New Year's Baby (Harlequin Heartwarming)

by Jodi O'Donnell

Oh, what kind of woman was she not to protect her child better, to put him at such risk?

  It was her worst fear revealed.

  “Cade, please, I can’t lose this baby!”

  “You won’t. He’s just gettin’ his bearings.”

  Frantically, Sara pushed herself upright, trying to see, trying to reach for her baby. “But he’s not moving—”

  “He will!” Cade hit her with his bloodshot gaze, and she saw his own fear in it. Yet she saw something else, too, enduring as the day was long. “He’s going to be fine. I promise you.”

  Then, as if in answer to that promise, the baby sputtered briefly, filled his lungs and, with a grimace, gave a mighty cry.

  Grabbing a towel, he dried the baby off, and Sara could see for herself that the infant was quickly gaining color. His tiny fists waved about as he gave another gloriously vigorous wail.

  Cade placed him on her stomach. “There you go, darlin’—a healthy baby boy.”

  “Oh, you sweetheart!” She caressed the babe, wet and warm and still connected to her through the umbilical cord. But he was his own person now, even if they would forever be connected.

  Hands on his thighs, Cade smiled across the bed at Sara. Even with his dark hair matted with perspiration and his eyes ringed with exhaustion, Sara thought she’d never seen anything so noble and true as this man. She’d hold the image in her heart forever.

  Downstairs, a clock chimed, and she could tell he counted the strokes, as she did, twelve in all.

  “Happy New Year, darlin’,” he whispered.

  She couldn’t not do it. Whoever she was, wherever she’d come from, she had to reach out to him one more time with her gaze—reach out, grab hold, and connect. Because she knew. Knew there had been a moment of grave danger for her child. And Cade McGivern had seen him—seen them both—safely through the storm. She would never, ever forget that.

  No, she’d not lose memory of Cade McGivern. Not for anything.

  “Yes, it is, Cade,” Sara murmured. “It’s a very happy one—because of you.”

  And when she saw the look in those golden-brown eyes, it almost made her forget the slender band of gold she wore around her neck.

  Almost.

  * * *

  CADE HELPED SARA to get cleaned up, best she could, changed the padding beneath her and kept the clean towels coming for the bleeding after she’d delivered the afterbirth, anything he could do to make her more comfortable and rest easier until she felt like getting up for a real shower.

  He himself did the honors of giving the baby a sponge bath in the bathroom sink, as fascinated as she with the tyke.

  What a perfect package he made! Cade couldn’t help thinking as he finished up. Newborn calves were precious in their own way, but gangly. Swaddled in a blanket, this babe fit in his hands like he was made to, rear end situated in one palm, tiny head cradling just right in the other. The shock of dark hair that stood up on his head like a bristle brush had been impossible to slick down, and in fact Cade’s efforts to do so had only made matters worse. He hoped Sara wouldn’t mind having a newborn who looked like a startled rooster.

  “I don’t have a proper diaper for him,” he said, coming back into the bedroom. “I imagine I can rig him up somethin’ that’ll keep him dry—or actually, keep you dry.”

  Sara let go of Virg’s shirt, which she’d been clasping at the neckline, as he handed her child back to her. She’d declined a change into another of the hand’s shirts.

  “I’m more concerned about him soaking your bed,” she said.

  “Don’t worry, I did a load of wash.” Cade leaned a shoulder against the bedpost, openly enthralled with the picture the two made. “And soon’s I have a minute to get up to the attic, I’ll bring down the cradle that’s been in my family for years. I should get you somethin’ to eat first, though. You gotta be hungry after all that work you did.”

  “You must be exhausted yourself, Cade,” she protested, but he wouldn’t hear a word of it.

  “It won’t take me more’n a minute to fix you an egg or somethin’.”

