Jingle-Bell Baby

“Boys, do I have a story to tell. Let’s get in the house first. I could use a cold drink.” Since playing doctor on the side of the road, his appetite was gone but he still wanted a cold soda pop and that hot shower.

Gavin wiggled back from his embrace. “A story about Wild Bill and the buffaloes?”

“No, son,” Dax said. “Not that kind of story.”

He rose, lifting the five-year-old up with him. Gavin looped an arm over his dad’s shoulder and patted his opposite cheek. Dax felt that quivery feeling in the center of his chest. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve Gavin, but he was grateful. Without the boy, he would have given up on life long ago. As it was, he clung to the edges of hope, fighting off his own dark tendencies in an effort to give the motherless boy a decent upbringing. It wasn’t easy. Gavin wasn’t easy. And at times Dax no more understood the boy than he could understand Chinese.

A frown cut a deep gash between Gavin’s black eyebrows. “It won’t be scary, will it?”

Times like these. The boy was scared of his own shadow. Since hearing a ghost story at a fall party he’d been especially nervous.

“No, Gavin, it’s not scary.” He tried, but failed, to keep the annoyance out of his tone. The boy was skittish as a deer. The teacher had had to peel him away from Dax’s side the first day of kindergarten. And Gavin had cried, an occurrence that both worried and embarrassed his father. A sissified kid wouldn’t survive in today’s mean world, but Dax didn’t know how to change his child’s disposition.

By now, they’d made the house and were inside. Dax tossed his hat at a heavy wooden end table, shrugged out of his jacket, and collapsed with an exaggerated heave onto a chair. The living room was enormous, compliments of his ex-wife who had insisted on a house big enough to entertain. Trouble was she’d done her entertaining while he was out working. He liked the house, though, liked the warm, golden-brown stone and wood fireplace and the wine-colored leather furniture.

He propped his boots on a squat ottoman. “You ever deliver a baby, Rowdy?”

Rowdy, who had ventured off to the kitchen, reappeared with a glass in hand. “What? Are you serious?”

Dax accepted the glass and gulped the icy drink in three long gulps. “Crazy afternoon. A young woman ran her car through my fence between here and Jake’s windmill. I stopped to see what the problem was and she was having a baby.”

Rowdy slithered into a chair, the grin forming a surprised O. “Man.”

“Yeah. Tell me about it.”

“Everything go okay? I mean, you delivered the baby and everything.” As the reality of what Dax had done sank in, Rowdy leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. “Holy smoke, Dax. Are they all right? The mama and baby, I mean?”

“The baby was kind of blue and not moving at first. I thought she was gone.” Running a finger around the rim of the glass, he didn’t mention how scared he’d been. The telling sounded a lot calmer than the actual event. “Then I thought about how calves are born with a lot of mucous sometimes, so I wiped her nose and mouth off with Gavin’s bandana….” He patted the boy’s knee. Gavin curled up next to him, listening to every word. “Just as I was getting ready to turn her upside down and swat her bottom, she let out a howl.” Sweetest sound he’d ever heard.

“Man.” Rowdy said again, seemingly devoid of intelligent comment. Dax understood. He’d been speechless himself at the time. As soon as the baby had cried, he’d wrapped her in the old blanket and made sure the mama was all right. Then he’d jumped behind the wheel of the car, forced the little economy onto the road and sped like a NASCAR racer to the emergency room.

“Where is she, Daddy? Why didn’t you bring her home? I want to see her.”

“She and her mama are in the hospital in Saddleback.” He rattled the ice in his glass, shaking out a few more drops of cola.

Beneath a swatch of thick, dark hair a fretful frown puckered Gavin’s forehead. “Are they sick?”

“The doc’s going to check them over. But I think they’ll be okay.”

The child stuck his legs straight out from the couch and tapped the toes of his boots in a steady rhythm. “Noah’s mama had a baby. They got to bring it home and keep it. Now he gots two brothers. But a sister would be okay, too.”

Dax sighed. He and Gavin had this conversation every time one of the boy’s schoolmates welcomed a new sibling. How did he explain to a five-year-old that his daddy wasn’t the kind of man women wanted to have babies with?

“Is she from around here?” Rowdy’s question gave Dax an excuse not to answer the boy. “The woman. Anybody we know?”

