style="font-size:15px;"> The amount Cade quoted had Zach whistling softly.
“That’s a hell of a lot of zeroes,” he said. “If we all agreed, what about selling off some acres of land to raise the money?”
“We could do that,” Cade told him. “But if we do, the size of the Triple C would be radically reduced. And if we want to keep it, we’d have a hard time making it profitable.”
“So we either find a way between the four of us to raise the money to pay the taxes, or we sell the ranch intact, pay off the taxes, split what’s left between the four of us and walk away.”
“That’s about the size of it,” Cade agreed.
“Hell.” Zach pushed his empty plate away and leaned back in his chair, frowning at his brother. “I vote to keep the place. But I don’t like the odds of our being able to raise that kind of money.”
“And we can’t have a definitive plan until we talk to Eli and Brodie,” Cade finished for him.
“Exactly.” Zach crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes over his brother’s face, considering. “But I’d bet my life neither of them will want to sell.” He looked at Mariah, then back at Cade. “It’s unlikely I’ll stay in Montana when all this is over. But you two—” he gestured at them “—you’re going to live here and work the ranch, right?”
Cade’s gaze met Mariah’s and she smiled faintly, nodding at him.
“Yeah,” he said with surety. “We’d like to raise our kids here.”
“Kids.” Zach was suddenly sidetracked by the memory of himself and his three brothers swimming in the creek on a hot summer day, riding horses at breakneck speed over the prairie, or climbing the butte behind the house to get closer to the stars hanging in the velvety black night sky. Yeah, he thought, this would be a good place for kids if Cade was their father. “You plan to make me an uncle?”
“Sure.” Cade grinned him, deep green eyes lit with amusement.
“Damn.” Zach shook his head in mock disbelief. He couldn’t remember seeing Cade this happy in years. He winked at Mariah. “Are you sure you want to take him on? He was hell on wheels as a kid—what if you have a boy like him?”
“I’d love it,” she answered promptly.
The sound of an engine turning over sounded from outside and Cade glanced at his watch.
“That must be Pete taking J.T. to the bus stop,” he said. “It’s later than I thought.”
“A bus stop? Have we got school kids living here?”
“Just one,” Cade told him. “J.T. Butler is in high school. He works before and after school, on weekends and vacations, and lives in the bunkhouse with an older ranch hand, Pete Smith.”
“How many other employees?” Zach asked.
“None.”
Zach eyed Cade. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope, that’s it.”
“So the three of you are running the Triple C?”
“Pretty much.” Cade’s grin told Zach he understood his disbelief.
“Hell.” Zach shook his head and muttered, “The hits just keep on comin’.”
“Yeah. The good news is the Turner brothers still own their place and they’ve been helping out. A lot,” Cade told him. “And the neighbors all pitched in to help when we rounded up the cattle.”
“Thank God for that.” Zach couldn’t believe two men and Mariah had been working the Triple C. The ranch needed a crew big enough to fill the bunkhouse. Even when his father, Zach and his three brothers were all working, they’d still had several hired hands. Clearly, life on the Triple C had changed drastically over the years. And if he was going to contribute to paying off the tax debt, he’d better take a look at the condition of the ranch and the Lodge to get a better idea of just what he and his brothers were facing. “What are you doing today?” Zach asked Cade.
“Nothing that can’t be put off until tomorrow if you want company.”
Zach stretched, shoving one hand into the pocket of his faded jeans to pull out the small metal ring with its set of keys. He contemplated it for a moment, then looked at Cade. “Let’s open up the Lodge.”
Cade nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
Zach shoved back his chair and stood, carrying his dirty dishes to the sink where he rinsed them off and slotted them into the dishwasher rack.
“I’ll grab my hat and be down in a minute,” he said. As he left the room, he caught a quick glimpse of Cade bending to brush a kiss against Mariah’s mouth.
He wondered how she’d managed to get close enough to Cade to get under his skin, let alone capture his heart. Cade had always sworn he would never fall in love and marry. He’d claimed he carried too much baggage after enduring their father’s misery and alcoholism following their mother’s death.
Hell, he thought. We probably all do. It was good to see Cade had found a woman he wanted to share his life with.
Mariah was wrong if she thought Zach would ever get married, though. He loved women, but marriage? Not in the cards. His lifestyle had him traveling often for work and his love of adventure did the same, which left little time or space to consider settling down. It wouldn’t be fair to ask a woman to put up with his absence from home two-thirds of the year.
But in a flash of stark honesty, Zach realized that was the stock answer he’d been giving for years to anyone who quizzed him about his bachelor status.
It was all true, but it wasn’t the whole story.
If he were being honest, he knew he had the same reasons for avoiding marriage that Cade had. His parents had seemed happy and deeply in love before his mother died. After her death, Joseph had plunged into an abyss of grief and alcoholism, dragging his sons with him into their own particular hell.
Zach couldn’t remember exactly when he’d made the decision, but within a few years of his mother’s death, he’d vowed to never love anyone as much as his father had loved his mother.
And if Cade had leftover baggage from their childhood spent struggling to deal with Joseph’s alcoholic rages and violence, then Zach was sure he did, too, despite the years he’d spent in counseling.
Still, he wondered if there was a possibility that someday, a woman might look at him like Mariah looks at Cade.
The swift image of Cynthia’s soft mouth curving in a smile as she looked up at him, blue eyes warm with amusement, made his step falter.
He barely knew her, had only spent a few moments talking with her. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to have her look at him with love.
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