A Cold Creek Baby

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “I’ll be there when I can. I’m sorry, Burt. I didn’t exactly expect this little complication today.”

  Easton swallowed her sigh at her ranch foreman’s pithy response. Burt McMasters was a great ranch foreman—hardworking and dedicated, always willing to do whatever it took to get the job done. She adored him, colorful language and all, and without his firm guidance, she would have had to sell the ranch when Jo was first diagnosed with cancer.

  But he did tend to be sulky and impatient when his plans went awry.

  “Yeah, I know. It’s a pain. I can’t help it. Just start the immunizations and I’ll be there when I can. Can you and Luis handle it without me for a while?”

  “I s’pose.” She could swear she almost heard the glower in his voice.

  “You be careful up there,” he went on in his gravelly voice that always sounded like he was choking on trail dust. “I don’t like the idea of that boy being back in the house. I know Jo and Guff loved him just like the others, but in my book, that one has always been nothing but trouble.”

  She fought the impulse to jump to Cisco’s defense. Yes, he had been fast-talking and imaginative and as a result he had managed to land himself—and the others—in plenty of mischief when he was a teenager.

  Burt had never quite forgiven Cisco for a prank he’d pulled at their grazing allotment up in the high country when he had somehow convinced the prickly, proud ranchhand that he thought a black bear might be stalking their camp.

  Burt had been deep in the woods early one morning answering the call of nature when Cisco had sneaked around behind him making appropriate bear grunting noises and Burt had come running back to camp in a panic, his pants half-down and biodegradable toilet paper flying out behind him.

  For the most part, Easton would have to agree that Cisco was trouble. Except Burt was wrong about one thing: He was far from a boy.

  “He would never hurt me,” she blatantly lied, crossing her fingers behind her back. “You know that. He’s family.”

  He harrumphed over the cell phone he abhorred almost as much as he did Cisco del Norte. “I still don’t like it. Doesn’t he know we have work to do around here? Maybe he’s been gone from these parts so long he doesn’t remember how busy this time of year can be on a cattle ranch.”

  She contained her sigh. “I’m sure he remembers, Burt. He lived here for a long time. But he needed a place to stay for a few days and this was his best option. He owns a good share of the ranch, don’t forget.”

  “As if I could,” he muttered. Easton would have smiled if not for the fretful baby in her arms.

  “Look, I have to go. I appreciate you and the boys stepping up without me. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Yeah, okay. Be careful,” he warned again before ending the call.

  Too late, she thought as she turned once more to the baby, who looked at her with huge blue eyes that swam with tears.

  “I know, sweetheart. Let’s get you a bottle and then we’ll go see what’s going on with that rascal Burt was just talking about.”

  She headed into the kitchen and found the can of powdered formula Cisco had left on the countertop. Easton was grateful she’d had a little practice the last few months as honorary aunt to Joe and Abby or she would have been all thumbs with things like changing diapers and mixing formula.

  She tested the temperature of the formula on her forearm, feeling a great sense of accomplishment at her own competence, then handed the bottle to the baby, who clutched it in her chubby hands and began sucking greedily, her darling cupid’s bow of a mouth pursed around the nipple.

  Something soft and tender tugged hard at Easton’s insides. She settled the baby a little closer to her, trying not to look at the clock.

  Three hours.

  Cisco had promised he would be back downstairs in one. He lied, something he seemed to do with consummate skill.

  Three hours and counting, actually, and Easton had work to do.

  Not that there weren’t compensations to this. Belle sucked her bottle a little more vigorously and snuggled her head closer to Easton’s chest. Her eyes drifted shut, her eyelashes so long and curly that they looked almost fake.

  She smelled of warm milk and baby shampoo, an intoxicating combination, and Easton inhaled like a wino fighting off the DTs.

  Belle was by far the most sweet-natured baby Easton had any experience with. Until the last fifteen minutes when she started getting sleepy, she had been happy and smiling, content to play with a few of the other babies’ toys Easton dragged into her office.

