by Mindy Neff
“Seems it’d be right up your alley to substantiate that claim, you being a doctor and all,” Cheyenne commented. Evidently he, too, had noticed the undercurrents his friend didn’t know he projected.
“She wouldn’t sit still for it. Didn’t want to take a chance of passing any phantom germs to any of the babies.”
“You’ll take her and those sweet girls a plate of food, then,” Iris Brewer said, overhearing their conversation.
“Yes, ma’am, I imagine I could do that.”
Emily hid a smile. It appeared that Iris was subtly joining forces with her husband and his pals and trying her hand at a little nudging.
Emily hadn’t cared for such meddling when she’d been a kid who found herself in hot water more times than not. Cheyenne’s nickname for her, trouble, had certainly been apt.
But she didn’t seem as jinxed now, and the meddling didn’t seem quite so invasive.
As long as she wasn’t on the receiving end of it, that is.
Just then, one of the babies started crying.
Mortified, Emily felt her milk begin to flow—right through her bra and onto the front of her sweater.
She saw Cheyenne’s gaze shift to her breasts, looked at him with wide eyes she knew were panicked.
She’d spoken—or thought—too soon.
“It’s this town,” she whispered. “I’m forever doomed to embarrassment.”
“No need for embarrassment. If you’ll look around, there are two other women in this room with wet shirts.”
She did look. Both Eden and Dora were plucking at their sweater fronts. With his law-enforcement training, Cheyenne was a man who noticed details. The rest of the group was looking around to see which one of the babies was crying.
“Sorry about that, girls,” Dora said with a laugh, picking up Ryan, who’d started the fussing. Now the other infants were joining in. “All it takes is one baby to cry, and every nursing mother in town needs a blouse change.”
Emily sighed, looked at Cheyenne. “Boy or girl?”
“Boy. I fed Alicia last time.”
EMILY KNEW SHE NEEDED to get out with the babies on her own. They were a month old, for heaven’s sake.
Thanksgiving had been sort of a trial run, but she’d had Cheyenne there to help.
It was past time to show a little backbone.
“Okay, my pretty girl and handsome boy. We’re going on an outing today. Just a quick visit to Tillis’ General Store. We’ve got to do this on our own sometime, and it might as well be today.”
She tied a pink cap on Alicia’s head and a blue one on Hunter’s. They were so darn cute she felt her confidence growing.
“The sun is shining and the snow’s not falling yet and you’re both running out of diapers. It’ll be fun. You’ll see. And you’ll both be angels and not make me look bad, won’t you.”
The diaper bag was already packed with enough stuff to last a weekend trip, rather than the mere hour she expected to be gone. Still, she wanted to be prepared.
Now the trick was to get it all out to the car.
She took a breath, looked around, refusing to acknowledge that her insides were trembling and it would take very little to talk her out of the whole exercise.
The babies were strapped into their infant seats, both resting in the middle of the big kitchen table.
“Okay, stay right there, you two. I’ll be back in a flash.” With the diaper bag clutched in her hand, she dashed out the back door.
Cold December air burned her nose and bit her cheeks. The blinding glare of sun in a clear blue sky made her eyes water. She tossed the diaper bag into the trunk on top of the stroller, opened all the car doors and sprinted back into the house.
It only took her a minute or less, but she felt guilty for leaving the kids in the house by themselves. Were there laws against this? How did one person accomplish this by herself? she wondered, sweating.
She started to strip off her coat, then realized that would only be one more thing to carry, so she left it on.
“Okay, let’s get organized.” She laid out her purse and slipped her car keys in her pocket. Should she try carrying both infant seats at once, or one at a time?
She lifted one of the seats by its attached handle, then the other, testing their weight. It was a cumbersome burden, but not unmanageable.
Before she could take a step or figure out how to pick up her purse now that her hands were full and straining with babies, Alicia started to cry.
“Oh, sweetie, what’s the matter?” She set both seats back on the table and slipped her hand beneath Alicia.
“Who wet your pants?” she asked rhetorically as Alicia poked out her little lip and whimpered. “Okay, okay, shush. We’ll fix it.” At this rate it would be dinnertime before they made it out of the house.
She sighed, lifted Alicia out of the seat and laid her on the table with a blanket beneath. She had the tapes undone and the diaper wadded up before she realized she hadn’t gotten out a clean one. Worse yet, the last of the supply was packed in the diaper bag—in the trunk of the car.
Great. Wrapping the baby back in the blanket—her little bottom still naked—she put her in the infant seat, fastened the strap and dashed back out to the car. Snagging a diaper from the trunk, she raced back in, imagining that she looked like a lunatic running a one-woman relay race. Thank goodness no one was watching.
“Round two, second verse.” She was panting, and now she did remove her jacket. Once again she unwrapped the baby and set about to accomplish the diaper change. She was a wreck and her hands were shaking, and she hadn’t even started the car.
