A Nurse to Heal the Rancher’s Heart – Extended Epilogue

Five Years Later

“Papa! Papa’s home!”

Cole grinned. Guiding the mules pulling the buckboard off the road, he watched in amusement as four-year-old Tyler ran across the yard to meet him. His firstborn child. His pride and joy. Of course, Veronica—Cole and Nellie’s two-year-old daughter—was also his dearest love, his little angel.

And now Nellie was pregnant with their third child.

“Whoa,” Cole called to the mules, pulling them to a halt.

He leaped down from the wagon’s seat and swept Tyler up, giving his son a noisy kiss. Tyler, giggling, tried to wipe it off with his sleeve.

“No, Papa, no kissing.”

Chuckling, Cole smacked his cheek with another wet kiss. “Too bad. As your papa, it’s my right to spread kisses far and wide.”

When Tyler wriggled in an attempt to get down, Cole set him on his feet. Tyler ran off, shouting the news of his return, though he’d only been away one day. As Tyler ran up the porch steps, Nellie emerged from the house and waved to him.

“Just in time for supper,” Nellie called.

“I’ll be in after I put these mules up.”

Smiling, Nellie waved again, and returned inside the house. Though pregnant, her stomach was only slightly rounded, and she was still free to move about freely. As Cole led the mules to the barn and began to unhitch them, he caught sight of Tyler running back across the yard toward him.

“Can I ride the mule, Papa?”

“Sure can!”

Cole swung Tyler aboard the nearest placid mule, permitting him to sit up there while he finished removing their harness. The mule, a sweet natured and docile creature, endured Tyler’s wild whoops and hat waving as part of his job. With the harness hung up in the barn, Cole led both mules to the corral for a long drink and their supper.

Cole pulled Tyler off the mule’s back. “Where are your cousins?”

“Yonder.” Tyler pointed toward the house’s wing built to accommodate two growing families—his and Nellie’s alongside Rylan’s and Greer’s. “They got into some big trouble.”

“What’d they do?”

“Pulled carrots instead of weeds.”

“Well now, I bet that upset Auntie Greer.”

“It sure did.”

Jack, older than ever and still working, limped from the barn to scowl. “That there sorrel colt of Nellie’s is kicking up a fuss again. He done kicked a board outta his stall. She needs to ride him but hard.”

“She’s with child, Jack. You know that.”

“Then you ride him.” Jack sniffed. “He listens to you.”

“But Nellie won’t.” Cole ambled into the barn to inspect the damage. “She doesn’t like me to ride him.”

Oscar, Nellie’s flashy bay stallion, eyed Cole’s presence with deliberate disinterest while he ate his oats. The red stallion’s first offspring, a sorrel like his sire, whinnied as he paced up and down the confining stall. Though he’d been gelded, the colt had far more energy than his sire. He does need to be ridden.

Cole inspected the missing board behind the young horse. “I’ll see if Nellie can ride him soon. Where’s Rylan?”

“Out checking the mares.” Jack scowled more deeply at the damage. “I don’t like this son of a buck.”

“He’ll grow up,” Cole said, soothing Jack’s temper. “When he does, he’ll make a real nice riding horse.”

Jack grunted. “I reckon that devil Oscar has calmed a bit. He’s almost as docile as those darn mules.”

Oscar put his head over his stall door to permit Tyler to stroke his face. Cole nodded, grinning at the change in the big stud. After being shot in the chest—and almost dying—Oscar had quieted his famous temper. He and Nellie went for long rides as Nellie went about treating her patients.

Shadow had been retired, and Cole had selected one of Oscar’s offspring as his new mount. A horse with the same speed and endurance as Oscar himself. Cole rubbed the stud’s ears before turning back to Jack.

“So when are you gonna hang up that saddle, old timer?”

Jack spat on the barn’s floor. “Never. Ain’t getting’ lazy like Miguel and Lone Wolf.”

Miguel had gone to San Antonio where he’d bought a small house with his savings. Lone Wolf, older than Jack, had returned to his tribe, and was well looked after by a Comanche widow. Cole had heard rumors of a matrimony on the wind.

