by Mary Leo
Punky stretched his front legs out, shook off sleep and jumped off the bed, waiting for her to let him out on the upstairs patio. He had a little area on the patio where he went and did his business when she couldn’t take him out for a walk. This was one of those moments.
She quickly but ever so carefully slid out of Jet’s embrace and panicked over the whereabouts of baby Lily. The last thing she remembered was holding Lily as she fell asleep in Coco’s arms, while she fell asleep in Jet’s arms.
“Oh, no,” she whispered to herself. When she slid out of bed, she nearly hit her shin on an open drawer, and before she could scold herself for being so absentminded, she noticed that baby Lily lay all snuggled up on her back, sound asleep inside the drawer that had been lined with soft blankets.
Coco was ever so tempted to pick her up and hold her tight, but she stopped short as she fully realized that she’d spent the night in the same bed as Jet Wilson, wrapped in his arms.
She tried to remember if anything sexual took place during the night, but when her mind came up clean, she let out a thankful sigh. Although, looking at him now, his hair all messed up, the pillow scrunched under his head and that fabulous big muscled body taking up space on her bed, she wasn’t sure if she would’ve minded if something sexual had taken place...at least a kiss or two.
She scolded herself for thinking such reckless thoughts as she led Punky through the kitchen, then opened the back door for him to go out. A blast of icy wind nearly froze her solid as she waited in the slightly open doorway. Snow blew in on her and covered her back patio in great big drifts that seemed higher than she was tall. Punky took two steps out the door and did his duty right there on the disposable mat, not wanting to go any farther. She always kept a thick paper mat close by for Punky in case of bad weather, and this ranked as some of the worst.
“I don’t blame you, Punky,” she told him as he came running back into the warmth of the kitchen.
When she headed back to the bedroom she reminded herself that she already had a boyfriend...kind of. Okay, so she and Russ hadn’t slept together yet, but that was merely a matter of poor timing, she felt sure of it. She’d been in love with Russ for years now, albeit one-sided, but nevertheless, she cared for him. He was everything she’d ever wanted...aside from the fact that he didn’t seem to like children...but then she couldn’t have children, at least, not very easily.
She had wanted to assume that the man she would marry would love her enough to want to go through all the steps needed for her to carry their own baby, or that perhaps he would even consider adopting.
Maybe the assumption wasn’t a fair one.
She hadn’t been all that honest with Russ about her pregnancy issues really, insofar as she hadn’t told him everything that she’d said to Jet last night.
And why she’d confided in Jet was beyond her. She’d kept that secret to herself for over a year now, and yet, there she was, blabbing like a schoolgirl.
Still scolding herself, she quickly showered, got dressed and added more makeup than she usually wore on a daily basis, telling herself that she wanted to look good if and when Russ stopped by. She also admitted that she wanted to look good for Jet, as well.
Oh, this was getting complicated and she didn’t fully understand why. Russ was her man, not Jet Wilson, who couldn’t even fully embrace being a sheriff. At least Russ knew exactly what career and future he wanted, and was willing to work really hard to get there. It sounded as if Jet had hardly worked at all to get his job; it was more or less handed to him.
While Jet and Lily both slept, she and Punky ambled downstairs to take care of the animals. Punky liked to check on the goats, and they liked to try to catch him. Punky believed he was a brute of a big dog, so nothing scared him, not even when the goats tried to butt him with their heads.
When the cages were cleaned and the goats, piglet, llamas, kittens and one lonely puppy were fed, along with the tortoise, Coco and Punky went back upstairs only to find Jet pouring batter onto her waffle iron, while baby Lily squirmed and cooed in her bassinet on the kitchen counter.
“Morning,” Sheriff Jet Wilson said, a lilt in his voice that she’d never heard before.
“Good morning. Not only can you take care of an infant, but you can cook, as well?”
“Nothing too fancy, but yes. I make a mean waffle. How do you like your bacon?”
“Dry, just like my eggs, but let me help. What can I do?”
“You can play with Lily, who drank her entire bottle, I might add. She seems to be feeling better this morning, all thanks to you.”
Coco went over and peeked in at Lily, who stared up at the ceiling lights, her little legs flexing and her tiny fingers spread out on her chest. A bright red streak crossed her right cheek.
“Aw, looks like her nails need clipping.”
“Already taken care of.”
Coco could hardly believe this guy. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
His entire face lit up with a wide grin. “Several things.”
“Name a few.”
She went over to the stove and felt the kettle, already hot, so she made a cup of English Breakfast using a tea bag from her plentiful stash of teas.
“I can’t ride a horse very well. Never really learned.”
“I can teach you,” she said without really thinking about what that meant. “We’re all great riders in my family.”
“If you live in Briggs, you know all about the riding skills of the Grant family. Seen your brother compete out at the fairgrounds, and your sisters Callie and Kenzie are expert riders.”
She didn’t want to brag, but... “I can rope a steer while on horseback faster than any of ’em. Just haven’t done it in a while. You’d give me a reason to get back in the saddle, so to speak.”
