That's My Baby! (14 page)

While living among the refugees, he hadn’t missed his luxury apartment in Denver or his well-run real estate office or dealing with clients. He’d missed spending time at the Rocking D. And although he didn’t want to go into ranching, he wanted to own a piece of land like this, maybe not quite so large, but big enough that he could have a barn, some horses and a dog.

He’d hoped Jess might like that idea, too, because he’d pictured her there with him. Her suggestion of opening a ranch for orphans intrigued him, but he didn’t know if she had any interest in being part of something like that. And there was also the matter of the baby.

This constant, pounding need for Jess made thinking about anything else nearly impossible, though. Nothing was clear to him except that he needed to make love to her. Then maybe he’d be able to consider the other aspects of his life. But obviously she thought he should figure out his life first, and then, depending on what he’d decided, they might be able to make love again.

She wasn’t being unreasonable. Even Sebastian thought her decision not to go to bed with him until he knew his own mind made perfect sense. But neither of them understood that trying to sort through his feelings while he needed Jess so desperately was like trying to learn to cook while the kitchen was on fire.

A jay flew across his path in a flash of blue, and from the cloudless sky above, a hawk cried out as it circled, looking for breakfast. A chipmunk bounded out of Nat’s path and scurried into a hollow log so it wouldn’t
be
breakfast.

Life was so simple for these creatures, Nat thought. Instinct told them when to hide, when to mate and how to take care of their young. He wondered when, in the evolution of humans, the act of breeding had become so surrounded with land mines.

The breeze blew down from the hillside in front of him. The dogs paused to sniff the air at the same moment Nat saw a movement ahead, up higher in the trees. The dogs barked and headed in that direction. At first Nat thought it might be a deer, but then sunlight glinted off something metal.

“Fleafarm! Sadie! Come!” His stomach lurched. “Come here!” he called again, and fortunately the dogs turned around with great reluctance and started slowly back to him. “Good girls!” He patted his thighs enthusiastically while he kept an eye on the spot where he’d seen movement.

All was still now. Although he had a premonition that wouldn’t quit, logically he didn’t know who was up there. Could be a hunter trespassing on Rocking D land, or a bird-watcher with a pair of binoculars that caught the light of the sun. Or it could be Jess’s stalker. He needed to get the dogs to safety and then alert Sebastian. If they saddled up a couple of horses, they could take a look around.

Once the dogs were with him, he started back toward the house, glancing over his shoulder often to see if he noticed anything more on the hillside. Nothing. If it hadn’t been for the reaction of the dogs when they’d obviously caught the scent of something, he would have wondered if he’d imagined the whole thing.

Then he heard the rumble of a vehicle on the road, and
before he reached the driveway, Travis pulled up in his shiny black muscle truck.

Travis hopped down from the cab and gave Nat a grin. “Out for a morning stroll, cowboy? What’s the matter, did you forget how to ride a horse while you were over there?” His grin faded as Nat drew closer. “What’s the problem? Is Lizzy—”

“The baby’s fine. At least she was last time I saw her. I need to get these dogs inside and grab Sebastian. I think I might’ve seen the guy up on that hill. If we saddle the horses and ride up there, we might get lucky.”

“Did he know you saw him?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe. But we have to try.”

“I’m on it. You get Sebastian and I’ll start saddling the horses.” Travis hopped back in his truck and spit gravel as he shot off toward the barn.

N
AT HEARD
the shower running when he walked in the door. He headed for the kitchen, where he found Sebastian feeding Elizabeth cereal, and Matty measuring coffee into the pot. Nat looked into the baby’s blue eyes and felt his heart get all tangled up in that gaze. Quickly he looked away. He didn’t have time for that now. “Is Jess in the shower?”

Matty glanced up. “Apparently. She hasn’t come into the kitchen, and I’ll bet she’s afraid to. I was wondering if you’d go convince her to—”

“No can do.” Nat looked over at Sebastian. “Our guy may have been up on the hillside just a minute ago. Travis is saddling the horses.”

