Baby Screamed Nonstop On A Stagecoach Until A Widow Did The Unthinkable For A Rich Cowboy…

Now, three feet from a hungry infant, her body answered the crying like it was a call meant for her.

Vera swallowed hard and forced her eyes back out the window.

The prairie rolled out in pale gold and dusty green, a wide, indifferent sea. A hawk circled far above. In the distance, a herd of antelope spooked at the sound of the coach and scattered like spilled beans.

Vera tried to focus on that—on distance, on space, on anything that wasn’t the tight ache under her ribs.

But the baby screamed, and her body answered.

Owen shifted his son and tried the bottle again. He had been trying since the first mile out of Cheyenne, warming the milk against his own skin, measuring the angle like it was a tool he could master.

The baby turned his head away like a man refusing bad coffee.

Owen tried rocking, then speaking low and firm, as if the baby might respect reason.

“Now listen here,” Owen murmured, voice tight. “You’ve got food. Take it.”

Nothing helped.

“Maybe he’s got colic,” Pruitt muttered, eyes tired and annoyed. He didn’t look at Owen when he spoke; he looked at the baby, as if the child had personally insulted him.

Owen did not look at him.

“He’s been fed. He’s been changed. The air is fine.”

“Well, something’s wrong,” Pruitt said.

“I know.”

Owen snapped, then lowered his voice as if anger might scare the baby into silence.

“I know.”

Owen was thirty-four, owned thousands of acres, and had fought hard men for water rights and won. His name carried weight from Cheyenne to Denver, and men who hated him still had to respect him.

But he could not make his own child stop crying.

His wife, Caroline, had died during the birth eight weeks ago.

The labor had lasted all day. The doctor had done what he could. There had been too much blood.

Caroline had gone cold in Owen’s hand while he stared at her and tried to understand how life could break like that in a single hour.

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