Page 41 of A Christmas Baby for the Cowboy
Shoshana looked… almost hopeful, Knox thought. She even attempted a smile. “If you wanted to send me a picture of the baby, every now and again. Only if you feel like it. Just… you know, to see how she’s doing.”
“Count on it,” Knox said gruffly.
On the drive back, Ramona called around to the people she knew to see if they might reach out to Shoshana or if they knew someone who could help a teenager in a precarious situation. So she wouldn’t be stranded. So she really could do that GED and change the course of her life, if she wanted.
“I don’t know if she’ll actually want help, in the end,” Ramona said, as they drove up Copper Mountain. Nice and slow, because the temperature was dropping. “But if she does, there are a bunch of people who will be happy to give it.”
And when they made it back to Cowboy Point, Knox didn’t even pretend that he might stop at her place. She didn’t ask. Instead, he drove them back up to the ranch, and took her inside his parents’ house when he went to pick up the baby.
He thought Ramona might balk at that, but she didn’t. She walked in at his side as if it was the most normal, everyday thing in the world. As if it wasn’t even worthy of comment, that’s how much they belonged together.
And he waited for those alarms inside him to sound, the way they always did. The way they always had, warning him that he was getting too close and giving her the wrong idea.
But there was nothing in him but that contented feeling again.
Cat and Sierra were in the living room with Belinda, the twin boys, and sweet little Hailey.
“We’re making ourselves useful,” Sierra said, looking up from an intense toy battle with Eli and Levi on the floor.
“I’m pumping this baby for information,” Cat said, from where she was sitting on the couch with Belinda, Hailey lying on a blanket between them. But she was looking at Ramona, speculation bright and hot in her gaze.
“Boone and Wilder gathered all that baby stuff from everyone else,” Sierra continued, with only a glance at Cat. When she looked back at Ramona and Knox, her gaze was clear. “They set it all up in your house already, so it’s waiting for you when you get back.”
“How thoughtful,” Knox said with a laugh. He went to pick Hailey up and realized that he’d been holding his breath until then. Until he could feel the sweet weight of her, there in his arms like she belonged there. “Are you sure it was Boone and Wilder?”
That made everyone laugh.
Then he and Ramona left with the baby, and Ramona held her as they headed down the hill.
“I need to get a car seat fitted,” Knox muttered. “It’s not safe.”
Ramona slid him a look he couldn’t read, which wasn’t new, but this one was bright and warm. Because he guessed upgrades were going around.
“If you take it to Atticus or the Marietta police, they can put it in for you and make sure it’s done right,” she told him. “They’ve made them so complicated these days that a lot of people need help installing them.”
Knox felt certain he could figure it out, or make Harlan and Ryder show him, but he didn’t say that out loud. He was enjoying the fact that they were discussing Hailey like this. Like they were a unit.
It made that peaceful feeling in him expand, until it seemed like it was taking him over.
In the house, there were diapers and bottling systems, and other baby things he wasn’t sure he could identify, stacked up in the kitchen. Back down the hall, he saw that his brothers had taken over the guest room closest to Knox’s room and made it Hailey’s. And they’d done it up. There wasn’t just a crib, there was also a mobile hanging from the ceiling, with little lambs in a circle. And there were tiny clothes that were all hand-me-down boys’ stuff, a playpen, and other items he’d never heard of that looked adorable and off-putting at once.
Hailey was sleepy, even though it was early, so Knox put her down in her new crib and sang to her. A tuneless little song that was more of a memory. Belinda had sung it to him when he was little. She’d probably sung it to him over his crib, just like this.
After a little bit of perfunctory fussing, Hailey went to sleep, and Knox walked back out into the great room.
Ramona was waiting for him, but she wasn’t lounging on the couch. She’d started going through the things his brothers had left, and pointed at the cartons of formula they’d left him. Correctly anticipating that he would need it to feed Hailey—though he had enough to get them through to tomorrow, thanks to his mother.
One more thing he was going to have to get on top of.
Ramona stopped organizing things and came over to him, walking right into him and wrapping her arms around his waist. Then she snuggled in and hugged him.
“You,” she said, tipping her head back to look up at him, “are a remarkable man.”
The hug felt good. This all felt good. He liked that she was here. It felt right, like he’d told her. But it was more than that.
They still fit.
Like they were made for each other.
