“Thirty-one.”

“Thirty-one?”

She was younger than he was! Gabe stared at Frederica Crossman, poleaxed. “How old are your kids?” It wasn’t a question as much as an accusation.

“Charlie’s nine. Emma’s seven.”

Gabe opened his mouth. He closed it again, having nothing at all to say. She was thirty-one and her kids were half grown!

That meant he could have kids that old!

No. He couldn’t!

He was barely more than a kid himself.

“It’s not polite to ask someone’s age,” Freddie said tartly, “especially if you’re going to stare at me dumbfounded when I give you an honest answer.”

Gabe flushed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean…I’m just…surprised. You look so…so young.” He’d thought she was an incredibly well-preserved forty.

He shook his head, still trying to sort it out. He’d never thought about aging before. Not himself at least. Earl, yes. The old man was whiter and frailer, even though his voice still boomed and his spirit never flagged.

Randall, too, had aged. There were marked differences between the boy Randall had been at eighteen and the man he’d become.

But Gabe hadn’t really thought it had anything to do with age. He’d just thought Randall looked old because he worked so damn hard.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

Maybe they were all getting older. Earl at least had a life’s work to look back on with pride. And Randall, too, had something to show for it. So apparently did Freddie Crossman, mother of two half-grown children.

What about him? What about Gabriel Phillip McBride?

He looked down at his bull-riding championship belt buckle. Suddenly it didn’t seem like enough.

Two