allowed to help me with the cattle while you’re at school, then she’s all yours once you get home?”
“Sounds good to me.” J.J. took an apple from his backpack and sat on a hay bale to eat it, all the while watching the negotiation with rapt interest.
The girl nibbled her lower lip. Another trait she’d inherited from her mom. “I’ll think about it.”
“Fair enough.”
“LeeAnn! J.J.!” Millie called from the house.
“Bye!” Jim’s son bolted.
His sister chased after him.
Cooper gave Sassy one last pat, made sure the three other horses had plenty of food and water, then closed up the barn for the night. As the day had wound on, the weather had only grown more ugly. At five, clouds were so heavy that it was almost dark. Sleet pelted his nose and cheeks on his walk across the yard.
As miserably cold as the day had been and night now was, Cooper would’ve preferred to spend the evening in his truck rather than go back into the house. He didn’t belong there. At least in Virginia, he’d been part of a well-oiled team.
On the ranch, he wasn’t sure what he was. No-good son. Disrespectful brother. Forgotten uncle.
“Coop?”
He glanced out from beneath his hat brim to find Millie hollering at him from the back porch. Much like she had with her robe, she now clutched the lapels of a chunky brown sweater. Wind whipped her long hair, and when she drew it back, she looked so lovely in the golden light spilling from the house that his breath caught in his throat.
Lord, what was wrong with him? Appraising his brother’s wife? There was a special place in hell for men like him.
“Hurry, before your feet freeze to the yard!”
He did hurry, but only because he didn’t want her hanging around outside waiting for him.
“Thanks.” He brushed past her, hating that he once again noticed her sweet floral smell. He removed his hat and stood there for a sec, adjusting to not only the kitchen’s warmth, but also the sight of the space filled with industrious bodies.
J.J. sat at the round oak table, frowning at an open math book. LeeAnn sat alongside him, making an unholy mess with an ugly papier-mâché mountain.
Millie had left him and now stood at the sink, washing broccoli. “Pardon the clutter. LeeAnn’s volcano is due soon, and J.J. has a math test tomorrow. I heard you all formally met in the barn?”
“Yes, ma’am.” What else should he say? That she’d raised a couple of fine-looking kids? That he was an ass and coward for not meeting them before now? Instead, he glanced back to the table and said the first stupid thing that popped into his head. “That’s supposed to be a volcano?”
The second he asked the question, he regretted it. His few hastily spoken words ruined the bucolic family scene.
His pretty niece leaped up from the table, then dashed from the room.
“It’s an awesome volcano!” J.J. declared before throwing his pencil at Cooper, then also leaving the room.
“I realize you’ve probably never been around kids,” Millie said, “but you might try digging around in your big, tough Army Guy head to look for a sensitivity gene. LeeAnn’s worked really hard on her science project. You didn’t have to tear her down.” Having delivered his tongue-lashing, Millie chased after her brood.
From upstairs came the sound of a door slamming, then muffled tears.
Son of a biscuit...
He slapped his hat onto the back-door rack and shrugged out of his brother’s coat, hanging it up, too. Then he just stood there, woefully unsure what to do with his frozen hands or confused heart.
“For the record,” he said under his breath, “I’m a Navy Guy.”
Millie held her arms around her sobbing daughter, rocking her side to side from where they sat on the edge of the bed. “Honey, he didn’t mean it. You’re going to have the best volcano your school’s ever seen.”
“I’ll help, Lee.” Sweet-tempered J.J. cozied up to his sister’s other side. Since their father died, both kids had grown infinitely more sensitive. Millie knew one of these days she’d need to toughen them to the ways of the world, but not quite yet. They’d already been through enough. She couldn’t even comprehend what would happen if they also lost their grandpa or the only home they’d ever known.
A knock sounded on the door frame.
She glanced in that direction to find Cooper taking up far too much room. He was not only tall, but his shoulders were broad, too. Back when they’d been teens, he’d been a cocky, self-assured hothead who’d never lacked for the company of a blonde, brunette or redhead. When he’d spent weekends calf-roping, rodeo buckle bunnies swarmed him like hummingbirds to nectar. She’d far preferred her even-tempered Jim. Cooper had always been just a little too wild.
“Make him go away,” LeeAnn mumbled into Millie’s shoulder.
“Look...” Cooper rammed his hands into his jeans pockets. “I’m awfully sorry about hurting your feelings.”
“No, you’re not!”
“LeeAnn...” Millie scolded. While she certainly didn’t agree with her brother-in-law’s ham-handed actions, she didn’t for a moment believe him deliberately cruel. He spent all his time around mercenary types. She honestly wasn’t even sure what a Navy SEAL did. Regardless, she was reasonably certain he hadn’t spent a lot of time around kids.
“I really am sorry.” The farther he ventured into the ultragirly room with its pink-floral walls, brass bed piled with stuffed animals and antique dressing table and bench Millie had picked up for a song at a barn auction, the more out of his element Cooper looked. “Ever heard of Pompeii?”
“I saw a movie on it,” J.J. said.
“Cool.” Cooper’s warm, sad, unsure smile touched Millie’s heart. He was trying to be a good uncle, but that was kind of hard when jumping in this late in the game. He took his phone from his back pocket then a few seconds later, handed it to her son. “This pic is of me and a few friends. We had some downtime and toured through the ruins.”
“Whoa...” J.J.’s eyes widened. “That’s awesome! You really were there.”
“Doesn’t make him like some kind of volcano expert,” LeeAnn noted.
“I’ve always wanted to see Pompeii...” Millie couldn’t help but stare in wonder at the photo. Beyond the three smiling men stretched a weathered street frozen in time. Snow-capped Mount Vesuvius towered in the background. The scene was all at once chilling, yet intriguing. The place seemed inconceivably far from Brewer’s Falls.
“It was amazing but
