by Annie Jones
“Why?” Sheriff Denby chuckled as he pulled out a badge. “Think a hotshot lawman from... Where did you say you were from, son?”
“I’m not from anywhere. Until yesterday, I lived in Dallas. As soon as I leave Sunnyside, I’m going to live in Miami for a while.”
“Dallas,” Denby said as he pulled out a file and slapped it on the desk. “That’s the one I called to check you out.”
“You what?”
“Ran your license plate last night, after I left here. Made some calls.” The white-haired sheriff met Jax’s eyes, almost in a challenge at first. A pause, then a slow, kindly smile followed. “Didn’t think I’d trust you with our Shelby without checking you out first, did you?”
Jax looked at the woman standing at his side with her mouth hanging open, those fire-spitting eyes fixed on the man behind the desk. He laughed. “Blame you? I’d have done the same things myself.”
“I know you would have, son. That’s why I’m asking you to step up now and help us all out.” Denby opened the file and pointed at the paper. “Sign here, and I’ll swear you in.”
“What do you mean, trust him with me?” Shelby came forward. If she hadn’t been holding Amanda, Jax got the sense she would have pushed her way around the desk and met Denby nose to nose, or as close to his nose as she could get beyond his rounded stomach. “I can take care of myself, Sheriff Andy.”
“I’m sure you can, but for now your job is to take care of Amanda, so just for today I think you need someone else to look after you. I can’t leave the office, so...” Denby snatched up a pen and offered it to Jax. “Just for one day. For Shelby.”
She shook her head. “I don’t need—”
For Shelby.
Jax took the pen and signed his name, even knowing that somewhere along the line he was going to pay for letting himself get involved like this.
Chapter Five
Shelby fidgeted with the seat belt, when she really wanted to stretch back and check the straps holding Amanda’s car seat in place. Why she thought she would know how to buckle in the carrier better than Jax, she didn’t know. In fact, as far as babies went, the man seemed to have a lot more experience than she did. Slyly, she glanced over at him from under a spiral of hair that had fallen over her forehead and cheek.
“Ready?” he asked in that deep, resonant Texas drawl of his.
“For what?” she almost whispered. She would have had to have whispered it, because meeting his gaze in these close quarters had all but taken her breath away.
The minivan lurched forward. “Let’s do this.”
He had not made up some reason to make her drive, as her dad would have. He did not whine about the one-hundred-twenty-mile round trip or mutter about how long it might take with the social services department. Her ex, Mitch, would do that every time they spent more than a few minutes doing something that didn’t interest him. No, Jackson Stroud just did what needed to be done.
Shelby marveled not just at that, but also at how impressed she was. She wanted to tell him so but couldn’t help thinking that “Thanks for doing what you do” was an odd compliment. So as they passed the sign reading Buffalo Betty’s Chuck Wagon Ranch House, 19 Miles, she blurted out the first thing that came to her lips. “You look good behind the wheel of a minivan.”
“I what?” He gave her a sideways glance, then fixed his cool dark eyes on the road ahead and gave a deep-throated chuckle. “Shelby Grace, are you... Was that your way of flirting with me? Because if it was, I’ve heard better.”
“I wasn’t...that is... I didn’t...” Shelby gulped in the big breath she had been about to take.
His chuckle opened into a warm, soft laugh. “Relax. No man wants to hear he looks good driving a minivan. I’m just having some fun with you for saying it.”
“Fun. That must be why I misunderstood.” She took a deep breath and slouched back against the gray upholstered seat. “It’s been so long since I’ve done anything truly fun, I’m afraid I don’t even recognize it when I see it anymore.”
“Maybe that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“The sadness on your face last night, when I first looked into your eyes.”
“Oh, that. Actually, I...” She didn’t owe him an explanation. Her whole life had built up to that moment when she had finally decided she needed to get out of Sunnyside, to start fresh somewhere else. Somewhere where nobody thought of her as softhearted Shelby and did things like leave their infants in her care. She thought of the note she had written detailing her feelings. A swirl of emotions followed and carried with it the memory of that first instant that she’d laid eyes on Jax. Then of praying over Amanda with him. How had all of that led to this?
She turned her head to watch the familiar landscape slide by for a moment before she decided the best course was to change the subject. “What happened to your cowboy hat?”
“Left it back at the Truck Stop Inn. Won’t be wearing it where I’m going, so I thought...” He left that thought unfinished. “What happened to you last night that had you crying?”
Shelby looked out the passenger-door window, not wanting him to see how much the directness of the question had thrown her. “I thought cowboys never went anywhere without their hats. Where would you be going that you wouldn’t need it?”
“I don’t wear my hat all the time, because I’m not that kind of cowboy. Like Sheriff Denby rightly observed, I’m the Dallas lawman type of cowboy. Or I was. I’ve got a job waiting for me in Miami. Head of security for a community of elite homes.” He rattled the answers off in an emotionless drone. But his tone did lighten as he added, “There. Does that answer all your questions?”
