Linda Goodnight - Married In A Month

So he didn’t remember her. That much, at least, was good. If he had any idea she’d once fancied herself in love with him, he’d never fall for this scheme.

“Yes.” She struggled to meet his gaze, worried that her too-wide eyes would betray the terror gnawing at her insides.

“Let me see your résumé.”

Willing her hand not to tremble, she gave him the paper and was surprised when he handed her the baby in return. While he examined the sheet, she sat down again, laid the fussy infant over her shoulder and gently patted his back. He was soft and warm and clean but squirming miserably. Within seconds, he burped loudly, heaved a shuddering sigh of relief, and snuggled into her neck, his little head lolling to one side in exhaustion.

Colt looked up, expression stunned. “You’re hired.”

“What?”

He nodded toward the baby. “He’s stopped crying. That’s good enough for me. You’re hired. Can you start right now?”

Kati batted her eyes, confused. “Right this minute?”

“I’m desperate.” Wearily he collapsed into a high-backed chair behind the desk and slumped forward, resting his arms on the polished top.

She hoped he was as desperate as she was.

Kati considered his bloodshot eyes and bent posture. His exhaustion was so complete that she actually felt sorry for him. But she couldn’t let her sympathy get in the way. For once in her life, she had to think ruthlessly.

“May I ask where the baby’s mother is?”

Colt scraped a hand over his whiskers. Out of his mind with exhaustion and, if he was willing to admit it, downright terror, he hardly knew where to begin. How had this happened to him, a die-hard bachelor without a paternal bone in his body? How had he come into possession of a three-month-old child?

“It’s a very long story, but if you’re willing to listen…” Colt glanced up. Through blurry eyes he saw her nod, so he plunged in, reliving the fateful day three weeks earlier when he’d opened his doors to insanity.

Within ten minutes after the nervous little messenger had appeared at his door, Colt had run the gamut of emotions from disbelief to pure terror. Pacing the length of his ranch-style living room, he’d stopped now and then to stare from the blue-wrapped bundle in the stranger’s arms to the papers in his own hands. His mind reeled with what he’d read there. Some woman he’d never heard of had sent him a baby to care for.

“How could anybody leave an infant in my custody? I don’t know anything about kids.” Colt shook the paper beneath the other man’s nose. “Just who is this Natosha Parker, anyway? I’ve never even heard of her.”

The messenger broke out in a sweat and hugged the door handle a little harder. Colt paused long enough to catch his breath, and the poor hapless man took that as an opportunity to escape before the big cowboy really lost it. He eased the door open, clearly hoping to Hannah that the wild-eyed rancher didn’t yank him backward through the keyhole.

“Beats me, sir,” he said, backing out the door. “All they told me to do was bring the baby out here to one Colt Garret.” He shoved the infant into Colt’s arms. “That’s you, and I’m outa here.”

He whirled and bounded across the concrete porch.

“Wait a minute,” Colt yelled at the retreating form. “ Who told you to bring the baby out here?”

The messenger didn’t wait around to answer. He crammed the ordinary-looking brown sedan into gear and hightailed it down the long driveway toward the gate, fishtailing beneath the Garret Ranch sign.

The baby, whose tiny form was strapped into a carrier of some type, chose that moment to awaken. A high-pitched wail rent the country quiet. Cole pivoted from the front window where a rising plume of dust was all that remained of the retreating sedan. He shoved a work-hardened hand through his hair, sending thick, brown waves in a dozen different directions, and stalked toward the hallway.

“Cookie, get in here,” he bellowed. At the sound of shouting, the baby jerked, his little arms flew straight up and he wailed all the louder.

Cookie, chief cook and general housekeeper for the Garret Ranch, scuttled in from the kitchen. Twigs of hair stuck out on his head like blackjack sprouts. A battleship tattoo, a result of one wild weekend in Hong Kong, sailed his arm from shoulder to wrist. A white chef’s apron covered the forty extra pounds of paunch around his middle. He was a scary sight, but the bachelor brothers of Garret Ranch didn’t care. He made a mean chicken-fried steak, and that was really all that mattered.

“What in blue blazes is all the racket in here, boss?” His voice, a startling replica of an air horn, made the baby cry even more.

“It’s a baby.”

“A what?” Cookie backed away.

The sight brought a momentary, though not too happy, smile to Colt’s face. “I said a baby, Cookie, not a rattlesnake.”

“Same blame thing. Only, I know what to do with a rattlesnake.” He shuffled over to the couch and peered down at the screaming infant. “Whose is it?”

“For the time being, he’s mine.”

Cookie plopped down on the couch beside the crying infant and began to laugh. The sound rumbled like a passing train. “One of them lady friends of yours finally got you, didn’t she? You gave her a baby, and she gave him back to you. I knew it. I knew it. I told you that wild living would come home to roost some day, and it sure enough did. Here it is in the flesh.”

Cole was dumbstruck. “You think this is my baby?”

“Ain’t it?”

“No!”

“You sure?”

Of course he was sure. He hadn’t done any “wild living” in years. Well, months, maybe. And the few times he’d been with someone he’d been very, very careful. He and his brother Jett had long ago made a pact to remain footloose and fancy-free. They were cowboys who loved their freedom and their wide-open spaces. No women or kids could tie them down. No sirree, not the Garret brothers.

The baby’s cries had turned to shrieks. The tiny face was a wrinkled, purple mess.

“Do something, Cookie.”

“Me?” The older man shook his head, setting the blackjack sprouts aquiver. “It’s your baby.”

“What do you suppose he wants?” Side by side, the men stared down at the infant.

Cookie, who thought food was the answer to every problem, hit upon the perfect solution. “Maybe it’s hungry. You suppose there’s a bottle or something in one of them bags?”

Colt hadn’t even noticed the three bags leaning against the wall just inside the front door. He hurried to them, searching for something—anything—to make this little fella hush up. An array of plastic diapers, blankets and tiny clothes were stuffed into the bags. One by one he threw them out, scattering baby items all over the thick, brown carpet.

“Aha!” he cried. Delirious with relief, he withdrew a filled baby bottle and carried it back to the couch. The baby lay in his padded carrier thrashing his arms and squirming like the rattlesnake Cookie had likened him to. Colt pushed the bottle into the infant’s open mouth. Instantly the baby quieted.

“Just like feeding a motherless calf,” Cookie commented as the child latched on to the nipple and sucked greedily.

“This is a lot more serious than a calf, Cookie. Babies need attention all the time, not just morning and evening. We’ve got to find this baby’s mama and send him home.”

“Cute little feller, ain’t he?” Cookie stroked one fat finger along the baby’s cheek. The child turned his head toward the finger, a pair of brown eyes searching Cookie’s face. “How could any mama worth her salt dump him on a stranger’s doorstep like this?”

“According to the letter, the mother doesn’t consider me a stranger. That’s the odd part of all this. I don’t remember ever meeting any Natosha Parker, but this paper says I’m the only person she trusts to take good care of little Evan.” He looked up and grinned. “I guess his name is Evan.”