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“She’s a sweet girl. I like her.”

“Fantastic. What does that have to do with me?”

“Oh, nothing. I guess.” Mom started walking toward the car.

“What do you meanyou guess?”

“My, you’re touchy this morning.” Mom waved enthusiastically as Cora walked toward them, a very grumpy-looking boy trudging behind her.

“Morning, Deb.”

“Morning, Cora. Micah. So what do you think, boy? Seen anything like this before?”

The boy’s blue eyes that matched his mother’s darted around, and he shrugged. “Guess not.”

“Shane. Gavin. This is your new coworker.”

“Thought it was slave,” Micah muttered, earning him a nudge from his mother, who was wearing a dark-blue T-shirt that somehow made her eyes seem even more vibrant. Or maybe that was the fact her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, leaving her pale, graceful neck visible and—

Shit, man, get a grip.

“Thanks for this,” Cora said, offering them all sheepish smiles.

“Yeah, thanks,” Micah said, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

Cora looked down at her son with a pained expression that Shane could relate to a little too hard. He’d considered it his duty to help Boone stay on the straight and narrow when they’d been growing up because Boone had only been six when Dad had died. Shane had been something like his father figure.

Another failure. Because Boone had been into every kind of trouble imaginable, and Shane knew it was only his love of the rodeo that kept him from getting into serious, irreparable trouble.

So, Shane knew what it was to look at someone and be afraid and at a loss and just desperate to figure out what to do to make everything okay.

“Well, we better get started,” he said, gesturing toward the stables. “First stop. Horse shit junction.”

Gavin chuckled, Micah scowled, and Cora smiled prettily up at him, the soft light of dawn giving her skin a little glow.

“And I’ll make up a nice lunch for you four,” Mom said. “Be back around eleven.”

“Eleven? That’s like five hours away,” Micah grumbled to his mother.

“Excellent math skills,” Cora replied crisply. “Maybe I should have put you in math camp so you couldn’t throw any basketballs at any coach’s head.” She looked back at Shane, rolling her eyes.

“Throwing basketballs at coaches. Hmm. What do you say the kind of punishment for that would be, Gav?”

“Well, when our youngest brother started a bonfire on the baseball field before practice, I think he was on shit removal, collection, and application duty for a week.”

“Arson might be a step above basketball throwing,” Shane offered thoughtfully.

“Where’d the ball hit?” Gavin demanded.

Micah blinked up at them, eyes wide—somewhere between awe, fascination, and fear. “B-back of his head.”

“No potential bleeding then. Yeah, we’ll have to downgrade from arson,” Gavin said, nodding toward Shane. “Collection then. We’ll go from there.”

Cora was trailing after them, and, when Shane glanced back at her, she looked vaguely perplexed.

“I hope you don’t plan on giving him ideas on how to getintrouble all day,” she said with a bit of an amused smile.

“If you plan on telling someone what to do, you have to earn a little bit of respect first or they’ll do a piss-poor job.” Shane slowed his steps so he was next to Cora.