A Cowboy in Shepherd's Crossing

by Ruth Logan Herne

  “Then she came here with two more jars of jam and surprised us all by going up the drive, on her own, to visit the kids. And Zeke said she even sat down in the grass with the girls.”

  He didn’t want to feel compassion for the old woman. She’d made her choices. Years of them. Decades. So now she was trying to ingratiate herself to her neighbors and estranged family. Buying her ticket to heaven, he supposed. Except it didn’t work that way, and he was pretty sure Gilda Hardaway knew that.

  He couldn’t hear Melonie’s voice over the babies’ babbles, but he heard Gilda’s approving exclamations, which meant Melonie was showing her ideas.

  He didn’t want to intervene, or rain on their parade, but fancy designs didn’t always work. Load-bearing walls and structural integrity were two things that some folks were willing to sacrifice in favor of a particular look. Too much sacrifice meant the roof might come down on your head.

  He jutted his chin toward the porch. “Do you mind keeping an eye on these two while I butt into that porch discussion?”

  “Not in the slightest.”

  Jace got up from the floor and headed to the porch, where Melonie and his grandmother sat. “Ladies.”

  Gilda looked up quickly when he came through the door. Her smile was more like a wince, but she aimed it straight at him. “I’m glad you’re here, Jason. Melonie was just sharing some ideas with me and we wanted you in on the conversation.”

  “To see what’s doable and what might need tweaking,” said Melonie.

  “I might have been able to save you both some time if I’d previewed the ideas.” He made the comment lightly, but when Melonie lifted slow, gray eyes to his, he knew she caught the shielded reprimand.

  “We’re open to adjustments as needed,” she said with candor, then poked Gilda’s arm lightly. “But your grandmother knows this house far better than we do, so I thought I’d run some thoughts by her first.”

  “And I want it different.” Insistence sharpened Gilda’s response. “It never had the right feel the first go-around, so this one needs to be better. Done right,” she insisted. “From top to bottom. And maybe not so walled-in here and there.”

  “We can open the first floor some, sure.” Jace went around behind the ladies while Melonie brought up a new page. He pointed to the wall separating the kitchen from what must have been a grand living room at one time. “With a support beam here.” He pointed to the current wall separating the two rooms. “And widening this here, we can keep the integrity of the structure and open things up.”

  “It’s harder to keep secrets in a more open house.” Gilda’s voice softened.

  Hairs stood up along Jace’s neck.

  He didn’t want to hear about her secrets. He didn’t care. The past and its pack of lies needed to be left there.

  Just then, one of the babies shrieked in glee.

  He started back for the door.

  “You don’t need to see any more?” Gilda asked. “No more advice?”

  “At the moment there are two more important things to tend to,” he told her. “This is my time with the girls. I was under the impression that consultation over the design layout of your house was going to take place later. Once they were in bed.”

  Gilda’s mouth drew down.

  Not in anger. But in sorrow. Because he sounded like a pretentious jerk after being a guardian for a matter of days.

  “You go on, of course.” She waved him off, apologetic. “I should be heading out now, anyway.”

  “I thought you said the roofers were working late.” Melonie had the decency to look concerned while he acted like a dolt.

  “A little noise and kabobble never hurt anyone.” Gilda started to stand. Her dress snagged on the glider’s edge. She began to tip slightly.

  “Whoa.” Jace grabbed hold of her arm quickly so she wouldn’t fall.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Of course you are.” Melonie tucked the laptop aside and stood. “And you’re not going anywhere except right here for supper and time with your great-granddaughters. They need that family time, it’s the best thing for them. To have their Gee-Gee there—”

  When Gilda looked blank, Melonie took Gilda’s other arm and said, “Great-Grandma.”

  “I’ve never heard such a thing.” Gilda frowned while Jace made sure they’d unsnagged the simple cotton dress she’d worn from the glider. “But I might like it.”

