Love and Protect

by Lori Ryan

  Laura loosened up a bit. “It was really bad up until two weeks ago. That, and the exhaustion. I’m feeling better now.”

  The answer seemed to satisfy John, who had moved on to Cade’s burger, taking half for himself despite Cade’s raised brow. Cade relaxed enough to pick up the other half and begin to eat, but he wondered what John planned to do now that he seemed to be finished asking questions. The whole diner seemed to be waiting for his verdict.

  John wiped his mouth on a napkin and stood. “Well, it seems to me you’re of sound mind, despite the reports on the news, Laura. You don’t seem to be any danger to yourself or your baby, and you don’t seem to be here against your will. I have to report that I spoke with you, but as far as I’m concerned,” John raised one hand toward Cade, who was halfway out of his seat at the mention of reporting Laura’s presence in town. “I don’t see any reason I have to give them any more information than that. I pulled you over. After speaking with you, it was clear you were of sound mind and body and no harm to yourself or others. You were simply a widow passing through on her way out of town. Last I saw, you were headed toward Dallas to catch a flight. Heck if I know where you were going after that.”

  A woman with two teenagers at her table spoke up. “She stayed a few days at my bed and breakfast, sheriff. Lovely woman, that Laura Kensington. I think she was on her way to New York City to visit a friend.”

  “I heard it was California. Said she wanted to see the west coast,” Holland spoke up again. Others murmured rumored sightings and hints of a trip to Arkansas.

  Laura and May smiled.

  “Well then, Laura. It was very nice to meet you. I’ll see you when Cade decides he’s forgiven me, and I’m invited back out to the ranch for Sunday dinner sometime.”

  Over Cade’s grumbling, May chimed in. “Anytime, John. You’re welcome anytime you want to join us.”

  “Come on, John. I’ll walk you out. I want to run over to Jansen’s and put in a special order for a few things at the ranch,” Cade said and turned to Laura and May. “I’ll meet you back here in fifteen minutes.”

  “What are you getting for the ranch, Cade?” May asked.

  “A greenhouse. A big, giant, commercial-sized greenhouse,” he said grinning and shooting a wink to a shocked-silent Laura.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Mark shoved his chair back from his desk in the cramped, single-room office. He looked up at Paul, who sat at the desk across from him.

  “Well, so far there’s Everman, Evadale, Everwood, and Evers,” he said, tossing his pen down on the desk.

  Paul shook his head. “That’s a lot of ground to cover when we don’t even know if the doctor knows where Laura is. Maybe we should check with Alec to see if he wants to spend that kind of money to hunt down a lead that’s thin, at best.”

  Mark raised his hands. “Not it. I called him with the last bad news. Your turn, pal.”

  Paul uttered a curse but picked up the phone to make the call. Neither of them liked dealing with Alec Hall. Dealing with that man was more dangerous than sleeping with a venomous snake in your bed, but he paid good money. A lot of it.

  While Paul talked to Alec, Mark began to narrow down the search. He looked up each town, trying to decide if any could be ruled out. Two of the towns didn’t have a website, and the others’ sites didn’t give any clue as to whether it would be the kind of area that would have a ranch in or near it. All of them looked to be far enough away from the larger cities that a ranch was a possibility. So far, he wasn’t having any luck narrowing down their choices.

  Paul put his phone down. “Wants us to check them all out. Every one of them.”

  Mark groaned without taking his eyes off his computer screen. He opened a new window and began to buy plane tickets to Austin, Texas.

  “I’ll get tickets. You book a rental car. We’ll fly into Austin and work our way across the state. Let’s start with Everman and Everwood. Those seem closest to what Pollyanna remembered. Evadale is Eva not Ever, but she could have gotten mixed up and if it was Evers, it seems like she would have remembered that and not thought it was Ever-something.”

  Paul’s raised eyebrows said he didn’t believe Pollyanna was capable of that level of thought any more than Mark did.

