by Liz Isaacson
He’d spent a lot of time on the phone yesterday in between all the eating—Colton could literally eat a meal and then want another one an hour later. He’d first called Jeremiah Walker and explained about the thumb injury and the need to be closer to family this summer. The man was seriously a saint, because he didn’t even get the slightest bit upset. He’d said, “Let me know when you’re back in town. There will always be a place for you at Seven Sons, Ames.”
That had made him feel good. He did know how to work hard, and it was nice to be validated. He’d then called Skyler Walker, who had admired his motorcycle on several occasions. Another explanation of the situation, and that he didn’t want to leave his expensive, custom bike in a carport without anyone living in the house.
He’d come last night to take the bike out to the ranch. “I will take such good care of it,” Skyler had said. “Thank you, Ames.” He’d hugged Ames, and he’d oscillated again. At the same time, he’d heard and felt the truth and power in Colton’s voice when he’d asked him what he was doing here.
Ames had been wondering that himself. Maybe he did belong in Coral Canyon. Maybe he should go back to Ivory Peaks. He wasn’t sure, but he felt confident this summer would shed some light on the situation. It had to, because he couldn’t keep living in this limbo for much longer.
“How often is Jenn going to come take care of the house?”
“Every week,” Ames said. “She’ll check on the water, the air conditioner, and take care of the lawn.” He looked out the window on his side of the car, frustration still his dominant emotion. He wished he could feel sad about leaving Three Rivers behind, but he didn’t. He didn’t know what that meant.
He stayed in the car while Colton went in Middlestreet to get his barbecue sauce, and he was grateful when his brother let him stay silent on the way to Amarillo. The flight from Texas to Wyoming happened quickly, and before he knew it, he was walking outside to the view of the majestic Teton Mountain Range.
The thing that had been teeming inside him quieted instantly, and Ames couldn’t ignore that anymore. He let Colton get their luggage, let Colton load the truck, let Colton drive through somewhere for lunch.
They had another hour-long drive ahead of them from Jackson Hole to Coral Canyon, and Ames should’ve known his brother wouldn’t give him another sixty minutes of broody silence.
“Annie’s daughter is pregnant,” he said.
“That’s great,” Ames said, and he sounded cheerful. Deep down, though, he didn’t care about Annie’s daughter. He did care about his brother though, and he looked at Colt. “You’re going to love that baby, aren’t you?”
“I want a baby of my own,” Colton said, shifting in his seat.
Ames didn’t quite know what to say, because he hadn’t known that about his brother. “You’d be a great dad,” he said.
“Thank you,” Colton said, glancing at Ames. “What about you? Do you want kids?”
“Yes,” Ames said. “Maybe. I don’t know.” He looked out the window again. “I can’t answer questions right now, Colt. I’m literally lost.”
“I’m sorry, brother,” Colton said quietly. “I won’t ask you any more questions.”
“Just not hard ones,” he said. “I can handle stuff like what do you want for lunch? or how many miles should we run today?”
“How many miles do you run?”
“Usually not more than five,” he said. “I just do it to get rid of some of the negative emotions building up inside me. I’m not trying to stay fit or lose weight or run a marathon.”
“Negative emotions,” Colton mused. “Interesting.”
“Why do you run?”
“Gotta keep up my stunning physique,” he said, a wide grin on his face.
Ames burst out laughing, and his spirit soared with the sound of it as it moved through him and came out his mouth. He hadn’t laughed like this in a long, long time. This alone was worth being in the company of his family.
The ride was much more comfortable after that, and Colton jabbered about Wes and Bree and the backyard project at their place. “He’s forgotten how old he is,” Colt said, shaking his head. “And Bree’s about to have another baby, and there’s no way Wes is finishing that yard himself.”
“He doesn’t even need to,” Ames said. “What? He doesn’t have enough money to pay someone to do it?”
“Right?” Colton laughed and shook his head. “Hunter comes to stay with us sometimes. Boy, do I love that kid.”
