Diana Whitney - Ooh Baby, Baby

In the midst of a blackout and flooded roads, cowboy Travis Stockwell delivers Peggy Saxon’s two precious babies in the back of his cab. To Travis’s own surprise, the determined single mother’s desire to provide a better life for her children restores his belief in family.

Travis becomes determined to do what’s best for Peggy and the twins even as he falls in love with them. But what if the best thing for them is the stable life he can’t provide? Now the footloose cowboy has to make a choice—one that could change his life forever.

Book 3 of the 36 Hours series. Don’t miss Book 4: A woman has visions of murder—but who will believe her in For Her Eyes Only by New York Times bestselling author Sharon Sala.

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Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

About the Author

Blackness gripped her like a fist. Outside, the wind howled, and rain pummeled the thin windowpanes. Thunder rumbled. Lightning cracked.

Inside, the silence of her heart was deafening. Terrifying. And so very, very lonely.

Peggy Saxon shifted on the worn sofa to massage the small of her back. It didn’t help. The nagging throb simply wouldn’t go away. She heaved her pregnant bulk sideways, seeking a semicomfortable position. The threadbare sofa arm poked her ribs.

Muttering, Peggy used a strategically tucked throw pillow to pad the exposed wood, then grabbed the tiny battery-powered radio from a nearby table. She needed something to drown out the roaring storm, the inner silence of desolation. She needed music. Voices. Even crackling white noise would be a distraction from desperate sadness, from secret fear.

On the radio, a tight male voice announced new road closures due to mud slides. Phone lines were hit and miss, but the power company, having been flooded out by a massive surge of murky goo, still had no estimate as to when electricity would be restored. A state of emergency had been declared.

It was five o’clock in the morning. There was no light. No heat. The lovely mountain hamlet of Grand Springs, Colorado, was under siege. And Peggy Saxon was alone.

* * *

“Dispatch to unit six. Travis…are you there?”

Travis Stockwell ducked into the cab, knocked his hat off on the door frame and swore as his prized Stetson landed in the mud. He scooped it up, muttered and wiped the brim with a paisley handkerchief.

The raspy female voice boomed with familiar agitation. “Unit six, respond. Respond, dadgummit, or I’ll be tossing out those fancy boots of yours and renting your room to the highest bidder.”

“Aw, for crying out loud.” Travis tossed the wet Stetson on the cab’s front passenger seat, poked the soiled handkerchief back into his pocket, which was already crammed with a soggy pack of pumpkin seeds, and snatched up the microphone. “All right, already. This is unit six, soaking wet, so hungry I could chew cardboard, and so danged tired I don’t give a fat flying fig what you do with that flea-bitten flophouse.”

A long-suffering sigh crackled over the line. “Where’n Sam Hill are you?”

Travis squinted through the splattered windshield toward a weary group of guardsmen hoisting the gear he’d just unloaded. “Near as I can figure, about a half mile from the cutoff road to Mountain Meadows campground. I just dropped off the evacuation troop.”

“What’s your ETA?”

“I dunno. Thirty minutes, maybe sooner if the traffic lights are back on line.”

“They’re not. The whole town is blacked out. Oh, and don’t take Orchard Road back into town.”

“Mud slide?”

“Big one. Looks like it might have taken a couple cars.”

Travis swore, slapped the steering wheel. “Maybe I should head that way to see if I can help.”

The microphone crackled. “Jimmy’s already en route with a group of volunteers and a trunk full of shovels. I need you back in town. Every emergency vehicle in the area is tied up. City hall is scrambling for rescue transport.”

“On my way,” Travis said, and flipped the ignition with his free hand. “Unit six out.”

“Travis, keep this radio on. Cell service is going in and out, so this is the only way I can always reach you”

“Yeah, okay.”

“You be careful, hear?”

“I will, sis.” With that, he dropped the mike, shifted into gear and drove into the blinding rain.

* * *

Light blasted away blackness. The dingy duplex shuddered through thunder, screeched as if in pain.

Peggy gasped, suddenly awake, clutched her distended belly and struggled to her feet. An eerie energy crawled up her arms, lifting the fine hairs. Another flash, another roar. She covered her ears, bit her lip, may have cried out, but the sound was swallowed by a deafening crack and the reverberating crash of splintered lumber. Her scalp tingled, felt singed.

Peggy couldn’t hear the scream but felt it explode from her parched throat. She wrapped her arms over her head, curled forward to protect the precious life in her womb. The house was collapsing around her. She knew it. She felt it. She heard the agonized shriek of fractured wood, of ripped nails. The floor rumbled beneath her feet.

Then the rumbling softened into silence.

She heard a thin sob, then realized it had come from her. Opening her eyes, she blinked into the darkness, seeing nothing but familiar shadows of doorways and lumpy furniture. Now, all she heard was the rain. The pounding, incessant rain.

Shaking violently, Peggy felt around the sofa cushions until her fingers brushed smooth metal, the flashlight that had been beside her throughout the long, black night. Her hand quivered around it, her thumb spasmed against the protruding switch. A beam of brilliant reassurance bounced from a wall.

She swept the light around the room, across the ceiling and over the floor, stopping briefly on the wall clock, which read eight o’clock. Everything was as it should be. No giant cracks, no collapsing timbers. The pocket radio had fallen under the coffee table, but the sparsely furnished room was otherwise tidy.

Peggy swept the light toward the front door, then veered left to aim the beam through the window and check the front porch—or rather, what was left of it.

The dilapidated decking had been crushed by an enormous pine that had once shaded the south side of the duplex and was now wedged against her front door. Judging by the angle at which the tree had fallen, she suspected that the other half of the duplex had borne the brunt of the damage. Fortunately, the unit was vacant, which meant her nearest neighbor was a quarter mile away.

Swallowing a sour surge of panic, Peggy told herself the damage probably wasn’t as bad as it looked. Besides, the storm would be over soon. It had to be. The town couldn’t take much more.