A Cold Creek Baby

She shook her head, even though she was smiling.

That was him. Always good for a laugh.

“What happens after Jake patches you up? You go back for more bar fights in some seedy cantina somewhere? Maybe next time with someone who has better aim?”

Damned if he knew. He was so tightly tangled in the web of lies he had spun that he didn’t have the first idea how to break free.

El Cuchillo hadn’t killed him, but Cisco was pretty sure it was only a matter of time before someone else would. He didn’t have a death wish. Far from it. But after the last ten years of deep undercover work against narcoterrorism, pragmatism was unavoidable.

He figured he was lucky he’d made it this long.

Maggiee tilted her head to study him. Too damn smart, that Maggiee Cruz Dalton.

“Hear you’ve got a couple cute kids.”

As a distraction ploy, it was pretty transparent but under the circumstances, it was the best he could manage.

“We do. One of each. A girl, Sofia, and a boy, Charlie. They keep us hopping.”

“Sounds good.” Would she mind if he checked out for a while? he wondered. It was all he could do to keep his eyes open.

“Maybe you ought to think about sticking around for a while while you recover from your bar fight. Easton is alone too much in that big old ranch house since Jo died.”

He didn’t need her laying that sort of guilt on him. He managed to pile on enough of his own, thanks.

“She’s not alone all the time. Mimi and Brant spend time with her when they come back, now that Brant’s stateside,” he answered. “So does Quinn and his family.”

He was the proverbial prodigal foster kid. The one Jo and Guff had always worried about the most. He regretted that, though before Jo died, he had finally told her the truth about his life and what he was doing. He knew a few hours’ conversation couldn’t make up for years of worry, but it was the best he could do.

“Family is everything,” Maggiee answered. “I’ve learned the last few years that we have to grab every moment with them.”

He thought of his strange family. Jo and Guff had taken a group of lost, troubled kids without much hope. Juvenile delinquents, orphans, abuse victims. Yet somehow they had managed to form a family.

Easton had always been their heart. Even when she was a blond, pigtailed brat who followed the older boys around. Without conscious thought, he pressed a finger to the E on his compass rose tattoo.

“You’re not going to pass out on me, are you?” Maggiee asked.

“You kidding?” he managed a grin, though it took just about all his remaining energy. “And miss a minute of a pretty nurse fussing over me? What kind of idiot do I look like?”

“Like an idiot who found himself on the wrong end of a sharp stick,” a man’s voice interjected. “And who might just find himself even worse off if he doesn’t stop flirting with my wife.”

He looked toward the sound, then winced at the pain in his head from the abrupt movement. Jake Dalton, Pine Gulch’s only doctor, stood in the doorway, giving him a mock glower.

“Hey, Doc. Long time.”

Jake stepped into the room and scrubbed his hands at the sink. “Yeah, I think the last time was when you toilet-papered my pickup truck once when I came home from college.”

He supposed it was a good thing Jake was a dedicated doctor who wouldn’t let Cisco’s assorted past sins keep him from providing quality medical care.

But then, he didn’t know the half of them.

“He belongs in a hospital, doesn’t he?”

Jake’s blue Dalton eyes narrowed and he pursed his lips. “Let’s just say I’m not admitting him at this time,” he answered carefully.

“That’s not an answer.”

“East, you know I can’t say anything more because of privacy laws. It’s the best I can do. I’m sorry.”

She made a face. As much as she liked Jake Dalton personally, she hated all he represented. Doctors, hospitals, that distinctive smell of antiseptic and illness that lingered, no matter how one tried to wash it away.

Loss.

Seemed like every time she had any dealings with the medical community, she ended up losing someone, starting with her parents’ accident when she was a silly, giddy sixteen-year-old who thought she had total control of her universe.

Her father had died instantly that stormy January night when their car had slid head-on into an oncoming semi.

Her mother had survived the accident—barely—and had been airlifted to the hospital in Idaho Falls. Easton’s aunt and uncle had rushed her there to be at her mother’s side, but Janet Springhill had died on the operating table.

Then had come Guff’s heart attack. She had been the one to find him collapsed on the barn floor, clutching his chest. She had performed CPR while waiting for the paramedics to get there and had been able to get a pulse, but he had died on the way to the hospital in Idaho Falls. Easton, following behind the ambulance, had arrived in time for the grim news in the E.R.

Jo had been treated at the same hospital for the cancer that eventually claimed her life eighteen months ago. Whenever Easton had walked through the doors of that place to take her to chemotherapy or for an appointment with her oncologist, her stomach would churn in a conditioned reflex.

In another hospital room in another city hundreds of miles away, she had endured the most painful hours of her life. She couldn’t even think about that time without her breath catching in her throat.

So much pain and loss.

She knew hospitals also brought forth life. She had been there when Mimi’s sweet little Abby came into the world. And she imagined some hospital in South America had contributed to the birth of the little girl who was currently babbling on her lap.

“He insists he won’t go to a hospital. I agreed to follow his recovery here as long as he’s got someone to keep an eye on him.”

She supposed that meant her. “What sort of care will he need at home?”

“He mostly needs someone who can make sure he takes things easy and doesn’t overdo.”

“That’s a great plan in theory,” she muttered. “I have a feeling it won’t be so easy to implement.”

“Do what you can. Rest is the best thing for him to fight the infection and heal. And I need to know immediately if his fever spikes again.”

“Okay.”

Jake gave her a careful look, his handsome features concerned. She had seen that expression before. One of the things she loved about Pine Gulch’s only doctor was his concern not only for his patient, but also for those charged with their care at home.

“I could give the same advice to you,” he said in that calm, reassuring voice of his. “Don’t overdo, East. I’m sure we could find somebody in town willing to come out and help you with the little one there.”

The suggestion made sense. Heaven knew, she had enough to do at the ranch without throwing in the complication of caring for a needy baby and a recalcitrant patient.

On the other hand, Cisco had come to her for help. Right now he needed her, when he had made a point of not needing anyone for the last decade or so. She wasn’t about to surrender that to someone else.