Book 3: His Third Try (Ivory Peaks Romance)

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Boone Whettstein pulled up to his brother’s house, and all the balloons in the cab of his truck flew forward, booping him in the back of the head. He swatted at them while his daughter, Gerty, giggled and did the same.

Boone could listen to her laughter all day, every day, and he grinned at her. “You get the cake, and I’ll get the balloons?” he suggested.

“No way,” Gerty said. “I want to take in the balloons. I’ll just drop the cake.”

“Why would you drop the cake?” Boone put the truck in park and looked up at Matt’s front windows. He was getting married in the morning, but tonight was his son’s sixteenth birthday. Boone loved living near his brother again, and he’d missed Matt and his kids when they’d left Montana a couple of years ago. 

He’d never in his wildest dreams thought he’d follow Matt to Ivory Peaks, Colorado, but he wasn’t unhappy that he had. In fact, Boone was happier now than he’d been in a long, long time—even when he’d been with Karley, before he’d known about her infidelity.

“Because I’m tripping over everything lately,” Gerty said. “You get the cake, Daddy, please?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said easily. He could carry a cake as easily as he could a bunch of balloons, and he opened the door to get out of the truck. Gerty did the same on her side, and she gathered all the blue, white, purple, and green ribbons together to get the bunch of balloons back together.

With all those floating orbs gone, he collected the big, pink pastry box. He’d been more than willing to stop in town and get all the things Matt needed for the party, because he had about fifteen hundred things on his plate right now.

Boone turned as a car engine filled the country silence on his brother’s street. A pick-up truck full of cowboys pulled up to the curb, with another one not far behind. That one only held one person—Matt’s fiancée—and Boone grinned at Gloria Munson.

“Need any help, Boone?” she asked as she got out of her truck. She stood back, and a golden retriever jumped down from the cab too. 

“Yeah, my gift is still in there.” He nodded toward the back seat as Gloria approached. Gerty had gone ahead to the front door, which now stood open, and Matt came down the front steps to welcome everyone.

“Did you get it?” Matt asked, arriving at Boone’s truck too.

“Right there,” Boone said, nodding to the wrapped package on the back seat. “Gloria was going to grab it for me.”

“And we’re a go for everything?” He looked at Gloria, slid his arm around her and kissed her. “Hey, sweetheart. You look fantastic.”

“Hey, baby.” She beamed up at him, and Boone’s jealousy soared toward the sky. 

He turned away from the truck, the weight of the enormous cake shifting in his hands. He steadied it and said, “Someone just needs to grab it, please.”

“I’ll get it,” Gloria said. “We’re a go for later, yes.”

“Perfect,” Matt said. “Thank you both.” He turned toward the cowboys crossing his lawn and started greeting them. Boone knew them all too, because they all worked at the Hammond Family Farm, about fifteen minutes from downtown Ivory Peaks—if such a small town could have a downtown.

Ivory Peaks did, and it housed a Cowboy Church, a general store, a small grocery store, two gas stations, a barber and salon that shared the space—men on one side and women on the other—and a pet supply store. A couple of restaurants, a dollar store, and the elementary school rounded out Main Street, and Boone sure did like the town. 

He liked the huge mountains to the west, even if he was used to seeing them in the east. Well, all around, if he was being honest. Montana seemed covered with hills and mountains and snow—and sky.

He looked up into the Colorado sky and drew a deep breath before going up the steps to Matt’s house. Since it was the height of summer, he had all the windows closed and the air conditioning pumping hard. 

Thank you, Lord, Boone thought, because he spent far too many hours outside without the cooled air. He went past the men and women milling about in the living room, waiting for the party to start, and into the kitchen, where he slid the cake box onto the counter.

Keith stood there with his friends, and Boone grinned at him. “There you are. I haven’t seen you yet today.” He stole a hug from his nephew, clapping him heartily on the back. 

“Thanks, Uncle Boone.” Keith laughed, and it sure did Boone’s heart good to see how happy Keith was. He hoped Gerty would achieve something similar after acclimating to her new school, a new house, and hopefully new friends. 

They’d moved here at the end of the school year, and she’d spent the past couple of months with her cousins, a boy who lived at the farm next door to where they lived, adults, and horses. His daughter loved horses more than people, which actually worried Boone. He wanted her to fit in here; he’d been praying for seventy-two solid days and nights that Gerty would find just one friend in the junior high on the outskirts of Denver, another ten minutes past Ivory Peaks. 

Just one, he thought as he released Keith.

“These are my friends,” Keith said. “Jordy, Luis, Dalton, and Bennie.”

“Nice to meet you fellas,” Boone said. “Where’s Kassidy?”

