Mail-Order Christmas Baby. Sherri Shackelford

the stiff leather dug into his gloved hands. He wasn’t a sentimental man. He didn’t know why his thoughts had drifted in that direction. A house was a house, no matter who lived inside.

      He glanced at Heather’s profile. “Are you warm enough?”

      “I’m fine, thank you.”

      He noticed with satisfaction that she wasn’t trying to scoot away anymore.

      Darkness had fallen by the time they reached the ranch. Grace was sound asleep, her head firmly nestled against Heather’s chin. She sat rigid, her head jerking upright when she lapsed into a doze.

      As proof of their exhaustion, the usually rowdy men were subdued and quiet. They emptied the wagon in short order and set about the evening chores. Sterling took the child from Heather’s arms. Otto assisted her before circling to the front of the wagon and grasping the horses’ halters.

      Heather stumbled a bit, and Sterling steadied her with his free hand. “You’ve had a long day.”

      Pressing her fingers against her lips, she stifled a yawn. “I’m sorry. I can hardly keep my eyes open.”

      Inside the door he lit the wick on a lantern set on the side table and motioned her up the stairs. “I have a lady from town who comes around once a month to do the cleaning. She came last week, which means the bedding has been aired. When ma was alive, we had a cook who did the housekeeping duties, but there hasn’t been any need since she passed away.”

      Pride kept him from mentioning there’d been no money to hire another housekeeper once he’d moved back home. If Heather needed more help, he’d broach the subject later. Come next fall, he’d have the finances back in order.

      “Gracie and I will look after ourselves,” Heather replied sleepily.

      Once upstairs, they situated Gracie first, pushing the bed against the wall and placing a dresser against the other side to keep her from falling out.

      “I think there’s a cradle in the storage loft in the barn,” Sterling said. “I’ll check tomorrow.”

      They passed through the washroom, and Heather did a double take. “I forgot you have running water.”

      “My ma insisted. She was from back East, and she’d always had a washroom. The house isn’t very big, but it’s got plenty of nice features.”

      “I’ve never had running water before. I’ll miss a lot of things about the schoolhouse, but that isn’t one of them.

      Her wistful longing for the schoolhouse had his chest constricting. He’d taken for granted the comforts he’d had all his life. There were times he’d even been resentful. A man wanted to build something of his own. He was tired of being seen as an extension of his pa. He wanted men to respect him for his own abilities, not for the land he’d inherited. And the land was about the only thing he had left.

      If folks in town had noticed his pa scaling back on the outfit, they assumed he was slowing with age and not because of financial necessity. If Sterling rebuilt the ranch to its former glory, he’d prove to himself that he was worthy of what his pa had started.

      But Gracie and Heather were a hitch in his plans. And Dillon’s continued absence exacerbated the problem. In the next few months he’d need every penny and every minute of the day to turn the failing ranch around.

      His knees had nearly buckled when Otto had declared their intent to marry in church. Not to mention he’d been plum bushwhacked by Heather’s rejection of Dillon.

      What hadn’t been in question was Heather’s fierce protectiveness of Grace.

      Unless she married someone quick, she risked losing the child. More than anything else, he’d agreed to the hasty marriage to keep her together with the babe. At least for the time being. The future wasn’t written yet.

      “My room is across the way.” He jerked his thumb in the general direction. “I’ll fetch your trunk and let you get some rest.”

      Despite the hardships that would certainly come with this arrangement, when he’d stood before the reverend, he’d felt no regret. He’d experienced a moment of doubt and a distinct twinge of fright at his ability to care for his instant family, but he definitely hadn’t felt regret. He’d sabotaged Heather’s chance at happiness all those years before, and now he had a chance to atone. She needed his name to provide a good life for Gracie, and that’s what he’d given her.

      He hoisted her worn trunk onto his shoulder and climbed the stairs. He discovered Heather perched on the tall tester bed unlacing her boots. She startled upright, her boot dangling from her toe, her feet not quite reaching the floor. She was tiny and alone and achingly vulnerable.

      Warmth flooded through his chest. Her fiery hair hung in loose waves around her shoulders, and his fingers itched to know if the strands were as soft as they looked. But he held himself in check. If he’d experienced a twinge of fright at thoughts of the future, she must have experienced moments of doubt and panic. She was in a far more helpless position. To put her at ease, he’d assigned her and Gracie rooms on the other side of the house from his. They needed time to settle in and acquaint themselves with their new surroundings.

      Heather’s eyelids drooped and she muttered a soft thank-you.

      Sterling paused in the doorway. Something was bothering him, and the sooner he brought it out into the open, the better. There was no use avoiding the obvious.

      “Gracie’s family may still come for her. You know that, right?”

      “No.” She stifled another yawn. “No one will come for her.”

      Her complete refusal to even contemplate the idea worried him more than anything else that had happened in the past week. “Listen, Heather. You and I got picked up by a tornado and put down in this place. And that’s the thing about tornadoes—they’re unpredictable. You have to accept that another storm might be on the way, and neither of us can predict what will happen then.”

      “No,” she stubbornly insisted. “If they haven’t come for her yet, they aren’t going to.”

      “I sure hope you’re right.”

      Losing Gracie, even after such a short time, would break her heart. The child was the only thing tying the three of them together.

      He hadn’t immediately understood what Heather had meant in church—about how moments in life changed a person. The past few hours had given him perspective, though. His ma’s death had been one of those moments. Encouraging Dillon to enter the cavalry had been one. Setting out on his own two years ago had been yet another.

      More than all of those things combined, his decision to say “I do” had changed the course of his life, and if Gracie was gone, Heather was sure to follow.

      “Get some rest,” he said. “It’s been a long day.”

      There was always the chance Heather and Gracie were exactly what the ranch needed. He only had to persuade her in that direction.

      If she regretted her choice when Dillon returned, he’d cross that bridge when the time came. Being her second choice was a lot easier to ignore with his brother gone.