Bundle of Joy

by Annie Jones

  Shelby, who had just settled the baby back down in her carrier, inched toward the outer edge of the booth. “Jax, this isn’t your—”

  “Ain’t you got tables to wait on?” Mitch sneered, tugging his hat even farther down over his eyes.

  “Take a look around, pal.” Jax stepped closer still. “They are all way more into what’s going on at this table than at their own.”

  “Nicely observed.” Sheriff Andy slipped from the seat and stood, clearly ready to intervene. “But I think you both need to consider Shelby’s feelings and keep this to a low roar.”

  Both Jax and Mitch turned to the sheriff and started to speak.

  “Stop it. Stop it, all of you. I don’t need anyone to consider how I feel, because nobody here has ever stopped to ask me how I feel.” Shelby bolted up from her own seat so fast that she bumped the table, the platter and the silverware, all of which clanked and clattered.

  Amanda started in her carrier.

  Shelby held her breath.

  Mitch scowled.

  Sheriff Andy and the whole café seemed to take a collective breath and hold it.

  Jax leaned over to take a look.

  A fraction of a second of quiet greeted them; then Amanda let loose with a wail.

  “I’ll take her, if you want.” Jax held out his hands for the crying child. “You can handle this.”

  With his encouragement barely out of his mouth, Shelby reached for the baby and handed her over to the man in the busboy’s apron. She could handle Mitch. And Amanda. And the prying eyes of everyone in Sunnyside. But knowing she didn’t have to, at least not today, felt so very nice.

  Jax curled the baby into the protection of his strong arms, and the infant immediately started to quiet down. Bouncing the baby gently, he turned to walk away with her, then looked back at Shelby. “I think you have a cowboy to take a bite out of.”

  Shelby decided not to answer that.

  “Bring me a coffee, will ya?” Mitch called out.

  “Not until you settle up what you owe from the last time you were in here and the time before that.” Shelby’s father, Harmon, marched up to the table and slapped a bundle of receipts down.

  “I, uh, I’d have to run to the bank first.” Mitch felt around his pockets, as if that proved he had every intention of paying. “I loaned a friend my last twenty last night and, uh...”

  “Why don’t I pay those in exchange for a few answers from you, Mitch?” Shelby pulled her wallet out of her purse and handed her debit card to her father.

  Her father protested the idea, as did Sheriff Andy, until she reasoned with them. “Did you ever think if Mitch paid off his bill here and told us everything he knows, then you can ban him from coming back? He’ll have no excuse to come around anymore.”

  A few minutes later Shelby had signed the receipts where her dad had run the tabs as a credit card. Mitch tucked the receipts in his pocket as proof he didn’t owe anything, and explained that his red car had been in the shop for two weeks, and he had been borrowing friends’ cars until he could get his Mustang back.

  The car story satisfied Sheriff Andy, who headed off to his office, grumbling about being too old for all this.

  Shelby couldn’t shake her reservations about the whole situation.

  “Thanks for paying off my debt, Shelby Grace.” Mitch stood at the door of the café and patted the receipts in his pocket. “Let’s get together sometime soon. I know I disappointed you, but maybe we can still be friends?”

  From the kitchen she heard the sound of her father and Jax cooing over Amanda.

  “You said it yourself, he ain’t going to hang around Sunnyside forever. When he’s gone, you’ll wish you had someone to count on.” Mitch waited until she turned back to him again to add, “I’ve changed, Shelby. I honestly think I could be a one-woman man, with the right woman.”

  “Thanks, Mitch,” she said softly. “I hope that’s true, but that one woman isn’t going to be me.”

  She doubted that Mitch could have changed as much as he claimed, but wasn’t that the nature of her own faith? Wasn’t trusting people part of who she was?

  She watched the man she had once hoped would help her build a real life saunter out the door.

  “You okay?” Jax put his hand on her shoulder.

