Christmas at Colts Creek

by Delores Fossen

  “Teagan hasn’t even finished her childbirth classes,” Janessa said. “The last one is supposed to be tomorrow night, and they were going to take a tour of Labor and Delivery.”

  She was well aware she was babbling, and Brody let her while he brushed a kiss on the top of her head.

  “I should have gone back there with her,” Janessa went on. “I mean, I know Teagan’s doctor said for me to wait here until they’d done the tests and gotten her settled, but...”

  “Waiting’s hard?” Brody filled in for her.

  Yes, this was what she needed, and she squeezed her eyes shut and just leaned against him.

  “Tell me about the other babies you’ve fostered.” His voice was calm, and some of the tension was gone from his jaw, too. So maybe she was helping him, as well.

  “There’ve been two, both boys.” Janessa figured this conversation was meant to help her get her thoughts off what was happening with Teagan, but she didn’t mind. “The first one’s mother was only fifteen, and while she didn’t want to keep the baby, both sets of grandparents were fighting for custody. I kept him only a week before they reached a compromise.”

  “And the second?” he asked when she paused.

  “His mother was at Bright Hope for about a month before she went into labor. She gave birth, and a couple of hours later, she sneaked out of the hospital. She left a note, saying she wanted me to foster the child until he could be adopted. I considered adopting him myself, but Kyle wasn’t in a good place back then.”

  He lifted his eyebrow just a fraction, and while he didn’t ask for more info, Janessa just kept on babbling.

  “He was clinically depressed and sort of a mess,” she explained. Except it wasn’t just sort of, he had indeed fallen into the mess category. “He’d recently lost his cushy high-paying job at his father’s real-estate investment firm, which had only deepened his depression. We’d been dating a couple of months when that happened so I asked him to do some volunteer work at Bright Hope.”

  “That must have been not long after you started the place,” he commented.

  “It was. Less than a year, and I needed the help.” Along with needing to fix Kyle, but there was no sense babbling about that. “Anyway, after Kyle got on the right meds, he decided he loved working at Bright Hope so he donated a huge chunk of his inheritance to make some upgrades. Then he eventually took over running the office and pretty much anything else that cropped up.”

  “Upgrades,” Brody repeated. His forehead bunched up. “I forgot to mention this earlier, but when I was going through Abe’s financials to look for why he was having me and my father investigated, I found an expense Abe had labeled as anonymous donation for upgrades. He’d gotten a cashier’s check for fifty grand and paid for a courier to take it to Dallas. He did this about fifteen months ago, and I just wondered if, well, the money had gone to Bright Hope.”

  Janessa didn’t have to think long or hard about this. Bright Hope rarely got anonymous donations, especially for that large of an amount. Most donors wanted the tax write-off. But she remembered one for fifty grand, and the timing was right.

  “I recall the courier just showing up at the office with the check. The money probably came from Abe.” She had to shake her head. “Just when I think I might have him figured out, something like this pops up.”

  And that money had popped up at a much-needed time. Bright Hope House was a hundred-year-old building, and they’d needed some dire plumbing repairs. Again. There wasn’t nearly enough money in the budget so Janessa had made dozens of calls, hoping they could pull together the funds. Then the check had just shown up.

  She wanted to take a moment just to let that sink in, but she heard footsteps coming toward the waiting room. Janessa stepped away from Brody. But it wasn’t Teagan’s OB, Dr. Sanchez, who walked in. It was Darcia, and she was wearing pale yellow scrubs. She gave Brody one of those reassuring smiles that medical staff sometimes gave before she turned to Janessa.

  “Dr. Sanchez asked me to bring you back to delivery. Teagan’s labor is progressing extremely fast, and she wants you there when the baby’s born.” No reassuring smile this time, but Darcia didn’t give her the fish-eye as she usually did. She was in full medical mode right now. “Teagan said I was to remind you that she doesn’t want to see or hold the baby, that she wants you to take the newborn from the delivery room as soon as possible.”