  “Th-that sounds wonderful.” Sara ducked her chin, avoiding his eyes. “I want to thank you, Cade, for all the work you’ve done. And for, well, for everything. I’ve completely commandeered your bedroom, and now I’m going to inconvenience you further by your having to wait on me and my baby till I can get up and around.”

  “I don’t mind,” he told her truthfully. “Honest.”

  But he guessed what was going on—and what he was trying mightily to ignore. They’d just shared an intimate act in delivering her son. It hadn’t escaped Cade how at the moment of birth she’d called him their baby. It wasn’t theirs, though.

  It was hers—and some other man’s, wherever he was.

  Cade didn’t like that he felt disappointed at this reality, but what, really, did he expect?

  He expected...something more, for in that moment when he’d set that child into his mother’s arms, and she’d looked at him as if he’d performed a heroic feat, he’d felt anything was possible, anything on earth, although he couldn’t have said what he’d have wanted that to be.

  The baby, who’d been fussing, finally cut loose with a full-fledged howl that echoed in the room and brought his attention back to front and center.

  “That’s some set of lungs,” he remarked.

  Sara jostled the infant slightly, worry etched between her eyes. “I wish I knew more about babies.”

  “What’s there to know? He’s probably just hungry,” Cade suggested. “At least, that’s what a newborn calf bawls about.”

  “That’s a thought.” In flushed confusion, she murmured, “If you wouldn’t mind, Cade...”

  He got her meaning. “Of course,” he said, cutting for the door, feeling a little flushed and confused himself. And unjustifiably rankled.

  In the hallway, he leaned back against the wall. So he’d just taken her baby from her body! And sure, it made him feel like he’d done the impossible. Never in his life had he felt such power of emotion before. It had been transforming. But she wasn’t his wife with whom he’d have created this baby.

  Was there a chance, though, that she might not be anyone else’s?

  With that thought, Cade realized he’d do almost anything to recover the feeling he’d shared with Sara—and that he definitely didn’t like, not at all.

  Because nothing could have stopped him in the next instant from turning back into the bedroom with the words of his own hopes for the two of them on his lips.

  He stopped dead in his tracks. She was already in the process of guiding the newborn’s mouth to her breast.

  He caught the glisten of a chain around her neck. On it, was a simple gold wedding band.

  It glittered in the light, and in just such a flash, Cade saw himself in his own desperate, vulnerable aloneness as he never had in his life.

  From the direction of the stairs there came a clatter like a herd of elephants stampeded up them. In the next instant a man appeared in the doorway, steam rising from his clothing, hoarfrost covering his bushy mustache and eyebrows, his face white as the driving snow outside.

  His eyeball-popping gaze went from Cade to the woman in his bed to the baby cradled in her arms, then back to Cade. His shaggy head wagged back and forth slowly.

  “Cade!” Virgil exclaimed. “I knew I was late and prob’ly worryin’ ya to death, but I didn’t know you’d take to such extremes to distract yourself!”

  * * *

  SHE COULD NOT take her eyes off him.

  Alone for the moment, Sara took the opportunity to explore every inch of her sleeping child.

  Utterly exhausted but still too wound up to sleep, she made a thorough inventory, counting each finely formed finger, each tiny toe, each delicate dimple. She caressed ea
ch satiny surface, reveling in a softness that felt like none she could have ever imagined.

  Whatever pain she’d endured, whatever heartache she’d lived through or would live through, it was worth it for this child.

  It didn’t seem possible that just a few hours ago he had been inside her, a part of her, and now was a separate person—but oh! still so much a part of her, as he always would be.

  To her surprise, features that had earlier been unrecognizable to her in the bathroom mirror she now glimpsed in her son: her own nose in the button on his face, a certain familiar look about his cupid’s bow of a mouth.

  Tears misted her sight as she clung to that recognition like a lifeline. Who knew why she’d forgotten who she was, but perhaps her baby would help her to remember.

  Who else was he a part of, though? The question haunted her. What man had she so loved—and had so loved her—they had created a child together?

