Loving Evelyn (Part 1)

2 - A Child Surprise

"Life is full of surprises. You never know who you are going to meet that will change your life forever."

~•~

High in the sky, the blazing sun's rays washed over the abundance of ranches, farms, rolling hills and wide-open spaces of Llano, Texas. It was hot and the heat bared down heavily on Samuel Taylor's bare arms and shoulders on his family's cattle ranch. Already the tank he wore was drenched from the hard labor of the afternoon. Sweat glistened as it ran from his neck and down his back.

He'd been up since 4am that morning, working non-stop. Even though his youngest sons helped by doing their morning chores of feeding the animals and cleaning out stalls before they left for school, there was still so much left to do. A lot of the more difficult tasks were done by Samuel and his oldest son; Wyatt, who was in town at the moment picking up more feed and hay to put out for the animals and in the fields. Sometimes if the work required more than two of them, he'd enlist his second eldest son; Angel, but after he got home from school.

Samuel and his late wife Cassandra were the proud parents of five amazing children, all boys. The two of them had known each other since kindergarten, but hadn't started dating until their late middle school days. They'd been in love ever since. After graduating, Samuel proposed and later found out Cassandra was pregnant with Wyatt, the two married that same year. They were happily married for four years and had just moved into Samuel's grandfather's ranch house when they had Angel. Two years later Christian was born. In the following years they were blessed with two more sons, Isaac and Jacob.

As their family grew, so did the home and ranch as Samuel steadily bought more land to expand. But while the two were very happy with the home they created with their boys, Cassandra wished to have a little girl. Unfortunately it wasn't meant to be after discovering she was in the late stages of pancreatic cancer. By the time the doctors had caught it, it was too late.

The kids lost their mother and Samuel lost the love of his life.

It was difficult raising the boys on his own. Wyatt and Angel took their mother's death extremely hard. They'd acted out a lot during that time. Seven years passed since then and the two had straightened out. Wyatt graduated high school and decided to stay home to help his dad with the ranch and his younger brothers. Angel was on track and in his final year.

But even after the time passed, raising them hadn't gotten any easier. Even the youngest three still caused trouble.

Samuel supposed part of it was the death of their mother, but no matter what he did or how hard he tried to be there for them, it was never enough. They got into fights almost daily at school and caused trouble nearly every other day. Sometimes they got so out of hand, that even the police got involved.

Over the years, Samuel would open up the door to greet the local sheriff or his officers and sometimes the faces of angry parents who threatened to get one of his boys expelled.

So when he turned around at the sound of a vehicle moving down the driveway and discovered it wasn't Wyatt in the old blue pickup truck, but a black luxury Audi, Samuel immediately prepared himself. It was rare to get visitors on the ranch unless it was about the boys getting in trouble or the occasional rich tycoon wanting to purchase his land for some big real-estate venture.

As he waited for the car to come to a stop, he pulled off his work gloves and grabbed the bottle of water on the ground to take a sip. It was warm, but at the moment any water helped with the dry taste in his mouth. Instead of walking back towards the house to greet the unexpected guest, he staid put.