Читать книгу The Cowboy And The Baby - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 9

Chapter One

Oh God, this was such a bad idea. She shouldn’t have driven out looking for him in her condition.

“Yeah, like you really had a choice,” Devon Bennett mocked herself, sarcasm saturating each word.

Independent to a fault, accustomed to handling everything that came her way, Devon could never have resisted looking for Jack when she woke up to find him gone from the motel room.

At first, she’d thought he’d just gone out to get them breakfast—but he wouldn’t have needed to take their suitcase for that. And it was missing, along with her credit cards and all the money out of her purse.

He did leave her the truck. But that wasn’t because he’d had an attack of conscience, or even because she was carrying his baby and was due to deliver in about a week or so. Being coldly honest with herself, Devon knew that Jack hadn’t taken the truck for one reason and one reason only. The truck was still there, parked right outside of the rundown motel, because Jack couldn’t find the keys to it.

He wasn’t able to find them because she’d had this uneasy feeling that Jack was having second thoughts about the plans they had laid out for their future. Not knowing what Jack might impulsively decide to do, she had tucked the keys to the truck under her pillow—smack in the center so that even if he did suspect they were there, he would have had to move her in such a way that she was certain to wake up.

Looking back now as she scanned the desolate area—weren’t there supposed to be some people around this forsaken wilderness?—Devon couldn’t have said exactly what had possessed her to hide the keys, but maybe, somewhere deep down, she didn’t really trust Jack anymore. Oh, he’d smiled a lot and talked about these grand plans he had for the two of them, promising that everything would be wonderful once they got to Houston.

They’d left Taos, New Mexico, because Jack had come into their small apartment one morning telling her that he’d lined up another job—a much better job—and it was waiting for him in Houston. They’d been together for almost three years and they’d gotten engaged after four pregnancy tests had yielded the same answer: positive.

At the time, she’d thought that finding out she was pregnant would send Jack packing, but Jack surprised her. He stayed.

He’d even looked as if he was happy about it. The baby, the engagement, the promise of a new job—he made it sound as if all they needed was a new beginning to make everything work out.

She’d had no reason to doubt him.

No reason except perhaps the nagging, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach—something apart from morning sickness for a change—warning her that maybe, just maybe it was too good to be true.

And she had learned a long time ago that if something seemed too good to be true, then it usually wasn’t.

“Usually? Always. It’s always too good to be true,” Devon retorted, the realization all but tearing her up.

Tears began to gather in her eyes, threatening to fall, to make her come apart. Devon struggled to hold herself together. She didn’t even know where she was going, other than just heading somewhere “due east” because that was the direction they’d been driving in when they’d pulled up to that sad little motel.

It hadn’t been her first choice. She had located an actually decent hotel that was about ten miles up the road, but Jack had vetoed it, saying that hotel would eat into “their” capital.

The only capital Jack was acquainted with was the first letter to his name. The money was hers—or it had been before he’d taken it, along with the gold cross her mother, Amy, had left her and the earrings that might or might not have been worth something. Whatever actual dollar amount the jewelry was worth, both pieces had meant the world to her because they were all she had left from her mother.

But to Jack the jewelry was just something to be converted into cash at his first opportunity.

So he’d left her with her truck and taken everything else. Because she’d had no money to pay the desk clerk, she’d been forced to sneak out while dawn was still creeping in. She’d assuaged her conscience by promising herself that she’d find him, that no good, sweet-talking thief—not because she wanted him back, but because she wanted to pay the motel clerk and, more than that, recover her mother’s cross and earrings.

But where the hell could he have gotten to?

And where on earth was she?

When she’d tried to pinpoint her location on her smartphone’s GPS, Devon could have sworn that if her phone had had actual hands, it would have been scratching its head.

She was in the middle of nowhere—and getting more deeply entrenched.

More tears stung her eyes.

“Serves me right for thinking that just once in my life, things were going to go WELLL! OMIGOD!”

The pain, sudden and sharp and completely unexpected, had come leaping out at her from nowhere.

Devon had been upset and overwrought and paying attention to the road, not to the signals her body was sending her. In her defense, she’d been experiencing strange sensations and odd little pains off and on for a while now.

Scanning her memory bank now, she realized that her lower half had been feeling very, very strange, but then, that could have easily described the way her bottom had been feeling ever since she’d found that she was pregnant.

Focused on hunting Jack down, she’d had no reason to believe that this “strange” feeling was any different than all the other strange feelings she’d been experiencing all along.

Except that it was different.

She’d never quite had this pain before. Never felt like two giant hands had each taken hold of one of her legs and were now about to make a wish just before they pulled them apart in two opposite directions.

