“Only by two minutes.” Will straightened a feed sack. “Maybe if I’d taken better care of you when Hannah left, we wouldn’t be in this place.”
He shushed both Flame and Ghost when they gave a mournful sound at Hannah’s name. “Stop blaming yourself. What happened was on me. If you want to help, take Cooper off when you hear my inner bear growling.”
Will rubbed Luna behind the ears. “He’s already asked mewhy you aren’t happier having your best friend coming back.”
Ben swore. “I hope you told him something wise and enlightening now that you’re a yoga guru.”
Will didn’t laugh like he hoped. “I said sometimes you miss someone so much you get a little upset. Like Cooper gets when you’ve been out on the range for a few days with the herd.”
“Or when his mother doesn’t visit him for a long while even though I still believe that me having full custody is for the best, given her drinking and carousing.” He tightened the girth. “Amber is going to raise hell when she gets back.”
“I’ll be around to help you handle Amber.” He handed Ben the reins as he swung into the saddle.
“You don’t ‘handle’ Amber.” He leaned against the saddle horn. “You pray to God she gets tired of you and stays the hell away. I’m going to take Cooper for a special father-son ride. You want to come?”
Will brushed hay off his button-down shirt. “Maybe I’ll ask Dad for a special ride.”
Ben scoffed. “You know what he’ll say.”
“Today is the same as any other day,” Will sadly mimicked. “But it isn’t. I’m glad you let Cooper celebrate how he feels about you. Dad never did.”
“Dad’s a worker like me.” Ben leaned down and put his hand on Will’s shoulder. “Showing up every day is our way. You and Cooper need words. When I don’t know what to do with Cooper talking all the time, I remember how you used to be when we were kids. What made you happy.”
Funny sometimes he’d even thought about Hannah along those lines, seeing as she was the other person he’d tried to make happy growing up.
“You’d find a way to get me out of feeling upset, either about Dad being so stern or missing Mom.” Will fussed withhis stirrup. “You don’t know how much that meant to me when we were kids.”
Except he had—he just didn’t realize Will still needed it from him. Sure, in the immediate months after the accident, he had gone the extra mile, but with Will mostly healed on the outside, he hadn’t realized his brother still had so much healing to do on the inside. Then again, he hadn’t known Will had a near-death experience until recently.
All that was changing now.
He and Cooper planned to bring Uncle Will into their Dude Realm, as they liked to call their time alone at the cabin. He’d succumbed to calling them living alone something extra special. Because he didn’t like his son’s mopey face when he missed Amber.
Remembering how he'd missed his own mother after she’d left him helped—apparently, kids missed even horrible mothers—but he’d quickly turned that into anger when she’d never returned or gotten in touch. Cooper still had to handle that Amber only came around when it was convenient for her. It still stunk of outright abandonment, and God knew her actions chapped his hide but good.
“If you change your mind, Will, you know where to find us.”
“Thanks. By the way, I noticed you shaved.”
Everyone knew he didn’t shave on Sundays. “It’s Father’s Day,” he lamely answered. “See you later.” He nudged Flame forward.
As he was heading out of the barn, he heard a fast-approaching vehicle. Turning in his saddle, he swore a blue streak. A Rezvani Hercules 6×6 was approaching from the private trail they used to go to town. Only one person owned that off-roading monster with its 7-liter, 1,300-horsepower, supercharged V8 engine.
Billionaire asshole James Taft.
He saw Will rush out of the barn. “Call Logan and tell himTaft drove his armored off-roading monster onto our land. Cooper!”
His son was already sprinting toward him from the corral where he’d been playing. Tank was barking as he herded his son his way. Ben swung down from the saddle and sent Flame back to the barn with a nudge to her flank.
Will’s mouth was tight as he reached Ben. “Logan is on his way, but he wants me to video the encounter since he doesn’t think he’ll get here in time.”
Ben pulled Cooper to his side as the boy arrived. “Son, I need you to run to the main house and stay put. Okay?”
“Who is it, Papa?” Cooper asked, out of breath.
“Someone who doesn’t know the meaning of trespassing. Now go. Reba is at the front door waiting for you. Reba! Tell Dad and Gramps I’ll handle this.”
He set his weight and put his hands on his hips, watching as the extended red truck pulled to a stop a few hundred yards away.
