The Baby Bargain

CHAPTER THREE

LATE AS IT WAS, supper had been a success, Dana told herself as she paraded a steaming apple tart straight from the oven to the table. Sean followed glumly, carrying a bowl piled high with round scoops of vanilla ice cream. “So who wants pie?” she asked gaily amid the groans of delight and “oohs” of admiration.

Beyond the kitchen door, the phone rang. Dana glanced over her shoulder, her brows drawing together. It was well past nine, late for anyone to be calling. The phone rang again, and she bit her lip—Petra was sleeping in there in her playpen!

“I’ll get it,” Sean muttered, thumping his bowl down beside her.

By the time she’d served out dessert, he’d still not returned. So either the call was some tourist inquiring about vacancies at the Ribbon R, and for once Sean was handling it, or the caller had wanted her stepson in the first place.

Much as they needed to fill all the gaps in their summer schedule, Dana found herself hoping the call had been for Sean. At fourteen, he didn’t seem to get enough phone calls—didn’t seem to have any friends to speak of. Although, he confided in her so little, she supposed she’d be the last to know if he did. Still, a schoolmate calling Sean nights—she pictured a giggling thirteen-year-old charmer with a terrible crush and twice Sean’s social skills—now, that would be a welcome development. Dana ached for his loneliness, but so far she’d found no way to cure it. Peter would have known how—

Stop, she told herself firmly. After fourteen months, it was time she stopped calling on Peter.

Fourteen months or fourteen years or fourteen lifetimes, how could she not? She sat, smiling at her guests around the table, glad for the candlelight that turned tears in the eyes to sparkles.

WHEN ALL HER DUDES had left the table to wander sleepily from the main house and off up the hill to their cabins, Dana set to clearing away. A very long day, she mused as she entered the kitchen, arms loaded. “Sean?” she murmured to warn him, in case he was still engaged in conversation.

No Sean.

Dana frowned, staring at the phone on the wall beside the back door. Its receiver had been dropped on the counter. And—Her frown deepened. He’d left the door ajar.

Hand at her throat, she spun to the playpen—then breathed again at the sight of the small, blanket-draped lump in its center. At least the baby was still covered. The draft of cool mountain air would have done her no harm. Still…Does he ever think? She lifted the receiver to her ear, heard the dial tone, let out a tckk of irritation and hung it up.

What had caused him to bolt like that? The worst of it was, if she went after Sean and asked what was wrong, she knew exactly what he’d say. “Nothing,” she murmured, and grimaced.

Okay. So leave him alone, then. He’d be up in the loft of the barn, one of his hideouts when he wanted to escape her. Or else mooching along the Ribbon River—the snow-melt stream that stairstepped down the mountain, chuckling past the cabins, then the house, to spread out into glistening trout pools when it reached the valley meadows.

Dana turned back to her daughter. If I can’t help Sean, at least your wants are simple, my love. Gathering the sleeper into her arms, she buried her nose against Petra’s warm neck and, with eyes closed, simply breathed in her scent for a moment. Then she carried the baby softly up to bed.

HALF AN HOUR LATER she was rinsing the last pots and pans. Sean had yet to make an appearance, though a few moments ago she’d half thought she heard him thump through the front door. Had he returned that way to avoid her? But if that wasn’t him…Dana frowned out the window into the darkness. Go find him and coax him home? Or leave him be?

Something moved in the glass. She blinked, and then realized—a reflection from the room behind her; the dining room door swinging open. Sean stood in the doorway, one arm bracing the door wide, as silently he watched her.

The skin along her spine contracted in a rippling shudder. Not Sean, but someone much taller, wider, darker. Standing with the stillness of a predator.

Why didn’t I lock the door?

She hadn’t for the same reason she never did. Guests trooped in and out all day; Sean came and went; and this wasn’t Vermont, where she’d been raised, where everyone locked up. Out here in the West, you depended on distance to protect you. The guest ranch was four miles down a private road from the highway. No one came here by chance.

Behind her, the stranger moved at last, letting the door go and striding on into the kitchen. The blood thrummed in her ears. Dana chose her longest carving knife from the drainage rack, examined it for imaginary food specks, rinsed it, then, still holding it, let her right hand casually droop below the rinse water. She shut off the faucet and half turned.

