by Leigh Riker
“An angel,” Liza murmured, wondering, hoping now...
“I’ll get it right next time—from the start.” Then Everett leaned over the baby to lightly kiss Liza and said, his lips on hers, “I like your idea.”
She drew back in shock. “You do?”
“Let’s go home as soon as we can,” he said, forgetting for the moment that Nick and Ava would be with them.
“You’re sure,” she said, hardly able to believe he wanted a child with her.
“I’m sure.”
They had time. Plenty of time, Liza thought, for the love they shared.
* * *
LEAVING THE PARTY BEHIND, Sawyer wandered through the house, out the back door and down to the barn, where he said hello to Blue. The black colt seemed to grow muscle every day and was becoming one handsome horse. Sawyer was grooming him just for the fun of it when Sam joined him in the aisle.
“Lot of noise up there,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder toward the house. “Never seen people make such a fuss over a six-pound baby.”
“That baby will probably make a fuss of her own tonight. All night.”
Sam picked up a currycomb, then started on Blue’s other side. “I’m a great-grandfather again,” he said. Then, “Hear you and Olivia have an announcement to make.”
“How’d you hear that?”
Sam didn’t quite answer. “Can’t think of anybody in this house or at Wilson Cattle who’ll be surprised. Except you, I suppose.”
“I’m the one who asked her to marry me.”
“Should have done that years ago.”
Sawyer smiled. “Yes, I should have.”
“Hope you’re done running from all your problems. Like you said you were.”
“Pops, I don’t need a lecture, okay? Yes, I am through—and...” He paused to find the right words. “If it’s all right with you—” he knew it would be “—I’m staying at the Circle H.” He told Sam about his idea to build a new house on the property for him and Olivia. “So you’ll have Nick here again, too, running back and forth.”
Sam drew the currycomb along Blue’s side one last time.
“Nick with both his parents in one place. I’m a happy man,” he said. “Glad to have Olivia here, as well.”
Sawyer grinned over the horse’s back. “So am I.”
Before he left the barn, Sam rounded the colt’s rear end. He hooked an arm around Sawyer’s neck. “Welcome back...son.” Sam grinned but his eyes looked damp. “I’m not only happy. I’m lucky. I’ll have both my boys here. Both my boys,” he repeated, then seemed to pull himself together. “Quite the legacy we’re building. If Grey and Everett think they’re ahead with Wilson Cattle, they’d better think again.”
As Sam left the barn, Olivia walked in, blinking to adjust her vision. “What was Sam crying about?” she asked, as if Sawyer were responsible.
He guessed he was, but not for the reason she might think.
“We weren’t arguing. We came to an agreement. Just like you and Ted. Sam knows I’m here and that I’m not leaving again.” He arched an eyebrow. “That message is for you, too.”
Olivia didn’t bat an eye. She moved around to kiss the colt’s head. “Thank you for Blue,” she said. “I’m calling him an early engagement present. Better than a flashy diamond ring.”
“You have no idea how flashy it’s going to be. You should thank Sam. I talked him out of this horse.”
She stepped back to assess Blue, ran a hand along his neck, then down his side to his foreleg. “You know, I think he might make a good barrel racer.”
“You’d go back into competition?”
“You never know. We’ll see.”
Sawyer laid a hand on her shoulder. He leaned over to kiss her. “Making a lot of bold moves here, Ms. Soon-to-be-changing-your-name-again-Wilson.”
She grinned. “Then I’ll be Olivia Wilson Hunter Wilson McCord.”
“Wow. Sounds like some royal family.”
“Why not? You’re Sawyer McCord Hunter McCord. You need one more.”
“Not gonna happen.” Or maybe it should. Sam would like him to be a Hunter again. He’d have to think about that. In the meantime, he kissed her once more, lingering, hardly able to realize she was his. And, after all these years, he was finally hers. When he raised his head at last, the taste of her still on his lips, Olivia was smiling through her tears.
“What?” he said.
“I talked to my father. I think Dad and I will be okay.”
For that, Sawyer had to kiss her one more time. Then he unsnapped Blue from the crossties and together they walked the colt back to his stall.
“Good,” he said. “Good for you.”
Good for us, he thought.
* * *
LATER IN THE AFTERNOON, Olivia and the others were in the family room when Blossom came down the stairs with the baby after taking a rest. Logan had been right; she looked like a classic Madonna, and Olivia almost envied her. No, she did envy her, even if that wasn’t an admirable trait. Once, she’d planned to have more babies with Logan, but that hadn’t been in the cards and Olivia had tried for three years to make her peace with the notion of Nick remaining an only child. Seeing Blossom as a new mother brought back her own fantasies, as it had for Liza.
In the center of the room, Grey and Shadow were holding court. The newlyweds had come home and her brother looked as if he no longer had a care in the world. Shadow simply glowed. They were wrapped in each other’s arms, their eyes only for each other.
