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didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Emmeline’s a hard woman to reason with, Pa,” he said. “It takes a team of oxen to drag her away from that hotel.”
    Throughout all this, Sister Mandy stayed quiet, keeping to the fringes and looking as though she’d like to bolt for the timberline as soon as there was a gap in the throng.
    Concepcion was having none of that. She took the girl’s hands into her own. “Amanda Rose,” she said, catching Mandy’s eye and holding it. “What a fine surprise. You will be paying us a long visit, sí?”
    Rafe had gone to the stove to pour coffee for himself and Emmeline; when he offered some to Mandy, she demurred. “She’s come to help out over at the house,” he said with portent. “Emmeline’s taking a rest from the hotel, letting Clive do the managing for a while, and Becky, when she’s not off gallivanting with the marshal.”
    Emmeline colored up a little and Kade knew, with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, that it wasn’t because of Rafe’s remark about Becky’s romance with John Lewis. In his mind’s eye, he saw his dream of running the Triple M retreat into the mists.
    “Tell them,” Rafe urged his wife gently, and when he looked at her, his chest seemed to expand, and pride glowed in his face.
    She bit her lower lip and dropped her head, but when she raised it again, her eyes were shining with happy tears. “We just came from Doc’s office. Rafe and I are expecting a child.”
    Angus let out a whoop of joy, and Concepcion, tears flowing, gathered Emmeline into her arms, hugging her fiercely. Soon after she and Rafe had moved to the new house, over beyond the creek, there’d been talk of a baby coming, but that had evidently ended in disappointment. This, Kade knew, was different.
    Rafe stood still, watching his brothers. Waiting for their reaction.
    Kade crossed the room, gave him a good-natured shove to the shoulder, then shook his hand. “Congratulations, Rafe,” he said, the words scraping his throat as they passed.
    “You mean that?” Rafe wanted to know.
    “Hell, yes. But you still can’t have the ranch.”
    Rafe laughed out loud at that.
    Jeb came forward. “Damn right you can’t,” he said, as he and Rafe shook hands. “I’ll be the one to run this place, not either of you sorry greenhorns.”
    “See what you have done, Angus McKettrick?” Concepcion piped up, but the reprimand was jolly. She dried her eyes hastily on the hem of her ever-present apron. “You have turned your own sons against each other.”
    “Well, it got them off their backsides, didn’t it?” Angus asked. “Hallelujah, I’m finally going to have a grandchild! When is this blessed event supposed to occur, Emmeline?”
    Flustered and beautiful, Emmeline beamed. “Sometime in November, according to Doc.” She paused, exchanged a glance with Rafe, and went on, “Put away whatever you’re cooking. You’re all to come to dinner across the creek tonight, and I won’t abide excuses. We’re going to celebrate!”
    No one could refuse Emmeline when she was smiling that way, Kade thought, and sure enough, nobody tried.

Chapter 6
     
     
    T he horseman sat alone on the rise, looking down on the two glowing houses, one on either side of the moon-spangled creek, wondering why he gave a damn about any of the McKettricks, let alone the man who’d ridden off and left him with relatives before he was old enough to walk. Hands down, the best thing to do would be to rein his gelding around and ride straight back to Texas, where he reckoned he belonged, despite all that had happened there in recent years, but something nagged at him to stay.
    He’d always been sure of his substance as a boy and as a man, and he’d elbowed out a place to stand wherever the trail led him, but that night, he felt more like a wraith than flesh and blood, as transparent and impermanent as smoke from a dwindling fire.
    Holt Cavanagh cursed and spat. Ride away, whispered the still, small