Desperado Dad

“Are you okay to drive?” he asked.

She nodded and swung into the front seat. Scooting over to open the passenger door for Manny and the baby, she took the boy while Manny climbed into the truck and, closing the door behind him, gathered the child back into his arms.

Manny unzipped his jacket, put the baby on his chest and zipped the jacket back up over both of them, keeping the baby secure and a little warmer. If this truck wrecked on the icy roads, the baby’s position against him might be dangerous, but without Manny’s body heat the little boy was sure to go into shock.

He looked over to the woman and noticed she’d belted herself in, but her hands shook so badly he was afraid she’d never keep hold of the wheel. Manny reached across the baby and jacked up the heater’s fan.

“You sure you can drive?”

“Ye-e-e-s-s,” she stuttered. “The way the water’s rising, we’re about to be cut off by two flooding rivers. Happens every time things get this bad. My ranch is just a ways up the road. It’s the only possible chance we’ve got.”

Jamming the truck into Reverse, she eased it around on the asphalt and slowly drove away from the river.

He suddenly realized he didn’t know her name, or why she’d been there to help them. “I need to thank you for coming to our rescue. It was a very brave but foolhardy thing to do.” She kept her attention on the slick road, continuing to stare out the windshield.

“I’m Manny Sanchez. And you are…”

“Randi.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s my name. I’m Randi Cullen. And I live on the Running C ranch.”

The Running C? Son of a gun, if that wasn’t the name he’d overheard the smugglers discussing at the café in Del Rio. Was this woman involved with them? All of a sudden it occurred to him that their savior might really be the suspect he’d been seeking. But the only way to find out would be to keep a sharp eye on her.

Manny quickly decided he’d better keep her close—whatever that took and any way he could.

Randi tightened her grip on the steering wheel and slanted a glance at the dark and intimidating man who was scrutinizing her from the passenger seat. The energy emanating from him hummed with tension. Dear Lord, he terrified—and excited—her.

She couldn’t figure out what had possessed her to climb up on that minivan the way she had. There hadn’t been time to consider the ramifications, just like now, when there was no choice but to take this menacing man and his child into her home.

After she’d stopped at the bridge and heard the baby’s cry, all sense of personal danger had deserted her. She could still feel the rush of bravado, sitting here in the front seat with a total stranger. She’d never done anything like this in her entire life. Just thinking about it made her tremble.

Nevertheless, Randi felt more alive in the past half hour than she had in years. Bringing this man home might be a very dangerous thing to do, but she didn’t care. Somehow she felt sure he would be trustworthy. He had an aura about him that reminded her of her old friend, the deputy sheriff.

The stranger had been traveling with his own child. How bad could he be? And what’s more, he and his baby needed help, and she’d been able to do something about it. That frustrating feeling of being unable to do anything to help, the one emotion she’d been so familiar with over the past few years, was slowly washing away as the minutes went by.

“That’s a kind of unusual name for a woman, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Randi? It was my grandmother’s nickname.” At his seemingly confused look, she explained, “Short for Miranda…?”

“I wasn’t questioning it. I think Randi is a beautiful name.”

She could feel the flush stealing over her face. Glancing over at him, she found a smirk of amusement. The smile lit up his entire face, making him the most magnetic man she’d ever laid eyes on.

Oh, not handsome in the standard movie star way, his jaw was too sharp and his nose too long and broad for that. But he was intense, dark and a little rough around the edges, as if a thin veneer of civilized behavior covered a raging beast inside. And he was big—broad. Her breathing faltered when she realized how much of the front seat he really occupied.

“My mother named me,” she managed shakily.

“Well, Randi.” He repeated her name with emphasis. “Far be it from me to question good fortune, but what the heck were you doing out here in this deluge?”

“I…” She had to swallow down the lump in her throat and put aside her jitters. “I was on my way home from town. When I heard about the storm, I stopped at the grocery store after work. That’s why I’m late.” She was babbling and tried to slow down.

She took a deep breath and inhaled the scent of wet leather, sweat and musky man. An odd sensation, one she couldn’t name and had never felt before, coiled inside her.

Randi found herself sneaking a peek at his ring finger.

“I saw a car’s headlights turn at the creek road,” she began. “Everyone who lives around here knows not to take a low-water bridge road in a storm, so I figured it must be strangers. I knew there’d be trouble.”

Empty. No rings on his hands at all. But that didn’t mean much in these modern times. And there was the matter of his baby.

Randi suddenly remembered the child. When she turned her head to check on him, she was surprised to see the shaggy, black-haired desperado of a man gently patting the back of the baby who lay quietly on his chest.

“We can’t make it to the hospital before the highway is flooded out. Is the baby going to be all right? Will you manage?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” he mumbled.

“What’s the baby’s name?”

“Uh, I don’t…Ricardo…Ricky,” he finally stammered.

Maybe Manny was as flustered by the circumstances as she was? Nope. Not the gritty and unswerving male who’d helped her and the baby off the slick minivan in the middle of the storm.

“And I think he’s going to be fine. He stopped shivering a few minutes ago.” Manny glanced down at the top of the toddler’s head, then peered out the window into the dark night. “I would like to get him dried off, though.”

“Right. Looks like we beat the water. We’re almost there.” As a matter of fact, at that moment the rusty gate bearing the Running C brand came into view.

Randi threw the car into Park and jumped out to open the gate—which turned out to be not an easy task with all the mud flowing across the gravel road.

She groaned internally at the thought of how rutted and pocked her road would be after the rain. And she didn’t have enough money to have it graded this time, either.

Gritting her teeth with frustration, Randi shoved at the heavy gate and then plowed her way back to the truck. The darn thing could just stay open. She didn’t care. No way was she getting out of the truck again to close it in this downpour.

Back in the driver’s seat, Randi could feel icy water dripping on her neck. The droplets didn’t stop there, but ran under her collar and slithered down her back. She started to shiver involuntarily but pressed her lips together and kept driving.

Only another half a mile to go.

It seemed like an hour’s drive, but actually within a few minutes she pulled up in the yard. Ignoring her usual parking spot under the tree, Randi drove as close to the back porch as she could manage.

“This is it. Let me put on a light and then I’ll come back out and help with the baby.” She ducked her head as she opened the truck door against the heavy rain and wind.

Just inside the door to the house, Manny stomped his boots and tried to shake the bulk of the water from his body, without much luck. He was soaked clean through.

When Randi had turned on the porch light, he’d caught a glimpse of her ranch house through the pouring rain. It hadn’t made much of an impression. From what Manny could see, the porch stairs leaned precariously to one side and the back door could obviously stand a new coat of paint.

Now he found himself in an old-fashioned mud room, with thirty-year-old linoleum on the floor and yellowing wallpaper on the walls. He clutched the baby to his chest, not wanting him to get a chill. Manny could still see his breath in the air even though they were inside the house.

“That’s all of it.” Randi came back through the door, carrying two bags full of groceries. “Come into the kitchen, while I light the stove. It’ll only take a few minutes to warm up.”