The Rancher And The Baby

She had a question for him. “Who drives around with a plastic tub in their car?”

“Someone who had no place to live,” he guessed. The expression on her face told him that she thought he was stretching it. “Hey, I don’t have all the answers, but it’s a possibility.”

“It’s also a possibility that the kid’s mother or father is looking for him or her right at this very minute,” Cassidy said, thinking how she would feel in that person’s place.

Scared out of her mind.

The baby began to stir. Any second it was going to wake up and start crying again, she thought, looking at the infant intently.

And then it was no longer a speculation.

The baby they had rescued was awake again. The next moment, it began to cry.

Will recalled something he’d overheard a young mother saying. “At this age, they only cry for a reason. It’s either hungry or wet,” he told her, getting up.

“Or maybe it just doesn’t like being crammed in a little plastic tub.” Speculation aside, she lifted the infant out of the confining tub. And as she did so, she also quickly drew back a section of the diaper and took a peek. “He’s also wet,” she pronounced, although that could have been the result of being caught up in the flood.

“He?” Will echoed as he stood up.

“He,” Cassidy repeated. “It’s a boy.” Holding the baby to her chest, she started to get up only to have Will reach down for the infant. She tightened her hold. “What are you doing?”

“You don’t want to risk falling over with the baby as you get up,” he told her as if it was a common occurrence for her. “I’m already up.”

“Good for you,” Cassidy commented sarcastically. Grudgingly she let Will take the baby, then popped up right beside him and reached to take the child back.

But Will didn’t release him. “What are you planning on doing?” he asked.

“Well, I certainly don’t want to have a tug-of-war with this child if that’s what you’re thinking.” It came out like an accusation.

Will didn’t rise to the bait. “No, what I’m thinking is that this baby needs to be seen by one of the doctors at the clinic.” It wasn’t a suggestion.

Okay, Cassidy allowed, so maybe Laredo was capable of having a decent thought once in a blue moon. But she wasn’t about to let him think that he’d gotten the jump on her.

“That’s just where I’m taking him,” she informed Will coolly.

But he wasn’t budging.

Now what? she thought, exasperated.

“You planning on tossing him in the back of the truck?” Will asked.

Her eyebrows drew together like light blond thunderbolts, aimed right for his heart. “Of course not,” she snapped.

He continued to hold on to the infant protectively. The baby was beginning to fuss. But Will’s attention was focused on the woman who stood in his way. “Okay, then what?”

“Um—”

To Cassidy’s surprise, he relinquished his hold on the infant, who was now beginning to cry. “C’mon, you hold the baby, I’ll drive.”

It really irked her when he took the lead this way, as if he was in control of everything, including her. “I don’t need you to drive us.”

Standing right in front of her, Will drew himself up to his full height. Although Cassidy would have never admitted it out loud, he did make a formidable obstacle.

“You planning on holding him in one arm while driving with the other hand?” he asked, then challenged, “On these roads?”

She knew he was right and hated giving him that. But unless she was willing to stand here, listening to the baby crying progressively louder—possibly even endangering this baby—she had no choice.

“Okay, fine,” she bit out, “you drive—but we’re coming back for my truck.”

He nodded absently. “I’ve got no problem with that,” he said, leading the way back to his vehicle.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cassidy asked.

He made her crazy. It felt as if everything out of his mouth came with a hidden meaning. Plus, Cassidy found she had to really lengthen her stride in order to try to keep up with him. But there was no way she was going to ask Laredo to slow down. She’d never done it with any of her brothers—all of whom were taller than she was—and she sure as hell wasn’t going to do it with Laredo.

Instead, Cassidy glared at the back of his head all the way to his truck.

When they reached it, Will opened the door directly behind the driver’s seat and held it open for her.

She immediately took it to mean he regarded her as subservient to him. “What’s wrong with the front seat?” she asked.

Will continued to hold the door open for her. “Backseat’s safer for the baby.”

Cassidy blew out a breath. Damn it, Will was right, and she hated that.

When he took hold of her elbow, she pulled free and nearly jabbed him with it. “I can get into the truck on my own.”

Unfazed, Will said, “I’m just looking out for the baby.”

Cassidy scowled at him. “Just because you helped save him doesn’t automatically make you his fairy godmother.”

“I kind of see myself more like a guardian angel than a fairy godmother,” he deadpanned. “They’ve got bigger wings.” He added that with a sly wink that made her desperately want to punch him if only her arms weren’t full.

