Returning to their hometown isn’t something the Bradshaw brothers ever thought they’d do. But a family tragedy has reunited them in Benevolence, Washington—where second chances, reignited dreams, and real love are never far away . . .
Texas rancher Flynn Bradshaw has his work cut out for him. His sister-in-law, Sunday, is finally home after the car crash that killed her husband and left her critically injured. But Flynn still has to get her failing ancestral farm up and running while looking after his six nieces and nephews. He prefers wide open spaces and working solo. Yet as he tries to get the grieving Sunday to care about her life again, he’s finding a chance for love that’s closer than he ever expected . . .
Even before the accident, Sunday struggled to keep the farm afloat as her once-happy marriage crumbled. Now with her body still recovering, she can’t seem to get back the hope she once had. But as she reconnects with her children, Flynn’s dedication, love for the land, and caring slowly inspire her to dream again. Is their growing affection enough to help them through unresolved pain—and risk trying for a future together?
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An excerpt from HOME AT LAST by Shirlee McCoy
If Flynn Bradshaw had been one to curse, he’d be doing it now. Long-dormant phrases that he’d learned from his father filled his head and were right on the tip of his tongue. But, of course, he’d given up cursing and yelling years ago.
“Sunday, what were you thinking?” he repeated as they reached shore. His arm was still around her waist, his fingers curved into the sopping fabric of her T-shirt, his thumb resting against her bottom rib. He could feel it through the soaked fabric, jutting out from her too-thin frame.
“The river might be low, but it can still be dangerous,” he continued, easing his grip because he was afraid he’d hurt her. He was used to reining in horses and wrangling cattle. He was not used to being gentile with fragile women.
“I know, and I told you,” she responded, stepping away, her eyes too-large in her gaunt face. “I was thinking about the dog.”
“You don’t have a dog,” he replied, studying her face, searching for some truth that she wasn’t speaking or some hint of the confusion that he thought she must be suffering.
His brothers had said she continued to have memory lapses. He hadn’t been around enough to notice much more than her frailty and her obvious continued pain.
He’d worried about both those things.
But, the confusion was alarming, the fact that she’d left the house in the middle of the night and crossed the river filling him with fear and frustration. The kids had already lost their father. They couldn’t lose Sunday, too.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, a slight snap to her voice.
“Like what?”
“Like I’ve lost my mind.”
“You’re mistaking my look of concern for one of judgment,” he replied, keeping his voice calm and easy. Prior to the accident, Sunday had been the calmest person he’d ever met. Low-key. Unflappable. He’d visited the farm two or three times a year, because family should be important, and his nieces and nephews mattered. He’d never heard her raise her voice to any of her children or to Matt.
Since the accident, she still didn’t raise her voice. Not to her children. Not to Flynn or his brothers or to the many people who came to visit.
But, something in her had changed. Her placid, unflappable, soul-deep peace had been replaced by anxiety and fear. He could see it now, plainly written on her face and in her eyes, and he didn’t want to make things worse by upsetting her.
“I’m a grown woman, Flynn,” she said. “No one needs to be concerned if I walk to the river by myself.”
“It’s the middle of the night, Sunday,” he pointed out.
“And, I’m still a grown woman, and there is a dog in the middle of the river.” She pointed, her hand trembling.
Sure enough, there was a dog sitting on a rock.
Right in the middle of the river.
If he hadn’t been so focused on keeping Sunday from drowning, he’d have noticed before. “Most dogs can swim. The river is low. He could walk across easily, if he wanted to.”
“Probably,” she agreed, “but, sometimes we’re trapped by our own fear. Sometimes, things that other people think are easy look really hard to us.”
“Here, boy!” she called, walking to the edge of the river, water lapping up across her bare toes.
No shoes.
No coat.
Just yoga pants and a T-shirt.
And, that alarmed Flynn, too, because it was late summer, and autumn was cold in this part of the country.
He slipped out of his coat and dropped it around her shoulders. “We need to go back to the house. It’s cold, and you’re soaked.”
