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The Rancher And The Baby
Marie Ferrarella
WRANGLIN' WITH THE RANCHER?Cassidy McCullough can't remember a time when rancher Will Laredo wasn't a huge (albeit handsome) pain in her backside. In this small Texan town, their bickering is almost legendary. When they rescue a baby during a flash flood, however, Will and Cassidy suddenly find themselves temporary guardians of a child...together.Will has a hard time holstering his temper around Cassidy. Now they're both responsible for a lost baby, and darned if they can't stop arguing. The only way to make it through is to declare a cease-fire. And Lord help them both if that happens…because then Will might just discover he's falling for his enemy.


WRANGLIN’ WITH THE RANCHER?
Cassidy McCullough can’t remember a time when rancher Will Laredo wasn’t a huge (albeit handsome) pain in her backside. In this small Texan town, their bickering is almost legendary. When they rescue a baby during a flash flood, however, Will and Cassidy suddenly find themselves temporary guardians of a child…together.
Will has a hard time holstering his temper around Cassidy. Now they’re both responsible for a lost baby, and darned if they can’t stop arguing. The only way to make it through is to declare a cease-fire. And Lord help them both if that happens…because then Will might just discover he’s falling for his enemy.
“Stop being so agreeable… That’s not like you.”
That damn sexy smile of Will’s was back.
“Maybe it is,” he contradicted.
She didn’t like these new rules. “You’re just messing with my mind,” Cassidy accused.
Will inclined his head. “If you say so.”
She clenched her hands in her lap, curling her fingernails into her palms. She was doing what she could in order to ground herself.
His smile told her that he was enjoying this, enjoying getting under her skin, getting in the last word, because, she reminded herself, that was the way Will Laredo was built. You can’t change the spots on a leopard, she insisted. Even a leopard with a very sexy smile.
Especially a leopard with a very sexy smile.
The Rancher and the Baby
Marie Ferrarella


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
MARIE FERRARELLA is a USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award–winning author who has written more than two hundred and fifty books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, marieferrarella.com (http://www.marieferrarella.com).
To
Michael & Mark,
who were once my
younger brothers,
but through the
miracle of creative math,
are now my
older brothers
Contents
Cover (#ue169342e-ae97-5c2e-ad3e-98fbf8b49ba3)
Back Cover Text (#u1ad22256-bfbc-5624-a668-cb16e8a39f87)
Introduction (#ucab2ce51-b988-5418-a4a5-fbcdbc630fc2)
Title Page (#u6f77fe64-cd34-56d4-ae84-59dfa21a1702)
About the Author (#u2f869d17-b22d-54ac-838a-7f22c9072e56)
Dedication (#u0fdcadc6-fa33-592e-8ec3-47e6bb8fc934)
Prologue (#ud5b15f10-7da7-5e2f-ab60-47913e7aa8f7)
Chapter One (#u7772e101-98f6-519f-bdc8-982e6b314b85)
Chapter Two (#u742195a5-e45c-5ec2-92de-52105fdceafe)
Chapter Three (#u2539a391-a9a2-5ac0-a17b-411d62b1b2db)
Chapter Four (#u1bd46a16-eefd-5ee8-9480-d72ee876faf1)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#uc2df5cce-d16c-578b-b10f-3fd1cae7cf4e)
“Mind if I cut in?”
Instantly pulled out of her mental wanderings—a defense mechanism she employed when whoever she was with was boring her out of her mind—Cassidy McCullough looked up, focusing on the man who had just tapped her dance partner’s shoulder.
Not that she really needed to.
Despite the fact that he had been absent from Forever for the better part of four years, she would have recognized that voice anywhere.
It popped up in her nightmares.
Will Laredo.
Will had been her brothers’ friend for as far back as she could remember—until his estrangement with his father had taken him to parts unknown, simultaneously bringing peace to her own corner of the world.
As she looked back, it felt as if her peace had been far too short-lived. Especially since, for reasons that were beyond her understanding, all three of her brothers liked this six-foot-one-inch, dirty-blond-haired irritant on two legs—which was why Cody had not only invited him to his wedding, he’d made Will one of his groomsmen.
To her surprise, Ron Jenkins, her fawning partner on the dance floor, seemed all too ready to acquiesce to Laredo’s casual query. Under normal circumstances, she would have celebrated getting a different partner—but not this time.
Ron might be willing, Cassidy thought, but she damn well wasn’t.
“He might not mind,” Cassidy retorted defiantly, “but I do.”
Rather than taking his cue and backing away, Will remained exactly where he was. Not only that, but his mouth curved in that annoying, smug way of his that she had always hated.
“Your brothers seemed to think I should dance with you.”
“Maybe you should dance with one of them since they all seem to be so keen on the subject of dancing,” Cassidy informed him.
Looking increasingly more uncomfortable, Ron seemed ready to fade into the shadows. “No, really, it’s all right,” he assured both her and Will nervously. A slight man, he appeared more than ready to surrender his claim to her.
Cassidy’s eyes narrowed as she froze her partner in place. “You stop dancing with me, Ron Jenkins,” she warned the man, “and it’ll be the last thing you’ll ever remember doing.”
Rather than slow down, Cassidy sped up her tempo.
Instead of being annoyed or embarrassed at this obvious rejection, Will laughed. “You’d better do as she says, Ron. Most men around here would sooner cross an angry rattlesnake than Cassidy. I hear that her bite is a lot more deadly.”
Struggling to hold on to her temper, Cassidy tossed her head. Several blond strands came loose and cascaded to her shoulders. She ignored them.
“If I were you, Laredo, I’d keep that in mind the next time you think about cutting in,” she informed him, her eyes blazing.
Will inclined his head, the same amused smile slowly curving his lips. “There’s not going to be a next time,” he assured her.
Cassidy turned her face up to her partner’s and said in a voice intentionally loud enough for Will to overhear, “Dance me by the champagne table, Ron. Now I’ve got something else to celebrate besides my brother Cody’s wedding.”
“I would,” Ron told her dryly, “if you’d let me lead for a change.”
Cassidy could have sworn she heard Will laughing in the background.
She wasn’t going to cause a scene, she promised herself. Not here. This was the first wedding in the family, and it was Cody’s day. But the moment it was over, she was going to find out which of her three brothers had put Will Laredo up to this, and they were going to pay dearly for it. They knew how she felt about him.
She’d been incensed when she found out that Cody had gotten in contact with Will and asked if he would come and be in his wedding party. When he’d told her about it, she’d almost withdrawn herself, but Connor had talked her out of it, appealing to her sense of family.
“Cassidy,” Ron said, raising his voice.
She realized by the look on the man’s face that this was not the first time that Ron had tried to get her attention.
“What?” she snapped, then cleared her throat and repeated the word in a more subdued tone—silently damning Laredo. The man had the ability of messing with her mind and ruining any moment just by his being there. “What? Am I leading again?”
“I don’t care about that,” Ron said, which told her that she was guilty of doing just that. Again.
“Then what?” she asked.
“You’re crushing my hand.” He looked positively pained.
Embarrassed, as well as annoyed, Cassidy released Jenkins’s hand. A more accurate description would have been that she threw it aside and out of her grasp.
