The Rancher and the Baby

by Marie Ferrarella

  Once she walked in, she asked Alisha, “How’s he doing?”

  The pediatrician smiled at her patient’s “mother,” obviously happy about being able to deliver a positive prognosis.

  “He’s doing better. His fever’s almost gone, but it’s still hanging in there to some degree.”

  Was the doctor deliberately keeping something from her? Cassidy wondered. Her stomach had been queasy all day, ever since she’d realized that Adam’s fever had spiked.

  “Give it to me straight, Doc. Should I be worried?” Cassidy asked.

  Alisha met the question with a self-depreciating laugh. “Mothers go on worrying until after their kids turn fifty. After that, they still worry, but I hear not as much,” she confided, then went on to say, “Because this is his first go-round with a high fever, I’m going to suggest keeping him here overnight.”

  Cassidy felt a rush of disappointment. “Then I can’t take him home?”

  “You could,” Alisha conjectured, “but if the fever suddenly goes up again for some reason, you’re going to have to drive back here, and I promise you that you’ll agonize all the way. This way, he’ll be right here, and if his fever does spike for some reason, which is only a possibility, not a sure thing, I can give him a shot to bring it down again.”

  Cassidy felt as if she needed everything spelled out for her. “But the fever’s down now, right?”

  “It’s down,” Alisha assured her.

  Cassidy chewed on her bottom lip, undecided as to what to do for a moment. And then she looked up. “How about a compromise?” she proposed. “Adam will stay here overnight, but I’ll stay with him, not you. If anything goes wrong, I’ll call you or Dr. Dan right away.” She could see that the doctor was about to protest the decision. “You need to go home to your own kids, Doc. They probably don’t see you nearly enough.”

  “All right. Either one of us can be here within minutes,” she stated.

  Cassidy nodded. She really hadn’t wanted to leave Adam’s side, anyway. She’d spent every night for the last month near him, and she wouldn’t be able to sleep at all knowing he was sick somewhere away from her. “Good enough for me, Doc.”

  Alisha eyed her rather warily. “Are you sure about this?”

  Cassidy never hesitated. “I’m very sure,” she said firmly.

  * * *

  ALISHA ASKED HER the same question a few hours later as she was about to close the clinic for the night. Cassidy gave her the same answer.

  “Okay, then I’ll see you in the morning,” Alisha told her, softly closing the door behind her.

  After checking on Adam, who was mercifully asleep and breathing a lot better, at least for the time being, Cassidy noted, she sat back down in the chair.

  She wasn’t aware of sighing as she tried to find a comfortable position for herself in order to settle in for the night.

  Just as she was about to close her eyes, Cassidy heard the door behind her opening again. It had only been a few minutes since the doctor had left her.

  “I said I’m sure,” Cassidy repeated, hoping that would finally send the doctor on her way to her own family for the night.

  “What are you sure about?”

  Only extreme restraint kept her for crying out in surprise.

  As it was, Cassidy jumped to her feet, almost sending the chair crashing to the floor. Will darted in and caught it just in time.

  “What are you doing here, Laredo?” she asked. “It’s after hours, and everyone at the clinic’s gone home for the night.”

  “Yes, I know,” Will told her. “I passed Dr. Alisha just as she was locking up. She was the one who let me in.”

  Cassidy pulled him over, away from the sleeping baby before his voice could wake Adam up.

  “I repeat,” she said to him in an annoyed whisper, “what are you doing here?”

  “I’m here so you can get some rest. We can take turns watching the baby while the other one sleeps.”

  As far as she knew, none of her brothers had called him about Adam’s fever. At least, none of them had mentioned it to her. But that didn’t mean that they hadn’t. She frowned.

  “How did you find out he was sick?” she asked. If she had to make a guess, she supposed that Connor had to have told him, but she guessed wrong.

  The answer was quite simple. “Miss Joan told me when I stopped by the diner on my way back from the general store.”

  Cassidy sighed. She didn’t bother asking how Miss Joan had found out. Miss Joan always found out.

  “So how is he?” Will asked, nodding toward the baby.

  “Better,” Cassidy answered. “His fever’s almost gone Look, you don’t have to stay here with me, taking turns watching him. I can—”

  “I wasn’t asking for permission,” Will pointed out quietly. “We both rescued him. That means, like it or not, Cassidy, we’re both in this together.”

  Cassidy sighed again. “You’re determined to ignore me, aren’t you?”

  Will watched her for a long moment, so long that she could almost feel her body heating beneath his gaze. Cassidy upbraided herself for her reaction. She did her best not to look at the smile that was slowly slipping over his lips.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he said, more to himself than to her. He had finally come to terms with the fact that ignoring Cassidy was just not in the cards for him. “You look like you’ve been through the wringer. I’ll spell you for an hour.” He dragged over another chair and positioning it on the other side of the crib that had been brought in for the baby.

  He was about to tell her that she could close her eyes now and discovered that he didn’t have to. She already had.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cassidy’s eyes flew open as if someone had shaken her shoulder to rouse her. As far as she could tell, only a few minutes had passed since she’d closed her eyes.

