Her Cowboy Reunion

by Ruth Logan Herne

  “You didn’t used to be this untrusting and get angry over things. I don’t know this Heath Caufield.” She pointed to him. “But I know one thing. The other Heath Caufield was one of the best men I ever had the privilege to know. I’d like to see that one more often.”

  He stared beyond her to the deepening twilight, made denser by the dense clouds. “I didn’t know you could drive a tractor.”

  She arched one brow, waiting.

  “I saw you driving, then Zeke stood up and all I could see was him tumbling down, falling beneath the equipment. Being crushed.”

  She frowned. “That’s a glass half-empty if I ever heard it.”

  A tiny muscle in his jaw twitched slightly. “He’s the only thing I have, Lizzie. The thought of anything happening to him makes me a little crazy.”

  A little? She did a slow count to ten. Only made it to five, but it was enough to keep from smacking him upside the head. For the moment.

  She didn’t apologize for taking Zeke on the tractor.

  She didn’t commiserate with the depths of Heath’s worry, either.

  She understood his words. They pained her, to think how much he thought of his child with Anna, but then, Zeke was real to him. Their tiny boy, Matthew, hadn’t existed in Heath’s realm. He’d been a fleeting thought.

  Not to her.

  To her he’d been real. So very real.

  She pivoted and walked away before she said too much.

  “Liz.”

  She didn’t turn. She refused to turn, because then he’d see the sheen of tears. The quivering jaw.

  He hadn’t cared then. Pretending to care now would get them nowhere, so why push him to sympathy?

  She kept walking, head high, and if she swiped her hands to her eyes once or twice, he wouldn’t know it. Because when she glanced back as she moved through the broad barn door, he was halfway to the house. And he didn’t look back.

  Chapter Twelve

  Alone in a house full of people.

  The thought hit Heath when he found Liz on the side porch the next morning. He’d had thirteen hours to consider her words. The truth in them frustrated him.

  She’d curled up on the side-porch swing. Her laptop lay perched on her knees and a hot, steaming mug of coffee sat on the rustic wooden table alongside the swing. The cool air lifted the steam like one of those holiday coffee commercials. He didn’t ask. Didn’t hesitate. He plunked himself down on the end of the swing, and braced his arms on his legs. The action made the laptop teeter.

  She reached out to right it. So did he. And this time, when their eyes met, he wanted them to go right on meeting. Like maybe forever. He studied her while she studied him right back, and when he spoke, it was almost like talking with his old friend again. “You’re right about Zeke. And about me. And the faith thing you called me out on.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but he shook his head. “I’ve messed up. I’ve done good things, too, but I’m not afraid to own up to my mistakes. I did wrong by you years ago, and I’ve never forgiven myself for that. All this time, it’s sat there, niggling me, and I wasn’t man enough to come to you and say I’m sorry for letting things get out of hand. If I’d been a stronger man, you wouldn’t have been put in that position. It was wrong of me, and I apologize, Liz. Please forgive me.” He wasn’t sure what he wanted her to say, or what he expected, but his action was thwarted by a really cute kid.

  “Dad?” Zeke bounded out the side door with all the enthusiasm a new day had to offer. “Miss Corrie said I can carry a special thing for Uncle Sean’s ceremony, like a real important thing with his name on it! Isn’t that awesome? I’ve got to practice marching right now!” He flew down the stairs, picked up a stick, and with the stick held high in front of him, he began a solemn march across the gravel, back and forth.

  “That’s perfect, son.” Heath turned back toward Liz.

  She wasn’t looking at him.

  She was watching Zeke as if her heart and soul were bound in his actions. As she watched, a single tear left a pale gleam down her right cheek. “Liz.”

  He reached over to wipe away the tear.

  She didn’t let him. She swiped it away herself, and kept her attention on Zeke. “Consider yourself forgiven, Heath. There were two of us involved—”

  “I was older...”

  She interrupted him swiftly. “Regardless. Plenty of blame to go around. But thank you for your kind words.”

  She slipped off the swing and tucked the laptop beneath her left arm. “What about Zeke?”

