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“Just precious!”
Questions and reactions to the little one in the carrier began flying at him the second he walked into the café from the few patrons who had begun to shuffle in and settle down for their morning meal. Jax knew they all meant well, but being the center of all this attention was not his style. He was more a stand back and observe kind of guy. Yet with each new set of eyes trained on him, he wanted more and more to retreat.
Retreat? When had that ever been his reaction to anything?
Since he had someone to protect, was his instinctive response.
Jax raised the baby up, forced a wincing smile as he moved away from the prying gazes and began looking around for Shelby to help him out. She wasn’t at a table. Or behind the counter.
“You cannot do this, Shelby Grace. Not now!” The tense, stressed twang of a man’s voice made Jax turn. He spotted Shelby through the opening to the kitchen, arguing with a man with faded blond hair pulled back in a ponytail.
He couldn’t help thinking of Denby’s concern that whoever had left the baby had basically targeted Shelby Grace Lockhart for a reason. Old beliefs twisted in Jax’s gut. Emotion and agendas based on selfishness sometimes made people do desperate things.
He thought of Delta’s cryptic advice that he was where he needed to be. Suddenly being here, with this baby and Shelby, felt all wrong.
Without hesitation, Jax headed for the swinging kitchen door.
“I can’t do it anymore,” Shelby argued, her own voice pitched high with a mix of pleading and anxiety. “You’re going to have to find a way to make the payment or start riding a horse to work.”
“Shelby, hon, talk sense.” The man reached out for her.
Jax found his hand, the one not holding the handle of the baby carrier, doing the same.
Shelby evaded the man’s grasp with a quick duck of her shoulder, and in doing so, she also put herself out of Jax’s reach.
“I am talking sense. For the first time since I realized, deep down, that you were never going to make a go of the ranch, and I was never going to own this café.” Shelby turned to look back, raised her hand, then brushed away a stray curl that had caught on her eyelashes. “I can’t tell you how much I wanted to believe, to go on dreaming that some day...but last night I looked around and realized that someday isn’t coming. We’ve given it all we’ve got, and we have to face the fact that we can’t do it, Dad.”
“Dad?”
Shelby turned to look at Jax.
Before she could tear into him for listening in on a private—if intriguing—conversation, Jax said, “I was actually thinking it might be smart to start looking around for any clues now, before too many people disturb things.”
She sighed, then gave him a single nod. For just a moment, he thought she might cave in to her father’s wishes and stay. She certainly wasn’t quick to rush off, and her tone carried the heaviness of resignation as she finally agreed, “You’re right. Let’s go out the back way and walk around to the front. The sooner we get this behind us, the sooner I can get on with what’s ahead of me.”
Chapter Four
With one hand firmly wrapped around Amanda’s carrier handle, Jax hustled them outside, where the aroma of pancakes and bacon followed them. The damp warmth of the café kitchen met the fresh morning air, and Shelby took a deep breath.
“Guess that old saying is true,” he said with a quiet intensity. “Everything looks different in the light of day.”
Shelby scanned the view behind the café. It all looked familiar to her. Too familiar. Sunnyside, Texas, from any vantage point, was not the view she’d expected to greet her this morning. She turned to fix her gaze on the tall figure at her side, now holding the baby easily against his chest. That sight was different.
He glanced her way and shook his head, a smile playing over his lips.
Her heart fluttered. “I...I don’t know...what you mean.”
“This changes everything.” He motioned toward the back parking lot.
Shelby frowned. “It does?”
“It was so late when I got here last night that most of these houses already had their lights out.” He narrowed his eyes, his gaze fixed on the row of neat little homes across the small lot and a strip of grassy ground beyond it. “I didn’t realize all these houses were so close back here.”
“Oh. Well, it’s a small town. Everyone practically lives on top of everyone else. At least it feels like that some days.” Shelby’s shoulders ached, and her head began to throb. “You said it changes everything?”
