Maverick Christmas Surprise

by Brenda Harlen

  Which he immediately realized was not the right thing to say to his father under the circumstances.

  “You should darn well remember a woman who shared your bed,” Max said, the low tone of his voice doing nothing to disguise the underlying anger and disappointment. “I don’t expect you to be in love with every woman you sleep with, but you should know and respect her enough to remember her name.”

  “Give me a break,” Wilder pleaded. “My head’s spinning so fast, it’s a wonder I know my own name right now.”

  “Well, there’s no doubt the baby looks like a Crawford.”

  “The baby looks like a baby,” Wilder said. Because in his admittedly limited experience with infants, they all looked like bald, chubby-cheeked, squalling little monsters.

  As if on cue, the one buckled into the car seat started to squirm and squall.

  Wilder stepped back, an instinctive retreat.

  “Pick him up and bring him inside,” Max said.

  “Me?” Wilder was horrified by the very thought.

  With a sigh, his father reached down and grabbed the car seat with one hand and the enormous diaper bag with the other.

  “Hunter said there was a baby on the doorstep,” Avery said, entering the kitchen from the dining room at the same time that Wilder and Max came in from the porch.

  Then she spotted the carrier in Max’s hand and her expression softened. “Ohmygod—it is a baby.” Her gaze shifted to Wilder. “Why didn’t you tell anyone you’re a daddy?”

  “Because I’m not,” Wilder insisted. “There’s no way that kid’s mine.”

  “He’s in denial,” Genevieve, his brother Knox’s wife, said. Because apparently Hunter’s announcement had drawn everyone away from the table.

  “I think the baby’s hungry,” Lily said worriedly.

  “You just want to feed everyone,” her husband Xander teased.

  “He is gnawing on his fist,” Hunter noted. “And that’s a telltale sign of hunger.”

  As Hunter was the only one of his brothers with significant daddy experience, Wilder was willing to defer to his expertise. But having the problem identified didn’t give him the first clue about how to solve it.

  So when his brothers and their partners—and Wren—huddled around the baby, pushing Wilder and Max out of the way, Wilder didn’t object.

  “He’s definitely hungry,” Sarah said, as the baby’s unhappy cries turned to sobs.

  “Let’s see if there’s a bottle in the bag,” Merry suggested.

  There were, in fact, two bottles—one premixed and one empty, plus a can of powdered formula.

  Avery unbuckled the harness and lifted the infant out of his seat. His plaintive cries immediately ceased.

  Everyone seemed to be talking at once, speculating about the note as they fussed over the little guy. Wilder took advantage of their preoccupation to study the baby—who didn’t seem quite so intimidating now that he was quiet—and realized, a little uneasily, that the baby was staring back at him.

  Is it possible? he wondered. Can he be mine?

  “Where’d the baby come from?” Wren wanted to know.

  “Someone left him on the doorstep,” her dad explained.

  “Maybe he’s a gift from Santa,” she suggested.

  Hunter chuckled. “Unfortunately for Uncle Wilder, I don’t think the baby came with a gift receipt.”

  “He does look a lot like Wilder’s old baby photos,” Logan, the eldest Crawford brother, noted.

  “He does not,” Wilder denied, though without much conviction.

  But no one was paying any attention to him, anyway.

  Except his father, who sidled closer. “The note was signed with the letter ‘L,’” Max noted. “Does that jog your memory at all?”

  He automatically started to shake his head, because he didn’t want his memory jogged. And if he was in denial—well, he was quite happy to stay there. Because in denial, his life was easy and carefree and he didn’t have the responsibility of an infant who’d been dumped into his lap—or, to be more precise, on his doorstep.

  But somehow, in the midst of all the chaos going on around him, hazy memories slowly came into focus in Wilder’s mind. Memories of an early holiday party at Reunion Tower in Dallas, a few too many cocktails and a pretty—and very adventurous—blonde named Leighton Ames. And no, he wasn’t oblivious to the fact that her name started with the same letter that had been scrawled on the bottom of the note.

  They’d had a good time together, not just that night, but for several weeks afterward. And then, just as suddenly as their relationship had started, it ended.

  Her decision, Wilder remembered now.

  Just after the New Year, she’d abruptly called things off. He’d been a little disappointed at first, but there were plenty of other women in the world. And truthfully, he hadn’t thought of her again—until now.

  Was Leighton the baby’s mother?

  Was it possible that he was the father of this baby who’d been abandoned on the doorstep?

  But if she believed that to be true, why hadn’t she ever told him that she was pregnant?

  Well, he could probably guess the answer to that one. Either Leighton wasn’t sure about the baby’s paternity, or she didn’t trust him to step up.

  He would have, of course. He would have undoubtedly felt panicked and trapped, but he would have done the right thing. Not that she could have known that, because they hadn’t had the type of relationship where they talked about their future hopes and dreams. Their conversations had been more along the lines of “your place or mine?” And after that question had been answered, there had been even less talking.

  But if she hadn’t trusted him to step up, why would she dump the baby on him now?

