“What’s the problem?” Bert asked.
“This—what is it?”
Bert came over and bent down, using his gnarled hands to pull weeds and soil away, then brushed the rocks clean.
“Looks like it’s got some mortar between these rocks,” Bert said, and between the two of them, they uncovered enough of the structure to recognize it. “That there’s a chimney. Or what’s left of it.”
“Yeah. Looks like—”
Casey’s heart sank. He’d sensed it the minute his boot hit it. There had been a cabin here, or a homestead, a long time ago. He looked around—it was an ideal spot, high enough to avoid flooding from the river and near a stretch of open plains. This had been a home once upon a time—possibly the homestead that Ember was searching for.
“You okay?” Bert asked, his lined face creasing with worry. “You look like you got bit by something.”
“Help me dig down a bit. I want to see something...”
Bert gave him a funny look, but he complied, and they dug together for another couple of minutes. There wasn’t much left in one piece, but as they uncovered more of the structure, at first he thought it was a chimney, and then he realized it was a hearth. Rock had been mortared together with some real skill, but then his gloved fingers hit something that felt different.
“What’s that?” Bert asked when Casey brushed the soil away from it.
“A brick,” he said hollowly.
“Huh.”
A single brick mortared in with the rest of the rock. Ember had mentioned that...
“I know what this is,” Casey said.
“Yeah?”
Casey slowly shook his head. “It’s the end of my hopes for this place,” he admitted, his chest constricting as the reality settled in.
He was an honest man, though, and a Christian. He wouldn’t live a lie, and he’d given Ember his word that he’d help her find out the truth about this land. He’d just hoped that the truth would be more favorable to his position. How was it possible that this woman from the city with a rich daddy and a broken heart was the one with the rightful moral claim to this place?
This ranch wasn’t rightfully his, either, but he’d been working this land long enough that he could have made it his, started out some new memories and put down his roots. He could have raised the boys here, and if he’d been able to see through his offer, his roots would have settled all the way down to the bedrock.
“Boss?” Bert pulled Casey out of his reverie. “You okay?”
“Yeah, Bert,” he sighed. “But things are going to change around here.”
“How so?” the older man asked with a frown.
“Miss Reed is going to buy this ranch.”
“I figured that was why she was here,” Bert said. “I’m sure she’ll need a manager yet. And I’m due to retire here pretty soon. Fiona keeps asking me to hang up my spurs. We might not be rich, but we’ll be okay.”
“I’m not working for her,” Casey said, his voice a growl.
“I know you’re not crazy about the Reeds as a whole, but—”
“No, I can’t work for her...” Casey sighed. “I’m feeling things for her that I shouldn’t, and working with that woman isn’t a possibility. I need a mother for those boys, and she’s not it.”
And there it was—the flood of certainty he’d been looking for on his ride over here, the knowledge he’d been avoiding when he was busy kissing the beautiful blonde in his living room. Ember Reed couldn’t be the mother his boys needed. She couldn’t be the wife to raise these kids with him. And while he could make his peace with her family background, he couldn’t raise those boys at a therapy center. They needed land, cattle, chores and responsibility. He wanted to give them a proper ranch childhood...
There would have to be another woman to be the wife and mother they needed so badly. But it would have to wait until his heart had healed from this one...
Whatever he’d been hoping for—he needed to let those dreams go. Just because a man wanted something so badly he could taste it, that didn’t mean it was part of God’s plan. These weren’t his walls. They’d been hers all along.
“Soldier,” he called softly, and his horse nickered and sauntered in his direction. “Let’s go, boy.”
It was time to go back and face reality. He wouldn’t be forgetting about that little detail again.
Chapter Eleven
The sun was setting outside the window. Ember held Wyatt in her arms, the baby looking at the glowing, partially blackened door of the woodstove in that cross-eyed new infant kind of way. Ember cradled the baby in one arm and used the crutch to sink back down onto the stool.
“Hey, you...” she said softly, and Wyatt lifted his head away from her shoulder, then let it drop down again. He had grown in the last week—she could tell by the way he fit in her arms. “How are you, little guy?”
Wyatt blinked up at her, big brown eyes fixed on her face searchingly. She smiled and smoothed a hand over his downy head. So small, so sweet...so easy to fall in love with.
“You deserve better than me, Wyatt,” she said softly. “You remember that. You and your brother deserve only the best, and one day you’ll have a mom of your very own.”
Her throat tightened at that thought. One day, there would be a woman who’d be able to open her heart to these boys. She wouldn’t be all emotionally battered like Ember was. She’d be whole and pure, and she’d be filled with good advice and endless hugs. She’d be the woman that Casey
