Page 43 of The Cowboy and the Baby

“The church has that app, yes. I’ll text you our information, and will be sure to provide receipts, so you know it’s gone to the right place.”

“Thank you. You can text me or call me here at any time, particularly if she returns. If she ever mentions Cora or Cade . . .”

The words sounded entirely too childlike, delivered in a tight voice that almost couldn’t squeeze them out. Despite the years of life I shared with the mom whom I knew and now with this one, I still couldn’t help reaching for her. Couldn’t let go of the naïve hope that a boy could save his mother. His first and most important lady love.

Pastor Mike said in a musing tone, “You know, Cade, she’s not the first person in this situation that we’ve had wander into our church. You aren’t the first son looking for a parent whom I’ve met either. But, I will say, across all my experiences as a pastor here in Florida, this is the one I feel the best about. I imagine you’re thinking she won’t come back?”

I cleared my throat, chagrined at being called out. “I suppose I don’t.”

“I think she will. Give it some time. And the moment she does, you will hear from me. Send me whatever you can. I’ll make sure Charlaine is well supported when she arrives.”

Cora studied the image of Mom with a troubled gaze. Her irises moved quickly, encompassing the whole picture, before they focused on the exact center. Difficult life aside, I saw Cora in Mom’s eyes, the shape of her face. Mom was all we had. We knew nothing about our father.

Or, more likely, possible fathers, but it didn’t matter. Blood was blood, no matter how diluted.

After a long time, Cora set it down, but she didn’t put it far.

“It’s her.”

I nodded, relieved that she remembered, noticed, agreed. She was so young when Mom began to spiral out of our reach. Cora saw her so rarely—and even less rarely in a healthy state of mind—that I sometimes wondered if Cora would even know Mom if she crossed our paths.

Cora released a shaky breath, letting the air flow out. She rubbed her forehead with a hand.

“I . . . don’t know what to say, what to think. She looks . . . terrible.”

Mom had certainly aged. Life on the Florida streets hadn’t agreed with her. Her cheeks were lined, and not from smiling. Her skin was weathered, like old leather, and her hair stringy, long, dangling over too-thin shoulders. Her tattered coat had holes all over it.

Hawk put a hand on Cora’s back. His fingers spanned all the way between her shoulder blades. He didn’t say much, and that kept the room simmering in another quiet moment. Cora turned to me, hope and questions brimming in her eyes. I’d seen that look before. The same had turned toward me when Mom left, and she had no idea what to make of it.

So, I repeated now what I said then.

“It’s okay, Cora. I know what to do.”

The words unlocked her tension, and it flooded down her neck and through her shoulders. My body picked it up immediately, like the river flowed from sister to brother, and I metaphorically bowed to accept it. This was my job. Heap the responsibilities on, because broad shoulders needed work.

She asked, “What should we do?”

“I’m going to send Pastor Mike some money, and he’s going to buy her some necessities. He won’t tell her it’s from us, just in case she won’t accept it. And he’s going to stay in touch with us. If she stays around there for a while, I . . .”

. . . might make another trip out there, lingered on the edge of my tongue.

Could I? Unlikely. It had been difficult enough to go the first time, and now I had a ranch requiring massive repairs, and then there was Noelle.

Yes, Noelle.

She’d spent almost two weeks in my life, and now I couldn’t imagine a day without her and Lily in it. Dangerous, this road. This paved path to responsibility that I threw myself down so willingly. Why not embrace a ranch, a single mother, an infant, two ranch hands, all the animals, our mother, and reassuring Cora?

The difference was Noelle.

The memory of her humming in the kitchen, enlivening the old ghosts who barely stirred in that still house, made something else flicker to life inside of me. She was the lessening. The thing that made it tolerable, easier, brighter. Before Noelle, it had been nose-to-grindstone task after task. Now? She injected light. Joy. Reasons. Laughter. Warmth. My own tension bled free when I entered a room she was in, and that realization was almost as terrifying as the twenty-five grand I just dropped at the store.

Cora stared at me expectantly. Too late, I realized I’d trailed off in thought.

“I would like to fly out to Florida again, but I don’t know if I can,” I admitted. “Besides, Mom seems to sense when I’m coming. She has an uncanny way of disappearing right when I show up.”

Cora nodded; she’d experienced this disappointment before. I couldn’t help wondering why I kept going back. Why I couldn’t silence that deeper part of me that roared to life when Mom needed me.

“I want to send her the money, Cade,” Cora said.