His Heart for the Trusting (3 page)

“Aren't you
going to give the bottle to the baby?”

“How would you
like to eat a cold steak for dinner?” she said softly, not wanting to jar the
baby.  Although he was still crying, the sobs weren't as extreme.  After a few
minutes she pulled the bottle from the water, tested it on her arm as she
walked back into the living room.  She perched herself on the edge of the sofa
and placed the nipple into the baby's mouth.  Immediately the infant took hold
and started suckling. 

“Oh, thank
God,” the man said, running both hands over his head as silence filled the
air.  “I thought he was never going to stop.”

“He was just
hungry.  That's all.  Babies can't skip meals like grownups can.”

“You must have
had a lot of practice doing this.  You're a natural.”

“I know a thing
or two about children.”

“What did you
do, raise all your brothers and sisters?”

“I volunteered
at a daycare for a while.”

 The man sat on
the opposite end of the sofa and appeared to finally relax a little.  “Daycare,
huh?  I'll have to remember that.  I'm eternally in your debt.”

Sara tossed him
a wry grin.  “That's a bit extreme, don't you think?  All I did was give him a
bottle.”

“You wouldn't
say that if you'd been here the last half hour.”

The man was really
staring at her for the first time now that he wasn't preoccupied with a crying
baby.  She shifted uncomfortably as his blue eyes pierced her and then seemed
to brighten just a notch.

“I know you. 
We've met before.”  His smile was of the high wattage variety, complete with
perfect white teeth and dimple marking his cheek.

Sara had
thought she'd recognized him and now that he seemed familiar with her, she
realized she must have at some point before she’d gone to Los Angeles. 

“I'd offer to
shake your hand, but they're a little busy.  I'm Sara Gre…uh, Sara Lightfoot,”
she said, catching herself when she almost gave him her former married name.

His face lit
up.  “We have met.  A long time ago here at the ranch.  Alice's daughter,
right?”

She nodded. 
“How do you know?”

“Mitch
Broader.  I started working here at the ranch on weekends my last year of high
school.”  

“Mitch.”  She
thought back to the years before she'd run away, before she'd met Dave and her
world shifted so rapidly.  “I remember a tall lanky kid with a colossal crush
on Mandy who always poked around the barn whenever we were around.”

He shot her a
lopsided grin that made her insides flutter just a bit.  “And all this time I
thought I was being charming.”

Sara chuckled.

“Your mother
didn't mention anything about you coming home.”

Anxiety hit her
square in the stomach.  “She didn't know.”  Trying to turn the attention off
her, she asked, “What's the baby's name?”

“Jonathan.”

“Well, hello
there, Jonathan,” she crooned as she stared down at the baby in her arms.  He’d
taken the bottle quickly and was now on his way to falling back to sleep.

“Is his mom
outside helping with the barn raising?”

Mitch groaned. 
“If I know Lillian, she's probably out raising Cain.”

She felt a frown
crease her forehead.  “Then, this is your baby?”

“I...I'm not
sure.”

“You don't
know?”

Mitch's face
grew tight.  “He's my responsibility right now.  Beyond that I know about as
much as you do.”

“I'm sorry.  I
didn't mean to pry.”

 “Forget it. 
At least you got him to stop crying.  I never knew how good silence sounded.”

She looked down
at the tiny infant, who seemed drugged by the formula he'd just consumed.  “He
looks just like you, you know.”

“He's a baby. 
All babies look alike,” Mitch said, the tension back in his face.

But it
instantly vanished as the screen door slammed shut and the two of them looked
up at the doorway leading to the kitchen. 

Sara's stomach
wound into a tight knot and she quickly handed the sleeping baby back to
Mitch. 

“Sara.  Sara,
is that you?”  

# # #

Chapter Two

She knew the
voice without even looking at her face.  It sent a rush of childhood memories
flowing through her, settling in her heart.

When she turned
back to the doorway, Sara found Mandy standing in the doorway. 

“Uncle Hank
thought he saw you walk into the house.  Aunt Corrine said it couldn't possibly
be.  But I knew better,” she said quietly, her hands clutched together over her
ample belly.

Sara shrugged. 
“You didn't tell anyone about your visit to LA?”

