Christmas Baby: A Baby Under the Tree / A Baby For Christmas / Her Christmas Hero

On the hotel letterhead, he’d written:

Dear Jillian,

I can’t begin to thank you for a wonderful evening. I nearly woke you when I had to leave, but you looked so peaceful lying there that I didn’t have the heart to disturb your sleep.

Last night was amazing. You were a gift I didn’t deserve, and one I’ll always cherish.

If you’re ever in my neck of the woods, look me up. My friend and boss, Dan Walker, owns a spread that’s located near Brighton Valley. He’ll know how to contact me.

Either way, thanks for a memorable evening.

Shane

Jillian held the note for a while, studying the solid script, the bold strokes. She’d kept it as a souvenir of the magical night she’d spent with a cowboy. But now? It was all she had left of the man.

Well, that and the baby growing in her womb.

She could look him up, she supposed. And while tempted to do just that, she had to face the facts. What they’d shared had been far more therapeutic than a glass of champagne could ever be, but it was just a one-night thing. Anything else was wishful thinking on her part.

After all, she’d already given up her dreams for one man. There was no way she’d ever do that again.

Besides, what could possibly develop between her and a cowboy? Other than the physical intimacy they’d shared that night, they were pretty much strangers to each other.

Still, there was a baby to consider.

A wave of apprehension washed over her. Did she have to tell him? Would he even want to know?

She wasn’t sure, but there wasn’t any reason to make a game plan right this minute. Not when she was still struggling with the news herself.

A baby.

Once again, she placed her hand on her stomach, over the womb in which her little one grew. She had no idea what tomorrow would bring, but one thing was certain: She would raise her baby in a loving home, no matter what kind of man its daddy proved to be.

But there was something else she had to consider. Having a child together gave them far more in common than she’d even been able to imagine in the heat of the moment.

And whether she liked it or not, it was only fair to tell Shane he was going to be a father.

After a long day at the ranch and a stop at the cellular-phone store, Shane made the fifteen-minute drive home, dog-tired and muscles aching.

He’d no more than pulled his key from the front door when his new cell phone vibrated. So he pulled it out of his pocket and answered without checking the number on the display.

Out of habit, he answered, “This is Hollister.”

“Shane, it’s Jack.”

His brother never called just to shoot the breeze. “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know. You tell me. We haven’t heard from you in weeks. Hell, I’ve tried to cut you some slack after all you’ve been through, but things are getting worse. You’ve become really inconsiderate.”

“Now, wait a second, little brother. I might not be living in Houston these days, playing golf with you guys and eating Sunday dinner, but I’ve been busy—not inconsiderate.”

“Oh, no? Last month, you missed Billy’s birthday party. You told us you’d stop by, but you never even showed up.”

Shane turned on the lamp and shut the door, locking it for the night. “Something came up at the last minute, and I couldn’t make it.”

“Yeah, well you should have called to let someone know. We were worried about you.”

“I did call, and Evan answered. I guess he didn’t give you the message.”

“Evan’s only six years old, Shane. He can’t be trusted to take messages.”

“I figured that, so I asked him to put you or his mom on the line, but apparently he was too busy chasing after Emily to give the phone to someone older, so he told me to call back later.” Shane took a seat on the chair nearest to the door and kicked off his dusty boots.

“Okay, so you’re off the hook for the no-show at the birthday party,” Jack said, “but I’ve tried calling you several times today, and your phone never even rang through.”

“I lost my cell and wasn’t able to replace it until about twenty minutes ago.”

“Where’d you lose it?”

“If I knew that, then it wouldn’t be lost, would it?”

Jack blew out an exasperated sigh. “All right. So that was a dumb question. But what was so important that you couldn’t make it to Billy’s party?”

Shane had never been one to kiss and tell. He supposed he could say that he’d met a woman and leave it at that, which would have pleased Jack and the rest of the family no end. But meeting a woman implied that he’d found her promising enough to keep seeing her, which wasn’t exactly the case.

Yet Jack didn’t need to know any of that. The only way to keep him in the dark was to stretch the truth, which wasn’t the same as lying, but still went against Shane’s grain. “Let’s just say that I met an old friend, and the time just slipped away.”

“A female friend.”

Shane couldn’t blame Jack for hoping that Shane had met someone special, but that hadn’t happened.

“Who is she?” Jack asked, connecting the dots.

But Shane didn’t want to go into it—any of it. Jillian had been more than a one-night stand. She’d been a one-night memory, and he wasn’t about to share the details with anyone.

“It wasn’t a woman,” Shane lied. “I met up with an old friend, a guy I used to work with.”

The first stretch of the truth had seemed necessary, but the actual lie gnawed at his conscience. Shane had always been straight up with his family and the people he cared about. But there really hadn’t been another way around it if he wanted to maintain his privacy and keep the details from becoming Facebook fodder for the Hollisters, who were into that sort of thing.

Shane set aside his boots, then crossed the living room to the kitchen area.

“Well, you still ought to call home once in a while and let us know you’re still alive and kicking. Hell, you could be laying in a morgue as a John Doe for all we know.”

This was Jack speaking? The same brother who’d gone off to college and hadn’t called home until their parents had complained to the Dean of Students?

“You’re going to have to start over,” Shane said. “What’s the real problem here?”

“Hell, Shane. I know you’re busy. But Mom’s been worried about you. She hasn’t seen you in months or heard from you in weeks.”