His Baby Bargain

“Sorry,” he rasped, turning his back to the rambunctious retriever. “I’ll hold Charley while you try and get a look at your son’s throat.”

Ignoring the stuff of his nightmares, Matt held out his arms. Sara shifted her son over. Oblivious to Matt’s private grief come to life, Charley wailed even louder.

Whatever questions she had—and she seemed to have plenty—could wait.

On task once again, Sara cupped her son’s chin in her hand and shined the flashlight in that direction. While the puppy gave up trying to escape, opting instead to pick up a squeaky toy and then roll happily around with it in the pen, Charley twisted his head to the side, buried his head in Matt’s chest and firmly clamped his lips shut.

Sara seemed even more nonplussed.

“Why don’t you hold him? I’ll look,” Matt said.

Nodding in frustration, Sara set the flashlight down and took Charley back in her arms. The moment she had him, he glared at her, as if he blamed her for whatever was bothering him, and began to howl again, even more vociferously.

Matt hunched so he was at eye level with Charley—and trained the light low, so it only hit the lower half of her son’s face. He surveyed the back of his throat. “Looks fine,” Matt said in surprise. The way Charley was carrying on, he’d expected to find it beet red. “A healthy normal pink.”

“No spots? Even on the roof of his mouth? Red or white?”

Matt looked again, as Charley began to cry in earnest once again. “Not a one.”

“Oh, Charley, honey, what’s wrong?” Sara said, swaying her little boy back and forth.

Noting the puppy was now drinking water, and vastly relieved his own unexpected memories were now subsiding, Matt whipped out his phone. “How old is Charley?”

Sara shifted her son onto her shoulder and walked over to the puppy pen. She reached down to give Champ another toy to occupy him. Turning back to face Matt, said, “He turned six months old ten days ago.”

Figuring the sooner he was able to get out of there, the better, he punched in a number.

Sara came closer, a still-whimpering Charley cradled in her arms. As she attempted to see what he was doing, her shoulder bumped up against the center of his chest. “Who are you calling?”

“Cullen’s wife, Bridgett.”

His brother’s wife was a neonatal nurse at Laramie Community Hospital, and a mother to a one-year-old boy, with another child on the way. Luckily, she answered right away. “Hey,” he said. “I’m at Sara Anderson’s ranch, and we’ve got a little problem...”

While Matt described what was going on, Sara carried Charley into the kitchen and got a bottle of apple juice out of the fridge. She offered it to the baby. Still sniffling, he took it in his chubby little hands, put it in his mouth and started to sip, then let out another wail and pushed it away.

Matt came back. He hated to pry, but Bridgett needed to know if she was to help. “Are you still nursing?”

As he spoke, his eyes slid to her breasts. Although it was a natural reaction on his part, Sara flushed self-consciously.

“I switched him to formula when I had the flu last month.”

Averting his glance, Matt relayed that, too.

By the time he’d turned back to her, Sara had composed herself once again. “Bridgett said to check his gums to see if they are red or swollen or if there is any sign of a tooth pushing through. She said sometimes they can teethe for a few days or weeks before the tooth actually shows.”

Sara ventured a look, but Charley pressed his lips shut again. With maternal resolve, she eased the tip of her index fingertip along the seam of his lips, trying to gently persuade him to open up. Eventually he did. Just enough so she could get her finger between his gums.

With a scowl, Charley clamped down tight.

“Ouch!” Sara winced in surprise.

“Feel a tooth?”

“No.” She shifted Charley a little higher in her arms, so they were face-to-face. Now that he’d bitten her, he was beginning to look a little more content. Satisfied he’d gotten his point across, maybe? Matt wondered.

“But,” she mused as she pulled his lower lip down, “his gum does look a tiny bit swollen here on the bottom. Right here in the middle.”

Matt relayed the information then said, “Bridgett wants to talk to you.” He set his cell phone aside while he eased Charley from her arms. “I can’t believe I didn’t even think of that,” Sara told his sister-in-law.

He walked the little boy back and forth, while the two women talked. Eventually, Sara hung up. She walked into the kitchen and took a children’s medical kit from the cupboard. “Bridgett said their son Robby’s first tooth caught them by surprise, too.”

“I remember.”

“She said to try numbing medicine.”

“Hear that, little guy? Your mommy is going to fix you right up.”

Charley lounged against his broad chest. Tears still gleaming damply on his cheeks, he gazed up at Matt adoringly. Sara turned back to Matt as she worked the protective seal off the numbing cream. “You’re good with little ones,” she remarked.

He shrugged, aware that was a talent he came by naturally. “You know the McCabes. Lots of little ones around. Seems like someone is always putting a baby in my arms.”

Sara regarded him skeptically. “You could say no,” she pointed out wryly.

Lately, he usually did. Trying not to wonder why he hadn’t in this particular case, Matt shrugged again and turned his attention to sparring with his old friend. “Actually, darlin’,” he drawled, “I believe I do refuse things every now and again.” He lifted his brow, reminding. “Like your repeated requests to recruit me for the therapy-puppy training program?”

She came close enough to rub a little medicine on Charley’s gum. Her son wrinkled his nose, too surprised to protest. As the moment drew out, Charley’s jaw relaxed and his little shoulders slumped in relief.

So his mouth had been hurting, Matt thought. Poor little fella.

Without warning, Charley held out his arms to his mommy. Reluctantly, Matt transferred the little boy, surprised to find how bereft he felt when he was no longer holding him.

Wordlessly, he watched Sara cuddle her baby boy. They were the picture of bliss. Enough to make him want, just for one ill-advised second, a wife and child of his own to love and care for...

Sara tossed him a wry glance. “Speaking of the WTWA therapy-puppy raising program...if you gave yourself half a chance, I bet you would be really good with our puppies, too.”

Just like that, his genial mood faded. “No,” he said firmly. “I won’t.”

* * *

Once again, Matt noted, he had disappointed Sara. Deeply.

Seeing the puppy circling in the pen, Sara handed Charley back to Matt and rushed to pick up the sleek little black Lab. She carried him outside to the grass next to her ranch house.

“Then why are you here, if not to volunteer to train a puppy as I asked?”

Matt positioned Charley so he could see outward, and then held him against his chest, one of his forearms acting as the seat for the baby’s diaper-clad bottom, the other serving as a safety harness across his tiny chest.

He shrugged. “I wanted to give money. You said you needed more volunteers, especially military. I want to fund an effort to recruit and train more puppy handlers.”