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gut clenched into knots in an excruciatingly uneven rhythm. His vision felt fuzzy and it was all he could do to plant his feet on the ground, step by agonizing step. The only thing that was keeping him upright was the fact that he was carrying a two-year-old baby in his arms, curled up against his shoulder and sound asleep.
The baby he had vowed to protect, never realizing that one day he would be called to do just that.
Grief sucker punched him, but he willed it back. He had to stay strong for Caden’s sake.
“I saw Zooey fly out of here,” he said, rocking back and forth on his heels and patting Caden’s back. “Is everything all right?”
Rachel nodded, tight-lipped. Her face was flushed red and marked with lines of strain. She didn’t look much better than he felt.
“Well...good.”
He hesitated. Obviously this wasn’t a good time for Rachel. He wasn’t even positive why he was here, except for a niggling sensation in the back of his mind that Rachel might be the one person in Serendipity most able to understand what he was going through right now.
She narrowed her gaze on him, studying him intently. “You don’t look so good. Would you like to come in?”
“Um, yeah. Thanks.”
He followed her through the door and took a seat on the plush armchair. Thankfully, the baby was still sound asleep on his shoulder. Seth hadn’t been able to get Caden to stop crying earlier in the day.
He’d tried everything to no avail—changing, feeding, rocking. Nothing had worked until the little tyke had finally worn himself out.
It was only one of many new challenges he was about to face. Despite the way his family had rallied around him, he’d never felt so alone in his life.
“Would you like some coffee? It’ll only take me a minute to make us a pot.”
“No, thank you.”
She gestured to Caden. “I see you’ve got Caden with you. I love that he has Luke’s blond hair. He’s such a sweetheart. Are you babysitting for Tracy today?”
This time he couldn’t hold his grief back. It burned like molten lava from his gut to his throat and he had to swallow hard just to speak.
“Tracy’s dead.”
Rachel’s eyes widened and she grasped for the arm of the sofa, shakily seating herself.
“I’m so sorry. I hadn’t heard.”
“To tell you the truth, I feel numb, like I’m in the twilight zone or something. Yesterday afternoon, she dropped Caden off at my house, saying she had a bad headache. She asked me to watch him. I thought I would only be babysitting for a couple hours.”
He blinked hard several times to erase the moisture forming in his eyes.
“Tracy...she...she passed away last night. She didn’t just have a headache. She had a brain aneurysm. One second she was here and then she was gone. I’ve been with my family since yesterday trying to process everything.”
“Lord, have mercy.” Rachel whispered the prayer. “Poor Tracy. Poor Caden.”
Rachel’s gaze was full of compassion, but she didn’t speak further, as if she somehow knew he needed to get it all out at once.
“May I?” She stood and held out her arms for Caden, who had awoken and was making tiny sounds of distress.
As soon as Caden was in Rachel’s arms, his crying abated. To say the woman was naturally gifted with children would be an understatement. Caden was responding to Rachel way better than he had to Seth or even to Seth’s mother or sister throughout the long, grief-filled day.
This was so hard to talk about, or even to think about. The circumstances were surreal.
He felt more helpless at this moment than he had even when he’d seen his best friend gunned down right in front of his eyes.
“You know how the Bible says God won’t give you more than you can bear?” he asked, his voice cracking with strain.
She nodded and ran her palm over Caden’s silky hair, quietly shushing the baby.
“I don’t think that verse is true. I think God has just given me way more than I can handle.”
He pulled in a deep breath and continued. “The reading of the will is going to happen directly after the funeral. I already know what’s in it. Luke and Tracy appointed me as Caden’s guardian should anything ever happen to them, but—I don’t know. I never thought it would actually play out this way. After Luke’s death...well, I should have realized whole lives can change in a split second. But it’s just not something that I wanted to think about, so I put it out of my mind.”
“There’s no one in Caden’s extended family who might be able to take him?”
“No, Luke told me that wasn’t an option back when he asked me to be godfather. Luke’s parents died in a car crash a few years ago. His grandparents are in an assisted-living facility. Tracy’s dad is disabled from a stroke and needs constant care from her mother. They’re in no position to raise a child, even their own grandson. Tracy has a sister, Trish, but I’ve never met her. Luke told me she took off for New York the moment she graduated high school and never looked back. She wasn’t at the wedding, and she’s never even met Caden, to my knowledge.”
He set his jaw to clamp down the emotions roiling through him. “I’m all Caden’s got.”
“You’ve got your family to support you.”
“Yes, but—” Panic reared and bucked in his chest like a wild stallion. “Luke and Tracy left me the Hollister ranch, as well. It’s been in the family for generations. It’s Caden’s legacy. But I’m not a rancher, Rachel. I hardly even know how to ride a horse, and I don’t know the first thing about running a cattle business. I can’t do this.”
Rachel was silent for a moment.
“Of course you can,” she said at last.
“No. I...I had plans. I wasn’t going to stick around Serendipity. I’ve already got college lined up, although obviously now there’s no way I’m going to go.”
His panic was rising steadily in his chest. “I can’t be Caden’s daddy. I don’t know how.”
She chuckled mildly. It wasn’t a happy sound, but her expression radiated empathy. “Not to quote clichés at you, but you know what they say about the best-laid plans. You’ll find a way—a way to take care of Caden and to get your education if you want.”
“But a baby.”
She nodded. “I understand. That’s why you’ve come to me seeking advice. I can empathize with you because I’ve been there myself. It’s mighty intimidating thinking about raising a child on your own. An unplanned pregnancy really threw my life into turmoil, and I was just a kid myself.”
Yes.
He’d come here thinking he needed to ask Rachel’s help in caring for Caden.
Of course, he needed to get Caden set up in day care so he could spend his days trying to figure out what he was going to do about the ranch. But now he realized it was more than that.
Because she really did know what he was going through, the outrageous cyclone of emotions that swirled through him, threatening to blow him away.
He looked her right in the eye. Her gaze was shiny, too, as he expected his own was.
“I am not responsible enough to raise a child,” he told her. “I’m only twenty-six myself.”
She reached out and touched his arm. The contact somehow grounded him.
Human-to-human.
“I was ten years younger than that when I had Zooey.