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Zeke had spotted his car from their backyard and raced his way before he came to a full stop. “Dad!”
The old knot loosened the moment Zeke jumped into his arms.
This was his reason for living, right here. This boy was his only connection to his beloved wife. And while he loved his son more than he could have ever imagined, if he’d known that Anna would be trading her life for Zeke’s, Heath would have found a different way to have a family. As he held his beautiful and precocious son in his arms, that thought made him feel like a lesser man.
“Junior taught me the coolest things you’ve ever seen in your life!” Excitement exploded from the boy like fireworks in a night sky. “He thinks I might be the best cowboy to ever ride the Wild Wild West someday, but he says I gotta get some boots, Dad, and I told him I’ve been askin’ for boots for a long, long time.” Two hands smooshed Heath’s cheeks as Zeke leaned closer. “I told him I would ask you again, because it is so very, very important.” He pushed his face right up to his father’s, making his voice sound squished and slightly robotic. “Can I please have a pair of real cowboy boots like you and Harve and Junior and everybody else in the world?”
Heath let his voice get all squishy, too. “I’ll think about it. Good boots are pricey, and your feet grow fast. In case you hadn’t noticed.” He deadpanned a look that made his little boy laugh out loud. “Let’s see if you were good for Rosie, okay?”
“He’s always good!” Harve’s wife bustled out of the door, despite the bulk of a nearly nine-month pregnancy. “And he is such a help to me, Heath. I don’t bend so well right now, and Zeke is right there to get things for me when the twins need something. And a true hand with the chickens and the pigs.” She beamed down at him.
“They smell.” Zeke screwed up his face as Harve Junior joined them. “But Junior says if I want to be a cowboy, I’ve got to be a good helper and not worry about a little stink now and then.”
“Junior’s right. And he’s a good hand on the ranch, so he knows what he’s talking about.”
“A good hand who needs to spend more time with his studies.” Rosie leveled a firm look to her son. “Fewer sheep, more facts.”
“A ranch hand doesn’t need college, Mom.”
“While that’s true, a well-rounded ranch hand never stops learning,” offered Heath mildly. “There’s a big world out there, Junior.”
“It’s pretty big right here, sir.” Frank admiration marked the teen’s gaze as he indicated the lush valley and the starker cliffs surrounding it. “There’s not too many things on the ranch I can’t fix, things I learned from my dad. Those are skills I can take with me wherever I go. Or if I stay here in Shepherd’s Crossing.” He jutted his chin toward the rugged mountains climbing high to the west. “I like taking sheep upland, then bringing them back down. There’s a sameness to it that suits me.”
Except they wouldn’t be doing that anymore, and the new grazing regulations were changing the face of ranching across the West. Where would that leave the hardworking shepherds who’d given up their lives in Peru to work at Pine Ridge and other sheep farms? Heath wasn’t sure.
“I send you to school for that very reason,” scolded Rosie lightly. “Because it is too easy for one to become entrenched in sameness. A rich mind entertains possibilities. And our town does not have much to offer these days,” she reminded young Harve. “A failing community offers few opportunities to youth. A wise mother encourages her child to have roots but to also grow wings, my son.”
“Dad!” Zeke drew the attention off Junior with that single word. “I think I’m almost big enough to come with you and the sheep up the tallest hills. I’m this many.” He held up five little fingers. “And I’ve been practicing my riding on the fence rail over there.” He pointed to the split rail fencing along a nearby pasture. “I’m getting really good!”
“Not yet, son.” When Zeke scowled, Heath lifted him higher in his arms. “And that face won’t get you anywhere. You need to be bigger to handle the sheep and the dogs and the horses. That’s all there is to it. It will all happen in its own time.”
He ignored Zeke’s pout as he set the boy down and hooked a thumb toward the Jeep. “Car. Seat belt. Let’s roll.”
“Okay! Bye, Rosie-Posie!” The boy hugged Rosina but not too hard. “I can’t wait to see the baby!”