“She and Izzy are coming in a minute,” Keith said, looking toward the front door. “My Uncle Boone. My dad’s brother.”

“Nice to meet you, sir,” chorused around, and Boone looked at the kids.

“Any of you have siblings who’ll be in eighth grade?”

“I got a brother who’ll be in eighth grade,” Luis said, and Boone didn’t correct him on the grammar. “His name’s Alberto.”

Boone nodded.

“My sister is going into seventh,” Jordy said. “Is Gerty going into eighth?”

“Yep.” Boone looked around for the mass of balloons, and they started squeezing through the door a moment later. “There she is, behind that mass of balloons.”

Keith’s face lit up, and he went to help Gerty. He took some of them from her, and they started tying the balloons to the backs of chairs, rails on the lamps, and even the handle of the fridge. 

“This is her,” Boone said when Gerty came into the kitchen with Keith. He introduced her around to his friends, though they were all a few years older than her. Boone just watched, because Gerty was a pretty girl, and she’d liked a boy named Michael Hammond all summer. He’d be fourteen in November, and Gerty had turned thirteen several weeks ago.

Boone had spent more time on his knees this summer than any other, because he could see the changes in his daughter. She’d been wearing a bra before she needed one, but when she needed new undergarments now, she went with another woman.

Before they’d moved to Colorado, that had been Boone’s steady girlfriend, Karley. This past summer, he’d let her go with Molly Hammond and Gloria, who both worked at the farm where Boone and Gerty lived.

Matt and Gloria finally came inside the house and closed the front door, leaving Boone to wonder what had taken them so long. He knew, because they were set to be married tomorrow. It wasn’t hard to figure out that they’d snuck away to kiss for a few minutes.

“All right,” his brother called into the chaos. “I think we’re ready to start.” He waited a couple of seconds while conversations finished and people turned their attention toward him. “We’ve got tables and chairs outside on the deck and in the yard. There’s pizza and cheesy bread. Some of those garlic knots and the cinnamon twists. Keith set up the volleyball net, and Britt got out all the roller skates and long boards we own or could find. There’s a big cement pad back there for that, and we can put the sprinkler on it.”

He looked around at the group, and Boone could read the expression on his brother’s face. He was overwhelmed with love and gratitude for all the people who’d come to celebrate this birthday with his son. 

“Thank you all for coming,” he said, his voice thick. “We’ll eat first and do presents after that. Right, Keith?”

“Sounds good, Dad.”

“Okay, let’s pray first, and then you can lead us out.”

Cowboy hats started getting removed, as most people had left theirs on as they’d all end up outside again anyway. 

“Gray, would you pray?” Matt asked, and Boone’s eyes flew to the tall cowboy who acted as patriarch at the family farm where he worked. Technically, Gray Hammond signed Boone’s paychecks, but he’d been gone all summer. He and his family went to Wyoming for the summer months, and they’d only just returned yesterday. Apparently, he and his wife usually stayed until later in August, but they’d wanted to be here for Keith’s birthday party and Matt’s wedding.

That made sense, because Matt had been working for Gray as the caretaker and foreman of his farm for seventeen years now. For fifteen of those, he’d just come down in the summer and run the farm while Gray and Elise left town. Now, he lived here permanently and worked there full-time.

Gray didn’t do much around the farm anymore, as he was close to sixty years old. His son, Hunter, had been living there all summer, and he and his wife had opened and currently operated Pony Power, a children’s equine therapy unit. 

“Of course,” Gray said, and he bowed his head. “Dear Lord, we thank Thee for the opportunity to gather as friends and family. It’s such a blessing to be able to get together, and please bless each of us to look for ways to serve those around us, some of whom might even be in attendance at this party. Bless this year for Keith Whettstein, that it’ll be one of his best, and bless his family, especially Matt and Gloria, who are getting married tomorrow. Bless those who haven’t arrived yet, that they’ll do so safely, and bless us all with Thy spirit of guidance and the bravery to go where Thou leads us. Amen.”

“Amen,” echoed through the house, and the front door opened. Kassidy and her girlfriend entered the house, and instead of leading everyone out the back door to the deck, Keith went toward the front. 

“This way,” Boone said, his voice plenty loud enough to get people to follow him. He led the way out to the back deck, where the noise of conversation and laughter didn’t get quite so trapped and reverberate around inside his head quite so much.

Outside, he started opening the pizza boxes as the line queued up behind him. He didn’t actually take any food—until the end of the line and those delicious, buttery cinnamon twists. He did nab one of those and take a crunchy, sweet bite as he got out of the way. 

A cheer went up inside the house, and he looked through the glass doors where people were still coming out. Wes Hammond had walked in, and he’d brought his wife and children with him. Boone immediately looked for Michael, and he found the boy right beside Gerty. 

