Levi’s F-150 bumped down gravel roads, rattled the two-horse trailer, and caused the patient appaloosa to suck his hooves deeper into the wood floor. Normally attuned to his horse, Levi was far too numb to do more than notice. He was too lost, his insides a gaping, aching hole.

Scott left behind a baby. A baby.

No wonder he couldn’t think straight.

As he drew closer to the small ranch sprawled across two hundred acres of Bermuda grass and pecan trees, anxiety tightened his shoulders. He considered a quick U-turn and a fast ride to anywhere else.

“Let someone else—anyone else—take this place and its rotten memories.” The only thing that had ever mattered on this ranch was gone. Six feet under.

All he needed from this place was a good spot to stick a for sale sign.

He pulled to a halt next to the front porch, killed the engine, and folded his arms on the steering wheel to stare morosely at his childhood home. A single-story garage protruded from one end of the boxy two-story now painted snow white, a far cry from the ugly brown he remembered.

“Big improvement, Scott,” he mumbled. Erase that sorry color and the memory that went with it. Though it wasn’t the color that had sent Levi packing. Or even the long, miserable days by himself in the heat with a paint brush and the sound of his father’s voice berating him for some infraction. Scott had snuck him cold water when the old man wasn’t looking.

The grief hit him again, a massive ocean wave of loss. Rather than bawl like a baby, he got out of the truck and went to the trailer.

Freckles greeted him with a whicker.

Levi pushed open the latches and slung wide the door. The metallic bang reverberated over the silent fields. Freckles’ hooves added their rhythm as the appaloosa stepped to the ground. He gave his master a quizzical brown eye before ducking his head to nibble on spring green grass.

The rain that had killed Scott gave life to the grass. Didn’t make sense. But then nothing did today; maybe nothing ever had. Not here anyway.

Levi rubbed a hand over the horse’s warm neck, emotion boiling and rolling inside. He was so tightly wound he didn’t know how to let go. Scott was gone. Levi’s only brother. The strong and gentle Donley kid who’d fought with his brain and his smile instead of his fists. Gone. He’d left a son, a baby Levi hadn’t known existed.

He had a nephew, a tiny version of his brother.

“Mason.” The back of his eyes stung. He was a worthless excuse for a brother. Worthless like the old man said. All those years ago, he’d left Scott to fend for himself, and now his brother was dead and his little boy orphaned.

Everything in Levi wanted to climb back in the truck and drive away from this ranch and Calypso. To run far and fast and never look back again.

But he owed Scott. Even if that meant sticking around the Donley Ranch for a while to settle things, he would. He’d never settled someone’s estate, their final affairs, and had no idea where to begin, but considering this was the only thing he could do for his brother, he’d figure things out. Maybe that preacher could be helpful after all.

Later. After he’d slept and looked around. After he had his legs under him again and his breath back in his lungs.

“Come on, pal.” He patted his best friend and traveling companion. “Let’s get you settled.”

Hooking a finger beneath Freckles’s halter, Levi led the appaloosa to a silver corral surrounding the old barn and turned him loose. The horse walked a few steps, head high and interested, and then broke into a celebratory run and buck. He’d spent most of three days in a trailer. He deserved to run free.

Levi didn’t feel quite that joyful. A coat of paint couldn’t cover the barn’s deep down ugliness. Maybe he’d burn the thing before the ranch sold.

After filling the water trough, Levi spun on his heel and headed to the house. His knees begged for rest. He had no idea what he would find inside his childhood home, but he was exhausted from the all-night drive and the emotion held tight in his chest. He couldn’t wrap his head around the last three days. Scott. A wife. A baby. Emily.

Emily. What did she want? Why had she waited at his truck? Surely, not to rehash ancient history.

She was the last person in Calypso he wanted to see. Yet, she was the one he wanted to see the most.

“I’m losing it.” He didn’t even make sense to himself.

Emily was a long, long time and many miles ago.

Braced for what he would find inside the house, for a childhood that would slap him like the back of a hand, he pushed in the key and opened the door. A waft of scented air greeted him, something warm and homey like homemade cookies.

“Must be the wrong house.” But he stepped inside anyway.

His knees wobbled. He blamed the old injuries, but memories poured in like a cloudburst, some good, too many bad.

The good ones were all of Scott, of a brother who somehow managed to find humor and mischief in otherwise long, endless days of farm labor.

Scott.

Levi grabbed for the wall to steady himself, eyes clenched tight as he took deep breaths. Slowly, he slid to the floor and sat for long moments, knees up, head down, listening for his brother’s voice, his laugh, his whispered warnings that the old man was on a rampage, and Levi was in the crosshairs. Again.

He let the slide show of childhood flash through his head and wished for one more day, one more moment with his brother. In all their lives, no one in this house had ever said, “I love you.” If he could do things over, he’d say the words to his brother… But he was too late. Scott was dead.

He couldn’t grasp it. His brother, his only kin, gone forever.

