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“Ben rented me a room when I first moved to town and I continued to rent the place when he moved in with his lady friend almost a year ago.”
“Dad had a girlfriend?” She’d been dreaming of princesses and white knights, but clearly she’d fallen down the rabbit hole. As far as she knew, Dad had never had a lady friend.
“I remember you now, from my father’s funeral.” Usually great with names, she reached for his and came up short. The funeral had been hard for her. She took a stab. “Gabe?”
“Nate.” He corrected. “Nate Connor.”
“Well, Nate, it seems you took over Dad’s job, and you took over his house.”
His expression frosted over. “What are you implying?”
“Nothing nefarious.” She waved off his paranoia. “I’m just saying this is my house.”
She’d only come back to River Run to sell the house so she could move to Los Angeles and pursue her songwriting career.
She’d escaped this town when she graduated from high school—couldn’t leave the little burg fast enough—and nothing had changed since. With her dad’s passing the small town had even less going for it now than it had when she was a kid.
So no, she hadn’t crept through Dead Man’s Pass praying to a deity she hadn’t spoken to in way too long to be kicked out of her own home.
“It’s your house, but it’s rented to me. I have a contract if you’d like to see it.” Nate crossed his arms over his chest, causing his biceps to pop. “You didn’t talk to your dad much, did you?”
The truth she’d come to acknowledge since her dad’s passing hit her hard. Hearing the censure from the current sheriff didn’t help.
“You don’t know anything about my relationship with my father.” Anger had her pushing to her feet. The ankle she’d injured walking up the snow-covered path from the car to the front door protested at the sudden motion, at the sudden weight, and gave out on her.
He caught her before she could fall, putting those impressive biceps to work, his grip under her elbows easily holding her weight off the sore foot.
“Are you okay?” Exasperation sat alongside concern in the question.
“Fine.” She attempted to shrug off his touch, but he held firm until she was seated once again. “I tripped on something on the way up the walk.”
He frowned. “I’ll check it out tomorrow. Do you need ice for your ankle?”
It irked to hear him playing host in her house. She shook her head. “I’m fine. How long did you know my dad?”
“Three years,” he said as he shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on the newel post.
She waited, hearing the cry of a kitten in the lull, but that was all he shared. Great. Her father had been the same all her life, bound by duty, determined to steal all the joy from her life. Now it seemed there’d been more to him than she remembered, but the bearer of the news was no more talkative than her father had been.
“Not very long,” she challenged.
“Not compared to twenty-five years, no. But I talked to him, worked with him, spent time with him. You let a complete stranger make funeral arrangements.”
Shame burned in her. That had been the lowest time in her life. A bad week capped off by the loss of her father. Yeah, she should have come home and taken care of the details of Dad’s funeral, but she’d been trying to save her job, trying to hold together the fraying edges of her life.
In the end she’d only been delaying the inevitable.
“I thanked you for your help.” She tried to find a smile and a little of her patented charm to ease the way with him. She’d learned early in life that a pretty girl had power, and she wielded the tool of her looks like any other talent.
But she was too weary, too annoyed with him and the crying of his cat, to bother. Or maybe she was too unsettled by the taste of him still in her mouth to summon a smile.
And what had that been about anyway? She was supposed to have kissed him in her sleep? Right.
So okay, she’d been kissing the knight in her dream. Coincidence. By no means did that translate into smooching a stranger in her sleep.
“Huh.” He dismissed her claim of gratitude. “Where are you staying?”
She frowned. “What do you mean? This is my home, I’m staying here.”
“I have a contract that says you’re not.”
“You can’t throw me out of my own house.” Dread tightened like a fist in her gut. She couldn’t afford to pay for alternative accommodations.
“This badge says I can.”
“Please.” She gestured to her swollen foot. “I couldn’t leave if I wanted. I can’t drive.”
He drew a set of keys from his pants pocket. “I can take you wherever you need to go.”
Sleet blew against the window as the wind roared, a timely reminder of the harsh weather.
“I’m not leaving.” Defiant, she crossed her arms over her chest and made a show of settling back into the couch. The tension from the long trip was back as she faced being expelled from her own home, the stress aggravated by the cries of distress from the kitten deep in the house.
“Oh, you are.”
She shook her head, holding up a staying hand. “Before we continue this argument, can you go feed your cat? The distressful cries are driving me crazy.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t have a cat.”
She blinked in surprise. “Well, then one is trying to get in. Don’t you hear that? It’s been crying for the last five minutes.”
This should be interesting. Would the big bad sheriff help the stray or leave it to fend for itself in the storm he was so ready to toss her out into?
He cocked his head as he listened. The roaring wind covered the sound for a moment and then the plaintive wail came again, weaker now. Poor kitty.
“That’s not a cat.” Suddenly his expression changed, became harder—something she couldn’t have imagined—and determined. Urgent now he moved to the front door, flung it open, and charged coatless into the blizzard. “It’s a—”
The wind grabbed his last word and garbled it, but it sounded like he’d said baby. Unbelieving, she hobbled over to the door, righted her suitcase, which had fallen, and set it and her guitar case against the wall.
Using the door for support, she peered into the darkness and screamed when Nate loomed up in front of her. He carried a baby seat. The howling she’d mistaken for a cat’s yowls had turned to faint whimpers.
“My God. Hurry,” she urged him. “A baby! What if I hadn’t heard him crying?” She slowly followed Nate to the couch, where he set the carrier down. “Poor thing, he’s shivering. And look how red his skin is.”
