Annie Jones: Bundle of Joy

Never, Ever Trust A Cowboy

Like the wind, Jackson Stroud plans to blow through Texas ranch country and never look back...proving Shelby Grace Lockhart’s motto correct. But the former Dallas detective doesn’t walk away from ladies—or infants—in distress. So when he discovers an abandoned newborn and a woman looking for a fresh start, Jax knows he came to this special town for a reason. Shelby Grace is just as determined to learn why someone left a baby on her doorstep. As their quest leads in surprising directions, Jax starts to believe he’s finally found a place to belong. What will it take to convince Shelby that this is one cowboy she can count on?

“Guess that old saying is true. Everything looks different in the light of day.”

Shelby turned to fix her gaze on the tall figure at her side holding the baby carrier easily against his chest. That sight was different.

“I’m going to look around and see what I can find.” Jax settled the baby carrier down on the wooden slats at her feet.

Clearly he expected her to stay put and watch over the foundling. Clearly the man did not understand that Shelby Grace was finished doing what other people expected. It took her only a moment to bend and unsnap the safety latches. She lifted the baby and cuddled her close, even as she headed to the steps to follow Jax.

“No one in Sunnyside would have been able to hide a pregnancy, much less a baby for three months.”

“You honestly think there are no secrets in this town?” He looked back over his shoulder at her. “Would you say everybody here knows all there is to know about you, Shelby Grace?”

ANNIE JONES

Winner of a Holt Medallion for Southern-themed fiction, and the Houston Chronicle’s Best Christian Fiction Author of 1999, Annie Jones grew up in a family that loved to laugh, eat and talk—often all at the same time. They instilled in her the gift of sharing through words and humor, and the confidence to go after her heart’s desire (and to act fast if she wanted the last chicken leg). A former social worker, she feels called to be a “voice for the voiceless” and has carried that calling into her writing by creating characters often overlooked in our fast-paced culture—from seventysomethings who still have a zest for life to women over thirty with big mouths and hearts to match. Having moved thirteen times during her marriage, she is currently living in rural Kentucky with her husband and two children.

Bundle of Joy

Annie Jones

www.millsandboon.co.uk

People were also bringing babies to Jesus

to have him touch them. When the disciples

saw this, they rebuked them. But Jesus called the children to him and said,

“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

—Luke 18:15–16

For my family, who give me the peace

when I need to write and plenty of space

if I can’t get any writing done.

Contents

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

Epilogue

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Excerpt

Chapter One

Nobody did anything without a reason, though reason was rarely behind the things that people did. Jackson Stroud didn’t just believe that; he counted on it.

Guilt. Anger. Pain. Longing. The motivations were often so deep-seated that they were difficult to name. But Jackson—Jax, to people who thought they knew him well—knew what made people tick, or at least he figured it out more quickly than the average Joe.

That knack had served him well these past four years on the Dallas police force. Not as well in his so-called “personal life.” Despite the best efforts of the older ladies at his church to set him up with perfectly lovely women, he’d never been able to turn off the drive to figure people out long enough to make a real connection. Certainly not long enough to settle down. He’d accepted ages ago that he was not the settling-down type.

“Okay by me,” he muttered to himself in the darkness of his truck cab. That just meant there were no broken hearts in his wake when he moved on. Jackson Stroud always moved on.

So when he veered off the brightly lit highway down a darkened ramp in the middle of the night, he did not do so lightly. Bone tired, he needed to stretch his legs, get some coffee and maybe...

From nowhere, the headlights of a silver SUV speeding precariously close to the centerline slashed across Jax’s line of vision. He hit the brakes and swerved toward the shoulder. His own lights came to rest on a dark sign by the road: Y’all Come Back to Sunnyside, Texas.

He grumbled under his breath, then guided his truck back onto the road and drove on until he pulled into the well-lit parking lot, under the signs Delta’s Shoppers’ Emporium and Truck Stop Inn and The Crosspoint Café. Framed by huge glass windows, a lone clerk stood at a counter. He was intently texting at his post.

Jax’s boots hit the ground with a thud. He rubbed his eyes, then his jaw. He needed a shave. He knew he looked rough—but felt only hungry.

He put his hand over his stomach, but it was his conscience that made him admit that hunger had not led him to take the off-ramp tonight. Somewhere in the darkness of this warm spring night, it had dawned on him that without the familiar trappings of his work around him, he suddenly felt cast adrift.

He turned toward the Crosspoint Café. A hot meal, maybe a conversation with a waitress who would call him “honey” and make him feel, at least for a few minutes, like he wasn’t all alone in the big, wide world—that was all he needed. He reached into his truck to grab his steel-gray Stetson, slammed the door shut, then took a step in that direction. The lights inside went out.

“Hey, if you want something, you’d better hurry.” The clerk stood in the mini-mart’s open door a few yards away. He shouted, “Whole place shuts down in twenty minutes!”

“Café already looks closed.” Jax gave a nod and started toward the mini-mart.

“Yeah?” The lanky young clerk frowned, then shrugged it off. “Maybe Miz Shelby has something to do.”

“Miz Shelby?” Jax chuckled softly, instantly picturing a sassy red-haired Southern belle in a pink waitress uniform and white apron, smacking gum and pouring out advice about life as freely as she did rich black coffee while she flirted with her transient clientele. “Maybe Miz Shelby met a handsome stranger and—”

“Hey! Don’t you say stuff like that about Miz Shelby! She taught Sunday school to almost every kid in Sunnyside at some time or another, and for your information, she don’t even know any strangers.”

Jax fought the urge to argue that not knowing someone was what made them a stranger. “Sorry, kid. I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sure Miz Shelby is a fine lady.”

In his imagination, the unseen Miz Shelby’s hair was now white, her face lined and her life full but still missing something.

“You bet she is. Even if she wasn’t, ain’t been no one around to run off with, anyways.” The young man with the name tag reading Tyler on his blue-and-white-striped shirt leaned back against the open door and checked his phone again. “You showing up and a jerk who tried to steal some gas are the only action I’ve seen around all night.”

Not that the kid could see much of anything beyond the small screen in his hand, Jax thought. Then his mind went to the speeding SUV. Like any good cop, he wondered if there was a connection, if something more was going on.