Rocky Mountain Forever: Six Pack Ranch: Book 12 Read online

  Her gaze grew heated. “Ashley and I are doing baby swaps this week. And it doesn’t need to be a bit. Unless a bit means a couple of hours.”

  Reaching across the mass of children between them meant risking waking one or two. Blake satisfied himself with his best attempt at a smolder. “I’ll be home by noon. We’ll see what we can cook up together.”

  The delight on his woman’s face was as sweet as the family that lay between them and as heated as the plans that lay before them.

  They stared at each other in silence, smiles on their faces, love pooling around them for another hour until it was time to head into the day.

  The chaos of breakfast followed. Then backpacks and getting three little girls off to the school bus, all of them bundled up in their snow suits.

  Jaxi kissed Blake sweetly before grabbing PJ’s hand. Justin peeked out of the backpack contraption she wore. “We’re headed over to Ashley’s. I promised I’d watch the kids this morning so she can paint.”

  Blake shook his head in amazement. Ashley, Cassidy, and Travis already had three kids—the youngest born only three months ago. “Five kids under the age of four. You’re a glutton for punishment.”

  “She’ll have them this afternoon, starting at lunch,” Jaxi reminded him, eyes brightening. “Besides. It’s nice to hold a teeny baby again.”

  Her idea of a good time was far too exhausting for him. “See you at noon,” he promised.

  They were well enough set up these days at the Six Pack ranch. By sharing land and sharing responsibilities between all the Coleman clans, the sense of urgency they’d all faced years before had lessened. The struggle to provide for all the family had been dealt with. While there were still moments of uncertainty, because nothing about ranching could be predicted to go smoothly, having the holdings back together had begun to create some wonderful opportunities.

  Everyone’s expertise got used where it was most valuable. It meant no longer juggling to find enough grazing land or seed land or feed.

  Although he did miss having his cousin Karen from the Whiskey Creek side of the family around, with the way she had with horses. She and her sisters had settled about a three-hour drive to the south of Rocky, which always struck Blake as odd.

  He couldn’t think of any reason family would want to leave. Still, she seemed happy enough. Maybe when she came to visit this weekend for their early Christmas gathering, he could bend her ear for a while. Get some ideas of where she thought the Colemans should go with their horse-breeding plans.

  He’d barely finished his morning paperwork when Jesse stuck his head in the door of the office. “This is where you’re hiding.”

  Blake pushed the chair in then joined his brothers in the main barn. He nodded at Travis before turning back to Jesse. “Wasn’t hiding, but getting up to date. Looks as if you need to hit the books for a bit. Took a peek at your project and it doesn’t look as if you’re done.”

  Jesse made a face. “One more push should do it. The last time I tried to finish up, we had that power outage, and I lost about three hours of data entry.”

  He was using a state-of-the-art genetics program to help amalgamate the Coleman ranch more fully, but old wiring in creaky barns was hell on modern technology.

  Blake shook his head. “Shit. Didn’t know that.”

  Jesse shrugged. “Pain in the ass, but it happens. Sorry I’m a little slow. If you need the information right away, I can stay late tonight. I don’t mind if it takes longer to get it done.”

  Well.

  Blake eyed him sideways. That was just so not Jesse that both Blake and Travis caught it.

  His little brother was no longer a lazy butt or the type to try to wiggle out of work. He also had a wife he was head over heels about and a kid he adored, plus his twin brother and family lived right next door. Jesse and Joel were as tight as anything once again.

  Jesse deliberately volunteering to be late getting home?

  Nope.

  Travis obviously had gone through the same thought process. He raised a brow. “Dare kick you out?”

  “No,” Jesse snapped, but then he looked just about as guilty as Rae had the day before when she’d been caught with her fingers in the cookie jar right before supper. “Not really. Sort of.”

  “Ha.” Travis was grinning way too hard. “And if you want to work late, that means you’re also in shit with Joel, because otherwise you’d go hang out with him until Dare wants to see your ugly mug again.”