  Taking a deep breath, she tried to orient herself a little more. She focused in on her watch to make sure that she hadn’t been asleep for long.

  A moment later, she remembered why she was here—and with whom.

  “Sorry,” she murmured, certain that he’d noticed that her eyes had closed. “I was just resting my eyes for a minute.”

  “You were asleep,” Will corrected her with a grin. “But let’s not quibble over terms.”

  “I wasn’t quibbling, I was ‘stating,’” she told him emphatically. “In this case, stating the fact that I wasn’t asleep.” Knowing Will, he’d take her momentary catnap as an opportunity to ridicule her about it, or something along those lines.

  He hadn’t come here to argue, Will thought. He’d come here to help—no matter how much she fought him about it.

  “Fine, have it your way,” he allowed. “I’m really not in the mood for another battle of ‘who gets the last word’ with you. I’m just here to help.”

  She couldn’t help it. She was very suspicious of this so-called act of kindness on Will’s part. She recalled the state of his range.

  “Don’t you have enough to do?” she asked.

  His eyes met hers, and she had that same feeling that he was looking deep into her thoughts, her soul, that she’d had before.

  “Well, thanks to the last person in the world I ever thought would volunteer to help me, I seem to have gotten a stay of execution, so right now I have a little extra time to spare, and this is where I want to be, watching over Adam.”

  She wasn’t just going to allow him to take over like that. Cassidy knew him. She’d be pushed over to the sidelines in no time flat.

  “I’m watching over Adam,” she told him.

  He could work with that. “And I’m watching you watching over Adam,” he amended.

  Cassidy had a feeling that this could go on forever, and she knew it wasn’t really
getting either one of them anywhere. Besides, she had to admit—if only to herself and certainly not out loud—that she was rather touched that Laredo was so concerned about the boy’s condition. Adam had gotten to both of them.

  It started her thinking about the whole situation again. And that aroused a fresh set of fears.

  “You know, I’ve kind of gotten used to having him around.” She sighed, pressing her lips together. “It’s probably a bad thing.”

  Will’s forehead furrowed as he looked at her. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because I’m really going to miss him when his parents show up to take him.” She felt a pang even as she said the words.

  “I’m not so sure they’re ever going to.” When she looked at him quizzically, he said, “Think about it. It’s been a month since that flood hit, and so far, nobody has come forward looking for him. Not even after we took him with us to the reservation.”

  “Maybe they can’t come forward,” she suggested. “Maybe Adam’s parents are in the hospital, in a coma, recovering from a car accident or some other kind of unforeseen mishap.”

  There was one problem with her theory. “Are you forgetting the closest hospital is fifty miles away?” he reminded her.

  She was still casting about, trying to find a viable excuse. What she couldn’t bring herself to believe was that Adam had been abandoned.

  “Maybe whoever they were with, or his mother was with, realized how badly they were—or she was—hurt and took them straight to Mission Ridge and the hospital.”

  “And the baby? How do you explain the baby being out there in the flash flood?” he asked.

  She was working hard to try to pull all the ends together. Although she’d always maintained that she didn’t have any maternal feelings, she’d been trying to see what happened from her own point of view.

  “The flash flood hit suddenly, she wanted to save the baby so she put him into that plastic thing we found him in. Meanwhile, she got swept away and lost consciousness. Then someone found her. When she remained unresponsive, they took her to the hospital.”

  Listening to her, Will could only shake his head. “Incredible.”

  “You like that, huh?” Cassidy asked proudly, happy that she was able to come up with a scenario that seemed to account for all the pieces.

  He hadn’t meant that her explanation was incredible. The word was meant to describe her and the contortions her mind had gone to in order to come up with this convoluted explanation.

  “I’ll say this for you,” he said, laughing shortly, “you’ve got one hell of an imagination.”

  It wasn’t hard to read between the lines. “So you don’t think that’s possible?” she asked him, taking offense.

  “If you’ve taught me nothing else, Cassidy, you’ve taught me that just about anything could be possible,” he told her.

  Cassidy frowned at him. “You’re being sarcastic again,” she accused.

  “No, actually,” he stated, “I’m being in awe. I’ve honestly never seen anyone bob and weave the way you do. Who knows? The sheriff still hasn’t found either a body or an abandoned car, so until one or the other—or both—turn up, then I guess that anything could be possible in these circumstances.”

  In light of what she’d just suggested, Cassidy thought that perhaps another course of action was necessary. “Maybe the sheriff should place a call to the Mission Ridge Hospital.”

  “Actually, I think he is, first thing in the morning,” Will said.

  This was news to her. “You talked with him,” she assumed.

  Will had stopped by the sheriff’s office just before coming to the clinic. “Just to find out if he was making any progress locating Adam’s parents,” Will told her. “He hasn’t, so after we talked, contacting the hospital is what he’s going to try next.”

  She nodded, thinking about the possible end result of the sheriff’s investigation—either end. “What if he doesn’t find anyone?” she asked.