Olivia tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey. How was San Diego?”
Grey winced. “Great. Sorry you all missed the wedding. Our fault.”
Olivia kissed both of them. “No hard feelings. Best wishes.”
Shadow said, “We’re happy for you and Sawyer, too.” They had made their official announcement earlier. She leaned closer to Olivia. “Just don’t let the past keep you from having a future. We almost did—”
“But we stopped that from happening,” Grey put in.
Satisfied that her brother was with the love of his life, Olivia glanced across the room. Even Finn Donovan had just stopped by and was talking to Annabelle from the diner. Which gave Olivia an idea. “Shadow, I’m thinking we need a girls night out. You, me, Blossom, Annabelle, Sherry from Baby Things...and Liza. Maybe we’ll form a group.”
“Don’t forget Jenna. Living in a small town—or on a ranch—can get lonely.”
Olivia agreed with Shadow. After all, she’d spent years on the Circle H feeling isolated, years, too, at her dad’s ranch feeling invisible. A better social life would be more than welcome. She already had a new sister-in-law in Shadow and was friends with Blossom. Plus, now she and Sawyer were engaged.
She sent a smile toward her dad, who was talking cattle—or was it bison?—with Logan in the corner, then waved at Liza, who joined in now and then. Her stepmother had already taken to ranch life. Nearby, Nick and Ava were playing a board game in the middle of the family room rug. Olivia and Sawyer had already told him there would be no move after all, except to the Circle H, and Nick was thrilled. Life was good. It could hardly get any better except—
Olivia didn’t finish the thought. Logan had left her father’s side and was coming toward her. “Well, here’s the new daddy,” she said with only a small twinge of disappointment. She was happy for him, happy for Blossom...
She could tell he felt the same for her. “I hear more best wishes are in order. You and Sawyer really getting married?”
“That’s the plan.”
“All good things, Olivia. Sawyer and I have had our differences—but we’re past that.”
Sawyer joined them. “We are.” He glanced at Sam, standing in the archway to the dining room with a beer in his hand. He toasted Sawyer wi
th it. “All of us,” Sawyer added, an arm around Olivia. “I have to say, whether it’s black Angus or bison, we’ve got a great team. Kansas—”
“Cowboys,” Logan said and winked at Olivia. “Cowgirls, too. I’ve heard about your plans for Cycl—for Blue.”
They were still laughing when Blossom brought the baby to them. It was Sawyer’s turn to hold her and it was he who asked the question that Olivia had been wondering about all afternoon. He gazed down into that sweet little face. “What’s her name?”
Logan said, “We finally decided. It’s Daisy.”
Sawyer smiled. “Blossom and Daisy, huh? You’ve got a flower theme going.”
“Don’t forget Blossom Too,” she said. “Nick’s kitten.” That little cat was “helping” Nick and Ava play their game, occasionally scooting a token across the board as if playing with a mouse.
“Blossom spent her pregnancy convinced she was having a son named Aaron. I sure hope the next one’s not a boy, then,” Logan murmured. “You know, all these flower names...”
Blossom almost shuddered. “I’m not ready to think about that. Daisy was a pretty easy birth, I’m told, but still...”
Logan drew her close. “Maybe it’ll be twins next time.”
Grey wandered over again with Shadow. “What are we missing here?”
“Family planning,” Sawyer said.
Shadow smiled. “Just what we were talking about last night. Ava’s nine, and we’ve missed out on so much time together...” She sent Grey a private look, the kind happily married people shared. Olivia hoped she and Sawyer would be just like them.
Sawyer spoke near Olivia’s ear, his voice low for her alone. “Nick’s already seven.”
And her heart soared. “You’re talking about—”
“A little girl. Or another boy,” he said.
Grey grinned. So did Logan. Shadow and Blossom rolled their eyes.
“How will we keep everyone straight?” Olivia asked with a laugh. “Logan, Daisy is your daughter and Sawyer’s niece. Nick is our son but also Sawyer’s nephew. When we get married, you will not only be my ex-husband but my brother-in-law, just as Sawyer once was to me. If he and I have a baby—”
“Whoa,” Sawyer said. “Let’s get married first.”
He rocked Daisy in his arms. She cooed a little and Olivia watched him fall in love. Her big, strong cowboy. Or should she say, the town’s new doctor as well as Charlie’s partner in the clinic?
She knew Logan had taken the flying job in Wichita, but his occasional days away from the Circle H shouldn’t trouble Blossom at all, and he was already talking about buying a small plane to keep at the ranch, putting in a runway in a nearby field.
Maybe Olivia was the only one who had ever felt isolation here, reminding her of her often-absent father. He winked at her now across the room. And Olivia smiled just for him.