“No. Not even a Texan.” He knew that for certain. Her buttery voice with its clipped syllables was upper-class Eastern, a Yankee. He’d stake his ranch on it. Even her clothes were different.

“What was she doing out here on a remote county road all by herself? Visiting someone?”

“Can’t say.” Though he’d been asking himself the same question. “We didn’t exactly have a conversation.”

“No, I guess not.” Rowdy ran a thumb and forefinger along his chiseled jawline. “What did she look like? Is she pretty?”

Dax shot him a frown. His top ranch hand liked the ladies and had a new one on his arm every week. Women seemed to like him right back. Still, the question didn’t sit well with Dax.

“She was a scared kid.” Scared but tough and courageous. He couldn’t get that out of his head or the thought of the tiny, mewling baby that had been born in his hands.

“I’m sad for her, Daddy, if she’s scared. Can we go see her?”

“I told you she’s all right.” The words came out a little harsher than he’d intended. Gavin blanched and sat back against the couch.

Dax patted the boy’s knee, letting him know the sharp retort wasn’t aimed at him. Gavin was tenderhearted to his old man’s hard-hearted, plain and simple. But Dax refused to feel guilty about wanting the strange day to end here and now. He’d done his part to help the woman. He’d played the good Samaritan. She was receiving expert care and the hospital would contact her family. He had a ranch to run and a downed fence to fix. He’d heard the last of the mysterious young mother and her baby. And that’s the way he wanted it.

Jenna heard voices. She opened her eyes in a semidarkened room that smelled of antiseptic and oversteamed food. She faced a wall and a wide pair of windows covered by blinds. The morning sun sliced through, shedding strips of pale yellow across a white woven blanket. Memory flooded in with the sunlight.

The pain, the car, a tall, gruff-talking rancher with gentle hands.

“Oh.” Her hands shot to her belly. The baby. The man had delivered her little girl and brought them to the hospital. A mix of embarrassment and wonder filled her. She’d had her baby in a car with only a stranger to help. Mother would be mortified.

She shifted in the narrow hospital bed. Her body was sore and stiff, but not painfully so, a fact that surprised her. After the torture in the car she’d expected to be half-dead today.

She rolled to her side, eager to hold her new daughter.

The baby was gone.

A tremor rippled through her as the possibilities played through her head. The nurses had left the newborn here, at the bedside, in an Isolette. Jenna was positive.

Had the Carrington machine already discovered her whereabouts?

Fighting the stiff sheets, she sat upright, only to tumble sideways onto the pillow, light-headed and weak. Blood roared in her temples. She took deep breaths, waiting until the black dots dissipated.

For a long moment, she remained still, frustration in every breath. Had someone recognized her and called her family? Was her baby girl even now in the smothering bosom of the Carrington clan?

The heavy wooden door opened with a swish. Jenna braced to face her censuring mother, determined to stand strong for her baby.

When a nurse appeared, backside first, Jenna wilted against the pillow in relief.

“Everything looks great with your little princess,” the woman said, rolling the Isolette into the room. “Doctor checked her all out, gave her the requisite medications and said she was perfect.”

“I didn’t know where you’d taken her.” Her voice sounded breathless and scared.

The nurse, a young woman with a long, black ponytail, whose tag read Crystal Wolf, RN, gave her a sympathetic pat. “Sorry, hon, you were sleepin’ like a rock, so I didn’t want to disturb you. Not after what you went through. You ready for her? Or are you too tired? You look a little pale.”

Jenna held out her arms. Color would return now that she knew her mother wasn’t on the premises. “Yes, please let me hold her.”

“She’s a darling. So pretty with all that fine golden hair and her little turned-up nose.”

Jenna thought her daughter looked like an alien. A withered old lady alien. “Will her head always be pointed like this?”

With a shake of dangly white earrings, the nurse laughed. She reached over, flipped the soft pink blanket back and gently massaged the baby’s head with a cupped hand. “You do that every day and before you know it, the cone head will be gone.”

“Thank goodness.” Jenna gave a shaky laugh.

She’d read books and searched the Internet on the topic of parenting and felt competent to be a mother, but now that the moment was upon her, the idea of caring for another human being frightened her. She had no home, no job, and no one to help. For a person who’d never been allowed to do anything for herself, she had a great deal to learn—fast.

