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Wasn’t there some branch of the feds who investigated all the family members of people who aspired to the highest office? It only made sense. And the fact that Joe Colton’s ne’er-do-well brother had fathered a crop of kids outside his marriage wasn’t exactly a secret.
For the first time, it hit Ryder that he was, by blood, connected to a very famous family. Not that they would claim him any more than his own father had, but still, if he were mercenary enough…
He could almost see Boots’s frown. Could hear the old man’s stern warning that that way lay hellfire. Could even hear himself answering, “Don’t worry, Boots. That’d mean I’d have to claim Graham Colton as my father, and that ain’t ever going to happen.”
That much was the truth. No amount of money or famous family would make him do that. He might feel a bit of wistful sadness about losing his brother and sister—they’d once been a tight-knit group—but his father meant less than nothing to him.
As he meant less than nothing to his father.
“Don’t forget to check in when you’re in place tonight.”
“Yeah,” Ryder said absently, locking the truck as he headed for the library. He could have asked how much money they were talking about here, but caution won out; he didn’t want them thinking he was pondering going over to the other side.
He didn’t think his recruiters had believed him when he’d told them, just as he had told the court at his trial, that he’d never intended to smuggle illegals into the country. That he’d merely been paid to drive a truck, that as far as he knew was full of computer equipment. No one had believed him back then.
In fact, it had barely bothered him that he’d ended up in prison for something he hadn’t intended to do. As he’d told Boots later, when the man had begun to talk to him about his future, he’d done enough intentionally to land him here anyway.
“It’s just karma catching up with me,” he’d said. “No big deal.”
“But a big chance,” Boots had said, already launching into his crusade to salvage Ryder’s life.
Ryder hadn’t been listening to the older man, though. Not then. This situation wasn’t going to change anything, not really. To his way of thinking, it was just a speed bump on his racetrack, and he’d be back at full tilt as soon as he got out. Older and wiser, maybe. Hopefully wise enough to keep from getting caught next time trouble irresistibly called his name.
Once he’d spent a couple of hours in the library researching, he was a little stunned at what he’d found. At how much people would pay for a child they knew nothing about. At how long this had been going on, seemingly forever. At how many ways it happened, from the simple theft straight out of a hospital nursery, to unethical doctors who arranged black market adoptions, to unscrupulous lawyers who facilitated all of it.
He was stunned most of all at the fierce desire for a baby that drove it all.
He headed back out to the ranch to start another evening of surveillance and endless waiting. He made his usual circuit to check the tunnels suspected of being used by the ring, but his telltales—small things he’d placed that would be pushed aside or stepped on unknowingly by anyone who went through the openings—were undisturbed, as they had been for days now. This obviously wasn’t a high-volume operation.
Or he was on the wrong track altogether, which he didn’t like contemplating.
When he was done with his inspections, he settled in in a key spot and waited for full dark before moving in closer to the ranch.
Once more, Ryder found himself sitting and watching, with nothing to do but think. He tried all sorts of distractions, from taking Boots’s theory and trying to figure in his head what a six-pound baby would cost per ounce at the going rate, to deciding what approach to use on that cute waitress at the diner down the street from the motel. Nothing seemed to work very well. And he kept coming back full circle, thinking about the family who’d cut him off.
Although, to be fair, he’d done the same thing.
Was he luckier to know his family? Luckier than a kid who’d been sold, but at least to people who wanted him? Or worse, stolen, maybe from a parent who actually loved him? He wasn’t sure.
As darkness fell around him again, Ryder worked his way slowly down toward the new building that had been put up since he’d been gone, the building he suspected might be a stop on the smugglers’ route. How different his life might have been if he’d been stolen as a baby. Better? Maybe. Easier? Probably.
But then he felt a jab of guilt. Clay had sacrificed a great deal, trying to keep them all together. Ryder hadn’t ever wanted to admit that, but he couldn’t deny it any longer. Clay had tried harder than anyone had any right to expect. It wasn’t his fault that his little brother was a screwed-up mess. But knowing Clay, he probably blamed himself. Ryder grimaced inwardly.
The only language you seem to understand is trouble. And when it calls, you come running.
No sooner had the words formed in his mind than he heard it. A low, agonized whimper of sound.
He froze. Instantly his brain discarded the possibility that it had been a baby’s cry; this was someone older, an adult. He tilted his head, trying to triangulate the sound.
Inside the house.
It came again, harsher this time, a cry of pain and anguish that stabbed at him.
A woman. It was a woman.
Instinctively he took a step forward, then stopped himself.
The only language you understand is trouble. And when it calls, you come running….
His thoughts taunted him. Somewhere in the back of his mind a little voice told him to walk away, all the while laughing, knowing he wouldn’t.
