The Colorado Kid

So Charlotte had left and a tiny baby was there instead. Matty was burning up with curiosity. Wild horses couldn’t have kept her off the Rocking D tonight. “I’ll be right there,” she said.

2

NO UNFAMILIAR VEHICLES sat in the circular drive in front of Sebastian’s place, but Matty noticed two large cardboard boxes next to the front door when she climbed the steps to his porch. And sure enough, a baby was crying inside the house. As near as she could remember, there had never been a baby at the Rocking D, even though folks around here thought the ranch’s brand looked a lot like a cradle.

She pounded on the front door, figuring she’d better make a lot of racket to be heard above the screaming baby.

The door opened almost immediately and Sebastian stood there looking frazzled. It was a novel sight. Matty couldn’t remember seeing him frazzled before. The notion that he even could get frazzled pleased her immensely.

He’d always been in charge of himself, his feet planted firmly on the ground, his broad shoulders ready to take any weight, his gray gaze steady and sure. Over the years, his self-reliance had both thrilled and maddened her. She found that sort of confidence sexy, but it didn’t leave much room for a woman to feel needed.

But tonight, he definitely needed someone, and she happened to be handy.

“Thank God you’re here.” He stepped back from the door. “You must have driven like a snail.”

“Actually, I broke the speed limit.” She imagined even five minutes would be an eternity with that caterwauling going on. She walked into the house, shucking her jacket as she went. “Where’s the kid?”

“Over there.” He gestured toward the sofa in front of the fire, where an infant seat held a squirming and very loud baby.

Matty had a thousand and one questions revolving around the sudden arrival of this baby at Sebastian’s house on a Friday night, but she decided there was no point in asking even one of them until they got the noise level down a bit. “What have you done for it?”

“Nothing. It’s a she. Elizabeth.”

“Nothing?” Matty crossed to the sofa, where the baby had tangled her blanket around herself as she flailed her little arms and legs. She had on some sort of one-piece pink suit and a pink hat, which was nearly off, plus the blanket. She looked hot.

“I was afraid I’d do the wrong thing,” he said. “I don’t know anything about babies. So I built up the fire.”

“I can see that.” The heat danced off Matty’s flannel shirt and jeans. She tried to ignore the pair of wineglasses on the coffee table and the distinct odor of Charlotte’s perfume that still stunk up the place. In between the baby ruckus came the soft sounds of some easy-listening country music on the CD player. Sebastian had fixed himself quite a little seduction pit.

“Where’s Charlotte?”

“Gone. She doesn’t know anything about babies.”

Well, that was something. The baby had driven Charlotte away. “I don’t know much, either,” Matty said. “But I think we should get her out of those clothes or away from the fire.”

“You pick her up, then, okay?”

Matty glanced at him and held back a smile. Finally, finally she’d found something that scared the hell out of big bad Sebastian Daniels. “Okay.” She hadn’t handled many babies, but she seemed to remember when they were this young you got one hand under their bottom and the other one under their head, because they were still sort of floppy.

This one was pretty rigid, though, probably from crying herself into a complete frenzy. Feeling awkward, Matty scooped her up and cradled her in her arms, rocking her gently. It felt like holding a noisy five-pound sack of potatoes. Matty didn’t know if her technique was any good, but the hysterical pitch of the cries softened, although the steady crying didn’t stop.

Matty carried the baby away from the fire. “Settle down, Elizabeth,” she instructed the baby. “Everything’s okay. No need to get worked up.” Matty had no idea if everything was okay or not, but the kid couldn’t understand her, anyway. She sat in the old maple rocker that had been around the Rocking D for as long as Matty could remember. Holding the baby in her lap, she took off the knit cap and began unzipping the fleece suit.

“What should I do?” Sebastian asked.

“She might be hungry.”

“Don’t look at me!”

Matty glanced up. “There’s no one else here to look at. Whose baby is this?”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “Um…we can discuss that later, after we get her settled down.”

Interesting answer. She noticed his hair was a tousled mess. Either he’d been shoving his fingers into it a lot, or someone else had. Matty didn’t want to think about that possibility, although she could understand the temptation. Sebastian had the kind of thick, dark brown hair that made women dream of burying their fingers in it.

“I don’t know how we’re going to get her settled down if you’re not prepared to feed her,” she said. “Did her mother leave you some formula or something?”

He looked stunned. “God, you would think she would have, and diapers and clothes, and stuff! Babies need stuff.”

“Sebastian, you’re going to have to tell me before my curiosity kills me dead. How in hell did you end up with this kid tonight?”

“She was left on the porch.”

Matty’s hands stilled and she stared at him. “You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“I thought that sort of thing only happened in books.” She was fascinated that Sebastian wouldn’t look her in the eye. He was usually a look-you-in-the-eye sort of guy. An up-front person. And then she figured out why he might be evading her gaze, and her stomach clutched. “Is she yours?” She prayed he’d say no.

He ran his fingers through his hair again. “It’s…possible.”

God, it hurt. She’d imagined all this time that she knew what was going on with him. If he hadn’t turned to her after Barbara left, she’d drawn comfort from the belief that he hadn’t turned to anyone else, either. His date with Charlotte tonight had been tough to accept, but at least she’d known it was a first date, and she’d secretly hoped it would be a disaster.

Now she had to face the fact that he’d had a relationship with someone months ago and might have fathered a child with her. Sebastian had always wanted kids. Matty knew that had been a bone of contention in his marriage to Barbara. Matty had wanted kids, too.

Once upon a time she’d dreamed…but Sebastian didn’t think of her that way, obviously. He’d found what he needed somewhere else.

She swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth, but her words came out with a sharp edge. “So who’s the mother and why isn’t she here?”

“She’s the woman who was with us during the avalanche two years ago in Aspen, and I don’t know why she’s not here. Apparently she’s in some kind of trouble and had to park Elizabeth for a while.”

Matty remembered the ski trip on Sebastian’s birthday, right after the divorce had become final. Matty had been prepared to help him celebrate both events, but Travis, Boone and Nat had lured him off for a stag weekend. When she’d seen the televised news of the avalanche, she’d fought hysteria until she’d finally learned no one had been hurt.

Then last year the guys had gone back to Aspen on his birthday again. Matty had thought they were all trying to prove they weren’t afraid of some big old avalanche, but maybe Sebastian had simply wanted to celebrate his birthday with this woman. Really celebrate. “Did you know about the baby?”

He looked at her in shock. “You think I’d let a woman who was pregnant with my baby go through the whole thing alone? Of course I didn’t know!”

“Of course you didn’t.” Twenty minutes ago she wouldn’t have even asked, but twenty minutes ago she hadn’t thought he’d been carrying on with a woman in Aspen, either.

“Listen, can you figure out what to do with her? That crying is tearing me apart.”

Matty could see no point in getting angry, but she did anyway. She was furious with this Aspen woman for running away after “parking” her baby. Sebastian’s baby. Matty would sacrifice ten years of her life for the chance to be the mother of Sebastian’s baby, and the injustice of this situation made her see red.

But somebody had to think clearly in this two-some, and Sebastian didn’t appear to be in any shape to do it. “I suggest you bring in the two boxes from the front porch,” she said. “My guess is that we’ll find supplies in there.”

“There were boxes out there?”

“Two of them.” She couldn’t believe how rattled he was. He wasn’t the most observant man in the world, but even he would usually notice two cardboard boxes left on his front porch.