To the casual observer from across the floor, had Ron’s hand been detached, it would have most likely bounced on the floor and gotten wedged somewhere.
“Man up,” she ordered Ron through gritted teeth and then walked away from him just as the band began to play another song.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Laredo shaking his head. He made no effort to hide the fact that he was observing her. She felt herself growing angry. Had they not been at her brother’s wedding, she would have marched right up to him and demanded to know just what he thought he was shaking his head at.
But they were at Cody’s wedding, so she couldn’t cause a scene, couldn’t hold Will accountable or wipe that smug look off his pretty-boy face. It wouldn’t look right for the maid of honor to deck one of the groomsmen at her own brother’s wedding.
That didn’t change the fact that she really wanted to.
Cassidy squared her shoulders and went to get a glass of punch.
Hang in there, she told herself. Come tomorrow, Will Laredo was leaving Forever, going back to wherever it was that he disappeared to when he’d initially left. And then life would go back to being bearable again.
Twelve more hours, she thought. Just twelve more hours.
It felt like an eternity.
Chapter One (#uc2df5cce-d16c-578b-b10f-3fd1cae7cf4e)
Noise had never been a distraction for Olivia Blayne Santiago. She had learned how to effectively tune it out long before her law school days.
Rain, however, was another matter.
While noise, from whatever source, had always been an ongoing part of her day-to-day life and as such could be filed away in the recesses of her mind and matched later to an entire catalog of different sounds, rain demanded immediate attention.
Because rain in this part of Texas could sometimes come under the heading of being a life-or-death matter.
As the first lawyer to open a practice in Forever, Texas—a practice she now ran jointly with Cash Taylor with an eye out for further expansion—Olivia put in rather long hours. This despite the fact that she was married to the town sheriff and had a young, growing family. Between them, she and Cash handled all the legal concerns for the residents of Forever, be those concerns large or small. For the most part, Olivia could do that in her sleep.
But rain was something that always made Olivia pause, especially when it seemed to give no indication of stopping. What that meant was that a downpour could turn into a flash flood—often without any warning.
Olivia had learned to be leery of the sound of rain on her roof. It had been raining since early morning and gave no sign of stopping.
“This storm looks like it’s going to be a bad one,” she commented, looking at Cassidy.
Cassidy McCullough had been interning at the law firm for close to four months now, and she saw a great deal of herself in the young woman. Granted she was the firstborn in her family while Cassidy was the last, but Cassidy possessed a spark, a drive to become someone. She wasn’t one to just allow herself to float along through life, enjoying each day but never having any sort of an ultimate game plan other than making it through to the end of another week. A go-getter, Cassidy was working for her as an intern even as she was taking online courses at night to complete her postgraduate degree.
They had instantly hit it off, and Olivia had taken an interest in Cassidy from the first day she had walked into the law office.
Since Cassidy hadn’t said anything in response to her comment, Olivia raised her voice to get the young woman’s attention. “Why don’t you call it a day and go home?” she suggested.
Stationed at a small desk in the corner of Olivia’s office—a desk that was piled high with stacks of paper—Cassidy glanced up from the report she’d been compiling since she’d come in that morning.
Her brow furrowed slightly as she replayed Olivia’s words in her head.
“I can’t leave now. I’m not anywhere near finished with this.” It wasn’t something she would have normally advertised since she took pride in being fast as well as thorough, but if Olivia was considering sending her home, it was something the lawyer needed to know.
Olivia listened again to the rain as it hit the windows. Was it her imagination, or had the rain gotten even more pronounced in the last five minutes? If it got any worse, she wondered if the windows could withstand it.
“If you don’t leave now,” Olivia warned her, “you may have to sleep on that desk, and I promise that you won’t find it very comfortable.”
“Why?” Cassidy asked, puzzled. “I mean, I can see why the desk wouldn’t be comfortable, but why would I have to sleep on it if I went on working?” She glanced at her watch. “It’s not late.”
“It’s later than you think,” Olivia responded, then looked at the younger woman seriously. “Don’t you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Cassidy asked uncertainly, scanning the room.
“That.” Olivia pointed toward the window when she saw she wasn’t getting through to her intern. “The rain,” she added for good measure just in case she wasn’t making herself clear.
Enlightened, Cassidy nodded. “Oh, that. Of course I hear the rain,” she acknowledged. As far as she was concerned, a storm was no big deal. There was always going to be another one. “It was raining when I came in this morning.”
“Not like this,” Olivia insisted. “This sounds like it’s only going to get worse, and you know what that could mean.”
Cassidy nodded. “Yeah. Connor’s going to be stomping around the ranch house, muttering that he can’t do any of his work because it’s raining too hard.”
Olivia shook her head. Her intern was misreading the situation. “I think you should go home,” she said.
Cassidy still saw no need for her evacuation. “To watch Connor stomping around?”
“No, to keep from being washed away,” Olivia insisted. “You should know better than I do just how quick these flash floods can hit.”
“I know,” Cassidy agreed, “but there hasn’t been one in a couple of years and even that one was over before it practically started.” She waved away what she felt was Olivia’s needless concern. “Besides, I can take care of myself.”
Olivia sighed as she rolled her eyes. “Lord, did you ever pick the right profession. Someday, you are going to make one hell of a lawyer, but in order to do that, Cassidy, you’re going to need to stay alive. Now, I might not be a native to this area, but I’ve seen what a flash flood can do—”
“I can swim,” Cassidy insisted stubbornly.
“All well and good,” Olivia replied patiently as she began to pack up some things on her desk, “but your truck can’t. Now, I’m not going to spend the next hour arguing with you. I’m your boss and what I say goes. So now hear this—go home.”
Cassidy retired her pen and the stack of papers she’d been going through with a sigh. “Okay, like you said, you’re the boss.”
Olivia smiled at her. “Yes, and I’ve been arguing a lot longer than you have. Although, given what your brother said to me at the wedding a few weeks ago, you were born arguing.”
Cassidy paused to give her boss a penetrating look. “Which brother was that?” she asked conversationally.
Olivia wasn’t being taken in for a moment. Finished packing her briefcase, she snapped the locks into place. Behind her, the wind and rain were rattling the window. “I never reveal my sources.”
“Isn’t that what a journalist usually says?”
“Where do you think they got it from?” Olivia asked with a smug smile. Packed, she rose from her chair. “I’m not sure if my kids can recognize me in the daylight. Although...” She glanced out the window again. The world outside the small, one-story building that housed her law firm had suddenly become shrouded in darkness. “There’s not all that much daylight to be had, and it’s getting scarcer by the minute.”
Raising her voice, Olivia called out to her partner. “Cash, we’re locking up.”
The words were no sooner out of her mouth than the lights overhead went out.
“None too soon, if you ask me,” Cash Taylor commented, poking his head into the office. “Is it just us,” he asked, flipping the light switch off and on with no change in illumination, “or do you think the whole town’s lost power?”
“Lord, I hope not,” Olivia commented with feeling. “The only thing worse than cooking over a hot stove is not having a hot stove to cook over.”
“You have a fireplace, don’t you?” Cassidy asked as she gathered a selected stack of papers together so she could review them that evening.
