Page 9 of Take a Chance (Blue Creek Ranch #1)

Chuckling, Hawk glanced at me approvingly. “Yes. It’s really important to use the gestures horses understand.”

Tony nodded quickly. “And not hurt them like some bad people do.”

“Exactly.”

My phone rang, and as I got it out, I saw it was my mom. “Tony? It’s your grandma.”

“Oh yay!” I handed the phone over, and he answered it. “Hi, Nana!”

Hawk and I watched as he took a few steps away as if he was a businessman taking a sudden call.

“He’s just as awesome as Mom told us.” Hawk looked amused.

“I don’t know what she said, but I tend to agree he’s great.”

That evening, we made our way to the main house on foot. It wasn’t a long walk and there was enough lighting, so I knew we’d make it back okay, too. Not that we couldn’t ask for a ride from someone.

We could hear the scattered conversations and kid sounds well before we got close enough to see into the side yard of the farmhouse.

“Are there going to be many kids here?” Tony asked me, squeezing my hand.

“I don’t know. I guess we’ll see. I’ll be there the whole time, though.” He didn’t do so well with other kids sometimes.

“Okay.” The relief in his tone was evident.

As soon as we rounded the corner, Jenn noticed us.

“There you guys are!” She smiled brightly and came to us. She hugged me and then leaned down to Tony. “Can I hug you too?”

At his nod, she carefully gave him a patented mom hug that made me smile.

When she straightened back up, she gestured around. “So, my daughter Demi is over there at the grill. There’s all sorts of goodies she’s grilling for us.” She gestured at a woman with Mike’s coloring that clicked her tongs at us in greeting.

“Is there chicken?” Tony asked hopefully.

“Yes, there’s different kinds of chicken, too. You can go ask Demi if you want,” she replied just loud enough for Demi to hear and smile at Tony encouragingly.

Tony glanced at me. “Can I?”

“Of course. As long as you can see me, you can do whatever you want.” I knew he was responsible as fuck, to a point that almost felt too much sometimes. I sure had been much wilder at his age.

He took a deep breath, then let go of my hand and jogged to Demi.

“He’ll be fine,” Jenn said quietly. “Demi knows kids. That’s her fiancé and their daughter over there.” She pointed out a man with a toddler in what felt if not a sea, then a lake of people.

“I’m not worried. He’s just different from most kids and hasn’t had the best experiences.”

“I’m sad to hear that, but we pride ourselves in being accepting, and everyone here knows that, including the staff and their families.” She then continued to point out different people until I must’ve looked wide-eyed. “Too much?”

I chuckled and rubbed the back of my neck. “Too many, maybe.”

She let out a peal of laughter that made Mike lift his head from a conversation he was having with—I was going to say Emery, their son who was a doctor.

“That is very understandable. Luckily it won’t be this many people at once very often. We’re all pretty spread out on the property.”

Someone called out her name, and she excused herself after telling me that if I needed anything, just ask anyone. Yeah… that seemed like a lot, too.

I walked to the table where some snacks had been laid out for the kids and picked a juice box Tony would like. Then I went to get myself a Coke from a cooler nearby.

When I got to the grilling area, Demi was smiling at Tony who was explaining to her about the temperatures in which different kinds of meats needed to be cooked.

“Uh-huh,” she said seriously. “That’s really good to know.”

“Here you go, buddy.” I handed him the juice.

He took it with a happy, “Thanks, Daddy!” sounding a bit breathless. He’d been talking a lot.

Demi smiled again. “Nice to meet you, I’m Demi.”

“Mal. And you’ve met Tony.” I put my hand on his shoulder as he sucked on his straw and surveyed the yard.

“I have. He has a lot of information to share.” Her tone was kind and even, as if it was completely normal for a four-year-old to be like my son.

“There was a period a couple of months ago with a lot of cooking shows,” I explained as I opened my Coke can.

“Ah, that explains it.” She flipped a couple of things on the grill, then moved something else onto a platter. “Emery!”

The man who had been talking to Mike got to his feet, finishing his conversation with their dad as he moved.

“He’s my twin,” Demi said apropos of nothing. “He’s very obedient.”

Ah. Sibling things. I chuckled politely. I had seen it before in others. “I’m an only child.”

“I don’t know whether to be envious or feel sorry, if I’m honest.”

I laughed. “Me either.”

All the siblings that were in the area or lived on the ranch came to introduce themselves to Tony and me separately. They told me there were… okay, I wasn’t sure. Two to four of them were absent. My math on that was shaky at best.

