The Baby Bargain

Montana spoke without turning. “I asked Zoe about Sean’s father.”

As if he could read her mind! Dana tipped back her head to stare at a pendant blossom. Blown, its vibrant rosiness fading to drab violet, the first petals fallen. “Yes?”

“I…meant to talk with him. But Zoe tells me I can’t.”

I talk to him all the time. But he never answers, not in words. “That’s right,” she said bleakly. She reached to pluck a petal, rubbed it across her lips.

“I’m…sorry. If you’d told me…”

“Mmm,” she hummed wordlessly. Who owed you an explanation?

“I reckon I scared you, stomping in like that. And I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” It was handsomely done, no self-justifications, no excuses. But Dana wasn’t in a forgiving mood. Not because of the intrusion, but because of Sean. “Thank you,” she said coldly.

“Hmmph.” He pulled his Stetson off, inspected it, whacked a denim-clad calf with it.

Clearly he had more to say. She waited, and when it didn’t come, she asked, “How’s Zoe?”

“She threw up this morning.” He whacked his leg again. “Not the first time, she tells me.”

“She needs to see a doctor. Forget that test kit. Let a gynecologist examine her. She should be on vitamins, eating right—”

He let out a huff of bitter amusement. “I’m known around these parts, Dana, for being a devil on nutrition. Pound for pound, my cattle are the best fed in the state. You think I’d neglect my daughter? But she’ll be eating for one, not two.”

A rancher. She should have known it, with his boots and his outdoor tan. A man used to giving orders, not taking them. King of his own small kingdom. “That’s what Zoe wants?”

“What she will want, once she sees sense.”

So he’d yet to bully her into submission. In spite of the complications Zoe’s stand might mean for the Kershaws, Dana felt a flash of admiration. It would take courage to cross this man.

“In the meantime, she should see a doctor.”

He grunted assent. “Another reason I wanted to see you. She has a pediatrician, of course, but now…Is there anybody you’d recommend?”

Had he no other female in his life to advise him? A sister, a lover, a friend? Despite his high-handed arrogance, his explosive temper, Rafe Montana was one of the most attractive men she’d ever laid eyes on, so surely he had a woman. Petra had fallen asleep while they spoke, and now her mouth slipped away from the breast. Dana buttoned her blouse one handed while she considered. Ought to stay out of this. The fewer ties between the Kershaws and the Montanas, the better, to her mind. But a good doctor was essential. “Yes, I go to a woman obstetrician in Durango. Cassandra Hancock. She’s gentle and extremely competent.”

“Does she do abortions?” he asked bluntly.

Dana winced, worked the top button through its hole, and reached for the hand towel she’d brought from the kitchen. “I wouldn’t know. But I’m sure if she doesn’t, she could advise Zoe. Tell her the best place to go.” She laid the towel over her shoulder, moved Petra to burping position and stood. Patting the baby’s back, she walked slowly back and forth. Rafe shifted to watch, and she felt herself drawn irresistibly closer with each turn, till she stood above him, staring out over her land. She glanced down, and their eyes linked. His were the dark, high-altitude blue of the mountaintop skies, direct as a bolt of summer lightning. Her heart bumped in her breast half a dozen times before his eyes released her and shifted to her baby.

The straight line of his mouth softened. “But I suppose you don’t believe in abortions.”

“I believe in choice, Mr. Montana.”

“Rafe.”

“But choice cuts both ways, doesn’t it…Rafe? What does Zoe choose? It’s her life, her body, her baby.”

All restless energy, he surged to his feet. “She’s in no emotional shape to choose wisely!” He took all the steps in a stride and stopped on the last one, which put them on a level—too close. So close Dana could see the pale line of a scar drawn across the carved fullness of his bottom lip.

She rocked back on her heels, but held her ground. “Whether she is or not, you can’t take that choice from her.” Or can you? He was so clearly used to having his way.

The muscles along his angular jaw fluttered and stilled. “Someone should have taken that choice from Zoe’s mother.”

Dana blinked. Blunt words, indeed. “Oh?”

“Pilar was eighteen when we…found out. And—” His jaw clenched again and his gaze swung off to the east, to the mountain that walled off that side of the valley. “And it ruined her life.”

