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His phone rang as he backed out of Corrie’s room. The name of a well-known Pacific Northwest grocery retailer flashed. He took the call, and by the time he’d finished a deal for four hundred fresh market lambs for wedding season, nearly a quarter hour had passed. That meant he’d left Lizzie to do all her own lifting and carrying.
He hurried back outside because no matter how rough their past had been, he wasn’t normally a jerk. At least he hoped he wasn’t, but with Pine Ridge teetering on the brink, he might be testier than normal. It wasn’t fair to lay that at her door, but there wouldn’t be time to sugarcoat things, either.
Lizzie wasn’t in his line of sight when he stepped outside. He started for the nearest stairs at the same time he heard his five-year-old son sigh out loud as he gazed out through the square, wooden spindles. “You’re so beautiful.”
Heath turned in the direction his son was facing and swallowed hard, because Zeke was one hundred percent correct. Standing on the graveled yard below, Lizzie Fitzgerald was absolutely, positively drop-dead gorgeous in an all-American girl kind of way. That thick, long hair framed a heart-shaped face. A face he’d loved once, but he’d been young and headstrong then. Somewhere along the way, he’d grown up.
“You’re quite handsome yourself.” Lizzie smiled up at Zeke, and despite Heath’s warnings about strangers, Zeke grinned back, then raced down the broad side steps.
“Are you staying here?” He slid to a quick stop in front of Lizzie. There was no curtailing his excitement. “My dad said we’ve got people who are coming here to stay, so that must be you. Right?”
“Correct.” She didn’t look at Heath and wonder about his dark-skinned son, and he gave her reluctant points for that. Zeke’s skin was a gift from his African American mother, but his gray-blue eyes were Caufield, through and through.
Lizzie squatted to Zeke’s level and held his attention with a pretty smile. “My name’s Lizzie. My friend Corrie and I are living on the ranch with you. I hope that’s all right.”
“Do you snore?”
She paused as if considering the question. “Not to my knowledge. But then, I’m asleep, so how would I know?”
“I do not snore,” declared Zeke. He shoved his hands into two little pockets, total cowboy. “But I have bad dreams sometimes and then Dad lets me come sleep with him.”
“I’m glad he does.”
“I know. Me, too.”
Heath came down the stairs. Zeke smiled his way. “This is the first girl visitor we’ve ever had, Dad!”
Lizzie raised her gaze to Heath’s. He thought she’d tease him, or play off the boy’s bold statement. There hadn’t ever been a woman visitor to the ranch house, except for the shepherds’ wives.
She didn’t tease. Sympathy marked her expression, and the kindness in her eyes made his chest hurt.
Maybe she’d grown up, too.
Maybe she could handle life better now. That was all well and good, but he’d lost something a dozen years before. A part of his heart and a chunk of his soul had fallen by the wayside when she chose school over their unborn child.
Guilt hit him, because he was four years older than Lizzie, and it took two to create a child. He’d let them both down back then, and the consequences of their actions haunted him still.
“You’ve got your daddy’s eyes. And the look of him in some ways.”
“And his mother.”
He didn’t mean the words to come out curtly, but they did and there was no snatching them back. Lizzie stayed still, gazing down, then seemed to collect herself. “That’s the way of things, of course.”
“Do you look like your mother?” Zeke asked as Lizzie stood up.
“I don’t. I look more like my dad and my Uncle Sean. My two sisters look like my mother.”
“Mister Sean was your uncle?” That fact surprised Zeke. “So we’re almost like family!”
“Or at least very good friends.” She smiled down at him. “I think I’d like to be your friend, Zeke Caufield.”
“And I will like being your friend, too, Miss Lizzie!”
“Just Lizzie,” she told him. She reached out and palmed his head. No fancy nail polish gilded her nails. And from the looks of them, she still bit them when she got nervous. Was the move to the ranch making her nervous? Or was it him?
“But Dad says I’m asposed to call people stuff like that,” Zeke explained in a matter-of-fact voice. “To be polite.”
“I think if you say my name politely, then it is polite. Isn’t it?”
“Yes!”
