The Cowboy's Forever Family. Deb Kastner

still had every intention of helping them out wherever and whenever he could, just as he’d promised. He’d give Laney pointers on ranching and of course he’d be around when Baby Beckett arrived, but at the moment he felt it was time to back off and get a little distance from the situation. For his own good. Every day it seemed he was getting more and more wrapped up in Laney, both in the circumstances they each faced and in the woman herself. Half the time he didn’t know whether he was coming or going.

      “What’s all this?” he muttered to himself, taking stock of the trucks parked up and down the driveway in front of the house—old, new and everything in between. Some familiar. Most not.

      He started toward the house to investigate, then turned when he heard a ruckus coming from the ranchers’ bunkhouse, where the wranglers slept and Brody’s father kept his office. Grant primarily oversaw the ranch, but Brody had always helped when he was around and as time allowed. Slade knew Brody would have eventually found his way home again, taken over the ranch for good. Started a family.

      But now everything had changed. Brody was gone. The ranch belonged to Laney. And there was a long line of scruffy, weathered cowboys, some young and some older than their beat-up trucks appeared to be, winding out of the office and around the bunkhouse.

      Slade didn’t recognize more than a few of them, and he knew everyone in Serendipity. Something was definitely up, and with the way his stomach was twisting and turning, he was fairly certain he wasn’t going to like what he found. He’d learned to trust those inner nudges that he couldn’t always explain. Those gut feelings were part of what made him so good at everything he did, from bull riding to serving as a police officer.

      He strode across the uneven ground, his boots first crunching against the gravel and then silently sweeping through the long grass. He was going to get to the bottom of this.

      Now.

      It very well might not be any of his business. Grant probably had it all under control—whatever it was. Call it curiosity, or another opportunity to find a way to help the Becketts. He’d know soon enough.

      “Hey,” one of the younger wranglers protested when he ignored the long line of cowboys and cut through to the door of the office. Slade didn’t care if he was breaking the rules, and he especially wasn’t concerned over what the other men in the long line thought of him. He wasn’t some random cowpoke applying for a job at the ranch. Was that why these men were here? Was Grant doing some hiring? Maybe one of the wranglers had given notice.

      He entered the office with a friendly greeting for Grant on his lips, but stopped short in the doorway as if he’d slammed into an invisible force field. Laney was sitting behind Grant’s desk with those silly reading glasses of hers perched on the end of her nose. She looked completely out of her element, her hair combed back into a neat ponytail, her cheeks flushed a pretty pink and her full lips curved up at the corners. She looked as neat and fresh as a bouquet of tulips in a room that was anything but. Her appearance was a stark contrast to the rest of her surroundings. Random piles of papers and file folders littered the top of the desk. The smell of sweat and leather permeated the room and lingered in the stale air.

      And that was to say nothing of the sloppily-dressed wrangler standing before the desk, dusty hat in hand and one side of his shirt untucked and dangling like a tail at the back of his well-worn blue jeans. The man flashed Slade an irritated frown, which Slade completely ignored. The wrangler didn’t worry him. He was far more concerned about Laney’s thunderous scowl and the lightning flashing in her brown eyes.

      Fire and ice. Everything about the woman was contrary.

      “What’s going on here?” He could guess, but he wanted to hear it from her. He leaned his shoulder against the door frame and folded his arms across his chest.

      Her eyes narrowed and her spine straightened. “Excuse me?”

      The lanky wrangler across from Laney turned and faced Slade. “Look, buddy, I don’t know who you think you are, but there’s an interview goin’ on here, and in case you didn’t notice, there’s a line outside the door. You wanna talk to the missus here, go wait your turn with the rest of the boys.”