COWBOY AND THE BABY, THE

by Ferrarella, Marie

  He found Devon sitting at a table positioned smack-dab in the center of the diner. There was another table behind her and it was piled high with all sorts of baby furnishings and things designed to make a new mother’s life a little easier. The gifts ranged from the very basic to one-of-a-kind items.

  “Looks like you cleaned up,” Cody remarked, looking over the table.

  Devon swung around to face him and it occurred to him that she’d never looked happier to see him.

  Or maybe she was just plain happy, he amended.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she confessed, gesturing at the gifts the women had brought to the party. Even Christmas had never looked like this. This was definitely something out of the ordinary.

  “You’ll think of something,” Cody assured her. The other guests who’d attended the party were filing past them and leaving the diner, saying their goodbyes. “You ready to go home?” Cody asked her.

  Home. It had such a nice ring to it. She knew she shouldn’t allow herself to get carried away, to feel like this, but she just couldn’t help it.

  Out loud she said, “Just as soon as we get this into your truck.”

  At first glance, it looked like a lot, but he’d always been good at organizing things. “No problem. You just sit tight,” he told her.

  She shook her head. “But I want to help,” Devon protested.

  Miss Joan came up behind her. “Man wants to do it all, let him do it all,” she told Devon. “From what I hear,” she continued, crossing over to the guest of honor, “you’ve been returning the favor by keeping him and his family well fed.”

  “Seems like a small thing to do,” Devon protested.

  “Don’t underestimate yourself,” Miss Joan warned. Turning to face Cody, the woman waved a thin hand all around the immediate area. “Those are all her things, Cody,” the older woman informed him, adding in a no-nonsense voice, “Get busy.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied, doing his best to look solemn. Secretly, he was extremely grateful to her.

  Miss Joan had outdone herself. He felt confident that all of this—the shower, the gifts—would go a long way in helping Devon feel more secure about her new life here in Forever.

  * * *

  CODY MOVED QUICKLY as he brought the gifts to his truck. On his last trip, he noticed that Devon had gotten up. He assumed she was getting ready to leave. Instead, he saw her crossing over to Miss Joan. To his surprise, she threw her arms around the older woman.

  “Thank you for everything, Miss Joan,” Devon murmured.

  Knowing Miss Joan’s nature, Cody half expected the diner owner to extract herself and say something vague and distant about being physically touched. Instead, as he watched in surprise, Miss Joan not only allowed Devon to hug her, but the woman actually returned the embrace for several seconds before she stepped back and said, “Go home to your baby, Devon. She’ll be full grown before you know it.”

  Brushing aside a tear, Devon nodded in response, afraid that if she said something, her voice would wind up cracking.

  Cody sped up his pace. He took the last of the shower gifts from the table and loaded them onto his truck. Out of the corner of his eye he saw several of the regular customers walking into the diner.

  Business as usual had resumed.

  Devon was already sitting in the passenger seat when he got in behind the steering wheel. Cody had buckled his seat belt and was just putting the key into the ignition when he heard Devon finally break her silence and speak up.

  Glancing at him, she said the obvious. “Miss Joan is an amazing woman.”

  Cody tactfully suppressed a laugh before responding. “She sure is,” he verified.

  Devon nodded her head, more to herself than for Cody’s benefit. “I wasn’t sure what to expect,” she confessed.

  He turned on the ignition. “So what’s your final verdict?” he asked, curious about her impression of the woman.

  To his surprise, Devon summed it up rather neatly. “She’s scary and sweet at the same time. An angel.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I guess that’s one description of the lady.”

  Devon shifted in her seat with her seat belt digging into her shoulder. “Why would Miss Joan do something like that for me?” she asked suddenly. “I mean, I’m nobody to her.”

  “Because she’s Miss Joan,” he answered simply. That unadorned statement was the explanation for a good many things the woman had done that remained a mystery to the rest of the town. “And because I think long ago she might have found herself in the same position as you,” Cody added.

  He paused, and then decided that it might be helpful to Devon if he told her his own story about Miss Joan.

  “When my dad died, leaving us orphaned, Connor stepped up to take care of us. If he had gone his own way, Cole, Cassidy and I would have been put into foster care. Lucky for us, he didn’t. But Connor didn’t manage to take care of us alone. There was always Miss Joan in the wings. She came through with odd jobs for us to do in order to make ends meet. She also fed us on more than one occasion, insisting that if we didn’t take the food, she’d only wind up throwing it out because she’d ordered too much.”

  He smiled to himself. “Nobody can remember Miss Joan miscalculating her inventory. She always knows down to the last serving how much to order, how much to have on hand. Yet for the first couple of years after my dad died, she always seemed to have this ‘surplus’ lying around.” A philosophical smile curved his lips. “Most people in town just think of Miss Joan as this rough-talking guardian angel.”

  She could add herself to that number. “Well, I think she’s wonderful.”

  She wasn’t going to get an argument out of him, Cody thought. “Most of us do, too.’

