Brenda Harlen - Maverick Christmas Surprise

Reassured by his own reasoning that it couldn’t have been Leighton who dropped the baby off—and conveniently ignoring the fact that his name was on the note—Wilder breathed a sigh of relief, confident that he was off the hook. But his father would require additional proof, so as the rest of the family went back into the dining room, he scrolled through the contacts in his phone to see if he still had her number.

Amazingly, he did, and tapped it to initiate the call.

“Hello?”

The female voice that immediately answered sounded frantic.

“Um...hi,” he said. “I’m trying to reach Leighton Ames.”

“You and me both,” she replied, sounding as if she was fighting tears.

He frowned at that. “Is this still her number?”

“Yes, but she forgot her phone when she left.” The woman on the other end of the line sighed. “Or maybe she didn’t forget it.”

Which didn’t make any sense to him, but all he said was: “Well, if you hear from her, can you ask her to call Wilder Crawford?”

“Why?” She sounded both curious and wary. “What business do you have with my sister?”

Sister?

He couldn’t recall Leighton mentioning a sister, but surely a sister would know if Leighton had had a baby. And if this was Leighton’s baby, that meant the woman on the phone was the baby’s aunt.

Before he could ask, she spoke again. “Wait a minute—did you say Wilder Crawford?”

“I did,” he confirmed.

“I found your name and a Montana address scrawled on a Post-it note in Leighton’s apartment,” she said. “I think she might be on her way to see you.”

The knots in his stomach tightened. “She might have been here already...and left something.”

He heard a sharp intake of breath. “What kind of something?”

“A baby,” he admitted. “Did she—”

“Cody!” she immediately interjected, not giving him a chance to finish. “You have Cody?”

“That’s the name in the note,” he confirmed.

“Note?” she echoed.

“The baby was left on my doorstep with a note.”

“I don’t understand. Why would she leave her baby?”

“I wish I knew,” he told her.

“Are you Cody’s father?” she guessed.

“Obviously your sister thinks so.”

“You haven’t seen her or talked to her?”

“Not in the past year.”

“But Cody’s with you? At the Ambling A Ranch in Montana?”

“That’s right,” he confirmed.

“Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she promised.

“Wait—”

But she’d already disconnected the call.

“What did you find out?” Max asked, when Wilder returned to the table where Lily had resumed serving dessert and Avery rocked the now quiet baby.

“The kid’s mom is Leighton Ames,” he said. “I spoke to her sister, but she doesn’t know where she is or why she left the baby here.”

“Because she wanted him to be with his dad,” Max suggested as an answer to the latter question.

Wilder hoped like hell his father was wrong.

“Do you want ice cream with your pie?” Merry asked him.

Because for the rest of the family gathered together, today was still a celebration—and it was time for dessert.

“Sure,” he said.

Though he wasn’t even sure he wanted the pie now, he didn’t want his family to know how freaked out he was about the arrival of the baby they were all happy enough to assume was his and turning down dessert would be a definite red flag.

“I want ice cream,” Wren piped up, pushing her bowl toward her soon-to-be-stepmother who was scooping it.

“You already had ice cream,” her dad reminded her, pulling the bowl back again before Merry could indulge the little girl’s request.

Wren pouted and dragged her spoon around the inside of the empty vessel.

Wilder took the plate Merry passed to him and murmured his thanks. Then he halved the scoop of ice cream with the side of his fork and slid half into his niece’s bowl.

Wren beamed at him; Hunter scowled.

“There’s a reason I’m the favorite uncle,” he said, and winked at the little girl.

“I’m finished with my dessert,” Finn said to his wife then, “if you want me to take the baby.”

“I can manage the baby,” Avery assured him. “If you want to be helpful, you can start clearing the table.”

As Finn began gathering empty plates and glasses, Wilder dug his fork into his pie, giving up the pretense of an appetite.

“Did you ask for a baby for Christmas, Uncle Wilder?” his niece asked, around a mouthful of ice cream.

“No.” His response was immediate and definitive.

“I guess you’re just lucky then,” Wren decided.

Lucky?

Oh yeah, he had a horseshoe so far up his butt he couldn’t swallow the pie that was stuck in his throat.

The house emptied quickly after dessert was finished and the cleanup complete, leaving Wilder and his father alone with the baby. Then Max took off, too, to pick up a crib he’d arranged to borrow from one of their many Crawford relatives in town.

Wilder had offered to make the trip, but his dad had insisted that he stay at the Ambling A to watch the baby. For the first half hour, there weren’t any major snags—because the kid slept. But when he woke up, he was not in a very good mood.

The baby didn’t cry. Not really. But his face was all scrunched up and he was squirming in his seat, and Wilder braced himself for the crying to start.

“Avery promised that you would sleep for a few hours,” Wilder said, trying to reason with the infant. “That was barely more than an hour ago.”

His words got the kid’s attention, though, and he fixed his big, blue eyes on Wilder.

“You can’t be hungry already,” he continued, in the same logical tone. “You sucked back a whole bottle before she left.”

The baby continued to fuss, clearly unconvinced and unhappy.

And his lower lip was starting to do that quivering thing that warned Wilder real tears and sobs likely weren’t too far behind.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I don’t know what to do.”

“You could try picking him up.”

Wilder turned to see Hunter standing in the doorway. “I thought you’d gone home.”

“I did,” his brother confirmed. “And then I came back.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought you might want to talk to someone who’s been where you are.”

On another day, Wilder might have made a snarky comment about not remembering when a baby had been left on Hunter’s doorstep, but right now, he was too grateful for his presence to risk saying anything that might prompt him to leave again.

“I think I need a manual more than a sounding board,” he confided.

“A manual would be useless,” Hunter said. “Because every baby is different.”

“So how am I supposed to know what’s wrong with this one?”

“He’s probably out of sorts because he doesn’t know where his mama is.”

“That makes two of us,” Wilder said.

“And when babies are out of sorts, they need to be comforted.”

He gestured to the infant in his carrier. “Feel free.”

But his brother shook his head. “You need to step up.”

“I would have stepped up months ago if Leighton had told me she was pregnant,” he said in his defense.

“So why are you hesitating now?” his brother challenged.

“Because I don’t have the first clue what to do with a baby.”

“No first-time parent has a clue in the beginning.”

His brother’s matter-of-fact statement was hardly reassuring.

And while they were talking, the baby was growing more distressed.