After most of us had eaten, Russ ambled to my side at one point and chuckled in his raspy voice. “If you need an escape, I can feign being tired and need a chaperone to walk back. Just say the word, son.”

“Noted.” The relief that washed over me must’ve been obvious, because he patted my shoulder before going to some of the hands for a chat.

Eventually, one of the three kids that were not Demi’s approached Tony. She was a bit older, maybe seven or eight, and seemed a bit more serious than the two rowdy boys that looked to be about six.

“Hi, I’m Alanah. You must be Tony?” she said, smiling a bit.

“Uh, hi. Yes. I’m Tony. Nice to meet you.” He sounded so formal and flustered that I commended her for not laughing.

“Do you wanna go see if there’s ice cream yet?”

He looked at me for confirmation, then took her offered hand and went to the dessert table with her.

“He’s safe with her. She’s Lovett’s kid.” Crew pointed his bottle of beer toward a dark-haired man who was laughing at something. “He’s one of our oldest employees. Lives in town with Alanah and Diana, his wife.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t noticed Crew joining the party, but now that he was here, it was obvious he was a bit late to it.

“You okay?” he asked quietly.

“I’m fine. Overwhelmed, really. We….” I frowned.

He waited for a moment, then asked, “You…?”

“We haven’t had people in a while.”

Crew nodded, taking in my statement. “You’ll get used to it. He will, too.”

We watched Alanah fish out a popsicle from a cooler to hand to Tony. She must’ve said something funny, because suddenly the sweetest sound on earth carried to me; he was laughing his butt off.

Crew chuckled. “See?”

I cleared my throat, trying to remember when I’d last heard him laugh like that with a virtual stranger. “Yeah.” If the word came out a bit choked, I didn’t care. I wasn’t that type of man.

Jenn walked to us and smiled. “So, tomorrow morning, you can drop him off at the house before you go find this one.” She pointed her thumb at her son.

“Sounds good. Thank you so much.”

“Don’t mention it. I’m sure he’ll make a good helper or we can figure out something else for him to do.” She was so damn warm and reminded me so much of my mom that it hurt a little.

Crew cleared his throat. “Eight sharp good for you?”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s perfect.”

“If you need more time, just text me. I’ll be in my office in the broodmare barn. I thought we’d go ride around a little so you can familiarize yourself with the surroundings.”

Chuckling, I said, “I took a walk with Tony earlier today, doing the same with the immediate area.”

“That’s smart,” Jenn commented approvingly.

Suddenly music started to play from somewhere. Another Wren Paxton song. Emery groaned for some reason, and Crew and Jenn looked amused, as if it was some sort of an inside joke.

Russ got up from where he’d been sitting and started our way. Jenn squeezed his shoulder and went to one of her daughters—Gemma, maybe?

“This is where the dancing starts, and I ain’t feeling it,” Russ grunted, but I could tell he wasn’t actually as annoyed as he was putting on.

Keeping my tone light and easy, I said, “Well if you want company on the way back, I see Tony is starting to flag a little.”

Crew watched me with keen eyes, and I could practically feel something akin to acceptance from him.

Russ nodded. “That’d be grand, son.”

I waited until Tony looked at me, then smiled at him, mouthing, “Come on.”

To my surprise, he turned to talk to Alanah, then accepted a hug from her before skipping back to me. His popsicle was gone, but I could guess his hands were sticky as hell.

“Are we leaving?” he asked with clear relief in his tone.

“Yes, Mr. Russ wants to go, so we can walk with him.”

“Come on, kid. Show me the way,” Russ told him.

“Okay!” Tony waved rapidly at Alanah and Demi who noticed the movement and waved back from where she was sitting with a sleeping toddler on her lap.

Russ and Tony started to walk together, and I turned to Crew.

“See you in the morning?”

“Yes.” He smiled, his open and friendly expression doing something to my insides. I needed to remember he was the boss. “Bright and early-ish.” He grinned.

“Bright and early-ish it is.” I tilted my head, then slipped away before anyone else could talk to me.

I followed Russ and Tony at a sedate pace, not that they were any faster. I could hear them chatting and saw how Tony mirrored Russ’s pose of having one hand in his jeans pocket as he walked. It was cute as hell.

While I hadn’t really talked to many of the employees, we could now recognize each other if we came face to face on the ranch. They’d all seemed nice and easygoing, and the Harringtons were a good bunch.

It was all very too-good-to-be-true, but I guess time would tell when the other shoe would eventually drop.

Tomorrow would be the first day of our real new normal. Part of me couldn’t wait to get on a horse again. I just wished it was my horse.