The Baby Trail

“That would be great,” he told her, handing her his card. “We appreciate all the help we can get.”

Fluttering her lashes at him a few more times, she encouraged him, “You be sure to sit at my table next time you come in.”

“I’ll be sure to do that,” Garrett returned with a smile.

Gwen hadn’t said a word during the interchange and as they stepped outside, she muttered, “Talk about charm.”

“She probably does that with every man she waits on. Better tips.”

“You didn’t do anything to discourage her.”

Unreasonably, Garrett felt a bit of male satisfaction at Gwen’s comment. “She could have had information I needed, and she still could find out something. You just never know.”

Stopping, he took Gwen’s arm. “Why would it bother you if she was flirting with me?”

“It didn’t bother me,” Gwen protested quickly. “But she’s an impressionable young girl and if you give her hope…”

“The Silver Dollar doesn’t hire anybody under eighteen so she’s not so young—not the way you mean, anyway. And…I never encourage anything more than answers to my questions.”

When Gwen studied him for a very long time, he asked, “Are you involved with anyone?”

“No.”

“Did you have a marriage that went south, too?”

After a brief hesitation, she answered, “No, I didn’t get that far. My fiancé stood me up at the altar.”

“On your wedding day?” Garrett was truly astonished by that piece of background.

“On my wedding day. And I don’t intend to ever let that happen again. I’ll never again depend on a man to make me happy or trust a man the way I trusted Mark.” Moving away from him, maybe embarrassed because she’d said too much, she pointed to the decal on his SUV. “What’s that for?”

“I belong to a network of pilots who help with search and rescue. That’s our logo.”

“You’re a pilot?”

He nodded.

“Do you have your own plane?”

“I inherited my dad’s.”

“You lost him?” she asked so sympathetically he was reminded she’d known loss, too, albeit in a different way.

“Yes. Seven years ago. In some ways it seems like yesterday and in others it seems like forever.” When his parents divorced, he’d gone to live with his father. College had only been two years away and the judge had acceded to Garrett’s wishes to move to L.A. with his father rather than to Wisconsin with his mother. Losing his dad to cancer had been a blow he hadn’t expected.

“Do you still have your mom?”

“I sure do. She lives in Wisconsin now, and if I don’t faithfully call once a week, she worries.”

His gaze on Gwen, he watched as a wave of sadness passed over her face. Was it the reference to motherhood? But before he could probe a bit, she said, “You’re a complicated man.”

“No more complicated than you are.” Knowing that their conversation would soon lead to more personal territory that was better left unexplored, he asked, “Where are you going now?”

“Back to the hospital. I want to hold Amy for a bit.”

Immediately, he could envision Gwen holding that precious child and the turmoil inside him was too stormy to analyze. “I’ll follow you there. A nurse was going to see if she could find the clothes Amy was wearing the night she was brought in.”

“I wonder why the sheriff didn’t take them. He looked at them, but didn’t take them.”

“I don’t know what that was all about, but then Sheriff Thompson is near retirement age,” Garrett noted. “I’m not sure how much effort he puts into his work. We’ve butted heads a couple of times so I stay clear of him if I can. But I might have to pay him a visit.”

They stood at Garrett’s SUV by the side of the building. Nobody came and went. Once in a while a few cars traveled up and down the street as the wind whipped Gwen’s curls across her cheek. Without fore-thought Garrett reached out to stroke them away.

He should have known better than to touch her.

Her eyes became luminescent and softly deep. The urge to kiss her was so strong, he could taste it. He could feel it in every part of his body, especially the ones that mattered. He stepped even closer…bent his head…

The sun, which had been hiding behind a cloud, suddenly shone brightly and illuminated Gwen, sending firelight through her hair, giving him clarity about what he should and shouldn’t do.

As if the sun had cleared up things for Gwen, too, she took a step back and gave him a weak smile. “Amy’s waiting for me. Maybe I’ll see you at the hospital.”

While she was opening the door to her van and he was opening the door to his SUV, he realized it would be better if he didn’t see Gwen at the hospital.

It would be better if he found Amy’s mother on his own.

Chapter Three

Gwen was taking clothes from her washer and pushing them into her dryer when her doorbell rang. She was expecting Garrett.