Cassidy bit her bottom lip to keep from saying something caustic. The next moment, as she seated herself directly behind the driver’s seat, she felt Laredo reaching over her.

So much for silence, she thought, giving up. “Okay, what the hell do you think you’re trying to do?” Cassidy demanded.

“I think I’m trying to get this seat belt around you and the baby. We’re liable to hit a skid in this weather, and I don’t want the two of you suddenly flying out the window—or worse,” he added with deliberate emphasis.

“Since when did you become so damn thoughtful?” Cassidy asked coldly.

Her eyes widened. Was it her imagination, or had Laredo’s hand just slid over her lap as he stepped back after fastening the seat belt?

“I’ve always been thoughtful, Cassidy. You’ve just been too mean-tempered to notice,” he answered mildly.

Before she had a chance to snap at him, Will shut her door and went over to get into the front seat.

“I am not mean-tempered,” she informed him, struggling to hold on to that same temper.

Will shut the door and secured his own seat belt before starting the vehicle. Only then did he raise his eyes to the rearview mirror to look at her. “I’ve got a town full of people who might argue with you about that,” he replied mildly.

Her eyes met his in the mirror. She could feel her temper heating, but there was no time to give Laredo a piece of her mind or take him down. The baby had begun to cry in earnest now. Even if the infant was just wet and hungry, she had no dry clothes, diapers or food to offer him, so the sooner they got to the clinic, the better.

“Just drive!” she ordered.

“Yes, ma’am,” Will responded.

She didn’t need to see his face to know that his mouth had assumed that all-too-familiar smirk she knew and hated. She could hear it in his voice.

Okay, Laredo. I need you to help me get this baby to the medical clinic. But once we do and this little guy is someone else’s problem, I am going to become your worst nightmare.

She paused for a moment, savoring that thought. And anticipating.

Even worse than I already am.

Chapter Four

The infant hadn’t stopped crying since before they’d gotten into the vehicle. The wailing noise was making it hard for Will to think. That, added to the fact that the rain had picked up again, was enough to really put him on edge.

“You sure he’s not hurt?” Will asked, glancing at Cassidy over his shoulder.

She raised her eyes to meet his.

“I have no idea, but I know that he will be if you keep taking your eyes off the road like that. It’s starting to rain harder again,” Cassidy pointed out. Her nerves were getting the better of her.

“Gee, really?” Will asked, feigning surprise. “I hadn’t noticed.”

He hated the way Cassidy treated him, as if he was totally oblivious to things. She’d done that for as far back as he could remember, and at times he had to admit it almost amused him. But right now, with the baby crying and the roads growing progressively more hazardous, he was having a rough time staying calm.

Although he did his best to pretend otherwise, no one could get to him the way Cassidy could. There was just something about the way she talked, the way she tossed her head, the smug, superior gleam in her eyes, that just made him want to get back at her and teach her a lesson.

Just what form that lesson would take he hadn’t worked out yet. But if he was going to remain in Forever, even for a little while, he had a feeling that day would come—and most likely sooner than either one of them reckoned, most of all her.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Cassidy told him, acting as if she’d taken his words at face value. “But do us all a favor and try to pay attention. I’ve got way too many things to do to die out here with you today.”

He laughed shortly. “Funny, I was thinking the same thing.”

“Funny,” she said, mimicking his voice, “I didn’t know you could think.”

He’d almost reached the end of his supply of patience. “You really want to get into this now?” Will asked, his voice becoming ominous and foreboding.

“What I want,” Cassidy informed him, “is to get into town while I still have any hearing left.” She’d tried everything in her rather limited arsenal of tricks with this baby—rocking him, trying to talk to him, patting his back—all to no avail. “How can something so little make such a loud noise?”

Will focused his attention back on the road—just in time to avoid driving into a large branch that had broken off a nearby tree. Another casualty of the storm.

Heart pounding, he drove around it. “Maybe his crying like that is a good thing. At least it means he’s got healthy lungs.”

Laredo was doing it again, she thought. Acting like a know-it-all. He wasn’t here in the backseat with the baby blowing out his eardrums. “Where did you get your degree, Dr. Laredo?”

“Same place you learned to be a shrew—no, wait, you just came by that naturally, didn’t you?”

