to start? All right.” She pointed to Decker. “How about you start instead, then?”
Decker cleared his throat and pushed his chair back from the desk. “I have something to run by the two of you—something I’ve been thinking about for a long time now. Cole, I know we’ve talked about this a little, but we never seem to have time to finish the conversation.”
Cole saw worry sneak into Ma’s eyes, and her hand tightened on her mug. “What are we talking about here? Decker, why’d you ask me to come in here?”
“Because.” Decker took a deep breath. “Ma, the way things are around here—it’s just not working. Not for me, and not for Cole.”
“Okay? What does that mean?”
“It means we’ve all got our hands in all the pots, and that worked for a while, but we’re growing, and I think it’s time we talk about dividing up responsibilities a little more clearly.”
Alarm pinged Cole’s gut, but he tried to tamp it down. This was exactly the conversation he’d been wanting to have for months, right? But he’d wanted to have it on equal footing—didn’t want Decker to deliver decisions to him like he was incapable of making them himself.
Ma sat back in her chair. “What kind of dividing are you talking about?”
“Well, I have a proposal. I’ve been working on it for a few weeks, but I wanted to get it finessed before I talked to you two about it. Obviously, it’s all up for discussion, but I think Cole and I need to separate our responsibilities so we’re not either stepping on each other’s toes, or having to cover for each other.”
Cole felt his eyebrows go up, and saw that Decker noticed. “And don’t worry, Cole. I fully realize it’s me doing the stepping, and you doing the covering.”
He leaned back on the desk and grabbed two sheaves of paper, handing one to Ma and one to Cole. “So here’s what I propose. I wrote it all out here so you can digest it later, but I’ll just walk you through my thoughts, and then we can either talk now, or wait until later if we need to.”
Cole glanced down at the papers, but then he flipped them over. “Just tell us, Decker.”
“Okay.” Decker took a deep breath and let it out. “I think it’s time I step aside from the general operations end of things here at Whisper Creek.”
Cole’s mouth fell open, as did Ma’s.
He continued. “The Boulder Creek development is good for the ranch, it’s good for the family, and it’s good for me. I like the design work. I like being on-site for the building. I like having my hands on that project, start to finish. But right now I don’t have the time to do that because I’m also trying to be here as much as possible.”
Ma glanced at the papers. “Which place would you rather be?”
Decker sighed. “I’ve been trying to answer that question for months now. I love both places. This ranch is in my blood. I’ve poured buckets of sweat into it since I came back from L.A.—and I’m really proud of all we’ve done. But here’s what I’ve come to realize over the past six months: the ranch doesn’t need me nearly as much as I need it.”
“What does that mean?” Cole saw Ma’s hand shake. “Do you want out?”
“No. No, Ma. I never want out again. I want to build Kyla that house on the hill, and I want to raise our kids here, and someday I want to sit on the porch and watch the next generation—Cole’s and my kids—take over at Whisper Creek and continue our legacy.”
Cole felt a stabbing pain in his chest at Decker’s words—at the blank assumption that kids automatically came with the picture for whoever wanted them. Maybe he and Kyla would have kids, and Cole would be happy for them, but for poor Jess, kids weren’t ever going to happen. Someone had taken that away from her—forever.
“Ma, I talked with Cole at the wedding yesterday, and he put my mind at ease about something that’s been eating at me forever. After Emily died and I—left—Cole got stuck here. He had no choice. When I left, he was checking out med schools online, and when I got back, he was mucking out stalls. It was hard not to think maybe he’d had other dreams he might still want to go after.”
Cole shook his head. “No, Decker.”
Decker put a hand up to silence him. “And