  She turned with her arms open, wanting more than anything to get a great big cuddle. “Oh! Where’s Amanda?”

  “Harmon’s got her.”

  “Harmon? You mean...my dad?” They’d met twice, and Jax was already on a first-name basis with her father? Her father, who absolutely hated his first name and made almost everyone but Miss Delta call him Lockhart.

  “Don’t worry. He knows a thing or two about baby girls,” Jax assured her. “Why don’t you sit down and eat your breakfast?”

  She glanced back at the pancake. The fruit had slipped; the whipped cream had gone all watery. Shelby sighed. “Actually, I’m not hungry anymore.”

  “Then what are you going to do today?”

  “Maybe I’ll go back to Westmoreland. I’d like to do some shopping for Amanda.” She fought the urge to yawn and lost. “Or maybe I’ll see if I can’t sneak in a nap.”

  “You shouldn’t drive that tired. If you wait until my shift is over at two, I’ll take you.”

  “I don’t want you to go to any trouble.” As soon as she said it, she realized she didn’t mean it. After watching Jax leave last night and encountering Mitch today, and knowing Jax would leave again in time, she wanted him to go to as much trouble as he was willing to. She wanted to have this little space of time when this one person who “got” her would go to great lengths to show her that she was worth his time and effort.

  “It’s not imposing.” He scooped up the platter with the sad, droopy cowboy breakfast on it and guided her around in a circle so that she faced the door between the café and Miss Delta’s. “The breakfast rush is winding down. Go ask Miss Delta if you can crash in one of the rooms at the Truck Stop Inn.”

  “But Amanda...”

  “Has about half a dozen babysitters right here.” He motioned with the platter toward the customers, who didn’t even pretend not to be listening in. A couple even waved at her as if to volunteer for duty. “Let someone else be the soft touch for a few hours, Shelby.”

  She laughed. “I think you are anything but a soft touch, Jackson Stroud.”

  “Then you know how much I really want to do this for you.” He urged her forward, set the platter on the counter, put his hands on her shoulders. “Let me. Please?”

  He wasn’t asking her to let him be a soft touch. He was asking her to show she trusted him.

  She pressed her lips together. Before she could say anything, Amanda began to cry in the kitchen.

  Her father tried to calm the child, to no avail.

  “It’s not right to leave her here with you guys. You have work to do.” She started for the kitchen.

  Jax snagged her by the arm. “Shelby, we’re big boys. We can—”

  “I know I don’t have to be the one to care for her right now, but I want to.” Shelby moved his hands away, giving a gentle squeeze as she slid her fingers along his. “Jax, I may not have a lot of time with her. You, of all people, should appreciate how that makes me feel.”

  “I do,” he whispered, then cleared his throat and stepped back. “But we’re still on for that shopping trip this afternoon, right?”

  “Count on it,” she called as she went to collect Amanda and try to figure out how to get some rest and keep that promise.

  Chapter Nine

  Shelby came bursting through the swinging doors of the Crosspoint Café with a bounce in her step and a swing in her ponytail. “Doc Lovey has been watching Amanda for a few hours while I caught up on sleep, and she says she won’t mind do
ing it a few hours more. In fact, she and Sheriff Andy said they’d be insulted if I came back before supper time.”

  Jax set the gray plastic tub in his hands on the table crowded with dishes next to him. He glanced at the clock to find that his shift had ended fifteen minutes earlier. Except for a time when he couldn’t get a debit card to go through the system and the customer had gotten agitated with him, his day had gone quickly and smoothly.

  He stole a peek into the kitchen through the server’s window to find Shelby’s father joking it up with the waitress who was supposed to be on duty now. Harmon Lockhart didn’t seem the least bit inclined to remind Jax his work was done, and Jax couldn’t help wondering how many times the man had allowed Shelby to keep on working while he whiled away his time visiting or carrying on with his own shift.

  Jax tugged at the wet tie of his big apron, ready to slip it off and dive into whatever he could do to help Shelby.

