The Littlest Cowboy (6 page)

Chelsea nodded. “Someone left her for dead, only she wasn’t quite. But she didn’t live long enough to make it to the hospital.”

It surprised her when a warm hand slid over her cold one on the bed. And she stared at it for a long moment. A big, powerful hand, only it wasn’t hurting. It wasn’t controlling or cruel. She pushed her brows together at the unexpectedness of that. And then the hand moved away, and Garrett cleared his throat.

“They gave me her things,” Chelsea went on. “There was a locket with Ethan’s picture. Your name and address were in a compartment in the back.”

“So you assumed I was the killer. And Ethan’s daddy.” Garrett shook his head.

“She named him after you.”

“And I still haven’t figured out why, or how she even knew me, or who she even was.” He shook his head slowly, such sincere regret in his eyes that he had her almost believing him.

Chelsea sat up, clutching the pink sheet to her chest. She pointed at the floor, where someone had slung her mud-spattered purse. “Hand me my bag, would you?”

Garrett nodded and retrieved the bag for her, returning to his seat with those slow, careful movements of his.

Chelsea dug out her billfold and opened it to the photo of her sister. She handed the picture to the big man at the bedside. “This is Michele, Ethan’s mother.”

Garrett narrowed his eyes as he studied the snapshot. Then they widened in recognition, and Chelsea knew, whether he’d admit it or not, that he’d known Michele.

“I remember her,” he said slowly.

“You do?” She hadn’t expected him to admit it.

He nodded. “It was last fall. I saw her out on the River Road, middle of nowhere, alone, with a flat tire on her beat-up old car.”

“And?”

“Well, I stopped and changed it for her, of course.” He looked at her as if she should have known that much. “She seemed jittery, as I recall. Had a scared-rabbit look to her that worried me. I invited her back here for supper that night, and she came. Adam and Ben were here then, too, so it was a houseful.” He shook his head, then his brows drew together again.

“Did she spend the night with you?” Chelsea knew her meaning was clear in her tone.

His head came up and he gave her a sharp look. “We invited her to stay over in the guest room. She refused. Said she had to be on her way. All told, she didn’t spend more than two or three hours under this roof.”

“It only takes a few minutes to get a woman pregnant,” Chelsea said.

Garrett sighed hard. “She was already pregnant. Ma’am, do you think your sister was stupid?”

She blinked and sat up in the bed, holding the sheet to her chest. “No. Michele was irresponsible and flighty and drawn to bad men, but she wasn’t stupid.”

He nodded, handing the photo back to Chelsea. “You said you heard from her for the first time in over a year, just before she was killed. Now, why do you think she called you then, after all that time?”

Chelsea drew a breath, braced her shoulders, taking full blame, which she deserved. “She knew…I think she was reaching out to me because she needed help.”

“You think she knew this S.O.B. was after her.”

Closing her eyes tight, Chelsea nodded.

“If it were you,” Garrett said, his voice deep and smooth, “and you had your own little baby boy in your arms and a man trying to kill you and no one to turn to, what would you do, Chelsea?”

Facing him without flinching, she said, “I’d cut the bastard’s heart out before he could do it to me.”

Garrett blinked, maybe in surprise. It had to be surprise in his eyes the way he stared at her for a full minute before he finally nodded and spoke again. “I do believe you would,” he said slowly, his gaze brushing her face from forehead to chin before focusing on her eyes again. “Fair enough, then. But what about Michele? Is that what she would have done?”

Chelsea’s lips trembled as she imagined Michele’s fear and desperation. She stared down at her sister’s image, then closed her eyes. “She never fought back, never in her life. When things got tough for Michele, she’d run. She’d run right back home to me, and I’d take her in, find her a job, bail her out, whatever she needed. Until the next slug came along with a mouthful of promises. Then she’d take off again.”

“So you think if she were scared this time, if she knew someone were trying to kill her, she would’ve run?”

Chelsea nodded.

“And what about the baby, Chelsea? It’s hard to run for your life with a baby.”

“She’d never have taken Ethan with her if she’d known she was in danger,” Chelsea said quickly. “She’d never risk him that way. I know my sister. She’d have found a safe place to hide him and then she’d have run as far and as fast as she could.”

She heard his sigh, his
relieved
sigh, and opened her eyes again to see him nodding in understanding. He held her gaze.

“Don’t you see it, Chelsea? That’s exactly what she did. We found little Ethan on our front porch day before yesterday. She left him here so he’d be safe.” He must have seen the doubt in her eyes, because he went on. “I live right here on the Texas Brand. Have all my life,” he said. “I run the ranch and I show up in a little bitty office in town every weekday with a star pinned to my shirt. Everybody in Quinn knows just about every move I make. I promise, I haven’t had time to be terrorizing any woman. I haven’t been to New York in years, either, and I can probably prove that if you’ll just tell me the date this boyfriend of your sister’s was there.”

He meant it. She could tell he meant it, and her doubts about his guilt were stronger than ever.

“My sister ran away with that cowboy last year on April first,” she said. “Bitter irony, isn’t it?”

“April Fools’ Day,” Garrett observed. “Okay. I’ll see if I can find some proof of my whereabouts that day for you.”

She studied him, wondering why, if he really was innocent, he wasn’t throwing her out on her backside. She’d stormed into his house in the middle of the night, accused him of murder and physically attacked him. He, in turn, had cooked her breakfast.

She looked down again at the omelet.

