The Mechanics of Mistletoe - Liz Isaacson Page 0,43

to check all the row houses and stables over here too.” He looked up, a sense of being overwhelmed and utterly spent threatening to choke him. He put his head down and said, “Stables or chickens, Link?”

They’d been working at Three Rivers for a week already, and combined with their own cowboys chipping away at all the little things that the tornadoes had disrupted, the ranch was nearly back to its former glory.

Some things simply couldn’t be restored, and Bear could see evidence of that everywhere. The most noticeable one was the huge, glass-front building that housed Courage Reins, Pete’s equine therapy center here on the ranch.

Those windows had all been shattered. The offices inside had been disheveled and destroyed. When Bear and Lincoln had first arrived at the ranch forty-five minutes north of Three Rivers—almost a ninety-minute drive for Bear from Shiloh Ridge—the building had been half-rebuilt.

Across the road, Bowman’s Breeds had also seen plenty of new construction as Brynn’s fences had been swept away in the wind. Bear and Link had worked over there for the first few days, and Link sure did like the horses.

When they went back to Shiloh Ridge, Bear had been teaching Lincoln how to ride, and the boy was getting really good now that he’d been coming to the ranch with Bear for a little over two weeks now.

He still startled when the boy put his hand in Bear’s. Bear looked down at Lincoln, his heart warming toward the child. He’d never been against having children; he’d simply never had the opportunity.

Sammy asked him every dang day if Lincoln was doing okay at the ranch, and Bear really needed to gently ask her to stop doing that. Lincoln was doing much more than okay, and Bear really enjoyed having him around.

“I’m hungry, Bear,” he said.

“Me too, boy,” he said, his voice soft and loving. He barely recognized it as his own. “Let’s go through these stables and check the doors on the way. Miss Kelly and Miss Chelsea will have lunch on the lawn.”

“Do you think they’ll have those brownies?”

“If they do,” Bear said, detouring into the stable nearest to the barn they’d just finished inspecting. “You can only have one before you eat real food. The last thing I need is to tell your mom I don’t feed you properly.”

Lincoln smiled up at him. “All right, Bear.” He let go of Bear’s hand and skipped ahead. “Just checking to see if the doors open and close and latch?”

Bear looked down at the clipboard in his hand. “Yep,” he said, finding the checklist. The ranch had been keeping their horses out in the pastures they’d cleared, and as soon as the stables were finished, Squire would fill them with wood chips or sawdust, and get his horses back inside. Rather, Pete probably used these stables, as they were closest to Courage Reins.

Bear followed along behind Link as he opened, closed, and latched. They removed quite a large rock from one stall and Lincoln lugged it outside and dropped it in the dirt.

He returned and opened the next stall, only to have a squawking chicken fly at his face. “Whoa,” Lincoln said, ducking as a yelp came out of his mouth. He spun around to watch the brown hen flap to the top of the stall across the aisle. “Did you see that, Bear?”

A laugh started in Bear’s chest. “I sure did,” he said, a chuckle coming out. “You were like a ninja, boy. That was incredible.”

Lincoln laughed too, and Bear liked the sound of it. He was a somewhat sober child, and Bear supposed he had cause to be. He hadn’t dared ask anything about his family, but as they continued down the seemingly never-ending aisle, Bear pushing open the stalls on the right while Lincoln did the ones on the left, he asked, “Lincoln, do you miss your parents?”

“Uh,” Lincoln said, his back to bear. “Sort of?”

“Sort of?”

Lincoln turned and looked at Bear, who paused. He waited for the boy to speak. “I was only three when they died,” he said. “I don’t remember them much.” He lifted his bony shoulders and dropped them again. “I like the stories Gramma tells me, and I like looking at all the pictures Sammy has.”

“She calls you her son,” Bear said. “But you call her Sammy.” There was a question there, but Bear didn’t give it voice. He wondered if the boy would hear it and answer it anyway.

“Yeah,” Lincoln said. “She said I can

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