by Kim Law
My readers are the best, and anytime I reach out on social media, asking for help, they always come through. For this book, there were several readers specifically that helped, so I want to dedicate this one to them.
For Montana research:
Bridget Neils
Lauren Barrows
For helping me name the babies:
Marilyn Bateman Hendry
Becky Carr
Donamae Clausen Kutska
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without the written permissions of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Kim Law
Cover Design Copyright © 2019 The Killion Group, Inc
ISBN: 978-1-950908-04-2
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
About the Author
Prologue
Four weeks earlier.
A sharp prickling sensation pinched at the base of Cord’s neck as he watched the paramedic on the other side of the road. The man had stepped back, away from the SUV. His expression didn’t seem right. It was blank.
Strangely so.
And he was doing nothing to help Cord’s mother get out of her vehicle.
Cord blinked, but the scene remained the same. His confusion grew. Then he lowered his gaze to the now-totaled sedan he’d hurried to check on and took in the pregnant woman sitting inside. She remained behind the steering wheel, seat belt removed, with a paramedic at her side. The small scratch above her eyebrow continued to dribble out a slow trickle of blood, and she also had a bruise fanning out from the base of her thumb. The airbag had caught her hand as it burst outward.
“Is she going to be okay?” Cord asked of the woman, but the man working on her didn’t answer.
The paramedic continued checking her vitals, while his partner made her way back from the ambulance with a stretcher. At the sight of the stretcher, Cord’s heart rate increased. The woman had to be okay. Hurting her hadn’t been his mother’s intention.
He looked back to the other side of the road. His mother still wasn’t out of the SUV.
And there was still no one helping her.
“Mom?” The single word was a surprise to hear, and even more of a shock to realize that he’d spoken it.
The pregnant woman looked up—she’d said her name was Bailey. She followed Cord’s gaze to the opposite side of the road. “Is your mom okay?”
Cord nodded. Of course his mom was okay. She was always okay. But no words came.
Instead, he went back to watching. The blank-faced paramedic, who remained a short distance from the SUV, had a hand lifted to the radio clipped to his shirt, his chin dipped as if speaking into the mic.
Cord swallowed.
“Go.” Bailey whispered the word, and though spoken softly, there was insistence behind it.
Cord looked at her again.
“I’m fine.” She assured him with a nod, and as the paramedic stepped back, a faint smile touched her lips. She laid a hand over her belly. “We’re both fine. Go check on your mom.”
His mother was fine, too, he wanted to tell her. She’d been complaining about not being able to get the seat belt to unlock before he’d left her side. She’d yelled at him because he wouldn’t get her purse off the passenger side floor so she could “fix herself” before anyone arrived.
The airbag had deployed when her car had careened into the tree, and not only had it left her covered with a fine layer of dust, but it had given her a bloody nose, as well. He’d come upon the wreck only moments after it happened.
“Go,” the woman said again.
“She’s fine,” Cord managed, but without realizing he intended to move, his feet started toward the asphalt. The responding police officers had stopped traffic on the two-lane road—just a mile from the Wilde family home—and Cord turned his head as he reached the double yellow lines painted down the middle. A tow truck rolled slowly toward him, the driver having shifted the rig to the opposite side of the road in order to get around the line of stopped cars. The sheriff’s vehicle, blue lights silently flashing, passed the truck on the shoulder. Cord’s feet kept moving.
Neither the paramedic that had first attended to his mother nor the man’s partner looked his way as he neared. Nor did they look at his mother.
“Mom.” He said the word again, and this time when he spoke, the deputy who’d been first on scene stepped toward him.
The deputy held out a hand as if to ward off Cord’s forward movement. “You’re one of Mrs. Wilde’s sons, right? Cord, is it?”
Birch Bay was a small town, and everyone knew of his family. “Yes.”
“Son—”
Cord held up his own hand, stopping the officer from saying anything more, and shrugged away from the man’s touch. The sheriff’s car pulled to a stop at Cord’s side.
“Cord?” the sheriff called as he stepped from the cruiser.
Cord kept walking.
“You need to stay back.”
Cord heard the words, as well as the sound of the sheriff’s feet hurrying through the gravel that edged the side of the road, and once again, when a hand landed on his arm, he shrugged it away. He did not need to stay back. This was what they did. His mother had an “accident,” planned it so he’d be the one to find her, and he showed up to help. Just as he’d done that time.
He’d been right there. Talking to her. She’d been fine.
As his feet closed in on the still-open door, his determination somehow keeping the sheriff and his deputy at bay—or maybe he’d just blocked out anything else they might be saying—his eyes roamed over the exterior of the dark-red Suburban. The vehicle could fit all five of his siblings, along with him and his parents at the same time. It was the family vehicle his mother had been so insistent on having. The one she loved to show off around town.
