Page 54 of The Cowboy's Forbidden Bride

Because it is that or I will haunt you through the afterlife, my beloved,she liked to tell him, fiercely.

Some folks, he knew, would think that all of that was morbid. But not Zeke. He liked knowing precisely how his time on this earth was to be bookended. Here, on this ranch. On the land—and in the land—that an ancestor had claimed and all the Careys since had put their sweat and tears, blood and fury into.

There wasn’t a patch of earth here that didn’t echo back the long-lost footsteps of the men and women who shared his blood, his vision, his legacy.

Zeke liked that, too.

He climbed into his truck that was nearly as old as he was, but in far better working order half the time. Belinda sometimes accused him of taking better care of his truck than he did himself, and always started muttering those curses under her breath when he told her he thought that was her job.

The truck started up after only a little convincing and Zeke headed out toward the road that led away from their land and onto those mountain roads that snaked seemingly without purpose or direction this way and that, over the spine and into furrows of these high, stern mountains. The spectacular Rocky Mountains that still took his breath away, all these years later.

He past Harlan and Kendall driving in back from town, both of them looking happy in a way that made his heart glad.

“Look at them,” he told Alice once their trucks had passed each other, pleasantries had been exchanged, and promises to get together later were made. “Just as happy as can be.”

When he saw a bright blue bird fly across the road in front of him, he knew she’d answered.

She was watching. She was always watching. Because loving their boys was something even death couldn’t stop.

He took his time driving down into Cowboy Point and then made a point of pulling his truck up in front of the General Store. He was deeply pleased with the fact that the Lisle and Carey feud had come to its logical conclusion, at last. He liked Wilder so besotted and so pleased with himself and his wife—hell, he more than liked it.

That being said, he would still be getting supplies in Marietta in support of Matthew Carey and that stolen poker game.

Still, when he saw Jenny Lisle out in front of the store, unloading boxes from her truck, he gave her a hand.

Careys, after all, were chivalrous. Unlike some.

“Much obliged, Zeke,” Jenny murmured when he slid the box she carried on the counter inside. “I hope setting foot inside the store doesn’t set you on fire.”

“It’s only a little toasty,” he replied.

And they both laughed.

But he was thinking about Wilder and his Cat as he stepped back outside, then went around the side of the building to find the coffee cart. Even now, in the off-season, there was a line. That boded well for the cart sticking around all winter, which he knew was a hot topic among the locals.

He nodded his hellos and took his place in the line, behind a group of artists from one of the community ranches way out in the mountains. And he decided, the way he did every time he thought about it, that he couldn’t have picked a better wife for Wilder if he’d selected Cat himself.

The previous Sunday, they’d all come for dinner the way they always did. Zeke and Belinda liked a crowded table, and there was always room for more chairs. And in the middle of the usual carrying on he’d watched his second son bloom every time Cat looked at him.

I love to see it,Belinda had sighed happily later.I never thought he’d let himself fall for anyone.

Wilder had always been a charmer. Zeke liked to think he’d gotten that right from the old man himself, a chip off the old block.

‘Old’ being the operative word,his wife had said with a laugh when he’d shared that notion with her.

Zeke sniffed in remembered outrage. The younger twin was a charmer too, come to that. And as good-natured as the pair of them acted, Zeke had come—over time—to worry that all that charm was getting in the way of something real.

Wilder was the one who’d stayed put, so they’d seen it up close. If he’d thought his son was truly happy going on the way he had, with all his conquests and loneliness, maybe Zeke wouldn’t have been quite so pleased that his bachelor days were done.

That’s two down and one to go, Alice,he told her in his mind.

And once his and Alice’s boys were married off, he knew that Belinda would be only too happy to jump in and help guide the younger two in the right direction. Not that she’d ever acted as if there was any difference between the boys she had gotten as a package deal with Zeke and the boys she had given birth to, but she’d always allowed Zeke to take the lead when it came to them.

She was a fine woman in every regard, was his Belinda. He saw a bluebird swoop down to sit on the roof of the coffee cart and knew that Alice was offering her agreement. Emphatically.

He picked up the coffee cake Belinda liked and studied the young woman who handed it over to him as he paid.

“You remind me of someone,” he told her.

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