“Hypothermia. Get him out of the seat and his clothes,” Nate ordered. “Put him inside your shirt and wrap up in the fleece. Don’t rub his skin. I’ll get the fire going.”
Michelle sat down and pulled a damp blue blanket away to get at the straps holding the baby in the seat. Quiet now, eyes closed, the infant shook so hard the seat moved. A dingy white cap covered the child’s head, but he wore no socks and his thin outfit offered little protection against the elements, including his own blanket.
Next she unbuttoned her pink-and-purple plaid flannel shirt and pulled her T-shirt from her jeans. Her heart broke as she lifted the tiny body, quickly stripped him down to his diaper and then cuddled him to her chest under her shirt. Teeth chattering at the chill he brought with him, she wrapped them both in the warm fleece blanket.
“His hands and feet are freezing cold,” she reported, happy to see the fire going. Already the room felt warmer. “How could anyone leave a baby out in a storm like that? It’s inhumane.”
“Yes, it is.” Ice dripped from the words as Nate came to stand over her. “It’s neglect and child endangerment. I hope you have a good lawyer.”
CHAPTER TWO
“THAT’S not funny.” Glaring up into the sheriff’s cold gray eyes, Michelle carefully shifted the baby so his nose wasn’t pressed into her.
“It’s not meant to be.” He tapped his badge. “I don’t joke about the law.”
“And I don’t abandon defenseless babies.”
“No, you just break into houses.”
“It’s my house,” she reminded him through gritted teeth. “So there’s no reason I wouldn’t have brought the baby inside.”
“You knew it was a boy,” he said, arms braced across his broad chest.
“A guess from the blue blanket. And it hasn’t been substantiated yet. You called him a boy, too.”
“He arrived at the same time you did.”
“You don’t know what time I got here.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Seems to me he arrived at the same time you did.”
How dare he accuse her of such an atrocious act? She fully admitted she looked out for number one. You had to put yourself first when no one else did. But she had a soft spot for kids, got along with them better than a lot of adults.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “And as you’re so quick to claim, it’s your doorstep.” She made a point of pulling open the neck of her shirt and looking from the baby to the man. “I think he has your eyes.”
His frown turned ferocious. “That’s not my kid.”
“Are you sure?” she persisted just to aggravate him. “He looks about three or four months old. Think back about a year, something will come to you.”
“There is no possibility the child is mine.”
“How can you be so sure? A lot of men have vague memories when it comes to things like this.”
“I know.”
“Oh, right.” She rolled her eyes at his arrogance. “You know.”
“I haven’t been with a woman since I moved to River Run.” Acknowledgment of what he’d revealed came sharp on the heels of his outburst. “Ah, hell.”
“Why?” The word burst from her. Shocked, she ran her gaze over him. “You’re not bad-looking and your body is smoking hot.”
“I have my reasons, which are none of your business.” The grimness of his tone warned her the topic was closed.
“Okay.” She valued her own privacy too much to disrespect other people’s rights to the same. “We’ve established he’s not mine and not yours, so who is he? Was the seat all that was with him? Was there a diaper bag? Maybe there’s a note.”
“I’ll check.” Happy for action, he headed for the door.
While he was gone she went through the seat. She found a pacifier and a soggy piece of paper. She was trying to shake it open when Nate returned with a diaper bag.
“What’s that?” he demanded.
“It was in the seat.” She handed the paper to him. “I think it’s the note we’re looking for.”
Sitting beside her, he carefully unfolded the paper and spread the note. He took up a good portion of the couch and Michelle would have moved away from the large bulk of him, but she wanted to see the note.
Plus he was warm. And he smelled good.
So instead of sensibly moving away, she scooted closer and peered over his large arm. Pretending not to notice his big hands and the thick width of his wrist, she read the note.
Nate,
This is your cosin Jack. I never wanted a kid. Im too old and I cant take care of him and work. I gotta work to stay outta the joint. Jack talked good about you. He was good to me so Im giving his kid to you. If you don’t want him giv him to some body to giv him a good home.
“Well, I’m off the hook. Too bad for you,” Michelle muttered. The letter offended her. She knew desperation, knew self-absorption, and she could never abandon a child. She suddenly had new respect for her father, who’d at least accepted the responsibility of raising her.
“Joint?” she sneered.
“She means jail.”
“I know what joint means. She’s barely literate, but that’s no excuse for abandoning her baby. How could she give her son away? What about your cousin Jack? Where is he?”
“Dead.”
Oh, man. “I’m sorry. What happened?”
“He was killed in a bar fight five months ago.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t say it like that.” The eyes he turned on her were grieving. “Like he was a lowlife drunk. Jack was a nice guy, but he was troubled. He should never have followed me into the service. Some men aren’t meant to be killers. A stint on the front line messed him up good, and then they sent him home. But the damage was done. He began drinking, had a hard time keeping a job.”
Nate rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “He was excited about the baby. Becoming a father was the first thing he cared about in a long time. And then he was gone. He didn’t even get to see his son.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, with more feeling this time. It was a sad story. She looked down at the lump of the baby under her shirt and thought he had a hard time ahead of him. She didn’t remember her mother, she’d died when Michelle was two, but she had been loved, coddled during those first formative years. Little Jack didn’t even have that.
When she looked up, she found the sheriff watching her.
“You need to call Child Services.”
“Why?”
Her eyebrows lifted, giving away her surprise. “So they can come get Jack, of course.”
He shook his head. “They’d only try to locate his next of kin, and that’s me, so there’s no need to call them.”
“But you aren’t equipped to take care of him.”