“He’s a good kid,” Ames said. “I wonder what he does with his girlfriend over the summer.” He’d have to ask his nephew when he saw him next.
“Are you going to take advice from a fourteen-year-old?” Colton asked.
“Hey, he’s had more luck with the girls than I have,” Ames said.
Colton laughed again. “I think Molly is coming for a couple of weeks this summer.”
“You’re kidding.” Ames looked at Colton. “Is she staying with them?”
“I think so,” Colt said with a shrug. “Gray mentioned something about it, but we didn’t talk long, because Jane started screaming after that. She’d been sick, and Elise was in town getting medicine, so Gray had to go.”
“Fascinating.” Ames didn’t understand relationships these days. His parents would’ve never let his girlfriend come on a family trip. He couldn’t believe Molly’s parents were okay with it.
They arrived at Colton’s house, and Ames managed to take in one of his own suitcases. He’d stayed in the guest room at the top of the stairs several times, and he got set up in there again. When he came downstairs, the scent of marinara filled the house, and he found Annie in the kitchen stirring something.
“Hey, Ames,” she said over her shoulder. She left the stove and approached him. She gave him a hug, and Ames didn’t know what to do with it. “Thanks for coming. Colton is thrilled to have you. We both are.” She smiled at him warmly, but Ames had heard something in her voice.
He glanced around, looking for Colton. “How is Colt?” he asked. “He seems…a bit off.”
“Oh, he’s okay,” Annie said lightly, turning back to the kitchen. “We’re dealing with some things. We’ll be all right.”
Ames watched her, and she seemed to really believe that they’d be all right in the end. Ames wanted to believe that too.
“Dinner will be ready in about ten minutes,” she said over her shoulder.
“Thank you,” he said. Ten minutes. Just enough time to text Sophia and find out where she was. She’d left Three Rivers today too, but she, Marcy, Wyatt, and the three boys were driving. They were stopping in Fort Collins tonight, and he’d said he’d check in with her.
He went out onto the front porch and sat on the bench there. He sent her a quick text that said, How’s the day been? Have you stopped yet?
She didn’t answer immediately, and he told her that he’d been in Coral Canyon for a couple of hours, and then he added, I sure do like it here.
Checking in now, she texted back. I’ll call you in a few minutes.
He may not have spoken to Sophia much over the past ten months, but he’d heard her say “a few minutes” before, and it was never just a few minutes. She’d call in a half an hour, if then. Probably more like an hour.
He gazed out across the front yard and took in the neighborhood. He allowed himself to envision himself living here, maybe even on this street. To his surprise, he could see it clearly in his mind.
He drew a breath, and everything he’d been fighting against finally settled.
A couple of days later, Ames ran with Colton in the morning. He fished with Hunter and Gray before lunch. He took sandwiches to the park and met Wes, Bree, and Michael. By afternoon, he was peopled out. He retreated to the bedroom on the second floor and lost a couple of hours to social media.
He’d kept in touch with Sophia, and he knew she wasn’t working tonight. Cy was busy with Patsy getting ready for their wedding in just two days, and Ames decided he couldn
’t spend another minute staring at a screen.
He went downstairs, but the house was still empty. Annie ran her own housekeeping business, and Colton worked in the lab on Fridays. It was easy for Ames to slip out of the house without having to explain himself to anyone, and he made the drive up the canyon to Whiskey Mountain Lodge in under thirty minutes.
The parking lot held more cars than he’d seen before, and he supposed summertime would be busy at this luxury lodge nestled in the most beautiful canyon on the planet.
He took a spot far from the entrance of the lodge but closer to the cabin where Sophia lived. It sat in the back corner of the yard, and Ames had found it cozy and charming when he’d been there last.
Emerald green grass shone all around it, and Sophia had put bulbs in the ground last fall. He’d been there while she’d done it. The daffodils and tulips had grown properly, and the red and yellow pops of color surrounding the cabin brought him a healthy dose of cheer.