“Oh!” She’d meant the word to deceive, but her shock was real. He was closer than she’d expected. Bigger.

And angrier—black, level brows drawn down over deep-set eyes.

“Wh-wh-what do you—” She stuttered to a stop. Did she really want to know what he wanted?

“Sean Kershaw. Where is he?” A low, gravelly voice, its steadiness somehow more deadly than any shout. No drama to this rage, but pure, cold intention.

“Sean?” Whatever this invasion was, it wasn’t what she’d thought. Still, it was bad—trouble. Teacher? she asked herself, and rejected the hope immediately. This was no indoor man. His face was tanned to the color of buckskin. The lines fanning out from the corners of his blue eyes spoke of years squinting in the harsh sun. “Wh-why do you want Sean?”

“That’s between him and me.”

The intruder turned a slow circle on his heels, scanning the kitchen as if Sean might be cowering in a corner. He wore boots, Dana realized, which was why he seemed so enormous. Though even in his socks he’d still top her five-three by nearly a foot.

Nevertheless, she let go of her weapon. She could no more imagine herself stopping this man with a knife than she could imagine stopping a train. “I’m afraid it isn’t,” she said coolly—to his back. He was striding back the way he’d come.

Hey! She goggled after him, then felt rage awaken as he retreated. “It’s considered polite to knock, you know!” she cried, hurrying to catch up.

“I knocked. You didn’t hear me.” He was already past the dining room, heading for the front door.

Good riddance, whoever he was! But no—her mouth dropped as he turned toward the stairs.

“He’s up there?”

“Don’t you dare—”

“Good.” He took the stairs two at a time without a backward glance.

Her baby! The hair bristled on her arms, at her nape. Dana flew up the steps, a primal humming sound in her throat. You stay away from my baby!

The door to Petra’s room stood wide. Dana flung herself through it and slammed into his back—“Ooof!”

“Huh?” he muttered absently. He’d stopped short just inside the room to flick on the light. She grabbed his elbows from behind and, with a little growl of despair—might as well try to uproot the oak banister!—she attempted to wheel him around and out. He glanced over his shoulder with a startled frown, then simply shrugged, breaking her hold. “Who’s this?” He nodded at the sleeping child.

“Mine,” Dana said flatly. She caught a fistful of the back of his shirt and tugged, and, lucky for him, he allowed himself to be towed backward out of the room. He hit the light switch as he passed it, then pulled the door quietly shut.

Dana let him go and swung around to put herself between him and Petra’s door. Chin up, she stared at him, breathing hard. “Get out of my house this…minute.”

Startling white against the tan, a reluctant smile flickered across his hard face. “Good for you,” he said simply, then turned away…

To open the next door down the hall—Sean’s room! Dana pressed a hand to her throat, swallowed, then charged after him. But—thank you, God—Sean hadn’t returned.

The stranger stood in the center of Sean’s bedroom, surveying the posters pinned to the wall—surly rock groups and a surfer shooting a blue-green pipeline at Maui. The desk piled high with books and camera accessories. Discarded shirts and jeans draped over the chair and the top of the closet door.

“Get out.” Dana bared her teeth. She supposed she could run uphill and ask her wrangler, Tim, for help, if by any miracle he was home on a Saturday night. Or run downstairs and phone the sheriff. But no way would she leave Petra to do either.

“You’re his sister, I reckon?” the man murmured, without turning.

“His stepmother.”

His dark head snapped around, and the blue eyes reassessed her, a quick head-to-toe appraisal. She crossed her arms over her breasts and glared back at him. Why the surprise? “And who the hell are you?”

“Rafe Montana.” He brushed past her and stalked out the door, headed for her bedroom.

“He’s not here,” she hissed, bracing her hands against the doorjamb and leaning after him. “Can’t you see?”

He stood there, looking down at the big brass bed that she’d shared with no man for fourteen months and thirteen days. The soft, rumpled down comforter that was no substitute for Peter’s living warmth.

“So where is he?” Montana turned to take in the rest of her room.

