The Cowboy's Bonus Baby

by Tina Leonard

  “Who’s there?”

  Creed grinned to himself, reaching out with the broom for a slightly more robust jab. The intruder was scared, and clearly hadn’t yet located Creed in the dark room. Moonlight spilled through the windows, bouncing a reflection back from the bar mirror, so Creed had an excellent view of his shadowy target. “The devil,” he said. “Boo!”

  The man abandoned his pride and shot to the door. Creed stuck out the pole one last time, tripping his guest to the floor. “Not so fast, my friend,” Creed said. “You haven’t paid for your drink.”

  “Who are you?” The thief scrambled to his feet.

  “Who are you?” Creed asked. “The bar’s closed. Didn’t you see the sign?”

  “I—I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was just wetting my whistle.”

  “Do you do this often?” Creed asked. “Because I think the owners might object.”

  “They don’t care. They give me free drinks all the time.” He backed toward the window where he’d let himself in, realizing he wasn’t going to get past Creed and his broom.

  Creed put the handle out, tripping the man from behind. “Why do they give you free drinks, friend?”

  “Because I was married to Aberdeen. And I’m going to marry her again. So I have a right to be here,” he asserted, and Creed’s heart went still in his chest.

  “Are you telling the truth?”

  “I never lie,” the stranger said. “Anyway, I’m sorry I bothered you. I’ll just be leaving the way I came in now.”

  Creed flipped on the lights, curious to see the man Aberdeen was going to marry. They stared at each other, sizing up the competition. “I’ll be damned. I know you,” Creed said, “you’re that dime-store cowboy they call Re-ride.”

  “And you’re a Callahan.” Re-ride looked none too happy. “What are you doing in Aberdeen’s bar?”

  “Keeping it free of snakes.” Creed felt the interview to be most unpleasant at this point. He almost wished he’d never heard the man break in. Marry Aberdeen? Surely she wouldn’t marry this poor excuse for a cowboy.

  Then again, she’d married him before, or at least that’s what he claimed. It was something else Creed hadn’t known about her. To be honest, Creed hadn’t proven himself to be any more of a serious cowboy in Aberdeen’s eyes after his rambling night on the plank bench. Aberdeen probably thought he was just as loose as Re-ride.

  That didn’t sit too well. “Go on,” he told Re-ride. “Get out of my face. I’d beat you with this broom, but I’ve never roughed up a lady and I’m not going to start tonight. So git.”

  Re-ride looked like he was about to take exception to Creed’s comment, then thought better of it and dove out the window. Creed locked it behind him—and this time, he turned on the security system. He couldn’t risk more varmints crawling into the bar tonight—he was in too foul a mood to put up with nonsense. He put himself to bed in the guest room, feeling quite out of sorts about life in general.

  Babies, beer burglars and a one-time bride—sometimes, life just handed a cowboy lemonade with no sugar in sight.

  “I’VE LOOKED OVER THESE PAPERS with Sam,” Jonas said to Aunt Fiona, “and I think we’re selling ourselves short. Maybe.”

  His aunt looked at him. “How?”

  “We should fight it, for one thing. Not roll over for the state or Bode Jenkins. And I’m in a fighting mood. Now that I’ve sold my medical practice, I have more time to help you with things,” Jonas said. “I should have been more available for you all along.”

  Fiona looked at her oldest nephew. “It shouldn’t have necessitated your attention. Darn Bode Jenkins’s hide, anyway.”

  Jonas leaned against the kitchen counter, eyeing his small, spare aunt. She was like a protective bear overseeing her cubs, but actually, things should be the other way around. He and his brothers needed to be protecting her and Burke, now in their golden years. Fiona had tried to convince them that she was one foot from the grave, but he’d been keeping an eye on her, and he was pretty certain Fiona was working their heartstrings. She had never seemed healthier, other than an unusually low spirit for her, which he attributed to her concern about losing the ranch.

  He had decided to lift those burdens from his diminutive, sweetly busybodying aunt. “You know that land I put an offer on?”

