Bundle of Joy

by Annie Jones

  Jax just couldn’t...

  The horse stamped its foot, and Shelby dodged out of the way. Jax came back to the moment. What he couldn’t do was stand here and think about Shelby. There was no future in that. So he decided to ask about the past—the immediate past.

  “So, what did you do on your first day of leisure?”

  “Leisure? Taking care of a baby is not for sissies, buddy.”

  “I meant your first day not working at the café.” Jax laughed. “Besides, I thought you were an old hand with kids.”

  “Old?” She made the final tug on the cinch. The horse shifted its weight. She patted its side to calm it then put on the horse’s bridle.

  “Experienced,” he corrected, running his hand along the horse’s rippling neck muscles.

  “Where’d you get that idea?”

  “Before I even laid eyes on you, Tyler told me that you taught Sunday school to every kid in town. It seemed like everyone I waited on today either had you as a teacher or their child does now.”

  She conceded his point with a shrug and a shake of her head. “They can’t get anyone else to do it.”

  “That’s not why you do it any more than that’s why the sheriff stays on year after year.” He followed her to the next stall, watched her arrange the saddle blanket then lifted the saddle and settled it on the back of a brown gelding. “You do it because you love it.”

  She caught the cinch between her fingers, placed one hand on the flank of the waiting animal, paused, then said, “No, I do it because I love them.”

  Once again he’d missed her motivation, seeing only his own. “Helping people has always been my goal.”

  She tightened the cinch. “How is that different from what I just said?”

  “I didn’t give much thought to caring about the people I helped.” He brushed his hand along the horse’s neck, not sure if it was the serenity of the darkened barn, the comfort of the calmly waiting animals or just the nearness of Shelby that got the truth out of him so easily. He shifted his boots in the straw but did not stop himself from admitting, “I did it because it made me feel important, because I thought no one else would, because—”

  “Because no one helped you when you needed it.” She straightened up and put her hand on his. “We often do things to heal the hurts we feel in life by trying to put them right in other relationships.”

  “Really? You’re going to try to sell that idea to me? The guy who prides himself on knowing why people do what they do?” He chuckled, not because he felt insulted, but because he found her attempt to figure him out endearing.

  “Oh, Jax.”

  “What?” He realized she had not moved her hand from his.

  She didn’t say another word. She didn’t have to.

  “You got me. I’m justifying my actions to myself.” He didn’t move his hand away from her, but fixed his attention on the paleness of her small fingers against his tanned skin. “Time and time again, people at the café told me if they were going to leave a baby with anyone, it would be you.”

  She slipped her hand away from his and went to work putting on the horse’s bridle. “I know, because I’m a big pushover.”

  “Because you were the one who taught them about trust and devotion and putting the needs of those you love ahead of your own needs.”

  “Like I said, pushover. The kids I taught in Sunday school know that better than anyone.” She held her hand up to keep him from contradicting her, guided her horse out of the stall then moved to mount it. When she got up in the saddle, she tipped her head to one side. “Wait a minute. The kids I taught in Sunday school!”

  “What about them?” he asked over his shoulder as he went to mount the other horse.

  “We’re pretty confident it’s not someone currently in town, but I taught for years and years. Some of those kids don’t live in Sunnyside anymore. Jax, do you think it could be one of them?”

  “Good place to start.” He swung himself up into his saddle. “Do you have records of your classes or photographs that might jar your memory?”

  She nodded her head. “I’m sure I have some. Not every year, and the ones with kids old enough to have a baby probably wouldn’t be digital. They’d be in photo albums, all packed up.”

  “You should go through your moving boxes and see if you can find them. I can help, if you want.” He settled into the saddle and tested the reins to get a feel for them. “And before you tell me I’m willing to help in trying to reunite Amanda and her mom because I lost my own mom, that’s not why I’m offering.”

  “Oh?”

  She was using the “Don’t say too much, and just let the other guy do the talking” technique, which Jax favored in interrogations. Smart girl. It worked. “This time I want to help because I care about the people involved.”

  “Is that so?” She gave him a sly smile, then clicked to her horse to get moving. “I think the people involved might feel the same way about you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s pretty simple, if you ask me.” She turned her horse. Walking out the barn door, she clicked again, this time with a gentle kick, and called out behind her, “See if you can keep up.”

  The brown gelding took off at a fast trot, which didn’t compare to the racing beat of her heart. Somewhere in her neatly boxed-up belongings, she might find the face of Amanda’s mother. And a not quite cowboy who had come back to her aid once already—and might or might not care about her—was going to help her look for it. She didn’t know how she felt about any of that.

  Shelby looked over her shoulder to see Jax maneuver his horse around and follow after her like a real pro.

  He didn’t so much as lose his cool once as he rode after her, and in a minute overtook her.

  She pulled gently on the reins to slow her horse to a walk. “I thought you said you couldn’t ride.”

  “I didn’t say I couldn’t. I said I didn’t.” He brought his horse around and slowed it to match the pace of hers.

  “You know that’s not how I took it. I thought you were a man who says what he means.”