It was also the vehicle where most times when she drove it, she did so alone. None of them wanted to be around her.
Cord finally reached the door, his vision zeroing in, blocking out everything else going on. He leaned in to ask his mother why she hadn’t gotten out of the car. Only, it was no longer his mother inside the vehicle.
Chapter One
Cord shifted the truck into a lower gear, making sure he didn’t get too close to the edge of the road, and he kept his eyes focused on the beams of his headlights. The light slashed through the dark night and the falling snow. He had no idea why he’d agreed to come. Thanksgiving had been the day before. If he’d wanted to be around his family, that’s when he should have done it. Not the day after Thanksgiving when over three feet of snow was in the forecast.
He’d been going stir-crazy back in Billings, though. His partners had kicked him out of the medical practice the week before and refused to let h
im return. At least, not for another week. They’d insisted he needed time off—preferably with counseling. Only, he didn’t need time off. Nor did he need counseling. And the very idea infuriated him.
He was an excellent doctor. With him not being in the office, it was his patients who would pay the price. His patients who wouldn’t get to see the doctor they’d grown to trust and rely upon. All because of a few bad dreams that had the misfortune of keeping him awake a little too often.
Irritation swelled. The other partners had no right to insist he take a vacation. They’d overstepped. However, with Cord being the least senior partner—and since there were a couple of other general practitioners in the practice—he’d reluctantly agreed. But he hadn’t agreed on counseling.
He gripped the wheel as his tires temporarily caught nothing but snow and kept the truck going. His brother Nate had called the night before, worried about their dad, so Cord had agreed to come home. And since he had the time off, he figured he might as well stay for the week. No need to hurry back to nothing. He’d hole up in one of the cabins on his family’s property and check in on their dad first thing in the morning. And while in town, he’d also lay eyes on his very-pregnant sister and two pregnant sisters-in-law, one of which was expecting twins and all of which were due in the coming month. Then the rest of the week? He scowled. He’d do nothing. Exactly as he’d been doing at his place.
He rounded the last curve before the straight stretch that would lead to the family property, and as he’d done for the last sixteen years, he kept his gaze trained away from the tree where his mother had died. Continuing down the road, he’d barely come out of the curve when another set of headlights broke through the blizzard-like conditions. Only, their path didn’t run horizontal to the road. They shot up toward the trees.
Quickly pulling to a stop, his snow tires sliding more than what made him comfortable, he cut the engine. The sedan was off the opposite side of the road, its back end buried in the ditch. He grabbed his jacket from the seat beside him and while shrugging into it, ducked his head against the wind and hurried to the car. Once there, he could make out a woman behind the wheel. Relief passed through him as he saw her thumbs moving over the glowing screen of a phone.
“Are you okay?” Cord called through the howling wind.
He clenched his hands against the cold as the woman continued tapping on her phone, and he wished he hadn’t forgotten to grab his gloves and hat.
“Ma’am?” He rapped on the window with his knuckles.
The woman jerked in surprise, her shocked face whipping around to his—and then she frowned.
Crap. He knew her.
“Open your window.” He motioned for her to do just that, hoping she didn’t take the moment to ignore him as he’d ignored her a few months earlier.
Her window opened one inch. “I’m fine.” She spoke through the narrow crack, her iced-over voice and hard eyes letting him know that she’d have preferred anyone come along to help her out other than him. Then the glass once again slid up.
Cord sighed. There was nothing more fun than a stubborn woman.
Unless it was a stubborn woman whom he’d had a mind-blowing weekend with—who’d then repeatedly called, obviously hoping there could be more to their time together.
He’d told her up front there couldn’t be, though. And he wouldn’t apologize for that.
She might be annoyed with him, but that didn’t mean he’d leave her sitting in the snow on the side of the road. Especially since in the past, cell service could be flaky on this part of the highway, even without a major storm rolling through. “Is your phone working?” He held his now-very-cold hand up to his ear as if talking on a phone, then pointed to her hand.
She looked from him down at her cell which had gone dark. Then she ignored him.
“Come on, Maggie.” He thumped his fist against the glass. Frustration mingled with the freezing temperatures and had him glaring down at her when she looked back up.
She glared back.
“Is it working?” he gritted out, once again jabbing his finger in the direction of her phone.
The phone screen lit up then, highlighting the mutinous expression on her face, and she pressed the screen of the cell up to the window. Multiple texts showed as having failed to send, and there were no bars on her signal. He sighed again. Then he tugged at her door handle.
Surprisingly, the door opened.