She felt his eyes touch the books stacked on her bedside table, testimony to all the nights she could not sleep; the vase of blue columbines on the wide windowsill; the bottles of perfume on her dresser, which she hadn’t uncapped for more than a year—and she felt as if he’d run his hands across her body. You trespasser. She stamped her foot to reclaim his attention. “I’m not about to tell you, when I don’t know what you want. When you barge in here like a—a maniac!”

“That’s about how I feel,” he said, swinging to face her. Two long strides and he towered above her. “I’m Zoe’s father.”

“Who’s Zoe?”

“Who—” His eyes narrowed with rage. “You don’t know?”

She shook her head wordlessly. His daughter. He was no longer a maniac, but an outraged…father. And he wants Sean. Her hand rose of its own accord to her lips. My Sean?

“Uh-huh,” Montana said dryly, as if she’d spoken her thought aloud. “And where’s his father?”

“He’s…not here, either.” Montana might seem somewhat more human, claiming a daughter, but still, no way was Dana admitting she didn’t have a man to back her. “He should be home any minute.”

“Sooner the better.” Montana walked out of her bedroom, glanced through the open door to the empty bathroom, then headed back down the hall.

Hands clenched, Dana tagged at his heels. “If you would just tell me what this is about—”

“He’s around here someplace, isn’t he?” Montana growled, descending the stairs. “You thought he was in his room. So…” He walked through to the kitchen again, then out the back door.

She caught up with him on the deck. He stood with big hands on his lean hips, staring up the slope toward the corral and the barn. A light shone through the cottonwoods from one of the cabins along the creek. “Where is he, Mrs. Kershaw? In the barn? Or—what’s that house beyond—the bunkhouse?”

“One of the guest cabins. But if you barge in on my dudes, I’ll call the sheriff and have you arrested, so help me God. Now, tell me—” She stopped with a gulp as a thought hit her. “Oh…” She drifted past him, down the two steps to the gravel where her old pickup should have been parked. Turned a slow circle of bewilderment.

Montana joined her, glanced down at the ruts made by the tires, and swore. “Where’s he gone?”

“I…don’t know.” At fourteen, Sean had no license yet. Peter had allowed him to drive the truck on their property, and though Dana didn’t entirely approve, she hadn’t dared revoke that privilege after Peter was gone. Sean had extended his range without asking, she’d noticed this last six months, to include the private road out as far as the highway. But he wouldn’t dare—“Did you pass an old pickup on your way in from the public road?”

“I passed nobody.”

Which meant, she supposed, that Sean had already departed. Or fled, she realized, staring up at Montana. He knew you were coming! That phone call during supper.

“Where would he be on a Saturday night, Mrs. Kershaw? Down in Trueheart at one of the bars?”

“Sean?” She laughed incredulously. “Of course not!”

He stepped closer, till they stood almost toe to toe. “You haven’t a clue where your punk is, do you, lady? I guess I should have expected that. Running wild…”

Insults on top of invasion, and the truth in his charge only made it sting more. She tipped up her chin. “And I suppose you know precisely where your daughter is this minute, huh?” What was she supposed to do? Keep a fourteen-year-old boy who outweighed her by twenty pounds—who barely could stand the sight of her—on a leash? She was doing the best she could!

“You better believe I do,” Montana said coolly. “Zoe’s locked in her bedroom without even a phone for company. And that’s where she’ll stay till I thrash this out.”

A tyrant, on top of all else! Dana paired two fingers and jabbed them directly into his second shirt button—it was like prodding warm stone. “Thrash what out?” Please, not what I’m thinking. This had to be some sort of ridiculous mistake. Perhaps he had the wrong Sean.

They both jumped as, inside the kitchen, the phone rang. Montana caught her arms and moved her aside with a gentleness that belied his temper. She stood for a moment, blinking, strangely undone by the sensation of a man’s hands upon her—it had been so long—then spun and went after him. She saw him lift her phone to his ear. “Don’t you dare!”

“She’s right here,” Montana said in response to the caller’s question, then handed her the receiver with ironic courtesy.

“Mrs. Kershaw?” inquired a male voice. “This is Colorado State Trooper Michael Morris calling, ma’am. Do you have a son named Sean?”

“Oh, God!” Not Sean, too! Slowly she sagged against the counter. No, no, oh, no. She was dimly aware that Montana had set one broad hand on her shoulder, steadying her, and that he’d tipped his head down close enough to hear the trooper’s voice. His temple brushed her hair.