“Anytime you wanna just take it easy,” Cole said, clapping Jack on his shoulder, “you just say so. We’ll build you your own house.”

Jack turned away to continue his work of feeding the barn’s occupants. Cole knew him well enough to know the old man was moved by the kindness, the offer of a permanent place in the Sutherland/Braddock family.

“Nellie says supper is soon,” Cole reminded Jack. “You know how she is when we’re late.”

“I know it, I know it. Don’t need to remind me.”

With Tyler skipping ahead, frightening chickens and barn cats into scattered flight, Cole crossed the yard to the house. Inside, he found Nellie frying chicken while Greer peeled potatoes. He stepped up behind his wife, and kissed the side of her throat.

Nellie turned, sliding her arms around his neck. “How’s your father?”

Cole grimaced. “The same.”

“He still refuses to come visit?”

“Yep.” Cole settled into a chair and plucked Veronica off the floor to set in his lap. “But he gave me this.”

He took a paper from his inner vest pocket and slid it over to Nellie. Greer looked on curiously as Nellie picked it up and started to read. She glanced up, her mouth open.

“His will? He’s leaving all his property to you.”

Cole bounced his daughter on his knee, delighting in her happy chuckles. “He says he’s dying.”

“Cole!”

Cole shrugged. “Look, I’ve been taking him supplies twice a month for a long time now. Since he’s sold all the stock and fired the hands, all he does is eat, sleep and brood. He never mentions Darius, nor you. I offered to bring Tyler to meet him, and he says no. But I may just bring him on my next visit anyway.”

“How will he react?”

“I don’t know, darlin’, but I do know it’s the right thing to do.”

Nellie looked doubtfully down at the paper. “What will you do with the property?”

“Sell it, I reckon. I sure don’t want to live there.”

Cole teased Veronica’s nose with his finger, making her laugh. He couldn’t imagine moving his family to his former home. The ghosts of Darius and his father might give him nightmares. True, Darius still lived in a prison in Huntsville. He still had fifteen years of his twenty year sentence to serve before he’d be released.

Cole suspected that his brother would someday die in prison.

Distracted from his thoughts, Cole glanced up as Cyrus hobbled into the kitchen. Greer held a chair for the old man, who sat gratefully. Over the last few years, Cyrus, like Jack, had grown not just old but cantankerous as well. His knee troubled him constantly, and nothing Nellie did helped the pain.

“Your younguns be kickin’ up a racket,” Cyrus complained, eyeing Greer. “Bring ‘em on in here so they’ll settle down.”

Greer nodded. “Alright.”

She left the kitchen. Nellie handed Cyrus the will for him to read, then returned to her cooking. Cyrus looked it over, then looked incredulously at Cole.

“He means it?”

Cole shrugged. “I reckon. Says he’s dying. Wants his land to go to his sons. But Darius won’t be released for a long time.”

“This doesn’t mention your brother.”

“True. But I’m to use the land, or the money from it, to look after him when he gets out.”

“He told you that?”

“Yeah.”

Nodding, Cyrus set the will on the table. “What’s killing him?”

“Wouldn’t tell me.”

Cyrus shook his head, fingering the edge of the paper. “He’s old, son. Older’n me. Could be he’ll finally find some peace.”

“I reckon.”

Cyrus sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, son. It’s a hard thing to watch someone pass on.”

Looking down at his daughter, Cole tickled her stomach until she giggled and gasped for breath. He might take care of his father as a good son should, but did he truly love Jameson? Would he grieve when his father finally passed on? He truly didn’t know. Being a father himself, he knew what a father’s love truly was.

What a father’s fierce protection of his children should be.

He also now knew what he’d never had, what Darius never had, from Jameson. Jameson never offered them the love, the loyalty, a father should have for his children. Does that mean I should refuse to love him in return?

“There’s nothing anyone can do,” Cole said slowly. “All we can do is the best we can.”