  Janessa managed a nod, but it must have looked pretty shaky because Brody came to stand by her side. “Is the baby okay?” he asked his mother.

  “The baby’s heart rate is good. Strong,” Darcia qualified. “Dr. Sanchez has already called in the pediatrician, Dr. Ellen Mendelson, but I’ll be standing by in delivery, too. Come with me,” she added to Janessa. “We need to get you washed up and ready. Have you attended a delivery before?”

  Janessa shook her head, muttered, “No,” and gave a glance back at Brody while his mother led her away.

  “Well, I hope you’re not the squeamish type,” Darcia commented.

  Janessa assured her she wasn’t and she washed up and put on a paper gown when Darcia took her into a prep area. However, after one step into the delivery room, Janessa decided she might indeed be squeamish after all. Not because of anything she saw in the birthing area but because of Teagan. The girl was beaded with sweat, and her face was a mask of straining muscles.

  “This is going to be even faster than I thought it’d be,” Dr. Sanchez explained, sparing Janessa and Darcia a glance. The doctor was also positioned for the delivery so Janessa hurried to Teagan.

  Who immediately cursed and yelled at her.

  “Get it out now!” Teagan shouted, and she clamped onto Janessa’s hand with a vise grip.

  Janessa couldn’t complain about the bone-crushing pain she was feeling because it was obvious Teagan’s pain was a hell of a lot worse.

  “Breathe,” Janessa instructed as she remembered the things they’d learned in the birthing classes.

  Teagan yelled at her and cursed her again. It wasn’t pleasant, but at least Teagan was indeed breathing the way the instructor had taught her. Janessa tried another technique from the class—distraction. Unfortunately, she was having a hard time coming up with any good topics so she went with the one that popped into her head.

  “What do you bet one of those gifts Abe left for me is a replica of the horses? Or the stables?” Janessa asked.

  Teagan yelled and cursed at her.

  “Here comes the baby,” Dr. Sanchez said, but Janessa focused on wiping the sweat from Teagan’s face.

  Moments later, Janessa heard the cry. Not a kitten-like mewl, either. This cry was nearly as loud as Teagan’s yelling and profanity had been.

  “It’s a girl,” the doctor announced, and he handed the crying, squirming baby to Darcia.

  Teagan quit straining. Quit moving. She went perfectly still while her eyes locked with Janessa. “Please take her out of here. Please,” she repeated with her bottom lip trembling.

  “Come with me,” Darcia told Janessa.

  Janessa gave Teagan’s hand a gentle squeeze, and the girl’s eyes filled with tears. Tears that slid through the sweat down her cheeks.

  “Please just take her now,” Teagan begged.

  And with tears in her own eyes, Janessa followed Darcia and the baby out of the room.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  BRODY WALKED THROUGH the hospital toward the nursery and, glancing around, he saw exactly what he wanted to see. One of the ranch hands, Jeff Chavez, was in a chair in the hall. Keeping watch for Riggs. Jeff was a former linebacker and would have no trouble handling the idiot if he decided to show up and try to cause some trouble.

  “Sherry will relieve you in a couple of hours,” Brody told Jeff as he walked by him.

  And after that, he had someone ready to relieve Sherry so that Teagan and the baby would be covered
24/7. Something he’d had in place for the last three days since the little girl had been born. As far as Brody was concerned, the guards would stay as long as necessary.

  The hospital wasn’t big by anyone’s standards, so it didn’t take Brody long to make his way down the hall to the nursery. He peered through the glass so he could get a look at the baby. Hard to do, though, what with Velma Sue, Sophia and Margo blocking the view.

  He shifted, craned his neck and finally saw Janessa in a rocking chair, and she was holding the blanket-wrapped baby while the other women peered down at them. Not right over them, though. They were wearing medical masks and paper exam gowns over their clothes. Since the door next to the observation glass was open, Brody could also hear them all cooing and making baby sounds, but they were doing that from a distance.

  Judging from the updates he’d gotten from Janessa, Margo, Velma Sue and Sophia had been constant visitors. The little girl might not have a name yet, but she wasn’t lacking attention, and the women were all eager to get their turn to hold her.

