Taming His Montana Heart(19)

“I’m not going to play this game tonight.” His words were clipped, but he didn’t care. “She has the most experience of the few applicants we had, which she continues to prove. She’s done things on her own with worn-out machines I doubt anyone else could.” He paused for effect. “If you won’t approve the grooming equipment, I’ll tell the dog racing organization we can’t accommodate them. They’ll take their twenty teams and hundreds of fans elsewhere.”

“Fine. Have your way.”

How many times had it come down to this with Uncle Robert ultimately putting everything on his shoulders? He’d known what he was getting into when his uncle asked him to run things here but as Uncle Robert had put it, “You have to do something or you’ll go crazy.”

What he hadn’t taken into enough consideration was how weary he’d become of this game. His uncle was doing what he believed he needed to in order to salvage his nephew, but the solution had serious flaws. For one, the complex relationship between them played a role in Shaw’s inability to fully embrace where he was living.

No, Uncle Robert wasn’t the villain. What it all came down to was knowing he’d never get over the day he’d taken a life.

And because he couldn’t, he had no business thinking of Haley Walters as anything other than a valuable staff member.

*

“Do you wish you hadn’t taken the job?” Haley’s brother asked. “You were hoping for a smooth running operation, but it doesn’t sound like that’s what you got.”

“There’s incredible potential,” she told Mick.

“Hmm. Are you sure you aren’t trying to convince yourself?”

A couple of times a week she filled her slow cooker with whatever she had on hand. The stews and soups provided her with the majority of her dinners and made her trailer smell like someone cared about the domestic arts. Tonight’s meal could have used more seasoning but at least she’d filled her stomach and in the process had warmed up.

She’d intended to spend the rest of the evening watching TV or reading or a combination of the two since she liked having sound in the background. Then she’d looked at her cell phone and seen that Mick had called. Her first impulse had been to wait until she wasn’t wiped out from the day’s exertions, but the thought of being able to talk to her nieces was more than she could resist. Mostly the two teenagers had gossiped about boys.

Finally their father had wrestled the phone from them. In response to her hello, he’d said she sounded tired. That was when she’d told him about her day.

“Sounds like you weren’t bored,” he said. “I still wish you didn’t think you had to get so far away from—the girls miss Aunt Haley. So do I.”

“I miss you guys, too.” Despite the ache in her throat and burning eyes, she’d made the only decision she could. Remaining close to where her mother had died meant she might never stop blaming herself. “Where’s Carol? I was hoping to talk to her.”

“Didn’t my wife tell you about her night class? She’s there now, learning how to take quality photographs.”

Carol was one of the highest energy women Haley had ever known. Carol handled motherhood with one hand tied behind her back and held a full-time accounting job at a medical clinic.

“She wears me out,” she admitted. “What’s she going to do with her new knowledge?”

“She wants to explore the possibility of making a living taking pictures. You’ve seen the shots she’s taken of the girls over the years. She’s great at capturing what they’re about.”

“Yes, she is.” Haley looked around her living room, comparing it with the historic house her brother and his family lived in. Where their home radiated life and warmth, her trailer, although new, was bare bones.

“I’m all for Carol exploring her options,” Mick said. “She can’t advance at work and that frustrates her.”

Back when her brother first started dating Carol, their dad had insisted the relationship would never work. Their mother had told her husband to keep his opinion to himself. As a young teen, Haley’s overriding concern had been that big brother was striking out on his own, leaving her alone with their parents’ never-ending disagreements. Even realizing how much Mick loved Carol hadn’t stopped her from wanting to keep her brother to herself.

Then the worst had happened and Mick and Carol had become the only stability in her shattered world.

“Sorry, sis,” Mick said. “I have to cut this short. I have a sink to unclog.”

“The joys of home ownership. The girls would love it here. Shaw’s little niece was here the other day. She had the time of her life pelting her uncle with snowballs.”

“How’d he react?”

“What do you mean?”

“You told me how serious and reserved the man is. Maybe being around a child brought out another side to him.”

She nearly told her brother that watching Shaw acknowledge the wilderness from a roof had revealed a contemplative side to him she hadn’t expected. Instead she focused on what Mick had just said.

“He let Alexa win. It’s clear she adores him, and he feels the same way about her.”

“Kids are pretty perceptive when it comes to grownups. Maybe he isn’t as bad as we thought.”