She had no doubts. He and Grey would bring Wilson Cattle to profitability again, then probably send it flying even higher, like one of Logan’s jets streaking across the sky. Who had her father been fooling? Like Doc, he wasn’t one for retirement, either.
Liza didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, she was talking about getting a job herself: helping Shadow at Mother Comfort. And having a baby of her own.
That left Olivia and Sawyer. It wouldn’t always be easy juggling her two shops, his work with Doc in town and trips to Kedar, but they would manage. Olivia was already involved with the women’s cooperative. Nick would love it there. She and Sawyer loved each other, and that was all that mattered.
Logan and Blossom. Grey and Shadow. Olivia and Sawyer.
“I jumped the gun before,” he said for her ears only. “We haven’t really talked about a family.” He glanced down at the baby, then up at Olivia. “You okay with that?”
Olivia didn’t have to think. “I’m all for it, but—” She also knew something else. “We’re already a family, Sawyer.”
“Yeah. We are.”
And they kissed.
“Not only that,” he said. “We’re home.”
* * * * *
For more stories in Leigh Riker’s KANSAS COWBOYS miniseries,
check out LAST CHANCE COWBOY
and THE RELUCTANT RANCHER.
Keep reading for an excerpt from CHRISTMAS AT CADE RANCH by Karen Rock.
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Christmas at Cade Ranch
by Karen Rock
CHAPTER ONE
“IS DADDY DOWN THERE?”
Sofia Gallardo knelt beside her five-year-old son, Javi, on frozen grass and snuggled him close. All around them, poinsettia and pinecone Christmas wreaths bedecked the surrounding gravesites. She pulled in a ragged breath of balsam-scented air and blinked stinging eyes.
How to explain the afterlife to a child? An animated film they’d watched at a public library came to mind. “No, honey. Daddy went ‘up.’”
Javi traced the plaque’s engraved letters with a fingertip poking through his faded red glove. The white tops of Carbondale, Colorado’s nearby Rocky Mountain range breathed chill late-November air down at them. It rustled through the Douglas firs dotting Rosebud Cemetery and jingled bell-shaped ornaments looped around a wintergreen boxwood. “Like in the movie?”
“Just like that.”
“With balloons?”
“Maybe.”
Brown eyes slanted up at her beneath a drooping toque a size too big for his head. He looked thinner, she assessed, gnawing on her lip. Pale. When was the last time he’d had milk? Fruit? Two days ago?
No. Three.
Four.
“He can’t go up without balloons.” Javi pulled a creased picture from his backpack and peered at it. “And he wasn’t old like Mr. Fredisson.”
“Fredricksen,” she corrected automatically, then closed her eyes for a moment and gathered her thoughts. How to make sense of something she hadn’t yet fully processed? Outside the cemetery’s gates, the swish-hiss of a sander slipped past, ahead of this afternoon’s predicted storm.
She shivered in her sweater and wished for a winter coat, gloves and a better set for Javi, too, than his mismatched pair.
Wishes.
At least they didn’t cost a thing.
“You don’t have to be old to go up.”
Her ex, Jesse Cade, was dead at onl
y twenty-six, gone from her life before Javi’s first birthday when Jesse relapsed into heroin addiction. Gone from this world two years ago without her knowing until a stranger, Jesse’s mother, Joy Cade, tracked her down last week and phoned with the news. Sofia had promised to meet her here during her Portland-bound bus’s layover from Albuquerque.
Her stomach knotted. When Joy had pleaded for the chance to meet her grandson, Sofia heard a mother’s pain and found it hard to refuse. After wrestling with the decision, she’d finally called Joy this morning and accepted the invite.
Not that she’d made peace with the plan.
Sofia avoided people who associated her with her own addiction history. What if Joy divulged Sofia’s shameful past to Javi?
She wouldn’t be able to bear it.
Javi sprawled forward and pressed his cheek to the stone. His Batman hoodie—a dingy black thing he’d plucked from the shelter’s discard pile—rose above his waist. “I don’t want to go up. Ever.”
“You won’t, sweetie. Promise.” She brushed back his dark hair and clamped her chattering teeth. Growing up in the inner city and forced at times to live in shelters, Javi had already endured a harsher life than some adults. She’d do everything in her power to keep him safe.
Even from herself.
“But what if they don’t have free lunches in—in— Where are we going?”
“Portland.” She gathered him close and the familiar fear of not knowing where their next meal would come from curdled inside her. “No more being hungry.”
Hopefully her friend’s job lead panned out. Finding steady, decent-paying employment wasn’t easy for former felons without high school degrees. She’d run out of options in Albuquerque.
But maybe in Portland she had a chance at a position that’d last more than a few months, a career, maybe even a real home for Javi. One she’d decorate for the holidays in every inch of its space to make up for all the Christmases he’d had to do without.
It might be a pie-in-the-sky idea, but when you had nothing, you had nothing to lose by dreaming big.