Exhausted, he tilted his head back against the wall, where he must have dozed because when he opened his eyes, the room seemed dimmer. A familiar noise permeated the former quiet. Cows bawling. Probably hungry.

Who had been caring for them since…? Maybe no one.

Using a nearby sofa as support, he pushed to a stand, knees groaning. For Scott’s sake, he’d take care of the responsibilities here. Cattle, horses, and maybe more. Pathetic that he didn’t know.

As his mind cleared, he noticed the living room for the first time. Tidy, clean, and inviting, the once dark and cold space had been redecorated by someone. Certainly not his brother. A woman. Jessica, the sister-in-law he didn’t know. Would never know.

A blue checkered throw was folded over the back of the off-white couch. Matching pillows made him want to stretch out and put his feet up. Homey. Warm.

Things had changed. But nothing could ever change enough to make him want to be here.

Levi moved around the room, noticing a cluster of photos on one wall where nothing had hung before. In one photo, Scott smiled so big he was all teeth next to a petite brunette with laughing eyes. Wedding photos. A picture of Scott working cows. Scott on horseback. The husband and wife in front of a Christmas tree.

Continuing through the lower rooms, he saw more changes, all of them adding a homey feel to the house that had never known one iota of warmth before. Light and sunshine. New drapes tucked open. Bright paintings. Religious wall plaques proclaiming Jesus as Lord.

Scott had married a woman of faith. Had she been the reason he’d joined a church? The knot in Levi’s throat thickened. Had his brother found the good life at last?

He didn’t know and probably never would, a fact that tormented him no end. He barely knew his own brother, the brother who had loved him and with whom he’d shared a bond of protection and brotherhood most siblings wouldn’t understand.

Scott was gone, and Levi was alone. Not that he’d ever minded that before. Never minded leaving behind a job, a crew of cowboys, a woman now and then. But suddenly, here in this ranch house he’d hated for years, he was struck by how terribly empty his life had become.

---

“How’s the baby?” Emily asked the moment she entered the sunroom of the Triple C Ranch.

Consuelo Galindo, chief cook and house boss of the Triple C, and the only mother Emily had ever known, was watering her many plants. The small Mexican woman with the giant heart was Emily’s go-to babysitter and resident grandma anytime Emily had a foster child in her care.

“He is sleeping now, but he fussed a long time. Poor little bebe.” Dark face wreathed in sympathy, Connie set aside her watering can and glanced in the direction of the downstairs bedrooms. “Do you think he knows his mama and papi are gone?”

The question haunted Emily as it did with every infant who came into foster care. Did tiny Mason Donley yearn for the mother who would never return? Was that why he was fussy and restless? Was he missing the parents who loved him unreservedly?

Unanswerable questions and family tragedies made social work a sometimes grueling and heartrending line of work. But she was doing a good thing, helping children, and the pain was worth the gain. Kids needed advocates who really cared.

As the only social worker in Calypso, Emily was responsible for many displaced children, and tiny Mason was the latest. Given her friendship with Jessica, she’d loved this particular baby long before he’d come into care. He was special, and she’d be lying to say different.

“Thank you for watching him while I attended the funeral service.”

Connie waved away the thanks. The Caldwell’s surrogate mother adored kids and was frustrated that neither Emily nor her brothers had produced offspring for her to spoil. That Nate had recently married their neighbor, Whitney Brookes, and was adopting her twin girls thrilled Connie no end. Emily was pleased about that herself.

“How was the service?” Connie asked as they started out of the sunroom and passed through the kitchen.

“Sad. Crowded. Half the town was there. I was glad Nate and Ace could make it. Whitney stayed home with the babies, but I understand that. She didn’t know Jessica or Scott very well.”

Emily stopped at the stainless-steel refrigerator for a water bottle. She offered one to Connie, who shook her head.

“Scott was a good neighbor and friend to us all. As Jessica was to you. Good people.”

“The best.” After a long swig of cooling water, Emily limped into the living room and plopped onto the leather sofa. “These heels are killing my feet.”

She bit her lip and sniffled. Jessica Donley, her close friend and shopping pal, had given her the shoes when she’d been too pregnant to wear them. “I can’t believe she’s gone, Connie.”

Connie sat next to her and offered a side hug. Emily rested her head on the slender shoulder she’d leaned on all her life.

“God’s ways are hard to understand sometimes, mija. But we must not question. He is wise and good. His plan is perfect.”

Emily wished she could agree. There didn’t seem to be anything good or perfect about two young, healthy parents being killed in a freak flash flood. Nor about a tiny boy being orphaned.

She didn’t argue, though. Like her three brothers, she loved and respected this wise little woman who’d come into their lives after their mother died. Emily had been a baby, the boys not much older when Dad had hired Connie. Now Dad was gone, too, but Connie remained, stalwart, steady, and loving, to take care of her familia, as she called the Caldwell siblings.

Connie’s warm-hearted, giving example was why Emily had become a social worker and the reason she was involved in church and civic events. That and the fact that as a childless widow, Emily’s home a short distance from the main house got very lonely.

