Her Cowboy's Twin Blessings

by Patricia Johns

  “Hi, Nicole,” Casey said, after picking up. “Where are you?”

  “I’m sick, Uncle Casey...” Yep, exactly what he’d been scared to hear. “I think it’s the flu. I’m so sorry.”

  He sighed. “It’s okay, kiddo.” He glanced over at Ember once more. Had she made her decision yet about sticking around for a little while? “Don’t even worry about it. Feel better, okay?” After a goodbye, he hung up the call.

  Ember’s phone rang just then, and he sighed. He’d have to wait to get an answer from her. As she talked in low tones, Casey looked down into Will’s tiny face.

  “You’re wet, aren’t you, little guy?” he murmured. The babies were always wet after a bottle—it was one of those constants he could depend upon. He glanced over at Ember, and she stood there with the baby up on her shoulder, her gaze directed down at the floor as she listened to whoever was on the other line.

  Casey kicked the new diaper box across the kitchen floor toward the living room. This was the routine. He kept a towel laid out on the couch, and he’d been using that as a changing station. It was a rough setup, but it seemed to work out okay.

  He laid Will on the couch cushion and sat on the couch next to him to do the honors.

  “That was the mechanic,” Ember said, coming into the room.

  “Oh, yeah?” Casey set to work on the sodden diaper, then reached for a new one. He was getting pretty good at this, but two babies went through a phenomenal number of diapers a day. He rolled up the soiled diaper, then lifted the little legs to pop a new one underneath the baby’s tiny rump.

  “It’ll be over a week before my car will be fixed,” she said. “There are other cars ahead of mine, and—” She sucked in a breath. “How would it work if I stayed on this ranch for a few days?”

  “I’d talk to Mr. Vern, explain the situation and see if he’d be okay with you staying up at the big house,” Casey said. “You wouldn’t have to worry about inappropriately close quarters here at my place, but you’d be close enough to make everything relatively convenient. I can pick you up and bring you back here no problem.”

  He fiddled with the snaps on Will’s sleeper—they were so easy to accidentally snap together one snap off-center so that he’d have to start all over again...

  “What about your niece?” she asked.

  “She’s got the flu, but even if she didn’t, the kid’s fifteen. She’s supposed to be in school, not minding children.”

  Ember eyed him. “And just to be clear...” She let it hang.

  “I just want a hand. I’ll find people to babysit when I give you the tours and all that, but I need another person—another set of hands until my aunt can get here. You can see how much work they are. We could both benefit, if you’re game. What do you say?”

  Ember looked down at the baby in her arms and wrinkled her nose. “This little guy dirtied his diaper.”

  Casey chuckled. “Let’s trade. Will here is clean.”

  Casey took Wyatt from her arms, and Ember awkwardly lifted Will up onto her shoulder. The baby snuggled up next to her neck like his brother had. She shut her eyes for a moment. Casey paused, watching her. There was something in her expression—more than discomfort...pain.

  “No pressure, if you’d rather not,” Casey said. “It would just help me out, is all.”

  “I thought you didn’t like me,” she said, her eyes opening again, and she fixed him with a direct look that made him shift uncomfortably.

  “I don’t like Bert, either, but who can be picky?” he said, shooting her a teasing smile. “I’m joking. I don’t like what you stand for, Ember Reed, but Will seems to settle right down when you’re holding him, and babies are like dogs that way. They smell bad people. And like I said, I’m a bit desperate right now. You help me with the boys, and I’ll go out of my way to help you find the information you need to make your choice about buying this place. Fair is fair. I’m as good as my word.”

  “Okay,” she said with a nod.

  He felt a wave of relief. At least he’d have a hand here for a few days, and that was a bigger boost to his peace of mind than she seemed to realize. “I’ll talk to Mr. Vern, then.”

  She smiled wanly. “I’m not good with kids—the childcare side, I mean. I should at least warn you.”

  “It’s just diapers and bottles,” Casey said, grabbing another fresh diaper and the bucket of wipes. “I only started on this a week ago, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it. You’ll catch on.”