  With those black curls, tawny skin and the shocking blue of her eyes, she was also remarkably lovely.

  For three hours, Easton had struggled valiantly to tamp down the tangled emotions this little girl stirred. She had forced herself to focus on her care—changing her, playing with her, finding age-appropriate things in the house for Belle to explore.

  She hadn’t allowed herself a moment to think about the what-ifs that haunted her.

  Now that the baby was asleep—or close enough to it—all those memories and regrets hovered just on the edge of her heart and it was becoming increasingly harder to keep them at bay.

  She tightened her hold on the baby and headed in the direction of the makeshift nursery. Belle’s long lashes fluttered when Easton began ascending the stairs, but then her eyes drifted closed again. They stayed that way when Easton carefully laid her on her back in the nursery crib. Easton pulled the bottle out carefully and watched Isabella’s mouth continue to suck air for a moment before it went still.

  She really was a beautiful baby, she thought as she pulled the baby quilt up and over her. What had happened to her mother? she wondered. Cisco said she was dead. How was he involved? He claimed the baby wasn’t his, but with those long, inky eyelashes and the black hair with the tendency to curl, she could be.

  After a moment spent gazing in adoration at the perfection of a nine-month-old baby, Easton forced herself to turn away. She checked the intercom Quinn had installed so he and Tess could hear their precious little boy in any room of the rambling house.

  When she was sure it was on and transmitting any sound coming from the room, she closed the door behind her and walked across the hall. She stood outside Cisco’s door, her stupid stomach jumping at the prospect of seeing him again.

  She hated this awkwardness, but didn’t know how to change it. The events of the past were too deeply entrenched between both of them. After a moment of standing there like an idiot, she forced herself to knock sharply—only to be met by silence.

  When he didn’t answer, she knocked with a little more force. Still no answer.

  She frowned. Cisco had never been a particularly sound sleeper. He always seemed to be on the edge of something fun and exciting. Jo used to shake her head and say he didn’t sleep well because he was too afraid of missing something.

  Even on roundup, when the rest of them would sink with exhaustion into their sleeping bags at the end of a long day, Cisco would be edgy and alert and would wake at the slightest distraction, even the wind rattling the tent.

  She wrapped her fingers around the metal of the doorknob feeling foolish. Maybe he wasn’t even in there. Maybe he had seized the chance to escape his obligations and climbed out the window. Wouldn’t be the first time he had made use of the exit route along the porch roof and down the old maple that grew next to the house on the other side.

  No. She couldn’t believe it. He wouldn’t just dump the baby on her and run. Cisco might be many things, but deliberately irresponsible wasn’t one of them.

  After a moment, she knocked harder. “Cisco? Everything okay in there?”

  She thought she heard something inside and she strained her hearing. Weird. She could swear she heard a moan coming from inside.

  Was he in the depths of some kind of nightmare? Even as disjointed as he tended to sleep, he hadn’t ever been much to toss and turn. But what did she know? He wasn’t the same person anymore, not with t
he hardness around his mouth, the secrets in his eyes.

  The low moan sounded again from inside the room, unmistakable this time and Easton screwed her eyes shut, knowing in her heart she had no choice except to check on him. Either he was having a bad dream or he was in pain. Either way, she had to check out the situation, whether she wanted to or not.

  She pushed the door open with caution and found the room dim, the curtains closed against the morning sunshine.

  Her gaze flew to the bed and when her eyes adjusted she discovered he hadn’t climbed out the window at least. He lay on the bed, a sheet covering his lower body, but he was bare from the waist up—bare except for a wide bandage wrapped around his stomach, a pristine white except for a kiwi-sized spot that was soaked through with blood.

  His skin seemed even more pale and she could almost feel the heat radiating off him from here. On closer inspection, she could see his hair was damp with sweat and more drops of perspiration dotted the shadow above his upper lip.

  She hurried to the bed and pushed back the hair flopping across his forehead. Even before she touched his skin, she could feel the fever pouring off him.

