Sawyer

“Cassidy O’Neal,” he mumbled, and he made it sound like the profanity that he’d just spouted.

Yeah, it was her, all right. Except she didn’t much look like a pampered princess doll today in her jeans and body-swallowing gray T-shirt. No makeup, either. Maybe he’d missed the memo about Hades freezing over, because Cassidy was not the sort to go without makeup, fine clothes or anything else fine, for that matter.

Despite the fact that he wasn’t giving off any welcoming vibes whatsoever, Cassidy hurried to him. Her mouth was still trembling. Her dark green eyes rapidly blinking. There were beads of sweat on her forehead and upper lip despite the half dozen or so massive fans circulating air into the barn.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she thrust whatever she was carrying at him.

Sawyer didn’t take it and backed up, but not before he caught a glimpse of the tiny hand gripping the white blanket.

A baby.

That put his heart right in his suddenly dry throat.

He’d always been darn good at math. Not now though. Not with the air just sucked right out of his lungs. But he didn’t need to do the math to know that while there was no love lost between Cassidy and him, there had been love.

Or rather, sex.

It wasn’t love by any stretch of the imagination.

Using just his index finger, Sawyer eased back the blanket and saw the curly mop of brown hair on the sleeping baby’s head. A lighter color than his own hair but maybe a mix of Cassidy’s and his. A cherub face that resembled every baby he’d ever seen.

Including his own cousins’ babies.

And there were plenty of them around for him to do a split-second comparison.

“No.” Cassidy shook her head so hard that her ponytail came unhooked and her hair dropped against her shoulders. “The baby’s not mine.”

Not mine.

Which meant it wasn’t his, either.

That gave him a much-needed jolt of breath to stop his head from going light. A light head was hardly the right bargaining tool for a lawman, and even though Sawyer had no idea if what was going on would require any of his lawman skills, he figured he’d at least need to be able to think straight for this.

Sawyer wasn’t the only one with breathing issues. Cassidy’s was gusting now, and she pushed the bundled baby toward him again. “You have to take her.”

Again, Sawyer backed up.

“Is there a problem?” someone growled.

It was his cousin Mason, a deputy sheriff of Silver Creek and possibly the most unfriendly looking person on earth.

And he walked up right behind Sawyer.

When Mason and he were kids, people used to say they looked like twins, and their combined badass presence, glares and scowls should have been enough to deter a wedding-crashing heiress from staying put.

It didn’t.

“I don’t have much time,” Cassidy insisted. “You have to take her, and I have to get a picture of you holding her.”

Mason and Sawyer exchanged a glance. They were on the same page in thinking their visitor was a couple of cans short of a six-pack.

“We have to talk,” Cassidy continued, and she freed her other hand from the baby bundle so she could catch onto Sawyer’s arm. “Please,” she added.

Sawyer had known Cassidy on and off for over a year now. Mostly off. But he’d never heard her say please. And he’d never seen that look of pure fear in her eyes. He pushed her hand off his arm and instead caught onto her wrist.

“I’ll be right back,” he told Mason. “Obviously our visitor and I need to have a word.”

“You know what you’re doing?” Mason asked.

Nope. But Sawyer figured he was about to find out something he didn’t want to know. Actually, anything that Cassidy had to say to him would fall into that didn’t want to know category even if she hadn’t been carrying a baby in her arms.

Sawyer led her back through the crowd, weaving in and out of the kids running around and the couples dancing. Nearly every one of his cousins shot him a glance to make sure he was okay, and Sawyer tried not to respond with anything that would cause the party to end. His brother Josh, and his bride, Jaycee, didn’t deserve to have their happy day spoiled.

There was a storm brewing, and it was just starting to drizzle, so Sawyer didn’t pull Cassidy out into the open. Instead, he took her to a long watering trough that had a tin awning overhead.

“Let’s start with some questions,” he told Cassidy. “I ask them and you answer them,” he snapped when she opened her mouth to interrupt him.

Of course she just continued with that interruption. “We don’t have time for a Q and A.”

“Obviously, you missed the part about me asking the questions. Make time.”

It hit Sawyer then. Even though Cassidy had said the baby wasn’t hers, that didn’t mean he’d leaped to the right conclusion about the little one not being his. He hadn’t been seriously involved with anyone in several years, but there had been some short hookups. Like the attorney in San Antonio and the woman he’d met at a party.

Was the timing right for either of them?

He just didn’t know.

He looked in the blanket again. At that little cherub face. At the hair. “Is she mine?”

No more gusting breath for Cassidy. It just streamed from her mouth, and she shook her head again. “I have no idea.”

Well, that didn’t help.

Sawyer wasn’t exactly proud of the fact that he didn’t know if he’d fathered a child.

Time for some direct questions. “Who is she, and where’d you get her?” Sawyer demanded.

“I honestly don’t have time for this.” She looked over her shoulder at the beat-up blue truck just a few yards away. There were more dents and dings on it than smooth surface, and the roof was blistered with rust. The engine was running. The wipers, still going. It was hardly her usual ride, but then nothing about this little visit could be labeled as usual for Cassidy.

Sawyer cupped her chin, lifted it, forcing eye contact. “Where. Did. You. Get. The. Baby?” Best to slow down his words and see if that helped.

“From two men. They were both wearing cartoon masks and they were armed.”

Now, that was an answer he sure as heck hadn’t expected. He drew his gun and positioned himself in front of Cassidy. Even if she was lying—and he couldn’t figure out why she’d do that—he had to treat this like a crime in progress.

“Did the men bring you here to the ranch?” he asked.

“No. I drove in the truck they told me to use.” She huffed, glanced at the phone she had clutched in her left hand. “They gave me the baby, said to bring her to you and take a picture of you holding her. I’m supposed to leave the baby with you and then get back so I can give them the picture.”