Several days passed before Whitney stopped thinking about the mysterious burned spot. She finally decided the fire was purely an accident and wouldn’t happen again. As Nate suggested, the trespassers were probably kids who wouldn’t think twice about building a campfire regardless of dry grass and burn bans. Then when the fire had gotten out of hand, they’d gotten scared and bolted. End of story. So she put the incident out of her mind and pressed on with learning everything she could from the Triple C cowboy.

The one thing that didn’t fade from memory was the midnight ride when Nate had kissed her, the moment when some dead part of her had awakened. If she hadn’t dumped her life story on him, maybe he wouldn’t have backed away, but she understood why he wanted to be her friendly neighbor and not her man. At least, she was trying to. As much as she wanted to change her past mistakes, she couldn’t.

He was right to keep her at arm’s length, and even though she liked him a lot more than she should, friendship was the best choice for both of them. Relationships could be tricky, and she needed his ranching expertise more than she needed romance. God had sent him along to help her, not to be her latest flame, and that was that.

But as weeks passed, Nate spent more and more time at her place, and their friendship grew. And grew. No man had ever listened to her the way Nate did. They could talk for hours and often did. She loved having him in her kitchen scarfing down tiny chicken eggs and gallons of coffee. He seemed to fit there, as if he was the missing ingredient in her life. She loved the easy way he discussed his faith, the sound of his laughter, the way he interacted with the twins.

And every night when she fell into bed exhausted, she prayed a special prayer for this man whose friendship she’d come to treasure.

The day he’d brought the twins a double stroller, she’d almost cried, right before refusing to accept it. He’d gotten adorably huffy and said he’d bought the stroller for the twins, and if they didn’t like it, he’d take it back. She had no say in the matter.

Because she thought his excuse was cute and clever, she’d given in and thanked him, touched by his generosity. The girls, naturally, thought riding around as a big old cowboy pushed them all over the yard and down the rutted driveway while making truck noises was the coolest thing ever.

So did she. And if she fantasized about someday finding a good dad for Olivia and Sophia, a dad a lot like Nate Caldwell, she kept those thoughts to herself.

On this particular fall morning, when the weather had cooled to crisp, she wrestled a fifty-pound sack of chicken feed out of the back of her car and dragged it, muscles straining, to the self-feeder Nate had showed her how to fill. The twins toddled along behind, having grown accustomed to spending most of their day outdoors with her and the animals.

With a hearty heave, she hoisted the bag up on its edge and filled the tank. A dozen clucking hens raced toward her at the sound, waddling in their funny way as their head feathers swayed in the breeze like hat plumes. Nate was right to laugh. They were silly looking but faithful as the sun in laying eggs every day. Nate called them jelly bean eggs and could eat a dozen. Next spring, and she was determined to be here next spring, he would teach her to set the hens and raise babies to sell for pocket money.

The matter of money, however, was more immediate than next spring, but as Emily and Connie reminded her, she was not alone anymore. With God’s help and that of her new friends, she’d figure out ways to generate more income from the ranch. She hoped they were right.

“God didn’t bring you here to let you down, mija,” Connie had said at last week’s Bible study. “He has a plan for you, the niñas, and this ranch. And His plans are good.”

Whitney clung to that belief. God had blessed her with a completely unexpected inheritance. With His help, she not only wouldn’t lose the ranch, she would make it thrive. For the first time in her adult life, she was on the right track. She hoped.

She flipped the feeder lid shut and grinned at the funny hens, pecking like mad all around her.

“Come on, girls,” she called to the twins. “Let’s feed the goats.”

Whitney started toward the goat pen. A baby’s squeal turned her around. Her heart leaped into throat. Olivia chased a clucking hen around the pen, but Sophia stood like a wide-eyed statue, frozen in place.

“Sophia! What’s wrong?”

The baby opened a hand. “Yucky.”

With a relieved laugh, Whitney hustled to her child before Sophia could wipe chicken manure on her clothes. Or worse.

Living and working with animals every day with the twins’ in tow worried her, but what else could she do? And hadn’t farm women managed on their own for millennia, most of them with far more than two children?

