Page 15 of Inheriting Miss Fortune

While we spoke, she glanced back in the direction Tully and Lellie had gone. I could tell Natana was curious about why I’d walked into the Mercantile pushing a stroller, but she was too polite to ask outright.

We talked for another minute before I managed to extract myself from the conversation. On my way to the back of the store, I had to exchange polite greetings with Connie, Hanson Sandoval, and Clayton Spilling. All three of them glanced curiously at Tully, and though none of them asked me about him directly, either, I knew they’d be wondering and talking it over the minute I left. I had a reputation in town for valuing my privacy, but there was no such thing as privacy in Majestic, and I realized belatedly another night without a crib might have been a decent price to pay to keep everyone’s curious stares away from me.

“You want the fold-up kind or—” Tully glanced at me and abruptly stopped speaking. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Why?”

He glanced over my shoulder toward the front of the store and back to me. “You have a look on your face.”

“What look? I don’t have a look.”

He hesitated, like he was going to say something, then nodded and turned back to the shelves. “Fine. What kind of bed?—”

“What look?” I asked again, because apparently, curiosity really wanted to kill a cat.

He frowned and glanced back toward the front of the shop. “Annoyed. Or… I don’t know. Bothered? Whatever. I’m sure it’s none of my business.”

“I…” I started to agree—it reallywasnone of his business, and I hadn’t forgotten that Tully’s questioning yesterday had an ulterior motive—but my mouth refused to follow that plan. “I don’t know what to tell people,” I admitted. “About Lellie,” I added in a lower voice.

Tully’s eyes narrowed. “I guess that depends on what your plan is. If you’re keeping her, you’re going to have to tell people. If you’re not keeping her?—”

“We’re not fucking discussing this here,” I snapped, glancing around to see if anyone might have overheard.

In fact, I wasn’t sure I wanted to discuss the situation with Tully at all.

“Language,” he singsonged, turning back to the shelf.

I fought to keep my temper. Tully wasn’t wrong. In the past year, I’d mostly spent time around cowboys like Taza, who was an excellent hand but was also young and crass. Hanging out with Way and Silas was hardly better. But the last thing I needed was Tully pointing out how utterly unsuitable I was to raise a kid.

I was already well aware.

And I’d been going back and forth over what to do about that fact all night as I walked Lellie across the floor. She was a helpless baby, a motherless child,my daughter, and she needed someone to care for her. But the thought of me being that someone, of me letting her down…

“Can we just pick something?” I muttered. There weren’t many crib options—only a simple wooden crib and a foldable travel thing. Since there was no way I could keep Lellie, the foldable one was the obvious choice.

I grabbed it and set it on the ground next to the other items we’d selected. “What else do we need?”

Tully sniffed in a way that expressed disapproval of my choice… or maybe my attitude… or possibly my entire existence. “That depends on your plan, too, Dev. Are we just visiting long enough to discuss things? Or is Lellie staying with you for longer than that?”

I opened my mouth, then shut it again. “I don’t know yet, okay? And she’s sure as shit not going back to Dallas with you until I do.”

“Okay, then I guess we should at least get enough stuff for… a week?” Tully began ticking off items on his fingers at an alarming rate. With every additional item he mentioned, my blood pressure spiked higher.

“Enough,” I finally snapped. “Let’s start with the most important stuff. Food, water, shelter, clothing, sleep.”

He smiled. “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Except you forgot breathing.”

“She seems to be handling that okay on her own.” I took a breath myself and exhaled. “Thank god,” I muttered.

“I brought two water bottles, but you might get a small plastic cup,” he suggested, moving down the shelf to the area with toddler supplies. “And you want some of these plastic spoons and plates, I think.”

We grabbed a few things. “What’s her clothes situation?”

“More than fine,” he said with a laugh. “Katie barely let the girl wear the same outfit twice. She’s good for a while until she goes through a growth spurt.”

I wondered when that kind of thing happened, but I didn’t dare ask and expose my ignorance. “Sleep stuff? Does she brush her teeth or…?” I noticed all the different offerings on the shelves and began to get overwhelmed. “Do I need gripe water? What the heck is a bath spout? Doesn’t my bathtub already have a spout? And what’s this for?” I pulled a silicone spatula off a rack and held it up.

Tully leaned in and squinted. “Uh. I admit, I don’t know, either. Is that for cooking? Like they have their own little baby spatula?”

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