Page 52 of Cowboy Needed

Ichabod sort of stopped, because Ellis wasn’t his best friend.

Ellis was his lover, his partner, his boyfriend.

He stopped and blinked. God, he had a boyfriend?

Did people have boyfriends when they had four children?

He wasn’t sure that he could have a boyfriend. Although he knew that, to be honest, Ellis was his boyfriend.

“He’s my boyfriend.”

Then he looked at Ellis, hoping that Ellis didn’t want to hit him in the face.

He rolled his eyes mentally.

Like Ellis was going to hit him in the face. In the worst-case scenario, Ellis would tell him that he thought telling a six-year-old they were in a relationship was hysterically inappropriate.

“I am that.” The “among other things” was implied. Ellis’s grin was wry as hell, inviting him to share the humor.

God, he’d missed this since Chris had passed. He’s missed having someone to be an adult with, to know what he was going through.

“Oh. ‘Kay. That’s good, right?”

“It’s totally good!” Ichabod grinned at her. “Now, let’s pass out candy.”

He’d had about enough questions for one evening.

Thank goodness Michael wasn’t here.

He didn’t think Michael would care, but maybe the other boys would.

He knew it would be more of a concern for them than with the girls. The girls didn’t remember Chris. Michael had been eight, and Zane had been going on twelve. Those boys, they knew their dad.

He wasn’t going to stress this right now. Right now it was Halloween—popcorn, candy, scary movies, trick-or-treating. He wouldn’t be going to bed alone. Right now that worked for him.

Chapter Fifteen

“So, Allie tells me you’re Dad’s boyfriend.”

Ellis glanced sideways at Zane, who was breaking ice on the watering trough, the icebreaker thunking regularly.

“Looks like it, yeah.”

“You know that he really loved my pop, right? Pop and me were buds, and Dad loved him. When Pop died, I thought he was gonna totally lose it.”

He nodded, knowing that he was going to have to do this super careful, and he wasn’t sure how.

The simple fact was that, yeah, he knew Ichabod had loved Chris. The sweet man had been in mourning for four years, had been raising four kids by himself.

Ellis knew.

“Your dad talks about him a lot. I’ve seen lots of neat pictures, and I know that he was a good guy. Not a rancher from what I understand, but a decent man.”

“No, he wasn’t a cowboy. He liked to buy and sell stuff. He was a business guy in sales.” Zane swallowed hard. “I miss hima lot.”

“I bet you do.” Ellis stopped and gave Zane all his focus. “You do realize I’m not trying to be another dad or anything like that? That’s not— I like your dad a lot, and I’m really into him, but I’m not trying to be your parent.”

“What about the girls, though? They deserve somebody who wants to be their dad.”