The Littlest Cowboy (7 page)

“You mind handin’ me that towel over there, Chelsea? I think I’m wetter than Bubba.”

She blinked, gave her head a shake, then followed his gaze to the stack of towels on the washstand. She reached for one, handed it to him.

“Thanks.” One-handed, he wiped his face and chest dry, then scooped the baby out of the tub and wrapped him up in another big, fluffy towel. The way he held Ethan, the way he cuddled him close…“Do me a favor and take it from here, Chelsea? I need some dry clothes, and then I ought to head out to check on that calf.”

Her eyes burned and her throat closed too tightly for words to emerge as Garrett gently placed her sister’s child into her arms.

“All his things are in that bag next to the cradle. You need anything, just step out onto the front porch and holler.”

She nodded, but mutely. She couldn’t take her eyes from the baby. Garrett turned and walked away, leaving her alone with Ethan. She came as close to crying as she had since her mother died. No tears spilled over, but she felt them burning her eyes. Felt that choking sensation, the spasms in her chest.

“Ethan,” she murmured, and she hugged him close, felt his little fingers twisting and tugging at her hair, smelled him. The little angel. The only family she had left. The best thing Michele had ever done in her short, misery-ridden life. God, how Michele must have loved this baby! “I’ll take care of him,” she whispered, praying somehow her sister could hear her and finally be at peace.

She carried the baby back into his room, walked to the wide, arching window and parted the curtains to stare out at the red-orange sky.

“It’s all right now, Michele. I’ll take care of him, I swear I will. I’ll give him…I’ll give him the things we didn’t have.”

Her voice trembled as she spoke, but she went on, feeling she needed to. She had to reassure her sister as well as herself. She had to speak the promise aloud to make it real, make it solid and attainable.

“He’ll have a house, Michele. With a yard and room to grow. And…and he’ll have a family. I’ll love him so much…you’ll see. And I’ll never, ever hit him, Michele. No one will, I promise you that. He won’t have to hide his bruises before he goes off to school, the way we did. I swear it. I’ll protect him with my life. His grandfather will never even know he exists. And if his father tries to take him from me, Michele, I’ll fight him to the death. I will. He’s not going to grow up to be like them. He’ll be…he’ll be our son, Michele. Yours and mine. I’ll tell him about you. I’ll make sure he never forgets his mother.”

Ethan’s hand tugged at Chelsea’s hair, and she smiled and hugged him again.

J
essi wiped the single tear from her cheek and tiptoed quietly back down the hall to her own room. Maybe…maybe she’d been a little hard on that strange city woman. She tried to imagine what her reaction would have been if their situations were reversed. If it had been one of her own precious brothers who’d been killed, and if she’d been convinced of who’d done it. Hell, she’d have been far rougher on the suspect than Chelsea Brennan had been on Garrett. She’d have probably shot first and asked questions later. And that would have been a crying shame, because Jessi never missed what she shot at.

Two things were for sure. Chelsea had loved her sister. And she loved little Ethan. And those were two things Jessi could fully understand.

That other stuff she’d overheard Chelsea talking about…about never hitting, and about hiding bruises…that stuff worried her. She decided to repeat the entire, one-sided conversation to Garrett just as soon as he came back inside.

Meanwhile, it was her turn to clean up the breakfast dishes.

G
arrett was more than a little put out to find that none of his normally well-mannered siblings had bothered to bring Chelsea Brennan’s luggage in from her car. It was pushing nine a.m. by the time he’d finished checking on the wounded calf, returned it to its mamma and ridden the fence lines, checking on the cattle as he did every morning and again every night. The two hours it took to cover the pastures did him as much good as it did the cattle, he thought. It relaxed him.

This morning, he’d only found one minor problem. Some brush had blown into the wire, shorting out the electric fence and leaving a portion vulnerable. Fortunately, the cows hadn’t figured it out yet. Fat, happy Herefords stood around chewing grass and eyeing him while he cut the brush away and tested the fence.

When he and Duke galloped toward the barns again, Garrett saw Chelsea. She sat in the porch swing, Bubba in her arms. And she was still wearing Jessi’s pink robe.

The picture she made there struck him hard for some reason, and he drew Duke to a stop and just sat there, not quite sure why or what to do next. Duke needed some oats and a good rundown. But his unwilling houseguest was obviously being neglected.

Good manners prevailed, as they generally did with Garrett. He touched his heels to Duke’s flanks and turned the horse toward the house. Stopping at the front porch, he slid easily to the ground and took a second to loop the reins around the hitching rail even though it was unnecessary. Duke wouldn’t stray. In truth, he needed a minute to shake off the odd feeling the sight of her and Ethan sitting there in that porch swing–almost as if they were waiting for him–had caused in his gut. Like indigestion, only worse. He glanced around, looking everywhere but at her. Wes crouched near the gate to the horse pasture, tinkering with that loose hinge. Elliot held the thing in place for him as he worked. Both, though, were watching Garrett and Chelsea. Garrett saw the sneaky glances, the narrowed eyes.

His brothers didn’t like Miss Chelsea Brennan very much, he deduced. And they trusted her even less.

“So, how’s the calf?” she asked

Garrett brought his head around fast. Was that an attempt at civil conversation? Or was she just gearing up to make some nasty remark?

“Out in the pasture with his mamma. He’ll be fine.”

