“Come and test these tomatoes. Are they roasted enough? Do you want garlic mixed in?”
Cal jumped up and went to the stove to take a look.
“A couple more minutes,” he said, feeling entirely domestic. “You need more of a char on the edges.”
Zeke put the pan of half-roasted tomatoes back in the oven. “Garlic?” he asked, as he straightened up.
“No,” said Cal. “We need that for the stew later.”
“Okay.”
Cal muffled Zeke’s response with a quick kiss, then went to put a bit more wood in the pot-bellied stove.
Outside the windows, the sky was entirely white, and snow was coming down like a thick curtain. They’d be trapped on the ranch for the next week, but that prospect was as far from unpleasant as it could possibly be. He had Zeke, and together, they could weather any storm.
Epilogue - Zeke
The waiting room for the Children, Youth, and Families department in the main government building in Cloudcroft was just about empty, except for Cal and himself. It was chilly and a bit sterile as well, like a hospital waiting room, with glossy floors and pale blue walls.
It felt exactly like he was waiting to see a doctor, and the only thing grounding him to the reality that this was not what they were doing was the warm feel of Cal’s hand in his own.
In fact, the only lively thing about the room was Cal, looking at Zeke with anxious blue eyes, as if he longed for a single signal as to what he could do to put Zeke at ease.
“We’ve done all the paperwork,” said Cal. “We’ve had all the visits by Social Services, and we’ve passed all the tests with flying colors. We’re here and they’re bringing us a baby, just like we wanted.”
Actually, the dream of having children was mostly Zeke’s, but Cal was right there with him, and just about as anxious because, as he’d told Zeke more than once, the dream wasn’t just Zeke’s, but his, as well.
They’d talked about it all winter, and now that it was after the New Year, and just as they’d been about to start training theirmules in earnest, a response had come from Cloudcroft:We believe we have a match for you.
The woman from Social Services, a capable woman named Claire, had hinted that perhaps six-month-old babies were not very available, but if they were flexible and willing, Claire had made an alternate selection for them.
At that point, Zeke figured he wasn’t so fussy as to turn down a child simply because it wasn’t six months old, but he was swept up with so much anxiety that he just about jumped out of his skin when the door to the waiting room opened, and Claire stepped in with an armful of child.
Zeke, with his untrained eyes, could see the child wasn’t six months old, but that it wasn’t very old, either. Maybe it was just over a year old; twelve months, the parenting books would have said.
The very young boy had a tangle of mouse brown hair and big gray eyes and he’d been crying. He clutched at Claire but didn’t look at her, like he could have been clinging to a rock for all he cared.
Some horses would find shelter in any barn in a storm. Zeke’s heart lurched in his chest, a sudden longing to be that shelter for this small boy.
“What’s his name?” asked Zeke. Not that it mattered. He was half in love with the child already.
“His name is Steven McCready,” said Claire. “Both his parents died when they were hit by a drunk driver at Thanksgiving. He’s been with us since then, and he’s totally adoptable, except that he doesn’t do much but watch the world go by and evidently nobody thinks he’s cute enough?—”
To Zeke’s surprise, Claire broke off, blinking very fast, her mouth a thin line as if she wanted to hold back exactly what she thought about people who judged children by whether or not they were cute.
Steven, small Steven, hung onto Claire’s sweater like it was a lifeline, his small body utterly still in her arms as he looked at Zeke and then at Cal with enormous gray eyes, his long eyelashes sticky with dried tears.
From behind him, Cal nudged Zeke with a gentle elbow, as if urging Zeke to take the next step into his desire to have children that he and Cal could raise as their own.
“Cal?” asked Zeke, not looking back at Cal, not taking his eyes off Steven.
“Yes,” said Cal right away. “Of course, yes.”
“You can always change his name, first and last, if you want to,” said Claire, as if that was an actual issue.
“We’ll worry about that later,” said Zeke. He held out his arms. “Can I hold him?”
“Do you think you’ll need a moment?” asked Claire. “We can let you take him for a trial period, if you’d like to see how he fits in with your life.”
