The Rancher and the Baby

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Yes, I was,” she answered.

  “Did you see any other vehicle around, on either side of the rising water, or in the water?” Rick Santiago asked.

  She was completely honest with him. “I really wasn’t looking for another vehicle,” Cassidy admitted. “But as far as I remember, nothing else caught my eye. It looked like the baby was alone.”

  “And it was in a plastic tub? Did I hear Will right?” Rick questioned uncertainly.

  No matter how many times she said it or heard it, Cassidy had to admit that it still sounded weird. “Yes. Like the kind they give you when you get discharged from a hospital. Maybe the mother had just come home from the hospital. Or maybe she was a nurse,” she added suddenly as the thought occurred to her.

  “More likely the patient,” Rick said in speculation. Although at this point, anything was possible. “Exactly where was this?”

  A product of the area, Cassidy gave the sheriff the location as close to where she first saw the baby as she could, given that she’d been entirely focused on saving the baby and that some of the road she’d traveled on had been traversed backward in order to get parallel with the infant’s makeshift sailing vessel.

  She gave the sheriff every detail she could remember, holding nothing back.

  “Okay, that helps,” Rick commented when she was finished. “I’ll have Joe and Cody check it out.”

  “Sheriff?”

  He’d been about to hang up. It took him a second to respond. “Yes?”

  “What happens to the baby if you can’t find his parents?”

  “Well, these aren’t the best conditions and who knows how long that baby was out there, so locating his parents might be very difficult.”

  “And if it’s impossible?” she pressed. “If you can’t locate either of his parents, what happens to him then?”

  “Someone would have to take him to Mission Ridge,” Dan said grimly. “That’s the closest social services office in the county.”

  “Oh.” Everyone viewed social services as the last resort. For the most part, the people in Forever found a way to take care of their own, no matter how distant that match was. “Okay. Let me know if you find anything.”

  Disturbed, Cassidy frowned as she hung up. It only occurred to her after she’d replaced the receiver in the cradle that she’d forgotten to say goodbye.

  The conversation had upset her that much.

  Chapter Five

  “Something wrong?”

  Cassidy realized that Will was asking her a question, and from the sound of his voice, this wasn’t the first time.

  “Sorry. For a moment, I forgot you were here.” Not wanting to seem as if he’d caught her off guard, she added, “Best moment of my life.” An exasperated expression came over his face. Okay, he’d just expressed concern. Maybe she should have gone easier on him. She flashed a grin. “Sorry, couldn’t help myself.”

  “We do seem to bring out the worst in each other,” he commented. “Why do you think that is?”

  Because everything you do rubs me the wrong way. And because sometimes just having you this close is way too crowded for me.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said out loud. “You have a good moment every now and then.”

  Rather than say anything in response, Will went to the bay window and looked outside.

  He’d aroused her curiosity. Had something outside caught his eye?

  “What are you looking at?” Cassidy asked, joining him.

  Will took his time answering her, making her wait. He figured she owed it to him. “You said something nice to me. I figure The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse should be riding up the street anytime now, signaling the end of the world.”

  Cassidy slanted a glare at him. “Very funny. I had no idea you had a sense of humor.”

  Will pinned her with a penetrating look. The kind that went clear down to her bones. “You don’t know a lot of things about me.”

  Although she’d never backed away from going toe-to-toe with him, there was something about standing close enough to feel his breath on her face that Cassidy found completely unnerving.

  “And we’re keeping it that way,” she announced glibly, turning away.

  “Round two,” Will muttered, then shrugged. “Okay, have it your way.”

  “What other way is there?” Cassidy asked, knowing this would antagonize him. Then, just to drive her point home, she raised her chin, silently daring him to make some kind of a response.

  She was deliberately goading him, and she knew it.

  Damn it, what was it about this blond-haired witch that pulled him in like this? If he had a lick of sense, he’d just turn his back on her and be done with it. Yet here he stood, smack in the middle of her war zone.

  It had to be some sort of insanity, like when a salmon felt compelled to swim upstream to mate even though death lay waiting for it just beyond that finish line.

  “Someday,” Will warned her quietly, his voice barely a low growl, “you’re going to find out.”

  Her chin rose a fraction of an inch higher as she smugly asked, “And you think you’re going to be the one to show me?”

  She was challenging him, and he knew he should either put her in her place with a couple of choice words or, better yet, just ignore her because he had a gut feeling that got to her more than anything.

  But it was hard to ignore that face and that mouth when they were right in front of him like this.

  Taunting him.

  Daring him.

  Before he could think his actions through—something he had always been able to do, even in the worst moments, even when his father would push him almost beyond the brink—Will caught hold of Cassidy by her shoulders.

  His eyes searched her face, trying to understand the woman who was driving him crazy. Trying to get underneath the layers.

  “You don’t even have the sense to be afraid, do you?” he asked incredulously.

