Wild and Wrangled (Rebel Blue Ranch, #4)

by Lyla Sage

“I bought the house five years ago.” He sighed. I folded my arms across my chest. “I got that part.” “Anne’s kids wanted her to put it on the market because she couldn’t take care of it. They had a buyer lined up who wanted to try and get the permits to tear the house down and develop on it—condos or some shit—and when my mom told me, I knew I didn’t want that to happen.” “Why?” “Because it was your dream house,” he said. “Because every time I came home and I passed the turn that took me up the drive or when I parked here for a hike, I thought about you, and I didn’t want to lose that. But also because I’ve watched places like this disappear around the world, and I didn’t want that to happen to this house. “So I called Anne, and told her I would buy it—that I would pay for someone to come and do the maintenance that she couldn’t do anymore and that she could live here as long as she wanted.” “And she said yes?” I asked. “And she said yes. She didn’t really want to sell, but her kids and grandkids had moved all over the country, and they couldn’t help her, so selling was the compromise. Me buying the house worked for her, and it worked for me. When I decided to come home, I knew I’d have the cabin to go to, and I would get a chance to do a lot of the maintenance myself.”