After Emily left, Levi was too exhausted and heartsick to do anything else. The animals would be fine until tomorrow, and he couldn’t have eaten if his life had depended on it.

Rubbing a rough, cowboy’s hand over his face, he climbed the stairs to his old room. His and Scott’s. The old man had slept like the dead across the hall with the door shut, making nights Levi’s favorite time as a boy. He and Scott alone in the upstairs room where they could talk about everything.

Some nights, they invented methods to escape the incessant work load their father piled on them. Few of their ideas ever panned out, but they reveled in the planning.

Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. How many times had he and his brother heard that phrase, especially after Slim Donley had refused to let them join the baseball team or attend a movie with friends because they had chores to do? There was always work on the Donley Ranch. Even fishing had to produce food for the table.

No one remained idle long around Slim, especially the Donley sons. Levi had been driving a tractor by himself at the age of six. Driving an old farm truck at eight.

He hadn’t minded the chores. Not really. Hard work never killed anyone, and by the time he was a teenager, Slim was farming him out to other ranches to earn his own money. He had been thrilled to buy boots, clothes, and eventually a truck. Other ranchers, especially over at the Triple C, were a lot friendlier than the old man.

Levi loved ranching. It was the lack of free time, the lost childhood, the thankless, grueling expectations of a father who seemed to resent the food he ate, the air he breathed, his very existence.

At the top of the stairs, Levi paused to rub his knee and noticed more changes. Walls once dull and lifeless were painted a creamy color and brightened with a collection of framed sunrise-sunset photos. Had Jessica taken the pictures?

When he reached the bedrooms, one on each side, he stared at the old man’s door and decided not to open it. Not tonight, though his mysterious sister-in-law had probably done a work in there, as well.

He pushed into the room that had been his and Scott’s, finding more changes. Gone were the bunk beds and the tall dresser, along with the odds and ends of teenage boys. But what had he expected after fourteen years?

Apparently, Scott and his bride had made this room their own. A queen bed atop a shaggy white area rug. Mirrored dresser. A single nightstand where a book lay open as if someone had put it down for only a moment, intending to return.

The sight tugged low in his belly, an ache that moved up into his chest and burned behind his eyelids.

Weary, heart-sore, he regarded the bed, and the tug grew stronger. The turquoise comforter was rumpled, an indention in the pillow. Had the new mother rested there with her baby and a book? Or had Scott napped in this spot that last fateful day?

He blinked away the images and went to the double windows, where dust had settled on the glossy white sills. Staring out at the night, he smiled a little to see the old window screen still intact, the aluminum bent at the corners. He and Scott would push out the screen and shimmy down onto the garage roof below, then make their escape under cover of darkness.

Though he could barely make out the silhouettes in the moonlight, below lay everything Scott had worked for. A new hay barn to the left of the old one. Corrals, catch pens, working chutes, and a fine herd of black baldies, a handful of horses and much more.

Now, it was up to Levi to figure out what to do with everything, including a living, breathing child.

He sighed, his breath fogging a spot on the window.

What was he going to do about Scott’s baby? He was a cowboy, not a dad. His lifestyle was in the back of a trailer and on a horse’s back. That was no life for a child.

But Scott had picked him.

He turned away from the starlit night and sat on the edge of the bed.

For now, he needed to sleep. If he could.

He bent forward and grasped the heel of his boot. From beneath the bed protruded a pair of brown, worn work boots, laces trailing. Scott’s boots.

Scott had been the one to lie down on the pillow, to read the book on parenting, to leave one final indention to prove that he had existed.

Levi’s chest squeezed so hard he grew breathless for a second. Was this the way a panic attack started? Chest tight, pulse pounding, stomach heavier than a load of bricks?

He’d expected his brother to always be here when and if he decided to return.

Life didn’t simply end. It left behind the messy details.

With a soft thud, his boots dropped to the shaggy white rug. One boot tipped over against Scott’s. He left it, along with his clothes, in a pile on the floor. Too tired to do anything more, he snuffed the light, tugged the soft comforter aside and settled in on Scott’s pillow.

As he stacked his hands behind his head, a hundred thoughts darted through his mind. He imagined he could hear Scott’s whisper from the top bunk that was no longer there, the smile in his voice, the soft laugh that said he was up to some mischief. Somehow Scott had never lost his sense of humor.

Emily either. Emily had cheered him, made him laugh, made him feel like a normal boy instead of his old man’s workhorse.

She hadn’t been laughing today.

He tossed to one side, aching in the darkness, the quiet around him so profound he could hear the buzz of silence.

He tried to think about his last job in Tucson and the red-haired boss’s niece who’d favored his company. He’d liked her, but he hadn’t loved her.

