Page 95 of The Cowboy Who Looked Again

I am invincible.

She was strong enough to heal, to forgive, and to begin fresh. With every step she took with Link, she was coming home—not just to a place, but to herself.

“I’d try,” she said. “I think I’ll do better than my mom. But…I’ll need a lot of help.”

“I think we’d have to tie my momma in the stable to keep her away from any of our babies.” He chuckled, and she finally turned to look at him.

“How many babies are we talking?” she asked.

“I don’t know, love.” He drew her back into his chest. “There’s no set number. Sometimes the Lord blesses you with a lot of things, and one of them isn’t children. Sometimes it is. I guess we’ll have to see.”

“Do you want kids right away? Or like…is there an acceptable waiting period in your family?”

“Rory and Ollie were married for six or seven years before they had their first baby,” Link said. “I’m not in a hurry, Misty. We’re young. Daddy started having baby after baby the moment he and Momma got married, because he was already forty-six years old.”

She nodded and relaxed into the warmth of his arms. “Okay.” A beat went by, and she added, “Remember when we were first married, and it was just us for a few years? And we needed that time to discover more about each other, and learn how to live together, and I needed to be shown how to be a Glover, and you were so patient with me.” She swallowed, her future blooming in front of her. “Remember that?”

“Yeah, my love,” he whispered. “I remember that.”

Misty’s nerves did not get in her way during dinner. She and Link did steal some banana cream tarts before dinner started, but they ate them on the front porch of the homestead, no hard conversations between them.

Dinner was lively, of course, with tables spilling out onto the deck and into the wing under the stairs to accommodate everyone. Then, the Glovers had their meeting, and Misty marveled at how they talked openly about money, about where to invest it, about how they’d done at market, all of it.

That broke up, and the crowd surged toward the foyer of the house, with children of various ages clamoring over one another about this ornament or that one. Misty had not seen a tree when she and Link had arrived, but as they joined the throng of Glovers in the foyer, she found Arizona and June removing a pure white tree from a box.

“Settle down,” Ranger called, and when that did nothing, he put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. “Enough. Quiet.”

That got everyone to do what he asked, and he nodded over to Bear. “I’ve asked Mother to talk about our Angel Tree this year,” Bear said, his eyes roaming the crowd. Misty had eaten with Mitch, who’d come home specifically for this, and Link’s cousin Hailey, so she hadn’t seen too much of Bear and Sammy yet tonight.

They’d hugged her hello, of course, but with the sheer number of Glovers, it was hard to stick by too many people. Link’s hand in hers reminded her of how they’d stayed so close all evening.

“Sometimes we talk about it, and sometimes we don’t,” Bear said. “But we have some new people with us tonight, and some of our littles are more grown, so they can understand it’s more than just getting the toy soldier ornament.” He looked pointedly at some of the smaller children in the front of the crowd, those gathered closest to the tree. “Mother?”

Misty had met Lois Glover—oops, she was remarried to Don Parker now—tonight for the first time. She’d held Misty close without saying a word, and that had somehow stitched their hearts together already.

Now, she emerged from the crowd and indicated the twelve-foot-tall tree as Zona and June continued to put it together, pulling out the branches and arranging them just so.

“This is our Angel Tree,” she said. “My mother-in-law handmade all of the ornaments with white thread and red accents. She starched them into specific shapes, and I swear, I never saw her make anything else with a crochet needle.”

She paused to smile, and Misty fell in love with the soothing sound of her voice.

“Every year, we put up our Angel Tree on the last Sunday of October. We each have special ornaments that mean something to us. Either they were made for us….” She glanced around. “Or they chose us. No matter what, there are more than enough ornaments to go around. Hang one, or hang ten, but please make room for everyone.”

“What do the ornaments mean, Grandmother?” one little girl up front asked.

Lois put both hands on her knees and bent down. “Well, my Jewel, they represent the Glovers that have gone before us. Our grandmothers and grandfathers. Our fathers and uncles. All the great Glovers who built this ranch and now entrust it to us. Every time you come to the homestead in the next couple of months, you’ll feel them.” She put one fist over her heart and straightened. “Right here.”

As if on cue, as if they’d rehearsed it, all the adult Glovers—every last one of them right down to Link—lifted their right fist and pressed it over their heart.

Misty’s tears streamed down her face, and she reached for her brother’s hand. Danny lived here and worked this ranch, and while none of the other hired help had come, he had a special connection through her.

She found him gazing around at everyone with that Glover last name, pure awe on his face. He even said, “Wow.”

Their eyes met, and Misty tried to smile. It didn’t quite work, because she felt all the same amazing, wonderful things he did. “This is what family feels like, Danny.”

She’d tried so hard to give him this, but there was no way it could be replicated. Absolutely no way. She’d known Lincoln Glover was special the moment she’d met him, years ago on a dance floor in town.

It was as if every scene with him in it zipped and played across her line of sight, and she fell in love with him again and again and again

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