Hard Ride (Clean Slate Ranch) by A.M. Arthur

Author:A.M. Arthur [Arthur, A.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Carina Press
Published: 2020-02-16T18:30:00+00:00

* * *

Slater had had no real expectations for how today might go when he got up this morning, and the entire production had gone smoothly. He got a few hostile looks from some of the older folk, and he didn’t read too much into it. Derrick had mentioned some of his relatives were not very accepting of him being bi, and the looks rolled off Slater’s back.

And he totally understood why Derrick was charmed by Mia. She was a very quiet baby compared to Rachel, who’d fussed about everything for the first six months or so of her life. Mia calmly took the world in, and he could tell Sophie was glad for the break. Holding the infant also reminded him of all the years he’d missed with Rachel.

He’d missed out on a lot of her childhood, but she turned eighteen this summer, and Slater truly hoped they could have a relationship as adults. He wanted that more than anything else in the world.

“You okay, honey?” the woman beside him asked. She was one of Derrick’s aunts and had been nattering on about something when Slater’s mind had wandered. He’d been terrible with names before his fall, but after? He likened his new memory to a colander: the big stuff stayed in but the little things slipped out and disappeared.

“Yes, sorry,” he said. “You were saying?”

She continued the story of how the law office she worked for had ordered Dream Boxes from Derrick’s nonprofit and how much fun it had been to decorate small totes and fill them with travel toiletries for distribution at a local women’s shelter. The story endeared Slater to Derrick even more as he learned more about what the man’s job was and who they helped. He’d had no real concept of nonprofits before now. But in a way, Arthur Garrett’s horse rescue was a similar animal. They took in horses that needed help, made a modest salary and did good work bringing abused creatures back to life.

His heart panged for that ranch in a way it hadn’t in weeks. Despite being somewhat limited to the house, Slater spent some mornings simply sitting on the front stoop, enjoying the sunshine. Not the same as his long walks around the ranch property, but he wouldn’t be going on any long walks for a few more weeks, at the earliest.

Maybe it was the fact that Derrick’s living room alone was larger than the entire ranch cabin, and that he had the foyer, too, but Slater didn’t feel as cramped or claustrophobic in that house. He didn’t need those long walks as much as he used to.

But is it really the house, or is Derrick part of the equation, too?

What if Clean Slate Ranch wasn’t his final destination after all?

Eventually, his bladder panged and Slater reluctantly gave Mia over to Sharon Massey, who was delighted to hold her grandbaby. She also pointed him in the direction of the bathrooms, which were back near the auditorium’s entrance. Without Derrick

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