  “Down South there is a plethora of names for grandparents,” Melonie told her as they moved toward the door. She must have showered since she’d returned because the scent of strawberries and something else—coconut, maybe—filled the air when she moved. “Meemaw, Mawmaw, Gammie, Mimi, Lovie, Neenee.”

  Gilda seemed shocked. “Not a soul your way just says Grandma?”

  “Not too many, although my maternal grandmother was Nana. She and my father didn’t get along and he made it very difficult for her to have any time with us.”

  “I am so sorry, my dear.”

  Jace opened the screened door as Gilda paused.

  “Those family divisions are so wrong,” she muttered, as if scolding herself. Then she took a breath and sighed. “I only wish I’d known that as a younger woman.”

  Yup. A late harvester, just like they talked about in the Bible. How God paid all in equal amounts, even if they came late to the table of believers. As a working man, Jace understood the injustice in that. As a Christian, he understood the generosity God offered. Resolving the two...well, that was the problem, wasn’t it?

  The babies babbled when they moved into the living room. Ava had left the couch, and when she spotted Melonie she ducked her head and crawled as fast as those stocky little arms and legs allowed. Then she grabbed hold of Melonie’s legs, and pulled herself up. “Bah!” she implored, then raised her hands up. Straight up, standing on her own. “Bah, bah!”

  Melonie took a small step back. Then another, creating a span between her and the baby. Then she stooped low while the rest watched. “You want me, sweetie? Come get me.”

  Ava stared at her, then Jace and Gilda, as if questioning Melonie’s right to move away.

  Then she brought that blue-eyed gaze right back to Melonie. She stuck her two little arms out and waved them. “Bah! Bah! Bah!”

  Melonie nodded, smiling, arms out. “I’m right here.” She spoke in a voice laced with sweet encouragement and joy. “Come on, Ava. You can do this.”

  The baby squawked one more time, but seemed to size up the situation despite her vocal protest and then—with all of them watching, scarcely daring to breathe—she took a step.

  Her expression changed.

  She seemed a little bit frightened and very excited all at once. She stood in place, bobbed up and down, almost dancing, then took a second step toward Melonie.

  Oh, her smile!

  A baby grin, from ear to ear as she chortled about her success before taking that final step, the one that brought her back to Melonie’s very pretty legs. “Bah!” She screeched the word, laughing. “Bah!”

  “You did it!” Melonie scooped her up, blew raspberry kisses along Ava’s pudgy little neck and laughed with her. “You walked, schnookums! Good job!” She handed her right over to Jace. “Papa Jace is so proud of you, too.”

  His heart, which had gone sour earlier that day, unsoured right quick when Melonie handed him that baby so that he could share in the joy of those first steps. Sure, she’d gone to Melonie. Ava had developed a sweet spot for Melonie from day one. And it would have been so easy and natural to hog the moment.

  She didn’t.

  He’d pretty much intimated that she grew up as a spoiled rich girl, yet who was it working on her knees in the dark Idaho soil earlier that afternoon?

  Melonie.

  And who handed over the beautiful child into his arms to share a milestone moment?

&nb
sp; Melonie.

  “They’ll need baths today.” Lizzie stood as Annie crawled toward Jace to see what all the excitement was about. “They had some fun outside earlier and since supper’s going to be later than normal, should we bathe them now?”

  “It makes sense,” Gilda said. “I’m not as mobile as I used to be, but I can warm towels. I used to warm towels for your baths,” she told Jace, as if there weren’t thirty empty years yawning in between. “You were born just shy of Christmas and it was a long, cold winter. We had such good heat that I’d warm the towels while Barbara bathed you. Then I’d wrap that towel around you and you’d snuggle in, just so.”

  He wasn’t sure what to say because he wanted to throw a million questions at her.

  He couldn’t. Not now. Maybe not ever. But the image of this old woman, as she might have been three decades back, wrapping him up in a warm towel and then snuggling him dry... He had to choke back emotion from his voice. “We can use the downstairs bathroom. I’ll run the water.”

