River from the City: A Small Town Contemporary Romance (Rydell River Ranch Series Book 6)

by Leanne Davis

Finally, her astonishment started to recede as she analyzed the facts of the last three minutes and started to formulate a story. Francine had a baby. Obviously, it was Hunter’s and she hadn’t told him about the pregnancy. She probably hoped it was Stanley’s child, but the red hair, and the classic shape of its face said Rydell all the way. It seemed more than likely this was Hunter’s baby. She had no doubt Francine’s family would have insisted on a DNA test to prove it. She wondered what Stanley said and did when he found out? Did he kick Francine to the curb or just kick out the baby? Did he demand she get rid of it if she wanted him? Something along those lines, Kyomi guessed. Stupid Francine had the platinum edition of an ideal man in her husband yet she settled for the sludge at the bottom of a fry pan with Stanley.

  But now what? It suddenly became Kyomi’s problem. She held the sleeping infant in her arms. Gently setting the angel down inside the entryway, she stared at it for a prolonged moment before shaking herself out of the strange reverie and rushing upstairs. Bursting through Hunter’s bedroom door, she found him seated on his bed. He was not looking out the window. He most likely missed the drama of watching his ex carry an occupied infant car seat to his front door before leaving it with his girlfriend. He stared forward, looking forlorn, even grim.

  Just wait until he knew how much grimmer this could get. The full impact of what happened in the last half hour had not fully sunken into Kyomi’s brain. At the edges of her consciousness, she sensed this would be a gamechanger for her as well.

  “She go?”

  “She lost her entire shit. You had to have heard her.”

  He snorted. “She would have instantly tripled the duration and verbosity of those tears and sobs if I came down. You must realize this: Francine is a huge drama queen. This wasn’t the first puddle of tears and remorse. She sobbed like this on the night in the bedroom when she found us together. They’re crocodile tears that always show up at her pity parties. They’re not real, believe me. It’s all a way to manipulate others into caring about what she has to say, or to feel sorry for her, or whatever her latest nefarious plan is.” Rising to his feet, he approached Kyomi, stretching his two hands out as if to take hers. “I will make this up to you. I swear. I know what you just did was difficult and I’m so sorry you had to handle it for me. You’ve earned the gold star for number one girlfriend award, and seriously, I can’t thank you enough for that. I just didn’t have it in me anymore. It wasn’t your obligation or responsibility but I am so grateful you did it for me. I sincerely promise to make this right.”

  “Hunter, it’s so far beyond all that. She wasn’t being manipulating. She was really losing her mind.”

  “Honestly, I know how bad she appears and how heartless I might sound, but I swear to you, she is just really good at that; it’s an act.”

  “Yes. I’m sure you’re right in most cases. But not this time. She’s a mother and she left the baby here in my arms. Then she took off without a word of explanation. She came here to see you, looking crushed and desperate with disappointment when you refused to see her and then…” Her voice faltered as the full magnitude of what just happened caught up with her emotions. Tears filled her eyes and made her throat swell. “She left a red-haired baby in my arms.”

  Hunter just stood there as stunned and perplexed as she was. He mirrored her reaction, no doubt. His mouth dropped open, his eyes widened, and his fair face became even paler in color. “What?” he finally gasped out.

  “She handed me a sleeping baby strapped in his or her car seat and fled. I mean, she fully sprinted back to her running car and took off in a cloud of dust. She abandoned her baby in my arms. Me. Someone she doesn’t even know. Only that I’m connected to you somehow. She came here with the intention of leaving the baby here. She was freaking out. I don’t think anyone could have faked something like that. She was really losing it.”

  “Francine? Had a baby? What? No. How could that happen?”

  “I’m just guessing, but maybe through sex? Now listen to me, Hunter.” She gripped his arms and shook him to capture his focus. “The baby has red hair. Rydell-red hair. Your red hair. Hunter, there is no doubt this is your baby.”

