Boone′s Bounty
Boone's Bounty
Vicki Lewis Thompson
The BlacksmithBoone Connor liked being a loner, plain and simple. In his estimation, women just got a guy into trouble. And he had enough of that already…His WomanShelby McFarland and her young nephew were on the run. When a freak snowstorm left them stranded, she though the game was over–until a strong sexy cowboy came to their rescue…His Baby?Boone couldn't resist helping a lady in distress, andy more than he could help falling for her–hard and fast! Shelby's lips tempted him, teased him, and her gorgeous body pushed him beyond reason. But as good as they were together, Boone couldn't make Shelby any promises. Because he'd just discovered he had a baby girl…
The message in Boone’s eyes was blatantly clear
Shelby began to quiver in anticipation. Embarrassed by how shaky she felt, she put both hands behind her back and leaned against the wall, pretending to be casual but desperately needing the support.
“Shelby.” Boone’s voice was strained. “Don’t lean like that.” His gaze lingered on her breasts, and his breathing grew ragged.
She realized that her attempt to be casual had resulted in her breasts thrusting out in what looked like an invitation. She hadn’t done it deliberately, but as she noticed his agitation—and the evidence of his arousal—her nervousness began to disappear.
And she discovered something very wicked about herself. Now that he’d said he wasn’t in love with someone else, she was ready to play on his weakness for her.
“Tell me to go away, Shelby.” His attention became fixed on her mouth. “For God’s sake, don’t look so ready to be kissed. You’re driving me crazy, you know that.”
“I know.” Meeting the challenge in his eyes, she moistened her lips and parted them, teasing him with a sultry look. “Drive me crazy, too, Boone. Just one last time….”
Dear Reader,
Willie Nelson tells us that mamas shouldn’t let their babies grow up to be cowboys. I suppose he’s entitled to his opinion. Personally, I wouldn’t look forward to a world without cowboys, which is where Willie’s advice might take us. I think I could round up a number of women who would agree with me.
Take Boone Connor. (And I’m sure plenty of us would love to.) Six feet five inches of lean, muscular cowboy. Boone’s a perfect example of why Willie should rethink his position. I’m extremely grateful Boone’s mama let him grow up to be a cowboy. Dressing that yummy man in a business suit would be a crying shame.
As my miniseries THREE COWBOYS & A BABY continues, Boone is daddy prospect number three. Like Sebastian (in #780 The Colorado Kid) and Travis (in #784 Two in the Saddle), Boone’s positive he’s baby Elizabeth’s father. But is he? Watch for the conclusion of the series when That’s My Baby!, a Harlequin single-title release, comes out in September. One thing you can count on: Elizabeth’s daddy will turn out to be…a cowboy!
Warmly,
Vicki Lewis Thompson
Boone’s Bounty
Vicki Lewis Thompson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To the Goddesses of the Temptation e-mail loop, who coached me on the care and feeding of three-year-olds. You’re the best!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
1
SNOW.
Boone Connor sighed and switched on the wipers. Didn’t it just figure he’d hit a late-season snowstorm on his way over Raton Pass. Damn. It was nearly June. The snow should be gone by now. But his luck had been running that way lately.
And this didn’t promise to be one of those wimpy storms that sifted down from the clouds like cake flour and dusted the pine trees so they looked like a Christmas card. This wasn’t the kind of snow that blew off the road like white sand. Nope. This was a serious, drifts-to-your-crotch, black-ice-on-the-curves kind of storm. His truck tires were already losing traction.
The roadblock didn’t surprise him, but it sure frustrated the hell out of him. His old king-cab could make it through anything, and he sure was anxious about getting to the Rocking D to see that baby. His baby, most likely. The idea that he probably had a kid still made him dizzy. He couldn’t quite believe the baby was real, and setting eyes on her would help anchor his thoughts.
But Smoky was about to throw a crimp in his plans, obviously.
Boone rolled down his window and snow blew in, nipping his cheeks with cold. He ignored the discomfort and tipped up the brim of his Stetson so he could look the cop in the eye while he tried to make a case for getting past those orange and white barriers.
The patrolman, bundled to the teeth, looked up at Boone. “I’m afraid you’ll have to turn back, sir.” His breath fogged the air. “Road conditions are bad up ahead and getting worse by the minute.”
“My truck’s gots four-wheel drive, Officer,” Boone said, although he didn’t expect that information to make any difference. “And I’ve driven this road hundreds of times. I need to get to Colorado right away.”
“I understand that, sir.” The patrolman didn’t sound particularly understanding. He sounded as if he was sick to death of standing in the cold reciting this speech to unhappy folks. “But we can’t let you take a chance on that road until the storm’s over and the snowplow clears it. With luck we’ll be able to let people through tomorrow morning.”
“Hell.”
“There’s a little motel and café about three miles back,” the patrolman added, stomping his booted feet.
Boone knew the place. He’d stopped there for coffee a few times, but hadn’t bothered this trip because he’d been trying to outrun the snow. He’d never stayed at the motel. He mostly liked driving straight through until he got to where he was going. The motel wasn’t very big, as he recalled. Ten or twelve units, maybe.
He glanced up at the patrolman. “How many people have you sent there?”
“A few. But I expect most of them drove on back to Santa Fe. The motel’s clean, but not exactly the Plaza.” The patrolman glanced past Boone’s truck. “I’ll have to ask you to move your vehicle, sir. There’s someone behind you.”
Boone glanced in his rearview mirror and saw the small white sedan, its fog lights picking out the flakes and causing them to sparkle while the rest of the car was nearly invisible in the swirling snow. Now that vehicle had no business trying to maneuver down the road ahead, but Boone still thought he could make it with no sweat. Still, he knew a losing battle when he saw one. He put the truck in gear and swung it around to the other lane.
As he paused to roll up his window, he glanced over at the sedan. Its window slid down, and he caught a quick glimpse of the driver—young, blond and female. With her hair caught up in a funky ponytail on top of her head, she looked even younger than she probably was. His irritation with Smoky eased a little as he considered how vulnerable that woman would have been if no one had set up a roadblock to protect her from doing something stupid.
He heard her arguing hotly with the officer, and he shook his head in amazement. Yep, without that roadblock, she’d have done something real stupid. She’d have ended up a statistic for sure, off in a snowbank, frozen solid.
He rolled up his window and headed back down toward the motel, still marveling at how naive that woman was, thinking she’d drive that little bitty compact over a snow-choked mountain pass. Better to have the roadblock, even if it meant he’d get delayed, than to leave greenhorns like that free to take chances with their lives.
WHEN SHELBY MCFARLAND first saw the roadblock, she panicked, sure that Mason Fowler had reported her to the police. But no, the barricades were on account of the weather. The patrolman wanted her to turn back.
But turning back meant possibly heading toward Mason, who by now could be in hot pursuit. She abandoned her usual caution.
“You don’t understand,” she said to the officer standing beside the car. “I must get through. The road can’t be that bad!”
“I’m afraid it is, ma’am. You wouldn’t stand a chance with this light vehicle.” He leaned down and looked into the car. “And I’m sure you wouldn’t want to take any risks with that little guy. You a Spurs fan, son?”
“Yep,” Josh replied. “Bob, he is, too.”
Shelby glanced over at Josh sitting in his car seat, proudly wearing his San Antonio Spurs jersey. She should have dressed him in something less identifiable, but he loved that jersey. And of course, she couldn’t risk ending up marooned in a snowbank, not with Josh in the car. What had she been thinking?
Josh stared in fascination at the patrolman. “Do you gots a gun?” he asked.
“Yes, son, I do,” the officer said solemnly.
“My daddy gots a gun,” Josh said.
Shelby felt sick to her stomach. She didn’t doubt Mason had a gun, but the thought of Josh somehow coming into contact with it scared the daylights out of her. “How do you know that, sweetheart?”
“He showed me it.”
Shelby closed her eyes briefly, as if that would block out the ugly image. If she needed any more reasons to keep this child away from Mason, there was a huge one. A gun and a three-year-old. She shuddered.
“I hope your daddy keeps that gun locked up good and tight,” the patrolman said. “Guns are not toys.”
“The policeman is absolutely right, Josh,” Shelby said. “You must never touch a gun.” And if she had anything to do with it, he’d never get the chance again. She glanced back at the officer. “I want to thank you for preventing me from doing something foolish. I wasn’t thinking clearly a moment ago. Trying to go over that pass tonight would be suicide.”
“Bob and me, we never seed any snow before,” Josh offered.
The patrolman peered into the car. “You got a little dog in there named Bob?”
“No,” Shelby said. “Bob is Josh’s special friend, and he’s very talented. He can make himself invisible.”
“Ahhh.” The patrolman nodded solemnly. Then he glanced at Shelby. “There’s a motel and café back down the road about three miles. Maybe you could wait it out there.”
Shelby didn’t remember the place, but it sounded better than driving to Santa Fe. “How long will it be before the road’s open, do you think?”
“Hard to say, ma’am. If I was you, I’d try to get a room for the night. They’re not fancy, but they’re clean.”
Shelby took a shaky breath. She didn’t know for sure that Mason was following her, but she had a bad feeling he was. All he would have had to do was ask her apartment manager where she’d gone. The manager had been on his way into the building just as she and Josh were leaving, and Josh had blurted out that they were going to Yellowstone to ride horsies. She hadn’t remembered to tell Josh it was a secret.
Still, she had a head start on Mason, so the motel was probably a safe bet for tonight. Besides, it wasn’t as if she had a lot of choice. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll try that. And thanks again.”
“No problem. Just doing my job, ma’am. ’Bye, son.”
“’Bye, Mister Policeman.”
Shelby gave the officer a smile before rolling up the window. Then she waited for him to step aside before she guided the car around in a half circle. Fortunately no one else seemed to be coming up the road.
Three days ago—it seemed like three years—Mason had called to say he was coming over the next morning to take Josh to the zoo. Something about the arrogant way he’d announced his intentions instead of asking Shelby if that was okay put her on alert. He’d been dropping hints for weeks that if the courts didn’t grant him custody, he’d take Josh anyway.
The longer she thought about his brusque tone during the call, the more she became convinced that Mason didn’t intend to bring Josh back. So she’d rented a car, hoping that would throw Mason off a little, packed some clothes for her and Josh, and left town.
“Where’re we goin’, Shebby?” Josh asked. “Back home?”
“No, not home, Josh. But we can’t keep going up the mountain road because there’s too much snow. So we’ll stay overnight in a motel and try again tomorrow morning, okay?”
“Okay, but when are we gonna get to Yellowstone? You said, Shebby. Bob wants to see geezers.”
“Geysers, Josh.”
“Yeah, those. And we’re gonna ride horsies there, right?”
“That’s the plan.” She should change the plan, but Josh was so excited she didn’t have the heart, at least not yet.
“Bob, he knows how to ride horsies real good. He’s gonna teach me.”
“Good thing Bob knows so much, huh?” Shelby said. Right about now she wished Josh’s imaginary friend really existed, and that he was about six-five, weighed two-fifty and could bench-press his own weight.
“Bob, he knows this much.” Josh spread his arms wide. “A whole bunch, is what Bob knows.” He glanced at Shelby, as if he expected her to contradict him. “Right, Shebby?”
Shelby smiled. No matter how scary life got, she took heart from this little bundle of sunshine sitting in his car seat next to her. He was unsinkable. And so damned normal, with his love of basketball and his imaginary friend. A child psychologist might say the imaginary friend had made an appearance at this particular time because of what Josh had been through recently. That could be true, and if so, she was impressed with the way the little boy took care of his own needs.
She glanced over at Josh. “Right. Bob is awesome.”
Josh nodded. “Awesome. When are we gonna see geezers?”
“Well, first we have to go all the way through Colorado, and then most of the way through Wyoming. But before we do that, we have to get over this mountain, and we can’t do that until tomorrow morning.”
“’Member that song about a mountain? The one we singed in school?”
“Sure. Want to sing it?”
“Yep.” Josh launched into a close approximation of “She’ll Be Comin’ ’Round the Mountain.”
Shelby joined in, helping him through the parts he’d forgotten. How she loved this little boy. Long ago, in spite of herself, she’d begun to think of him as her own child. He even looked like her—same blond hair, same blue eyes. Patricia hadn’t ever seemed to have time for him, especially after she’d divorced Mason.
And during the breakup of Patricia’s marriage, Shelby’s parents had been so busy worrying about Patricia, their favorite child, that they hadn’t seemed to have any concern left for Josh. And now all three of them were gone—her sister and both her parents.
Shelby’s chest tightened as a nick of pain touched her heart, like the whisper of a very sharp knife that barely cuts the skin but is capable of dealing a killing blow. It was a warning sign that she needed to shut down her emotions, and fast. Ever since the boating accident four months ago that had claimed her parents and Patricia, Shelby had kept a tight rein on her feelings. She had Josh to think about.
Josh stopped singing as Shelby pulled into the parking lot of a small motel with a café nearby.
“Is this it?” he asked.
“This is it.” Shelby surveyed the rambling building, which was in definite need of a paint job. Her parents would have turned up their noses at the accommodations, but Shelby was grateful for anything reasonably clean. Quite a few cars and trucks were gathered in the lot, and she hoped she wouldn’t have any trouble getting a room.
And she definitely wanted one. Driving all the way back to Santa Fe was too risky. The lights shining through the café’s windows made it look cozy in the gathering gloom brought on by the heavy snowfall. The thought of a hot cup of coffee beckoned to her, but she turned the wheel left and parked in front of the first unit of the motel where an orange neon sign in one corner of the window read Office. In the opposite corner was another neon sign in blue that said Vacancy.
Shelby sighed with relief.
“They don’t gots no swimmin’ pool,” Josh said. “Bob was gonna go swimmin’.”
Shelby laughed as she unbuckled her seat belt and reached in the back for their coats and hats. “Bob must be a member of the Polar Bear Club.”
“Huh?” Josh giggled. “Bob’s not a bear.”
“The Polar Bear Club is a bunch of people who go swimming when it’s really cold outside.” Shelby helped him get out of the car seat and into his coat and hat. “So they call themselves Polar Bears.”
“Do they gots white fur?”
“No, they wear bathing suits.” She zipped up his jacket and decided she didn’t need to fasten the chin strap on his hat for the quick trip inside. “Just like you do when you go swimming. Now stay right there, and I’ll come around and get you out. If I carry you in, I won’t have to bother putting your boots on.”
“I can walk, y’know. I’m a big boy.”
“I know.” Shelby put on her own coat. “But the snow’s started to drift out there.”
“Bob wants to play in it.”
“We’ll see.” But she knew she couldn’t allow Josh to play out in the snow in front of the motel. He’d be way too visible.
As she started to get out of the car, the sign in the window changed to No Vacancy. “Oh, no!”
“What, Shebby?”
“Uh, nothing, Josh. Sit tight. I’ll be right there to get you.” Grabbing her purse, she stepped into the snow, ignoring the icy dampness soaking her running shoes as she closed the car door and ran around to get Josh. She’d talk the motel owner into letting her spend the night somewhere in this building, even if it was on a cot in a broom closet. She’d sit up all night and let Josh have a mattress on the floor, if necessary. But they couldn’t spend the night in the café, where Mason could come along and find them.
She slung the shoulder strap of her purse bandolier-style across her body before lifting Josh out of the car.
He turned his face up to the snow and laughed with delight. “It tickles!”
“I guess it does, at that.” She hurried toward the office door.
“It tastes like Popsicles! I gots some on my tongue! See?”
“Oh, sweetheart, I can’t right now. I will. Later I will.” She hated not being able to enjoy Josh’s first experience with snow. She hated this whole mess, in fact. A bolt of pure anger shot through her. Damn them, all of them, for not putting this little boy first in their lives. Damn them for taking her dad’s high-speed boat out on such a foggy day. Damn them all for dying. Now Josh had no one but her. Somehow, she would have to be enough.
A buzzer sounded when she opened the office door. She hurried inside, adding her wet tracks to the ones already covering the carpet. A very tall cowboy stood at the scarred counter, his back to her while he filled out a registration form. He looked at least seven feet tall, but Shelby guessed part of that was due to the heels of his boots and the crown of his hat.
The desk clerk, an older man with glasses, peered around the cowboy. “I’m really sorry, but I just rented our last room.” He pointed to the No Vacancy sign in the window. “We’re full up.”
“Surely there’s somewhere you can put us,” Shelby said. “I only need a cot for Josh. I can take the floor. We’re desperate.”
The cowboy laid down the pen he’d been using and turned to look at her.
The sheer size of him made her take an involuntary step back. Then she looked into his eyes, which were an incredible shade of green. But more than that, they were the kindest eyes she’d ever seen. Although she had no logical reason to feel better, she did.
“You forgot Bob.” Josh clapped his cold hands against her cheeks and forced her head around so she had to look at him. “Bob, he needs someplace to sleep, y’know,” Josh explained, his blue eyes earnest. He looked so cute, with his hat on crooked and the chin strap dangling down.
