Page 53 of Claimed By the Cowboys

“Would something like that have convinced you?” I ask.

“I was in a whole different situation. But romance is romance. And effort is effort. Jackson proved himself in his own way… and the rest is history.”

My brother-in-law Jackson Hallstead is a good man, which is lucky for him because me and Bo would have torn him limb from limb if he did anything to hurt our sister.

“What did he do?” I ask, intrigued.

“Remember when Pop was sick, and you guys were working too far away to get back?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Jackson helped me wash Pop. He was so gentle with him, lifting him when he wasn’t strong enough to stand.”

“He did?”

“Yeah, and he helped me research nursing care. He really took charge.”

Jackson would have been in his early twenties at the time, so displaying that level of maturity was impressive.

“Jackson’s a good man. He’s raising good kids too.”

“He is.” My sister’s expression goes dreamy, and her hand drifts to her flat stomach. “We’ve got another on the way.”

“You have?”

I throw my arm around her and pull her to me, kissing the top of her head. She smells like apple shampoo and family.

When I pull back, she’s grinning. “Maybe it’ll be a girl this time.”

“Maybe. But there are more boys in our family and Jackson’s.”

“That’s true. What about Brandy? She has kids. What are they?”

“Boy and a girl. Five and eight.”

“Oh, wow. That is a ready-made family.”

“Yeah. It could be.”

Bo returns with the kids under his arms, the boys holding an egg in each hand. “Look what Harrison and Brayden found.”

“Eggs,” they squeal, handing them carefully to their mom.

“We can make pancakes for breakfast tomorrow,” Claire says. “And then we’ll get on with the grand gesture.”

***

The next morning we get to work early. The old outbuilding sits under the shade of two big oaks, the wood siding weathered to silver-gray. Inside it smells of dust, old hay, and grease. Bo pries a warped board off the wall with a grunt. “Floor’s softer than I thought over here. We’re gonna need to replace at least three boards.”

I haul another load of junk out the door: rusted buckets, a broken saddle rack, a tangle of old, rusted baling wire. “I’ll grab the good lumber from the barn. You start measuring.”

We work in easy rhythm, sweat already building under our shirts even though the morning is still cool. The sharp scent of sawdust rises as Bo cuts the new boards. I hammer them into place, the solid thunk of nails biting into wood sounding like progress.

“You think this is going to work?” I ask between swings of the hammer.

Bo doesn’t look up from the rough edge he’s sanding. “I don’t know. But if it doesn’t, it was never meant to be.”

I lower the hammer. “It was meant to be. Otherwise we would never have crossed paths.”