Not the way he’d loved Emily.

Though he’d long ago put her in a mental lock box, tonight Emily wouldn’t stay out of his head. Emily and Scott and a tiny boy with a dent in his chin.

She was a social worker, a champion for kids. He was proud of her.

Was there a man in her life? A husband? A woman like Emily deserved a good, steady man who could make her as proud as she made him. Someone who wouldn’t let her down and run away when bad things happened.

He should have looked at her business card to learn her last name. Couldn’t still be Caldwell. But he hadn’t wanted to think about the papers she had asked him to sign. His head was too fuzzy, too out of focus.

Duty had forced her to come to this ranch and talk to him. How she must have resented coming here. Resented him.

But she cared about baby Mason.

So did he.

He heaved a noisy, frustrated sigh and shifted positions one more time.

Sleep, Donley. Sleep.

Tomorrow would be soon enough to figure out the rest of his life. The rest of Mason’s.

---

Levi! Get your lazy carcass out of bed before I climb these stairs and drag you out.

Levi’s eyelids shot open. He leaped up from the cushy bed, grappling at the side for his jeans. “Coming, Dad. I’m coming.”

Heart bounding, he jammed his arms into the rumpled shirt and grabbed his boots, hopping on one foot as he started down the stairs.

The last thing he wanted was to start the day off with the old man in a bad mood. Bad mornings meant backbreaking days and more verbal abuse than any kid should have to hear.

He was halfway down the stairs when full consciousness cleared the cobwebs. Dad wasn’t waiting below. Dad was dead.

He must have been dreaming.

Slowly, Levi slithered down onto a stair step and sat there with a boot dangling from one hand. Scott was dead, too.

He was here on Scott’s ranch, but his brother was gone forever.

Unexpected anger welled up like a geyser. Raring back like the baseball pitcher he’d never gotten to be, Levi threw the boot with every bit of strength he could muster. The brown Justin Roper thudded down the stairs, raising a racket in the silent house, and came to a rest at the bottom.

Levi dropped his head into his hands. He couldn’t do this. He didn’t belong here. He needed to get in his truck and escape. Now. As fast as he could. Put the ranch up for sale and hit the road.

Leaving was what he did best.

But how did a man escape his brother’s memory? His death? And the fact that he’d left behind, not only a ranch, but a son?

As anger seeped out like air from a punctured tire, despair moved in to ride his shoulders. He pushed off the stairs and hit the showers. Get dressed. Do the work. Work numbed the mind and took the edge off. He hoped.

By the time he stumbled downstairs to the kitchen, he’d grown an appetite. The clock on the back of the stove announced nine o’clock, a shock since he hadn’t slept that late in years. No wonder he was finally hungry.

He opened the refrigerator, one of the nice ones with filtered water and ice in the door. Slim Donley would have called it a lazy man’s appliance. He could practically hear the old man now. “Anyone too lazy to open a door and get their own ice doesn’t deserve to drink.”

Not that they couldn’t afford the upgrades, but Slim thought everything had to be done the hard way. Especially if the hard way taught his sons the meaning of real work and where a dollar came from.

“Score another for Scott.” Levi smiled a little as he removed a carton of milk and sniffed. He winced and turned his head aside. Spoiled. Sour.

What else had gone bad in the days since…?

He swallowed the uncomfortable knot and pulled out three small containers. Opening the lids, he found meatloaf, some sort of casserole, a bowl of potatoes.

Leftovers Scott would never finish. Leftovers his wife had lovingly placed in pretty lavender bowls fully expecting to come back to them.

As Levi set the bowls and milk aside to discard, his appetite slowly retreated.

He found the coffee pot and brewed a pot full. While he waited for the drips and gurgles to end and the scent to wake him up, he opened cabinets and acclimated himself to the kitchen.

One entire cabinet was dedicated to baby bottles and other baby items he didn’t recognize. He closed it, found a mug for his coffee, and stood with his back against the sink, sipping, thinking. Wishing he didn’t have to think at all.

As a boy, he’d stood in this room and sat at that table hundreds of times. Today it looked inviting, not like before.

His gaze strayed to the bright place settings. Had the three Donley males ever had a happy family conversation over breakfast or supper? Had his father ever dispensed manly advice or talked to them like a father?

Not that he remembered. All he recalled was a glowering man bowed over his plate in cold, awkward silence. Sometimes, he growled orders for chores to be done or berated Levi for some foul up.

Had Scott changed all that? Had he built a good life here with his color-loving bride and their new son?

Oh, how he hoped so. One thing for sure, the sooner he was away from Calypso and these haunting memories the better.

