“His loss. But I want children and I want them with you.”

“I want that, too! And we should do it soon…”

“We can afford to wait,” Cord said. “A little while, anyway.”

“Not too long,” she warned, repeating the thought she’d had earlier that evening about their ages.

“Let’s take the next year to decide,” Cord suggested.

Shallie guessed their decision would be made well before that, probably by Christmastime and their wedding. And she was almost positive she knew what it would be.

CORD LOVED HER and he wanted a baby in their lives soon. He started for the stables midmorning, gripping a second coffee, the dogs trotting alongside. Shallie was working on her laptop and, since it was Saturday, Carly was presumably still asleep.

Today was a calm and colorful fall day, and he hoped they’d be able to take advantage of it. There wouldn’t be many more of them this year.

He realized Mitch hadn’t appeared yet, which was unusual. But it was Saturday and he decided to give the older man a break.

He put his cup on a railing when he saw Susan Robbins running toward him, the dogs dashing over to meet her. She ignored them. “There’s something wrong with my dad!” she shouted when she was within hearing distance.

Cord reacted immediately. “What? What’s wrong with him?”

“We tried to phone you,” she panted.

Of course! The one time he’d forgotten his cell…

“We think he might’ve had a heart attack.”

Cord asked her to shoo the dogs inside, since he didn’t need them getting in the way, and to tell Shallie about Mitch—then ran at double speed to the trailer. The door had been flung open, and he yelled for Tina, who came running from their bedroom.

“You called an ambulance?”

“Yes. On their way.”

He hurried back to the room with her, asking, “What are the symptoms?”

“He didn’t get up at his usual time, but I didn’t worry about it. I went in to see him again five minutes ago—and he’s having trouble breathing!”

Mitch lay in bed, his breathing erratic. Cord recognized that he was suffering from shortness of breath, a common heart attack symptom.

He’d learned CPR years before and started to perform it, pumping Mitch’s chest, alternating that with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

He could hear the ambulance arriving, siren blaring, and asked Tina to direct the paramedics inside. At almost the same time, he heard Susan, Shallie and Carly rush in.

The two young paramedics, a man and a woman, continued the CPR, checked Mitch’s vitals, then laid him on the gurney. Fast and efficient, they got him into the ambulance, accompanied by Tina.