“Sure. Last night I was thinking that whoever left the baby came by car, so they made quite a trip in order to reach you. But with people living this close? Maybe it wasn’t you but the café that was the draw for the baby. They left her someplace they could watch to make sure she was okay.”
A cloud passed over the rising sun. Shelby shivered.
“I’m going to look around and see what I can find.” He settled the baby carrier down on the wooden slats at her feet and gave her a nod before heading out.
He expected her to stay put and watch over the foundling. Clearly the man did not understand that Shelby was done doing what other people expected. It took her only a moment to bend down and unsnap the safety latches holding Amanda in place. She lifted the baby up and cuddled her close, even as she headed to the steps to follow Jax onto the gravel that served as an employee parking lot.
“No one in Sunnyside would have been able to hide a pregnancy, much less a baby, for three months, let me assure you.”
“You honestly think there are no secrets in this town?” He looked back over his shoulder at her. “Would you say everybody here knows all there is to know about you, Shelby Grace?”
She pulled up short. Her stomach clenched. It was like he was looking right through her. She thought of the note she had written last night, of her deepest fear, which she was sure no other living soul knew or would understand.
“You know who owns all three of these vehicles?” Jax motioned toward the dust-covered blue pickup truck, the ten-year-old minivan and the lime-green convertible parked side by side in the lot.
Shelby forced her mind back to the task at hand—gathering information to find whoever had left Amanda. “Um, the convertible is Miss Delta’s, the minivan is mine and the truck—”
“Is also yours,” he said, finishing for her, sounding somewhere between speculative and show-offy at having come to that conclusion. “That’s the payment you need your dad to take on, I’m guessing.”
“I bought the van so I could cater some local events once I saved up enough to... Well, it doesn’t matter now. My dad’s truck bit the dust, and he couldn’t get a loan for a new one. So good ol’ Shelby got one for him.”
“Good ol’ Shelby,” he muttered as he strode on from the back parking lot to the side of the building. He kicked the toe of his boot at a clump of grass, then lifted his head and studied where the paved customer lot ended just by the edge of the deck.
The baby squirmed in her arms and made a soft, fussy sound, pushing at the blanket flap swept over her head and wadded against her now-warm pink cheek.
“Do you really think we might find something helpful out here?” Shelby rearranged the blanket and baby so that Amanda could wave her arms freely. That allowed the sun to shine on her sweet, round face.
“It’s not so much about thinking at this point.” He raised his hand to his temple, his expression a mask of concentration. He was completely immersed in the moment. Cool. Focused. Intense. “Trying to outthink the situation is how people jump to conclusions. That can tempt them to try to prove themselves right instead of trying to find the truth.”
Shelby glanced over her shoulder, back at the café, where she had thought through her own situation hour after hour. She had felt trapped in a role not of her own making, unable to spread her wings. She had obsessed over the fear that she would never own her own business. That no man would ever love her enough to be faithful to her. That Mitch Warner was the best she would ever do and that she would end up like her father, always chasing a dream forever out of her reach. As she stood here now in the daylight, Jax’s words went straight to her heart. Had she been trying to prove her conclusions about life in Sunnyside, or had she been seeking the truth? “Man, you’re good at this. Anyone ever tell you that?”
He glanced up and met her eyes. A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “I haven’t even done anything yet.”
“But you’re going to.” Shelby had no idea how she knew that, but she knew it beyond the shadow of a doubt. After a lifetime spent around men who didn’t seem able to do anything, she knew. “So just what is it that you’re going to do?”
“Right now?” He lifted one shoulder, then let it down. “I’m gonna look around.”
“Oh.” That should not have disappointed her as much as it did. “So you don’t have any hunches?”
Before he could answer, Amanda sneezed.
“Oh! God bless you, sweetheart,” Shelby whispered.
Jax turned, and his expression warmed as he, too, mouthed “God bless you” to their tiny charge. No sooner had the words left his lips than his shoulders stiffened and his voice went hard. “No. No hunches. Other than that whoever left that little cutie did it in a hurry.”
