Maverick Christmas Surprise

by Brenda Harlen

  “Well, Wren will certainly be happy that it was found.”

  “By the way, I’m Beth,” she said.

  “I guessed as much,” he said. “Wilder said you arrived late last night.”

  Beth nodded. “I’m sorry for showing up unannounced and uninvited,” she said. “When Wilder called and said that Cody was here, all I could think about was getting to him.”

  “You don’t need to apologize for caring about your nephew,” Max told her. “The kind of love and devotion that compelled you to drive straight through from Dallas is admirable.”

  “I’d do anything for Cody,” she said sincerely.

  “But you don’t know why his mother left him here with his father?”

  She frowned at his ready acceptance of the paternity claim. “You believe Wilder is Cody’s dad?”

  “Don’t you?” he countered.

  “I don’t know what to believe,” she confided.

  “Well, having raised six sons of my own, I have no doubt that little boy is a Crawford.”

  “I’m afraid I’m going to need something a little more scientific than that to be convinced,” she told him.

  His lips twitched, as if he was fighting a smile. “You’re a skeptic, are you?”

  “I’d say cautious.”

  “Is that why you’re not married with a family yet?” Max asked.

  She was taken aback by both his assumption and the personal nature of the question. “How do you know I’m not?”

  “You left Texas on Christmas Day to drive halfway across the country for your sister’s son. That suggests to me that you weren’t celebrating with your own family.”

  A valid point, she acknowledged. “I guess I’m still waiting to meet the right person,” she said. “And anyway, my focus right now is on Cody—and finding my sister.”

  “You don’t have any idea where she might have gone?”

  “I had no idea even that she was coming here,” Beth confided.

  “You’re not close.”

  It was more a statement than a question, but she responded anyway.

  “Not as close as I’d like us to be,” she acknowledged, and wondered why she felt guilty for something that wasn’t her fault. Or at least not entirely her fault.

  But she’d only just met this man and had no intention of opening up her heart—or family history—to him. She definitely wasn’t going to say anything that might cause him to view her sister in a negative light. Of course, Leighton’s abandonment of her child on his doorstep had likely taken care of that already.

  “I had six kids,” Max said again. “You don’t need to tell me about sibling relationships.”

  “But we’ve grown closer since she told me she was pregnant with Cody. And especially in the past four and a half months.”

  “And yet she still left Dallas without telling you where she was going,” he noted.

  She nodded, because yeah, there was no denying that.

  And no pretending that it didn’t hurt.

  “Well, you’re here now,” Max said. “And it’s obvious that your nephew is happy to see you, so can I assume you’re planning to stay a while?”

  “It’s looking that way at the moment,” she acknowledged. “I offered to go to the boarding house in town, but Wilder was kind enough to invite me to stay here. Assuming it’s okay with you.”

  Max’s lips twitched, as if he was fighting a smile. “I’m not sure it was kindness that motivated his offer. But we have plenty of space,” he confirmed, before Beth could question his first statement. “And you’re welcome to stay as long as you need to.”

  “I appreciate it,” she said. “But if I’m going to stay, I’d like to help out in some way.”

  “That isn’t necessary,” Max said.

  “I’m not a bad cook,” she told him.

  The rancher tilted his head, considering her offer. “Do you by any chance know how to make meatloaf?” he asked, with a twinkle in his eye.

  “I’ve got my mother’s recipe stored right here,” she said, tapping a finger to her head. “And it’s the best I’ve ever tasted.”

  “In that case, there’s a package of ground beef in the fridge.”

  She smiled, grateful for the opportunity to repay him in some small way for his hospitality. “What time do you like to eat?”

  Chapter Six

  Wilder felt a little guilty about abandoning the baby in Beth’s care while he went to his brother’s cabin to put together the nursery furniture. A little guilty and a lot grateful, because the more time he spent with Cody, the more doubts he had that he’d ever figure out this daddy stuff.

  He’d been making a sincere effort, but he didn’t seem to have any kind of instincts when it came to interpreting the baby’s needs. Logan claimed he could tell if Sophia was hungry or wet or tired by the sound of her cry. Wilder only wanted to stop the baby from crying, but his attempts weren’t always successful.

  He had made some progress, though. The baby had only peed on Wilder once. And he was getting pretty good at mixing formula and giving the baby a bottle. But feeding him cereal? He’d swear the kid spit out more than he took in. And when that stuff dried, it was like trying to wash off hardened cement.

  Despite his incompetence and missteps, Cody was a pretty good sport about everything. And just last night—in the middle of the night, when he’d been summoned by the baby’s cries and tried to rock him back to sleep, the little guy had stared at him for a long time and then, finally, he’d smiled at him.

  And Wilder’s heart had completely melted.

  The reaction had both surprised and unnerved him. Because while he’d figured he would probably become a dad one day, that day was supposed to be in the distant future. So far down the road he couldn’t even see a speck of it on the horizon. It wasn’t supposed to be now. And it definitely wasn’t supposed to happen without any warning or preparation.

