Page 25 of Her Cowboy Reunion

“Somehow this one got in with the others and went into the hills. And then…” He dropped his gaze to the twins. “There were three, but we did not realize what was happening until it was too late.”

“But you saved two,” she reasoned, moving closer.

“It should have been all three,” Aldo professed. He sounded sad, as if he’d failed. “We should have known she was nearly due, but her mark had faded and she blended herself in. Until this.”

“Aldo.” Heath appeared from the lambing shed. “Bring them into the near end, I’ve got a stall ready.”

“She can’t just go out into the lambing shed with the other new mothers?”

“We’ll want to monitor what’s happening. She’s been through a lot, to take that long walk into the hills, then deliver in the cold. Lambs are hearty as a rule, but if she lost one, then conditions were rough enough to cause havoc already. She’s nervous right now and I don’t want her to spook the other sheep. Why were you up? Has something gone wrong with the foal?”

He probably didn’t mean to sound so gruff. He was tired. She was tired. And Aldo had taken a crazy nighttime ride by the light of a nearly full moon. “I heard a sheep in trouble and came to check it out.”

“I was going to call you and have you meet us with the truck when we got to the road,” Aldo told them as they got nearer to the shed. “But in the end, it was just as quick to ride them in the last half mile.”

“You were in the worst place for this to happen,” said Heath. He reached up and withdrew a lamb, then held the little creature close to his chest. “No easy way up. No easy way down.”

“That’s how it hits sometimes.” Aldo climbed down, then lifted the second lamb from the saddle, easing it into his arms.

“I can put your horse up for you, Aldo,” said Lizzie.

The men turned, surprised.

“So you don’t have to do it,” she went on. “You’ve had a long night.”

“You have a good heart, Lizzie.” Aldo smiled at her, but refused her offer. “I’ll take the horse back up straightaway. By the time I get there, they will have started for the next hill.”

“And by hill, he might mean mountain,” added Heath. “Wick dozed off about an hour back. I’ll keep an eye out here. Thanks for bringing them down.”

He set the first lamb into the bed of clean straw. Aldo set the second one right next to it. “Both ewes. Pretty little girls. It was a ram we lost.”

The mama sheep answered the babies’ plaintive calls with a sharp cry, then dodged into the stall. She circled the babies, tending to them with her tongue, then her voice.

She was worried.

The babies were worried.

And as Lizzie gazed at the tiny twin sheep, she felt pretty worried herself.

“You need sleep,” Heath told her. “Unfortunately that’s been in short supply tonight. They should be fine, but we’ll watch for any problems.”

“Perhaps tomorrow night we all shall sleep soundly.” Aldo climbed back into the saddle and tipped his round-edged hat slightly. “Here is to sleep and an uneventful night. What’s left of it.”

Lizzie’s phone buzzed just then. “Mother and baby calling, barn number three.”

She started to walk away.

Heath called her name.

She turned around.

“Thanks for checking on what you heard. That’s solid, Liz.”

She wished his praise didn’t mean a lot, but it did. No way she was about to let him know that, though. She tipped her head and offered a careless wave. “All in a day’s work.” Or a night’s work, she thought as she re-entered the horse barn.

Stable sounds surrounded her. Horses breathing. An occasional snort. And then the sounds of Clampett’s Girl caring for her newborn foal.

The mothering thing came so naturally to animals. At least it seemed to. Were humans different? Were they too smart to trust instinct and love?

She wasn’t sure, but there were times when she thought so. Times when she wondered how different her life might have been if she and Heath had defied her family and run off to a justice of the peace when she was seventeen. Was it fear that had kept her from doing that? Or had she been ashamed of disappointing her father and grandfather?

She paused outside the mare’s stall and peeked in. All was well. And this time when she curled up on the chilled floor to rest, nothing woke her until the morning sun rose a few hours later.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sean’s lawyer pulled up to the house about the time Heath would have liked a nap on Saturday afternoon.

Obviously the nap wasn’t about to happen. Sean had decreed that Mack Grayson should go over the will with each beneficiary personally. Sean liked a personal touch as long as he wasn’t required to do it. He made contacts because he needed them to build the ranch, but by nature he was a loner. That kept Sean away from the little town more often than not. Had he even noticed the town’s steep decline over the past several years?

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