“So is he.”
“He’s a dog.”
“He’s scared,” she replied, moving away from his hand, her eyes dark in the moonlight, her skin pale. “Wait here. The water isn’t going to be much deeper than my knees, and I’m already wet. A little more isn’t going to make a difference.”
She’d have stepped back onto the slippery river rocks, if he hadn’t grabbed her arm and stopped her.
“I’ll get him,” he muttered.
And, she smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners, her face easing into the soft sweetness he recognized from his visits before the accident.
“Thank you,” she said, the smile still in place. “You can thank me by not coming down to
the river in the middle of the night again. Or, at least, not wading into the water,” he responded more gruffly than he intended. He’d been looking for glimpses of the old Sunday for months, searching her face and her posture every time he was in town, trying to find hints of the person she’d been. He’d found them.
Here on the riverbank where her children couldn’t see, and his brothers couldn’t breathe sighs of relief. But, at least, he’d seen them, and that gave him hope that things would be back to normal one day; that Sunday would regain the pieces of herself that the accident seemed to have stolen.
That the children would have their mother.
She would have her life.
Things could go back to what they’d been before. When Flynn and his brothers hadn’t had to carry the responsibility of their brother’s choices.
He frowned, wading into the river, the cold water sloshing into his work boots, and then up to his knees. The dog stayed right where it was, barking excitedly as Flynn approached. He extended his hand, let the dog sniff his fingers and lick his knuckles.
Obviously, this was not an attack dog or a fearful animal that might bite.
“Alright, buddy. Let’s go,” he said, scooping the dog into his arms. It was a bag of skin and bones, its
big paws huge on its spindly forelegs. A gangly puppy that would turn into a large dog. Its curly fur reminding him of Patricia’s miniature poodle, Tilly. His ex-wife had loved that dog. Probably more than she’d loved anyone or anything else.
It had taken him a long time to realize that.
He carried the puppy to shore and set it down near Sunday. She crouched, wobbling as she held out her hand and crooned something inane and sweet. Little pupper or Darling little pupper.
Flynn didn’t hear the words, but he saw the joy in her face, and he decided not to remind her that the house already had enough chaos without adding a puppy into the mix.
The puppy sniffed her fingers, licked her hand, then moved in for the kill, lunging for her and knocking her backwards as he bathed her face with kisses.
She’d have fallen if Flynn hadn’t grabbed her shoulders, holding her upright.
She was laughing, the sound a little rusty, as he urged her to her feet.
“He’s adorable, isn’t he?” she asked, laughter lingering in her eyes and easing some of the lines of tension and pain that usually creased her forehead.
“If you’re into floppy-eared dogs,” he responded, and she met his gaze, that sweet smile still curving
the corners of her mouth.
“Let me guess: You prefer . . .” Her voice trailed off, and the joy faded from her face.
He knew she’d lost the words.
That somehow whatever dog she’d planned to name was trapped in her accident-damaged brain.
“Working dogs?” he offered, hoping to ease the tension.
But, the moment was gone, and she seemed discontent, anxious, worried again.
“I guess,” she replied, her attention on the puppy who was staring at her longingly, his tail thumping
the ground.
“This guy,” he continued, scratching the puppy behind his ears, “is more the frou-frou variety.”
He’d been hoping to distract her from her frustration, but it didn’t seem to be working. She looked . . . sad and a little defeated, and that made him want to fight harder to give her whatever it was that would
heal the hurts.
Which, he supposed, was his Achilles heel. He wanted to fix things, and sometimes that meant
he wanted to fix people. Or, at least, help them solve their problems. It was one of the few traits he’d inherited from his mother. He considered it to be one of his greatest strengths and his biggest weaknesses, because some people wanted to be helped. Some didn’t. Some wanted to solve their problems. Some preferred to dwell in them.
“Sunday, people forget words all the time. I know the accident made things difficult.”
