Lois Richer - Rocky Mountain Daddy

For a microsecond Olivia considered calling The Haven and asking Jake, her foster aunts’ handyman, to come and help her. Until a glance at her phone showed it was dead. Again. Not that it mattered, because she had no intention of calling.

Olivia never took the easy way out. She prided herself on being responsible and that included fixing a tire, even though she’d have to completely unpack her fully laden car to retrieve her spare.

“Nothing good comes easily,” she reminded herself with a weary sigh.

Olivia had her hand on the trunk latch when a rumble to her right made her pause. A half-ton truck beetled toward her, leaving behind a massive dust plume from the bumpy dirt track—well, you could hardly call it a road.

Some might say you could hardly call the vehicle a truck. Rusted-out fenders, splotches of turquoise paint dabbed here and there—probably to contain the rust—and a cracked windshield numbered among its less noteworthy features.

“At least his vehicle is running,” she chastised herself.

He was Gabe Webber, foreman of the Double M, the sprawling ranch next door to The Haven. Olivia knew him, but only casually. Gabe had been employed after she and her foster sisters Victoria, Adele and Gemma had left The Haven to attend university.

Years ago, when they were not quite teens, Olivia and the other girls had been brought here by Tillie and Margaret Spenser, former missionaries and aging owners of the huge stone house and pristinely forested estate known as The Haven. Despite their being dubbed troublemakers in the foster care system, the four girls had bonded while the Spenser sisters, whom they affectionately called “the aunties,” sheltered and lovingly raised them as if they were all part of one big family. Those precious years had created a debt none of the four girls could ever hope to repay.

Over a year ago the aunties had come up with a plan to sponsor an outreach program at The Haven, a way to offer respite to troubled foster children. Victoria had set that plan into motion. Then last fall, Adele, Olivia’s second foster sister, came on board as the food and beverage manager. In a recent phone call to Olivia, Victoria had raved that the foster kids who now came to The Haven on a weekend, or for weeklong programs, loved the addition of trail rides to their activities, and she’d given a big part of the credit to the Double M foreman, Gabe.

Olivia was happy for Victoria and Adele and The Haven’s success, but she didn’t intend to become part of it. Olivia didn’t do responsibility for kids. Never again.

Gabe’s battered truck pulled up behind her car, motor purring smoothly. He climbed out. Six feet four inches and leaner than lean, Gabe Webber was always the image that came to mind when Olivia thought “cowboy.” Handsome and hunky, his crisp dark hair glistened in the sunshine as he whipped off his black Stetson and smiled at her.

“Hello, Olivia. Nice to see you. Having trouble?” he asked in a low rumbly voice.

Funny that she’d never noticed how deep his voice was.

“Hi, Gabe.” Olivia glanced at him and then quickly away, lifting one hand to make sure her hair covered her scarred cheek. Gabe had seen the scar before, of course, and never once had he made her feel uncomfortable about it, but her actions stemmed from a lifelong habit.

“My tire blew,” she explained. “I was about to dig out the spare.”

“I see that. I hear you’re making a move to Edmonton.” Gabe assessed the damage, running one gloved fingertip over the shredded tire. “Starting a new job, your aunts said?”

“That’s the plan,” Olivia agreed. “I need to find an apartment and get settled in before I start work, but first I wanted to stop by The Haven and see everyone.”

“Organizing people, is that what you do?” Gabe clapped on his Stetson, then shoved it to the back of his head, sky-blue eyes darkening as he studied her nod.

“Sort of. My official title was systems analyst, but the job was more about being an administrative assistant to a colonel.” She shrugged. “I was tasked with making his office run more efficiently.” Too much information, Olivia.

“Uh-huh.” Gabe blinked. “Been a long time since you were here, Liv. Your Aunt Tillie and Aunt Margaret miss you.” His intense gaze shifted to scrutinize the other tires. Bald tires.

“I miss my aunties, too, but it wasn’t always easy to get here from Ottawa,” she defended. Please don’t say I should have bought new tires. She’d used a hefty chunk of her precious savings to store her furniture and fund her move far away from the man to whom she’d given her heart, the one who’d lied about loving her. Edmonton would be her fresh start. “How’ve you been, Gabe?”

“Busy. Since the Double M started offering trail rides, Victoria keeps us hopping.” His droll, dry comment didn’t tell Olivia he was joking, but his slow, easy smile did. “I make time to come over to The Haven every week on Fridays, though. Doughnut afternoons.” Gabe licked his full lips and grinned, white teeth blazing against his tanned skin. “Chef Adele makes the best glazed doughnuts. Besides, I enjoy her kids. Those twins are quite a pair.”

“Yes, they are.” Olivia barely knew her adopted niece and nephew, Francie and Franklyn, but that was by choice. If she didn’t get too close to them, she couldn’t wreck their worlds as she’d done to other kids. She pushed up her sleeves. “I guess I’d better change—”

Her words were cut short by the squeal of tires as a dusty white SUV barreled off the highway and around the corner. It slid to a halt mere inches from Olivia’s back bumper. She and Gabe both stared as a woman got out and marched toward them.

“Lady, you have to slow down around here. There could be a horse wandering in the road and if you hit it, you’d be in trouble and so would it.” Gabe sounded irritated, which Olivia thought was odd for what she’d always thought such an easygoing guy. But then this cowboy loved horses as much as other people loved their kids.

The woman seemed unfazed. “I’m looking for a Gabriel Webber.”

“You found him.” Gabe frowned at her. “What can I—?”

The words died on his lips as the woman racewalked around the front of her vehicle to the passenger side. She yanked open the back door and a moment later dragged forward a small boy and an equally small battered suitcase.

“This is your son, Eli,” she announced.

“I’m sorry, lady, you’ve got the wrong guy.” Gabe began shaking his head, but the woman interrupted.

“Eve’s son. Your son.” She stared at him hard. “Eli’s almost six.”

Olivia’s head had been swiveling back and forth between them, trying to figure out what was happening. At the word Eve , Gabe stiffened, but at the word six his face seemed to freeze.

“Impossible,” he finally whispered, blanching.

“Possible.” The woman nodded. “I’m Eve’s sister, Kathy Kane. We’ve never met, though we might have if you’d had a proper wedding instead of dragging my sister to some unsavory elopement and then dumping her when she got pregnant.” When she received no response to her angry criticism she continued. “I live in Calgary now. Where Eve lived.”

“Lived?” Gabe squinted at her. His face tightened into a mask, giving away nothing. He glanced at the boy again. “She’s not living there now?”

“Eve died a month ago. She had cancer.”

Olivia knew less than nothing about raising kids, but she immediately knew it wasn’t right that the woman said the words so baldly, without even a hand on the shoulder to comfort the boy. And yet, Eli seemed untouched by the remark about his mother’s passing. He just stood where he was, staring at the ground, his little face pinched and sad.