Laura Altom - The Cowboy Seal's Christmas Baby

HIS UNEXPECTED CHRISTMAS SURPRISE...

A baby’s cry was the last thing former SEAL Gideon Snow expected to hear on an Arizona mountain trail. Nor was he prepared for the sight of the young mother suffering from memory loss. Gideon has plenty of reasons for avoiding people—and his painful past—but two fragile people now depend on him to survive. Can he just fall for the lovely Jane Doe?

Jane doesn’t deny the pull of the gruff-yet-sweet cowboy who saved her and her baby. He’s more than a cowboy hero—Gideon’s given them a chance at a new life and love. But Jane knows that any day, her memory might come back. And the woman Gideon is falling in love with might disappear forever...

“Christmas is right around the corner...”

“Though I’m not big on holidays, since this is Chip’s first one, let’s do it up right,” Gideon said. “While we’re in town, we’ll grab lights—”

“Can we make all the ornaments?”

“Why not? Just add what supplies you need to our list.”

Jane laughed. “That list of yours is going to rival Santa’s.”

“True.” He reached for her, hovering his hands midway between them.

Please touch me, hold me, her heart begged. More than she needed any random item on his list, she craved human contact—his contact. But was that wrong?

For all she knew, she could be married.

Did that make her an awful person?

Dear Reader,

Most of my books tackle at least one heavy issue, but Jane and Gideon’s story had so many that at times, while writing, I found my own pulse racing. Jane battles amnesia. One scene in particular tugged at my heartstrings—when she was in a department store, trying on clothes and didn’t recognize the woman staring back at her in the mirror.

Enter Gideon. As a Navy SEAL, his entire life centers around helping others in need. But when he loses his leg in battle, he also faces an identity crisis—made all the worse when his wife leaves him because she doesn’t want to be with a disabled man. Because of this, Gideon’s emotionally scarred, believing no woman will ever again want him.

I fear many disabled veterans experience this same sense of loss. Gideon is one of the lucky ones who has forged a new life as a horse whisperer, fulfilling his need to help by nurturing emotionally scarred horses. But once Jane becomes a fixture in his home, he finds himself once again longing to help people—more specifically, her and her son.

I hope you enjoy this heartfelt read. More important, if you or anyone you know is a disabled vet, I pray for you to find your life’s second chance.

Warmest wishes,

Laura Marie xoxo

The Cowboy SEAL’s Christmas Baby

Laura Marie Altom

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LAURA MARIE ALTOM is a bestselling and award-winning author who has penned nearly fifty books. After college (go, Hogs!), Laura Marie did a brief stint as an interior designer before becoming a stay-at-home mom to boy-girl twins and a bonus son. Always an avid romance reader, she knew it was time to try her hand at writing when she found herself replotting the afternoon soaps.

When not immersed in her next story, Laura plays video games, tackles Mount Laundry and, of course, reads romance!

Laura loves hearing from readers at either PO Box 2074, Tulsa, OK 74101, or by email, balipalm@aol.com.

Love winning fun stuff? Check out lauramariealtom.com.

This story is dedicated to all disabled veterans who have lost their way. Please know you are loved and appreciated by me.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

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

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Why was a baby crying?

Gaze narrowed, Gideon Snow hunched forward in his saddle. He tugged his cowboy hat’s brim lower against the driving sleet’s pinprick assault. At least twenty miles in on a sixty-mile trail through northern Arizona’s Asuaguih mountain range, on an early December day fit for neither man nor beast, the last thing he should be hearing was an infant’s wail. But there it was again.

Waaahuhah.

Had to be a fox.

No woman in her right mind would bring a baby out in this weather.

Jelly Bean, the pinto mare he’d been rehabilitating for a good twelve weeks, snorted. The cold had her exhalations wreathing her head in white.

“Good girl.” Gideon leaned forward, smoothing his hand along her left cheek. She’d been through a lot—trapped in a burning barn during a Nevada sandstorm. Her fourteen-year-old owner died trying to save her. The girl’s father had carried his lifeless daughter from the flames, then returned for the horse she loved. But the normally easygoing pinto charged into the heart of the storm. Three days after the girl’s funeral, Jelly Bean returned to what was left of the barn. It had taken six men to corral her into a trailer. Her coat had been ravaged by the storm. Her eyes filled with protective mucus.

It had taken Gideon a month of sweet talk to get near the poor creature, but once they’d turned the corner from strangers to friends, progress had been swift. Jelly Bean’s owner prayed to keep the horse in the family as a living tribute to Angela.

This trail ride was Jelly Bean’s final exam.

Gideon had waited for the ugliest conditions possible to push her to her limits. Tonight, he’d stop to make a campfire, and if she could once again handle being at a safe distance from flames, he’d know she was nearing the end of her stay with him.

Gideon would be sad to see her go.

Folks in this lonely corner of the world called him a horse whisperer, but at this point in his life, after all he’d been through, he figured it was the other way around. The horses helped him make sense of a life he no longer recognized as his own.

Was he angry? Hell, yes.

But that didn’t change anything, and it sure as hell wouldn’t bring back his wife or—

Waaaahhhuh!

Jelly Bean whinnied, turning her head toward the sound.

“What do you think, girl? Could there really be a baby out here, or is a crafty fox trying to get a piece of weekend action?”

Of course, the horse gave no answer.

The fact that Gideon had grown close enough to the mare that he’d halfway expected one told him it was high time he start talking to creatures other than horses. But since he still couldn’t stand being around people, maybe he should at least get a dog?

Another hundred yards down the steep, rocky trail, zigzagging around ponderosa pines and thick underbrush, landed Gideon in a clearing.

A blue dome-style tent flapped in the wind, and sure enough, from inside, there was no denying a baby’s panicked wail.

Pumped with adrenaline, Gideon dismounted, loosely looped Jelly Bean’s reins around the nearest pine trunk, then charged toward the infant. He ignored the mild discomfort in his left leg, but upon reaching the tent, he couldn’t ignore the blood. The way it snapped him back to a time he’d fought hard to forget.

Blood pooled on the tent’s floor.