“Were you able to track down the car?”
“She didn’t have her glasses on, so she didn’t get a color, make or model. Or even part of a license plate number.”
“That’s disappointing,” Bridgett interjected. “But did anyone else see anything?”
Dan nodded. “A few blocks over from there, a young mother, up nursing her baby, thought she heard excited teenage voices and maybe a dog barking outside around 4:00 a.m. Because it was April Fool’s Day, she wondered if they were attempting to get an early start and prank someone before school started. By the time she had finished nursing and went to the window, though, there was no one there. No evidence of any prank she could see.”
“And that’s it?” Cullen asked.
“So far. But we’ve quietly put the word out in the neighborhoods surrounding the fire station as well as all the high schools in the area. So if there is more information to be had,” Dan promised, “I’m sure we’ll get it shortly.”
* * *
AS HIS BROTHER LEFT, Cullen’s phone rang. He paused before moving to answer it, ready to let the machine take it. Then he asked Bridgett, “Need any help?”
Bridgett took Robby from the Moses basket and nestled the cooing baby close. “I’ve got this,” she said softly. “You just take care of business. Your office phone has been ringing off the hook all day.”
“Thanks.” Cullen strode to the front of the house.
By the time he returned, forty-five minutes later, Bridgett was putting a sleeping Robby back down.
Regret welled within him. He had hoped to be able to hold the baby a little bit, before he went back to sleep. How crazy was that? If he didn’t watch it, he would be as attached to Robby as Bridgett was. Her heart wouldn’t be the only one that was broken if the birth mother or her family did suddenly show up to claim him.
Finished with the baby, she grabbed the leash off the hook by the back door and clipped it to Riot’s collar. Wordlessly she led the puppy outdoors. Cullen followed as Riot sniffed and circled, looking for the perfect patch of grass.
“You are such a good puppy!” she praised as Riot relieved himself, all the while gazing up at her adoringly.
“Someone has been reading about dog training.”
“Competition. I want to get as good as you are with him.”
And he wanted to up his game where the baby was concerned. Even if they didn’t get to keep Robby. Because this experience had made him realize he did want a family someday. Actually, his wish was a little more specific than that. He wanted this family. Foolish or not.
Being careful not to stray out of earshot of the house, Bridgett walked Riot to another patch of grass, pausing to send Cullen a concerned glance. “Is everything okay?”
“All the phone calls? Yeah. People have been preregistering for the virtual cattle auction online. They have a lot of questions.”
“I meant about what your brother Dan had to say.”
“Oh.” He exhaled. Funny how well she could read him after such a short period of time. “I’m just frustrated,” he admitted, pursing his lips.
A mirthful sparkle appeared in her eyes.
He tilted his head. “Not that kind of frustrated,” he muttered, edging closer. Although, if she kept looking at him with that same sweet innocence, he might soon be.
“Good to know,” she said softly, her gaze remaining playful while her cheeks turned the same pink as when they made love.
His body reacted at the memory.
He longed to kiss her. But with them standing outside, the dog on the leash, he wouldn’t be able to give the embrace the time and attention he wanted. And when he kissed her again, and he would kiss her, he wanted to be able to take his time about it. Give her the care she deserved.
Aware she was still waiting, he cleared his throat. “It’s driving me crazy, trying to figure out how Riot Junior is connected to Riot Senior and me.”
“I’m sure it will come to you eventually.”
Would it? he wondered, his frustration returning. It hadn’t so far.
“Maybe if you had some photos to look at, it might jog your memory.” She snapped her fingers. “Oh, right. You don’t know where they are. Do you?”
Chapter Eight
Bridgett had grown up with two brothers, so she recognized masculine evasion when she saw it. And she had caught Cullen Reid McCabe red-handed.
He offered a sexy half smile, making her feel more beautiful and womanly than anyone ever had. “It’s not that I don’t know where they are, exactly. I do. They’re in a storage locker in Laramie.”
Bridgett forced herself to concentrate on the mystery they were trying to solve, not what she wished would happen between her and Cullen. Again. “EZ Time Storage Lockers?”
His glance roved her slowly. He seemed to be contemplating how to bring them closer than they already were. She thrilled at the notion.
“The one and only.”
Reminding herself to keep her guard up, lest they further complicate an already ridiculously complex and emotional situation, she step back a pace. “That’s where I put my stuff when I had to move out of my apartment.”
He took her hand in his, letting her know with a look and a touch they had nothing to be wary about. They were adult enough to handle whatever happened next, with Robby and Riot. And most especially, the two of them.
Tightening his fingers around hers, he drew her closer still. His voice dropped to a sexy rasp. “Guess that makes us neighbors there, as well as temporary housemates.”
“And friends?” she clarified, before she could stop herself.
He gave her a thoughtful once-over. His steady regard gentled. “At the very least.”
She glanced up at the ruggedly handsome contours of his face, appreciating his strength and determination as well as his indomitable spirit. The way he made her feel as if she were no longer in a waiting-mode, but suddenly living every moment of her life to the fullest. Yet so much of him was still a mystery to her. She needed to know more, before she could allow herself to get any closer to him. She needed him to want to tell her. “So what’s the problem in running over there—besides the fact it will take us about thirty minutes?”