  His mouth still didn’t close and he just gaped at her. Shaking his head, he pushed her back and started pacing. “No. No way. We always used birth control. We didn’t want kids. I don’t want to have kids. Never. We agreed on that from when we got engaged. We planned to be rich and powerful and someday, I intended to run for political office. We had too many plans… incredible, ambitious plans and none of them included a baby. Never. Neither of us were ready for a child. She couldn’t have given birth to a baby. Unless she changed her mind with that loser Stanley and had his baby. It’s not mine. No way. No way with her.”

  One thing sucker-punched Kyomi in the gut. The vehement insistence that Hunter didn’t want kids. She had no idea he was like that. Not that she wanted a kid either. But certainly not now. Not for many years. Not necessarily with him, for God’s sake, but she never predicted he would not want children with the absolute certainty and repulsion he displayed. He intended to run for public office? No way. His ambitions were far more lofty than she estimated. Something strange rippled through her. Did she know him? At all? The guy he just described wasn’t the man who hid out on a ranch and worked on hers. She assumed he rejected his former lifestyle as partly responsible for what hurt him and shook the foundation of his life to its core. He did the opposite of what he used to do in order to make some sense of it, and survive it. Maybe after being so badly burned, Hunter chose the opposite that he previously would have chosen to avoid being hurt again. Couldn’t find much more of polar opposites than Kyomi and Francine.

  She knew that. Eventually, reality always comes home to roost.

  “Hunter, your crisis of self-doubt has to be postponed. Right now, we have a sleeping infant in the entryway. We need to take care of it and figure out what to do.” Only then did Kyomi realize she had no clue if it were a boy or a girl. The yellow blanket didn’t give anything away.

  A baby in the custody of two of the most clueless people to take care of the baby.

  “She left a baby here? You’re not fucking with me?”

  Tears slipped from her eyes as Kyomi gulped. “I’m really not. She shoved the baby at me and fled. I’m assuming it’s hers. I don’t know. First, we have to make sure it’s okay. And then… then we’ll find out whose baby it is although I’m sure it’s hers, but more importantly, if it’s yours.”

  Hunter’s pacing increased as his hands nervously ran through his hair. Then he stopped dead, shutting his eyes and using both hands to rub the muscles between his neck and shoulders. “This can’t be happening.”

  “Stop saying that. There is a baby downstairs. Your ex-wife left it here.”

  “Left it here? What the fuck is wrong with her? How dare she just leave it? Without any explanation or instructions? What the hell is wrong with her? I married the devil’s incarnation.” He stomped past her, swearing a string of curses that had her ears burning. Kyomi wasn’t offended by the curses and his vitriol because she knew he really meant them. His anger was roused again. With the snap of the fingers, Francine managed to resurrect his rage all over again.

  But that had to wait until later; it took second priority to the baby in the entryway.

  “But you married her all the same. This is your mess, whether you welcome it or not. Not my problem. The baby in this house came from your ex-wife and it has red hair. So do you. Do the math, Hunter. If you like it or not, you still have to deal with it. Start right now. You have to deal with it sooner or later so you might as well make it sooner.”

  His arms dropped down to his sides as he slowly replied, “You think… that—”

  “You have a baby. An infant. A child. Take your pick of what to call it, but yes, I do think that. It looks suspiciously that way.”

  “What am I supposed to do with it? I wake up this morning single and childless and that quick, that fast I’m
supposed to get onboard with a baby that I’ve never even heard about?”

  “Well, what do you want me to do?” Groaning with annoyance, Kyomi ran her hands through her hair. “What exactly do you want me to do? Send it back? Package it up and return it via express mail? The infant is sleeping downstairs and you should be thanking me for not walking off and going to work. I should leave you to deal with the fallout of your life choices. Not my problem. I would have had better sense than to marry a train wreck, diva, screaming lunatic that is Francine. I don’t care how pretty she is. You married her. She was your choice in women, so buck up, asshole, looks like Francine just delivered the final blow to you.”

  He tilted his head, considering her words as she started to pace as she yelled at him. “It… I can’t be a… I mean…” Then she regained her composure.

  “I can’t be the girlfriend to a man with a child, but it’s clearly becoming that way. And that will be the karma I deserve for getting involved with a man who wasn’t finished with his marriage yet. Not fully. Not emotionally. You need more time than I can calculate to overcome what she did to you.”