  *

  Cade watched Laura laugh with his friends, and couldn’t believe how much she’d changed since she’d come to the ranch. As they sat at a corner table at Pies and Pints, he thought about how much more relaxed she’d been since the day they went into town. It seemed as though a wall had come tumbling down after Laura saw the support the town gave her. Even Cade had found himself forgetting there was anything unusual about her situation.

  Well, except for the fact that she was drinking club soda because of the baby she was carrying when everyone else was sharing a pitcher of beer over their pizza. No one seemed to mind. Alice and Stacey, two women who hung out in the group of friends that Cade and Shane generally saw a few weekends a month, had asked Laura a bit about her plans for the baby when they first arrived. Baby names and plans for a nursery and so on.

  Laura had ducked out of those questions tactfully. Cade knew she still wasn’t ready to commit to staying, much less painting the room May kept pushing on her as the nursery. But, he thought she was getting closer. She’d visited the clinic and seen the midwife for a checkup after being assured she wouldn’t have to show ID to anyone, or use her real name if she preferred not to have it recorded.

  Watching her now, Laura was animated and happier looking than he’d ever seen her as she listened to Stacey’s boyfriend, Grant, tell a story about Cade and Shane’s propensity for cow tipping when they were younger. She turned wide eyes on him.

  “You went cow tipping? I can’t believe you would do that!”

  Cade winced. “We were young and stupid and completely convinced we could get away with it. When Dad found out, he sent us over to that farm to muck stalls and clean water troughs and do all the dirtiest chores they could think of for a month. Needless to say, it’s not something I’d do nowadays. Scares the poor cows half to death,” he finished with a cringe.

  “Doesn’t stop teenagers from doing it now any more than when you did it back then,” came John Davies’ voice behind him.

  Cade swiveled in the booth to see his friend watching him and Laura warily. “Am I forgiven for grilling Laura yet, or do I need to find somewhere else to sit?”

  Laura stuck her tongue out at Cade before she answered for him, and Cade was torn between being relieved to see her so playful, and being distracted by thoughts of what that tongue could do. He shifted in his seat and tried to banish the images from his mind, but it was no use. Those images were seared in. Hell.

  Cade couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy as Laura turned a smile toward John. “You’re absolutely forgiven for doing your job, sheriff. I know you couldn’t just pretend you didn’t see me.”

  Now Cade felt a lot more than a twinge. Why was she smiling at him so sweetly? And when had she become so danged confident? Cade knew women considered John attractive. John had more than enough single women—and even some married ones—throwing themselves at him. When he first moved to town years ago, the police station had received a fair number of calls at the station that weren’t really emergencies. They were thinly veiled attempts single women made to get his attention—or their mothers were trying to set them up. That had slowed down some, but it still happened often enough to entertain everyone other than John. Until now, Cade had taunted his friend about it whenever it happened.

  The thought of Laura smiling at John wasn’t even remotely entertaining to Cade, and that, in and of itself, ticked him off. He had to find a way to get the feelings he had for Laura out of his head. She was trying to rebuild her life, and for the first time ever, she was trying to do that without the complication of adding a man to the mix. He’d heard her tell his mother she needed to learn to stand on her own two feet instead of leaning on a man.

  And he need
ed her to do the same thing. Well, not exactly, but he needed to find a woman who didn’t need to lean on him. Who could stand on her own two feet, and who wouldn’t tie her entire existence to him as if she couldn’t have her own identity without him.

  “Cade, you still with us?” John asked.

  “Huh? Yeah, just…yeah.” Looking around the table it was clear he had missed something.

  “I was just telling Laura the local officer I talked to in Connecticut was satisfied when I told him I saw her, and she seemed healthy, happy, and down here voluntarily.” Laura was beaming at him from across the table. “They didn’t seem at all concerned that anything had happened. The detective I spoke with said the family has been pressuring them and trying to get the police to begin a national manhunt for her, but when they looked at video footage from the hospital and the airport, there was no sign of foul play, and no sign that Laura was in any danger or was any danger to her baby. They’ve been telling the family for weeks now there’s no active case, and there’s nothing more they can do if Laura doesn’t want to come home.”