“I know,” she whispered, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Well, that makes it really hard,” the clerk said. “Even if I could figure out something, I’m afraid we don’t allow pets.”
“The dog’ll probably be okay in the car for the night,” the big cowboy said quietly. “You and the boy can take my room.”
Shelby realized how close to the surface her emotions were when the offer made tears gather in her eyes. “Oh, I couldn’t —”
“Bob, he’s not a dog,” Josh said. “He’s my friend.”
The cowboy frowned. “You left another kid out in the car? It’s mighty cold out there for a—”
“No, it’s not another kid,” Shelby said. “Bob is—”
“Awesome!” Josh said.
“Yes, he is,” Shelby said as she looked the cowboy in the eye and hoped he would get the message as quickly as the patrolman had. “He’s so awesome that he can make himself invisible if he wants to.” She lowered Josh to the floor and took off his hat. “As a matter of fact, Josh, I happen to know he can sleep anywhere, because he told me so. He could even sleep under your bed if he wanted to, and be perfectly comfy.”
Josh’s forehead crinkled in thought. “You’re sure?”
“It’s one of his special tricks.” She glanced over at the cowboy to see if he was buying the story.
He was. His smile was gentle as he inclined his head just the faintest bit in her direction, letting her know he had Bob all figured out.
That soft, understanding smile made her insides quiver a little, reminding her of pleasures she hadn’t enjoyed in quite a while. And it would be a while longer, considering how her life was going these days.
“Then it’s settled,” the cowboy said. “You, the boy and…Bob can have unit six.”
“But what about you?” She desperately wanted the room, but she felt guilty taking him up on his offer.
“No problem.”
She gazed into his ruggedly handsome face. If they were in a movie, she’d suggest sharing the room, platonically, of course. Her tummy quivered again. But this was no movie. She turned to the clerk. “Is there anything else? Maybe a large closet, or—”
“I’ll be fine,” the cowboy said. “Don’t worry about a thing. The café’s open twenty-four hours. I’ll just stretch out in a booth and make myself at home.”
“But—”
“Hey. I’m used to such things. If the weather wasn’t so nasty, I wouldn’t have even bothered with a motel. I’d have slept in my truck, which I’ve done a million times. So it’s no big deal for me.” His gaze rested on Josh. “I want to make sure that little cowpoke gets his rest.”
Shelby’s heart swelled with gratitude. Right when she needed a knight in shining armor, one had appeared. “I can’t thank you enough,” she said, her voice husky from the lump in her throat. And those damn pesky tears kept trying to well up in her eyes. She blinked them back. “You’re a very nice man.”
“Don’t mention it.” With a touch of his fingers to the brim of his hat, he walked past her out into the snow, leaving behind the scent of leather and denim.
“What a gentleman,” she said, thinking how well it fit the tall cowboy. He was truly a gentle man.
“He is, at that,” the clerk said. He was gazing after the cowboy with an expression of great respect. “Those booths are made of molded plastic. I’d hate to spend the night in one.”
“I’ll have to find a way to repay him,” Shelby said as she fished in her purse for her wallet and took out her credit card. Belatedly she thought to glance at the registration form the cowboy had left on the counter. She caught the name Boone Connor printed boldly across the top line before the desk clerk whisked the form away and crumpled it up.
Boone. She smiled. What a perfect name for him. He’d definitely been a boon to her, that was for sure.
Josh tugged on the leg of her jeans. “Can Bob and me read those? They gots horsies.”
Shelby glanced to where Josh pointed and saw some western magazines on a table. She looked up at the clerk. “Is it okay? He knows not to tear pages out or anything.”
“Sure, it’s okay.” The desk clerk smiled down at Josh. “Go ahead and read the magazines, son.”
Shelby watched Josh go over to the table, carefully choose a magazine, and climb up in a ratty overstuffed chair before he started slowly turning the pages and muttering to himself, pretending he was reading. Every once in a while he glanced beside him and pointed out something in the magazine. Obviously he was sharing the experience with Bob.
“He’s a fine boy,” the clerk said. “You must be a proud momma.”
“Oh, I—” Shelby caught herself before she told the clerk she was not Josh’s mother. It was an automatic response, one she’d become used to giving because she’d taken care of Josh so much.
She’d once calculated that she’d spent more time with him than Patricia had. That had turned out to be a blessing, all things considered. If Josh had been closer to his mother and his grandparents, he would have been more grief-stricken when they had disappeared from his life. As it was, he seemed sad and definitely a little confused, but not overwhelmed.
Shelby was obviously the most important person in his world, but now was not the time to advertise the fact that Josh was her nephew, not her son. And besides, some day she hoped to be his mother, legally. If only Patricia had left a will, that wouldn’t be so damned complicated, either.
She brushed the thoughts away and smiled at the clerk. “I am very proud of Josh,” she said.
2
ALL SIX BOOTHS in the small café were full, but Boone had expected that. Later on, as people returned to their rooms, the place would empty out. Then he’d stake out a booth for the night.
He’d forgotten the bench seats were the hard plastic kind. Oh, well. He would have done the same thing, even if he’d remembered. He would have done the same thing if the seats had been made of barbed wire. A woman with a little kid needed a motel room more than he did. A pretty woman. He pushed the thought aside. He wasn’t in the market for a pretty woman.
Taking a stool at the counter, he ordered a cup of coffee from the café’s only waitress. Her name was Lucy according to the tag she wore, and she was definitely pregnant. She also looked worn-out, probably from handling a bigger crowd than usual.
“You live around here, Lucy?” he asked her as she poured him some coffee.
“Not too far away.” She moved with precision that came from experience. “Why?”
Boone glanced out the window before looking back at her. “The way it’s coming down out there, seems like you ought to head home while you still can.”
She gave him a weary smile. “That’s right nice of you to think of that. As a matter of fact, I am leaving in about another hour, after we get these folks fed. The couple who owns this place said they could handle everything. No need for Mr. Sloan to hang around the motel office now that the rooms are all rented, so he’s gonna come over here and help Mrs. Sloan so I can leave.”
Boone nodded. “Good. You got four-wheel drive?”
“Yeah. My hubby’s coming to pick me up in the Jeep.” She looked down shyly at her belly. “He’s sort of protective these days.”
“He should be,” Boone said.
Her cheeks turned a happy shade of pink. “I’m hoping for a boy, but Gary doesn’t care what we have, so long as the baby’s healthy. I—” She paused and broke eye contact as someone in a booth called her name. “Excuse me. Table two needs some looking after.” She bustled out from behind the counter and hurried over to the booth in question.
Boone had the urge to take over for her so she could put her feet up until her husband arrived. Sure, some activity was good for a woman in her condition, but not this much. He’d make a damn poor waitress, though, and he doubted she’d let him help her, anyway. Leastways not after he’d broken a few dishes and mixed up a couple of orders.
So he sipped his coffee and thought about whether Jessica had worked too hard while she was pregnant with Elizabeth. She should have notified him right away when she found out she was pregnant. Thinking of her struggling through the pregnancy and birth by herself drove him crazy with guilt.
The coffee had warmed him up considerably, so he took off his leather jacket and laid it across his lap. Then he unsnapped the breast pocket of his shirt and took out the note he’d gotten from Jessica. He’d read it about a million times, yet he still needed to keep looking at it to convince himself this wasn’t some bad dream he was having.
Dear Boone,
I’m counting on you to be a godfather to Elizabeth until I can return for her. Your quiet strength is just what she needs right now. I’ve left her with Sebastian at the Rocking D. Believe me, I wouldn’t do this if I weren’t in desperate circumstances.
In deepest gratitude, Jessica
The letter was dated more than two months ago. She’d gotten the zip code wrong, so that had delayed it some, and then when it had finally arrived in Las Cruces, he’d been on the road hunting up horseshoeing jobs.
Still holding the letter, Boone rubbed his chin and gazed out the window at the steady snow. Snow had landed him in this fix in the first place. More than two years ago he’d let his three best buddies—Sebastian Daniels, Travis Evans and Nat Grady—talk him into a skiing trip in Aspen. He didn’t belong on skis any more than a buffalo belonged on roller skates, but he’d gone for Sebastian’s sake. They’d all nearly gotten themselves killed in an avalanche while they were blundering around on the slopes.
Jessica Franklin had been working the front desk of the ski lodge, and it was their dumb luck that they’d struck up a friendship with her and she’d offered to go with them that day. Otherwise Nat would’ve been toast. Jessica had figured out where he was buried and had kept her head, directing the rest of them to help dig him out before he smothered.
“More coffee?” Lucy asked as she passed by again.
Boone glanced at his cup. It would be a long night, and he could probably use the caffeine. “Sure,” he said, smiling at her. “And thanks.”
“Anytime.”
After she left, he resumed staring out the window, and his thoughts returned to his predicament. He wished he could think about something else, but he couldn’t. If only he hadn’t gone to the avalanche reunion party last year. He’d thought the idea was kind of morbid, but once again he’d gone along with the crowd.
Besides, he’d needed the distraction. Darlene had just announced that she was breaking up with him to marry that dork Chester Littlefield.
As it had turned out, Nat hadn’t made it to the reunion party because of some prior commitment. That had left Boone, Jessica, Sebastian and Travis to celebrate. Boone didn’t usually drink much. Over the years he’d seen what liquor could do to a man while watching his father’s bouts with the bottle.
But that night, thinking about Darlene, he’d guzzled everything in sight. Sebastian and Travis had put away a fair amount themselves, but Jessica, being a good friend, had stayed sober so she could drive them back to their cabin and see that they all took some aspirin before they tumbled into bed.
And that was when Boone figured he’d stepped over the line and dragged Jessica into bed with him. Sober he’d never have considered such a thing. But drunk and depressed about Darlene, he might well have.
He was sure Jessica knew he hadn’t meant to, that he didn’t think of her like that. Hell, he’d probably called her Darlene in the middle of it all. So Jessica had shouldered the whole burden when she found out she was pregnant. But now she was in some kind of trouble and had asked him to be a “godfather.”
Boone didn’t buy that godfather label, not for a minute. He was the baby’s father. When he’d called the Rocking D, he’d found out that Sebastian and Travis had gotten letters naming them as godfathers, too. But those other letters were a smokescreen. Sebastian was too honorable to have done such a thing, and Travis was too experienced to be caught like that. Besides, Jessica easily could have shoved those two guys away, considering they were drunk.
But even drunk, Boone had the strength of two men. Jessica wouldn’t have been able to get away. He hoped to hell he hadn’t hurt her. He’d spend the rest of his life trying to make it up to her for being a brute. And he would never touch another drop of alcohol as long as he lived.
“Mr. Connor?”
The soft voice brought him back to his surroundings. Turning from the window, he realized the blonde and her little boy were standing right next to him. Quickly he folded Jessica’s letter, tucked it in his pocket and snapped the pocket closed. Then he stood.
“Sorry,” the woman said. “You don’t have to get up. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“No problem,” he said. Women were constantly surprised by his manners, but he couldn’t help that. His mother had taught him to stand in the presence of a lady, and he couldn’t change that training now, even if he’d wanted to. “How did you know my name?”
Color tinged her cheeks. “I looked at the registration form before the clerk threw it away.” She held out her hand. “My name is Shelby McFarland.”
“Pleased to meet you, Shelby.” He took her soft hand gently in his, careful not to put too much pressure into his handshake. She was so delicate, he imagined he could leave a bruise if he was the least bit enthusiastic.
He enjoyed the contact, though, enjoyed it more than was good for him. He liked looking into her blue eyes, too. He read basic goodness and honesty there, but she was wary, too, as if something was spooking her. He put that together with the way she’d argued with the Smoky about going up the hill and wondered if she was running from something…or someone.
“And this is Josh,” she said, bringing the little boy forward. “Josh, can you shake Mr. Connor’s hand?”
Josh nodded and stuck out his hand, but his eyes widened as he looked Boone up and down. “You’re big as a elephant,” he said.
“Josh!” Shelby reddened.
Boone laughed out loud. “Can’t argue with the truth, son. I’m about as graceful as one, too.” He glanced around. “I’m afraid all the booths are taken up, so if you’re here to eat, you’ll have to grab a couple of stools.” The prospect of having her sit down beside him gave him a forbidden thrill. Then he thought of the note in his pocket and reminded himself of his reason for being on this road in the first place.
“Oh, we’re not staying,” she said.
He frowned. Surely she wasn’t going back out in that snowstorm now that she had a roof over her head. And truth be told, he didn’t appreciate having his generosity thrown back in his face.
She must have figured out he was ticked, because she put her hand lightly on his arm. “I mean we’re not staying in the café,” she said quickly. “We’ll just get something to go. We’re definitely staying in the room you so graciously gave up. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I would like to do…something in return. Buying your dinner seems inadequate, but I can at least do that much.”
Her touch on his arm felt like the nuzzle of a timid foal. And now that he looked closer, he could see that her whole body was poised for flight. She’d glanced over at the door several times. His curiosity grew.
“How ’bout a star?” Josh asked. “When I’m a good boy, like when I ’membered to pick up my room, you give’d me a star.”
Shelby blushed. “Well, that’s a good idea, Josh, but I’m not sure that Mr. Connor—”
“The name’s Boone, and I’d love a star.” He probably shouldn’t have said that. No doubt about it, he was having trouble keeping his distance from these two.
“Uh, okay.” She looked flustered, but she dug around in her purse and came up with a sheet of peel-and-stick gold stars. She peeled one off. “Where…where do you want it?”
Even if he was creating a problem for himself, he couldn’t help loving this. “On my shirt’s fine.”
She looked him over, and finally stuck the star on the flap of his shirt pocket, smoothing it carefully without looking at him. Her cheeks were bright pink. “There,” she said, glancing up. “There’s your star.”
“And a kiss!” Josh said.
Boone knew he should tell her to forget the kiss, but he couldn’t make himself say it. Only a fool would turn down a kiss from someone as adorable as Shelby, with her ponytail perched on her head and that sweet blush on her cheeks.
“A star and a kiss!” Josh insisted. “You always do that.”
Apparently she decided that giving in quickly was better than making a bigger scene by protesting. Standing on tiptoe, she leaned over and gave Boone a quick peck on the cheek.
Her lips were soft and full, and her scent swirled around him. He fought the urge to close his eyes with pleasure. But he needed to keep the moment light, so he grinned at her. “Thanks. Now I’ve been fully rewarded.”
“I do appreciate the room,” she said shyly.
“You’re most welcome. Listen why not stay and eat here? Taking the food back to the room will be a real hassle in this weather.” Well, hell. He seemed determined to dig himself into a hole. If he didn’t watch it, he’d ask for her phone number next.
Fortunately for both of them, she didn’t fall in with his plan. A wary look flashed in her eyes again, and she glanced away. Boone had the strangest feeling she was thinking of some story to explain why she couldn’t stay in the café to eat dinner.
“Bob wants to stay,” Josh said. “’Cause Bob gots to go potty.”
Shelby looked down at him. “I’m sure it won’t take long for them to whip up a couple of burgers and fries. Can Bob wait until we go back to the room?”
Josh held his crotch and peered up at her. “I gots to go, too,” he whispered. “Real bad, Shebby.”
Shebby. Boone heard it, plain as day. No way had the kid said Mommy just then. Shebby was probably his version of her name, Shelby. This wasn’t her son. The word kidnapper flashed in his brain, but he just couldn’t buy it.
She sighed and looked around until she located the sign for the rest rooms. “Okay.” She glanced up at Boone. “If you’ll excuse us, we’ll—”
“Do I hafta go in where the ladies go?” Josh hung back, his gaze pleading.
“Yes.” She took his hand firmly in hers.
Josh hung on her hand and tried to plant his feet. “But last time that lady was laughin’ at me.”
“She was laughing at the Cheerios, Josh, not at you. We don’t have to use them this time if you don’t want to. Now come on.”
Boone had to ask. “Cheerios?”
Shelby glanced back at him. “I throw some in the bowl. It gives him a target.”
Josh gazed up at Boone with a worried expression, as if he now expected Boone to laugh, too.
Boone bit down on the inside of his lip so he wouldn’t. “Great idea,” he said, although his voice was husky with the laugh he’d swallowed.
Josh’s expression cleared and his smile came out like sunshine. He pointed a stubby finger at Boone. “Me and him could go.”
Shelby shook her head and tugged on his hand. “No, I’m afraid not, Josh. Now come on.”
“Please,” Josh wailed, hanging back and dragging his feet. “I wanna be a big boy.”
Boone’s heart went out to him. He remembered a few trips to the ladies’ room, himself, when he was a kid. He’d always been tall for his age, so a couple of women had given him the evil eye when his mother had insisted on taking him in with her. He’d hated every minute of it, although now he completely understood why she’d done that. The world had some sick people in it.
“I’d be glad to take him,” Boone said. “I realize you don’t really know me, but—”
“I know you,” Josh said. “You gived us a room. Please, Shebby. Let me and him go.”