“Let’s not talk about the accident, okay?” she murmured.
“What would you rather talk about?”
“The fact that you’re here. I thought Sullivan said that you’d be in . . .” Her voice trailed off. Another
word lost, and he could feel her tension hanging in the cool crisp air.
“Texas?” he offered.
“Right,” she agreed. “He said you’d be there until October or November. Something about horses.”
“Cattle,” he corrected gently, because she’d known all this before.
“Cattle,” she agreed, that one word filled with a thousand disappointments and frustrations.
“Spring and autumn are our busiest times at the ranch. I planned to stay in Texas through October,
but Porter and Clementine really want a fall wedding, and it didn’t feel right to expect them to wait. They’ve already done more than—” He stopped, because he didn’t want Sunday to feel guilty for what his brothers had sacrificed. They’d given up their time, their money, their homes. They’d left lives in other places and created lives in Benevolence, Washington. All for the sake of Matt’s kids and for the farm those children would one day inherit.
And, for Sunday, because she’d loved them all so well and so selflessly.
None of them had put words to that, but Flynn knew he and his brothers felt an obligation to Sunday. Not just because she was Matt’s widow, but because she’d opened her home, over and over again, to three brothers-in-law who only made appearances when it was convenient.
“You can say it,” Sunday said quietly.
“There’s no need to say what we all know,” he responded. He’d always been a straight-shooter and
honest to a fault, so he wasn’t going to pull punches or pretend things that weren’t true. But, the truth was, he’d shirked his responsibility after Matt’s death. He’d had a ranch to run, and he’d made that his excuse, because it was difficult to see six kids suffer and hard to watch Sunday struggle to recover. “But, if you need me to, I will. My brothers have been here while I’ve been in Texas. It’s my turn to be a good uncle to the kids.”
“That’s a very kind way of saying that I’m not pulling my weight around the farm,” she said, turning
away and heading up the hill that led to the family chapel.
“You aren’t yet, but you’ll be back to it eventually.”
“So, people keep telling me.”
“You don’t believe it?”
She met his eyes, and he could see the truth she didn’t speak. “I’m not sure it matters what I believe.
People are depending on me to get better, so I will.”
“Or, you’ll pretend?”
“A parent does what she has to, right?” She smiled, but there was no humor in her eyes or her face.
The puppy was trotting along beside her, and she seemed content to let him. Based on the looks she kept shooting in Flynn’s direction, she’d rather he not.
“You can go back to the house,” she said, proving that he wasn’t nearly as bad at reading women as
Patricia had once claimed. “I won’t go back in the water. I promise.”
“Not even if the mutt jumps in?”
She glanced at the dog. “I might have to make an exception for that.”
“Then, I guess I’ll hang around until you’re ready to go back.”
“I came out here to be alone,” she said pointedly, still trudging up the hill at a pace just a little slower than Old Blue—the twenty-year-old retired Coon hound his ranch foreman owned.
“At this time of night, you could have been alone in the house.”
“I could have been,” she agreed, not making any excuse for her late-night walk, not offering any explanation.
He admired that. Admired the gumption that kept her moving up the hill even when he could see that her legs were trembling. There was defeat in the slope of her shoulders and the agonizing slowness of her pace, but she seemed determined to keep going.
Who was he to discourage that?
After all, he’d come to town to help, but he’d also come with the express purpose of encouraging Sunday to be more independent, to get more involved in her children’s lives, to take part in the running of the house and the farm again.
Because his brothers were worried.
Truth be told, he was worried, too.
But, he wasn’t going to tell her that, so he matched her pace and continued walking up the hill.
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About Shirlee McCoy
Shirlee McCoy spent her childhood making up stories and acting them out with her sister. It wasn’t long before she discovered Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, her mother’s gothic romances . . . and became an ardent fan of romantic suspense. She still enjoys losing herself in a good book. And she still loves making up stories. Shirlee and her husband live in Maryland and have five children. Readers can visit her website at https://www.shirleemccoy.com.