“Barbed wire is cruel,” she observed, and though her voice was deep and soft, he heard the acid in her tone. “It ought to be illegal.”

Garrett narrowed his eyes at her and tried not to notice the swell of her breasts peeking out at him from where the robe’s neckline took a swan dive. “We’ve replaced it with smooth wire for that very reason. The piece that calf found was left over from days gone by. Grass had grown over it, so we must have missed it when we were clearing out the old fences.”

And just why the hell was he explaining himself to her?

“Electric shock therapy for cows,” she decreed with all the pomposity of a haughty despot, “is just as bad.’’

“I have to disagree with you there, ma’am. The voltage is real low, and once they get bit on the nose, they tend to stay away from it.”

She sniffed and looked away from him.

“It’s better than letting them wander off and get lost,” Garrett persisted. “Even a city girl ought to have sense enough to see that much.”

She slanted him a glance that stung worse than any electric fence he’d ever accidentally grabbed hold of.

Garrett shifted his stance, regretting his hostile response. If he wanted to help Bubba, he couldn’t go making this woman his enemy. He had to try to cozy up to her, keep her here until he figured out what to do. Okay, time to start over again. He cleared his throat. “I was thinking–”

“Did it hurt much?”

Garrett clenched his jaw. Cozying up to the hellcat wasn’t going to be an easy task. “I was thinking,” he began again, “you might want to drive into town with me.”

“And why would I want to do that?”

“April first was a weekday. I ought to have something at the office to prove I wasn’t in New York City.”

“So make me a copy.”

She was one ornery creature! “And have you accuse me of doctoring it up to cover my tracks?”

She met his eyes, and he felt heat. Only it wasn’t from anger. And it had nothing to do with the sun already blazing down from the wide Texas sky. This heat was searing and electric. It sort of rushed up from his toes and made him a little bit dizzy. He had to look away first.

“What about Ethan?” she finally asked.

The screen door creaked, and Jessi stepped out onto the porch, wiping her hands on a checkered dish towel. “I’ll take care of Ethan.”

Garrett nodded, but Chelsea turned a wary gaze on his little sister.

“Don’t do me any favors,” Chelsea said.

Jessi had never had what Garrett would call tolerance. Her temper flared quicker than a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Hotter, too.

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t offering. I’ll watch him for my brother. For you, I wouldn’t cross the road, and if you think I–” Jessi stopped suddenly and bit her lower lip.

Garrett was perplexed. He’d never seen Jessi cut herself off in mid-tirade before.

Jessi shook her head, took a deep breath. “Sorry.”

Sorry?

“Truth is, I just adore little Ethan. I’d love to take care of him this morning.”

Garrett almost fell down in shock, and a quick glance at Chelsea’s puckered brow told him she was as surprised as he was.

Chelsea waited a moment and finally nodded. “All right, then. I’ll need a few minutes.”

Jessi came forward and took the baby from Chelsea’s arms. She propped him on her slender hip. “You can use the shower in my room if you want.”

Chelsea’s eyes narrowed, but she nodded, got to her feet and walked into the house without another word.

Garrett tilted his head, fixing his baby sister with a questioning glance. “Why the change of heart, Jes?”

Jessi looked through the screen door into the house, and Garrett sensed she was waiting until Chelsea had moved out of earshot to answer him. When she finally turned back to him, she looked worried.

“Jes?”

She pressed her cheek to the baby’s. “Garrett, I think somebody’s hurt that woman. I think somebody’s hurt her bad.”

Garrett frowned. “Course she’s hurt. She just lost her sister.”

Jessi shook her head. “No, Garrett. I mean
really hurt
her. Physically.”

Her meaning became clear, and Garrett felt a dark cloud settle right over his soul. A thundercloud. “Maybe you’d better tell me about it.”

H
e kept looking at her. Not
just
looking, though. He kept searching her face as if trying to see something there, and it was making Chelsea damned uncomfortable.

She rode beside him in the oversize pickup truck, over dusty roads and finally paved ones, into the small town of Quinn. The truck was big. One of those kinds that needed two sets of wheels in the back just to push it along. Seemed everything about Garrett Brand was big. His home, his truck. Even his speckled horse had been huge. Then again, she supposed it would have to be to support a man of his size.

He pulled to a stop in front of an adobe-like structure with no curtains in the windows and a sign over the door that read Sheriff’s Office.

“Here we are.”

He got out and came around as if to open her door for her. She beat him to it. But then he took her arm to help her out, getting the best of her anyway.

Chelsea stepped out, stumbling a little because of her heels and the long reach to the ground. Garrett’s big hands circled her waist surely and firmly, and he lifted her right up off her feet, setting her down again on the small stretch of sidewalk in front of the building.

But his hands remained for a second or two, even after her feet touched the ground. She felt every one of those fingers pressing into her flesh. The warmth of them seeped right through her silk suit.

His sigh made her look up to see him shaking his head slowly.

“What?”

His hands still hadn’t moved away.

“I…” He looked down, took his hands away. “I’m just not used to handling tiny things,” he said, and he looked embarrassed. “Like Ethan, and now you.”

Her throat went dry. She didn’t know how the hell to reply to a comment like that, so she said nothing. Garrett finally turned away and headed for the door. He used a set of keys she hadn’t noticed to unlock it, then pushed it open and stood aside, waiting for her to go first.