“Do you have a name for this little princess?”

A gentle smile lifted Jenna’s mouth. “Sophie. Sophie Joy because she is the greatest joy I’ve ever known.”

“Oh, hon, that’s beautiful.”

Sophie stretched, her tiny face screwing up in an adorable expression. Jenna’s whole body seized up with an overwhelming love, a love so powerful tears filled her eyes. This was why she’d run away. This precious bit of humanity deserved to love and be loved for the right reasons. She deserved to grow up free from fear and the hovering, controlling influences that had stymied Jenna’s life since birth.

Her family, particularly Elaine Von Gustin Carrington, would not control this baby’s life the way they’d controlled hers.

People who envied her opulent lifestyle had no idea what it was like to live in an ivory tower surrounded by hired bodyguards and nannies and private tutors. They had no idea the sadness of a child never allowed to play outside or with other children who were “not like us.” They’d never sat with their faces pressed against the window watching others play in the snow while wondering what it would be like to build a snowman with someone other than a hired nanny and a burly bodyguard.

The world considered her a spoiled rich princess, but they were wrong. Elaine Carrington’s elitism and her kidnapping paranoia had made her only daughter a lonely child, a prisoner of her family’s enormous wealth.

Which was exactly the reason Jenna wanted Sophie Joy to grow up in a normal home, in a normal town, doing normal things. She’d play with other children and go to a real school and maybe even join a soccer team if she wanted to. When she was a teenager, she’d hang out at the mall and have sleepovers and attend school dances with friends of her own choosing.

Sophie would have a childhood her mother had only dreamed of, a wish that sounded foolish to most people—even her late husband, though he’d pretended something far different in the beginning. Early in their secret relationship, Derek had nurtured Jenna’s longing to be a regular wife living in the suburbs. But the Carrington money had followed her in marriage, corrupting the boy who’d claimed to love her, and the few weeks of normalcy had disappeared as quickly as his love.

In the end, her mother had been right about her fortune-hunting husband, and Jenna had gone home to the estate, broken. From Derek, she had learned a cruel fact of life—never trust a man, no matter how pretty his promises. Men were only interested in someone like Jenna for one thing. As Mother had so succinctly put it, “A trust fund makes any woman attractive.”

She swallowed back the festering hurt. She might not be beautiful, but she refused to care anymore. All that mattered now was assuring Sophie the happy, uncomplicated life and freedom she had never known.

To do that, she could never go back to the Carrington Estate or even to Pennsylvania.

As she marveled at her baby’s velvet skin, at eyelashes so pale and perfect, the pink rosebud mouth, Jenna made a silent promise. No matter what she had to do from here, her daughter would lead a normal life.

The nurse, whom she’d almost forgotten, patted her arm. In a pleasant drawl she said, “I’ll be back in a few, Jenna. We’ll get your vitals again and then you’ll be good to go.”

Jenna’s head snapped up. “Go?”

Go where? She’d hoped to stay in the hospital a few days, to get her thoughts together and form a plan. To read the newspaper and make sure the world hadn’t been alerted to her disappearance. To figure out where to go and what to do with a newborn.

“Sure thing. Unless there are problems, an OB stays twenty-four hours or less these days. Would you like for me to phone your family?” The young woman reached for the chart at the end of the bed, flipped open a few pages. A frown appeared between her black eyebrows. “Seems we didn’t get that information when you arrived yesterday evening. Well, it was a hectic time. No problem. Someone from the business office will be in. They always extract their pound of flesh.”

Jenna managed a weak smile at the woman’s joke. She hadn’t thought about the hospital bill or even about the records a hospital would keep on her and Sophie.

She’d given them her name yesterday and no one had reacted. But she wasn’t surprised no one recognized her face. Due to her family’s paranoia, their only child had been publicly photographed very little. Jenna found a certain irony in that. The fear that had made her life a prison might be the very thing that assured her freedom. Unless her parents had released her disappearance to the press, there was a chance no one here in this small Texas town would ever guess that she was one of the Carringtons, reluctant heiress to a staggering financial empire.

“Would you like for me to call Dax?”

Jenna blinked. “Who?”

