Huh. He was glad she had a kind roommate who looked out for her, but to be alone on Thanksgiving had to hurt. Christmas probably wasn’t a blast either.
“Daddy?” Robby called, his voice choked.
“I’m here with Amanda,” he called out as he arrived in the doorway of Robby’s room. His son had a great bedroom with all his favorite things—lots of hunter green, his favorite color, a shelf devoted to his favorite book series about an amateur detective raccoon in a Hawaiian shirt who solved light, funny mysteries at school, and now Bentley and Oliver’s shared bed, which Happy Hearts had wanted Robby to have, and all their toys.
“Hi, Robby,” Amanda said, stepping in. “When I brought my cat Poindexter home for the first time after adopting him, he wouldn’t come out from under my bed for over four hours.”
Robby’s eyes widened. “Really? But you’re nice.”
She sat down beside him. “So are you. It’s not that Oliver and Bentley don’t like you and aren’t happy to be here. They do and are. But animals, particularly cats, get very nervous when they move into a new home. Nothing smells familiar. So they tend to hide under a bed or table until they feel more at home. Then they come out and do a little exploring. Bentley is braver but he’s keeping his buddy company so Oliver feels safer.”
Robby’s face brightened. “That’s what Daddy said.”
Amanda smiled. “Your daddy is definitely right. So, Robby, why don’t you hang out on the rug and just play with a toy or read or whatever you usually do in your room, and I’ll bet Oliver comes out to explore. Bentley will be right behind him.”
Robby started reaching for his stuffed animals. “I can set up a party of my stuffed animals and toys so that when Bentley and Oliver come out, they can meet everyone.”
“That sounds good, Robby,” Holt said. He turned to Amanda. “I was about to make some coffee. Sound good?”
“Sure,” she said.
“We’ll be in the kitchen, Robby. Call down if they come out.”
“’Kay, Daddy,” Robby said, the anticipation of that in his voice a relief compared to the teary sadness of earlier.
Holt ran a hand over Robby’s hair, and Amanda smiled at the boy, then they went downstairs into the kitchen.
“Even the kitchen is gorgeous,” she said, looking all around the room. “How does it manage to look antique and state-of-the-art at the same time?”
“Right? Even I don’t mind cooking since I moved in.”
“Can you cook?”
“Hell yeah, I can. For a while there after our summer at camp, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was always a cowboy, working as a hand, but the places that took a chance on me didn’t pay much, so I supplemented my income as a short order cook, thanks to my brief experience in the kitchen at Camp KidPower. Turned out I could make a cheap cut of anything tender and delicious.”
“What do you mean you didn’t know what to do with yourself?” she asked, clearly confused. “You were in college, majoring in agricultural development, right? You were planning to run a ranching empire.”
He moved over to the coffee maker. “I dropped out of school after two years, Amanda. And the summer job at KidPower was court-ordered stupid trouble with the law, petty stuff, disorderly conduct, drinking in public, drag racing, that kind of thing. My life had been going nowhere fast at twenty-two. Till that summer I met you turned me around.”
She stared at him, disbelief and resignation in her pretty brown eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He hesitated at first. Then just blurted it out. Finally. “You seemed to like me as I was and I didn’t want to spoil it by letting you know I was a hooligan, as my dad used to call me.”
She seemed to think about that for a moment. “You liked me as I was, so I get it. A lot of guys found me boring and thought I was stuck up.”
“Shy for sure. Only until someone gets to know you. Then you never stop talking.” He grinned, and so did she, and just like that, the ice was broken. Whatever residual anger she’d been holding on to the past ten years seemed to have dissipated. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on his part.
The relief that hit him was a surprise.
“Well, I wish you’d told me, Holt. I wouldn’t have liked you any less.”
He wasn’t so sure of that.
“Speaking of your father,” she added, “I’m surprised you live on the same property with your folks. I remember you saying you and your dad didn’t see eye to eye.”