  And here was hoping that when he’d done his duty and shown her the ranch, she’d decide not to buy the place. But that was in God’s hands—the hardest place to leave it.

  * * *

  When Casey was finished with the diaper, they traded babies again. She was getting better at this—easing one baby into his arms and taking the other baby into her own. Ember looked down at the tiny boy in her arms. Wyatt. The baby was wide-awake, those deep brown eyes searching in that cross-eyed, newborn kind of way. She lifted him closer to her face, inhaling the soft scent of his wispy hair.

  She’d held her own newborn son in her arms ten years ago, and she’d breathed in the scent of him. She hadn’t named him. That wasn’t her role, but she knew the name the adoptive family had chosen—Steven. She would always remember how he’d felt in her arms, how her heart had stilled just having him so close... After spending one tearful night cradling him, feeding him with a bottle of formula lest she grow too attached, she’d passed him over to his new mom and her heart had broken. The sound of his cry as they took him away had slid so deep into her soul that she dreamed of it at night even now, and woke up with achingly empty arms.

  It had been for the best—that was what she told herself. But she wasn’t so sure anymore. Ember sucked in a stabilizing breath.

  “How did you end up with these babies?” she asked.

  “My cousin and his wife had asked me to be their guardian should anything happen,” Casey said. “I thought it was nothing more than a gesture, because I’m single. I’m a ranch manager. I don’t have time for kids, right? But then there was this horrible fire, and they managed to get the boys out, but Neil and Sandra didn’t make it. That left the kids with me.” He cleared his throat, blinked a couple of times.

  “Will you keep them?” Ember asked hesitantly.

  “Keep them?” Casey repeated, casting her a questioning look. “Yeah, of course. I’m the closest family they’ve got. What else would I do?”

  “Some might let them be adopted by another family,” she said.

  “Yeah, some might.” Casey finished with the sleeper’s snaps, noticed he’d done them up wrong and whipped them all open again to start fresh. “And honestly, it did occur to me. But—I don’t know. I can’t bring myself to do it.”

  Ember nodded. She’d felt nearly the same way...but she hadn’t seen any other choice. She remembered how helpless she’d felt at the prospect of single motherhood and losing the support her father offered if she didn’t cooperate and give the baby up...

  “How will you do this?” Ember asked. “Raise them on your own, I mean.”

  “How does any parent raise their kids?” Casey picked up the baby and put him onto his shoulder, then headed through to the kitchen. The water turned on, and he raised his voice to be heard. “I figure I’ll just wing it. Isn’t that what the rest do?”

  Ember chuckled at that. “I’m more of a planner, myself.”

  “Well, I’ve got a few plans,” Casey said, coming back into the room as he awkwardly dried his hands on a paper towel while balancing the baby on his shoulder. “My aunt has agreed to watch the kids for me during the days. I’ll pay her, of course. And I’ve been advised by a nice lady in social services that I should have them sleep on their backs without blankets, and that I should be feeding them once every three hours.” He lifted his watch on his wrist. “And counting, right?”

&
nbsp; He was strangely optimistic, this cowboy, and she regarded him in silence for a moment.

  “Now, I’ve got some maps of this land,” Casey said. “I don’t know if it’s anything you haven’t seen yet—”

  “That would be great,” Ember said. “You never know.”

  Casey turned away from her and headed for a cupboard in the corner. He opened the door with a squeak, and a roll of paper fell out. He used the toe of his boot to lift it, and grabbed it with his free hand. He passed it back toward her. “That might be one. Hold on...”

  He rummaged a bit, handed back three more rolls of paper, then closed the cupboard and readjusted the baby on his shoulder again.

  “Will, you’re going to have to sit in that little chair of yours.”

  Ember watched as Casey pulled out a wire-framed bouncy chair from beside the couch, then arranged the baby in it. Little Will turned his head to the side and stared at a patch of sunlight on the wall. Then Casey pulled out a second bouncy chair, and relief welled up inside her at the thought of putting Wyatt down.