  Her quick and almost curt reaction wasn’t what he wanted, but it was probably what he deserved. He stood and answered her question. “I’d consider it a real favor if you’d help keep an eye on him with me. He’s already told me that he loves Rosie-Posie but he’s never going back there because he likes it when his Lizzie takes care of him. So that’s going to be an interesting hurdle to handle in a few weeks’ time.”

  “It won’t be that huge a hurdle.” She indicated the marching boy with a quick glance and a soft smile, a smile that made Heath wish there was room for him in that smile, too. “It’s not like I’m going anyplace, so it doesn’t have to be a standoff. It can simply be a change of venue.”

  “How’d you get good at this?” He motioned toward Zeke. “Knowing how to handle kids, how to work with them. It doesn’t come naturally to everyone.”

  “That’s easy.” She looked at him this time, the trace of tears gone. “I watched Corrie raise Charlotte and Mel. I saw her take them under her wing, two little girls who would have no memory of their mother, and she just helped them blossom into the amazing women they are today. A part of me has always wanted to be like Corrie. Strong. Courageous. Invincible.”

  “Well, it works. You sure are good with him.” He reached out and drew the screen door open for her. “I’m grateful, Liz. When I’m not being a jerk.”

  * * *

  She wanted to drink in the scent of him. Soap-and-water fresh, nothing fancy. Cotton, just washed. A few hours into the rising heat of the day and that would change, but for now it heightened her senses.

  “How about some breakfast, buddy?” Heath called back to Zeke as he held the door wide.

  “With my Lizzie? Yes!” Zeke tossed his stick along the edge of the steps and climbed the stairs quickly. “Cookie said he was making oatmeal, and I don’t even like it one little bit, but I think he was teasing because you know what I smell?” He laughed up at them, grabbing a hand from each. “Pancakes! With chocolate chips, I think!”

  Zeke’s hand gripped hers. Heath was holding his son’s other hand, and here they were, joined by a child like they were so many years ago, young lovers, impetuous, not looking down the long road of life.

  It shouldn’t feel right, but it did, as if the second chance she never thought she’d wanted lay here, right here, in the hills of Western Idaho.

  Was she being silly?

  One glance toward Heath said maybe not, because he was noting their joined hands, too. And smiling.

  “I’m so starvin’!” Zeke pulled them forward, then released their hands. “I’ll race you to the kitchen!” He darted off, knowing he wasn’t supposed to run in the house, but the pancake-scented air was too much of a draw.

  Her hand felt suddenly empty, holding nothing but air, and just as she realized that, Heath’s hand covered hers. Clasped it. And then he drew it up gently. “My hand remembers your hand, Lizzie. Like it wasn’t all that long ago. Like it’s here and now.”

  He’d asked for forgiveness moments ago. Not for abandoning her, but for creating a child with her. Did he not understand that of the two, being forsaken was far worse than being loved? Maybe to him it hadn’t been true love. She’d learned that men often speak of love when what they wanted was a physical relationship. And Heath, for all his wonderful strengths, had given up on faith. Th
at was a deal breaker, right there.

  She withdrew her hand gently. “Our here and now is a whole different thing, though, isn’t it? We’ve grown up. Moved on. But for an accident of timing, we would have no idea what the other one was doing at this point. It’s good that we still work well together,” she went on, but then she hooked a thumb in Zeke’s direction. “Over most things.” She tucked the computer under one arm and picked up her coffee with the other. “I think I’ll catch up on things at the barn. Check and see if our little friend has made a reappearance.”

  She started to move off, but Heath braced a hand against the wall, blocking her in. “What if the timing isn’t accidental?” He didn’t give her much space, and right then, gazing up, space was the last thing she wanted. “What if this is our destiny, Liz?”

  Liz didn’t believe in destiny. She believed in faith, in choices, both good and bad. After a lifetime filled with broken promises, she’d learned that actions spoke way louder than words, and Heath’s actions said two things: he’d loved his wife and his beautiful son, and he’d been able to disregard their baby as an inconvenience. So be it.

