Chapter Two #4
"You could've asked for help."
The boy looked down at his boots. "Grown men do things themselves."
The words settled heavily in Caleb's chest. Jonah hadn't meant to teach his son that carrying every burden alone was strength, yet he had. Caleb wasn't sure which troubled him more; that Noah believed it, or that he'd spent most of his own life believing exactly the same thing.
By the end of the third day, Caleb understood exactly how a capable ranch could fall apart while its owner spent every waking hour chasing smaller disasters.
Russ found Caleb repairing the front gate soon after sunrise.
He waited until Caleb drove the last nail home before resting his arms across the top rail.
"You've been wearing that same frown since the funeral," he said. "Jonah used to wear one just like it whenever Sarah's hens wandered into his vegetable patch."
Caleb straightened and brushed the sawdust from his hands. "I didn't realize chickens caused lasting damage."
Russ chuckled. "No, but Sarah always said they had more sense than I did."
Caleb shook his head and reached for another board. "I’ll keep the ranch running. The children will have food on the table and a roof over their heads."
Russ watched him work before answering. "I don’t doubt that. My concern is whether you'll remember Noah's birthday without finding the date scribbled in an account book, or notice Maggie's been crying because her favorite doll lost a button on her dress."
Caleb rested his hammer against the fence post. "You're asking a great deal from a man who spent the last six years talking to horses."
"I'm asking you to understand that children need more than clean boots and full plates."
Caleb looked across the pasture to where Noah chased a chicken with far more determination than success. He'd given Jonah his word, and for the first time since the funeral, he wondered whether keeping that promise would require more than he’d realized. "…I’ll learn."
Russ's smile never faded. "You could. Or you could save yourself a year's worth of mistakes and marry a woman who already knows."
Caleb gave him a long look. "You say that as if wives grow on trees."
"No, but newspapers seem to collect them." Russ pulled a folded newspaper from his back pocket and held it out. "Brought you a little light reading."
Caleb accepted the newspaper and looked at the page Russ had left it on for him.
Matrimonial Advertisements.
He looked at Russ. "You've lost your mind."
"Only halfway." Russ rested an arm on the fence. "Half the ranchers around here married women they met through those advertisements. Some even turned into decent husbands."
Caleb folded the paper and tried to hand it back. "I'm not choosing a wife from a newspaper."
Russ didn’t take it. "You're choosing help for a house that's running short of it."
Caleb looked toward the house. Noah was still chasing the same chicken he'd started after ten minutes earlier, his jaw set with quiet determination that reminded Caleb painfully of Jonah.
Every failed attempt only made the boy try harder.
Maggie had appointed herself his audience, swinging her legs from the porch with her rag doll perched on her lap.
"You almost had her that time!" she called, bursting into laughter as the chicken fluttered free once again.
"She'd come expecting a home," Caleb said.
Russ watched the children with him before answering. "She'd come expecting the truth. Tell her you've got two children who need looking after, and a man who'd rather fix a fence than carry on a conversation. If she still answers, you'll know she's got good sense."
Caleb folded and unfolded the paper. "You make it sound simple."
"It isn't." Russ smiled. "Neither is raising children, yet here you are.
" Caleb stood quietly, weighing the newspaper almost as carefully as he'd weighed the promise Jonah had asked him to make.
The children needed more than a man who knew cattle better than bedtime stories, and Caleb was beginning to suspect pride had never solved much of anything.
He looked down at the folded newspaper in his hands. A wife.
He didn't want company at his table, let alone a stranger sharing his roof. He'd spent six years proving he could survive perfectly well without trusting anyone. Inviting someone into his life again felt like asking for another betrayal.
But this wasn't about what he wanted anymore.
The children deserved a home that felt like one. Someone who could coax laughter from Maggie. Someone who knew what to say when Noah's silence settled over the house like another shadow.
Caleb wasn't that person. And he might not ever be. But if there was even a chance someone else could give the children what he couldn't, pride wasn't much of an excuse.
He slipped the newspaper into his coat pocket and looked at Russ. "All right," he said. "I'll place an advertisement."
Russ's grin spread wide beneath the brim of his hat. "Good. Now we'd better finish this gate before Noah decides that chicken belongs in the house."