LITMIR.BIZ

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just been read into whatever Sasha Fortune Robinson thought she saw in her.

      “I’m good, thank you,” she told Graham, turning down his offer.

      In response, her half brother smiled at her and nodded. “I won’t be long,” he promised.

      Her half brother.

      It was still hard to think of him that way, Chloe thought as she watched him take Chance into what appeared to be a den that was directly off the living room.

      Hard to think of herself as being anyone’s half sister.

      Or a half sister to what amounted to practically a legion of other half siblings, she added silently. She’d grown up thinking she had no family at all beyond her mother and now she had more family than she could shake that proverbial stick at.

      And one of those half siblings had just given her a job.

      Not just any job but the kind of job she had set her heart on before she’d ever sent in her application to college. So far, she’d been stitching together a living taking anything she could get—even working at a local coffee shop on weekends to help pay her rent. She felt as if she’d finally crossed a threshold into her field.

      Talk about luck.

      Glancing around to make sure no one could see her, Chloe pinched herself. And then, just to make certain, she pinched herself again because she had to admit this all seemed like some sort of dream. A dream that she was going to wake up from at any minute now.

      Except for the part about Donnie, she thought grimly. If this was a dream, he’d be right here beside her.

      But he wasn’t.

      She was sitting in this big old living room all by herself, waiting for her half brother to come back in and tell her all the details she needed to know about this job she was going to be starting. She was convinced that she’d gotten this position strictly because she was “family” despite all of Graham’s talk about instincts and gut feelings.

      No matter, she was determined to prove to them that they hadn’t made a mistake in hiring her. She was going to work really, really hard and be the best counselor they could have possibly hoped for. She owed it to them.

      Most of all, she owed it to herself—and to the memory of her husband, who had always encouraged her and told her she could be absolutely anything she wanted to be once she set her mind to it.

      She glanced toward the door that Graham had closed behind him and Chance. She wondered how the interview was going.

      She really hoped that Chance was going to get the job. She’d gotten the impression that although Chance wasn’t down on his luck, landing this position at Peter’s Place was really important to him.

      Without realizing it, Chloe crossed her fingers for him, wishing that she was one of those people who actually believed in sending good vibes. Because if she was, she’d be sending them right now.

      She watched the door intently.

      And when it finally opened, only a few minutes later, she popped to her feet like a newly refurbished jack-in-the-box. Fingers still crossed, her eyes immediately went to the taller of the two men emerging from the room.

      Chance was smiling.

      She was confident that she knew the results before he said a word.

Chapter Four

      Chance’s smile was as broad as his shoulders as he crossed to her.

      “Looks like you turned out to be my good-luck charm,” he told Chloe. “’Cause I got the job.”

      “Luck has nothing to do with it,” Graham told him, reaching up just a little to put his hand on his newest ranch hand’s shoulder. “The people you worked for all spoke very highly of you. As a matter of fact, Kyle McMasters said to tell you that if it doesn’t work out for you here, he’d be more than happy to have you come back to work for him at the Double M.”

      Chance made no comment regarding his former boss’s remark. Instead, he looked at his new boss and asked, “When can I start?”

      “Bright and early tomorrow morning’ll be fine.” As a rule, ranch hands were usually up around sunrise, if not before, so Graham made a suggestion. “How does seven o’clock suit you?”

      The early hour didn’t faze him in the slightest. He was accustomed to being up earlier, even when he wasn’t working. It was just the way his inner clock worked. “I can be here earlier if you need me to be,” Chance told him.

      “No, seven’ll do fine. You can bring your gear then and move in to the bunkhouse,” Graham told him. “We’ve got two on the premises. One just for the ranch hands and the other one’s where the boys stay.”

      “Sounds good to me,” Chance replied. “All I really require is enough space to stretch out at the end of the day, nothing more.”

      Graham nodded. “We’re going to get along just fine,” he predicted. “Just to let you know, I’ve got plans for you. You’re not just going to be a ranch hand. After you get the lay of the land around here, and things look like they’re going well, I want to make you the coordinator for Peter’s Place.”

      Graham smiled. “I think your being ex-military might just come in handy. The boys who are here now need a firm hand and they need to be made to respect authority. That’s not to say I want you coming down hard on them. Just make sure they don’t take advantage of you or anyone else here,” Graham added. He looked deliberately at Chloe as he said the last part.

      Chloe appreciated the thought, but she had been looking after herself for a long time now.

      “You don’t have to worry about me,” Chloe told her half brother. “I might not be as tall as you two, but I’m not a pushover, either. And I can definitely take care of myself.”

      Graham held up a hand. “I never meant to imply that I thought of you as a pushover. But knowing someone has your back certainly doesn’t hurt in this kind of a situation,” Graham assured her.

      Then he launched into a rundown of the current residents staying at Peter’s Place. “Right now, we’ve got four boys staying here. They’re all decent kids, but for one reason or another, they’ve lost their way and all of them feel like they’ve been dealt a pretty bad hand.” He spared a glance at Chloe. “Sasha can do a better job filling you in,” he said to Chloe.

      As if on cue, his wife came in from the kitchen. “Did I just hear my name being mentioned?” she asked, a bright smile on her face. Before Graham had an opportunity to respond to her question, Sasha told her husband, “You’ll be happy to know that breaking her wrist did not affect our daughter’s appetite. She’s eating up a storm in there. Uncle Roger’s whipping up his ‘famous’ corn dogs wrapped in bacon for her. I set the limit at two but I’ve got a feeling he’s not going to stick to that. Maybe you can make him understand the wisdom of not letting Maddie stuff herself to the gills.”

      “I’m on it,” Graham said, beginning to leave the living room.

      Sasha looked at Chance and Chloe. “So, I take it that they both said yes.”

      “That they did,” Graham said, tossing the words over his shoulder.

      “Well then, welcome to Peter’s Place,” Sasha told the duo warmly. “I hope you like it here,” she added. “We try to keep it homey. For some of these boys, this is the first actual ‘home’ they’ve had in quite a while.”

      The sound of a baby crying was heard coming over the monitor that Chloe had positioned on the wide coffee table.

      Sasha sighed wearily as she looked at the monitor. “Looks like I’m being summoned,” she told Chloe as she started to get up.

      “Why don’t you stay here and get Chloe up to

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