  He escaped into the bathroom long enough to recover his wits.

  When she’d told him that the Middletons adopted him at a year old, he hadn’t given much thought to the year prior. Only the years after.

  Now she’d painted more of the picture. His father gone. And she and his mother, caring for him. Nurturing him.

  It didn’t compute.

  How did you give away something you loved?

  He started back to the living room and saw Gilda making funny faces at Ava. Yes, he could almost see her doing that with him, a long time ago.

  Almost—but not quite.

  * * *

  “The mark’s gone.” Melonie swallowed hard as they finished bathing and diapering the babies about forty minutes later.

  “The what?”

  She looked from Jace to Lizzie and Gilda, then back. “The mark,” she whispered. “To tell them apart.”

  “You marked them again?” Lizzie’s voice was a mix of surprise and admiration. “I thought you were amazing because you could always tell them apart so I just followed along.”

  “Jace?”

  He put up his hands. “No clue. Unless they’re sleeping and we do the hand thing that Rosie suggested.”

  “There’s got to be a way.” Melonie stared at the girls.

  “How about Corrie? Or Rosie?”

  Corrie came into the room at that moment. “Sweet, clean babies! Just in time to have some mush, little darlings. Oh, you smell so good!” She got down and smooched both girls, then realized the four adults were watching her. “What’s wrong?”

  “Who are you kissing?”

  Corrie’s brow knitted. “Excuse me?”

  “I mean the babies,” Jace explained. “Which baby were you just kissing?”

  Corrie looked from him, to the other adults, and then the twins. “You’ve gone and mixed up these sweet babies, and isn’t that a bit of a pickle?” She stared up at their woebegone faces and burst out laughing. “You know twenty years ago this would be more difficult, but there is information at your fingertips every which way nowadays,” she reminded them. “How were you telling them apart before?”

  A sheepish expression darkened Jace’s demeanor. “The colors. The pink and purple. I changed one at a time, so it wasn’t a problem.”

  “Well, there are worse things in the world than being called the wrong name for a spell, but there must be a way to distinguish them. Some little identifier,” she reasoned.

  “I’d marked them.”

  Corrie tipped her gaze to Melonie. “Say what, child?”

  “With what was supposed to be a permanent marker,” grumbled Melonie. “I’ve examined both feet. No dot,” she explained as Heath and Zeke came through the back door. Heath kicked off his boots and the little guy followed suit.

  “So now they’re not dressed and there’s no distinguishing mark because neither one has a birthmark or mole to help us out.”

  “Or a strawberry mark like you had,” Gilda said to Jace. “Right at the back of your neck, where the hairline is. It went away in time, most do, but neither one of these little beauties has a mark.”

  They shared troubled looks while the babies giggled, free from the constraints of clothing while the adults tried to figure out what to do.

  “I can always tell them apart,” bragged Zeke once he’d lined his boots up alongside his father’s. “It’s easy, once you know the secret.”

  The hopeful look on Jace’s face was almost amusing, but Melonie didn’t dare laugh...at least not yet. “You can tell them apart?”

  “Easy-peasy,” said the boy, then he turned toward the babies. “Annie. Ava!” He didn’t speak loud, he kept his voice calm and low, with just a hint of excitement.

  One baby turned.

  Zeke fist-punched the air. “That’s Ava. I know because Ava always turns when I do that. Annie doesn’t.”

  Annie doesn’t.

  He dashed off to the front room while the adults faced one another. “What does that mean?” Jace asked. “Does Ava turn because she’s trying to hear what’s going on? Or does Annie not turn because she doesn’t hear what’s going on?” He lifted Ava while Corrie picked up Annie. “Could one of them be deaf?” he asked, and the sorrow in his voice highlighted the depth of emotion for two babies he’d only met a week before.

  “They can do hearing tests, Jace.”

  “On babies?”

  Heath nodded as he reached out a hand to Ava’s still damp wisps of hair. “Then we’ll know.”