  Twisting farther around in her seat, Devon looked at all the things that she’d gotten as a result of the baby shower. It seemed a little overwhelming now that she looked at it.

  “I don’t know where you can put all those things,” she confessed.

  He’d already thought about that. “Don’t worry about it, we’ll find space.”

  That seemed to be the go-to catchphrase, she thought. Don’t worry about it.

  The problem was she did.

  * * *

  HER CONCERNS WERE somewhat abated when they reached the house and, rather than make any remarks about her “taking over” the way she feared, Cody’s brothers pitched in and helped Cody unload the gifts, which included a brand-new crib that Mrs. Hennessey from the general store had given her, saying that it was a model that someone had ordered and then failed to pick up.

  Cole helped to ease the crib out of the truck, bringing the parts into the living room.

  “Why don’t we set this up upstairs?” Cody suggested. And then he looked at Devon and said, “It’s about time the baby had a room of her own so that you can get a good night’s sleep.”

  “But I won’t hear her crying if I’m down here,” Devon protested.

  “Which is why we moved your things upstairs into the bedroom next to the nursery,” Connor told her.

  She looked from one brother to the other. “You’re saying that I can take over two bedrooms?” she asked incredulously.

  “Why not?” Connor asked with a shrug. “They’re just standing around, empty, going to waste.”

  Devon’s astonished gaze swept over all three brothers. She kept thinking that she was going to wake up at any minute and find out this was all a dream. “You don’t mind?” she questioned.

  “Why should we mind?” Connor asked. “We’re the ones who came up with the suggestion.” And then he seemed to read between the lines, guessing why she seemed so wary. “Don’t worry, we don’t plan to hold you here against your will. Whenever you decide you want to leave, you can leave. But until then, this just seems like the m
ore logical arrangement for everyone.”

  She didn’t know what to say. No one had ever treated her so well or been so thoughtful about her needs and situation.

  Not since her mother had passed away.

  Tears shimmered in her eyes as she said, “I have to tell you, you all make it very difficult to leave.”

  Cole and Connor exchanged looks. Connor grinned. “That did cross our minds,” he admitted.

  She didn’t want to break down and cry in front of them. She didn’t want them to think she was crazy.

  Turning away, she murmured, “I’d better feed and change the baby.”

  “Already done,” Cole informed her proudly.

  “Then I’d better get dinner started,” Devon said. More tears welled up in her eyes and she hurried into the kitchen quickly.

  Connor poked Cody in the ribs and nodded his head in Devon’s direction. His message was clear. Devon was definitely a woman in need of comforting.

  “Go to her,” he told his brother when Cody continued to stand there.

  Cody eyed him uncertainly. “Maybe she wants to be alone.”

  Connor sighed, shaking his head. “Every crying woman needs a shoulder. You don’t have to talk. You just have to be there,” Connor maintained.

  Cody was still undecided about what to do. Which was when Cole pushed him toward the doorway.

  He had no choice but to enter the kitchen,

  “Are you all right?” he asked Devon quietly.

  Rather than answer him, Devon nodded her head.

  “Are you sure?” he pressed. He watched the way her shoulders were moving. Connor was right. She was crying. She stopped and turned around to face him. Since there were tears sliding down both cheeks, she couldn’t very well protest that she wasn’t crying.

  Instead, she drew in a ragged breath and said, “These are happy tears.”

  He could never wrap his mind around that. “How can you tell?”

  She tried to smile and didn’t quite succeed. “Because I’m happy.”

  “Okay, you could have fooled me,” Cody admitted.

  The next thing he knew, Devon had thrown her arms around his neck. “I’m so sorry about this,” she sobbed.

  “Hey, nothing to be sorry about. You’re dealing with a lot here. From where I stand,” he told her soothingly, “you’re doing a damn fine job of it.”

  “No, I’m not. If it wasn’t for you...” Devon couldn’t bring herself to finish her sentence.

  “Shh,” he said softly, and then told her, “we’ll argue about it later.” In an effort to soothe her, he held her closer and, ever so slightly, kissed the top of her head.

  Devon looked up at him.

  The next thing he knew, like a man in a dream, he brought his mouth down to hers.

  Chapter Fifteen

  In the next moment, Cody forced himself to step back, murmuring an apology. He wasn’t about to say he didn’t know what had come over him because he did know. He wanted to comfort Devon, just as Connor had said. He wanted her to know she wasn’t alone in this. He wanted her not to feel lost.

  He wanted her.

  Which was why, Cody sternly upbraided himself, he absolutely needed to keep his distance. And that, he realized, would be a challenge—because her room was now next to his.

  Devon quickly wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. “I’d better finish getting dinner ready,” she said brusquely, turning away from Cody and trying very hard to regain control over herself. She’d slipped, but she wasn’t going to allow that to happen again.

  For her own survival, she couldn’t.

  * * *

  HE HOPED HIS feelings would change, but after two more weeks, they still didn’t. If anything, as far as he was concerned, it became more prominent for him. He was never more aware of Devon’s proximity after everything had settled down for the night.

