That's My Baby!

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  “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.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  JESSICA 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 conce
pt 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’.”

  As Travis left the kitchen carrying a smiling Elizabeth, Jessica gazed after them in frustration. How long before the baby held up her pudgy little arms to her mother?

  NAT WONDERED if he’d ever be able to be as relaxed and charming as Travis was with Elizabeth. Probably not. Ah, but he ached to be. He’d expected to be afraid of the baby, and he was, to some degree. But fascination was quickly overtaking his fear. And he was developing a hunger to hold the little girl and see if he could coax a dimpled smile from her.

  “I think Jessica and I made progress with Elizabeth while you three were gone,” Matty said. She handed her husband a mug of coffee and poured another, which she gave to Nat.

  Sebastian blew across the top of his mug. “Yeah? What did you do?”

  “It was Matty’s idea.” Jess murmured her thanks as she took the coffee Matty poured and held out to her. “She suggested I sing to Elizabeth, thinking she might remember the song and start getting used t
o me again.” She took a sip of coffee. “I think it helped.”

  “Great idea.” Nat figured he was the only one who noticed Jess’s slight grimace as she drank the coffee. She would have preferred herbal tea, but under the circumstances, she probably didn’t want to ask if there was anything like that in the house. He wished he could have been here to watch her sing to Elizabeth. That would have been a scene to add to his memories.

  Damn, but Jess looked good in her T-shirt and jeans. He would love to be able to go over and sling an arm around her shoulders the way Sebastian felt free to do with Matty.

  But he didn’t dare. She probably wouldn’t appreciate him making such a gesture in front of Matty and Sebastian, and he might lose whatever ground he’d gained earlier that morning in the bathroom. Despite her rejection, he’d been encouraged by the look in her eyes. He still saw a little of that fire now whenever she glanced his way.

  “Having you sing to her is a great idea,” Sebastian agreed. “But shouldn’t you keep that kind of thing up?”

  “You want her to go around singing all day?” Matty asked.

  “No, although there’s nothing wrong with that, either. I meant the contact with Elizabeth.” He looked over at Jess. “You could go in and help Travis change her. Then she might start getting the idea that you’ll be around all the time, and eventually you could try doing the job and she might not think anything of it.”

  “You’re right.” Immediately she set her coffee down on the counter and turned toward Nat. “Do you want to—”

  “Let’s not have a convention in there,” he said, although he wouldn’t have minded going. He wanted an excuse to follow Jess around like a puppy, to breathe in her scent and watch the way the light played in her red curls. “Too many of us might overwhelm her.”

  “He has a point,” Matty said. “We’ll work him into the rotation later.”

  “For sure.” When Jess glanced at him this time, there was no mistaking the look in her eyes.

  His pulse accelerated. Oh, for a few minutes alone with her. But it wouldn’t be anytime soon. With a flicker of a smile, she left the kitchen, taking his heart with her.