“So?” she asked, a hint of hope lacing the word.
“I’m working on it.”
SARAH
I sat in the straw and watched Claire with the new puppies. They were probably eight or nine weeks old, fat and roly-poly but sound asleep. They were sprawled and clumped around their mother. I petted the dog’s soft head as she slept, too. If I had all those babies to watch and feed, I’d be exhausted as well.
One little human like Claire was a bunch of energy and excitement. She hadn’t stopped talking since she barreled out of her house. Her hair was the same fair color as Huck’s, which had deceived me all this time. They looked blood related.
But this happy five-year-old was where she belonged. She had her daddy but also Alice, Sawyer, and Thatcher. The others who lived and worked on the ranch. A family.
“Don’t you think?” Claire asked, carefully picking up a sleeping puppy and setting it in her lap. The animal stirred but didn’t wake up. She was looking at me with eager blue eyes. Her face was round, her nose a pert button, and those cheeks were flushed with excitement. One of her pigtails drooped a little.
I smiled at her. “What, sweetheart?”
“Daddy said I can keep one even though they’re Uncle Thatch’s babies since Maple’s his dog. I think this one’s Sandy, don’t you?” She stared down at the puppy with such love, but her look shifted to the rest of the brood.
“Sandy?” I asked.
Claire rolled her eyes at me with the skill of a fourteen-year-old. Since it was followed up with a giggle, it was teenage drama-free.
“The one I’m keeping. I’ve named her Sandy.”
They were various shades of tan except for one black puppy, which could probably be ruled out. Claire said Sandy was a girl, but I wasn’t going to weed out the girls from the boys from the sleeping bunch to narrow it down. A little lesson in the birds and the bees wasn’t for me to tackle. Her mother would—
Oh.
She didn’t have a mother. She had Alice, who I knew would guide Claire on girl stuff. She didn’t need too much advice at this age, but out here on the ranch, I was sure she’d learned she couldn’t pee standing up like her daddy and uncles.
But Alice was more of a grandmother to the girl, and Claire seemed eager, almost desperate, for a mother. I could relate since while mine had been around when I was Claire’s age, she hadn’t stuck. She’d left about two years after. I’d been raised by my dad. And look where that had gotten me.
“Is she?” Claire asked, impatient.
I nodded. “She’s the cutest one, for sure.”
She looked down at Sandy and gently petted her. The joy on her face was so open and easy.
“Your daddy’s pretty nice, isn’t he?” I asked.
She nodded and scrunched up her nose. “He watches out for everyone in the whole town.”
“He does.”
“If you’re going to be my mommy, then you have to be in love with my daddy.”
My heart leaped, but I remained calm. She wasn’t prying. When she looked up at me with eyes that were filled with sly curiosity, I had to rethink it. She was prying, but she was just a little girl.
“Why do you say that?” I asked, petting Maple.
“Daddy told me he wanted a love like my Nana and PopPop had. I never met them. They’re in heaven.”
Oh shit. Tears filled my eyes, but I willed them back as she chattered on.
“They made a love so good that my daddy wants one just like that. I heard him say to Seesaw that he had it once, but it was gone.”
I didn’t know who Seesaw was, but that wasn’t what I focused on. He had it once.
“But maybe Nana bought PopPop like Seesaw bought Kelsey and you bought Daddy.” She looked up at me, and her eyes flared wide with excitement. “That’s it! He was just waiting for you to pay for him.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. The girl was young but perceptive. Had Huck been waiting for me to buy him? Had that been what we’d needed to get back together?
“If you’re my mommy, then you can make me a brother. Alice said a baby comes from a mommy’s nangina and you have one.” She nodded her little head and snuggled Sandy closer.
I sputtered at her lack of filter, then sucked in a breath. She wanted me and Huck to make a sibling for her.
I hopped to my feet and sniffed. We’d used condoms the night before, and I’d been so hot for Huck I hadn’t thought about the consequences of what would happen if one failed… again. It was impossible to keep the tears back now, and I didn’t want Claire to see me like this. “I’ll be just outside for a minute.”
I fled the horse stall and bumped into someone. Hands grabbed my arms. “Easy there.” I blinked the tears away to find Thatcher. “I came to check on Maple and the—” His easy smile slipped away. “You okay, darlin’?”
I nodded absently. “Will you… will you stay with Claire?” I asked, not wanting to leave the little girl unsupervised.
He studied my face as if he could read my problems. “Sure thing.”
I walked off, out the far side of the stable, and leaned against the wall. I let the tears fall then. Cute, sassy, whip-smart Claire could have been mine. Mine and Huck’s. The blonde curls. The blue eyes. The sassy disposition. She wouldn’t have ever considered her daddy being bought. If she were the baby we’d made—even accidentally—she’d know she’d been created from love. A connection like her Nana’s and PopPop’s.
I started walking, cutting through the tall grass, blind
