They’re safe with me. All of them.”
Richard nodded and turned away, heading toward the others.
Rafferty’s eyes searched her face. “You really good, Red?”
“Yes,” she said simply. “Come on. Let’s go tell Branna she has four weeks to plan a wedding.”
56
Shaping a partner
A few days later, his parents dropped a bombshell of their own, and Rafferty went looking for Brandy-Lyn.
She was training a horse, and he stayed to watch, leaning against the top rail of the arena fence, the sun warm on his shoulders, the scent of dust and horse and annoyed cow thick in the air. The young gelding under Brandy-Lyn shifted restlessly, snorting as he tossed his head, but she sat on him like she was born there — easy, relaxed, reins loose in one hand.
She came around again. The gelding resisted, tossed his head, kicked out in irritation. The cow bellowed her own frustration. Brandy-Lyn didn’t flinch. Just circled, calm and steady, her voice low and sure as she talked the horse through his paces. No frustration, no tension. Just that unshakable patience he’d come to recognize in her — in the saddle, with the kids.