  “I am, but that doesn’t mean I say any more than I need to.”

  “That’s one of those kinds of things that seems like sound advice, but then you think about it a minute...” She gave him what she thought was a serious, probing look.

  He laughed out loud, reaching down to stroke the mane of his mount. “So, you grew up out here?”

  “We lived in a little house in town until I got through high school. My mom died the summer after I graduated, and I went off to college that fall. The end of that school year, I came back to Sunnyside to find Daddy had sold the house and spent all the proceeds to buy this place.” She raised her face and let the sun warm her cheeks and the wind ruffle her hair back. “There was no more money for me to continue with my schooling.”

  “So you dropped out of college?” Jax asked over the steady clop-clop of hooves on heat-hardened Texas clay.

  “I took a break. Or that’s what I told myself I was doing.” She gripped the horn of the saddle, her face still raised into the breeze. “I got a little apartment and a job at the café.”

  “And you found out you liked it and thought maybe it could become your life’s work,” Jax said, finishing for her.

  “Well...” She dragged the word out, unwilling to go so far as to agree with Jax’s version of things. “I like the people, old friends and new ones coming in off the highway. I like hearing their stories, and I like the consistency of seeing them day after day. It’s kind of like having a great big family.”

  “Family, huh? So is that how your dad got involved working there? You wanted to make it a family business?”

  “Daddy? He had big plans for this place. He was going to rent stalls and give riding lessons.
He even built a little arena for junior rodeos, the whole deal.”

  Jax looked around. She could practically hear him counting down the things that weren’t there.

  “Then the economy went belly-up,” she explained. “And I got him a job at the café to bring in some extra cash to tide him over, saying he’d put any extra in a fund to help me buy the place. Only there never was any extra, and...”

  “And he was the first cowboy to break your heart?”

  The question took her breath away. When she recovered, she didn’t answer directly. “You’re actually a very good horseman.”

  “I’m a better lawman.”

  She knew that was his way of saying he had done some fine detective work and had seen through her evasion. But he was not the only one capable of that. “If that’s what you do best, then why are you going to Florida to be a neighborhood night watchman?”

  He didn’t have an answer.

  Gotcha, Shelby thought. “Ready to let these ponies stretch their legs? If you think you can handle it, that is.”

  “I can handle it,” he assured her. “And if you thought I couldn’t ride, why’d you take off like that right out of the barn? Trying to ditch me?”

  “Not on purpose,” she said before she kicked her horse lightly in the flanks to take off. “But then, it seems like not a lot of things in my life get done on purpose, so maybe you’d better hang on and be ready for wherever we end up.”

  Chapter Ten

  They rode for an hour or so, then brushed down the horses, fed them and headed back to town.

  After that, and on top of a shift at the café, Jax was bone tired. Shelby had known he would be. Had she done it so he’d go back to his bunk and rest, instead of pushing her to go through her old photos to see if any faces sparked an idea of who might have left Amanda?

  She wasn’t trying to throw things off course. Not on purpose. But if they didn’t get around to it, well, she wasn’t going out of her way to make it happen.

  Over the next two days, she found herself doing just about anything to keep the two of them—the three of them, since Amanda was always with them—busy. Too busy to get around to unpacking old photo albums, much less combing over them for faces.

  The young woman who had been so certain a week ago about what she wanted to do now couldn’t seem to make herself do anything, except care for Amanda and spend time with Jax.

  Nothing else seemed to matter. The clock was ticking. Jax had to leave for Florida in two days, max. That made him work all the harder to try to make some progress on the case.

  Shelby just wanted to make the most of whatever time they had together. She hadn’t been the one to abandon Amanda. Whoever had done that knew what they had done, where they had left the baby and, according to Jax and Sheriff Andy, who they had left her with.

  The story of the baby left at the Crosspoint Café had made the local papers, been covered by TV news in both Texas and Louisiana. They had taken the basic information to the Internet, and word had spread through social media. Sometimes it all made Shelby flinch.

  Jax had concluded that whoever left Amanda had been desperate. For some reason they had done it without leaving a single clue as to their identity. What if pursuing them so aggressively was only fueling that desperation? What if it made things worse?

  “I think you should make a plea.” Jax had met her in the parking lot behind the café shortly after seven that morning.

  “But I didn’t do anything,” she protested as she worked Amanda out of her car seat. “Isn’t that something a criminal does?”

  “Not a plea bargain. A plea.” He gestured with both hands folded together. Like that made it any clearer. “We do a video. If we’re right that whoever left Amanda wanted you to have her, that means they feel a special connection to you. They trust you.”

  “I guess so.” She pulled Amanda close, holding the baby’s cheek against her own. Amanda snuggled in tight, winding her fingers through Shelby’s hair. Shelby sighed. “I mean, I know.”

  Shelby did know. She had been fooling herself to think she’d ever be able to move forward in her life without having done every last thing possible to find that person. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

  A few yards away, the café door swung open and Mitch Warner stepped outside. Shelby tensed. She made a quick search of the lot and spotted the familiar red car that Mitch had driven for years.