He went up the steps and knocked, but he didn’t expect her to open the door. He hadn’t seen her car in the parking lot, and he assumed she hadn’t made it home yet.
Sure enough, no one answered the door, so he turned around and settled on the top step to wait. The wind whispered through the trees, and with the sunshine making everything glow with golden light, Ames experienced a sense of peace he hadn’t before, probably ever.
He wanted to bottle this feeling and open the lid every time he started to get stressed. “So I guess I need to be here, is that what You’re telling me?” He looked up under the brim of the cowboy hat Colton had loaned him until he could get his own.
The heavens didn’t open, and Ames hadn’t expected them to. He’d never been able to hear the voice of the Lord very well, and getting promptings and feelings didn’t seem to happen for him.
“Maybe I should start seeing a counselor,” he said to himself. He’d never thought of himself as broken, the way Cy had, and he didn’t have trauma in his past the way Hunter had. He simply wasn’t an overly emotional man. That didn’t mean he was a terrible person.
It did make dating and relationships harder. “Help me to simply work harder at it,” he said turned toward the parking lot, wondering how long he should wait to see Sophia.
Chapter Eight
Sophia hugged Warren tight, her heart expanding as the four-year-old clutched at her neck. “You be good now,” she said to him, pulling back and touching her forehead to his. “No crying when your daddy asks you to pick up the toys. It’s not that hard.”
“Okay, Sophie,” he said, and she grinned at him.
“Just sing that song I taught you.” She straightened and nudged him back to Marcy. He went, and the other woman picked him up and hugged him too. He really was a sweet little boy. He was simply four, and head-strong—just like both of his parents.
She grinned at Marcy and said, “I’ll see you on Monday.”
“We’ll be at the wedding, too,” Marcy said, returning the smile. “Thank you, Sophia.”
“Oh, right. The wedding.” She hadn’t forgotten about that. Oh, no, she had not. She’d simply forgotten that the Walkers were part of the Hammonds now. They were a lot like the Whittakers in that regard—taking in anyone who allowed them to.
She wondered why she was so resistant to being welcomed to their family, but she literally refused to dwell on it. She’d spent so much time thinking about Ames Hammond that she couldn’t obsess over his family too.
She stepped out the front door of the immaculate mountain home that Wyatt and Marcy had purchased and moved into a couple of days ago. They’d driven Wyatt’s truck from Three Rivers, Texas, to Coral Canyon, with a trailer attached with everything they needed to survive for the first few weeks.
Marcy and Sophia had spent the last couple of days getting the boys’ rooms set up and ordering furniture, rugs, curtains, and other household items.
Wyatt had spent that time looking at and ultimately buying toys. He’d bought two four-wheelers, a boat, and even a little side-by-side for the boys. He’d started teaching Warren how to drive it, and Sophia had never seen anything like a four-year-old motoring around the mountain in a vehicle by himself.
She’d never met anyone like the Walkers at all. They were so far away from her reality that everything they did surprised her. Marcy didn’t even look at prices. If she liked something, she bought it. No haggling. No back and forth about whether she should go with something cheaper. Nothing.
Wyatt had called Marcy at least a dozen times while he’d been at the outdoor adventure shop in town to get her opinion on things, and Sophia liked that. They were a functional couple, with a family they were doing their best to raise.
Sophia had never truly experienced that either. Her father had been in the military when she was growing up, and she’d barely known him. He was gone all the time, and her mother ran a tight ship. She’d clipped coupons and refused to let her children do anything after school until they’d done their household chores and their homework.
Sophia had thrived under the rigidity of her upbringing, but her two brothers had not.
Both Ryan and Keith had left home the day after their high school graduations, and neither had gone into the military the way their father had hoped.
Sophia’s mother had started complaining about her husband in Sophia’s senior year of high school. They both ended up leaving the house the next summer, and Sophia now had four separate cells of people she tried to interact with.
