A Cowboy In Shepherd's Crossing

A mountain-sized stack of disposable diapers.

Creams, lotions, shampoos and bottles. Lots of bottles. Two babies had just moved into the ranch house.

Melonie Fitzgerald had never changed a diaper in her life. Nor had she cared to.

By hour three she’d changed two under Corrie’s watchful eye. “Done.” She set the wriggling girl onto the floor and stood up to wash her hands.

The baby burst into tears. Big, loud tears.

Then the second one noted her sister’s agony and followed suit. The babies looked around the room at all the strange faces and kept right on crying.

“Here, sweetie.” Lizzie picked up one. Corrie lifted the other. And still they cried.

“Mel, Rosie brought bottles ready to warm. Can you do that for us?”

“Sure.” She slipped into the kitchen, took out the bottles and stared at them. Then she picked up her smartphone and asked it how to warm a baby’s bottle while the twins howled in the front room.

No answer and they had two screaming babies and a perfectly good microwave. She searched for directions.

Oops. Microwave warming was not recommended...but desperate times called for desperate measures. She followed the non-recommended directions, made sure the formula wasn’t too hot, shook it and tested it again, then recapped the bottles.

“Mel?” Lizzie’s voice sounded desperate.

“Coming.” She brought the bottles into the great room and handed one to Lizzie and the other to Corrie, but Corrie surprised her. “You take charge of this one.”

“Me?”

Corrie nodded as she tucked the baby into Melonie’s arms. “I promised Zeke I’d take him to play with the puppies. We don’t want him to feel left out.”

“Corrie, thank you.” Lizzie looked up from the straight-backed chair and Melonie was glad she didn’t look any more skilled than Melonie felt at that moment. “We’ll get the hang of this. Won’t we, Mel?”

Don’t say what you’re thinking. Just smile and nod.

She did and Lizzie grinned, because Lizzie always knew what Mel was thinking. She sat down primly and posed the nipple near the baby’s mouth.

The baby... Ava, maybe? Or Annie? She wasn’t sure so she peeked at the baby’s arm.

Ava. She knew because she’d surreptitiously put a tiny dot on her right forearm.

The baby grabbed hold of that bottle, yanked it into her mouth and proceeded to drink as if starvation was on the horizon. From the looks of the wee one’s chunky thighs, Melonie was pretty sure her desperation was vastly overdone.

“Are they supposed to be this big?” she whispered to Lizzie. “They’re like monster-sized.”

Lizzie burst out laughing. “I was thinking the same thing. But Rosie said they’re ten months old, so that’s almost a year. And Rosie has been taking wonderful care of them. And she said she’s happy to continue being their nanny while we all work.”

Work.

Melonie drew up a mental image of the picture Gilda Hardaway had flashed her way. The two-and-a-half-story home was a skeleton of its former self, but with help...

“This is them?”

Jace’s voice drew her gaze. He was framed in the screen door, looking every bit as good as he had that morning, which meant she needed to work harder to ignore it. He opened the door and walked in. Once inside, he glanced from one baby to the next and she wasn’t sure if he was going to run screaming or cry.

He did neither.

He set that big, black cowboy hat on a small table, crouched down in front of her and Baby Number One and smiled.

Oh, that smile.

Melonie’s heart did a skip-jump that would have done an Irish dancer proud. She quashed it instantly. She was here to do her part, whatever that might be, and then leave. Her dream wasn’t here in the craggy hills of western Idaho. It resided south, in the warm, rolling streets of Kentucky and Tennessee, where she yearned to show folks how to create a pocketbook-friendly version of Southern charm.

He started to reach out for the baby, but then his phone rang. He glanced at the display and made a face. “Justine.” He turned to face Lizzie. “How do I explain all this to my kid sister?”

“The same way it got explained to us,” she said softly. “But first.” She stood and crossed the room, then handed him the baby. “Let Justine go to voice mail for a few minutes. Meet your niece. This is Ava.”

Melonie frowned. “That’s Annie. This is Ava.”

Lizzie frowned, too. “No, I’m sure that—”

Melonie shifted the sleeve of the baby’s right arm. The tiny black dot showed up.

“You marked her?” Lizzie lifted both eyebrows in surprise.

“Well, we had to do something,” said Mel. “Even Rosie said she had trouble telling them apart except when they’re sleeping. Annie brings her right hand up to her face. Ava brings up the left.”

“Well, let’s try this again.” Lizzie handed the baby to Jace. “This is Annie. Annie, this is your Uncle Jace and he’s a really good guy.”

Jace looked down.

The baby looked up. She squirmed into a more upright position in his arms, then squinted at him. Her right hand reached up and touched his cheek and his face. And then she patted his face with that sweet baby hand and gurgled up at him.

“She’s talking to you.” Lizzie grinned. “Look at that, Mel. She’s talking to Jace!”

Annie looked around, then back at him. She frowned slightly, then touched his cheek again and laughed.

“She likes you.”

He met Melonie’s gaze across the room. “I think she finds me an interesting specimen at the moment. They’re pretty little things, aren’t they?”

“Beautiful. And this one—” she eased up, out of the chair “—is sound asleep. Should we put her in bed? Hold her? What do we do next?”

Rosie came up the front steps just then, carrying two bags. “Don’t let her sleep now, or she’ll keep you up tonight. Except that once Ava’s asleep, she does not want to waken, so good luck with that.” She smiled as she said the words, then set down the bags. “What do we do if Valencia comes back? How do we handle this?” she asked. She faced Jace. “The women filled me in on your story. What if your half sister returns? Do we simply allow her to take these babies, knowing she abandoned them once? Should we call the authorities?” Concern deepened her voice. “I can’t understand such behavior because the preciousness of life is very important to me. But what do I do if Valencia comes to my door when I’m watching the girls?”

Jace looked down at Annie. She dimpled up at him, then yawned.

He shifted his attention to Mel and Ava. Then he sighed. “I don’t know. We’ll have to figure that out. I’m prone to putting things in the Good Lord’s hands, but we need to put their safety first. And that might cause a ruckus if she comes back. Rosie, I have no idea what to tell you.”

“Do you think she’ll come back, Rosie?” Melonie asked. The thought of someone abandoning this sleeping baby gutted her, because parents weren’t supposed to abandon their children. Ever.