  A heavy sigh escaped Jesse. “They’re all pissed at me.”

  Joel, his wife, Vicki, and Dare? “That’s quite the accomplishment.” Somehow Blake kept his expression from twisting into a smile. “You deserve it?”

  “Probably.” Jesse flashed a grin. “It’ll be okay. I’ll let Dare cuss me out a few times, and then I’ll work all the kinks out between us with some makeup sex.”

  “You can get out of the doghouse that fast?” Travis shook his head. “You need to fight a little harder. I mean, makeup sex is good and all, but they need to be really lit on fire for it to be extra fun.”

  “The man who has two spouses to get mad at him at the same time thinks fighting is fun?” Blake shook his head. “There’s a name for people like you.”

  Travis actually sputtered for a second before grinning broadly.

  Jesse rolled his eyes dramatically then confessed the truth.

  “Because that conversation is going places I don’t want to talk about, it was just a misunderstanding. And yeah, Dare was right—I stuck my nose in where it didn’t belong.” Jesse leaned back on the wall behind him, folding his arms over his chest. “I walked in on Vicki and Joel having what I thought was a full-out, drag-down fight. I waded into the middle because I knew they’d be upset if they actually tossed bullshit at each other that hard. But it turns out they were reciting some damn movie, and Dare was there, and so all three of them gave me hell.”

  Travis snorted. “A movie? For fucks sake, can’t you guys even fight about something that’s not comical?”

  “Screw you, asshole.”

  “Diva.”

  “Loser.”

  “Jerk.”

  “Ahhh, brotherly love.” Blake slapped a hand at the side of Travis’s head, dodging out of the way before his brother’s instant roundhouse could connect. “Stop your jawing, and let’s get to work.”

  The entire morning was filled with the goodness of hard, honest labour, followed by a sweet, dirty interlude that left Blake grinning for most of the afternoon.

  He thought about all the blessings in his world and wondered—

  A sense of foreboding hung over him. Like everything was too good to be true. Something was going to rush in and shake things up in a way he couldn’t anticipate.

  Totally superstitious nonsense, but it felt so real. He paused before leaving the barn to head back to Jaxi and his family, stopping to rap his knuckles against the sturdy wooden frame of the man door for luck.

  What they had was priceless—was precious. He didn’t want anything to change.

  2

  The time it took to drive to his home in the middle of the Six Pack land wasn’t long enough to give Jesse a solution to his problem.

  The concern, he could honestly admit, wasn’t the fact the three people he cared most about in the world had been mad at him before he left the house that morning. Travis had been right—it was a silly thing to fight about, and Dare had been justified in calling him on sticking his nose where it wasn’t needed. That misdeed had probably been forgiven before his truck had even left the driveway.

  Nope, if there was one thing he was absolutely certain about—Dare loved him unconditionally, even when he was an ignorant bastard. And both Joel and Vicki cared enough to call him on his bullshit.

  It was like being wrapped in a warm blanket on this icy-cold December day to have that kind of gut-deep assurance in his world.

  His problem—

  Jesse stuck his hand in the pocket of his sheepskin-lin
ed jacket and worried the envelope again. Half a dozen times that day he’d considered pulling it out of his pocket and showing it to Blake, but he knew better. Even as tangled as the out-of-the-blue offer made his brain, it was Dare he needed to talk to first.

  And obviously, ignoring the proposal he’d received wasn’t the way to go. He thought he could put it off until the new year, but the information kept buzzing at the back of his brain, distracting him and screwing with his concentration.

  Hell. Jesse knew better than to get between his brother and his wife, for more reasons than most.

  What was worse, there was no reason to sit there suffering. No reason why he wasn’t telling Dare exactly what was bothering him.

  The final approach up the road to Sunset Ridge added to both the deep sense of contentment and the concern dredging through every part of his body.

