The Rancher and the Baby

by Marie Ferrarella

  Despite the crowd, Miss Joan spotted her before she had walked more than two feet into the diner.

  Their eyes meeting, Miss Joan beckoned her over to the counter. The older woman had a cup of coffee waiting for her by the time she reached it.

  “Light,” Miss Joan said, pushing the cup toward her. “Just like you like it. Now take a load off and tell me what’s bothering you.”

  While Miss Joan’s voice couldn’t exactly be described as inviting, it had been known to coax many a story from a troubled soul.

  Cassidy sat down at the counter. She knew better than to hesitate. Miss Joan wasn’t a person someone played games with.

  She told Miss Joan everything, that she’d come straight from Will’s ranch, adding that she’d never seen him like that before. “He was so incredibly disheartened, he was almost like another person.”

  “Go on,” Miss Joan urged quietly.

  Cassidy went on to say she thought that Will was almost on the brink of defeat. She’d also told her why. Miss Joan listened and nodded. She waved off another customer when that man called out to her to get her attention.

  Her eyes were fixed on Cassidy. “How much did you say he needed?”

  Cassidy repeated the sum, remembering when an extra dollar could make all the difference in the world. “I know that in the scheme of things, it might not sound like all that much,” she told Miss Joan, “but—”

  “But when you don’t have it, it’s a king’s ransom,” Miss Joan concluded knowingly. She leaned closer to Cassidy, her words intended for the young woman’s ears only. “I’ve been running this diner a lot of years now, and I’ve always been a woman with simple needs. I’ve got more money than I could even spend. If I lent Will the money for his ranch—”

  Cassidy shook her head. She knew Will, knew how he thought. “He wouldn’t accept it,” she told her.

  The hint of a smile on the woman’s thin lips told Cassidy that she already knew that.

  “What would you suggest?” Miss Joan asked, wanting to see if they were of a like mind.

  She’d been mulling over possible solutions ever since she’d left Will’s ranch. “We could start a fund-raiser,” Cassidy proposed. “Get everyone to put in a little. That way it’s from everybody, not just one person. He couldn’t turn that down.”

  Miss Joan laughed at the certainty she heard in Cassidy’s voice. “Do you know Will Laredo?” she asked.

  “Okay, he could turn it down,” Cassidy allowed, then added fiercely, “But I won’t let him. If he lets that ranch go, it’ll eat at him for the rest of his life—and that’s just not going to happen.”

  Miss Joan nodded, pleased to hear Cassidy take this stand. She was pleased for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that she had a feeling in her bones that all those years that Cassidy and Will had spent feuding and sniping at each other were about to come to a long anticipated end.

  About time, Miss Joan thought.

  Picking up a thick water glass, Miss Joan began to hit its side with a knife. She kept on hitting it until the noise level within the diner died down and then completely faded away.

  “I’d like everyone’s attention,” she declared in her honey-dipped whiskey voice.

  And once she was satisfied that she had it, Miss Joan launched into the details of why she was holding an impromptu fund-raiser at the diner, explaining that no one was going to be allowed to leave without contributing something.

  It didn’t matter how little, but it had to be something.

  She went on to add—without mentioning a name—that this was for one of their own, and that each and every one of them—herself included—knew what it was like to be faced with bills that couldn’t be paid on time for one reason or another.

  To seal the deal, Miss Joan told the diner patrons that if they could afford it and their contribution was for a decent amount, they would receive a voucher for a free breakfast on the date of their choice.

  And then Miss Joan sat back and waited.

  She didn’t have long to wait.

  * * *

  “YOU’RE BACK,” WILL SAID in surprise late that same afternoon.

  Cassidy had spotted him in the corral. After parking her truck near the ranch house, she’d walked back to where he was working with the horses that Connor had told her Will had bought earlier in the month. Ironically, it was with the last of his money.

  She wasted no time with small talk. Instead, she crossed over to Will and ordered, “Put out your hands.”

  “Why?” he asked warily, eyeing the sack she was carrying.

  Cassidy huffed. “Will you stop questioning everything I say, and for once in your life just do as I ask?”

  After a moment, Will put out one hand. The wary look in his eyes, however, remained.

  Cassidy frowned. Even when it was a good deed, it was like pulling teeth with this man. “Both of them,” she prompted.

  He regarded Cassidy suspiciously, then did as she asked, never taking his eyes off her.

  She opened the sack and took out a manila envelope, holding it out to him. The envelope looked as if it was about to burst.

  Will made no move to undo the clasp. Instead, he asked, “What is this?”

  “The miracle you asked for,” she answered very simply.

  When he said nothing, only continued looking at it, she scowled at him. “You do have a way of sucking the joy out of things, you know that? Take it. It’s the money you said you needed to keep the bank from foreclosing on the ranch.”

  Instead of accepting it, Will pushed the envelope back toward her. “I can’t take your money.”

  Cassidy pushed it right back at him. “It’s not my money.”

  “Well, then I can’t take Connor’s money,” he said, impatience mounting in his voice.

