A Cold Creek Baby

Like an idiot, he had been so sure he had everything figured out. He had originally planned to catch a direct flight to Boise, hand Belle over to her relatives, then head back without anybody knowing he was even in the country.

But when he finally was able to reach John Moore’s sister just before his flight left Bogotá to let her know about Soqui’s death and that he was on his way with her niece, she had been both shocked and distraught.

Seems that even as he called her cell number—information retrieved with no small degree of caution from the careful documentation Soqui had hidden away as insurance—Sharon Weaver was on her way to her father’s funeral in Montana and wouldn’t be back in Idaho for several days.

The news had thrown his plans into considerable disarray. He wasn’t too proud to admit he’d been terrified. Yeah, he had somehow managed the wherewithal to take care of Belle in Bogotá for a couple of days after her mother’s death without accidentally sending her to the hospital or himself to the nuthouse. But the idea of an indefinite stay with a nine-month-old baby in some hotel in Boise while he waited for Sharon to return sent him into a stone-cold panic.

Coming home to the ranch to spend those few days while he regained his strength seemed the logical choice.

Easton would know what to do. That had been the mantra he clung to. She was always so in control of every complication. Even when she was a little kid, she had been great at handling any difficulty that came along, whether in school, with his foster brothers or on the ranch.

He refused to admit that he returned to Winder Ranch like the swallows at Capistrano because this was home.

She was his home.

He touched the compass rose tattoo on his left forearm, the little squiggly E right over his radial artery that connected directly to his heart, while Belle banged her sippy cup on the edge of the table and giggled.

“You think this is funny, young lady?”

His voice was raspier than normal from exhaustion and that stupid pain he couldn’t control, but she didn’t seem to mind.

“Ba ba ba ba,” she blabbered and he again thanked heaven she was such an easygoing baby. He didn’t know the first thing about kids and wouldn’t have been able to endure even a few days on his own if not for Isabella’s sweet disposition.

Even though she quite obviously missed her mother, she still was a sunny, good-natured little girl.

“You’re glad not to be moving for a minute, aren’t you?”

She beamed at him, her tiny silver stud earrings glinting in the early morning light.

Bringing her to the States was the right thing to do, no matter how hard the journey to get her here had been. With her last breath, Soqui had begged him, as she lay dying from a gunshot wound to the stomach, to take care of Belle, to bring her here to John’s family in Idaho.

He owed her this. She had faced danger with astonishing bravery, had risked her life to finish her husband’s work and to avenge his death against the drug lord who had killed him the year before.

Cisco had failed to protect her—big surprise there, since he had failed just about every woman unlucky enough to find herself in his life. But he would not fail in this. Soqui wanted Belle to be raised by her relatives in the United States and by damn, that is exactly what she would get.

Even if it meant he had to spend a few days at Winder Ranch fighting his demons.

Or fighting Easton, anyway.

Same thing.

As if on cue, she returned to the kitchen, bringing that elusive scent of mountain wildflowers that always clung to her skin. She had changed out of her night-clothes and into jeans and a T-shirt and pulled her hair back into a braid that hung down her back like a shiny wheat-colored rope.

She looked as sweet and innocent as the first pale pink columbines in a mountain meadow in springtime.

Ah, Easton. For a moment, the regret swamped everything else, even his worry about Belle’s future. He missed her so damn much sometimes he couldn’t breathe around it. Even on the rare occasions when he came home, he missed her—the real Easton, not this carefully polite woman he had turned her into with his stupidity and his out-of-control desire.

“I put fresh sheets on your bed. You’re good to go.”

“Thanks. I’m okay, though.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she snapped. “Go ahead and sleep for a couple of hours. I can keep an eye on the baby while I work on ranch accounts, at least for a little while until Burt and the boys get here.”

Burt McMasters was the longtime foreman of the ranch who had taken over the job after Easton’s father and mother were killed in a car accident when she was sixteen.

Cisco had already enlisted in the Marines at the time of their accident and was stationed across the country. He had flown home for their double funeral and Easton’s devastated grief had destroyed him. Completely wiped him out. The moment he walked into the ranch house, she had flown into his arms and sobbed as if she had only been keeping herself together until he showed up.

“I don’t need two hours,” he said now, pushing the grim memory aside. “Just one should charge me up for the rest of the day. If you don’t mind keeping an eye on Belle, I would really appreciate it.”

She gave him a critical look and he knew he looked like crap on a stick. He felt like it, too. His head throbbed and the quick sandwich he’d grabbed at an all-night drive-up somewhere in northern Utah sat like greasy tar in his stomach.

Easton opened her mouth to say something, but then shut it again abruptly. “Sure. Take an hour,” she finally said. “Burt and I have some things to do later in the morning, but I’m free until then.”

“I didn’t bring Belle here to find a free babysitter.”

“I’m sure that’s true.”

He could hear the unspoken question in her voice about why he did bring the baby there. He couldn’t answer it.

His vision seemed to be growing hazy around the edges and he knew if he didn’t find a horizontal surface soon he was going to embarrass himself by falling over.

“Thanks, Easton. I owe you.”

She didn’t answer him, turning instead to the baby. He thought he caught something strange in her deep blue eyes, a shadow of an old pain, but she blinked it away.

“You’re making a mess, aren’t you, sweetheart?”

Belle giggled and clapped her hands. Easton smiled at the little girl, her features bright and lovely, and something hard twisted inside him, something he preferred to pretend didn’t exist.

He turned away. “I only need an hour,” he said again. “Thanks. And, uh, I’m sorry about this.”

“Go to sleep, Cisco. I can handle things for now.”

He nodded. She could handle anything. His Easton.

He wasn’t sure how but he managed to make it up the stairs to his bedroom, although he was covered in sweat by the time he reached the top step.

It smelled like her in here, sweet and flowery. Perfect.

He ought to take a shower to wash off the travel stink before he climbed into those nice clean sheets, but he didn’t have the energy. He would just lie here on top of the quilt, he decided.

Just an hour. That’s all he needed.

An hour in a room that smelled like heaven and Easton—although, really, wasn’t that the same thing?

“I’ll be there when I can. I’m sorry, Burt. I didn’t exactly expect this little complication today.”

Easton swallowed her sigh at her ranch foreman’s pithy response. Burt McMasters was a great ranch foreman—hardworking and dedicated, always willing to do whatever it took to get the job done. She adored him, colorful language and all, and without his firm guidance, she would have had to sell the ranch when Jo was first diagnosed with cancer.