them to manage the land and livestock and giving them a purpose when they might have turned wild with a less steady hand guiding them.
Nate wanted to do that for EJ, the way Eddie would have if he’d survived that last mission. As guilt exploded in Nate’s chest, he had to force himself not to step away from the boy. What right did he have to insert himself into this child’s life and try to offer direction?
When push had come to shove, he hadn’t been able to save his best friend. His brothers and mother had done fine for decades on their own while he was traveling the world with the navy. And shortly after he’d come home, all hell had broken loose with the discovery that Gerald Robinson was their father. Not that Nate could blame himself for that bombshell, but he hated that he hadn’t been able to protect his mom from revisiting that old heartbreak.
At the end of the day, he couldn’t trust himself to offer support to anyone. Bianca and EJ were far too precious to risk.
But they’d sought him out, and Nate had to believe that meant something. He needed to mean something to Eddie’s sister and her boy. He placed a hand on EJ’s arm to steady him and gave a few quiet instructions about how to position the next nail. The pink tip of EJ’s tongue poked out from the corner of his mouth, a sure sign the boy was deep in concentration.
“I thought I might find you two out here.”
At the sound of his mother’s voice, EJ stopped hammering and jumped off the stool Nate had pushed to the front of the workbench.
“Mommy,” he shouted, running toward her and launching himself against her legs. “I petted a cow and scooped horse poop and fed the chickens and now I’m fixing part of the coop. That’s what you call the chicken’s house—a coop. There are fifteen but only one rooster on account of he doesn’t like to share his girlfriends.”
“Whoa,” Bianca said with a laugh, lifting EJ into her arms. “Slow down, buddy. Take a breath. It sounds like you had a busy morning.”
“I got boots, too,” EJ said, kicking out his feet. “They used to be Mr. Nate’s.”
Her grin faltered as she looked to Nate. Damn, she was beautiful. She wore a simple white T-shirt and a pair of snug jeans with a tiny rip above one knee. That small strip of skin was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen because it held the promise of so much more.
Nate had never been one for flash and dazzle in his women, so Bianca’s natural beauty hit him hard. Her hair was pulled back into a loose bun at the nape of her neck, exposing the graceful line of her throat. More than anything, he wanted to know if her skin was as soft as it looked.
He was so damn close to making a fool of himself and embarrassing them both.
“Or one of my brother’s pairs.” He shrugged, feeling suddenly self-conscious that he’d dug through the shed out back to track down the bins of clothes and shoes his mom had kept from his childhood. “It’s hard to know, but my mom saved anything we didn’t wear out and Earl insisted on good boots, even when we were young. We all had the same style.”
“Thank you for sharing them with EJ,” she said after a moment.
“He needed a decent pair of shoes for the ranch.” The words came out more gruffly than he meant them because he didn’t want her to think that after one day he was trying to step in as the boy’s father or something. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Mommy, I got so many things to show you.” EJ wriggled to the ground and skipped in a circle around Bianca. “You want to see the poop I scooped or the fence I helped Mr. Nate fix?” He waved his hands in a windmill motion as he moved, a bundle of boy energy even after working for hours. Temperatures in January usually hovered in the low fifties, but today the thermostat had climbed nearly ten degrees above normal. Nothing appeared to dim EJ’s enthusiasm.
“Right now,” Bianca said gently, pulling a cell phone from the back pocket of her jeans, “I need to talk to Mr. Nate. Why don’t you check out your favorite YouTube channel for a few minutes?”
Nate frowned as EJ took the phone and hit a button, the blue light from the screen illuminating his small face. “It’s not working, Mommy,” EJ said almost immediately, handing the phone back to Bianca.
“No service,” Bianca muttered. “I guess it’s because we’re so far out of town. Do you have a Wi-Fi password?” She glanced from the phone to Nate.
“Nope,” he said, massaging a hand over the back of his neck.
“Maybe the signal is bad in the barn,” she told her son. “If you take it to the house’s front porch—”
“You still won’t have any luck.” Nate stepped forward. “Cell service out here is spotty, and the ranch doesn’t have Wi-Fi.”
Bianca and EJ stared at him with mutual horror in their dark gazes.
“You can get internet in town at the library,” he added quickly. “Normally it’s open on Wednesdays.”
EJ’s mouth dropped open.
“Once a week?” Bianca asked, her tone incredulous.
“I haven’t been there for a few months. It might have different hours now.”
“I want to watch a show,” EJ complained.
“We have a satellite dish,” Nate said. “My mom likes to watch the Rodeo Live channel when she’s not on the road with Grayson.”
“Do you have Elmer the Elephant?” the boy asked.
“I’m not sure about that,” Nate admitted. He’d heard of a puppet named Elmo but never an elephant called Elmer. “What channel is Elmer on?”
“YouTube,” Bianca and EJ answered at the same time, then Bianca crouched down at EJ’s side.
“It’s okay, buddy. We’ll figure out something to watch when you need a break. Besides, there’s so much to keep you busy on the ranch, you’ll hardly have time to miss Elmer.”
“I miss him already, Mommy.”
Nate watched Bianca’s shoulders deflate as she sighed.
“EJ, would you put extra hay in each of the horse stalls while your mom and I talk?”
For all the boy’s earlier enthusiasm, EJ looked like he wanted to refuse. Nate understood the sentiment. As much fun as a ranch could be for a boy, there was always the moment when a kid realized work was work. It was a lesson Nate and his brothers had learned early on, and it had served each of them as they grew to be men. He wanted to make sure he instilled the same work ethic in Bianca’s son. He knew Eddie would have done the same thing.
“Remember how we talked about chores,” he said gently.
EJ scrunched up his face and nodded. “Taking care of the animals is most important.”
“Right,” Nate agreed.
EJ looked up at Bianca. “I’ll be back after I finish my chore, Mommy.”
“I’ll be here, sweetie.”
Nate
