“Probably Judd,” Tony said, chuckling. “But I think they both bet on your success. It’s just the timing they’re arguing over. What I’m trying to say is, you’re single-handedly reviving a dying ranch. If you can handle that, of course you can handle motherhood. You’re going to succeed at whatever you try. I can tell. You have that air about you, just like your uncle. Now, shall we get these shelves to their final destination?”
Judd helped Kat put the shelves in place and secure them to the wall. “If you’re going to have a little one running around, you definitely have to anchor your furniture to the wall.”
She got on the other side of the shelves to help. “Do you really think I can handle it?”
“I don’t lie,” he said without any hesitation. “You can handle it. You may not always be able to handle all of it without any help at all, but you’ll handle it better than anyone. There. Don’t they look nice there?”
They both stood back and looked at the shelves together. They did look very nice where they were. Kat was excited to start filling them. “Well, you turned out to be a wonderful ranch hand,” she said, “and an even better friend.”
That night, Kat built up the courage to call and tell her family the news. Much to her relief, they were all ecstatic. No one lectured her or made her feel like an idiot. Her brothers did tease her a bit, but it wouldn’t be them if they didn’t. It was all good-natured and filled with love. Kat was so happy she might have cried, but she’d already done too much of that today, so she held back and laughed instead.
“You’re gonna let us visit a lot and set terrible examples, right?” Judd was saying.
“Well, yeah, obviously,” Kat answered. “What kind of challenge would parenting be if I didn’t have you two around?”
When the call quieted down and Kat was left alone to talk to her mother, her mom asked her, “So, is the father really not going to be in the picture at all?”
She sounded concerned, but Kat reassured her. “It’s going to be OK, Mom. I can handle it. Even without him. Especially without him.”
Her mom was quiet for a moment. “Does he know yet?”
“I’m not keeping it from him, but no. He’s… gone.” It hurt to say, but it was the truth. “I failed to find him, and I’ve decided to stop looking anyway. If he doesn’t want to be found, I’m going to leave him alone.” What she didn’t say was that she had decided to stop looking for him because continuing to do so might compromise him wherever he was.
She still believed Cole was a good man, and she still believed that whatever he’d done to gain the attention of law enforcement, he’d done because he believed it was the right thing to do. Maybe when she had first met him, before she’d gotten to know what she was sure was the real him, she would have thought there was a chance he was some kind of hardened criminal. But she’d seen beneath his armor to the real man he hid from the world. He had integrity and gentleness and a personality she admired in the end, even though he was gone.
“Well, honey, we’re here if you need us,” her mom said.
“I know, Mom. Thank you so much. I love you.”
The call ended, and Kat went to bed feeling a bittersweet ache in her chest. Nothing would ever be the same again, but maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. A family, however unconventional, would be a lovely venture to undertake.
CHAPTER 19
COLE
Cole Bartow had just been given the greatest gift of his entire life. It was a phone call, coming from his nephew, handing Cole the freedom he hadn’t dared to hope for in years.
“You turned yourself in?” he had asked in disbelief.
“I did,” his nephew had answered. “It was the right thing to do.” There was a pause before the kid said, “What you did for me? Thank you.”
“You weren’t supposed to know about it,” Cole said.
“Well, it wasn’t too hard to figure out. You disappear. The police start asking me where you are, and suddenly they aren’t interested in me anymore. You gave up so much to give me the time I needed to figure out who I wanted to be. I know you did it intentionally. So… I’m returning the favor the only way I really can. I guess that means taking responsibility for my own stupid actions.”
The conversation had sent Cole over the moon. He felt hope and joy for the first time in so long. His brain immediately startedplanning for a future he had already given up on. And the first person he thought of when he started planning his future was Kat, the little lost kitten from his most recent job.
He’d been a day away from her when he got the news, and so he’d driven for twelve hours straight to get back to her, not even bothering to stop for the night. He napped at rest stops rather than getting a motel room. He ate at gas stations rather than stopping at a restaurant. He couldn’t waste one minute on his way back to her.
When he reached the little town where they had met, he stopped into a flower shop and bought a bouquet for her, making sure all the colors of her guest cabins were represented. He also bought her a bottle of champagne, hoping she might choose to celebrate his return rather than hate him for leaving. It was wishful thinking, he realized, but he hadn’t even dared to dream his nephew would actually sacrifice himself to set Cole free. Suddenly, dreaming didn’t seem like such a bad idea anymore.
On his way to the ranch, he couldn’t stop grinning. He couldn’t wait to see her. Somewhere, deep down, he knew he might be counting his chickens before they were hatched. She might hate him, and she would have every right to. There was just as much chance that she would scream at him the second he pulled up and tell him to get off her property. And maybe he would deserve it, but for her, he had to try anyway.
By the time he pulled into the ranch, his heart was already pounding. He parked and stepped out of his truck, but Kat was already running toward him. Her face was unreadable, all scrunched up with either joy, misery, rage, or some combination of all three. He couldn’t really tell. When she reached him, she answered his question by shoving him hard. The flowers flew from his hands and landed on the dirt beside him.
“How could you?” she screamed at him. “We agreed to talk it over in the morning. We agreed, and you just left!”
“Listen—” he began, but she wouldn’t let him go on.