“Can’t you wait, Michael?” she begged, addressing her very swollen abdomen by the name she had selected. Not that she knew the baby’s gender. She’d just assumed that it was male because it had been giving her such a hard time from the moment she’d conceived him. “You’re not supposed to be here yet and, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of nowhere. I can’t do this alone. Sorry to disappoint you, little boy, but I am not the pioneer type.

“There, you have had the worst of it,” she told her unborn son as the pain settled down a little. “Except that your father’s a rat, but we’ll talk about that later. Like in a week and a half,” she stressed. “Please wait a week and a half.”

She went on reasoning with the baby that seemed intent on kicking its way out now. “Please, please, PLEEEASE!” she shrieked, unable to contain the pain.

Sweat was pouring down from her brow and her tears were mingling with it, pooling along the hollow of her throat.

Devon couldn’t believe that this was actually happening, that she was going to die in the middle of nowhere, giving birth.

“This is not happening now,” she yelled at her stomach. “Do you hear me? I’m your mother and I forbid you to come out!”

Another scream tore from her lips, taking a tremendous toll on her body. She was beginning to feel as if she was hallucinating.

“You’re not going to listen, are you?” she asked weakly. A deep, frustrated sigh emerged from the center of her very core. “Not even born and you’re already a typical male.”

The next wave of pain completely stole her breath away, making her pant.

Making her panic.

“No, no panicking. Panicking is bad,” she admonished herself, trying desperately to exercise some measure of control, putting mind over matter.

But it wasn’t helping.

Nothing was helping. She was coming apart at the seams, literally, and nobody would ever know what had happened to her.

The word throbbed in her brain.

Nobody.

The few friends she had all thought that she’d run off with Jack to Texas. They’d never know that she died before she got to her destination.

And she had no family. An only child, she’d lost her father when she was seven and her mother when she was a senior in high school.

So there was no one to worry about her.

No one cared.

That was probably why she’d been such an easy target for Jack. She’d always thought of herself as an independent soul, but the truth of it was she was lonely. She’d wanted to matter to someone, just one someone. And Jack had pretended that she mattered to him.

Tall, dark and handsome with an easy grin, Jack had drifted into her life and then taken her along for the ride.

She’d been a total fool, Devon thought disparagingly.

Perspiration was beginning to soak through her clothing. She didn’t know if the sun was hot, or if only she was. The end result was the same. Her clothes were damp.

“I thought your daddy loved me. Turns out he loved my meager little savings account. But we’ll find him, you and I. We’ll catch up to him and force him to give back all that money because you’re going to need diapers—and food.

“Who am I kidding?” she said despondently. “We’re not getting out of here alive. I’m sorry, Michael. Sorry to have done this to you. Sorry to have saddled you with a daddy who’s a deadbeat. SORRYYYY!”

The pain was so bad that she’d almost bitten right through her bottom lip this time around.

She was clutching and clawing at anything she could find within reach. The pain was growing stronger, threatening to swallow her up completely. As it was, she was on the verge of passing out.

This was more than she could endure.

This was—

“Ma’am?”

Devon screamed again, this time in fear. A moment ago, there’d been no one here, not even a prairie dog. Now someone—or more accurately, something—was leaning in through her rolled-down truck window, peering in and apparently talking to her.

“Oh God, now I’m seeing things,” she cried, doing her best to disappear into the cracked seat cushion. “Talking horses. Maybe I’ve already died.”

Belatedly, Cody realized that the woman in the cab of the truck was looking at Flint. She sounded as if she was delirious.

Dismounting, he tied the horse’s reins to the back of the vehicle and returned to the open window. He looked in.

The woman was drenched and looked almost wild-eyed. “Are you alone?” Cody asked her.

“Not a horse, an angel,” Devon realized out loud. The next moment, she closed her eyes tight as she felt yet another huge contraction coming. This one had all the signs of being even bigger than the last. “A hunky angel,” she said to herself. “This is Texas, what did I EXPECCTTT?”

For a second, Cody could only stare at her in complete awe. Even wracked with pain, the dark-haired woman was beautiful. But he’d never seen a woman this pregnant before. She looked as if she was just about to pop at any moment.

“No disrespect, lady,” he began politely, really wishing someone else was with him right now—Cassidy, for instance.

Women related to each other at a time like this. Or maybe Connor. Nothing rattled Connor. He could handle anything. Still, wishing didn’t change anything. Cody was the only other human being out here and he was going to handle this.

He put a sympathetic expression on his face. “But what are you doing out here by yourself in your condition?”

