And Baby Makes Five Read online

  “My…grannies are…probably giving…Him…grief.” The words came out between clenched teeth.

  They’d reached Main Street. Letting Lilly keep his hand as pain relief, Cort turned the corner with one hand on the wheel. The tires slid, then grabbed on the ice. Loser flipped onto his back, his legs churning as he slid across the seat into the door, then tumbled headfirst onto the floorboard.

  “Sorry, Buddy,” Cort apologized, grinning—despite his anxiousness—at the astonished look on Loser’s doggy face. “Keep breathing, Lilly—he-he-he…” he added for good measure.

  “The he-he-ing isn’t working!”

  The huge old house that seemed to be the cornerstone of the old town sprang into view through the dark night. It reminded Cort of a hotel rather than a house, and he could see how easily it had been turned into apartments.

  It was the prettiest sight he’d ever seen. Relief washed over him like cold water on a sizzling day.

  In the darkness his headlights illuminated the front porch as he whipped into the circle drive and skidded to a stop. Thankfully there were lights in the front window. They had electricity.

  His truck lights came to rest on an old pink Cadillac sitting out front, and his frenzied mind registered that it was an odd car, one he’d seen parked in town the few times he’d come in for feed.

  Who would drive such a car? he wondered for a split second before he slammed the truck into Park and wrenched his door open. “We’re here. No pushing yet!”

  With no time to waste, he jumped from the truck. Loser followed him to the door, as ready as Cort to exit the truck.

  His whiskered eyebrows shot up when Cort slammed the door, leaving him trapped inside the cab with Lilly. She was he-he-ing and huff-huffing like the little engine that could.

  Cort banged on the large carved door. After just a few moments it flew open, but it wasn’t Adela who stood in the lighted doorway. Instead it was Lacy Brown who greeted him with her wild white-blond hair, a bright orange-and-yellow T-shirt, hot-pink pajama bottoms and lime-green fuzzy slippers.

  She was not the Florence Nightingale he’d envisioned.

  “I need to push!” Lilly shrieked as Cort’s strong arms swept her through the doorway and into Adela’s home.

  “We’re almost there, babe. Where’s Ms. Adela?” he asked, striding toward the room Lacy pointed out for him at the front of the house.

  “She left earlier to visit her sister in New Mexico for a week and I’m house-sitting,” Lacy chirped, winking at Lilly. “And now I get to help deliver the first baby in Mule Hollow in ages and ages. Wow! Lay her right here, Cort. Lilly, this is gonna be exciting. God’s good, isn’t He?”

  Cort shot her a startled look and Lilly, despite her pain, laughed. Leave it to Lacy to look at what was happening as a blessing. Lilly wanted that kind of faith…that kind of joy. Lacy had used that same joy helping in Mule Hollow’s transformation, as well as when she helped track down a band of cattle rustlers. But that was a story for another time. Lilly needed to concentrate on the baby. Her pure love of the Lord was infectious and Lilly was glad to see her. She was one more blessing that God had sent Lilly’s way. Delivering a baby would be a piece of cake for Lacy. With the Lord’s help. Lilly needed all His help she could get.

  Lacy asked Cort to knock on the doors of the apartments and wake up all the ladies to help.

  Cort hesitated, and Lilly realized she was gripping his hand like a vise. But when she released the pressure he continued to hold her hand as if it were a delicate flower. He looked from her to Lacy. He didn’t want to leave her. He made her feel so special. Dampness gathered at the corners of her eyes. He was the special one.

  He was wonderful. His heart was huge. Though he’d tried for some reason to hide it, she knew the truth.

  Lacy slapped him on the shoulder. The sound crackled through Lilly’s thoughts and jolted her from her wistful reverie.

  “Hop to it, Cort. Let’s get this show on the road. I’ll call the ambulance, but the baby is coming fast. I need the other women.”

  But he didn’t move.

  Only when Lacy patted him on the shoulder and assured him she would take good care of Lilly did he make a move. Running a hand over her hair, he cupped her face. “You can do this, Lilly,” he encouraged her, then strode from the room.

