Her Cowboy's Twin Blessings

by Patricia Johns

  “How inappropriate was that?” he murmured.

  “Wildly,” she breathed.

  “Thought so. I’ll kick myself for it later, but I couldn’t leave the house without doing that just once—” He swallowed, closed his eyes for a moment, then stepped away from her. Cool air rushed between them, and Ember wished she could close that distance once more and just rest her cheek against his broad chest.

  “I’ll be back,” he said and turned toward the kitchen and the door. She stood there, her lips still warm from his kiss and her heart hammering in her chest. All she wanted to do was run after him and have him do that all over again, but she couldn’t run—and even if she could, she didn’t dare. She knew as well as he did that there was no future between them...only these frustrating emotions.

  Will squirmed in his sleep and let out a whimper. Ember used the crutch to hop over to the cradle, and she looked down at the sleeping baby. This was hard—opening up her heart for the sake of a defenseless baby, and then closing it up again for her own sake. It was like tearing open a wound every time she did it.

  Ember couldn’t be a mother to these children, no matter how sweet or deserving they might be. It would tear her heart out to do it. She’d shut the door on motherhood for good reason. She’d deemed her education and career important enough to hand her son to another woman. If it had been important enough once, it would have to be enough now.

  Ember pulled the stool closer, sat down to give herself some proper balance and bent over the cradle to pick up the infant. Will snuggled against her chest, squirming to try to get closer. She sighed, leaning her cheek against the baby’s downy head.

  This ranch was a place of strangely deep emotion, and she couldn’t help but wonder if that was because of some familial tie to the place calling her home.

  Or was she only fooling herself? Because this ranch had ties to other families, too, and her emotions were tugging her toward one man right now—a man who needed a mother for his twins. She couldn’t be that mother. She could be tough, strong, empathetic and staunchly determined to shepherd other people through their darkest times. She could be like the other women from the Harper family, standing tall and persevering. God had something He wanted her to do, and she’d felt His hand in bringing her to Vern Acres. He would pay her back for everything she’d given up. She just had to hold on.

  * * *

  Casey tightened the saddle strap and led Soldier out of the barn. The only way to check out the situation in the south pasture was on horseback. He was going through the motions, but his mind wasn’t on the job ahead of him. It was still back at the house with Ember—and that kiss.

  It was dumb. He shouldn’t have caved in to his desires like that. She was no country woman, and she had no desire to buy some land and raise cattle with him. He wanted to show those boys what hard work looked like, and how the day in, day out chores contributed to an industry that fed a nation. He wanted to raise those boys to say Yes, sir and No, ma’am. He wanted them to ride herd, earn the respect of the other men and stand by their word. He’d raise those kids right—just like he’d been raised, and like his dad before him.

  Boys grew into men over time, regardless of where they did the growing, but life on a ranch did the best job of instilling time-honored values, in Casey’s humble opinion. And Ember might like being called “ma’am,” but she didn’t understand the lifestyle that created those country manners. It wasn’t just about using the words; it was about a sense of respect for women, a desire to live honestly and the humbleness that came from hard work. It started before dawn, and it ended when it ended—regardless of how many hours a man had been at it, or if the sun had already set.

  Add to that, Ember didn’t want to be a mother to any other children... Maybe that should have come first. They wanted different things, valued different things. Kissing her—he had no right to be crossing those lines with her.

  And yet he wasn’t sorry, and that frustrated him. He should feel bad about that—except that kiss had been honest. What he felt for her might be dumb as a bag of rocks, but that was how he felt when he looked at her. She was beautiful, wounded, more vulnerable than she liked to admit, and when he was next to her, all he could think about was if she was comfortable, and what she was thinking...

  Casey put his foot into the stirrup and swung up into the saddle. He made a clucking sound with his mouth and pulled on the reins, guiding Soldier out of the barn.

  Horseback was where he did his best thinking, so maybe this ride would do him good.

  “Lord,” he murmured aloud. “Take away whatever I’m feeling for her. I know she’s all wrong for me. I don’t even need help in seeing that. Just—take it away. Give me that peace that passes understanding.”

  God had always answered that prayer for him in the past. If something wasn’t meant for him, he asked God to remove the desire for it. Like a woman he was interested in who wasn’t a believer, or even some fancy truck he knew he couldn’t actually afford. He’d pray for that peace, and he’d get it. Every time.

  Except with Ember. He’d been praying for peace for days now, and God had gone silent.

  Casey rode the rest of the way, the scenery passing him by without him giving it much notice as his mind gnawed over the problem. He was the problem—that was clear enough. Ember had come for one reason—to buy this ranch—and he’d been the one to overstep, pull her into his arms and kiss her. Given a chance to think that one over, she’d have every reason to be angry with him.

  “Hey, boss!” Bert called as Casey rode up to where the old cowboy stood. The sun was lowering in the sky, shadows stretching long and languid. Cattle dotted the grassy field, grazing and chewing their cud. Casey spotted a few new calves since he’d last been out this way. He swung down from his horse and pulled the tools he’d brought with him out from the side bags. Then he patted the horse’s rump, letting Soldier go graze with the cattle. They were close by Milk River, and Casey could see the glitter of the water from here. A creek snaked between two hills, copses of trees thrusting up from the banks.

