And Baby Makes Five (2 page)

“Neighbors?” he managed at last, feeling like a stooge. Certain he looked like one.

Slowly, as if speaking to one of those toddlers he’d imagined her playing with, she nodded her red-capped head and repeated, “Neighbors. So you see, the rope really isn’t necessary. As a matter of fact, you could let me go and I promise not to harm you.”

That kicked Cort into gear. Things hopped out of slow motion and started to focus. He’d steer-dogged a pregnant woman! Thrown her on the ground, baby and all, and left her there.

Left her there rocking back and forth on her back, waving her arms in the air like a derailed turtle straining to flip from her back to her feet. In this case to sit up. Spurred to life, Cort grabbed her arm and started tugging.

“Thanks,” she grunted. She was looking up at him with eyes full of laughing regret. “Once I’m down I’m pretty much out for the count. You know, ‘help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.’” She chuckled at her own wit.

Cort did not. “Woman! Have you lost your mind? This is
not
a laughing matter. You could be hurt. You hit that ground like a concrete block.”

“And I thank you s-o-o-o much for bringing that picture to mind,” she replied. “Actually, I’m sure I look more like a beached whale doing snow angels.”

Cort bit back his agreement and tugged her into a sitting position—or at least a kind of sitting position, a ninety-degree angle being a physical impossibility with her small stature and protruding stomach. The awkward position forced her to lean back into the support of his arm and compelled him to lean down over her. She was breathing hard from the exertion, and little white puffs of her warm breath mingled with his as she smiled up at him. She had a cute little pixie face dominated by sparkling eyes and dark lashes. Intelligent eyes.

“Grace in motion, aren’t I?” she continued, crinkling her nose again.

Cort frowned. “Mind telling me what your name is? And what would possess you to risk your child on a night like this?”

“Lilly Tipps. And I’m padded enough that the fall didn’t hurt.”

Didn’t hurt?
This was too much for Cort. “What kind of fool is your Mr. Tipps that he lets his pregnant wife roam the countryside?”

“There is no, and has never been a Mr. Tipps.”

Cort’s gaze dropped to her protruding tummy and the rope resting drunkenly over it. It hit him again that he’d really lassoed a pregnant woman! His dismay must have shown, because she patted his arm in a comforting way.

“Don’t look so serious,” she urged. “I was trespassing on your land. You had every right to hog-tie me. It’s better than being shot.”

“True,” he agreed with a scowl. “But we’ll talk about that later. Right now we have to get you up and make certain everything is okay. Make certain that baby isn’t harmed.” He slipped his hands beneath his strange intruder’s arms and hefted her to a standing position. Why she would be outside, heavy with child, tore at him, and the way she was leaning against him now, breathing hard, sent alarms clanging through him.

“Are you hurt?” he snapped, dropping his gaze to the top of her head where it met his chin. Her little red cap tickled his nose as she rolled her head from side to side against his chest. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m all right.” Her voice was muffled against his heart. “Just need to catch my breath.”

Despite the intelligence he’d glimpsed in her gaze, he thought something important was missing upstairs when a pregnant woman thought nothing strange about tramping around in the middle of the night. Alone. In a storm. Unprotected.

Where was the baby’s father?

Having gained her breath at last, she stepped away from the protection of his arms, and to his horror, he had to fight to let her go and drop his hands to his hips.

He watched as she adjusted her bulky coat over her bulkier body. Her face was bright, her eyes twinkling. “Thank you.”

Cort couldn’t tear his gaze away from her.

“I don’t get much breath in here,” she was saying as she ran a hand lovingly over her tummy. “That’ll change in about three weeks. Although the doctor says I’ll probably go past my due date.”

Cort didn’t see how. She looked ready to give birth any day.
Great with child
had never been a more perfect description.

“That is,” she continued, “if Samantha doesn’t get me killed before the end of this pregnancy. When I get my hands on her, I’m going to hog-tie
her.
”

“Who’s Samantha?” Cort snapped. Multiple avenues of this scenario were rubbing his already waning good humor raw.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Sam—”

A nerve-jolting screech broke through the night air. Cort nearly jumped out of his jeans.

Half-asleep horses came alive with startled nickers and whinnies, and from inside the house he could hear his dog barking. Loser never barked. “What in the world—” Cort bit out the words, striding toward the barn door.

Lilly’s laugh stopped him. “
That
is Samantha.”

On one heel Cort spun toward her.

