“But I don’t want him to go,” Emma said plaintively that night when Freddie was tucking her up in bed. Her lower lip stuck out and she looked pleadingly at her mother.
“You knew he was going to. He only came to get the newspaper sorted out, that’s all,” Freddie said firmly.
“Doesn’t have to be all,” Charlie said from the doorway where he slouched in his pajamas, arms folded across his chest. “He could stay. You could ask him to stay.”
“I could do no such thing, Charles Crossman! I would never!”
“Well, you ought to,” Charlie said stubbornly. “He’d be a good father.”
As much as she wanted to, Freddie couldn’t deny that. But she pressed her lips into a tight line. “He’s not interested in being a father.” And even if he were, he was not the man she would choose.
“He likes us,” Emma maintained. “He likes kids. He said so.”
“I’m sure he does. And perhaps someday he’ll have his own,” Freddie said, and was surprised how much the thought hurt.
“But not us.” With one last accusing look at his mother, Charlie slumped back to his own room.
Freddie stared after him, feeling equal parts dismayed and helpless.
He was a child. He wanted a father.
Gabe was handy. Gabe was fun. He was a little boy’s ideal.
But that didn’t make it possible.
They roped the cow until it was cross-eyed every day for the rest of the week.
They sang “The Streets of Laredo” and “The Yellow Rose of Texas” and “The Double Diamond” and every other cowboy song Gabe knew.
They watched movies-westerns every one.
He was annoyed at Freddie, angry that she’d rebuffed him, hurt, if the truth were known. At least he guessed that’s what that aching feeling somewhere in his midsection meant.
He didn’t like being toyed with, tempted, led on-and then told to take a hike.
She was chicken. Afraid of him-of her feelings for him.
He wasn’t afraid of his feelings for her. He hadn’t even really thought about them. Feelings weren’t something Gabe was very good at. Not analyzing them, anyhow. If he felt something, he damn sure wouldn’t turn his back on it like Ms. Frederica Crossman!
Well, the heck with her.
But not with her children. He had a few more days to spend with them, and he was going to be sure they knew that life was worth living, that risks were worth taking.
“You guys are doin’ great,” he told them.
“I never met a better cowgirl,” he told Emma. “Not even Claire,” he added, fingers crossed, and was sure Claire wouldn’t mind if she ever saw the way Emma beamed.
“You just keep pluggin’ and someday you’ll make a hand,” he told the boy.
“A hand?” Charlie echoed.
“A good cowboy,” Gabe translated.
Charlie grinned. “Like you.”
Charlie believed in him. Emma believed in him. Beatrice believed in him.
So, grudgingly, did Percy Pomfret-Mumphrey, over his dead body. Even Earl seemed to believe in him at the moment.
Everyone believed in him but Freddie.
“Right,” he said firmly. “You be a cowboy like me.”
“An’ ride bulls,” Charlie said.
“Definitely,” Gabe agreed, glad the kid wasn’t a chicken like his mother.
Charlie cocked his head. “Do all cowboys ride bulls?”
“Only the best.” He winked. “No. Only rodeo cowboys,” he said. “And not all of them. I didn’t start out ridin’ ’em, either. I started out ridin’ sheep.”
“When I was a boy. Mutton bustin’ we called it.”
Charlie looked speculatively out across the field beyond the long- suffering cow. He ran his tongue over his lips. “I’d like to try that. Do you think Mr. Bolt would mind?”
Actually Gabe didn’t. He’d had a chat with Josiah Bolt when he and Beatrice were doing their rounds of shopkeepers and had met him in the hardware store. Josiah had actually laughed at Gabe’s tale of them roping his sheep.
“Come on,” he said now, seizing on the idea. One last thrill.
They found the sheep in Bolt’s field near the road. And while Gabe held one big ewe steady and kept her next to the hedgerow, Charlie clambered up and settled down onto her back. His eyes were wide with excitement, his cheeks bright red.
“All set?” Gabe asked. Then with one hand he reached up and took off his Stetson and settled it on the little boy’s head.
Charlie looked up at it, then at Gabe, awe-struck.
Gabe grinned. “For luck,” he said and tugged it down until Charlie barely peeked out.
The boy grinned. Then, lips tight, knuckles white, he nodded.
“Let ’er rip!” Gabe let go and gave the ewe a light smack. She bolted across the field with Charlie clinging fiercely to her back.
Darn good thing Freddie had gone to town. She would be having a fit right now if she could see her first born hurtling across the field clutching the back of a good-sized ewe with both hands while he yelled “Yeehaw!” at the top of his lungs.
“Ride ’em, cowboy!” Gabe whooped.
Charlie rode. The sheep careened through the field, but Charlie stuck tight. Not until it swerved right and plunged down a sharp hill did Charlie, still shrieking, crash to the ground.
Gabe spun around to see Freddie getting out of her car. She scrambled over the wall, then ran toward them, hair streaming behind her, face stark white with terror. “Charlie!”
Gabe started toward her, then turned and went to Charlie instead. “He’s all right!” he called over his shoulder. “He’s just had the wind knocked out of him.”
Charlie, still gasping, tried to struggle up. There was blood on the boy’s lip, and his face looked a little blue from lack of air. Gabe knelt beside him and patted Charlie’s ribs.
“Hurt anywhere?” he asked, keeping his body between Charlie and his mother.
“N-no,” Charlie managed. “P-pretty g-good, huh? Huh, Gabe?”
But before Gabe could reply, Freddie swooped in, practically knocking him out of the way. “Dear God, Charlie! Are you all right?”
The boy gulped, started to answer, apparently realized a stutter
