Buch lesen: «The Maverick's Christmas Baby»

Chapter One

“Oh, this is not good...” Nina Crawford said to herself as she cautiously pulled her SUV to a stop at the sign on the isolated country road outside her hometown.

Mother Nature had not been kind to Rust Creek Falls this year. First a summer flood had devastated the small Montana town, and now—still in the midst of trying to recover from that—it was being hit by a December blizzard.

The weather report had predicted only a moderate storm that would arrive later tonight. Nina ran her family’s general store in town and, trusting that weather report, when an elderly, arthritic customer on an outlying farm had called in and asked that a heating pad be delivered to her, Nina hadn’t hesitated to leave the store in the hands of her staff and grant that request. And even when that lonely elderly woman had offered Christmas cookies and chamomile tea, Nina still hadn’t had any worries about spending an hour visiting.

But the sky had grown increasingly ominous and dark with storm clouds, and when the first few flakes began to fall much earlier than they were supposed to, Nina had left.

Only to find herself miles from home when the howling winds had whipped that snow into a blinding frenzy.

Temperatures had plummeted rapidly, and already the snow was freezing to the windows of Nina’s SUV, adding to the limitations of her vision. She rolled down her window, hoping to be able to better see if another vehicle was coming from her left.

It didn’t help much. Visibility was low. Very, very low.

She studied the crossroads, searching for anything that might give her an indication that another car was coming. But she didn’t see any approaching headlights in the whiteout conditions, and all she could hear was the screaming wind. So, hoping the coast was clear, she rolled up her window and ventured into her right turn.

But the moment she got out onto the road she did see headlights. Coming straight for her.

Trying to avoid a collision she swerved sharply, and so did the other vehicle.

The next thing Nina knew her SUV was nose-down in a ditch and she’d fallen pregnant-belly-first into the steering wheel.

Which was when she felt the first pain.

“No, no, no, no...”

Fighting the rise of panic, she did what she could to push herself back from the steering wheel—which at that angle was no easy task.

Her due date was January 13. It was currently two weeks before Christmas. If her baby was born now it would be a month early.

She couldn’t deliver a month early.

She couldn’t....

A pounding on her side window startled her and the fright didn’t help matters.

“Are you all right?” a man’s voice shouted in to her.

Her SUV hadn’t hit anything so her airbag hadn’t activated and the engine was still running. But dazed and scared, she didn’t know if she was all right. She just couldn’t think straight.

Then the door was opened from the outside. And standing there was Dallas Traub!

It wasn’t exactly encouraging to see a member of the family that had been at odds with her own for generations.

“Are you all right?” he repeated.

“I don’t know. I may be going into labor. I think I need help....”

“Okay, stay calm. My truck is stuck, too, on the other side of the road. But at least it isn’t nearly up on end the way you are. If we can get you out of here you can lie down in my backseat.”

Fear and the dull ache in her abdomen robbed Nina of the ability to argue. Traub or not, he was all there was and she was going to have to accept his aid.

“Can you turn off the engine?” he asked.

That made sense but it hadn’t occurred to Nina. And, yes, she could do that, so she did, leaving the keys in the ignition.

“I’m glad to see that you can move your arms. Do you have feeling everywhere—arms, legs, hands, feet?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hit your head? Do you have any neck pain?”

“No, I didn’t hit my head and I don’t have any neck pain. I just hit the steering wheel.”

“Are you bleeding from anywhere? Did your water break?”

As odd as it seemed, not even a question that personal sounded out of place at that point.

“I don’t think I’m bleeding, no. And I’m perfectly dry....”

“Good. All good,” he judged. “Would it be okay if I lifted you out of there?”

“I think so....”

“Let me do all the work,” he advised. Sliding one arm under her legs, the other behind her back, he gently but forcefully pulled her toward him until she found herself extracted from behind the wheel and cradled against his big, masculine chest.

“Maybe I can walk....” Nina said.

“We’re not going to take any chances,” he responded, wasting no time heading across the road.

The man was dressed in a heavy fleece-lined suede jacket, but Nina had to assume that he was all muscle underneath it because he carried her as if she weighed nothing. And when he reached the white truck that was nearly invisible in the snow blowing all around it, he even managed to open the rear door on the double cab.

Another cramp struck Nina as he eased her onto the backseat and her panic must have been obvious to him because he said, “It’s okay. Just breathe through it. It’ll pass and we’ll get someone out here before you know it.”

