Page 48 of Boston (Coral Canyon: Cowboys #12)

CHAPTER

THIRTY-ONE

B oston pulled up to the house he now shared with Cash and Beth. He was running late, of course, as he’d been doing all month. But he wouldn’t get the same flack for it from his cousins that he did from his parents, and honestly, Boston worried more about being late than they did.

The scent of something brown and delicious met him as he went up the front porch steps, and he called “Sorry I’m late,” the moment he walked in the front door.

“You’re fine,” Beth said from where she sat on one of the couches in the living room. “Cash is still in his meeting anyway.”

She got up and hugged Boston, and the two of them went into the kitchen.

Boston tossed his backpack into a chair at the dining room table. “Cash is in a meeting? For what?” He didn’t think his cousin had a trainer, manager, or coach right now, and he’d made no plans to leave Coral Canyon, or even this house, though the end of July loomed over them all.

“I think it was the National Rodeo Association,” she said. “He was trying to get clarification on how status works.” She opened the fridge and pulled out a bag of salad. “I don’t know. I might just be making that up.”

She’d probably know better than Boston, who really only seemed to sleep here, his schedule still a tiny bit crazy. He scoffed at his own assessment of what the past few weeks had been like.

Tiny bit wasn’t even close to how crazy things had been, especially since Kat had given birth to her twins. He hadn’t seen Cora for more than fifteen minutes since then, and never alone.

Boston had never considered himself impatient or jealous until this summer, until Cora.

“I’m gonna go shower,” he said, and Beth nodded him out of the kitchen.

He worried that he’d made a mistake by leaving Silver Sage and coming to stay with Cash for the month, at least when it came to Cora. He knew his cousin needed him, but he feared being off-site had done some damage to his still-new relationship.

As he got the day’s sweat and straw off his skin and out of his hair, he had the distinct thought that plenty of people managed to make long distance relationships work, and that him living twenty minutes down the road from Silver Sage wasn’t the real reason he and Cora hadn’t been able to get together.

Or why they hadn’t made time go see Little Brown Bear Stream, or snuggle together on the couch the way they had when they first met, or really advance their relationship at all in the way that Boston would like.

Her sister had had two babies, and her mother had basically stopped doing anything at Silver Sage. All of it fell to Cora, except the highest-level management items, and most of those involved guests who’d been to the lodge for years and wanted to see and talk to Mae, and no one else.

Not only that, but Kat did plenty around the property, and all of that had stopped the moment she’d gone into labor.

Cora had been picking up that slack too.

Having two babies to care for, both of whom were born at home and then had to be transported to the hospital and checked, required the attention of her husband as well, and that meant Jeremy had been out of commission for the past week as well.

Boston couldn’t—and didn’t—blame them. It simply meant that Cora only had twenty-four hours in the day, and she only spent her time in her office or on Family Row.

The fifteen minutes Boston had actually been able to sit down with her had been for a lunch he’d scheduled with her the way he would a client—and she’d gotten called out of the meal to handle a staffing emergency.

They had a staffing emergency, all right, and it was that Cora was doing everything.

As he toweled dry and brushed his teeth, Boston looked at himself in the mirror. He’d hated his blonde hair and blue eyes growing up, but now he loved them. He didn’t have to look like the Youngs to be a Young, something that had taken him a long time to learn and understand.

Out in the kitchen, he found Cash sitting at the bar, grinning like a fool at something on his phone.

“Howdy, friend,” he said, and Cash looked up and smiled at him. Boston suddenly knew why his cousin had so many admirers on the rodeo circuit. He possessed a ton of charm and charisma, and he got up and hugged Boston.

“Hey, you’re here.”

“Sure am.”

“Sit down. I want to show you something.”

“Can we do it over dinner?” Beth asked. “It’s ready.” She tossed a pair of oven mitts onto the counter and indicated the sheet tray, which held three perfectly browned breaded chicken breasts and a whole slew of roasted potatoes.

“Yeah, let’s eat,” Cash said.

“How was your meeting?” Boston asked. “What were you doing?”

“I was just talking to Harvey at the NRA,” he said. “I’m good if I don’t ride this year. In fact, I don’t have to ride for years, and I can still maintain my membership, and I can come back any time.”

“That’s great news, Cash,” Beth said.

Boston followed his cousin and put a little bit of everything on his plate. Beth came to the table last and looked at them.

“I’ll say grace,” she said, and both Boston and Cash bowed their heads.

“Dear Heavenly Father,” she said, and Boston started to relax even more.

“We are so grateful for Thy bounty on Earth and that Thou hast seen us as worthy to receive it. We’re grateful for the opportunities that we have in our young lives to go to school and work and figure out who we are and who You would like us to become.

Bless each of us here that we can continue to work on that and that we will make not only our parents proud and carry the Young family name right, but that You will be well pleased with us too.

“Bless Boston with whatever is making him grumpy that it will get better, and bless Cash on whatever next adventure he has in store for him.”

She cleared her throat, something Boston had not heard Beth do very often.

He’d known her since they were both children and their parents had gotten married.

They’d grown up together, only a year apart, and she was practical, down to earth, and intelligent.

No, he didn’t like the way she hesitated, as if she too struggled with something.

“Bless me, too, Lord,” she finally said, her voice only a tiny bit pinched.

“As I prepare to return to Maryland, far away from my family and support system. Bless me that I can have a better living situation this year than I did last year, because I think we both know that I can’t go through that again, and I really would like to finish my master’s degree. ”

Boston did open his eyes then, and he looked at Beth, her face scrunched in concentration.

He’d had no idea that she hadn’t enjoyed her housing situation last year, and he determined that he needed to get outside his own problems, and focus on other people.

