And Baby Makes Three

by Rebecca Winters

  “I’m further moved by Terrie Cloward’s testimony that if Mrs. Farraday hadn’t intervened on her behalf from the beginning of her stay at Girls’ Haven she would have run away, putting herself and the baby in jeopardy. Her plea that Mrs. Farraday become the adoptive mother has been duly noted.

  “I would like to say I was particularly touched by the part in Mrs. Farraday’s deposition concerning her feelings for the baby while she was in the hospital those five weeks, fighting for her life. The depositions taken from the hospital staff and the temporary foster mother, Carol Wilson, not only verify her constant devotion, they assert that the baby has bonded with Mrs. Farraday. I’m of the opinion that if it’s at all possible, that bond should not be broken.”

  He took off his glasses and leaned forward. “After weighing everything care fully, I hereby grant full custody of Bonnie Cloward to the Farradays. Let it be noted in the record that, as of today, she will bear the legal name Bonnie Farraday. Congratulations.”

  “Cole-”

  His hand squeezed hers until she felt the new wedding band she’d bought him pressing into her skin. He had a strength he wasn’t aware of, but she was so happy she didn’t care.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” they both said at the same time.

  He smiled. “Mr. Darger? If you’ll come forward, I’ll give you the signed order allowing the Farradays to pick up their daughter at the Wilson home immediately.”

  Cole crushed her against his hard body. “We did it, Catherine,” he murmured into her hair. “Little Bonnibelle is ours.”

  Catherine sobbed for joy. “If it weren’t for you-”

  “Bonnie needed both of us for this to happen.”

  A beaming Jim walked over to them, waving the order in his hand. Cole clapped him on the shoulder while still holding onto Catherine.

  “That was a brilliant piece of work you did, getting those other depositions, Jim.”

  “I told you bonding was everything with this judge.”

  She kissed the other man’s cheek. “We’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  COLE’S four-seater Cessna glided to a flawless halt at Elko Regional Airport. He flashed the pilot his thanks for a problem-free flight from Reno. With precious cargo in the seats behind them, he hadn’t wanted anything to go wrong.

  He’d called ahead to his brother, asking him to meet him and bring the suburban. “Come alone,” he’d advised him. “I’ll explain when we see each other.”

  From the co-pilot’s window he watched John get out and walk toward the plane. Since Catherine had agreed to marry him, the excitement filling Cole’s veins kept intensifying in quantum leaps. In about a minute his hatless brother was going to get the surprise of his life.

  While Catherine was busy unbuckling Bonnie’s carrycot, Cole climbed out on the hot tarmac behind the pilot.

  John spoke first. “Hey-long time no see.”

  So much had happened in the time he’d been away that Cole didn’t know himself anymore.

  “What’s up?” Though John sounded his same old self, lines of grief were still etched in the bronzed face that resembled their brother’s. It was the face of Cole’s little girl.

  “Plenty.”

  John stared at him quizzically. “You look…good. Different…” He tucked his thumbs into the side pockets of his jeans. “Mind telling me what’s been going on? The family’s starting to worry.”

  Cole sucked in his breath. “Everyone can relax. You’re looking at a married man.”

  While he left his brother standing there dumb founded, he turned to Catherine, who handed him the carrycot. Their eyes met in a private glance before he helped her to the ground with his free hand.

  Those pure blue orbs reflected anxiety. His sent her a message not to worry.

  “John?” He drew his new family toward his brother. “Meet my wife, Catherine, and our little girl.”

  His brother did a double take. Beneath his tan, his face paled from shock.

  With the advantage of surprise on his side, Cole drew the baby out of her infant seat and cradled her in his arm, being careful that the receiving blanket shielded her eyes from the rays of a blazing noonday sun.

  “Bonnibelle?” He kissed her pert nose. She’d enjoyed the flight and was awake and alert. “Say hello to your Uncle John, who’s going to love you like crazy.”

