A Baby for the Sheriff

by Mary Leo

  “Have you always wanted to be a vet?”

  She nodded. “I think for as long as I could remember. I love my job and I’m blessed that when Doctor Graham retired, he left his practice to me. What about you? Have you always wanted to be a sheriff?”

  He chuckled. “Absolutely not. I wanted to be a bus driver, or a truck driver, then a fireman, a cowboy or a rodeo star, and for a short time I wanted to be a rock star. I play a mean guitar.”

  She smiled, envisioning Jet in tight black leather pants, no shirt and eyeliner. He clearly didn’t fit the image. “Then how on earth did you end up being a sheriff?”

  “When I got out of the military, I didn’t know what to do with myself until I met Sheriff Perkins over in Chubbuck, who was looking for a deputy. The pay was good enough to keep me off the street, and I liked the sheriff, so I applied and got the job. He trained me, and a couple years ago when this job came up, he pushed me out of the nest and gave me a good reference. The rest, as they say, is history.”

  “So, does that mean you like it?”

  “For the most part, it suits me.”

  “When doesn’t it suit you?”

  The baby goats emptied their bottles, their tails wagging like mad, indicating that their bellies were nice and full before Jet pulled the bottles away. They fussed for a minute, then went about bumping heads and playing.

  He turned to her, looking sullen. “When I have to deal with an abandoned baby.”

  “That’s exactly how I feel when someone abandons an animal on my doorstep. But a baby is a hundred times worse.”

  “So, it’s safe to say, Lily is tough for us both.”

  “She’s breaking my heart in more ways than I want to admit.”

  “Mine, too,” he said, and in that moment, he took her breath away.

  * * *

  THE SNOW HAD crept up above his knees, and he could no longer feel his feet or fingers. Every tree, rock and surface around him was covered in thick, heavy snow that continued to fall in great big lacy flakes, making visibility virtually impossible.

  How he’d gotten out on a hillside, he didn’t know.

  With each breath, a billow of steam surrounded his face. His entire body shook from cold, but Jet couldn’t stop moving forward. He knew he had to keep going, keep walking, one foot in front of the other. He had to keep going. Had to get to Doctor Grant’s house.

  He could barely make out a structure in the distance, a log cabin, blanketed in snow, with smoke swirling up out of the chimney and bright yellow lights glowing from the three windows, beckoning him forward.

  In the distance he heard a baby cry, faint at first, then growing louder and louder with each step until the sound pierced his ears. He soon realized that he carried the screaming baby under his coat, held it tight against his chest. But why hadn’t he known this before? What was wrong with him? How could he have not been aware? If he had known that the baby was his responsibility, he would have walked faster. He wouldn’t have had that drink with the woman in the black lace dress at the bar. Was it her baby?

  No. He seemed to know that for a fact.

  But where did it come from? Who gave him a baby?

  The little darling screamed louder until his ears hurt, until he vibrated from the sound of the baby wrapped in a pink blanket. Then, suddenly, she began to slip from his grasp. He could no longer hold her. His hands were numb. He couldn’t feel her, couldn’t protect her. She kept slipping away...

  “Noooo!” he yelled, jerking awake and immediately realizing it had been a dream—a really bad dream. But the crying had been real, and the cold he’d felt in the dream was also real. His blankets had all fallen on the floor, and his body ached from the weird position he’d been in trying to get comfortable on the mini sofa. When he flexed his fingers on his right hand, a thousand needles shot through his fingers telling him that he’d somehow cut off the circulation.

  He sat up, taking in his unfamiliar surroundings. Someone flipped a light switch and his eyes stung for a moment as they adjusted to the bright light.

  That’s when he heard Punky yapping from somewhere off in the distance.

  “Something’s wrong with Lily,” Coco said as she held Lily in her arms. “I took her temperature and it’s one hundred and one. I made a bottle, but she won’t take it.”

  “Did you examine her?”

