Page 57 of Well Aware

“As ever,” he grumbled.

I pulled my work gloves on and mounted Goss, who quivered with excitement.

“No racing today,” I ordered.

Her ears pinned back.

“No,” I repeated. “Maybe when we’re done with the day, we can open it up, but not until then.”

The horse gave a grumbling whinny, causing Denver to chuckle.

“Where to?” I asked.

“Everyone else is headed south, but I have seventeen unaccounted for cows that were grazing on public land that I’d like to find today,” he relayed. “We’ll have a couple of helpers later when the new parents finally peel their eyes open after their rough night, but just us two for now.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “How’s the new grandbaby?”

“Bastien is the sweetest little baby ever.” Denver paused. “Until it’s time to sleep like a normal person. Then he turns into this little hellhound that seems quite possessed. If I had a first kid that acted like him, I would never have any more.”

I chuckled. “Hell on young parents.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” he muttered. “Just glad they are staying in the bunk house together. I’m past those barely-getting-any-sleep days.”

I’d always wanted children. But I’d never thought it’d happen for me.

Until Magnolia and Iris came into my life, I thought I might be alone forever.

Once upon a time when I was barely seventeen, I’d had a girlfriend.

That girlfriend had relationship material written all over her, so for the first time in my life I was thinking about life beyond the military.

If my high school girlfriend and I had become what she’d wanted it to be before that terrible accident that had taken my sister’s life, we’d have been married and she’d have followed me around the country. We’d have seven kids, be living paycheck to paycheck and would have never come back home.

But that wasn’t how life had gone for me.

My sister had died, and I’d broken up with my girlfriend because she’d said I was being too hard on Seraphina.

Hell, I hadn’t thought about Lezlie in years.

When I’d come home from the Marines after retiring, I’d found out that she had her seven kids and was indeed living paycheck to paycheck with her now-husband. She looked unhappy as hell, and I’d taught several of her children how not to live like their parents did.

But yeah, one time I’d wanted kids.

I’d wanted to come home to a woman and our kids every night.

I hadn’t thought about having that life for a long, long time.

But the thoughts were creeping back in the longer that I gravitated toward Magnolia’s orbit.

“What’s with that face?” Denver asked after a few long moments of quiet.

“Thinking about what-ifs.”

“What ifs with a certain brown-eyed woman that has a cute little four-year-old that seems to be overly attached to you?” Denver teased.

I shot him a look. “Maybe.”

“I like her,” he stated. “I haven’t had much time to get to know her since y’all have been in season. But when I have had time, and when I met her at the clinic, I really enjoyed it. She’s a box of laughs.”