  “You’re talking about Adam’s parents?”

  “Right. What if Sheriff Santiago calls all the local hospitals in a hundred-mile radius and doesn’t find anyone who could possibly be Adam’s parents, then what? What happens to Adam?”

  “Exactly what would have happened to him if you hadn’t stepped up and volunteered to take him until his parents—or mother—could be located. He’ll be sent to social services in Mission Ridge—or maybe even one of the larger cities—and then they’ll place him in someone’s home.”

  The very suggestion of Adam being taken away to live with someone else made her blood run cold. “And you’d be okay with that?” she challenged, horrified at the thought of Adam being passed from hand to hand, without anyone actually caring for the boy.

  “I didn’t say that,” Will corrected her tersely. “But there’s not exactly a lot that I can do in this situation. I can’t claim I have some kind of blood relationship with him, and I’m sure that nobody would let me adopt him.”

  She listened to Will, surprised that he had actually thought it out that far. Maybe she’d misjudged him after all.

  “Social services wants a stable home environment for any child they place. Considering that I was on the brink of foreclosure, and if I don’t wind up selling a few of the horses and start making some kind of profit, no matter how minor, I’ll wind up losing the ranch, I’m not exactly a star candidate. Social services doesn’t smile upon a prospective adoptive parent living out of his truck.”

  She pushed aside all that, wanting to be perfectly clear about what he was saying. “But otherwise, you would?”

  He’d lost the thread of what she was saying to him. Cassidy had a way of jumping around. “What?”

  She tried to be clearer. “Otherwise, if the ranch didn’t go into foreclosure and you were making a go of it, you would adopt Adam?”

  Will didn’t even pause to think about it. He knew what he would do. “Sure, why not?”

  Cassidy had to admit that she was having trouble wrapping her mind around this new, improved Will Laredo. “I’ve got a better question for you—why? Why would you adopt Adam?”

  “Maybe so I could give him a home, give him someone who cared about him. And maybe, while we’re at it, so I could finally have a family myself.” Maybe it was the late hour, or the situation, or just a combination of both. Whatever it was, he found himself admitting things to Cassidy that he had never said out loud before. “I never felt I had one before. The closest I ever came to feeling like I had a family was when I hung around your brothers and you.”

  That really took her aback. “I understand you feeling that way about my brothers, but about me, too?” she questioned.

  Will shrugged. “Sure, a lot of brothers have pesky little sisters. Your brothers certainly did,” he pointed out with a grin.

  Cassidy drew herself up. “I was never a pesky little sister to them,” she protested.

  Will laughed. He could think of so many different instances to cite. “Right. You keep telling yourself that.”

  “I wasn’t,” she insisted. “We were a team, my brothers and I. We had to be once Dad was gone, we had to work together to make a go of the ranch. Otherwise, the county was going to come in and take us away. At least take three of us away,” she amended.

  Will nodded, vividly remembering how concerned Connor had been that he might not get custody of his siblings. Never once had he lamented about what he was giving up for them.

  “Yes, I remember. I guess, in a way, that gives the three of us something in common,” Will said, nodding at the baby and then her.

  Ordinarily Cassidy would have protested the comparison, saying that while she and the baby had something in common, when it came to running the very real danger of having the county step in and absorb them, she and Will had nothing in common. But it wasn’t true. Sh
e and Will were both orphans, she because her parents had both died and he because, while his father had remained alive for a lot of years after hers had passed away, Will had been just as alone as they were. His father had died on the inside long before the man was officially pronounced dead on the outside.

  Though she would have hated to admit it, she could feel herself empathizing with Will. All she was willing to do was vaguely say, “I guess it does.”

  Will did his best to suppress a grin. “I guess I must be the one who’s asleep.”

  Cassidy stared at him, trying to fathom his meaning. “What are you talking about?”

  He tried again. “Well, I must be asleep because I’m definitely dreaming.”

  Still nothing. “Again, what?” Cassidy said impatiently.

  “I’m dreaming,” Will repeated. “You’re being much too agreeable for this to actually be taking place. The Cassidy McCullough I know enjoys vivisecting me with her tongue. The one I think I’m talking to is being sweet, kind and understanding.”

  Was that a backhanded compliment—or a backhanded insult? She wasn’t sure. “I can start vivisecting again if you’d prefer.”

  “No, that’s okay,” he quickly assured her with a laugh. “Let me go on dreaming a little longer.”

  Cassidy could only sigh. “You’re crazy, you know that, don’t you?”

  “For what I’m thinking?” His eyes slid along the length of her, saying things to her that were better left unsaid—for both their sakes. “Yeah, probably,” Will agreed.

  Cassidy couldn’t explain why, but she felt this warm shiver undulating up and down her spine like a garden snake uncoiling and staking out its territory while it was familiarizing itself with its new surroundings.

  She did what she could to block the sensation, but for some reason, that only seemed to reinforce it.

  “I’m not interested in what you’re thinking,” she finally said in a last-ditch effort to make Will think that his words—and the intent behind them—left her completely cold instead of the exact opposite.