Debra Cowan - Whirlwind Baby

Praise for Debra Cowan

‘Cowan’s stories have the charm, tenderness and

sensuality that captivate and enchant.’

— Romantic Times BOOKreviews

‘WHIRLWIND GROOM is a book not to be missed.’

— Romance Junkies

‘The third Whirlwind western romance is a fabulous historical…Debra Cowan provides a delightful Texas late-nineteenth-century romance.’ — The Best Reviews

‘Cowan takes the qualities of an Americana western,

adds the grit of a chase, and writes a tale that also has

deep family ties, pulsing sexual tension and the harsh

reality of the West. This is a solid western with an

added poignancy that truly tugs at the heart.’

— Romantic Times BOOKreviews

‘WHIRLWIND BRIDE is an utterly delightful kick-off

for what promises to be a great mini-series.’

— Reader To Reader

She’d been so careful. He couldn’t have found them yet. Please, not yet.

“What do you think they wanted?” She glanced over her shoulder and saw Jake still at the outside door, his gaze riveted on her. Her hair. Could he tell that this nut-brown wasn’t her natural colour? That it was a dye made from walnut leaves and husks?

It hit her then that her hair was down, plaited into a braid that lay over her shoulder and against her dress. That all she had on was her nightrail and wrapper. And that all he had on were…denims.

There was a fluttery sensation in her stomach that she didn’t understand. She forced herself to look away from his chest, but she could feel his gaze traveling slowly down her body…

Like many writers, Debra Cowanmade up stories in her head as a child. Her BA in English was obtained with the intention of following family tradition and becoming a schoolteacher, but after she wrote her first novel there was no looking back. An avid history buff, Debra writes both historical and contemporary romances. Born in the foothills of the Kiamichi Mountains, Debra still lives in her native Oklahoma with her husband. Debra invites her readers to contact her at PO Box 30123, Coffee Creek Station, Edmond, OK, USA, 73003-0003, or visit her website at: http://www.debracowan.net

Debra Cowan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To my aunt, Sue Warren Green

Chapter One

West Texas, 1885

Jake Ross would rather eat barbed wire than have anything to do with a kid, but thanks to the supposed “dying woman” who’d left a baby at his door three days ago, he was interviewing applicants for a baby nurse and housekeeper.

On this hot August afternoon, everyone except his cousin, Georgia, had taken off faster than a six-legged jackrabbit. She and Jake were in the large front room of the ranch house. Georgia sat in one of the wide leather chairs at the end of the deer-hide sofa as Jake spoke to a tall woman with a British accent. Miz Alma Halvorson was the first person to respond to the ads that he and his uncle had posted in Whirlwind after determining no one there could or would take the infant.

Jake let Georgia keep an eye on the little girl sleeping on the bearskin rug in front of the rock fireplace while he asked questions. Which was a chore because he could barely think past the hammering in his head. He’d spent Saturday afternoon in a bottle, just as he did every other Saturday and he was still feelin’ the misery a day and a half later. The pounding in his head only throbbed harder every time he looked at that kid.

After church yesterday, he had asked around the small nearby town of Whirlwind about a family for Molly. Riley and Susannah Holt couldn’t take her because they’d just had another baby. Riley’s cousin, Jericho Blue, and his wife, Catherine, couldn’t take in the little girl because they’d just learned they were expecting. And Jake hadn’t been able to bring himself to ask Davis Lee and Josie Holt. They had just lost a baby and asking them to take Molly so soon after hadn’t seemed right.

After speaking to several other families, he’d driven out to Fort Greer and spoken to Dr. Butler about possibilities. No luck there, either. He’d wired two doctors in Abilene and the marshal about families who might take the child, but no one could help right now. Nor had any of the doctors treated a dying woman who’d been of the age to have an infant.

Jake needed to find some help today . Because, if he didn’t, he’d be stuck taking care of it and he just wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Of course, with only one good arm, Georgia couldn’t, either. His uncle and brother might not mind caring for the child, but they did have a ranch to run.

“Whose baby is that?” the persimmon-faced candidate asked.

“I don’t know.” Jake looked down at the blond-haired infant, his heart squeezing. After fussing and crying most of the last three nights and on the trip into town yesterday, she had finally fallen asleep on the ride home. “I thought I told you I found her at the door last Friday night.”

“No, I meant—” She cleared her throat as her gaze skipped away from his. “Does she belong to you? Is she your illegitimate—”

“No, she isn’t,” Jake said sharply, “and what difference does it make if she is?”

She was an innocent child. Jake might not want her, but he didn’t think she deserved to be thrown away. No kid should be left at someone’s door like last week’s laundry.

He still couldn’t believe someone could actually abandon a child. As if the baby picked up on his dark thoughts, she began to cry.

Jake gritted his teeth and walked over to pick her up, handling her just as awkwardly as he had since she’d arrived. She’d been left in one of their wash tubs along with a blanket, some flannels for changing her, a nightdress and two day dresses. A paper had been pinned to the gown she’d worn, with a letter written on the front and feeding instructions on the back.

After reading the thing at least twenty times, Jake didn’t have to pull the paper out of his trouser pocket and look at it to recall the words.

I am a poor friendless woman dying in a strange town. I have no close family or husband and I noticed your kindness to a lost little boy in town. The only way I can bear to part from this life is to leave my Molly with you, not at a baby asylum or foundling hospital. You seem the kind of man who would not let a child starve or be sold. She will be a year old on October 7. I leave her in your care and pray God will forgive me.

The mother had chosen him. Who the hell was she? Had he seen her and not noticed? Her words made him feel responsible for the baby, responsible for yet another person, and Jake didn’t like it.

But he knew how it felt to be abandoned and he wouldn’t do that to anyone. He’d advertised for the right family, but in the meantime, the kid was stuck here. The baby’s crying didn’t stop even though he held her. The throb in his head worked down his neck. He had to find a baby nurse and double fast.