Joanna Wayne - Son of a Gun

He turned King back toward the ranch, letting him choose his own pace, until Damien spotted a young buck drinking from Beaver Creek. He reined in King and admired the stately deer. It looked totally at ease with the weather, though the wind wailed through the pine needles like a tomcat. Or like a baby.

Too much like a baby.

Damien’s senses sharpened. He stretched in the saddle and spotted a woman, her shoulders stooped, trudging along in the opposite direction. He quickly caught up with her. When she turned around, he noticed that all she had for warmth was a shawl wrapped around her and the wailing infant she cuddled close to her chest.

What the devil was she doing out here with a baby on a night like this? Damien scanned the area for trouble as he climbed from the saddle.

“Are you alone?” he asked as he shed his jacket.

She nodded. “Yes, but please don’t hurt me.”

Fear bled into her pleading voice. The accent was clearly American and Southern. “I have no intention of hurting you. How did you get here?”

“I…I ran my car into a ditch. I saw the fence and hoped there was a house nearby where I could find shelter. The baby is cold.”

“There’s no highway out here.”

“There is a road,” she protested. “I just left it.”

“An old logging road, but no one drives on that in a car. It’s full of ruts and dangerous potholes.”

“I know that now. But it was dark when I turned onto it and I mistook it for a driveway.”

He slipped his jacket over her shoulders.

It practically swallowed her. He was six feet tall and broad shouldered. She was a good six or seven inches shorter and petite. The jacket would keep her and the baby both warm until he could get her out of the weather.

She winced as he tugged the jacket tighter. He looked down and spotted the crimson stain on her wrap.

“You’re injured.”

“It’s nothing, just a scratch.”

But it had bled too much to be a mere scratch. Her story of the ditched car sounded more suspect by the minute. “Are you sure someone didn’t dump you out here?”

“I told you, I lost control of my car and now it’s stuck in a muddy ditch. I must have caught my arm on the fence when I climbed through the strings of barbed wire.”

She turned away, clearly not wanting to say more. He wouldn’t push the issue yet.

“Here, let me help you onto the horse. You and the baby can ride. I’ll keep the reins and walk beside you. We don’t have far to go.”

“Where are you taking us?”

“To a roaring fire where you and the baby can get warm. What is it anyway, a boy or a girl?”

“A girl. Her name is Belle.” She looked around. “Where am I?”

“On Bent Pine Ranch.”

“In Dallas?”

“Actually, you’re in a tiny community known as Oak Grove, but Dallas is the closest city.”

“How far are we from the city limits?”

“About twenty miles as the crow flies. Thirty miles if you’re not flapping your wings. Where were you going anyway?”

“To visit my aunt, but I must have made a wrong turn somewhere.”

“Maybe several. Where does she live?”

“On the outskirts of Dallas.”

“That covers a lot of territory.”

He helped the woman into the saddle and then zipped the jacket with both her and the baby inside the cocoon of warmth. “My name’s Damien,” he said, once they started toward the ranch house.

“I’m Emma.”

“Do you have a last name?”

She hesitated a tad too long to be believable.

“Smith… Emma Smith.”

That beat Jane Doe, but not by much. The swaying rhythm of King’s walk seemed to calm the baby. In minutes, she stopped crying altogether.

Questions about his own past withdrew to the back corners of Damien’s mind as the focus of his attention shifted to the more immediate concern of aiding the mystery woman and child.

He didn’t fully buy the ditched-car story, though he couldn’t come up with any more logical reason for her to be out in his pasture on a night like this.

It didn’t matter at this point. The woman and the baby needed help. Even if she was lying, he had no choice but to take them home with him.

* * *

EMMA STUDIED THE COWBOY walking beside her. He was ruggedly handsome, with a chiseled jawline, a classic nose and hair that jutted out over his forehead from beneath a worn Western hat. Masculine. Virile.

Protective. She’d never appreciated that quality in a man more than she did right now.

Hopefully he wasn’t the overly inquisitive kind. If he did ask questions, she’d have no choice but to elaborate on her original lie. If she told the truth, he’d call the cops.

Not that she wouldn’t like to sic the law on Julio, but publicity of any kind would make it that much easier for Caudillo to find her.

“You picked a bad night for traveling,” Damien said. “The bridges and overpasses are all slick and icy.”

“I didn’t expect it to turn this bad when I left home.” That was the understatement of a lifetime. She’d left last March, expecting a week in paradise. She’d gotten ten months in hell.

“Where are you from?” Damien asked.

“Originally or now?”

“Now.”

“Victoria, Texas.” Another lie, but she’d heard someone in the trailer mention it and she knew it was south of Houston.

“Where are you from originally?”

“Nashville,” she said, this time answering truthfully. She hadn’t lived there since…since the last major upheaval in her life.

The smell of burning wood grew stronger. She hadn’t imagined it earlier. A few minutes later, she caught her first glimpse of smoke rising from three chimneys that accentuated the steep lines of a multi-gabled roof.

The house was two-storied and sprawled out in several directions, as if it had stretched over the open land like creeping phlox.

“Who owns the ranch?” she asked as they drew nearer.

“The Lamberts.”

He surely wasn’t a Lambert, not wearing the tattered leather jacket he’d lent her. More likely he was just a working cowboy. “Where do you live?”

“You’re looking at it.”

That surprised her. “Do you and your wife have children?”

“Nope. No children. No wife, either.”

“So, how many people live in the house?”

“Six when we’re all present and accounted for.”

“That sounds like a houseful.”

“Always room for one more.”

“I won’t be staying,” she said quickly. “I’ll get out of your hair as soon as I can get a ride to the nearest motel. Any will do.”

“You’re nowhere near a motel, and you’d be hard-pressed to find transportation into town tonight. Even if you could, I wouldn’t recommend it. You might end up worse than merely in a ditch. Besides, there’s plenty of room here.”

As they approached the house, she was even more awed by its sheer size. But that wasn’t all it had going for it.

A large glass-enclosed porch extended across part of the back of the house. The lamps were turned on and their soft glow fell across sofas, rockers, hooked rugs, potted plants and baskets in all shapes and sizes. A round table in the middle of the room held a huge winter arrangement of greenery, berries and cones.

To the left of that was a covered entryway that led into the house, and to the left of that were wide, uncovered windows that opened into a massive kitchen filled with people. Evidently, they were enjoying a late dinner.

Damien stopped at the base of a winter-bare oak near the back of the house. He took the reins and looped them over a low branch, securing the horse before reaching to help Emma dismount.

Anxiety swelled inside her. There would surely be questions. They’d know she was lying. They might just call the sheriff and have him come pick her up. All it would take was a fingerprint check and then there would be no hiding from the glare of the media.