  “Oh, Cisco. What kind of trouble are you in?” she whispered. She didn’t know whether to be scared or angry or worried sick.

  “Can’t. Oh, cara. Don’t ask me,” he muttered, his head tossing on the pillow. He said something quickly in Spanish she didn’t catch.

  She touched his shoulder and was seared by the heat of his skin. Had he driven here all the way from Salt Lake International, a good four hours away, in this condition?

  “Cisco? Wake up. You’re sick. We need to get you to a doctor.”

  He opened his eyes halfway, his lashes as ridiculously long and lush as Isabella’s, then he uttered a long string of melodious words before he closed his eyes again. He had taught her enough gutter Spanish when they were kids that she caught the gist.

  “Yeah, right back at you,” she muttered. “Come on, wake up.”

  She looked at the bandage around his waist. Was it her imagination or had the red spot spread in just the few moments she had been in here trying to wake him?

  She felt frozen with indecision. Should she continue to try rousing him or should she call the volunteer ambulance?

  What if he had a gunshot wound? Weren’t the medical authorities required to report those? What if he was tangled up in something illegal?

  Drat him for coming here and complicating her world like this, forcing her to make decisions without any information to back them up. She had a deep, fervent wish that Quinn or Brant were here. They would know what to do.

  “Cisco, come on,” she pleaded.

  Jake Dalton seemed her best bet instead of calling the volunteer paramedics. He ran the medical clinic in Pine Gulch and she knew he would be carefully discreet without breaking any laws. Only trouble was, she had no way to get Cisco into the clinic without a little cooperation on his part.

  If she couldn’t rouse him, she was going to have to call for an ambulance and if she had to guess, she figured they would probably opt to take him to the nearest hospital in Idaho Falls, about thirty miles away.

  “Come on,” she begged again, her hand on the hot skin of his biceps. “Please wake up, Cisco.”

  Those hot cocoa eyes drifted half open again. “Sweet, Easton,” he murmured. “Smell so good. Like spring.”

  Some silly part of her wanted to stand here beside the bed and bask in his words like a wildflower opening to the morning sun.

  Unfortunately, the rest of her still had to deal with their current predicament.

  “Wake up, you idiot, unless you want me to call the paramedics.”

  Lines furrowed between his dark brows as if he couldn’t quite make sense of her words. She opened her mouth to urge him a little further to this side of Sleepy Town, but before she could speak, one hard muscled hand snaked out and grabbed her arm.

  “Hey!” she exclaimed, just before he tugged her across his chest, wrapped both arms around her and kissed her.

  For perhaps a full ten seconds, she couldn’t think beyond absolute shock. Dear heavens. How long had it been? He hadn’t touched her in years, not once since that night after Guff’s funeral. Not so much as a hug or a casual brush of his fingers on her arm or even a lousy handshake.

  Finding herself in his arms again, his hard arms surrounding her, his hot, hungry mouth devouring hers, felt a little like jumping into a scorching hot springs after nearly dying of frostbite.

  A woman couldn’t be blamed for sighing against him, for kissing him back for just a moment. Right? Especially when it had been so very long.

  She moved her mouth over his and her stomach muscles trembled with joy when his tongue dipped into her mouth, when one hand slid down her back to cup her behind and pull her closer.

  Stop. The insidious little voice slithered into her brain. He’s only touching you because he’s so out of his head he isn’t thinking straight.

  Horrified at herself for losing all sense of self-respect, she wrenched her mouth away from his and scrambled out of his arms. “Cisco, wake up, damn you.”

  His brown eyes blinked all the way open. He stared at her for a long moment, his pupils huge. An instant later, he reached under his pillow and yanked something out and her heart stuttered at the sight of him aiming a deadly looking black handgun in fingers that shook with chills.

  “S’wrong?” he asked in a dazed voice.

  You came back. How’s that for wrong? You came back and you kissed me and stirred everything back up again.

  And then you pulled a gun on me, you son of a bitch.

  She swallowed the words. “You want to put that away, cowboy?”