  Punky came running in, stopping at Coco’s feet. His barking only adding to the noise factor already coming from Lily’s intense wails.

  “I was just about to.”

  Coco seemed levelheaded and cool, despite the squirming baby in her arms and the barking dog at her feet.

  “Did you take an anal temperature? That’s the only way to tell what’s real with a baby this small.”

  “No, I took it under her arm.”

  “Let’s put her on the table with a couple blankets under her,” Jet suggested. He thought that would be the easiest way. “And take that temperature again.”

  Coco leaned over and spoke to Punky directly. “Stop. It’s okay. Lily is okay. Sit.”

  At once the dog stopped barking and sat obediently on his haunches waiting for another command.

  “How’d you do that?” Jet asked, amazed at how quickly the tiny dog obeyed.

  “Training. Punky thinks he’s a German shepherd and his bark means danger. I’m merely telling him that everything is okay.”

  “Wow. I wish I could get some ornery people to respond that way.”

  “It’s all in the tone of voice.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind the next time I’m trying to arrest someone.”

  She grinned. “I’ll need a regular-sized stethoscope and an otoscope for her ears. I have small ones down in the clinic.” She approached Jet with Lily in her arms. “Can you take her while I get a few things?”

  “Sure. Just let me slip on my jeans,” Jet told her, then he picked up his pants off the floor and slipped them on over his long tight black cotton underwear, then zipped them up. Normally he might have been a little hesitant about getting dressed in front of a woman he didn’t know intimately, but there was something different about Coco, something easygoing about her that kept all his apprehensions at bay.

  He wasn’t wearing a shirt, which accounted for the dream of his being so cold—that and he’d been sleeping half-naked without a blanket. No wonder he felt like an icicle. He quickly slipped on his thermal undershirt as well, not bothering with anything else, like his shirt or socks or a belt. Lily needed quick attention, and his needs took a back seat to hers.

  He settled Lily in his arms, shushing her as he did, and bouncing her to a rhythm in his head. Her little face was bright red, and her hands were fisted tight, her body tense and her mouth wide-open, screaming with everything she had.

  “Hey there, sweet cakes, everything’s fine. We’re going to fix you right up. I promise. Shhh,” he cooed, but Lily wasn’t buying any of it and continued on her rampage. Coco returned with what she needed to examine Lily. Punky now paced on the sofa, obviously upset over the turmoil in his house.

  “Let me get the blankets,” Coco said and within moments she had everything set up on the table.

  The first time she went to look inside Lily’s ears, Jet noticed that her hands were shaking. “It’s okay. You’ve done this a million times before. Lily isn’t any different than any of your other patients. She’s a baby in crisis. Take a breath, and slowly let it out. You know how to handle this.”

  Coco followed his instructions until her breathing became more regular and her hands stopped shaking.

  “You’re right,” she told him with a slight grin. “I’m overreacting to something I know exactly how to do.”

  Jet held on to Lily, trying to soothe her with a lullaby as Coco listened to her lungs and heart, and checked inside her ear
s. Then she gently but expertly placed a hand on Lily’s forehead, which caused her to cry even harder, if that was even possible.

  Since the lullaby was no longer working, Jet rocked out on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” For whatever reason, that seemed to do the trick, along with baby Lily finding her own fist to suck on. Lily had exchanged crying for little slurping noises.

  “She has a slight infection in one of her ears, and her temperature is elevated.”

  “What’s our next step?” Jet asked as he slipped a fresh diaper on Lily and zipped up her sleeper gown.

  “She’s too young for any kind of drug. I think what we need to do is put a warm compress up to her ear and bathe her in tepid water with a cloth to bring down her fever.”

  “Whatever you think is best.”

  “I appreciate your confidence in me.”

  “Anytime,” he told her with a nod and a grin, absolutely believing that she knew exactly what to do.

  Forty-five minutes later, after working together, both of them singing most of Michael Jackson’s hits, and after much screaming and fussing due to the wet cloth both on Lily’s ear and on her tiny body, all his faith in Coco had been affirmed.