Lilly hid a smile behind her hand. “She’ll be quite ornery if you changed the lock on the hay barn. Tell me it isn’t so.”

“Well, yes—today, as a matter of fact. The old one was broken. Some jerk keeps tearing up my hay bales.”

“Samantha,” Lilly mouthed softly. “She doesn’t like locks on her barn.” Lilly chuckled more. “She’s gonna be mad.”

She’s
gonna be mad? “Who is this Samantha person?” Cort exploded, stomping toward the door intent on finding out on his own who could make the noises coming from outside the barn.

“Watch out,” she called in warning. “The hay barn was her domain.”

Having reached the closed door, Cort pivoted to glare at the exasperating woman. “What? Who is Samantha?”

The words were barely out of his mouth when the barn door flew open, walloped him in the backside and sent him flying to his knees.

Lilly gasped. Cort ate dust and shot a glare over his shoulder. And there framed in the doorway stood the fattest little donkey he’d ever seen.

“Cort Wells, meet Samantha.” Lilly presented her with a wave.

Cort could only stare, too startled to move. Samantha had to be the ugliest, most unassuming bag of whiskers—“A donkey!”

Lilly chuckled again and waddled to stand beside him.

“You’re telling me
that
has been vandalizing my place?”

“Well, yes. Samantha used to live here and hasn’t given in to nesting at my place yet.”

As if to show she reigned in this domain, Samantha lifted her nose haughtily, swished her tail twice, then sashayed past them into the barn. From his stunned, all-fours position Cort had a perfect view as she swept past. He was not impressed. To say the least, Samantha was a sight—short, putty colored and instead of a smooth fat stomach she had rippling, bulging saddle bags that stretched from shoulder to rump in one roll after another. She beat all Cort had ever seen.

As he watched from his position in the dust, Samantha pranced, albeit heavily, to the feed room’s closed door, wrapped her slobbery pink lips around the oval door handle, gave a twist, backed up and pulled the door open. This achieved, she stuck her nose in the air and clomped lightly inside with her tail swinging proudly.

“Well, I’ll be.” Cort stood, dusting off his jeans, and scratched his temple. “I’d never have believed it if I hadn’t just seen it.”

“Leroy, the prior owner of this ranch, raised her from a baby, bottle-fed and all. She’s lived her entire twenty years here on the ranch. By the way, she thinks she’s a human, or a dog at least. When she was smaller, they say she even ate bread out of her own bread box in the kitchen.”

“That must be where those strange scrapes came from on that big drawer.”

“Teething. She also likes you to rock her in the cedar swing next to the barn.”

“Rock her. Swing? You’ve got to be kidding.”

Samantha, on her tippy-toes, trotted out of the feed room, a green alfalfa cube sticking out of her poochy lips.

Cort jogged to the opening and groaned at the mess.

Lilly ambled over to his side. “Whew! What a nightmare. Leroy always kept her a tub of cubes open. That way she didn’t make a mess, but still thought she was being sneaky.”

“Just what I need. A sneaky jack—’

“Burro. Samantha prefers the less critical term to the biblically correct one. It’s less demeaning to her character, if you know what I mean. And besides, she’s a jenny.”

Cort frowned, expressing to Lilly exactly what he thought of her terminology correction. “And
she
told you this?”

The lady had a screw loose, but at this point he’d believe anything.

“Not exactly,” she said, crinkling her nose.

“Thank goodness—you had me going there.”

Lilly chuckled, and he smiled at the infectious sound. Maybe she wasn’t too crazy.

“She told Leroy and he told me.”

Lilly’s new neighbor thought she’d lost her mind. She could tell. It was written all over his face. “You really aren’t as bad as everyone said.” It popped out, and she could have just kicked herself for saying it. Then again, she’d never been one for holding back.

“And just what have they been saying about me?” he drawled, staring with stone-hard disapproval.

It was a shame, too, that disapproval—all those carved lines messing up his face. Boy, could he stop traffi—

The sudden tightening of her stomach broke into Lilly’s runaway thoughts. Gently she rubbed the hard knot. Her back ached and suddenly the excursion took its toll. Like a glass of water being drained, she felt exhaustion overcome her. That would explain her unlikely infatuation with the new neighbor. She had learned her lesson up close and personal seven and a half months ago. All the I-told-you-so’s from six generations of Tipps women would be ringing in her ears for the rest of her life for the bad choice she’d made. Yep, it was time to gather Samantha and head home to her bed before she fell over right here in the middle of Cort Wells’s freezing horse barn.