“You asked me
not to,” Mandy said, coming into the room now.  She stood in front of Mandy and
looked her up and down.

“God, you look
terrific,” Mandy said.  “You cut your hair shorter.”

Sara's fingers
instinctively went to her much shorter hair.  Dave had said that her long hair
was what attracted her to him during the short time they dated, but it was the
first thing he'd insisted she change when they moved to Los Angeles.  He didn't
want her to be the little Indian girl he'd fallen in love with.  She wasn't
glamorous that way.  Or so he'd said.  At the time, she agreed.  So she'd cut
her hair and colored it.  Back then, she just wanted to please him.  Now she
hated herself more than him for it.          

“I'm still
deciding on it.”

“No, it looks
perfect for you.  Come here and give me a hug.”

“It's so good
to see you again, Mandy.”  The initial anxiety of coming home and facing her
past was beginning to ebb.  Sara had known it would be difficult to see
familiar faces again,  But seeing Mandy made things easier.

“You didn't
tell my mother?”

Mandy pulled
from her embrace, still holding her shoulders.  “No one knew.  You weren't
certain you'd be coming so I didn't see any reason to get anyone's hopes up.”

Sara gave a wry
laugh.  “I suppose with my track record that was a good idea.”

“Never mind
about that.  It took a lot of guts to leave LA.”

“No.  Leaving
LA was easy.  Leaving Dave...now that was harder than I imagined.”

Sara and Mandy seemed
to fall into such companionable conversation that the years apart didn't feel
as long as they actually were.  And yet, in some ways it felt like forever.

Mandy reached
out and hugged her again.  Emotion rose up her throat and lodge there, leaving
her to think about how very different her life would be now if Mandy hadn't
valued their friendship enough to seek her out again in California.

“I'm sweating,”
Mandy said, her voice cracking, letting Sara know that emotion had gotten the
best of her as well.

“I don't care,”
she replied, laughing through her tears. 

“I'm going to
ruin your silk suit.”

“I'll buy
another one.  I've missed you.”

It was one
thing to be greeted so warmly by Mandy.  It was something altogether different
with her parents.  The way she'd left, and how she'd been since leaving the
reservation, left a lot to be desired.  Family was so important to the Apache
people, and Sara had tossed hers away like a piece of crumpled newspaper.

“My mother, is
she here?”

Mandy glanced
at her, tears clinging to her eyelashes, and shook her head.  “She was here
earlier, but wasn't feeling all that well.  Corrine sent her home.  She'd been
working so hard to get ready for the barn raising and...well...”

“What?”  Fear
settled deep in the pit of Sara's stomach.  “Is something wrong with her
health?”

“Oh, no. 
Nothing like that.  She's just been tired lately.  And you know Alice.  She's
such a workhorse.  You can't get her to slow down enough to take a breath.”

Vaguely
disappointed that she'd missed her mother, Sara contemplated her next step. 
She was going to have to surprise her parents by going to the reservation.  It
would have been easier to meet her mother at the Double T with the support of
close friends surrounding her.  Now she'd have to face her family alone.

* * *

Mitch felt out
of place watching Sara and Mandy's homecoming.  So, instead of eavesdropping,
he focused his attention on a homecoming of a different kind in the way of the
sleeping baby in his arms. 

What did he
know about the bond between children and their parents?  His own childhood
wasn't the greatest.  If this were his kid, as Lillian claimed, wouldn't he be
able to feel it?  Wouldn't there be some spark of emotion inside of him for
this child?

His pulse
pounded against his skull like a jackhammer just thinking about it.  If this
was his kid, he fully intended to do his part.  But what if it was just another
one of Lillian's ploys?  He'd learned firsthand she didn't care much about who
she hurt when she wanted something.  The only question was, what did she want?

Adding an
innocent child to one of her schemes was definitely something Mitch didn't
think even Lillian would stoop to. 

Mitch couldn't
help but feel sorry for the baby.  If he wasn’t this baby’s daddy, then this
baby would be mighty lonely without a father in his life.  And that was
something Mitch knew about first hand.

