The first rays of early-morning sunshine poked in through the bedroom window, and Myrtle’s eyelids fluttered open to meet the day. She sat up and let out a deep, contented yawn, then nudged the gently snoring form obscured under a sheet in the bed beside her. “Good morning under there.”

The form shifted slightly, and Lee’s handsome, groggy face peeked out from beneath his cover. “Morning already? Patently impossible, Mrs. Bryant. I just closed my eyes a moment ago.”

Myrtle tugged back the sheet to expose her husband fully to the morning light, and he groaned good-naturedly. “All right, all right, no point in arguing with the laws of nature.”

Their door to their room suddenly burst open, and a tiny blur of movement leapt into bed and cozied itself up between the two of them. “I’m hungry, Mama! Breakfast time?”

Myrtle’s heart glowed with affection as she stroked the young boy’s wispy hair and Lee looked on adoringly. “It certainly is, John. Even if Papa would rather sleep for another few hours. Come on, if we both push together, perhaps we can roll his carcass out of bed…”

Her son’s face lit up with devilish glee. “Let’s roll him!” As Lee made a show of protesting, Myrtle and John nudged him to the edge of the bed, then sent him tumbling onto the floor. He scrambled to his feet and peered imperiously down at the two of them, even as a delighted smile flickered on his face. “I suppose you both think you’re very clever.”

John grinned up at his father. “Yeah, really clever!”

Myrtle found her feet and lifted the boy down to the floor. “All right, clever boy, let’s go rouse your sister.”

The trio emerged into the sunlit sitting room of their home, and Myrtle glanced at the dedication year carved into the fireplace mantle as they passed by. 1882, when the house had been rebuilt after the fire. 1882, when her life had changed in ways she never could have fathomed – had it really been five years already? Sometimes it seemed like just yesterday…

But then she looked down lovingly to the lanky five-year-old boy at her feet, and she knew that it was all real, every ecstatic moment of the life she’d lived since Lee Bryant had stumbled into town so long ago.

Myrtle eased the door to the smallest bedroom open and crept inside to the edge of the crib Lee had constructed as little John watched quietly. “Good morning, my dear.”

Her daughter Helen, not quite two years old yet, stirred in her sleep and kicked at the sheet draped over her tiny form, in precisely the same way that Lee did some nights. Myrtle’s heart swelled as the girl’s eyes blinked open, and she reached in to pluck Helen from the crib before the trio moved out to the kitchen, where Lee had already gotten coffee started. He was presently stirring some batter in a large bowl as the skillet beside him sizzled with butter. “Pancakes all around for the Bryant clan?”

John hopped up to his chair and nodded fervently. “All pancakes are round!”

Myrtle laughed and kissed the boy’s forehead, then glanced at Lee with a furtive smile. “He really does take after you, at least as far as his inventive use of the language goes.”

Her husband bowed at the waist while pouring batter into the sputtering skillet. “We’ll take that as a compliment, my dear. Isn’t that right, young man?”

John grinned. “Yeah!”

Myrtle plunked Helen down right next to her, and the girl gazed around the room with the entitlement that only children could possess. “Pancakes now?”

“Any minute, sweetheart.” Lee gingerly flipped over his first few cakes to finish cooking, then poured two coffees and joined them at the table. “I think I’ll pop into town for a bit this afternoon and put an hour of two of work in at the shop, on that chest of drawers I’m building for Harmon and Lu.”

“Of course, Lee. Just remember they invited us for dinner this evening, so don’t linger too long.” Myrtle sipped her coffee appreciatively as the children continued to eye the nearby skillet. “What’s the next project after that?”

“An end table for Orville Denby, then a rocking chair for Reverend Thomas, if I remember my work orders right.”

She smiled indulgently. “The hectic life of a furniture-maker never ends, does it?”

Lee pursed his lips as he rose again to tend to the skillet. “I get the distinct impression that you’re patronizing me, Mrs. Bryant. What do you think, John?”

The boy furrowed his brow. “Yeah, probably patronizing. What’s patronizing?”

Lee smiled as he delivered the first steaming batch of pancakes to the table, sliding them onto waiting plates. “Oh, just take my word for it, son.”

The four of them set at their breakfast eagerly, and while Lee tidied up the kitchen afterward, Myrtle lifted Helen from her chair as John dashed for the door that let outside. “Mama, can I let Jules and Verne out form the barn?”

“Surely, but just keep them in the yard with Papa for now and wait for me before you go down to the pasture, all right? I’ll be out in just a minute.”

The boy burst out into the sunshine, and Lee followed right behind, looking like an overgrown child himself in his excitement to embrace the morning. Myrtle hung back for a moment, and as Helen squirmed restlessly in her arms, her eyes landed on the painting that had hung over the fireplace ever since the new house had been finished. The scene her mother had painted was the same as it had always been, of course, depicting the old ranch house and the vista of the frontier beyond, but regardless of how many times Myrtle had gazed upon it, she never failed to feel a fresh sense of the lineage that it signified.

Even though Foster Ranch looked much different than it once had, the unbroken family line was still going strong. Myrtle laughed to herself as she recalled how Lee had insisted that the name of the homestead remain the same, even after she’d taken his surname following their wedding in Lakemont First Baptist. It was tradition, he had said, and she was only too happy to agree.

Myrtle gave her daughter a tight squeeze, then emerged from the house into the bright morning sun and set her down so she could careen across the yard toward her brother as he led his favorite cows, Jules and Verne, out of the barn. Lee had already begun work on the new chicken coop he was building at the far side of the yard, and the children both made a beeline for their father and watched with fascination as he hammered away. “Watch out behind you, Papa!” John hollered amiably. “The chickens are coming!”

Lee whirled theatrically and stared down the onrushing stampede of fowl at his feet as the children laughed with glee. Myrtle couldn’t help smiling herself; her husband’s skills at ranching had improved by leaps and bounds over the years, but John and Helen had been born to this life, and they never missed an opportunity to revel in their father’s awkwardness.

She moved to the barn and opened every gate to let the rest of the cattle out for grazing, and then released the horses from their stables as well. Laramie clopped out to the yard, and Walter, on permanent “loan” from Luella, moseyed along behind. As Myrtle met Lee and the children at the chicken coop and sat cross-legged on the ground to draw in the dirt alongside Helen, John threw his arms around her neck in a bear hug. “I’m thirsty, Mama.”

“Of course, sweetheart, I’ll fetch you some water from out back.”

Myrtle stood, brushed herself off, and started toward the well behind the house, but as she was passing the barn, she paused and turned to take in the scene. Lee had left his work with the new chicken coop to join the children, and bright morning sunshine illuminated the three of them in a haze of amber as they played merrily in the dirt. It looked like a painting, but not the one her mother had done so many years ago. No, this scene was something she had built herself. She and Lee, the husband she’d never dreamed of until he arrived in Lakemont, the man she couldn’t dream of ever being without now.

He glanced up from the fun with John and Helen and spotted the faraway look she could feel on her face. “Is everything all right, love?”

Myrtle smiled widely and gave him a wave, then set off for the well. Yes, everything was all right now, here on Foster Ranch and surrounded by her family’s love. It was better than all right, in fact. It was a little piece of prairie heaven that they’d built for themselves.

Together.

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