“Hunter, if you have to go to the bathroom, please do so before we get on the road.” She nearly laughed at herself. She’d heard her mother say those same words to her and Debbie countless times. They’d moved several times and spent a lot of time on the road traveling. Tamara hated using dirty gas-station rest rooms or a bush by the side of the road when that was the only option. Considered it terribly uncivilized, so she always made sure everyone started a journey with an empty bladder.
She’d just fastened the tapes and stuffed Alicia’s legs back into the pink corduroy jumper when someone knocked on the open kitchen door.
Emily jumped and whirled around.
Cheyenne’s uncle stood in the open doorway, silent and watchful. It was a look she’d seen on Cheyenne’s face countless times.
“I am John White Cloud.”
“Yes, I know.” She’d seen him several times over the last month at the ranch, but he’d never come in to meet her. And since she was usually occupied with the kids, she hadn’t had the opportunity to go out and introduce herself. She’d asked Cheyenne about it, and he’d simply said there was no second-guessing his uncle. The man had his own agenda, claimed he would come soon bearing gifts.
Well, if he’d already bought the gifts, they’d likely not fit by now. The babies were growing right before her eyes.
“Would you like to come in and see your great-niece and-nephew?”
The tall, gray-haired man stared at her, then stepped silently into the room and gazed down at the babies. She wondered if he’d witnessed her mad dashes between the car and the house. Probably.
He looked up at her, his brown eyes giving away none of his thoughts, his weathered skin sporting squint lines that fanned toward his temples. “You are going on a journey?”
She frowned. Oh, he thought she was leaving. “No. Just to the store. The babies are out of diapers.”
He frowned. “You do not wash them?”
Wash them? “Oh, they’re not that type. I’m using disposable.”
He shook his head, clearly puzzled. “Young people throw their money away on unnecessary expenses.”
“Not really. With me, it’s more a case of self-preservation. I’m a bit of a novice at all this—but you probably already figured that out if you saw me running around like a chicken without its head.”
Her attempt to lighten his mood fell
flat.
“You would do well to use the stroller that is folded in your trunk. It will hold both children and all of their needs. Then you need only to roll it outdoors and make one trip.”
“I didn’t think of that.”
He studied her in a way she found most unnerving.
“I will be happy to go to the store for you.”
She was tempted to take him up on the offer. It was twelve degrees out and she was sweating like a hog. Her nerves were already shot, and she hadn’t even started the car. But she’d been cooped up in the house for a month. Most new mothers would be traipsing through the mall after a couple of days. She had to face this, get it out of the way.
And then there was pride. She didn’t want John White Cloud thinking she was a complete ninny.
“Thank you for the offer, but I’ve got to take the plunge sometime. I haven’t taken the babies out by myself yet, so this is sort of like a field trip for me and the kids—though I don’t know how others do it. I don’t seem to have enough hands for everything.”
He nodded ever so slightly. “I will lend you mine, then, to help you get started on your…field trip.” A ghost of a smile played at his lips and flirted with his serious brown eyes.
Well, Emily thought. A reaction.
Having spoken his intention, he lifted Hunter’s infant seat and scooped up her purse, leaving her to follow with Alicia. She trailed behind him and waited while he strapped both children into the back seat of the car. He made it look so darned easy.
He straightened and gave her another of those long looks. “You are troubled?”
“If you want to know the truth, it’s a bit demoralizing for me not to be in control of something as simple as loading children into the car.”
He laid a hand on her shoulder. “You did not plan for this fork in the road of your life. It is a good thing you have done for my fair nephew. There are not many women with your heart and bravery.”
Why did people keep insisting she was some sort of heroine? “It’s nothing, really.”
His eyes were soft as they rested on her. “I think I will like you, Emily Vincent Bodine.”
She smiled then, somehow knowing she’d passed a test, that his words were indeed high praise. “And I, you, John White Cloud. Thank you for the help.”
“You’re welcome. And you will drive safely in this flashy car of yours.”
She laughed. Just like a man to look longingly at a vehicle. She vowed to figure out a way to let him drive the Mercedes before she left Montana.
The twins fell asleep on the way to town and Emily was gaining confidence with each mile. This wasn’t so hard, after all. So what if she’d had a little help getting everything into the car? It would have been foolish and rude to refuse John White Cloud’s help. And futile, she thought, since he’d given her little choice in the matter.
That must be where Cheyenne had inherited his bossy, steamroller tendencies.
When she pulled up in front of Tillis’ General Store, she gave herself a moment to think things through. She wouldn’t be able to get both kids in the shopping cart—there wouldn’t be room for the groceries. She could always put them in their own carts and push both, but that seemed silly. So she took John’s advice and loaded everything into the stroller.
Feeling like a can-do girl, shoulders back, head held high, she went into the store as if she knew her business.
Pulling the stroller with one hand, she pushed the cart with the other…right into a neatly stacked display of canned peas.
As she wasn’t watching, she wasn’t prepared for the disaster. The crashing cans scared her to death and startled the kids into crying.
She went hot and then cold. Tiny cylinders rolled every which way and she dived after them. Thank goodness nothing was breakable.
Emily had heard of Murphy’s Law where everything went wrong. In her case, it seemed to be Shotgun Ridge Law.
She was mortified.