  That might be a maturity thing, or a character flaw, she wasn’t sure which, but she was sure of one thing: she never wanted to take a chance on it again. “In a life rife with coincidences, this is simply another one, Heath. Let’s not make it more than it is, okay?”

  She moved by him, greeted the incoming stockmen with a smile and walked toward the stables.

  * * *

  “So what did you two do today?” Heath broached the question carefully so that Lizzie wouldn’t feel like he was checking up on her that night.

  Zeke hugged him around the legs and pointed toward the ranch driveway. “We took flowers to Rosie-Posie, we saw baby Jo-Jo and we gave out papers to a lot of people in their mailboxes and we hope we don’t get in big, deep trouble. Is that right?” he called to Lizzie across the farmyard driveway.

  “That is one hundred percent correct. And we practiced rhyming words and numbers and letter sounds and fishies in the creek and habitats. And mucked stalls and watched for signs of labor and saw none.”

  “Dad.” Zeke reached up to be held and Heath hauled him up, into his arms. He was getting big for this, but Heath wanted to grab every chance he could to show the boy his love. Growth and independence would make this a no-deal soon enough. Too soon, Heath decided as Zeke did that smushy face thing he liked so well. “Did you know that everything has a habitat thing? Like our house and our farm is our habitat thing, and for fish it’s a water thing, and for toads it’s a shady thing.”

  Heath tested the boy’s understanding with a question. “What does habitat mean?”

  “It’s where things live, silly!” Zeke crowed that he knew something his father didn’t. “So where we can live is our habitat thing! Isn’t that so cool? I think God makes it that way on purpose, don’t you think so, my Lizzie?”

  “Absolutely. He’s pretty smart, that God.”

  “And like when it gets really cold out, I can put on a coat. And some mittens.”

  “That’s adapting. That means you can change your behavior to fit the situation and make the best of it.”

  “So God made us so we can change!” Zeke bumped knuckles with Heath. “That’s like so perfect!”

  “It’s hard to argue his logic.” Heath said the words softly, and when Lizzie leaned forward to rub noses with his son, a longing gaped open inside the father. A longing so deep and wide, he wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before.

  “It is, therefore I won’t argue because Zeke Caufield is an amazingly smart little boy.”

  Zeke laughed and leaned forward from Heath’s arms. He grabbed Lizzie in a hug, and there they were, meshed together, him, Lizzie and Zeke, in a group hug he hadn’t sought, but thoroughly enjoyed. “So what were you guys putting in mailboxes, therefore breaking federal law?”

  Liz looked downright guilty. “I know we’re not supposed to do it, but I couldn’t think of another way right now, at least not until I get an email list of neighbors.”

  “And you need this because...”

  “I think the best way of facing the town’s troubles is raising awareness and opening the conversation.”

  “Isn’t that what tonight’s meeting is for?”

  Zeke spotted the growing kittens near the first barn and squirmed to get down. “Dad, I’m gonna go play with the kitties. My Lizzie says it’s one of my jobs on the ranch, ’kay?”

  “Very okay.” He set him down and watched as Zeke raced across the gravel. The kittens were bigger and faster than they were a few weeks prior. And instead of running from the boy, the kittens chased toward him to play. “They’re not crazy cats anymore. When did this happen?” he wondered out loud.

  “We play with them every day, at least two times, so they won’t go feral,” Lizzie answered. “And I think Mrs. Hathaway needs a kitten. She mentioned it when we stopped by her place.”

  Old Mrs. Hathaway was an eccentric and fairly grumpy widow whose husband had governed a big spread of land north of Pine Ridge Ranch. The elderly woman lived in a decaying mansion-styled house a little closer to the Payette National Forest. He didn’t know her, but then, he didn’t know much of anyone if he didn’t see them at church services. And it wasn’t like he stayed to talk. Not with so much work to be done.

  “She mentioned a mice problem, and I told her we’ve got kittens here. Would you have a problem with her taking one or two?”

  “Anything that cuts down rodent populations is all right by me. How did you run into her?”

