And Baby Makes Five (9 page)

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.

L
illy 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, Esther 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.

“Lilly, what do you think?”

Lilly looked up from watching Joshua drift to sleep to find both women standing in the doorway.

“About?”

“About Cort Wells.” Esther Mae came into the room and sat on the sofa before the fire. “Is he as grumpy as App and Stan said?”

“Does he frown all the time and snap your head off when you ask him a question about his past?” Norma Sue came to sit in the chair beside Lilly. “I mean I met him the other night, but that was just for a few minutes. A person doesn’t always show all of his cards in the first game. So I was wondering what you’ve seen of the man. What do you think?”

“Well, I…” How to answer such questions? She hadn’t exactly been around Cort
that
much. Yes, he had saved her life. Who knew what might have happened if he hadn’t had the good sense to follow Samantha through the freezing sleet to her house? He was her hero. So her thoughts of him during the delivery were fond, even confusing, deep down inside.

Yes, he’d been kind of snippy in the barn after he’d thrown her to the ground. But that could simply have been due to the shock of realizing he had just roped a pregnant woman. It was a situation that seemed to highly agitate the poor man, and why not? It was pretty careless on her part to be out on such a night.

And yes, he was bossy and he got on her every nerve when he accused her of being neglectful of her pregnant state. But from where he was standing looking in, it could very easily appear that she
was
being careless. If she admitted it to herself, maybe she had been, without really realizing it. But who else was going to take care of things around here?

Despite it all, he had a way about him. A way of making her feel safe. Of making her want to be around him more.

And she couldn’t explain the need that kept plaguing her to find out what had happened in his past to account for the sorrow she saw in his eyes. The man tugged at her heart as nothing ever had, despite the fact that he made her angry at nearly every meeting. Every one prior to the night he’d rescued her and helped deliver her precious baby.

She cleared her throat and smiled at the ladies. She decided it was better if no one knew the turmoil Cort caused her. She schooled her emotions so that they didn’t play across her expression.

“Honestly I can only say that in such a highly stressful situation as I placed him, Cort Wells was the man for the job. He was amazing.”

“My,” Esther Mae said, relaxing against the cushions of Lilly’s great-great-granny’s couch. “That was well said. Norma Sue, don’t you think that was well said?”

Norma Sue was studying Lilly with an odd expression on her face. She looked over at Esther and they held eyes for a minute. Lilly got the distinct impression that she was missing something. Something important.

“How old a man would you say this Cort Wells is?” Norma Sue’s attention was back on Lilly.

Age? Age was something Lilly hadn’t thought about. She’d been raised by a band of grandmas. Age was never a factor. You were either older or you were younger. Hmm…Cort was older than her twenty-six years…but not much. “Maybe thirtysomething.”

“Cute, too?” Norma raised her eyebrows and Lilly got a twinge in her gut.

“Maybe. He has a hard edge to his looks. Like a stone wall. So
cute
isn’t exactly the word I would use to describe Cort. Handsome, yes.”

“Then how would you describe him, Lilly?” Esther scooted forward on the couch, her elbows on her knees, fist under her chin.

Lilly glanced down at Joshua, peaceful and blissfully content, and a sense of meaning surrounded her. This child, this darling boy was actually hers. She fought away the lump that threatened a rush of tears. God had truly blessed her. Then her thoughts turned to the man who had been sent to assure her baby’s safe birth, the man who had made Joshua’s contentment possible, and her heart got a weird heaviness around it. “Cort’s good-looking, there’s no denying it. But it’s the sadness in his eyes that makes him seem angry. I do wonder about that.” Had she said that out loud? He’d been so wonderful to her and to Samantha, and now she was blabbing about his personal business.

Norma Sue nodded and Esther Mae smiled. Seeing them looking at her, Lilly was overtaken by a sense of dread. What was going through their minds?
Oh, no!
No…no.
“No!”

“No what, dear?” Esther Mae cooed.

Lilly zeroed in on Esther and caught Norma with her peripheral vision. “Do not even begin to think that there is the prospect of a romance brewing here.” Lilly started rocking Joshua. “My grannies, bless their souls, were telling the truth when they said the Tipps women had no luck with men. Why, you saw what happened to me. You saw what happened one after the other to my mom and grannies. Men do not—and I repeat—men do not stick around.” Lilly didn’t want to think about this. She had overcome it. She was a Tipps. She had reconciled herself to a life alone. She and Joshua…the first boy in a long line of girls. The first boy who would naturally carry on the Tipps name. Why, she had even gotten back her sense of humor as her pregnancy had progressed.