“Right.” Sebastian put the spoon into the cereal bowl and set it on the table out of Elizabeth’s reach. “Matty, take over here, and set the alarm once I’m out the door.”

Matty was by his side instantly, grabbing his arm. “I don’t think you should go charging up there without a plan.”

“I have a plan. I’m getting my rifle.” He pulled away from her and brushed past Nat as he headed through the living room.

“Watch the baby, Nat,” Matty said as she ran after Sebastian. “Listen, cowboy, you can’t just ride up there like the Three Musketeers, you know!”

Sebastian’s voice drifted back as he kept going down the hall toward his bedroom. “Don’t argue with me, Matty. We don’t have time to waste if we want to catch him.”

“He could pick you off!” She charged down the hall after her husband.

Nat glanced over at Elizabeth sitting in her high chair with cereal smeared all over her mouth. She was staring at him with wide eyes. He sure did recognize the color in those eyes. He saw it every morning in the mirror. Then her face scrunched up like someone was squeezing it, and she let out a howl of protest.

“Aw, don’t do that,” Nat said. “Matty will be back soon.”

Elizabeth only cried harder and spit out whatever cereal she’d had in her mouth.

Nat panicked. For all he knew, she might choke or something if she kept crying like that. He could still hear Matty and Sebastian arguing back in the bedroom, and here was this kid who might be in serious danger, and he didn’t have the foggiest idea what to do.
“Matty!”
he bellowed.

And just like that, Elizabeth stopped crying. But the look on her face was no improvement. She looked petrified. Of him. Nat’s insides twisted as he remembered how he’d felt whenever his father had yelled like that. And here he was, scaring his daughter the same way.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, baby.”

She gazed at him, and tears quivered on her lower eyelids.

“I won’t yell at you anymore,” he promised, looking into those big blue eyes. Oh, God. She was getting to him.
His chest grew tight and his throat felt clogged up. That little face, that tear-streaked, cereal-smeared little face, was getting to him.

“Let’s go.” Sebastian came into the kitchen wearing a jacket and carrying his rifle.

With relief, Nat turned toward Sebastian.

“You are idiots, all of you!” Matty said, coming in behind him. “We should call the sheriff.”

“By the time we do, Jessica’s stalker will be long gone,” Sebastian said. “Now set the alarm once I leave, and if we’re not back in an hour, then you can call the sheriff.”

“Peachy,” Matty said. “Should I ask him to bring body bags?”

“Stop it. We’ll be fine.” Sebastian glanced at Nat. “Ready?”

“Ready,” Nat said. As he started out the kitchen door behind Sebastian, he chanced one more look over at the baby. She was still watching him. “See you later, Elizabeth,” he said softly.

J
ESSICA HAD NEARLY FINISHED
her shower when she heard the commotion in the hall as Matty and Sebastian came by arguing about something. With guilt her constant companion, she couldn’t help wondering if it had to do with her. She needed to come out of hiding and find out.

Toweling off quickly, she dressed in jeans and an ivory long-sleeved T-shirt. Then she ran a comb through her hair. As she left the bathroom she heard the kitchen door close.

“Men!” Matty’s disgusted voice carried down the hall from the kitchen. “I tell you, Elizabeth, most guys don’t have the brains God gave a goat.”

Jessica approached the kitchen doorway with caution. “Matty?” she called out before she showed herself. “Do you think I should come in the kitchen?”

“Absolutely,” Matty said. “Elizabeth and I need reinforcements, don’t we, sweetheart? The guys just took the morning train to Stupidville.”

“Ga!” came the delighted response.

Jessica’s heart hammered as she edged into the kitchen doorway. From her wooden high chair Elizabeth looked her way, and Jessica braced herself for more tears. Instead, the baby almost seemed to give a mental shrug as she returned her attention to the spoonful of applesauce Matty was holding out.