  With no effort at all, he came up with a dozen different reasons to look in on Devon, to offer his help with the baby or just to talk. It was a struggle each evening to talk himself out of every one of those excuses. At times he wound up all but barricading himself in his room.

  The last thing he wanted was for Devon to feel that he was crowding her—or worse, that because of everything that had transpired, she owed him something. It was hard on him, but he forced himself to pull back. That came in the form of his putting in longer hours. He knew that his brothers and sister would handily fill up the space that he left behind. It was in their nature to step up and pitch in whenever Devon needed help.

  Eventually, Cody talked himself into believing that Devon didn’t even notice what he was doing—except perhaps, that she might feel less hemmed in.

  Each day was supposed to grow easier for him. It didn’t. After two weeks he still found himself actually missing her despite the fact that he saw Devon every morning before he left the house and every evening after he came home.

  It couldn’t be helped, Cody thought, but at least his plan was proceeding the way he intended it to. Devon wouldn’t feel obliged to him for anything.

  There was only one sad side effect of this program of self-denial. Since he’d started keeping his distance from Devon, he found that sleep had become a rather elusive commodity. The main reason for that was because he caught himself straining to hear sounds that would let him know whether or not Devon had gone to sleep or if she was up with the baby.

  Moreover, each time he heard any indication of the latter, he had to struggle to keep from getting up and volunteering to take over for her so that at least she could get some rest.

  It was beginning to take a toll on him. Rather than getting used to this, he found that things were just getting more difficult for him. People were noticing the dark circles under his eyes. Shrugging it off didn’t help the basic situation.

  Cody had just resigned himself to spending another sleepless night when he thought he heard a light knock on his door.

  Sitting up, he stared at the closed door, wondering if he was imagining things. Up until this point, the house had been as quiet as a tomb. Apparently everyone else, including the baby, was asleep.

  Curious, Cody got up and opened the door a crack. It allowed him to see that Devon was just turning away from his room. She was wearing an old, oversize T-shirt.

  His old T-shirt, he realized. Cassidy must have found it somewhere and given it to her. She was obviously using it as her nightgown. The hem only came down halfway on her thighs.

  Something tightened in the pit of his stomach.

  “Devon?” When she stopped in her tracks and turned around to face him, Cody felt his mouth go dry. “Is something wrong?”

  For a moment, she appeared to be waffling, as if she was undecided whether to say something or not. Or maybe the sight of him bare-chested, wearing a pair of old, torn jeans that hung precariously off his hips had rendered her mind blank.

  Her internal conflict was short-lived. She squared her shoulders.

  Blowing out a deep breath, Devon asked. “Can I come in?”

  Because he wanted her to so much, Cody almost asked her if whatever she wanted to talk about couldn’t keep until morning.

  But something in her expression kept him from asking that. Instead, he stepped back and opened the door farther for her.

  “Sure.”

  Devon took another deep breath, as if to fortify herself, and then crossed his threshold. Before she said a single word, she closed the door behind her.

  “Is something wrong with the baby?” Cody asked when she didn’t say anything.

  Devon shook her head. “No, not the baby,” she told him.

  “Then what?” He was getting a very uneasy feeling that something was definitely wrong. He might have been avoiding her for her own good, but he didn’t want that
to keep her from coming to him if something was troubling her. “You can tell me anything,” he coaxed.

  Rather than pouring out her heart, she looked at him for a long moment.

  “Can I?” she questioned.

  That threw him. “Sure.”

  Cody watched her press her lips together as if she was wrestling with a problem. It suddenly occurred to him that she wasn’t saying anything because what was bothering her was a woman thing. He told her the only thing he could. “Maybe you’d feel better if I got Cassidy—”

  “No,” Devon said sharply. She didn’t want to talk to Cassidy. She wanted and needed to talk to him, to have it out with him.

  Gathering her courage, she asked, “Have I done something to offend you? Because if I have, you have to know that I didn’t mean it. I don’t know what I did, but I am very sorry.” Her eyes met his and she told him with all sincerity, “I would rather die than have that happen.”

  Cody stared at her, stunned. Where had she gotten that idea?

  He stepped forward to put his hands on her shoulders and then caught himself at the last moment. If he touched her, that would lead to something else.

  Frustrated, he kept his hands at his sides. “You haven’t done anything to offend me,” he assured her.

  Devon was far from convinced. His answer and his tone of voice only served to confuse her further. This didn’t make any sense.

  “Then why?” she asked.

  “Why what?”

  She spelled it out for him. “Why have you been avoiding me?”

  Denial was becoming second nature to him. “I haven’t been—”

  Devon cut him short. She was in no mood to play games.

  “Yes, you have. You’ve been skipping breakfast, staying longer at work and when you actually do come home, if you do sit at the table, you don’t say anything,” she concluded, underscoring her grievances. “And don’t,” she warned, “tell me that I’m imagining things, because I’m not.” She tried to make amends again. “If I somehow hurt your feelings or did something to make you angry, you know I didn’t mean to.”