Whenever he had opened up to Amanda, he’d been honest. He’d omitted quite a lot, yes, but it had helped back then to talk about his fraught relationship with his dad.
The coffee finally brewed, giving him something to do, somewhere else to look. He poured two mugs, and brought over cream and sugar and sat down across from her.
“No one was more surprised than me,” he said. “I still don’t get along great with my dad, but I’m working on it. It’s my summer plan, actually—to make peace with him. I have barely a month left.”
She added cream and a sugar cube to her yellow mug. “Do you argue a lot?”
“I want my father to be someone he’s not,” he said, taking a long sip of his coffee.
“Sounds like something someone else told you.”
He smiled. “All the time. My mother. And all four of my brothers.”
“What do you want him to be?” she asked.
“More patient with his grandson.” Holt got up and walked over to the counter, where a half-eaten pie sat. “Slice of pecan pie? I made it.”
“I never turn down pie,” she said. “Especially homemade.”
He cut them both a slice and sat back down. Why had he brought up the issue with his dad and Robby? Now he had no appetite for the pie, which he’d only thought of in the first place to have something more to do with himself since the subject of his dad’s lack of patience for his grandson grated on him.
“So,” she said, taking a bite. “How does your dad treat Robby?”
He sighed. “He wants him to stop talking quite so much, stop running quite so fast, stop asking quite so many questions. He wants him to stop being such a whirlwind.”
“Too much energy for grandpa?”
He shrugged. “Robby’s a great kid. Very energetic, yes. Very talkative, yes. Doesn’t always listen, yes. Clumsy as heck, yes. He’s seven. He’s a lot, I know that.”
“Does your father yell at Robby?” she asked, sipping her coffee.
“He’s more just gruff. My mother more than makes up for it, but it rankles me. I know my son is a handful, but my dad would be annoyed by any kid who wasn’t like a church mouse.”
Holt often thought that maybe he should pack Robby up and leave. But the whole reason Holt was here was for his mom. Deborah Dalton had given up so much of herself—including a career she cared about—to help her husband with his dream of having his own ranch, a small place they’d bought in Whitehorn after they’d gotten married. Worrying with him over taxes and cattle prices falling. Up before the crack of dawn to make breakfast, to muck out the barns and stalls, to do just as much heavy lifting. Had his dad appreciated it? Did men who appreciated their wives cheat on them?
No.
A familiar hot pit of anger rose in his gut as he thought about it. He wouldn’t even know about this—and hell, he wished he didn’t—if he hadn’t overheard an argument as a kid. Another as a teenager. Once, a few years ago, he’d seen his dad standing a little too close to an interested-looking woman in a bar, and Holt had left, feeling sick. Before they’d ever moved to Bronco, when his mom was recovering from the heart attack that had scared them all, he’d overheard his dad talking to the hospital chaplain, asking forgiveness for not loving his wife right or good enough, admitting he’d cheated and making a solemn vow to never betray his marriage vows again. His father had been crying, and Holt had retrea
ted, bursting into tears himself.
He could count on his hands the times he’d cried as an adult—when he’d walked away from Amanda ten years ago, not sure why he was so upset over something he was actually doing. When the divorce papers arrived. When his son was placed in his arms for the first time less than a minute after he was born. And that day he’d overheard his father with the chaplain.
Amanda took another bite of the pie. “I guess your family chose Bronco for the same reason I did. And most folks. It’s pretty great here. The Wild West, the old ghost legends, downtown Bronco Heights. I love it here.”
“I do too. So does Robby. When the ranch in Whitehorn failed, my dad was thinking of moving to Rust Creek Falls, where we have a lot of family, but our branch didn’t exactly have a good reputation then, so my dad just said Rust Creek Falls was too small town for his taste and that Bronco had everything we could want. He got lucky gambling, which was how he was able to afford this place. And because we know my dad has a penchant for letting good things slip away, we all moved to the ranch at my mother’s request to make sure the place runs smoothly and to keep an eye on our mom, who’d had a heart attack not long before.”