Indifference was better than fear, Jessica told herself. “What did you mean about the guys?” she asked, keeping her voice low and nonthreatening. “Where did they go?”

“Nat thought he saw your stalker up on the hill.”

Jessica put her hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp that would probably scare the baby.

“Travis arrived when Nat was coming back to tell us, so those three dimwits saddled up and rode out to find him. Sebastian took his rifle.” Matty continued to feed Elizabeth, but the line of her back was rigid.

“Oh, dear.”

“I’ve set the alarm, so we’ll know if the fellow shows up here, but I think we should have called the sheriff. The guys didn’t agree.”

Despair washed over Jessica. Calling the sheriff would inevitably lead to the sheriff contacting her parents, but she couldn’t continue to avoid that if people were placing themselves in danger. “Maybe I should just call my parents and be done with it. I can’t have all of you risking yourselves like this.”

Matty glanced at Jessica before resuming the feeding as she slipped the spoon neatly in Elizabeth’s mouth. “If you come in slowly and sit at the table, I think that would be a good way for this little gremlin to become used to you again. Then you can tell me about this situation with your parents.”

“All right.” Jessica eased herself over to the table. She resented every second she had to spend carefully and cautiously renewing the bond with Elizabeth. She wanted to scoop the baby up and smother her with kisses. Of course, it was normal for a baby her age to be fearful of strangers, but Jessica shouldn’t be one of them. The world was out of kilter and she wanted to blink her eyes and make it right again.

Elizabeth watched her warily as she came to the table and sat down about four feet from the high chair.

“Elizabeth,” Matty crooned. “Have another bite of applesauce, sweetie pie.”

The baby turned back toward Matty and banged her
hands on the high-chair tray while Matty fed her. Matty expertly used the edge of the spoon to scoop up the excess applesauce from around her mouth and tuck that inside, too.

Jessica took note of the procedure with more than a touch of envy. She’d never fed a baby before, but if she and Elizabeth had learned together, Elizabeth wouldn’t have noticed that her mother was clumsy at it. Now she’d immediately sense Jessica’s lack of experience.

“I take it your parents don’t know about the baby or the stalker,” Matty said, keeping her tone conversational as she continued to feed Elizabeth.

“That’s right. I’ve been hoping to keep Elizabeth from growing up the way I did, a virtual prisoner because my father was afraid someone would try to snatch me for a huge ransom.”

“I guess he had a point,” Matty said.

“Unfortunately, he did.” Jessica sat gazing at her daughter, her heart breaking. “The way I see it, I can either call my parents and get their protection from this guy, or…assuming the jerk doesn’t know about Elizabeth yet, I can take off again before he finds out about her.”

Matty turned, her gaze extremely alert. “And then what? Leave her with us indefinitely?”

Jessica didn’t miss the barely disguised eagerness in Matty’s voice. She didn’t blame Matty for ignoring the question of what would happen to Jessica in that scenario. Matty was primarily concerned with Elizabeth’s welfare, which was as it should be.

“I would leave her with you forever,” Jessica murmured as pain sliced through her at voicing the unthinkable. “If I go away again, I wouldn’t come back for her. That wouldn’t be fair to anyone, most of all her.”

Matty swallowed, but she didn’t speak. Then she put down the spoon and picked up a damp cloth that had been lying on the table. Slowly, tenderly, she washed Elizabeth’s
face while the baby tried to grab the cloth and made little gurgling sounds.

Then, still holding the cloth, Matty looked over at Jessica. Tears shimmered in her eyes. “Of course I would love to have this child forever. Sebastian would be ecstatic. So would everyone—Travis, Gwen, Boone, Shelby, Luann and little Josh.” She cleared her throat and continued. “Before I was pregnant, I might not have understood the sacrifice you’re suggesting, but now I do, and I can’t let you make it.”

Jessica gulped back her own tears. “If it’s the best thing for Elizabeth—”

“It’s not,” Matty said firmly. “Did you ever sing to her?”

