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Energy surged through her as all her senses went on high alert. Her feet whispered against the living-room rug as she moved toward the kitchen.
She hesitated in the doorway. Dalton stood at the stove with his back to her. A white, long-sleeved jersey clung across his broad shoulders and worn jeans hugged the length of his legs. He was barefoot and his hair was rumpled like he’d just crawled out of bed.
A sizzling noise was quickly followed by a whiff of bacon and Janette felt the nerves in her stomach calm. It was hard to be frightened of a barefoot man frying bacon.
She must have made some sort of sound for he whirled around to look at her. “Good morning,” he said. “There’s coffee in the pot if you’re interested.”
“I’m interested,” she replied.
He gestured to the coffeemaker on the counter. “Cups are in the cabinet above.”
She walked over to the cabinet, retrieved a cup, then poured herself some coffee. She carried it to the table and sat, unsure what else to do.
Dalton turned back around to flip the bacon. Janette was aware of a tension in the air, the tension of two strangers sharing space.
“It looks like you’re going to be stuck here for at least another day or two,” he said.
“Maybe I could find another place to go to,” she offered.
Once again he turned around to face her. “It would take me half the day to shovel enough snow just to open the outside door. Trust me, nobody is going anywhere today.” A muscle in his jaw tensed, letting her know that he wasn’t particularly happy about the unforeseen circumstances.
“I’m sorry about all this,” she said. He’d never know just how sorry she was that she was stuck here in Cotter Creek.
“We’ll just have to deal with it,” he replied, then turned his back on her once again.
Taking a sip of her coffee, she had a vision of Brandon Sinclair tunneling his way through the snow to find her. She mentally shook the thought out of her head.
Once again she stared at Dalton’s back. He was a fine-looking man and so far he’d been nothing but honorable. He made a living protecting people. Maybe she could tell him. Maybe she could tell him the truth. The thought of telling somebody and having them believe her was wonderful.
“How about an omelet?” he asked. “I’m making myself one and can split it with you.”
She felt bad, that this man was not only having to share his personal space but also his food. Still, she was starving and it seemed silly to refuse. “That sounds good,” she agreed.
Once again she sipped her coffee, watching as he prepared the ingredients for the omelet. “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked.
“No thanks, I’m used to doing things my way,” he replied.
“Tell me about this business of yours. I read an article not too long ago about West Protective Services. If I remember correctly it’s a family business, right?”
He nodded. His tousled hair made him appear less daunting than he had the night before. “It was started by my father, Red West. Eventually all of us started working for the business.”
“All of you?”
“I’ve got four brothers and a sister. Joshua is the youngest and he just got married to Savannah, who owns the local newspaper. Then there’s Clay, who met his wife when he was on assignment in California. They have a little girl, Gracie. There’s Tanner, the oldest. He and his wife, Anna, just had a baby.”
Janette felt herself relaxing as he talked. Not only did he have a nice, deep voice that was soothing, but it was obvious from the affection in his voice as he spoke that the West family was a close one. It was easier to trust a man who loved his family.
“Then there’s Meredith. She recently moved to Kansas City with her fiancе, Chase. She and Chase are planning on coming back here in March to get married. Finally there’s Zack. He doesn’t work for the family business anymore. He married Katie, the woman who lived next door to our family, and he’s the sheriff of Cotter Creek.”
Any hope she might have entertained of being truthful with Dalton West crashed and burned. He’s the sheriff of Cotter Creek. The words echoed inside her head.
There were only thirty miles between Cotter Creek and Sandstone. There was no reason for her not to believe that Brandon Sinclair and Zack West were not only acquaintances but also perhaps friends. She had no idea how far-reaching the good-old-boy network was in the state of Oklahoma.
One thing was clear. For as long as she was stuck in this apartment, she couldn’t tell Dalton the truth. Her very life and the life of her son might depend on her keeping her secrets.
At that moment, as if he’d awakened and sensed his mother’s despair, Sammy began to cry from the bedroom.
Dalton drew a deep breath as “Jane” hurriedly left the kitchen to get her son. He was exhausted, having spent the night on George’s tiny sofa after hours of listening to George talk. And the old man could definitely talk.
He’d already been feeling a little irritable when he’d climbed the inside staircase back to his apartment. As if spending an evening with George hadn’t been enough, he was now stuck in his apartment with a stranger, a woman whom, he had to admit, stirred something inside him just by being there. A woman who’d had a knife in her hand the night before.
Could he really blame her for wielding a knife? After all, as much as she was a stranger to him, he was a stranger to her. She’d had no idea what kind of a man he was, what she’d been walking into when she’d entered his apartment.
He cut the omelet in half and placed it on two plates, then added the bacon and put the plates on the table.
She couldn’t know that he was a solitary man who didn’t particularly enjoy sharing his space, his world, with anyone. Even though he found her amazingly attractive, all he wanted was for her and her son to move on.
She returned to the kitchen, her son and a bottle in one arm and a box of powdered cereal in the other. “I need to make some cereal for Sammy. Do you have a small bowl I can use?”