  “I don’t love her. I didn’t come downstairs because I just don’t care about her. Not enough to bother giving her any more of my time and energy. I don’t even hate her like I did. I just don’t want to see her anymore. I’m over what she did to me. But I can’t share a… a…”

  “Okay, fine. Pretend the word is so far out of your vocabulary you can’t say it, but you need to come downstairs and meet your offspring.”

  He didn’t answer, but finally stepped forward. Slowly. Excruciatingly slow, he walked towards the door and down the stairs. Right behind him, Kyomi stopped when he stood above the car seat and stared at the surprisingly still sleeping infant.

  “Oh, my God.” His tone was a soft whisper, sounding almost reverent. He didn’t fully comprehend the meaning of the words. Seeing the baby, all wrapped up with its eyelids shut so sweetly and the little mouth puckered up as if it wanted a kiss, really put things into perspective like nothing else could.

  “Yes. Oh, my God,” she echoed from right behind him.

  He looked over his shoulder and their gazes met. Shaking his head, his eyes popping out, he said, “She really just left a baby in your arms on my doorstep?”

  “Really.”

  He looked back down and she shuffled forward so they could both observe the baby. Reaching a hand out, he grabbed hers and squeezed it. “It’s a Rydell.”

  “Yes. I immediately realized that as well.”

  Quietly they watched the rosebud mouth twist as the little forehead wrinkled up. Still holding her hand, he pulled her closer, hugging her. “Please, don’t leave me.”

  Startled at his plea, she pushed him away so she could look up into his eyes. Then he told her, “I know this isn’t fair. Not anything we planned or talked about. If I’d known, at any point, I swear to you, I would have told you but she never said a word.”

  Kyomi scoffed. “That suspicion never even crossed my mind so you don’t have to go there.”

  “It should have. I can’t believe this.”

  “What do we do?”

  “I… I literally don’t know.”

  “Do you think we should pick it up? Unstrap it? Um… find out if it’s a boy or a girl?”

  “Maybe we should leave it be until it wakes up and then we can find out.”

  She tilted her head as she stared down. “Is it okay if they just sleep in the car seat? For how long is it safe? What’s normal?”

  “Crap if I know. I don’t remember Landon as a baby. If there were babies around me while I was growing up, I never paid attention or cared in the least.”

  “There were none around me.”

  Hunter finally pulled out his cell phone. Dialing the number, his face turned increasingly stony. “Big surprise, huh? Francine isn’t answering. I might as well start the phone dump. My guess is she won’t answer anytime soon.” His fingers flew over the keyboard for several minutes.

  “Should we leave it there?”

  “I guess so. I mean, no one is coming in or going out and it’s safe enough. Fuck. I can’t believe this. Let’s go make coffee.”

  She followed him as he moved around the kitchen. His hand shook when he poured the coffee and she realized how stressed out he was getting. There were no words. They fell into a numb quiet, staring at each other with big, confused gazes as they sipped coffee. In a matter of minutes, an urgent squawk came from the next room. Hunter swallowed too big of a gulp and gagged on the hot coffee as he shoved it to the counter. “Oh, shit!” he muttered as he stared through the opening at the car seat as if it were a bomb, waiting for official detonation.

  “Yes. Looks like we can find out what sex it is now.”

  The baby started to squawk louder. Peeking into the carrier, there was a flash of big, bright blue eyes. Crap. The baby was awake. They stood together, staring down, next to each other. She waited for him to make a move; after all, it was his baby, more his than hers, and yet he just stared at her vacantly.

  “Um, go ahead. Get the baby out,” she instructed him, wondering if he’d ever held one before. He nodded, visibly gulping. Kneeling down, he started to work the harness that kept the baby in place. He untucked the bulky blanket. The tiny creature blinked and stared, but not exactly at Hunter. The straps were loose. Looking up at her as if seeking guidance, she shrugged again. “Just be careful. And don’t forget the neck. Always support the neck.”

  “Right. I guess anyone breathing knows that, right? I just worry about the things I don’t know.”