This wasn’t a good thing, this idea of Norma and Esther’s. Yes, she still daydreamed about finding the man God had made for her…but that was all it was. A daydream. And yes, Cort Wells caused her to wonder, caused her heart to skitter and lunge, but…

“I know the two of you, and Adela and Lacy, have this thing about bringing women to Mule Hollow. And I know that all the women heading this way will eventually keep y’all busy. So you can just set your sights on them and leave me out of this matchmaking plan.” She was rattling. Rambling. Fumbling. “I stuck my neck out on Joshua’s dad, and that landed me flat on my face in his tracks eating his dust. Nope.” She rocked harder just thinking about the humiliation, the confusion. “Nada. No way. Not on your lives.”

Esther smiled. “Now, hold on to your belt loops, Lilly. Do you think that Norma and I would do anything that would upset you? We know that baby doesn’t need to have you all agitated. We were simply trying to get a feel for what you thought about the man. Remember, there were a few ladies there the other night when he brought you to Adela’s place. We’re just trying to get your opinion. Right, Norma?”

“Right, Esther. Lilly, when you said that about the sadness in his eyes, well,
naturally
we got to thinking that maybe falling in love would put a spark in the place of the sadness. God, after all, does say that it isn’t good for man to be alone. Maybe Cort needs a wife. Maybe that’s why God brought him to us. You do have to admit that Mule Hollow is a bit off the beaten track.”

Lilly hated it, but found herself pondering the thought.

“Yeah,” Esther agreed. “If it wasn’t an act of God, then what in the world would have brought the man here to Mule Hollow?”

Lilly had kind of wondered the same thing. What had led the man here? When she was in pain she had thanked God for sending him here. But other than being her hero, what had caused him to move to the remote ranch?

Cort led Ringo back to his stall, then headed toward the house. The bad weather had eased up and the sun was shining bright and clear. The unpredictability of Texas weather, especially west Texas, was a factor that Cort appreciated. As the old saying went, if you didn’t like the weather you were having today all you had to do was wait a day and it would change. It made winters tolerable.

The distant rumble of a truck had him pausing in the drive. For the past four days he’d watched one truck or car after another pass by as the town of Mule Hollow embraced their newest resident. He’d wondered how Lilly and Joshua were doing. He’d even tossed around the idea of checking in on them. But they’d had plenty of visitors making sure everything was all right. They didn’t need him nosing around.

Besides, there was nothing for him next door except another broken heart.

Slapping his hat on his thigh, he walked the rest of the way to the house. It wasn’t neighborly not to go. But then, who said he was neighborly? He hadn’t seen any Mule Hollow citizens beating down his door to welcome him to town.

And that was just the way he’d planned it. They’d leave him alone and he’d leave them alone. He was the one who’d started the talk about how mean he was when he’d chosen to be so cold to everyone.

Maybe he’d made a mistake. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt for him to find friends in Mule Hollow. Maybe his self-imposed solitude was off base.

Thoughts of Lilly and her baby had been repeatedly on his mind. After he’d watched them being whisked away in the ambulance four nights ago he’d driven to her house, put out the fire in her fireplace and closed the place up until her return. Then he’d gone to find Samantha.

The little donkey was nowhere to be found and he’d spent hours searching for her in the icy weather. He’d retraced his steps and found her slowly making her way toward Mule Hollow along the road at the edge of the trees. She was cold, tired and hungry, but in pursuit of Lilly. There was a loyalty in that donkey that Cort envied. He had been forced to leave her there on the side of the road, return home and get his small horse trailer. By the time he’d returned, loaded her and taken her home, the sunlight was bright in the morning sky.

Loading the obstinate animal had been an adventure of its own. Samantha wanted Lilly, and she wasn’t taking no for an answer. Cort had had to use every ounce of his experience as a horseman to get the little animal into the trailer.

She had pranced and danced away from him like a lumpy ballerina on ice. Cort had finally resorted to talking to the old girl, cajoling her with sweet talk and promises of carrots, apples and sweet feed.

Suddenly he was hit with a wave of guilt. He hadn’t come through on those promises.

He paused. He should take care of that. It wouldn’t hurt for him to go check on Samantha. With Lilly caring for her son, Samantha had more than likely not gotten the attention she was used to. She could probably use a little company. He sure could. Besides, if there was one thing Cort appreciated it was a sense of loyalty. Yep, he needed to make sure that Samantha’s loyalty was rewarded.

Lilly wouldn’t even have to know that he was out there in her barn. He’d just quietly drive over there and not disturb mom and child. Yep, they were probably holed up inside the house nice and toasty, sitting in front of a warm fire—that is, if they had enough firewood. He might check on that, too, while he was saying hi to Samantha. They would need firewood, and all those people may not have thought to check on her supply, thinking someone else had done it. He’d noticed her large stash of wood was a pretty good way from the house. Lilly shouldn’t have to be lugging firewood all that distance. She wouldn’t want to leave her baby alone all that time…. That’s what he’d do. He’d sneak right over there and check on things. Repay Samantha for her loyalty and make sure mother and child had everything they needed.