The Rancher's Dream. Kathleen O'Brien

      He yawned, as if in confirmation, but he moved into the room, anyhow. He wore soft blue-gray sweatpants and a gray T-shirt. His hair was tousled, too.

      “I mean it. Let me help. I’m tired of feeling useless. If I sit in the rocker, I can feed her with one arm.”

      She hesitated, but he was already arranging himself in the mission-style wooden rocker over by the window. It was a large, manly piece of furniture, beautiful in its simplicity, and terrifically comfortable. When Kevin moved in, Grant had commissioned Jude Calhoun, a local woodworker, to make it to match the bedroom set already in the guest room.

      When Crimson had first heard about the handmade rocker, she’d thought it sounded extravagant, especially since Kevin and Molly were obviously temporary guests, and Grant had no need for such a thing. But over the past week she’d learned what a work of genius it was. Quiet, roomy, with great back support and perfectly placed arms that helped support an infant for hours at a stretch.

      Almost every night this week, both Crimson and Molly had fallen asleep in that chair.

      “Surely she’s in no danger,” Grant said, glancing up at her with a smile that said he knew she doubted his ability to hang on to a squirming baby. “Not if I’m sitting down, and you’re standing guard.”

      “Of course she’s not...” But even so she waited, watching him brace his elbow on the rocker’s arm. He let his casted forearm slant down toward his lap. That cast was as hard as a chalky rock, which she knew from bumping into it several times this week. No way Molly would fall asleep on a bed of unforgiving plaster.