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“Is Jace staying with you and Billy at the ranch in Black Forest during the stock show?”
“Yeah, there’s plenty of room, so it would be silly for him to stay anywhere else. I still don’t understand why he got his own place in Crested Butte when he could’ve stayed with my mom and Ben.”
“You have no idea why he got a place of his own?” Blythe laughed.
“No. Why do you think he did?”
“Come on, Renie. You don’t think Jace spends very many nights alone, do you?”
“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”
Blythe laughed again. Jace probably had a revolving door of cowgirls keeping him company in Crested Butte.
“What’s going on with you and school, Renie? Are you goin’ back?” she asked, wanting to change the subject.
“Yep, so I’ll be home more often than I am now. It’s going to be so hard to be away from Willow, but I only have one more year of school left, so Billy thinks I should just get it done and over with now. Plus Billy said that he and Willow would stay with me in Fort Collins as much as they could during the week.”
“So, you’ll be here on the weekends?”
“I sure will. It’ll be just like old times.”
Blythe didn’t say it, but it wouldn’t be like old times at all, not now that Renie was not only a mom, but practically a married woman too.”
“Will Billy have to work after he retires?” Blythe asked.
“Sort of. I think he’s been talking to Ben about partnering in a rough stock contracting business.”
“What’s that?”
“You know how every rodeo has bulls and broncs for the cowboys to compete on?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, stock contractors are the ones who supply them.”
“Do they get paid?”
“Oh, yeah.” Renie laughed. “They get paid a lot.”
Blythe had never known much about Billy’s financial situation, but it had always been obvious his family didn’t hurt for money. Other than working on the ranch and traveling to rodeos, she’d never known Billy to do anything else. Renie had said something about investments the family had in oil, somewhere up north, but Blythe hadn’t paid much attention when Renie told her. Obviously he had enough money to buy Liv’s ranch, along with a very nice house in Crested Butte, and rent a place in Fort Collins.
Blythe didn’t have the luxury of a flush bank account. Her parents had been patient with her, but she could tell it was wearing thin. Her mother started suggesting different career fields she might be interested in. So far, she’d given her brochures on becoming a home health-care aide, a dental technician, and a computer programmer. None appealed to her. She’d hated the nursing program she’d been in so much, she quit. Any job in a medically-related field was out as far as she was concerned and sitting in front of a computer, writing code, sounded like the most boring thing she could imagine.
She’d been working at the tea house in downtown Monument since right before Christmas. The people who owned it were very nice, as was everyone else who worked there. She enjoyed it, despite her mother’s nagging that she wasn’t being sufficiently challenged.
Now that Renie was going to finish her degree, Blythe knew her mother’s pressure would intensify.
“My mom and Ben are coming to town for the stock show, too,” Renie told her. “I think they’ll be staying with you and your parents.”
“How’s your mom feeling?”
“She feels great, and she looks even better. She says it’s a girl glow.”
“She’s having a girl?”
“She thinks so, but they haven’t found out for sure. Ben isn’t too excited about it.”
“Why not?”