  Fiona brightened. “Yes. East of here. How’s that coming?”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Jonas said, after a thoughtful pause. It took him a minute to get his head around the words; every day since he’d made the decision, he’d pondered the situation again and again. “I’ve withdrawn my offer.”

  Fiona’s eyes widened. “For heaven’s sakes, why?”

  “Because we’re not going anywhere,” Jonas said. “That’s how Creed feels, and I agree with him.”

  “Creed! He’s had a concussion recently,” Fiona said with a sniff. “He’s not thinking straight. Then again, when does he?”

  “I think he might be thinking straighter than all of us.” Jonas reached over and patted her shoulder. “I’m going to need all my resources, both time and money, to fight this theft of our land. I don’t regret giving up on Dark Diablo for a minute.”

  Fiona looked at him. “Dark Diablo? It sounds beautiful.”

  He thought again about the wide expanse of open land where he could run cattle and horses and have his own place. His own sign hanging over the drive, shouting to the world that this was Dark Diablo, his own spread. But Creed had said Rancho Diablo was their home, and that they should fight for it, and fight hard. They would have to be dragged off their land—instead of rolling over because things looked dark and done. “Otherwise,” Creed had said, “we’re just cowards. Runners. The family stays together,” he’d said. “Sic Sam on them.”

  Jonas’s jaw had dropped. Sam didn’t get “sicced” on anyone. Sam liked to ignore the fact that he’d gone to law school, barely broke a sweat passing the bar, and then gone on to prestigious internships, working his way up to cases that garnered him credit for being a steely defender who never failed to make his opponents cry. He’d become famous for his big persona. But only his family had noticed that with every big win to his credit, he became unhappier.

  Sam liked winning. Yet he didn’t like defending corporate cases where he knew the little guy was getting strung. And after a particularly nasty case, Sam had packed it in. Come home to Rancho Diablo to recover from big-city life. Now he mostly acted as though he hadn’t a care in the world.

  Except for Rancho Diablo.

  Jonas winced. They couldn’t sic Sam on Bode, but they could fight. “I’ve been thinking, Aunt Fiona, and I’m not so certain your marriage scheme doesn’t have some merit.”

  She radiated delight. “Do you think so?”

  He shrugged. “It wouldn’t be as easy for the state to take a property where there are families. I’m not saying that they care about us, but it certainly makes it easier to win public sympathy when folks realize what happens to us here could happen to them.”

  “Yes, but Pete doesn’t even live here with his family,” she said, her shoulders sagging. “And the rest of you are short-timers.”

  He grinned. “Are you hosting a pity party, Aunt?”

  She glared at him. “What if I am? It’s my party, and I can cr—”

  “When Creed gets back here in a few days, we’ll throw that bachelor ball you wanted.”

  “Really?” Fiona clapped her hands.

  “Sure. He needs to settle down.”

  She looked at him, suspicious. “Why him?”

  “He wants to settle down more than anyone. Haven’t you noticed? And his days of rodeoing are over, though he’ll never admit it. A woman would keep him off the road, and children would keep him busy.”

  “It’s a great plan,” Fiona said, “if you think it would work.”

  Better him than me. With Fiona busy with her usual plotting and planning, I’ll try to figure out how to undo this problem with the ranch.

  He
was going to have to take a firm hand with his aunt and Burke. They weren’t telling everything they knew. It was a riddle wrapped inside a mystery, but he agreed with Creed on one thing: It was better to fight than run.

  AFTER A COUPLE MORE BEERS to help get him over the shock of Aberdeen’s babies and the ex-husband who wanted her back, Creed decided maybe he’d be wiser to run than fight. It was three in the morning, but he couldn’t sleep, and if he didn’t quit thinking about her, he was going to end up having beer for breakfast. Creed sighed, not having any fun at all. Aberdeen tortured him, and she didn’t even know it.

  “I wouldn’t be so bothered if it wasn’t for Re-ride,” he told a small pink stuffed bear he’d found underneath the coffee table—probably the smallest damsel’s bear. He’d placed the bear on the coffee table after he’d discovered it. The bear had looked forlorn and lost without its tiny owner, so Creed had propped it on a stack of books, regarding it as he would a comforting friend. “You have to understand that the man is given to useless. Simply useless.”

