Page 90 of The Cowboy and the Baby

Cade: Goodnight, Cora. Love you.

Cora: Love you.

Wyatt grunted, cheeks reddened and puffed with exertion, as the two of us waded through a half-trod snowbank and up the back porch stairs, a heavy set of drywall between us. As we approached, Noelle swung the back door open and shivered against the cold burst of air. Walking backward, I entered the house first.

The delicious smell of ham and buttery scalloped potatoes drifted to my nose. My mouth watered and my stomach growled in anticipation. Last week, she’d baked a loaf of sourdough in the cast-iron skillet. The boys and I devoured the loaf in a single sitting.

“Why did you buy green drywall?” Wyatt asked, his breath turning to smoky puffs as he followed me inside.

“Mold resistant for the bathroom upstairs, and when we fix the one downstairs.”

“We’re not ready to start drywalling downstairs.”

“Even so, we gotta store it inside. It’s too humid to leave it in the barn with another storm front moving in.”

He grunted again.

With a shiver, Noelle shut the door. “It’s getting cold out there! It’ll be dark soon, and then it’ll be really cold. I think I’ll grab some more firewood from the porch.”

“Thanks,” I said.

After descending the stairs with the drywall, we squatted, left it leaning against a wall. Wyatt leaned an elbow on top, squinting.

“I hate drywall, hoss.”

“It hates you.”

He nodded.

This was not the first time Wyatt would take drywall duty, and the task hadn’t gone well before. He was impatient, jittery. He’d rather ride an angry hog than calculate fractions. That sort of work was all Cody.

Cody should be an engineer. Maybe he would be, if I had anything to say about it. New situations overwhelmed him, though, and the idea of going to college and leaving the ranch wasn’t worth it to him. He’d fallen into life on the ranch and online homeschooling like a needle in an old groove. I hadn’t given up on him attending college.

He just needed a friend, and a little motivation.

“Cody?” I called.

“Ten minutes,” he returned. “Then it’ll be ready.”

I tossed Wyatt the measuring tape with a smirk. “Get ready for your favorite part, while Cody and I finish hauling in the rest. You get to play with numbers and stuff. I need you to measure out the walls and make sure we have enough sheets.”

Wyatt slumped against the wall and feigned death. I couldn’t help but chortle. A knock sounded on the front door, distracting both of us. Wyatt straightened, immediately intrigued. “Who’s coming here at this time of day?”

“Maybe someone who smelled Noelle’s dinner,” Cody called from the top of the stairs. “The smell has been driving me to distraction for the last half hour. I can’t wait to eat everything.”

He wasn’t the only one.

But a strange silence overcame the house, so I ran upstairs to find a most unexpected sight. Noelle stood in the half-opened front door, talking to her mother, Ashley, who was outside.

Ashley wrung her hands in front of her, a distressed look on her face. Her lips were thin and white, eyes scrunched as if she were about to cry. I couldn’t see Noelle’s face, but the tightness in her shoulders spoke volumes. After a pause, Noelle nodded, widened the door, and her mother stepped within. Ashley stopped in the doorway when she caught sight of me peering around the corner.

Noelle spun around.

“She wants to see Lily.”

The stunned, single sentence spoke worlds. So did the lack of a husband at Ashley’s side. The same Jeep from the night before stood in the driveway, and I thought I saw the outline of someone in the driver’s seat.

“They’re leaving town tonight,” Noelle added, gesturing her mother farther inside. “They’ve checked out of the hotel and have their bags packed in the car. I told them yesterday that I’ve been sorting through all the stuff in the basement, and now Dad wants to go through a few boxes downstairs, if we’ll let him. Mom also wanted to hold Lily.”