Shelby paused. She looked exhausted, frustrated and scared. “Okay,” she said at last. “If you’re willing to do that, I appreciate it. While you’re gone I’ll put in our order. Can I get anything for you while I’m at it? I’d love to be able to buy you some dinner.”
“No, thanks.” Boone had decided that eating would be his main entertainment tonight, and he didn’t want to rush it. “I’m not really hungry yet.”
She seemed even more frustrated that she couldn’t repay him with dinner, but Josh began hopping up and down, so she put the boy’s hand in Boone’s. “Thank you for everything,” she said. “You’ve been a real godsend.”
“Glad to help.” He touched a hand to the brim of his hat, which coaxed a faint smile from her. Then he had to focus all his attention on keeping Josh’s tiny hand in his. Such a small hand. Boone had to lean to the right to keep hold of it as Josh ran along beside him on the way to the rest rooms.
“Do you gots horsies?” Josh sounded breathless but determined to communicate. “’Cause me and Bob, we like horsies. We’re gonna ride some in Yellowstone.”
Boone realized the little guy was puffing because Boone’s stride was too long. He shortened it. “I have two horses,” he said. “One I keep with my friend Sebastian at the Rocking D, and the other one I keep at my folks’ place in Las Cruces.”
“Rocking D? What’s a Rocking D?”
Boone pushed open the swinging door to the rest room. “A ranch.”
“A ranch? You gots a ranch, like on TV?” Josh seemed beside himself with excitement, so beside himself that he’d obviously forgotten why he was in the rest room in the first place.
“Well, it’s not my—”
“Can I come there? Can I?”
“We’ll talk about that later. Right now you’d better tend to business.”
“’Kay.” Josh headed for a stall.
“You can do it here if you want,” Boone said as he gestured toward a urinal. “I’ll hold you up.”
Josh turned back to him, his expression confused.
“Come on. I’ll show you. This is how big guys do it.” Boone demonstrated.
Josh watched in obvious fascination.
Boone zipped up and glanced over at Josh. “Ready to try?”
Josh nodded vigorously.
In the end, Boone decided it would work best if he crouched down and let Josh stand on his knees. The little boy chortled happily all through the process, as if it was the highlight of his day.
Boone realized he was having a great time. What fun it would be to show a kid like this around the Rocking D. Sebastian had that gentle gelding, Samson, who would be perfect for Josh to learn on. But that was a pipe dream, for sure. Boone didn’t think Shelby would make a special detour to the Rocking D. She looked like a lady on a mission.
Besides, Boone had no business daydreaming about taking her there. She would be too big a temptation. He’d already caught himself thinking about what sort of body was hidden by the bulky ski jacket she wore, and he was in no position to go down that road with any woman.
As Josh finished washing his hands, he started in again on the topic of visiting the ranch. “I never been to a ranch,” he said. “Can I come? Me and Bob?”
“I imagine you have places to go and people to see,” Boone said.
“Well, we’re gonna see geezers in Yellowstone.” Josh dropped the paper towel neatly in the waste container.
“You mean geysers?” Boone was impressed with the boy’s neatness. Somebody had taught him well.
Josh nodded. “They go whoosh! Up in the air!” He threw his arms up to illustrate.
“Sounds like fun.” Boone decided to do some fishing for information. “Are you going to meet your mommy up there?”
“I don’t think so. My mommy’s in heaven with the angels.”
The casual statement slammed into Boone like a brick to the stomach, but Josh seemed completely at ease about it. Shelby probably wasn’t a kidnapper, not that Boone had seriously thought she was. But she was nervous about something. “Then maybe your dad?”
“Nope.” Josh started marching toward the door of the rest room. “My daddy’s in S’Antonio.”
“Really?” Boone held the door open for Josh.
“Yep.” Josh walked through the door. “He gots a gun.”
SHELBY HAD WATCHED Boone lead Josh away and no warning bells had sounded in her head. Boone inspired trust and a sense of security. She could feel it, and she was sure Josh could feel it, too.
Poor little guy hadn’t had much in the way of male role models. His grandfather had never been particularly interested in kids, not even his own daughters when they were young. Mason had ignored Josh until he’d smelled money, and even with the lure of that money, Mason had a hard time pretending to be a loving dad.
No wonder Josh had latched on to Boone so quickly. Seeing the way Boone abbreviated his long stride to accommodate Josh’s short one made Shelby’s heart hitch.
Not all men brushed children aside the way her father had, she reminded herself. Patricia, the beauty, had eventually gained her father’s admiration by going into the high-profile world of television broadcasting. He and Shelby’s mother had been able to brag about Patricia, who eventually had her own local talk show. Shelby’s modest desktop-publishing business and her more average looks hadn’t been able to compete.
Shelby watched until Boone led Josh away through the swinging door of the men’s room. Then she turned to catch the eye of the waitress working behind the counter. She noticed that her name was Lucy. Shelby’s mother’s name. Another sharp pain sliced through her before she could shut down her feelings.
The woman, who was visibly pregnant, came over toward Shelby. “Can I help you?”
“You sure can. Can I please get two hamburgers and two orders of fries to go?” Shelby knew it wasn’t the most nutritious meal in the world, but she’d worry about getting some green veggies into Josh tomorrow, after they’d put some more miles between them and Mason.
“You and that little boy aren’t going back out on the road, are you?” asked the waitress.
“No, thank goodness. We have a room at the motel, thanks to that gentleman who was just sitting here. He had the last room, but he gave it to us, instead.”
The waitress’s expression grew soft. “Isn’t he the nicest man? He was worried about whether I had a way to get home.”
“Apparently he’s the kind who looks out for others,” Shelby said. “It’s good to know there are still guys out there like that.”
“And he’s pretty darned cute, too, did you notice?”
“I guess.” Shelby thought about the gentle smile that had made her tingle. Oh, yes, she’d noticed. Besides his understanding green eyes, he also possessed a couple of other noteworthy features, like a very masculine-looking jaw and curly black hair. Her heart had raced when she’d leaned over to place a kiss on his suntanned cheek.
He was built well, too. Although some large men tended to look beefy and slightly out of shape, this one didn’t seem to have a spare bit of flab on him. Nice tush, too. Watching him walk away with Josh had given her guilty pleasure.
“It’s a wonder some woman hasn’t snatched him up,” the waitress said. “But he’s not wearing a wedding ring. And he’s the type who would, if he was married.” She glanced pointedly down at the bare ring finger of Shelby’s left hand.
Shelby stuffed her left hand into the pocket of her jacket. The waitress might think she could do a little matchmaking in between serving orders, but whether Boone Connor was married or not was of no consequence to Shelby. She couldn’t think about such things under the current circumstances. Even ogling his cute tush meant she was allowing herself to be distracted from her goal of keeping Josh safe. That wasn’t good.
She leaned closer to the waitress. “Listen, since he’ll have to spend the night in the café, could I leave some money with you to pay for whatever food he eats? I’d like to find some way to repay him for being so kind.”
“I’ll be leaving soon, myself, but I suppose I could arrange that with Mrs. Sloan. Why don’t you just stay and eat your dinner when he eats his? Then you could just pick up the check for everything.”
Shelby trotted out the excuse she’d been about to give Boone. “Well, I would, but Josh has a program he wants to see on TV, so we need to get back to the room.”
The waitress rolled her eyes as if to say that Shelby was crazy to let something like that stand in her way. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.” She pulled some bills out of her purse and gave them to the waitress. “That should cover ours and anything he has, don’t you think?”
The waitress looked at the cash Shelby had given her and chuckled. “That’s more than enough. I’ll go put in your order.”
Shelby positioned herself with her back to the counter so she could see the front door of the café. No one had come in for some time, and hardly anyone had left, either. The booths along the wall were still occupied. The place had taken on a party atmosphere, as if being stranded here together had made everyone friends.
Except her. A woman on the run didn’t stop to make friends along the way. Too risky. Boone Connor had helped her out, and she was grateful. Under different circumstances, she would have liked to get to know him, but once she left this café tonight, she never expected to see him again.
She’d driven out of San Antonio without much of a plan except an instinctive urge to head for Yellowstone Park. But she couldn’t stay in Yellowstone. She’d continue north to Canada.
Once out of the country, she’d find a good lawyer and assess her chances of legally keeping Josh. But she’d keep him, legally or illegally, because she knew one thing for sure. No matter what a judge might say, as long as she was alive Mason Fowler was never, ever getting custody of his son.
3
BOONE HATED TO ADMIT how much he missed Josh and Shelby once they’d left the café with their bags of food. But no way would Shelby stay to eat. Something was going on with her, and Boone was afraid he’d never find out what it was.
When he learned that she’d left money to pay for his food, he had half a mind to go over to her room and give it back. Then he recognized that he was only looking for an excuse to see her again, which was a fool’s errand, for sure. He was the sort of guy who needed time to build a relationship, and after tonight, he and Shelby would probably never cross paths again. That was probably just as well.
Still, he couldn’t let Shelby buy his dinner. It didn’t seem right. So he asked Mrs. Sloan to put the money aside for Lucy, who could probably use some extra cash for that baby she’d be having soon.
By eleven the café had emptied out and Boone had his pick of booths, not that one looked any more comfortable than the other. He was on a first-name basis with Norma Sloan and her husband Eugene. The couple reminded him of Jack Sprat who could eat no fat and his wife who could eat no lean. They’d been more than kind, providing a pillow and a blanket to help him through the night.
About eleven-thirty, Norma sent Eugene into the café’s back room to grab a catnap while she kept the coffeepot going. Who they were brewing coffee for was a mystery to Boone, because no other customers showed up. Boone crammed himself into his chosen booth and pulled his hat over his eyes.
When Eugene came out to relieve Norma at one in the morning, Boone unfolded himself from the booth. He didn’t think he’d slept much, and he felt as if he’d been rode hard and put away wet. Stretching the stiffness from his spine, he walked over to the counter.
“Want some java, Boone?” Eugene asked around a yawn.
“No, thanks. But why don’t you go on back to bed and let me take care of anybody who comes in? I doubt anybody will, anyway.”
“That’s a nice offer, but my conscience wouldn’t let me.” Eugene yawned again and poured himself a cup of coffee. “You’re a customer, not my hired help.”
“Speaking of that, who usually mans the counter when you’re open all night? Don’t tell me Lucy works graveyard.”
“Nope.” Eugene unwrapped a sweet roll as he talked. “We have another gal, Edna. She’s older than Lucy and says she likes working nights. Prefers the peace and quiet. But I didn’t want her on the road tonight, so I called and told her to stay home, that we’d handle it. That’s what Norma and I always do when the weather gets like this. We’d rather stay up all night ourselves than worry about an employee skidding all over the road trying to get to work.” He bit into the sweet roll. “Want one?”
“No, thanks.” Boone turned to gaze out the window at the snow still falling. “Then how about closing the place until morning?” He glanced back at Eugene. “Nobody but a crazy person is still on that road tonight.”
Eugene smiled. “No can do. Staying open is a matter of pride with me. My daddy used to own this place, and when I took over he made me promise to keep the coffee going twenty-four hours a day. He said we’d never know how many lives we’d saved by giving people a place to pull off the road, get some coffee and a bite to eat, but he figured we’d saved our share.”
“I’ll bet you have, at that.” Boone rubbed his chin and felt the stubble there. He’d grab a shave in the rest room before he left in the morning. “I’ve stopped here myself a few times, when I was feeling groggy. You might even have saved me.”
“And there could be someone else out there battling his way through the storm, and the light from our sign could be a beacon in the night.”
“Like a lighthouse,” Boone said. He could understand Eugene’s urge to save people. He had that sort of urge all the time. That’s why he was sleeping in a booth tonight.
“Exactly,” Eugene said. “A lighthouse. You sure you don’t want some coffee and one of these rolls?”
Boone sighed. “Yeah, why not. I’m not having much luck sleeping, anyway.” And he could tell Eugene wanted somebody to talk to. So he sat at the counter and swapped fishing stories with the guy for a good hour.
He talked so long and grew so tired that sleep sounded like a real possibility, even in a hard plastic booth. But before he could excuse himself from Eugene, the café door opened, bringing with it a blast of frigid air and blowing snow.
Boone swiveled on the stool to see if one of the motel customers had decided to come over for a midnight snack. For one crazy moment he hoped it might even be Shelby. Instead it was someone he didn’t recognize from the crowd that had filled the café earlier that night.
The man was built like a fireplug, short but solid. His ski jacket bulked him out even more, but Boone could tell from the fit of the guy’s jeans that he probably worked out in some fancy gym to build up his muscles.
“Damn!” The man pulled off a black stocking cap as he stomped his feet on the mat just inside the café door. His hair was cropped close to his head, military-style. “It’s a bitch out there!”
Boone usually reserved judgment on folks until they’d had a chance to prove themselves one way or the other, but for some reason this guy put him on edge. There was something hard and unyielding about him that showed in his voice, in his movements, even in the bristle of his haircut.
“I’ll bet you could use a cup of coffee,” Eugene said eagerly. “And there’s some pie left, if you—”
“Black coffee,” the man said.
Boone was relieved to see the man order something. For a minute he’d imagined the guy taking out a gun and demanding that Eugene empty the cash register. Staying open all night for weary travelers was one thing, but Boone wondered if Eugene and Norma had ever been left alone to face the wrong kind of customer. This fellow was probably harmless, but all in all Boone was glad to be here tonight, just in case.
“Where’re y’all headed?” Boone asked as the guy sat down at the counter. Boone laid on the good-ol’-boy accent on purpose. That, combined with his size, tended to make people think he wasn’t very smart, and then he found out things he might not have otherwise.
The man looked Boone over, his pale gray eyes clearly taking Boone’s measure. “Nowhere, it appears. Damn storm.”
“Yeah, it’s holdin’ folks up, all right,” Boone said.
Eugene set the coffee in front of the man. “Sure I can’t get you something to eat? A sandwich?”
“Nothing.” The man took a swig of his coffee.
Eugene lifted the pot in Boone’s direction and Boone nodded. He didn’t need more coffee, but he wanted an excuse to sit at the counter a little longer and find out what this stranger was up to.
“How long before these pansy-ass cops let us through?” the man asked.
Boone decided to play along. “God knows. My truck could make it right now, no sweat, but you know these Smokies. Treat us all like a bunch of old women.”
Eugene’s eyebrows lifted, and Boone winked at him when the other guy wasn’t looking. Eugene grinned and turned to put the coffeepot back on the burner.
“Ain’t that the truth,” the man muttered. “And then I couldn’t rouse anybody at the motel office. Knocked so hard I about broke the door down. Those people must sleep like the dead.”
Boone wondered why he’d try to beat down the door of a motel office that had a No Vacancy sign in the window. His sense of uneasiness grew.
Eugene turned to the man. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any rooms left.”
“Oh, so you’re the one in charge?” The man looked at Eugene with new interest.
“My wife and I run both the motel and the café. All I can offer you is something to eat and drink, and a booth to stretch out in if you like.”
“Actually, none of the above.” The guy leaned forward. “I want to know if a woman and a little kid checked in after the barricades went up. She’s blond, and he’s about so high.” He held his hand about three feet off the floor.
The pieces clicked into place for Boone. Shelby, arguing with the patrolman. Shelby, desperate for a room. A room to hide in. And Josh’s innocent little voice as he announced, “My daddy gots a gun.”
Boone glanced at Eugene and thought he saw the older man stiffen. He might have guessed what was going on, too. He could have noticed, like Boone had, that Josh didn’t call Shelby Mommy. Kidnapping a kid from his legal guardian was serious stuff, if that’s what Shelby had done. But if this guy was on the up-and-up, he would have asked the patrolman at the barricades to help him find Shelby and Josh.
Holding his breath, Boone waited for Eugene’s answer. Even if Eugene refused to give the guy any information, the way he refused could tip the guy off that Shelby was here.
Eugene adjusted his glasses and paused. “Don’t believe I’ve seen anybody matching that description,” he said, smooth as butter.
Boone wanted to leap across the counter and kiss Eugene on both cheeks.
“I know the woman you’re talking about,” Norma said, coming out of the back room.
Boone’s stomach tightened. If only Norma had stayed asleep.
“She came through about noon,” Norma continued.
Now Boone had two people he wanted to hug. Not only was Norma covering for Shelby, she was misdirecting this guy.
“Yeah?” The man sat up straighter. “What did she look like?”
“Blond, pretty. The little boy was blond, too. They stopped in to get some food, but they took it to go because they wanted to get over the pass before the snow started.”
The guy’s fist hit the counter. “Damn it to hell.” Then he sighed. “At least I guessed right on which road she’d take.”
Norma gazed at him, her expression bland. “She must be important to you.”
“Oh, she’s important, all right,” he replied with a sneer. “She took my kid.”
“Goodness!” Norma sounded concerned, but her gaze had no warmth in it. “Have you notified the authorities?”
“Hell, the authorities couldn’t find their ass with their own two hands. This is one slick chick.”
