The Baby Gift

He ignored his uniform in favor of warmer clothes, then headed out the door with Deputy, the beagle he’d inherited with the job. He carried the dog through the snow until they reached Main Street, then Deputy led the way, happy for a middle-of-the-night trek through town. Protected by a wooden awning, they patrolled their little corner of the world, making sure it was safe.

The dog’s nails clip-clip-clipped along the wood-plank walkway of downtown. Accustomed to his owner’s routine, the beagle stopped at the first shop and pressed his nose to the glass door. J.T. turned the handle and sighed. Mrs. Foley had left the front door to her fabric, craft and ladies’ undergarments shop unlocked again, even though he’d reminded her at midnight. Three doors down, in Aaron Taylor’s hardware and auto parts store, no telltale red beam flashed. Aaron hadn’t activated the security alarm—again.

J.T. tried to educate them, but they remained blissfully stubborn about potential dangers, no matter how farfetched the possibility. The biggest crime they’d seen recently was a spate of graffiti vandalism, and that hard-boiled perpetrator had been identified by his mother, who’d recognized his handwriting and dragged him in to accept his punishment.

It was a far cry from J.T.’s nine years on the L.A.P.D. A year’s worth of crime in this mountain community wouldn’t fill a week’s log in the smallest L.A. substation. It suited J.T. just fine, especially since he was the only paid police officer, as well as the fire chief and all-around public servant. In a town of 514 residents, with houses scattered over miles of varying terrain, he never had a dull moment. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a day off. In September, maybe?

Hunching against the wind, he stuck his hands deeper in his jacket pockets. “A little trip to the tropics sound good to you?” he asked the dog trotting beside him. “Want to get out of that dumb-looking sweater and into a pair of swim trunks?”

Deputy barked once—J.T. always took that as a yes—then the dog went still as a post, his ears pricked up. After a couple of seconds he charged off.

J.T. looked ahead and spotted a heap in front of his office. Old John, he supposed. Too drunk to know he could die of hypothermia on a night like this. Too drunk to pick up the phone hanging by the office door, a direct line to J.T. at home.

Deputy’s tail wagged like a metronome at top speed, his rear end moving almost as fast. A woman’s soft laughter drifted with the wind as J.T. neared his office.

“I’m awake, dog. Stop licking my face.”

Her words were low, but not slurred like those of someone freezing to death.

“Stop it, you idiot.” She laughed again, taking the sting from her command.

Deputy barked and bounded toward J.T., then returned to the huddled woman again almost instantly.

J.T. crouched in front of her, resisting shining his flashlight when she shied away from him. An overhead light illuminated her red jacket, but a fuzzy-trimmed hood shadowed her face. With a violent shiver she pulled Deputy closer.

“Hi,” J.T. said.

She seemed to get smaller.

“That unfriendly pup in your arms is Deputy, and I’m the police chief, J.T. Ryker.”

“Oh.” She waved a hand toward the sign overhead, but she seemed to keep her focus directly on him. “Then you’re who I’ve been waiting for.”

Her teeth chattered, which was all he could see of her face. A muffler covered her chin.

“How long have you been here?” J.T. asked.

Her shoulders shifted in a decidedly uncasual shrug. She petted Deputy as he wriggled in her arms. “I used the phone, but there was no answer.”

Which meant she couldn’t have been waiting more than ten minutes. “Would you like to go inside?”

A few beats passed. “Do you have identification?” she asked.

He hesitated long enough that he could feel her withdraw. It had been almost three years since someone hadn’t taken his word at face value—since the day he’d taken the job. He pulled his leather badge holder from his pocket, then passed it to her. She turned it over and over in her gloved hands.

“There’s photo ID inside the wallet,” he said, sensing a more-than-average wariness. He wondered how old she was. A teenage runaway? A woman needing police protection? Or was she just lost—and rightfully suspicious of a man out walking at 3:00 a.m., even one claiming to be a police officer.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

Seconds ticked by as he waited. Even the dog noticed the tension in the air and backed away from her, his head cocked. Finally she whispered, “I don’t know.”

J.T. strained to hear the words. “How’d you get here?”

“I guess my car skidded off the road and into a ditch. That’s where I was when I came to, anyway. I walked from there. About half a mile, according to a sign I saw along the way.”

“Were you in the driver’s seat?”

She nodded, then slid a hand along the inside of her hood. “Where am I?”

“Lost and Found.”

Her reaction was slow to come. “I’m…lost and found?”

“The name of the town. I know. It threw me for a loop the first time I heard it, too.”

“Is it in California?”

“Yes. You’re about three thousand feet up in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the north-central part of the state. The closest big city is Sacramento, and that’s an hour and a half’s drive. Come on, let’s get you inside so you can warm up.” He held out a hand to her.

“My head hurts.”

“I’ll call the doctor right away. You’re going to have to trust me,” he added.

“I’m also—” she reached for his hand “—pregnant.” She wobbled as she stood.

J.T. steadied her, his eyes zeroing in on her very pregnant belly unprotected by her jacket, obviously not designed as maternity wear. She’d walked half a mile in a snowstorm in her condition?

“I’m okay now,” she said, pulling her hand free.

His gaze slid up to her face. Shock lit an inferno inside him that spread fast and far. Sweat turned impossibly icy beneath the layers of his clothes.

He knew her. The very pregnant woman without a memory was Gina Banning, a part of his past that he’d almost laid to rest.

In their first conversation she’d tried to tease him into telling her what his initials stood for. In their last, she’d told him she hated him.

Then a week later she’d married his partner.

She didn’t know what to make of the man, J.T. Ryker. One minute he was all kindness and concern, the next he was staring at her with cold, hard eyes. He’d taken her directly to the clinic, a few doors down from his office, because the heat was always left on there, he said.

She burrowed into the blanket he’d wrapped around her as they waited for the doctor to arrive. The police chief paced.

Back and forth he walked, sending a glance her way now and then as if he was knotted up with questions but had lost his ability to speak. The more she watched him, the more her head hurt.

Who am I? The biggest question of all hung over her like a lead blanket, the weight of it almost unbearable.

To distract herself she focused on the man. Early to midthirties, she guessed. Old enough to have character in his face. Experience. Tall, broad-shouldered and slim-hipped; strong enough to subdue someone without drawing the gun at his side. He’d tossed his jacket and gloves into one of a dozen pink plastic chairs in the waiting room as soon as he’d cocooned her in the blanket, his sharp-jawed face almost terrifyingly fierce—at odds with a voice he kept gentle. His eyes were a golden-brown, shades lighter than his hair. His frown lines seemed a part of him.

She wished she knew why he’d turned angry.