“I tried to talk to Levi at the funeral.”

Connie stiffened, her hand stilling on Emily’s hair. “Oh, Emily. Is this a good idea?”

“I have to, Connie. Mason is an orphan, stuck in foster care until I find him the right home. Other than Levi, Ruby Peterson is the baby’s only known relative.”

“Ruby is a good Christian woman. But she is too old for a baby.”

“And she lives in an assisted living center.”

“Si. So sad for everyone. But Levi. I don’t know about this. I do not trust that boy. He did wrong by you.”

A heart scar Emily thought long faded began to throb.

“Levi had his reasons for leaving Calypso when he did.” She and Levi were the only ones who really knew what had happened that long-ago day.

They were just kids, teenagers, but old enough to be madly in love. Or so she thought. Then she’d hurt him. He’d hurt her back. And he’d run away from her and Calypso as fast as his battered old truck would take him.

“He broke your heart. You must be careful.”

Emily managed a small laugh. “That was eons ago, Connie. A high school thing. Long forgotten.”

“Maybe by you, but I do not forget the way he hurt you, my baby.” She gave Emily’s arm a squeeze. “Part of me is glad he left. Otherwise you would not have married Dennis. But, also, I remember you cried for days.”

Months actually, but Emily kept that remark to herself. “I was seventeen, remember? I cried about everything.”

Connie chuckled. “This is true. Remember how you cried until your papi let you spike your hair, and then you cried for a wig?” She shook her head in amusement. “Teenage hormones.”

“Thank goodness I outgrew them.” She hoped she’d also outgrown Levi Donley. “My only purpose in seeing Levi at all is for Mason’s sake, certainly not because of some high school crush.”

“I still do not trust him, but I will pray for him. Ruby says Levi travels too much. Like he is running away from something. He cannot settle down.”

Maybe he was still running from the memories, from the father who’d made his boyhood a misery.

“Well, he has a place to settle now.” The sore spot throbbed again. She hated that ranch. Had avoided it even after Jessica moved in. Now, the Donley Ranch belonged to the only other living person who’d been around that ugly day fourteen years ago.

“Do you think he will take over the ranch and stay in Calypso?”

Lord, she hoped not.

“No, I don’t, and that brings us back to Mason. Levi is his closest blood kin. I have to talk to him about Mason’s future.”

“Can the county not send another social worker?”

“I won’t ask for that! I don’t want some stranger making decisions for Jessica’s son. She was my friend. I have to make sure he’s placed with exactly the right family. For Jessica’s sake, as well as for Mason.”

The chances of Levi accepting such an overwhelming, life-changing responsibility were slim. Very slim. He’d hated Calypso enough to leave and never look back, and according to Jessica, he and Scott rarely communicated. Which made the couple’s request so much more bewildering.

“I’ll lay out the options for him, but I’m confident he’ll say no.”

Which was exactly right in her book. A drifting cowboy who probably slept in his horse trailer had no business with a child.

Yet, Jessica and Scott had made their wishes clear on the day of Mason’s birth, and the state also gave Levi preference. Even if the idea of seeing him bothered her more than it should have, and even if she completely disagreed with her friend’s decision, she had a moral and professional obligation to see things through.

“When will you go?”

Emily straightened her shoulders. “As soon as Mason wakes up.”

Connie was quiet for a minute. Emily recognized the silence. Connie would pray and consider before she offered an opinion. Finally, she nodded once. “Si. Levi must meet his nephew. It is right.”

“Yes, he must. The law favors kinship. Plus, I know what Jessica and Scott wanted. It would be ethically dishonest of me not to share that information with Levi. Not to mention un-Christian.”

“Si. Si.” Connie sighed. “I cannot understand why they chose him. He has been gone so long. He moves from one place to another. Ruby tries to keep up with his rambles, but he never calls or writes. That is not a good life for a baby.”

“No argument from me.”

“You would have been a better choice, mija, and I could be his abuela. I would like that very much.”

As a child welfare worker, Emily never let her thoughts go there. She might want to, but she didn’t. Conflicts of interest were frowned upon.

“Blood is thicker, as they say. Levi is kin. The law is clear, and he’s the person Jessica wanted. But as Mason’s social worker, I’m also obligated to tell him what I think is best for his nephew’s future. I have a stack of excellent paper-ready families yearning for a baby.”

Emily’s palms had begun to sweat. She rubbed them up and down the sides of the condensing water bottle. She hadn’t been to the Donley Ranch since the day Levi left town. Not even to visit Jessica, and her friend, bless her, had never questioned Emily’s aversion to the place. Jessica probably thought she still carried a torch for Levi and couldn’t bear the reminders.

Connie smiled and patted her arm. “He will agree. You will convince him. Babies are muy hard work.”

“Exactly the reason I’m taking Mason with me. I want Levi to understand the enormity of parenting a child and to realize that he has other, better options.”

Levi had a child’s future in his hands. So did she. And she was determined to do the best thing for Jessica’s baby.