“The rancher who brought you in. Dax Coleman. I thought you knew him.”

A warm blush crept up the back of Jenna’s neck. She hadn’t remembered her rescuer’s name. “No.”

“Oh, well, I just assumed…” The nurse flapped a hand. “Never mind. My mouth is running away, though it’s too bad about Dax. He seemed real concerned, and for a reclusive guy like that, well, we just figured the two of you knew each other.”

Was the nurse asking if she and Dax knew each other in the Biblical sense? Did she think Dax Coleman was Sophie’s father?

Her flush of embarrassment deepened.

“Mr. Coleman,” she said in her most dignified voice, “was kind enough to render aid to a damsel in distress. But no, I had never before made his acquaintance.”

The nurse, who was darkly pretty and not much older than herself, looked disappointed. “Well, then, that’s really too bad. Dax could use a spark in his life after what happened.”

Jenna refused to ask the obvious question. “You know him?”

“Sure. In a region this sparsely populated everyone knows everyone else. Dax is an old friend of mine. Or used to be.” The nurse fanned her face with her fingertips. “He’s still pretty deliciouslooking, too, if you know what I mean. Don’t tell my husband I said that.” She laughed.

Delicious-looking? Jenna remembered a gravelly, rough voice and strong, calloused hands, though he’d been as gentle as could be with her and Sophie. As far as his looks, she could only recall intense green eyes and dark hair that fell in sweaty waves onto his forehead. A cowboy. She remembered that, too.

En route to the hospital, he hadn’t said much. But he’d glared at her and Sophie in the rearview mirror every few minutes until Jenna became convinced she’d somehow angered him. At the time, she’d been too tired and shaky to wonder about her roadside rescuer. Now she did.

“You were lucky he came along,” Nurse Wolf said. “Out here you can drive forever and not see a soul.”

She almost had.

“Yes, I owe him a debt of gratitude,” Jenna muttered, absently rubbing the side of her finger over Sophie’s delicate cheek. She’d never been indebted to anyone before, ever. People were indebted to the Carringtons, not the other way around, but the cowboy, a total stranger, had been there for her and her baby when they’d had no one else. She wasn’t likely to forget that.

“I’ll be back in a few,” the nurse said and started out the door.

“Nurse?”

The woman did an about-face. “It’s Crystal. Please.”

“Crystal,” Jenna said, oddly pleased at the simple request. “Would you mind bringing me a newspaper or two?”

“Nothing newsworthy ever happens around here except church dinners and baby showers and school sports, but I’ll bring you a paper.”

The simple activities sounded like heaven to Jenna who’d never experienced a single one of them. “Thank you.”

With a hand wave, Crystal sashayed out of the room, only to lean back into the room with a twinkle in her eye.

“Prepare yourself. A certain delicious cowboy is headed your way.”

Jenna was sure her mouth fell open. “You’re kidding.”

But Crystal had already disappeared, leaving the door open.

Dax kicked himself all the way down the hall. He had no idea what he was doing here. He’d done the right thing already. He’d played the good Samaritan. He should be on the south side of the ranch right now fixing a water gap before snow or rain made the work miserable. But here he was at Saddleback Hospital in the maternity ward, feeling as uncomfortable as if he’d stumbled into one of those ladies’ lingerie stores.

But he was here. Might as well get this over with.

Stetson in hand, he used the opposite hand to tap on the open door, doing his level best not to look inside until he was invited.

“Come in,” a feminine voice said. He remembered that voice. Soft and educated and worried. He’d dreamed about it last night. Imagine that. Dreaming about a woman’s voice. And her bare feet. And the way she’d gazed at him with trust.

Blast it. That’s why he was here. She’d haunted his dreams and he’d not been able to get a thing done this morning until he was certain she and her baby were in good shape.

According to the desk nurse the baby he’d delivered was doing well. Thank God. That should have been enough. He should have turned tail and headed for his truck.

But no. He had to see for himself that the brave young woman with the fancy voice was okay.

With a final inward kick, he stepped into the room.

His eyes went straight to the bed. Fluffed up in white sheets, the little mama looked small and flushed. But good. Real good.