“And if my baby doesn’t wait for that?” Nina nearly shouted over the wind.

“I’ve been in a delivery room for three of my own kids and birthed more animals than I can count—if it comes to that, I can take care of it. We’ll be fine.”

It crossed her mind to call him a liar because nothing about this was at all fine. But there was actually something soothing in his composure, in his take-charge attitude, and Traub or not, Nina had to hope that he really could get her through this if need be.

Just please don’t let there be the need....

“We should conserve fuel, so I’ll turn on the engine long enough to get it warm in here, then we’ll turn it off again,” he explained, closing the rear door and getting into the front of the cab from the passenger seat to slide across and turn the key in the ignition. “But I’m going to leave my hazards flashing, to make sure anyone approaching can see us in the snow.”

Warm air instantly drifted back to Nina but she was feeling more uncomfortable lying down, and she pushed herself to sit up to see if that helped.

It actually did and she explained that. “Just see if you can get someone out here to us,” she instructed.

That was when he tried his cell phone and found that he had no reception.

“Try mine,” Nina said, taking it out of the pocket of her wool winter coat to hand to him, fighting renewed panic.

But her phone was as useless as his was.

“Oh, God...” Nina lamented as every muscle in her body tensed.

“Another contraction?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” she answered, so scared she wasn’t sure what she was feeling beyond that.

He angled sideways in the front seat. “We’re gonna be fine. I promise,” he said in a way that made her believe it and relax a little again.

Until he said, “There are pockets out here where you can get cell reception if you just hit one. I’ll walk out a ways and see if maybe—”

“No! You can’t leave!” Nina said in full-out panic once again. “You know the stories about farmers getting lost in storms like this just trying to find their way between their house and barn. You can’t go!”

“I do know the stories,” he said.

Then he slid to the passenger side again and got out of the truck.

A moment later he climbed into the backseat with her, carrying a thick coil of rope she’d heard him drag out of the truck bed. He rolled down the rear passenger window, held one end of the rope and tossed the rest of the coil through the window. Then he rolled the window up again, catching the rope in a small gap at the top of it.

“Okay...” he said then, handing her the end of the rope that he’d retained. “Hang on to this, I’ll hang on to the other end and I won’t go any farther than the length of it. If you need me, just yank and I’ll come right back. Otherwise, I’ll use it to make sure I can get back.”

“You’ll be careful?”

“I will be. And I’ll leave the engine running to keep you warm in the meantime. All right?”

“I suppose,” Nina agreed reluctantly, holding on to that rope with a tight fist.

Dallas Traub wrapped his hand around hers and squeezed. “Everything is going to be okay,” he said confidently.

Her own hand wasn’t cold, and yet his around it felt even warmer. It was also slightly rough and callused, and the size and strength of it along with those signs of hard ranch work all infused her with more of a sense of calm and a renewed belief that he could and would take care of her. Traub or not. Regardless of what happened.

Nina even managed to smile weakly. “Be careful,” she said, thinking of his safety, too.

“I will.”

He let go of her hand and Nina was surprised to find herself sorry to lose his touch. Which was what she was thinking when he opened the door, ducked under the rope and got out, leaving her alone. And sorry to lose his company, too. His comforting presence.

The touch, the company, the presence of a Traub.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply again, willing herself to settle down for the sake of her baby, willing her baby to rest, to stay put, not to be born today....

Then another cramp struck.

“Please, no, not yet,” she begged her unborn child and the fates, as if that could stop things if she really was going into labor.

How long had Dallas Traub been gone? It seemed like forever and Nina looked across the front seat through the windshield, hoping to spot him. But all she could see was snow.

She caught sight of herself in the rearview mirror then and realized that the stocking cap she had on was askew. For some odd reason she regretted that Dallas had seen her looking so disheveled, so she straightened the cap. She also gave in to the urge to fluff her hair a bit where the long brown locks cascaded from beneath the cap past her shoulders.

Her ordinarily pink cheeks were quite pale and she reached up and pinched them to add some color. Her mascara had survived the accident and all that followed it without smudging beneath her very dark brown eyes, but unfortunately her thin, straight nose had a bit of a shine that she didn’t like to see.

She tried to blot that with the back of her hand, regretting that she’d left her purse in her SUV with her compact in it. And with her lip gloss in it, too.