  “She was getting the mail when we pulled up to leave a flyer about the memorial service. She didn’t look well and we helped her back up to the porch.”

  “Then we took her some food,” said Zeke from his spot with the kitties. “She said that was a—” He struggled for the word, then aimed his attention to Lizzie. “What did she say?”

  “It was a thoughtful thing to do.”

  “Oh, yeah!” He grinned. “So that was nice. Wasn’t it, Dad?”

  “Real nice.” He tipped the brim of his cowboy hat up slightly. “Mrs. Hathaway isn’t exactly hurting for money as far as I know. She’s kind of a recluse...”

  “Lot of that going around these hills,” said Lizzie, and he couldn’t deny it.

  “She was hungry? Like for real?”

  “I don’t think she’s healthy enough to cook for herself. Or maybe it’s a strength thing, because her appetite was solid. But she’s thin and seems lonely.”

  “I haven’t seen her at Sunday services.”

  “And I don’t expect anyone’s been checking on her.” Sympathy brought her brows together. “That’s the worst part of this town decline, Heath. No one’s checking on anyone. How sad is that?”

  It was sad. Sadder yet was needing Lizzie to point him in the right direction.

  “I think I like this little fellow the very best, Dad!”

  Zeke’s enthusiastic callout broke the moment. “Maybe orange kitties would be best in our barn habitat!”

  “Orange rocks.” Lizzie started to cross toward the barn as Rosie and Harve walked their way, pushing an old-style buggy, the image of a happy family.

  He wanted that, he realized as they drew closer. He hadn’t thought of the option in years, but now, with Lizzie on the ranch, making a difference in Zeke’s life and his, he didn’t just think about it.

  He longed for it.

  Harve was beaming.

  Rosie looked happy. So happy. And when the baby peeped a tiny sound from the buggy, Lizzie came back their way. “Is this her first walk?” she asked, smiling.

  “Her very first.” Rosie reached in and lifted the tiny girl. “We wanted to show her the beautiful ranch on which she lives. How blessed we are to be part of all this, to be here, in America. To have this new beginning.”

&
nbsp; The baby shut her eyes tight against the light. And then she brought one perfect and tiny fist to her mouth in a move he remembered like it was yesterday, from the time he and Zeke had fumbled their way through those first grief-filled months.

  “We wanted her first walk to be over here because we wanted to ask you a question.” Harve directed his attention to Heath as he laid an arm around Rosie’s shoulders. “We would like you to be godfather to Johanna. It would honor us greatly if you would accept this. Sean gave us the opportunity to work here, and you have worked side by side with me and Aldo from the beginning. It would be our pleasure to have you stand with us at her christening.”

  “Not Aldo?” Heath was pretty sure his voice might have squeaked in surprise because this was a big deal. “Will his feelings be hurt?”

  “Aldo is in full agreement,” Rosie told him. She adjusted the baby to her shoulder and rocked her gently. “He is Harve Junior’s godfather and we would all like you to be a guiding force in our daughter’s life. My sister Amina is coming midsummer. She will be Johanna’s godmother, so we’ll have the service then.”

  A godparent.

  Never had he been asked to do such a thing, nor had he considered it, but he accepted the offer quickly. “I’m the one who’s honored,” he told them. He thrust out a hand, then gave Harve a half hug instead, thumping him on the back. “I’m so happy for you guys, so yes, I’d love this. Thank you for asking. For thinking of me. Just—” He was blabbering, but he couldn’t seem to stop. “Thank you.”

  “Rosie-Posie, the kitties are nice now? See?” Zeke waved from his spot near the barn. “We’re making them nice so they can find happy homes to live in. Isn’t that a great idea?”

  “It is, my friend.” Rosie smiled his way, but kept the newborn away from the kitties and grubby hands. “It is the best of ideas. Yours, I take it.” She addressed Lizzie and smiled when she nodded. “It is good for this little man to have new influences in his life. I regret that our home has been so busy with babies this past year that I have not been able to do things I would like to do with Ezekiel.”

  “He told me about the twins. That’s a lot to handle.”