  Cort was knocking on the first door he’d come to when he heard Lilly scream. He barely registered the wild-eyed woman who answered the door. She glared at him through the crack left by the bolt chain. “Baby. B-baby’s coming.” He knew he was stammering, but all he could think about was getting back to Lilly. Did she need him? “Please, wake up the other women and come help Lacy deliver Lilly’s baby.”

  “Baby?”

  “Yes. Help,” he added over his shoulder, already racing back through the doorway leading into the main part of the house. Behind him he could hear the sleepy woman fumble with the chain, then pad down the hall banging on doors.

  Cort took the elaborately carved stairs of the old mansion three at a time. Hot water and towels. Weren’t those things needed when delivering a baby? He’d reached the main floor when Lacy stuck her head around the door frame.

  “Towels. They’re in the bathroom.” She pointed across the hall, then disappeared back into the room. In two strides he was in the bathroom yanking open doors. Bingo! He snatched a towel, then grabbed the entire stack just as he heard Lacy yell his name.

  As he rushed back into the hall he registered three things: first, a mass of women stampeding down the stairs, second, Lacy rushing toward him with a huge grin plastered on her face and third, the tiny infant cradled in her arms.

  The tiny, blood-covered newborn…

  “Uh-oh.”

  Cort woke to the freezing chill of cold water splashing across his face. He coughed, sputtered, fought the rivulets filling his nostrils and then coughed some more. Wiping the water out of his eyes, he realized he was surrounded by women.

  One stood above him with a grin on her face and an empty pan in her hand. She was the one who’d thrown water on him! If she’d been a man he’d have belted him a good one. He gagged again, wiped more water out of his eyes and looked around at the women hovering over him. There was a woman patting him on the cheek and another fanning cold air on his chilled face. One woman stuffed a pillow under his aching head and another one threw a blanket over him and started tucking it in around him as if it was a straitjacket.

  He felt like a drowned rat. From his supine position on the floor, Cort could see through the doorway into the room where Lilly was, and he caught sight of Loser cowering under the bed, leery of the whirlwind of activity. Cort didn’t blame him—he wanted to hide, too. Fighting off the blanket, he started to sit up, only to be pushed back by a set of determined hands.

  “Not so fast, cowboy.”

  Cort shot a glare at the newspaper reporter, Molly Popp, and sat up anyway. He regretted it instantly—the rudeness and the sitting up—but he didn’t let it show. The other women backed away as he pushed himself off the floor, staggered then straightened.

  His world tilted again when one of the ladies opened the door wider and he spied Lilly sitting up holding her baby.

  She looked exhausted, but radiantly happy. She smiled at him and held out her hand toward him.

  She was beaming, sitting there holding her child.

  A knot formed in Cort’s stomach. An ache welled within him and it was all he could do to move toward them through the doorway. He was mesmerized.

  “Cort, you scared me to death. Are you okay?” She wiggled her fingers at him when he made no move to take the hand she held out to him.

  He’d held her hand all through the contractions, but now, looking at her slender fingers, he was petrified as he reached out and closed his large fingers about hers.

  “I’m fine,” he said, his voice gruff. He pushed aside the feelings threatening to overwhelm him. “I don’t seem to be able to handle the sight of blood. How are you?” he asked, cha
nging the subject, but genuinely interested in her well-being and that of the baby nestled in her arms. They made a perfect picture of peace.

  They made his heart ache.

  “Worn out but ready to fly,” she was saying, and he had to concentrate on her words. But his carefully constructed fortress was cracking up around him.

  “Have you ever, ever in your whole life seen anything quite so beautiful?”

  “Never,” he said, and knew he meant it. They were a vision, mother and child. The little boy had dark hair, and a full head of it.

  His children would have had dark hair.

  Shards of regret flew at him, ripping at his heart, the anguish of what he’d lost fighting to be free for all to see. He tried to swallow, but his throat was dry, as if he’d just eaten a spoonful of flour.