  “Brody,” he heard his mother say, and he looked up the hall to see Darcia making her way toward him.

  Since it was her job to take care of the babies, it wasn’t unusual for her to be in this part of the hospital, but he could tell she was surprised to see him there. Or maybe not surprised but rather worried.

  “Everything okay?” she asked, moving to stand beside him. Like Brody, she peered through the glass at the newborn and the women.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing. All is fine with me. How’s the baby doing?”

  Darcia gave a little sigh, causing him to have a sharp spike of concern. “She’s doing very well,” she quickly explained, no doubt because she noted that concern.

  “Janessa told me the baby had lost some weight, that it was to be expected, but she’s already so little.” Four and a half pounds. That’s all she’d weighed when she was born. Brody figured she was tiny enough to fit in his cowboy hat.

  “She lost a couple of ounces, and yes, that usually happens. The loss is basically from water weight and can vary from newborn to newborn. I haven’t spoken with the doctor today, but I suspect he’ll want to keep her a while longer. Her vitals have all remained good, and she’s eating well,” she added, “and that’s why the doctor didn’t transfer her to a NICU in San Antonio.”

  Brody hadn’t exactly become a baby expert, but he’d learned that NICU was a Newborn Intensive Care Unit. Obviously, a baby would have to be in serious condition to land there so it was good that she was still here.

  “Her good vitals are also the reason the doctor allowed her to be held,” Darcia added and then paused. “They’re bickering over names.”

  “Excuse me?” Brody asked, but Darcia didn’t have to explain because at that exact moment he heard Margo.

  “She really looks like a Chloe to me,” Margo said. “I mean, that face has Chloe written all over it.”

  “I still see Evelyn on that face,” Velma Sue argued.

  It didn’t take long for Sophia to say, “Chloe and Evelyn will be too hard for her to pronounce. She needs something simpler.”

  “You mean like Janessa,” Janessa said with plenty of sarcasm that told him she was well aware of the name bickering and was tired of it. “Her parents will name her.” Which was no doubt something she’d repeated a lot to the trio.

  With the baby still snuggled in her arms, Janessa stood, her gaze meeting his through the glass. She smiled, but the smile faded a bit when her attention shifted to Darcia. He hated that there was this tension between Janessa and his mother. Hated even more that his mother had reason for concern because she didn’t want to see him get hurt.

  Apparently, it was Sophia’s turn to hold the baby because she hurried to take her seat in the rocking chair, and Janessa carefully made the transfer to Sophia’s waiting arms. Janessa kissed the baby on the top of the head and then came out in the hall to join them.

  “Did you need to examine her?” Janessa asked his mother.

  “Not yet.” Darcia patted Brody’s arm. “I’ll see you Thursday night,” she muttered and strolled away.

  “For dinner,” Brody explained. He stopped, gave it a few seconds of thought. “Why don’t you come with me?”

  Janessa got a classic deer-in-the-headlights look. “That’s not a good idea. Your mother doesn’t like me.”

  “My mother just remembers all the moping I did the last time you left. But it won’t be that way this time because I know you’re leaving.”

  That was something that’d finally sunk in. There’d be no shock over her quick departure because he already had that departure circled on his calendar. Janessa still had weeks to go on Abe’s three-month condition.

  “Your mother might not have gotten the no-moping memo,” Janessa muttered. She motioned toward the end of the hall. “Teagan is being released this morning, and Kyle’s here to drive her back to Dallas. She wants to go,” she added. “Actually, she insisted on going.”

  “She didn’t change her mind about seeing the baby?” Brody asked as they started walking.

  Janessa shook her head. “Teagan doesn’t even want us to talk about her.” She paused, shook her head again. “I don’t think she’s processed that she’ll eventually see her child because her sister, Char, is adopting her. She and her sister had a horrible home life, which is why Teagan ended up at Bright Hope, but Char and she are fairly close. Anytime Char visits Teagan, she’ll likely have her daughter with her.”