  Jace hugged Ava to his chest until she squawked to get free. He took her out to the big front room, and when she wriggled to get down, he set her on the floor with a tender touch.

  Then he watched as Corrie slipped a pink-and-yellow paisley romper onto Annie while Melonie did the same with a lilac version for Ava.

  The supper bell clanged.

  Heath and Lizzie slipped away with Zeke. Corrie lifted Annie. “I’ve got their supper ready and waiting and I expect that bath invigorated them.”

  “May I feed one of them?” Gilda hadn’t said a word, but her face registered concern. “I’m not strong enough to carry one into the kitchen, but I can still lift a spoon and wipe a pretty little face.”

  “Of course you can,” Melonie told her. “You’re their great-grandma.”

  Jace stayed quiet, and when Melonie came back from the kitchen, he’d moved to the porch. She hung at the door for long, drawn seconds before she pushed it open.

  He was standing at the rail, hands braced, chin down. She wanted to go to him. Tell him it would be all right, but would it?

  She approached the rail, turned to lean her back against it, then stood beside him, silent. Praying.

  “I didn’t notice,” he said finally. “I’ve been with these babies for over a week, and it took a five-year-old to point out the obvious. That one of the girls doesn’t react to her name. Or overreacts to it, straining to hear. What kind of a person am I? What kind of dad will I be to them?” he went on, gruffly. “If I don’t notice a big thing like that, how can I pretend to be the right person to do this? I don’t know anything about babies. About raising kids. What kind of person has to go online and order three books about parenting because he doesn’t have a clue how to do the right thing or even know what the right thing is?”

  She stayed quiet as the sun set lower in the Western sky. Filtered through feathered bands of cirrus clouds, the oblique rays splayed coral and orange through the green-leafed trees, like an inspirational painting. And when he finally turned her way, she asked one simple question. “Do you love them?”

  He didn’t hesitate at all. “Absolutely. It would be impossible not to love them. They’re adorable.”

  “Then you do exactly what your parents did with you at the very same age,” she whispered.

  That got his attention
. He swallowed hard as reality set in.

  “You love them. You stumble along, learning as you go like all new parents do, but as long as you’re bound by that love, you’ll do just fine, Jace. And if one of the girls has a hearing problem, then who better to be her champion than a big, rugged cowboy who knows how to wrestle cattle, birth lambs and wrangle a whole mess of hay under cover when rain threatens the outcome? If I were that little girl, either of them.” She aimed a pointed look inside. “I’d pick you every time. And those two girls will grow up knowing they’re blessed to have you on their side. And that’s the truth of it, Jace. Even though you do have a grumpy side from time to time.” She couldn’t resist adding that last bit, mostly because it was true on occasion.

  He still gazed out. But then he slanted his gaze her way. “I’m not grumpy.”

  She made a face, doubtful. “Of course not, my bad.” When he growled lightly, she smiled. “It’s not that you haven’t had a few things to grumble about. It’s that there’s so much more to be grateful for, Jace. Your health. Your sister. Your faith, your home, even those two old horses you love so well.” She folded her arms as the temperature dipped lower. “And this brand-new family you didn’t know you had. I’d say your cup is overflowing.” She crossed to the glider and lifted her laptop. “Go enjoy your time with the girls. I’m going to make some adjustments to my plan. We can go over them tomorrow. All right?”

  She didn’t really give him a choice because she moved toward the westward-facing porch stairs as she spoke.

  “Melonie.”

  She turned at the top of the stairs.

  He sighed and kept it simple, cowboy-style. “Thank you.”

  She dipped her chin slightly. Then she raised one finger and pretended to touch the brim of a nonexistent cowboy hat. “’Til tomorrow.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jace left a message for the pediatrician’s office, then drove to the Hardaway Ranch to check on the roofing progress.

  “Jace.” The foreman moved his way and pointed out how far they’d come. “We’re getting there.”