  “Afraid?” Cassidy echoed, even as her heart did a quick little summersault that she damned herself for. “Why? You can’t throw me off a cliff because we’re standing on flat ground. And you can’t strangle me because the doctor’s just one scream away.”

  “You’re right. I can’t throw you off a cliff—whatever the hell that means.” What went through her mind, anyway? He didn’t begin to have a clue. “And I can’t strangle you.”

  “See?” Her eyes challenged him as she tossed her head again. “Nothing to be afraid of,” she declared, as if she’d proved her point.

  It was that smug look that came over her face that was her undoing, because it got to him as surely as if he’d just been shot straight through the heart with an armor-piercing bullet.

  Before he knew what he was doing, still holding on to her shoulders, Will pulled her almost a full inch off the floor.

  And then he kissed her.

  It was meant to put her in her place and to frighten her.

  What it did, instead, was frighten the hell out of him.

  Frightened him because he didn’t stop kissing her. He continued. Continued kissing Cassidy as he gradually allowed her feet to touch the floor, gradually leaned further into the kiss and found her responding to it.

  At the same time, a whole host of things suddenly went off within him, things he couldn’t put into words. The closest he could describe it was that it felt like someone had thrown a match into a shed full of Fourth of July fireworks.

  * * *

  ROCKETS WENT OFF EVERYWHERE.

  Cassidy found herself melting like candle wax even as something in her head screamed, This could be very dangerous!

  It wasn’t screaming that because he was kissing her but because she was responding to his kissing her. Responding with every single part of her in a w
ay she had never done before.

  Other words failed to form in her head as sensations she couldn’t begin to describe suddenly sprang up and mushroomed within her, scrambling for a foothold, desperately searching for more even as a part of her viewed the entire episode in mounting horror, as if she was watching some sort of a disaster movie unfold on the screen, all happening to someone else.

  The last shred of what could only be termed as survival instincts finally rose and had her wedging her hands against his chest in a desperate bid to create some small sliver of space.

  Or maybe what she actually felt was Laredo pulling back.

  For the life of her, she couldn’t distinguish which of them had made the first move to pull apart or begin to understand why such a feeling of bereavement was washing over her.

  Cassidy’s eyes blazed like blue flames as she ground out, “I should kill you.”

  “Don’t bother,” he told her coldly. “I think I’m already dead.”

  Why else, Will silently asked himself, would he have gone on kissing her that way? As if he wanted to. As if he couldn’t draw another breath if he didn’t.

  It didn’t make sense.

  Before she could say anything else to him, coherent or otherwise, she heard Dan clearing his throat behind them. Her head all but swiveled as she turned to see who it was and realized that the doctor was standing right behind them.

  Had Dan just walked in, or had he been there long enough to see what had just happened?

  What had just happened? she silently demanded in complete confusion.

  And why had she let it happen?

  The expression on Dan’s face gave her no answers. He looked as if he was taking this whole incident in stride. She certainly couldn’t, she thought, irritated and disoriented.

  “You’ll be happy to hear that the baby is none the worse for his joyride on the floodwater this morning,” Dan told both of them.

  Will appeared mystified. “Then why was he crying like that?”

  Dan lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug and then let it drop. “The usual reason babies this age cry. He was hungry and wet. Very wet.” Dan laughed softly. “I’ve had patients who sounded a lot worse when they were hungry and wet. I changed him after my exam. We’ve got some spare baby clothes just for these occasions. And I fed him, as well. He seems rather happy now.” Since Will was closer to him, he looked to him for an answer. “What’s the status with his parents? Did the sheriff say anything?”

  “I called it in, and the sheriff said he was sending out a couple of his deputies to look around, see if they can locate either one of the baby’s parents, or find any sign of an abandoned vehicle.”

  Dan nodded. “Guess that’s the best we can hope for now.” And then he looked at the duo in front of him, as if he was waiting for one of them to speak up. When neither did, the doctor took the lead again. “Seeing as we don’t have the parents yet, which one of you are going to take the baby?”

  Cassidy blinked, feeling a little confused. “Take him where?”

  “Well, home would be my first guess. I’d take him home with me, but Tina called a little while ago to say that one of the kids was running a fever. I wouldn’t feel good about bringing this little guy into that kind of atmosphere. After what he’s gone through, his resistance might be down,” he explained in case they weren’t following his argument. “It’s not something I’d want to test.”

  “No, you’re right,” Will agreed. There was nothing to do but step up. He didn’t even hesitate. “I guess since I rescued him, he’s my responsibility.”

  That was all she needed to hear. “What d’you mean, you rescued him?” Cassidy cried. Did he think he could just dismiss her out of hand like this? As if she’d been some sideline observer?

  “Okay,” Will amended patiently. Then to her great outrage she heard him say, “Technically I rescued both of you.”

  Cassidy’s mouth dropped open as she glared at him. “What?”

  He did his best to hold back a few of the more choice words that rose to his lips. Instead, he reworded his previous statement.

  “I rescued you rescuing him, does that suit you?” he asked.

