The doctor who’d been on duty that night had mistaken him for the baby’s father and started to pull him into the delivery room. He’d been very quick to demur, telling the doctor that he was just a friend who’d volunteered to drive Kasey here.
He’d almost made it to the waiting area, but then Kasey had grabbed his hand, bringing his escape to a grinding haul.
On the gurney, about to be wheeled into the delivery room, Kasey had looked at him with panic in her eyes. “Eli, please. I’ll feel better if you’re there. I need a friend,” she’d pleaded. Her own doctor was out of town. With Hollis not there, she felt totally alone. “Please,” she repeated, her fingers tightening around his hand.
The next moment he’d felt as if his hand had gotten caught in a vise. Kasey was squeezing it so hard, she’d practically caused tears to spring up in his eyes. Tears of pain.
Kasey might have appeared a fragile little thing, despite her pregnant stomach, but she had a grip like a man who wrestled steers for a living.
Despite that, it wasn’t her grip that had kept him there. It was the look of fear he’d seen in her eyes.
And just like that, Eli had found himself recruited, a reluctant spectator at the greatest show in town: the miracle of birth.
He’d taken a position behind Kasey, gently propping her up by her shoulders and holding her steady each time she bore down and pushed.
The guttural screams that emerged from her sounded as if they were coming from the bottom of her toes and he freely admitted, if only to himself, that they were fraying his nerves.
And then, just as he was about to ask the doctor if there wasn’t something that could be done for Kasey to separate her from all this pain, there he was. The miracle. Forever’s newest little citizen. Born with a wide-eyed look on his face, as if he couldn’t believe where he had wound up once he left his nice, safe, warm little haven.
Right now, the three-day-old infant lay all bundled up in a hospital bassinet on the other side of Kasey’s bed. He was sound asleep, his small, pink little lips rooting. Which meant he’d be waking up soon. And hungry.
Eli took all this in as he cast around for the right way to tell Kasey what he had to say. But he hadn’t been able to come up with anything during the entire fifty-mile trip here, despite all his best efforts. Consequently there was no reason to believe that something magical would pop up into his brain now as he stood in Kasey’s presence.
Especially when she usually had such a numbing effect on him, causing all thought to float out of his head, unfettered. It had been like that since kindergarten.
So, with no fancily wrapped version of a lie, no plausible story or excuse to offer her, Eli had nothing to fall back on except for the truth.
And the truth was what he offered her, hating that it was going to hurt.
“No, he’s not coming,” he confirmed quietly. “Hollis asked me to pick you up because he said that the hospital was discharging you today.” He offered her a smile. “Guess that means that you and the little guy passed the hospital’s inspection.”
His attempt at humor fell flat, as he knew it would. He hated that she had to go through this, that Hollis had never proven worthy of the love she bore him.
His attention was drawn to the sleeping infant in the bassinet. He lowered his voice so as not to wake Wayne. “Hey, is it my imagination, or did he grow a little since I last saw him?”
“Maybe.” Kasey struggled not to give in to despair, or bitterness. She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
It was clear that she was upset and struggling not to let her imagination take off.
But it did anyway.
Still, Kasey tried to beat it back, to deny what she felt in her soul was the truth. Her last sliver of optimism had her asking Eli, “Is he going to be waiting for us at the ranch?”
Dammit, Hollis, I should have taken a horsewhip to you instead of just let you walk out like that. You’re hurting her. Hurting the only decent thing in your life. She deserves better than this. Better than you, he thought angrily.
It hurt him almost as much to say it as he knew it hurt her to hear it. “No, Hollis isn’t going to be there.”
Suspicion entered eyes as blue as the sky on a summer’s day, momentarily blocking out her fear. “Why? Why are you so sure?” she asked, struggling to keep angry tears from falling.