The Cooke family did not get together for holidays. They didn’t have family video calls the way she’d seen the Walkers do. Wyatt would gather his whole family around the computer to talk to his parents, and most of the time they were out at Seven Sons Ranch, so Skyler, Micah, and Jeremiah participated in the call. They all lived on the ranch property, in separate residences.
In the two weeks Sophia had spent in Three Rivers, sorting through clothes and closets with Marcy as they anticipated what they’d need for the summer—and what they’d need for an entirely new residence—Sophia had been out to Seven Sons more than once.
It was definitely a place like Whiskey Mountain Lodge, where everyone seemed to gather without a formal invitation.
She didn’t mind the crowds, but she craved the tranquility and silence of her tiny cabin on the edge of the woods too. She still lived alone, and Graham Whittaker had said that would probably stay that way. They’d hired a gardening service instead of a full-time employee, and the cabin was so small….
Sophia hadn’t minded the smallness of the cabin when she shared with Patsy. She and Patsy had become close quickly, as Patsy dealt with a tough family situation too, and one of their first encounters had been when Sophia had arrived at the lodge only to overhear Patsy arguing with her sister.
“Sorry,” she’d said with a sigh. “My sister thinks she was the one who created the heavens and earth in only six days.”
Sophia had gaped at her for about two seconds before she’d burst out laughing. “I have a father and a brother like that,” she’d said, and they’d both giggled.
Patsy sat on the steps of the cabin, and Sophia had sank down beside her. That was it. They’d bonded instantly, and if Sophia let herself dwell too long on the absence of her best friend, she did not have a good day.
In her car, she drew a deep breath and released it. She was happy for Patsy. Thrilled, even. She’d found a wonderful man to love, and Cy adored her with his whole soul. He’d take good care of her, and that was all Patsy had ever wanted. That, and her orchard. After some rough times down a dark road, she’d gotten both.
Hope and faith filled Sophia. She wanted a good man to love her and adore her and take care of her too. She didn’t have a family legacy like an orchard she wanted, but she did want to feel important and needed.
She knew the Whittakers loved and appreciated her. But she also knew Celia would always be “the chef” at the lodge.
Marcy and Wyatt treated her like gold, and Sophia could admit that
had a lot to do with her decision to pull back at the lodge and nanny for them four days a week.
The moment she turned into the parking lot at the lodge, she saw the big, black truck. Her heartbeat started to race, and she peered through her windshield like Ames would be striding toward her across the asphalt.
She didn’t see him, and irritation threaded through her at her excitement to see the man. They had enjoyed a fairly decent lunch in the park earlier in the week. He’d been on his best behavior, Sophia knew. She could see it wear him down as time went on, almost as if it required such a great effort from him to speak in a softer tone and put a smile on his face instead of a frown.
He still accelerated her pulse in a way no one else ever had, and she pulled in to park next to his truck.
She hoped he wasn’t expecting to be entertained, because she was exhausted. He’d come over before after a long day of her cooking at the lodge, and she’d enjoyed his company in the small cabin then.
She collected her bag, which had grown in size since she’d started spending time with children who needed distractions and sippy cups and snacks, and got out of the car.
The air was crisp and fresh, and Sophia was reminded of why she lived in and loved Coral Canyon, Wyoming. Why she didn’t want to leave. Why she felt like she belonged here.
“Thank you for a good day,” she murmured as she started down the skinny sidewalk that led to the cabin. “Thank you for a safe trip from Texas.” She caught sight of Ames’s cowboy hat above the railing on the steps, his head bent down as he looked at something, probably his phone. “Thank you for this man on my front steps.”
She shook her hair over her shoulders, wondering why she hadn’t colored it yet. She hated the nondescript color of it, and Patsy had told her she should pick a color and go with it. Sophia had liked that idea, but she hadn’t been able to decide if she should go lighter or darker.
“Hey,” she said as she arrived at the bottom of the steps. “Are you lost, cowboy?” She grinned as Ames lifted his head and their eyes met.