  Sucking in a breath of air, he slipped one hand under the infant’s back and bottom, then he pulled upwards, his hand cradling the baby’s neck like a flat board. He brought the baby out and stared down at it. “It feels lighter than a baby bird.”

  “Certainly not like a baby calf,” she laughed, staring down at it. “I think we’re very lucky it’s not crying. What do we do when it does? I mean, what are we going to feed this little creature? What about diapers? Clothes? We need everything.”

  “We need help.”

  “Yes. But from who?”

  “My mom.”

  Nodding frantically, Kyomi agreed.

  “She’s going to freak at me.”

  “Believe me, I think we’re all there,” Kyomi replied with slight irony to her tone. “Freaking, that is.”

  He nodded repeatedly. “Can you grab my phone from my pocket and dial her number?”

  Kyomi quickly did as he asked. Hunter kept the baby snugly in hands as he walked to the couch. He set the baby beside him with the blanket under and over him. “Is it warm enough? I mean, how do we know?”

  “Again. I have zero idea. These breasts don’t make me any smarter about infants than you are.”

  “Right.” He nodded as he took the phone, which was already ringing.

  “Mom?” Hunter’s voice was so comically high with relief, Kyomi might have laughed or smiled at his sheer need of consolation. “Yeah. I know. Later. This is kind of an emergency.” He glanced down and must have thought, no kind of about this, it’s an emergency. “My crazy ex just left here. I refused to see her, but she left…” He shut his eyes for a split second of obvious embarrassment and apprehension. “She left a fucking baby on my porch. In Kyomi’s arms. I need… help. Diapers? Food? Whatever? It can’t be more than a month old.”

  A lot of talking. Kyomi couldn’t make out the words but they were rapid. He finally answered during a pause, “I know. I know all that. This is beyond shocking. I didn’t talk to her so I have zero details. But the baby has bright red hair. And she left it here. After a freakout of epic proportions… so yeah, we’re thinking so.”

  He nodded as she spoke and then finally said, “Thank you. Please hurry.” He set the phone on the side table and turned back to the baby. Looking at Kyomi, he said, “She’s coming over. And bringing supplies.”

  Kyomi nodded and let the tension recede from her shoulder
s. “Thank goodness.”

  “Yeah. She was shocked speechless and then asked me a litany of questions. I can’t answer my own questions, let alone, anyone else’s.”

  She slipped to the other side of him, the non-baby side. “That won’t be the end of the shock.”

  “No.” He stared at the little creature and seemed to zone out in the quiet moment. “She said to open the diaper.”

  “Right. Duh.” She nodded and waved at the baby, waiting while Hunter’s big hand worked the diaper tab.

  “My hands feel so huge, like baseball mitts.”

  “They look huge and that makes the baby seem unreasonably small.”

  The baby’s small, skinny legs moved back and forth. “I’m so nervous.”

  “Yeah. What do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, don’t you want to identify its gender?”

  The diaper slipped open and luckily was soaked with wetness, not the other. Not yet. What would they do when that happened? She shuddered as a million what-ifs started to fill her brain. It would happen eventually. All of it. More pee. Poop. Vomit. Putting it down for naps. Holding it when it cries. What kind of food to feed it. What else?!? What the hell were they supposed to do with it? The open diaper revealed it was a boy.

  A son. Hunter Rydell had a son.

  He glanced up at her and then back at the baby. “I have a boy? Or is this some kind of sick joke or strange coincidence?”

  “I just can’t believe that. Not with your hair color.”

  “Damn hair color,” he muttered.

  She elbowed him. “It could still be your child with brown, black or blond hair; we’d just be less sure at this moment. But a DNA test would tell definitively.”

  “Right. What do you suppose his name is? And what kind of a mother could leave her son like this? With people who are totally unprepared and have zero basic items required for an infant. We don’t even know what to call him?”

  “She is unwell,” Kyomi said gently, loath to indulge the anger lacing Hunter’s words and the tone of his voice. She just didn’t want to fan the flames. Not right then. With a baby so small and innocent needing them, there was so much to do and figure out right then. The anger and puzzlement had to wait.