“Oh, no, ma’am, nothing like that—not an accident! Sorry to scare you. But I’ve got a Sean Kershaw stopped here on Route 160, and it appears he isn’t licensed to drive. We’ve checked the plates, and you’re the owner of record of this vehicle. Did you give him permission to drive, ma’am?”

“I…” She drew in a shaking breath. Sean was all right! He wouldn’t be once she got hold of him, but for now…Thank you, thank you, oh, thank you! “No, Officer, I did not.” She straightened, and Montana’s hand fell away from her shoulder, though he still hovered within hearing range. She met his eyes and smiled her relief, and, wonder of wonders, his mouth quirked with warmth and wry humor. A very nice mouth indeed, she noticed, when it wasn’t hardened by temper.

“Well, that’s good,” said the trooper. “I’m afraid, though, we’ve got a situation here, ma’am. I ought to take him in and book him, but we’ve had a tractor trailer tip over, down by Durango. Took out a few cars with it. All the tow trucks are out on the job, and I should be over there, too. If you and another licensed driver could get down here in a hurry, I’d release the car and your son into your custody. Saves me a trip to the station.”

“Tell him yes,” Montana said in a whispered growl, his eyes lighting.

No way was she taking him along. “I’ll…yes. Of course.” She’d ask Leo Simmons, the dude in Cottonwood Cabin, to help her out. “Tell me again where you’re located?”

The trooper told her quickly, then added, “I’ve got a second kid here, too, ma’am, in case you could contact her parents for me. She won’t be charged, since she wasn’t driving, but…”

“Who?” Dana asked with a sinking heart. Somehow she knew already.

“She refuses to say, ma’am. A tall, redheaded, mouthy kid.”

The shock dawning in Rafe Montana’s eyes was almost laughable. He shook his head, shook it again as if he were slinging water out of his eyes, and snatched the phone from her grasp.

“Ask her if her name’s Zoe Montana,” he rasped. “Never mind who I am! Ask her.”

There came a long pause. Montana stood as still as a rock, teeth clenched, as he glared into the distance, utterly oblivious of Dana’s wide-eyed scrutiny. Then, as the trooper spoke again, Montana swore under his breath and said, “You tell her for me, Officer, that her father’s on his way.”

“Know just where your daughter is, do you?” Dana couldn’t resist murmuring.

CHAPTER FOUR

STRAPPED INTO her car seat on the rear bench of Rafe Montana’s long-cab pickup truck, Petra whined and fretted till they reached the smoother highway. As the big truck settled into a mile-eating drone, her long lashes drooped on her fat rosy cheeks and she slept.

“Never fails,” Montana murmured, glancing in the rear-view mirror.

The voice of experience, Dana realized, studying his hard-edged profile. Perhaps he had other, younger children aside from Zoe. And for that matter—“Where’s Zoe’s mother?”

Five fence posts whipped into the headlights, then passed, their barbed wire swooping and falling, before he spoke. “She died in a car wreck when Zoe was six.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” She watched his mouth curve wryly. Yes, she supposed it was a bit late to be offering sympathy. For that matter, he might well have replaced Zoe’s mother years ago. With his darkly smoldering good looks, that intense vitality, he’d find plenty of volunteers for the job.

The taillights of a car appeared as the pickup topped a rise. The country was flattening out into sagebrush-covered slopes, the dryer land to the west falling away toward the state border. The truck closed on the car in a rush—slipped out, passed it by and roared on.

“What about your husband?” Montana asked without taking his eyes off the road. “You didn’t leave him a message.”

She didn’t answer the question behind that statement. “No, I…didn’t.” To confess would be to admit he’d scared her. Scared her still in some way she could not fathom. But her instinct was to raise any and every barrier against him she could find.

At the same time, though, necessity demanded that she understand his outrage before they reached Sean, that she defuse it if she could. “Why did you want my stepson, Mr. Montana?”

“If I’m going to drive you halfway to Utah, Mrs. Kershaw, you can call me Rafe.” A tractor trailer thundered past, shaking the truck, and he flicked on his high beams.

