A Baby on the Ranch

No, he wasn’t dreaming. This was real. Someone was yelling out his name. Who the hell was pounding on his door at this hour?

The question snaked its way through his fuzzy brain as Eli groped his way into the hallway and then made his way down the stairs, clutching on to the banister. His equilibrium still felt off.

Belatedly, he realized that it was still the middle of the night. Either that, or the sun had just dropped out of the sky, leaving his part of the world in complete darkness.

His mind turned toward his family. Had something happened to one of them? They were all well as of the last time they’d been together, but nothing was stationary.

Nothing was forever.

“Eli! C’mon, dammit, you can’t be that asleep! Wake up!”

The voice started to sound familiar, although it was still hard to make it out clearly above the pounding.

Awake now, Eli paused for a second to pull himself together before opening the front door.

And to pick up a firearm—just in case.

The people who lived in Forever and the surrounding area were good people, but that didn’t mean that unsavory types couldn’t pass through. There’d been an incident or two in the past five years, enough to make a man act cautiously.

“Dammit all to hell, Eli!”

That wasn’t an unsavory type—at least, not according to the general definition. That was his friend, Hollis Stonestreet. Except right now, he wasn’t feeling very friendly.

With an annoyed sigh, Eli unlocked his front door and found himself face-to-face with Hollis.

A one-time revered high school quarterback, the blond-haired, blue-eyed former Adonis had become a little worn around the edges. Though he was still considered handsome, the past eight years hadn’t been all that good to Hollis.

Eli rested the firearm he no longer needed against the wall. “You trying to wake the dead, Hollis?” he asked wearily.

“No, just you,” Hollis retorted, walking into the front room, “which I was starting to think was the same thing.”

“This couldn’t wait until morning?” Eli asked, curbing his impatience.

Hollis was wearing his fancy boots, the ones with the spurs. They jingled as he walked.

Looking at the boots, Eli started getting a very bad feeling about this. What was Hollis doing here at this hour?

Last he’d heard, Hollis had been missing for almost a week now. At least according to his wife, Kasey. She’d said as much when she’d called him two days ago, apologizing for bothering him even though they’d been friends forever. Apologizing, and at the same time asking that if he wasn’t too busy, would he mind driving her to the hospital in Pine Ridge because her water had just broken.

“The baby’ll be coming and I don’t think I can drive the fifty miles to the hospital by myself,” she’d said.

He’d known by the tone in her voice that she was afraid, and doing her best not to sound like it.

His pulse had begun to race immediately as he’d told her to hang in there. Five seconds later, he’d torn out of his ranch house, dashing toward his Jeep.

That was the first—and the last—time he’d let the speedometer climb to ninety-five.

The following day, when he’d visited Kasey and her baby—a beautiful, healthy baby boy—he knew boys weren’t supposed to be beautiful, but in his opinion, this one was—Hollis still hadn’t shown up.

Nor had he come the next morning when Eli had gone back to visit her again.

And now, here he was, pacing around in his living room at 2:00 a.m.

What was going on? Why wasn’t he with Kasey, where he belonged? He knew that he would be if Kasey was his wife.

But she wasn’t and there was no point in letting his thoughts go in that direction.

“No, it can’t wait,” Hollis snapped, then immediately tempered his mood. He flashed a wide, insincere grin at him. “I came by to ask you for a favor.”

This had to be one hell of a favor, given the hour. “I’m listening.”

“I want you to look after Kasey for me.”

Eli stared at the other man. If he wasn’t awake before, he was now. “Why, where are you going to be?” Eli asked. When Hollis didn’t answer him, for the first time in their long relationship, Eli became visibly angry. “Did you even bother to go see Kasey in the hospital?”

Pacing, Hollis dragged a hand through his unruly blond hair. “Yeah. Yeah, I did. I saw her, I saw the kid.” Swinging back around, Hollis watched him, suddenly appearing stricken. “I thought I could do it, Eli, but I can’t. I can’t do it,” he insisted. “I can’t be a father. My throat starts to close up when I even think about being a father.”

Eli dug deep for patience. Hollis had never thought about anyone but himself. Because of his looks, everything had always been handed to him. Well, it was time to man up. He had a wife and a baby who were counting on him.

“Look, that’s normal,” Eli said soothingly. “You’re just having a normal reaction. This is all new to you. Once you get the hang of it—”

He got no further.

“Don’t you get it?” Hollis demanded. “I don’t want to get the hang of it. Hell, I didn’t even want to get married.”

No one had held a gun to his head, Eli thought resentfully. If he’d backed off—if Hollis had left town five years ago—then maybe he would have had a chance with Kasey. And that baby she’d just had could’ve been his.

“Then why did you?” he asked, his voice low, barely contained.

Hollis threw up his hands. “I was drunk, okay? It seemed like a good idea at the time. Look, I’ve made up my mind. I’m leaving and nothing you say is going to stop me.” He started to edge his way back to the front door. “I’d just feel better if I knew you were going to look after her. She’s going to need somebody.”

“Yeah, her husband,” Eli insisted.

Hollis didn’t even seem to hear as he pulled open the front door. “Oh, by the way, I think you should know that I lost the ranch earlier today.”

Eli could only stare at him in disbelief. “You did what?”

Hollis shrugged, as if refusing to accept any guilt. “I had a straight—a straight, dammit—what’re the odds that the other guy would have a straight flush?”

Furious now, Eli fisted his hands at his sides, doing his best to keep from hitting the other man. “Are you out of your mind?” Eli demanded. “Where is she supposed to live?”

The question—and Eli’s anger—seemed to annoy Hollis. “I don’t know. But I can’t face her. You tell her for me. You’re good like that. You always know what to say.”

And then he was gone. Gone just as abruptly as he’d burst in less than ten minutes ago.

Eli ran his hand along the back of his neck, staring at the closed door.

“No,” he said wearily to the darkness. “Not always.”