However, she couldn’t take that sour look one more instant. He needed to lighten up. Playing the part to perfection, she shook her head somberly. “The gossips down at Pete’s Feed and Seed have been saying mean, nasty things about you. Why, you wouldn’t believe what’s been circulating.”

His lips compressed into a thin line. “I see. And these things. You believed them?”

Lilly nodded gravely. “I was afraid to come over here tonight. Shaking in my boots. Literally.” Nearly, but not exactly.

He studied her, his mouth a hardened line. The tension radiated just below the surface of his cobalt-blue eyes, and Lilly knew the moment he realized she was teasing, because his eyes mellowed ever so slightly.

“Shaking in your boots,” he drawled. Arching an eyebrow, he dropped his gaze to her boots, then her stomach, then settled once again on her face. “You don’t shake in your boots,” he stated flatly.

Lilly laughed. “No, Cort Wells, neighbor extraordinaire, I do not shake in my boots. Nor do I listen to idle gossip with eager anticipation. The only thing I believed was that you didn’t smile much and had an unfortunate habit of losing patience a little too easily.” Not exactly true, but kind of.

“Which is why you stole down here to rescue Samantha from your ogre neighbor before he shot her, or worse, made glue out of her.”

“Exactly,” Lilly said, meeting his gaze.

For a long moment he studied her. Then, making an all-out liar of her and all the gossips, he smiled.

And Lilly, well, she shook in her boots.

S
tanding in the center of his freezing barn, Cort stared at his kooky neighbor and felt the first smile he’d smiled in over a year spread across his face. It was an odd feeling—not unpleasant, but totally unexpected. It assured him that he needed a good, hard, swift kick in the head.

At thirty-six he was picking up speed on the down slide toward forty. His wife had left him, he couldn’t father children and now he was attracted to a woman too young for him.

This was not good. Everything he’d believed in growing up he’d failed at thus far—mainly his belief that a man could be measured by his success as a good father and husband. But despite his failures, nothing altered his number one belief that a child deserved two parents.

Lilly had informed him there was no Mr. Tipps, as if it was the most natural thing in the world for a single woman to be pregnant. Obviously her view on the matter differed from his. She might be cute, but for all Cort knew, she didn’t even know the name of her baby’s father.

It didn’t matter how good this smile cracking across his face felt—the best thing he could do for himself was get Lilly off his property. And her misbehaving donkey with her.

However, before he could do that he had to make certain she was all right. Because, despite her cheerfulness, she looked a little as if she might be hurting some in her back.

“Look,” he said, blowing air into his fists to warm them. “I know you must be freezing, so why don’t you come into the house, and I’ll make us a pot of coffee to warm up. I’ll introduce you to Loser, my dog, and then we’ll get you and Samantha home.” It was pure and simply an offer to warm up, nothing more.

Her eyes brightened. “Coffee,” she said. “You know, I’d do fifty toe touches for a stiff cup of hot coffee—that is,
if
I could touch my toes. But I really need to get Samantha home before this storm finishes us off. The sneak, she doesn’t realize what a toll her adventures play on a mammoth like me.”

Cort grimaced at yet another pregnant wisecrack. To be fair, given the size of her burden, he’d bet his stash of banana Laffy Taffy that her twisted sense of humor was a cover-up. She might not care about the father of her baby, but she seemed to care deeply about her unborn child, even if she’d acted foolishly in coming out on a night like this.

As if reading his thoughts, she dropped her gaze to her stomach and placed a palm protectively on the mound where her child nestled. Cort found himself wanting to put his hand there, too, to feel life beneath his palm. A sudden violent wave of regret shook him. He’d never touch his own child that way.

He didn’t like being reminded of the experiences of fatherhood that he would never have. He had come to Texas to forget them. He’d prayed that God would release him from this need, that he wouldn’t be tortured forever.

Lilly moved toward the door, one hand remaining on her stomach, the other on her back, offsetting the unequal proportions.

She had moved only a couple of steps away from him when she gasped. He was beside her in a stride. “You’re hurt.”

Shaking her head, she paused again, exhaling slowly. “Relax. Please. I have these Braxton-Hicks all the time. You know, false labor contractions.” She took another sharp breath. “My doctor assures me there isn’t anything to worry about.”

“Your doctor didn’t know you were going to be used for roping practice when he told you not to worry.”