Of course.

He frowned, and then got over it. Michael would go home in three days, and Gerty would have to figure out her own friendships here in Colorado. 

“Mike,” he called, and the boy looked his way. “Your family is here.”

“They are?” He swung his attention back toward the house, immediately starting that way. He pushed back through the crowd, and Boone watched through the glass as he ran toward his mom and dad, throwing himself into his father’s arms first. Wes grinned as wide as the lake that used to sit outside Boone’s front door, and Boone could admit that their relationship touched his heart.

Michael Hammond was a good boy. He’d worked tirelessly around the farm this summer, separated from his own family, and living with his cousin and his grandfather as his only support. He probably hadn’t been any happier to be in Ivory Peaks than Gerty had been, and they’d probably been good for each other.

Boone switched his gaze back to his daughter, who now stood in line alone. She reached for a plate, definitely an island among the cowboys behind her and the smaller girls—Britt’s friends—in front of her. 

Boone’s heart expanded once again, because Gerty was a good girl too. In that moment, he had the overwhelming impression that she’d be okay. The words actually flowed through his mind and everything.

She’ll be okay, Boone. Stop worrying and start trusting.

Boone swallowed, because he didn’t know how to do that. He needed a guide for how to trust in the Lord more completely. He heard pastors from here to Sugar Pond talk about it. It sounded good in a sermon.

Put your faith in God.

Trust in the Lord with your whole soul.

Learn to rely on the arm of Jehovah.

What he didn’t know or understand was how to do that. The Lord was surely tired of Boone’s constant pleadings and just wanted him to stop, but he found himself asking exactly that: How, Lord? How can I trust You more?

The Lord had moved on to someone else, and Boone didn’t get an answer while standing there at his nephew’s birthday party. He did feel loved and cared for, and he appreciated that so very much.

Gloria poked her head out of the house. “Boone, it’s here. Could you…?”

“On my way,” he said, turning to go down the steps and away from the party. He could sneak away without Keith noticing, and he did, easily slipping into the garage a moment later. The lack of light in there took a moment for his eyes to adjust to, and he blinked for a few seconds before continuing. He went up a couple of steps to hit the garage door opener, and then the evening light started to flood the garage from the front driveway.

As he walked toward the still-rising door, he heard a woman say, “…has to move. Who’s the moron who parked here?” 

The door made it all the way up, and Boone saw Cosette Brian standing there. She took his breath away in her denim pencil skirt and nearly sheer blouse with bright green stick bugs on it. She wore a camisole underneath that, the fine lines of the thin straps going over her shoulders he could clearly see.

Though she was beautiful, she had that forked tongue that always seemed to whip at him personally. “I am,” he said, raising his hand. “Sorry, I had cake and balloons. I can move the truck.”

Cosette spun toward him, her eyes widening. “Boone.” She’d once looked terrified of him. She’d called him a rascal a few months ago, on the day he’d arrived on the farm to stay for good. Then she’d run away, and he’d had to ask Gloria for her number so he could apologize for whatever he’d done wrong. They’d worked it out, and they’d been dancing around one another since.

An easy hello there. A hand-off for a receipt there. Nothing major. Nothing to paint him in a bad light in her mind. 

Until now.

“Sorry,” he said, digging in his front pocket for his keys. “I’ll be out of the way in two shakes.”

Cosette reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear as Mission, the cowboy she’d been talking to, walked away. She watched him go, and Boone didn’t dare move now that they stood on the front driveway alone. She switched her gaze back to his when Mission made it to the front porch, and Boone’s mouth turned dry.

He wasn’t ready to date again. He wasn’t. He absolutely was not, and he absolutely would not.

Cosette, to his knowledge, did not have a boyfriend and had not gone on a date with a man all summer long. But he didn’t know her that well, and she didn’t live on-site at the farm, so anything was possible.

Except the lightning currently arcing between them. That wasn’t possible, and Boone threw up every defense he had against the sizzling attraction, because he did not have time for it. He did not want it.

He did not—fine, he did, but he couldn’t risk his heart again, and he one-hundred-percent would not subject Gerty to yet another disastrous relationship that would result in a woman walking out on her. Been there, done that. Twice, even if the death of her mother had not been anything any of them had wanted.

He swallowed, sure he was reading the situation all wrong anyway. Cosette had never liked him all that much.

“After you move your truck, would you stay and help me put the bow on Keith’s present?” she asked, letting her hand drop to her side.

Boone said the first thing that came to his mind, the thing he said as easily as he breathed, the thing he said whenever anyone asked him for help. She wasn’t special; he was just a nice guy.

“Sure.”