Darlene Graham - Enchanting Baby

“And—” Greg leaned forward, hoping this would help move the process along “—at one time I was a deputy sheriff.”

This, the cop did not calmly jot down. He fixed his gaze on Greg. “Was? Are you retired? Ex-cop? What?”

Greg was well aware that within the brotherhood of the badge, the difference between an ex-cop and a retired cop was vast. An ex-cop was suspect. Had he been drummed out of the force? Had he screwed something up bad? Couldn’t he handle it?

“I’m an auxiliary deputy, but for all practical purposes I’m inactive.”

The cop frowned. “From what agency?”

“The sheriff’s department out in Last Chance, Colorado. My dad was the sheriff until he got killed in the line of duty. My grandfather was the sheriff before him. I guess you could say I inherited the job.”

“Why’d you quit?”

“Technically, I didn’t quit. I had to spend all of my time in Denver for a couple of years.” When Kendra’s kidneys had failed entirely, he’d moved her near the dialysis center. “I found a good replacement, a foreman on my ranch. Ever since, I’ve been inactive.”

He might as well have quit. Greg was through with law enforcement. He had stopped trying to fill his father’s shoes as soon as he found out how sick Kendra was. Playing deputy and keeping the ranch going in the years after his father died had siphoned off precious time that he should have spent with Kendra. Time he could never regain. But to keep from having to explain all of that to this cop, he gave the simple answer. “I still carry a commission card.”

And my gun, he added mentally. He wasn’t sure that fact would win points with this guy, either. “But I don’t do much duty.”

Eiden was a bit of a bulldog. “Why not?”

“It’s pretty quiet where I’m from. The sheriff only calls us if he needs backup on something. Not much call for crowd control out in Last Chance.”

“Okay. I get it.” Eiden scribbled another note. “So, how long have you been a deputy?”

“Since I was nineteen. I was sworn in right after my father was killed.”

“In the line of duty, you say?”

“Yeah. It was a long time ago.” Greg was growing impatient. It was, indeed, a long time ago. And they were all gone. His dad. Kendra. Gramps. All that mattered now was the baby.

Eiden was studying him with the instinctual squint of a cop who suspected he wasn’t getting the whole story, but Greg was in no mood to share. The fact that he’d made a lot of sacrifices—including his ability to father a child—in his desperate but futile battle to save Kendra’s life was nobody’s business.

“Why am I here?” Greg was anxious to focus the conversation back into the now.

The cop put his pen down. “Ms. Kane told me you came to the clinic looking for a woman, someone you believe is one of her clients.”

Greg frowned, thinking, So? What a weird little burg this was. “Do you haul everyone who walks into that clinic looking for someone over to police headquarters for interrogation?” It was all so bizarre that Greg couldn’t help adding, “Is that some kind of crime in Enchantment, New Mexico?”

“Would you mind giving me the woman’s name?”

“Ashleigh Logan. The one with the TV show.”

Greg noticed Officer Eiden didn’t have to write that down. He waved the pen. “I know who she is. Why are you looking for her?”

“It’s personal.” That answer had seemed sufficient at the clinic. Well, no, it hadn’t. The people at the clinic had called the cops.

And this cop, evidently, didn’t like that answer, either. “I can detain you if you don’t cooperate with me, Mr. Glazier.”

“On what charges?” Greg wondered if he should call his lawyer, who was all the way back in Denver.

“I said detain. I didn’t say arrest. If you’re a deputy you know that I can put you in investigative detention. Now, I think you’d better tell me what business you have with Ashleigh Logan.”

If Lydia Kane’s furtive behavior hadn’t convinced Greg that the woman he was seeking had, indeed, come to Enchantment to hide, this cop’s pressure tactics sure did. Greg had the creeping sensation that he was dealing with something sinister here. That thought sent a chill through him, because if Ashleigh Logan was in some kind of danger, so was the child inside of her—his child.

The cop’s eyes glittered like dark polished stones while he waited for Greg to answer. No one, Greg decided, could look more threatening.

“Look,” Greg said, trying to sound reasonable. “I need to find Ms. Logan for reasons that are mine alone. It’s something between the two of us. Is she in some kind of trouble or something?”

“I asked you why you’re looking for her.”

“I’d rather not say. I need to explain the full situation to her first. She deserves that much. Like I said, it’s personal.”

The cop leaned forward and braced his elbows on the table with his smooth brown hands fisted together over the legal pad. “You her boyfriend or something?”

Greg took a measure of the guy, deciding whether to trust him or not. Miguel Eiden seemed solid and clean cut. Except for a scar on his square jaw that looked as if it’d been earned in a fight. So maybe the guy had a bit of a history. Didn’t everybody?

Eyeing him, Greg bet his top stud horse that the guy knew exactly where Ashleigh Logan was.

And if Ashleigh Logan was in Enchantment, the sooner he talked to her, the better. He had tried not to let himself consider this possibility, but if Ashleigh Logan had already found out about the disastrous mistake…well, she might do something rash if she was devastated enough. He had to make her see that there was more at stake than she knew. He suppressed his fears by reminding himself that she was the star of a show about having babies, and that her own unorthodox pregnancy had already been highly publicized. How would it look to her viewers if cute, bubbly Ashleigh Logan opted for a late-term abortion? And The Birth Place clinic didn’t look like the kind of place where a woman would come for such a procedure, anyway. Still, Greg couldn’t quell a certain sense of urgency. This was his child, the only child he would ever have. He had to ask.

“You know where she is, don’t you?”

Miguel Eiden’s mouth formed a tight line. “I asked you a question, Mr. Glazier. What is your relationship to Ashleigh Logan?”

They had clearly reached a Mexican standoff, and since the cop had the gun on his hip, Greg was bound to lose. He decided he’d have to tell the guy the truth if he was ever going to get out of here.

“I don’t have a relationship with her. We’ve never even met.”

The cop’s frown deepened.

Greg could see he was going to have to tell the guy all of it. “This has to be kept confidential.”

The cop leaned back and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “I’m a police officer, not a gossip columnist.”

Right. As if Greg needed reminding. “Ms. Logan is pregnant.”

The cop gave him a sarcastic frown that said, duh. Ashleigh Logan had chronicled every step of her pregnancy on her nationally syndicated cable TV show for all the world to see. “And?” Eiden pressed.

“The baby is mine.”

The cop’s eyebrows shot up. He dropped his threatening pose and his expression became incredulous as he leaned forward. “I thought you said you’ve never met her.”

“I haven’t.”

“Then you’d better tell me what gives, Mr. Glazier.” He leafed through the papers as if he’d missed something. “’Cause this deal is sounding stranger by the minute.”

Greg sighed, suddenly feeling beaten down by the combined effects of his bizarre situation and the nagging altitude sickness. “Strange isn’t the word for it. Seems like my whole life has been strange, and incredibly unlucky.”