“I may take you up on that,” he said as he plated their food. “One slice of bacon or two?”
“Three, if you made enough.”
It was the first time in her entire adult life that a man other than her father or brother had made breakfast for her.
“I made plenty.”
He piled her plate with scrambled eggs, a waffle and three slices of bacon. It looked yummy and she couldn’t wait to dig in.
“Anything else you’re not good at?”
“Are we still on me? How about you? I’ve seen you with Lily, and all your critters downstairs. You’re amazing. And now you tell me you can rope a steer while on horseback. What can’t you do?”
“Relationships.”
He shook his head. “I can’t believe that. You must have guys beating down your door.”
Everything was cooked to perfection, the waffle crispy on the outside and light as air on the inside, the bacon dry and the eggs perfectly perfect.
“Just one guy at the moment, and after last night, I don’t know if he’ll come knocking anytime soon.”
His eyebrow crooked up slightly, as if he was skeptical about something.
“He’ll be back. I guarantee it. He’s not going to let one little baby stand in his way. He strikes me as the kind of guy who always gets what he wants.”
“Do I detect a little jealousy in that statement? I mean, isn’t that good for someone who wants to be mayor?”
“Depends on who he has to step on to get there.”
“So far, to my knowledge, he hasn’t stepped on anyone.”
“He may be good at hiding the bodies.”
She detected more than jealousy. She detected a disdain for Russ, her knight in shining armor. “You don’t like him very much, do you?”
He topped off his coffee, then added cream and a teaspoon of sugar. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw anyone add real sugar to their beverage. The only reason she kept it around was occasionally she liked to bake something, but that hadn�
��t happened in months.
“Can’t say that I do.”
“Why not?”
He hesitated, as if deciding how honest he wanted to be with his feelings. “My own personal reasons, but hey, if he’s your man, then who am I to rain on your parade.”
“I didn’t know I was in a parade.”
“Dating a prominent figure like Russ Knightly—every time you and he go out that door, you probably get a following.”
She knew he was right, but still. “Sometimes, but maybe I like it.”
“Don’t you know?”
She hated that he tripped her up. “No. I mean yes. I mean, that’s only temporary. Once he’s elected, things will quiet down.”
“He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who does anything in a quiet fashion.”
She suddenly didn’t like where this conversation was going. “Okay. Enough about me and my relationship, which you obviously don’t approve of. What about you and your relationships? I suppose you have women lining up at the jailhouse just dying for your attention?”
“If they are, I haven’t noticed.”
She liked how he suddenly tried to be coy... As if.
“Are you secretly dating anyone?”
“Why would it be a secret?”
She shrugged. “You strike me as a private sort of guy.”
“I am, but not that private. I just keep picking the wrong kind of girl.”
“And what kind is that?”
“The kind who can’t seem to date one guy at a time.”
“You mean like Dani Century?”
“How’d you know about her?”
“It’s a small town.”
Everyone knew he’d dated Dani, and that she dumped him for a rodeo rat.
“She said she wanted a steady guy and that she wanted to put down roots.”
“You should’ve asked her how deep. That girl wasn’t about to stick around long enough to break through the topsoil.”
Jet chuckled softly as he took a bite of his eggs. “Don’t I know it. You have a way with words. Anybody ever tell you that?”
“You’re the first, but thanks.”
She took the last bite of her waffle, which was now swimming in maple syrup.
“How about another waffle? I still have enough batter for one more.”
“Sure,” she told him, wanting their breakfast to last a little longer. “Your waffles are amazing, crispy but light as a feather.”
“Sally Crane’s recipe, foster family number five when I was about ten. She got it from her mom who came from Sweden.”
“But how did you learn it? Seems a little odd for a ten year old to want to know how to make a waffle.”
“That’s ’cause I was an odd kid. Whenever I liked something, whether it was something to eat, or build, or a skill I thought would be good to know, I watched the person carefully and wrote everything down in a journal. Then I’d memorize it, because keeping any kind of personal possessions in foster care wasn’t always possible.”
“That explains a lot about your ability to handle Lily. What a crafty kid you must have been.”
“You could say that, but to me, it was more about survival. The more I knew, the more I thought adults would want to keep me around. But that didn’t pan out the way I thought it would.”
“I can’t imagine how tough and confusing it must have been for you, or for that matter, for all the children who are in foster care. I’m so worried about Lily, and what her future will be like.”
He gazed at her, warmth and concern all over his face. “Maybe her mom will come back for her. I hope that’s the case, but if she doesn’t, Lily has a good chance of getting adopted fairly quickly. Babies and toddlers have the best chance of settling into a permanent home. It’s the children five and over who have a harder time of it.”
“My siblings and I are blessed. You and Lily have made that abundantly clear. I’ll never take my childhood for granted again.”
“Now, how about that second waffle?” he asked, while opening the lid on the waffle iron, steam pouring out.
Coco held up her plate. “Yes, please, and more of that great bacon, as well.”