He’d never forget how he’d ended up here with his dad—how all his brothers had. Their first night in Bronco, sitting around the big dining table in their huge new dining room, his father had said he had his own personal kind of grace to say and went on to announce that he’d been lucky a few times in his life. The first was when Deborah had agreed to marry him despite him having not a nickel to his name. The second was when he won the money to give her the life she deserved. When Neal had brought Dalton’s Grange, he’d asked his sons, scattered across Montana working on other ranches, to come work for him, assuring them there were houses on the property for all of them to live separately if they wanted. All five Dalton brothers refused. But then their mother asked them to reconsider. She wanted her family together, a true second chance for them all. How could they possibly refuse after what she’d gone through?
“Is she doing all right?” Amanda asked.
“Good as gold,” he said. “But we almost lost her and none of us had ever been so scared.”
“So the seven of you got to start fresh in Bronco. Like me.”
“Like you?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. He should have figured something had made her leave Whitehorn, besides just her parents retiring and leaving themselves.
She frowned and then dug into her pie, clearly not wanting to talk about it. He got it. There was a lot he didn’t want to talk about either.
“There are some other prosperous ranching families who aren’t so welcoming,” he said. “I guess we’re considered ‘new money’ without a family history or legacy in town. And a little rough around the edges to say the least.”
She smiled. “Well, if you’re rough around the edges, Holt Dalton, you’re a diamond in the rough. I spent a lot of time with you ten years ago, even for just a summer, and there’s nothing rough about you.”
Without thinking, he reached out for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “That’s nice of you to say.”
“Daddy! Amanda! Come look!”
Amanda’s smile lit up her face. “I have a feeling a certain cat and dog have come out from under the bed.”
They both took one last sip of their coffees, then went upstairs, stopping in the doorway to Robby’s room, mostly because Holt was so surprised. Robby was sitting cross-legged on the rug in front of the fancy memory-foam pet bed, where Bentley and Oliver were lying down, Oliver curled up along Bentley’s belly.
Robby was reading from a chapter book, “‘And then...’” He stopped and put his finger on the page. “‘And then Rocco...’” He bit his lip, moving his finger to the right. “‘Rocco the raccoon said...’” He moved his finger and stared down hard at the page. “‘Well, that.’” He stopped and shifted his body a bit. “‘Well that sure is...is a mystery!’” He looked up at his pets with a smile. “Bentley and Oliver, I know that word by heart now! Mystery! Isn’t that a big word? It means something that no one can figure out.” He looked back down at the page. “‘But don’t worry, I can...’” He stared at the page, his face scrunching in concentration. He turned around and looked at Holt. “Daddy? What is this word again?”
Holt came in the room and glanced at where Robby pointed. “Solve. Do you remember what that means?”
Robby nodded. “That’s the figuring out part, right?”
Holt nodded. “You got it, Robby.”
The boy continued reading. “‘But don’t worry,’” he said again, “‘I can solve it!’” Robby glanced up from his book at Bentley and Oliver. “Guys, don’t worry about the missing chalk in the classroom because Rocco the raccoon is really good at solving mysteries!”
Amanda moved beside Holt. “Oh, my heart,” she whispered to him. “He is the sweetest.”
Holt smiled at her, holding her gaze a beat longer than he should have, but he could barely drag his eyes off her. “Good job, buddy,” he said to his son.
“Do you think Bentley and Oliver like being read to even by me?” Robby asked, his blue eyes worried and his mouth kind of scrunched up.
“I can tell they love it,” Amanda said. “Look at how calm they are. They seem very happy you’re reading to them.”
Robby brightened. “I’m not a good reader, though. I’m in the worst group at school. But maybe I’ll get better if I read to Bentley and Oliver.”
“That would be great practice,” Amanda said with a nod.