“It’s getting cold,” he told her.

“Doesn’t matter. I’m not hungry anyway.”

“When’s the last time you had a meal, Chelsea Brennan?”

Every time she heard her name spoken in those slow, drawling tones, she felt a chill run up her spine. She tried to remember when her last meal had been, found she couldn’t, then shrugged.

“You’ll be skin and bone if you don’t eat soon.”

His words made her remember the way Michele had looked in the morgue, and she felt cold inside.

“Just a little,” he urged. “I didn’t put too much spice in ‘em. If you want, though, I can run downstairs for the hot sauce.”

She almost smiled. Hot sauce on eggs? She forced herself to take a bite of the omelet, which melted on her tongue like butter. Garrett got up and poured coffee from the carafe, filling a fat clay mug with the steaming brew. He leaned close to hand it to her, and she caught his scent. It made her want to sniff more of it.

It scared her.

“I want my clothes,” she said, feeling uneasy and suddenly wishing this man were far away from her. “I want to take Ethan and go back to New York this morning.”

Garrett lowered his head. He looked truly sorry. “No. Not yet.”

“What do you mean, not yet?”

“I’m sorry. No, listen, I mean it. I am sorry. But I can’t just let you take off with Bubba until I know—”

“Bubba?”

“Er, Ethan. Look, you’re stuck here for today. There’s no two ways about that, so you may as well get used to the idea.”

Her fork dropped onto the plate and she glared at him. “You
can’t
keep me here against my will!”

“Sure I can. I’m the sheriff. And last night, you assaulted me. I can toss you in jail and I will, Chelsea Brennan, if you try to take Bu—Ethan out of this house today.”

“You son of a-”

“You insult my mamma, Chelsea, and you’re gonna regret it.”

She blinked and defiantly stuck out her chin. “What are you going to do,
Sheriff
Brand? You going to kill me the way you did my sister?”

He closed his eyes, shook his head slowly from side to side. “Damn. I give up.” He turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.

She knew it had been a cheap shot. Because she really didn’t have a reason in the world to suspect that big man of murder.

G
arrett stood in the hallway outside Jessi’s room and took a long, deep breath. It had been a long time since anyone had tested his temper as sorely as that hellcat, Chelsea Brennan, was doing.

Worse than that, she was beautiful. All of her. And there hadn’t been much hidden with nothing over her but that thin pink sheet of Jessi’s. It had clung to her. There’d been a little indentation over her belly button, and her breasts might as well have been exposed.

They were small and firm and….

He clamped his jaw against the tide of reaction that tried, once again, to sweep him away, tried not to think about the soft, pale color of her skin, or the satin texture of her neck and shoulders, or those pine-tree green eyes. He tried not to feel that small, china-doll hand, cool and trembling underneath his big callused one.

He couldn’t afford to have tender feelings for her. Hell, she’d come here to take little Bubba away to Lord only knew what kind of life! She was accusing Garrett of murder, to boot.

Easy enough to solve the latter problem. The former one bothered him, though. If she turned out to be Ethan’s aunt after all, then he’d have no right to keep that boy here.

Garrett sneaked into the guest bedroom where Ethan’s cradle was, and saw that the little pudge had decided to wake up at last. He was playing with his toes and drooling. A crooked smile tugged at Garrett’s mouth, and he went to the cradle. “Morning, Bubba.”

“Ga!”

He bent to pick up the baby, then thought better of it and removed the diaper first. Then the little T-shirt. He laid a fresh diaper under Ethan, but didn’t tape it up. “You lie there and kick for a minute while I run a baby-size bath for you.” Ethan’s huge smile and gurgles of joy followed Garrett into the bathroom. “Never did know a fella who enjoyed being buck naked the way you do, Bubba.”

He turned on the water.

C
helsea heard splashing, and the enthusiastic coos and chirps that went with it. Ethan! God, she’d come so far, waited so long to finally see him. That big lug of a sheriff might be able to keep her from taking him home, for the moment at least, but he couldn’t keep her from seeing him.

She got out of the pink bed, holding the sheet around her in case anyone barged in, and went to the closet. She found a satin robe. Pink, of course, and a bit too long for her, but she belted it around her waist anyway, tying the sash nice and tight. Then she left the bedroom, barefoot, and followed the sounds into the big bedroom down the hall. A cradle stood empty beside a made-up bed with a wagon-wheel headboard. And farther inside, another door stood open.

Chelsea moved toward it, then stood stock-still just beyond the doorway, staring in utter shock at what she saw. The fat, laughing baby slapping his hands against the water in the tub so that sprays of droplets exploded all over the place. And the big man kneeling on the floor beside the tub, one hand firmly around the baby for support, while the other ran a washcloth over a round little belly.

Garrett had stripped off his T-shirt. Not in time, by the looks of it. It lay on the floor in a wet ball. Water dripped from a brick-wall chest and bodybuilder arms, and from his hair. Its thick, dark waves hung in straggles, some clinging to his face.

And he was laughing as much as the baby. A deep, rich sound that made her shiver.

Ethan. Her little Ethan. He was staring up at Garrett Brand with adoration oozing from his deep blue eyes.

Damned if the big cowboy wasn’t looking back at the baby with something very similar shining from his brown ones.

Garrett turned, but never released his hold on Ethan. He’d tell her to get out, she guessed. He’d tell her to go back to the bedroom and stay there until further notice. He’d tell her–