Page 26 of Boston (Coral Canyon: Cowboys #12)

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

C ole Young rose to awareness when someone cracked his bedroom door and walked inside.

Only two people were brave enough to do that: his daddy or his younger sister, Rosie.

Nine times out of ten, Rosie was the one hissing at him in the darkness to get up, and today proved to be one of those nine times.

“Cole,” she said, almost under her breath and almost inaudible.

“Yeah. You going?” he asked.

She pulled back his covers, and Cole scooted back against the wall in his slim twin bed. Rosie climbed in with him, though he could tell she was already dressed. The slide of her denim along his leg and the cuff of her shirt against his bare chest told him that.

“You’re so warm,” she said.

“You’re dressed already,” he whispered back. “How can you be cold?”

“Because Sunny keeps this place so freezing.” Rosie also didn’t have any body fat, so that didn’t help her temperature issues.

Rosie always came in for a reason, at least one that made sense to her.

Sometimes just to tell Cole to have a good day, and sometimes to whisper something about Sunny, or Daddy, one of the little kids, or even their momma down in Las Vegas.

Rosie had what Cole liked to call a talking problem , where every thought she had usually came out of her mouth—good, bad, and ugly.

He actually loved her for it, because he was the complete opposite.

“I just wanted to say good luck on your interview today,” she said. “Are you going to shave?”

“Yeah, Rosie, I’m going to shave,” he said.

“Not like you have a whole lot to shave, but I think it helps.”

He had an interview that morning up at a ranch called Whispering Pines. They trained rodeo animals, so he doubted highly that they would care if he had facial hair or not.

“You should wear that light blue shirt I got you for your birthday,” she said. “Does it still fit?”

“Yeah, it still fits,” he said.

“Because it makes your eyes come alive, and that way you’ll be real charismatic.”

“All right, Rosie,” Cole said, suppressing his smile. “Should I tell him I got a rodeo sister?”

“No,” Rosie said, scoffing against his chest. “I’m not in the rodeo.”

“Yeah, you are,” he said. Just amateur, but Rosie would go pro, and they both knew it.

She had more fire in her pinky finger than most people had in their whole bodies, and she loved horses, riding fast, and winning.

Her competitive streak would definitely help her in the pro rodeo, though she still had two years of high school left.

“Maybe tell him about all your experience at Bryce’s ranch.”

“All right, Rosie,” Cole said, half drifting back to sleep.

“And don’t go back to sleep,” she said. “Sunny’s making cinnamon rolls, and you got a long drive.”

How she knew that, Cole didn’t know, other than he’d accidentally let it slip where he was interviewing, and she’d probably looked it up on Google Maps.

“Okay, I’m gonna be late,” Rosie said, and she slid out of his bed as fast as she had entered it. “I’m not closing this door,” she said in a normal voice. “Because you’re just gonna go back to sleep.”

“I’m not gonna go back to sleep, Rosie,” Cole said in a monotone.

She left for the riding barn on the other side of town at six-fifteen.

She cleaned stalls and fed horses, and in exchange, she got to board her rodeo horse, a pretty Palomino named Clementine, for free.

She’d also been working with the horseback riding instructor, a farrier, and a jumping trainer since she’d started there last summer. She loved it, and they loved her.

Cole groaned as he rolled onto his back and kept his eyes closed. He just needed one place that would love him enough to offer him a job. He could grow on them after that, like a fungus or algae.

One place, Lord, he thought. Just help me find one place.

He really needed to get a job to get his daddy off his back and some money in his bank account. Cole had done some riding in the rodeo in high school as well, but he didn’t want it to be his career. He felt an awful lot like his cousin Cash and didn’t want to go to college either.

His solution had been to look for jobs that were rodeo adjacent.

He loved taking care of animals, and he had a calm enough demeanor to train horses or cattle or riders.

Unfortunately, what he didn’t have was a lot of options or experience.

There were huge cutting horse stables in Texas, and Cole could do that and get some of the experience he needed.

But he didn’t want to leave Coral Canyon very badly.

If he listened to his daddy, he didn’t want to do much of anything very badly. Cole could admit that he liked being comfortable. New things and new places and new adventures scared him, and he’d rather stay somewhere where he knew what to expect.

