“I understand your feelings, but there was no time. Besides, Jolie is familiar with the school and will fit right in.”
Logically it made sense, but that didn’t ease the betrayal. Morgan remained silent, trying to grasp the reality of his situation.
“Your past is something I’d hoped you’d overcome by now. I hated that you got hurt when she left. We all did. That said, I’ve made a decision and it stands.”
Morgan rammed a hand through his hair. “How do you expect me to—” He halted at the stern look his dad shot him.
“I expect you to act like a man, not a brokenhearted teenager nursing a grudge.”
His dad’s words stung. “I got over her a long time ago and you know it,” he growled, not remembering the last time—if ever—that he’d been this angry with his father.
“Did you?” Randolph studied him, unflinching, from across the wide oak desk.
“You know I did. That doesn’t mean I want to be around her for the next four months.”
“You’re strong. You’ll make it. Maybe God worked the details out so you can come to some kind of peace with the situation. You may have gotten over Jolie, but you haven’t forgiven her. You can’t have peace until you do that.”
This was a no-win situation. Yanking a noose tight around his emotions Morgan snatched his hat from the hat rack. “I’m late,” he said, turning to leave. He pushed open the door of the Sunrise Ranch offices, his father’s words trailing him.
“Mind your manners, Morgan McDermott. And remember, those boys out there are watching every move you make and learning from you.”
“Some partnership,” Morgan growled as the blazing Texas heat hit him full force. It didn’t begin to compare to the sizzling heat of his fury.
His life had just turned into a train wreck.
Ramming his hat onto his head, Morgan battled to get a grip on his anger. Stalking across fifty yards of white-rock gravel separating the barns from the office and chow hall, he fought to rein in his emotions. He had a herd of boys enjoying a very special moment in the barn and he intended to be a part of it come baseball-size hail or high water. And he knew—without his dad reminding him—that they didn’t need to see him furious.
Sunrise Ranch was a working cattle ranch and foster home for boys who needed stability in their lives. Morgan took his job as their protector and role model extremely seriously. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t still be on the ranch in the first place.
Despite the heat or Morgan’s mood, excitement rang in the early-morning air hanging over the ranch compound. Quickening his stride, Morgan approached the sun-faded red stable, the birthplace of hundreds of foals over the years. The sturdy, low-slung building had been on the property since Morgan’s great-great-grandfather built it back in the early 1900s. Through the years there had been new barns and buildings added, but this lovingly maintained stable and the other historic buildings that dotted the property carried the memories of those who’d been here before him. This was their legacy to him and his two brothers, Rowdy and Tucker. His family took to heart the responsibility of passing it on to future generations.
Morgan hauled in a deep breath the moment he stepped through the stable’s double doors. Instantly the scent of grassy, sundried hay and feed mingled with the smell of leather and horses, filled his lungs. And his spirit.
The stables held lots of memories from years gone by, but it was the hushed whispers of the boys at the end of the building that filled his soul and gave his life purpose.
Before his mother’s death when he was eleven years old, Lydia McDermott had had a vision to share the beauty and blessing of their West Texas ranch with less fortunate boys who had no place to call home. She’d died before she could make her dream a reality, but Morgan’s dad and grandmother worked tirelessly over the next two years, getting the ranch approved as a foster home.
For the last eighteen years, sixteen boys at a time had made Sunrise Ranch their home. And Morgan, who had become a full partner six months ago, intended to help carry the torch forward—no matter who his dad brought on as the boys’ teacher.
Moving down the concrete alley, the clink of his spurs and scuff of his boots bounced off the stalls. The chatter halted from the huddle at the end where a new colt had just been born, and the boys who were new to the ranch turned, awe on their faces. There was nothing like watching the miracle of life.
Yup, that was the only reminder Morgan needed that the boys came first.
Striding to stand behind them, Morgan patted one of the newcomers on the back and looked at the foal.
“It’s about time you dragged yourself out here to take a look at the new little filly,” Walter Pepper, his horse foreman, teased from inside the stall where he’d been assisting the mother. One of the best horsemen around, Pepper—as he’d been tagged in his early years—had worked at the ranch since he was a teenager, hired on by Morgan’s granddad forty-five years ago. A stocky cowboy with a white head of hair, a gruff voice and a heart of gold, he loved to tease.
Taking in the coal-black filly curled up in the soft hay beside his momma, Morgan gave a crooked smile. “Looks like y’all’ve got it under control.”
“She’s as black as your hair, Morgan,” nine-year-old Caleb declared, his green eyes shining. A blond-headed creative thinker and doer, Caleb was a regular fixer-upper, always coming up with ideas and taking tools and machines apart in the shop to figure out how they worked. But right now, he was wide-eyed like the rest of them, watching the mother horse tend to her newborn baby.
“Yeah,” B.J. said, a grin lifting the seven-year-old’s plump cheeks. “She ain’t got no streak a white in her black hair like Beauty or Mr. Randolph gots.” He puffed out his chest, proud that he was the first to make the comparison between the jet-black horse with the white lightning bolt crossing her face, and Randolph and his white temples.
“You’re right about that, son,” Morgan agreed, tousling B.J.’s brown hair as he studied Beauty. She was the first of twenty-five mares on the ranch who were due to foal in the next two months and she was kicking off the season like a pro. When the baby unbuckled her long legs and tried to stand, Beauty began nudging her gently on the rump, encouraging her as she struggled to gain her wobbly legs.
“Look, fellas, she’s helping her baby get up,” Joseph observed, extending a lean, muscular arm from where he hung halfway over the rail. The oldest boy on the ranch at eighteen, Joseph was long, lanky and a good-natured encourager of the younger boys. He had his heart set on being a large-animal vet and Morgan knew he would make a great one someday.
“It’s ’cause she loves her,” ten-year-old Sammy whispered reverently, a whole host of wistfulness in his words that cut into Morgan’s heart. Sammy had been at the ranch for only two weeks and was struggling. The kid’s parents had given him up recently and before he could blink twice he found himself at Sunrise Ranch. The foster care worker had known the ranch had one opening and wasted no time getting Randolph and Morgan to accept Sammy into the mix. But Morgan could tell the poor kid was still grieving and in denial about what had happened to him.
Pepper’s compassionate old eyes met Morgan’s. These boys knew what it was to have a mother and a father who didn’t care. Over the years Morgan had had many boys come to talk to him about how seeing a horse taking such tender care of her baby stabbed at their hearts on a raw level.
The first group of boys came to live at the ranch when Morgan was thirteen. They’d lost their parents, and because Morgan had just lost his mom to cancer two years earlier, he thought he understood what they were going through. It wasn’t until