Dalton got out the bowl, then watched as she tried to maneuver with the wiggly baby in her arms. “You want me to hold him while you get that ready?” he asked reluctantly. He didn’t particularly like kids, had only thought about having a couple once, a long time ago, but it had been nothing more than a foolish dream.
“Thanks.” She smiled at him for the first time, a real, open genuine smile that unexpectedly shot a flash of heat through his stomach.
As she offered the baby to him, Sammy seemed to vibrate with excitement and offered Dalton a wide, drooling grin. As soon as Dalton had him in his arms, Sammy reached up and grabbed hold of his nose, then laughed as if finding the West nose vastly amusing.
“He likes you,” Jane observed as she measured out the rice cereal and added warm formula.
“You sound surprised,” Dalton replied.
“I am. He’s usually not good with strangers, especially men.”
“What about his father?” Dalton asked as she stirred the cereal, then set the bowl on the table.
Her eyes darkened. “His father isn’t in our life.” To his relief she took the baby back and sat at the table.
For the next few minutes they sat in silence. She alternately fed Sammy and herself while Dalton ate his breakfast.
Sammy laughed and smiled at Dalton every time Dalton looked at him. He had to admit, the kid was cute with his tuft of dark hair and blue eyes. Dalton finished eating before Jane, or whatever her real name was. “Do you need to call your sister in St. Louis to tell her you’ve been delayed?”
“I already did,” she replied.
Dalton stared at her. She’d told him the night before that she was on her way to visit her sister in Kansas City. Women interested him, but a woman with secrets definitely intrigued him.
He didn’t call her on her slip, but instead leaned back in his chair and watched as she finished feeding Sammy. He didn’t want to be intrigued by her. He wanted the snow to melt quickly and her and her cute baby to move along on their way to wherever. However, the weather report that morning hadn’t been exactly favorable for her to make a quick escape out of his house.
Taking a sip of his coffee, he gazed out the window where the snow still fell in buckets. At least she didn’t seem to be a chatterer. She didn’t expect him to entertain her with lively conversation.
Silence had always been Dalton’s friend. Growing up in a household with a rambunctious bunch of siblings had made him appreciate his solitary life now. Odd that he suddenly found the silence strangely stifling.
“We’re lucky we still have power,” he finally said to break that uncomfortable silence. “The news report this morning said that half the town is without power and phone service.”
“That’s terrible,” she exclaimed.
“Most folks around this area are prepared for situations like this. They have wood-burning fireplaces or generators that will be cranked up. We Oklahoma people are solid stock and know how to deal with an emergency.”
She frowned. “I certainly wasn’t prepared for this particular emergency.”
“According to the weather report I heard the snow is supposed to end by nightfall. If that happens, then first thing in the morning the locals will get out and clear the streets.”
“It can’t happen fast enough for me,” she replied. She looked up from Sammy, her blue eyes dark and troubled. “I’m sorry I can’t get out of your hair right now. I know when you offered me a place to stay last night you had no idea that I’d still be here today.”
Dalton shrugged. “We’ll just have to make the best of it.”
“I just hope if they get the streets cleared in the morning then the bus comes tomorrow afternoon.” There was a thrum of desperation in her voice.
“Surely your sister will understand the delay.”
“Of course.” She averted her gaze from his and focused on her son in her arms. “I’m just anxious to get gone.”
“Is this a vacation trip?”
She kept her gaze firmly on her son. “Yes. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my sister and she hasn’t met Sammy, so I thought it would be nice to take a trip to visit her. I suppose it was foolish to plan a trip in late January. But babies are only babies a short time.”
She was rambling, and it was Dalton’s experience that people who rambled were usually hiding something. She seemed to realize what she was doing for she suddenly clamped her lips closed and frowned.
Getting up from the table she started to grab for her plate. “I’ll take care of that,” he said.
She gave him a grateful nod, then once again disappeared from the kitchen. Dalton remained seated at the table. He sipped his coffee and looked out the window. Although he stared at the snow, his mind was filled with those blue eyes of hers.
At thirty-three years old, Dalton had worked the family business for twelve years. He’d spent that time studying people, and the assessments he made of those people sometimes made the difference between life and death.
Jane Craig was lying. He’d seen it in those impossibly blue eyes of hers. Secrets and lies. There had been something in her eyes that had looked not only like quiet desperation, but also screaming fear.
His mind whirled with all kinds of possibilities. Who in their right mind planned a bus trip in the Midwest in January? Especially with an infant? He could write off the appearance of the knife the night before as a wary woman in the home of a stranger. But what was she doing with a wicked-looking knife like that in the first place?
Secrets and lies. What he was suddenly eager to find out was whether her secrets and lies could be the difference between life and death, and whether the snowy conditions had suddenly made him a player in a drama he wasn’t prepared to face.
Sheriff Brandon Sinclair stared out the window and silently cursed the snow. He’d been in a foul mood since the day before, when he’d gone back to the diner to have a little chat with Janette and discovered she’d up and quit her job, just like that.