When Hollis had come to see her, not on the first day, but on the second, he’d been full of apologies and even more full of promises about changing, about finally growing up and taking responsibility for his growing family. All right, he hadn’t held Wayne, hadn’t even picked him up when she’d tried to put the baby into his arms, but she told herself that was just because he was afraid he’d drop the baby. That was a normal reaction, she’d silently argued. First-time fathers had visions of their babies slipping right out of their arms and onto their heads.
But he’d come around, she’d promised herself. Hollis would come around. It would just take a little time, that was all.
Except now it seemed as if he wasn’t going to come around. Ever.
She felt sick.
“Why?” she repeated more sharply. “Why are you so sure?”
He didn’t want to say this, but she gave him no choice. He wasn’t good at coming up with excuses—with lies—on the spur of the moment. Not like Hollis.
“Because he came by at two this morning and asked me to look after you and the baby.”
“All right,” she said slowly, picking her way through the words as if she were navigating a potential minefield that could blow her apart at any second. “Nothing he hasn’t said before, right?” Her voice sped up with every word. “He’s just probably got a job waiting for him in another town. But once that’s over, he’ll be back.” A touch of desperation entered her voice. “He’s got a son now, Eli. He can’t walk out on both of us, right?” Her eyes searched his face for a confirmation. A confirmation she was silently begging for.
More than anything in the world, Eli wanted to tell her what she wanted to hear. That she was right. That Hollis had just gone away temporarily.
But he couldn’t lie, not to her. Not anymore.
And he was tired of covering for Hollis. Tired of trying to protect Kasey from Hollis’s lies and his infidelities. Tired most of all because he knew that he would be lumped in with Hollis when her anger finally unleashed.
He looked at her for a long moment, hoped that she would find it in her heart to someday forgive him, and said, “I don’t think that he’s coming back this time, Kasey.”
She didn’t want to cry, she didn’t. But she could feel the moisture building in her eyes. “Not even for the baby?”
The baby’s the reason he finally took off, Eli told her silently.
Rather than say that out loud and wound her even more deeply, Eli placed his hands very lightly on her slender shoulders, as if that would somehow help soften the blow, and said, “He said he was taking off. That he wasn’t any good for you. That he didn’t deserve to have someone like you and Wayne in his life.”
Yes, those were lies, too. He knew that. But these were lies meant to comfort her, to give her a little solace and help her preserve the memory of the man Kasey thought she’d married instead of the man she actually had married.
“‘Taking off,’” she repeated. Because of her resistance, it took a moment for the words to sink in. “Where’s he going?”
Eli shook his head. Here, at least, he didn’t have to get creative. He told her the truth. “He didn’t tell me.”
She didn’t understand. It didn’t make any sense to her. “But the ranch—with Hollis gone, who’s going to run the ranch?” She was still trying to recover from the delivery. “I’m not sure if I can manage that yet.” She looked back at the bassinet. “Not if I have to take care of—”
This felt like cruelty above and beyond the norm, Eli couldn’t help thinking, damning Hollis to hell again. “You’re not going to have to run the ranch,” he told her quietly.
>
Because this was Eli, she misunderstood what he was saying and jumped to the wrong conclusion. “Eli, I can’t ask you to run the ranch for me. You’ve got your own spread to run. And when you’re not there, I know that you and your brothers and Alma help your dad to run his. Taking on mine, as well, until I get stronger, would be too much for you.”
He stopped her before this got out of hand. “You’re not asking,” he pointed out. “And I’d do it in a heartbeat—if there was a ranch to run.”
“If there was…” Her voice trailed off, quaking, as she stared up at him. “I don’t understand.”
He might as well tell her all of it, this way he would pull the Band-Aid off all at once, hopefully minimizing the overall pain involved. As it was, he had a feeling that this would hurt like hell.
Eli measured out the words slowly. “Hollis lost the ranch in a card game.”
“He…lost the ranch?” she repeated in absolute disbelief.
Eli nodded. “In a card game.”
It wasn’t a joke. She could see it in Eli’s face. He was telling her the truth. She was stunned.