She scooped up the baby, holding her away from her body until they reached the outdoor faucet. The manure smell was strong, but what did she expect? Any girly girl notions she’d brought to Oklahoma had long since vanished. She washed and dried Sophia’s hands, using her jeans as a towel.

City girl had come a long way. Nate would be impressed. He’d laugh, too, and probably offer a fist bump. She loved when he did that.

She set a satisfied Sophia on her feet and gave her little back a pat before heading to the barn to get feed for the goats.

The toddlers squealed and raced ahead of her. Lately, their response to everything was an ear-splitting squeal. She watched them, thankful to God that she’d listened to her heart instead of to Elliot. These babies were her very heartbeat. She could not imagine life without them.

Smiling, happy in a way she hadn’t been in years, Whitney followed the twins into the barn. The large structure boasted one complete side for storage. The other side housed stalls with a long alleyway between them. Square bales of hay were stacked in the loft for winter feedings. Sally kept a tack room and feed rooms filled with lidded barrels, garden tools, and so much more Nate was teaching her to use.

Hers. All hers. God-willing, she’d turn this ranch into something really special—a home for now and a legacy for her girls’ future. Home. Forever. Stable and secure.

She was still working on the last two.

At the feed room, she reached for the door handle but paused. The latch was undone. She frowned, certain she’d secured the door last night. She couldn’t afford to lose feed much less allow an animal to get inside and make himself sick.

A creepy feeling prickled the skin on her arms. She looked from side to side. No one. The chickens clucked. The sheep baaed. The billy goat butted his head against the iron gate. Normal, everyday barnyard noises. Nothing else. Nothing amiss.

Pulling the babies close to her side, she shook off the creeps and opened the feed room.

Her stomach fell all the way to the toes of her completely inappropriate snow boots. She couldn’t afford work boots.

She also couldn’t afford to replace the two bags of corn and sweet feed that were spilled all over the floor of the room.

“How in the world…?” She must have left the door unlocked, and the goats must have gotten in. But how? They were in their pens. “Clive?”

Oh, man, if that dumb horse had escaped and killed himself on grain, she’d send him to the glue factory. If there was such a thing.

A dark shadow fell across the doorway. “Looks like you have a problem.”

Whitney screamed and jumped. Her feet hit the spilled corn, and she slipped, windmilling her arms for a few seconds before collapsing in a cloud of corn dust.

“My deepest apologies. I didn’t intend to startle you.”

“Mr. Leach.” Her pulse banged and thumped louder than the billy goat’s incessant head butting. A knot of tension sprang up between her shoulder blades. Lawyer Leach had never paid her a visit. He’d telephoned once to ask how things were going and to make sure she was following the mandates of Sally’s will, but this was his first onsite visit.

Now he’d think she was completely incompetent. “The door must have come open and—”

She coughed and grabbed for the twins, who saw the spilled feed as their very own sandbox and gleefully tossed handfuls into the air.

In his brown business suit and yellow striped tie, Lawyer Leach curled his upper lip as if afraid some of the dust would settle on his shiny shoes.

“Does this happen often? Things seem a bit out of control.”

“No.” Whitney hopped to her feet, brushing corn and grain from her jeans. Some of it trickled into her boots.

She clutched the twins to her side to stop them from resuming their play. Mr. Leach was all business, and she had to show him she was a serious rancher, taking proper care of Sally’s farm. “Would you like me to show you around? I promise this has never happened before. I’m not sure why the door was open.”

Suddenly, the billy goat’s head appeared around the edge of the door. He bleated and started inside, bold as sin. Whitney turned loose of the girls and jumped up, struggling to maintain her footing on the loose feed.

“No, you don’t.” She caught Billy by the knobby head and pushed him back. How had he gotten through the gate? Had she left that open too?

Lawyer Leach looked on with a troubled expression. “I do hope you aren’t in over your head with these animals, Whitney dear. Sally Rogers was a serious rancher who never left feed unsecured. You do understand the ramifications of losing even one of these animals, regardless of your inexperience or neglect.”

Neglect? He thought she was neglecting Sally’s animals? Her animals? Her children’s future?

