COWBOY AND THE BABY, THE

by Ferrarella, Marie

  The next moment, she banished the thought. Time to get on with her life. Hers and her daughter’s. She just needed to find somewhere to stay until she could figure out what her next move was going to be.

  “Is there anyone you want me to call for you?” Cody offered. “Anyone you want to come for you?”

  Devon shook her head in response to each question. She had a few girlfriends, but they were more like acquaintances than people she could turn to in a time of need or share anything of importance with. Besides, they were all in another state. She couldn’t think of a single person who would go out of their way for her.

  “Nobody,” she told him stoically.

  “No family at all? No friends?” he pressed, doing his best not to sound incredulous. In his experience, everyone had someone to turn to. He couldn’t begin to imagine how alone she had to feel.

  His protective instincts went up several degrees.

  “Nobody you need to waste your time or your breath calling,” she told him flatly.

  He’d taken in enough strays in his time to know one when he saw one. It didn’t matter that the former were all animals and she was definitely a flesh-and-blood human being.

  The woman was obviously without any binding ties and most definitely on her own.

  “And no,” she said, her eyes meeting his—hers daring him to display even an ounce of pity, “I have nowhere to go.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said dismissively. “We’ve got plenty of room at the ranch. You and Layla can stay there until you can get back on your feet and decide what you want to do.”

  “You mean stay with you?”

  And here she’d thought that he was different. How gullible could she be?

  Cody could hear the wariness in her voice. He did what he could to set her mind at ease immediately.

  “With my family,” he corrected. “Those siblings you asked me about, we all live together on the ranch my father left us. And, if you don’t want to stay with us, there’s always Miss Joan’s.” He saw a quizzical look enter Devon’s eyes. “She’s taken in her share of people who were passing through Forever, on their way to nowhere.”

  “You mean charity cases,” she said indignantly. “I’m not—”

  “Nope,” he said, cutting in. “She’s already been by. Told me to tell you she’s got a job waiting for you once you’re up to it. She runs the local diner and could always use another waitress.” Devon was looking very tired, Cody thought. “Okay, enough talking. Right now,” he told her, “your only job is to get stronger.”

  She started to protest that he had no business telling her what to do or acting as if he was in charge of her life.

  She wanted to, but the words didn’t come because she had fallen asleep again.

  “Attagirl,” Cody murmured, drawing the blanket back up over her, tucking Devon in. He ran the back of his hand along her cheek.

  She looked so vulnerable and innocent. Something stirred a little harder within him.

  “Get some sleep,” he whispered as he planted himself back into the chair.

  Chapter Seven

  Open six days a week, Forever’s medical clinic’s doors were not officially open this morning until nine o’clock. That didn’t mean that neither Alisha or Dan came in at that time. Both doctors, especially Dan, made a point of arriving at least forty-five minutes to an hour earlier.

  This morning, because he had a patient who had remained at the clinic overnight, Dan came in a few minutes after seven to see how both she and her impromptu “nurse” were doing.

  Dan considered everyone in and around Forever as patients he had either previously ministered to or would be ministering to in the near future. The health and welfare of the good citizens of Forever were a perpetual concern for him.

  Since arriving in Forever several years ago, Dan hadn’t even remotely been tempted to do things in half measures.

  Entering the clinic through the back entrance, Dan eased into the single-story building and made his way into the room where he had left Devon recovering from her emergency surgery. The operation, plus the ordeal of childbirth, had taken a heavy toll on the woman. She was going to need some time to recover even though she struck him as otherwise being a rather healthy, strong woman.

  The doctor found Cody in a chair right beside the young mother’s bed—just as he had expected he would. Dan made a quick assessment of his patient’s condition. His first overall impression was that Devon looked a great deal better than she had last night. There was color—not just a flush but actual, well-distributed color—back in her cheeks and that was always a good sign.

  At first glance, both his patient and her rough-around-the-edges guardian angel appeared to be sound asleep.

  But within a few seconds, Dan saw Devon stirring. And then she opened her eyes.

  It never got old, Dan thought, pleased. Although he had been practicing medicine for a number of years now, the exhilarating feeling he experienced whenever he witnessed someone getting better because of his efforts still flashed through him like a bright, gleaming thunderbolt.

  Best adrenaline rush ever, Dan thought as he smiled at Devon.

  “You gave us all quite a scare, young lady,” he told her. His smile widened. “How are you feeling, Devon? You don’t mind if I call you Devon, do you?”

  “You’re the doctor?” she asked. He was still dressed in jeans and a bulky sweater, so she wasn’t sure. She’d been unconscious when Cody had brought her into the clinic.

  “One of them,” Dan confirmed.

  Devon’s eyes crinkled as she smiled at him. “Seeing as how I’m told that you saved my life, you can call me anything you want.”

  “Just part of a team,” Dan told her, neatly deflecting the compliment. “If anyone deserves credit for saving your life, it would be Cody over there,” he said quietly, nodding in the sleeping deputy’s direction. “If he hadn’t found you and brought you in when he did, the only thing I would have been able to do for you is call the official time of death. You might want to think about buying a lottery ticket because you really are the definition of lucky.”

