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the road. Now!”
    Hope, still weeping, unclipped her carseat buckle and scrambled into the front.
    Bonnie’s tone softened. “I know you’re tired but we’re almost there. What do you think is over the hill?”
    The child stared at her with angry blue eyes and didn’t respond, though Faith popped her head through the front seats. “What?”
    “Our new home.”
    “Will I have friends?”
    “Of course you’ll have friends. You’ve always had friends. People like you.” Bonnie said, her exhaustion coloring the words with false brightness. “Get back in your seatbelt.” She pulled the car back onto the highway.
    Gray eyes looked at her through narrowed lashes.
    Hope popped her thumb in her mouth.
    “Your brother may even find a bunch of friends here, too.” She stopped talking as they crested the hill.
    Baya was pulling to the side of the narrow mountain road.
    Her spirits dropped to her feet. A breakdown so close to the journey end was too much to bear. She pulled in behind. A prayer that she would not get stuck in the ditch was murmured before she leaned forward to rest her head against the steering wheel.
    ~*~
    The door of the truck opened and Baya slid to the ground and steadied his stiff legs before he turned to pull Daniel out.
    Daniel hit the ground running. His body thumped against the station wagon as he yanked the door beside his baby sister open.
    “Come on! You can see it!”
    Faith opened the back door to jump eagerly out of the car.
    She and Daniel ran around to stand in front of the truck.
    Baya approached Bonnie’s side of the car. Still resting her head she turned to greet him.
    “Is there something wrong with the truck?”
    “No, come on.” He smiled and held out a hand.
    ~*~
    Stroking the softness of Bonnie’s arm, he wanted to ask her about her children and find out whether this softening around his heart was normal. During this journey, he’d learned a little bit about how to intercept a fight by recognizing flash points that set each child off.
    Sometime west of the Mississippi, Hope had begun standing next to him during their meals.
    When Bonnie asked gently if she wanted them to come to the play area with her, she nodded her head and reached for his hand.
    They had shifted their meals to the bright tubes of the playground.
    One evening in Colorado, he had been teaching Daniel a song and Hope slipped into his lap. Like the first night on the road, when he’d held her, the soft fragile warmth of her crept into his heart making it expand with a need to protect her.
    Bonnie didn’t question his hand on her arm, as he spent time remembering the long journey that brought them this far. “Come,” he urged , again, returning to the present with excitement. “You’ll get to see your entire ranch from here.”
    She slid out of the seat.
    Hope standing with the other two children, nestled under Faith’s arm.
    “They were fighting with each other not thirty seconds ago.” Bonnie told Baya.
    He chuckled.
    Bonnie stretched and drew away from Baya’s hand.
    Disappointment shuddered through him.
    They joined the children at the edge of the highway.
    The road ahead curved east while a rutted dirt lane descended its way northwest into a deep and green valley. A stream as wide as a small river ran through the rolling hills before burying itself in the rugged mountain range to the west. Large open areas broke the uniformity of the forest. Far to the north, buildings nestled beneath large trees. It was too far away to distinguish any characteristics of the ranch. All that mattered at the moment was the trip was finished.
    Baya pointed toward the greenest area. “The house is over there. The stable is south of it and a little east.”
    Bonnie followed the line of the pointing finger where a long barn-like building could be seen. “Stable for cows?”
    The chuckle rumbled out of him at her question. “Cowboys need horses. It’s for the horses.”
    Faith’s intent gaze turned toward him.