  The bear made no reply but that was to be expected from stuffed pink bears, Creed told himself, and especially at this hour. And the bear was probably tired of hearing him debate his thoughts, because Creed was certainly tired of himself. Everything ran through his mind without resting, like a giant blender churning his conscience. “She’s just so pretty,” he told the bear, “I don’t see what she sees in him. It’s something she doesn’t see in me.” He considered that for a moment, and then said, “Which is really unfortunate, for me and for her. I am the better man, Bear, but then again, a woman’s heart is unexplainable. I swear it is.”

  If his brothers were here, he could talk this over with them. They wouldn’t be sympathetic, but they would clap him on the back, rib him mercilessly or perhaps offer him some advice—and at least he’d feel better. It was hard to feel bad when as an army of one trying to feel sorry for yourself, you faced an army of five refusing to let you give in to your sorrows. How many times had he and his brothers dug each other out of their foul moods, disappointments or broken hearts?

  There weren’t as many broken hearts among them as there might have been because they had each other to stall those emotions. When you knew everybody was working too hard to listen to you wheeze, you got over a lot of it on your own. But then, when it was important, you could count on a brother to clout you upside the head and tell you that you were being a candy-ass.

  He wasn’t at that point yet. “But she’s working on me, Bear.” He waved his beer at the toy. “I didn’t come here to help Johnny. It wasn’t the overwhelming reason I said yes, you know? It was her. And then, I got here, and I found out…I found out that maybe I rang my bell so hard that I didn’t really pay attention to her when I met her. I think, Bear,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper, “that I have it bad.”

  Really bad, if he was sitting here talking out his woes on a baby’s pink bear. Creed sighed, put the bottle on the table and shut his eyes so he wouldn’t look at the bear’s black button eyes anymore for sympathy he couldn’t possibly find. “Grown men don’t talk to bears,” he said, without opening his eyes, “so if you don’t mind, please cease with the chatter so I can get some shut-eye.” If he could sleep—without thinking about Aberdeen becoming a mother, a scenario that in no way seemed to have a role for him.

  ALL ABERDEEN COULD BE when the judge had heard her case was relieved. She was sad for her sister and for her nieces, but it was good to be able to have temporary legal custody of her nieces.

  “However,” the judge continued, “it’s in the best interests of the children that they remain here in Montana, where their maternal grandparents are, and paternal as well, who may be able to provide some assistance.”

  Shock hit Aberdeen. “Your Honor,” she said, “my congregation is in Wyoming. My livelihood is in Wyoming.”

  The judge looked at her sternly. “A bar isn’t much of a place for young, displaced girls to grow up. You have no house for them set apart from the establishment where there could be unsavory elements. And your congregation, as you’ve described it, is transient. None of this leads me to believe that the situation in Wyoming is more stable for the minors than it would be here, where at least the maternal grandparents can be trusted to oversee the wellbeing of the children.”

  Aberdeen glanced at Johnny. He would have to go back to Lance. She would be here alone with their parents, who would be little or no help. Tears jumped into Aberdeen’s eyes when Johnny clasped her hand. She stared at the judge and nodded her acquiescence.

  “Of course, should anything change in your circumstances, the court will be happy to reconsider the situation. Until then, a social worker will be assigned to you.” He nodded at Johnny and Aberdeen. “Best of luck to you, Miss Donovan, Mr. Donovan.”

  Aberdeen turned and walked from the court, not looking at Johnny until they’d gotten outside.

  “I expected that,” Johnny said, and Aberdeen glanced at him as they walked toward his truck. “That’s why I said I’d probably sell the bar. I was hoping it would turn out differently, but I knew Mom and Pop know the judge.”

  Aberdeen drew in a sharp breath. “Are you saying that they talked to him?”

  Johnny climbed in behind the wheel, and Aberdeen got in the passenger side. “I don’t know that they did, but I know that he would be familiar with some of our situation. To be fair, any judge hearing this type of case might have decided similarly. But I don’t think him knowing Mom and Pop hurt them.”

  “So now what?” Aberdeen asked.

