Cowboy Daddy. Carolyne Aarsen

only a stranger, a woman who had come to completely disrupt their lives.

      “I’m so glad you decided to take on a housekeeper,” his mother continued, sounding hopeful. “She seems so capable and organized.”

      Kip hated to burst her bubble. “I still think Isabelle should learn to pull her share of the housework.”

      His mother sighed. “I know, and I agree, but it’s so much work to get her motivated and Nicole seems so capable.” Mary looked past Kip. “Where is Nicole now?”

      “She left.” Kip blew out his breath and dropped into a chair across from her mother. “Truth is, she didn’t come for the housekeeping job. She came…” he hesitated, glancing up at his mother, who seemed more relaxed than she had in months. Scott’s death had been devastating for her. This new piece of information wouldn’t help. “Nicole, apparently, is Tricia’s sister.”

      His mother frowned. “Tricia? Scott’s girlfriend?”

      “Yep. The mother of the boys.”

      Mary’s fingers fluttered over her heart, her eyes wide in a suddenly pale face. “What did she want?”

      Kip wrapped his rough hands around his mother’s cold ones. “She claims she has a will granting her custody of Justin and Tristan.”

      “But the boys’ mother…Tricia…” Mary squeezed her son’s hands. “Where is she?”

      “She’s dead.” The words sounded harsh, even though he’d never met the woman. But she had been the mother of his nephews.

      The nephews that Nicole claimed didn’t belong to Kip’s family. Kip’s heart turned over in his chest.

      There was no way he was telling his mother that piece of information. He didn’t believe that fact for one minute anyhow. Scott had loved those boys. Doted on them.

      Since Scott died, Kip had fought to keep this family together, but lately he felt as if everything he worked so hard for was slipping out of his fingers.

      There was no way he was letting Nicole take his mother’s only connection to Scott away. No way.

      Chapter Three

      “I found them. I found the boys.” Nicole tucked the phone under her chin as she sorted through her clothes. The motel room held a small dresser and minuscule closet she could hang some clothes in. She had packed a variety of clothes, unsure what she would need.

      She closed the closet door and glanced around the room. It was the best, supposedly, in Millarville, and she guessed it would do. She hoped she wouldn’t have to stay here long. Staying here resurrected memories she had relegated to the “before” part of her life.

      Before the Williams family took her in.

      “Are they okay? How do they look?” Her father sounded a bit better, as if the news sparked new life in him.

      “They’re fine.” Nicole thought of Justin and Tristan, and her heart contracted.

      She knew the Cosgroves wouldn’t simply hand over the boys to her as soon as she had arrived. From what she had discovered, the boys had been at the ranch since Scott took them away.

      Kip’s family was the only one the children knew. A family, she discovered, which included Kip’s mother, a younger sister and a married sister with six children.

      Nicole couldn’t stop a nudge of jealousy at the thought of Kip’s large family, then quashed it. She’d had a full life with the Williams, and she owed her adoptive parents more than she could ever repay. That Brent’s natural daughter was the one gone only increased her guilt.

      “Is the family treating them okay? Do they seem to have a stable home life?”

      “The farmhouse is a bit of a wreck,” Nicole said, thinking of the worn flooring, and the faded paint. “It looks as if no money had been spent on the house in a while.”

      Yet in spite of the mess, when she walked into the spacious kitchen of the Cosgrove house, she felt enveloped by a sense of home. Of comfort and peace.

      Something she seldom experienced in her father’s cavernous house.

      “They’re well taken care of.” She tucked the phone under her ear, pulled her laptop out of the bag and plugged it in. Thankfully, she would be able to do much of her work for the family’s foundation while she was here.

      “You sound like you think they should stay.” Her father’s voice held an accusatory tone.

      “No. I don’t,” Nicole assured him. “But we can’t simply remove them immediately.” She knew she sounded practical, however, her feelings were anything but.

      When she saw the boys, a feeling of love, almost devastating in its intensity, bowled her over. She wanted to grab them, hold them close, then run away with them. She couldn’t understand or explain the unexpected power of these feelings. The only time she’d experienced this before was when she saw her little sister, Tricia, for the first time.

      “It was what your sister wanted,” her father said, a hard note entering his voice.

      “I know. It’s what I want as well, but we have to proceed carefully. The boys don’t remember their mother and they most certainly don’t know who I am.” She highly doubted Kip would tell them in the next few days.

      “I should be there,” her father said, his voice harsh. “I should be meeting with that lawyer.” This was followed by a bout of coughing that belied his insistence.

      “You know yourself that once lawyers get hold of things, the process grinds to a halt.” She ignored a sliver of panic at the thought. When she arranged to come here, she had given herself three weeks to bring the boys back. Sure, she could work here, but she also needed to spend time with the boys so the transition from here to Toronto wouldn’t be so difficult.

      “Who do the boys look like?” Brent asked, a thread of hope in his voice.

      “They look exactly like Tricia.” Nicole pressed her fingers to her lips, restraining her sorrow.

      “You have to bring my boys back, Nicole. They are all I have left of Tricia. Those boys don’t belong there. They’re not even blood relatives.”

      Nicole knew her father spoke out of sorrow, but his words struck at the foundations of Nicole’s insecurities. Tricia was Sam and Norah’s natural daughter.

      Nicole was simply the adopted one.

      “Tomorrow I’ll see Mr. Cosgrove’s lawyer,” Nicole said, opening her laptop and turning it on. “We’ll have to take this one step at a time.”

      “When you talk to that lawyer you make sure to let him know that James Feschuk is working for us. His reputation might get things moving a bit. I also want a DNA test. If they don’t believe us, then we’ll get positive proof that Scott Cosgrove was not the boys’ father.”

      “How will that happen?” Nicole asked.

      “James told me that you can get DNA tests done locally. He suggested one called a grandparent’s test. Get that grandmother to get tested and we’ll find out. I’ll get tested too. Then we’ve got some teeth to our argument.” His voice rose and Sam started coughing again.

      “I’m saying goodbye,” Nicole said. “And you should go to bed. Make sure you take your medication and use that puffer the doctor gave you.”

      “Yes, yes,” Sam said. “I’ll get James to phone that lawyer. Tell him we insist on a DNA test. Give me his name and I can take care of it.”

      Nicole pulled out her cell phone and called up the name and number and gave that information to her father. “I’ll let you know the minute I hear anything.”

      Nicole said goodbye. She turned back to her computer, but only sat and stared sightlessly at the screen,