She would have preferred the formality of last names, but he’d maneuvered her neatly. Now she’d look ungracious not to reciprocate. “Then it’s Dana.” She straightened her shoulders. “But what about Sean?”

“My daughter’s pregnant.” He glanced at her, as she shook her head. “Oh, yes. I caught her sneaking a pregnancy test kit into the house this evening.”

“Not Sean!” Dana said emphatically. “That’s not possible.”

“You’re saying my Zoe’s a liar?”

His voice grew softer and more level with rage, she was learning. “No, I…” Wouldn’t dare, but still…She thought of three ways to ask the same essential question—Is she sure Sean is the father? But no matter how she phrased it, she might as well set a match to a stick of dynamite. “There must be some mistake,” she said, instead. “Is she sure she’s pregnant?”

“She told me she’s missed two months, almost three. What do you think?”

The worst, quite likely. Dana bit her lip. But still…“Sean isn’t even dating.” How could he? She gave him an allowance, but it was woefully meager. Peter had cashed in his main life insurance policy to buy the ranch. His little term policy had paid off enough to create a trust fund that someday would cover Sean’s and Petra’s college tuitions. But the family’s day-to-day finances were cut to the bone. Sean had no money for dating, and no transportation aside from his beloved mountain bike. “Where have they been, um, meeting?”

“Didn’t get to the bottom of that. She clammed up on me, so I locked her in her room to think about it.”

“For all the good that did you.” Dana couldn’t resist the jab, and noticed it made the muscles in his jaw jump and his knuckles tighten on the wheel. To her mind, a girl who was old enough to make a baby was too old to be locked up like a rebellious ten-year-old.

“You’re doing a better job? Your kid’s running wild and unsupervised, stealing your car when he wants it. Speeding…knocking up girls.”

“Girl. If he did that at all. I still don’t believe it.”

“I’ll ask him when I meet him, how’s that?” Rafe suggested darkly. “Your sonny boy and I are going to have a long, earnest talk, believe me.”

Withdrawn, unconfident Sean pitted against this full-grown, outraged male in his prime? “No, I don’t think so. Not tonight. Not till I talk to him myself.” Peter would never have allowed his son to be bullied, and now she stood in Peter’s place. “Tomorrow…” Once she’d gotten Sean’s version. Once Rafe Montana had cooled down. Perhaps after she’d consulted a lawyer. God, where would I find the money?

“We’ll see about that,” Rafe said with dangerous calm.

Indeed they would. Dana clenched her hands. Sean’s refusal to forgive her might wound her daily, but still, she was all he had. No way would she throw him to this wolf. She changed the subject. “How much farther?”

“Another twenty miles. Almost to Four Corners.”

“Where could they have been going?” California? Sean missed San Diego, somehow seemed to believe that if he could go back there, life would be as it was. As if Peter waited there on the front lawn of the suburban house that he and Sean had shared when Dana first met them. If only it were that easy.

“They were headed for Arizona, I imagine. Zoe’s great-aunt lives in Phoenix. She’s Catholic, like all Pilar’s folks. I suppose Zoe figured she’d take her side.”

“Side on what?”

“Zoe is all set to go away to college in three months,” Rafe said obliquely.

“College?” Dana had been picturing a ninth or tenth grader! Sean with a senior? Sean, who had all the social sophistication of a golden retriever pup? Now she knew there was some mistake!

“Harvard, just like her—” Rafe paused. “Harvard. She’s…bright.”

As in very bright, Dana interpreted the pride echoing behind that western understatement.

“She’s been working all her life for this. Aims to be a doctor, a surgeon—though the school counselor tells me she could shoot higher than that if she wants. Sky’s the limit. But Harvard’s the start…the door she has to walk through to get where she’s going. Where she deserves to go. Her life’s just blossoming, just starting to happen—” He slammed the wheel with a fist. “And now this? I don’t think so. Now that your kid has messed her up, there’s only one way out.”

“Abortion, you mean,” Dana murmured. She suppressed a sudden urge to look back at Petra. To grab the baby and pull her over the seat and into her arms. “Does Zoe agree?” Zoe, who’d broken out of her room somehow and tried to flee the state?

“She…Neither of us was making much sense back there,” Rafe growled. “We’re not used to banging heads. But once she’s calmed down and thought it through…”