  “It’s not his, either.” She saw him open his mouth. “And before you go down the list, it’s not Cody’s or Cole’s, either.”

  She was playing games again. No one he knew had that kind of money to lend him just like that. “Then whose is it?”

  “Yours,” she answered innocently.

  “Cassidy,” he warned, “don’t play games with me.”

  “Trust me, the last thing on my mind is playing with you, Laredo,” she told him. It was clear that she was not about to tell him the origin of the money. She didn’t want anything getting in the way of his accepting the money and saving his ranch. “Consider this an early Christmas present. Now stop being a jackass and take this to the bank. You’ve got just enough time before it closes to make that payment. Unless, of course, you want your father to be right—posthumously.”

  Cassidy had always known just what to say in order to goad him.

  “This isn’t over,” Will promised her, taking the money.

  “I didn’t think it was,” she told him, adding with a smile, “I look forward to round two.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I don’t get it,” Will said to Connor.

  Several days had passed since Cassidy had brought him the mysterious envelope filled with money, and this was the first opportunity that the two of them had to get together. Connor had come by Will’s ranch to volunteer his help, taking his turn the same way that his siblings were doing.

  The first thing Will did was tell him about the envelope full of cash that Cassidy had given him.

  “I’ve asked around, but nobody’ll tell me where that money came from,” Will said, clearly confounded as to the money’s origin.

  Because Cassidy knew she could trust him—and because she hadn’t wanted him thinking that she had bent some laws to secure the funds—his sister had confided in him about Miss Joan’s impromptu fund-raiser for Will’s mortgage payment.

  He and Will were working on replacing several len
gths of fencing that composed the corral. It was almost restored.

  “You don’t have a need to know,” Connor told him. “All that matters is that you bought yourself some time with the money.”

  “I know that,” Will answered impatiently, holding the rail steady as Connor nailed the new length to the end that remained on that side. “But, Connor, in all good conscience—”

  Finished hammering that end, Connor let the hammer drop before he tested the strength of the replaced rail. “Will, conscience has a place in our lives, a very big place. But sometimes, you just have to close your eyes and go on faith,” he told his friend.

  Will wasn’t sure if he could accept that. Most of all, he wasn’t sure just how to interpret Cassidy’s actions. “Just what the hell is your sister up to?” he asked.

  “Who knows? This is Cassidy we’re talking about,” he reminded Will. “She’s always been rather unpredictable. Maybe she’s following her conscience.” Connor stopped working and faced the other man. “Look, she did a good deed. Let it go at that. You two have spent so much time bickering, you completely lost sight of the two human beings living behind all that rhetoric.”

  Pausing, Connor stooped to pick up his hammer again. “Now, are we going to spend the rest of the day flapping our gums, getting nowhere, or are we going to get some work done?” he asked. “’Cause I am not a man of leisure and this is all the time I can spare for a while.”

  Will nodded. Connor was right. His father had left the family ranch not just in debt but in complete disrepair, and he was grateful for any help he could get. “Work,” he answered.

  Connor smiled, patting his friend’s back. “Good choice.”

  “Still want to know where she got that money,” Will murmured as he picked up another length of railing.

  “I’m sure you do,” Connor replied mildly as he began hammering again.

  The inference was clear. There were more important things that needed his friend’s attention than discovering where the money had come from.

  * * *

  CASSIDY WAS RUNNING BEHIND.

  Actually, these last few weeks, she felt as if she was always running and always behind, she thought as she hastily buttoned her blouse. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this tired.

  She supposed that this was what it felt like to be a single mother, always trying to balance taking care of a baby with the demands of a job—except that she wasn’t a single mother. She wasn’t a mother at all. Any day now, all that would change, and her life would slow down and get back to normal, whatever that was.

  What really surprised her was that the thought wasn’t nearly as comforting as she’d expected it to be.

  Hurrying into the rest of her clothes, Cassidy winced when she heard Adam beginning to cry.

  Again.

  She stopped by his crib, which was a few feet away from her bed and the chief reason why she wasn’t getting anything close to a full night’s sleep since he’d taken up temporary residency in her house.

  Though she tried not to be, Cassidy was tuned in to Adam’s every movement and was aware of each time he so much as shifted in his crib whether he was asleep or not.

  “I’ve already fed you and changed you. Why are you crying?” she asked the baby helplessly.

  Cody’s wife had volunteered to watch the baby today, but she couldn’t very well leave Devon with a crying baby, especially when her own baby had turned into a dynamo who was just beginning to crawl and get into everything.

  “Okay, tell me what’s wrong?” Cassidy asked wearily, picking Adam up. She had her answer immediately. The baby felt as if he was on fire. “Oh, my God, you’re hot. Really hot. You weren’t this hot half an hour ago.” She could feel herself beginning to panic. “I didn’t know anyone could get this hot so fast.”

  As fear enveloped her, Cassidy felt as if she wanted to run in half a dozen directions all at the same time. She tried to focus and found that she really couldn’t.