  He shook his head a little as if to clear it and she saw him glance from her to the gun at the end of his quivering arm. Her heart fluttered with fear that he might accidentally fire on her. Wouldn’t that be a fitting end? He might as well shoot her through the heart since he’d been stomping on it for years.

  “East?”

  “Put the gun away, Cisco,” she spoke calmly, quietly, just as she would to a spooked horse. “Come on. It’s just me. I’m not here to hurt you.”

  He didn’t seem entirely convinced of that, but after a few more beats, he engaged the safety. She breathed a deep sigh of relief when he returned the weapon under his pillow.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked again, a little more clearly this time though he still slurred his words.

  “You tell me. You’re burning up and you seem to be bleeding. You need a doctor. I’m calling Jake Dalton.”

  He tried to sit up and because he wore no shirt she saw every muscle of his abdomen go taut—from pain or effort, she didn’t know. That tattoo on his forearm rippled with the effort.

  “Can’t,” he mumbled. “Too many questions.”

  In that moment, she hated him for doing this to her again. For coming home and dredging up all these feelings, for completely screwing up the sanity and reason she was trying so desperately to bring to her world.

  For making her feel all these crazy, wonderful, terrible things again.

  “I’m calling Jake,” she repeated, her voice harsh as she reached for her cell phone. “I don’t have time to deal with a baby and a corpse at the same time.”

  “I’m not dying.” He raked a hand through his hair. “S’just a little poke.”

  “A poke?”

  “Knife. Bar fight. I’ve had worse,” he said in what she assumed he meant as some sort of twisted comfort to her.

  What kind of crazy life was he tangled in down there? For the last decade, her policy had basically been don’t ask, don’t tell. She hated him for that, too.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Well, your little bar fight poke appears to be bleeding again and is most likely infected, hence your three-thousand-degree temperature. But that’s just a guess. I’m calling Jake to be sure, so you’d better come up with a better cover story than a bar fight. I have a feeling he’s not as gullible as I
am.”

  He looked disgruntled, but didn’t appear to have the energy to argue with her. “Where’s Belle?”

  She refused to be touched by his concern for the child. “Sleeping in the nursery next door. Guess I’ll have to wake her to come with us. Look, do I need to call an ambulance or can you make it down the stairs and to my pickup?”

  He released a heavy sigh. “I can walk,” he muttered.

  She had serious doubts about the wisdom of that, but knowing how stubborn he was, she was pretty sure he would manage it somehow.

  His shirt hung on the slat-backed chair by the bed and she reached for it and handed it to him. He slid his arms in the sleeve only after great exertion. After she watched him struggle for a few more moments with the buttons, she sighed and stepped closer, doing her best to ignore the heat and pheromones radiating from him.

  Just his fever, she assured herself. So what if he smelled so yummy she just wanted to stand here and inhale. She had more important things to worry about right now, like how in the heck she was going to move a hundred seventy pounds of delirious male down sixteen steps and outside without both of them falling down the stairs.

  By the time he was dressed, Cisco wasn’t the only one sweating. She felt like she had just roped a steer singlehandedly in the dark.

  “Do you want to tell me again how you managed to drive all the way here from Salt Lake City?” she asked as he took an unsteady step toward the door.

  “Wasn’t that hard. Took I-15 to Idaho Falls and then turned right.”

  She glared at him, even as she leaned in closer to support most of his weight. “I’m glad you find this amusing. I don’t. What if you had passed out? You could have driven off the road and killed both you and that darling little girl.”

  He made a face she assumed was supposed to look repentant. “Sorry, Easton. Shouldn’t have come home. Not your problem.”

  He had made it her problem. As she contemplated the logistics of loading him to the rental car—better than her pickup, so she could put the carseat in the back, she had realized—she thought about how simple her life had seemed this morning when all she had to worry about were falling beef prices, rising feed costs, taking her cow-calf pairs up in the mountains, the creek near one of the haysheds that was about to overflow its banks and the capricious eastern Idaho weather.