LITMIR.BIZ

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and keeping his promise wasn’t looking as easy as it had been to make it. Still, Helen had been there for him in his darkest days. In many ways, she’d been like a mother to him. He owed it to her to be there for the girls she’d been unable to love the way she’d have liked.

      Dylan continued to scream and flail in the dirt. Shane had moved Squirt to a safer spot where the little boy wouldn’t be tempted by him and Squirt wouldn’t be spooked. Leah said she had everything under control. But, from Shane’s perspective, this was a mess. How could she let her son act like this?

      Worse, he couldn’t believe she’d gotten into this mess in the first place. Though he was in no position to judge, it seemed like poor parenting to leave your children alone like she had. He’d often watched Natalie for Gina because otherwise Gina would have left Natalie alone. Once again, he wondered exactly how much his promise to Helen was going to cost him.

      He glanced over at Leah, trying to gauge her reaction. She sat there, acting like she didn’t have a care in the world, picking several of the long blades of grass that had gone far too long without cutting. She was twisting them into some kind of shape.

      “What are you making?” he asked.

      A soft smile crossed her face. “I was trying to remember how to make the little grass baskets Helen had taught us to make when we were small. I thought it would be fun to teach the boys.”

      She held it up, then frowned slightly. “I’m missing a step. I wonder if I can look it up online to find the answer.”

      “I’ve never done anything like that,” Shane said. “All I know how to do with grass is make a whistle.”

      He picked a few blades, then demonstrated.

      At the sound, Leah smiled. “Oh, that’s wonderful. You’ll have to show me how to do it. The boys will think it’s so fun.”

      At her words, Dylan paused and looked over at them. Leah shot Shane a look.

      “Show me,” she said, her eyes darting to Dylan before she shook her head at Shane. She seemed to be signaling him to continue ignoring Dylan.

      Even though it didn’t seem right to not acknowledge the boy’s silence, Shane did as she asked. Leah picked some grass of her own and tried copying his motion, but all she accomplished was contorting her face and sending the grass flying through the air.

      Dylan giggled.

      Leah didn’t look at him and instead tried again.

      As she had in her previous attempt, she failed.

      “You need to roll your tongue slightly,” Shane said. “I can’t tell if you’re doing it or not, but when my dad taught me how to whistle, that’s what he told me to do.”

      Once more, Leah took some grass and tried to make it whistle.

      Dylan got up and came over to them. “You’re doing it wrong. Let me show you.”

      He tried taking the grass out of her hand, but she shook her head. “I’m done. Let’s go inside and have some lunch.”

      For a moment, Dylan looked like he was going to argue, but then he nodded. “I’m hungry.”

      “All right then.”

      Leah got up and brushed the dirt from her pants. She smiled at Shane. “As you can see, everything is okay now. We’re going to go inside and eat. You should take your horse home.”

      Once again, she was dismissing him. And it still didn’t feel right.

      “We should talk about what just happened,” he said. Talking wasn’t his strong suit, but the situation had been intense. He’d come by to be neighborly and had ended up in the middle of a family crisis.

      Dylan had already started for the house. She turned and gave Shane the kind of stern look he imagined she used on her sons.

      “There’s nothing to talk about. I have everything perfectly in hand. You don’t need to feel obligated to look out for my children or me. We’ll be fine.”

      The resignation in her voice told him that there was a lot more to her story then he knew. Sure, he knew the little Helen had told him over the years. But she hadn’t been in contact with the girls enough to have details beyond the newspaper clippings of marriage and death announcements she collected. There were also a couple of articles about a man being found dead of a drug overdose, the death of a little girl, and one about a fatal car accident. The bare bones, not enough to know anything other than these women had been through a lot recently. Leah’s husband had died weeks before Helen passed. Was that why her parenting seemed so chaotic?

      Maybe sticking around to see what he could do to help wouldn’t hurt.

      “We’re neighbors. Helen was a good friend. She wanted me to look out for you.”

      Leah shook her head. “Look, I know you think I’m a terrible mom. But you have no idea what we’ve been through, and we’re doing our best to move on.”

      She gestured at the house, and one of the sisters was beckoning Dylan inside.

      “Since things got bad with his dad, we’ve been in therapy. I worked two jobs to pay for a child psychologist to help us figure out how to handle these fits. As for your horse, I know things got out of hand. I’m sorry for that. In the future, please don’t bring him over.”

      Though she still sounded weary, there was a determined expression on her face that made him realize she was stronger than he had first thought.

      “I just want to help,” he said.

      “Then go home. I don’t know what Helen told you about our childhood or what you’ve read in the papers about us. But if you think that any of it means we need someone to take care of us, you’re wrong. We’ve learned how to take care of ourselves. We don’t need you.”

      It was as if she had read his earlier thoughts. The stubborn set to her jaw and the pain in her eyes made him want to take care of her anyway. But he also knew that it wasn’t worth the grief it would bring to his own life to chase after a woman who didn’t want him.

      So how was he supposed to keep his promise to Helen?

      “Okay.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card for his ranch. He’d bought a hundred of them years ago and still had more than he could count left. At least he’d be getting rid of one more. “My number’s on here. You might not need me now, but if there’s anything I can do to help you all get settled, give me a call.”

      She took the card, but from the look on her face, it would probably go straight into the round file when she got inside. “Thanks.”

      He watched as she walked into her house, her posture straight and determined, and yet the air of sadness around her made him wish he could do more for her. But that was the kind of thinking that got a man in trouble. How many times had he tried playing the white knight, saving the damsel in distress? And while he’d been taken advantage of in the past, Leah was different. She didn’t want anything to do with him.

       Chapter Two

      Shane didn’t need anything from the sale barn, but he stopped by the Wednesday livestock auction just the same. It was a good chance to socialize with the other ranchers in the area and to keep up on the news. Most folks wouldn’t call Columbine Springs a happening place, but if you wanted to know what was happening, at least among the ranchers, the sale barn was where you’d find out.

      “Hey, Shane!” Arnold Hastings, one of the old-timers, gave him a wave. “We were just talking about that bull of yours. Ol’ Mike was wanting to add a new bloodline to his herd. I told him that you won’t find a finer bull than Big Red.”

      Given that Arnold had his own prize-winning bull, it was a fine compliment.

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