Jessica blinked back her tears. “Sing? Why?”

“It might be a way back.”

“Oh.” Jessica had never known a kinderhearted woman than Matty Daniels. Any fool could see how she’d bonded with Elizabeth, and the thought of losing the baby had to be painful. Yet Matty was trying to help Jessica connect again. “Yes, I sang to her,” she said.

“I thought so. Most of us do that instinctively, I guess.”

Most of us.
Jessica wondered if Matty knew she’d unconsciously included herself in the category of mother, even though her own child hadn’t been born yet. Well, she should include herself, Jessica thought. She’d been Elizabeth’s mother for several months, along with Gwen and Shelby.

“Why don’t you try singing now?” Matty suggested.

“Here?” Jessica felt self-conscious singing while her child sat in a high chair four feet away and Matty was still in the room. When she’d sung to Elizabeth before, the baby had been wrapped snugly in her arms. The moment had been cozy and intimate with only the two of them. This would be like a performance.

“She’s full and pretty happy right now,” Matty said.
“With me right here, she’s not threatened by having you around. And she’s not being distracted by anyone else at the moment. What do you say?”

“Okay.” Jessica gave Matty a tiny smile. “But I’ll feel like a Vegas nightclub act.”

Matty smiled back. “I promise to be a good audience.”

Jessica knew exactly which song she wanted to sing. She could still remember her mother singing it to her when she was a little girl. Jessica had never learned the song’s title, only the words, which told of a train bound for dreamland. It ran on a peppermint rail, and only stopped at ice-cream stations to pick up Crackerjack mail.

She’d loved that concept as a child. Although Elizabeth wasn’t old enough to understand the words yet, she would be, sooner than Jessica could have imagined.

Blocking out memories of her mother and father had been more difficult for Jessica recently. She’d assumed all along that her parents would be critical and punishing when they eventually discovered Elizabeth’s existence. Now she wasn’t so sure.

She gazed at her baby as the little girl sat playing with her fingers and experimenting with shoving different combinations into her mouth. Absorbing the beauty of Elizabeth’s coppery curls, pink cheeks and innocent blue eyes, she couldn’t imagine her parents feeling anything but love for this child. Yet how could she bring them into Elizabeth’s life and not expect them to overprotect the baby in the same way they’d overprotected her?

She couldn’t. Taking a long, shaky breath and feeling very self-conscious, she began to sing.

Elizabeth looked over at her immediately. With two fingers thrust into her drooling mouth, she focused intently on Jessica’s face.

Jessica continued to sing and gradually forgot Matty was there as she searched the baby’s expression for the slightest evidence of recognition.

Elizabeth seemed fascinated by being sung to, but maybe she was that way with everyone.

“Keep singing and trade places with me,” Matty said.

As Jessica and Matty got up, alarm showed in Elizabeth’s eyes. She looked quickly from one to the other while they switched seats, which placed Matty farther away and Jessica right in front of Elizabeth.

Jessica panicked when the baby scrunched up her face as if to cry. Then Matty, who obviously had heard enough of the song to get the melody, began to hum along with Jessica. She couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but Jessica didn’t care. The ploy worked to unscrunch Elizabeth’s face.

Elizabeth’s attention rotated from one woman to another as the makeshift duet continued, and the look of amazement on the baby’s face nearly made Jessica laugh. But she kept singing. She must have started smiling without realizing it, though, because all at once a miracle happened. Elizabeth looked at her and grinned.

Jessica’s throat closed and she couldn’t sing anymore. But as Elizabeth’s grin faded and she began to cloud up again, Jessica made a superhuman effort and began singing again. She even managed a smile, although it quivered at the edges.

Matty began adding words to her humming, but they weren’t the words of the song.
“We’re doing great,”
she sang.
“How about if you—”

The sound of hoofbeats came from outside.