Not by a long shot. Where this man was concerned, it seemed like each new thing she learned only raised more questions. She got the feeling that pushing for more answers would only irritate him. Shelby resigned herself to the idea that she would probably never know much about the man beside her. She nodded. “Yes. Thanks for humoring me.”
A second sign, this one much bigger and painted in garish hues, loomed ahead on the side of the road. Breakfast All Day Long at Buffalo Betty’s Chuck Wagon Ranch House! 5 Miles, Endless Smiles Ahead.
“You’re welcome,” Jax said. “Now maybe you can return the favor and humor me. Because I’ve got a burning question I’ve got to ask.”
Shelby tensed. She didn’t think she could take another question about what had led her to that point in the café last night. One more, and she might just spill her guts and start sobbing over the things she felt she’d never have: love, a home, a family of her own and control over her future. Just thinking about it all made her eyes moist with unshed tears. “Oh, Jax, I don’t know—”
“What in the world is a Buffalo Betty, and what about her chuck wagon and ranch house is going to make me smile?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the sign they had just passed. “Endlessly, no less!”
That was not the question he had intended to ask her, and she knew it. A wave of relief washed over Shelby at his willingness to let her off the hook. How many times had other people used her vulnerability to press their advantage, to get her to go along with their wishes? The fact that Jax saw her turmoil and gave her a way out made her words practically tumble out over each other as she explained, “It’s a local attraction. No, I take that back. It’s the local attraction. A theme restaurant that serves bison, among other things, with a general store, play park and a handful of friendlyish buffalo on the grounds—fenced off away from the visitors, of course. But there is one big moth-eaten old thing that you can pet and feed.”
“I don’t know whether to ask you just how many buffalo you think you can scoop into a handful, or to make sure I heard right. You can both eat and feed buffalo there?”
“I guess I never thought of it that way.”
Shelby laughed. “I haven’t been there since I was a kid.”
“Then we should go now.” He had already veered off into the lane to exit as he said it.
They pulled into the parking lot, found a spot and shut the engine off.
“Now? Shouldn’t we be getting Amanda to the authorities?” Shelby’s protest might have seemed more urgent if she hadn’t said it while gathering the baby’s things so they could hop out of the minivan the second the engine stopped.
“Technically, since Sheriff Denby deputized me, Amanda is with the authorities. And I have it on good authority that it will be in everyone’s best interest to stop.” He slammed the door shut firmly, as if emphasizing that no further discussion was needed.
Shelby smiled.
* * *
That’s what he’d done it for, Jax thought as they took the more scenic of the walkways leading from the parking lot to the restaurant proper. He’d disrupted the whole trip just in the hopes that he could make Shelby smile.
“Oh, look, there’s the old buffalo. I’m going to get something to feed it. Can you hold Amanda a sec?” She handed the child off to him like they had done the exchange a thousand times.
She trusted him. So much so that she didn’t even hesitate. This, in turn, made Jax smile.
Shelby rushed off toward a huge woolly beast standing stock-still behind a wooden fence.
Amanda kicked and wriggled in his arms, and Jax looked down at her. “What?”
Another kick.
“I saw tears in her eyes. My brain said ‘Fix it.’ That’s all. And by the way, I do not have to justify myself to someone whose side of the conversation consists of cooing and milk bubbles.” He reached into his pocket to pull out a tissue from the wad he’d tucked away for just this situation, and cleaned off a fresh glob of spit from Amanda’s chin.
“Here, let me have that.” Shelby was at his side in a heartbeat.
“I am perfectly capable of cleaning up a baby’s—”
“For the buffalo.” Shelby whisked the tissue paper from his fingers and motioned for him to follow.
“It’s a mechanical buffalo.” Jax laughed when he got close enough to see it. “I had thought it was a bad idea to let people hand-feed a real one.”
“Watch! It vacuums the trash right out of your hand.” Shelby placed the tissue in her flattened palm, and with a whoosh, it disappeared.
Shelby laughed.
Which made Jax laugh.
Which made Amanda gurgle.
“She laughed!” Shelby pointed at the baby. “It was an itty-bitty baby laugh, but she did it.”
“She’s too young.”
“She’s advanced for her age.”
“Everybody thinks their baby is a genius, don’t they?” A kindly older woman leaned in to peer at Amanda, then raised her wrinkle-framed eyes to Jax and said, “Of course, in your case, I am absolutely certain it’s true. Such a bright baby.”
“She looks like you,” the woman’s slightly younger companion said to Jax as she peered at Amanda.
“Do you think?” The first woman leaned back and shifted her scrutiny from Jax to Amanda, then to Shelby. “I’d say she looks more like her mother.”
“She has his dark hair,” her companion countered, then, as a seeming afterthought, smiled kindly at Shelby and added, “But she does have your beautiful blue eyes.”
Shelby shook her head and held up one hand. “She’s not—”
“She’s not wearing a hat.” Jax shaded the baby’s eyes with his hand. “We really should get her out of the sun.”
“What a blessed baby to have such a loving daddy,” the younger woman said with a sigh.