  Nearly identical houses sat silhouetted against the skyline, showcasing the comfortable yet compact homes where he and his twin were raising their families. It was everything he’d ever dreamed of—to be living next to his best friend, head over heels in love with a wonderful woman who was more than his equal. A beautiful little boy and the excitement of discovering their family would be growing—Dare was expecting in July.

  Jesse’s fingers tightened instinctively around the envelope, and he cursed. The urge to throw the letter away, or burn it, was so damn strong. Yet he couldn’t.

  He pulled into the parking space next to Joel’s truck, a grin coming unbidden as he glanced over to find his brother sitting behind the wheel waiting for him.

  They both got out, meeting at the shoveled walkway that led toward the houses.

  Joel eyed him with amusement. “Well, that’s disappointing.”

  Confusion hit. “What?”

  “I asked Blake to make you shovel shit all day. Doesn’t look like I got my wish.”

  Jesse used his middle finger to scratch the bridge of his nose. “Hope you had fun on lost-sheep duty. Find them all, Bo Peep?”

  “Ass.” Only Joel was grinning. “Cassidy and Matt called in the Moonshine clan. We got the entire flock back into the lower pasture, plus all the fences fixed and gates shut. The rest of the season is going to be a piece of cake.”

  That was good news. “I really like this business of working with the entire family,” Jesse shared honestly.

  “It’s damn handy,” Joel agreed. “Although it’s going to take a couple of years to get all the cows onto the same season. I’m not looking forward to them dropping all the way from February till May.”

  “One thing at a time,” Jesse said. It was one of the things he was working on with his programming. He met his brother’s gaze straight on. “I said it this morning, but I’ll say it again. I’m sorry. I butt in where it wasn’t my right. I’m glad you told me to fuck off.”

  Joel nodded once. “Vicki and I were more pissed that you thought we would say such crappy things to each other.”

  “That’s the part that threw me,” Jesse insisted. “You and Vicki—if anything, you’re way too sweet and gushy. You don’t toss words like knives.”

  “Good to know we’ve got you fooled.” His brother shrugged. “Don’t kid yourself. We still screw up, and words get heated. But we don’t let it stick. I swear Vicki’s been taking lessons from Mom—”

  A laugh escaped before Jesse could stop it. “Jeez, you too?”

  Joel dipped his chin “The last time I was ticked off about something, she plopped down on the footstool by my chair and waited.”

  “Which means you have to talk about it. Or you have to admit, ‘I’m pissed off and don’t want to talk to you right now,’ which is okay some of the time, but mostly sounds as if I’m about eight years old and pitching a fit.”

  They both chuckled before Joel let out a long, slow sigh. “This is probably why Mom and Dad’s fights are virtually nonexistent.”

  “Because he knows he can’t win?” Jesse teased.

  “Can we?”

  “More importantly, do we want to?” Jesse winked before turning toward the path that led to his house. “We’re on shift together tomorrow?”

  “Six a.m. You drive. Vicki needs the truck to pick up supplies for the Christmas party this weekend.”

  Another thing Jesse had forgotten about in his distracted haze. “It’ll be good to see the Whiskey Creek girls again.”

  After a final solid thump on the shoulder, Joel turned away and headed whistling toward his home.

  Jesse did the same.

  Inside, golden light shone onto the wintry landscape and reflected off the walls to fill the cozy space. Both the heat and the scent of dinner welcomed him in.

  “Daddy.” Enough noise for a platoon of kids rushed toward him. His son, wearing a teeny pair of cowboy boots and riding a stick horse across the hardwood floor.

  “Hey, Buckaroo.” Jesse swooped down and nabbed Joey, horse and all. “Where’s your mama?”

  “’puter.”

  “Ah. She’s still working?”

  “She’s done.” Dare rounded the corner, and here was the true welcome. She squeezed up against him, Joey cradled between them. “Hey. I didn’t expect you for another half hour.”

  “Blake sent me home. Told me I needed to come apologize before you decided I had to sleep in the barn.”

  “Horsies,” Joey exclaimed.

  “Yes. The horses live in the barn. Daddy lives with us, even when he’s being—” Dare paused.

