Once a Cowboy by Justine Davis

Author:Justine Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance
ISBN: 9781956387155
Publisher: Tule Publishing Group, LLC
Published: 2021-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

“We’ll take the scenic route,” Ry said as they mounted up—Kaitlyn a little gingerly with new-rider tenderness, but not so much that he was worried—and headed out. “Chance will want to show the newcomers around, and let them settle a little before visitors.” He glanced at her. “They’ll be in their runs except for Tri, so don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t,” she said quickly as they headed out past the big corral. “Aware, but not worried.”

He nodded. “Those dogs are used to just about anything. Chance says it’s just that their threat perception is out of whack. And Ariel says that to a traumatized warrior, everything is a threat.”

“They sound like…quite a pair.” She smiled warmly as she said it, and he was a little amazed at her obviously genuine warmth for people she hadn’t even met.

“They’re perfect together,” he said, meaning it down to his soul. “And I will never stop being thankful she came to get Tri and met Chance.”

“That’s how they met? She came to adopt the dog?”

He nodded. Hesitated, but decided since it wasn’t a secret, family or otherwise, he could tell her the rest. But he waited until they’d made the turn onto the trail that led down toward the stream, a branch of Hickory Creek that was sometimes merely a yard-wide flow, sometimes after a storm an uncrossable torrent.

“Tri lost his leg on his last deployment, a bit over two years ago, trying to save his handler’s life.”

“Trying? So…”

“His handler, who was a friend of Chance’s, was killed.” He gave her a sideways glance. “His handler was also Ariel’s husband.”

“Whoa. That had to be a strange path to tread,” Kaitlyn said, clearly understanding all the ramifications of that.

“It was. But they’re coming out the other side now, both of them.”

He’d never expected to be so glad his brother had found his soul mate. At the same time, it made him a little nervous, because their mother seemed to have shifted her focus to him. As if she were going in chronological order and he was next. He and Cody had even joked about it.

You’re next, bro.

Never gonna happen.

I know. That’s why I’m safe.

Funny, now he found himself wondering if Cody hadn’t just been joking, and why he had been so damned sure. Was it that impossible to think he might find someone who could put up with his crazy life, living in a barn, the erratic work hours, and the slipping into a different world when he was deep into a project?

He grimaced. I think you just answered your own question, Rafferty.

He got kind of stuck on that thought as they rode on. Kaitlyn had her camera out and was shooting whenever something caught her eye. And she was focused on that, leaving him with his thoughts. Which was not necessarily the best place for him just now.

He was actually glad when he heard her cell phone ring, because it derailed him from wondering why he was thinking about this love thing so much, when he’d thought it well and truly put away for some nebulous time in the future.

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