Matty bounced out of her chair and looked out the kitchen window. “They’re back.” She poured a truckload of relief into those two words.

Jessica’s heart began to pound. Breaking eye contact with Elizabeth, she went to the window, almost afraid of what she might see. “They’re okay,” she said with a sigh.

“Looks like.” Matty went to shut off the alarm system and then stood on tiptoe to get a better look out the kitchen window. “I don’t see any blood.”

“Me neither.” Jessica couldn’t stop looking at the easy way Nat sat his horse. She kept forgetting he’d been raised on a ranch and was a genuine cowboy from the brim of his hat to the tip of his boots. He certainly looked the part now.

She watched the three men dismount and tie their horses to the hitching rail by the back door as if they were part of a western movie. She’d only seen these guys at a ski lodge, where they were out of their natural element. No doubt about it, they were in their element at the Rocking D.

Elizabeth started banging on her tray with both hands.

Matty glanced over at the baby. “I think someone misses the floor show.”

Jessica followed her gaze and was gratified that Elizabeth’s mood still seemed cheerful. “Do you think we really made progress?”

“I would bet on it. I think singing is the ticket. You should keep that up. Sorry about screwing up your act with my caterwauling, by the way.”

Jessica had been brought up to be reserved with people until she knew them well, but it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to put an arm around Matty’s shoulders and gave her a quick hug. “Are you kidding?” she said with a chuckle. “Your backup singing saved the day.”

Matty laughed. “Be sure and tell Sebastian that,” she said as the kitchen door opened and the man in question came through it. “He’s threatened to pay me not to sing.”

“No, you have that wrong.” Still carrying his rifle, Sebastian walked over and gave his wife a swift kiss. “I’ve said I’d pay you to dance
instead
of sing. I think we should all stick to what we have a talent for, and your talent is definitely dancing.” He left the kitchen to put his rifle away.

“Wait a minute!” Matty called after him. “Did you find anything up there?”

“Ask Travis,” Sebastian called back.

“So?” Matty asked as Travis came in, followed by Nat. “What happened?”

“We located some tracks,” Travis said, shucking his jacket and hanging it on one of several pegs by the back door. “We followed them for a while, but we lost the trail when we hit the rocky section.”

Jessica turned toward Nat. “Did you get a look at him before? Do you think it could have been the man who’s been following me?”

“Don’t know. I only knew somebody was up there, but I didn’t get a good look. It could’ve been anybody, I guess.” His grim expression reminded Jessica of the one he’d had when he first got off the plane, a don’t-mess-with-me look. There was definitely a harder edge to Nat than there had been before he’d gone overseas. She found it incredibly sexy.

“Might have been one of the neighbors out for a ride,” Travis said. “Except if it was, you’d think they’d have come on down to the house for some coffee instead of heading off in the opposite direction.”

“I still say the guy deliberately rode across those rocks,” Nat said as he took off his jacket and hung it next to Travis’s. “He meant for us to lose his trail.”

“Could be,” Sebastian said as he came back into the kitchen. “But whether he meant to or not, he succeeded.” He glanced at Travis. “I thought you were some sort of tracking wizard, hotshot.”

“Aw, I just told Gwen that to impress her, considering she has that Cheyenne ancestry and all,” Travis said. “I can lose a trail in the rocks the same as the rest of you.”

“Wonderful.” Sebastian looked at his head wrangler and shook his head. “And for this I pay you the big bucks.”

Elizabeth banged on her tray and started gurgling.

“No, you pay me the big bucks to change this little gal’s diaper,” Travis said with a grin. “Right, Lizzie? Nobody does it like the Diaperman, right?”

The baby laughed and held up her arms to Travis.

“Want me to spring you from that chair, don’t you, sweet-cheeks?” Travis unlatched the tray and scooped Elizabeth up in his arms. “Hey, little girl, I do believe you need my services right this minute.” He nuzzled her neck until she laughed. “Come with me, darlin’.”