Baby's Watch

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You must remember who they really are, she told herself. She couldn’t help thinking some of them had to know what she had only recently learned, how vast were the criminal dealings her father was involved in. Once she herself had found out, the evidence was so obvious she could not believe she had missed it for so long. The older ones, her father’s brothers, sisters, the ones she could no longer think of as aunts and uncles, they must have known.

Had they indeed known, and conspired to keep it from her? Or had no conspiracy been necessary? Was she such a naïve fool that they had managed to keep the truth from her with no such effort?

The baby stilled, seemingly calmed by the sweet song. Ana held her even closer. She closed her eyes, shifting in the bed. The big man had seen to her comfort in an unexpectedly gentle manner, cleaning her, changing the bedclothes, and disposing of the mess of the birth quickly and efficiently. For a man who claimed to know nothing about the process, she thought he had handled it with remarkable aplomb. Her mother had often told her how her own father had been worse than useless. She liked the idea that her gallant stranger was much more of a man than her wicked father. She wondered what that stranger was thinking now, if he’d already put them out of his mind, if what had been a miracle to her was simply an odd occurrence to him.

He probably thinks you’re just another illegal looking for a handout, she thought.

She told herself it didn’t matter what he thought, not when she herself knew the truth. She was an intelligent woman, she had an education to offer, and she was going to start a new life for herself and her daughter. She would do it herself, without charity or handouts. Anything given to her, she would repay, in some form, as she was helping here at Hopechest Ranch in return for Jewel’s hospitality and kindness.

No matter what it took, she and Maria would make their way, and have a good life.

“I promise you, mijita. You will be safe, you will have good things, you will grow and learn, and above all else you will be loved.”

Ana settled in to wait, wondering what Jewel would think when she returned to find the population of her beloved Hopechest Ranch increased by one.

Chapter 5 (#ulink_5481fe33-185c-5cc6-bc0f-dc9f87aed030)

This was insane, Ryder thought a couple nights later.

There was no reason in hell why that woman and her baby should haunt him like this.

He’d done the right thing. He might be the black sheep of the Texas Coltons, but even he had been unable to simply leave a pregnant woman in labor without help.

So why couldn’t he just chalk it up to some unexpected sense of decency, hope it might someday tip the judgment scales in his favor and move on with the job he was here to do?

He shook his head as he drove to a meeting with Alcazar. A daylight meeting for a change, which Ryder acknowledged with wry humor; rats didn’t usually come out in the sunlight.

And he himself was tired, tired enough that he needed to be on guard against making a mistake. His time in prison had given him some creds with the gang he hadn’t had before. He’d had to spin a tale about how he’d been released early due to prison overcrowding and good behavior—a first in his lifetime, he’d laughed as he relayed the carefully concocted story—and Alcazar had obviously checked it out before setting up this meeting today.

Ironically, the track his investigation had led him on, all around New Mexico and southwest Texas, had served to cement his position. He’d done a few jobs for people Alcazar knew, and word had gotten back.

Of course, he’d had to cover his ass with his new, government bosses, and had reported on each incident. They’d told him going in that a lot would be forgiven if he accomplished the main goal. Apparently they’d meant it; nothing had come down on him for doing exactly what had landed him in custody in the first place, joining the coyotes who traveled under cover of darkness, smuggling in illegals.

Only this time, he was doing it with full intention and knowledge. It was still unsettling even though the feds had ordered him to go along. And he’d been on track all the way.

Until that night.

It hit him again, hard, the memory of that moment when a tiny little girl had nestled into his hands, looking up at him with dark eyes like her mother’s. He figured she probably wasn’t seeing him, not really, but it surely seemed as if she were peering into his dark, bruised soul.

He’d been right. This was insane. It made no sense. It was only a baby, one he would likely never see again. So why did he feel as if there were some sort of connection between them, him and that tiny bit of squalling humanity? Just because he’d had the misfortune of being there at her birth? Just because he’d been the first one to touch her, hold her, because he’d been the one to make sure she was breathing and clean and dry and warm?

It made no sense, he repeated to himself.

Now, her mother, that made sense. She was a beautiful woman, a woman any man would take notice of. Even here, where olive-skinned beauties were common, she stood out.

But this puzzled him, too. Because it wasn’t simply her looks—she had been swollen with child and under the worst of circumstances when he’d first seen her—but her quiet courage under those circumstances had him thinking about her often. Too often. She was occupying his thoughts unlike any woman ever had.

And he didn’t even know her name.

He was so lost in his contemplations that he nearly missed his turn. He yanked the wheel left and headed into the brush along a barely visible track that wound into the back country, where anything could be lost forever.

As he got closer to the selected meeting place, he checked the cubby in the door of the truck where he’d hidden the handgun, a Glock 17, they’d given him after the crash course in using it. But going armed into a meeting with Alcazar would be the height of idiocy, and he was hoping he was past that kind of foolishness. It was secure, and they’d have to literally tear the truck apart to find it, so he felt reasonably sure they wouldn’t.

His government-issue cell phone rang. He reached for it automatically, then stopped. That was one advantage to working out here in the vast expanse of empty space; he could always claim he hadn’t gotten the call due to lack of signal. He supposed they had ways to verify that, but unless he abused the excuse, he doubted it was worth it to them. And he usually called them back before too much time had passed.

It was a silly, perhaps childish game, but it gave him the illusion of some kind of control, and right now he would take what little he could get. He didn’t want to tell them about what had happened at the ranch.

He wasn’t even sure why, if he was afraid they’d chew him out for violating what they called protocol, stepping out of his undercover role and being seen, or if he just wanted to keep it to himself. It almost felt as if telling anyone would violate a promise he hadn’t even made, to a courageous woman and a newborn he’d helped bring into the world.

And that made less sense than anything, he thought as he checked the truck’s odometer and began scanning for the small building he’d been told to look for.

When he spotted the ramshackle shed, he thought he must be wrong; this wasn’t a building, it was a lumber pile in the making. Alcazar wouldn’t hang out here. But then, would the man trust him enough to let him know where he really hung out? Ryder knew if he were in Alcazar’s position, he would trust no one.

Just as she trusted no one, he thought, the image of that dark-eyed beauty snapping vividly into his mind once more.

Annoyed at himself, he shoved the image away, forcing himself to concentrate. Hadn’t it been hammered into him during his weeks of training at that super-secret facility, that lack of focus could be fatal?

So focus, he ordered himself silently.

As he drove up to the tumbledown shack, he spotted a gleam of silver from behind it, the bumper of another car. So it was