Not that, in the midst of possible peril, she was actually thinking about putting on lipstick to accentuate lips she sometimes thought were not full enough. She merely wanted to moisten those lips to keep them from chapping, she told herself. Certainly it wasn’t that she cared at all what she looked like at that moment. Especially to a Traub. When she’d just had a car accident. When she could potentially be going into labor.

But, oh, she wished this particular Traub would come back....

She considered yanking on the rope just to get him to, but she didn’t let herself. They needed help and if there was any chance that he might find cell reception she couldn’t cut that short.

But soon, come back soon....

Then, as if in answer to her silent plea, the rear passenger door opened and there he was.

She also didn’t understand why the way he looked registered in that instant, but she was struck by how tall and capable-looking he was. She guessed him to be about six foot three inches of broad-shouldered, Western masculinity.

But it wasn’t merely his size that impressed her. He was remarkably handsome—something else that she’d never noticed in all the times they must have crossed paths around Rust Creek Falls.

Nina knew all the Traubs in general, but she’d never really noted much about them in any kind of detail. Now it struck her that Dallas really did have rugged good looks with a squarish forehead, a nose that was a bit hooked, but in a dashing sort of way, lips that were full and almost lush, and striking blue eyes that had enough of a hint of gray to add more depth than she’d ever have attributed to a Traub.

“Did you get a call out?” she asked as he extracted the end of the rope through the window, tossed the re-coiled mass into the truck bed again and then climbed into the backseat with her, closing the door and the window after himself.

“No,” he said. “We’re really in a dead zone out here. But don’t worry about it. Somebody will come looking for us. My folks are stuck at home with my three boys—believe me, before too long they’ll start to wonder where I am.” Then he switched gears and asked, “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay....” Nina answered uncertainly.

“Any more pains?”

“One,” she admitted.

“And how about heat? Think we can turn it off for a little while?”

“Sure. If you’re warm enough.”

He stood to lean over the front seat to reach the key, and Nina found herself sneaking a glance at him from that angle.

He was wearing jeans that hugged an impressive derriere and thick thighs, and she knew she had no business taking note of any of that.

Then the engine went off and he sat back down, turning toward her and perching on the very edge of the seat so he could pull down the rear cushion as he said, “There should be a blanket in here...”

He produced a heavy plaid blanket from the compartment hidden behind the seat.

“You’re probably not going to like this, but we’ll both stay warmer if we share the blanket and some body heat,” he said then.

“It’s okay,” Nina agreed, knowing he was right.

And not totally hating the idea of having him close beside her or of sharing the blanket with him. But she didn’t analyze that.

Opening the heavy emergency blanket, he set it over Nina and reached across her to tuck it in on her other side.

Then he sat near enough to share the warmth he exuded and laid it across himself, too.

“You’re sure you feel better sitting up?” he asked.

“I am.”

“If something changes and you need to lie down just let me know....”

“I will,” Nina said.

She did slump a little more into the blanket, though. And somehow that brought her a bit closer to him, too. But he didn’t seem to mind that she was slightly tucked to his side and it seemed as though it might be insulting if she moved away again, so she pretended that she didn’t notice.

“So...” he said when she was settled, turning his head toward her and looking down at her. “You’re Nina Crawford, right? You run the General Store in town?”

Apparently Dallas Traub wasn’t any clearer about the details of his Crawford rivals than Nina was about the Traubs. And since they’d never had any one-on-one, face-to-face contact before this, Nina was even surprised that he knew her name.

“I’m Nina, right. And yes, I run the store.” The store that the Traubs rarely frequented, making it well-known that they chose to do their shopping in nearby Kalispell rather than give business to the Crawfords.

“I’m Dallas—in case you didn’t know....”

“You live on your family’s ranch—the Triple T, right?”

“I do work on the ranch, but I have my own house on the property. I’m divorced, and with three boys—Ryder, who’s ten, Jake, eight, and Robbie, who just turned six a couple of weeks ago.”

“And you have custody of them?” Nina asked, recalling that no one was too sure what had happened to his marriage, but that it had ended about this time last year. Gossip had been rampant and she remembered thinking that, since he was a Traub, his wife had probably just wised up. Nina hadn’t found it so easy to understand why his ex-wife had left her kids behind, though.

Now, appreciating the way Dallas had been caring for her, appreciating the effort he was putting into distracting her by making conversation, how just plain kind and friendly he was being toward her, she had less understanding of his wife’s leaving him, too.