The doorbell rang, and Holt excused himself to answer it, his heart in his throat as it often was when Robby opened up about his struggles with reading. A glance out the window showed his dad’s pickup in the drive. Great. His father was here with some complaint, probably about how Robby was running too close to the bulls pasture this morning and it wasn’t good for them.
But it was Holt’s mother on the porch with a red bag in her hand. Bronco Pets Emporium was in gold across the bag.
“Special delivery for Robby Dalton,” she said with a smile. Tall like all the Daltons but with short blond hair cut to her chin and warm blue eyes like Robby’s, Deborah held out the bag.
He gave his mom a kiss on the cheek. “That was nice of you, Mom.”
“And your dad too,” she added quickly. “He’s the one who drove us into town to the pet shop. Even tested out the squeaker in Bentley’s new toy.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Holt said with a smile, hating the loud squeakers. “Dad not here too?” he asked, glancing past her into the truck. Empty. He’d let his parents know he’d adopted not only the dog he’d promised Robby but a cat, and that they’d both stay in the house, not roam around loose.
“He’s rolling out the dough for pizza night, actually,” she said. “The man can’t cook but he likes to roll out the dough.”
Holt had definitely gotten his skills in the kitchen from his mother, who was a great cook. His father managed to scorch pots of spaghetti, always letting the water boil out because he completely forgot he was cooking in the first place. Deborah had pretty much banned him from their state-of-the-art kitchen.
“Come on upstairs,” Holt said. “Robby just managed to coax his pets out from under his bed, so your timing is perfect. Oh, and I have a visitor—Amanda Jenkins. We worked at that summer camp together ten years ago. Turns out she does social media for Happy Hearts, and I ran into her there earlier today.”
He did catch the look of surprise and curiosity on his mom’s face. When was the last time he’d brought a woman into his home? Not this year, certainly.
They’d reached Robby’s bedroom, and his mom walked in quietly so as not to scare the pets. She looked at Amanda and smiled, then turned to her grandson. “Robby, I have a happy-new-pets present for you!”
Robby’s face lit up. “Thanks, Gram!” He stood slowly as if he knew any su
dden movements would send Oliver racing back under the bed. He opened the gifts and again, it might as well have been Christmas morning. “A stuffed rabbit for Bentley and a catnip mouse for Oliver!”
Deborah grinned. “We also got Oliver his own cat condo so he has a place to scratch and climb and get high up the way cats like. That’s in the car. Holt, you can bring it up before I go. And we got Bentley his very own indoor doghouse. It’s made out of sturdy foam and has a cushy bed.”
The trip to the pet store and all the gifts might have been his mom’s idea, but his dad certainly hadn’t vetoed it. His father was overly generous with his wife, especially, but his sons and Robby too. If he had it, he’d share it. That had always been his dad’s way.
“That was above and beyond,” Holt said. “Thank you.”
“You’re the best gram in the whole entire world!” Robby said, propelling himself at his grandmother for a hug.
She laughed and wrapped her arms around him, then looked at Amanda.
“Mom, this is Amanda Jenkins,” he said. “Amanda, my mother, Deborah Dalton. I was just telling my mom that we met in camp all those years ago and ran into each other at Happy Hearts.”
“Isn’t that something,” his mother said. “Such a small world. Amanda, why don’t you stay for dinner tonight? It’ll be ready in about thirty minutes. I have this fancy brick-oven-style contraption in the kitchen, so how could I not use it on everyone’s favorite food?”
Amanda bit her lip and glanced at Holt. Was she looking for help getting out of the invitation? Thing was, if she did want him to give her an easy excuse, he didn’t want to.
He wanted her to stay.
“Yay, Amanda is having dinner with us!” Robby said with absolutely no assurance of that and shooting her a big smile. “Gram, Amanda helped us at Happy Hearts. She’s so nice.”
“She certainly is,” Holt said, hoping she’d say yes. “I hope you can stay, Amanda. Unless you have plans.” There—he’d provided her the out.
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