  Lily had calmed down enough to take her bottle, and Jet was finally able to take a deep breath. The crisis had passed.

  Now Coco leaned against the headboard on her bed as Lily happily suckled the formula. Her temperature had read ninety-nine the last time Coco had checked, and the inflammation in Lily’s ear seemed to be subsiding.

  Without giving it much thought, Jet climbed up on the bed beside Coco and leaned back on the headboard as Punky, who had used his little step stool to get up on the bed, curled up in a tight ball between them. As if on cue, he and Jet let out simultaneous loud sighs.

  “Punky and I feel about the same,” Jet said. “You were amazing, and I’m so glad Lily seems to be feeling better. I don’t know what I would’ve done on my own. My expertise, if you could call it that, is limited to feeding and clothing and general, all-around care. Anything medical is out of my league. Although, I have been known to bring down a few fevers in my day, and I’m great with cuts and scraped knees.” Jet crossed his long legs on her bed, slipping his cold bare feet under the mess of blankets and the comforter at the end of the bed.

  “Thanks. Your patience and guidance were pretty amazing, too,” Coco told him, grinning. “You’ll make a great dad someday, if you ever want kids.”

  They both kept their voices to a calm whisper, cautious that their unfamiliar tones might stir Lily up again.

  He turned his head to look at her, now only inches away from her lovely face, taking a second to notice the slope of her delicate nose, her full lips, the tiny laugh lines that seemed to embrace the corners of her mouth and the slight dimple in her right cheek as she stared down at Lily, who eagerly drank from the bottle.

  “I do...someday, hopefully, but not while I’m in law enforcement. Too risky. I’m not about to leave my son or daughter without a father. I’d need a safe nine-to-five job first or a ranch to run or a snowplow to drive.”

  “So you’re saying you won’t have kids as long as you’re the sheriff?”

  “I will not.”

  “But I thought you said this job suits you?”

  “It does, but not if I want to raise a family. Cops get killed or badly injured in the line of duty all the time. I won’t do that to my child.”

  “Like your dad did to you? What happened to your parents? Was your dad in law enforcement?”

  “He was a hotshot and lost his life fighting fire in Yellowstone.”

  “I’m so sorry. That must have been awful.”

  “I don’t remember much about it, just that I missed him for a very long time. Still do, sometimes.” He could barely remember his dad. All he had were glimpses of him laughing, or smiling down at him, not enough to know anything about the man behind the images.

  “And your mom?”

  Coco slipped the bottle out of Lily’s rosebud mouth, put it down on the bedside table, then placed Lily on her shoulder. She fussed for a bit, but then burped a couple times. Soon Lily once again contentedly suckled her bottle.

  Coco was a natural at this mother thing, unlike Jet’s own mom, who never really got the hang of it.

  “I don’t blame my mom. She never had the temperament to raise a child on her own. It was only supposed to be temporary...leaving me in foster care...but weeks turned into months and months turned into years. She took me back when I was almost seventeen, but by then I was so used to being on my own that all we did was fight. We get along now, but the damage had already been done. She lives in Florida with her childhood sweetheart. I hate Florida. Way too hot and muggy for me.

  “But I don’t want to talk about me anymore. You’re a natural at this, the way you handle Lily, the way you handled the emergency tonight. You’d make a great mom. I’m surprised you don’t already have a houseful of babies. Watching you with Lily, and the love you show to all your critters, any child would be lucky to have you as their mom.”

  He’d meant it as a compliment, not as an affront, but all of a sudden, Coco’s eyes watered and big tears slipped down her beautiful cheeks. “No. What’s wrong? Did I say something to offend you? I’m sorry if I did. Things come out of my mouth sometimes that I don’t take time to think through. I didn’t mean anything negative. Honest.”

  She wiped the tears away with her hand. “You didn’t know. How could you? No one really knows, not even my family.”

