Mitch’s face burst into a grin, and he signed the same word back.
Cactus could sign dog and he spelled out the name he’d chosen for this one. T-a-n-k. He raised his eyebrows, and Mitchell signed something that Cactus didn’t get all of. He needed real, live practice, and he told himself he wasn’t going to let Willa put so much distance between them for much longer.
He cocked his head and signed for Mitch to slow down. I’m new and don’t know everything.
Mitch slowed down, and Cactus got the gist of the question. He shrugged and signed, I don’t know. I thought I’d only get one dog, but I got two. It’s a girl. How about you think of a name for me, and when I get back, we’ll talk about it?
Mitchell’s face lit up, and he reached for the gray puppy. He vocalized something, but since he’d been born deaf, he didn’t know the sounds he made, and Cactus couldn’t understand what he’d said.
He watched the boy head back toward the front porch, and his eyes lifted to Willa’s. She stood at the bottom of the steps, a shocked look on her face.
“What?” he asked.
“You just signed with Mitch,” she said.
Cactus pulled in a breath, but he didn’t know what to say. So he just shrugged again. He signed, I’ve learned a little. Call you later?
She nodded, and Cactus turned away from her before he closed the distance between them and told her he’d go to any end of the earth to be with her, and that of course that included learning sign language so he could converse with her son.
She’d know without him saying it out loud anyway, and his face heated as he ducked behind his cowboy hat so she wouldn’t see him blush.
2
Willa Knowlton watched her son take two dogs inside her house. That alone should’ve set her every nerve on fire, as those canines weren’t potty trained at all, and her home had plenty of carpet to get ruined.
Not only that, but she didn’t own the home, and her landlords had a way of popping by at the most inopportune times. In that moment, she remembered that pets weren’t allowed here, and that was why she’d re-homed Abe, her springer spaniel, with Patrick for the time being.
She’d had to move from the one-bedroom where Abe could live with her to this two-bedroom rental so Mitch would have a bedroom. Giving up a dog to gain a son had been well worth it.
Mitch giggled from inside the house, and Willa absolutely loved the sound of it. She’d missed her son terribly, and there had been countless nights where she’d laid awake, praying with everything she had that she’d see Mitchell again in this lifetime.
The Lord had answered her prayers, and she couldn’t believe all that had happened in the past three months.
She turned back to the road as Cactus revved the engine and drove away. Her heart jumped over a couple of beats, reminding her of the sexy cowboy she’d seen signing to her son.
“Signing,” she said, her voice quiet to her own ears. She’d shown up at the Glover family ranch on Christmas Eve, a deaf ten-year-old child in tow, and Cactus had taken it all in stride.
“Right.” She scoffed as she went up the steps and into the house. She needed to corral these puppies in the kitchen so if any accidents happened, she could easily wipe them up. She also needed to find a way to cage her thoughts about Cactus Glover.
She didn’t think for a moment that he’d taken her reappearance in town with a deaf child in stride. The man held everything so tight—so tight—and he’d probably been lying awake at night too.
“Let’s keep them in here,” she said as she signed the words to Mitch. He sat on the floor as the puppies played with him and each other. He caught the end of her sign, and she repeated it so he’d bring the pups into the kitchen.
“You could also take them outside,” she said. “The back yard is fenced.”
I’ll do that, Mitch said, and he pulled open the sliding door that led down four steps to the yard. Early March had brought more sunshine to the Texas Panhandle, but Willa still pulled on her jacket before she joined her son outside.
The sun wouldn’t reach back here until afternoon, and Willa sat in the rocking chair on the small deck and pulled up her sermon on her phone. Pastor Summers