“Hey!” she shouted as snow fell in from the crease of the door. She leaned back to avoid it dumping on her.
“Come with me,” he growled. He positioned himself against the door, bracing a leg on the edge of the ditch, and held out a hand to help her. The car sat at such an odd angle that she could easily fall simply trying to step out. “I’ll take you up to the house and you can call someone there,” he told her.
“I don’t want to go to your house.”
He kept his arm outstretched, his thin grip on his anger threatening to slip. “Good thing it’s not my house then.” Nor would it be the family house soon. It was currently nearing the end of renovations that would turn the home he’d grown up in into a lodge. Afterward, he and his family would spend one last Christmas there, then Nate and his wife Megan would begin renting it out to tourists.
“Well, I don’t want to go with you, period,” Maggie said. She remained stubbornly in the driver’s seat of the car, her arms wrapped around what appeared to be a blanket bundled in her lap, and she stared straight ahead.
He wanted to slam the door and walk away. He didn’t need any more hassles in his life right now, not even of the temporary kind. But after what happened a month ago, even if he were the type to walk away from a woman in a snowstorm, he wouldn’t do it.
He’d never walk away again.
“I’m not leaving you out here in these conditions, Maggie. So quit being stubborn.”
Her head whipped around again, and she repeated her insistence that she was fine. “I’ll call my brother when the signal comes back.”
He was freezing his ass off out there. “Doesn’t your brother live an hour away?”
“It’s only forty-five minutes,” she informed him. “And he’ll come get me.”
“I’m sure he will. In the meantime, you’ll freeze to death trying to get through to him.” Tired of the delay, he leaned in so that his face was only inches from hers. “I’m sorry I never returned your call, Maggie. That was a shit thing for me to do, especially after saying I would. But can you please ignore that one injustice for the moment so we can both get out of here and to somewhere where there’s heat?”
She scrutinized him again, as if trying to decide if her life was worth the risk, but he didn’t back off. He would not leave her sitting out there, so all she was accomplishing was wasting both their time.
“Mags . . .”
“Fine,” she snapped, and he’d swear he felt a flame of fire burst out of her. “But I’m calling my brother just as soon as I can.”
“By all means.”
She grabbed her purse from the passenger seat, looping it over her left wrist, then she suddenly slowed, taking her time to drag a cream-colored knit hat down over her hair. Next, she pulled on thick gloves that matched the hat and checked her reflection as she tucked flyaway strands of hair up underneath the brim. And when she finally turned his way again, her annoyance as clear as the “innocent” look she’d plastered on her face, he couldn’t keep the snarl out of his voice.
“About ready?” he asked. She had to know he was freezing out there. So much snow had landed on his head he could feel the wetness seeping into his skull, not to mention inching its way under the back collar of his jacket. Yet she seemed to have zero concern for him.
She smiled brightly. “Not quite.”
Her smile disappeared, and her dark eyes bore into his as she reached inside the collar of her thick coat and pulled out the ends of a scarf. She took extra time twining the length of it around her neck and covering the bottom half of her face�
��checking her appearance in the rearview once again—then she finally took her purse back into her right hand and held out her left to him.
She looked like the Michelin Man who mistakenly thought he was a princess as she sat there bundled from head to toe with one hand primly held out as if waiting for him to kiss it.
“Now?” he asked instead of taking the proffered hand.
Her eyes burned hot. “Please.”
He leaned in long enough to punch the start button that she hadn’t thought to turn off, then just to be annoying, he subtly dipped his head as he went to step back. He didn’t let himself smile at the high-pitched squeak as the snow that had been in his hair landed on her.
He helped her out of the seat, needing both hands to assist her in maneuvering, and as he noted how awkward it was for her to find her footing, he frowned. Had something happened since he’d last seen her? Once they’d managed to clear the ditch and stand on the side of the road, though, a very important detail finally registered.
That hadn’t been a bundled blanket in her lap at all. She was pregnant.
Maggie Crowder didn’t look at Cord as she picked her way through the snow and toward the man’s truck. She didn’t want to see the look on his face now that he had to have figured out she was pregnant. And not just pregnant, but enormously so. With his baby. Why the heck couldn’t he have returned a phone call six months earlier? Or five months ago when she’d tried a second time? He’d texted back that time, at least, and said he’d call. But he never had.
The entire thing exasperated her. His ego, for one—no doubt he’d assumed she’d just been reaching out because she wanted to hook up again. She was also frustrated with the fact that she now had to go into this discussion in the middle of a snowstorm, when she wasn’t exactly at her best. And then there was the matter that when he’d first seen it was her in the car, he’d looked as annoyed as she’d been. What had that been about? He wasn’t the one who should be annoyed.