“But that was our home,” she protested, looking at Eli with utter confusion in her eyes. “How could he? How could he?” she repeated, a note of mounting anger in her voice.
Good, she was angry, he thought. Anger would keep her from slipping into a depression.
“Gambling is an addiction,” Eli told her gently. “Hollis can’t help himself. If he could, he would have never put the ranch up as collateral.” Hollis had had a problem with all forms of gambling ever since he’d placed his first bet when he was seventeen and lied about his age.
Stricken, her knees unsteady, Kasey sank back down on the bed again.
“Where am I going to go?” she asked, her voice small and hollow.
The baby made a noise, as if he was about to wake up. Her head turned sharply in his direction. For a moment, embalmed in grief, she’d forgotten about him. Now, having aged a great deal in the past ten minutes, she struggled to pull herself together.
“Where are we going to go?” she amended.
It wasn’t just her anymore. She was now part of a duo. Everything that came her way, she had to consider in the light that she was now a mother. Things didn’t just affect her anymore, they affected Wayne as well. Taking care of her son was now the most important thing in her life.
And she couldn’t do it.
She had a little bit put aside, but it wasn’t much. She had next to no money, no job and nowhere to live.
Her very heart hurt.
How could you, Hollis? How could you just walk out on us like this? The question echoed over and over in her head. There was no answer.
She wanted to scream it out loud, scream it so loud that wherever Hollis was, he’d hear her. And tell her what she was supposed to do.
Taking a shaky breath, Kasey tried to center herself so that she could think.
Her efforts all but blocked everything else out. So much so that she didn’t hear Eli the first time he said something to her. The sound of his voice registered, but not his words.
She looked at him quizzically, confusion and despair playing tug-of-war for her soul. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
He had a feeling she hadn’t heard when she didn’t answer or comment on what he’d just said.
This time, he repeated it more slowly. “I said, you and the baby can stay with me until we figure things out.”
Eli wasn’t making an offer or a generous gesture. He said it like it was a given. Already decided, Kasey thought. But despite his very generous soul, she wasn’t his problem. She would have to figure this out and deal with it on her own.
As if reading her mind, Eli said, “Right now, you’re still a little weak from giving birth,” he reminded her. “Give yourself a few days to recover, to rest. You don’t have to make any decisions right away if you don’t want to. And I meant what I said. You’re coming home with me. You and Wayne are going to have a roof over your heads for as long as you need. For as long as this takes for you to come to terms with—and that’s the end of it,” he concluded.
Or thought he did.
“We can’t stay with you indefinitely, Eli,” Kasey argued.
“We’re not talking about indefinitely,” he pointed out. “We’re talking about one day at a time. I’m just asking you to give yourself a little time to think things through,” he stressed. “So you don’t make decisions you’d rather not because the wolf’s at the door.”
“But he is,” she said quietly. That was the state of affairs she faced.
“No, he’s not. I shot the wolf,” he told her whimsically. “Now, are you all packed?” It was a needless question, he knew she was. He’d found her sitting on her bed, the closed suitcase resting on the floor beside her foot. Rather than answer, she nodded. “Good. I’ll go find the nurse. They said hospital policy is to escort you out in a wheelchair.”
“I don’t need a wheelchair,” she protested. “I can walk.”
“Make them happy, Kasey. Let them push the wheelchair to the front entrance,” he coaxed.
Giving in, she beckoned him over to her before he went off in search of the nurse. When he leaned in to her, she lightly caressed his cheek. “You’re a good man, Eli. What would I do without you?”
He, for one, was glad that she didn’t have to find out. And that he didn’t have to find out, either, for that matter.
“You’d manage, Kasey. You’d manage.” She was resilient and she’d find a way to forge on. He had no doubts about that.
He might not have any doubts, but she did.
“Not very well,” she said in a whisper meant more for her than for him. Eli had already gone out to notify a nurse that she was ready.