  “Right there.” Bert nodded toward the cow. She was pacing, her head down as a ripple of contraction moved over her bulky middle. Her udder was leaking a steady drip of milk, and a pair of hooves poked out from beneath the tail. The baby was in the birth canal, but the mother looked exhausted. “Been like that for the last hour. No progression. I’ve tried getting in there to pull, but she won’t let me close.”

  The cow shook her head, ear tags rattling, then hung her nose down again as another contraction hit.

  “We’re gonna have to get in there,” Casey said. “That calf has to come out.”

  “Agreed,” Bert replied. “But it’ll take us both. I’ll go around front and keep ’er occupied, and you see if you can get a hold of those hooves.”

  Bert and Casey had worked together on births for years now, and they had a well-oiled system. Cows had an instinct to go give birth alone, and they didn’t welcome intervention, either, but this cow just might be tired enough to allow them to give a hand.

  Casey had brought the calving chains with him—a device that settled over the cow’s hips and attached to the hooves that were protruding. It gave the cowboy some leverage as he pulled the calf steadily out of the mother with every contraction. Closer to the barn, they’d put the cow in the head gate to keep her from getting spooked and trampling them, but he’d just have to be light on his feet tonight. Because there was no head gate available, and if this cow didn’t get assistance, they’d lose them both.

  “There’ve been wolves out—past the barn, on the east part of Milk River,” Casey said, and Bert instinctively looked in that direction.

  “How brave were they?” Bert asked.

  “I shot two.”

  Bert’s eyebrows went up, and he chewed the side of his cheek. “We’d better have a man with a gun patrolling tonight, or we’ll lose th
e new calves.”

  “My thoughts, too,” Casey agreed. “You ready?”

  They moved toward the cow, and it took a few steps away from them. They approached again, and she did the same, moving steadily toward the river.

  “Oh, no, you don’t—” Casey got in front of the cow, cutting her off so she couldn’t make more trouble for herself by getting too close to the water, and this time the cow stumbled to a stop as another contraction took over. For the next forty minutes, they assisted the cow in the delivery of the calf. It was a big male, and when it dropped to the ground, it didn’t start breathing until Bert rubbed its chest with a handful of grass and Casey tickled its nostrils with another long stem. Finally, it pulled in a breath and they left the mother to clean up the baby.

  They backed away to give the cow some space to bond with its calf, and Casey’s boot hit something unexpectedly hard. Casey was on top of a small knoll, but instead of his boot connecting with dirt and grass, he’d hit sharp rock. He looked down, used the toe of his boot to work the soil away from the rock, and he frowned. That wasn’t loose rubble. He kicked more, and Bert watched him curiously.

  “What’s the problem?” Bert asked.

  “This—what is it?”

  Bert came over and bent down, using his gnarled hands to pull weeds and soil away, then brushed the rocks clean.

  “Looks like it’s got some mortar between these rocks,” Bert said, and between the two of them, they uncovered enough of the structure to recognize it. “That there’s a chimney. Or what’s left of it.”

  “Yeah. Looks like—”

  Casey’s heart sank. He’d sensed it the minute his boot hit it. There had been a cabin here, or a homestead, a long time ago. He looked around—it was an ideal spot, high enough to avoid flooding from the river and near a stretch of open plains. This had been a home once upon a time—possibly the homestead that Ember was searching for.

  “You okay?” Bert asked, his lined face creasing with worry. “You look like you got bit by something.”

  “Help me dig down a bit. I want to see something...”

  Bert gave him a funny look, but he complied, and they dug together for another couple of minutes. There wasn’t much left in one piece, but as they uncovered more of the structure, at first he thought it was a chimney, and then he realized it was a hearth. Rock had been mortared together with some real skill, but then his gloved fingers hit something that felt different.

  “What’s that?” Bert asked when Casey brushed the soil away from it.

  “A brick,” he said hollowly.

  “Huh.”

  A single brick mortared in with the rest of the rock. Ember had mentioned that...

  “I know what this is,” Casey said.

  “Yeah?”

  Casey slowly shook his head. “It’s the end of my hopes for this place,” he admitted, his chest constricting as the reality settled in.

  He was an honest man, though, and a Christian. He wouldn’t live a lie, and he’d given Ember his word that he’d help her find out the truth about this land. He’d just hoped that the truth would be more favorable to his position. How was it possible that this woman from the city with a rich daddy and a broken heart was the one with the rightful moral claim to this place?

  This ranch wasn’t rightfully his, either, but he’d been working this land long enough that he could have made it his, started out some new memories and put down his roots. He could have raised the boys here, and if he’d been able to see through his offer, his roots would have settled all the way down to the bedrock.

  “Boss?” Bert pulled Casey out of his reverie. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, Bert,” he sighed. “But things are going to change around here.”

  “How so?” the older man asked with a frown.

  “Miss Reed is going to buy this ranch.”

  “I figured that was why she was here,” Bert said. “I’m sure she’ll need a manager yet. And I’m due to retire here pretty soon. Fiona keeps asking me to hang up my spurs. We might not be rich, but we’ll be okay.”