Today he expected his daddy to watch him like a hawk before he left for his interview, questioning everything from his shirt choice, to what he ate for breakfast, to what time he left. Daddy seemed to be everywhere lately, and Cole couldn’t get away from him.

If he could just get a job, he could also get his own place, and then the heaviness of his daddy’s gaze wouldn’t weigh so much.

He got himself up and showered, brushed his teeth, and, yes, shaved, before he pulled on a clean pair of jeans, the blue shirt Rosie wanted him to wear, and buckled his best brown leather belt around his waist. With matching boots and a cowboy hat, if he didn’t say I’m a cowboy who knows what he’s doing simply on looks alone, nothing would.

About halfway up the steps, the scent of cinnamon and frosting wafted down, making Cole’s stomach grumble and his mouth water.

Sunny had married Daddy about nine years ago, and in the summer, their two kids stayed home in constant need of entertainment. Cole wasn’t surprised to find Ladd and Skye at the bar, but the tray of ooey-gooey cinnamon rolls was a new addition to this Monday morning.

“Morning,” he said, and Sunny turned from the fridge where she’d just pulled out a carton of orange juice.

“Wow, you look great,” she said.

Sunny actually reminded him a lot of himself, though they didn’t share any genes. She was either really happy or really not, without much gray in between, and Cole was definitely like that.

“Thanks,” he said. “Rosie told me this shirt brings out my eyes.” He batted his eyelashes and grinned. “She’s right, isn’t she?”

Sunny laughed. “You look very handsome. Total horse trainer material.”

He pulled out a bar stool and sat beside Ladd. “Am I allowed to have one?”

“As many as you want,” Sunny said.

“Momma not working today,” Skye said in her cute three-year-old voice. She said something else, but she’d gotten too excited, and Cole only caught, “aunts.”

“We’re taking cinnamon rolls around to the aunts today,” Sunny said, smiling at the little girl who looked so much like her.

“That’ll be nice,” Cole said. He didn’t have to ask where Daddy was, because his father attended an AA meeting first thing on Monday morning every week.

He’d been sober for over a decade now, and while Rosie said she couldn’t quite remember what their life had been like when they first moved here to Coral Canyon and their dad was gone drinking all night, Cole certainly could.

He’d turned seven that winter, and seven-year-olds make good memories.

Today’s job also wasn’t for a horse trainer, but Cole didn’t correct his step-mom. He hoped to be able to work his way up at Whispering Pines, because they did everything that Cole wanted to do.

The ranch was owned by the Walker family—three brothers and a sister, apparently—with the latter being the one who’d called and set up Cole’s interview.

Rachel. Her name ran through his mind, and Cole had tried to do his homework by looking up the website for the ranch.

They sold animals all over the US and Canada, and they trained barrel racing horses and roping horses, and those that the cowboys rode in the bronc riding event.

The only thing they didn’t do was bulls, and that was just fine with Cole.

He was decent with a rope, and he’d been riding since age seven, when he’d come to Coral Canyon to live full time with his dad. He could thank his uncles and cousins for that, and as he took his first bite of his cinnamon roll, he did just that.

The moment he finished his sugary breakfast, Cole regretted it, and he grabbed a protein bar out of the pantry and then his keys from the hook by the door that led into the garage.

His daddy had tons of money, and they lived in a really nice house with a three-car garage, which meant sometimes Cole got to park in it.

“You’re leaving already?” Sunny asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m nervous, and I just want to go.”

“Your daddy’s almost home.” As she approached him, she watched him for a moment, and then Cole moved into her to give her a hug. “He’ll want to say goodbye and good luck.”

“I’ll wait for him outside then,” Cole said.

She stepped back, and in a very loving, maternal gesture, she ran her hand down the side of his face and held it there.

“You’re going to get this job,” she said.

Her blue eyes were bright and blazing. “I just know it. So don’t be too nervous, okay?

Just go in there and forget everything you’ve learned about interviewing. Just talk.”

Cole sighed. “Yeah, because I’m so good at that.”

Sunny grinned at him, but Cole definitely felt like a failure.

He’d been trying to get a job for four or five months now, and when he hadn’t immediately gotten one, he’d taken to studying interview questions and how to do better on them.

Nothing had worked. Maybe Sunny was right.

Maybe he was too far inside his own head.

She dropped her hand and nodded at him. “Good luck. Do your best. That’s all you can do.”