Boone didn’t think so. Shelby wasn’t enough of a criminal to think of hiding her identity or Josh’s. Fear was driving her, not cunning. She was running as fast as she could go and improvising a plan along the way. But he didn’t think she was a match for this man.
Boone stood and stretched. Then he faked a yawn. “Well, folks, now that I’ve had my bedtime snack, I believe I’ll go to my room and turn in.”
Eugene covered his look of surprise quickly. “Might as well. They won’t be opening that road until daybreak, maybe later.”
The man looked at Boone. “You’ve been letting a bed go to waste? Hell, if you don’t want it, I’ll take it.”
“Sorry.” Boone clapped his Stetson on his head and pulled on his jacket. “I got here first.” He gestured toward the booth where he’d left the pillow and blanket. “But the Sloans put out a blanket and a pillow in case anybody stumbled in during the night. I’m sure you’re welcome to that.”
The man eyed the setup and turned back to his coffee cup. “We’ll see if I get that desperate,” he said sourly.
Boone waved at Eugene and Norma and headed out the café door. Once outside he turned up his collar and held onto his hat as he ducked his head and trudged forward against the bitter wind. Snow sifted down inside his jacket and his bare hand grew numb. Once he warned Shelby about the man in the café, he wondered what the heck he was going to do with himself and whether he had enough gas to run the truck’s heater all night.
SHELBY LAY in the double bed next to Josh listening to his steady breathing with a touch of envy. All he needed was a darkened room, a soft bed and his blue “blankie” clutched against his cheek.
How she’d love to escape into the world of childhood, if only for a little while, and feel safe again, safe enough to sleep. Her urge to head for Yellowstone had probably come from that same longing. She remembered staying in a little cabin with her mother and father and Patricia, all of the beds in one big room, like settlers on the prairie. They’d never been so cozy before or since.
There was nothing cozy about this room. The heater had a noisy fan, but it didn’t block out the whistling of the wind through a crevice between the door and the frame or the rattling of a loose windowpane. After checking the lock at least twenty times, Shelby had dozed off, only to be awakened when she’d heard someone pounding on a door not far away.
Adrenaline had poured through her, but she hadn’t wanted to wake Josh by leaping out of bed. By the time she’d eased over to the window, drawn back the curtain and peered out, the motel courtyard had been empty.
Now she worried about who had been pounding on a door in the middle of the night. She’d probably been foolish to take this well-traveled highway north toward Yellowstone. Early in Patricia’s marriage to Mason, soon after Josh was born, Shelby had gone over to their house for dinner. She distinctly remembered reminiscing with Patricia about that Yellowstone trip. They’d talked about the fun stops along the way and how much the family vacation had meant to them.
If Mason remembered, he would know exactly what road to take to find her. She was terrible at this cloak-and-dagger stuff, and she really should give up on Yellowstone. Except it wasn’t only Josh’s excitement that was guiding her there. The thought of seeing the place again with Josh had become the only bright spot in her otherwise frightening world. She loved the way Josh insisted on calling the geysers “geezers.” Maybe he’d mixed up the words when she’d mentioned one of the geysers was called Old Faithful.
The windowpane rattled again. Or was that a different sort of noise? She strained to hear over the whirr of the fan and the whistling of the wind. Then the noise came again. A rapid, soft tapping. On her door.
Her stomach lurched in fear and her heartbeat hammered in her ears as she crept quietly out of bed. The tapping grew slightly louder, as if someone wanted to get her attention without alerting anyone else.
Easing back the curtain a tiny slit, she peered out. Then she gasped in surprise as she recognized Boone, his big shoulders hunched against the cold. Had he come to tell her they’d cleared the road?
Her vulnerability made her hesitate before opening the door. Then she shook off any doubts. After all, she’d received nothing but kindness from this man. Now that she’d become one of the hunted, she’d have to learn to trust her instincts if she planned to survive. Her instincts told her Boone wouldn’t harm her or Josh.
Crossing to the door, she unlocked and opened it, belatedly remembering that she wore only a cotton nightgown. The cold took her breath away.
“I have to talk to you,” Boone said. His face was in shadow. “Can I—”
“Come in, for heaven’s sake,” she whispered, stepping back. “It’s freezing out.” Once he was through the door she closed it, but the room temperature seemed to have dropped thirty degrees in that short time.
“Shebby?” Josh mumbled sleepily from the bed.
She hurried over to the bed and leaned down to tuck his blue blanket against his cheek. “Go back to sleep, sweetheart. It’s only Boone.”
“’Kay.” And just like that, he snuggled back under the covers and dozed off.
Shelby was amazed. Boone and Josh had spent less than twenty minutes together all told, and Boone now had the little boy’s complete trust. She straightened and turned. The room was almost totally dark, but she could make out the cowboy standing right where she’d left him by the door.
A thrill of awareness shot through her. Being alone in the dark with this virile man was the most exciting thing that had happened to her in a long while. He’d probably come over to give her a weather report or the latest information on the road, but for a moment she could fantasize that he’d come because he had a burning need to see her again.
“Do you mind talking in the dark?” she murmured as she walked back toward him. “I don’t want to wake Josh.”
“That’s okay.”
The closer she came to him, the more she felt the cold that had settled on his clothes, and it made her shiver. But she wasn’t afraid. Maybe some of Josh’s instinctive trust in Boone had rubbed off on her, because for the first time since she’d left San Antonio, she felt a little less alone.
She wrapped her arms around her body to ward off the chill and came to stand next to him. She had to move close, so she could keep her voice low. The scent of his aftershave teased her. “What is it?” she asked. “Is the road—”
“No, it’s not the road,” he said quietly. “Look, I don’t mean to mess in your business, but there’s a man in the café who might be looking for you and the boy.”
She gasped and stepped back, her romantic notions shredded by one simple statement. Oh, God, no. Not right here. She’d lulled herself into believing the weather had protected her. Her stomach began to churn. But maybe Boone was wrong. “What…does he look like?”
“Short, stocky but solid, like he works out. He has a military buzz cut.”
Nausea rose in her throat. She turned away and took several long, deep breaths until her stomach settled down a little.
“Do you know him?” Boone asked.
“I know him.”
“Is he a threat to you?”
She gazed up into his shadowed face and decided to risk telling him the truth. “I suppose. I have his son.”
Boone nodded, as if her honesty set well with him. “I figured. Josh told me his daddy has a gun.”
Shelby glanced over her shoulder at the sleeping boy, but he didn’t seem to have stirred. She lowered her voice. “Mason Fowler is a horrible person. He beat my sister and—”
He drew in a sharp breath. “Did he kill her? Josh said—”
“No,” she whispered quickly. “Patricia divorced him two years ago. She…died in a boating accident with…my parents…four months ago.” Shelby shuddered with the effort not to cry. She’d been able to stay strong until now, but this big cowboy was such a comforting presence that she was tempted to give in to her grief.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was husky, tender.
“Me, too.” She swallowed. “Anyway, Patricia didn’t leave a will, so unfortunately Mason has more of a claim to Josh than I do. He’s started the paperwork to get custody. I don’t think the process is going fast enough for him. A couple of days ago, I felt sure he was ready to take Josh for an outing and just…keep him.”
“So he wants the boy.”
“Not really.” She moved closer to Boone. She told herself it was so that he could hear her low-pitched explanation, but she also wished he’d wrap those strong arms around her. It was a dumb idea, and luckily for both of them, he didn’t pick up on her body language.
“Mason wasn’t the least interested in visitation rights after the divorce,” she continued. “For two years he hardly saw Josh. Now he’s pretending to be the perfect daddy. I’m convinced he’s only after money. My parents did leave a will, and whoever gets Josh also gets the generous maintenance allowance my parents set up for him.”
A growl of disapproval rumbled in Boone’s chest, and even though Shelby couldn’t see his face, she could feel the tension in his body. His righteous fury at hearing such news warmed her more than a blazing fire could have done.
It gave her the courage to ask the question she’d been dreading the answer to. “Does he guess I’m here somewhere?”
“I don’t think so. Eugene said he’d never laid eyes on you and Norma said she’d seen you but you went through about lunchtime and were probably way down the road by now.”
“Who are Eugene and Norma?”
“Sorry. The Sloans, the people who own the place.”
Shelby stared up at him. “They lied for me? Why would they do that?”
“Protecting the privacy of a customer might be part of it, but I think it’s also because they didn’t take a shine to this Mason character any more than I did. They might have asked themselves why he’s coming after you himself, instead of notifying the police. I wondered that, too.”
“Because it’s more his style. He’d rather intimidate me personally than trust that the law will be on his side. I have no doubt if he decides I’m in the way of his getting that money, he’ll want to eliminate me completely. In some ways, I probably played right into his hands, running like this.”
“What was your plan?”
She drew strength from the soft murmur of his voice in the darkness, and the woodsy, masculine scent of him eased her panic. “At first I could only think of getting Josh out of town, and I told him we’d go to Yellowstone. Once we were on the road, I realized we couldn’t stay there, so I’d decided to continue north to Canada and get a lawyer up there to help me. But now, if Mason’s right here…”
As the shivers started again, she wrapped her arms tighter around her body. “I don’t know. Maybe he wanted me to do this. Maybe he’s been goading me, hoping I’d take off. And the fact is, he does intimidate me. But I can’t let him get Josh. I just can’t.”
Boone stood there in silence for a long time. Finally he blew out a breath. “I guess you’d better let me help you.”
They were the sweetest words she’d heard in a long while, yet she couldn’t imagine what this cowboy could do. “How?”
“Leave your rental car here and come with me to the Rocking D.”
“Your…your ranch?”
“Not mine. It belongs to a good buddy of mine, Sebastian Daniels, and his new wife Matty. It’s near Canon City, in a pretty little valley. You’ll be safe there while you figure out what you want to do next.”
“Oh, Boone, that’s a wonderful offer.” The idea filled her with such longing she could taste it, but she gathered her strength and pride, wrapping them around her like a cloak. “But I can’t bring my troubles to roost at your friend’s place, especially if he’s a newlywed.”
“You don’t know Sebastian. If he found out I’d left a defenseless woman and a little boy—”
“I’m not defenseless.” She refused to come across as a victim.
“You’re not?”
“I took a self-defense class. I can take care of myself.”
“Well, that’s good,” he said patiently. “That’s real good. But it’s kinda tough taking care of yourself when you have a little shaver to worry about.”
She knew that. She just hadn’t wanted to think about it. “You have a point there,” she admitted reluctantly.
“Anyway, if Sebastian knew I’d left you to fend off some wife-beater by yourself, while taking care of the boy and all, he’d have my hide. Sebastian would want me to bring you to the Rocking D, once he understood the situation.”
She struggled to keep a grip on the pride she’d been clinging to so fiercely. She needed a champion, needed one desperately. Two champions sounded like heaven, but she couldn’t impose like that. “Sounds as if you and your friend are two in a million.”
“Not by a long shot.” He sounded embarrassed. “We’re a couple of ornery cusses, if you must know. Travis, he’s the charming one.”
“Travis?”
“Travis Evans. You’ll meet him, too. In fact, as long as we get out of here at a decent hour in the morning, you’ll get to come to his wedding.”
The conversation had taken on an unreal quality. “Boone, hold on a minute. You’re planning on putting me, with all my problems, smack-dab in the middle of wedding festivities? You can’t do that.”
“Like I said, my friends would have a fit if I did anything different.”
“Some friends you have, Boone.” She was beginning to believe she’d stumbled onto the cowboy equivalent of the Knights of the Round Table. Still, taking advantage of such gallantry wasn’t her style. “Listen, you’re wonderful to offer, but I simply can’t put you or your friends to that kind of trouble.”
“Okay.” His tone was patient. “What’s your alternative?”
Good question. She thought of Mason lurking in the café, coiled like a rattlesnake ready to strike. She could watch for him to leave before she ventured out of the room in the morning, but that would mean being trapped without any way of getting food for Josh. Explaining that problem to Josh without telling him about Mason would be tricky.
She faced the fact that she had no plan unless someone offered to be her ally. Boone had offered. “I guess my biggest problem is how to get food to Josh if the road doesn’t open right away in the morning,” she said.
“I can help you with that.”
“I would appreciate it.” She was embarrassed by how constrained her position was. She tried for an attitude of independence and self-reliance. “Once Mason leaves, Josh and I can be on our way. Kind as your gesture is, we really wouldn’t need to go with you.”
He sighed. “Shelby, I’ve seen the guy. He’s a tough customer, and he won’t stay fooled forever. Sooner or later, he’ll catch on and come back looking for you. When he does, your self-defense courses aren’t going to do you much good. If you really want to keep Josh out of his hands, you need help.”
She knew he was right. Damn it, he was so right. She’d been foolish to think she could protect Josh by herself. Reckless and foolish. Humbled by her monumental ability to miscalculate, she finally understood that her pride could endanger Josh. Because she loved him far more than her stupid pride, she had no choice but to be indebted to Boone and his friends. “Okay,” she said softly. “But I’ll find a way to make it up to you. I’ll—”
“No need,” he said. “Don’t even worry about it.”
Of course she would. The debt already sat heavy in her chest. But Josh was more important than her own comfort zone right now. “What about my rental car?” she asked.
“You can call the office in Santa Fe and tell them you were afraid to drive it over the pass. That makes sense. You shouldn’t drive it over the pass, at least not for a day or two. But you can say you found other transportation. They might charge you something extra if they have to come get it, but—”
“I don’t care about that.”
“Okay, then it’s settled.” He turned toward the door. “I’ll come over here in the morning when I’m sure Mason’s gone.”
“Wait a minute.” She’d been so caught up in her own problems that she hadn’t thought about how Boone had engineered this visit to her room. “Mason’s in the café, right?”
“Right.”
“When you left, where did he think you were going?”
“To my room.”
She gazed at him standing by the door. “But you don’t have a room.”
“He doesn’t know that.”
“You can’t go back in the café now, can you?”
“No, but I’ll be okay in my truck.”
His willingness to sacrifice himself for someone he’d just met left her speechless. Finally she recovered enough to stop him before he opened the door. “You will not sleep in the truck, Boone. Share the bed with Josh. He doesn’t take up much room. It’s the least—”
“Not in this lifetime.”
The steel in his words told her it was useless to argue the point. “Okay, then take the chair, or the floor. But you are not going out to that truck. If you do, then the deal’s off. I won’t go with you to the Rocking D.”
“But…you don’t know me.”
She smiled at that. “Yes, I do. Stay with Josh and me for the rest of the night, Boone. I feel rotten enough about the trouble I’m causing you. Let me at least offer you shelter from this storm.”
“You shouldn’t feel bad. You’re not the one causing the problem. Fowler is.”
“Well, I do feel bad, and I wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink knowing I sent you out to stay in your truck tonight.”
He hesitated. “Well—”
“You’ll be doing me a big favor.” She pressed her advantage. His only weakness seemed to be his very soft heart. “I haven’t been able to sleep hardly at all since I left San Antonio. I have a feeling with you here, I’ll be able to finally relax.”
“Then go on back to bed.” Boone took off his jacket and hat before settling down in the room’s only chair. “Don’t be afraid to sleep. I’ll keep you safe.”
4
BOONE SHIFTED his chair so that it blocked the door, just in case. Then he leaned back and closed his eyes, although he didn’t expect to sleep. The room was too full of Shelby—her flowery scent, her soft breathing, her rustling movements as she turned over in bed.
His sexual urges were coming out of hibernation, and the timing sucked. For the first time in more than a year, he was seriously interested in a woman. But in spite of the lousy timing, he was somewhat reassured by the ache in his groin. After Darlene had dumped him, he’d felt more like a steer than a bull, except, apparently, when he’d downed a pint of good Irish whiskey and taken Jessica to bed. That hardly counted.
This counted. Nothing about Shelby reminded him of Darlene. Darlene was tall and big-boned, with brown eyes and hair. And damned impatient about getting a ring on her finger. He’d wanted to wait awhile to get married, so he could save enough money to give her a better style of life. At least that’s what he’d assumed was his motivation. Sebastian had thought all along he was stalling because deep down he wasn’t sure Darlene was the one.
No matter what the reason, his method of operation hadn’t suited Darlene, and he’d lost her. Maybe she hadn’t been the one, but she’d been a big part of his life for a good many years, and he still couldn’t think of her without getting a lump in his throat.
Except now he could. Boone’s eyes snapped open as he realized he’d been thinking about Darlene for several minutes, and his throat felt perfectly fine. Testing himself, he conjured up the pictures that usually sent him into deep depression—Darlene in a wedding dress, Darlene standing in front of the preacher with Chester Littlefield, Darlene and Chester in bed together.
