Page 21 of A Christmas Baby for the Cowboy
She couldn’t have looked away from him on pain of death. It was like she’d fallen into some kind of tractor beam. The urge to close the distance between them was so overwhelming that she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to resist it.
But she did.
“I’m going to have to follow up with that baby,” she said, stepping back. Getting her professional smile in place. “I think I’m a little bit in love.”
That was the wrong thing to say to this man.
“I know,” he said quietly, and she got the distinct impression that they weren’t talking about the baby. There was something like anguish in his gaze. “But it doesn’t change anything.”
She wanted to fight him on that, but that was the old version of her. The not-at-all clean or sober version. The still-too-drunk-on-Knox-Carey version.
This Ramona only held his gaze a moment, then turned and made her way around to the driver’s side. He didn’t stop her. He didn’t say a word.
No reason at all for her whole chest to hurt.
When she looked in the rearview mirror as she bumped her way across the snow toward the ranch’s main drive, he was still there.
But she waited until she was back home, finally tucked up in her cozy apartment above the clinic, to let herself go.
And allow herself to cry for what could never be until she had no tears left.
Chapter Five
Knox stood outside longer than he should have, watching her go. Then he found himself a little too cold when he jogged back inside, moving immediately to check on the baby once he shut the door behind him.
It occurred to him then that he hadn’t been alone with Hailey since Christmas Eve. Since he found her on the doorstep and had spent those couple of hours trying to keep her calm before Ramona arrived.
He found himself smiling at the little girl, getting down close so he could put his hand on her cute, round little belly wrapped up in one of the little onesie pajamas that Ramona had brought with her, since it seemed the woman thought of everything.
And he felt like there was too much pressing in on him. He felt like Ramona was a ghost here now in this house he’d built himself and should not have had any kind of hauntings at all. He kept expecting to look up and find her still here, in the kitchen, or coming to settle down in this little baby area he’d made in front of the fire, when he knew perfectly well she was driving home.
The weather had finally cleared and that meant that it was time to get back to reality. A reality that was markedly different than it had been a few days ago, at least for him.
Because whatever happened, one thing Knox knew was that he wasn’t walking away from this child. Whoever had left her on his doorstep had signed up for his involvement in this child’s life, forever.
He’d never really been someone to do anything by half.
His phone buzzed, and even though he knew with near certainty that it wouldn’t be Ramona, he was still disappointed when it was the family text instead.
Ryder and Rosie and the babies are at the ranch house, Wilder texted. Full family assembly required.
That was when Knox realized that he was actually going to have to explain all this to his family. Or more accurately, it was when he realized that he had kind of been hoping to somehow avoid it.
But that wasn’t reality.
And if the past few days had taught him anything, it was that asking for help was the right move. Even from his own family, though he could acknowledge that he hadn’t really done that too often in the past.
It was part of being the youngest. He was offered so much unsolicited advice that it never occurred to him to ask for it when he actually wanted some. He’d informed his family that he was going to college when he received a scholarship, not before. There had been accusations of secrecy, but he’d never seen it that way. He’d never been hiding anything. It was just with so many strong opinions, he sometimes preferred his own.
But he wasn’t sure baby Hailey qualified. He’d watched the way the family behaved around little Kiel this fall. Everyone pitched in. Everyone helped where they could. The kid was growing up with a village whether he liked it or not.
It was going to be the same with Ryder and Rosie’s new twin girls.
And it wasn’t that Knox had determined that he was going to become this child’s father—since he knew he wasn’t, in fact, her father—but that didn’t mean Hailey shouldn’t benefit from that kind of Carey consideration and care until he figured out what would become of her. She’d been left here all alone. That didn’t mean she had to live here the same way.
After a quick internet search, Knox realized that he didn’t have the appropriate equipment, so he was going to have to do his best with what he did have. He bundled them both up, then carried her outside, and rigged up a workable car seat situation on the passenger side of his truck. Maybe not optimal for any kind of distance, but he figured it would work to get him up to the ranch house.
Then he found himself following the tracks that Ramona had laid down along his drive to hook up with the main road that led up to the ranch house. Instead of following her down toward the little valley that made up Cowboy Point, he turned right and followed the grooves that were already carved out in the snow, no doubt Ryder driving his expanded family back from the Marietta hospital now that the weather had cleared.