  “Okay, ambulance is on the way,” Lacy said, entering the room in a flurry of color and movement.

  She slapped him on the back, then hugged him, and he turned his attention back to reality and focused on her words, not his what ifs.

  “You did a great job getting her here,” she said. “Though I’m certain you want us all to forget about the little fainting episode, I have to tell you it was really cute.”

  She stepped over to Lilly and the baby and looked at him with a huge grin. “God works in weird ways sometimes. We’ve been trying to get Lilly to move to town. Trying to get her away from that lonely place way off out in the middle of nowhere. But she seems to like hiding out in the country all alone. Wouldn’t it have been horrible had you not moved in when you did? You, Cort Wells, are a gift from God.”

  He was no gift, of that he was certain. But the way he saw it, God used whoever was around when the need arose. And he didn’t want to think about what could have happened to Lilly if he hadn’t been there. Why would she endanger her life and her baby’s by stubbornly remaining alone out in the sticks with only Samantha?

  But, he reminded himself, it was none of his business. It was a hard reminder. They were tied by this event, by this great adventure…by this life changing bond, but it was still none of his business.

  And why did he keep thinking it was?

  “Lacy, the baby came early,” Lilly said, weariness weighing her words. “I was going to go stay in Ranger, near the hospital, as soon as my doctor thought the baby was ready to come.”

  “Yes, I know that. But you have friends here. You could have come and stayed with me and Sherri. We would have taken care of you.”

  Lilly blushed and looked down at her baby. “I know,” she said softly.

  Cort got the feeling she understood she could count on Lacy, but didn’t want to count on anyone. He knew the feeling well. He didn’t ever want to count on anyone again in his life.

  He needed a cup of coffee. He needed to stop wondering what made his neighbor tick. He needed to pull back, step away from all the goodwill going on around him.

  “You need anything?” he asked Lilly, fighting the need to take her in his arms as he had that first night in the barn. She’d felt so right.

  He pushed back the sentimental yearning. Too many things about Lilly rubbed him raw, and because of that he knew nothing had changed since that first night. He still needed a good, hard, swift kick in the head.

  She smiled up at him. “No,” she said, reminding Cort that he’d asked her if she needed anything. “I’ve got everything I need right here in my arms.” She kissed the top of her baby’s head. “You should go get some rest, though. Because of us, you didn’t get any sleep.”

  The picture of him lassoing her and yanking her to the floor in his horse barn flashed through his mind’s eye again. “This is my fault,” he said. In the distance he could hear the sound of a siren. The sound brought the full impact of the night into reality. His stomach rolled.

  “How did they get here so fast?” Cort asked.

  “They’re not stationed in Ranger,” Lacy explained. “They use the school as their central location to the surrounding areas. That way they can get to an emergency easier. But the baby came so fast I didn’t have time to call until after he was born.”

  “Knock, knock. Can anybody join this party?”

  “Clint!” Lacy exclaimed. “I’m so glad you made it before I went with Lilly to the hospital.”

  Cort watched her almost fly into the arms of her fiancé.

  “Looks like there’s been some excitement here,” he said, kissing the top of Lacy’s tousled hair and reaching out a hand to Cort at the same time.

  They’d met at the town celebration the night before. Cort shook his hand, glad to see a male face in a sea of females.

  “Excitement is a mild word for what’s been going on tonight. I thought this was a quiet little town,” Cort said just as he heard the ambulance whip into the drive.

  When everyone’s attention turned to the ambulance Cort turned back to Lilly. He was relieved she was about to get the help she needed. “You’re going to be all right now,” he assured her, reaching out to touch her soft cheek. “You were amazing tonight, Lilly.”

  The smile she gave him was tired, but her eyes were bright when she reached up and grasped his hand. “Thank you, Cort. What would I have done without you?” She said it so softly he had to lean down to hear her.

  The kiss she planted on his cheek surprised him.

  It was quick and neat and innocent—and had his mind reeling and his skin tingling. He wanted to take her in his arms.

  “Could I ask you one more favor?”