He’d never really been very good at that, but as he sat there at the table with his half-sister and his cousin, it felt like God had joined them and was leaning over and whispering in Boston’s ear a few things that he needed to do better.

“Bless this food,” Beth said. “I personally am grateful that I get to be here with Boston and Cash and live like a real adult away from my parents. Amen.”

“Amen, sister,” Cash said. He immediately picked up his fork and knife, but Boston watched Beth as she quickly swiped her bangs off her forehead and used that motion to also wipe one of her eyes.

She too picked up her fork and wouldn’t look at him, which meant she didn’t want to answer any questions.

When their gazes finally locked, she offered him a small smile.

He gave it back and nodded just once, simply so she’d know he’d heard her, and he believed that God had too.

“All right,” Cash said, his voice still bright and vibrant. The dark soul and rodeo cowboy he’d been for so long seemed to have disappeared here in Coral Canyon. “I found a property that I think we should buy together.”

He nudged his phone closer to Boston, who still hadn’t picked up a utensil. He blinked at Cash, sure he hadn’t heard him correctly.

“A property?” he asked. “That we should buy together ?”

“Yeah.” Cash grinned at him. “It’s perfect, Boston.

I mean, it’s a little rough around the edges.

” He looked down at his phone again, his message clear.

Pick that thing up and look at it. “It’s already got two full houses on it, so we could buy it and live on the property together, even if we get married and have families. ”

Boston’s gaze flicked over to Beth, who had her eyebrows sky high.

“I don’t even know if I can afford anything right now,” Boston said.

“It’s definitely bigger than I’d want,” Cash said. “Because I just want to do a cutting horse operation, but I know you want to farm, and this is big enough for that, and you could still work at Silver Sage and do guided tours…if you wanted.”

Boston reached for the phone and picked it up. “How big is it?”

“Seventy-seven acres,” Cash said. “It’s a corner property with a house on each side. You could come and go, and I’d never know.” He chuckled, “Because, you know, when you and Cora get married?—”

Boston looked up sharply. “I don’t know about that,” he mumbled. “We barely talk anymore.”

“It’s just because you’re busy,” Beth said.

Boston nodded because he didn’t want to argue or talk about Cora. He really liked her, but he’d never been in love with anyone before. So how could he possibly say that there was more to their relationship than fast attraction and a fun summer together?

A fun couple of weeks , Boston amended in his mind as he looked down at the phone.

The farm had been called The Seventy-Seven and Boston hated it upon sight. If he really bought this place with Cash, they would have to rename it. It had seventy-seven photos and sevens everywhere—on the sides of barns, the mailbox, and hanging from the back deck of one of the houses.

“What’s with all the sevens?” he asked, glancing over to his cousin.

“I guess it was established in eighteen seventy-seven,” Cash said. “By a seventh son who also had seven children.”

“Oh, brother.” Boston hated stuff like that, but one look at Cash’s beaming face, and he told himself to give the place a try. “Outbuildings,” he said. “Looks like multiple wells.”

“Three,” Cash confirmed.

“Electricity.” He swiped and saw the first house. It stood two stories tall and had been painted blue at some point in the past. The shutters looked back at him with gray faces, though they could be spruced up with some white paint.

“This looks really rough,” he said.

“Oh, it’s rough, all right.” Cash chuckled. “No one’s lived there for fifteen years, which only means we get to make it whatever we want, Boston.” He took the phone back and said, “I think we should at least go look at it.”

Boston had seen the price before Cash grabbed the phone away. Over a half a million dollars. He’d been saving for a couple of years, and Harry had paid him really well to manage the tours, but he would not be able to buy a half-million-dollar property on his own.

Cash had been in the rodeo for five years as a professional, and he’d won quite a bit, but nowhere near the level of his father or Uncle Jem, who’d been career cowboys, riding for decades on the circuit and winning everything they entered.

“We can talk about money and stuff later,” Cash said. “I actually wanted to talk to Bryce about how he and Kassie bought their farm together.”

“That’s a good idea,” Beth said. “And it’d probably be way smarter to get a loan from your daddy than from a bank.”

She nodded like this was really going to happen, and Boston felt like he’d gotten on a magic carpet he hadn’t been anticipating and was soaring fifteen miles above the Earth at a fast rate of speed.

Yes, he and Cash had talked briefly about looking at property, but individually, never together.

He liked living with his cousin now, but long term?

The house has two properties.

“Looks like the realtor will chat with me online,” Cash said. “I’m gonna ask him if we can set up a time to come look at it.” He looked over to Boston, questions in his eyes. “Is that okay with you?”

“Yeah,” Boston said. “You’ve got my calendar.”

Cash nodded, the dinner Beth had made for them forgotten as his thumbs flew across the screen.

Boston started eating. “Oh, yeah,” he moaned with the first bite of the creamy, cheesy sauce Beth had poured over the chicken cordon bleu. “Beth, this is amazing.”

She brightened. “You think so?”

“Yeah, I really like it.”

Cash frowned and tapped, swiped and tapped some more, and then said, “You sure there’s nothing else you need to check?”

Boston glared at him. “What else would I need to check?”

“I mean, I don’t know. I thought maybe you and—” He didn’t say Cora’s name, but it hung in the air anyway.

Boston stabbed another piece of chicken and put it in his mouth. Cash returned to frantically typing on his phone, and half a minute later, he put it down with a loud thunk and a triumphant yelp.

“Done,” he said. “Next Sunday after church.”

“Great,” Boston said, and he really tried to sound like he meant it.

He did really want to go look at the place with Cash, but he could also admit that a certain amount of bitterness and resentment sat on the back of his tongue that he hadn’t had to check with Cora to see if they had plans before committing to touring the property.

“All right,” Cash said. “Let’s talk about cousin night, so I can make sure that I don’t host the lamest one of the year.”