  The emptiness suddenly and unexpectedly got to her. Cody had said that Layla was spending the night at the doctor’s house. Had Cody lied for some reason? Or was her baby not well and had to be rushed to a hospital?

  “My baby—” she began.

  “—is perfect,” Dan told her with a smile. “She spent the night at my home with my wife. She’ll be bringing your daughter in shortly. So,” he continued in the manner of a doctor who had done this countless times already, “to get back to my question, how are you feeling?”

  She didn’t even have to stop and think before answering. “Relieved. Tired. Very, very sore,” Devon told him, rattling off her answers.

  Dan nodded as he calmly took down a blood pressure cuff from a hook on the wall. Wrapping the cuff around Devon’s arm that was closest to him, he proceeded to pump it up, then slowly released the air through a valve. He took note of the numbers.

  “Sounds wonderfully normal to me,” he confirmed. “You took excellent care of yourself during this pregnancy and this is obviously the payoff for all your conscientiousness,” Dan acknowledged. Removing the cuff, he folded it and set the machine aside.

  “So I’m free to go?” Devon asked. Her tone sounded far more eager than she actually felt.

  “I think an extra day in bed would be advised,” Dan counseled, writing down the reading that had registered on the blood pressure’s monitor.

  “Here?” she asked uncertainly.

  Dan nodded. “It’s a bed and there are four of us here to look in on you. Can’t beat that,” he told her cheerfully.

  Despite the various situations she had found herself in over the course of her young life, the one constant that had n
ever changed was Devon’s sense of pride. Poor or not, she had always found a way to pay her way, even though, as a substitute elementary school teacher, she had never been even remotely flush.

  “I can’t pay you right now,” she qualified, letting him know that she did consider it a debt she intended to make good on.

  “I’m not really concerned about that right now,” Dan informed her. “This isn’t exactly a cash-and-carry business, you know.”

  “But—” she began to protest.

  “Devon,” he went on firmly, “if I were in this for the money, I would have never left New York.”

  Surprised, Devon looked at him more closely. “You’re from New York?”

  He liked the surprise in her voice. It meant that he was finally on his way to shedding the accent that had been such a major factor in his speech pattern.

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you leave?” she asked incredulously. It had to be a complete shock to his system, going from New York City to a town like this.

  In his place, she knew she wouldn’t have come out. To her, New York represented the very best of the civilized world and being part of that was everything she would have ever aspired to.

  “I made a promise,” Dan answered vaguely. Never mind that the promise he’d made was to his younger brother, who, at the time he made it, was no longer among the living—something he would feel eternally responsible for.

  Before she could ask another question, their conversation—even though they had kept their voices at a low level—succeeded in rousing Cody.

  Cody was awake and automatically on his feet in the same instant.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, even as his brain struggled to get itself back into gear.

  He really didn’t remember falling asleep. The last thing Cody could recall was tucking the blanket around Devon again. Turned out that the woman was a fitful sleeper.

  “Nothing,” Dan answered him, his tone laid-back and easy. “Everything seems right on track with our new mother here. You, however, look like hell,” Dan commented, taking a longer, closer look at the younger man.

  “Yeah, Connor already mentioned that.” Looking past the doctor, he glanced at Devon. He was far more concerned about her condition than he was about his own appearance. “So she’s okay?” he pressed, wanting to be reassured. Wanting to leave no margin for doubt.

  “Appears that way. Her blood pressure is remarkably low, all things considered. I’m going to have Dr. Cordell-Murphy give her a thorough physical exam later to confirm that.” Dan said, “Why don’t you go home now and get some sleep?”

  “I slept here,” Cody answered, dismissing the well-intended suggestion.

  “And you look it. These chairs weren’t exactly built to give anyone a comfortable night’s sleep,” Dan pointed out.

  Cody shrugged the words away. He was about to say something else in his own defense when they heard the back door being opened.

  The next moment, Dan’s wife, Tina, walked into the room, a pink bundle in her arms.

  The second she saw her baby, Devon immediately began to pull herself up into a sitting position.

  “Hold it,” Dan cautioned. The doctor pressed a button on an attached keypad and raised the mattress that was beneath her shoulders until he’d achieved an upright position for her.

  “That’s better,” he pronounced.

  “Your mama’s been waiting for you, precious,” Tina Davenport cooed to the baby she was holding. “There you go, say hi to your mama,” the doctor’s wife instructed, shifting the baby from her own arms into Devon’s. “Your daughter has to qualify as one of the sweetest-dispositioned babies I’ve ever had the fortune of interacting with.” As she took a step back from the bed, she added, “I’d say that’s a pretty good omen.” She told her husband, “See you tonight,” and then paused to assure Devon, “You’re in very capable hands.”

  And with that, Tina left the clinic the same way she had entered.