Knowing he couldn’t.
Trouble was calling.
And, God help him, he was going to answer.
Chapter 3 (#ulink_b24fa34c-43cd-5e8d-bbc0-3874a987e56c)
Ana knew she was in trouble. Jewel had taken the Hopechest children into town for a treat, a movie and then ice cream at Miss Sue’s. Although Jewel had asked her to accompany them, Ana’s back had been aching fiercely all day. She had seized the chance for some quiet in the empty house; with Macy Ward, the recreational therapist at Hopechest, away on her honeymoon with the sheriff’s brother, Fisher Yates, Hope chest was completely deserted—and peaceful—tonight.
She had dozed fitfully through the ache and awakened after an hour to the empty house. She had panicked, knowing now the reason her back had been aching so.
The baby.
When the first contraction ripped through her it caught her off guard and she screamed. The sound echoed off the walls of the deserted house, and she bit her lip in the effort to stop another cry.
As the pain ebbed, for a brief moment she allowed herself to hope it was only a false alarm. Surely she would not be so unlucky as to give birth at the worst possible moment, when she had no one here to help?
And why would this surprise you? she asked herself sternly. Your judgment in life has been so sterling thus far.
Slowly, she sat up, relieved when she was able to do so. Her water had broken, she couldn’t deny that, but perhaps the baby would wait at least until Jewel returned. She thought about calling the Bar None, but she was certain Jewel had mentioned that Clay Colton was out with his ex-wife.
It seemed like an odd thing to her; she could no more imagine going back to Alberto Cardenas than she could imagine stopping this baby from coming. Not now that she knew he was as bad as her father. But she knew not everyone was as unlucky—or unwise—as she was.
On that thought, a second contraction hit, shocking another cry out of her. This time she had the presence of mind to look at the clock; timing was important, was it not?
Tears brimmed in her eyes and she told herself it was the pain. She would not cower and whine, she simply would not. Determined, she tried to stand. If she could walk, perhaps she could stave this off until help arrived.
Her first steps convinced her of the folly of that notion. She made it to the chest of drawers a few feet away before another pain struck, sending her to her knees; she barely managed to cling to the heavy piece of furniture and keep from falling.
In the process she pulled over the small statue of a roadrunner Jewel had so kindly given her when she had arrived here. She had seen it in the library and exclaimed that it reminded her of home. Thinking that Ana was homesick, Jewel had offered the piece. Ana had accepted it, temporarily, thinking it would serve as a good reminder of all the reasons why she had left.
The statue shattered on the tile floor, having just missed the colorful rug in front of the chest. Ana barely had time to regret the miscue before another pain hit. She did not have to look at the clock to know it was too soon; the pains were too close together to pretend.
Her baby was coming.
She was alone.
She was going to have to do this herself. Somehow.
And she would, she told herself fiercely. She’d gotten her baby into this, it was up to her to handle it. She—
Her self-lecture broke off at a sound from the porch. For an instant she felt relieved until she realized she had not heard the ranch van pulling up the driveway, or heard the door open to the garage, which was next to her room.
It was not Jewel.
It was not anyone who had arrived openly by car. And while it was possible, even a frequent occurrence, that a visitor would arrive on horseback, she had not heard that either. And at this hour of night, that did not seem likely.
No answer she could come up with was good.
A tall shadow shot across the tile floor, hiding the gleam of the broken pieces of the statue. Ana choked back the scream that rose to her throat. She grabbed the largest, sharpest shard of the shattered roadrunner. It was not much, but it was all she had to protect herself and her baby.
As the shadow moved closer and she found herself staring up into the eyes of a tall, dark, menacing stranger, she thought she was going to have to defend the two of them.
Trouble, he’d expected.
A very pregnant woman, he hadn’t.
He’d done his homework on this place, this Hopechest Ranch. He’d been a little taken aback when he’d learned that the Hopechest Foundation that funded it was the pet project of Meredith Colton, who was his aunt. And potential first lady.
But he hadn’t heard even a rumor that the place helped illegals. He considered the woman’s obviously Hispanic appearance and wondered if she had run away from home. Everything he’d read had indicated the place was a home for troubled teens, not pregnant ones. Although maybe the two sometimes went hand in hand.
It occurred to him momentarily that he might well have been considered one of those teens not long ago. But he’d never thought of himself as “troubled,” just determined to have fun. There’d been too little fun in his life, and he’d been set on making up for that.
And then it hit him. Was he perhaps closer than he’d realized to his goal? Had he inadvertently stumbled onto yet another aspect of the investigation, something they didn’t even know?
Was this pregnant woman here not just to have her baby, but to get rid of it? Was it already bought and paid? She didn’t look or act the type, but what did he know about that? Perhaps her protective posture was to save her investment, not her child.