  Shelby turned Jax’s way again, her face bright. “That gives us plenty of time to drive to—”

  The rough, wet fabric of the apron string wrapped around Jax’s thumb. It dug in and pulled. Normally he wouldn’t even have flinched. But after a shift taking orders, cleaning tables and clearing away other people’s food when he hadn’t had time for a bite himself, his defenses were down. Jax winced and muttered under his breath.

  Shelby frowned.

  Jax managed a smile. “I finally figured out why they call the person who usually does this a busboy.” He slumped into a seat, tilted his head back and shut his eyes. “Because at the end of the day, you feel like you’ve been hit by a bus.”

  Shelby’s footsteps sounded soft and swift toward him.

  “Poor thing,” she said, with the lilt of laughter coloring her words.

  Jax opened his eyes to chide her for her lack of sympathy and found her bending over him, her face inches above his.

  When their eyes met, she gasped and pulled away.

  “Why, Miz Shelby, what were you doing?” Not only did he not move away, but he leaned toward her, closing the distance between them again. “You were going to kiss me on the forehead to make it all better, weren’t you?”

  “No. No. I was just going to...” She stepped back. She tilted her head to one side, openly considering what he’d said. When she spoke, there was a soft mix of humility, humor and awe in her hushed tone. “Yes. I was going to kiss you on the forehead and make it all better.”

  The emotion in her voice touched Jax. And, like most interactions in life, made him wonder at the motivation behind it. Embarrassment at having been caught and called out? Confusion over the level of trust and connection the gesture implied toward him? Or concern that after only twenty-four hours as a child’s caregiver, her maternal impulses had already taken such a strong hold?

  Her expression did not give her away. This woman, with trust issues and a need to please so strong that she had to write a note to say goodbye rather than confront her own father, certainly wasn’t going to admit out loud what was going on in her head.

  So Jax let it be. Which was not like him, either. He and Shelby had already begun to change their own patterns for one another. The realization gave him a twinge between his shoulder blades, but he didn’t have time to chew on the bit of insight. He stretched his aching legs and threw out his arms to try to work loose that tightening in his back. “Okay. Let me get a cup of coffee—correction, make that let me get my fourth cup of coffee today—and we’ll go shopping for baby goods.”

  “Four cups? Of coffee from the Crosspoint Café? I think that’s above the legal limit.” She laughed. “Please, don’t do that to yourself on my account.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her.

  “I mean, on Amanda’s account,” she added, rushing to correct herself. “That is, people have been stopping by all day to bring things. A loaner crib, some clothes, a stroller. We can easily get by a day or so or until...”

  “Until we find her mother?” he asked.

  “I was going to say, ‘Until you can go with me,’ you being the closest thing I have to a baby whisperer and all,” she teased.

  “Me? Baby whisperer?” A few days ago he would have railed against the term. So maybe it was the exhaustion talking when he said, “I like it.”

  “Whether we find who abandoned Amanda or not, I still need to get some things for her. First, she’s with me legally until the authorities say otherwise. Finding the person who left her won’t change that.”

  “The person who left her?” He finally got the apron off and tossed it over the end of the counter. “You can’t bring yourself to say ‘mother’?”

  “Just being precise,” she argued.

  “I know. With anyone else, I’d wonder if you had a sneaking suspicion you know who left her.” He rolled his sleeves down, never taking his eyes off Shelby’s face. “Like maybe that Mitch character.”

  “He has been driving a different car.” Shelby didn’t mean to sound like she was defending her ex, but she had to admit it came out that way.

  Jax must have heard the hesitation in her voice. He held firm by the kitchen door and prompted, “But?”

  Shelby sighed and confessed the thought whirling around in her brain all afternoon. “If there were any person on the planet I’d think would seek me out to leave his responsibilities on my doorstep, I’d pick Mitch first.”

  And her own dad second—not to leave a child but to dump his responsibilities on her.