  “Is it something you want to talk about? Because I’m like a priest in a confessional. Whatever you tell me is locked away...unless it’s something illegal. Then don’t tell me or I’ll have to haul you off to jail, and I really wouldn’t like that considering everything we just went through to get Lily to stop crying. And besides, the weather sucks.”

  He got her to smile again and his world lit up. “It’s nothing illegal.”

  “Good, then what is it?”

  She turned to look at him, her face streaked with tears. “Last year, I was diagnosed with moderate to severe endometrioses. It’s when tissue that lines the inside of a woman’s uterus grows outside the uterus. When it attacks the ovaries, cysts form. I have both of those issues and the chances of my getting pregnant without surgery or in vitro fertilization go down significantly with each passing year. That’s why I wanted you to simply take Lily. I didn’t want to be around her to remind me, and I certainly didn’t want to give her my heart.”

  He couldn’t help himself. He reached over and ran his finger down her cheek. “From looking at you now, both of those things have happened.”

  She gazed down at Lily, smiling and pulling her in tighter. She had fallen asleep, so Coco gently removed the nipple from her little mouth. Lily sighed and stretched, but never opened her eyes. Instead, she merely turned her head sideways, as if she was about to nurse on Coco’s breast, and fell into a deep, comfortable sleep.

  “Any man you marry will certainly love you enough to understand, and help you through any kind of surgery or procedure you want to do in order to get pregnant. And if that’s not an option, then the two of you can adopt a baby just like Lily.”

  “I doubt there’s another baby in the entire world like Lily. Look at how sweet she is, that little cherub face, and her deep blue eyes, and the way she seems to be smiling whenever she’s content. And the way she coos when you talk to her, like she’s trying to answer you. I tried so hard to keep my emotions out of this, but when Lily woke up with a fever under my watch, I couldn’t help but fall in love with her. I know she has to leave me in the morning, and it’s ripping me apart.”

  “You want to know something?”

  She nodded.

  “Giving her up is ripping me apart, as well.”

  Then, wanting to protect both Lily and Coco, he r
eached out and Coco scooted into his embrace, bringing sleeping Lily along with her. When they were both nestled in tight, with Coco’s head leaning on his shoulder, a strong wave of compassion washed over him, causing his own eyes to well up with emotion. He could only imagine the grief Coco was feeling holding that tiny baby in her arms.

  She continued, “I know I shouldn’t question it, but I can’t even begin to imagine what could have drove Lily’s mother to leave her child with strangers. The thought is inconceivable to me. I only wish I could talk to Lily’s mom, meet her, get to know her reasons and maybe try to convince her to reconsider, but I know it’s not my place to do any of those things. Still, I can’t help but wonder if she’s missing her baby on this cold snowy night, or if she’s relieved she finally got rid of her. Either way, it breaks my heart.”

  He couldn’t help but kiss her on her forehead, stroke her hair and pull her in tighter. In all his adult life, he’d never felt closer to a woman than he had just then.

  He knew she was involved with Russ Knightly, a man he wouldn’t drive across town to meet, and from what he saw earlier that night, Coco was probably in love with him, although Jet couldn’t for the life of him understand why. Still, he knew he and Coco had shared something meaningful, and no matter what happened between them in the days to come, he’d always feel close to her.

  He wanted to confess his own heartbreak about Lily’s abandonment and about having to hand her over to strangers who would only be her caretakers and nothing more, but he changed his mind. In comforting Coco, he also comforted himself, and for now, that was all he needed. All that mattered.

  Tomorrow, everything would be different, and for all they knew, Lily’s mom might return, looking for her precious baby.

  Chapter Four

  Coco awoke slowly, wrapped up in Russ’s arms, content as a kitten in the sun, only there was no sun, only a sort of darkness that a snowy sky can bring, and when she gazed up at her man, it wasn’t Russ, but Sheriff Jet Wilson, sound asleep.