  His brother looked with wonder into her adorable face. Cole knew the second John recognized the Farraday brand, because a strange sound came out of his throat followed by a low whistle.

  In the next instant his brownish-black head reared. Awestruck hazel eyes flew from Cole to the blond vision standing next to him. They filled with male admiration before switching back to Cole again, his gaze saying it all.

  “Congratulations, you two.” John continued to stare at them. “You’re a dark horse, you know that, bro?” he growled, before breaking into a yelp of joy, erasing the grief lines noticeable a minute ago.

  The noise made the baby cry, but she settled down quickly after Cole put her against his shoulder and rubbed her back. Since they’d picked her up at the Wilsons’ a few days ago, he’d spent day and night with her.

  Between him taking cat naps on Catherine’s couch, and her in the bedroom, they’d alternated getting up with Bonnie for her feedings. Once in stalled at his house, however, their sleeping arrangements were going to change…

  They’d already achieved a certain harmony that made him sensitive to the silent entreaty Catherine had just sent him.

  He flashed his brother a glance. “Let’s get Bonnie out of the heat. Then we’ll answer all your questions.”

  In another minute John had helped them with the luggage while Cole assisted Catherine into the backseat. With a minor adjustment of the strap through the base, he put the carrycot holding Bonnie next to her. But he found it impossible to be this close to his wife without touching her.

  Since the ceremony he’d been living for the next opportunity to satisfy his increasingly growing hunger for her. Cole wasn’t above using his family to force her to play house with him. In time he would get her to respond to him when they were alone.

  At the moment his brother provided a convenient audience for him to give her unsuspecting mouth a long, deep kiss. When he eventually tore his mouth from hers, John would have to have been blind not to see the blush that swept into her face before he started up the car.

  Once out on the highway he gave Cole a furtive wink, obviously no longer wondering what his big brother had been doing away from the ranch all this time.

  Cole grinned back. They’d always been close, and for the most part could read each other’s thoughts without speaking.

  “Okay.” He relented at last, sensing his brother’s impatience for an explanation. “What do you want to know first?”

  John shook his head. He looked through the rearview mirror at Catherine. “You’re the beautiful mystery woman Janine told us about-the one who came to the house the day of Buck’s funeral.”

  Air locked in Cole’s lungs while he waited for his wife’s response.

  “I was the un wit ting intruder, yes. From the beginning Cole and I had a stormy relationship because- Well, it doesn’t matter now why. But when he asked me to marry him, I turned him down flat.”

  “That had to be a first!” John chuckled before glancing at Cole for his reaction.

  Cole nodded. “Remember last fall, when you told me I was a hard man to be around some times?”

  “Sometimes- I’ve said that to you more times than I can count, but I do recall you were particularly difficult to reach back then. I thought it had to do with the ongoing range war over grazing rights.”

  “That’s a problem that never goes away,” Cole muttered. “But the truth is, I couldn’t take it when Catherine turned me down.”

  “I-I couldn’t take it either,” came a tremulous voice from the backseat. “I loved Cole. Saying no to him turned out to be the biggest mistake of
my life. When I discovered I was pregnant, I knew I needed to tell him. But I didn’t want the pregnancy to complicate the issue between us, so I kept him in the dark as long as I could. He kept coming to Reno to see me, and I continued to say no to him, all because of my stupid pride. Ultimately he found out I was expecting. That’s when it got really bad, because I knew I’d hurt him by not telling him. In the end I realized I’d been a total fool. Unfortunately it took until last week to get up enough courage to ask him to marry me because we had a daughter who needed her daddy as much as I did.”

  Even if the story had been manufactured, the throb in her voice couldn’t be faked. It reached down inside the core of Cole’s psyche, moving him in inexplicable ways.

  “Incredible. So how did you two meet?”

  “At a resort on the north end of Lake Tahoe,” Catherine volunteered.