“Yep, it’s all me, all the time...” he said somewhat forlornly and without any of the confidence he’d shown in every other way since he’d opened her car door. “Not that my family isn’t good about helping out—they are. But still—”

“You’re the Number One in Charge. Of three kids.”

“And there’s nothing easy about being a single parent,” he said, clearly feeling the weight of it. His gaze went for a split second in the direction of her middle. “I guess I don’t know many specifics about the Crawfords,” he said then. “I probably know the most about your brother Nate now, just from the election for mayor—”

“Since he was running against your brother Collin and lost,” Nina pointed out.

“But I don’t think I knew you were married or pregnant....”

“Pregnant, not married. Never have been.”

“But you were with someone weren’t you? Leo Steadler? He did some work for us a couple of years back and—”

“I was with Leo for four years.” Four years that had led only to disappointment.

“But he left town, didn’t he?”

Nina could hear the confusion and suspicions that were mounting. “He did.”

“Rather than stepping up?”

There was outrage in that that made Nina smile. “The baby isn’t Leo’s.”

“Oh.”

She smiled again, having a pretty good idea what he was filling in the blanks with. The same things her own family had assumed—first that the baby was Leo’s, then that she’d had some kind of rebound fling that had resulted in an unwanted pregnancy.

But they were all wrong. And since she wasn’t ashamed of the choice she’d made and had been perfectly honest with everyone else, she decided to be perfectly honest now, even with Dallas Traub.

“After four wasted years with Leo, when it ended I decided I wasn’t going to wait for another man to come along.” And make more empty promises of someday. “There was no telling how long it might take to meet someone—”

“If ever,” he muttered as if he held absolutely no optimism when it came to finding a soul mate.

“And then what?” Nina went on. “What if I used up another year or two or three or four and found myself right where I was after Leo? I’d just be older and I still wouldn’t have the baby I’ve always wanted. The family. And sometimes you just have to go after what you want, regardless of what anyone else thinks. So I took some time off, went to a sperm bank in Denver without telling my family—”

“You just did that on your own?”

“I did,” Nina said with all the conviction she’d felt then still in her voice. “I didn’t see the point in sitting through people trying to talk me out of it, so I just did it. And, voilà! The magic of modern medicine—I’m having the baby I want, on my own.”

Looking up at him, Nina watched him nod slowly, ruminatively, his well-shaped eyebrows arching over those gray-tinged blue eyes. “Wow,” he said, as if he didn’t quite know what to make of her. “My family is very big on marriage and would freak out over something like that. How did yours take it?”

“They freaked out,” Nina confirmed. “But when the dust settled...” She shrugged. “I’ve always been my own person and strong-willed and...well, hard to stop once I put my mind to something. My family has just sort of gotten used to that. And a baby? That’s a good thing. So after the initial shock, they got on board.”

“I’d say that was a good thing, otherwise having a baby on your own might be kind of an overwhelming proposition.”

“But I just didn’t want to wait anymore.”

“You seem kind of young for the clock to be ticking loud enough to go that route.”

“That was something my family said. I’m twenty-five, so sure, my age isn’t an issue. Except that I’ve always wanted to have kids fairly young, in my twenties. I don’t know how old you are, but if you have a ten-year-old, that’s probably about when you got started, isn’t it?”

“I’m thirty-four, so yeah. Ryder was born when I was twenty-four.”

“And that means that you have the chance to be around to see your kids at forty, at fifty or sixty. To know your grandchildren and maybe even your great-grandchildren. That’s how I want it, too. Family is the most important thing to me. As far as I’m concerned, that’s what life is about.”

“But isn’t it about doing all that with a partner?” he asked, still sounding baffled.

“Ideally. But look at you—there are no guarantees that even if you start out with a partner you’ll end up with one.”

“Yeah...” he conceded a bit dourly. “It’s just...single-parenthood is a tough road. I’m never sure whether or not I might be dropping the ball in some way. Especially lately...”

Nina was curious about that, but out of the blue a pain more severe than any she’d felt yet hit her, pulling her away from the back of the seat.

Dallas sat up just as quickly, angled toward her and put an arm around her from behind.

“It’s okay,” he said in that deep masculine voice that she was finding tremendously soothing. “Just ride it out. Don’t fight it. Breathe...”

She tried to do all of that, but this pain was sharp. She closed her eyes against it and the renewed fear that came with it.

“It’s okay,” he repeated. “It’ll all be okay.”