The woman on her knees doubled over, and he heard the moan she tried to hold back. She was dressed in some flowing cotton gown in a pure white that gleamed in the moonlight. She was clutching something in her hand, something that looked like a piece of broken pottery. Suddenly she straightened slightly and waved it at him with an unsteady hand.
“¡Salir de aqui!” she said, her voice slightly steadier than her hand.
As she told him to get out of here, he realized she had some idea of using that little shard as a weapon. He nearly laughed aloud, but she was so clearly frightened he quashed the urge.
“No tengas miedo,” he said, although he doubted that simply telling her not to be afraid would alleviate the problem. After all, from her point of view he’d turned up out of the dark, she was clearly alone, and in pain…
In labor.
Belatedly it hit him.
My God, she was having that baby now.
Even as he thought it she cried out again, hunching protectively over her swollen belly.
“Damn,” he muttered. “You’re going to have that thing right now, aren’t you?”
“That thing is a baby!” she snapped in perfect English.
He held up his hands at the sudden fierceness of her tone. “Sorry,” he said. “But I’m right, aren’t I?”
“It is coming, yes,” she said, and suddenly the fierceness vanished, replaced by an almost tangible fear. Ryder realized how young she was, even younger than he was. Twenty, maybe twenty-two?
“Now?”
He was more than a little scared himself. He didn’t know a thing about this process, and at the moment wished he had stayed where he belonged, out there on that fruitless, useless stakeout.
“Right now,” she said grimly, doubling over once more.
“Damn,” he said again.
He bent to try to help her get up, but she pulled away from him. Instead she grabbed the edge of the heavy, carved chest beside her, and tried to pull herself to her feet. She fell back to her knees as another pain apparently hit.
Close together, those pains, he thought. That meant it really was imminent, didn’t it? He’d seen movies, read stories…
But this was real life, about to happen right in front of him, and he was the only one here. No empathetic woman to take over. He should have paid more attention to his sister, but the very idea made him nervous and he’d avoided the subject entirely.
What if he called Georgie? Would she even talk to him? As far as his family knew, he was still in prison, he guessed. By now even Georgie, his sometimes partner in mischief as children, had probably washed her hands of him. She’d somehow turned very serious when she’d had a child to think about. Children really did change everything.
The woman moaned, shifting on the floor as if trying to escape the pain. The movement took her into the shaft of moonlight that came through the front window of the room. And he realized with a sudden jolt that she was lovely. Her long, dark hair fell in thick waves well past her shoulders. Her eyes were just as dark and caught the light enough to show him they were wide with pain and brimming with moisture.
She moaned again, and the helpless sound of it galvanized him. He didn’t know if it was some instinctive male gene that drove him toward protecting a woman in her most helpless yet miraculous time. Or maybe something more personal. He only knew he couldn’t just leave her like this. She needed help, and he was the only one around.
Unluckily for you, chica, he thought to himself.
He scooped her up off the floor. It was clumsy, because of her bulk and the effort not to hurt her any more, but once he had her he was a little surprised; he’d thought she would be heavier, what with the baby. It hit him that he was carrying one person back to the bed, but before long there would be two. The idea rocked him. He’d never been this close to a birth before.
“You must have done something to get ready for this,” he said.
“There are…blankets and things…in the trunk.” She made a gesture toward the heavy trunk at the foot of the bed. He went to it quickly, lifted the lid, found the things she’d mentioned. He got out the pile of soft cotton cloths, spotted a pair of scissors in a sealed package and grabbed those, too.
Cord, he thought. You had to cut the cord, right?
God, he was way out of his depth.
“There’s no one to call?” he asked her, wanting to be absolutely certain before he committed to this.
“No one…could be here…in time.”
She was panting now, and he wondered if she’d taken some class in special breathing—didn’t they always say stuff about that?—or if it just happened naturally.
He laid her gently down on the bed. She cried out as another pain seized her. He reached over and turned on a bedside lamp, turned back and forgot to breathe for a moment.
She was more than pretty, she was beautiful. Her wide, dark eyes were huge, gleaming in the light. Her skin was a light, luscious olive tone—smooth, flawless, glowing. Her lips were full, soft, and slightly parted as she tried hard not to moan; he could see the ferocious effort she was making. It jogged him back to reality, and the urgent matter at hand.
“I don’t know anything about this,” he told her. “You’ll have to tell me what to do.”
“And you think…I know?” Her laugh wasn’t bitter, but it wasn’t amused, either. And for the first time he wondered how she’d gotten into this situation. He couldn’t quite believe she’d done it intentionally, getting pregnant to sell the baby. It was feasible. But something in her dark, exotic eyes, and the way she looked up at him, made that impossible for him to believe, at least right now.