  “Now we’re custodians, for the time being,” Johnny said. “I’ve got someone looking for Diane, and if they manage to make contact with her, we’ll know a little more. I’ll sell the bar, and we’ll stay here until matters get straightened out. We’re either going to be doing this for the long haul, or it could be as short a time as it takes Diane to come to her senses.”

  “You don’t have to stay here,” Aberdeen said. “I’ve taken this on gladly.”

  “We’re family. We do it together.” Johnny turned the truck toward their parents’ house.

  Aberdeen looked out the window. “I think selling the bar is too drastic, don’t you?”

  “I can think of more drastic things I don’t want to see happen.”

  Aberdeen looked at him. “I think the worst has already passed.”

  Her brother took a deep breath, seemed to consider his words. “Look, I just don’t want you even starting to think that putting a permanent relationship in your life might be the way to salvage this thing.”

  “You mean Shawn.”

  “I mean Re-ride.” Johnny nodded. “Don’t tell me it hasn’t crossed your mind. He as much admitted to me that he wouldn’t be opposed to remarrying you.”

  Aberdeen shook his head. “He mentioned it. I didn’t take him very seriously.”

  “Stability might start looking good to you after a few months of Mom and Pop interfering with your life.”

  “So you’re selling the bar to move here to protect me from myself?” Aberdeen sent her brother a sharp look. “Johnny, I’m not the same girl I was when Shawn and I got married.”

  “Look, I don’t want to see both my sisters make mistakes is all,” Johnny said. “You’re not like Diane in any way, but Diane wasn’t like this before her marriage fell apart, either.”

  Aberdeen sighed, reached over to pat Johnny’s arm. “I think you worry too much, but thanks for looking out for me. I know you do it out of love and a misguided sense of protection, which I happen to greatly appreciate.”

  Johnny smiled. “So then. Listen to big brother.”

  Aberdeen checked her cell phone for messages, then went all in. “Is that why you brought the cowboy back?”

  Johnny glanced at her. “I could pretend that I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I figured you’d suspect, so I might as well just say it doesn’t hurt to have an ace in my boot.”

  “Johnny Donovan,” Aberdeen said, “perha
ps I’ll start meddling in your life. Maybe I’ll find a string of cute girls and send them your way to tempt you into matrimony. How would you like that?”

  “I hope you do, because I’d like it very much.” Johnny grinned. “Make them tall, slender and good cooks. I do love home cooking, and women who want to cook these days are rare.”

  Aberdeen shook her head. “Creed has no interest in me. And the feeling is mutual. Besides, he wouldn’t solve my problem in any way if Diane doesn’t come back. Even if he and I got some wild notion to get married, he lives in New Mexico. I don’t know that the judge is going to let me take the girls anywhere if you really believe he’s influenced by Mom and Pop.”

  “Still, he’ll keep Re-ride busy,” Johnny predicted, “and I won’t mind that a bit.”

  “You have a darkly mischievous soul, Johnny,” Aberdeen said, but secretly, she had liked seeing Creed Callahan again. It was too bad she and Creed were as opposite as the sun and the moon.

  He could make a woman think twice about taking a walk on the very wild side.

  Chapter Eight

  Creed woke up and stretched, hearing birds singing somewhere nearby. It was different here than in Diablo. Everything was different, from the birds to the land, to the—

  The pink bear stared at him, and Creed sighed. “Okay, last night won’t happen again. You will not be hearing such yak from me again. I had my wheeze, and I’m over it.” He carried the bear down to the room where the little girls had been sleeping, and was caught by the sight of tiny dresses, shorts and shoes spread at the foot of a big bed. There were toys scattered everywhere, and even a fragile music box on the dresser top. It was like walking into fairyland, he mused, and he wondered if Aberdeen had had a room like this when she was little.

  He backed out of the room after setting the bear on the bed, decided to shower and get cheerful about the day—and there was no better way to get cheerful than to fill his stomach. That would require heading out to the nearest eating establishment, which would be a great way to see Lance. He took a fast shower, jumped into fresh jeans and a shirt, clapped his hat on his head and jerked open the bar door to take in a lungful of fresh, bracing summer air.