Claiming King's Baby / Wyoming Wedding: Claiming King's Baby

“You just didn’t pay attention,” she told him. “It was always there.”

He was moving less easily, she noticed, and instinctively she slowed her pace. He fell into her rhythm and his steps evened out again. She knew how much he hated this. Knew that he detested having to depend on others to do things for him. And she knew he was in pain, though heaven knew he’d be roasted over live coals and still not admit to that. So she started talking, filling the silence so he would have to concentrate on something other than how hard it was to walk.

“Phil said you planted new grasses?” That was a brilliant stroke, Maggie thought. Get the man talking about the ranch and the prairie grass pastures and he’d get so involved, he wouldn’t notice anything else. Not even pain.

“On the high pasture,” he told her, easing around the corner of the log house to walk toward a rose garden that had originally been planted by his mother. “With the herd rotation, we’ll keep the cattle off that grass until winter, and if it holds and we get some rain this fall, we’ll have plenty of rich feed for the herd.”

“Sounds good,” she murmured, knowing her input wasn’t needed.

“It was a risk, taking the cattle off that section early in the rotation, but we wanted to try out the new grasses and it had to have time to settle in and grow before winter, so…” He shrugged, looked down at her and unexpectedly smiled. “You’re taking my mind off my leg, aren’t you?”

“Well,” she said, enjoying the full measure of a Justice King smile for as long as she could, “yeah. I am. Is it working?”

“It is,” he said with a nod. “But I’m going to stop talking about it before you fall asleep while walking.”

“It was interesting,” she argued.

“Sure. That’s why your eyes are glazed over.”

Maggie sighed. “Okay, so the pastures aren’t exactly thrilling conversational tidbits. But if you’re talking about the ranch, you’re not thinking about your leg.”

He stopped, reached down and rubbed his thigh as if just the mention of it had fired up the aching muscles. He tipped his head back and looked up at the sky, a broad expanse of blue, dotted with thick white clouds. “I’m tired of thinking about my leg. Tired of the cane. Tired of being in the house when I should be on the ranch.”

“Justice—”

“It’s all right, Maggie,” he said with a shake of his head. “I’m just impatient, that’s all.”

She nodded, understanding. She’d seen this before, usually in men, but some women had the same reaction. They felt as though their worlds would fall apart and crash if they weren’t on top of everything at all times. Only they were capable of running their business, their homes, their children. It was a hard thing to accept help, especially since it meant also accepting that you could be replaced. However briefly.

“The garden looks good,” she said abruptly.

He turned his head to look. “It does. Mom’s roses are just starting to bloom.”

Maggie led the way down the wide dirt path, lined on either side by pale, cream-colored bricks. The perfume of the roses was thicker the farther they went into the garden, and she inhaled deeply, dragging that scent into her lungs.

The rose garden spread out just behind the ranch house. A huge flagstone patio off the kitchen and great room led directly here, and Maggie had often had her morning coffee at the kitchen table, staring out at the garden Justice said his mother had loved.

The garden was laid out in circles, each round containing a different color and kind of rose. Justice’s mother had turned this section of the ranch into a spring and summer wonder. Soon, Maggie knew, the garden would be bursting with color and scent.

She heard him behind her and turned to look at him. Behind him, the house sat, windows glistening in the sun. To her right was a stone bench, and she heard the splash of the water from the fountain that sat directly in the middle of the garden.

Justice was looking at her through narrowed eyes and, not for the first time, Maggie wondered what he was thinking about. What he saw when he looked at her. Did he have the same regrets she did? When he looked at the roses his mother had planted, did he see Maggie there, too? Was she imprinted on this house, his memories? Or had she become someone he didn’t want to think about at all?

Well, that was depressing, she told herself and shook off the feeling deliberately. Instead, she cocked her head to one side, looked up at him and asked, “Do you remember that summer storm?”

After a second or two, he smiled and nodded. “Hard to forget that one.” He glanced around at the neatly laid out flower beds, then kicked at one of the bricks at his feet. “It’s the reason we laid these bricks, remember?”

A soft wind blew in and lifted her hair off her neck and Maggie grinned. “How could I forget? It rained so hard the roses were coming up out of the ground.” She looked around and saw the place as it had been that long-ago night. “The ground couldn’t hold any more water. And the roots of the bushes were pulling up just from the weight of the bushes themselves.” She and Justice had raced outside, determined to save his mother’s garden. “We were running around here for two hours, in the rain and the mud, propping up the rose bushes, trying to keep them all from being washed away.”