  “So you make a pitch, this plea.” Jax kept right on speaking, moving closer to Shelby and Amanda as if sheltering them. “You assure the person who left the baby that they are not in trouble. They need to come forward. It’s what’s best for Amanda.”

  “I don’t know if I can do that, Jax,” she said softly, crossing the lot until they reached the steps.

  “Speak from your heart, Shelby.” Jax stepped in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders. “It will be on every TV in the area by the late-night news.”

  “What will be on every TV in the area?” Mitch asked in a hard tone as he came down the front steps of the café toward them.

  “I know you’re right, Jax. I know I should jump at the idea, but I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do. Let me think about it.” Shelby stepped around him to find her ex-boyfriend standing before her. She wound her way around him, as well. “I thought you said you didn’t drive that red car anymore, Mitch.”

  “I don’t. That’s not my car.”

  Shelby spun around and looked at Jax.

  He nodded. “You take the baby inside and ask around to see if anyone knows who owns that car. I’ll go get the license number.”

  “Let me help, Shelby. I’m not that same guy you couldn’t count on.” Mitch wrapped his arm around Shelby’s shoulder, his hand patting the baby’s head. “I can help you and Miranda.”

  “Her name is Amanda.” Jax brushed the other man’s arm away. “And we don’t need your help.”

  Shelby sighed. “Jax, he’s only trying to—”

  “Hey! Hey! Don’t you get in that red car and drive away from this town for parts unknown!” Mitch’s arm swung from Shelby’s shoulder to wave wildly as he hurried down the step toward the lot. “People here want to talk to you about you-know-what!”

  Jax and Shelby twisted around in time to see the brake lights of the red car flash and the vehicle tear out of the lot, headed toward the highway.

  “Why did you do that?” Jax bunched Mitch’s T-shirt in one hand as he pulled the other man nose to nose with him. Actually, given how much taller Jax was, nose to chin.

  “I was trying to help. I told you I’ve changed, Shelby.” Mitch held out his hand to her. “While this guy was ordering you around, I heard that car engine start up and had to help.”

  “That’s what you call helping?” Jax asked.

  “Jax! Back off.” The stress of thinking that someone who might have their only clue to who had left Amanda was skulking around Sunnyside, popping up right at the Crosspoint, put an edge in Shelby’s tone. “He was doing his best.”

  “You’re taking his side?” Jax gestured toward Mitch. “You believe his story that he’s changed?”

  “I don’t know what I believe anymore.” She cradled Amanda in one arm and pressed her fingertips to her temple, trying to make herself focus.

  Was she angry that they’d lost the witness, or that the witness could appear at any time and threaten her growing relationship with Amanda? She didn’t want to believe the worst, but she couldn’t help questioning her own heart in all this. She took a deep breath, knowing she needed to spend some time in prayer over it all.

  In the meantime, she put her hand up to try to get things under control again. “Getting angry with someone who is trying to help isn’t, well, helpful.”

  Before Jax could say more, which Shelby knew would make Mitch say more, whi
ch Shelby felt sure would only confuse her more, the door of the café swung open.

  “My day off, Harmon.” Jax stepped back and raised his hands the way a kid might as he said, “Not it.”

  “It’s cool, Jax man.” Harmon Lockhart mirrored Jax’s gesture. Laughing, he turned to her. “I thought I saw your van in the lot. Then you didn’t make it inside. There’s my girl!”

  Shelby’s tension eased at the sight of her dad’s broad smile and open arms. She stepped toward him.

  He reached out and lifted the baby from her arms, instantly going into full-on baby delighting mode, making silly noises and faces.

  Amanda cooed and laughed and tangled her tiny hand in his faded blond ponytail.

  They might have fought and fussed over the years over everything from his lack of financial responsibility to how fast he expected her to get the orders out at the café, but Shelby loved her dad. Loved him so much that when she had wanted to leave, she could not tell him to his face, because she knew it would break both their hearts. Amanda’s arrival had been the push she needed to stand up to him, quit her job and tell him he had to pay his own bills. Things between them had improved remarkably since then.

  “Funny, I thought I was your girl, Daddy.” Shelby went up on tiptoe to give her dad a kiss on his tanned cheek.

  “You will always be my girl, Shelby Grace.” He gave Shelby a kiss on the cheek in return, then made a goofy face for Amanda’s enjoyment. “I may not have always proved it to you. I may not have always been the best dad in the world, but who knew how much I’d take to being a grandpa?”

  “Foster grandpa,” she said pointedly. She needed to remind herself as much as her father of their precarious status.

  “Grandpa is grandpa,” Harmon shot back. “Y’all come to spend the day with me? Breakfast rush is over. My shift’ll be done before you know it.”

  “I’m just here because I saw Shelby pull in while I was standing near the window in Miss Delta’s, trying to get a good cell signal.” Jax narrowed his eyes and fixed them on Shelby, saying softly, “Playing phone tag with my new boss for a couple days. I get the feeling he’s getting restless.”