  And where was he now?

  Turning, she stared blindly out the window where the blizzard continued to blow, as all the questions she’d managed to keep at bay since her delivery rose up inside her again. Questions she’d seen reflected in Cade’s eyes as they focused on the ring she wore around her neck.

  The resulting desolation of spirit she’d glimpsed in him had been heartbreaking, for it was her own.

  The tears standing in her eyes spilled over. What kind of woman was she? Had she only used that fine man, taken advantage of his good heart and tender feelings to keep him invested in her and her baby through the delivery?

  But she’d had to! She herself had had to reach out to him with everything in her. He was real; he was there. The knowns in her life had had to take precedence over the unknowns.

  And what had she known? That she was going into labor. That she was alone. That she’d been sent to Cade.

  But now...now she had to ask about...him. The father of her child. What kind of man was he not to have been here with her now? Had she been trying to find him, and somehow gotten it in her mind she would discover him here?

  Was that in fact her real transgression, not taking from Cade what she needed, but seeking from him what she’d been missing from the man who’d placed this ring on her finger?

  “Hey, there,” came a soft call from the doorway. She turned.

  Cade stood at the threshold to his bedroom as if needing an invitation inside.

  “Hello.” A warmth having nothing to do with her erratic hormonal state swept over her. Suddenly, it didn’t seem real—that only a few hours ago he’d been with her on this very bed, the two of them partners in a battle for her baby’s life. It simply didn’t seem possible that such broad shoulders, such sturdy arms and large hands, could have yielded over their might to the kind of gentleness it took to hold a newborn babe. Seemed impossible that, with his reserved, remote bearing, she could have felt completely cared for and safe. Because right now, the sheer height and breadth and strength of presence of him took her breath away.

  She could not take her eyes off him.

  And what kind of woman did that make her?

  “How’s the little mite doin’?” he asked in that gravelly drawl of his, coming into the room to drop a dark piece of clothing over the arm of a chair.

  “He’s eaten his fill and is sleeping like a lamb,” she reported, covertly sweeping away the traces of moisture on her cheeks.

  “Now that I most definitely can’t tolerate.”

  The wind left her lungs with completeness. “But...why?”

  “Sleepin’ like a lamb?” He shook his head gravely. “This territory’s strictly cattle ranching, and I’m afraid if word got out that Cade McGivern was tendin’ sheep on his place, I’d get tarred and feathered within an inch of my life.”

  Sara was struck dumb—until she caught the amusement in his eyes. Relieved laughter shook loose any lingering anxiety. “Oh...you!” was the best she could come up with, flustered as she’d become.

  For a second there, she’d experienced a riot of sheer panic that he meant to turn them back out into the storm.

  Which was ludicrous. Yes, she’d done what she’d needed to, to secure the safe delivery of her baby. And yes, he’d seen the ring. Yet neither what happened before or afterward could diminish the moment when he had made her and her child his own.

  But it had only been for that moment, he said. And now?

  Sara only realized her mind had drifted when she heard Cade clear his throat, obviously not for the first time.

  “So,” he said tersely, “how’s that makeshift diaper Virg made holding up?”

  “Just fine. Want to see?”

  She obligingly drew back the blanket as he bent close, leaning on one hand on the bed next to her. He’d showered, she noticed; his chestnut-brown hair shone slickly, the forelock hanging in spikes over his forehead. It reminded her of how his hair had been when she’d awakened and looked up into his eyes for the first time.

  She pushed her own hair, limp and lank, back from her face. She must look a mess. As soon as she could, she was taking a shower.

  The diaper was basically a clean washcloth with some extra gauze padding the front and pinned at the sides. The key component was the waterproof pants Virgil had fabricated out of a plastic freezer bag by cutting a couple of leg holes and rimming them with duct tape to prevent tearing and leakage. Two more pieces of tape secured the pants at the sides.