As far as Olivia was concerned, a fireplace was good for one thing and one thing only. “Yes, but that’s for cuddling in front of with my husband after the kids are asleep in bed.”
Cassidy grinned at this human glimpse into her boss’s life. “In a pinch, it can also be used for cooking dinner as long as you’re not trying to make anything too elaborate.”
“Elaborate?” Olivia echoed. “I’d just settle for it being passably edible.”
Now that she thought of it, Olivia had never made any reference to a meal she’d taken pride in preparing. The woman’s talents clearly lay in another direction.
“Maybe you should stop at Miss Joan’s on your way home,” Cassidy suggested tactfully.
Cash seconded the suggestion. “It’ll give my stepgrandmother something to talk about.”
“No offense, Cash, and I obviously haven’t known her nearly as long as either one of you have, but I’ve never known Miss Joan to ever be in need for something to talk about. She’s everybody’s go-to person when it comes to getting the latest information about absolutely everything.”
There was a sudden flash of lightning followed almost immediately by an ominous crack of thunder, causing all of them to involuntarily glance up.
“Well, if we don’t all get a move on, this rain just might turn nasty enough to give everybody something to talk about—provided they’re able to talk and aren’t under five feet of water,” Cash observed.
With one hand at each of their backs, Cash ushered the two women out of the main office and toward the front door.
The moment she opened the front door, Olivia knew that she’d made the right call to have them leave early. The rain was coming down relentlessly.
It was the kind of rain that placed raising an umbrella against the downpour in the same category as tilting at windmills. Olivia turned up the hood on her raincoat. Cash did the same with his jacket. Cassidy had come in wearing her Stetson, a high school graduation gift from her oldest brother, Connor. She held on to it with one hand while pressing her shoulder bag with its newly packed contents against her with the other.
Locking up, Olivia turned away from the door. She was having second thoughts about her estimation of the rain’s ferocity.
“Maybe you should come stay at our place,” she suggested to Cassidy.
“And interfere with your plans for the fireplace? I wouldn’t dream of it,” Cassidy responded with a grin. “I’ll be fine. See you in the morning, boss.”
The rain seemed to only grow fiercer, coming down at an angle and lashing at anyone brave enough to venture out of their shelter.
Taking two steps toward her vehicle, Olivia turned toward her intern. “Last chance!” she called out to Cassidy.
Rather than answer her, Cassidy just waved her hand overhead as she made a dash for her four-by-four. Reaching it, she climbed in behind the wheel and pulled the door closed behind her.
Utterly soaked, Cassidy sat for a moment, listening to the rain pounding on the roof of her vehicle. This really was pretty bad, she silently acknowledged. Half of her expected to see an ark floating by with an old man at its helm, surrounded by two of everything.
Well, she couldn’t just sit here, she told herself. She needed to get home. Pulling the seat-belt strap up and over her shoulder, she tucked the metal tongue into the slot.
“I better get going before Connor and Cole come out looking for me,” she murmured. Connor got antsy when he didn’t have anything to do.
Starting her vehicle, Cassidy turned on her lights and put the manual transmission into Drive before she turned on the radio.
Apparently music wasn’t going to be on the agenda that afternoon, Cassidy realized with a sigh. The reception was intermittent at best—and hardly that for the most part. When a high-pitch squawk replaced the song that kept fading in and out, Cassidy gave up and shut off the radio.
With the rain coming down even harder, she turned the windshield wipers up to their highest setting. The blades all but groaned as they slapped against the glass, fighting what was turning out to be a losing battle against the rain.
Exercising caution—something, to hear them talk, that all three of her brothers seemed to believe she didn’t possess—Cassidy reduced her speed to fifteen miles an hour.
Three miles out of town, her visibility went from poor to next to nonexistent.
At this rate, it would take her forever to get home, and the rain was just getting worse. She needed to hole up someplace until the rain subsided. Remembering an old, empty cabin she and the others used to play in as kids, Cassidy decided that it might be prudent to seek at least temporary shelter there until the worst of the rain let up.
The cabin was less than half a mile away.
If the rain didn’t let up, she thought when the cabin finally came into view, then she would be stuck there for the duration of this downpour with nothing to eat except for the half consumed candy bar she had shoved into her bag.
Her stomach growled, reminding her that she had skipped lunch.
Leaning forward in her seat, she looked up at the sky—or what she could make out of it.
“C’mon, let up,” she coaxed. “The forecast specifically said ‘rain.’ It didn’t say a word about ‘floods’ or the end of the world.”
Cassidy sighed again, even louder this time. She held on to the steering wheel tightly as she struggled to keep her vehicle from veering off the trail. Ordinarily, veering off wouldn’t have been a big deal, but just as Olivia had predicted, the rain had become ferocious, turning what was normally a tiny creek into a rapidly flowing river.
One wrong turn on her part, and her truck would be in that river.
And then, just when it seemed to be at its very worst, the rain began to let up, going from what had all the characteristics of becoming a full-blown monsoon to just a regular fierce downpour. Even so, Cassidy knew she needed to get her truck onto higher ground before she found herself suddenly stuck and unable to drive—or worse.
The cabin was still her best bet. From what she remembered—and she really hadn’t paid all that much attention to this aspect when she was a kid—the cabin was on high ground.
Most likely not high enough to enable her to get a signal for her cell phone, she thought darkly. What that meant was that she wouldn’t be able to call Connor to assure him that she was all right. As much as she talked about being independent and being able to take care of herself, she didn’t like doing that to her big brother. Connor had been both mother and father to the rest of them for the last ten years. What that had entailed was giving up his own dreams of a college education and a subsequent career. He’d done it in order to become their guardian when their father died three days after Connor had turned eighteen.
While she was grateful to Connor for everything he had done and appreciated the fact that he cared about her and the others, she was equally convinced that Connor needed a family of his own—a wife and at least a couple of kids, if not more—to care for and to worry about.
About to turn her truck in order to get it to higher ground, Cassidy thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye. It was bobbing up and down in the swollen water.
She thought it was rectangular—and pink.
You’re losing your mind, Cassidy silently lectured herself.
The next second, her body went rigid as she heard something.
She couldn’t have just heard—
No, that was just her imagination, getting the better of her. That was probably just some animal making that sound. It couldn’t have been—
A baby!
“Damn it,” Cassidy bit out, “that couldn’t be—” And yet, she really thought she heard a baby crying.
You’re really letting your imagination run away with you, she silently lectured.
Even though she was convinced she was wrong, Cassidy knew she couldn’t just shrug it off. She had to look again—just in case.
It wasn’t safe to turn the truck on a saturated road. Cassidy did the only thing she could in order to give herself peace of mind.
She threw her truck into Reverse.
Driving backward as carefully as she was able, she watched the road to see if she could catch sight of the bobbing pink whatever-it-was.
And then, her eyes glued to her rearview mirror, Cassidy saw it.
She wasn’t crazy; there was something bobbing up and down in the water. Something rectangular and, from what she could make out, it appeared to be plastic. A plastic tub was caught up in the rushing waters and, for some reason that seemed to defy all logic, it was still upright and afloat.
