Her Baby and Her Beau

Then he let out a breath that allowed those broad shoulders of his to relax almost imperceptibly and said, “Okay. Can we put a pin in that, then, and deal with it all later so I can just focus on helping you now?”

“Helping me?” she parroted sarcastically. “You’re going to help me now?” In a week of unfathomable things happening, this was the frosting on the cake. “I don’t even know how you got here or why or—”

“My grandmother saw a news report about the fire at your cousin’s house. When she heard your name it rang a bell with her because she’d only recently read some things that my great-grandfather wrote in his journal—along with the letter you sent me. The letter I never got.” He shook his head as if he’d veered off track and was redirecting himself. “Anyway, your name and the fact that the news said you were from Northbridge caused GiGi—my grandmother—to do some digging. She called my brother Seth—”

“Who runs your ranch in Northbridge now—I know,” Kyla said.

“I didn’t know you’d gone back there.”

Kyla shrugged. She didn’t owe him any explanations. He didn’t deserve any.

“Do you know my brother?” Beau asked.

“Only by name. We’ve never been introduced and if he knows who I am—”

“He doesn’t. I told you, I never said anything to anyone, so there’s no way—”

Kyla wasn’t up to arguing this now, so she merely cut him off to say, “No, we don’t know each other. But Northbridge is Northbridge—everybody at least knows of everyone else.” And the belief she’d had for as long as she’d been living in Northbridge that his brother was just pretending not to know who she was held fast.

“That’s what Seth said—that he knew of you. But after GiGi called him he asked around, talked to someone who I guess is your roommate—”

“Darla.”

“She confirmed that you came to Denver to visit family, that you were in a fire, and she said that the only survivors were you and a baby who’s—”

“My cousin’s daughter—Immy. My godchild.”

“Who’s now yours to raise?”

“Rachel and her husband, Eddie, named me as Immy’s guardian in their will.” They’d told her that. She’d taken it only as another honorary position, not thinking for even a minute that the need to actually become Immy’s guardian would ever come about.

“And there’s a business.” He glanced around them. “These truck stops that you’ll need to run until the child grows up and takes over?”

“Three of them, I’ve been told,” Kyla said.

“Your roommate said you don’t know anybody else in Denver.”

“Eddie’s secretary has done a few things for me and she contacted his attorney who came to the hospital, but no, I don’t really know anyone...”

“And you’re hurt...” He looked her up and down again.

“Not as badly as I could have been,” she said.

“But still...how are you taking care of a baby with that?” He nodded at her wrist. “Your fingers are sausages—that can’t feel good.”

It actually hurt tremendously whenever she had to use any part of her wrist, hand or fingers to do anything with Immy. But she didn’t need or want his sympathy, so all she said was, “I manage.”

“Here?” he asked, with another glance around that took in the motel and the rest of the truck stop. “On your own?”

He was stating the obvious, so she didn’t respond to it.

“Seth said you aren’t married, your roommate told him you aren’t involved with anyone and don’t have any family to come up here to lend a hand—”

“My parents died seven years ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. And I guess the school year just started in Northbridge, so your roommate has to be there and can’t come, either—”

“I teach kindergarten. Darla teaches fifth grade. They got a sub for me, but yes, classes started last Thursday and Darla can’t be gone, too.”

“So here I am,” he concluded. “And I want to help.”

He was not going to be her knight in shining armor, if that’s what he thought.

“I don’t know how you could,” she said flatly.

“For starters, this is no place for you and a baby to be staying, let alone recuperating. I have a house—a big house—that’s more comfortable, not to mention much quieter than this.” He nodded toward the sounds emanating from the bustling travel center. “You can have your own room with a private bathroom, and there’s another room that the baby can go into. I don’t know squat about taking care of a baby—”

“Join the club,” Kyla said under her breath.

“—but I’m more able-bodied than you are right now, so I can lend a hand with...what’s the baby’s name? I know you said it, but—”

“Immogene—but her mom and dad call...called...her Immy.” Kyla fought a fresh wave of grief at the thought that that was past tense.

“I can lend a hand with Immy,” Beau went on, “and you can rest and let me help you get back on your feet. Camden Superstores can provide both of you with everything you need to start over—”

“Darla is just waiting for me to give her an address and she’s sending my own things to replace what I lost,” Kyla informed.

“Still, I’m sure there are a few things you could use to tide you over, and I’ll get the baby outfitted with whatever it is babies need. Then, if you’re open to it, when you’re better, I can also maybe give you some help with the business side of things, overseeing these truck stops. My own family was left in a situation not too different than this—Camden Incorporated had to be run for a while by people other than Camdens after H.J. died and before the rest of us were old enough to take it on. If you need help with that—maybe you don’t...”

A weak, wry, overwhelmed laugh shot out of Kyla and from her muddled emotions came a blurted confession. “I know what to do with five-year-olds, not with babies. I don’t know anything about being a single parent. And when it comes to business...I was raised by people who rarely had two dimes to rub together, and if they did, they squandered them. I definitely don’t know the first thing about running any business. And now I have what I’m told is a huge one on my hands. I think Immy might already hate me, and if I’m as bad with finances as my parents were, I could ruin everything Rachel and Eddie left her before she’s old enough to read, much less take over for herself—”

“So you do need help.”

“I don’t know what I need,” Kyla lamented, fighting the breakdown that she felt on the verge of. But whatever she needed, it couldn’t be Beau Camden.

And yet Beau Camden was the only one standing there, offering.

Damn it all, anyway...

Kyla blinked back tears that threatened again, though she couldn’t help slumping slightly against the SUV’s grille.

“We’ll just take it one step at a time,” Beau said in a consoling and less stilted voice. “And I’ll be there with you the whole way.”

It was what he should have said to her fourteen years ago.

And hearing it, Kyla felt the anger and hurt and confusion she’d felt then, surprised that after all this time and even under the current circumstances the feelings could be as strong as they were.

“Please,” he said into her negative thoughts, once more as if he could read them. “Let me do this for you now and we’ll sort through the past later.”