She had intended to ignore him yesterday at the hospital but he’d poked his head into the nursery and told her the nurses couldn’t find Amy’s clothes. They were going to keep looking and notify either him or Gwen if they found anything. When Gwen had stopped to see Amy over her lunch hour today, the desk nurse had handed her a bag. Someone had found the clothes in a supply cupboard. Immediately Gwen had called Garrett.

Her heart beating harder, she pushed he dryer door closed with a bang and hurried to the door.

What had almost happened between her and Garrett yesterday? Had it been an almost kiss? If so, she had pulled away from it, hadn’t she?

Gwen gave herself a mental shake and told herself to slow down. She didn’t get infatuated with men, she reminded herself. She was picky, and a rugged face with a good body might turn her head, but it didn’t stay turned. She wanted substance.

You thought you had substance with Mark, a little voice reminded her.

She’d been so wrong about that. She’d been so wrong about a lot of things. She had taken a close look at herself and her choices since Mark left and she hadn’t liked some of the things she’d seen. But she was working on fixing them, working on breaking away from a childhood she had no control over, working on an adult, stable relationship with her dad.

As she opened the door to Garrett, common sense flew out the proverbial window. He was a hottie, plain and simple. She was attracted to him, plain and simple. She would watch every step she made, plain and simple. Tonight he wore gray dress slacks with a western-cut white shirt and a bolo tie. Her surprise must have shown.

“I clean up now and then,” he said with a dark sardonic smile that fired up the quick thrill of excitement running through her at seeing him. “I had a meeting in Cody.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare,” she admitted, her cheeks hot. “Come on in,” she said quickly to cover her embarrassment.

When she’d gotten home from work, she’d made a chocolate bundt cake. It was sitting in a cake holder on her table with powdered sugar sprinkled across the top. She hadn’t baked for herself.

“Would you like some coffee? I have chocolate cake, too, if you’re interested.”

Stopping short of her kitchen, he seemed to weigh whether he wanted to accept her offer or not. “I grabbed supper at a fast-food restaurant before I left Cody. But chocolate cake is hard to turn down.”

“Is that a yes? The coffee’s fresh, I made it with supper. It’s Kona,” she added, nonchalantly, knowing that would be an additional enticement for a coffee lover.

“Where did you get Kona here?”

“I have my sources.” As she gathered dishes from the cupboard and silverware from the drawer, she motioned to her mug tree. “Go ahead and pour yourself a cup. I’ll cut the cake.”

When she removed the glass cover, he looked at the cake and then glanced at her. “Did you bake that for tonight?”

She could say she always had baked goods around to nibble on, but that would be a lie. “Yes. Most men like chocolate.”

At her elbow, he capped her shoulder. “Gwen—”

“Look, it was no trouble. If you won’t let me pay you, I have to reimburse you somehow. A snack just seemed hospitable.”

Before, when she’d been close to Garrett, she’d caught the scent of man and the outdoors. Now she noticed his cologne. It was lime and musky and compelling…just as he was. His gray eyes seemed heated with an inner fire as he studied her. She wondered if they were both thinking about lips touching, tongues entwining, sex in the dark of night. His beard line was shadowed now at the end of the day. To her dismay she realized how much she’d like to touch it…how much she’d like to feel it on her skin.

Although the fire in his eyes wasn’t banked, his tone was neutral as he shifted slightly away from her and asked, “Do you have Amy’s clothes?”

The mention of the infant made her take a resigned breath and remember exactly why he was here. This wasn’t a tea party…or a coffee party.

Motioning to the cake, she suggested, “Go ahead and cut yourself a slice while I get them.”

When she would have stepped away, she heard him mutter, “Oh, hell.”

The next moment, his hand was on her shoulder, he was bending his head, and his lips came down hard on hers.

Garrett’s lips were as hot as the sizzle of attraction between them. Gwen’s hand rested against his chest, and she ran her fingers up the placket of his shirt to the taut skin of his neck. His hair was shaggy over his collar, thick and coarse. When his tongue slid into her mouth, the erotic sensation of it almost made her gasp. The hunger and desire in his kiss fired a like hunger and desire in her. Her last coherent thought was a simple one—this is pure chemistry.