He’d been on his way to the little rattrap trailer where she lived with her grandmother when a six-car accident just outside of town had required his immediate attention. By the time he’d finished up, the ice had begun to fall in earnest.
He tried to ignore the sound of his three daughters playing in the middle of their living-room floor. He hadn’t thought about Janette Black since the night they’d had sex over a year ago.
Then yesterday morning he’d heard the rumor that she had a little baby boy, a rumor that had been confirmed when he’d spoken with her at lunch.
Since that moment, he couldn’t get her—or more precisely the boy—out of his mind. His son. He knew in his gut that the kid was his.
“Brandon, honey, your breakfast is waiting,” Brandon’s wife, Sherrilyn, spoke from someplace behind him.
He grunted but didn’t turn around. Sherrilyn was a good woman. She’d come into the marriage not only crazy about him, but with the kind of respectability and a trust fund that Brandon had desired. She kept the large house neat and tidy, tried to anticipate his needs before he knew them and was an adequate if boring bedmate.
She loved being the sheriff’s wife, and while Brandon was feared and respected by the community, Sherrilyn was loved for her charity work and big heart.
But, when it came to giving Brandon what he’d wanted most in life, she’d failed miserably, pumping out three girl babies instead of the boy he desperately wanted.
“Mommy, Susan won’t share,” Elena, his youngest, whined from the living room. She was always whining about something. Girls whined. Girls cried, and he had three of the whiniest, weepiest girls in the county.
He narrowed his gaze as he turned away from the window and headed for the kitchen. As soon as the snow stopped, he’d get that boy. He didn’t much care what he had to do, but eventually that little boy would be living with him, being raised by him. Boys needed their daddies, and if the only way to get that kid was over Janette Black’s dead body, well then that could be arranged, too.
Chapter 3 (#u9bad6cbb-56df-5ff2-9268-015c2fc9dd7c)
Janette stayed in the bedroom with Sammy for most of the morning. She played peekaboo with him, laughing as he grinned and squealed at her antics. When he started to get sleepy, she picked him up in her arms and sat in the chair near the window, rocking and singing softly to him until he fell asleep.
She placed her lips against Sammy’s downy hair, drawing in the sweet baby scent of him. He was her heart, this little boy. Before his birth she had loved him, but nothing had prepared her for the depth of her love for him now.
Her heart squeezed as she thought of the threat that felt ominously close, a threat to this baby and their future together. She would do whatever it took to keep him safe and away from the man who was his biological father. She shoved aside thoughts of Sinclair, unwilling to allow the chill that thoughts of him always produced to consume her.
She was conscious of the sounds of Dalton in the next room. It was a good thing he’d told her about his family before she’d confessed what was really going on.
She should have known it wouldn’t be safe to tell him the truth. Bodyguards probably had to work closely with law enforcement officials. For all she knew, Brandon Sinclair could be a drinking buddy of the entire West clan.
When Sammy was sleeping soundly, she gently laid him in the middle of the big bed and tucked the pillows around him to stop him from rolling anywhere. She stood for a long moment staring down at the baby who owned all of her heart.
She would do whatever it took to keep Brandon Sinclair away from Sammy. She would run to the ends of the earth, hide for the rest of her life if that’s what it took.
You’re nothing but trailer trash, Janette. Nobody is going to believe you if you ever tell. Those were the last words she’d heard from Sinclair that night on the highway. He hadn’t spoken to her again or even looked at her until yesterday in the cafе when he’d told her he knew she had a son.
She’d tried to be so careful during her pregnancy. Thankfully she’d gained little weight and had been able to hide her condition until her eighth month. It was only then that she’d told the people who’d noticed that she was pregnant that she’d had a fling with a man passing through town. Because she believed Sinclair—nobody would ever believe her if she told the truth.
Tired of being cooped up, she finally left the bedroom and entered the living room, where Dalton sat in a chair reading a book as a saxophone wailed the blues from the stereo. She wasn’t concerned about the noise waking Sammy. From the time he’d been born he had slept like the dead, undisturbed by loud noises.
Dalton looked up and nodded at her. “Are you ready for lunch?” he asked and closed his book.
“No, thanks. I’m fine.” She gestured to the book on his lap. “Please, don’t let me interrupt you.”
“You aren’t. It isn’t a very good book, anyway.”
She glanced to the overflowing bookcase against one wall. “You must read a lot.”
“I enjoy reading,” he agreed. His piercing green eyes seemed to peer directly inside her. “What about you? Are you a reader?”
She sat on the edge of the sofa. “I’d like to be, but there never seems to be enough time. Between taking care of Sammy and my job there aren’t many hours left in the day.”
“What kind of job do you have?”
“Right now I’m a waitress, but that’s not what I want to do for the rest of my life.” She hesitated a moment, then continued, “I had to drop out of high school my junior year because my nana…my grandma got sick, so the first thing I need to do is get my GED.”
She wasn’t sure why she told him this. It was more information than he’d asked for and she was certain he didn’t care what her future plans might be.