Setting the cup in the sink, Levi extracted his cell phone and punched in a number. Jack Parnell, owner of the Long Spur Ranch outside Amarillo was waiting to hear his decision. Now, seemed the perfect time, and The Long Spur seemed the perfect reason to finish his business and get away from here.

After three buzzes, a booming voice answered. “Parnell here.”

Levi dispensed with the niceties. “Jack. Levi Donley.”

“Been waiting to hear from you,” Jack said in his straight-shooting style. “What’s the verdict? You coming to work for me and The Long Spur?”

“Yes, sir, if the job’s still open.”

“Best news I’ve had today.” Parnell laughed, a rusty sound. “When can you get here?”

Levi raked his fingers through the top of his hair. “I need a few days, maybe a week. Something’s come up.”

“Oh? Trouble?”

“I’m in Oklahoma. The family ranch. My brother…” He paused, drew in a breath, stumbled over the hardest words he’d ever say. “My brother passed away. Flash flood.”

Silence on the other end told of the other man’s shock.

“His wife too. They left behind a new baby.”

“Mighty sorry to hear that, Levi. What a tragedy! Anything I can do?”

“I need some time to get things settled. Put the ranch up for sale. Make some decisions for my nephew.”

He gnawed his lip, fretting. Fretting about the job and the risk of delay, about selling the ranch, but mostly about his nephew.

Did he have any business taking on the responsibility of an infant while he learned a new job that would require his attention day and night for weeks? Or was Emily right? Was adoption the best answer for Mason?

“Absolutely,” Parnell was saying. “Take some time. A couple of weeks or so. My current manager doesn’t leave until the end of the month. Will that work?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you. I appreciate the understanding.”

“Do what you need to, son. A loss like that. I can’t imagine.” Parnell blew out a breath. “Keep in mind, though, it’s spring, and you know what that means on a ranch.”

“I do. I’ll wrap things up here as fast as I can.”

A couple of weeks should be more than enough. Levi doubted he could bear to stick around that long.

After another minute, they rang off, and Levi started out through the mudroom but stopped, frozen by the brown canvas jacket hanging on the far wall next to the washer. A Carhartt. The kind that shed rain and blocked wind. A rancher’s friend against the elements. His chest squeezed. Scott’s.

Levi went to the jacket, and though the weather was fine this morning, he slipped it on, wrapping himself momentarily in his brother.

He slid his hands in the pockets and found a paper in the right one. It was a note of some kind, folded and wrinkled if as someone had read and reread the message. Curious, he unfolded it. His pulse skittered to see a woman’s handwriting. Jessica?

As he read the sweet words, his eyes burned. With loops and curls and a heart at the end, Jessica expressed her love for Scott and how eager she was to hold their baby in her arms. How thankful to God she was that He’d brought Scott into her life and how excited she was for their future together. Love oozed from the single, much folded paper.

A note written months ago, before Mason’s birth. A note Scott had kept and read over and over again.

Carefully, Levi refolded the paper and slid it back into the pocket.

His brother had been happy. He’d been loved by the sweet woman who’d put her whole heart into a note Scott had clearly treasured.

Levi was comforted by the revelation, but tormented too. What good was all the love in this house when both people had been snuffed out before their time? When their son would never know them? Mason would never bask in the security of his parent’s love for each other and him. He would never again be held in his mother’s loving arms. He would never know his daddy’s voice or be guided by his strong, competent hands.

Levi banged one tight fist against the washer. The metallic sound echoed as grief pushed down on him, too hard to bear. He banged again, teeth as tight as his fist.

“How could you let this happen, God?”

Scott and Jessica were Christians, weren’t they? Shouldn’t God love them best? Yet, they’d been denied the years to raise a baby they had clearly wanted. Little Mason was alone, left at the mercy of strangers.

Even Levi was a stranger, and Emily had made her opinion clear on that topic. He was the worst possible person to parent Mason. Though her rejection stung, Levi agreed with her.

But his brother hadn’t thought so. Shouldn’t Levi become Mason’s guardian for that reason alone? Scott had never before asked anything from him, and he never would again. But he’d asked for this. He’d asked Levi to raise his son.

He crushed a fist against his chest.

Could he learn to be a dad when he’d never had a decent one? Could he juggle a new, demanding job and a baby?

If he accepted the responsibility, would he stop feeling like the worst excuse for a brother who had ever breathed?

He didn’t know. All he knew was his brother had trusted him to be here when it mattered most.

After removing the coat, Levi hung it back on the peg and let his hand slide down over the rough duck material.

A good night’s sleep had done little to clear his thoughts. If anything, he was more confused than ever.