“A touch of heart failure,” she admitted, making Dallas’s stomach roll. A touch? “She prescribed medication. I feel on top of the world again.”
“Dad?”
“No, really. She does. You should see the pink in her cheeks. The swelling in her ankles has already gone down.”
By the time the call had ended, Dallas suspected there was no telling what the truth was. Joe and Millie always tried to deflect his concerns, but Millie’s health had been steadily declining in the past few years. Now, always fearing the worst news, Dallas dreaded every phone call, and he tried to visit them more often to gauge things for himself. But that wasn’t his only problem.
He couldn’t help his parents financially when their bills kept going up and he wasn’t earning or saving any money. He was done sitting around. He needed a temporary job to tide him over.
The most likely place to get hired was Clara McMann’s ranch, where his brother, Hadley, was foreman and would eventually become the owner. When Dallas got there, he found Hadley—tall, muscled, with a powerful build—saddling a horse. He barely glanced at Dallas, who got out of his truck then reached back inside for the cane he tried not to rely on. The ground here was uneven, and his hip felt cranky this morning. Which wouldn’t help his cause.
“Glad I caught you,” he said. Except for the brief wave he’d gotten, his big brother didn’t appear to have time for him. Dark-haired like Dallas, but unsmiling now, he was already fastening the sorrel’s bridle, checking the saddle girth. Dallas eyed him. “For a man who just got married, you don’t look happy.”
His blue eyes, the same shade as Dallas’s, hardened. “We’ll be checking fence today—nothing new. A regular chore and I’m supposed to grin like some fool?”
The scowl on his face sure said otherwise. Ever since Hadley had told Dallas he was getting married for the second time, he’d rarely stopped smiling. Sappy enough to make Dallas look away. At the wedding two months ago, in which Dallas had served as best man, Hadley and his bride, Jenna, had gazed into each other’s eyes with apparent adoration. Had something happened to change that? Dallas didn’t like to think so any more than he wanted to believe his mom was truly ill. His only brother’s life, most of it spent in foster care, had been a hard one. His first marriage didn’t improve things, and then Hadley had suddenly become a widower, a single dad with a pair of newborns to look after. He doted on his now twenty-month-old twins and deserved only the best.
“Something’s bothering you.”
Hadley sighed heavily. The admission seemed torn from him. “Jenna’s great with the babies—our twins—and it feels like she’s always lived here on the ranch with me, but after I finished feeding horses this morning, I found her in the house, in the nursery, crying. She won’t tell me why.”
This was a new side of Hadley, who’d once tried to overcome their grim boyhood by covering up his feelings and pushing people away. Jenna had softened his edges, but there might be a simple explanation for this. Dallas was reminded of something an old rodeo buddy had experienced when he and his wife were having a baby. “What if she’s pregnant? Women get touchy, I hear.”
Another reason Dallas was staying single for now—he wasn’t ready to marry or become a parent. He liked his niece and nephew, but with Hadley’s twins, once the temper tantrums began, Dallas could go home. He preferred watching rodeo tapes to walking the floor all night with a crying baby. He supposed he’d change his tune, though, when he had one of his own. Someday.
Hadley’s mouth tightened. “Jenna can’t have children.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know.” It didn’t surprise him that Hadley hadn’t mentioned his wife’s infertility before. He’d probably seen no reason to share that with Dallas. After the decades they’d spent apart, they weren’t that close again yet. “Is she okay with that?”
“She has Luke and Gracie now,” his brother said.
Dallas wasn’t convinced that was the whole story, but he let it go. At the age of eight, years after their birth parents had dumped them on the state, Dallas had been shut inside a bedroom in the last foster home Hadley and he had shared. He could still remember the click of that door lock, the raw panic he’d felt at being alone, trapped. Because Hadley had robbed a store shortly after that, he had spent time in a detention center, then gone back into foster care. By then, Dallas had been adopted. The Maguires had tried to find Hadley but the trail had gone cold. Until last December, Dallas hadn’t known where Hadley was, and vice versa.
Hadley’s mood didn’t seem to be improving now, but Dallas still needed to ask about a job. “So. Reason I came by—I’m, uh, looking for work.”
Hadley glanced deeper inside the barn, where Dallas heard movement from a stall. A second later a tall, rangy guy with rumpled dark hair stepped out into the aisle leading a dun-colored horse, and Dallas realized Hadley had said we about the fence. “Calvin Stern,” Hadley told him as the man approached, and Dallas’s confidence took a nosedive.
“Hey.” Calvin shook Dallas’s hand, put the horse in the second set of crossties, then disappeared into the nearby tack room.
“I hear in town the ranch is doing fine.” Dallas hurried on. “Rumor has it you’ve been buying more cattle.” He watched Calvin come out of the room carrying a saddle. “Thought you might be able to use another cowboy.” But obviously Hadley had already hired a hand, and the McMann ranch wasn’t that big or, for that matter, likely profitable enough to support a bigger crew after years of decline. Or did he think Dallas couldn’t do the work?
Hadley looked pointedly at the cane. “You’re hurt, Dallas.”
“I can still ride a cow pony,” he insisted.
“Ours aren’t the most reliable sort. I won’t see you