If that wasn’t miraculous enough, Cassidy could have sworn that the baby she’d thought she’d heard was in the bobbing pink rectangular plastic tub.
With the truck still in Reverse, Cassidy stepped on the gas pedal, pushing it as far down as she dared and prayed.
Prayed harder than she ever had before.
Chapter Two (#uc2df5cce-d16c-578b-b10f-3fd1cae7cf4e)
The rear of Cassidy’s truck fishtailed, and for one long, heart-stopping moment, she thought the truck was going to slide straight down into the rushing floodwater.
Everything was happening at a blinding speed.
Cassidy wasn’t sure just how she managed it, but somehow she kept the truck on solid ground. Not only that, but with her heart in her throat, she backed up the vehicle far enough so that it was slightly ahead of the approaching bobbing tub—all this while the four-by-four was facing backward.
She knew what she had to do.
If Cassidy had had time to think it through, she would have seen at least half a dozen ways that this venture she was about to undertake could end badly.
But there wasn’t any time to think, there was only time to react.
Throwing open the door on the driver’s side, Cassidy jumped out of the truck and hit the ground running—as well as sliding. The ground beneath her boots was incredibly slippery.
The rain was no longer coming down in blinding sheets. Although it was still raining hard, she barely noticed it. All she noticed, all she saw, was the crying baby in the plastic tub. And all she knew was that if she couldn’t reach it in time, the baby would drown.
It still might.
They very well could both drown, but Cassidy knew she had to do something, had to at least try to save the baby. Otherwise, if she played it safe, if she did nothing at all, she would never be able to live with herself. Choosing her own safety over the life of another—especially if that life belonged to a baby—was totally unacceptable to her.
Cassidy wasn’t even aware of the fact that as she rushed to the water’s edge and dove in, she yelled. Yelled at the top of her lungs the way she had when she and her brothers would engage in the all-too-dangerous, mindlessly death-defying games they used to play as children. The one that came to her mind as she dove was when they would catapult from a makeshift swing—composed of a rope looped around a tree branch—into the river below. Then the ear-piercing noise had been the product of a combination of released adrenaline and fearlessness. What prompted her to yell now as she dove into the water was the unconscious hope that she could survive this venture the way she had survived the ones in her childhood. Then she had been competing with her brothers—and Laredo. Now she was competing against the laws of nature and praying that she would win just one more time.
The water was strangely warm—or maybe it was that she was just totally numb to the cold. She only had one focus. Her eyes were trained on the plastic tub and its passenger as she fought the rushing water to cut the distance between her and the screaming baby.
The harder she swam, the farther away she felt the tub was getting.
Keeping her head above the water, Cassidy let loose with another piercing yell and filled her lungs with as much air as she could, hoping that somehow that would help keep her alive and magically propel her to the baby. There was absolutely no logical way it could help; she only knew that somehow it had to.
* * *
WILL LAREDO HAD no idea what he was doing out here. Ordinarily he wasn’t given to following through on dumb ideas, and this was definitely a lapse on his part. For all he knew, the colt he was looking for could have found his way back to the stable and was there now, dry and safe, while he was out here on something that could only be called a fool’s errand.
It was just that when that bolt of lightning had streaked across the sky and then thunder had crashed practically right over the stable less than a minute later, it caused Britches to charge right out of the stable and through the open field as if the devil himself was after him.
Seeing the colt flee, Will ran to his truck and took out after it as if he had no choice.
Will knew it was stupid, but he felt a special connection to the sleek black colt. Britches had been born shortly after he’d returned to take over his late father’s ranch, and he’d felt that if he lost the colt, somehow, symbolically, that meant he was going to lose the ranch—and wind up being the ne’er-do-well his father had always claimed he was destined to be.
It was asinine to let that goad him into coming out here, searching for the colt, when the weather conditions made it utterly impossible to follow the animal’s trail. Any hoofprints had been washed away the second they were made.
Hell, if he didn’t turn around right now, he would wind up being washed away, as well.
His best bet was to take shelter until the worst of this passed. These sorts of storms almost always came out of nowhere, raged for a short amount of time, did their damage and then just disappeared as if they’d never existed.
But right now, he was wetter than he could remember being in a very long time and he wanted to—
Suddenly, he snapped to attention. “What the hell was that?”
The yell he thought he heard instantly propelled him back over a decade and a half, to a time when estrangement and spirit-breaking responsibilities hadn’t entered his life yet. A time when the company of friends was enough to ease the torment of belittling words voiced by a father who was too angry at the hand that life had dealt him to realize that he was driving away the only thing he did have.
There it was again!
Will hit the brakes with as much pressure as he dared, knowing the danger of slamming down too hard. He didn’t feel like being forced to fish his truck out of this newly created rushing river. Opening the door, he strained to hear the sound that had caused him to stop his truck in the first place.
He waited in vain.
The howl of the wind mocked him.
He was hearing things.
“You don’t belong out here anymore, Laredo,” he said, upbraiding himself. “What the hell are you trying to prove by going out looking for a colt that probably has more sense than you do? Go home before you drown out here like some damn brainless turkey staring up at the sky during a downpour.”
Disgusted as well as frustrated, Will leaned out to grab hold of the door handle—the wind had pushed the door out as far as it would go. Just as he began to pull it toward him, he heard it for a third time.
That same yell.
“Damn it, I’m not hearing things,” he swore, arguing with himself.
Getting out of the truck, he squinted against the rain and looked out at the rushing water. Yesterday, this entire length of wet land hardly contained enough water to qualified being called a creek; now it was on its way to becoming a full-fledged raging river.
Will’s square jaw dropped as he realized that he wasn’t looking at debris being swept away in the center of the rushing water. It was some sort of washtub, a washtub with what looked to be a doll in it.
That wasn’t a doll; that was a baby!
He was already running to the water’s edge when his field of vision widened and he saw her. Saw that Cassidy was fighting against the current and was desperately trying to reach the baby.
It hit him like a punch in his gut.
That was what he’d heard!
He’d heard Cassidy screaming out that yell, the one that Cole had come up with so many summers ago. It had something to do with making them band together, giving them the strength of five instead of just one. They’d been kids then.
She wasn’t a kid anymore and there were all sorts of things he wanted to yell at her now, all of them ultimately boiling down to the word idiot.
But that was after he got to her.
And before that could happen, he had to save Cassidy’s damn fool hide. Hers and that baby she was trying to rescue.
Where the hell had it come from?
He had no time to try to figure that out now. Later, that was for later.
Will gave himself a running start, using the increasing speed he built up to propel him as he dove into the water.
He swam the way he never swam before—as if his life depended on it.
As if her life depended on it.
Hers and that baby’s.
Divorcing himself from any other thoughts—from anger, fear, astonishment—Will focused entirely on the goal he’d just set for himself. Rescuing the woman who took special delight in filleting him with her tongue whenever the opportunity arose, and the baby he’d never seen before, both of whom had just one thing in common: they had absolutely no business being out here under these conditions.
And they had one more thing in common: both of them were going to die here if he didn’t reach them in time.
