LITMIR.BIZ

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was nothing he wouldn’t do for them. Nothing he wouldn’t face for them. Their smiles were a benediction. Their laughter the sweetest sound he had ever heard.

      Rick had never really thought about becoming a father. And now that it had happened to him, he realized just what a responsibility it really was. Loving a child—a family—was an anchor he didn’t believe professional soldiers could afford. That lesson had been brought home to him all too clearly on his last tour.

      And the guilt that gnawed on him every second of every day was a constant reminder.

      Now, though, he was looking at the situation from a whole different angle. There were two people in the world, alive and breathing because of him and Sadie. Those girls … they needed a father. They needed him.

      His children should be able to depend on him. To know that he would be there for them. And how the hell could he do that if he was ten thousand miles away, slinking through a desert with a pack and a gun?

      Then there was Sadie herself. His feelings for her went deeper than he wanted to admit, but damned if he’d ever call it love. Still, she was a part of him now, as much as the girls were, and he didn’t know what the hell to do with that information.

      Standing out on the ranch house’s wide front lawn, he looked at the place where he’d grown up and felt a stab of affection. The heart of the house was more than a hundred years old. Built by the first Pruitt to settle here—back when Sam Houston was still in charge of Texas.

      That small cabin had eventually been added on to with wood, stone and brick until the house itself had sprawled across the land, meandering weirdly with walls jutting out at odd angles. His mother had once told him that when she first saw the ranch house, she thought it had looked like an enchanted cottage. To cement that notion, Rick’s father had added a stone tower to the end of the house for his wife to use as a sewing room.

      Rick’s gaze moved over that tower now and he half expected to see his mother standing in one of the windows waving at him. The fact that she never would again hit him like a fist to the chest. He hadn’t been here when she died. Hadn’t been able to say goodbye. And that would always haunt him.

      Had he given up too much in service to his country? Was it time to step back and let others take over the duties he had always held so dear? Hard to know. Hard to choose which part of your heart to listen to.

      Which was why being here was both a balm and a curse. Being on the ranch again fed his soul. Knowing that he might be leaving it again tore at him.

      “You look like a man with a lot on his mind.”

      Rick turned to watch John Henry walk up to him. The older man was in his sixties, but stood as straight and tall as a man forty years younger. His hair was liberally streaked with gray and the moustache drooping over his upper lip was white as snow. The corners of sharp blue eyes was deeply grooved from too many years squinting into the sun and his skin was as tanned as old leather.

      John Henry was as much a part of the ranch as Rick himself was. Maybe more so, Rick thought now, since the other man was here, taking care of business while he himself was running all over the world taking care of everyone else’s concerns.

      “Plenty to think about,” Rick admitted.

      “Anything you want to talk over?”

      Rick smiled. John had been on the ranch since Rick was a kid. He was as close to a father as Rick had now and though he appreciated the offer, he didn’t see any point in talking about things he hadn’t gotten straight in his own mind yet.

      “Nope.”

      “You always were the closed mouth sort,” John mused and turned his gaze on the house, too. “It’s a good place, you know.”

      “Yeah, I know.”

      “But a house needs people living in it. A family. Making memories. It’s not good for a house like this to stand empty too long.”

      “Real subtle,” Rick said with a half smile.

      “No point in being subtle. If I’ve got something to say, I just come out and say it.”

      Rick sighed. John had been warming up to this for a week, he knew. “Let’s hear it.”

      The older man scrubbed one hand across the back of his neck. “You know I was just as proud of you as your folks were when you joined the Corps.”

      “I know that.”

      “But that said,” John told him quietly, “there’s a time for leaving home and there’s a time for coming back.”

      He frowned, shifting his gaze to his mother’s window again. If he hadn’t left the last time, he’d have been here when Sadie found out she was pregnant. He’d have been here for his mother before she died. Maybe she wouldn’t have died.

      But the world of ifs was a crowded one with too many possibilities and no changes. Looking backward only fed regrets and that didn’t help a damn thing.

      “I’m just saying,” John continued, “your mom was real excited to know that Sadie Price was going to have your baby.”

      Rick snapped him a hard look. “Mom told you?”

      “‘Course she told me. And Elena. Who the hell else did she have to tell?”

      “How about me?” he demanded, as a spurt of anger shot through him. “I’m standing here wishing I’d been here for Mom. For Sadie. And now I find out that not only my mother knew about the twins, but you and Elena did, too? Don’t you think somebody should have told me that I was going to be a father?”

      John didn’t even blink in the face of Rick’s anger. Instead, he frowned. “Yeah, I did think you should be told. But your mother didn’t want you distracted while you were over there. She about wore out her knees praying for you every night and she thought that if you knew about the babies that you wouldn’t be focused and could end up getting hurt. Or worse.”

      The mention of his mother’s prayers quelled the fiery anger inside him with a bucket of guilt as effective as ice water. But he had to ask. “When she died, why didn’t you write and tell me about the girls then? I could have come home.”

      “For how long? A two-week leave? Then you head back to a combat zone? What would have been accomplished?” John shook his head and scraped one work-worn hand across a hard jaw covered with gray stubble. “No. Your mother was right not to tell you. Wasn’t my call to go against her wishes.”

      “Fine,” he muttered, realizing that this was an ancient argument and nothing would be changed by it, anyway.

      Besides, maybe John was right. Who the hell knew? He could admit that finding out about his mother’s death while he was overseas hadn’t been an easy thing. Discovering the truth about the girls might have been even harder to take. “Doesn’t matter anymore, anyway. Point is, I’m home now. I know about the twins, now.”

      “Yeah. The question is, what’re you going to do about it?”

      “Wish I knew,” Rick told him.

      “Well,” John said, slapping him on the shoulder, “while you’re thinking, why don’t you ride out with me to check the herd. Get your mind on something else. Maybe the answer will come to you when you’re not trying so hard to find it.”

      Rick grinned. “This just an excuse to get me back in a saddle?”

      “Damn straight. Want to see if all that walking you do as a marine has made you forget how to ride a horse.”

      “That’ll be the day,” Rick assured him. “But Sadie and the girls are coming here for dinner, so I can’t be out long.”

      “Then we better get moving. Unless like I said, you don’t feel comfortable on a horse anymore.”

      “You want to see comfortable?” Rick steered the older man toward

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