Cowboy Daddy

“Wasn’t borned on the ranch. I was borned in the hospital in Halifax.” He sighed. “My daddy is dead, you know.”

“Dead?” Nicole frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He died when he got on Uncle Kip’s horse.”

Tristan’s comment was said in all innocence, but again the guilt associated with his brother’s death washed over Kip.

“Your father is dead?” Nicole said, one hand pressed to her chest.

Why did she sound so shocked? Kip wondered.

“He died when the horse he was on flipped over,” Justin continued. “But we know he’s in heaven with Jesus. I talk to Jesus and tell him what to say to my daddy every night.”

“That’s…interesting.” A faint note of skepticism entered her voice that concerned him.

“We go regularly to church,” Kip said by way of brief explanation. “I hope that’s not a problem.” He wasn’t about to get into a theological discussion about what Jesus meant to him. If he decided to hire her, then she’d find out that faith was woven into every aspect of the Cosgroves’ life.

Nicole waved her hand as if dismissing his concerns. “No. Of course not.”

“And our mommy is gone,” Tristan offered, unwilling to let Justin do all the talking. “She just left us one day. All alone with the babysitter.”

“Then Daddy rescued us. He was a good daddy,” Justin said.

“How do you know your mommy left you?” A faint edge had entered her voice as she glanced up at Kip. “Do you know where their mother is?”

Kip shook his head, wondering why she wanted to know.

The reality was, no one in the Cosgrove family knew where Tricia was or whether she was dead or alive. His brother, Scott, and Tricia had been living in Nova Scotia when Tricia took off without a word six months after the boys were born.

Scott and his sons then moved back to the ranch.

“Do you want to see our dog’s puppies?” Justin tugged his hand free of Kip’s and reached out to Nicole.

“Shouldn’t you go and say hi to your Gramma?” Nicole asked.

Kip was pleasantly surprised at her consideration, but he also knew the boys would rather be outside.

“They can go.” He wanted a few minutes alone with his mother to get her impression of Nicole.

Tristan grabbed Nicole’s other hand and before she could lodge a protest the three of them were off.

Kip watched them head down the sidewalk toward the barn, still unsure. Hiring her would give him a break from the constant nagging he did to get Isabelle to help.

He sighed, glancing at his watch. He should go see his mother and then make sure the boys didn’t get into any trouble. Then he had to see what he could do about his tractor.

What had she done?

Nicole bit her lip as she looked down at the sticky faces of the two boys looking up at her, jabbering about cows and puppies and Uncle Kip and Auntie Isabelle and other relatives.

She tried to stifle her guilt.

She was no housekeeper. Nor had she come because of an advertisement. Her real reason for coming to the ranch was to see her nephews. Her sister’s boys.

That Kip’s sister Isabelle assumed she was the housekeeper had been a coincidence she capitalized on.

She clung to the boys’ hands as she felt buffeted by a wave of love. Justin. Tristan. Tricia’s twins. A remnant of the true Williams family now that Tricia was dead.

When Tricia had stormed out of their lives all those years ago, yelling that she’d never come back, Nicole had hoped her beloved sister would someday return. Nicole had prayed and had clung to this hope for eight years. However, four weeks ago a police officer showed up at the Williamses’ home in Rosedale, Toronto, with the news of Tricia’s death and crushed that hope.

Three years ago Tricia had been struck by a car while out walking late at night. She had no identification. It wasn’t until Tricia’s roommate registered her concern for the missing Tricia that the police were able to identify her body. The roommate knew only that Tricia had recently moved to Halifax and when she had earned enough money she planned to head out west. Then Tricia had had her accident.

The years had slipped by. Then, a month ago, the roommate moved out of her apartment and in the process had found an envelope behind a desk.

Inside the envelope were letters from Tricia to someone named Scott Cosgrove, a man Tricia apparently had been living with after the boys were born. From what Nicole and her father, Brent, understood from the letters, the boys’ biological father was dead. Scott, who was just her boyfriend, had somehow taken Tricia’s boys away from her while she was in a drug-rehabilitation program.

These letters had been mailed but returned, marked Address Unknown. These envelopes also contained letters to her sons expressing her love for them and how much she missed them. The final paper was a last will and testament addressed to her parents, asking Brent and Norah Williams to be her sons’ guardians in case something happened to her.

The roommate brought all this to the police, who were finally able to inform Nicole and her father what had happened to Tricia. It was also the first time Norah and Brent found out about Tricia’s sons.

Nicole had done some detective work and had discovered that Scott had moved back to his family’s ranch in Alberta. It took little work from there to discover a Cosgrove family in Millarville, Alberta. Nicole decided to go to the ranch, to talk to Scott about the boys and to see them.

Nicole’s father desperately wanted to come along, but his emphysema was especially bad and his doctor discouraged him from taking the trip. So Nicole came alone.

When Nicole came to the ranch house she wasn’t sure what she would do or say or if she was on the right track. She just knew she wasn’t leaving until she saw the boys for herself.

When Isabelle answered the door, she assumed Nicole was the housekeeper she’d advertised for and left within seconds of her arrival.

What could Nicole do? She couldn’t leave Mrs. Cosgrove, who had been sitting in a wheelchair, alone, nor could she tell the poor woman why she was here. So she stayed and cleaned up and helped where she could.

Then Kip came striding up the sidewalk with his long legs, his eyebrows lowered over narrowed grey eyes shadowed by his cowboy hat, his mouth set in grim lines, and fear clutched her midsection.

She was about to come clean.

Then she saw the boys, and she knew beyond a doubt they were Tricia’s twins. Everything changed in that moment, but she couldn’t tell the Cosgroves who she was. Not yet.

She didn’t want her first introduction to the boys to be fraught with conflict. Because as soon as Kip and his mother, Mary, found out her true purpose for being here, there would be antagonism and battles.

“We have our own kittens, too,” Justin said, swinging her hand as if he’d known her for all of his five years.

Nicole tightened her grip on the boys’ hands, a surprising wave of love and yearning washing over her.

How could Tricia have left these boys? How horrible her life must have been to make that sacrifice? Why couldn’t Tricia have asked for her family’s help?

It was because of me, Nicole thought. I sent her away.

“There are five of them,” Tristan said, his innocent words breaking into the morass of guilt surrounding any memory of Tricia. “One of them died, though. Do you think that kitten is in heaven with my daddy?”

“I think so,” Nicole said, hesitantly. She didn’t want to destroy their little dreams of heaven or of the man they thought of as their father. But Scott wasn’t their father.