When Greta hooked her first trout, her delighted smile warmed him quicker than a swallow of hot coffee. He helped her net the catch. After he dumped it onto the bank, she wasn’t afraid to remove the hook from the mouth and even asked him to show her how to tie on the next fly.

The fishing didn’t hold Astrid’s attention for long before she was busy collecting rocks. As Wyatt took up the girl’s discarded rod and stood slightly upstream from Greta, his heart was nigh to full as he watched his two girls.

His two girls.

That was how he was beginning to think of them. They were his. His to care for and love and protect. While the realization was daunting, it was also gratifying to know he was accomplishing something worthwhile. He, Wyatt McQuaid, who’d never succeeded at anything, now had a wife and daughter he was providing for.

With the gurgling of water across the rocky bed and the rustling of the wind in the leaves overhead, he breathed deeply of the scent of damp pine needles and soil. The sunlight glinted off the water and their fishing lines, turning the spray of water droplets into sparkling diamonds. After so many doubts about his decision to try ranching, for the first time, peace wafted through him as gentle as the breeze in the branches.

“This reminds me of when Thomas took us fishing,” Astrid called as she arranged her collection of rocks on a large flat stone nearby.

Greta nodded but didn’t reply, concentrating on casting her line, her bottom lip captured between her teeth.

Was she thinking about how Thomas had died? Even though news of the war trickled into the mountain towns slower than molasses in January, they’d all heard enough to know the battles over recent months had been bloody and the death tolls too high to keep count.

“What was Thomas like?” His question tumbled out like the river water, flowing fast and unstoppable.

“W-e-l-l, he was always nice to me.” Astrid picked another stone out of the water and added it to the others. “He bought me licorice.”

Wyatt focused on Greta, gauging her reaction to his question.

As if sensing his gaze upon her, Greta glanced at him before she focused on her fishing line again, her brow furrowing. Was it still too painful for her to talk about her former fiancé?

“Forget it. It ain’t none of my business—”

“He was a very good man.” Greta tugged at her line. “I don’t think he had a selfish bone in his body.”

Greta’s words of praise both comforted and riled him up. He liked knowing Thomas had treated Greta well. But on the other hand, Wyatt didn’t want her to like anyone else . . . except him.