“Forget the roping. You had every right to believe I was a thief.” She gave him a quick smile. “By the way I’d like to learn that trick someday. Knowing how to use a rope like that might come in handy. Might need to catch baby Tipps. Or Samantha,” she said with a wink. “Anyway, I’m just glad you didn’t greet me with a gun. With an aim like yours I’d be singing praises to the good Lord right now.”

Cort started to speak, but she laid one hand on his arm and touched his lips with a finger from her other hand. “There isn’t anything wrong with me that my warm bed and a bit of sleep won’t cure.”

Cort forgot what he was about to say. She’d touched him. Big deal. She was tired and she was rambling, which he found endearing, despite himself. “How far a walk did that donkey put you through?”

She stepped away from him and started ambling along. “Oh, I parked at the end of your drive. It’s not far, especially when you consider that I walk two miles every day for exercise. Poor Samantha—she doesn’t mean to be so much trouble.”

What had she been thinking? She’d come out in the stormy night in her condition, searching for an animal! And here he’d been thinking about how much she cared for her child. “I hope you don’t make strolling around past midnight a habit,” he snapped, irritated at himself as well as her.

“Scared of boogeymen, Mr. Wells?”

“Boogeymen! We’re talking about being out on deserted roads alone. You’re a woman. A mother-to-be, who doesn’t have any business being out this late, much less alone in weather like this. You might be young, but you should have better sense.”

She raised her eyebrows to where they nearly touched the edge of her red knit cap, and plunked her fists on her rounded hips. “I don’t think I like your attitude.”

“My attitude? My attitude! Lady, no wonder your Mr. Tipps didn’t hang around.” He was sputtering. He never sputtered! And he couldn’t stop himself. “Anybody knows women shouldn’t walk around past midnight when a storm is brewing, especially looking for a short, fat, hairy beast. And most especially when they could give birth any moment!” Cort halted his harangue to catch his breath, only to feel another tirade building as long-pent-up anger fought for release. Snatching his hat from his head, he rammed a hand through his hair and held his tongue, biting it to keep quiet.

She studied him, then shook her head slowly. “My, my, Mr. Wells. Dare I say the gossips were correct? You are positively livid. And pink all over.”

The woman was making him crazy. He’d known her all of thirty minutes and she was making him crazy. This wasn’t like him.

“Samantha,” she called.

Cort found himself staring as she straightened her funny red cap and lifted her chin in defiance.

Cold sobering sleet belted him in the face from the open doorway. Bewildered by his reaction, he paused to gather his wits and went to survey the dangerous conditions outside his barn.

Barely hesitating, Lilly tottered past him into the fierce night.

Unbelievable! What did she think this was? An eighty-degree, midsummer night? “Hey, do you need a keeper or what?” he yelled. He never yelled. “You can’t walk in this carrying that…that baby.”

Catching up to her, he grasped her arm, saving her, he was certain, from an icy catastrophe.

Ungrateful woman that she was, she promptly rewarded him with a couple of wimpy slaps on the hand. Then, yanking away from his protecting hold, she fried him with a glare.

“Would you mind? Leave me alone,” she snapped above a burst of whistling wind.

In the faint glow of the light mounted above the riding pen her eyes flashed like the dancing flame of a match. It struck Cort like a burn that she sure looked cute when she was angry. She was spunky. And despite himself, he found he liked the life surrounding the little woman. He wondered at the heart behind that spunk.

“I am not an idiot, Mr. Wells,” she continued, snapping him back to reality. “The icy rain has just begun to fall. You should know it hasn’t had time to freeze the ground. So would you mind dropping the ‘Me Tarzan, You Jane’ routine? And by the way, this is my child. Mine alone. And there never was a Mr. Tipps—and won’t be if I have anything to do with it!”

Cort stared. Puffs of white-hot air wafted about Lilly like steam off the steamroller that had just flattened him.

“And thank you very much for once again proving my grannies right on all counts.”

“Oh, yeah?” he managed weakly, suddenly uncentered and feeling, well…feeling alive! Lilly might be pregnant. She might be outspoken, hard to handle—the list seemed to go on and on—but after a year of walking around in a stupor, he realized Lilly Tipps had brought him back to life.

Whether he was ready or not.

“Well,” she said, cutting into his spinning thoughts. Her voice was soft, deliberate. “In the words of my great-granny Shu-Shu, other than assisting in the conception of a baby, men are pert’ near useless. And otherwise too bossy to worry about.”

Later, watching the taillights of Lilly’s truck disappearing slowly in the drizzle, Cort reminded himself that it was better this way. For a minute there he’d nearly lost his head. She’d brought him back to reality with a bang. Now he realized he didn’t like her going home alone in this storm, but it wasn’t his business. She was her own woman.

