Laramie felt badly about missing the boy’s important milestone. Especially after learning that no one but his mother and Sassy had been around to help the child celebrate.Laramie had passed many a birthday without anyone around except Diego and he wanted things to be better for Dillon. Not that there was anything wrong with Diego. The old rancher had been a good man and a wonderful mentor to him, but Laramie had missed the softness a mother would have brought to his life. Yes, Dillon was missing out on a father’s touch, but at least when little Dillon grew to be a man he would know the woman who’d given birth to him. That was something Laramie would trade all the birthday parties in the world for.Steering his truck through the busy Ruidoso traffic, Laramie darted a glance at the two boxes lying on the passenger seat. He’d paid the store clerk extra to have the items gift wrapped. Back at the ranch there was a pile of work waiting for his attention, but he’d not let any of it deter him from driving to town and buying Dillon a belated birthday gift.The idea had Laramie mentally shaking his head.