  So maybe he took his time with the furniture, checking and double-checking that every bolt and screw was securely fastened. Then he moved it into position in the room—or at least as he thought it should be positioned—and tidied up all the packaging. Only when he’d run out of tasks and couldn’t imagine any more, did he leave his brother’s cabin to return to the main house.

  He hung his coat up on a hook inside the door, beside Beth’s. Because of course she was still there—where would she have gone while he was out?

  And even if she did want to go out, she shouldn’t venture far in the lightweight coat and useless boots she’d brought from Dallas. If she planned to stay in Rust Creek Falls for any length of time—and apparently she did—she was going to need some proper winter clothing.

  He wandered through the house until he found her, sitting in the rocking chair beside the crib, watching Cody sleep. He paused there for a moment, wondering why the image of woman and child suddenly seemed so appealing to him—and maybe wishing the smart and sexy woman wasn’t completely off-limits to him.

  “Why are you hiding up here?” he asked. Then, as a thought occurred to him, “Did my father scare you off?”

  “I’m not hiding,” she denied. “And your father isn’t scary. A little opinionated and outspoken, perhaps, but not scary.”

  “So you did meet him?”

  She nodded. “We had a brief but pleasant chat.”

  “Do you have any idea where he is now?”

  “I think he went to... Hunter’s house?”

  “Are you telling me or asking me?”

  “Which one of your brothers has the little girl who likes princesses?”

  “Hunter,” he confirmed.

  She nodded. “Then I’m telling you. He went to Hunter’s house to return the doll that Wren left here at Christmas.”

  “And if my father’s not home, why are you hiding up here?”


  “I’m not hiding,” she said again. “I just wanted to be close when Cody wakes up.”

  “Trust me, you don’t need to be close to hear him,” Wilder said.

  “I didn’t hear him during the night,” she noted, but rose from the chair to follow him out of the room now.

  “Yeah, you were pretty dead to the world when you crashed.”

  She frowned. “How do you know?”

  “Because I walked by the door and saw you passed out on top of the covers.”

  Apparently she didn’t want to venture any further down that path, because she asked instead, “Did you get the crib put together for your sister-in-law?”

  “The crib and the changing table and two dressers.” He shook his head. “I don’t have enough clothes to fill two dressers. I can’t imagine an infant’s going to need all that space.”

  “Your brother and sister-in-law are obviously excited about their first baby.”

  “You mean their first human baby,” he remarked. “Because Avery babies that goat like it is a baby.”

  “They really do have a pet goat?”

  “I would not make that up,” he assured her.

  “Do they keep it in the house?”

  “No,” he said. “And don’t give Avery any ideas, or she’ll be after Finn to build another addition.”

  “Or sweet-talk her brother-in-law into doing it,” Beth remarked, tongue in cheek.

  “You think she sweet-talked me into putting her furniture together?” he asked, reaching into the cupboard for a mug.

  She lifted one slender shoulder in a half shrug, and he couldn’t help but notice how her breast rose and fell with the motion.

  Off-limits, he reminded himself.

  “All I know is Avery got to hang out here with me and then go home to a nursery full of baby furniture without breaking a sweat,” Beth said.

  “She’s almost seven months pregnant. She shouldn’t be breaking a sweat,” he said, reaching for the coffeepot.

  “Are you really going to drink that?” Beth asked, as he filled his mug.

  “What else would I do with it?”

  “It’s been on the warmer for hours. Let me make a fresh pot.”

  “It’s fine,” he said, and lifted the mug to his mouth to prove it.

  Okay, it was a little stale and slightly burnt, but the hot liquid warmed his body and the caffeine jolted his brain, and that was what mattered. Or maybe it was the interaction with Cody’s aunt that revved up his system.

  Beth shuddered as she watched him swallow another mouthful.

  “I’m guessing you don’t want any?”

  She shook her head. “I’m coffeed out.”

  “There are tea bags around here somewhere, if you prefer that. Or juice and soda in the fridge, if you want something cold.”

  “No, I’m fine, thanks.”

  He swallowed another mouthful of coffee, then lifted his head and sniffed the air. “What do I smell?”

  “Burnt coffee?” she guessed.

  “No. Something smells good.”

  “Oh, your dad wanted meatloaf for dinner.”

  He opened the oven door to peer inside.

  “You’re letting the heat out,” Beth admonished.

  He closed the door. “My dad wanted meatloaf?”

  “Why do you sound surprised?”

  “Because meatloaf isn’t his favorite meal,” Wilder admitted.

  But it was one of Wilder’s favorites, a fact of which his father was well aware. And the fact that Max had asked Beth to prepare one of Wilder’s favorite meals started his internal alarms clanging.

  Was it possible that his father was attempting to make a match between his youngest son and Cody’s aunt? Would he dare?

  Of course, the answer to both those questions was “yes.” With Max, anything was possible, and he would dare almost anything.

  It was also possible that Wilder was being a little bit paranoid.

  Except that it wasn’t paranoia if it was true, and there was no doubt that Max was on a quest to see each of his sons happily married—or that he would never be satisfied with five out of six.