  She had to be thinking of the one they’d gone to earlier in the week while they’d been waiting to hear from Jim. She was doing such a superb job, Cole was happy to sit back and let it all happen.

  “One of the condos in my fourplex had a fire. I had to find a place to stay for a few days. When I went outside for a swim, your brother was doing laps in the pool. We more or less collided.”

  “It was fate,” Cole pro claimed with a satisfied smile.

  Another low whistle issued from John’s lips. “This is going to knock the family up one side of the Rubies and down the other.”

  By now they’d entered the property, and would be coming up on the lake soon.

  “It will get Penny and Rosemary off my back.”

  “No kidding.”

  “While Catherine and I settle in at my house, do us a favor and break the news to everyone? We’ll be over for dinner later.”

  His brother’s head jerked toward him. “Your place isn’t exactly set up for a baby.”

  “All we need for tonight is a crib. Tomorrow we’ll figure out everything else.”

  “I’ll bring over the one we used for Susie. It’s in the storage room somewhere.”

  Cole thumped his brother on the shoulder. “Thanks.”

  “We appreciate your coming to pick us up,” Catherine chimed in. “Cole’s told me so much about his family. I’ve been looking forward to meeting all of you.”

  “You don’t know the half of it. To be frank, our family has feared this day would never come!”

  Cole made a grunting sound. “Now that it has, better make room for more Farradays. Bonnie’s going to need a little brother or sister before long.”

  Brother or sister-

  What?

  Catherine broke out in a cold sweat.

  A “real” marriage she under stood. Cole might have been giving her time to get used to the idea, but she realized he expected they’d be sleeping together soon. If only he knew that she could hardly breathe, waiting for it to happen.

  However, another baby wasn’t something they’d ever discussed. If he was looking forward to getting her pregnant, then they needed to talk as soon as possible.

  After they’d circled the lake to the house, Cole climbed out of the suburban with Bonnie, visibly excited they were home. She could tell because that air of restlessness about him while they’d been in Reno had left him.

  While John took their things inside, Catherine hung back on the porch, ostensibly to look at the view. When he reappeared he told her he’d be back with the crib.

  She put a hand on his arm to detain him. “That’s very kind of you, John, but I’ve been thinking about it, and I’d rather your family didn’t know anything about us until we come over for dinner. We’ll get the crib then.”

  Or not.

  She trembled. It all depended on Cole’s reaction once they’d talked.

  His eyes danced. “You’re asking me to hold back that kind of news?”

  Catherine liked John a lot. No doubt she would have felt the same way about Buck.

  Her eyes implored him. “Do you mind?”

  “Nope. We are a pretty terrifying lot.” Then he grinned. “Now that Cole’s a married man, he might as well realize up-front he’s no longer the big boss around here.”

  She kissed John’s cheek. “Bless you.”

  After waving him off, she walked inside the house. There was Cole at the living room window, chatting with Bonnie while they stared out at the spectacular vista. She studied them for a minute.

  He’d bonded so completely with the baby, and she to him. If there was going to be an annulment after all, the two of them would be fine.

  Riddled with fresh pain, Catherine searched for the diaper bag among their suitcases. The sound brought Cole’s dark head around.

  “I’m pretty sure Bonnie needs changing,” she explained, uncomfortably aware he could sense she was feeling guilty about something.

  She spread the changing pad on the first piece of furniture she came to, which happened to be a brown leather couch. Cole crossed the expanse and laid the baby down without saying anything. Her nervousness in creased so much she had trouble unfastening Bonnie’s pink stretchy suit.

  “H-how did I do?” she blurted.

  “A propos to what?” came his deceptively mild query.

  “Wh-what I told John.”

  “Since I wasn’t out on the porch with the two of you, you must mean while we were in the car?”

  She moaned. “Yes.”

  “I believed your account to the point I decided we’d lived your version in a parallel universe.”

  “If John is the litmus test, do you think we passed?” She slid a fresh diaper beneath the baby.