  She was already dreading this—the baby minding. These tiny boys brought up feelings she wasn’t ready to deal with. Or rather, feelings she’d been trying to deal with rather unsuccessfully. It was supposed to get easier over time—that was what they said—but it hadn’t.

  “Here we go, Wyatt,” she murmured, bending to put the baby into the chair next to his brother, but as she tried to put him down, Wyatt’s little face screwed up into a look of displeasure and he opened his mouth in a plaintive wail.

  “Or not.” She stood back up and the crying stopped. She looked into Wyatt’s little face, and he peered back at her. “You sure?”

  “Guess he likes you, too,” Casey said. “Never mind. I’ll open these up.”

  Ember’s heart sped up as she looked from the baby to his guardian, and then back again. This was not a good plan, but what was she going to do? She’d already agreed to this, and if she backed out, she’d only cement her reputation as the heartless city girl who’d come to ruin everyone’s lives.

  Casey opened one of the rolls and revealed a map. “So what are you looking for, exactly?”

  “The journal mentions Milk River and some creeks that ran off it.”

  “Milk River runs for over seven hundred miles,” he said, glancing back at her. “We only have about fifty miles of Milk River on this ranch.”

  She nodded. “I think it might be the right fifty, though. The creeks were named after local wildlife—Beaver Creek, Muskrat Creek and Goose Creek.”

  Casey looked closer, chewing on the side of his cheek. “This here is Milk River.” He pointed with one calloused finger, following a line along the map. “There are a couple of creeks, but they’re not named. Not officially.” He rerolled the map, then picked up another one. He scanned it, rolled it up again and picked up the third. “Here we go. That’s Milk River again—”

  Ember leaned closer to look. The line of the river meandered down the map, and there were about fifteen little lines snaking off. The darker of the lines had names, and cocking her head to one side, she could read them.

  “Allan Creek. Wallace Creek. Burns Creek. Trot’s Creek...” She sighed. Then there were the lighter lines that had no names. She’d seen this map already online. Back in the city, she’d been looking for mention of the Beaver, Muskrat and Goose creeks, but no one seemed to have record of them. Maybe those names hadn’t stuck.

  “Milk River goes up into Canada, you know,” he said. “I don’t have the maps for that.”

  Then her eye landed on one creek name she hadn’t seen before that brought a hopeful smile to her lips. “Look at that one!” She pointed. “Harper Creek!”

  “That’s familiar?” Casey asked with a frown.

  “My mother’s last name was Harper. That’s the family name.”

  “Hmm.” He nodded. “Okay.”

  “What’s the matter?” Wyatt was getting heavy in her arm, and she shifted him to a new position.

  “There are a lot of Harpers around here,” he said. “They might be relatives of yours, though.”

  She’d never heard of them, if they were. It might be nothing more than a coincidence. Or a creek named much more recently—a random moniker slapped onto a tiny creek in honor of some locals.

  “We aren’t Canadian. My mother always said that the family had settled exactly fifty miles from the mountains, and they’d been another forty miles from Victory. That’s right here. This land. Give or take.”

  Casey nodded slowly. “Approximately, yes.”

  “I know it’s a very rough estimate, but since this land came up for sale, I wanted to check it out,” she said.

  “Well, we’ll have a look,” Casey said, but his expression was grim.

  “You don’t want me to buy this land, I know,” she said.

  “You’re right,” he agreed. “I don’t. This is prime ranching land, and cattle fuel this community. It’s our way of life, and I’ve worked this herd for fifteen years now. There’s something to be said for consistency. Also, there’s honor in feeding America’s families, and the beef we raise is top quality. That matters to me. To see this place turn into some therapy center— No offense, ma’am, but from my way of thinking, it would be a crying shame. The city folk might need their therapy and their chance to enjoy the wide outdoors, but we ranchers need pasture under our boots and cattle to drive. So what you’re suggesting isn’t going to help us at all. Again, no offense.”

  “None taken,” she murmured.

  “But that doesn’t mean I won’t treat you honestly,” Casey said.

  “Can I be sure of that?” she asked.