* * *
HER ARMS WERE getting really, really heavy, but she knew that if she gave in to the feeling, gave in to the very thought of how exhausted she felt, both she and most likely this baby were not going to live to see another sunrise.
Hell, they weren’t going to live to see another half hour if she didn’t find a way to save them.
Her lungs aching so much that they hurt, she still somehow managed to tap into an extra burst of energy. She stretched out her arms as far as they would go with each stroke, and she finally managed to get close enough to the baby to just glide her fingertips along the lip of the tub.
C’mon, just a little farther, just a little farther, she frantically urged herself.
“Gotcha!” Cassidy cried in almost giddy triumph, her fingertips securing just the very rim of the tub. Her heart pounding madly, she pulled the tub to her. “I’ve got you, baby,” she all but sobbed. “I’ve got you!”
The problem was, she’d used up all of her energy, and, while she’d finally, finally managed to reach the baby, both she and it were still in the middle of the rushing water.
The situation didn’t exactly look hopeful.
And then Cassidy felt something snaking around her waist and holding her fast as it grabbed her from behind. Exhausted beyond belief, unable to turn to see what had caught her, Cassidy still frantically cast about for some way to free herself and the baby before whatever it was that was holding her dragged them down to the bottom of this newly formed river.
With no weapon within reach, Cassidy frantically pulled back her arm and struck hard at whatever was holding on to her with her elbow. Her only hope was to use the element of surprise to drive off whatever creature had ensnared her.
“Ow! Damn it, Cassidy, I should have my head examined for not letting you drown instead of trying to save you,” the deep voice behind her grumbled.
She could feel the words as they rumbled out because the man behind her had such a tight hold on her; his chest was pressed up against her back closer than the label on a jar of jam.
“Laredo?” she cried, absolutely astonished even as she struggled to keep the very last ounce of energy from seeping out of her body. Confusion vibrated through her. “What the hell are you trying to do?”
“I thought that was rather obvious,” he bit off coldly, both his breath and his words grazing the back of her head. “I’m trying to save you from drowning in this damn flash flood.” Before she could offer any sort of a protest, he turned the tables on her. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
She had a death grip on the baby’s tub, which in turn kept the baby from being swept away by the river. “What does it look like I’m doing?” she challenged angrily.
“Proving me wrong,” he answered, still keeping one arm firmly secured around her torso as he continued to slowly, powerfully, make his way back to the bank.
“Okay, I’m waiting,” Cassidy retorted weakly, mentally bracing herself.
Whatever was coming was not going to be flattering. She knew him too well to expect anything else. She also knew him well enough to know he was bound to save her because of the same ingrained sense of honor they all shared.
“Why are you wrong?” she gasped when he didn’t say anything.
“Because you can still find new ways to mess up, just when I thought you’d exhausted all the available possibilities.”
Anger appeared out of nowhere, giving her an unexpected surge of energy. She knew it wouldn’t last, so she talked quickly.
“There was a baby in the river. What was I supposed to do?” she demanded weakly. “Wave at it?”
“No, but drowning with it wasn’t exactly going to help anything,” Will snapped as he finally managed to reach the riverbank with both of them in tow.
The baby was still crying. It was loud enough to almost drown out the sound of their voices.
“I wasn’t drowning,” she informed him.
She meant to snap the answer at him, but all she could manage was an indignant gasp. Her last surge of energy was all but gone. But he had a way of making her so angry, she still felt compelled to argue.
“I had everything under control. I didn’t need your help.”
Exhausted himself from fighting against the current, Will fell back against the bank. It was still raining, but at this point, he was hardly aware of it.
“Right.” The single word mocked her.
She would have peppered him with biting rhetoric if she only had the energy. As it was, taking in a full breath was about all she could manage. She couldn’t remember ever being this exhausted.
The moment she had at least an ounce of extra energy to spare, she would direct it toward the baby whose cries had turned into subdued whimpers—and that, in reality, worried her more than the cries did.
So, for the moment, all she could say in response to Will as they both lay on the bank, getting wetter and silently grateful that neither one of them would become a statistic today in this latest battle with Mother Nature, was, “Thanks for the thought, though.”
“Any time,” he murmured.
In the distance, as the rain began to swiftly retreat, he could have sworn that he heard a horse whinnying.
Or maybe it was a colt.
His mouth curved ever so slightly.
Britches was safe after all.
Chapter Three (#uc2df5cce-d16c-578b-b10f-3fd1cae7cf4e)
Cassidy hated to admit it, even if it was just to herself, but there was no getting away from it. Laredo had a great smile that warmed up a cold room and could easily set even the coolest heart on fire, at least momentarily. It was exactly for this reason why she would never even allow him to suspect that she felt this way.
Ever since she could remember, Will Laredo attracted the female of the species as if they were thirsty jackrabbits and he was the only watering hole for more than two hundred miles. Cody and Cole—and even Connor on occasion—seemed to think that was one of Laredo’s attributes. She, on the other hand, viewed it in an entirely different light.
It just gave the man an even bigger head than he already had.
When she saw the corner of his mouth curve just now as they both lay on the bank, gasping for breath, all these other thoughts came crowding into her head. Like how this resembled the aftermath of a marathon lovemaking session with the two of them lying so close together, breathless and grateful.
She was delirious, she angrily upbraided herself.
Cassidy squelched her thoughts. She was exhausted and consequently—although she would have rather died right here on the spot than admit it—vulnerable. This was definitely not the time to have thoughts like that marching through her brain.
People did stupid things when they felt vulnerable—even her. Stupid things that would go on to haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Well, not her.
“What are you smiling about?” she demanded breathlessly, expecting him to say something about getting to play the superhero to her damsel in distress—or something equally irritating.
She braced herself to lash out and put him in his place.
But Laredo surprised her by saying, “Britches made it.”
Britches? Her eyes narrowed into probing slits. Right now, the baby they had saved was quiet, and she was beyond grateful for that.
Was Laredo referring to the baby?
“Is that some kind of a nickname?” she challenged.
Was this yet another way to talk down to her? Even so, she had to admit that she was glad Laredo had showed up when he did. Despite her defensive words to the contrary, she really wasn’t 100 percent convinced that she would have been able to make it back to the bank with the baby without Laredo’s help.
But if she even hinted at that, he would never let her live it down.
“No, it’s a name,” Will told her mildly, “for my colt.”
“Your colt?” she repeated.
Was he talking about his father’s old gun? As she recalled, Jake Laredo had kept an old Colt .45 that he claimed had belonged to his great-great-grandfather, handed down to him by Stephen Austin, the man who’d founded the Texas Rangers. There was more to the story, but she’d always pretended to be disinterested whenever he mentioned it. In her opinion, Laredo’s head was big enough. She didn’t need to add to it by acting as if she cared about anything he had to say.
“A colt’s a male horse under the age of four,” he told her patiently.
Some of her energy had to be returning because she could feel her back going up. Heroic endeavors or not, Laredo was talking down to her again, Cassidy thought, annoyed.
“I know what a colt is,” she snapped, or thought she did. Afraid of scaring the baby again, she lowered her voice. “I just didn’t know you had one.”
