Rebecca Winters: And Baby Makes Three

Cole doubted he’d able to eat, but he preferred she didn’t suspect he felt like he’d been trampled in a wild mustang stampede no one had seen coming seconds before it happened.

TEN minutes later Catherine knocked on the manager’s door.

“Come in.”

Recognizing Cole’s deep voice, she walked inside the office. The sight of him standing behind the desk, in a beautiful white dress shirt with the sleeves pushed up his tanned arms to the elbows, rocked her to the foundations.

Minus his tie and suit jacket-the outer trap pings of civilized society-his virility was even more in evidence.

By comparison she knew she looked washed out. Other than pulling her hair back in a ponytail, she still wore the suit she’d arrived in. Until she saw the club sandwiches and sliced melon placed on the desk in front of him, she hadn’t realized how hungry she was.

“Sit down, Catherine.”

The use of her first name indicated progress. Despite their precarious beginning, she liked the sound of it on his lips. She liked the play of muscle across his shoulders and arms. Too much.

Murmuring her assent, she pulled up a chair. Now that the fencing was over, they could get down to business.

He pushed one of the plates toward her, no doubt recognizing the signs of someone who was starving. She reached for a sandwich half and began devouring it. Cole, on the other hand, drank cola from the can while he watched her through shuttered eyes.

Anticipating her needs, he handed her a cola, which she grate fully accepted. She drank most of it before putting the can back on the desk.

“Thank you. I needed that,” she exclaimed, glancing at the food he hadn’t touched. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“Later. For now I want to hear the details about Terrie and her relationship with Buck.” His probing gray eyes were like an assault on her senses. “When they first met-where-how long it lasted-how and when you came into the picture-”

On the drive back to Elko she’d determined to tell him everything she knew in the hope her candor would be rewarded.

“A year ago this month Terrie ran away from her foster home in California. She had the help of another runaway. They stole money and a car. En route they ditched it and stole a van. Once they arrived in Reno, they changed the plates and lived out of it while they washed dishes for a local café called the One-Eyed Jack. On their breaks, they were given free meals.”

His brows furrowed. “Resourceful girls.”

“The street-smart ones are. They’d been there a month when this ‘hunky cowboy’-Terrie’s words-showed up and took an immediate interest in her. In fairness to him, she could make herself up to look closer to twenty. He could be excused for not knowing she was only seventeen. After she got off work he would take her dancing, spend money on her. He told her she was beautiful, which she was,” Catherine added in an unsteady voice. A brunette with hazel eyes…

Bonnie had been born with a head of dark hair and a rosebud mouth. The sweetest, dearest little baby on earth.

Clearing her throat, Catherine continued. “Soon Terrie was sleeping with him. She didn’t have the experience to realize it couldn’t last, let alone turn into anything permanent like a wedding ring on her finger. By September he was gone from her life without a trace, leaving her pregnant and ill with morning sickness. The café manager had to let her go, but she gave Terrie the name of a home run by private donations called Girls’ Haven.”

“You’re the case worker there?” He sat back in the chair with his strong arms folded.

“Yes. I’ve been working there for three years. Stories like Terrie’s are all too common. Her friend dropped her off in the van, then drove away. Terrie never saw her or Buck again.”

“Did this Buck actually tell her he worked on the Bonnibelle?”

“He didn’t tell her anything concrete about his life except that he was a cowboy. The night before he disappeared, someone came in the café looking for him while he was waiting for her to go off shift. She over heard this person tell Buck he’d better call the Bonnibelle on the double. Terrie went through her pregnancy assuming the other man had been referring to a woman Buck hadn’t told her about, and that’s why he’d abandoned her. It wasn’t until she was dying from an infection following the delivery that she broke down and told me about the incident. That’s when I told her Bonnibelle was the name of a famous ranch somewhere in Nevada.”

Their eyes held for a brief moment, sending an errant thrill through her body that had nothing to do with business.

“At that point Terrie said she wanted the name Bonnie put on the birth certificate. She begged me to find Buck so he’d know he had a daughter.”

Maybe it was the dim light of the office, but lines of what could be interpreted as exasperation mixed with sorrow gave Cole’s hard-boned face an almost haggard appearance. She had to remember he’d attended a funeral earlier in the day. The mention of Terrie’s death must have triggered emotions still close to the surface.

Catherine could relate. She was still in pain and shock that the teen she’d grown so close to in the last year was gone, and wouldn’t be able to raise her little girl. Life could be cruelly unfair to some people-

“What’s the name of the hospital where she delivered?”

“Reno Regional.” Her voice caught.

“When was the birth?”

“June twentieth.”

“Five weeks old already?” He echoed her concern.

She nodded.

“The only reason she hasn’t been adopted yet is because she was born five weeks premature. For a while she was on a ventilator and had to be fed through an IV. They had to recreate conditions in the womb. She also had a bad case of jaundice and had to be placed under lights.”

Catherine had spent every possible minute with Bonnie after work and on weekends, touching her through the holes of the hospital incubator until she could hold her and feed her the special formula. She couldn’t love her more if she’d given birth from her own body.

“Where’s the baby now?”

“In a temporary foster home awaiting adoption.” That familiar jabbing pain tore at her heart. “A newborn baby is in such high demand, Bonnie will probably find a permanent home with an adoptive family within the next week. That’s why it’s necessary I speak to Buck right away.”

“Provided he’s the father,” his voice grated.

“A DNA test will put the matter to rest one way or the other,” she reminded him, though of course he didn’t need to be told that. “The hospital already has the results on Bonnie. It’s a routine procedure for prospective adoptees.”

Cole rubbed the back of his bronzed neck. She had the further impression he was near exhaustion, unknowingly soliciting her sympathy. Whoever had died must have been a close friend.

A strange sound escaped his throat before he sat forward in the swivel chair. “I’ll arrange for Buck’s DNA to be sent for comparison.”

“Can you ask them to put a rush on it?” She knew he had the clout to light fires.

“I’m as anxious to clear this up as you are,” he ground out. “What was Terrie’s last name?”

“She went by Cloward with a C. That’s on her records both at Girls’ Haven and the hospital. But I’m sure she made it up, since she told the café manager it was Markham. No doubt Terrie told Buck something altogether different. They both had their secrets,” she lamented, surprising a troubling bleakness coming from his eyes.

“In case he pretends not to recognize her description, I have a photograph you can give him. It was taken before she was showing. In this one she’s not wearing makeup or clothes that tend to make her look older.”