“And mommy, of course,” the older of the two hurried to add. Then she reached toward Amanda, paused to get a nod of approval from Jax, stroked the child’s tiny hand and said with genuine warmth, “Life is short. It goes so fast. Trust me on this.” She put her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. “You think I’m just looking at your baby, but I know that you’re looking at my baby here, too. It seems no time at all since she was a baby. Enjoy every minute while you can.”
Jax called out a thank-you. Why go into the whole story here and now? It would all be over and behind him soon. “Maybe we should get one of those old-timey photos taken before we hit the road.”
“We? The three of us?”
“Or the two of you, if you’d rather.”
“Jax, we don’t know this baby...or each other, for that matter. Why would we—”
“Because life is short, Shelby. Amanda is blessed with us now, but that’s going to be over and done with when we get to Westmoreland. It’s just my way of...I don’t know...”
She cocked her head. “Buying a little time?”
“If you’re accusing me of something, Shelby Grace, you need to make it clear.”
She didn’t push it. But then, he could tell by the look on her face that she wanted to; she just wasn’t sure how he’d take it. Or maybe she wasn’t sure how she’d deal with it if he didn’t take it well.
So they went on into the restaurant in silence only broken up by small talk with the hostess who seated them promptly.
“I am starving.” Jax settled the baby carrier, which he’d retrieved from the minivan, into the special chair the hostess had brought for them. “Hadn’t even realized how hungry I was until I saw what I was missing.”
“Missing?” Shelby fussed over Amanda before situating herself at the table.
“Dinner. Midnight snack. Breakfast.” He counted off on his fingers. But when he finished that list, his heart kept ticking things off—a family, a life. “I think I’ll order everything on the menu.”
“I believe you.” She pulled her chair out, then leaned in over the table to address him in a rushed whisper. “Not because you’re that hungry, but because I think you’re stalling.”
He waited until Shelby had taken her seat before he asked, “Stalling?”
He wasn’t denying it. He just wanted to hear why she thought he’d do it.
She paused a moment, then folded her hands on top of the table. “You don’t really want to give Amanda over to the authorities, do you, Jax?”
He sank into his seat, unfurling the cloth napkin to place it in his lap. “I told you, for now I am the—”
“I know. You’re ‘the authority.’” Shelby spanned her hands in the air, as if reading a banner stretched across the wall. She grinned and shook her hair back from her sun-blushed cheeks. “But an authority who is reluctant to give this baby over to the non-temporary, Denby-appointed, deputy-type authorities.”
He dropped the napkin into his lap, leaning forward over the table to challenge her. “I bet you couldn’t say that again in a hundred tries.”
She leaned in to meet that challenge. “See? More stalling. I’m right, aren’t I?”
She was, and he liked it. He usually didn’t like it when someone saw through him this easily, but with Shelby? He shook his head. That was one of the reasons he didn’t want to rush through this one day they’d have together.
He chose to tell Shelby the other reason. “Even another hour for the mom to come back and keep this kid out of the system is worth it.”
That got her interest. She tipped her head to one side. “You think the mom will come back?”
He looked at the helpless child in the seat beside her. He knew what it was like to get lost in the system, to have no one looking out for you. “That’s what I’m praying for.”
“And then what?”
“Then what?” He ran his hand back through his hair. He hadn’t really given it that much thought. His whole time in the foster system, he’d dreamt of a day when someone would show up and give him a family. “Then she gives this baby a chance for a real family. We help her get
counseling and support. We help her choose a solid adoption solution, not leaving the baby hanging in the system as they work it out piece by piece. We do whatever we can to see that she finds it in her to put Amanda’s needs first.”
Shelby reached across the table, her fingertips brushing his. “You don’t think the state social services can do that?”
“I think they want to. They mean to. They will try, but in the end, not even the best intentions can make up for being in a home with people who love you and want you to be a part of their family forever.” It was more revealing than he had meant it to be. He had a lot of respect for all the people who tried to help improve the lives of children, but respect was not the same as coming to terms with his past. Admitting that to himself made him suddenly question his own motives for...well, everything.
“Sorry for your wait, folks. But I’m here now to take care of y’all.” A dead ringer for the imaginary waitress Jax had first expected to find at the Crosspoint Café appeared at the table, order pad in hand. “Just tell me what your little heart desires.”
“Something I know I’ll never be able to have,” Jax whispered as he looked at Shelby and the baby.
“What’s that you say, honey?” The redheaded waitress crinkled up her nose at him.
“He’s been joking that he wants everything on the menu,” Shelby chimed in, shaking her head as she looked over the specials clipped to the laminated page in her hands.
The waitress laughed. “Well, all righty then. How about I go get a couple of cups of coffee and give you more time?”
More time. That was what his heart desired. More time for Amanda and whoever had left her. That was what was needed. The waitress couldn’t get it for Jax. But maybe he could find a way to get it for himself.
Chapter Six
It was just after 10:00 a.m. when Jax pulled the minivan into the lot next to the decades-old social services building just behind the county courthouse in Westmoreland. He had to cruise through the lot twice to find a spot, and when he did, it was in a far corner. He pulled into the spot, but his hand hovered over the key before the finality of shutting the engine off. It was only a slight hesitation, but it was all he would allow himself.
