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“Hey, Hardy, I hear you’re a gen-u-ine hero,” one of the men taunted at the bunkhouse the next morning. Hardy grimaced and concentrated on spooning his oatmeal into his mouth.
“Yes, indeed, our boy has delivered himself a baby girl by the side of the road,” another man said. “Is that some new technique of courting that I missed? No wonder I’m still crawling into a cold bed all alone at night.”
“Oh, go to blazes,” Hardy snapped, sensing that there was no let-up to the teasing in sight. He grabbed his coat off the back of the chair and stormed out of the bunkhouse.
It had been like this ever since the word of his good deed had spread at dawn. He’d barely crawled into his bed, when it had been time to crawl out again. Lack of sleep had left him testy. By the time everyone had come back in from their chores for breakfast, he’d been the nonstop subject of their good-natured taunts. Even the untalkative Sweeney had thrown out a sly comment while he’d dished up the oatmeal.
Outside, Hardy drew in a deep breath and tried to clear his lungs of the smoke that permeated the dining room.
“Hardy, could I have a word with you?” Cody Adams called out, poking his head out the door of his office and beckoning for Hardy to come inside.
Hardy walked over and followed his boss into the cluttered office, wondering what his boss wanted to discuss. For the last year or so Cody had let his son, Harlan Patrick, deal with the hands more often than not. Cody ran the business side of things, analyzing the market for beef on his computer, determining the best time to take the cattle to market, tracking down the best new bulls for breeding. Harlan Patrick knew the land and the herd. He knew which men he could rely on and which were capable, but lacked initiative. He and his father had arrived at a division of labor that suited them.
“Congratulations! I hear you delivered a baby girl last night,” Cody said, proving right off that the conversation had nothing to do with ranch business. “Did a right fine job of it from what Lizzy tells us.”
“Lizzy had no business blabbing,” he grumbled. “I just did what had to be done. Dropped mother and child off at the hospital, and that was the end of it.”
“I’m sure that’s how you see it, but the new mama’s mighty grateful. Lizzy phoned a little while ago and said she’d like you to come see her. If you’d like, take the morning off and drive on over to the hospital.”
The very idea of seeing the woman again panicked him. He’d felt too much while he was delivering that baby—powerful, unfamiliar emotions that his bachelor’s instincts for self-preservation recognized as way too risky. “I can’t ask the men to take on my chores,” he hedged, grasping at straws. “We’re short, anyway, because a couple of the men aren’t back from their holiday break.”
“I’ll pitch in,” Cody said. “I still have a rough idea of how things work around here. Go on. Let the lady deliver her thanks in person. Get another look at that baby. Wouldn’t mind getting a peek at her myself. Did you ever hear how my brother Luke delivered Jessie’s baby, when she turned up on his doorstep in the middle of a blizzard?”
Oh, he’d heard it, all right. It was the stuff of Adams legends. Every man on the ranch had heard that story. He also knew how it had ended, with Luke and Jessie married. That ending was warning enough to him. He wasn’t about to risk such an outcome by spending a minute more than necessary with the woman whose baby he’d delivered. He ran a finger around his collar, as if he could already feel the marital noose tightening around his neck.
“I’ve heard,” he said tightly.
Cody chuckled at his reaction. “I suppose a bachelor like you would find that scary, seeing how they ended up married. Well, you go on over to the hospital just the same. Take your time. With so little sleep, you won’t be much use around here, anyway. Besides, you deserve a break after what you went through last night.”
No, what he deserved was to have his head examined, he thought as he reluctantly climbed into his truck and headed toward Garden City. He was asking for trouble. He could feel it in his bones.
As if the reaction at the ranch wasn’t bad enough, he was greeted like a hero by the staff in the emergency room, too. The response made him queasy, especially since he’d dated quite a few of the admiring women in there at one time or another. Thanks to that paperwork he’d filled out, he figured half of them were speculating on just how close he was to the new mother. The other half were probably hoping this would make him more susceptible to the idea of marriage. He couldn’t get out of the reception area fast enough.
Rather than going to the mother’s room, though, he detoured to the nursery. An infant—female or not—was a whole lot less risk than a beautiful mama.
That’s where Lizzy Adams found him, peering in at that tiny, incredible little human he’d brought into the world the night before.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” she said, standing beside him to look through the glass. “I never get over it. One minute there’s this anonymous little being inside the mother’s body, and the next he or she is out here in the real world with a whole lifetime spread out before them. It surely is a miracle.”
Hardy nodded, wishing he’d managed an escape before getting caught. “Yes, ma’am, it surely is.”
“Are you here to see Trish? She’s been asking for you. To tell you the truth, grateful as she is about your help last night, she’s mad as spit that you agreed to pay her hospital bill. I thought I ought to warn you.”