When his tongue danced with hers, time was suspended and she practically melted at his feet. The passion blooming inside of her was overwhelming, and she wondered why it had lain dormant all her life until this moment.

However, as quickly as Garrett had decided to kiss her, he decided to stop kissing her.

Thank goodness his hands were on her shoulders to steady her or she might have collapsed. With a monumental effort, she took a step away from him, testing the steadiness of her knees.

“Wow!” She didn’t know exactly what else to say and that seemed to say it all.

On his part, Garrett didn’t seem to be as affected as she was. In fact…

“I shouldn’t have done that.”

He looked so composed she wanted to beat on his chest and ask him, Wasn’t that just the best kiss you ever had? She’d never experienced anything like it with Mark…or anyone else. However, just because Garrett had turned her kitchen upside down for her didn’t mean she’d done the same to him.

“Why not?” she blurted out. “Are you involved with someone?” That wouldn’t be a first. Men were notorious for wanting to sample greener grass…or nostalgic grass. Not a month after she and Mark had broken up, she’d learned he was dating his former girlfriend. Had they been in touch while he and Gwen were engaged? When they had talked after his defection, Mark had denied that anyone else had been involved. But he had gotten married six months later, so Gwen suspected otherwise.

“No, I’m not involved,” Garrett snapped. “And I don’t intend to be involved. That’s the point.”

His blunt assessment put her in her place. “I see,” she murmured. “That’s good. Because I don’t want to be involved, either. Your cologne must have fogged my brain.” Then before he could comment on that bit of nonsense, she turned away and headed for the living room. “I’ll get the clothes.”

Her hands trembled slightly as she went to the rolltop desk and lifted the lid. Garrett followed her, obviously forgetting about cake and coffee. To her dismay, her shoulder grazed his as she turned around. He was too big, too close, and too intense. Obviously too emotionally unavailable.

When she couldn’t find anything else to add to the mental list of reasons why she shouldn’t get involved with him, she thrust the grocery bag toward him. “Here.”

Eyeing her as if he wanted to ask her about something, yet didn’t want to deal with her answers after the asking, he took the white grocery bag. Spilling the contents, he first examined the blanket including the tag sewn into the hem. After he laid that across the top of the desk chair, he looked over the terry playsuit. Setting that aside, he studied the tiny knitted sweater and cap.

As he fingered them, he asked, “Do you know anything about yarn?”

She blinked. “Yarn?”

“This doesn’t look and feel like the usual acrylic.”

Taking the sweater fabric between her fingers herself, she noticed that it indeed didn’t. The yarn was fine, coated by a soft cloudy fuzziness.

“I want to take these along,” he said, stuffing everything back in the bag, plucking the sweater from her hands.

Their fingertips brushed.

When she looked up into Garrett’s eyes, they were turbulent and for the most part, unreadable.

Her doorbell rang and she jumped. That was so not like her. Composure was her middle name. This man shook her up and flustered her and she didn’t like that at all.

“Are you expecting anyone?” he asked.

“No. But it could be Kylie or Shaye. We drop in on each other.” Then glad to put some space between them, she went to her door and opened it.

Her father stood there.

“Hi, Dad. This is a surprise.” She stepped back so he could come inside.

When he did, she studied him for the telltale signs he’d fallen off the wagon. It was a habit with her.

To her relief he was dressed neatly in jeans and a denim jacket. His eyes were clear. With his burnished red hair streaked with gray and his blue eyes, he’d once been a charmer and a very handsome man. That was before alcohol, regret and guilt had added lines to his face that had aged him at least ten years. He was fifty-eight now and selling insurance. Although he’d once been an accountant, after Gwen had left and he sobered up, he decided he liked being out and around people.

Seeing Garrett, her dad flushed slightly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything. If you want me to go—”

Bag in hand, Garrett came over to where they were standing. “No need for that. I was just leaving.”

The two men could have passed like the proverbial ships in the night, but Gwen felt the need to introduce them to each other. “Garrett Maxwell, this is my father, Russ Langworthy. Dad, Garrett is helping me find Amy’s mother.”

Garrett’s brow arched as if she should have put that a different way, but she didn’t care. They were working together on this whether he liked it or not.

“I’ve heard about you,” Russ said, extending his hand.