  “I’m a rancher, Miss Reed,” Casey said, his voice a low growl. “But I’m also a Christian. That one sits a little heavier. I believe in right and wrong, and I stand with the truth. So if I find out that this is the land you’ve been looking for, then I’ll tell you honestly, because I want God’s blessing more than I want my way. And God’s never yet blessed a lie.”

  Ember regarded him thoughtfully.

  “Are you a Christian, Miss Reed?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Then a handshake should be enough, wouldn’t you say?” he asked, holding out one hand toward her.

  Ember took his rough hand in hers, and she felt the gentle pressure of those strong fingers. It was a muscular hand—veined and broad—and she realized anew just how attractive this stubborn cowboy was. She tugged her fingers free.

  “Could you take the baby back?” she asked, slightly breathlessly.

  Casey did as she asked and she slid the infant into Casey’s arms. Wyatt didn’t complain this time, and she exhaled a shaky sigh.

  This was the right land—she could feel it. Everything had fallen into place in that way that God had where she could sense His fingerprints on all of it. From the sale of the swampland, down to this ranch popping up for sale just at the same time she’d pinpointed an approximate location of the Harper homestead.

  Ember had felt drawn here, but looking at that lanky cowboy and the babies he was honor bound to care for, she couldn’t help but wonder if this was God’s doing for other reasons entirely—like forcing her to face her own issues. Ember wanted to belong somewhere—be someone other than the illegitimate child of a wealthy man. She wanted a connection so solid that her paternity wouldn’t be the most defining factor in her lineage any longer.

  The sooner she could investigate this land and decide on her next move, the better.

  Chapter Three

  Mr. Vern, as it turned out, was perfectly happy to have Ember stay with him if she was helping out his ranch manager. Those babies had sunk into his heart, too, it seemed.

  “They need loving,” Mr. Vern said. “That’s all. Just loving. But there’s two of them, and Casey’s got a big job. So I think we all appreciate yo
u being willing to snuggle some babies. It’ll take a village with those boys.”

  A village was the precise thing she hadn’t had on her side when she’d been pregnant with her son. If there’d been a village for her, she might have been able to keep her little boy, but she didn’t have any support. When she’d told her father about her pregnancy, he’d recommended an abortion, but said that if she insisted on having the baby, she’d have to give it up for adoption. He wasn’t interested in supporting her for the long term. He’d agreed to pay for her education, but his one stipulation to his support had been that she act like a Reed and not embarrass the family. Raising a baby on her own without a husband apparently violated that clause. Set aside the fact that she’d been fathered in an affair...but Alistair was the one with the money and she wasn’t in a position to argue with him about his morals. It had seemed hopeless then...

  Ember lay between crisp sheets that night, listening to the soft sounds of a strange house, and she lifted her heart in prayer. She’d been so sure when she’d come out here—confident, excited. But somehow, she’d gone from completely in control to feeling entirely out of her depth.

  Lord, I need Your help, she prayed. I don’t know how I got myself into this, but here I am...

  Only God knew how she’d been struggling with memories of her own son lately. She’d naively thought that giving him up would allow her to move forward with her life. And in some ways, she had, but lately, memories of that traumatic day were coming back like punches to the gut. So she lay in bed not asking for God to help her sort out her emotions right now, because she knew better than to ask for that! A woman didn’t hop over her feelings; she waded through them. And wading would have to wait until she was finished with this task at hand. As ironic as it was for a therapist, she wanted God to help her put a lid on her feelings. For now, at least.

  Ember slept remarkably well that night. Maybe it was the exhaustion from the adventures of her day, but she didn’t even stir until she awoke to the distant aroma of brewing coffee. Ember rubbed a hand over her face and reached for her watch, checking the time. It was just after six, and outside, the sky was awash in pink. She pushed back the covers and reached for her clothes. She’d come with a bag packed and had intended to stay in a local hotel for a few days, so she had a few necessities with her. Ten minutes later, she’d washed up, put on a little makeup and made herself presentable before leaving the bedroom for the kitchen.