  “Anything you want,” he managed to get out above the turmoil the kiss had raised in him.

  “Could you look after Samantha while I’m at the hospital? It probably won’t be but for today, maybe tonight.”

  The emergency team entered the room in a flurry. “I’ll take care of everything. Don’t you worry about anything but this little boy. I’m going to get out of their way now, but you take care. Okay?” He started to reach out and touch the baby’s soft cheek, but stopped himself. Looking into the sleeping face of Lilly’s son, he felt a band of anguish tighten around his heart. He fought the lump forming in his throat and the burning behind his eyes.

  No use. Regrets belted him in the gut. Slammed into him so hard he wrenched away, hoping his pain wasn’t written on his face.

  It was time to go home.

  It was time to get back to reality.

  He’d come to Mule Hollow to make peace with God and a future he despised letting go of. And instead he’d run headlong into a wide-screen viewing of what he’d lost. Of what he’d never have.

  He glanced back before he reached the door, and it took every ounce of willpower he possessed to keep going.

  There was too much sitting on that bed that he’d always wanted.

  God was pushing buttons he didn’t need pushed.

  It hit Cort as it had for the past year that sometimes God asked too much of a man.

  He chanced one more look over his shoulder and watched them load Lilly onto the stretcher, then he strode from the room and out into the freezing night.

  The frigid air wrapped around him like the clamp that gripped his heart.

  Sometimes it wasn’t easy hanging on to God. Especially when it felt as if God had turned His back on him, trashed his life and expected him to sit up and be happy about it.

  Chapter Ten

  Lilly was home. At least, she thought it was her home. It had been overrun with people. Good, caring people. Loving people. Esther Mae and Norma Sue had made themselves at home when Lacy and Clint brought her and her newborn, Joshua, home from the hospital.

  For two days they’d taken care of her and entertained her. They were like Ethel and Lucy. Esther Mae had flaming red hair that just a few months earlier had been piled high on her head like the…well, Lilly couldn’t exactly come up with an analogy of what it had looked like, but it was really bad. Then Lacy came to town, cut it off and now Esther Mae looked like a million bucks.

  Most of the time.

  Like Lucy, Est
her Mae was loud and sometimes said the most goofball things. Things that made Lilly laugh out loud.

  Norma Sue was round, had kinky gray hair, a smile that could stretch from one end of Texas to the other, and a heart just as big.

  They were in the kitchen while Lilly rocked Joshua in the rocking chair in the corner of the living room. She paused in the lullaby she was singing and listened to them. They were such dears to come and take care of her. Her grannies would have appreciated their care of her.

  “So, I was telling Hank just the other day that we needed to go down there and get to know this Cort Wells,” Esther Mae said.

  Lilly could see them through the doorway as they cooked supper for her. She’d insisted that she was able to do for herself but they refused to listen, said they could do it for at least one more night. Lilly let them at last.

  “Roy Don said he talked to him a few days after he moved in and he thought Mr. Wells was just a loner. He said he didn’t get the feeling that the man was a grouch like the rumors that some of those old geezers started down at the feed store. And that was the opinion I got at the pageant when I met him.”

  Esther Mae sniffed. “Those old coots at the feed store need a life. Why, the man is a saint in my book. What would Applegate and Stanley know about that? The old meddlers.”

  “Now, Esther Mae, there you go letting things get to you. God loves those fools, too.”

  “No, the Bible says God has no pleasure in fools. Believe me, I looked it up. It’s just like a fool to start rumors about a poor fellow before he’s had a chance to take off his hat and put his feet up in a new town.”

  Lilly couldn’t help smiling. Esther Mae always did have a way with words. Of course, the best times were when she got her words mixed up, said one thing and meant another. Everyone still picked on her about having the stinkiest feet in Mule Hollow because she told everyone she wore Neutralizer shoes, rather than Naturalizers, because her feet were so bad. Norma Sue said Esther Mae was the only woman she knew who could take a perfectly serious sentence, change a word or two and turn it into a hilarious situation. Lilly understood, since she, too, had her own problems with words when she got tired.