The Rancher's Christmas Promise

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue (#u6f77f426-278a-59ec-b803-b508f02132bf)

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Ryder Wilson stared at the people on his porch. Even before they introduced themselves, he’d known the short, skinny woman was a cop thanks to the Braden Police Department badge she was wearing. But the two men with her? He’d never seen them before.

And after the load of crap they’d just spewed, he’d like to never see them again.

“We’re not kidding, Mr. Wilson.” That came from the serious-looking bald guy. The one who looked like he was a walking heart attack, considering the way he kept mopping the sweat off his face even though it was freezing outside. March had roared in like a lion this year, bringing with it a major snowstorm. Ryder hadn’t lived there that long—it was only his second winter there—but people around town said they hadn’t seen anything like it in Braden for more than a decade.

All he knew was that the snow was piled three feet high, making his life these days even more challenging. Making him wonder why he’d ever chosen Wyoming over New Mexico in the first place. Yeah, they got snow in Taos. But not like this.

“We believe that the infant girl who’s been under our protection since she was abandoned three months ago is your daughter.” The man tried to look past Ryder’s shoulder. “Perhaps we could discuss this inside?”

Ryder had no desire to invite them in. But one of them was a cop. He hadn’t crossed purposes with the law before and he wasn’t real anxious to do so now. Didn’t mean he had to like it, though.

His aunt hadn’t raised him to be slob. She’d be horrified if she ever knew strangers were seeing the house in its current state.

He slapped his leather gloves together. He had chores waiting for him. But he supposed a few minutes wouldn’t make much difference. “Don’t think there’s much to discuss,” he warned as he stepped out of the doorway. He folded his arms across his chest, standing pretty much in their way so they had to crowd together in the small space where he dumped his boots. Back home, his aunt Adelaide would call the space a vestibule. Here, it wasn’t so formal; he’d carved out his home from a converted barn. “I appreciate your concern for an abandoned baby, but whoever’s making claims I fathered a child is out of their mind.” Once burned, twice shy. Another thing his aunt was fond of saying.

The cop’s brown eyes looked pained. “Ryder—may I call you Ryder?” She didn’t wait for his permission, but plowed right on, anyway. “I’m sorry we have to be the bearer of bad news, but we believe your wife was the baby’s mother, and—”

At the word wife, what had been Ryder’s already-thin patience went by the wayside. “My wife ran out on me a year ago. Whatever she’s done since is her prob—”

“Not anymore,” the dark-haired guy said.

“What’d you say your name was?” Ryder met the other man’s gaze head-on, knowing perfectly well he hadn’t said his name. The pretty cop’s role there was obviously official. Same with the sweaty bald guy—he had to be from social services. But the third intruder? The guy who was watching him as though he’d already formed an opinion—a bad one?

“Grant Cooper.” The man’s voice was flat. “Karen’s my sister.”

“There’s your problem,” Ryder responded just as flatly. “My so-called wife’s name was Daisy. Daisy Miranda. You’ve got the wrong guy.” He pointedly reached around them for the door to show them out. “So if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got ice to break so my animals can get at their water.”

“This is Karen.” Only because she was a little slip of a thing, the cop succeeded in maneuvering between him and the door. She held a wallet-sized photo up in front of his face.

Ryder’s nerves tightened even more than when he’d first opened the door to find these people on his front porch.

He didn’t want to touch the photograph or examine it. He didn’t need to. He recognized his own face just fine. In the picture, he’d been kissing the wedding ring he’d just put on Daisy’s finger. The wedding had been a whirlwind sort of thing, like everything else about their relationship. Three months start to finish, from the moment they met outside the bar where she’d just quit her job until the day she’d walked out on him two weeks after their wedding. That’s how long it had taken to meet, get hitched and get unhitched.

Though the unhitching part was still a work in progress. Not that he’d been holding on to hope that she’d return. But he’d had other things more important keeping him occupied than getting a formal divorce. Namely the Diamond-L ranch, which he’d purchased only a few months before meeting her. His only regret was that he hadn’t kept his attention entirely on the ranch all along. It would have saved him some grief. “Where’d you get that?”

