Page 27 of Roping Her In

Jake’s first instinct was to say, Absolutely not, but when the words didn’t fly from his mouth, Beau’s grin only widened.

The front door of his cabin opened, and Charlotte shooed out their two children.

“I’m not going to ask her to the dance,” Jake said quietly. “She doesn’t like me, and I’m barely tolerating her.”

Beau chuckled and shook his head. “You keep lying to yourself, brother, but that won’t make it any less true.” His family arrived, and Beau got out of the truck, kissed his wife, then herded the kids toward the SUV, as he’d be taking them to church and then lunch at her brother’s place, while Charlotte accompanied Jake to the instacare in town.

She apparently had a prescription to pick up anyway, wanted to ask a couple of questions, and had found out that the doctor would be on-call at the instacare that day.

“All right,” she said as she took Beau’s place behind the wheel. She beamed over to him. “Do we need to stop at your place for anything? Wallet, water?”

He lifted the bottle of water that Hailey had insisted he bring with him from the cabin. “I’m good,” he said.

She smiled and backed the truck out of the driveway, and as they trundled off the ranch, Jake hoped that what he’d said would be true, that he really would be good.

You will, he told himself. Once your arm heals up, everything will go back to normal.

The problem was that thought irritated him and sent a shot of anger through his blood, because he didn’t want to go back to his normal-life-before-Hailey, and he needed to figure out what to do about her sooner rather than later.

Maybe he could ask her to the Valentine’s Day Dance….

“Momma, I’m going to be fine,” Jake said, his voice as firm as he could make it.

His brother had come and picked him up from the instacare a couple of hours ago, and they’d gone to their parent’s house for a last-minute Sabbath Day lunch.

Momma currently had three one-quart containers of beef stew lined up on the counter for him to take back to the ranch with him, and she hurried to fill another zipper bag with rolls.

“Who’s gonna eat all this?” he asked, reaching out with his left hand to touch the lid on one of the jars.

“You are,” she said, her eyes flitting around before finally landing on his, where they hooked in deep and sharp. “And Hartford’s staying with you, and I’m sure he’d appreciate a hot meal in the evenings.”

Daddy sat at the counter and said nothing, though he didn’t miss a word, and his eyes saw everything.

Jake supposed he had shocked them by texting only a few minutes before he and Carson had arrived, saying he’d had an accident on the ranch, and currently had a sprained wrist and a dislocated elbow that the doctors put back in. That had hurt like the dickens too, and he had a prescription for a heavy-duty painkiller that went beyond acetaminophen and ibuprofen. He’d been warned that the new meds could knock him out, and he should only take them when he could sleep for several hours.

Jake had nearly started laughing, because it was birthing season, and he never slept for more than three or four hours at a time.

“I’m gonna stay with him for a couple days,” Carson said. “I’m not driving until Tuesday night.”

Jake didn’t really want Carson to stay with him either, though he supposed he had room in the tiny loft in the corner of the living room. Hartford had taken the second bedroom, and Jake had lost his cabin as a sanctuary.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Jake said. “It’s a sprain, and they said it should be fully healed in the next few days.”

Momma smiled, met Carson’s eyes, and said, “Thank you so much, baby.” She curled one hand down the side of his face and over his beard in a loving gesture that dang near made Jake roll his eyes.

Carson grinned, though he’d been complaining about their mother for several weeks now.

“So some of this food is for Carson too,” she said, switching her gaze to Jake and turning it into a glare. “Now you’ve got three ravenous men in that cabin, and trust me, I know what it’s like to try to keep three ravenous men fed.”

“Okay, Momma,” Jake said tiredly. He looked at his brother. “Can we go? I’m exhausted.”

“Yeah, let’s go,” Carson said.

That spurred Daddy to his feet, and he took Jake into a careful hug and held him. “You be careful, son,” he said, because he knew the dangers of working a ranch in a leadership position. He’d done it for decades, after all.

“I will, Daddy,” Jake said softly, and he pressed his cheek to his father’s and then stepped back to face his mother.

“All right, Momma,” he said as her eyes turned a tiny bit glassy. “Hug me and kiss me and cry over me and tell me how awesome I am.” He grinned at her, and Momma did exactly those things. She held him tightly, and sniffled, and kissed both of his cheeks before she looked directly into his face.