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Vicki Lewis Thompson
The BlacksmithBoone Connor liked being a loner, plain and simple. In his estimation, women just got a guy into trouble. And he had enough of that already…His WomanShelby McFarland and her young nephew were on the run. When a freak snowstorm left them stranded, she though the game was over–until a strong sexy cowboy came to their rescue…His Baby?Boone couldn't resist helping a lady in distress, andy more than he could help falling for her–hard and fast! Shelby's lips tempted him, teased him, and her gorgeous body pushed him beyond reason. But as good as they were together, Boone couldn't make Shelby any promises. Because he'd just discovered he had a baby girl…
The message in Boone’s eyes was blatantly clear
Shelby began to quiver in anticipation. Embarrassed by how shaky she felt, she put both hands behind her back and leaned against the wall, pretending to be casual but desperately needing the support.
“Shelby.” Boone’s voice was strained. “Don’t lean like that.” His gaze lingered on her breasts, and his breathing grew ragged.
She realized that her attempt to be casual had resulted in her breasts thrusting out in what looked like an invitation. She hadn’t done it deliberately, but as she noticed his agitation—and the evidence of his arousal—her nervousness began to disappear.
And she discovered something very wicked about herself. Now that he’d said he wasn’t in love with someone else, she was ready to play on his weakness for her.
“Tell me to go away, Shelby.” His attention became fixed on her mouth. “For God’s sake, don’t look so ready to be kissed. You’re driving me crazy, you know that.”
“I know.” Meeting the challenge in his eyes, she moistened her lips and parted them, teasing him with a sultry look. “Drive me crazy, too, Boone. Just one last time….”
Dear Reader,
Willie Nelson tells us that mamas shouldn’t let their babies grow up to be cowboys. I suppose he’s entitled to his opinion. Personally, I wouldn’t look forward to a world without cowboys, which is where Willie’s advice might take us. I think I could round up a number of women who would agree with me.
Take Boone Connor. (And I’m sure plenty of us would love to.) Six feet five inches of lean, muscular cowboy. Boone’s a perfect example of why Willie should rethink his position. I’m extremely grateful Boone’s mama let him grow up to be a cowboy. Dressing that yummy man in a business suit would be a crying shame.
As my miniseries THREE COWBOYS & A BABY continues, Boone is daddy prospect number three. Like Sebastian (in #780 The Colorado Kid) and Travis (in #784 Two in the Saddle), Boone’s positive he’s baby Elizabeth’s father. But is he? Watch for the conclusion of the series when That’s My Baby!, a Harlequin single-title release, comes out in September. One thing you can count on: Elizabeth’s daddy will turn out to be…a cowboy!
Warmly,
Vicki Lewis Thompson
Boone’s Bounty
Vicki Lewis Thompson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To the Goddesses of the Temptation e-mail loop, who coached me on the care and feeding of three-year-olds. You’re the best!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
1
SNOW.
Boone Connor sighed and switched on the wipers. Didn’t it just figure he’d hit a late-season snowstorm on his way over Raton Pass. Damn. It was nearly June. The snow should be gone by now. But his luck had been running that way lately.
And this didn’t promise to be one of those wimpy storms that sifted down from the clouds like cake flour and dusted the pine trees so they looked like a Christmas card. This wasn’t the kind of snow that blew off the road like white sand. Nope. This was a serious, drifts-to-your-crotch, black-ice-on-the-curves kind of storm. His truck tires were already losing traction.
The roadblock didn’t surprise him, but it sure frustrated the hell out of him. His old king-cab could make it through anything, and he sure was anxious about getting to the Rocking D to see that baby. His baby, most likely. The idea that he probably had a kid still made him dizzy. He couldn’t quite believe the baby was real, and setting eyes on her would help anchor his thoughts.
But Smoky was about to throw a crimp in his plans, obviously.
Boone rolled down his window and snow blew in, nipping his cheeks with cold. He ignored the discomfort and tipped up the brim of his Stetson so he could look the cop in the eye while he tried to make a case for getting past those orange and white barriers.
The patrolman, bundled to the teeth, looked up at Boone. “I’m afraid you’ll have to turn back, sir.” His breath fogged the air. “Road conditions are bad up ahead and getting worse by the minute.”
“My truck’s gots four-wheel drive, Officer,” Boone said, although he didn’t expect that information to make any difference. “And I’ve driven this road hundreds of times. I need to get to Colorado right away.”
“I understand that, sir.” The patrolman didn’t sound particularly understanding. He sounded as if he was sick to death of standing in the cold reciting this speech to unhappy folks. “But we can’t let you take a chance on that road until the storm’s over and the snowplow clears it. With luck we’ll be able to let people through tomorrow morning.”
“Hell.”
“There’s a little motel and café about three miles back,” the patrolman added, stomping his booted feet.
Boone knew the place. He’d stopped there for coffee a few times, but hadn’t bothered this trip because he’d been trying to outrun the snow. He’d never stayed at the motel. He mostly liked driving straight through until he got to where he was going. The motel wasn’t very big, as he recalled. Ten or twelve units, maybe.
He glanced up at the patrolman. “How many people have you sent there?”
“A few. But I expect most of them drove on back to Santa Fe. The motel’s clean, but not exactly the Plaza.” The patrolman glanced past Boone’s truck. “I’ll have to ask you to move your vehicle, sir. There’s someone behind you.”
Boone glanced in his rearview mirror and saw the small white sedan, its fog lights picking out the flakes and causing them to sparkle while the rest of the car was nearly invisible in the swirling snow. Now that vehicle had no business trying to maneuver down the road ahead, but Boone still thought he could make it with no sweat. Still, he knew a losing battle when he saw one. He put the truck in gear and swung it around to the other lane.
As he paused to roll up his window, he glanced over at the sedan. Its window slid down, and he caught a quick glimpse of the driver—young, blond and female. With her hair caught up in a funky ponytail on top of her head, she looked even younger than she probably was. His irritation with Smoky eased a little as he considered how vulnerable that woman would have been if no one had set up a roadblock to protect her from doing something stupid.
He heard her arguing hotly with the officer, and he shook his head in amazement. Yep, without that roadblock, she’d have done something real stupid. She’d have ended up a statistic for sure, off in a snowbank, frozen solid.
He rolled up his window and headed back down toward the motel, still marveling at how naive that woman was, thinking she’d drive that little bitty compact over a snow-choked mountain pass. Better to have the roadblock, even if it meant he’d get delayed, than to leave greenhorns like that free to take chances with their lives.
WHEN SHELBY MCFARLAND first saw the roadblock, she panicked, sure that Mason Fowler had reported her to the police. But no, the barricades were on account of the weather. The patrolman wanted her to turn back.
But turning back meant possibly heading toward Mason, who by now could be in hot pursuit. She abandoned her usual caution.
“You don’t understand,” she said to the officer standing beside the car. “I must get through. The road can’t be that bad!”
“I’m afraid it is, ma’am. You wouldn’t stand a chance with this light vehicle.” He leaned down and looked into the car. “And I’m sure you wouldn’t want to take any risks with that little guy. You a Spurs fan, son?”
“Yep,” Josh replied. “Bob, he is, too.”
Shelby glanced over at Josh sitting in his car seat, proudly wearing his San Antonio Spurs jersey. She should have dressed him in something less identifiable, but he loved that jersey. And of course, she couldn’t risk ending up marooned in a snowbank, not with Josh in the car. What had she been thinking?
Josh stared in fascination at the patrolman. “Do you gots a gun?” he asked.
“Yes, son, I do,” the officer said solemnly.
“My daddy gots a gun,” Josh said.
Shelby felt sick to her stomach. She didn’t doubt Mason had a gun, but the thought of Josh somehow coming into contact with it scared the daylights out of her. “How do you know that, sweetheart?”
“He showed me it.”
Shelby closed her eyes briefly, as if that would block out the ugly image. If she needed any more reasons to keep this child away from Mason, there was a huge one. A gun and a three-year-old. She shuddered.
“I hope your daddy keeps that gun locked up good and tight,” the patrolman said. “Guns are not toys.”
“The policeman is absolutely right, Josh,” Shelby said. “You must never touch a gun.” And if she had anything to do with it, he’d never get the chance again. She glanced back at the officer. “I want to thank you for preventing me from doing something foolish. I wasn’t thinking clearly a moment ago. Trying to go over that pass tonight would be suicide.”
“Bob and me, we never seed any snow before,” Josh offered.
The patrolman peered into the car. “You got a little dog in there named Bob?”
“No,” Shelby said. “Bob is Josh’s special friend, and he’s very talented. He can make himself invisible.”
“Ahhh.” The patrolman nodded solemnly. Then he glanced at Shelby. “There’s a motel and café back down the road about three miles. Maybe you could wait it out there.”
Shelby didn’t remember the place, but it sounded better than driving to Santa Fe. “How long will it be before the road’s open, do you think?”
“Hard to say, ma’am. If I was you, I’d try to get a room for the night. They’re not fancy, but they’re clean.”
Shelby took a shaky breath. She didn’t know for sure that Mason was following her, but she had a bad feeling he was. All he would have had to do was ask her apartment manager where she’d gone. The manager had been on his way into the building just as she and Josh were leaving, and Josh had blurted out that they were going to Yellowstone to ride horsies. She hadn’t remembered to tell Josh it was a secret.
Still, she had a head start on Mason, so the motel was probably a safe bet for tonight. Besides, it wasn’t as if she had a lot of choice. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll try that. And thanks again.”
“No problem. Just doing my job, ma’am. ’Bye, son.”
“’Bye, Mister Policeman.”
Shelby gave the officer a smile before rolling up the window. Then she waited for him to step aside before she guided the car around in a half circle. Fortunately no one else seemed to be coming up the road.
Three days ago—it seemed like three years—Mason had called to say he was coming over the next morning to take Josh to the zoo. Something about the arrogant way he’d announced his intentions instead of asking Shelby if that was okay put her on alert. He’d been dropping hints for weeks that if the courts didn’t grant him custody, he’d take Josh anyway.
The longer she thought about his brusque tone during the call, the more she became convinced that Mason didn’t intend to bring Josh back. So she’d rented a car, hoping that would throw Mason off a little, packed some clothes for her and Josh, and left town.
“Where’re we goin’, Shebby?” Josh asked. “Back home?”
“No, not home, Josh. But we can’t keep going up the mountain road because there’s too much snow. So we’ll stay overnight in a motel and try again tomorrow morning, okay?”
“Okay, but when are we gonna get to Yellowstone? You said, Shebby. Bob wants to see geezers.”
“Geysers, Josh.”
“Yeah, those. And we’re gonna ride horsies there, right?”
“That’s the plan.” She should change the plan, but Josh was so excited she didn’t have the heart, at least not yet.
“Bob, he knows how to ride horsies real good. He’s gonna teach me.”
“Good thing Bob knows so much, huh?” Shelby said. Right about now she wished Josh’s imaginary friend really existed, and that he was about six-five, weighed two-fifty and could bench-press his own weight.
“Bob, he knows this much.” Josh spread his arms wide. “A whole bunch, is what Bob knows.” He glanced at Shelby, as if he expected her to contradict him. “Right, Shebby?”
Shelby smiled. No matter how scary life got, she took heart from this little bundle of sunshine sitting in his car seat next to her. He was unsinkable. And so damned normal, with his love of basketball and his imaginary friend. A child psychologist might say the imaginary friend had made an appearance at this particular time because of what Josh had been through recently. That could be true, and if so, she was impressed with the way the little boy took care of his own needs.
She glanced over at Josh. “Right. Bob is awesome.”
Josh nodded. “Awesome. When are we gonna see geezers?”
“Well, first we have to go all the way through Colorado, and then most of the way through Wyoming. But before we do that, we have to get over this mountain, and we can’t do that until tomorrow morning.”
“’Member that song about a mountain? The one we singed in school?”
“Sure. Want to sing it?”
“Yep.” Josh launched into a close approximation of “She’ll Be Comin’ ’Round the Mountain.”
Shelby joined in, helping him through the parts he’d forgotten. How she loved this little boy. Long ago, in spite of herself, she’d begun to think of him as her own child. He even looked like her—same blond hair, same blue eyes. Patricia hadn’t ever seemed to have time for him, especially after she’d divorced Mason.
And during the breakup of Patricia’s marriage, Shelby’s parents had been so busy worrying about Patricia, their favorite child, that they hadn’t seemed to have any concern left for Josh. And now all three of them were gone—her sister and both her parents.
Shelby’s chest tightened as a nick of pain touched her heart, like the whisper of a very sharp knife that barely cuts the skin but is capable of dealing a killing blow. It was a warning sign that she needed to shut down her emotions, and fast. Ever since the boating accident four months ago that had claimed her parents and Patricia, Shelby had kept a tight rein on her feelings. She had Josh to think about.
Josh stopped singing as Shelby pulled into the parking lot of a small motel with a café nearby.
“Is this it?” he asked.
“This is it.” Shelby surveyed the rambling building, which was in definite need of a paint job. Her parents would have turned up their noses at the accommodations, but Shelby was grateful for anything reasonably clean. Quite a few cars and trucks were gathered in the lot, and she hoped she wouldn’t have any trouble getting a room.
And she definitely wanted one. Driving all the way back to Santa Fe was too risky. The lights shining through the café’s windows made it look cozy in the gathering gloom brought on by the heavy snowfall. The thought of a hot cup of coffee beckoned to her, but she turned the wheel left and parked in front of the first unit of the motel where an orange neon sign in one corner of the window read Office. In the opposite corner was another neon sign in blue that said Vacancy.
Shelby sighed with relief.
“They don’t gots no swimmin’ pool,” Josh said. “Bob was gonna go swimmin’.”
Shelby laughed as she unbuckled her seat belt and reached in the back for their coats and hats. “Bob must be a member of the Polar Bear Club.”
“Huh?” Josh giggled. “Bob’s not a bear.”
“The Polar Bear Club is a bunch of people who go swimming when it’s really cold outside.” Shelby helped him get out of the car seat and into his coat and hat. “So they call themselves Polar Bears.”
“Do they gots white fur?”
“No, they wear bathing suits.” She zipped up his jacket and decided she didn’t need to fasten the chin strap on his hat for the quick trip inside. “Just like you do when you go swimming. Now stay right there, and I’ll come around and get you out. If I carry you in, I won’t have to bother putting your boots on.”
“I can walk, y’know. I’m a big boy.”
“I know.” Shelby put on her own coat. “But the snow’s started to drift out there.”
“Bob wants to play in it.”
“We’ll see.” But she knew she couldn’t allow Josh to play out in the snow in front of the motel. He’d be way too visible.
As she started to get out of the car, the sign in the window changed to No Vacancy. “Oh, no!”
“What, Shebby?”
“Uh, nothing, Josh. Sit tight. I’ll be right there to get you.” Grabbing her purse, she stepped into the snow, ignoring the icy dampness soaking her running shoes as she closed the car door and ran around to get Josh. She’d talk the motel owner into letting her spend the night somewhere in this building, even if it was on a cot in a broom closet. She’d sit up all night and let Josh have a mattress on the floor, if necessary. But they couldn’t spend the night in the café, where Mason could come along and find them.
She slung the shoulder strap of her purse bandolier-style across her body before lifting Josh out of the car.
He turned his face up to the snow and laughed with delight. “It tickles!”
“I guess it does, at that.” She hurried toward the office door.
“It tastes like Popsicles! I gots some on my tongue! See?”
“Oh, sweetheart, I can’t right now. I will. Later I will.” She hated not being able to enjoy Josh’s first experience with snow. She hated this whole mess, in fact. A bolt of pure anger shot through her. Damn them, all of them, for not putting this little boy first in their lives. Damn them for taking her dad’s high-speed boat out on such a foggy day. Damn them all for dying. Now Josh had no one but her. Somehow, she would have to be enough.
A buzzer sounded when she opened the office door. She hurried inside, adding her wet tracks to the ones already covering the carpet. A very tall cowboy stood at the scarred counter, his back to her while he filled out a registration form. He looked at least seven feet tall, but Shelby guessed part of that was due to the heels of his boots and the crown of his hat.
The desk clerk, an older man with glasses, peered around the cowboy. “I’m really sorry, but I just rented our last room.” He pointed to the No Vacancy sign in the window. “We’re full up.”
“Surely there’s somewhere you can put us,” Shelby said. “I only need a cot for Josh. I can take the floor. We’re desperate.”
The cowboy laid down the pen he’d been using and turned to look at her.
The sheer size of him made her take an involuntary step back. Then she looked into his eyes, which were an incredible shade of green. But more than that, they were the kindest eyes she’d ever seen. Although she had no logical reason to feel better, she did.
“You forgot Bob.” Josh clapped his cold hands against her cheeks and forced her head around so she had to look at him. “Bob, he needs someplace to sleep, y’know,” Josh explained, his blue eyes earnest. He looked so cute, with his hat on crooked and the chin strap dangling down.
“I know,” she whispered, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Well, that makes it really hard,” the clerk said. “Even if I could figure out something, I’m afraid we don’t allow pets.”
“The dog’ll probably be okay in the car for the night,” the big cowboy said quietly. “You and the boy can take my room.”