  Cade eyed the whole contraption speculatively. “It sure enough makes him look like some home plumbing work, but I guess it does the job.”

  “Baby Cade doesn’t mind,” she said before thinking.

  His head shot up. “You named him after me?”

  “Why, yes,” Sara said, commanding her gaze not to falter. It was difficult to do, with his face so close to hers. “I can think of no one finer.”

  Shock rimmed his eyes. “That’s because you don’t know anyone else at this point!”

  “I know you,” she averred stubbornly. “I know what you did for me and my baby.”

  “But you’ve got to see, darl—”

  Rather than she, it was he who dropped his gaze. He’d yet to call her Sara—except once, when he’d summoned her back from the depths of her despair.

  “I’m just askin’,” he said, his voice muted, “what about the baby’s father?”

  “What about him?” Sara said boldly. She realized what he was staring at, and her fingers went to the chain lying on her chambray shirtfront. “Yes—this ring. Obviously, it’s mine. But no, I don’t remember who gave it to me or what happened t-to him.”

  To her dismay, her voice shook and her mouth trembled with more tears. Sara sniffed them back. “But whoever he is, Cade, he owes you a debt of gratitude, and I can’t imagine he would begrudge this expression of my—of our appreciation. I—I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me,” she vowed in an echo of her thoughts at that moment when he’d given her this child.

  “You won’t?” Cade asked skeptically.

  Sara didn’t even realize the contradiction in her phrasing until the words were out—for obviously she had forgotten, so very much.

  Her head had begun to ache again, and she rubbed the knot of tension at her temple. She couldn’t let what she didn’t know keep her from believing in what she did!

  She noticed Cade had gone very still, his expression watchful.

  “Does your head hurt because you were injured?” he asked. “Did you hit it somehow...or did someone hit you?”

  She wondered what he’d do if she said yes, because from the looks of it, Cade McGivern had it in him to focus a ferocious amount of energy toward protecting someone he cared for.

  The thought calmed her, gave her courage. Lifting her chin high, she answered, “I don’t know, Cade. I don’t know what happened. But there is no way on earth I wil
l ever forget the experience with you of bringing this child into the world. I may not know who I am, but I know that with every bit of my heart.”

  For a moment Cade didn’t speak, his golden-brown gaze keen upon her face as if himself searching for recognition in her features, as she had in her son’s. Or was he looking for something else, something beyond acknowledgement? For lurking in the back of his eyes, she detected the same yearning she’d seen before, a desperate wanting to believe.

  And she wanted to give him the assurance he could, as he’d given her, because what had happened between them was worth believing in, was worth remembering. But before she could speak, Cade pushed off from the bed, pivoting away, and her chance was gone.

  “Speakin’ of identities,” he said, “I found your coat downstairs where you left it.”

  He fetched it from where he’d laid it on the chair and thrust the coat out to her with a brief nod. “I didn’t want to go through the pockets myself, but I’m thinkin’ you might find that note in them.”

  She again caught the skepticism in his voice. Cradling her baby in the crook of her arm, Sara took the coat from him and drew it across her lap. She didn’t know why, but her hand shook as she dipped it into one pocket. Out came a pack of chewing gum and a set of car keys.

  “No note?” Cade asked.

  “Not here.” Turning the coat over, she felt inside the other pocket. Her fingers closed over something. She pulled out a folded scrap of paper.

  Opening it, she read aloud, “‘Sara—if there’s anything you should need—anything at all—contact Cade. He’ll take care of you.’”

  Relief came in a wave, washing over her. She didn’t realize until now how much she had doubted of what she knew.

  Handing the note to him, she said triumphantly, “Your name, address and phone number are listed, along with some directions from the interstate, but as I said, there’s no signature—”

  He made a strangled sound.

  “Cade?” Sara asked.

  All of her apprehension came back as she watched him study the note as if he were memorizing every pen stroke. It was the same way he’d looked at her—except she could see in that note he was finding recognition.