  Jax put his hand on her shoulder, partly to support her emotionally, partly to support himself physically, and called out, “Hey, y’all. My shift is over. I am out of here.”

  Before Shelby’s father or the middle-aged mom picking up a few shifts as the café’s afternoon waitress could reply, Jax draped his arm around Shelby’s shoulders and guided her to the door. “So, a couple hours without the baby? What is there to do in this town with my feet up and my guard down?”

  “Guard down?” she asked, shading her eyes with one hand as they stepped into the afternoon sun.

  “After a day listening for clues, observing every detail of everyone who came into the place, I’d like to go someplace where no one could possibly be Amanda’s, um, the person who left Amanda.”

  Shelby sank her teeth into her lower lip as she eyed her dad’s pickup truck. “How are you at ranching?”

  * * *

  “I may be a city kid, but even I know you can’t do much ranch work with your feet up,” Jax said as the minivan went bumping along a pitted old road. He had offered to take his truck, but Shelby had insisted he rest and relax.

  “You can if those feet are in the stirrups of a saddle.” Shelby guided the minivan down a long, dusty driveway and through an iron fence with the gate hanging open.

  “Saddle?” He braced one arm against the dash as he scanned the property that spilled out before them. Spilled was the best way to describe it. An old trailer, some faded lawn furniture and a simple barn with a tin roof lay in front of them, looking like a child had left a handful of broken toys strewn under a cluster of small trees. He searched for any signs of life. “Like on a horse?”

  “Yes. On a horse.” She got out of the minivan and met him in front of it. “I thought you were a cowboy, cowboy. Don’t tell me you don’t know how to ride.”

  “I grew up in foster care in Dallas.” He followed her to the barn, which looked better-kept than the trailer bearing the name Harmon Lockhart on the mailbox. “I wear a cowboy hat because I got used to wearing a hat as part of my uniform.”

  “In other words, you can’t ride.” She shook her head and motioned for him to follow her inside the barn.

  “I can ride.” He eyed the three horses in their stalls. One of them snorted and stamped its foot. “I just don’t, usually.”

  “Well, consider this a most unusual day,” she said with a lau
gh in her voice and a playful smile on her pretty face.

  He hung back to get the best view of her moving through the barn. Sunlight streamed through gaps in the wood, creating shafts of golden light. As she moved along and disturbed the straw beneath her feet, tiny flecks of dust rose up and sparkled around her. Jax liked the effect. He liked it very much.

  “Would it be rude of me to note that you are a lot sweeter when you’ve caught up on your sleep?”

  She didn’t answer, probably because she had fixed all her strength and concentration on wrestling a large black leather saddle from its resting place and onto the complacent roan standing in its stall, munching on hay.

  Jax rushed to her aid.

  “I’ve done this thousands of times before, Jax.” She tried to wrench the heavy saddle from his grasp. “I can handle it.”

  “I know you can, Shelby.” He could have easily lifted her burden, but he knew she would resent having it taken from her. He needed to help her surrender it instead. So he leaned in close, so close he could see every lash framing those expressive blue eyes, and said softly, “You can do anything you put your mind to, including letting me help you now. Because in a few days I’ll be gone and wondering if there was anything more I could have done to make your life easier. Even if only for a few minutes.”

  “Okay,” she whispered. “Help all you want.”

  He tried to take the saddle.

  Shelby’s hands clung to it, drawing her in his direction right along with it.

  “Shelby...”

  She was so close now, her hair fell across her shoulder and onto his sleeve. “Hmm?”

  “If you want me to help, you have to let go.”

  “Oh!” She released the saddle and stepped back. “You put the saddles on. I’ll cinch.”

  He did as he was told, and she dove into her end of the deal. Jax watched her fingers practically fly through the process of securing the cinch. She was something. Feisty, but not so much that she ran roughshod over others’ feelings. Serious about whatever she put her mind to, but with a heart full of fun and hope.