  “You mean go back there. Not home. That’s not home. Laura’s home now,” Cade said, smiling at her.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Laura nodded and smiled at Cade and the others but it felt stiff. Home.

  Could it really be that simple? Could she really just stay with the Bishops? Take their charity and their kindness and live off them? Raise her baby there? But for how long? Surely she couldn’t just live there forever?

  Even if the police weren’t coming for her, that didn’t mean the Kensingtons would just give up trying to get custody of her baby once it was born. Laura needed to talk to Shane and see what he’d discovered. He had told her he was looking into the case law in this area, and he was sure a grandmother wouldn’t have a very strong case for taking a baby from its mother without some very strong extenuating circumstances, but Laura wanted to be sure. She wanted to know she was finally free.

  “Well, I have to get back out there. I’m on patrol for another two hours,” John said as he stood and took another slice of pizza for the road.

  “We should get going too,” Stacey and Grant said and Alice nodded and stood with them.

  “It was so great to finally get to spend some time with you, Laura. Maybe we can all go out again soon?” Alice asked Laura.

  Laura smiled and nodded. Maybe she really could have this. A life filled with real friends and people who cared about her. A place she could truly call home. And…

  Laura’s eyes met Cade’s and she knew she must be blushing. Maybe, someday, she could have someone who would love her and treat her as if she were a person who mattered, not a possession to be owned and conquered. Someday.

  *

  Cade started to drive past the barn, but Laura stopped him.

  “I’ll help you with the nighttime bed check if you want,” she said. That’s what May always called the last barn check of the night. The one where you turned off all the lights, made sure the stall doors were shut properly, and checked to be sure none of the animals were having nightmares—or so May told her.

  Cade glanced her way and slowed the truck, steering it toward the barn instead of the house. “Thanks.”

  A motion sensor kicked on the outside light as soon as the truck pulled up to the double barn doors. Cade jogged around to help Laura down and then pushed open one of the doors, flicking on the center aisle lights. It didn’t take either of them long to see that Red was worked up over something. She was panting and pacing up and down the aisle but ran to Laura the minute she entered the barn.

  “What do you think it is?” Laura asked Cade as she knelt to rub Red’s ears.

  He went to where Red had been pacing and looked over the top of the half door that led to the tack room. He grinned and waved Laura over. Red circled Laura’s legs, nearly taking her down as she joined Cade to peek over the door.

  “Oh my gosh, is she in labor?” The mother cat who had taken up residency in the tack room was panting and circling, pawing at her bedding. She circled a few more times before lying down, but she continued to pant.

  “Looks like it,” Cade said. “Want to wait up and see some kittens?”

  They stood looking over the door together and when Laura turned to Cade and nodded, she realized how close their faces were. Close enough for her to smell the scent of peppermint from the gum he’d been chewing on the drive home. Close enough to see the stubble on his chin that had grown since that morning’s shave. She wanted to reach out to touch it, to brush the tips of her fingers across it and see if it tickled her skin. She was close enough to wonder what it would be like to have those lips pressed to hers, to feel his arms come around her as he pulled her against his body and kissed the breath from her chest.

  “Yes,” Laura said huskily. She cleared her throat. “Yes, let’s wait for kittens. Will she let us in there with her?”

  Cade watched Laura for a beat longer, and the air swirled thickly between them. He took a step back, breaking the spell, then slid the latch on the door.

  “I think so. I’ve been tossing chicken to her whenever I walk by the room or have to come in for something. She doesn’t hiss at me anymore. She’s probably a little too distracted by the labor right now to care anyway,” he said as he took Laura’s hand and pulled her into the room with him.

  Red came and lay down on the floor near the door, getting no closer to the cat than she had to. It seemed as though she didn’t really know what to make of the situation, but she sure wasn’t going to leave her people in here without standing guard over them.