He shrugged, disengaging their linked fingers, maddeningly reserved once again. “I can’t just walk in and walk back out.” He tucked his thumbs in the belt loops on either side of his fly. “I’m going to have to hunt through a bunch of old moving boxes to find them.”
Her turn to shrug. “That’s fine with me.”
“It’ll be a pain,” he predicted.
They took Riot back inside. She went straight to the sink and washed her hands. “Won’t it be worth it, though, if looking at old photos jogs your memory in some way?”
His grimace let her know that this was a trip down memory lane he did not want to take. “You have no idea how disorganized and dusty it is in there.”
She propped her hands on her hips. With a tilt of her head, she surveyed him up and down. “Are you a secret packrat?” she teased, in an attempt to lessen his reluctance.
He stroked his chin with his thumb and index fingers. “Could be,” he drawled, sizing her up right back. “You never know about us Texas cowboys.”
“But you will go, right?”
He exhaled. “Right.”
Aware she had almost finished her online mortgage application and had until midnight to send it in, Bridgett bypassed her computer and went to get her bag and phone. When those were ready to go, she started packing a diaper bag.
Still mulling over his reluctance, she remarked, “From the look of things here, I thought you were one of those super organized, everything in its place kind of guys.”
Another shrug. “Kind of had to be.”
“Because those were the rules, growing up?”
The distant look
in his eyes faded. “No. My mom was laid-back in that respect.” He smiled, remembering, “She always let me keep my room as messy and full of mementos as I wanted it to be. It was foster care that changed me. Taught me to leave as small a footprint as possible, if I wanted to stay under the radar. And I did.”
She thought about how miserable that must have been for him. Working to keep the pity out of her voice, she said, “And when you moved to Laramie?”
His eyes shuttered. “It seemed like a good idea to keep that habit.”
“Just in case...?”
His lips thinned. “Frank and Rachel decided I was more trouble than I was worth.”
“Oh, Cullen,” she said softly.
He moved away before she could comfort him. “But as you can see,” he said over his shoulder, striding into his office to turn off his own computers, “everything worked out.”
Had it?
It seemed like there was still a barrier between Cullen and the rest of his McCabe family, just as there was between him and her.
The walls guarding his heart were starting to come down, at least between the two of them. But they had a long way to go if they were ever going to be more than temporary housemates and one-time lovers.
“Well, I must say you have amazing organizational talents,” Bridgett continued lightly in an attempt to get the conversation back on safer ground.
He moved away from his desk and spread his hands wide. “I can’t take all the credit for how good this place looks. My half sister, Lulu, helped me move in. She’s very particular in how she likes things decorated and arranged. All I do to keep it looking this way is put everything back in its preassigned place.”
“Do you have a housekeeper?” She hadn’t seen one thus far.
He shook his head.
She studied him in surprise. “You keep this place this tidy all on your own?”
“Yes, I do.”
Wow. “You are way too humble, cowboy.”
One brow went up.
Laying a hand across her chest in true Texas-belle fashion, Bridgett drawled, “You are a woman’s dream man.”
He chuckled, as she’d meant him to. “Because I can cook and clean?”
She shook her head and let out a low laugh. “And so many other things.”
“You’ll have to show me just how dreamy I am, sometime.” He leaned in to kiss her, sweetly, tenderly.
On impulse, she kissed him back. His kiss was every bit as magical as it had been before, and her body jolted from the sheer bliss of it. She heard herself make a sound of pure pleasure and opened her mouth to the pressure of his, aware she hadn’t made out like this, like kissing was an end in and of itself, since she didn’t know when.
Satisfaction emanated from him, too. With the flat of his hand against her spine, he pressed her closer, until her skin sizzled and her nipples budded against the hardness of his chest.
Her knees went weak.
And still he kissed her, until she was tingling all over and so dizzy she could barely stand, until desire unfurled like a ribbon inside her and her thighs were trembling.
And she knew, unless they stopped—now—they’d never make it to the storage locker.
Reluctantly, she pressed a hand to the center of his chest. He drew back, content, yet wanting more. And, as she looked up at him, she wondered how he could not be aware just how gorgeous a guy he was. With his chiseled features, thick, curly dark hair, navy blue eyes and tall muscled body, he was masculine perfection come to life. Physically, anyway. Emotionally they still had some barriers to take down, and connections to build. But they were working on it. For the moment, that was enough.
* * *
BRIDGETT AND CULLEN dropped off the baby with her sister-in-law, Violet, and made plans to join her and her brother Gavin later for dinner. That accomplished, they proceeded to EZ Time Storage Lockers.
“You weren’t kidding. This is a bit of a mess,” Bridgett remarked in surprise as they walked into the nine by twelve foot temperature-controlled room. The lights overhead came on automatically when the door was opened. Wanting privacy, Bridgett shut the door to the interior corridor behind them.
“Yeah, I’ve never gotten around to organizing things.”
