“You know the woman who owned it before, Summer?”
“Sure, I’ve seen Summer a bunch, when Terry and I took your kids to their therapy sessions. Great girl. She was excellent with the children. If your kids have processed the death of their mother, I think you can really thank her.”
“I agree with you. They are attached to her, attached to the horses, and believe it or not, they cried when they learned that she was going to have to sell them.”
“I believe it. It’s funny, because Lucas has developed kind of into that strong, silent type, but he loved Thatcher.”
Gilbert was impressed Judd knew the name of Lucas’s horse. It probably said a lot about what Lucas had talked to Judd about and what Judd had observed when he was watching the kids at their sessions.
“He did. And that, along with a few other reasons, prompted me to see if Summer wanted to come back and stay here, and continue with her therapy business. She did so much for my kids and didn’t charge me anything. I felt like it was the least I could do.”
“Wow. Did she take you up on it?”
“She did. I talked to her about it last night, and I should be getting a text from her sometime today letting me know when she’s going to be moving in.”
“Is she going to be able to get her horses back?”
“She was very confident that she would be able to do that.”
“Is she going to be living here?” Judd moved a hand, indicating the house.
“There are six bedrooms upstairs, so plenty for her to choose from, so yeah. She’s going to pick a bedroom, and she will be here, buying groceries, cooking, and I’m not charging her rent.”
He added that last part because he knew that Judd might be latching onto the fact that they were unmarried and living in the same house. It didn’t look the greatest, Gilbert knew, but the kids would be there as chaperones, and they weren’t staying in the same bedroom. She was a renter. She was leasing the barn. It wasn’t a sin.
“That’s nice of you. Probably because she didn’t charge you for the therapy sessions.”
“Yeah. That was a great example to me. I…know, as a business owner, that you can’t just give away everything for free, but when you see a need, you can work to fulfill it and trust God to take care of you. So maybe he used her to take care of me, and now I’m taking care of her.”
“I see. It was probably really hard for her to give up this place, considering that it’s been in her family for so long.”
“Yeah.” He realized that wasn’t really something that they had talked about.
“You don’t think she’s taking advantage of you?” Judd said slowly after a while.
“What? Because I own her house now?”
“Sure. It’s probably hard for her to leave it, and then, hey, she found a way to stay on the family property.”
“But I still own it. She doesn’t have any say in it.” He wasn’t sure where Judd was going with that.
“I see. I guess that sounds fine, if you’re not sharing the property.”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“So… She doesn’t have designs on you?” Judd finally said.
Now Gilbert understood where Judd was going.
“You think that she’s trying to be romantically interested in me to get me to…marry her? So she’d get her house back?”
“Is that so far-fetched?”
“You know her. Would you say that she’s that kind of person?”
“No. I wouldn’t say she’s that kind of person at all, but I can see other people saying that.”
“I see.” He was so tempted to say that he did feel romantically inclined toward her, but he didn’t want to share that. Not really, not when she was going to be moving into the house, and it already looked not the greatest. But, he was interested in Judd’s opinion.