“It’s a horse ranch,” he reminded her, referring to the property that his father had left to him—something she was aware of since she was in Olivia Santiago’s office when he’d been called in and told about his father’s will. The fact that his father had left it to him had rendered Will speechless. She’d almost felt sorry for him—almost. “What else am I going to have?”
“Debts.”
The answer came out before Cassidy could censor herself. It was Laredo’s fault. He had that sort of effect on her. The next moment, remorse set in. He was the bane of her existence, but he didn’t deserve that.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, “I didn’t mean to say that.”
“Sure you did.” Instead of being annoyed, he let her words pass. “Because it’s true,” he admitted matter-of-factly.
Everyone in town knew that his father had had money troubles. They’d only gotten worse over time. There was no reason to believe that anything had changed just before he died. Jake Laredo had sought refuge in the bottom of a bottle, drinking to the point of numbness, after which he’d pass out. Subsequently, the ranch had fallen into disrepair and ruin. When he’d gotten the letter from Olivia about his father’s death, he’d returned only to put the old man into the ground. He’d been surprised that the ranch was still standing and that there were a couple of horses—rather emaciated at that—still in the stable.
Will saw it as a challenge.
“It’s probably why he left the place to me,” Will was saying, more to himself than to her. “It was his final way of sticking it to me.”
Still lying on the bank, Cassidy turned her head toward him. She decided it had to be what she’d just gone through. The experience had to have rattled her brain to some degree because she was actually feeling sorry for Laredo—a little, she quickly qualified. But the feeling was there nonetheless.
“Someone else would just walk away,” she pointed out to him.
“Someone else isn’t me,” he told Cassidy. “Besides, I can’t walk away. If I did, that old man would have the last laugh.”
The last laugh would have meant that he couldn’t do the honorable thing, couldn’t pay off his father’s debts, couldn’t make a go of the ranch. In effect, it would have made him no better than Jake Laredo had been. Or at least that was the way Will saw it.
“I don’t think he’s laughing much where he is now,” Cassidy said quietly.
Meaning hell, Will thought. He almost laughed at that but checked himself in time. “Well, I see you haven’t lost it.”
Her eyebrows drew together in a puzzled look. She was actually trying to be nice to the man. Served her right. What the hell was he talking about?
“Lost what?” she asked.
“That knack of saying the first thing that comes into your head without filtering it,” he told her.
Cassidy had to admit that she felt more comfortable sparring with the cocky so-and-so, receiving stinging barbs and giving back in kind.
She could feel the adrenaline starting to rush through her veins again. She was definitely coming around, Cassidy thought.
“Hey,” she cried, bolting upright as the realization suddenly hit her. “It’s stopped raining.”
“And that baby’s stopped crying,” Will added. “It’s like Nature’s taking a break.”
The moment he said it, Cassidy’s head snapped back around. What had struck her subconsciously now hit her head-on. Laredo was right; the baby in the tub was no longer crying.
Was that because...?
Her heart froze as she looked down at the infant in the tub again. And then she exhaled the breath she’d just sucked in and held a second ago.
Wonder of wonders, the baby was sleeping. For a moment, she’d thought the worst.
“I guess all that crying took everything out of him—or her,” Cassidy added as an afterthought.
“Him or her? You don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl?” he asked her incredulously.
Rather than answer him directly, she said, “Well, it was crying so hard I couldn’t think, so it’s probably a male,” she speculated.
He was trying to nail Cassidy down, something that had never been easy to do. “Then you’ve never seen this baby before?” he questioned.
“Well, I haven’t been to the new-baby store recently, so no, I’ve never seen this baby before. Not until I saw it floating by in that flash flood that used to be a creek,” Cassidy added.
Laredo looked at her skeptically, which indicated that he didn’t believe her. But then, she supposed that just this once she couldn’t really fault him. If she were in his place, she wouldn’t have believed him, either.
“No, seriously, I’ve never seen this baby before.” She looked at the sleeping infant and shook her head. The whole thing seemed almost macabre as well as incredible. “Who sticks a baby into a plastic tub?” she asked.
“Someone trying to save its life would be my guess,” Will said, speculating. “Maybe it was someone who’s new to the area. They were driving through and got caught up in the flash flood—this could have been their last-ditch attempt to save the baby.”
She had a question for him. “Who drives around with a plastic tub in their car?”
“Someone who had no place to live,” he guessed. The expression on her face told him that she thought he was stretching it. “Hey, I don’t have all the answers, but it’s a possibility.”
“It’s also a possibility that the kid’s mother or father is looking for him or her right at this very minute,” Cassidy said, thinking how she would feel in that person’s place.
Scared out of her mind.
The baby began to stir. Any second it was going to wake up and start crying again, she thought, looking at the infant intently.
And then it was no longer a speculation.
The baby they had rescued was awake again. The next moment, it began to cry.
Will recalled something he’d overheard a young mother saying. “At this age, they only cry for a reason. It’s either hungry or wet,” he told her, getting up.
“Or maybe it just doesn’t like being crammed in a little plastic tub.” Speculation aside, she lifted the infant out of the confining tub. And as she did so, she also quickly drew back a section of the diaper and took a peek. “He’s also wet,” she pronounced, although that could have been the result of being caught up in the flood.
“He?” Will echoed as he stood up.
“He,” Cassidy repeated. “It’s a boy.” Holding the baby to her chest, she started to get up only to have Will reach down for the infant. She tightened her hold. “What are you doing?”
“You don’t want to risk falling over with the baby as you get up,” he told her as if it was a common occurrence for her. “I’m already up.”
“Good for you,” Cassidy commented sarcastically. Grudgingly she let Will take the baby, then popped up right beside him and reached to take the child back.
But Will didn’t release him. “What are you planning on doing?” he asked.
“Well, I certainly don’t want to have a tug-of-war with this child if that’s what you’re thinking.” It came out like an accusation.
Will didn’t rise to the bait. “No, what I’m thinking is that this baby needs to be seen by one of the doctors at the clinic.” It wasn’t a suggestion.
Okay, Cassidy allowed, so maybe Laredo was capable of having a decent thought once in a blue moon. But she wasn’t about to let him think that he’d gotten the jump on her.
“That’s just where I’m taking him,” she informed Will coolly.
But he wasn’t budging.
Now what? she thought, exasperated.
“You planning on tossing him in the back of the truck?” Will asked.
Her eyebrows drew together like light blond thunderbolts, aimed right for his heart. “Of course not,” she snapped.
He continued to hold on to the infant protectively. The baby was beginning to fuss. But Will’s attention was focused on the woman who stood in his way. “Okay, then what?”
“Um—”
To Cassidy’s surprise, he relinquished his hold on the infant, who was now beginning to cry. “C’mon, you hold the baby, I’ll drive.”
It really irked her when he took the lead this way, as if he was in control of everything, including her. “I don’t need you to drive us.”
Standing right in front of her, Will drew himself up to his full height. Although Cassidy would have never admitted it out loud, he did make a formidable obstacle.
“You planning on holding him in one arm while driving with the other hand?” he asked, then challenged, “On these roads?”
She knew he was right and hated giving him that. But unless she was willing to stand here, listening to the baby crying progressively louder—possibly even endangering this baby—she had no choice.
