Page 55 of The Cowboy's Forbidden Bride

She smiled, but only slightly.Mysteriously, he thought. “I get that a lot.”

And Zeke might have devoted himself to a pleasant hour or so ruminating over who it was she reminded him of, and why she seemed delighted enough to live in that mystery—

But he saw the pastor’s wife, Nevaeh, coming down the road and decided that the Lord had not put on his heart this fine morning to discuss his inability to get to church this last long while.

So he pretended not to see her. He was old, after all. His eyes could have been fading for all she knew.

He’d never admit otherwise.

Zeke ducked into the next shop he saw, which was the feed store. That presented its own labyrinth of difficulty, because he certainly didn’t want to get caught up in a conversation with Marla Sheen, the owner. Marla prided herself on acting like the town crier and Zeke liked to pretend he was above such things.

When really what he wanted was to have all the informationfirst.

And that was how he came face-to-face with Rosie Stark, pushing a double stroller in front of her. She was holding one toddler in her arms while the other one looked halfway into a full-on tantrum in the middle of the pet aisle.

“Come on, now,” she was saying in an undertone to the tantruming little boy. “Give your mama a break.”

“Toddlers don’t do breaks,” Zeke said, happily enough. “That’s not their job, sadly, and it doesn’t end when they’re grown, either.”

He slid the coffee cake in its plastic wrap into his pocket, then went over and picked the child up. Because there were few things on this earth he liked more than a small child, and besides, he’d had a lot of practice.

Rosie made a strange noise, but he couldn’t pay attention to that, because he was looking down at the little boy in his arms. The little boy who stopped crying when Zeke held him face-to-face.

He sniffled, and then he reached over and poked a chubby finger next to Zeke’s left eye.

Almost in it, but who was counting.

“Eyes,” the little boy said.

“Eyes,” Zeke agreed, but then he took a closer look at the child.

And stared at him for a long moment. The little mop of dark hair. Those bright, darkeyesthat he knew as well as he knew his own.

Because they had been Alice’s, once.

He wasn’t likely to forget them.

Especially when three of his sons had them too.

He turned to Rosie Stark and took in her wide gaze as she stared at Zeke and the child. The way she clutched the other boy to her chest. The breath she took, ragged and shallow, as if she thought Zeke might snatch both the boys away from her.

Zeke considered all the ramifications, staring right back at him. He took the toddler that he was holding and placed him down in the stroller, and the little boy stared up at him as if he was in awe.

“I am mighty fond of eyes like yours,” Zeke said.

Rosie made a small, strangled sound.

Zeke straightened, and tipped his hat at her. “I’ll be seeing you around, Rosie.”

And he thought of the last time he’d seen Ryder, as he walked away. How brittle the younger twin had seemed at Wilder’s wedding. How remote, even standing right there.

On the way back to the ranch he started practicing his cough, so that the next time Ryder called from the rodeo, he could really put on a good show.

Because Zeke had a feeling that Alice’s last son would be coming home soon.

The End