  And how did she even know where to find him?

  He’d had no communication with her in almost a year. And the last time they were together, he didn’t know that he’d be moving to Rust Creek Falls, so it was unlikely she could have tracked him down here.

  Reassured by his own reasoning that it couldn’t have been Leighton who dropped the baby off—and conveniently ignoring the fact that his name was on the note—Wilder breathed a sigh of relief, confident that he was off the hook. But his father would require additional proof, so as the rest of the family went back into the dining room, he scrolled through the contacts in his phone to see if he still had her number.

  Amazingly, he did, and tapped it to initiate the call.

  “Hello?”

  The female voice that immediately answered sounded frantic.

  “Um...hi,” he said. “I’m trying to reach Leighton Ames.”

  “You and me both,” she replied, sounding as if she was fighting tears.

  He frowned at that. “Is this still her number?”

  “Yes, but she forgot her phone when she left.” The woman on the other end of the line sighed. “Or maybe she didn’t forget it.”

  Which didn’t make any sense to him, but all he said was: “Well, if you hear from her, can you ask her to call Wilder Crawford?”

  “Why?” She sounded both curious and wary. “What business do you have with my sister?”

  Sister?

  He couldn’t recall Leighton mentioning a sister, but surely a sister would know if Leighton had had a baby. And if this was Leighton’s baby, that meant the woman on the phone was the baby’s aunt.

  Before he could ask, she spoke again. “Wait a minute—did you say Wilder Crawford?”

  “I did,” he confirmed.

  “I found your name and a Montana address scrawled on a Post-it note in Leighton’s apartment,” she said. “I think she might be on her way to see you.”

  The knots in his stomach tightened. “She might have been here already...and left something.”

  He heard a sharp intake of
breath. “What kind of something?”

  “A baby,” he admitted. “Did she—”

  “Cody!” she immediately interjected, not giving him a chance to finish. “You have Cody?”

  “That’s the name in the note,” he confirmed.

  “Note?” she echoed.

  “The baby was left on my doorstep with a note.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would she leave her baby?”

  “I wish I knew,” he told her.

  “Are you Cody’s father?” she guessed.

  “Obviously your sister thinks so.”

  “You haven’t seen her or talked to her?”

  “Not in the past year.”

  “But Cody’s with you? At the Ambling A Ranch in Montana?”

  “That’s right,” he confirmed.

  “Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she promised.

  “Wait—”

  But she’d already disconnected the call.

  “What did you find out?” Max asked, when Wilder returned to the table where Lily had resumed serving dessert and Avery rocked the now quiet baby.

  “The kid’s mom is Leighton Ames,” he said. “I spoke to her sister, but she doesn’t know where she is or why she left the baby here.”

  “Because she wanted him to be with his dad,” Max suggested as an answer to the latter question.

  Wilder hoped like hell his father was wrong.

  “Do you want ice cream with your pie?” Merry asked him.

  Because for the rest of the family gathered together, today was still a celebration—and it was time for dessert.

  “Sure,” he said.

  Though he wasn’t even sure he wanted the pie now, he didn’t want his family to know how freaked out he was about the arrival of the baby they were all happy enough to assume was his and turning down dessert would be a definite red flag.

  “I want ice cream,” Wren piped up, pushing her bowl toward her soon-to-be-stepmother who was scooping it.

  “You already had ice cream,” her dad reminded her, pulling the bowl back again before Merry could indulge the little girl’s request.

  Wren pouted and dragged her spoon around the inside of the empty vessel.

  Wilder took the plate Merry passed to him and murmured his thanks. Then he halved the scoop of ice cream with the side of his fork and slid half into his niece’s bowl.

  Wren beamed at him; Hunter scowled.

  “There’s a reason I’m the favorite uncle,” he said, and winked at the little girl.

  “I’m finished with my dessert,” Finn said to his wife then, “if you want me to take the baby.”

  “I can manage the baby,” Avery assured him. “If you want to be helpful, you can start clearing the table.”

  As Finn began gathering empty plates and glasses, Wilder dug his fork into his pie, giving up the pretense of an appetite.

  “Did you ask for a baby for Christmas, Uncle Wilder?” his niece asked, around a mouthful of ice cream.

  “No.” His response was immediate and definitive.

  “I guess you’re just lucky then,” Wren decided.

  Lucky?

  Oh yeah, he had a horseshoe so far up his butt he couldn’t swallow the pie that was stuck in his throat.

  * * *

  The house emptied quickly after dessert was finished and the cleanup complete, leaving Wilder and his father alone with the baby. Then Max took off, too, to pick up a crib he’d arranged to borrow from one of their many Crawford relatives in town.

  Wilder had offered to make the trip, but his dad had insisted that he stay at the Ambling A to watch the baby. For the first half hour, there weren’t any major snags—because the kid slept. But when he woke up, he was not in a very good mood.

  The baby didn’t cry. Not really. But his face was all scrunched up and he was squirming in his seat, and Wilder braced himself for the crying to start.

