The day was cool, and there was crispness in the air that always seemed to associate itself with the month of September. It had been three weeks since Adam and Sissy had found Meg, three weeks since they’d discovered their son’s whereabouts, and three weeks since they’d been united with the miracle their love had created.

Adam sat on a large quilt spread out on the ground near a slow moving river. Nearby, the happy sounds of children playing fell like a gentle symphony on his ears. He laughed softly when, during a game of chase, Jarrod yanked one of the younger boys up by the seat of his trousers and swung him up onto his shoulders. Since the first night Adam had met Meg’s husband, the two men had become fast friends. Jarrod was strong and tall, built for force, but like his own brother, Hoss, possessing of a soul that was gentle and kind. Adam had seen during his stay how much the man loved his wife; from the tender smiles that crossed his lips when he thought she wasn’t looking to the way he nearly ran to her side whenever she needed assistance.

Shifting his focus to where the two cousins were seated on a log overhanging the river, Adam grinned as their bare toes splashed in the water, but soon after, a familiar pang pressed against his heart. In the days that had passed since the meeting in the market, Sissy had slowly been blossoming into the young girl he remembered. Her hair that had hung limp and unadorned when he’d first seen her, seemed to be reviving its old luster. Cheeks that once had been pale, now held a touch of pink, and her eyes were sparkling more often than not, and slowly, as if someone had breathed new life into a dying fire, he’d found his old feelings for her rekindled. Over the weeks, his desire for her had begun to build until the ache in his heart was almost constant.

With a sigh, he shifted his focus away from Sissy, and turned toward the other individual that in recent days had helped bring about the changes ins Sissy, and caused his own heart to quicken. Sitting alone on a large rock a short distance up the river from the group, sat Tag. Adam found himself chuckling as he thought of the boy’s nickname.   It had proved to be very appropriate, as this was the first time all day Tag wasn’t by his side. Adam thought back to the night when he’d first laid eyes on his son. There had been no mistaking that the boy, nearly fifteen, was his. From his black hair, to his dark eyes, to the small cleft in his chin, Tag was a smaller, younger version of himself.

Adam and Sissy had waited in the wagon while Meg had gone in ahead to talk to Tag and the rest of her family. When they’d finally been beckoned through the door and seen their son standing near the kitchen table, they’d both frozen to the spot. It was Tag that had come forward first, with tears glistening in his eyes; he’d reached out to shake Adam’s hand. It was a moment Adam would never forget.

Later, after Meg had put her own three children to bed, the rest of them had stayed awake long into the night catching up and getting acquainted. Tag had started out across the room, seated next to Jarrod, but by the time they all went to bed, he’d maneuvered around next to Adam’s side.

Adam and Sissy learned that while Meg and Jarrod had raised Tag as their own, Meg had made sure to implant into the boy’s mind a firm image of his real mother and father. He’d grown up with stories of a love affair torn apart by tragedy, and with the knowledge that not so far away, his own mother mourned for him. Meg had known little about Adam, but she’d insisted Tag use the last name of Cartwright, and told him stories of the man who’d unwittingly changed her life for the better.

Adam breathed in deeply and then pushed himself up off the picnic blanket. Grabbing a long blade of grass, he slipped it between his lips and headed toward his son. Tag turned when he drew near, and the boy’s face lit up with a smile.

“Mind if I join you?” Adam asked.

Tag nearly fell of the rock he was sitting on as he made room for his father. Adam chuckled and sat down, but then it grew quiet as the two watched Tag’s line bob up and down in the water.

“You know,” Adam said, clearing his throat, “one of my fondest memories is of a picnic like this one. Only I was the youngster sitting on a rock, fishing. And of course then, there were no other children and only one beautiful woman.”

Tag raised a questioning eyebrow and Adam was struck by how much he resembled his own pa.

“At the time, she was just a friend of my father’s,” Adam continued, “but soon after she became my mother.”

“Is she still alive?” Tag asked with a slight crack in his voice, then ducked his head shyly.

Adam turned toward the river. “No, she was killed shortly after my brother, Hoss, was born.”

Silence settled over them again for a while, Adam lost in distant memories. He was brought back to the present when Tag fidgeted next to him.

“I . . .” the boy started. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. It, well, it doesn’t seem right, me calling you Adam.”

“Oh?”

“Most of the kids around her call their parents ‘Mama and Daddy’. I . . . I’d feel kind of funny calling you ‘Daddy,’ though.”

Adam grinned as Tag’s cheeks turned red and he began to fumble with the line on his pole.

“Well, where I come from,” Adam drawled, “the boys all call their fathers ‘Pa.’”

Adam didn’t say anything else, but he watched as Tag seemed to process the information. Finally, the boy turned to him.

“Pa, hm,” he chuckled. “I think I’d like that . . . to call you ‘Pa.’”

Adam smiled and then cupped his hand around the back of his son’s neck, giving him a light squeeze. “I think I’d like that, too.”

 

 

Later that night, Adam stood on the porch beside Jarrod, a million stars twinkling above them. Behind him, Gabe sat on a rocker, humming a soft tune. Inside, Bonnie was busy getting the younger children ready for bed.

“Care to take a walk?” Jarrod asked, startling Adam out of his reverie.

Adam nodded, and the two started out toward the pasture fence. When they reached it, Adam leaned down and folded his arms across the top rail. Far out in the pasture, he could hear the murmur of voices, and his heart grew heavy. Somewhere out there, Sissy and Meg were together under the stars, and though he’d fought hardest of all to bring the two together again, he couldn’t help but wish he were in Meg’s place at that moment.

He turned at the sound of soft footsteps approaching and gave Gabe a small smile. Gabe came up next to him, settling his foot up on the bottom rail. All three men looked out when a shrill giggle sounded, and Gabe chuckled.

“Lord, that’s a sound I never thought these old ears’d hear again.”

Adam couldn’t quite bring himself to smile, but nodded.

“They was all each other had in the world back then,” Gabe continued. “I remember them clingin’ onto one another; they took care o’ each other, depended on one another. But . . . in time they learned to live apart.”

Adam searched Gabe’s eyes as the man reached out to pat his shoulder.

“They can learn again . . . Jest gotta give em’ some time.”