“Yeah. It’s not the ideal, but it’s better than nothing, isn’t it?”
“But you won’t work for me.”
Casey let out a soft laugh. “No, ma’am, I won’t.”
She smiled ruefully and dropped her gaze. “I like that.”
“That I won’t work for you?” He squinted at her, unsure what to make of this woman.
“No, you refusing to work for me is annoying, because from what I can see, you’re the best around, and I want only the best,” she said. “What I like is being called ‘ma’am.’”
“Aren’t you called ‘doc’ or anything like that at work?” he asked.
“It’s not the same. ‘Ma’am’ is...based on nothing more than the fact that I’m a woman. It’s...reassuring somehow.”
“That’s country manners,” he replied.
She was silent, and Casey sank down onto an upturned bucket, watching as the calf drained the last of the bottle. Ember pulled the nipple out of the calf’s grasping mouth and passed it over.
“So what drew you to therapy?” he said.
“I want to help.” She smoothed a hand over the calf’s head. “After I started college I hit a really rough patch. I struggled with depression, and there was a therapist on campus who helped me through it all. I was young, scared, heartbroken, orphaned—”
“You had a father.”
“I had a biological father, not someone who loved me like Mom had.” She sighed. “That therapist helped me to straighten it all out in my head. If it hadn’t been for her, I would have partied away my life, looking for comfort in all the wrong places. She’s the one who said that faith could be a safe place in all the chaos. I was angry at God then, and she wasn’t even a Christian therapist. She was just helping me find my footing again, and that one comment she made stuck. I thought about it for a week or two, and one morning after a rough night, her words seemed exceptionally true and I gave my heart to God. I needed to look higher. And when I’d made it out of my own hard time, I realized that I wanted to do that for other people—help them sort it all out and point them higher.”
“I can’t imagine how hard that must have been,” Casey said quietly. “You were pretty young.”
“It was tough.” She nodded. “But even in our darkest valleys, there is always something brighter on the other side. There has to be, or how could we keep going? Sometimes we just need another person to believe it strongly enough that we get swept along in their current of hope.”
“I guess that’s faith,” he said. “Believing, even though you’ve been marching around those walls for what feels like an eternity.”
“I guess it is.” She smiled up at him.
Except Ember was the one standing between him and the one thing he’d been longing for—independence, land of his own. She was vulnerable, beautiful, and just as impossible to get around as stone walls. So why did he have to feel this strange mixture of emotions when he was with her? She was part of the problem, and he just couldn’t bring himself to resent her anymore. But whether or not he found her likable, beautiful, or endearing in her own way, she’d walk away with this ranch if she wanted it.
Absolutely nothing was simple with Ember.
Chapter Seven
Ember watched as Casey settled the calf with another, older calf. They curled up together in new hay, and Ember and Casey leaned against the rails, watching them.
“The calf will be okay, won’t it?” Ember asked.
“The odds are pretty good,” Casey said. “A belly full of milk goes a long way.”
Funny how attached she could get to a calf in half an hour. But the little guy looked like he was settling in comfortably in the hay, and she sent up a silent prayer that he’d thrive. It was tough to picture now. He was so small, so dependent.
“That’s a hard start without a mother,” she said softly.
“Oh, but he’ll get attention and bottles full of milk. He’ll be part of a rotation of bottle-fed calves, so the ranch hands will come by every three hours and give him another bottle.”
“So this is normal,” she said.
“There’s always three or four,” Casey said. “Come on. Let’s let the little guy rest.”
Ember could see why Casey loved this ranch so much. It was more than charm—the place had a certain amount of heart to it. And almost all of the employees would be left out of work if she fulfilled her goal. Change was never easy, and a success for one person always meant a failure for another...or for a whole ranch worth of employees.
That thought sat heavily for Ember as they drove back to Casey’s house.
Casey breathed out a long sigh as he turned off the truck, and Ember eyed him curiously. He looked worn and tired, but also eager.
“You’ve missed the babies,” she said.
He looked over at her, lifted his cowboy hat off his head and ran his fingers through his hair. “I guess I have.”
The first few fat drops of rain started to fall, each landing on the windshield with a wet thwack, and Ember leaned forward to look up at the darkening sky.
“Let’s get in there before the skies open, shall we?” he said.
“Excellent idea,” she said with a grin, and they both pushed open their doors.
Ember had farther to run than Casey did, but he waited for her at his side of the truck all the same. Then they made the dash to the side door together. He turned the knob and pushed open the door, then stood back to let her inside first. As they erupted into the house, there was a flash of lightning and the rain came down in sheets. Ember shivered and Casey swung the door shut. It was then that she heard the reedy wails of the babies crying in unison.
“You’re back,” Bert said, coming into the kitchen with a baby propped