Garrett shook it with a smile. “Do I want to know what you’ve heard?”

Her father laughed. “Mostly rumors. That you live in the hills, stick to yourself, and you used to be FBI. This is Wild Horse Junction, boy. A kernel of truth gets embellished and goes a long way.”

“What you heard is true.”

“Besides the gossip, I remember your parents. Your dad was a commercial pilot. How are they? I heard after they divorced, your mom moved to Wisconsin and you and your dad to California.”

“Dad passed away some years back. Mom’s still in Wisconsin.”

“Dad, Garrett has to be going,” Gwen intervened. She suspected Garrett wasn’t the type of man to talk about his personal life easily.

“It’s okay,” Garrett assured her, but his body was a little more rigid than it had been a few minutes before.

“I’m sorry to hear about your dad.” After an awkward pause, Russ said, “Divorce is tough on kids. It was tough on Gwen, especially her mother’s move to Indiana,” he explained. “How old were you when your parents separated? Around fifteen?”

“Dad,” Gwen protested fiercely before Garrett could answer.

That wasn’t a subject Gwen wanted to discuss with either Garrett or her father. Long ago she’d dealt with the abandonment by her biological parents, but her adopted mother’s defection had been much harder. Not only had Myra Langworthy divorced her dad, but she’d divorced Gwen, too. All she’d cared about was the man she’d fallen in love with and the new family she’d begun with him in Indiana. Gwen had felt like an outsider on her few visits there, and had lived in quiet misery with her dad, wondering why her adoptive mother hadn’t loved her enough to want her in her life in a meaningful way.

Rerouting her father’s frame of mind, Gwen said to him, “I have cake and coffee if you’re interested.”

“I’m always interested in cake and coffee.” Letting the subject stray from Garrett, he lifted a pamphlet in his hand. “I brought a brochure about a cruise I’m thinking of taking. I’d like your opinion on it.” To Garrett he said, “It was good to meet you.” With a glance at the kitchen, he told her, “I’ll go start on that cake,” and then he left them alone while he ambled into the other room.

“I’m sorry about the questions,” Gwen said as soon as her dad was out of earshot.

“Your father was just making conversation.”

“Maybe.” She never knew exactly what her dad was thinking, let alone what he’d do next.

After studying her for a few moments, Garrett asked, “How old were you when your parents divorced?”

Did she want to talk about this with Garrett? She only hesitated a few moments. “I was six—too young to understand, yet old enough to know my life was changed irrevocably…just like Dad’s.”

Shaking off the melancholy she often felt when examining memories of those years after the divorce, she gestured to the bag in Garrett’s hand. “Let me know what you find out about that, okay?”

“How do you know I’m going to find out anything?”

“Because you already have an idea about the yarn.”

“Were you a private investigator in your past life?” he asked sarcastically.

“Nope, but I watch CSI.”

When he laughed, she liked the sound of it. She liked way too much about him.

“I’ll let you know what happens.”

Their gazes locked for a few interminable moments and she vividly remembered everything about their kiss, about him holding her, about him backing away. The chemistry between them was so hot, it had burned away memories of Mark’s defection. Even so, in another few moments, she would have ended the kiss and backed away. At least that’s what she told herself.

Garrett opened the door and without a goodbye, he stepped into the cloudless night. Deep down Gwen knew he was a much different kind of man than her ex-fiancé. Garrett was intense…focused…and passionate. She closed the door behind him.

Maybe cake and coffee with her dad would help her find her equilibrium. Maybe it would help alleviate the worry that was always with her that he would fall off the wagon again.

“We shouldn’t have come,” Gwen said. “You’re tired.”

On Thursday evening, Gwen and Shaye sat in Kylie’s living room while she brought them glasses of iced tea. She’d insisted on getting it herself. Almost six months pregnant now, she was wearing a maternity top with her jeans. She looked tired and Gwen couldn’t imagine her friend trying to keep up with the chores on the ranch, work a job in town and take care of herself, too.

Sitting on a teal-and-wine striped chair with huge rolled arms that seemed to swallow her, Kylie protested, “I’m fine.”

“You’ve got to take care of yourself,” Shaye suggested gently, “and the baby.”