“I only agreed because that barracuda of a nurse panicked over the paperwork,” he said defensively.
“Whatever. I’m sure the two of you will work it out.”
“Maybe I’ll wait to go see her, though,” he said, seizing the excuse. “She’s got a right sharp tongue when she’s riled up. I wouldn’t want to upset her.”
Lizzy grinned at him. “Want to hold the baby first?”
Hardy was tempted, more tempted than he’d ever been by anything other than a grown-up and willing female. That was warning enough to have him shaking his head.
“I don’t think so.”
She regarded him knowingly. “You’re not scared of a little tiny baby, are you?”
He scowled. “Of course not.”
“Come on, then,” she said, grabbing his hand and propelling him into the nursery. “You can rock her. Look at that face. You can tell she’s getting ready to wail again. She’s been keeping the other babies up.”
Before he could stop her, Lizzy had him gowned and seated in a rocker with the baby in his arms. He stared down into those wide blue eyes and felt something deep inside him twist. Oh, this was dangerous, all right. If he’d been able to thrust her back into Lizzy’s arms without looking like an idiot, he would have.
“She’s beautiful, don’t you think?” Lizzy asked, gently smoothing the baby’s wisps of hair.
A lump formed in Hardy’s throat. He was pretty sure he couldn’t possibly squeeze a word past it without making a total fool of himself. He nodded instead, rubbing the back of his finger along the baby’s soft cheek. She was…amazing. It was the only fitting word he could think of. Since he’d never considered marriage, he’d figured fatherhood was a moot point. Holding this precious little girl in his arms, he was beginning to realize that he was actually sacrificing something incredible.
“Here comes her mama now,” Lizzy said brightly. “Don’t you two be fighting over her.”
She beckoned to the woman who was gazing through the window. Hardy took one look at the baby’s mama and wanted to flee. She was every bit as beautiful as he’d remembered, every bit as much of a shock to his system. If he hadn’t been holding her baby, if Lizzy hadn’t kept a hand clasped on his shoulder in a less-than-subtle attempt to keep him in place, if it wouldn’t have been the most cowardly thing he’d ever done, he would have leaped up and run like crazy.
Lizzy made the formal introductions that had been skipped the night before, gave them both beaming smiles, then took off and left them alone, clearly satisfied by a sneaky job well done. Hardy awkwardly got to his feet, then gestured toward the rocker.
“After what you went through a few hours ago, you should be sitting down,” he scolded.
Trish gave him an amused look, but she dutifully sat. He all but shoved the baby into her arms. For a moment, with her attention riveted on her daughter, neither of them spoke. Eventually she sighed.
“I still can’t quite believe it.” She looked up at him. “Thank you.”
“No thanks necessary.”
“You handled it like a real pro. Are you in the habit of delivering babies by the side of the road?”
“No way. This was a first for me. Can’t tell you how glad I am that I didn’t foul it up. What were you doing out on a lonely stretch of highway in a snowstorm, anyway?”
“Running away from home,” she said wryly. “It’s a long story.”
And one she clearly didn’t want to share. Hardy pondered why a woman in her twenties would need to run away from home. Was it that husband she’d said didn’t exist that she was leaving? If so, getting to know her any better would just be begging for trouble. He twisted his hat in his hands, then asked, “Does that mean you’re not from around here?”
“Yes. I’m just passing through.”
To his surprise, her reply actually disappointed him. Because he wasn’t wild about the reaction, he backed up a step. Entranced by the daughter, intrigued by the mother, he was likely to do something he’d regret. In fact, if he wasn’t very careful, he might be crazy enough to suggest that she stay on just so he could sneak an occasional peek at that little girl growing up. The words might pop out despite his best intentions to steer as far away from them as possible from this moment on.
“Ought to be going now,” he said in a rush.
She reached out a hand, but he was too far away for her to make contact. The gesture was enough to bring him to a halt, though.
“Oh, no you don’t,” she said firmly. “You and I need to talk.”
“About the bill,” he guessed, based on Lizzy’s warning. “Don’t get all worked up over it. I was just trying to keep the nurse from having apoplexy. You know how hospitals are about their forms these days.”
“Oh, I’ll admit that threw me, but I figured out what had probably happened. It’s settled now. I’ve already explained to the billing office that the bill is my responsibility,” she said. “No, what I wanted to talk to you about is more important.”
Hardy regarded her warily. He didn’t like the sound of that. “What’s that?”
“The baby needs a name. I was hoping you could help me choose one. Something that would be special to you.” Her gaze met his. “Your mother’s name maybe.”
