Claire found a sock under the edge of Zaylie’s bed and one of her hair bows on the dresser that evening, and she clutched both to her chest and let the tears flow. She wanted a child, preferably a daughter, but she wouldn’t complain for a single moment if she had a whole house full of sons just like Levi.
She didn’t even hear the knock on the door, but suddenly Levi was sitting on the floor beside the bed with her, his arm around her shoulders as she sobbed. “I thought I was okay, and then I found these. It’s just a crumpled hair bow and a dirty sock, but I feel like I gave away my own child today.”
“Let’s just throw away your birth control pills and have one a year until we get a dozen,” Levi said.
“I’m not that sad, but I wouldn’t fuss about four in the next ten years.” She wiped at her cheek.
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed the tears away. “Shall we start on the first one tonight? I’m not leaving you alone, Claire. I brought my toothbrush.”
“And jammies?”
“I don’t like those any better than underwear. They bind me up. I want to wake up with you next to me, but I can always take my bag right back to the ranch house if you aren’t comfortable with us spending the night together,” he answered.
For the first time in her life, she was only responsible for herself. During her growing-up years she had to be careful not to do anything that would bring shame to her mother’s and father’s careers. The year she lived with her grandmother, she felt that she had to do what her grandmother wanted so that she wouldn’t disgrace her in the small town of Randlett. After that she was busy with college, teaching, and then taking care of Zaylie and her Nanny, often at the same time.
Make sure you’re not substituting all of them with Levi, Nanny’s voice whispered softly in her head.
Oh, Nanny, I can’t imagine living without him.
“Well?” Levi asked.
“I want you to stay,” she whispered. “When I reach for you tomorrow morning I don’t want to get an arm full of nothing but air.”
“Or a pillow,” he said. “I brought a couple of beers. Want one?”
She nodded, and he stood to his feet. In only a few minutes he was back with a plate of cookies and two longneck bottles of Coors. He set the cookies on the floor, handed her a beer, and took his place again right beside her.
“Folks usually eat pretzels with beer for the salt, but I’ve always liked cookies better. These are leftovers from the party, but they’re still good.”
She picked up a pecan sandy and bit off a piece and then took a sip of beer. He was right—it was so much better than pretzels. “We should buy us a honky-tonk and put out cookies instead of nuts and pretzels on the bar. Bet we’d make a fortune.”
“If you were drawin’ up the beer and makin’ drinks, we’d get rich real quick.” He nodded. “But I really like it right here on the ranch. Which reminds me, we’re going to be super busy tryin’ to get everything caught up this next week. That way when Justin and Cade’s folks are here, they can spend time with them.”
“And I imagine Retta and I’ll be pretty busy in the house.” This time she chose a peanut butter cookie. “But we’ll have the nights together, right?”
“Yes, darlin’. A million times, yes.”
Claire awoke the next morning to see Levi propped up on an elbow staring at her. The way his eyes twinkled told her that he’d enjoyed sharing her bed as much as she’d liked him being there. But now it was time to get dressed and go to the ranch house, to face Justin, Cade, and Retta. She wasn’t a child but hoped that it wasn’t awkward like that morning when Justin’s one-night stand had been cooking breakfast.
“Good mornin’,” he drawled. “I could sure enough get used to this. Just thinkin’ about it comin’ to an end when you move into your house makes this old cowboy want to weep.”
“But you can still come spend nights with me, right?” Claire said.
Levi sat up so fast that he jerked all the covers off her. “Every single one that you want me to.”
“That will be all of them.” She rolled out of bed and opened up her dresser drawer to find underpants and a clean bra. She’d never done it before, but there was something downright exhilarating and free about sleeping in the raw.
Levi got out of bed and pulled on his jeans. “Then I’ll be there as soon as I get the evening chores done every day.”
Beau and Gussie met them that morning as they went hand in hand from the bunkhouse to the ranch house. Beau romped on ahead to send a squirrel up the dormant pecan tree, but with her tail high like a regal queen, Gussie stayed right beside Claire and darted into the house when the door was opened.
“I wonder where Hopalong is this mornin’,” Claire said.
“Probably holed up in a mesquite thicket with his girlfriend,” Retta answered.
“It’s warmer in a bunkhouse under a nice quilt,” Claire said.
“It’s a good thing those bunkhouse walls can’t talk.” Retta giggled.