But she got you. He had a profile like the head on a Roman coin—harsh, emphatic, all jutting lines and angles, with not a softening curve except for that bottom lip. Zoe’s mother had gotten herself a harsh and beautiful man. Was that the choice that wrecked her life? Eyes wide, Dana rested her cheek against Petra’s dark curls and waited.

“It’s like…” His shoulders jerked, then squared and went taut. “Like history repeating itself. Some kind of enormous, ugly joke. Pilar had already been accepted into Harvard when we…Full scholarship—she was from a poor family. Would have been the first of her family ever to go to college. She was brilliant—that’s where Zoe gets her brains. Meant to be a doctor, too. Instead she—” He shook his head. “It was a criminal waste.”

“Or maybe she…chose what she wanted.”

One bark of savage laughter—it was instantly stifled. “You think so? No, it was a waste of her talents, her hard work, her dreams, her family’s hopes. Just when Pilar’s life was about to open out, to expand—she’d never even been out of Colorado before—we made one stupid mistake. I made one. And her life contracted to a crummy one-room trailer, a baby with colic, a nineteen-year-old husband who could barely keep himself in boot leather, much less support a family. Yeah, she made one hell of a choice.”

“I see…”

“I hope to God you do.” Rafe shrugged, setting aside any personal connection to the picture he’d just painted. “So, a wise man learns from his mistakes. And if he loves his daughter, he damn sure stops her from making the same mistakes.”

Do we ever get to shield the ones we love from their mistakes? She’d tried to stop Peter from crossing that south-facing slope, nervously citing what she’d read about alpine snow conditions, but he’d teased her about learning cross-country skiing from a book and had pushed on. They’d both been cold and tired at the end of the day, eager to reach their lodge…Wouldn’t have needed to cross that hill at all if I hadn’t read the map wrong, taken us down the wrong fork in the trail. She hadn’t even been able to shield Peter from her mistakes, much less his own.

“Hey.” A warm, rough hand cupped her cheek. “Are you okay?”

“I…” She blinked back the tears, took a step backward. Slipped a hand down to Petra’s bottom. “Oops!” She managed a trembly smile. “Flood tide. If you’d excuse us a minute?”

SHE TOOK CLOSER TO TWENTY, stopping to wash her face after she’d put Petra down in her crib. What’s gotten into you? she scolded the damp face with its shadowy eyes, which gazed back at her from her mirror. After months of gray, steely calm, suddenly she felt raw and ragged, her emotions swinging wildly from elation to despair. Like a compass needle following a prowling magnet.

Not enough sleep, she answered herself, heading downstairs. Forgot lunch. She pushed through the dining room door—and stopped short. Rafe Montana in my kitchen.

Peeking under the towel that covered a bowl of her rising dough. He whipped around, as guilty as a boy caught scooping a fingerful of icing off a cake. “You were so long, I wondered if something was wrong.”

I’m fine. Dana didn’t want to acknowledge his concern. “She took a while falling back to sleep.”

He grimaced. “At least she sleeps. Zoe worked a double shift from the word go. Started climbing out of her crib at nine months. I’d wake up at 3:00 a.m. and she’d be bumping around the trailer like a raccoon on the hunt, turning out cupboards. Pulled the phone down on her head one night—Lord, what a racket.”

“A handful.” She could imagine him at nineteen, working a man’s job all day, still needing the sleep of a boy at night. It must have been desperately hard for you and Pilar, both. But watching his face, she could see his memories of Zoe’s baby years were rueful, not grudging.

His expression hardened. “A handful still. Which brings me back to my problem…”

“Yes?” But problems or not, she had an evening meal to prepare. She dusted flour over her marble pastry slab and turned out the first ball of risen dough. Dug the heel of her right hand into its spongy softness, folded its far edge back toward the center, turned the dough, then shoved again, settling into her rhythm—knead, fold, rotate a quarter turn. Knead again…

Rafe drifted closer and stared down at her hands. “You’ve got to help me, Dana.”

An order, not a request, she noted wryly. Knead, fold, turn, knead…She sprinkled more flour on the marble. “Help you how?”

“Zoe got her brains from Pilar, but she got her stubbornness from me.” He gripped the edge of the table and leaned closer. “I’m not getting through to her, what a disaster this baby would be. I thought maybe a woman…somebody who’s gone through it recently and who’s going it alone…”