Annie Jones - Bundle of Joy

“Here kind of early, aren’t you?” he finally asked. “I don’t see the sheriff anywhere around.”

“There’s something I have to do at the café before then.”

“Oh?” He narrowed his eyes. It was a simple technique to speak little and act like you expected an answer. Oftentimes people complied without even knowing why. Other times they hesitated, then felt compelled to fill the silence, usually with the very information Jax needed.

Shelby did neither. She took the carrier and settled it on the counter. In doing so, she put her back to Jax. “Delta, will you watch the baby for a few minutes? I’ll come back for her just as soon as I—”

Jax clamped his hand down on the woman’s shoulder, partly in reassurance, partly to tell her he would not be so easily dismissed. “Don’t bother. I’ll bring her over.”

Shelby whipped her head around. Her shoulder went from strained and tense under his touch to stiff but confident. It was a small shift, but one that let him know she would not be intimidated by him, that she had the grit to hold her own ground.

“You?” Miss Delta poked her head out from behind a round display of candy a few feet away. She gave Jax a once-over, then a twice-over. “Pardon my saying so, but you hardly look like the babysitting type.”

“Foster care,” Shelby said before Jax could come to his own defense. She pressed the handle of a baby carrier, labeled Property of the Sunnyside, Texas, Police Dept., into his hand. “Meet me in the café in a few minutes.”

Somewhere in the shop, something fell off the shelf. As soon as Shelby left, Miss Delta tiptoed from behind that shelf and whispered, “You gonna let her do that? Take that baby to Westmoreland?”

The question, and the implication that Jax had any say over what Shelby did with the child, caught him off guard. “Is Westmoreland really that bad?”

“You know what I mean. Take her to...” Delta hurried over to cover the baby’s ears, and even then she spoke in a whisper. “Social services.”

Baby Amanda gurgled.

Jax’s heart clenched. He had been eight when his mom died and he’d been taken to social services. It was a moment he hadn’t thought of in years, and yet he was not foolish enough to think it hadn’t affected him every day of his life.

“What choice do I have?” He wasn’t asking rhetorically. He really hoped she had another suggestion.

“I asked you first,” she said, in a way that left the impression that if she did have some ideas, she wasn’t going to just blurt them out to him. He got that. He was not only an outsider, but he was a total stranger, too. Yet her choice to keep her thoughts to herself actually made his opinion of her go up a couple more notches.

Jax didn’t say a word to that effect. But he did turn to stand next to Miss Delta, looking down at the innocent in the carrier. After a moment, he looked the older woman in the eyes and said softly, “I know I’m a stranger here, but I don’t think for one moment that Shelby Grace or Sheriff Denby would let this child go anywhere that wasn’t the right place for her to be.”

“I know that, young man. I just hope you do, as well.” Miss Delta nodded, then looked down at the baby. She touched the child’s head and bent to give her a kiss on the forehead, which left a bright pink smudge. “You said you were an ex-cop?”

“Yes, ma’am. On my way from four years of service in the Dallas area to a dream job doing private security for the ultrarich in Florida.”

“Dream job?” She stood back, squinted one eye shut and pressed her lips together to make sure he knew she had sized him up good. “For a man like you? Doing the bidding of the ‘ultrarich’ sounds more like a nightmare.”

“It’s helping people without the complications of...the people.” That was as best as he could describe it on the spot. He had to admit, the overly simplified explanation didn’t make him proud of his choice.

Miss Delta homed in on that right away. She shook her head, causing the necklaces she wore to jangle softly. “That’s what you have your heart set on? Spending your days as a hired helper?”

He repositioned his grip on the baby carrier and his boots on the concrete floor and assured her, “It is.”

“In Miami, Florida?”

“Got a contract that says that’s where I’m supposed to be.”

“Yet here you stand, at the door of the Shoppers’ Emporium in Sunnyside, Texas.” She narrowed her eyes and tapped the toe of her shoe, which was much too fancy for standing on your feet all day.

“What?” Jax demanded, knowing the woman wanted to say more.

“Nothing.” She gave an exaggerated sigh and shook her head. “Only, I wonder if you ever considered that you might just be where you are supposed to be already.”

Jax froze for a moment to try to piece together what she meant by that. He was just a guy who had happened by, right? He didn’t have any reason to get involved. And yet...

He leaned down to wipe the lipstick off Amanda’s head. “I’ll take that under consideration, ma’am.”

“I believe you will.” Miss Delta reached out, grabbed his chin and drew his face close enough to plant a big ol’ kiss on his whiskered cheek. “I really do believe you will.”

That was how he came to walk through the door of the café, swiping at his cheek with the sleeve of his jacket, carrying a foundling baby, grinning and looking for Shelby. Questions about and reactions to the little one in the carrier began flying at him the second he walked into the café from the few patrons who had begun to shuffle in and settle down for their morning meal.

“What a sweetie.”

“How old...?”

“Just precious!”

Questions and reactions to the little one in the carrier began flying at him the second he walked into the café from the few patrons who had begun to shuffle in and settle down for their morning meal. Jax knew they all meant well, but being the center of all this attention was not his style. He was more a stand back and observe kind of guy. Yet with each new set of eyes trained on him, he wanted more and more to retreat.

Retreat? When had that ever been his reaction to anything?

Since he had someone to protect, was his instinctive response.

Jax raised the baby up, forced a wincing smile as he moved away from the prying gazes and began looking around for Shelby to help him out. She wasn’t at a table. Or behind the counter.

“You cannot do this, Shelby Grace. Not now!” The tense, stressed twang of a man’s voice made Jax turn. He spotted Shelby through the opening to the kitchen, arguing with a man with faded blond hair pulled back in a ponytail.

He couldn’t help thinking of Denby’s concern that whoever had left the baby had basically targeted Shelby Grace Lockhart for a reason. Old beliefs twisted in Jax’s gut. Emotion and agendas based on selfishness sometimes made people do desperate things.

He thought of Delta’s cryptic advice that he was where he needed to be. Suddenly being here, with this baby and Shelby, felt all wrong.

Without hesitation, Jax headed for the swinging kitchen door.

“I can’t do it anymore,” Shelby argued, her own voice pitched high with a mix of pleading and anxiety. “You’re going to have to find a way to make the payment or start riding a horse to work.”

“Shelby, hon, talk sense.” The man reached out for her.

Jax found his hand, the one not holding the handle of the baby carrier, doing the same.

Shelby evaded the man’s grasp with a quick duck of her shoulder, and in doing so, she also put herself out of Jax’s reach.

“I am talking sense. For the first time since I realized, deep down, that you were never going to make a go of the ranch, and I was never going to own this café.” Shelby turned to look back, raised her hand, then brushed away a stray curl that had caught on her eyelashes. “I can’t tell you how much I wanted to believe, to go on dreaming that some day...but last night I looked around and realized that someday isn’t coming. We’ve given it all we’ve got, and we have to face the fact that we can’t do it, Dad.”