“Amen to that,” Claire said.
Cade and Justin yelled at Levi from the living room, and Claire followed Retta on into the kitchen. She got out a cast iron skillet and started frying slabs of ham while Retta made biscuits.
“Claire, you are welcome to stay here as long as you want. You can live in the bunkhouse until you get your new house all ready. We don’t need it until summer when the kids arrive,” Retta said.
“Thank you, but I’m hoping to get things set up to move in right after Christmas. I thought signing the papers would be a big thing, but it wasn’t. I think the day that I move into the bedroom, it’ll seem real,” Claire said.
Retta pointed toward a cabinet door. “Would you hand me a pan? My hands have dough on them. I see a future in which you are part of the family.”
Claire jerked her head around so quickly that it made her dizzy. “Did Levi say something?”
“Nope, but I can see it in his eyes and the way he is when you are around. That cowboy is in love. It just takes him a while to say the words.” Retta rolled the dough out.
“Seems like everything has happened in a whirlwind, and at the same time it seems like I’ve lived on the ranch forever and ever,” Claire admitted.
“I know the feeling. I arrived the first of June and by July fourth, I was so in love with Cade that it hurt to think of ever being away from him. You’ve heard that old saying that God works in mysterious ways. Well, I believe it now,” Retta said.
“Did you ever feel like something bad was going to happen?” Claire asked.
“At first.” Retta nodded. “It seemed like when things were going good for me that something always happened, so I expected things with Cade to go sideways at any time, but…” She paused. “Maybe that’s the mysterious part because here we are. That don’t mean we don’t disagree and get angry with each other.” She lowered her voice. “But the makeup sex is amazing.”
Claire slapped at her with a dish towel. “I’d miss this and you.”
Retta laughed. “Me too. God might’ve sent you to Levi, but he also sent me a friend.”
“Well, thank you for the offer to stay, and I’ll take you up on it. After all, one should not try to argue with God’s plan, should they?”
Levi parked the four-wheeler in front of the cabin and just sat there looking at it. If he could buy any five acres on the ranch it would be this little corner, because it was where he first met Claire. He wished he’d thought to take a picture of her with that pistol in her hands to hang above the mantel. But there was no way he would have reached inside his pocket for his phone at that moment for fear she’d pull the trigger.
Beau ran past him, up onto the porch, and put his paws on the doorknob. Then he ran back to Levi and barked before he ran back to the door a second time.
“Okay, old boy, what’s the problem? Is there another damsel in distress in the cabin this mornin’?” He followed Beau and opened the door. No one was there, but he took a long, hard look at the cabin. If he took those bunk beds out and put in a queen-size bed and maybe built a few more cabinets, it would be livable until he could build a real house.
Beau flopped down in front of the cold fireplace and put a paw over his nose.
“I know it’s crazy thinking. Claire deserves more than a rundown hunter’s cabin way back here in the sticks.”
As if Beau understood, he yipped once and hopped up on the sofa. Levi sat down beside him and scratched his ears. The dog laid his head over on Levi’s lap and whined.
“If someone had told me two months ago that marriage would be on my mind in the next ten years, I’d have asked them what they’d been smokin’. But I can’t imagine life without her, Beau. It’s just happened too fast. She’s had wings, not roots, and what if the fire goes out and she doesn’t want roots? Kind of like what happened with Julie and Cade?” Levi recalled how Julie had been engaged to Cade, but she broke it off on their wedding day. Thank God he had found Retta, who turns out was his soul mate after all.
Beau shut his eyes and went to sleep. “Some help you are. Wake up.” Levi shook him. “It’s almost noon and Retta and Claire will have our dinner on the table.”
Beau bounded off the sofa and ran to the door. Levi let him out and rode the four-wheeler back to the barn where the hired hands were sitting around with their lunch buckets, sack lunches, and thermos bottles. Some of them had already finished and were laid back on hay bales taking a power nap with their cowboy hats over their eyes.
Skip pushed his back with his finger. “I got an extra sandwich over there in my lunch pail if you want it.”
“What are you doin’ out here?” Levi frowned.
“Don’t want to stay home by myself and ain’t about to stay in the house with three women—no sir,” Skip whispered.
“Thanks, but I’m on my way inside.”
“Ah, the ways of young love.” Skip pulled his hat back over his eyes.
“Wonderful, ain’t it?” Levi said.