Hardy froze at the mention of his mother, a woman who’d run out on him so long ago he could barely recall what she looked like. It wasn’t a betrayal he was ever likely to forget, much less honor.
“Never,” he said fiercely.
The fervent response clearly startled Trish, but unlike a lot of women who’d have taken that as a sign to start poking and prodding, she didn’t pursue it.
“Another name, then. Maybe a sister or a girl you’ve never forgotten.”
Hardy thought of the older sister who’d left home with his mother. Neither of them had ever looked back. He’d go to his grave resenting the fact that his mother had loved his sister enough to take her but had left him behind.
Then he considered the long string of woman whose memories lingered. None were important enough that he wanted to offer their names.
Finally he shook his head. “Sorry.”
“Surely there’s a girl’s name you like,” she persisted. “Or even a boy’s name that we could change a little to make it sound more feminine.”
He squirmed under the intensity of her gaze and her determination to pull him into a process that was by no means his to share. Naming a baby should be between a mother and a father. A stranger should have no part in it. But he recalled that she’d told him the night before that there was no father. Well, obviously, there was one, but he wasn’t in the picture. That still didn’t mean that Hardy had any business involved in this.
“Can’t think of a single name,” he insisted, hoping that would be the end of it.
“Well, then, I guess it will just have to be Hardy, after all.”
He thought at first she was teasing, but he could see from her expression that she was flat-out serious.
“Oh, no,” he said adamantly. “That’s no name for a pretty little girl. Not much of one for a man, if you think about it. Comes from Hardwick, an old family name on my daddy’s side. At least one boy in every generation had to be a Hardwick. Just my luck that I came along first in my generation. You would think after all those years of saddling poor little kids with that name, some mother would put her foot down and insist on something ordinary like Jake or Josh or John.”
“What were the girls in your family named?”
He chuckled as he thought of his cousins, every one of whom had been named after flowers. They’d viewed that as being every bit as humiliating as Hardwick. “Rose, Lily, Iris,” he recited, ticking them off on his fingers. He watched her increasingly horrified expression and kept going for the sheer fun of watching the sparks in her eyes, “I believe there might even have been a Periwinkle a few generations back.”
Testing her, he said, “How about that for your baby? I really loved hearing about old Peri. To hear my father tell it, she was ahead of her time, quite the feminist.”
Trish laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“About Peri?”
“About all of it.”
He held up a hand. “God’s truth. I swear it. Somebody, way back when, had a garden thing. Nobody who came after had the imagination to stray from the theme.” He finally dared to look straight into Trish’s eyes, which were sparkling with little glints of silver that made the blue shine like sapphires. “Okay, forget Peri. What’s wrong with naming her after yourself? Trish is a pretty name.”
“Short for Patricia,” she explained derisively. “It’s a fine name, I suppose, but too ordinary. I want something that will make her stand out.”
“Take it from someone whose name was a constant source of teasing, ordinary has its merits.”
He paused for a minute, suddenly struck by a memory of the one woman in his life who’d been steadfast and gentle, his grandmother Laura. She’d died when he was only ten, but he’d never forgotten the warmth she had brought into his lonely life on her infrequent visits. She’d smelled like lily of the valley and she’d always had little bags of candy tucked inside her purse. She was the one person on his mother’s side of the family who’d ever bothered to stay in touch.
“There is one name that comes to mind,” he said, still hesitant to become involved in this at all. His gut told him even such a tenuous tie to this woman and her baby was dangerous.
“Tell me,” she commanded eagerly.
“Laura. It’s a little old-fashioned, I suppose. It was my grandmother’s name.”
“And she meant a lot to you?” she asked, searching his face.
“A long time ago, yes, she did.”
Trish’s expression brightened then. “Laura,” she said softly. “I like it.”
Hardy liked the way it sounded when she said it. He liked the way her voice rose and fell in gentle waves. Even when she’d been snapping his head off during the baby’s birth, there had been a hint of sunshine lurking in that voice.
He liked everything about this woman a little too much. She and her baby were the type who could sneak into a man’s heart—even his—before he knew what hit him. Just thinking that was enough to have him heading for the exit from the nursery.
“You’re leaving?” Trish called after him, clearly surprised by the abrupt departure.
“Work to do,” he said tersely, not turning around. “I meant to go a while back.”
“Maybe I’ll see you again.”
“Since you’re not from around these parts, I doubt it.”
He hesitated, then turned and took one last look at the two of them, sitting in that rocker with the sunlight streaming in and spilling over them. He had a feeling that image would linger with him long after he wanted to banish it.
“I’m glad everything turned out okay,” he said. “You all have a good life wherever you go.”
Not until he was out in the hallway with the door firmly closed behind him did he begin to feel safe again.
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