  That was a huge downside, considering that Teagan obviously wanted to keep some emotional distance from the baby. However, it had to be comforting, too, because Teagan wouldn’t have wanted this adoption if she hadn’t believed her sister would be a good mother to the child.

  They stopped outside of Teagan’s room, which was still in sight of both the guard and the nursery. “Teagan will want to say goodbye to you, too,” Janessa assured him when she reached for the door. “Rowan’s already been by.”

  Yeah, Brody had known about that because Rowan had told him right before he started his shift. Brody had to admire his brother for continuing his friendship with Teagan. Darcia wouldn’t have demanded he not see Teagan, but she would have given Rowan plenty of her quiet disapproval. That was Darcia’s specialty, and Brody knew firsthand that it wasn’t always easy to stand up to that.

  Janessa knocked on the door, said, “It’s Brody and me,” and Teagan called out, “Come in.”

  They did, and Brody saw that Teagan was already dressed and sitting on the foot of the bed. Her suitcase was on the floor, and the three vases of flowers she’d gotten, including the one from Brody, were next to the suitcase. Teagan was obviously ready to go.

  He shifted his attention to the man standing across from her. Kyle, no doubt. The guy was tall, buff and blond. In fact, Janessa and Kyle sort of looked like the old-fashioned Ken and Barbie dolls.

  Brody didn’t like the hard knock of jealousy he got from how perfect they looked together. It was totally unwarranted since Janessa and Kyle were no longer together. Still, there’d been something about the man that had not only attracted her but made her fall in love with him. That, Brody realized, was at the core of the jealousy. Janessa certainly hadn’t fallen in love with him.

  Kyle stuck out his hand for Brody to shake, and even though the guy smiled, Brody detected some kind of mental assessment going on when Kyle’s gaze skimmed over him. Maybe he thought Brody was vying to be his replacement. But nope. Brody was just trying to figure out how to deal with this aching need he felt for Janessa. A round of good sex would soothe the ache, but he doubted that one round would be the cure.

  “Kyle’s already picked up my things from the ranch. We’re just waiting for my release forms,” Teagan said.

  She got up from the bed, and even though she was moving cautiously, she gave Janessa a hard hug. Teagan surprised Brody by
hugging him, too.

  “Thank you both for everything,” Teagan murmured. She eased away and picked up a file folder from the bed and handed it to Janessa. “That’s the research I’ve been doing on your father for the past three days. I had Margo print it out for me.”

  Janessa opened the folder that was practically bulging with papers and started to thumb through it. “Thank you, Teagan. This is a lot of work.”

  The girl shrugged. “Not much else to do in a hospital, and it kept my mind off other things.”

  Since it seemed as if Teagan wanted an alone moment with Janessa, Brody gave Kyle a quick look. “Ken” picked up on it, too.

  “Teagan, you want Brody and me to go ahead and start taking that stuff out to the car?” Kyle asked her.

  Teagan smiled. “Yes, thank you. I really want to be able to leave when they give me the release.”

  Kyle put on his coat, fished out his keys from the pocket of his khakis and gathered up the flowers while Brody grabbed the suitcase. In silence, they walked out, and the silence stayed in place until they passed by the ranch hand who was still standing guard.

  “I’m sure Teagan and Janessa have already thanked you for the security,” Kyle said as they made their way down the hall and toward the exit. “But I’d like to add my thanks, as well. Teagan was pretty shaken up about Riggs.”

  Brody figured she was still shaken up. “What’ll stop him from coming to Bright Hope to try to see her?”

  “Well, there’s a temporary restraining order, which is practically worthless if Riggs is dead set on seeing her. We’ll do as Janessa and you have done here and at the ranch. Lock the doors and keep the security system on. But Teagan will be moving out soon. She wants to go to college next semester in Houston.”

  Rowan had mentioned that, and Brody thought it was a good thing that Teagan was making these kinds of changes in her life. Still, that didn’t mean Riggs wouldn’t eventually find her. He’d mention that to Janessa so she could have a talk with Teagan.