Her Baby and Her Beau

It went against everything in Kyla to accept help from anyone. Ever.

And if she were on her own there was no way she would accept anything from him.

But she had Immy.

And she really was alone in Denver.

Eddie’s secretary had been kind, but she was new to the job, barely nineteen, and she already had her hands full dealing with the chaos at the office.

One of the volunteers at the hospital was also a volunteer with the Red Cross and had come to see her. But once the volunteer found out there were resources available to her and Immy through the truck stops Immy now owned, that was the last of the volunteer or the Red Cross.

Eddie’s estate attorney had come to the hospital to talk to her and he’d let her know that even though Eddie and Rachel’s wills needed to go through probate, he could likely persuade a judge to release funds from the estate for the care and well-being of Immy, as well as for Kyla as Immy’s guardian. To tide them over until he accomplished that, he’d advanced her three hundred dollars from his own pocket.

He’d also contacted the truck stop and arranged for their motel room, and for the convenience store and the diner to run tabs for whatever food she ordered and whatever she could use out of the convenience store.

But from there he’d said only that he’d be in touch.

The diner food was salty, greasy and very heavy, but more problematically, the one choice of baby formula from the convenience store wasn’t the organic stuff Immy was used to. Kyla thought it was possible that the newborn didn’t like it and so was refusing to eat. That potentially had contributed to the problems this evening and could ultimately lead to Immy feeling sick or having digestive ailments.

Kyla’s driver’s license and credit cards were lost in the fire, so she couldn’t rent or drive a car to go outside the truck stop, and she had no idea if taxis were equipped with child car seats to allow her to attempt to get anywhere else.

Plus she didn’t even know where she was or where to go from here to try to find Immy the formula Rachel had used.

And besides all of that, Kyla was well aware that she was not only inexperienced and inept with Immy, she also wasn’t physically up to caring for the baby altogether on her own. She’d overestimated the strength of her sprained wrist the first time she’d had to lift Immy and nearly dropped her. And even though she was more careful now, using her wrist and hand was still painful and they were very weak.

So while Kyla was inclined to hold her chin high and refuse even an iota of help from Beau, for Immy’s sake she didn’t think she could look a gift horse in the mouth.

Even if that gift horse was the same person who had left her pregnant and alone with that problem once upon a time.

Still, it meant going to stay at his house. With him...

“Do you have a wife or someone I’d be imposing on?” she asked when that suddenly occurred to her. And made her feel yet another thing she didn’t want to feel—a twinge of jealousy.

“No wife. No girlfriend. It’s just me,” he assured her. “And it wouldn’t be an imposition.”

“Immy cries and needs to be fed in the middle of the night. And tonight she just cried for a long time for no reason I could figure out,” she warned.

“I’ve been through worse,” he said with a hint of the smile she’d never forgotten, a smile that had haunted her. “So what do you say?”

It was galling not to be able to tell him off the way she had in her head many, many times over the years.

But she had to think of Immy. To put her first. And she knew that Immy would be better off if there were two of them to care for her—even two people who didn’t know what they were doing seemed better than one, one who was struggling with injuries to boot. And Beau had the use of both hands and a car, so he could go out and find the formula Immy was accustomed to. Plus if they went to his home Immy wouldn’t be breathing air polluted with exhaust fumes.

So the bottom line was that Beau’s offer was one she just couldn’t refuse, Kyla decided. For Immy’s sake, if not for her own.

But even as she came to that decision she vowed that the minute—the exact second—she could pack up Immy and handle everything on her own, she’d leave Beau Camden in her dust. Not unlike the way he’d left her.

“Okay,” she conceded ungraciously. “But as soon as I get some things in order, we’ll be out of your hair.”

All he said to that was, “There’s a Camden Superstore down the street—I can go there now and get a car seat and whatever else we need and come back—”

The thought of disturbing Immy sent renewed panic through Kyla. “No, not tonight!” she said in a hurry. “You don’t know what it took to get Immy to sleep. Tomorrow—we can move tomorrow.”

“How about I stay here tonight, then?”

In her room? With her? What was this guy thinking?

Then he said, “The rooms on either side of yours look empty. I can check into one of those, probably hear the baby if she wakes up...”

There would be someone else to see to the baby if the crying started again and wouldn’t stop.

It was tempting.

But Kyla shook her head, her independent streak somehow demanding that she draw at least that line. “We’ll be all right for tonight,” she said with more confidence than she felt. “But Immy does have to have a car seat—Eddie’s secretary borrowed one to pick us up from the hospital.”

“I’ll have one by the time I get here—and I’ll get here any time you say tomorrow morning. But you’re sure you’ll be all right tonight?”

She wasn’t.

But she also wasn’t willing to let him see that. “I’ll be fine,” she said, hoping she was wrong about Immy not liking the formula she had for her—or at least that the baby would put up with it for now.

“Have you eaten?” he asked.

“I ordered something from the diner. Most of it is still left, if I get hungry.”

He nodded and as she watched him do that she thought, Geez, he’s good-looking...

Then she realized what had gone through her mind and she pushed it out of her head.

“I suppose I should let you go in and get some rest,” Beau said then.

Kyla stood, trying not to flinch as she did, and faced him as he took a business card out of his pocket and handed it to her. “My cell phone number is on this. If you need anything—anything—just call.”

Again, words that were fourteen years too late.

Kyla accepted the card without comment.

“So I guess I’ll just see you tomorrow,” he said, as if he wasn’t sure that was the right course. “What time?”

“Nine maybe...” she suggested aloofly and with no real knowledge of how that would work for Immy. Then she moved to the motel room door again.

“I really—really—am sorry, Kyla,” Beau said quietly to her back.

Too little, too late, she thought. But all she said was, “Tomorrow,” before she went into her room, closing the door on him.

And wondering what incredible twist of fate had put her in the position she was in.

To be rescued by Beau Camden of all people.