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Leach. Truly, this hasn’t happened before. One of the twins got manure on her hands, and I must have gotten distracted…” Her voice trailed away when his eyebrows edged higher and higher.

Defeated, she wrestled Billy out of the barn and back to his pen. The gate was closed. She frowned, bewildered. Could he have crawled through the rungs? He never had before.

Once the goat was inside and the gate secure, she turned back toward the lawyer, who now picked his way around the pens, avoiding dung and animals even as he inspected them. Apparently, her attorney was not a fan of farm life. And why should he be? He was an attorney looking after her aunt’s interests. Interests she did not appear to have under control.

“Things have been going really well.” Until now. If he didn’t count the runaway horse and the fainting goats and the fire that started so very close to her fence.

Taking a deep breath and praying to impress with words when she couldn’t with actions, Whitney parroted every piece of information Nate had taught her, hoping to prove her competence.

The lawyer rubbed his chin, nodding, eyes narrowed, but making no comment. She was a failure. She could see it in his eyes. If he had to file a report somewhere, he’d give her a big fat F. They’d come and take the farm—whoever they was—and give it Ronnie Flood.

“This morning we vaccinated and wormed ten head.” She liked how ranchy that sounded, even though her back ached from holding critters in a headlock while Nate squirted pasty stuff down their throats. “We’ll get the rest tomorrow.”

“We?” Pale eyes settled on her, curious and keen. Mr. Leach had a sharp look about him, but she supposed that was the way of lawyers. Always thinking. Always suspicious. And hadn’t she given him plenty to be suspicious about?

“Nate Caldwell, my neighbor. He’s teaching me the ropes.”

“Caldwell.” The man squinted toward the north. “His ranch adjoins Sally’s.”

She’d begun thinking of the ranch as hers, but she didn’t say that. Not yet. A year was a long time.

“You know him?”

The lawyer laughed, though the sound was anything but merry. “Everyone in Calypso County knows the Caldwells. Land hungry. They buy up everything in their path. The rich get richer.”

What an odd statement from a lawyer. From her perspective an attorney who drove a Lincoln and wore fancy suits and shoes was plenty rich. She on the other hand was running a ranch on nothing but a shoestring and hope. “They’ve been very nice to me.”

“He and those brothers of his tried to buy this property after their daddy died. Sally wouldn’t sell out.”

“I didn’t know that.” No reason she should. What the Caldwells bought or didn’t buy was their business.

Leach scraped the bottom of his shoe on the grass, turned it up and grimaced at the result. Without any further comment, he walked away from the pens and headed for his car, clearly eager to leave. Whitney hustled to keep up, terrified that he’d send her an eviction notice in tomorrow’s mail. After all, he was the boss, the lawyer in charge, the executer of Sally’s will.

“Would you like to come in for some refreshment?” Maybe a little hospitality could buy her some more time. She racked her brain, hoping she had something besides yogurt and bananas to offer. “Coffee?”

She could always make coffee and eggs, but she doubted her omelets would impress him the way they impressed Nate. Anything to convince him that she and the twins should remain here on the ranch.

He shook his head and slid into the fancy car. “I have an appointment at the office.”

Wasn’t he going to say anything else? Tell her she was doing okay or that she was out in the cold?

“I’m doing the best I can, Mr. Leach, and I’m working hard to make the ranch a success. Nate says I’m learning fast. Plus,” she reminded him, “I still have a long time to prove myself.”

There. She’d tossed out her one caveat. The will gave her a year. Even a lawyer couldn’t evict her over spilled feed and a loose goat. Could he?

His sharp eyes narrowed. He slid on a pair of sunglasses and started the car. The engine hummed so quietly, she could barely hear it. Not like her poor battered car with the muffler wired in place.

“One piece of advice, Whitney.” Mr. Leach leaned out the lowered window. “You’ve had some bad luck this morning, and I heard about the fire. Things like that send up red flags. If I were you, I’d keep my eyes on those Caldwells. Just in case.”

Then, the darkly tinted window ascended, shutting her out before the lawyer drove away.

Watching the dust and gravel swirl around his shiny clean car, Whitney blinked after him.

In case of what?