Okay, she’d had enough, Cassidy thought. “Stop the truck,” she ordered.

Thinking that something was seriously wrong, Will did as she asked. His thoughts immediately zeroed in on the baby.

“Why? What’s wrong?” he asked, twisting in his seat.

They were right on the outskirts of Forever. The clinic wasn’t all that far off. Rain or no rain, she could walk from here.

Cassidy began to undo her seat belt. “I can’t listen to you blathering on like this. I can walk to the clinic from here.”

Biting off a curse, Will started the vehicle again. Gravity had Cassidy falling back in her seat. Because she’d inadvertently squeezed him, the baby was wailing even harder than he had been before.

“Damn you, Laredo,” she cried. “What the hell do you thinking you’re doing now?”

“Driving a crazy woman and the baby she’s holding to the clinic,” he bit out. “Now shut up and hold on.”

She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking that she was obeying, but by the same token, she didn’t want to get into another fight with him when he was this angry already. So she did as he told her.

She really didn’t have any other choice.

Cassidy remained in the truck and counted off the minutes in her head until they reached the clinic.

Rather than park the truck in the lot—which was the emptiest he could remember ever seeing it since he’d returned to Forever—Will parked directly in front of the medical clinic’s front door.

Just in time, he judged.

Daniel Davenport, the doctor who had reopened the clinic when he’d arrived in Forever several years ago, was just locking up.

“Hey, Doc,” Will called out, raising his voice in order to be heard above the crying baby and the howling wind. “Got time for one more?”

Dan turned. For the first time since he’d begun to run the clinic, the facility was entirely empty. He’d sent his partner and the two nurses who worked with them home over half an hour ago. Just in case someone did come by, he’d hung back, giving it another half hour.

Thirty minutes had come and gone. He wanted to get home to his family. Dan figured there was no point in waiting any longer. But obviously there was, he thought, looking from the man who’d just called out to him to the young woman who was emerging out of Will’s somewhat battered truck holding what appeared to be an infant in her arms.

Dan caught himself thinking that they were as unlikely a couple as he had ever seen. For the most part, Dan was oblivious to most of the gossip and the personal details that made the rounds at gathering places like Miss Joan’s Diner and Murphy’s Saloon. His attention was exclusively focused on helping and healing the people who sought him out at the clinic.

But even he knew that whenever the newly returned Will Laredo and Cassidy McCullough were within spitting distance of each other, they usually did. Neither could keep their temper holstered, especially not Cassidy.

His eyes narrowed slightly as they focused on the smallest player in this group. There was no way in God’s green earth that baby was theirs.

“Caught me just in time,” Dan said, addressing Will as he unlocked the door he had just locked. Pocketing the key, Dan pushed the door opened with the flat of his hand. “I take it that ‘one more’ you’re referring to is the baby?”

“It is,” Will answered.

“Where did you find it?” Dan asked, ushering in the trio. He didn’t waste time asking if the infant belonged to either one of them. He knew it couldn’t.

“Bobbing up and down in the creek, except it was more like a rushing river at the time,” Cassidy told him.

Once inside, she pushed back her wet hair and turned to face the doctor. “I’m thinking of calling him Moses,” she quipped, looking down at the squalling baby, “since I pulled him out of the river.”

“More like out of a rubber tub in the river,” Will corrected.

“Okay, maybe you think we should call him Rubber Ducky,” Cassidy retorted sarcastically, turning to glare at Will.

“Back up. The baby was in a rubber tub?” Dan questioned, looking from one to the other, waiting for enlightenment.

Cassidy nodded. “It was probably the only floatation device his mother—”

“Or father—” Will pointedly interjected. Although he had enjoyed neither, he knew by watching the McCulloughs that parental feelings were not the exclusive domain of the female population.

Cassidy ignored him and continued with her narrative “—could find. It was obvious that she was trying to save him.”

“Then you didn’t find either of the baby’s parents?” Dan asked, again looking from Cassidy to Will for an answer.

Cassidy shook her head. “I just saw the baby—and almost missed seeing him at first. He was in the middle of the rushing water, crying.” She winced as a particularly loud cry pierced the air right next to her ear. “Kind of like he is now. Could you check him out, please?” She held out the infant to Dan. “See if there’s something wrong with him. I’ll pay for it,” she quickly added, not wanting the doctor to think that just because the baby wasn’t related to her that she expected him to do the examination for free.