“In a hurry like someone committing a crime?” She settled the baby on her hip and made a quick swipe to wipe the tiny pink-tipped nose. Once she had thought of it, the theory came quickly to her lips. “Like somebody kidnapping a baby and then panicking and deciding to ditch it somewhere?”
He frowned.
“Or in a hurry like someone ripping off a Band- Aid?” she asked, feeling a bit like she should have led with that. “You know it’s going to hurt, so you do it as quickly as possible. Get it over with.”
“Yeah. Yeah, like that Band-Aid thing,” he muttered as he scanned the tall grass, his eyes narrowed to slits. “I don’t think it’s a kidnapping case. I’m sure Denby checked to see if there are any alerts for a missing infant and acted on that right away.”
“Sheriff Andy did go back to the office last night.” She watched Jax a moment, not sure what to do. Just twenty-four hours ago, she had resolved to take charge of her life and had thought she might actually pull it off. She might really leave Sunnyside. Now? Now she needed to ask Jax a question she realized she probably should have asked herself yesterday, when she had packed up her few personal belongings and had told her landlord to keep the cleaning deposit. “What are you looking for, exactly?”
“I don’t know, exactly.” He reached up in a gesture Shelby recognized as a man adjusting his cowboy hat to shade his eyes. But there was no hat, so at the last second the man rubbed his palm lightly through his dark hair. “When people get in a big hurry, they don’t think straight. They come up with a half-baked plan and carry it through before they get cold feet.”
Shelby shifted her feet nervously back and forth.
“That’s when they make mistakes.”
“Then again, something this monumental surely had a lot of thought behind it.” Shelby pulled her shoulders up. His comment was not aimed at her or her emotionally charged decision to turn her back on everything she knew. Still, it put her on the defensive. “It wasn’t necessarily an impulse.”
“No.” He shook his head. “A woman abandoning a baby in the night, even with the most trustworthy person in the whole town, isn’t something she’s going to plot out.”
The most trustworthy person in the whole town. On one hand, hearing him describe her that way sent a shimmer of pride and happiness through her. On the other hand, it seemed a pretty improbable expectation to live up to. Shelby looked at baby Amanda, then at Jax, and in doing so, she knew. She wanted to live up to it. She wanted to be worthy of the trust placed in her. “You’re so sure it was a woman? Her mother?”
“Maybe someone else was with her, but there is the footprint of a woman’s shoe in the mud.” He knelt down and touched the ground, then stood again with something small and pink in his hand. “And I believe with all my being she was the mom. A kidnapper wouldn’t have brought this.”
“She had to be so desperate,” Shelby whispered, her heart aching at the sight of the floppy home-sewn bunny in his hand.
“Had to be,” he said in a way that sounded like he had some kind of personal stake in that conclusion. He stood and walked over to where Shelby stood holding Amanda. “To do this, she clearly didn’t think she had anyone in her life she could turn to...except you.”
He held out his hand with the humble handmade toy in it for Shelby to take.
Shelby hesitated, then reached out, her hand almost trembling.
Her fingers brushed his.
For less than a second, he held on to the toy. Shelby couldn’t explain how, but much like when they had prayed together over Amanda last night, she felt a connection to this cowboy who had walked into her life when she had needed it the least—and Amanda had needed it most.
Without warning, Jax loosened his grip. The rabbit slid through his large, rough hands, the long ears dragging through his blunt, calloused fingers.
It felt like a passing of the responsibility to Shelby. Jax had found the baby. He had stayed long enough to help Sheriff Denby. He had found what clues he could. The rest was up to her.
Shelby turned the crudely sewn animal over in her hand and shook her head. “You’re right. There’s no one else to take this on here. No one except good ol’ softhearted Shelby Grace Lockhart.”