It didn’t matter if that bit about men being useless rubbed him the wrong way. Did he care what she thought of men?

But she was something.
Something else.

She’d tied that crazy donkey to the back of her truck and headed out at a crawl on the two-mile trip to where her home sat at the end of the lonesome road. The real estate agent had mentioned Lilly, and how she lived a fairly solitary life. They were basically secluded and cut off from everything. Except for each other. Cort had assumed she was older, and at the time he’d been happy to know his only neighbor for miles wouldn’t bother him.

The real estate agent hadn’t mentioned anything about her being pregnant. Or, well…kooky.

He probably hadn’t wanted to scare Cort off.

Smart man. Cort would have to remember him if he ever decided to sell. Not everyone would be sharp enough to recognize a selling disadvantage in Lilly and her sidekick.

He studied the swirling sky. The full force of the storm would strike by the time she made it home. Ice pelted his face like needles. On the other hand, at the pace they were traveling the storm might have passed before they got there.

He grimaced. This was no joking matter. The weather would be a record breaker for this part of the state, for this time of year. Turning back, stiff with fatigue, nearly chilled to the bone, he headed down the drive toward the warmth of his house and the bed he’d forgotten to think about. All the while he continued to tell himself that Lilly wasn’t his responsibility, a fact she’d made clear to him. Perfectly clear.

Still, as he opened the door and strode tiredly into his kitchen, he couldn’t stop thinking of her. What if her truck broke? It didn’t look to be in great shape. What if she slipped and fell on her way into her home? Who would help her? Samantha?

That thought spurred him to turn to the window. Loser appeared from the other room, sauntered over and with a sigh dropped his shaggy head onto the windowsill.

A perpetual sigher, Loser sighed again, drawing Cort to look down at his pitiful dog. It had been a weak moment of loneliness outside the supermarket that had been Cort’s undoing. That and the cutest little brown-eyed girl trying to find a good home for the ugliest baby mutt he’d ever seen. A sap for kids, Cort had taken the pup and on a melancholy note christened the forlorn dog Loser. He shouldn’t have. It hadn’t been the poor pup’s fault Ramona had divorced Cort and left him feeling like a loser.

Reaching down, Cort scratched him between the ears with his frozen fingers. They tingled as blood started flowing and warmth seeped back into them. Loser grunted—which was more response than Cort usually got. It was Cort’s own fault. He hadn’t given the dog much to aspire to by labeling him with such a lousy name. He really should change it.

But it was a name he lived up to with pride. He enjoyed hot meals, warm beds and cool breezes on sunny afternoons. He didn’t like cold weather, loud noises or hairbrushes anywhere near his matted body. When he wasn’t sleeping, he moped around stumbling over his own ears and looking at people’s toes from beneath droopy eyelids and bushy eyebrows. The poor dog had mountains to overcome if he were ever to drag himself out of the pit of self-pity shrouding him. A state of being not unlike Cort’s own.

In part, this move to west Texas had been Cort’s step in the right direction. At least he was moving on with life by realizing what he couldn’t have and making a new start with what he had. And most important, he had God’s grace. Cort knew God’s grace was sufficient to overcome the grief consuming him. But to have lost his wife and any children he’d hoped to father… He rammed a hand through his hair. He needed time to come to terms with such an incomprehensible loss. He loved the Lord, had walked every mile for the past fifteen years with a strong unfailing faith. But this wasn’t something he could just move on from and pretend never happened. Lately, even trusting the Lord was a struggle. He felt as if part of him was lost forever. The Bible said there was a time to mourn and a time to dance. He wasn’t ready to dance. Didn’t know if he ever would be.

And he for certain didn’t need a neighbor who represented everything he couldn’t have. Everything he’d lost.

“We’ve got problems, old boy,” he said to Loser. “I heard you barking. I had to think twice to realize it was you, but you knew I was in trouble up to my eyebrows. Didn’t you?” Loser shifted his chin’s position on the windowsill and his tail flopped halfheartedly. This, too, was more than usual. Cort reached to scratch behind Loser’s ear.

“You’re feeling kinda spry, aren’t you? I see that tail a-wagging. You keep this perky attitude and I might have to change your name.” Loser’s shoulders heaved with another sigh as he returned his gaze to the storm. Cort’s gaze followed the animal’s and his thoughts returned to Lilly.