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He’d asked for forgiveness moments ago. Not for abandoning her, but for creating a child with her. Did he not understand that of the two, being forsaken was far worse than being loved? Maybe to him it hadn’t been true love. She’d learned that men often speak of love when what they wanted was a physical relationship. And Heath, for all his wonderful strengths, had given up on faith. That was a deal breaker, right there.
She withdrew her hand gently. “Our here and now is a whole different thing, though, isn’t it? We’ve grown up. Moved on. But for an accident of timing, we would have no idea what the other one was doing at this point. It’s good that we still work well together,” she went on, but then she hooked a thumb in Zeke’s direction. “Over most things.” She tucked the computer under one arm and picked up her coffee with the other. “I think I’ll catch up on things at the barn. Check and see if our little friend has made a reappearance.”
She started to move off, but Heath braced a hand against the wall, blocking her in. “What if the timing isn’t accidental?” He didn’t give her much space, and right then, gazing up, space was the last thing she wanted. “What if this is our destiny, Liz?”
Liz didn’t believe in destiny. She believed in faith, in choices, both good and bad. After a lifetime filled with broken promises, she’d learned that actions spoke way louder than words, and Heath’s actions said two things: he’d loved his wife and his beautiful son, and he’d been able to disregard their baby as an inconvenience. So be it.
That might be a maturity thing, or a character flaw, she wasn’t sure which, but she was sure of one thing: she never wanted to take a chance on it again. “In a life rife with coincidences, this is simply another one, Heath. Let’s not make it more than it is, okay?”
She moved by him, greeted the incoming stockmen with a smile and walked toward the stables.
* * *
“So what did you two do today?” Heath broached the question carefully so that Lizzie wouldn’t feel like he was checking up on her that night.
Zeke hugged him around the legs and pointed toward the ranch driveway. “We took flowers to Rosie-Posie, we saw baby Jo-Jo and we gave out papers to a lot of people in their mailboxes and we hope we don’t get in big, deep trouble. Is that right?” he called to Lizzie across the farmyard driveway.
“That is one hundred percent correct. And we practiced rhyming words and numbers and letter sounds and fishies in the creek and habitats. And mucked stalls and watched for signs of labor and saw none.”
“Dad.” Zeke reached up to be held and Heath hauled him up, into his arms. He was getting big for this, but Heath wanted to grab every chance he could to show the boy his love. Growth and independence would make this a no-deal soon enough. Too soon, Heath decided as Zeke did that smushy face thing he liked so well. “Did you know that everything has a habitat thing? Like our house and our farm is our habitat thing, and for fish it’s a water thing, and for toads it’s a shady thing.”
Heath tested the boy’s understanding with a question. “What does habitat mean?”
“It’s where things live, silly!” Zeke crowed that he knew something his father didn’t. “So where we can live is our habitat thing! Isn’t that so cool? I think God makes it that way on purpose, don’t you think so, my Lizzie?”
“Absolutely. He’s pretty smart, that God.”
“And like when it gets really cold out, I can put on a coat. And some mittens.”
“That’s adapting. That means you can change your behavior to fit the situation and make the best of it.”
“So God made us so we can change!” Zeke bumped knuckles with Heath. “That’s like so perfect!”
“It’s hard to argue his logic.” Heath said the words softly, and when Lizzie leaned forward to rub noses with his son, a longing gaped open inside the father. A longing so deep and wide, he wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before.
“It is, therefore I won’t argue because Zeke Caufield is an amazingly smart little boy.”
Zeke laughed and leaned forward from Heath’s arms. He grabbed Lizzie in a hug, and there they were, meshed together, him, Lizzie and Zeke, in a group hug he hadn’t sought, but thoroughly enjoyed. “So what were you guys putting in mailboxes, therefore breaking federal law?”
Liz looked downright guilty. “I know we’re not supposed to do it, but I couldn’t think of another way right now, at least not until I get an email list of neighbors.”
“And you need this because…”