“Okay, fine,” she bit out, “you drive—but we’re coming back for my truck.”
He nodded absently. “I’ve got no problem with that,” he said, leading the way back to his vehicle.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cassidy asked.
He made her crazy. It felt as if everything out of his mouth came with a hidden meaning. Plus, Cassidy found she had to really lengthen her stride in order to try to keep up with him. But there was no way she was going to ask Laredo to slow down. She’d never done it with any of her brothers—all of whom were taller than she was—and she sure as hell wasn’t going to do it with Laredo.
Instead, Cassidy glared at the back of his head all the way to his truck.
When they reached it, Will opened the door directly behind the driver’s seat and held it open for her.
She immediately took it to mean he regarded her as subservient to him. “What’s wrong with the front seat?” she asked.
Will continued to hold the door open for her. “Backseat’s safer for the baby.”
Cassidy blew out a breath. Damn it, Will was right, and she hated that.
When he took hold of her elbow, she pulled free and nearly jabbed him with it. “I can get into the truck on my own.”
Unfazed, Will said, “I’m just looking out for the baby.”
Cassidy scowled at him. “Just because you helped save him doesn’t automatically make you his fairy godmother.”
“I kind of see myself more like a guardian angel than a fairy godmother,” he deadpanned. “They’ve got bigger wings.” He added that with a sly wink that made her desperately want to punch him if only her arms weren’t full.
Cassidy bit her bottom lip to keep from saying something caustic. The next moment, as she seated herself directly behind the driver’s seat, she felt Laredo reaching over her.
So much for silence, she thought, giving up. “Okay, what the hell do you think you’re trying to do?” Cassidy demanded.
“I think I’m trying to get this seat belt around you and the baby. We’re liable to hit a skid in this weather, and I don’t want the two of you suddenly flying out the window—or worse,” he added with deliberate emphasis.
“Since when did you become so damn thoughtful?” Cassidy asked coldly.
Her eyes widened. Was it her imagination, or had Laredo’s hand just slid over her lap as he stepped back after fastening the seat belt?
“I’ve always been thoughtful, Cassidy. You’ve just been too mean-tempered to notice,” he answered mildly.
Before she had a chance to snap at him, Will shut her door and went over to get into the front seat.
“I am not mean-tempered,” she informed him, struggling to hold on to that same temper.
Will shut the door and secured his own seat belt before starting the vehicle. Only then did he raise his eyes to the rearview mirror to look at her. “I’ve got a town full of people who might argue with you about that,” he replied mildly.
Her eyes met his in the mirror. She could feel her temper heating, but there was no time to give Laredo a piece of her mind or take him down. The baby had begun to cry in earnest now. Even if the infant was just wet and hungry, she had no dry clothes, diapers or food to offer him, so the sooner they got to the clinic, the better.
“Just drive!” she ordered.
“Yes, ma’am,” Will responded.
She didn’t need to see his face to know that his mouth had assumed that all-too-familiar smirk she knew and hated. She could hear it in his voice.
Okay, Laredo. I need you to help me get this baby to the medical clinic. But once we do and this little guy is someone else’s problem, I am going to become your worst nightmare.
She paused for a moment, savoring that thought. And anticipating.
Even worse than I already am.
Chapter Four (#uc2df5cce-d16c-578b-b10f-3fd1cae7cf4e)
The infant hadn’t stopped crying since before they’d gotten into the vehicle. The wailing noise was making it hard for Will to think. That, added to the fact that the rain had picked up again, was enough to really put him on edge.
“You sure he’s not hurt?” Will asked, glancing at Cassidy over his shoulder.
She raised her eyes to meet his.
“I have no idea, but I know that he will be if you keep taking your eyes off the road like that. It’s starting to rain harder again,” Cassidy pointed out. Her nerves were getting the better of her.
“Gee, really?” Will asked, feigning surprise. “I hadn’t noticed.”
He hated the way Cassidy treated him, as if he was totally oblivious to things. She’d done that for as far back as he could remember, and at times he had to admit it almost amused him. But right now, with the baby crying and the roads growing progressively more hazardous, he was having a rough time staying calm.
Although he did his best to pretend otherwise, no one could get to him the way Cassidy could. There was just something about the way she talked, the way she tossed her head, the smug, superior gleam in her eyes, that just made him want to get back at her and teach her a lesson.
Just what form that lesson would take he hadn’t worked out yet. But if he was going to remain in Forever, even for a little while, he had a feeling that day would come—and most likely sooner than either one of them reckoned, most of all her.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Cassidy told him, acting as if she’d taken his words at face value. “But do us all a favor and try to pay attention. I’ve got way too many things to do to die out here with you today.”
He laughed shortly. “Funny, I was thinking the same thing.”
“Funny,” she said, mimicking his voice, “I didn’t know you could think.”
He’d almost reached the end of his supply of patience. “You really want to get into this now?” Will asked, his voice becoming ominous and foreboding.
“What I want,” Cassidy informed him, “is to get into town while I still have any hearing left.” She’d tried everything in her rather limited arsenal of tricks with this baby—rocking him, trying to talk to him, patting his back—all to no avail. “How can something so little make such a loud noise?”
Will focused his attention back on the road—just in time to avoid driving into a large branch that had broken off a nearby tree. Another casualty of the storm.
Heart pounding, he drove around it. “Maybe his crying like that is a good thing. At least it means he’s got healthy lungs.”
Laredo was doing it again, she thought. Acting like a know-it-all. He wasn’t here in the backseat with the baby blowing out his eardrums. “Where did you get your degree, Dr. Laredo?”
“Same place you learned to be a shrew—no, wait, you just came by that naturally, didn’t you?”
Okay, she’d had enough, Cassidy thought. “Stop the truck,” she ordered.
Thinking that something was seriously wrong, Will did as she asked. His thoughts immediately zeroed in on the baby.
“Why? What’s wrong?” he asked, twisting in his seat.
They were right on the outskirts of Forever. The clinic wasn’t all that far off. Rain or no rain, she could walk from here.
Cassidy began to undo her seat belt. “I can’t listen to you blathering on like this. I can walk to the clinic from here.”
Biting off a curse, Will started the vehicle again. Gravity had Cassidy falling back in her seat. Because she’d inadvertently squeezed him, the baby was wailing even harder than he had been before.
“Damn you, Laredo,” she cried. “What the hell do you thinking you’re doing now?”
“Driving a crazy woman and the baby she’s holding to the clinic,” he bit out. “Now shut up and hold on.”
She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking that she was obeying, but by the same token, she didn’t want to get into another fight with him when he was this angry already. So she did as he told her.
She really didn’t have any other choice.
Cassidy remained in the truck and counted off the minutes in her head until they reached the clinic.
Rather than park the truck in the lot—which was the emptiest he could remember ever seeing it since he’d returned to Forever—Will parked directly in front of the medical clinic’s front door.
Just in time, he judged.
Daniel Davenport, the doctor who had reopened the clinic when he’d arrived in Forever several years ago, was just locking up.
“Hey, Doc,” Will called out, raising his voice in order to be heard above the crying baby and the howling wind. “Got time for one more?”