Her dark blond hair, sweaty and uncombed yesterday, was clean and neatly brushed and lay across her shoulders in a soft wave. She was prettier than he’d thought. Her thin face was blessed with long doe-shaped eyes the color of pancake syrup and a mouth that tipped up at the corners.

The thing that really drew his attention was the bundle nestled against her breast. A small eggshaped head covered with a pink stocking cap protruded from a matching pink blanket. He could see the curve of the baby’s cheek, the tiny button nose, the rise and fall of her body as she breathed. Thank God she was breathing smooth and even now.

He allowed himself to breathe, as well, aware that he hadn’t quite believed the child would be alive.

The little mama saw the direction of his gaze and looked down at her baby with an expression that punched Dax in the gut. Mother love radiated from her. The kind Gavin had never known.

His admiration for the girl-woman, whatever she was, went up another notch. She loved her baby. She’d be a good mama.

He shifted, heard the scratchy sound of his boots against tile. What now? He’d seen what he came for. Could he just turn around and walk out?

“Would you like to see her?”

The words startled him, breaking through his thoughts of escape. Crushing the brim of his hat between tense fingers, he stepped closer to the bed and cleared the lump out of his throat. “She okay?”

“Perfect, thanks to you.” The doe eyes looked up at him, again with that expression of trust.

“What about you?”

Roses bloomed on her cheeks. “Very well. Again thanks to you.”

He’d embarrassed her, made her recall the liberties he’d taken with her body. He wanted to apologize, but he never seemed to know the right things to say to women.

“Would you like to hold her?” The little mama stretched the bundle in his direction. The blanket fell away from the baby’s face and Dax went all mushy inside. He remembered how Gavin had looked those first few days. All squished and out of shape but so innocent Dax had fallen in instant, overpowering love.

Dax stepped away from the bed. “No.”

He’d been to the feed store earlier. He couldn’t be clean enough to hold a baby.

“Oh.” The little mama’s face fell. He felt like a jerk, but didn’t figure it mattered. Once he was out of here, he’d never see her again.

“Sophie and I are grateful for everything you did.”

“Sophie? Pretty.”

“I thought so. Sophie Joy.”

Feeling oversize, out of place and like a complete idiot, Dax nodded. “I gotta get back to the ranch. Just wanted to check on you.”

“I appreciate it.” She reached out a slender hand and touched his arm. Even through the longsleeved jacket, Dax imagined the heat and pressure of her fingers seeping into his bloodstream. His mind went to the softness of the skin on her bare feet. She was probably silky all over.

Something inside him reacted like a wild stallion. He jerked away. What the devil business did he have feeling attracted to a new mother, a woman young enough to be his.. .well, his niece or something. She was a kid. A kid. And he was a dirty old man.

Without another word, he spun away and hurried out the door, down the hall and out into the gray November where the Texas wind could slap some sense into him.

CHAPTER THREE

STUNNED, JENNA STARED as the cowboy retreated, turning his trim, anvil-shaped back toward her before charging out of the room as if a pack of dogs was after him.

“I don’t think he likes us, Sophie,” she murmured. Though she couldn’t imagine why. He’d behaved the same way in the car yesterday, as though she’d angered him. Yet he’d helped her. And he’d come to visit her in the hospital.

“What a strange man.”

He’d left so fast, the scent of a very masculine cologne lingered in the room like a contrail. Were all Texas cowboys so…reticent? Well, it didn’t matter. She would likely never see the man again, and the truth was, Dax Coleman had saved her, saved Sophie, and she would be forever grateful.

Before she had time to ponder further, a woman entered the room. Dressed in a black pantsuit and white, round earbobs of the 1960s, the woman carried a clipboard and a stack of papers.

“I’m Alice Pernisky from the business office.” She rolled an over-the-bed table in front of Jenna. “Let’s put the baby in the bassinet while we take care of the paperwork.”

Her no-nonsense style brooked no argument, so Jenna did as she said. She was worried enough about completing these forms.

“Let’s take care of the birth certificate first.” The woman pushed a paper under her nose. “The doctor has filled in the basics, but we’ll need your complete information, your name, the father’s name, and of course—” she allowed a thin smile “—the name you’ve chosen for your baby.”

Heart thudding crazily, Jenna stared down at the form and wondered if falsifying a birth certificate was illegal. Ink pen hovering over the sheet, she considered long and hard.