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Chapter Two (#u127ba0ee-e5af-5b0c-b34c-ba90b761a61f)
Casey looked over at the woman beside him in the passenger seat as he bumped over that familiar gravel road. She looked relaxed enough, unless he noticed her hands—white knuckled in her lap. Was it him? Was she nervous about driving down some isolated ranch road with a guy she didn’t know? He didn’t like the idea of anyone being truly afraid of him. She was the competition—here to slap down more money than he had any access to—but she was also a woman out of her element and alone, and that made him soften toward her a little bit.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Because you’re white knuckling it there.” He shot her a half smile.
“Oh...” She breathed out an uncomfortable laugh. “Sorry.”
She released her grip, stretched her fingers out and laid her hands flat against the tops of her legs.
This drive back down the road wasn’t quite the celebration the drive up to the house had been. Was this it, then? Mr. Vern would sell to this city slicker, and Casey’s dreams of owning a ranch would have to be put on hold yet again? Yes, there was always the chance that another property would land on the market, but would the timing ever be right again? Those babies were going to cost money to raise, and he’d be chipping into that down payment he’d squirreled away in no time. Plus, he knew he couldn’t do this alone indefinitely. His aunt would come help full-time for a while, but she’d never take the place of a real mom. He hoped to get married and bring his wife back to his own land...not another man’s.
“So how much have you researched about this ranch so far?” Casey asked.
“The maps I could find online and in local records were limited,” she replied. “But my great-great-grandmother wrote a journal where she talked about some specific landmarks. If I could find the actual site of the old house, there’s something I know to look for. My great-great-great grandfather put a single red brick in the front of the fireplace. It was something they brought from across the country—a touchstone of sorts. I don’t know if I’ll be able to find it, though. Plus, I’m waiting to hear back from some local historical societies.”
Casey glanced toward her again. “And if you don’t find the landmarks?”
“I don’t have unlimited resources, so this purchase has to be the right one. If this isn’t the land I think it is, then I’m not buying it. There are cheaper ways to open therapy centers.”
Hope surged up inside of Casey’s chest. Maybe Ember Reed was just a temporary inconvenience on the Vern ranch. Maybe this wasn’t the spot her family had settled after all, she’d go on her way and he could buy this land fair and square. He had plans for raising a family here, too—an honest, hardworking family who would raise cattle and ranch like the generations of Courtrights before him. Casey knew this ranch like the back of his hand. It wasn’t a huge operation, but he’d been running it well, and the chance to be a landowner once more...it was enough to make him hope in that dangerous way that meant his heart was already set on it.
He had an attachment to this land already, too. He’d imagined himself living up in the big house, hiring another manager and being the owner who called the shots...and in his mind, that felt really good! He’d be able to bring his dad back to live with him, and his old man could live his last years on Courtright land.
So, yeah—if it didn’t make things harder on Mr. Vern and his sick wife, Casey would like to see this land come to him. He was praying that God would provide for them all.
“That’s my place ahead,” Casey said as he turned into the drive that led up to the ranch manager’s house. It was within sight of the ranch hands’ bunkhouse just down another gravel road. The ranch manager’s house was a small one-bedroom bungalow, and as he parked and pushed open the truck door, he could already hear the babies’ plaintive wails, and he felt that wave of anxiety he always did at the sound of their cries.
Ember hopped out, too, and she followed him around the truck toward the side door of the house. Casey pulled open the door and held it for Ember, letting her step inside ahead of him. Bert stood in the kitchen with Wyatt in his arms, a bottle in one hand and a panicked look on his face.
“They woke up at the same time, boss,” Bert said.
“I’ll get Will,” Casey said, heading through to the sitting room, and he scooped up the baby, settling him into the crook of his arm. The baby kept up his wailing, and Casey headed back to the kitchen, turning on the hot tap on his way past the sink.
“Ember, would you grab the bottle in the fridge?” he said.
Ember did as he’d asked and handed it over. Casey stuck it under the hot tap until the count of twenty, then shook it up and tested it against his hand. Warm. Perfect. He popped the nipple into Will’s mouth, and there was blessed silence as both babies slurped back the milk.
“I’m Bert,” the old ranch hand said, nodding to Ember.
“This is Ember Reed,” Casey said. “She’s—” how much to say? “—she’s a special guest of Mr. Vern’s. I’m showing her around.”
“Pleasure.” Bert smiled. “But I’ve got to head out. I still have work to do out there. Mind if I just pass this little guy over?”
Ember’s eyes widened, and she was about to answer when Bert deftly eased the baby into her arms. Bert stood there, still holding the bottle until Ember had the baby in a comfortable position and took the bottle from his hands.
“Thanks, Bert,” Casey said. “Much appreciated.”
“Yup. Not a problem.” Bert took his hat off the top of the fridge, dropped it onto his head and headed out the side door.
Casey looked over at Ember, and he saw a stunned look on her face. She wasn’t looking at the baby, even though Wyatt was slurping back that bottle in record time. What was with her? This was a baby, not a hand grenade.
“Bert there is one of the ranch hands,” Casey said. “He’s worked here for thirty years, and he’s good at his job. He’s one of the guys who’ll be out of work if this isn’t a full-scale ranch anymore.”
Wyatt finished with his bottle, and Ember put it down on the kitchen table, then took a moment to get the little guy up on her shoulder, patting his back in a slow rhythm. Wyatt snuggled into her neck, and Ember sighed, tipping her cheek against his downy head.
“He likes you,” Casey said.
She didn’t answer, but she smiled wanly and continued her gentle patting of the baby’s back. Then Will finished with his bottle, and Casey popped the nipple out of his mouth and put the infant up onto his shoulder, too.
“I’m not trying to put people out of work,” Ember said.
“I’m just pointing out the reality of things,” Casey replied. “Mr. Vern asked me to show you around, and I’m going to do that. But I’m not going to sugarcoat anything, either. You’ll get a real tour of the place—see what this ranch is, the people whose livelihoods depend on it. You need to understand the whole picture, not just what you could turn this place into if you swept it clean.”
“You’re one of those guys who doesn’t believe in talking about his feelings, aren’t you?” she asked with a small smile turning up her lips.
“What have I just been doing?” he asked. “I thought I was pretty clear about my feelings here. I talk. But I generally do it around a campfire on a cattle drive—away from civilization, like a real man.”
“And ironically enough, that’s the experience I want to provide to men from the city,” she said. “Because you’re right—sitting in a counselor’s office with a tissue box in front of his wife isn’t the most inviting atmosphere for a man to open up.”
“The real work on a cattle drive makes a difference in how much we’ll open up, too, you know,” he said. “Responsibility, exhaustion, pushing yourself to the limit. You can’t simulate that in some counseling setting with a bonfire.”
Casey’s cell phone rang, and Casey had to adjust the infant in the crook of his arm as he dug the handset out of his pocket. He glanced at the number—it was his niece who was supposed to arrive any minute, and his heart sank. No one called at the last minute to say there was no problem... Will squirmed and Casey rocked him back and forth as he hit the talk button.
“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?”
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.
