A lifetime. That had never been truer since John Thomas “Jack” Cherry had been born.

“John” because she and Chris both liked the name.

“Thomas” for Chris’s dad.

And “Jack” just because it fit the baby perfectly.

Everything about him was perfect. The way his gentle skin and wispy hair smelled, and most of all, his pure breath on her face. Like nothing else in the world.

Out here at the Far Six in the wilds of the Big Bend, there were no cows—not anymore—though Ben Harper had once encouraged her and Chris to get some, since a ranch wasn’t much of a ranch without them. But with the windows wide open to the morning, there was still the receding sounds of night: the wind-whisper of mesquite and creosote (which had a unique smell all its own after a good hard rain) and breeze-blown ocotillo. The creak of the old rocking chair out on the porch they’d brought from Chris’s childhood house, and the breathing of the baby held tight in her arms.

There was Rocky the dog panting and staring up at her, trying to get a good look at Jack as he slept.

Rocky had come in from chasing shadows around the caliche, and smelled of heat and the desert. He always did after a few minutes outside, reminding her of the leather seats in her daddy’s old Pontiac after they heated up in the sun—feral, raw, and real. That car, a green or gray Bonneville if she remembered it right, had also often smelled of oil and whiskey: oil beneath her daddy’s fingernails from the Permian Basin rigs he worked outside Midland, and whiskey that he liked to drink one fist after another on Friday nights (and pretty much the rest of the weekend, too).

She wondered what he’d think about her and her baby, if he were around to see them both.

Rocky nosed against her knee, his almond-shaped eyes dark, curious. When Jack shifted in her arms, those eyes followed his every tiny movement. Each night, the dog slept as close to them all as he could, relentlessly patrolling the house at any sound. His thick fur was a pure, startling white—the color bred so Hungarian shepherds could distinguish the dog from wolves—and he was Mel’s constant shadow. Ben had been worried about her being this far out here alone, so he’d given her the dog for protection, and Rocky had grown big in the months since the older man’s passing. The dog would get much bigger before he was done. She missed Ben more than she ever wanted Chris to know, but moments like this, with Rocky watching over her and Jack, it was like the former chief deputy had never left them.

What would he think if he could see them all now, still making a go of it at the Far Six? In the Big Bend?