“Five years?” he and Kate spoke together again.
“Will you stop repeating my answers back to me in question form? Yes, five years. It’s going to take time to get a business going. There’s some updating that needs to be done on the house. She’s agreed to pay for it, and orchestrate it all.”
“You’re crazy. You’re going to let someone else, a stranger, live on our property for five years without even...meeting her first?” Eli asked.
“It’s over. It’s signed. I’m not discussing it any further,” Connor said.
Eli leaned back against the counter and took a long drink of his beer.
Kate shrugged. “It might be nice to have a woman around again.”
“She’s not going to be around,” Eli said. “She’s running a bed-and-breakfast, apparently. There’s a difference between that and her being around. This is a big property.”
“I was just saying. And maybe I’ll go visit her,” Kate mused.
“Eli’s right, Katie,” Connor said. “Everything is going to be kept separate.”
“That’s fine.” Kate picked at the top of her pizza. “But I do think it would be nice to bring her something. A housewarming something. Foodstuffs. Small-town hospitality in action and all.”
“Feel free to deliver foodstuffs,” Connor told her. “I don’t give a sh—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Kate said. “You don’t. About anything. I get it. You’re a grumpy codger and you aren’t going to be sociable. Ever. Again. I won’t make you.”
“Good,” he said.
Kate turned to Eli, her brown eyes wide.
Eli put his hands up. “Don’t look at me,” he said. “I’m not joining your small-town welcoming committee.”
“Fine. I’ll be the representative for this family. And try to prove we weren’t—” she took a bite of her pizza and spoke around a mouthful of cheese “—raised by fucking wolves.”
“Well, we’ll leave that up to you,” Eli said. “I have faith in you.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I’m going to head home,” Eli said. “I’ll leave the pizza.”
That earned him a thanks from Kate and a grunt—no surprise—from Connor.
“I’ve got the afternoon off tomorrow,” Eli added, “so that means I’ll be by to help out. Do you have anything big going?”
“Not a lot. We have to tag the calves this weekend, though. Are you free?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be around for that.”
He was in law enforcement by choice, but he was a rancher by blood. He, Connor and Kate all did some local rodeo events now and then, too, though Kate was by far the most successful and was looking to turn pro when she got the chance.
Of course, the fact that he was either working for the county or working on the ranch was a big part of why he had no social life. But he didn’t really miss it. Unless he was horny. Then he kind of missed it.
“Great,” Connor said. “See you tomorrow, then.”
“See ya.” He turned and walked out of the kitchen, through the entryway and onto the porch. He stood for a minute and looked out at the property, and at the light in the distance. The light that was coming from the Catalog House.
Sadie Miller was in there. On a five-year lease. Damn it all, it didn’t get much more disrupting to his sense of order than that. Of course, the past couple of years had been one big, giant disruption for their family.
They all felt the loss of Jessie. And they all felt the hole that her death had carved into Connor. He wasn’t the same. He never would be.
But then, that was the way this place was. Or at least, that seemed to be the way love was for their family. You got it, you lost it.
It had started with the first generation of Garretts on this land. His great-great-grandfather had ordered that house and had it built. His great-great-grandmother had lived in it for only two years before getting pneumonia and dying.
Then there were his great-grandparents. His great-grandmother had died in childbirth, leaving her husband a shell of a man, barely capable of keeping the land going, and not entirely managing to keep track of his children. His grandfather had run off with a woman from town, leaving his grandmother to raise her kids alone. And then there were his parents.
Their mother had gone when Kate was a toddler. Off to God knew where. Somewhere warmer and sunnier. Somewhere with men in suits instead of spurs.
A place without needy kids and the smell of cows.
But it had left her husband to sink into a mire of alcoholism and despair.
It had left Connor to grow up at fifteen. And for Eli to follow right along with him.
And all that pain had started in the house that now sheltered Sadie Miller. It seemed fitting in some ways. Since she was a pain in his butt.
He walked down the steps to the driveway, then headed down the path that took him the back way to his house.
Sadie Miller wouldn’t be a problem, because he wouldn’t let her become one.
He was the law around here, after all.