Shelby realized how close to the surface her emotions were when the offer made tears gather in her eyes. “Oh, I couldn’t —”
“Bob, he’s not a dog,” Josh said. “He’s my friend.”
The cowboy frowned. “You left another kid out in the car? It’s mighty cold out there for a—”
“No, it’s not another kid,” Shelby said. “Bob is—”
“Awesome!” Josh said.
“Yes, he is,” Shelby said as she looked the cowboy in the eye and hoped he would get the message as quickly as the patrolman had. “He’s so awesome that he can make himself invisible if he wants to.” She lowered Josh to the floor and took off his hat. “As a matter of fact, Josh, I happen to know he can sleep anywhere, because he told me so. He could even sleep under your bed if he wanted to, and be perfectly comfy.”
Josh’s forehead crinkled in thought. “You’re sure?”
“It’s one of his special tricks.” She glanced over at the cowboy to see if he was buying the story.
He was. His smile was gentle as he inclined his head just the faintest bit in her direction, letting her know he had Bob all figured out.
That soft, understanding smile made her insides quiver a little, reminding her of pleasures she hadn’t enjoyed in quite a while. And it would be a while longer, considering how her life was going these days.
“Then it’s settled,” the cowboy said. “You, the boy and…Bob can have unit six.”
“But what about you?” She desperately wanted the room, but she felt guilty taking him up on his offer.
“No problem.”
She gazed into his ruggedly handsome face. If they were in a movie, she’d suggest sharing the room, platonically, of course. Her tummy quivered again. But this was no movie. She turned to the clerk. “Is there anything else? Maybe a large closet, or—”
“I’ll be fine,” the cowboy said. “Don’t worry about a thing. The café’s open twenty-four hours. I’ll just stretch out in a booth and make myself at home.”
“But—”
“Hey. I’m used to such things. If the weather wasn’t so nasty, I wouldn’t have even bothered with a motel. I’d have slept in my truck, which I’ve done a million times. So it’s no big deal for me.” His gaze rested on Josh. “I want to make sure that little cowpoke gets his rest.”
Shelby’s heart swelled with gratitude. Right when she needed a knight in shining armor, one had appeared. “I can’t thank you enough,” she said, her voice husky from the lump in her throat. And those damn pesky tears kept trying to well up in her eyes. She blinked them back. “You’re a very nice man.”
“Don’t mention it.” With a touch of his fingers to the brim of his hat, he walked past her out into the snow, leaving behind the scent of leather and denim.
“What a gentleman,” she said, thinking how well it fit the tall cowboy. He was truly a gentle man.
“He is, at that,” the clerk said. He was gazing after the cowboy with an expression of great respect. “Those booths are made of molded plastic. I’d hate to spend the night in one.”
“I’ll have to find a way to repay him,” Shelby said as she fished in her purse for her wallet and took out her credit card. Belatedly she thought to glance at the registration form the cowboy had left on the counter. She caught the name Boone Connor printed boldly across the top line before the desk clerk whisked the form away and crumpled it up.
Boone. She smiled. What a perfect name for him. He’d definitely been a boon to her, that was for sure.
Josh tugged on the leg of her jeans. “Can Bob and me read those? They gots horsies.”
Shelby glanced to where Josh pointed and saw some western magazines on a table. She looked up at the clerk. “Is it okay? He knows not to tear pages out or anything.”
“Sure, it’s okay.” The desk clerk smiled down at Josh. “Go ahead and read the magazines, son.”
Shelby watched Josh go over to the table, carefully choose a magazine, and climb up in a ratty overstuffed chair before he started slowly turning the pages and muttering to himself, pretending he was reading. Every once in a while he glanced beside him and pointed out something in the magazine. Obviously he was sharing the experience with Bob.
“He’s a fine boy,” the clerk said. “You must be a proud momma.”
“Oh, I—” Shelby caught herself before she told the clerk she was not Josh’s mother. It was an automatic response, one she’d become used to giving because she’d taken care of Josh so much.
She’d once calculated that she’d spent more time with him than Patricia had. That had turned out to be a blessing, all things considered. If Josh had been closer to his mother and his grandparents, he would have been more grief-stricken when they had disappeared from his life. As it was, he seemed sad and definitely a little confused, but not overwhelmed.
Shelby was obviously the most important person in his world, but now was not the time to advertise the fact that Josh was her nephew, not her son. And besides, some day she hoped to be his mother, legally. If only Patricia had left a will, that wouldn’t be so damned complicated, either.
She brushed the thoughts away and smiled at the clerk. “I am very proud of Josh,” she said.
2
ALL SIX BOOTHS in the small café were full, but Boone had expected that. Later on, as people returned to their rooms, the place would empty out. Then he’d stake out a booth for the night.
He’d forgotten the bench seats were the hard plastic kind. Oh, well. He would have done the same thing, even if he’d remembered. He would have done the same thing if the seats had been made of barbed wire. A woman with a little kid needed a motel room more than he did. A pretty woman. He pushed the thought aside. He wasn’t in the market for a pretty woman.
Taking a stool at the counter, he ordered a cup of coffee from the café’s only waitress. Her name was Lucy according to the tag she wore, and she was definitely pregnant. She also looked worn-out, probably from handling a bigger crowd than usual.
“You live around here, Lucy?” he asked her as she poured him some coffee.
“Not too far away.” She moved with precision that came from experience. “Why?”
Boone glanced out the window before looking back at her. “The way it’s coming down out there, seems like you ought to head home while you still can.”
She gave him a weary smile. “That’s right nice of you to think of that. As a matter of fact, I am leaving in about another hour, after we get these folks fed. The couple who owns this place said they could handle everything. No need for Mr. Sloan to hang around the motel office now that the rooms are all rented, so he’s gonna come over here and help Mrs. Sloan so I can leave.”
Boone nodded. “Good. You got four-wheel drive?”
“Yeah. My hubby’s coming to pick me up in the Jeep.” She looked down shyly at her belly. “He’s sort of protective these days.”
“He should be,” Boone said.
Her cheeks turned a happy shade of pink. “I’m hoping for a boy, but Gary doesn’t care what we have, so long as the baby’s healthy. I—” She paused and broke eye contact as someone in a booth called her name. “Excuse me. Table two needs some looking after.” She bustled out from behind the counter and hurried over to the booth in question.
Boone had the urge to take over for her so she could put her feet up until her husband arrived. Sure, some activity was good for a woman in her condition, but not this much. He’d make a damn poor waitress, though, and he doubted she’d let him help her, anyway. Leastways not after he’d broken a few dishes and mixed up a couple of orders.
So he sipped his coffee and thought about whether Jessica had worked too hard while she was pregnant with Elizabeth. She should have notified him right away when she found out she was pregnant. Thinking of her struggling through the pregnancy and birth by herself drove him crazy with guilt.
The coffee had warmed him up considerably, so he took off his leather jacket and laid it across his lap. Then he unsnapped the breast pocket of his shirt and took out the note he’d gotten from Jessica. He’d read it about a million times, yet he still needed to keep looking at it to convince himself this wasn’t some bad dream he was having.
Dear Boone,
I’m counting on you to be a godfather to Elizabeth until I can return for her. Your quiet strength is just what she needs right now. I’ve left her with Sebastian at the Rocking D. Believe me, I wouldn’t do this if I weren’t in desperate circumstances.
In deepest gratitude, Jessica
The letter was dated more than two months ago. She’d gotten the zip code wrong, so that had delayed it some, and then when it had finally arrived in Las Cruces, he’d been on the road hunting up horseshoeing jobs.
Still holding the letter, Boone rubbed his chin and gazed out the window at the steady snow. Snow had landed him in this fix in the first place. More than two years ago he’d let his three best buddies—Sebastian Daniels, Travis Evans and Nat Grady—talk him into a skiing trip in Aspen. He didn’t belong on skis any more than a buffalo belonged on roller skates, but he’d gone for Sebastian’s sake. They’d all nearly gotten themselves killed in an avalanche while they were blundering around on the slopes.
Jessica Franklin had been working the front desk of the ski lodge, and it was their dumb luck that they’d struck up a friendship with her and she’d offered to go with them that day. Otherwise Nat would’ve been toast. Jessica had figured out where he was buried and had kept her head, directing the rest of them to help dig him out before he smothered.
“More coffee?” Lucy asked as she passed by again.
Boone glanced at his cup. It would be a long night, and he could probably use the caffeine. “Sure,” he said, smiling at her. “And thanks.”
“Anytime.”
After she left, he resumed staring out the window, and his thoughts returned to his predicament. He wished he could think about something else, but he couldn’t. If only he hadn’t gone to the avalanche reunion party last year. He’d thought the idea was kind of morbid, but once again he’d gone along with the crowd.
Besides, he’d needed the distraction. Darlene had just announced that she was breaking up with him to marry that dork Chester Littlefield.
As it had turned out, Nat hadn’t made it to the reunion party because of some prior commitment. That had left Boone, Jessica, Sebastian and Travis to celebrate. Boone didn’t usually drink much. Over the years he’d seen what liquor could do to a man while watching his father’s bouts with the bottle.
But that night, thinking about Darlene, he’d guzzled everything in sight. Sebastian and Travis had put away a fair amount themselves, but Jessica, being a good friend, had stayed sober so she could drive them back to their cabin and see that they all took some aspirin before they tumbled into bed.
And that was when Boone figured he’d stepped over the line and dragged Jessica into bed with him. Sober he’d never have considered such a thing. But drunk and depressed about Darlene, he might well have.
He was sure Jessica knew he hadn’t meant to, that he didn’t think of her like that. Hell, he’d probably called her Darlene in the middle of it all. So Jessica had shouldered the whole burden when she found out she was pregnant. But now she was in some kind of trouble and had asked him to be a “godfather.”
Boone didn’t buy that godfather label, not for a minute. He was the baby’s father. When he’d called the Rocking D, he’d found out that Sebastian and Travis had gotten letters naming them as godfathers, too. But those other letters were a smokescreen. Sebastian was too honorable to have done such a thing, and Travis was too experienced to be caught like that. Besides, Jessica easily could have shoved those two guys away, considering they were drunk.
But even drunk, Boone had the strength of two men. Jessica wouldn’t have been able to get away. He hoped to hell he hadn’t hurt her. He’d spend the rest of his life trying to make it up to her for being a brute. And he would never touch another drop of alcohol as long as he lived.
“Mr. Connor?”
The soft voice brought him back to his surroundings. Turning from the window, he realized the blonde and her little boy were standing right next to him. Quickly he folded Jessica’s letter, tucked it in his pocket and snapped the pocket closed. Then he stood.
“Sorry,” the woman said. “You don’t have to get up. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“No problem,” he said. Women were constantly surprised by his manners, but he couldn’t help that. His mother had taught him to stand in the presence of a lady, and he couldn’t change that training now, even if he’d wanted to. “How did you know my name?”
Color tinged her cheeks. “I looked at the registration form before the clerk threw it away.” She held out her hand. “My name is Shelby McFarland.”
“Pleased to meet you, Shelby.” He took her soft hand gently in his, careful not to put too much pressure into his handshake. She was so delicate, he imagined he could leave a bruise if he was the least bit enthusiastic.
He enjoyed the contact, though, enjoyed it more than was good for him. He liked looking into her blue eyes, too. He read basic goodness and honesty there, but she was wary, too, as if something was spooking her. He put that together with the way she’d argued with the Smoky about going up the hill and wondered if she was running from something…or someone.
“And this is Josh,” she said, bringing the little boy forward. “Josh, can you shake Mr. Connor’s hand?”
Josh nodded and stuck out his hand, but his eyes widened as he looked Boone up and down. “You’re big as a elephant,” he said.
“Josh!” Shelby reddened.
Boone laughed out loud. “Can’t argue with the truth, son. I’m about as graceful as one, too.” He glanced around. “I’m afraid all the booths are taken up, so if you’re here to eat, you’ll have to grab a couple of stools.” The prospect of having her sit down beside him gave him a forbidden thrill. Then he thought of the note in his pocket and reminded himself of his reason for being on this road in the first place.
“Oh, we’re not staying,” she said.
He frowned. Surely she wasn’t going back out in that snowstorm now that she had a roof over her head. And truth be told, he didn’t appreciate having his generosity thrown back in his face.
She must have figured out he was ticked, because she put her hand lightly on his arm. “I mean we’re not staying in the café,” she said quickly. “We’ll just get something to go. We’re definitely staying in the room you so graciously gave up. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I would like to do…something in return. Buying your dinner seems inadequate, but I can at least do that much.”
Her touch on his arm felt like the nuzzle of a timid foal. And now that he looked closer, he could see that her whole body was poised for flight. She’d glanced over at the door several times. His curiosity grew.
“How ’bout a star?” Josh asked. “When I’m a good boy, like when I ’membered to pick up my room, you give’d me a star.”
Shelby blushed. “Well, that’s a good idea, Josh, but I’m not sure that Mr. Connor—”
“The name’s Boone, and I’d love a star.” He probably shouldn’t have said that. No doubt about it, he was having trouble keeping his distance from these two.
“Uh, okay.” She looked flustered, but she dug around in her purse and came up with a sheet of peel-and-stick gold stars. She peeled one off. “Where…where do you want it?”
Even if he was creating a problem for himself, he couldn’t help loving this. “On my shirt’s fine.”
She looked him over, and finally stuck the star on the flap of his shirt pocket, smoothing it carefully without looking at him. Her cheeks were bright pink. “There,” she said, glancing up. “There’s your star.”
“And a kiss!” Josh said.
Boone knew he should tell her to forget the kiss, but he couldn’t make himself say it. Only a fool would turn down a kiss from someone as adorable as Shelby, with her ponytail perched on her head and that sweet blush on her cheeks.
“A star and a kiss!” Josh insisted. “You always do that.”
Apparently she decided that giving in quickly was better than making a bigger scene by protesting. Standing on tiptoe, she leaned over and gave Boone a quick peck on the cheek.
Her lips were soft and full, and her scent swirled around him. He fought the urge to close his eyes with pleasure. But he needed to keep the moment light, so he grinned at her. “Thanks. Now I’ve been fully rewarded.”
“I do appreciate the room,” she said shyly.
“You’re most welcome. Listen why not stay and eat here? Taking the food back to the room will be a real hassle in this weather.” Well, hell. He seemed determined to dig himself into a hole. If he didn’t watch it, he’d ask for her phone number next.
Fortunately for both of them, she didn’t fall in with his plan. A wary look flashed in her eyes again, and she glanced away. Boone had the strangest feeling she was thinking of some story to explain why she couldn’t stay in the café to eat dinner.
“Bob wants to stay,” Josh said. “’Cause Bob gots to go potty.”
Shelby looked down at him. “I’m sure it won’t take long for them to whip up a couple of burgers and fries. Can Bob wait until we go back to the room?”
Josh held his crotch and peered up at her. “I gots to go, too,” he whispered. “Real bad, Shebby.”
Shebby. Boone heard it, plain as day. No way had the kid said Mommy just then. Shebby was probably his version of her name, Shelby. This wasn’t her son. The word kidnapper flashed in his brain, but he just couldn’t buy it.
She sighed and looked around until she located the sign for the rest rooms. “Okay.” She glanced up at Boone. “If you’ll excuse us, we’ll—”
“Do I hafta go in where the ladies go?” Josh hung back, his gaze pleading.
“Yes.” She took his hand firmly in hers.
Josh hung on her hand and tried to plant his feet. “But last time that lady was laughin’ at me.”
“She was laughing at the Cheerios, Josh, not at you. We don’t have to use them this time if you don’t want to. Now come on.”
Boone had to ask. “Cheerios?”
Shelby glanced back at him. “I throw some in the bowl. It gives him a target.”
Josh gazed up at Boone with a worried expression, as if he now expected Boone to laugh, too.
Boone bit down on the inside of his lip so he wouldn’t. “Great idea,” he said, although his voice was husky with the laugh he’d swallowed.
Josh’s expression cleared and his smile came out like sunshine. He pointed a stubby finger at Boone. “Me and him could go.”
Shelby shook her head and tugged on his hand. “No, I’m afraid not, Josh. Now come on.”
“Please,” Josh wailed, hanging back and dragging his feet. “I wanna be a big boy.”
Boone’s heart went out to him. He remembered a few trips to the ladies’ room, himself, when he was a kid. He’d always been tall for his age, so a couple of women had given him the evil eye when his mother had insisted on taking him in with her. He’d hated every minute of it, although now he completely understood why she’d done that. The world had some sick people in it.
“I’d be glad to take him,” Boone said. “I realize you don’t really know me, but—”
“I know you,” Josh said. “You gived us a room. Please, Shebby. Let me and him go.”
Shelby paused. She looked exhausted, frustrated and scared. “Okay,” she said at last. “If you’re willing to do that, I appreciate it. While you’re gone I’ll put in our order. Can I get anything for you while I’m at it? I’d love to be able to buy you some dinner.”
“No, thanks.” Boone had decided that eating would be his main entertainment tonight, and he didn’t want to rush it. “I’m not really hungry yet.”
