A Ranching Man

“Mama!”

“And disappoint my favorite niece?” he said, chuckling at Cassie’s indignant tone. “I don’t think so.” Opening the back door, he unbuckled her car seat and held out his hands to her. “How about a piggyback ride to the barn, your highness?” With a squeal of delight, she launched herself into his arms.

Cassie was delighted with her first big girl bed, and Elizabeth was thrilled. “It’s beautiful, Joe. Just perfect. Where in the world did you find it?”

“It belonged to an old friend of Myrtle’s in Gunnison,” he said as he helped Zeke carry the refinished bed out to the Suburban and load it in the back. “Myrtle’s been trying to buy it off of her for years, but she couldn’t bring herself to let it go, then a couple of weeks ago, she suddenly decided it was time to get rid of it. The second Myrtle described it to me, with the angels on it and everything, I knew it was perfect for Cassie.”

“It’s going to take more than a couple of wooden angels to watch over her,” Zeke retorted, grinning broadly. “Last night after I put her to bed, I heard a noise in the hall and found her trying to slide down the banister. If she’d have been a couple of inches taller, she’d have managed it, too! I’m telling you, the kid’s fearless. I don’t know where she gets it from.”

Joe choked on a laugh. “Are you kidding?! If I remember correctly, you were climbing on calves, trying to be a bronc rider, when you were three, and you jumped out of the hayloft when you were five and broke your arm. And Lizzie works with wolves, for God’s sake! Where do you think she gets it from?”

“He’s got a point, sweetheart,” Elizabeth said dryly, her blue eyes sparkling with laughter. “You might as well face it, she’s going to make both of us gray before our time.”

Zeke groaned. “Maybe should lock her in her room until she’s thirty-five,” he began, only to break off as Angel came around the side of the house with an older woman and a little girl who wasn’t much bigger than Cassie. “Looks like your houseguest has company,” he told Joe quietly, glancing past him to the two women.

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