  “Go on,” Jesse encouraged. “I not only want to hear what you say, but I want to know how you’re going to say it in a Buckaroo-approved matter.”

  Her eyes flashed, but he thought it was with amusement. “Even when he’s being a buttinski.”

  Joey’s little face curled up in a frown. “Daddy buttski?”

  Laughter escaped.

  “Yes,” Dare agreed, squeezing Jesse and lifting her lips for a kiss.

  “Don’t blame me when that kid says things we’d rather he didn’t in front of Grandma,” Jesse warned with a whisper in her ear.

  “We’ll blame Grandpa.”

  Worked for him. Jesse pulled her tight. “Hello, love. I missed you today.”

  Then he kissed her. A sweet moment that made being apart bearable because he knew this was the reward waiting. The coming back together was not just fire and heat—although they had plenty of that between them.

  After nearly three years, the quiet moments were growing richer. The conversations and the searching for the next adventure to share were being built on a firm foundation.

  Jesse was damn grateful.

  Her lips on his, the heat of her body and the swells of her breasts pressed against him were also something to be thankful for. Joey squirmed, and Jesse put the boy back on the ground.

  Catching Dare’s hand, Jesse held her in place when she would’ve taken off to the kitchen. “I apologized to Joel, and now it’s your turn. I was out of line this morning. Thanks for giving me hell. I was distracted, but that’s not an excuse.”

  Dare lowered her chin slowly. “Okay.”

  Then she waited.

  For one moment, Jesse wanted to burst into laughter, because it was exactly what he and Joel had just talked about. “You’re not going to let me leave it at that, are you?”

  She winked then headed toward the back of the house. “Of course, I am. For now. Go. Grab a shower, and I’ll finish supper. I can wait until later to poke you to find out what’s wrong.”

  It wasn’t until Joey was fast asleep in bed that Jesse brought it up. Taking Dare by the hand, he led her into the living room and in front of the fire he’d lit in the airtight stove.

  Dare sat beside him, arms wrapped around her legs. “This looks serious.”

  “I guess it is.” All evening his admission to Joel had been echoing in his head. The part about how much he enjoyed working with his family. With all of the Coleman clan. Jesse pulled the letter out of his pocket, running his hand over it in a futile effort to straighten some of th
e wrinkles before passing it over. “I got this in the mail a couple of days ago.”

  She examined the envelope. “University of Alberta.” A small furrow formed between her brows. “There’s a problem with your school records? But, wait. You went to Old’s College, not the university.”

  Jesse pointed at the letter. “One of my profs moved. It’s all kind of technical, but I guess the program he taught us to use was experimental. Somebody with a bunch of money wanted to invest in agricultural technology, and I was one of the guinea pigs.”

  She nodded. “Go on.”

  This was the part where it got a little unreal. “Dr. Wadia asked students who used the program to send him periodic updates. For data analysis—that kind of thing.”

  “I remember that. I remember you asked my brother for permission to share after you did some programming for them down at Silver Stone.” Dare no longer looked worried but very curious. “Caleb said both he and Luke really appreciated your help.”

  “They weren’t the only ones.” Jesse took a deep breath. “There’s more, but long story short—Dr. Wadia’s got a research grant that starts in September of next year. They’re going to run a five-year program, including regular travel to other countries to help them set up their own systems.”

  Dare went very still. “He didn’t write just to tell you his exciting news, did he?”

  Jesse shook his head. “He wants me to join him. He wants me to be one of the main programmers on the project, including teaching and travelling.”

  Dare sat back, sprawled on her arms as she gazed at him. “Jesse. That’s a huge compliment. It’s amazing.”

  It was—and the mere thought of it tangled his insides into a thousand knots. “I don’t know what to do.”

  She was too far away. Jesse pulled Dare into his lap. He circled her with his arms and buried his face against her neck. Her rich auburn hair fell around him like a curtain, blocking out everything except the two of them. The warmth of her body melded against his, the heated brush of her breath ghosted past his ear.