But what if
Jonathan was his son?  He didn't have a clue of what to do?  There was so much
work at the ranch now that they'd expanded to include the new rodeo school. 
Hank, owner of the Double T Ranch and Mandy's uncle, was hardly in a position
to take on more even though last year's bypass surgery had brought him back up
to speed again.  No one, especially Mitch, was willing to risk him having a
relapse.

Mitch didn't
have much of a choice.  He'd have to hire a ranch hand on his own and pay him
out of his own wages from the ranch to take on some of his work.  It wasn’t
right to expect Hank to take on that responsibility.

Or a nanny. 
Yeah, that would work, Mitch decided as he carefully held the baby so as not to
rouse him.  The last thing he needed was a screaming repeat of the half hour
before Sara had arrived.  Much as he hated to admit it, he couldn't do this
alone.  He'd have to get someone to take care of the kid so he could do his
job.

His eyes were
drawn to the baby in his arms.  He was warm and smelled of something sour and
something sweet like baby powder.  Jonathan was his name.  He looked miniature
in Mitch’s arms, as if he were a toy baby doll, not a real baby.

Mitch wished he
knew more about babies to figure out if this baby was really his.  He didn't
see any resemblance to him.  Sara had.  But looks alone didn't make him the
father.

This wasn't
exactly how he'd envisioned working the ranch.  Somehow having a kid strapped
to him wasn't part of his plans. 

“First thing we
need to do is find your momma, little one,” he said quietly.  “Don't you
worry.  We'll get to the bottom of this.”

With the sound
of his voice, the baby’s eyes flew open and he started to squirm.  His little
face skewed and turned bright crimson with one look at Mitch, and in an
instant, Jonathan let out a howl to beat the wolves.

“Perfect.” 
Mitch yanked himself off the sofa and raced to the kitchen where he'd last
heard Mandy and Sara, hoping he'd find Sara still there.

Sara turned
around and immediately looked at the crying baby and then at Mitch.  Tears
glistened in her dark brown eyes and her shiny brown hair was slightly mussed
from her embrace with Mandy.  He felt like a jerk for asking for her help
again.

“Now what did
you do to him?” Sara said, sniffing.

“Nothing.  He
just woke up and looked at me.”

“What did you
expect, you're a stranger,” she said, using the same calm tone she'd used
before when she'd first come into the house.

“You're a
stranger too, and he doesn't cry like that with you?”  

“Here, let me
take him.”

Feeling like a
complete imbecile, Mitch handed Jonathan to Sara.  In a skilled move, she
transferred the baby to her shoulder.  With some light tapping on the baby’s
back with her fingers, his crying subsided within a few seconds.  How on earth
did she do that?

Frustrated, he
threw up his hands in despair.  “This is ridiculous.  How can I possibly take
care of a kid when I don't know a thing about them?  I need to find Lillian.”

“I wish I could
be more help, Mitch,” Mandy said, dreamily looking at the baby.  “But I told
you, she just took off without saying a word about when she was coming back or
even if she was coming back.”

He sighed,
feeling dread and helplessness settle deep in the pit of his gut. 

“His mother
just left him?” Sara asked, horrified.

Mandy nodded. 
“That's right.  Aunt Corrine tried to ask her but she headed for the door and
said, 'I did my part by bringing him into the world, now it's Mitch's turn to
take over.'  She was gone before we could even figure out what had happened. 
She didn't waste time for even a last good-bye kiss for Jonathan.”

He watched Sara
holding the baby as if having a baby in her arms were as natural as breathing. 

Her eyes held
sadness when she spoke.  “You know Mitch, single parents do this all the time. 
I've seen it at the daycare.  Mind you, it's not easy, but you can do it.  You
just have to figure out your options.”

Yeah, he could
do it.  Hadn't he made it this far on his own?  Growing up in an abusive home
left him fiercely independent.  He'd learned to rely on himself and it had
gotten him where he was today.  Now all he had to do is figure out how to
manage it with a baby.

“Maybe so, but
I'm going to need some help.  Anyone with an ounce of sense can see that,”
Mitch said.  “At least until I find Jonathan's mother.”

“I can't speak
for Corrine, but I'll help you any way that I can.”

He smiled at
Mandy's offer.  “Thanks Mandy, but I couldn't do that to you.  In a few months
you're going to have your hands filled caring for your own baby.”