His reluctant tone made her raise an eyebrow. “Have you run out of horses?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s just . . . we really need to discuss the information I received from my investigator. But you didn’t know, so we’ll deal with it later.” The postponement frustrated him. He seemed to want to get it over with, but she wasn’t so sure she wanted to know given his dire tone.
He touched her back to get her moving up the stairs to where the boys waited at the table, their presents in front of them, hands ready to tear into the packages. “Let’s do this and save the rest for later.”
Sierra let it go, tried to shake off her worry, and focused on the boys. “Okay, you two, I don’t want you to think you’re going to get presents every year but after the fire and we lost everything of your dad’s I made some calls to our friends in Napa and downloaded what I had and made you these.” She nodded for them to go ahead and open the gifts.
They tore open the wrapping paper and tossed it away. Danny and Oliver both stared at their photo books, a picture of each of them with their dad on the cover.
“Our friends sent all the pictures they had of you guys with your dad. Aunt Amy and Heather and Grandma gave me some from family gatherings. I used all the ones I had stored on my phone and put them all together in these books.”
Danny flipped through pages, tears rolling down his cheeks.
Oliver simply stared at the cover, his face solemn.
Her mom wrapped her arm around Sierra’s middle. “They’re gorgeous, Sierra. When you told me what you were doing, I never expected it to turn out like this. It’s like a photography book.”
“You custom-make them online.” She addressed the boys then. “I wanted you to remember all the good times we had with Dad. Now any time you miss him, you can look at these pictures and see his face and remember how much he loved you.”
Choked up, she swallowed back her own tears.
The books had taken quite a bit of time to design, but they turned out so well. She customized each one to focus on either Danny or Oliver, though of course many of the pictures showed both of them. But there were lots that were just one of them with their dad and her.
She vowed to make new ones for them every few years, so they had their memories to look at instead of all the pictures simply sitting in the cloud doing nothing for anyone in cyberspace.
Sierra hoped this helped heal their hearts. She couldn’t give them back everything lost in the fire, but this had been a way to bring the memories back to life for them.
They were so young. She didn’t want those memories to fade away without them having something to help bring them back to life in their minds and hearts.
Danny finally looked up at her, so much sorrow in his eyes. “Thanks, Mom.” He clutched the book to his chest. “Thanks.”
She hugged him close. “You’re welcome, sweetheart.” Tears tracked down her cheeks.
Oliver pressed his face into her side. She put one arm around him, too, and held both her boys close.
This had been a hard day. Necessary, but difficult. They needed this chance to remember and keep the healing going and the memories of David alive.
Her phone rang in her back pocket. She let the boys go and pulled out her cell and read the caller ID. “It’s work.”
Mason moved into her place next to the boys. “Your mom told me about the books. I’d love to see them.” Mason and her mom kept the boys occupied while she took the call.
“Hi, Mike. How’s the Gilmore place coming along?”
“One of the subs hit the gas line. We’re shut down. Emergency services is on the way. We’ve cleared the area, but we’re going to need the owner down here.”
“I’ll call him and meet him there as soon as I can.” She raked her fingers through her hair and silently swore.
Mason touched her arm. “What is it?”
“A work emergency. I need to meet the owner at a property.”
“Dede is meeting her friends for lunch. I’ll take the boys. Join us at the ranch when you’re done.”
“Are you sure?”
He squeezed her hand. “It’s part of being a family, right? We look out for each other.”
The sweet sentiment touched her heart. “You make everything easy.”
“It’s not supposed to be hard. I don’t mind taking the boys. Soon, we’ll be together all the time. I hope.”
She wondered why he added the last. “You know that’s what I want, right?”
“Yes.” His excitement shone through. “And I hope nothing changes.” That drained the enthusiasm right out of him.
“What would change that?”
“I’m nervous about telling you what I know.”
Anxiety tightened her gut. “Nothing David did would make me change the way I feel about you.” Her phone buzzed with a text from Mike. She quickly read it. “I need to deal with this. I’ll be back as soon as I can, then we’ll talk about David.” She went up on tiptoe and kissed him quick, gave the boys hugs good-bye, wondering about Mason and the way he spoke about what he’d discovered about David, and questioning if she’d come home to an even bigger problem than the one facing her now.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mason heard a car pull up just outside the stables. He hoped Sierra had finished her work emergency early. He didn’t like the way they left things.
He’d wanted to be wrong about David, who loved his family. He wanted to believe David would never do anything to hurt them.
But David had hurt them. He’d done something he couldn’t take back.
And he wasn’t here to answer for it.
Which made it even worse, because Sierra deserved an explanation and an apology at the very least.
A car door slammed.
Mason plucked Danny off the stall door and set him on the ground. “I think your mom is here.”
Oliver gave Jezebel’s big head a hug. “Bye, Horse.”
Mason pulled Oliver off the gate, then swung him around in a circle and set him on his feet. Oliver giggled and smiled so big Mason smiled with him.
He really loved having the boys here. “Let’s see if your mom wants something to eat before we ride. She probably missed lunch.”
Danny tagged Oliver in the back. “You’re it!” He ran for the open stable doors just as a second car door closed.
Oliver caught up to Danny. Only because he stopped to hug Hallee.
Mason joined them and greeted Heather. “Hey. I forgot you were coming.”
Heather touched her hand to her chest, partially covering the cleavage revealed by the one too many buttons undone on her black-and-white plaid flannel. In tight black jeans and boots, she looked ready to ride. “You certainly know how to make a girl feel welcome.”
She teased, but he just wanted her out of here before Sierra came home, so they could pick up their conversation where they left off.
But thinking the word home made him pause. He wanted Sierra to feel like this was home. He wanted her and the boys to live here. The boys accepted him in their mother’s life. But he didn’t want to get ahead of himself. He’d waited this long for her. He could wait for her to make the decision about where to live when she felt they were ready for it.