The cop asked her own question. “Can you confirm this is you and your wife in this picture?”

His jaw felt tight. “Yeah.” Unfortunately. The Las Vegas wedding chapel had given them a cheap set of pictures. Ryder had tossed all of them in the fireplace, save the one the cop was holding now. He’d mailed that one to Daisy in response to a stupid postcard he’d gotten from her six months after she’d left him. A postcard on which she’d written only the words I’m sorry.

He still wasn’t sure what she’d meant. Sorry for leaving him without a word or warning? Or sorry she’d ever married him in the first place?

“You wrote this?” The cop had turned the photo over, revealing his handwriting on the back. So much for vows.

Ryder was actually a little surprised that it was so legible, considering how drunk he’d been at the time he’d sent the photo. He nodded once.

The cop looked sympathetic. “I’m sorry to say that she died in a car accident over New Year’s.”

He waited as the words sank in. Expecting to feel something. Was he supposed to feel bad? Maybe he did. He wasn’t sure. He’d known Daisy was a handful from the get-go. So when she took a powder the way she had, it shouldn’t have been as much of a shock as it had been.

But one thing was certain. Everything that Daisy had told him had been a lie. From start to finish.

He might be an uncomplicated guy, but he understood the bottom line facing him now. “And you want to pawn off her baby on me.” He looked the dark-haired guy in the face again. “Or do you just want money?” He lifted his arm, gesturing with the worn leather gloves. “Look around. All I’ve got is what you see. And it’ll be a cold day in hell before I let a couple strangers making claims like yours get one finger on it.”

Grant’s eyes looked like flint. “As usual, my sister’s taste in men was worse than—”

“Gentlemen.” The other man mopped his forehead again, giving both Ryder and Grant wary looks even as he took a step between them. “Let’s keep our cool. The baby is our focus.”

Ryder ignored him. He pointed at Grant. “My wife never even told me she had a brother.”

“My sister never told me she had a husband.”

“The situation is complicated enough,” the cop interrupted, “without the two of you taking potshots at each other.” Her expression was troubled, but her voice was calm. And Ryder couldn’t miss the way she’d wrapped her hand familiarly around Grant’s arm. “Ray is right. What’s important here is the baby.”

“Yes. The baby under our protection.” Ray was obviously hoping to maintain control over the discussion. “There is no local record of the baby’s birth. Our only way left to establish who the child’s parents are is through you, Mr. Wilson. We’ve expended every other option.”

“You don’t even know the baby was hers?”

Ray looked pained. Grant looked like he wanted to punch something. Hell, maybe even Ryder. The cop just looked worried.

“The assumption is that your wife was the person to have left the baby at the home her former employer, Jaxon Swift, shared with his brother, Lincoln,” she said.

“Now, that does sound like Daisy.” Ryder knew he sounded bitter. “I only knew her a few months, but it was still long enough to learn she’s good at running out on people.”

Maybe he did feel a little bad about Daisy. He hadn’t gotten around to divorcing his absent wife. Now, if what these people said were true, he wouldn’t need to. Instead of being a man with a runaway wife, he was a man with a deceased one. There was probably something wrong with him for not feeling like his world had just been rocked. “But maybe you’re wrong. She wasn’t pregnant when she left me,” he said bluntly. He couldn’t let himself believe otherwise.

“Would you agree to a paternity test?”

“The court can compel you, Mr. Wilson,” Ray added when Ryder didn’t answer right away.

It was the wrong tack for Ray to take. Ryder had been down the whole paternity-accusation path before. He hadn’t taken kindly to it then, and he wasn’t inclined to now. “Daisy was my wife, loose as that term is in this case. A baby born to her during our marriage makes me the presumed father, whether there’s a test or not. But you don’t know that the baby was actually hers. You just admitted it. Which tells me the court probably isn’t on your side as much as you’re implying. Unless I say otherwise, and without you knowing who this baby’s mother is, I’m just a guy in a picture.”

“We should have brought Greer,” Grant said impatiently to the cop. “She’s used to guys like him.”