“I’m doing that. I try to be finished in the barn by nine, so I’m getting a good night’s sleep.” Kylie had pulled her long, straight blond hair back into a ponytail and her blue eyes under her bangs seemed to hold constant worry now.

“I hope you’re not doing any heavy lifting,” Gwen scolded, noticing that the plasma screen TV Alex had bought to study his rodeo technique was gone.

“Dix won’t let me. You know that.”

Dix Pepperdale had been foreman of Saddle Ridge Ranch since long before Jack Warner, Kylie’s father-in-law, had died. He looked on Kylie as a daughter and was protective of her.

“How’s the new mustang?” Gwen asked.

“Great.” Suddenly Kylie brightened. “Feather isn’t afraid of me now, at least not as afraid as she was. I hope this week I can get her to eat out of my hand.”

Kylie had adopted a wild mustang from those that ran free in the Big Horn Mountains. When the Bureau of Land Management thinned the herd, they sold them at auction.

“She’s really helping me cope…with Alex being gone,” Kylie added. “It’s so odd. I do miss him. Even though I was thinking about leaving him, before we were married we were friends for so many years.”

When Gwen thought about Alex, she pictured a charming cowboy who’d never grown up. His parents had pampered him. He’d pampered himself. He hadn’t been ready for marriage, not a real marriage where commitment was all-important. Kylie had found that out too late.

“Have you heard from Brock?” Shaye asked.

Kylie hesitated a few moments. “He called a few days after the funeral.”

It was unusual that Kylie hadn’t told them that before now.

“I had his address in Texas and I called there, leaving a message for him to phone me,” Kylie went on. “He didn’t get it until after the funeral. He was in some jungle looking for oil. It wasn’t until he got back to base camp that he found my message.”

“Did you tell him you were pregnant?” Gwen asked. Kylie had taken the job as horse trainer at Saddle Ridge when she was seventeen. Since she lived on-site she had run into Alex’s older half brother Brock whenever he had come home from college. Gwen knew that when Kylie was younger, she’d thought Brock Warner had walked on water.

After a few moments of hesitation, Kylie answered, “Yes, I told him I’m pregnant, and I learned something Alex hadn’t told me.”

Suspecting there were lots of things Alex hadn’t told his wife, Gwen asked, “What?”

“Brock’s been divorced for over a year.”

The silence in the room was filled with Kylie’s sadness. Brock had an Apache heritage and had felt like a second-class citizen at the ranch, especially since Jack Warner had always treated Alex like the golden son. Brock had made his own way as a geologist in Texas.

“I told Brock everything here was fine. I couldn’t tell him the truth. I need time. I have to get the ranch built up again. It’s my child’s future.”

“What are you going to do if Brock comes back here and wants you to sell it?” Always the realist, Gwen knew Jack Warner’s will had put Kylie in a pickle. He’d left the ranch to Alex as long as Alex lived there and ran it. If he ever sold it, half the proceeds went to Brock. The same would now apply to Kylie.

“I really can’t think about that now. I sold the TV,” she said, her hand fluttering toward the place where the screen had once hung. “I’m using that for expenses. I listed the mechanical bull on eBay and I’m hoping I’ll get a good price on it. If I can sell that, it will help me pay the back taxes. The cattle won’t bring in enough this year.”

“Maybe I can take my vacation after the baby’s born and come out here and help you,” Gwen offered.

Kylie’s eyes misted with tears and she brushed them away. “Thank you, but we’ll wait and see. If I get a few more horses to board that could make up for the training money I’m losing while I’m pregnant. I can’t risk a fall with this baby to think about.”

“You still have a stockpile of quilts. You could sell more of those.”

“I sold a few to buy Feather and to use for vet bills. I’m saving the others for emergencies.”

One of Kylie’s quilt designs hung on the wall along with photo collages of the Warner family and a…dream catcher. Gwen hadn’t seen that before.

Taking out a tissue and blowing her nose, Kylie re-pocketed it in her jeans. “So how’s your FBI agent working out?” she asked, obviously tired of being the center of attention.

“That’s a good question,” Gwen joked. “I haven’t heard from him since Monday and I don’t know if he’s made more progress. I left a message yesterday but he hasn’t returned my call.”

“And you’re not going to stand for that,” Shaye said with a smile.