Page 23 of The Cowboy Who Came Home
As they moved down the hall and into a guest bedroom, Finn noticed some pictures with another man. Clearly not a Baxter, as his hair was dark and his nose far too thin and sloped. There were three sitting on an eye-high shelf—one with him and Edith, one with him, Edith, and Alex, and one of just him.
“Who’s this?” Finn asked as he picked up the photo of the man solo. He had a happy smile, with plenty of life streaming from his face. Finn wanted to grin just seeing him grin. “One of Alex’s roommates?”
Edith had gone completely still, and Finn didn’t notice it for another few moments. When he did, he raised his eyebrows, and feeling very much like Momma, he asked, “Well?”
“Edee,” Alex said as he came jogging down the hall. “Come see. The chickens are back.”
Edith took the framed photograph from Finn and replaced it on the shelf. She took his hand as she brushed by him. “The chickens are back. I’m so glad you’re here to help us round them up.”
Finn chuckled, but he once again had the very real feeling that Edith had just dodged something he wanted answered. You came here to work, he told himself. And then, he also reminded himself that he had plenty of time to get to know Edith as she was now.
For she certainly wasn’t the same nineteen-year-old young woman he’d kissed on the curb outside the Amarillo airport almost eleven years ago now. She’d changed. She’d lived a life he knew nothing about, and he wanted to know every intricate detail.
Then he could stitch together a reality for the two of them, where she’d never get hurt again, and he’d always be her soft place to fall.
And today, that was helping her gather the chickens that had lost their coop during a nighttime flood. Finn could only imagine what tomorrow would bring, and he hoped and then started planning that it would be more time with Edith.
You’ll get your questions answered then, he vowed, and Finn very rarely broke a promise to himself or others.
Chapter Seven
Bear Glover heard the whispers around him, but he kept his head bowed and his thoughts focused. His children could wait. Heaven knew Bear had spent plenty of his life waiting on them, so he took his time finishing his prayer, and then he opened his eyes to the bright blue sky around him.
Joy filled his soul, because this view at the Glover family cemetery couldn’t be beat. “It’s a good place, Mother,” he whispered. The burden Bear carried as the oldest male in the Glover Family had only tripled when they’d lost Mother last year. At least she’d gotten to see one more Angel Tree, but that meant she hadn’t even been gone for a full year yet, and sometimes Bear’s pain tugged until it pulled until it ached.
“Ready, Daddy?” Lincoln, his oldest boy, appeared at his side. Bear had only dropped to one knee, but he still used the help and support of Link to stand.
“Ready,” he told the young man. He dusted his hands and flashed a quick smile at his son, reminding himself that he didn’t have to be the big, bad grump just because he felt like it. Just because he hurt. Just because it was his default, and easier than being kind to those around him.
They were likely hurting too.
Physically, mentally, emotionally, Bear hurt. And this blasted flood hadn’t helped any of his sixty-year-old muscles and joints, that was for dang sure.
He turned to face the rest of his brood. “What are y’all giggling about?”
Smiles was always giggling, even as a sixteen-year-old. He faced Bear first, with the brightest smile, of course. He carried so much of his mother’s light, and Bear loved him fiercely. Technically, Smiles was his oldest child, as Link had come to him through his wife. He’d legally adopted Lincoln about seven years ago now, right before the boy had graduated from high school. He’d changed his last name to Glover, because it meant something to be a Glover.
“Nothin’, Daddy,” Smiles drawled. “How’s Grandmother?”
“She’s irritated that you lot couldn’t be quiet during the prayer.” He took a couple of steps toward his teens and tweens, and then opened up his arms for all of them to step into. They did, each of them used to his quips and jabs—and also his great big marshmallow heart.
Sammy always reminded him of that “heart of gold,” she called it, and she could send him a look from across the kitchen to remind him to use it. Rock, his fourteen-year-old had definitely inherited some of Bear’s more grizzly genes, as had his first daughter, Heather.
Sunnie, who sat behind all the other children at nearly eleven had never given neither him nor Sammy much trouble at all.
“Uncle Ranger is comin’ out,” Link said, and Bear pulled away from his kids.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do today,” he said.
“You say that every day,” Heather griped. “It’s not like today is any different than yesterday, Daddy.”
“Of course it is.” He threw her a look out of the side of his eye. “For one, it’s Friday, and that means Momma will let us go to town and get dinner.” He grinned at her as she rolled her eyes.
“Can we get the fish fry?” Sunnie asked.
“Ew, I hate fish,” Rock argued with her. “Why can’t we ever just do something normal, like burgers and fries?”
“We had burgers and fries at the beginning of the month,” Smiles said.