Even though she really wasn’t ready, Kasey thought, fighting a wave of panic. She did what she could to tamp it down. She wasn’t ready to face being a mother all by herself. This wasn’t how she’d pictured her life at this very crucial point.
A tear slid down her cheek.
Frustrated, Kasey brushed it aside. But another one only came to take its place, silently bearing testimony to the sadness within her.
The sadness that threatened to swallow her up whole, without leaving a trace.
Chapter Two
Kasey thought she was seeing things when Eli brought his vehicle to the front of the hospital and she caught a glimpse of what was in the backseat. She could feel the corners of her eyes stinging.
Leave it to Eli.
“You bought him an infant seat.” Her voice hitched and she pressed her lips together, afraid that a sob might suddenly break free and betray just how fragile her emotions were right now.
Eli nodded as he got out of the Jeep and hurried around the hood of his vehicle to her side. The nurse who had brought the wheelchair had pushed Kasey and the baby right up to the curb and stood behind them, waiting for Kasey and her son to get into the vehicle.
Was Kasey upset, or were those happy tears shimmering in her eyes? Eli couldn’t tell. Even though he’d grown up with Alma, he’d come to the conclusion that all women should come with some kind of a manual or at least a road map to give a guy a clue so he could properly navigate a course.
“I got the last one at the Emporium,” he told her. “I know that Rick would cut me some slack if I took the baby home without a car seat, given the circumstances,” he said, referring to the sheriff. “It’s not like there’s a whole lot of traffic around here. But I thought you’d feel safer if Wayne was strapped into his own infant seat when he’s traveling.”
“I do,” she said with feeling, her voice just barely above a whisper as she struggled to keep the tears back. What might have seemed like a small act of kindness to a casual observer threatened to completely undo her. “Thank you.”
Never comfortable with being on the receiving end of gratitude, Eli merely shrugged away her thanks.
He looked down at the sleeping infant in her arms. It almost seemed
a shame to disturb him, he seemed so peaceful. But they did have to get going.
While he was fairly adept at holding an infant, strapping one into an infant seat was something else. Eli looked from Wayne to the infant seat in the rear of the Jeep and then slanted a glance toward the nurse. He didn’t like admitting to being helpless, but there was a time to put pride aside and own up to a situation.
“Um…” Eli dragged the single sound out, as if, if he continued debating long enough, a solution would occur to him.
The nurse, however, was in a hurry.
“If you open the door—” the young woman pointed to the side closest to the infant seat “—I’ll strap your little guy into his seat for you,” she offered.
Relieved, Eli immediately swung the rear door open for the nurse. “I’d really appreciate that. Thanks,” he told her heartily.
“Nothing to it.” With a nod in his direction, the nurse turned her attention to the baby in her patient’s arms. “If you’re lucky,” she said to Kasey as she eased the infant from her arms, “he’ll just sleep right through this.”
Cooing softly to the baby that Kasey had just released, the nurse leaned into the Jeep’s backseat and very deftly strapped Wayne Eli Stonestreet in for his very first car ride. Eli moved closer, watching her every move intently and memorizing them.
“You’re all set,” the young woman announced, stepping back onto the curb and behind the wheelchair. She took hold of the two handlebars in the back. “Time to get you into your seat, too,” she told Kasey.
Eli offered Kasey his hand as she began to stand. Feeling slightly wobbly on her feet, Kasey flushed. “I didn’t think I was going to feel this weak,” she protested, annoyed. “After all, it’s been three days. I should be stronger by now.”
“You will be,” Eli assured her. Getting her into the front passenger seat, he paused to thank the nurse again. The latter, holding on to the back of the wheelchair, was all set to leave. Eli flashed her a grateful smile. “Thanks for your help with the baby. I figure it’s going to take me a while before I get good at all this.”
A Baby on the Ranch: A Baby on the RanchRamona and the Renegade Page 2