Jet filled her plate and she immediately poured on more syrup and took a big bite. She couldn’t remember when she’d been so honest with a guy, and he’d been so honest with her. She held back with Russ, just as she was sure he did the same with her. But that would all change once they were a true couple.
As they sat there, sharing breakfast, listening to Lily’s contented coos, she couldn’t help the many thoughts that flitted through her mind on what it would be like to be married to Sheriff Jet Wilson. Not only had he cooked her a perfect breakfast, with perfectly crispy waffles, crispy bacon and soft scrambled eggs, but he’d showered, shaved with one of her plastic razors, no doubt, and gotten completely dressed in the jeans and long-sleeved dark-gray shirt he’d worn the previous night. She’d never noticed how good he looked in civilian clothes, but she sure did now.
Her mind wandered a bit, recalling how warm and safe she’d felt last night, resting her head on his shoulder, cuddling up against his strong chest, as he now talked about what the day might be like for him and who he needed to call first about baby Lily.
It was at that moment that her cell phone rang. The distinctive tune told her Russ, the man of her dreams, the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, the man she should have been sharing breakfast with this morning, was on the line.
But for some inexplicable reason, she didn’t have those feelings exactly.
“Someone you’re avoiding?” Jet asked as the tune played on and on.
She wished she’d switched her phone to vibrate.
“No. Of course not. Had to swallow my last bite first.”
Jet stood when the bell went off on the waffle iron indicating that the next waffle was cooked, and he slipped it out onto a clean plate while she took the call...walking away from the table and into the living room for some privacy.
“Hey, Russ,” she said into the phone, trying to sound excited.
“Hey, yourself. I take it that arrogant sheriff and the screaming baby are gone by now?”
“Um, sure,” she said, flat-out lying. This was one time when she couldn’t bear to tell Russ the truth. Besides, the sheriff and Lily would be gone for good once breakfast was over. She was sure of it.
* * *
“UNLESS YOU’RE WALKING, nobody’s going anywhere,” Drew Gillian told Jet as she stood in the kitchen drinking a supersize cup of coffee. “Even though I live down the street, getting here on foot wasn’t easy, and driving anywhere would be next to impossible.” Drew couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty years old, had shoulder-length blond hair with purple steaks, a classic Roman nose, almond-shaped amber-colored eyes, cherub-formed lips with a beauty mark right above her top lip and a petite five-foot-two figure. Personality wise, she reminded Jet of Punky, a tiny bundle of roar.
“That’s impossible,” Jet countered, then took off down the stairs to check it out for himself. He’d looked out the window earlier that morning, before he’d sat down for breakfast, and he’d checked the weather report. Both had indicated that the city was coming back to life.
He opened the front door.
More snow had fallen in that hour or so he’d taken to enjoy breakfast, and it was still falling now. “Come on!”
His phone chirped in his pocket, and when he looked at the screen, he saw the deputy sheriff’s smiling face from a picture he’d taken during the summer’s Western Days festival. Nash had replaced Deputy Sheriff Hunter Sears, who’d gotten married and moved to Oregon soon thereafter.
“What’s up?” Jet said into the phone after he accepted the call.
“A lot,” Nash Young sa
id. “Got several people stranded in their cars, a couple roofs collapsed, one on a business in town, but thankfully nobody was hurt, and what appears to be a break-in overnight at a house in the two hundred block of Main Street. Nothing is reported missing, though. I think whoever it was only wanted to get in out of the cold. Oh, yeah, and someone left you a note at the jail.”
“Did you see who it was?”
“No. It was under the door when I opened up this morning. Where’d you get stranded last night? Looks like you left this place in a hurry. Your half-eaten dinner is still on your desk.”
“Long story. An abandoned baby named Lily. I’m over here at Doctor Grant’s clinic.”
“A real baby? Not a foal or a calf or a puppy, but an actual human baby?”
“Yep, a two-week-old girl named Lily, according to the note.”
“Well, in all this snow, I hope Doctor Grant can take care of Lily for a few days, ’cause there’s no way you can drive her over to Idaho Falls to Child Protective Services, and from what I heard, the hospital is overrun with everything from a couple heart attacks to some nasty frostbite cases. This kind of weather brings out the worst.”
“Thanks for the heads-up.”
“You coming in today?”
“Not unless you drive over and pick me up. My rig is snowed in solid.”
“Be there as soon as I can,” Nash said, then Jet disconnected.
Nash Young’s personal truck could get through anything. The tires alone were the size of a small person, and it was fitted with a supercharged engine good enough for any top-fueled drag race. Nothing could stop that vehicle, not even another car, which it could simply drive over. Deputy Sheriff Nash Young drove it for most of the winter months only because he’d designed it after the trucks he’d driven in Monster Jams across the country. He only gave up competing last year when he narrowly escaped an exploding rig and promised his mom he’d do so. Jet had a feeling that it was only a matter of time until he was competing again, but until that happened, Briggs was lucky to have Nash and his four-wheel monster truck to help evacuate stranded motorists almost anywhere across the valley.