Dan turned. For the first time since he’d begun to run the clinic, the facility was entirely empty. He’d sent his partner and the two nurses who worked with them home over half an hour ago. Just in case someone did come by, he’d hung back, giving it another half hour.
Thirty minutes had come and gone. He wanted to get home to his family. Dan figured there was no point in waiting any longer. But obviously there was, he thought, looking from the man who’d just called out to him to the young woman who was emerging out of Will’s somewhat battered truck holding what appeared to be an infant in her arms.
Dan caught himself thinking that they were as unlikely a couple as he had ever seen. For the most part, Dan was oblivious to most of the gossip and the personal details that made the rounds at gathering places like Miss Joan’s Diner and Murphy’s Saloon. His attention was exclusively focused on helping and healing the people who sought him out at the clinic.
But even he knew that whenever the newly returned Will Laredo and Cassidy McCullough were within spitting distance of each other, they usually did. Neither could keep their temper holstered, especially not Cassidy.
His eyes narrowed slightly as they focused on the smallest player in this group. There was no way in God’s green earth that baby was theirs.
“Caught me just in time,” Dan said, addressing Will as he unlocked the door he had just locked. Pocketing the key, Dan pushed the door opened with the flat of his hand. “I take it that ‘one more’ you’re referring to is the baby?”
“It is,” Will answered.
“Where did you find it?” Dan asked, ushering in the trio. He didn’t waste time asking if the infant belonged to either one of them. He knew it couldn’t.
“Bobbing up and down in the creek, except it was more like a rushing river at the time,” Cassidy told him.
Once inside, she pushed back her wet hair and turned to face the doctor. “I’m thinking of calling him Moses,” she quipped, looking down at the squalling baby, “since I pulled him out of the river.”
“More like out of a rubber tub in the river,” Will corrected.
“Okay, maybe you think we should call him Rubber Ducky,” Cassidy retorted sarcastically, turning to glare at Will.
“Back up. The baby was in a rubber tub?” Dan questioned, looking from one to the other, waiting for enlightenment.
Cassidy nodded. “It was probably the only floatation device his mother—”
“Or father—” Will pointedly interjected. Although he had enjoyed neither, he knew by watching the McCulloughs that parental feelings were not the exclusive domain of the female population.
Cassidy ignored him and continued with her narrative “—could find. It was obvious that she was trying to save him.”
“Then you didn’t find either of the baby’s parents?” Dan asked, again looking from Cassidy to Will for an answer.
Cassidy shook her head. “I just saw the baby—and almost missed seeing him at first. He was in the middle of the rushing water, crying.” She winced as a particularly loud cry pierced the air right next to her ear. “Kind of like he is now. Could you check him out, please?” She held out the infant to Dan. “See if there’s something wrong with him. I’ll pay for it,” she quickly added, not wanting the doctor to think that just because the baby wasn’t related to her that she expected him to do the examination for free.
“I’ll take care of it, Doc,” Will assured him. Finances were tight, thanks to what he’d found himself walking into when he took over his father’s ranch, but he still had a little cash to work with if he did some artful juggling.
“I’m not worried about that right now,” Dan told both of them.
When he’d first arrived to reopen the clinic in Forever, Dan had viewed it as a temporary assignment until another doctor could be found to take over the practice on a more permanent basis. But even then, monetary compensation had never been his goal.
What he hadn’t counted on was the emotional rewards that went along with this job.
“While I’m giving this little guy the once-over, one of you should call the sheriff and tell him about what happened,” Dan suggested. “Could be his parents are stranded somewhere right now and need some rescuing themselves.”
Will’s eyes shifted toward Cassidy, and she could hear the question as if he’d said it out loud.
“I didn’t see anyone. That doesn’t mean they weren’t there,” she admitted, then frowned. “But it could also mean that they could be dead.” Cassidy thought for a moment. “Last really bad flash flood we had, Warren Brady’s nephew pulled his car up on the side of the road and got caught in it before he even knew what was happening. He was gone before anyone could reach him, and that was in a matter of moments.”
Dan sighed. He hated hearing about senseless losses like that. It made him that much more determined to do as much as he could for those he could help.
“This is going to take a while,” he told the two people in his waiting room. “Why don’t you wait out here until I can determine if this little guy’s got a problem beyond missing parents?”
It wasn’t so much a question as politely voiced instruction.
Will nodded toward the phone on the reception desk. “Mind if I use your phone to call the sheriff?” he asked Dan. “I can’t seem to get any reception on my cell phone. The storm wreaked havoc on the signal.”
“Go right ahead. I’ll be back when I’m finished with the exam.” The baby let loose with another lusty wail. Dan glanced toward Cassidy, an amused smile on his face. “Sure sounds like he’s got a healthy set of lungs on him, though,” he noted with a laugh.
She didn’t have to look in his direction to know that Laredo had a smug expression on his face. Just like she knew he was going to rub it in.
She didn’t have to wait long.
“Told you,” Will said, clearly vindicated.
Cassidy had no intention of going down without a fight. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day,” she pointed out.
“Set your standards that high, do you?” Will asked with a smile as he began to tap out the sheriff’s number on the phone’s keypad.
Cassidy curled her fingers into her hands to keep from grabbing the first thing she could find to throw at Laredo’s head. If she was going to kill him, she knew she would have to do it when there were no witnesses around. And if she gave Laredo what was coming to him, she knew that Dan would come out to see what the noise was all about.
Restless, agitated, not to mention concerned about the infant she’d rescued, instead of sitting, Cassidy paced around the waiting room.
Well, this day wasn’t going the way she’d thought it would when she’d gotten up this morning, she thought in frustration. She’d planned on getting a number of things done in the office today. She was really determined to prove herself an asset to Olivia.
Instead, here she was, killing time in the clinic’s waiting room, sharing space with Will Laredo of all people.
Why did both of them need to stay here, waiting for the doctor to give them the results of his examination? Laredo had two ears, she thought. At the very least, he could hear whatever it was that Dan had to say. Meanwhile, she could—
She could wait right here, she thought darkly. Her truck was still out where she’d left it. As much as she hated to admit it, she needed Laredo to drive her back to it.
Cassidy blew out a frustrated breath. More than anything else, she hated being backed into a corner like this.
Damn it, maybe if she called one of her brothers?
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Laredo holding out the phone receiver to her. She eyed him quizzically. Couldn’t he talk?
And then he did.
“Sheriff wants to talk to you,” Will said.
She made no move to take the receiver. “Why?”
“Do you have to question everything I say?” he asked, annoyed.
There was as close to an innocent look in her eyes as possible as she replied, “Yes.”
Laredo did what he could to hang on to the last of his composure and told her in carefully measured words, “He’s got a couple of questions.”
“What did you tell him?”
Will never missed a beat. “That you’re a royal pain, but he wants to talk to you, anyway.” With that he pushed the receiver toward her again.
Cassidy took it grudgingly. But when she spoke, nothing but pure honey dripped from her lips. Will entertained thoughts of strangling her.
“Hello? Sheriff? This is Cassidy McCullough. Laredo said you wanted to ask me something.”
“Hi, yes. Will said you were the first one to dive into the floodwater to save this baby you saw.”

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