  “What would suit me is if you—”

  When he’d gotten his medical degree, Dan had never thought that he was going to need one in mediation, as well.

  “I think what we’re all forgetting here is that this little guy needs a place to stay,” Dan told them calmly, forcing their attention back to the baby. “So one of you decide which of you it’s going to be—now.”

  “I’ll take him,” Cassidy announced. And then, as she heard herself say the words, she glared at Laredo and was forced to incline her head, grudgingly giving the man his due. He was better than she’d thought. “You planned it this way, didn’t you?”

  The expression on Will’s face mimicked pure innocence.

  “Don’t know what you mean,” Will responded. The look in his eyes told her otherwise.

  Cassidy forced her thoughts to center on the baby she’d pulled out of the rushing water. And she remembered the drawer that her brother Cody had improvised to use as a bed for the baby he’d helped deliver a while back. The one he’d wound up bringing to the ranch, along with the baby’s mother, Devon. Devon, Layla and Cody had gone on to form a family.

  Cassidy abruptly shut down that line of thinking. This wasn’t like that.

  There was only one important thing to be gleaned from all this. The baby the doctor was holding in his arms looked as if he would have no trouble fitting into that drawer—at least until the baby’s parents could be found or someone could come up with an alternate plan for this little nomad.

  “Well, at least I have somewhere I can put him for the time being,” Cassidy told the doctor. She spared Will what amounted to a dismissive glance. “Knowing you, you’d probably put him in the feed bin.”

  Instead of responding, Will looked at the doctor. “See what I have to put up with, Doc?”

  But Dan quickly shook his head. “Oh, no, I’m not getting in the middle of this,” he told both parties adamantly. “My only concern right now is to find a place for this little guy right here.”

  Cassidy spoke up and reminded the doctor, “I said I’d take him.”

  He waited a moment for her to back down. When she didn’t, Dan nodded. “All right. I can give you some formula to take with you. I heard that the general store was closing down for the day, hoping to avoid the worst of the storm’s damage.”

  He glanced from Will to Cassidy. “By the way, either of you have a name for him? I realize it’s just temporary until we find his parents, but I need at least a first name to put down on my records, and I’ve always thought that ‘Baby Boy Doe’ sounds incredibly sad.”

  Will looked at the infant’s face for a long moment. “How about Adam? Seems kind of fitting if you ask me—unless you’ve got some kind of an objection against it,” he stated, looking pointedly at Cassidy.

  She managed to surprise both him and Dan when she shook her head and said, “No, actually, I think that’s kind of a nice name. ‘Moses’ was never really going to work,” she added, referring to the name she’d first pinned on the baby.

  “Well, Adam,” Dan said, addressing the child in his arms, “I think you and I have just witnessed history being made. I don’t recall hearing that these two ever agreed on anything before. Looks like you just might be having a good influence on them, what do you think?” He asked the baby as if it was a serious question.

  Will glanced in her direction before saying, “Kind of nice, isn’t it?”

  There it was again, that damn sexy grin of his, she thought angrily. And now—heaven help her—she had something else to couple it with: that mind-blowing, toe-curling kiss of his, which was every bit as earthshaking as all his female conquests claimed it was. A
nd she was never going to give him the satisfaction of letting him know her reaction to either.

  Not even on her deathbed.

  So, retreating to form, Cassidy blew out a breath as she tossed her head again, doing her best to revert to a smug expression.

  “Yeah, well, don’t get used to it. I really doubt it’s ever going to happen again because, odds are, you’re not going to say anything smart again for a really, really long time.”

  “Okay, you two call a truce, and see about getting this baby to your ranch,” Dan instructed Cassidy, “before this storm decides that it’s not through with us yet.” So saying, the doctor handed the baby to her. “I’ll get that formula for you and a few disposable diapers as well until the general store opens again, hopefully tomorrow. Last I heard, it intended to open again in the morning.”

  Turning toward Will, Dan asked, “You want to come with me and help bring out those supplies?”

  “Sure.” He glanced in Cassidy’s direction. “You’ll wait?”

  He didn’t put anything past her, no matter what he assumed was the logical course of action. Cassidy and logic were hardly ever on good terms.

  “Where am I going to go?” she asked. “You’re my ride—at least until you get me back to my truck.”

  “I know that—but with you I’m never sure just what you’re going to do,” he told her honestly. “You just might get it into that fool head of yours to show me just how independent you are and suddenly set out on your own.”

  Cassidy pressed her lips together as she glared at him. She even glared at the back of his head as Will followed the doctor to the rear of the clinic.

  “Do you two ever stop?” Dan asked wearily.

  “I would if she would,” Will responded.

  “Then in other words, no,” Dan concluded. Shaking his head, he laughed softly to himself.

  “What’s so funny?” Will asked as the doctor unlocked a couple of cabinets in the storage area.

  “Oh, nothing,” Dan said dismissively. And then he surprised the hell out of Will when he said, “Just picturing the wedding, and the aftermath.”