  “So...you know how to cook,” he mused, remembering that Leighton had claimed she couldn’t boil water without a recipe.

  “I’m not a gourmet chef, but my mom taught me the basics.”

  “She taught you but not your sister?”

  Beth shrugged. “Leighton wasn’t interested in learning.”

  “Or maybe she was happier to let other people take care of her.”

  “That’s a possibility,” Beth acknowledged. “Although not one that reflects favorably upon the woman who might be the mother of your child.”

  “I liked your sister well enough, but I wasn’t blind to her ability to manipulate people.”

  “I didn’t think you knew her for very long—or very well.”

  “The Leighton I knew wasn’t big on subtlety.”

  “Fair enough,” she decided.

  He sensed that Beth, though aware of her sister’s faults, would defend Leighton against anyone else’s criticism, and decided to shift the focus of their conversation. “I’m curious to know how two sisters, born of the same parents, could grow up to be so different,” he told her.

  “You have five brothers,” she noted. “Are you all cut from the same cloth?”

  “Of course not,” he acknowledged. “But we all share similar traits—one of which is that women find us irresistible.”

  Beth rolled her eyes at that.

  Most women, he mentally amended.

  “Leighton and I share similar traits, too,” she said. “Although she was labeled ‘the pretty one’ and I was ‘the smart one,’ she’s just as smart as me—maybe even smarter.”

  Wilder had some doubts about that. Not because he questioned Leighton’s intelligence, but because Beth was pretty, too. Maybe she didn’t play up her attributes the way her sister had done, but her unenhanced beauty was even more alluring because there was no doubt she was real.

  “And I think that was part of the problem,” Beth continued, drawing his focus back to their conversation. “No one knew she struggled to read because she so quickly memorized the books she was being tested on. She was also good at mental math, so when she transposed numbers on tests, her teachers accused her of not paying attention to what she was doing. It wasn’t until she was in high school that her dyslexia was discovered.”

  “Better late than never,” he said.

  “You’d think,” Beth agreed. “But Leighton balked at being labeled. She wasn’t interested in strategies to deal with her learning disability—she preferred to pretend she didn’t care.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t pretending,” he suggested.

  She frowned, as if that was a possibility she’d never considered. “Anyway, I suspect one of the reasons she never learned to cook is that she works at a bar in a restaurant and eats there most of the time.”

  “Well, I’m definitely glad you learned to cook, because that meatloaf smells really good,” he told her, his mouth already watering.

  In fact, he was starting to understand how a man could get used to coming in from a hard day’s work on the ranch to a homecooked meal every night. Especially if that hot meal was prepared by a hot wife.

  Wait! Where the heck had that come from?

  He frowned at the dregs left in the bottom of his mug, as if the stale coffee was somehow responsible for the wayward idea. Yeah, a lot of things seemed to be changing in his life, but his readiness to put his neck in the marriage noose was not one of them.

  Pushing the uneasy thought aside, he asked Beth: “So when do we get to eat it?”

  * * *

  They ate forty-five minutes later.

  And it was good.

  If Beth h
ad any doubts about that, they were assuaged when both Wilder and his father refilled their plates. Max even insisted that the men would do the dishes to show their appreciation for “the delicious meal.” Of course, Beth had already washed up all the bowls and equipment she’d used in the prep process, so they really only had to put the plates, cutlery and empty baking pan in the dishwasher. Still she was pleased to note that, despite his apparent wealth and status, the Crawford patriarch didn’t expect to be waited on hand and foot.

  When the men had finished cleaning up, Max headed into town to meet another rancher at the Ace in the Hole for a beer and a discussion about the potential sale of a piece of equipment, leaving Beth alone with Wilder and Cody.

  “I forgot to ask earlier—do you have a bathtub?” She posed the question to Wilder after his father had gone.

  “You want to take a bath?”

  “Not for me,” she said. “For Cody.”

  “There’s one in my dad’s bathroom,” he told her.

  “Do you think he’d mind if we used it?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Great,” she said. “If you can grab a couple of towels and a washcloth, I’ll get Cody’s baby shampoo and bodywash.”

  He went to get the requested towels while she retrieved the toiletries. Wilder had pointed out the door to Max’s room earlier, but despite his assurance that his father wouldn’t mind her making use of his en suite bath, she still hesitated to enter the Crawford patriarch’s personal space.

  “You can knock, if you want,” he teased, when he found her hovering outside his father’s room. “But he’s not home, so he won’t answer.”

  “I know,” she admitted. “But it seems like a violation of his privacy to just walk right in.”

  “I’ll go first,” he said. “And kick aside any clothes he’s left on the floor.”

  She followed in his wake, trying not to be too nosy but unable to resist a quick peek at Max’s inner sanctum—which was furnished in a simple and masculine style and neat as a pin.

  “You knew there wouldn’t be any clothes lying around, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he admitted, leading the way to the en suite bath. “My dad has never tolerated messiness or clutter—which is inevitable with six kids under one roof. Not even the full-time housekeeper we had in Dallas could keep up with us.”