  “I’ll be right back. I’m gonna grab some drinks for us so we can settle in for a while,” Cade said and he slipped out of the room. Laura watched the cat pant and knelt down in front of her. The cat turned wide eyes to her as though she didn’t know if she should trust Laura so close to her.

  Laura couldn’t help but think how much this must hurt. “When the pain gets to be too much, baby, just go somewhere in your head. Go to your favorite place and leave all the pain behind. Just let it all go.”

  Laura heard the door hinges behind her and Cade stepped back in.

  He put a pile of blankets next to the wall, then set two bottles of water on the floor and sat down. He pulled Laura down next to him. Her heart skipped a beat at the contact, at the way his hand swallowed hers. But, when he arranged her so that she leaned against his chest, her back to his front, and put those strong arms around her, wrapping her tight, she thought she’d burst from the utter happiness that shot through her.

  Laura leaned back, soaked in the contact, and let herself get lost in the feel of Cade holding her tight. He’d probably done this with dozens of women and thought nothing of it, but this was special to Laura. It was incredible. Two weeks or a month ago, maybe even a day ago, she probably wouldn’t have let herself relax, let herself enjoy the feel of just being with a man like this.

  Now, Laura wanted to grab on to all she could while she was here. Sometime in the last few days, the last few hours, she’d decided if she had to leave here someday, she would damn well take some good memories with her.

  She would find out what it was like to laugh with people, to have friends, to have what almost felt like a family, and to be with a man who could make her feel this wanted, this safe, this special. It felt better than anything Laura had ever known.

  “Here comes the first one,” Cade whispered in her ear. He probably hadn’t intended it, but the feeling of his hot breath brushing her ear, her neck, sent shivers through her. Very good shivers she wanted to experience again. Laura closed her eyes for a brief moment and let the heat rushing through her body warm her.

  “What do we do?” Laura asked. She thought of all the people that were typically in attendance at a birth for a human. A doctor, a couple of nurses, family. Surely they should be doing something for the cat and her kittens.

  “Nothing,” Cade said, a bit of a laugh on his breath. “Nature takes care of everythin
g. As soon as the kittens come out, mom licks them clean, that stimulates breathing, and they nurse. It’s that simple. Unless something goes wrong, we just sit back and watch.”

  They were quiet for a few minutes before Cade broke the silence.

  “Where did you go when it hurt too much, when the pain got to be too great?”

  Clearly, he’d heard her conversation with the cat moments ago. Laura didn’t answer for a minute. Remembering where she went carried another type of pain with it. The pain her brother’s loss always brought when she remembered he was gone.

  “When we were little, my brother and I would go to this abandoned house down the street from us. Teenagers used to hang out there at night and party, but during the day, we were the only ones there. He’d make up silly games for us to play and we’d run through the rooms and just…just be away, you know. Away from Dad.”

  “You miss your brother?” Cade asked the obvious question, but she knew he genuinely wanted to know the answer.

  Laura nodded. “He was usually able to convince me that I was special, that someday, I’d be loved. He would tell me about my mom; how beautiful she was. How much she loved me even though she was gone.”

  “How did she die?”

  “In a convenience store robbery when I was just a baby.” The answer came out hollow to her ears. She didn’t know how she missed a woman she couldn’t really remember, but she did. Her mother had been shot over a piddly amount of money and a six pack of beer some junkie wanted, but couldn’t pay for.

  They sat quietly for a long time, waiting for the kittens to come.

  “What are you thinking?” Cade asked in a bit of a whisper, as though he wondered if he was breaking into her thoughts when she’d rather he didn’t.

  “I’m afraid to do this all alone. She looks like she’s ready for the birth somehow,” Laura said, nodding at the mother cat. “I’m completely unprepared. I don’t have any idea how to be a mom, or what to do when I go into labor or what I need when the baby comes home, or anything. I’ve never been so completely unprepared for anything in my life. And the worst part is, nothing has ever been so important in my life before. I’m about to take the most important test I’ll ever take with no textbook or teacher or anything.”