  Grabbing her shoes, Cassidy all but flew down the stairs, holding the wailing baby against her. “Connor,” she cried, raising her voice so she could be heard above the baby’s wails.

  Reaching the bottom of the stairs, she looked around desperately, trying to locate her oldest brother. When she didn’t see or hear him, she dashed into the kitchen and all but crashed into him there.

  Connor was just putting dishes into the dishwasher.

  “What’s wrong?” The trivial guess he was about to make to answer his own question faded the second he saw the look on his sister’s face. He’d never seen her like that before. “Cassidy?” he asked uncertainly.

  “It’s the baby,” she cried, her voice almost breaking. “Connor, he’s burning up.”

  He was accustomed to hearing his sister exaggerating things, but when he took the baby from her—wanting to comfort both of them—he could feel the heat radiating from Adam.

  For once, Cassidy wasn’t exaggerating. “You’re right,” he told her, cradling the unhappy baby against him. “He is hot.”

  “I know I’m right,” she answered impatiently. “What do I do?” Connor was the one they all turned to for advice, the one they depended on. “Is it even possible to be this hot without—What do I do?” she repeated, not wanting to complete the thought that had just flashed through her head.

  “We need to get him to the clinic,” Connor told her.

  He was doing his best to keep the urgency out of his voice because he didn’t want to make Cassidy any more panicked than she already was, but one look into her eyes and he knew that she saw through his act.

  “It’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked him, trying hard not to allow her fear to get the better of her.

  “You ran high fevers all the time when you were around his size. You nearly drove Dad crazy. Turns out you’re still here,” he pointed out comfortingly. “But it never hurts to have a doctor check him out. At least we won’t have to drive fifty miles to Mission Ridge the way we did when you were running high fevers. There was no clinic in town when you were Adam’s age.

  “C’mon, let’s go,” he said, walking ahead of her with the baby.

  It was all Cassidy could do to remember to grab her purse before she hurried after him. Her brain felt like the contents of a scattered can of green peas.

  * * *

  “SO HE’LL BE all right?” Cassidy asked Dr. Alisha Murphy anxiously, wanting to hear the pediatrician reassure her again.

  Alisha smiled. “He’ll be fine. Babies run high fevers all the time,” she said. There was nothing but sympathy in her voice as she looked down at her little patient. “But just to be sure, why don’t I keep this little trouper here today for observation? This way I can check in on him every half hour or so to make sure everything’s under control. I’ll have Debi give you a call if there’s any significant change.”

  Cassidy was torn.

  She thought of all the files she’d allowed to pile up on her desk in the office these last few weeks. She didn’t want Olivia or Cash to feel that she was letting them down. She was trying to forge a career, which meant she needed to act accordingly, not appear as if she was just going through the motions when it suited her. But at the same time, she wanted to be here, with Adam. He needed her, and she needed to be reassured that he wasn’t going to take a turn for the worse. She was well aware that things had a way of changing suddenly, especially at that age.

  Finally, she relented. “All right,” Cassidy agreed, then added, “As long as you’re sure someone will call me if Adam suddenly starts getting worse.”

  “He won’t, but one of us will definitely call you if anything changes,” Alisha promised, then added comfortingly, “Kids are a lot more resilient than we think they are, and this little guy seemed like he was a healthy baby the last time I examined him.”

  Taking the wo
rds to heart, Cassidy finally left the clinic.

  She wondered how mothers did it, how they made it intact through their baby’s first year. It had to be extremely taxing, not to mention exhausting. How did they do it? And how did they, knowing all this, go on to have more children? It seemed like a mystery to her, she thought, leaving the clinic.

  * * *

  CASSIDY COULDN’T REMEMBER the last time a day had gone by so slowly. She checked her watch as well as her phone periodically, afraid she’d somehow missed a call. But other than a call from each of her brothers and her sister-in-law, checking on how the baby was doing as well as how she was doing, there were no other calls.

  Specifically, there were no calls from the clinic requesting her immediate presence.

  Eventually Cassidy calmed down enough to concentrate on her work—at least to a degree.

  And the minute that her workday was officially over, Cassidy was out of the office and the one-story building like a shot. Since Connor had driven her to the clinic, she had no means of transportation available. He had gone back to the ranch, leaving specific instructions that she call him the minute she was ready to pick up the baby and come home.

  She wasn’t about to bother him until she knew what was going on, so she walked to the clinic now, after turning down both Cash’s and Olivia’s offer to drive her there. She insisted she was quite capable of getting there on her own.

  Because the town was small, everything was within walking distance, although she had to concede that some of those distances were farther than others.

  Besides, she’d told Olivia, she could use the exercise to walk off her tension. Her boss had decided not to argue the point.

  When she walked into the clinic, Cassidy saw that Debi was behind the reception desk. The woman looked up as she entered and waved her into the back.

  “Dr. Alisha’s just checking on Adam,” the nurse told her. “You can go right in.”

  Wanting to race to the last exam room—which had been converted to an interim hospital room where patients could recover from minor outpatient surgery—Cassidy still hesitated at the closed door. She needed a second to brace herself before entering.