“That’s right. Cole, you’re a better man than your father. Never forget that.” Nellie’s words struct a chord.

Cole lifted his head to smile wryly. “I just want to be a better father than he was.”

“You already are.” Nellie stepped to his side to hug him, and kiss his brow. ‘You’re a wonderful father.”

“Thank you, darlin’.”

As Nellie returned to the stove, Greer entered the kitchen with her twin daughters in tow. Caroline and Margaret, at three years old, immediately began to urge Veronica down from Cole’s lap to play with them. Cole set her down, and the three dashed into the front room where toddler shrieks and laughter rose loud enough to make Cyrus wince.

“I do love my grandchildren,” he admitted. “But they test my patience. And my hearing.”

Tyler, hearing all the fun his sister and his cousins were having, vanished down the hall to the front room. Cole gripped Cyrus’s shoulder in commiseration when Tyler’s shrieks of laughter joined the girls’. Cyrus rolled his eyes, and grinned.

“They’ll grow up too fast, then I’ll miss these days,” Cyrus commented.

“That’s true, Papa,” Nellie said.

Rylan and Jack entered the warm kitchen, doffing their hats and placing them on hooks near the door.

“I think you’re needed, Nell,” Rylan said. “The Harris kid is riding here.”

“It must be Melissa’s time.” Nellie took her apron off, hung it on its hook, then eyed Greer. “Would you mind finishing the chicken?”

“Not at all. I’m happy to.”

“I’ll saddle your horse,” Cole said as he stood and followed Nellie from the house. He held her hand as the young Harris boy galloped up to them, as winded as his mount.

“Ma’s having the baby,” he gasped, breathless. “Will you come?”

“I’m on my way. Go tell your father to heat water, have towels ready.”

“Yes’m.”

The boy wheeled the sweating horse, and kicked it into a gallop toward the road. Cole watched him ride away, then commented, “Shouldn’t Doc Call take on some of these urgencies?”

“You know how busy he is since he took over Eli’s office. He can’t keep up with both towns.”

“Still can’t believe Tom never located any next of kin. Says he’ll never know for sure, but those remains they found two years back couldn’t have been anyone else’s.”

“Well, the pocket watch they found was his. That’s enough proof for me. Either way, he’s never coming back, so Doc has written to the District Board requesting assistance. And he placed a few advertisements for another doctor as well. Until then, I’m going to continue nursing the folks ‘round here.”

“But you’re in a sensitive way, Nellie.”

“I’m fine, my love. Really.”

At the barn, Nellie haltered Oscar. Cole frowned.

“Shouldn’t you take the red colt?”

“Oscar’s faster,” Nellie replied, leading the horse from his stall. “Will you get his saddle, please?”

Cole helped her to saddle the big stallion, then boosted her onto his back. He held Nellie’s hand for a long moment, looking up at her. “I worry about you.”

Nellie smiled, and bent low to kiss him. “I know you do, Cole. And I love you for it.”

“Maybe it’s time to find someone to take your place. You’re carrying our baby.”

Straightening, Nellie caressed her rounded belly. “Our love is in here,” she murmured. “The love we share, the love we’re passing on to our children.”

“That may be true, but –”

Nellie placed her finger to his lips, silencing him immediately. “Someday, I’ll stop nursing. There’ll come a time when I turn my duties over to someone else. But for now, my love, let me do what I need to do. To help people in need.”

“I married a good woman.”

“I married the best of men.”

Stepping away from the stallion, Cole smiled. “Don’t forget me while you’re gone.”

Nellie laughed. “How can I? You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Well,” Cole drawled, “I reckon I can say the same about you. Just be careful, darlin’.”

Nellie stroked the horse’s neck. “He’ll look after me. I love you, my dearest Cole.”

“As I love you, my darlin’ Nellie.”

As the dusk deepened across the West Texas prairie, Cole watched Nellie take off at a fast gallop from the yard before vanishing down the road. He smiled to himself. He’d married a good woman, alright. The very best Texas had to offer.

Still smiling, he walked across the yard to the house and his supper.

THE END