  “I’m not working for her,” Casey said, his voice a growl.

  “I know you’re not crazy about the Reeds as a whole, but—”

  “No, I can’t work for her...” Casey sighed. “I’m feeling things for her that I shouldn’t, and working with that woman isn’t a possibility. I need a mother for those boys, and she’s not it.”

  And there it was—the flood of certainty he’d been looking for on his ride over here, the knowledge he’d been avoiding when he was busy kissing the beautiful blonde in his living room. Ember Reed couldn’t be the mother his boys needed. She couldn’t be the wife to raise these kids with him. And while he could make his peace with her family background, he couldn’t raise those boys at a therapy center. They needed land, cattle, chores and responsibility. He wanted to give them a proper ranch childhood...

  There would have to be another woman to be the wife and mother they needed so badly. But it would have to wait until his heart had healed from this one...

  Whatever he’d been hoping for—he needed to let those dreams go. Just because a man wanted something so badly he could taste it, that didn’t mean it was part of God’s plan. These weren’t his walls. They’d been hers all along.

  “Soldier,” he called softly, and his horse nickered and sauntered in his direction. “Let’s go, boy.”

  It was time to go back and face reality. He wouldn’t be forgetting about that little detail again.

  Chapter Eleven

  The sun was setting outside the window. Ember held Wyatt in her arms, the baby looking at the glowing, partially blackened door of the woodstove in that cross-eyed new infant kind of way. Ember cradled the baby in one arm and used the crutch to sink back down onto the stool.

  “Hey, you...” she said softly, and Wyatt lifted his head away from her shoulder, then let it drop down again. He had grown in the last week—she could tell by the way he fit in her arms. “How are you, little guy?”

  Wyatt blinked up at her, big brown eyes fixed on her face searchingly. She smiled and smoothed a hand over his downy head. So small, so sweet...so easy to fall in love with.

  “You deserve better than me, Wyatt,” she said softly. “You remember that. You and your brother deserve only the best, and one day you’ll have a mom of your very own.”

  Her throat tightened at that thought. One day, there would be a woman who’d be able to open her heart to these boys. She wouldn’t be all emotionally battered like Ember was. She’d be whole and pure, and she’d be filled with good advice and endless hugs. She’d be the woman that Casey needed.

  Ember sucked in a breath, trying to push back that stab of pain at the thought. She knew this little family of three deserved better, so why did it hurt so much to imagine what that better woman might be like? These boys needed a mom who could kiss away their pain, get them into line when they misbehaved and love their dad with all her heart. She’d be the center of that home, her love binding them all together.

  “You deserve better, Wyatt,” she whispered softly.

  She’d missed out on all of this with her son—the snuggles, the diapers, the bottles. She’d given it away for the promise of a better future, believing that another woman would be better for her son, too.

  It only occurred to her later that her father’s advice that she give her baby up might have been coming from his experience. He’d known about Ember, had supported them with sporadic financial gifts and had otherwise stayed out of her life. He’d never seen her.

  Hadn’t that hurt him as a father? Hadn’t there been some paternal part of him that had wondered about his little girl, worried about her, even? Because Ember thought about her son constantly, worried that he wouldn’t know how much she’d loved him, that it would affect him later in life. She’d longed to see him again, just to know he was o
kay.

  But her father seemed quite happy with how his life had gone without Ember there to complicate matters. He had a family already, wealth, respect in his community. He’d swept Ember aside like the mistake she had been.

  The sound of boots on the step outside pulled Ember out of her thoughts. She looked down at Wyatt, those big eyes still searching around him, taking in his little world. The door opened, and Casey came in, Bert on his heels.

  “Hi,” Ember said, forcing a smile. “How’s the calf?”

  “Fine and healthy,” Casey replied, and those warm eyes met hers in a way that made her heart speed up just a little. Did he do that on purpose? “I brought Bert along to stay with the boys while I drop you back off at the house.”

  Bert could have dropped her off on his way home for the evening, but it seemed that Casey wanted the honor, and she felt a flood of warmth at the thought. She’d missed him, too, as inconvenient as that was. But opening her heart to her grief over her son also meant opening it up to everything else she might be feeling, and she wasn’t able to simply push her emotions down.

  “Let me just wash my hands,” Bert said, heading for the kitchen sink, and Ember looked over at Casey. His dark eyes met hers, and she saw a strange mix of emotion there—so different from the tender longing in his eyes a few hours before when he’d kissed her. Had something changed? Or had he simply had time to think about it?

  “How’s the foot?” Casey asked quietly, coming up closer to keep his words private.

  “Manageable,” she said with a small smile.

  “Could you ride?” he asked.

  Ember eyed him uncertainly. “Right now?”

  “No—tomorrow, maybe.”

  “Let’s see how it feels tomorrow,” she replied. “But I can guarantee you I won’t be putting much weight on it.”

  Casey didn’t say anything else, and when Bert dried his hands, Ember passed the baby over to his confident arms. Her heart tugged a little as she let the infant go. She was already attached to these little boys—how easily that happened. Bert gathered Wyatt up onto his shoulder.