Even more so when she heard a familiar chuckle behind her.
Oh, she simply wanted to die.
She looked up, glared. “If you say one word, Bodine, I swear you’ll be eating that hat.”
He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, though his handsome face was creased in a grin. He maneuvered the stroller out of the fray and handed it off to Vera, who had come running when the peas had tumbled. Good grief, she didn’t need any more witnesses to her clumsiness.
“What are you doing here?” Emily snatched at a slippery can and broke a fingernail. “Are you following me?”
He didn’t speak, just stood there, his brown eyes dancing with amusement, hat tipped back on his head, looking sexier than any man had a right to. His uniform shirt was tucked into a pair of jeans that hugged his hips in a way that surely ought to be considered indecent for a public servant—in her opinion.
And why was she dwelling on the man’s anatomy? She was in the middle of a mortifying personal crisis.
“Well?” she demanded, fielding another can of peas.
“Am I allowed to speak?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes.”
“Good. I just had lunch and I don’t think I have room to eat my hat.” He squatted down next to her. “Need a hand there, trouble?”
Before she thought better of it, she reached out and gave him a poke. He was off balance enough to go sprawling on his behind.
She blinked, horrified, opened her mouth to apologize. He stunned her by laughing out loud, long and hard.
“Idiot,” she muttered, and felt her own amusement tickle her insides, twitch at her lips.
Here they sat, right there in the middle of the floor with cans of peas scattered all around them and customers peeking around the aisles, and the man was laughing like a loon. He should have had the good sense to be embarrassed.
Yet did he act like she’d expected? No.
And why couldn’t the place have been deserted?
“Jinxed,” she said. “I’m sure of it.”
Vera started to come to their aid, having passed the now quieted twins off to a couple of customers to cuddle and coo at, but Cheyenne waved her off. Thank goodness. Emily didn’t know if she could handle being any more mortified.
“What is it with me and this town? Put us together, and the planets align to rain down disaster. Tongues will be wagging. They’ll say, ‘There goes that Vincent girl—’”
“Bodine,” he corrected.
“Even worse. ‘There goes the sheriff’s lady, mowing down canned goods and gathering speeding tickets, and Lord knows what she’ll do next.’” Emily hugged an aluminum can to her chest. “I’m a mess.”
He reached out and touched her cheek in that gentle way of his. “You’re beautiful.”
She drew in a breath. Her hair was frizzed from the cold, she’d yet to lose the weight she’d put on during pregnancy, she’d knocked down an entire display of canned peas, and the man just touched her softly and told her she was beautiful.
And then he did something she was totally unprepared for. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. In front of God and everybody in Tillis’ General Store, he kissed her until her soul sang, kissed her with gentleness and reverence and a single-minded purpose that made her want to weep.
He drew back slowly, held her with his velvety brown eyes. “There,” he whispered. “A kiss to make it better.”
Her heart squeezed, then pounded like an ink press on high speed.
Oh, no. It couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not this.
But it was.
It hit her with the force of a body blow to her heart. Six simple words. A kiss to make it better.
And Emily tumbled headlong in love with Cheyenne Bodine.
In love with her own husband.
Chapter Eleven
With eyes blurry from sleep, Emily glanced at the clock on the table beside the bed. She’d hardly gotten any rest between the twins and her own thoughts keeping her awake, and it was time to get up.
&nbs
p; Now that she’d admitted she was in love with Cheyenne, she couldn’t think of anything else. It colored her every move, her every breath. Scared her to death.
Why had she never realized so many things scared her? Here she’d thought she was a tough-as-nails businesswoman, yet life was pelting her with one uncertain missile after another. And she kept finding herself cowering, instead of dodging.
And thinking. Probing deeper and deeper, seeking answers for a life that seemed to be on a runaway train.
She’d chosen to spend her maternity leave in Shotgun Ridge, seeking a place where someone would care. Oh, she could have paid someone to care, but she’d desperately wanted it to come from the heart. She’d lost her sister, and her own mother couldn’t be bothered to stick around and hold her hand.
She admitted now that a kernel of longing, a fleeting fantasy that she hadn’t been able to shove back quick enough, had sneaked into her subconscious.
And that yearning and fantasy had to do with Cheyenne Bodine.
She hadn’t known she’d carried a torch for him in her young heart, a flame that had smoldered and fired into adulthood. She wouldn’t have guessed it was there, had been too busy building a life and a career to let it surface, to examine it.
Well, she was examining it now. It was all she could think of.
The real question was, had she come back to Shotgun Ridge for the children or for herself?
Had some part of her she’d never acknowledged wanted to see if there was something between Cheyenne and her now that they were grown? Had love always been there, waiting to be set free? Sure, she’d felt giddy at the thought of seeing him again, but she’d never allowed herself to probe more deeply, to admit that something more lurked.
And there was definitely more. On her part at least.
But how would their worlds ever mesh?
It was a question she couldn’t answer.
But the here and now, well, that was a different matter. Each time he glanced her way, her heart would lurch and she wondered if he could see the emotion written on her face, in her body movements.
