They did precisely that. They’d grown considerably since coming to Primrose Creek and they were now proud third graders at the local elementary school. They caught the school bus every morning, down by the mailbox, with Hallie looking on from the kitchen window, and joined her and Trace at the café in the afternoons. Chance always came to fetch them all home again in the early evening, where they helped with the chores while Hallie cooked a family supper, just for them.
Trace, a blond, blue-eyed bundle of mischief, ruled the ranch as well as the café from his collapsible playpen, and his big sisters adored him.
“Where’s Trace?” they asked now, in chorus.
“Right here,” Chance said, carrying the baby into the room and laying him on Hallie’s chest. Trace was too busy sucking the bottle his father had fixed for him to respond to his adoring public.
Hallie kissed her son’s forehead and offered yet another silent prayer of gratitude, for this baby, for these children, for this man, for this pristine land stretching around them for miles. She loved them all with an intensity that often frightened her.
Chance bent, kissed Hallie lightly on the lips. “New horse arriving today,” he said.
Hallie held Trace against her chest, bottle in hand. She’d wanted to nurse him, but it hadn’t seemed practical at the time, and though she sometimes regretted the decision, she was sure it had been the right one.
“Is it that little sorrel that was in the jumping accident last month?” Kiera asked. Chance had given her and Kiley each their own ponies for Christmas, and then patiently taught them to ride.
He ruffled the little girl’s hair. “Sure is,” he said.
“Can you make her better?”
Chance sighed. “I don’t know,” he replied. He was always honest, even when a little fib would have made him look like a hero. “Some horses can’t be reached. The scars just run too deep. I’ll do my best with her, though.”
Kiera looked up at him in just the way Hallie must have looked at Lou, in those early years after he married her mother, and somehow turned a broken home into a family. “Can I help? After school?”
“We’ll see,” Chance said, and smiled. “Go on, now. Your sister will get to the bathroom before you do if you dally too long.”
Kiley let out a squeal, and ran, with Kiera, also squealing, hot on her trail.
Chance laughed and shook his head.
“You’re good with them,” Hallie said. “I appreciate that, Chance.”
The bed gave a little as he sat down beside her, smoothed Trace’s tiny head with the pad of one finger. “It’s easy enough,” he said. “Far as I’m concerned, they’re as much my children as this little guy is.”
She knew he meant it, and her eyes filled with happy tears. “How did I ever get so lucky?” she asked.
He stretched out beside her, propped on one elbow. “Well,” he began, with a long sigh, “if I remember correctly, you were down to your last chance, the night you wandered into that café.”
She smiled, touched his mouth with her fingertip. “You are my last chance,” she said. “My first, last and always Chance.”
He laughed. “Why, shucks, ma’am,” he drawled. “You’re like to turn my head, with talk like that.”
Hallie scooted down a little way, so that their faces were in line with each other. “Am I, now? Well, you just turn your head this way, Cowboy, and see if I don’t kiss you so hard your socks will shoot right off your feet.”
He chuckled, but the sound died, between their lips, when she kissed him. The new-old electricity was there, like always, lively as the night sky on the Fourth of July.
“Oh, Lord,” Chance muttered, shaking his head, as if to restore his equilibrium, when it was over. Trace lost his grip on the bottle, and whimpered, and she stuck the nipple back into his mouth. Chance, meanwhile, scrambled off the bed, looking dazed.
“Come on, “Hallie said to the baby. “Let’s go downstairs, put you in your playpen, and make this crew some breakfast.”
“The coffee’s already on,” Chance said, a little smugly, from inside their bathroom.
Hallie got up, carried the baby to his crib, changed his diapers, and headed downstairs. After settling him in a warm corner of the kitchen, she stood at the sink, washing her hands.
She was an ordinary woman, on an ordinary day, and yet, as she looked out over the snowy expanse of land, and the creek, sparkling in the distance, she couldn’t help marveling at the sheer magnitude of her blessings.
Also by Linda Lael Miller
Loved LAST CHANCE CAFÉ? Check out the brand new Lone Star Leatherneck Series from USA Today bestselling author Heather Long!
When Marine Corps Captain Tanner Wilks returns home to the family ranch to help his ailing father, he finds himself falling for the ranch's saucy new veterinarian. Available from Pocket Star on July 3!
Semper Fi Cowboy
* * *
ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ATRIA BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
Copyright © 2002 by Linda Lael Miller
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce
this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For information address Atria Books, 1230 Avenue
of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN-10: 0-671-04250-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-4823-9
ATRIA is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Visit us on the World Wide Web:
http://www.SimonSays.com
The Last Chance Cafe Page 32