  “Okay, she’s been fed and changed as of forty minutes ago. Hopefully, the latter will last for a little bit. If she needs changing, use that buzzer,” Dan told his patient, indicating the keypad he had previously used to raise the mattress. “Holly or Debi will be in to do the honors for you.” His grin was infectious as he went on to tell the brand-new mother, “I’d take advantage of that if I were you.”

  Turning from Devon, the doctor took another long look at Cody. Except for yesterday, he had never seen the young deputy in anything but top, alert condition. That wasn’t the case at the moment.

  “Go home, Cody. You really do look like hell.”

  “That seems to be the popular assessment of the day,” Cody murmured. But he had a job to get to and if he was leaving the clinic, he was going to the sheriff’s office. He’d already missed too much work. “Okay, since everyone seems to think I’m bringing down the atmosphere, I’ll get out of your hair.” He asked Dan, “Do you know when you’ll be letting her leave?”

  “All things being equal, I’ll release Devon and her baby tomorrow morning around when we open the clinic.” Turning toward his patient, he told Devon in the next breath, “You’re quite welcome to stay with my family and me once you’re discharged.”

  “My place is closer,” Alisha interjected, coming in and presenting herself to Devon and her baby. “So you might want to come and stay with Brett and me. I have a ground-floor spare bedroom that—”

  “Devon already has a place to stay,” Cody informed the two doctors, then nodded back toward Devon and the tiny pink bundle in her arms. “She’ll be staying at the ranch.” Shifting to look at Devon, he promised, “I’ll be back.”

  And with that, Cody left the room.

  Nodding at Holly and Debi, who were both already in the reception area, pulling files and bracing themselves for the onslaught of patients, Cody walked out of the building.

  Flint was no longer tied to the hitching post. In place of the stallion, his truck was now standing there, apparently ready for travel.

  Connor, Cody thought gratefully. Always there to fill in the gaps.

  * * *

  TRUE TO HIS WORD, Cody went straight to the sheriff’s office.

  He half expected the office to be empty. Unlike the clinic staff, who were in almost constant demand, Rick and his deputies were considered necessary in terms of generating goodwill within the town and its surrounding area. Their job was not so much focused on keeping the peace—what he’d told Devon was true: the peace more or less kept itself. Their jobs were focused on pitching in to help its residents with whatever they needed.

  Occasionally, it was to locate a child who had wandered off. And every so often it was to mediate a dispute between two citizens, both of whom believed they were in the right over, like as not, some trivial matter.

  The department got its share of phone calls asking them to find pets that had gone astray or to tackle an aggressive coyote or two that had gotten too brazen for the town’s own good.

  And, of course, there was Nathan McLane, the de facto town drunk. Nathan was harmless. Long ago he had chosen resting on a stool in Murphy’s Saloon over sitting in his living room, listening to his less-than-sympathetic wife recite a list of all his shortcomings and outright failures.

  On a few occasions, Nathan had actually attempted—never successfully—to walk home from the saloon. Those were times that either Cody, Rick or one of the deputies would bring the man in and lock him up for the night to sleep it off.

  Gabe Rodriguez was already at his desk when Cody came in, searching through something on the computer.

  “’Morning,” Cody murmured as he passed Gabe on his way to the rather ancient-looking coffee maker.

  There was a full pot of freshly brewed coffee in the decanter, the enticing aroma filling the air.

  “’Morning,
stranger,” Gabe murmured before looking up.

  And then he did.

  Gabe had been filled in on yesterday’s excitement. News traveled like the proverbial wildfire in a town where sighting the first robin of spring was considered newsworthy.

  “Hey, have you been to bed yet?” Gabe asked the department’s newest deputy. “’Cause you really look like he—”

  Cody held his hand up to stop the rest of the sentence. “If you say what I think you’re going to say, you need to know that I can’t be held accountable for my reaction.”

  Gabe laughed. “I take it that someone else already told you?”

  “I don’t think there’s anyone left in town who hasn’t told me,” Cody commented wearily.

  He had to admit that he felt pretty worn-out right about now. Yesterday was finally beginning to catch up to him.

  “So, then, why don’t you go home and get some rest?” Gabe asked. It struck him as the only logical conclusion.

  “Because I was already out yesterday and I don’t want to lose my job for taking too much personal time,” Cody explained, adding, “I really like this job.”

  Gabe clearly wasn’t following Cody’s reasoning. “Why would you lose your job? You were busy saving a tourist’s life. That’s supposed to be one of the things we get paid for, remember? Saving people. It’s not like you took time away from capturing the culprits responsible for some kind of crime spree.”

  Cody’s head was definitely foggy and he wasn’t absorbing things as quickly as he normally did.

  “Too many words,” he muttered, tipping back his coffee mug.

  Gabe tried again. “In a nutshell, Rick clocked you in. You were on the job yesterday, protecting and serving, not playing hooky.” Getting up, Gabe came over to Cody’s desk, where the tired deputy had more or less collapsed into his chair rather than simply sitting down. “That means you’re free to go home, Cody.”

  But Cody shook his head. “I’m waiting to get my second wind. If I lie down now, I probably won’t get up until tomorrow morning.”