* * *
They had waited another twenty minutes for Denby to show up at the café before Shelby’s father remembered to tell them the sheriff had called right after the pair had gone out to the back parking lot. The town’s deputy on duty had had to go out to oversee a dispute between two neighbors, and Denby needed to stay close to the office. He wanted them to bring Amanda there to give their statements.
“A desperate mother who thought of Shelby as her only resource?” Sheriff Denby came around to the front of the large wooden desk in his cluttered office to peer into the face of the baby in Shelby’s arms before he leaned back to make a seat of the edge of the desk. “I pretty much came to that conclusion last night.”
With Shelby settled into the only chair in the room, aside from the one behind the desk, Jax leaned one shoulder against the wall. He crossed his arms. “Then why didn’t you share your theory last night, instead of asking me—”
“Because I was hoping you’d come at this with a fresh set of eyes, Mr. Stroud. Or should I call you Officer?”
“Just Jax is enough.” Jax held up his hand. “I’m a civilian now.”
“No such thing. Once a lawman, always a lawman.” The older man groaned a bit as he rose from his perch on the corner of the desk. He winced and straightened slowly. “Of all people, I know how hard it is to walk away from the calling.”
“The calling?” Jax swept his gaze over the walls of the office, which were covered with plaques, framed photos and citations that recounted a history of service. Just standing here humbled and touched him. His few short years on the force paled in comparison to this kind of work, and his new job? Well, it didn’t compare at all.
He tried to tell himself he’d still be helping others in Miami. But he couldn’t stay convinced of that when he turned his head and found himself looking at Shelby cradling Amanda. How could patrolling the playground of those who could afford anything in the world compare to standing up for and protecting those who had nowhere else to turn?
“I don’t know.” Jax shook his head. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s hard for some people to leave the life of a lawman behind. A calling, like you say. But me?”
“You?” Shelby made a big show of rolling her eyes and laughing at Jax’s weak protest.
Amanda fussed at the sudden, albeit soft, outburst.
Shelby didn’t miss a beat. She curled the baby close and rose deftly from her chair. Her feet did a scuff, scuff, shuffle over the old floor, lulling the baby into woozy contentment, and with hushed words she still managed to knock Jax off his guard and send him reeling with her insight. “You mean the would-be kitten rescuer just rolling through town who let himself get waylaid into a situation with a lost baby? Or the guy who got up at dawn to help with an investigation and make sure everything was okay?”
“Okay, okay. You got me pegged, Shelby Grace.” Jax held both hands up and laughed. He turned around to face her.
She pulled up short in her pacing, stopping just inches away from him, with baby Amanda in between them.
“You got me,” Jax repeated barely above a whisper.
She blinked her clear blue eyes in an expression that seemed half startled, half flustered. She started to step to the side.
Jax did the same. “I...here...let me...”
Neither seemed able to complete a thought, much less an action or a sentence.
Sheriff Denby did not have that problem. “Good. We’re all clear on that. Then everything’s settled, right?”
“Settled?” Jax repeated the word hardly above a murmur. Never in his whole life had he felt settled—nor did he want to feel that way. But standing here, looking at Shelby holding Amanda...
Denby clapped his hands. “Let’s make it official.”
“Official?” Jax said.
“Yes, sir.” Denby went around the desk and whipped open one of the drawers. As he fished around inside it, he said, “I’m going to deputize you, son. So you can escort Shelby and this baby over to Westmoreland.”
“You’re going to what?” Jax stepped back without thinking. He smashed into a row of awards, which slid sideways and fell forward. He had to act fast to save them from crashing to the floor. “Why?”
“Why?” Sheriff Denby chuckled as he pulled out a badge. “Think a hotshot lawman from... Where did you say you were from, son?”
“I’m not from anywhere. Until yesterday, I lived in Dallas. As soon as I leave Sunnyside, I’m going to live in Miami for a while.”
“Dallas,” Denby said as he pulled out a file and slapped it on the desk. “That’s the one I called to check you out.”