Then she felt him press his lips to her temple in a sweet, tender, bolstering kiss that she knew had to have been a purely involuntary reaction of his own when he didn’t know what else to say to her.

The pain disappeared as fast as it had come on, and Nina wilted.

The fact that she wilted against Dallas Traub was also not something she thought about before it just seemed to happen.

But he held her as if it were something he’d done a million times before, and it seemed perfectly natural for her head to rest against his chest.

“There was a long time between pains,” Nina said when she was able. “I thought they’d stopped.”

“It’s good that they aren’t coming with any kind of regularity. Real labor is like clockwork. Maybe these are just muscle spasms.”

The baby had been moving and kicking normally as they were talking so it didn’t seem as if it was in distress, but still, there was nothing heartening about the situation.

“But you know,” Dallas said in a lighter vein. “If I end up delivering this guy you’ll have to name him after me—Dallas Traub Crawford.”

That did make Nina laugh. “Both of our families would freak out over that,” she said. “And I haven’t let them tell me if the baby is a boy or a girl—I want to be surprised.”

“The name still works even if it’s a girl.”

“Dallas Crawford.” Nina tried it on for size and then laughed again. “Let’s see...first I had to convince everyone that Leo isn’t the father, that I actually had artificial insemination. Then we’ll throw you into the mix? I can just imagine the rumors.”

“Rust Creek’d be talking about it for years.”

“And both of our families would probably stop speaking to us for consorting with the enemy.”

“Seems possible,” Dallas agreed with a laugh of his own.

Headlights suddenly appeared through the snow, coming from the direction of town, and within moments a vehicle pulled up beside them.

“What did I tell you? Help has arrived,” Dallas said.

Nina sat up and away from him, regretting the loss of his arm around her when he let go of her and turned to open the door.

Gage Christensen, the local sheriff, was standing just outside.

“You out here joyriding?” Dallas joked, but Nina heard the relief in his tone.

“When the storm hit your mother called the farm where you were delivering hay to find out if you’d left there. They said you had, and since you hadn’t gotten home, she called me.”

Dallas glanced over his shoulder at Nina. “What did I tell you? The thought of being stuck for too long with my three boys got the troops sent out to find me in a hurry.”

Then, back to Gage Christensen, he said. “I have Nina Crawford in here and I think she needs to get to the hospital in Kalispell—the sooner the better....”

So he was clearly more worried about her condition than he’d originally let on.

“Looks to me like I can pull around behind you and push you forward enough to get you going. Then I’ll do the hospital run,” Gage Christensen said.

“Why don’t you get me out of this ditch and just follow us? It’s probably not a great idea to move Nina but I’d like to know we have some backup. And maybe after the storm someone can come out here and get her SUV.”

Nina was surprised that Dallas hadn’t jumped at the opportunity to be off the hook. But she appreciated that he hadn’t, that he still seemed concerned for her.

“Let’s see what we can do,” the sheriff said, returning to his own vehicle.

Turning back to Nina, Dallas grasped her upper arm in one of those big hands and squeezed. “Just relax, we’ll be on the way before you know it,” he said, once more sounding confident.

Nina nodded, relieved that they were going to get out of there.

Then Dallas left, closed the rear door, and came in from the passenger side of the front seat to slide across and restart the engine, turning on the heat again.

It wasn’t long before there was a slight bump to the rear of Dallas’s truck. Then there was the sound of spinning tires and the feel of the truck inching forward until Dallas’s wheels caught enough traction to move onto the road.

“Now we’re cooking,” he said victoriously.

“My purse—I should have my insurance card,” Nina said as it became clear that they actually were going to be able to travel.

“I’ll get it,” he said, coming to a slow stop, then rushing out of the truck’s cab into the storm again to return with her oversize hobo bag and her keys.

“Thank you,” she said when he handed everything to her over the front seat. Then, a bit emotionally, she added, “Thank you for everything today....”

“Let’s just get you to the hospital,” he said, putting the truck into gear and setting off cautiously into the still-blinding blizzard.

Watching the back of his head as he drove, Nina couldn’t help marveling at the fact that she was continuing to be looked after by none other than Dallas Traub.

Personable, kind, caring, strong, reassuring and more handsome than she’d ever realized before, he couldn’t know how glad she was that he hadn’t merely handed her off to the sheriff.

And in that moment she couldn’t help wondering why it was that she was supposed to hate him.