Because it was too painful?
Bridgett could understand that.
Cullen walked past a flowered sofa and wing chair. Past a dining table and four chairs. Twin and double beds, two bureaus, a nightstand and a coffee table.
It was, Bridgett thought, a sad summary of a life.
He approached the stack of thirty or so boxes. Exhaled roughly. “Plus, it wasn’t a stellar packing job, by any means. I was lucky the social worker assigned to me after my mom died made sure everything we had, in the home we were living in, was put in storage for me until I came of age and could decide what I wanted to do with it.”
“Have you been through it at all?”
He shook his head, his expression conveying how much he had been dreading it.
Squaring his broad shoulders, Cullen demonstrated he was up to the task. “No time like the present.”
Twenty minutes later, they had opened up all of the cartons. A lot of them held linens and women’s clothing. There were a few boyish toys that Robby might one day enjoy, as well as a very out-of-date video game system. “This might be worth something if it still works.”
A corner of his mouth crooked up. “Maybe as a museum piece.”
And, finally, they found a cloth-covered box of photos.
She handed it to him.
He made his way back to the sofa and sat down. Motioned for her to join him. She dragged the coffee table over so they could sit with their feet up. “You sure you don’t want to do this alone?” She knew how an image, long unseen, could catch you like an arrow through the heart. “’Cause my storage unit is just one row over, and I could also use a few things.”
He patted the place right next to him. “Sit. I know you’re curious. This way I won’t have to do it twice.”
She plopped down next to him, then abruptly stopped, staring at the butchered pictures. “What happened to these?” she asked, aghast.
He sighed at the oddly cropped photos. “My mom did it. She was all about the Boyfriend of the Moment. When he eventually failed to become her Prince Charming, and they all did, she couldn’t bear any reminders, so she cut them out of the photos.”
Noting that, even as a kid, Cullen had been tall and good-looking, already growing into the ruggedly masculine man he would become, Bridgett quipped, “Apparently that was in the days before photoshopping became popular?”
He grinned, sharing in the black humor. “Actually, I think my mom rather enjoyed erasing them that way.”
Bridgett could imagine it had all been very dramatic. And undoubtedly quite upsetting for Cullen, when he was a kid. She reached over and took his hand, offering wordless comfort. “How did you feel about it?”
The reserve back in his expression, he set a stack of butchered childhood photos aside. “I wish she’d had some pictures taken of just the two of us, so we could have kept those and tossed out the rest.”
“It definitely would have been a lot simpler,” Bridgett agreed gently.
And less melodramatic.
He exhaled, accepting the past for what it was. “But that wasn’t the way she worked, so...” He sat back, propping his feet on the coffee table in front of them.
She got comfortable, putting her feet up, too. “Did you like the men she dated?” Because if he hadn’t, that would have really been awful.
He stretched his arm along the back of the sofa and protectively curved a strong arm about her shoulders. He lowered his voice to a husky murmur that did nothing to lessen the impact of his warm, sexy touch.
“Most of them were really nice. Kind. All of them cowboys on the variou
s ranches where she worked as a chef. They all took me under their wing, even the gruff ones.” He looked down at her as, feeling a wave of compassion for him, she nestled in the curve of his body. “I think they felt sorry for me, not having a dad, having a mom who was more interested in her love life than her child.”
That had to have stung.
He reached out and smoothed a strand of her hair. “So whenever we inevitably left the ranch where we’d been living, it was usually harder for me to say goodbye to everyone than it was for my mom.”
No wonder he worked so hard to keep from forging ties that might hurt if they one day had to be broken. With a sigh, she snuggled in even closer. “I’m sorry.”
He nodded, the muscles of his powerful chest straining against the soft blue chambray of his shirt.
“So where did Riot Senior come in?” she asked, as their eyes met, and everything around them began to fade.
He smiled affectionately, recalling. “I was six the night he showed up on our doorstep in the snow, on Christmas Eve, begging to be let in.”
She could imagine the joy he’d felt. It was probably one of the highlights of his youth. She swallowed around the growing knot of emotion in her throat. “Did your mom put him there?” she asked, knowing she wasn’t the only one who needed kissing and holding and loving.
“She said it was Santa. I think it was Buck, her boyfriend at the time. He was always saying every boy should have a dog.”
She met his wry smile. “But your mom let you keep him.”
“I don’t think she had a lot of choice.” He removed his arm from her shoulders and thumbed through the few photos of him and his dog, a big, long-haired black, brown and white mutt. “I was completely in love with the little fella. Buck taught me how to care for him and train him.”
“He sounds like a great guy.”
Cullen nodded fondly, “He would have made a great dad for me. But Mom got tired of him. Said he wasn’t romantic enough and moved us on. Again. But this time, I got to take Riot Senior with me, so it wasn’t so bad.”
“Did you ever stay in touch with Buck?”
His gaze narrowed and Bridgett felt her heart break for him all over again. “No. Buck and Mom both thought it would be better if we all made a clean break, so we did.”
The Texas Cowboy's Baby Rescue Page 9