“I’ll take care of it, Doc,” Will assured him. Finances were tight, thanks to what he’d found himself walking into when he took over his father’s ranch, but he still had a little cash to work with if he did some artful juggling.

“I’m not worried about that right now,” Dan told both of them.

When he’d first arrived to reopen the clinic in Forever, Dan had viewed it as a temporary assignment until another doctor could be found to take over the practice on a more permanent basis. But even then, monetary compensation had never been his goal.

What he hadn’t counted on was the emotional rewards that went along with this job.

“While I’m giving this little guy the once-over, one of you should call the sheriff and tell him about what happened,” Dan suggested. “Could be his parents are stranded somewhere right now and need some rescuing themselves.”

Will’s eyes shifted toward Cassidy, and she could hear the question as if he’d said it out loud.

“I didn’t see anyone. That doesn’t mean they weren’t there,” she admitted, then frowned. “But it could also mean that they could be dead.” Cassidy thought for a moment. “Last really bad flash flood we had, Warren Brady’s nephew pulled his car up on the side of the road and got caught in it before he even knew what was happening. He was gone before anyone could reach him, and that was in a matter of moments.”

Dan sighed. He hated hearing about senseless losses like that. It made him that much more determined to do as much as he could for those he could help.

“This is going to take a while,” he told the two people in his waiting room. “Why don’t you wait out here until I can determine if this little guy’s got a problem beyond missing parents?”

It wasn’t so much a question as politely voiced instruction.

Will nodded toward the phone on the reception desk. “Mind if I use your phone to call the sheriff?” he asked Dan. “I can’t seem to get any reception on my cell phone. The storm wreaked havoc on the signal.”

“Go right ahead. I’ll be back when I’m finished with the exam.” The baby let loose with another lusty wail. Dan glanced toward Cassidy, an amused smile on his face. “Sure sounds like he’s got a healthy set of lungs on him, though,” he noted with a laugh.

She didn’t have to look in his direction to know that Laredo had a smug expression on his face. Just like she knew he was going to rub it in.

She didn’t have to wait long.

“Told you,” Will said, clearly vindicated.

Cassidy had no intention of going down without a fight. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day,” she pointed out.

“Set your standards that high, do you?” Will asked with a smile as he began to tap out the sheriff’s number on the phone’s keypad.

Cassidy curled her fingers into her hands to keep from grabbing the first thing she could find to throw at Laredo’s head. If she was going to kill him, she knew she would have to do it when there were no witnesses around. And if she gave Laredo what was coming to him, she knew that Dan would come out to see what the noise was all about.

Restless, agitated, not to mention concerned about the infant she’d rescued, instead of sitting, Cassidy paced around the waiting room.

Well, this day wasn’t going the way she’d thought it would when she’d gotten up this morning, she thought in frustration. She’d planned on getting a number of things done in the office today. She was really determined to prove herself an asset to Olivia.

Instead, here she was, killing time in the clinic’s waiting room, sharing space with Will Laredo of all people.

Why did both of them need to stay here, waiting for the doctor to give them the results of his examination? Laredo had two ears, she thought. At the very least, he could hear whatever it was that Dan had to say. Meanwhile, she could—

She could wait right here, she thought darkly. Her truck was still out where she’d left it. As much as she hated to admit it, she needed Laredo to drive her back to it.

Cassidy blew out a frustrated breath. More than anything else, she hated being backed into a corner like this.

Damn it, maybe if she called one of her brothers?

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Laredo holding out the phone receiver to her. She eyed him quizzically. Couldn’t he talk?

And then he did.

“Sheriff wants to talk to you,” Will said.

She made no move to take the receiver. “Why?”

“Do you have to question everything I say?” he asked, annoyed.

There was as close to an innocent look in her eyes as possible as she replied, “Yes.”

Laredo did what he could to hang on to the last of his composure and told her in carefully measured words, “He’s got a couple of questions.”

“What did you tell him?”

Will never missed a beat. “That you’re a royal pain, but he wants to talk to you, anyway.” With that he pushed the receiver toward her again.

Cassidy took it grudgingly. But when she spoke, nothing but pure honey dripped from her lips. Will entertained thoughts of strangling her.

“Hello? Sheriff? This is Cassidy McCullough. Laredo said you wanted to ask me something.”

“Hi, yes. Will said you were the first one to dive into the floodwater to save this baby you saw.”

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