Page 109 of Don't Burn Bridges
A year ago, she'd spent most of the rodeo asking questions about every event and cheering mainly because everyone else was. Today, she'd explained saddle bronc scoring to a couple of tourists before he'd even had the chance.
She'd become a rancher.
The transformation hadn't happened overnight, though.
She'd spent months learning the day-to-day operation of the ranch office from the staff before Shane began teaching her the responsibilities that fell solely on his shoulders. When Linda Carmichael retired as the Triple-R's longtime office manager three months ago, Shylo was more than ready to step into the role. Lately, Shane had taken her on a few business trips to meet with clients and attend cattle sales, giving her firsthand experience with every facet of running the ranch that had been in the Wilson family for five generations.
Shane had also contacted the family lawyers to restructure the Triple-R’s ownership to include Shylo. Her name was now officially on the letterhead.
Watching the two of them work together still warmed Seth’s heart. When she first arrived in Hazard Falls, she believed she'd have to fight Shane for what was rightfully hers. Instead, she gained the big brother she'd spent her whole life wishing for.
But Shane hadn't stopped there.
He'd offered to build Shylo a house on the Triple-R from the beginning. Once she'd finally felt comfortable enough to accept, construction had gotten underway almost immediately. Nearly finished now, it sat less than a quarter mile from the main house, tucked beneath a stand of old cottonwoods overlooking one of the east pastures. After spending most of the past year sharing Seth's apartment, she asked him to move into the new place with her. If everything stayed on schedule, they'd be sleeping in their new home before summer gave way to fall.
Home.
The word had meant a lot of different things over the years.
For most of Seth’s life, it had been a place more than a feeling.
Then, living on the Triple-R had changed that.
Now...
Now it meant waking up beside the woman he loved on a ranch that had become more than a place to work.
It meant Arianna proudly introducing Shylo as her aunt whenever they met someone new and Ashley shouting, “Aunt Sylo!” every time she spotted her, even if she'd only been gone for five minutes. It meant little Jude recognized her the moment she walked into the room, rewarding her with a wide grin and outstretched arms.
It meant family. The kind neither of them had ever expected to find.
Seth's thoughts drifted to another summer night after last year’s rodeo, when he'd stood beside Shane beneath the trees at the edge of the property while a small hole waited in the ground between them.
Neither man had said much. They hadn't needed to.
Shane had carried the urn. Seth had handled the shovel. When the ashes were covered, Shylo had stood there with tears slipping silently down her cheeks, and for one terrible moment, Seth had worried she regretted everything that had happened.
Later that night, she told him the tears hadn't been for Troy. Not really.
She'd been mourning the brother she'd spent thirty years hoping he might become.
The loving brother she'd never had.
Thankfully, life had a way of surprising people.
Because while she'd lost Troy...
She'd found Shane.
Seth understood what that meant better than anyone.
A year ago, he'd never imagined he'd be talking to his father every week. Stacy, the older man’s wife, ran off with a guy closer to her twenty-one- and nineteen-year-old daughters' ages than her own, leaving their dad to pick up the pieces. Disgusted by their mother’s actions, the girls chose to stay with him, and somewhere along the way, the walls between father and son had finally begun to come down.
Seth and Shylo had flown to Oregon for Thanksgiving last year, and although the visit had felt awkward at first, by the time they headed back to Kansas, they'd become a family who’d found one another again. In a few weeks, his father and sisters would visit the Triple-R for the first time before the girls returned to college.
It was funny how life worked sometimes. When you thought something was gone forever, it sometimes found its way back to you.
His gaze drifted toward the closet. Hidden inside the pocket of his heavy winter coat was a small velvet box he'd checked at least a dozen times over the past month. In a few weeks, on Shylo's birthday, he planned to ask her to marry her.
Shane was the only other person who knew. After asking for his blessing, Seth had sworn him to secrecy, and somehow Shane had managed to keep it.
If everything went according to plan, by the time his father and the girls arrived at the Triple-R, Shylo would be his fiancée.
She thought the custom saddle he'd given her for Christmas would always be the best surprise he'd ever come up with.
She was about to find out she'd underestimated him.