She seemed even more frustrated that she couldn’t repay him with dinner, but Josh began hopping up and down, so she put the boy’s hand in Boone’s. “Thank you for everything,” she said. “You’ve been a real godsend.”
“Glad to help.” He touched a hand to the brim of his hat, which coaxed a faint smile from her. Then he had to focus all his attention on keeping Josh’s tiny hand in his. Such a small hand. Boone had to lean to the right to keep hold of it as Josh ran along beside him on the way to the rest rooms.
“Do you gots horsies?” Josh sounded breathless but determined to communicate. “’Cause me and Bob, we like horsies. We’re gonna ride some in Yellowstone.”
Boone realized the little guy was puffing because Boone’s stride was too long. He shortened it. “I have two horses,” he said. “One I keep with my friend Sebastian at the Rocking D, and the other one I keep at my folks’ place in Las Cruces.”
“Rocking D? What’s a Rocking D?”
Boone pushed open the swinging door to the rest room. “A ranch.”
“A ranch? You gots a ranch, like on TV?” Josh seemed beside himself with excitement, so beside himself that he’d obviously forgotten why he was in the rest room in the first place.
“Well, it’s not my—”
“Can I come there? Can I?”
“We’ll talk about that later. Right now you’d better tend to business.”
“’Kay.” Josh headed for a stall.
“You can do it here if you want,” Boone said as he gestured toward a urinal. “I’ll hold you up.”
Josh turned back to him, his expression confused.
“Come on. I’ll show you. This is how big guys do it.” Boone demonstrated.
Josh watched in obvious fascination.
Boone zipped up and glanced over at Josh. “Ready to try?”
Josh nodded vigorously.
In the end, Boone decided it would work best if he crouched down and let Josh stand on his knees. The little boy chortled happily all through the process, as if it was the highlight of his day.
Boone realized he was having a great time. What fun it would be to show a kid like this around the Rocking D. Sebastian had that gentle gelding, Samson, who would be perfect for Josh to learn on. But that was a pipe dream, for sure. Boone didn’t think Shelby would make a special detour to the Rocking D. She looked like a lady on a mission.
Besides, Boone had no business daydreaming about taking her there. She would be too big a temptation. He’d already caught himself thinking about what sort of body was hidden by the bulky ski jacket she wore, and he was in no position to go down that road with any woman.
As Josh finished washing his hands, he started in again on the topic of visiting the ranch. “I never been to a ranch,” he said. “Can I come? Me and Bob?”
“I imagine you have places to go and people to see,” Boone said.
“Well, we’re gonna see geezers in Yellowstone.” Josh dropped the paper towel neatly in the waste container.
“You mean geysers?” Boone was impressed with the boy’s neatness. Somebody had taught him well.
Josh nodded. “They go whoosh! Up in the air!” He threw his arms up to illustrate.
“Sounds like fun.” Boone decided to do some fishing for information. “Are you going to meet your mommy up there?”
“I don’t think so. My mommy’s in heaven with the angels.”
The casual statement slammed into Boone like a brick to the stomach, but Josh seemed completely at ease about it. Shelby probably wasn’t a kidnapper, not that Boone had seriously thought she was. But she was nervous about something. “Then maybe your dad?”
“Nope.” Josh started marching toward the door of the rest room. “My daddy’s in S’Antonio.”
“Really?” Boone held the door open for Josh.
“Yep.” Josh walked through the door. “He gots a gun.”
SHELBY HAD WATCHED Boone lead Josh away and no warning bells had sounded in her head. Boone inspired trust and a sense of security. She could feel it, and she was sure Josh could feel it, too.
Poor little guy hadn’t had much in the way of male role models. His grandfather had never been particularly interested in kids, not even his own daughters when they were young. Mason had ignored Josh until he’d smelled money, and even with the lure of that money, Mason had a hard time pretending to be a loving dad.
No wonder Josh had latched on to Boone so quickly. Seeing the way Boone abbreviated his long stride to accommodate Josh’s short one made Shelby’s heart hitch.
Not all men brushed children aside the way her father had, she reminded herself. Patricia, the beauty, had eventually gained her father’s admiration by going into the high-profile world of television broadcasting. He and Shelby’s mother had been able to brag about Patricia, who eventually had her own local talk show. Shelby’s modest desktop-publishing business and her more average looks hadn’t been able to compete.
Shelby watched until Boone led Josh away through the swinging door of the men’s room. Then she turned to catch the eye of the waitress working behind the counter. She noticed that her name was Lucy. Shelby’s mother’s name. Another sharp pain sliced through her before she could shut down her feelings.
The woman, who was visibly pregnant, came over toward Shelby. “Can I help you?”
“You sure can. Can I please get two hamburgers and two orders of fries to go?” Shelby knew it wasn’t the most nutritious meal in the world, but she’d worry about getting some green veggies into Josh tomorrow, after they’d put some more miles between them and Mason.
“You and that little boy aren’t going back out on the road, are you?” asked the waitress.
“No, thank goodness. We have a room at the motel, thanks to that gentleman who was just sitting here. He had the last room, but he gave it to us, instead.”
The waitress’s expression grew soft. “Isn’t he the nicest man? He was worried about whether I had a way to get home.”
“Apparently he’s the kind who looks out for others,” Shelby said. “It’s good to know there are still guys out there like that.”
“And he’s pretty darned cute, too, did you notice?”
“I guess.” Shelby thought about the gentle smile that had made her tingle. Oh, yes, she’d noticed. Besides his understanding green eyes, he also possessed a couple of other noteworthy features, like a very masculine-looking jaw and curly black hair. Her heart had raced when she’d leaned over to place a kiss on his suntanned cheek.
He was built well, too. Although some large men tended to look beefy and slightly out of shape, this one didn’t seem to have a spare bit of flab on him. Nice tush, too. Watching him walk away with Josh had given her guilty pleasure.
“It’s a wonder some woman hasn’t snatched him up,” the waitress said. “But he’s not wearing a wedding ring. And he’s the type who would, if he was married.” She glanced pointedly down at the bare ring finger of Shelby’s left hand.
Shelby stuffed her left hand into the pocket of her jacket. The waitress might think she could do a little matchmaking in between serving orders, but whether Boone Connor was married or not was of no consequence to Shelby. She couldn’t think about such things under the current circumstances. Even ogling his cute tush meant she was allowing herself to be distracted from her goal of keeping Josh safe. That wasn’t good.
She leaned closer to the waitress. “Listen, since he’ll have to spend the night in the café, could I leave some money with you to pay for whatever food he eats? I’d like to find some way to repay him for being so kind.”
“I’ll be leaving soon, myself, but I suppose I could arrange that with Mrs. Sloan. Why don’t you just stay and eat your dinner when he eats his? Then you could just pick up the check for everything.”
Shelby trotted out the excuse she’d been about to give Boone. “Well, I would, but Josh has a program he wants to see on TV, so we need to get back to the room.”
The waitress rolled her eyes as if to say that Shelby was crazy to let something like that stand in her way. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.” She pulled some bills out of her purse and gave them to the waitress. “That should cover ours and anything he has, don’t you think?”
The waitress looked at the cash Shelby had given her and chuckled. “That’s more than enough. I’ll go put in your order.”
Shelby positioned herself with her back to the counter so she could see the front door of the café. No one had come in for some time, and hardly anyone had left, either. The booths along the wall were still occupied. The place had taken on a party atmosphere, as if being stranded here together had made everyone friends.
Except her. A woman on the run didn’t stop to make friends along the way. Too risky. Boone Connor had helped her out, and she was grateful. Under different circumstances, she would have liked to get to know him, but once she left this café tonight, she never expected to see him again.
She’d driven out of San Antonio without much of a plan except an instinctive urge to head for Yellowstone Park. But she couldn’t stay in Yellowstone. She’d continue north to Canada.
Once out of the country, she’d find a good lawyer and assess her chances of legally keeping Josh. But she’d keep him, legally or illegally, because she knew one thing for sure. No matter what a judge might say, as long as she was alive Mason Fowler was never, ever getting custody of his son.
3
BOONE HATED TO ADMIT how much he missed Josh and Shelby once they’d left the café with their bags of food. But no way would Shelby stay to eat. Something was going on with her, and Boone was afraid he’d never find out what it was.
When he learned that she’d left money to pay for his food, he had half a mind to go over to her room and give it back. Then he recognized that he was only looking for an excuse to see her again, which was a fool’s errand, for sure. He was the sort of guy who needed time to build a relationship, and after tonight, he and Shelby would probably never cross paths again. That was probably just as well.
Still, he couldn’t let Shelby buy his dinner. It didn’t seem right. So he asked Mrs. Sloan to put the money aside for Lucy, who could probably use some extra cash for that baby she’d be having soon.
By eleven the café had emptied out and Boone had his pick of booths, not that one looked any more comfortable than the other. He was on a first-name basis with Norma Sloan and her husband Eugene. The couple reminded him of Jack Sprat who could eat no fat and his wife who could eat no lean. They’d been more than kind, providing a pillow and a blanket to help him through the night.
About eleven-thirty, Norma sent Eugene into the café’s back room to grab a catnap while she kept the coffeepot going. Who they were brewing coffee for was a mystery to Boone, because no other customers showed up. Boone crammed himself into his chosen booth and pulled his hat over his eyes.
When Eugene came out to relieve Norma at one in the morning, Boone unfolded himself from the booth. He didn’t think he’d slept much, and he felt as if he’d been rode hard and put away wet. Stretching the stiffness from his spine, he walked over to the counter.
“Want some java, Boone?” Eugene asked around a yawn.
“No, thanks. But why don’t you go on back to bed and let me take care of anybody who comes in? I doubt anybody will, anyway.”
“That’s a nice offer, but my conscience wouldn’t let me.” Eugene yawned again and poured himself a cup of coffee. “You’re a customer, not my hired help.”
“Speaking of that, who usually mans the counter when you’re open all night? Don’t tell me Lucy works graveyard.”
“Nope.” Eugene unwrapped a sweet roll as he talked. “We have another gal, Edna. She’s older than Lucy and says she likes working nights. Prefers the peace and quiet. But I didn’t want her on the road tonight, so I called and told her to stay home, that we’d handle it. That’s what Norma and I always do when the weather gets like this. We’d rather stay up all night ourselves than worry about an employee skidding all over the road trying to get to work.” He bit into the sweet roll. “Want one?”
“No, thanks.” Boone turned to gaze out the window at the snow still falling. “Then how about closing the place until morning?” He glanced back at Eugene. “Nobody but a crazy person is still on that road tonight.”
Eugene smiled. “No can do. Staying open is a matter of pride with me. My daddy used to own this place, and when I took over he made me promise to keep the coffee going twenty-four hours a day. He said we’d never know how many lives we’d saved by giving people a place to pull off the road, get some coffee and a bite to eat, but he figured we’d saved our share.”
“I’ll bet you have, at that.” Boone rubbed his chin and felt the stubble there. He’d grab a shave in the rest room before he left in the morning. “I’ve stopped here myself a few times, when I was feeling groggy. You might even have saved me.”
“And there could be someone else out there battling his way through the storm, and the light from our sign could be a beacon in the night.”
“Like a lighthouse,” Boone said. He could understand Eugene’s urge to save people. He had that sort of urge all the time. That’s why he was sleeping in a booth tonight.
“Exactly,” Eugene said. “A lighthouse. You sure you don’t want some coffee and one of these rolls?”
Boone sighed. “Yeah, why not. I’m not having much luck sleeping, anyway.” And he could tell Eugene wanted somebody to talk to. So he sat at the counter and swapped fishing stories with the guy for a good hour.
He talked so long and grew so tired that sleep sounded like a real possibility, even in a hard plastic booth. But before he could excuse himself from Eugene, the café door opened, bringing with it a blast of frigid air and blowing snow.
Boone swiveled on the stool to see if one of the motel customers had decided to come over for a midnight snack. For one crazy moment he hoped it might even be Shelby. Instead it was someone he didn’t recognize from the crowd that had filled the café earlier that night.
The man was built like a fireplug, short but solid. His ski jacket bulked him out even more, but Boone could tell from the fit of the guy’s jeans that he probably worked out in some fancy gym to build up his muscles.
“Damn!” The man pulled off a black stocking cap as he stomped his feet on the mat just inside the café door. His hair was cropped close to his head, military-style. “It’s a bitch out there!”
Boone usually reserved judgment on folks until they’d had a chance to prove themselves one way or the other, but for some reason this guy put him on edge. There was something hard and unyielding about him that showed in his voice, in his movements, even in the bristle of his haircut.
“I’ll bet you could use a cup of coffee,” Eugene said eagerly. “And there’s some pie left, if you—”
“Black coffee,” the man said.
Boone was relieved to see the man order something. For a minute he’d imagined the guy taking out a gun and demanding that Eugene empty the cash register. Staying open all night for weary travelers was one thing, but Boone wondered if Eugene and Norma had ever been left alone to face the wrong kind of customer. This fellow was probably harmless, but all in all Boone was glad to be here tonight, just in case.
“Where’re y’all headed?” Boone asked as the guy sat down at the counter. Boone laid on the good-ol’-boy accent on purpose. That, combined with his size, tended to make people think he wasn’t very smart, and then he found out things he might not have otherwise.
The man looked Boone over, his pale gray eyes clearly taking Boone’s measure. “Nowhere, it appears. Damn storm.”
“Yeah, it’s holdin’ folks up, all right,” Boone said.
Eugene set the coffee in front of the man. “Sure I can’t get you something to eat? A sandwich?”
“Nothing.” The man took a swig of his coffee.
Eugene lifted the pot in Boone’s direction and Boone nodded. He didn’t need more coffee, but he wanted an excuse to sit at the counter a little longer and find out what this stranger was up to.
“How long before these pansy-ass cops let us through?” the man asked.
Boone decided to play along. “God knows. My truck could make it right now, no sweat, but you know these Smokies. Treat us all like a bunch of old women.”
Eugene’s eyebrows lifted, and Boone winked at him when the other guy wasn’t looking. Eugene grinned and turned to put the coffeepot back on the burner.
“Ain’t that the truth,” the man muttered. “And then I couldn’t rouse anybody at the motel office. Knocked so hard I about broke the door down. Those people must sleep like the dead.”
Boone wondered why he’d try to beat down the door of a motel office that had a No Vacancy sign in the window. His sense of uneasiness grew.
Eugene turned to the man. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any rooms left.”
“Oh, so you’re the one in charge?” The man looked at Eugene with new interest.
“My wife and I run both the motel and the café. All I can offer you is something to eat and drink, and a booth to stretch out in if you like.”
“Actually, none of the above.” The guy leaned forward. “I want to know if a woman and a little kid checked in after the barricades went up. She’s blond, and he’s about so high.” He held his hand about three feet off the floor.
The pieces clicked into place for Boone. Shelby, arguing with the patrolman. Shelby, desperate for a room. A room to hide in. And Josh’s innocent little voice as he announced, “My daddy gots a gun.”
Boone glanced at Eugene and thought he saw the older man stiffen. He might have guessed what was going on, too. He could have noticed, like Boone had, that Josh didn’t call Shelby Mommy. Kidnapping a kid from his legal guardian was serious stuff, if that’s what Shelby had done. But if this guy was on the up-and-up, he would have asked the patrolman at the barricades to help him find Shelby and Josh.
Holding his breath, Boone waited for Eugene’s answer. Even if Eugene refused to give the guy any information, the way he refused could tip the guy off that Shelby was here.
Eugene adjusted his glasses and paused. “Don’t believe I’ve seen anybody matching that description,” he said, smooth as butter.
Boone wanted to leap across the counter and kiss Eugene on both cheeks.
“I know the woman you’re talking about,” Norma said, coming out of the back room.
Boone’s stomach tightened. If only Norma had stayed asleep.
“She came through about noon,” Norma continued.
Now Boone had two people he wanted to hug. Not only was Norma covering for Shelby, she was misdirecting this guy.
“Yeah?” The man sat up straighter. “What did she look like?”
“Blond, pretty. The little boy was blond, too. They stopped in to get some food, but they took it to go because they wanted to get over the pass before the snow started.”
The guy’s fist hit the counter. “Damn it to hell.” Then he sighed. “At least I guessed right on which road she’d take.”
Norma gazed at him, her expression bland. “She must be important to you.”
“Oh, she’s important, all right,” he replied with a sneer. “She took my kid.”
“Goodness!” Norma sounded concerned, but her gaze had no warmth in it. “Have you notified the authorities?”
“Hell, the authorities couldn’t find their ass with their own two hands. This is one slick chick.”
Boone didn’t think so. Shelby wasn’t enough of a criminal to think of hiding her identity or Josh’s. Fear was driving her, not cunning. She was running as fast as she could go and improvising a plan along the way. But he didn’t think she was a match for this man.
Boone stood and stretched. Then he faked a yawn. “Well, folks, now that I’ve had my bedtime snack, I believe I’ll go to my room and turn in.”
