The Rancher's Homecoming. Anna J. Stewart
his brother appeared to have traded in his tailored executive suit for more cowboy-friendly attire set every warning bell in Chance’s head to clanging. Nothing good ever came of a Blackwell brother showing up. “Been a while.” Ty aimed that smile of his at the almost five-year-old in his arms.
“Daddy! It’s Uncle Ty! See?” Rosie, all bouncy red curls, freckled nose and skinny arms, patted her hands against Tyler’s cheeks as she blew a raspberry. “He’s funny, Daddy! Just like you!”
“Just like me, huh?” As disappointed as Chance was in Felix’s reaction, and as irritated as he was by his brother’s unexpected arrival, everything about his beautiful Rosie made him smile. “Where’s Claudia?” Chance handed his guitar to Felix before he reached for his little girl. The instant she settled in his arms, his pulse calmed. His world righted itself. He could breathe again.
“I’m here!” The graduate student from UCLA who had been Rosie’s nanny for the last year leaned over to peek and wave from behind Tyler. “Tyler was just telling us all about your ranch in Montana. It sounds amazing.”
“A ranch with horsies and cows, Daddy,” Rosie told him with a firm nod. “And Uncle Ty says there are kitties and a dog and a goat named Billy. And when I come visit I get to learn to ride and maybe even rope! But I will need boots. I would like pink boots, please. When can we go visit the kitties and dog, Daddy?”
Chance patted his daughter on the back of her purple shirt and stifled the familiar urge to strangle his brother. “Why don’t you let me talk to Uncle Ty about that? Claudia? Would you mind taking Rosie out for a bit? Maybe you can listen to the next band. Felix will go with you.” The last thing he needed, or wanted, was for his two worlds—however detached he was from one of them—to collide. “Just hang on for a sec.”
Chance pushed past his brother and ducked into the room. He rummaged through one of Rosie’s bags and pulled out her pink headphones. Like a seasoned pro, Rosie snatched them and plunked them over her ears.
“Okay, Daddy?” she yelled.
Chance laughed and nodded. “Go with Claudia, okay?” He set her on her feet, tugged up her jeans, which were too short in the legs and too big in the butt, and exchanged his daughter for the guitar. “I’ll just be a few minutes.”
“Okay.” Felix didn’t look convinced as Rosie grabbed his hand. Claudia followed with an expression of uncertainty on her round face. “But we still have to talk about this.”
“Looking forward to it.” Chance set down his guitar, watched as Rosie skipped her way between his agent and nanny and quietly, slowly, closed the door. “What are you doing here, Ty?”
“If you answered your phone once in a while this might not be such a surprise.” Ty dropped down into the ripped, green faux-leather sofa that was wedged tightly between the walls. “Man, this place is a hole. I thought showbiz was supposed to be glamorous.”
“It can be.” But starting over meant starting at the bottom and it didn’t get more bottom than where Chance was standing at the moment. “Out with it already. What’s Big E done now?” He busied himself gathering up the books and games strewn about that Claudia and Rosie had occupied themselves with during his show. Right now all he wanted was the safe, quiet surroundings of the small two-bedroom bungalow he called home.
“I’d fill you in on the details.” Ty sighed. “But you told your boy Felix you would only be a few minutes. You need to come back, Chance. You need to come home.”
His stomach pitched. “I don’t think I do.” And the ranch had never felt like home. Not since their parents died.
“Do you really think I’d have flown all the way out here, left my beautiful bride-to-be with those brothers of ours, if I didn’t think this was important?”
“I don’t really know what to think about any of you.” Ty engaged? The idea still had the power to render him speechless. “I’m the black sheep, remember?” He jammed Clyde, Rosie’s worn, crazy-eyed stuffed monster into her rainbow backpack. “The last place I belong is on the Blackwell Family Ranch.”
“Whether you think you belong there or not, it’s your home, Chance. And like it or not, we’re your family. We need you.”
The Blackwell brothers needed him? Chance got to his feet and faced his brother. “What’s wrong? Is Big E dying? Do you need me to sing at the funeral? Oh.” Chance snapped his fingers. “No, wait. I forgot. Last thing our grandfather would want is to ever hear me sing. You were never one for barrel racing, Ty. Out with it.”
“Jon and Ben want to sell the ranch.”
“Good. Great.” One less thing to have to ever think about. “Fabulous. Enjoy whatever cash you get out of it.” He’d relinquished any hope of seeing Blackwell money long ago. As far as he knew, Big E had disinherited him the second Chance eloped with Maura Montgomery.
“Ethan and I don’t want to sell,” Ty added.
Had stubbornness not kept Chance on his feet, he might have passed out. “I’m sorry, what? You don’t want to sell. You. The Blackwell brother who had one foot over the property line the second he could walk?” Had Chance stepped off stage and into an alternate reality? He sat in the only other chair in the claustrophobic space. “This ought to be good. Why don’t you want to sell?”
Ty shrugged, stretched out his legs. “It’s our legacy. It’s Big E’s legacy. And we’ve made some really good progress with the guest-ranch aspect of the business. It’s picking up with all of us working together. Plus Hadley’s nuts about the place. FYI, we couldn’t have done much without Katie. She’s been amazing to work with. Girl knows just about everything there is about ranching, especially our ranch.”
“Katie’s still there?” Chance shouldn’t have been surprised to hear his sister-in-law hadn’t moved away. She and Maura had been raised on that ranch. It was as much the Montgomerys’ home as the Blackwells’. “Guess Maura was right. She always said Katie would never leave that place.” Thinking of his late wife’s kid sister brought up memories Chance honestly wasn’t ready to deal with.
“Yeah, well, Lochlan’s getting up in years. He’s still our foreman, but it’s pretty much in name only. Katie’s picked up his slack to cover for her dad.” Ty ducked his head, but not before Chance caught the flash of concern on his brother’s face. “Lochlan’s sick, Chance. Katie’s tried to keep it quiet, telling us he’d gone to visit friends, but we all just found out. He’s fading. And, well, I know it’s none of my business, but he wants to see his granddaughter before he dies.”
“You’re right,” Chance snapped. “It’s not your business.” Dormant anger he’d long buried threatened to boil over. “That old man refused to see his own daughter when she was dying. Wouldn’t make the trip. Not even to say goodbye. He didn’t even take her calls.” It was the one thing that still kept Chance up at night. That he’d been unable to grant his dying wife’s final wish. Not that he’d been able to accomplish much over the phone, but between Maura and Rosie, he couldn’t leave. Stubborn son of a... “Would you like me to tell you what her father’s rejection did to her? Would you like me to tell you in excruciating detail how she cried for her father at the end?”
“I’m not even going to try to understand that one, Chance.” Ty shook his head and Chance was relieved to see a flash of sympathy come across his brother’s face. “And I’m certainly not going to excuse it. Not even Katie can.”
“Ah.” Chance nodded. “So that’s what this is about. Katie sent you to plead Lochlan’s case. You know I wouldn’t put it past the old man to have put her up to it.”
“Clearly you haven’t seen Katie in a while. She doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want to. And for the record, no, she didn’t put me up to this. I can tell you I’ve caught her on more than one occasion looking at those pictures you send her of Rosie. Might be smart of you to remember that while you lost your wife, she lost