  “Avery promised that you would sleep for a few hours,” Wilder said, trying to reason with the infant. “That was barely more than an hour ago.”

  His words got the kid’s attention, though, and he fixed his big, blue eyes on Wilder.

  “You can’t be hungry already,” he continued, in the same logical tone. “You sucked back a whole bottle before she left.”

  The baby continued to fuss, clearly unconvinced and unhappy.

  And his lower lip was starting to do that quivering thing that warned Wilder real tears and sobs likely weren’t too far behind.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I don’t know what to do.”

  “You could try picking him up.”

  Wilder turned to see Hunter standing in the doorway. “I thought you’d gone home.”

  “I did,” his brother confirmed. “And then I came back.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I thought you might want to talk to someone who’s been where you are.”

  On another day, Wilder might have made a snarky comment about not remembering when a baby had been left on Hunter’s doorstep, but right now, he was too grateful for his presence to risk saying anything that might prompt him to leave again.

  “I think I need a manual more than a sounding board,” he confided.

  “A manual would be useless,” Hunter said. “Because every baby is different.”

  “So how am I supposed to know what’s wrong with this one?”

  “He’s probably out of sorts because he doesn’t know where his mama is.”

  “That makes two of us,” Wilder said.

  “And when babies are out of sorts, they need to be comforted.”

  He gestured to the infant in his carrier. “Feel free.”

  But his brother shook his head. “You need to step up.”

  “I would have stepped up months ago if Leighton had told me she was pregnant,” he said in his defense.

  “So why are you hesitating now?” his brother challenged.

  “Because I don’t have the first clue what to do with a baby.”

  “No first-time parent has a clue in the beginning.”

  His brother’s matter-of-fact statement was hardly reassuring.

  And while they were talking, the baby was growing more distressed.

  With a sigh of resignation, Wilder unhooked the strap and lifted him out of the seat.

  The baby stopped fussing for a moment to stare at him, as if waiting for something else.

  Something more.

  Wilder looked at his brother. “I’m doing this wrong, aren’t I?”

  “Babies generally like to be held closer than arm’s length,” Hunter told him.

  Wilder pulled his arms toward his chest, so that he was almost nose-to-nose with the kid.

  Hunter started to chuckle, but quickly covered it with a cough when Wilder glared at him.

  “Closer,” he urged. “But to the side, with his head about level with your shoulder so he can see behind you. With newborns, you need to keep one hand on the bottom and the other on the head and neck, for support, but he’s obviously strong enough to hold his head up just fine.”

  Wilder did his best to follow his brother’s instructions.

  “That’s it,” Hunter assured him.

  “He feels so tiny.” His whispered remark was filled with awe and wonder—and just a hint of the nerves that were tangled up inside him. “So fragile.”

  “It’s normal to be scared. I was terrified the first time I held Wren in my arms,” his brother confided. “And she was a lot smaller than Cody is.”

  “But you had nine months to prepare yourself for her arrival,” Wilder pointed out, though he wasn’t sure anything could have prepared him for this moment.

  Hunter nodded. “True.”

  Wilder patted the baby’s back gently, as he’d watched Sa
rah do, and was rewarded with a shockingly loud belch.

  “Gas might have been another cause of his distress,” Hunter noted then.

  “You think?” Wilder asked dryly.

  “And now that it’s out of his system, you can try the cradle hold,” he said, and talked him through shifting the baby’s position so that he was tucked in the crook of Wilder’s arm. “Now sit down and relax.”

  Relax? He wasn’t sure he’d be able to relax so long as there was a baby under his roof.

  And though Leighton’s note had given no indication that she was planning to come back for the little guy, he had to believe that she would. After all, what kind of mom just left her kid?

  Mine, he thought, then shoved the unpleasant twinge from his mind.

  Hunter took another seat at the table, leaning back in the chair and stretching his legs out in front.

  Obviously relaxing wasn’t a problem for him.

  “Where’d Dad go?” he asked.

  “To pick up a crib,” Wilder told him.

  “Ah, right. He said he was going to try to rustle up some of the stuff you’d need from local relatives,” his brother recalled.

  “Unfortunately, I don’t think one of those things is a nanny.”

  Hunter chuckled. “No, he’s been pretty clear that your baby is your responsibility.”

  “But we don’t even know for sure that he is my baby,” Wilder felt compelled to point out again.

  “Obviously his mom is sure. Though I have to wonder, if you haven’t kept in touch with her, how did she know where to find you?”

  “I’ve been wondering the same thing. My best guess is Malcolm,” Wilder said, naming a close buddy from Dallas. “When I talked to him a few weeks back, he’d mentioned that one of the girls we’d met at the holiday party before Christmas last year had shown up at his office to ask about me. But he told me that before Thanksgiving, and since nothing came of it...”

  “Until now,” Hunter remarked.

  “Until now,” he agreed.

  “So the who and the how have been answered,” his brother noted. “But we still don’t know the why—beyond the obvious, of course.”

  “What’s the obvious?” Wilder wondered.