Eugene covered his look of surprise quickly. “Might as well. They won’t be opening that road until daybreak, maybe later.”
The man looked at Boone. “You’ve been letting a bed go to waste? Hell, if you don’t want it, I’ll take it.”
“Sorry.” Boone clapped his Stetson on his head and pulled on his jacket. “I got here first.” He gestured toward the booth where he’d left the pillow and blanket. “But the Sloans put out a blanket and a pillow in case anybody stumbled in during the night. I’m sure you’re welcome to that.”
The man eyed the setup and turned back to his coffee cup. “We’ll see if I get that desperate,” he said sourly.
Boone waved at Eugene and Norma and headed out the café door. Once outside he turned up his collar and held onto his hat as he ducked his head and trudged forward against the bitter wind. Snow sifted down inside his jacket and his bare hand grew numb. Once he warned Shelby about the man in the café, he wondered what the heck he was going to do with himself and whether he had enough gas to run the truck’s heater all night.
SHELBY LAY in the double bed next to Josh listening to his steady breathing with a touch of envy. All he needed was a darkened room, a soft bed and his blue “blankie” clutched against his cheek.
How she’d love to escape into the world of childhood, if only for a little while, and feel safe again, safe enough to sleep. Her urge to head for Yellowstone had probably come from that same longing. She remembered staying in a little cabin with her mother and father and Patricia, all of the beds in one big room, like settlers on the prairie. They’d never been so cozy before or since.
There was nothing cozy about this room. The heater had a noisy fan, but it didn’t block out the whistling of the wind through a crevice between the door and the frame or the rattling of a loose windowpane. After checking the lock at least twenty times, Shelby had dozed off, only to be awakened when she’d heard someone pounding on a door not far away.
Adrenaline had poured through her, but she hadn’t wanted to wake Josh by leaping out of bed. By the time she’d eased over to the window, drawn back the curtain and peered out, the motel courtyard had been empty.
Now she worried about who had been pounding on a door in the middle of the night. She’d probably been foolish to take this well-traveled highway north toward Yellowstone. Early in Patricia’s marriage to Mason, soon after Josh was born, Shelby had gone over to their house for dinner. She distinctly remembered reminiscing with Patricia about that Yellowstone trip. They’d talked about the fun stops along the way and how much the family vacation had meant to them.
If Mason remembered, he would know exactly what road to take to find her. She was terrible at this cloak-and-dagger stuff, and she really should give up on Yellowstone. Except it wasn’t only Josh’s excitement that was guiding her there. The thought of seeing the place again with Josh had become the only bright spot in her otherwise frightening world. She loved the way Josh insisted on calling the geysers “geezers.” Maybe he’d mixed up the words when she’d mentioned one of the geysers was called Old Faithful.
The windowpane rattled again. Or was that a different sort of noise? She strained to hear over the whirr of the fan and the whistling of the wind. Then the noise came again. A rapid, soft tapping. On her door.
Her stomach lurched in fear and her heartbeat hammered in her ears as she crept quietly out of bed. The tapping grew slightly louder, as if someone wanted to get her attention without alerting anyone else.
Easing back the curtain a tiny slit, she peered out. Then she gasped in surprise as she recognized Boone, his big shoulders hunched against the cold. Had he come to tell her they’d cleared the road?
Her vulnerability made her hesitate before opening the door. Then she shook off any doubts. After all, she’d received nothing but kindness from this man. Now that she’d become one of the hunted, she’d have to learn to trust her instincts if she planned to survive. Her instincts told her Boone wouldn’t harm her or Josh.
Crossing to the door, she unlocked and opened it, belatedly remembering that she wore only a cotton nightgown. The cold took her breath away.
“I have to talk to you,” Boone said. His face was in shadow. “Can I—”
“Come in, for heaven’s sake,” she whispered, stepping back. “It’s freezing out.” Once he was through the door she closed it, but the room temperature seemed to have dropped thirty degrees in that short time.
“Shebby?” Josh mumbled sleepily from the bed.
She hurried over to the bed and leaned down to tuck his blue blanket against his cheek. “Go back to sleep, sweetheart. It’s only Boone.”
“’Kay.” And just like that, he snuggled back under the covers and dozed off.
Shelby was amazed. Boone and Josh had spent less than twenty minutes together all told, and Boone now had the little boy’s complete trust. She straightened and turned. The room was almost totally dark, but she could make out the cowboy standing right where she’d left him by the door.
A thrill of awareness shot through her. Being alone in the dark with this virile man was the most exciting thing that had happened to her in a long while. He’d probably come over to give her a weather report or the latest information on the road, but for a moment she could fantasize that he’d come because he had a burning need to see her again.
“Do you mind talking in the dark?” she murmured as she walked back toward him. “I don’t want to wake Josh.”
“That’s okay.”
The closer she came to him, the more she felt the cold that had settled on his clothes, and it made her shiver. But she wasn’t afraid. Maybe some of Josh’s instinctive trust in Boone had rubbed off on her, because for the first time since she’d left San Antonio, she felt a little less alone.
She wrapped her arms around her body to ward off the chill and came to stand next to him. She had to move close, so she could keep her voice low. The scent of his aftershave teased her. “What is it?” she asked. “Is the road—”
“No, it’s not the road,” he said quietly. “Look, I don’t mean to mess in your business, but there’s a man in the café who might be looking for you and the boy.”
She gasped and stepped back, her romantic notions shredded by one simple statement. Oh, God, no. Not right here. She’d lulled herself into believing the weather had protected her. Her stomach began to churn. But maybe Boone was wrong. “What…does he look like?”
“Short, stocky but solid, like he works out. He has a military buzz cut.”
Nausea rose in her throat. She turned away and took several long, deep breaths until her stomach settled down a little.
“Do you know him?” Boone asked.
“I know him.”
“Is he a threat to you?”
She gazed up into his shadowed face and decided to risk telling him the truth. “I suppose. I have his son.”
Boone nodded, as if her honesty set well with him. “I figured. Josh told me his daddy has a gun.”
Shelby glanced over her shoulder at the sleeping boy, but he didn’t seem to have stirred. She lowered her voice. “Mason Fowler is a horrible person. He beat my sister and—”
He drew in a sharp breath. “Did he kill her? Josh said—”
“No,” she whispered quickly. “Patricia divorced him two years ago. She…died in a boating accident with…my parents…four months ago.” Shelby shuddered with the effort not to cry. She’d been able to stay strong until now, but this big cowboy was such a comforting presence that she was tempted to give in to her grief.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was husky, tender.
“Me, too.” She swallowed. “Anyway, Patricia didn’t leave a will, so unfortunately Mason has more of a claim to Josh than I do. He’s started the paperwork to get custody. I don’t think the process is going fast enough for him. A couple of days ago, I felt sure he was ready to take Josh for an outing and just…keep him.”
“So he wants the boy.”
“Not really.” She moved closer to Boone. She told herself it was so that he could hear her low-pitched explanation, but she also wished he’d wrap those strong arms around her. It was a dumb idea, and luckily for both of them, he didn’t pick up on her body language.
“Mason wasn’t the least interested in visitation rights after the divorce,” she continued. “For two years he hardly saw Josh. Now he’s pretending to be the perfect daddy. I’m convinced he’s only after money. My parents did leave a will, and whoever gets Josh also gets the generous maintenance allowance my parents set up for him.”
A growl of disapproval rumbled in Boone’s chest, and even though Shelby couldn’t see his face, she could feel the tension in his body. His righteous fury at hearing such news warmed her more than a blazing fire could have done.
It gave her the courage to ask the question she’d been dreading the answer to. “Does he guess I’m here somewhere?”
“I don’t think so. Eugene said he’d never laid eyes on you and Norma said she’d seen you but you went through about lunchtime and were probably way down the road by now.”
“Who are Eugene and Norma?”
“Sorry. The Sloans, the people who own the place.”
Shelby stared up at him. “They lied for me? Why would they do that?”
“Protecting the privacy of a customer might be part of it, but I think it’s also because they didn’t take a shine to this Mason character any more than I did. They might have asked themselves why he’s coming after you himself, instead of notifying the police. I wondered that, too.”
“Because it’s more his style. He’d rather intimidate me personally than trust that the law will be on his side. I have no doubt if he decides I’m in the way of his getting that money, he’ll want to eliminate me completely. In some ways, I probably played right into his hands, running like this.”
“What was your plan?”
She drew strength from the soft murmur of his voice in the darkness, and the woodsy, masculine scent of him eased her panic. “At first I could only think of getting Josh out of town, and I told him we’d go to Yellowstone. Once we were on the road, I realized we couldn’t stay there, so I’d decided to continue north to Canada and get a lawyer up there to help me. But now, if Mason’s right here…”
As the shivers started again, she wrapped her arms tighter around her body. “I don’t know. Maybe he wanted me to do this. Maybe he’s been goading me, hoping I’d take off. And the fact is, he does intimidate me. But I can’t let him get Josh. I just can’t.”
Boone stood there in silence for a long time. Finally he blew out a breath. “I guess you’d better let me help you.”
They were the sweetest words she’d heard in a long while, yet she couldn’t imagine what this cowboy could do. “How?”
“Leave your rental car here and come with me to the Rocking D.”
“Your…your ranch?”
“Not mine. It belongs to a good buddy of mine, Sebastian Daniels, and his new wife Matty. It’s near Canon City, in a pretty little valley. You’ll be safe there while you figure out what you want to do next.”
“Oh, Boone, that’s a wonderful offer.” The idea filled her with such longing she could taste it, but she gathered her strength and pride, wrapping them around her like a cloak. “But I can’t bring my troubles to roost at your friend’s place, especially if he’s a newlywed.”
“You don’t know Sebastian. If he found out I’d left a defenseless woman and a little boy—”
“I’m not defenseless.” She refused to come across as a victim.
“You’re not?”
“I took a self-defense class. I can take care of myself.”
“Well, that’s good,” he said patiently. “That’s real good. But it’s kinda tough taking care of yourself when you have a little shaver to worry about.”
She knew that. She just hadn’t wanted to think about it. “You have a point there,” she admitted reluctantly.
“Anyway, if Sebastian knew I’d left you to fend off some wife-beater by yourself, while taking care of the boy and all, he’d have my hide. Sebastian would want me to bring you to the Rocking D, once he understood the situation.”
She struggled to keep a grip on the pride she’d been clinging to so fiercely. She needed a champion, needed one desperately. Two champions sounded like heaven, but she couldn’t impose like that. “Sounds as if you and your friend are two in a million.”
“Not by a long shot.” He sounded embarrassed. “We’re a couple of ornery cusses, if you must know. Travis, he’s the charming one.”
“Travis?”
“Travis Evans. You’ll meet him, too. In fact, as long as we get out of here at a decent hour in the morning, you’ll get to come to his wedding.”
The conversation had taken on an unreal quality. “Boone, hold on a minute. You’re planning on putting me, with all my problems, smack-dab in the middle of wedding festivities? You can’t do that.”
“Like I said, my friends would have a fit if I did anything different.”
“Some friends you have, Boone.” She was beginning to believe she’d stumbled onto the cowboy equivalent of the Knights of the Round Table. Still, taking advantage of such gallantry wasn’t her style. “Listen, you’re wonderful to offer, but I simply can’t put you or your friends to that kind of trouble.”
“Okay.” His tone was patient. “What’s your alternative?”
Good question. She thought of Mason lurking in the café, coiled like a rattlesnake ready to strike. She could watch for him to leave before she ventured out of the room in the morning, but that would mean being trapped without any way of getting food for Josh. Explaining that problem to Josh without telling him about Mason would be tricky.
She faced the fact that she had no plan unless someone offered to be her ally. Boone had offered. “I guess my biggest problem is how to get food to Josh if the road doesn’t open right away in the morning,” she said.
“I can help you with that.”
“I would appreciate it.” She was embarrassed by how constrained her position was. She tried for an attitude of independence and self-reliance. “Once Mason leaves, Josh and I can be on our way. Kind as your gesture is, we really wouldn’t need to go with you.”
He sighed. “Shelby, I’ve seen the guy. He’s a tough customer, and he won’t stay fooled forever. Sooner or later, he’ll catch on and come back looking for you. When he does, your self-defense courses aren’t going to do you much good. If you really want to keep Josh out of his hands, you need help.”
She knew he was right. Damn it, he was so right. She’d been foolish to think she could protect Josh by herself. Reckless and foolish. Humbled by her monumental ability to miscalculate, she finally understood that her pride could endanger Josh. Because she loved him far more than her stupid pride, she had no choice but to be indebted to Boone and his friends. “Okay,” she said softly. “But I’ll find a way to make it up to you. I’ll—”
“No need,” he said. “Don’t even worry about it.”
Of course she would. The debt already sat heavy in her chest. But Josh was more important than her own comfort zone right now. “What about my rental car?” she asked.
“You can call the office in Santa Fe and tell them you were afraid to drive it over the pass. That makes sense. You shouldn’t drive it over the pass, at least not for a day or two. But you can say you found other transportation. They might charge you something extra if they have to come get it, but—”
“I don’t care about that.”
“Okay, then it’s settled.” He turned toward the door. “I’ll come over here in the morning when I’m sure Mason’s gone.”
“Wait a minute.” She’d been so caught up in her own problems that she hadn’t thought about how Boone had engineered this visit to her room. “Mason’s in the café, right?”
“Right.”
“When you left, where did he think you were going?”
“To my room.”
She gazed at him standing by the door. “But you don’t have a room.”
“He doesn’t know that.”
“You can’t go back in the café now, can you?”
“No, but I’ll be okay in my truck.”
His willingness to sacrifice himself for someone he’d just met left her speechless. Finally she recovered enough to stop him before he opened the door. “You will not sleep in the truck, Boone. Share the bed with Josh. He doesn’t take up much room. It’s the least—”
“Not in this lifetime.”
The steel in his words told her it was useless to argue the point. “Okay, then take the chair, or the floor. But you are not going out to that truck. If you do, then the deal’s off. I won’t go with you to the Rocking D.”
“But…you don’t know me.”
She smiled at that. “Yes, I do. Stay with Josh and me for the rest of the night, Boone. I feel rotten enough about the trouble I’m causing you. Let me at least offer you shelter from this storm.”
“You shouldn’t feel bad. You’re not the one causing the problem. Fowler is.”
“Well, I do feel bad, and I wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink knowing I sent you out to stay in your truck tonight.”
He hesitated. “Well—”
“You’ll be doing me a big favor.” She pressed her advantage. His only weakness seemed to be his very soft heart. “I haven’t been able to sleep hardly at all since I left San Antonio. I have a feeling with you here, I’ll be able to finally relax.”
“Then go on back to bed.” Boone took off his jacket and hat before settling down in the room’s only chair. “Don’t be afraid to sleep. I’ll keep you safe.”
4
BOONE SHIFTED his chair so that it blocked the door, just in case. Then he leaned back and closed his eyes, although he didn’t expect to sleep. The room was too full of Shelby—her flowery scent, her soft breathing, her rustling movements as she turned over in bed.
His sexual urges were coming out of hibernation, and the timing sucked. For the first time in more than a year, he was seriously interested in a woman. But in spite of the lousy timing, he was somewhat reassured by the ache in his groin. After Darlene had dumped him, he’d felt more like a steer than a bull, except, apparently, when he’d downed a pint of good Irish whiskey and taken Jessica to bed. That hardly counted.
This counted. Nothing about Shelby reminded him of Darlene. Darlene was tall and big-boned, with brown eyes and hair. And damned impatient about getting a ring on her finger. He’d wanted to wait awhile to get married, so he could save enough money to give her a better style of life. At least that’s what he’d assumed was his motivation. Sebastian had thought all along he was stalling because deep down he wasn’t sure Darlene was the one.
No matter what the reason, his method of operation hadn’t suited Darlene, and he’d lost her. Maybe she hadn’t been the one, but she’d been a big part of his life for a good many years, and he still couldn’t think of her without getting a lump in his throat.
Except now he could. Boone’s eyes snapped open as he realized he’d been thinking about Darlene for several minutes, and his throat felt perfectly fine. Testing himself, he conjured up the pictures that usually sent him into deep depression—Darlene in a wedding dress, Darlene standing in front of the preacher with Chester Littlefield, Darlene and Chester in bed together.
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Vicki Thompson
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: The BlacksmithBoone Connor liked being a loner, plain and simple. In his estimation, women just got a guy into trouble. And he had enough of that already…His WomanShelby McFarland and her young nephew were on the run. When a freak snowstorm left them stranded, she though the game was over–until a strong sexy cowboy came to their rescue…His Baby?Boone couldn′t resist helping a lady in distress, andy more than he could help falling for her–hard and fast! Shelby′s lips tempted him, teased him, and her gorgeous body pushed him beyond reason. But as good as they were together, Boone couldn′t make Shelby any promises. Because he′d just discovered he had a baby girl…