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“Nerves, I guess,” he said, his eyes tracking Quint.
“You?” Cat looked at him in surprise.
His sidelong glance held a measure of challenge. “Does it come as such a shock that I have feelings?”
“Not exactly.” To her, he always se
emed so strong and self-contained that she had never thought of him as being in any way vulnerable.
“The desire for a child is as old as life on this planet. Seeing him stirs emotions I didn’t know I had. I expect you’ve known that a lot longer than I have.”
“Yes.” She hadn’t thought he could feel the kind of love she did for Quint. She needed to revise her thinking, and the prospect didn’t sit too well.
“You haven’t told Quint anything about me?” The inflection of his voice made it a question.
“I didn’t have a chance. He’s been so excited about the colt that—” Cat stopped in midsentence and sighed. “Truthfully, I couldn’t think of a good way to tell him.”
“I doubt there is one.”
Later, Quint provided an opening for them when they went to the broodmare barn after dinner. He hung halfway over the top of the stall, the toes of his boots hooked on a lower board and his elbows pressed against the top rail to hold him in place. Logan and Cat stood on either side of him.
As before, he was intent on the foal, watching while it nursed, braced on legs not quite steady, its whisk broom of a tail swishing briskly.
“That colt’s like me,” Quint announced in his matter-of-fact way.
“How’s that?” Logan eyed him curiously.
“’Cause he’s got a mom to look after him, but no dad.”
Cat paled, her glance shooting over Quint to lock with Logan’s. “That isn’t true, Quint,” she rushed guiltily. “You do have a dad. I should have told you about him before.”
He glanced back at her, his eyes roundly interested. “Where is he?”
“Here,” Logan said quietly, and Quint turned his way, his brows drawing together in a sharp, questioning frown. “I’m Logan Echohawk, your father. Your mother and I planned to tell you that today.”
“You’re my dad?” he repeated with an element of doubt.
“That’s right.” Logan nodded, a new warmth in his eyes. “We kinda look like each other. You have my hair and eyes, and you’re long and skinny, just like I was at your age.”
Straightening, Quint swung a leg over the stall partition, straddling it to face Logan. He wore a look of concentration as he studied Logan’s hair, eyes, and face. The silence stretched into seconds before he finally tipped his head to one side and asked, “Where have you been?”
Of all the questions Cat had thought he might ask, this one was unexpected. There was a quality in it of a child searching for a lost parent and finally finding him. It moved her and confirmed the need for Quint to be united with his father.
“I was working for the government a long way from here,” Logan replied.
Quint digested that information, then asked, “Were you a sheriff then, too?”
“I was a kind of sheriff, yes.”
“Did Mom know where you were?”
“No, I didn’t tell her.”
“’Cause it was dangerous?” he asked in a half-hopeful voice.
“It could have been,” Logan conceded. “After I came here, the first time I saw you, I thought your uncle Ty was your daddy. Then I talked to your mother and she set me straight.”
“Are you going to leave again?”