She had no idea what possessed her. She didn’t even remember doing it, but, suddenly, Devon found herself grabbing the front of the inquisitive angel’s shirt and yanking on it with all the strength she had. She yanked on it so hard that she almost dragged him right in through the window.

“DYING!” she yelled back.

“So you are having contractions?” the cowboy asked.

Great, a Rhodes scholar. “What...gave it...away?” she panted, desperately trying to get away from the pain or at least ahead of it. She failed. It insisted on following her.

Cody ignored the woman’s sarcastic comeback. “How far apart are your contractions?” he asked.

Devon was arching in her seat. No one had ever said it was going to hurt this badly. “Not...far...ENOUGH!”

Cody looked out into the horizon, in the direction he’d been riding when he’d heard her screams. Forever was about five, maybe seven, miles away.

“There’s a clinic in town,” he told her. “I can get you there fast.”

But all she could do was shake her head—violently—from side to side. He’d never get her there in time. Besides, the idea of movement made everything worse.

“No...time,” she panted. “Baby...coming... NOOOWWWW!”

That was what he was afraid of.

Mentally, Cody rolled up his sleeves. Connor always insisted that they face all their challenges head-on, not hide behind excuses or shirk their responsibilities. This woman obviously needed him.

Whether he liked it or not, it was just as simple as that. He took a deep, fortifying breath.

“Okay, then,” Cody told her. “Let’s do this.”

Maybe he was better than an angel, Devon thought. “You’re...a...doctor?” she asked, digging her nails in the cab’s seat again, bracing herself for what she now knew was coming.

“No,” Cody answered honestly, “but I helped birth a few calves on the ranch before I became a sheriff’s deputy.”

Terrific, he was a cowboy. Just her luck. “I’m...having...a...BABYYY,” she cried, arching again, “not...a...CAAALF!”

Cody did his best to give her a confident smile. “Same difference,” he assured her.

No, it wasn’t, she thought. Not by a long shot. “I...am...in...so...much...TROUBLE!” Devon screamed, all but biting a hole in her lip.

“I know this is scary,” he told her.

“You...don’t...know...the...HALF...OF...IT!” she retorted, trying her best not to give way to hysteria as she dug her nails into his forearm.

He did what he could to comfort her. “I think I can guess,” he told her, then began to introduce himself. “My name is Cody, and I’ll be delivering your baby today,” he ended with a warm smile.

At this point, Devon was no longer worrying about whether or not she was hallucinating. If this hallucination could help her get rid of this incredible piercing pain she was experiencing through her lower half, then she was all for it.

“PLEEEEASE!” she all but begged.

“What’s your name?” Cody asked as he carefully climbed into the truck’s cab, coming in from the passenger side. He gently shifted her so that she wasn’t behind the steering wheel anymore.

What difference did her name make? “Are...you...filling...out...a...form?” Devon cried in disbelief.

“Just thought it’d be easier for both of us if I knew your name before I got personal,” he replied.

She’d thought that she was way past embarrassment. This was another low. Devon closed her eyes. “Oh...Lord...”

But the pain ramped up, becoming so intense that she was quickly at the point where she would do anything to get beyond it. “DEVON! MY NAME’S DEVON!”

“Nice to meet you, Devon.” He braced himself for what he was about to say and do. “I’m going to have to have to lift up your skirt.”

She knew that. He didn’t have to narrate his actions, she thought in mounting agitation. She just wanted this to be over. If this baby wasn’t coming out soon, Devon was certain that she was going to die out here in the middle of nowhere.

“Say...that...to...all...the...girls?” she managed to get out without screaming at him.

“Just the pregnant ones I find in abandoned trucks on the side of the road,” he said dryly.

Feeling somewhat awkward about it, Cody slipped the woman’s underwear off, all the while telling himself that this was nothing personal, that he had to do it in order to help her bring this baby into the world.

As he drew the material off her legs, he glanced at the hand that was clutching at him. It was the woman’s left hand and he saw that there was a ring on it. Not a wedding ring, but a rather tiny engagement ring. At least, he assumed that’s what it was. The stone at the center was missing.

He couldn’t help wondering if the baby’s father was just temporarily missing from this scene—or if there was more to the story than that.

It was a story that was going to have to wait for another day, Cody told himself. From what he saw, Devon appeared to be completely dilated and ready to become a mother.

“You’re going to have to bear down and start pushing now,” he told her.

She didn’t answer him. And then he realized why. As he saw the perspiration popping out all along her brow, she ground out a bloodcurdling noise.

Cody saw that she was already complying with his instructions.