“I’ll be in court in Boise, so take notes for me, will you?” Clayton asked, scraping back his chair. “What do you think Buck would have said about us owning a kink club?”
“As long as we stayed this side of the law, he would have said go for it, the same as he and Miss Betty told us every time one of us would wrestle with a decision.”
Shawn still missed the big, gruff rancher who had taken the three of them in all those years ago. What he and Clayton and Dakota had suffered before coming to Idaho, Buck Cooper and his wife had made up for in spades. Buck taught them everything they needed to learn about ranching and farming crops in the Gem State, and Miss Betty had tempered the hard work and strict rules with unabashed warm hugs and lots of home cooking. The contrast between the rough-around-the- edges tough rancher and his soft-spoken, always smiling wife had at first amused them, prompting them to push their buttons. But it hadn’t taken long for them to learn their usual tactics of lashing out against the authority figures who had taken over their lives weren’t going to work this time.
Buck’s sudden death from a massive heart attack two years ago had devastated them and Miss Betty. When his will was read, leaving his wife financially well-off and the entire fifty-thousand plus acre ranch to Shawn, Clayton, and Dakota, they’d vowed to continue making the generous couple proud.
“Shawn ought to worry more about what Father Joe would say,” Dakota said in a scoffing tone.
“Father doesn’t judge, just lectures. Still, that might be one sin I omit the next time I go to him for confession,” Shawn replied as they stepped outside, humor lacing his voice.
He drew in a deep breath of cool spring air as they strode toward Dakota’s Jeep, the only vehicle in the gravel parking lot. The ink-black, star-studded sky was the same as in Arizona, but that was the only common denominator between the two states where he had lived. The much colder temperatures had taken getting used to coming from such a hot, arid climate, but now he much preferred the mountains, towering pines, and endless ranges to the cacti-strewn, sandy desert. Whenever he took the time to visit Father Joe, his only connection now to Phoenix, he found he didn’t miss his childhood home turf anymore.
“He came through for us when we needed him to,” Clayton commented, hoisting himself into the rear seat of the Jeep. “Shipping us out to Buck and intervening with social services saved our asses.”
“Speak for yourself. I’ve always looked after my own ass.” Dakota started the Jeep as Shawn swung onto the front seat.
“But you wouldn’t have the skills or the ranch you can lay claim to now without Father Joe and Buck’s interference,” Shawn reminded him. Of the three of them, Dakota struggled the hardest with his past, and the unsolved murder of his mother that had landed him in foster care.
“True.”
Shawn hid his smile. Dakota always used as few words as possible, as if it hurt to talk. He could be a mean son of a bitch if a situation warranted it, such as an injustice against a woman or animal, but Shawn and Clayton were probably the only two who knew just how supportive and caring he was with those who mattered to him.
Dakota dropped Shawn off first, and he bid them good night before entering his log cabin home. They each had built a place on the ranch but lived miles apart, Dakota having settled closest to the barns, stables, and bunkhouse, since he managed the ranch business. Like Shawn, Clayton opted to build closer to the main road into Mountain Bend, the small, revitalized mining town where they both worked. As the town’s only prosecutor, Clayton often worked with him and the sheriff’s department when preparing for a case.
Curly and Mo, the abandoned German shepherds he had recently adopted, greeted him with wagging tails, rubbing their still-too-thin bodies against his legs. “Hey, guys. Have you behaved?” He petted each one then tossed his hat on a hook by the door and left the entry to scan the main living, dining, and kitchen area for any destructive behavior. Other than a shredded magazine and one of his boots lying unharmed in front of the stone fireplace, it appeared the dogs were finally getting comfortable with his absences.
“Good boys,” he praised them, walking into the kitchen to get them a treat from under the large, farmhouse sink.
Shawn wasn’t much of a cook, but he still built a large kitchen with plenty of storage in the forest-green cabinets and prep space on the long butcher-block counters. Dark wood beams lined the vaulted ceiling across the entire space and matched the stain on the wood floors, a nice contrast to the lighter logs covering half the walls. The rest were painted the same dark green as the cabinets, but the south wall of windows allowed for bright rays of sunshine to lighten this portion of the house during most of the day.
“Okay, you two, out you go for a spell.”
He let the dogs out the slider then pivoted, his eyes landing on the answering machine’s blinking light. And here he’d just been thinking about Father Joe. The extra expense of keeping a landline just so the priest would stay in touch spoke to his deep affection for the man who had been there for him ever since the death of Shawn’s father. He didn’t need to listen to the message, as Father Joe was the only one who had the number to that phone. No one else of his acquaintance harbored such an aversion and ineptness toward