  “What do your instincts tell you?” He answered with another question. Cole was angry. She didn’t blame him. They’d had no secrets until now.

  He stood by with the baby wipes and ointment, unaware of his physical impact on her senses. They were crying for the assuagement only he could give. But when he learned the truth, she might never know rapture with him.

  She kissed Bonnie’s tummy. “They don’t. John’s wonderful, just like you, but he’s not my brother.”

  “He was snagged when you threw out the line about you asking me to marry you. John’s aware it would take something that dramatic for me to get off my high horse and come crawling back to you. It was the part of your story that turned the corner for him.”

  Her pulse accelerated. “I’ll remember that,” she quipped, to cover her hectic emotions. “Won’t we, sweet heart?”

  When she’d finished snapping the material around the baby’s tiny feet and legs, he picked her up. “Come on, Bonnibelle. It’s time to give you and your mommy a tour of our home. This is where we’re all going to live forever.”

  There was that word again.

  She started to shake and couldn’t stop. Cole was saying that now, but when he learned what she had to tell him…

  The bachelor pad turned out to be a modern two-bedroom rambler, with two bathrooms, a den, and a great room with a wood-burning fireplace. Everything was done in a light tan color, with high ceilings and lots of bare windows giving their own close up views of the pine-tree-lined lake and the fabulous Ruby Mountains.

  A sweep of open area from front room to kitchen made it seem larger. No curtains or frills. No knickknacks. Just good, basic functional living, with the beauty of the architectural design of truss work and cutouts providing the interest.

  He’d made a concession to window coverings in both bedrooms, but he’d left the blinds open. Cole was a man who worked out in the open and obviously wanted to create that same feeling indoors.

  Catherine loved everything about it.

  Though she could see some of her things, including her favorite McKnight painting of Corfu to add color, most of them would have to stay in storage. Of necessity having a baby in the house would guarantee a lot of clutter.

  Cole had promised they’d drive to Elko to outfit the second bedroom into a nursery. For the moment it contained a twin bed and dresser, nothing more. For a niece or nephew to sleep over, perha
ps?

  At a glance it was clear he’d wanted no hint of past memories when he’d had this built. If he needed to touch base with his life before his wife died, all he had to do was sprint around the lake to the main ranch house.

  Maybe it was wrong of Catherine, but she was fiercely glad no other woman had lived here with him.

  While they finished walking around, Bonnie started making noises. “Sounds like she’s hungry. You can set your watch by her.”

  She felt Cole’s masculine chuckle resonate in every cell of her body. “Lie down in our bedroom with her. I’ll bring the diaper bag.” They still had several bottles of the prepared formula they’d brought on the plane. The rest was in an extra suitcase.

  When they entered the room, Cole must have noticed her surreptitious glance at the king-size bed. “I bought everything new when I moved in.” Meaning his wife hadn’t slept in it, in case Catherine was wondering.

  It was scary how fast he connected the dots, no matter how obscure to anyone else. But then he wouldn’t be the head of the Bonnibelle if he didn’t have that remarkable capacity necessary to run a successful cattle empire.

  Meeting Catherine had kept him away from his work a long time. Yet he hadn’t touched on the subject.

  That was because of Bonnie. She had him wrapped so tightly around her baby finger, Catherine hardly recognized him as the for bid ding security guard. One who’d been prepared to drag her from the car if she didn’t confess what she was doing there the day of Buck’s funeral.

  Driven by pain, she now under stood, and she had no doubt that man would have carried out his threat-to hell with anyone who might be watching.

  But the rugged black-haired male who’d just come back in the bedroom and laid down next to her and Bonnie bore little resemblance to the other man.

  After handing her the bottle, he propped his head with his hand to watch them through veiled eyes. The baby drank thirstily, making loud noises.

  His mouth widened in amusement. He was such a beautiful male. Catherine had to close her eyes against his over powering charisma.