A Baby on the Ranch. Stella Bagwell

let out a heavy breath and decided there wasn’t any more time for hemming and hawing. “I have some news for you.”

      She continued to look at him, her eyes wide and waiting.

      Lonnie tried again. “Did you ever know your father, Miss McBride?”

      Her slender fingers settled on the cat’s head and gently stroked him between the ears. “First of all, no one calls me Miss McBride. It’s Katherine. And secondly, what does my father have to do with this?”

      “Would you please just answer my question? It’s important.”

      She shrugged, and from the dry twist to her lips, she didn’t seem to think it important at all. “No. I don’t know anything about my father. Except that he was a drifter. He was in my mother’s life for a little while and then he was gone.”

      “What was his name?”

      “Ben.”

      “Ben what?”

      Once again her shoulders lifted and fell. “I don’t know. Ben was all she ever told me. She didn’t want me to know his name—that way I wouldn’t think about it and wish that it were mine.” Her lips twisted mockingly. “Not that I ever would wish such a thing.”

      “So you never knew your father?”

      Shaking her head she said, “No. He left long before I was ever born and that was that. Mom never heard from him again.” Her features wrinkled in wry contemplation. “Actually, I don’t think she wanted to hear from him again. She never said much about their relationship, so I always assumed they’d parted on bad terms.”

      Heaven help him, Lonnie prayed. How was he going to tell this woman that everything she’d ever thought about herself and her parents was all a facade?

      Katherine shook her hair, and the long strands fell on her shoulder and down over one pert breast. Lonnie had never thought of a pregnant woman as being sexy, but Katherine McBride had an earthy quality about her that stirred every masculine particle inside of him. The notion embarrassed him and he tried to look at the walls, the floor, anywhere but at her.

      “What’s this all about, Sheriff?” she asked. “Have you found my father? Is he trying to find me or something?”

      “Call me Lonnie,” he suggested. “And as for your father—no, I didn’t find him. But—” He swallowed and curbed the urge to sigh. “Tell me, Katherine, did you ever know a man called Noah Rider?”

      Recognition flashed in her eyes and she smiled. It was the first smile he’d seen on her face since he’d knocked on her door, and the sight made him feel a hundred times worse.

      “Yes. Noah was a friend of my mom’s. He’d stop by and visit us from time to time. Especially when I was little. I haven’t seen him in a long time, though.”

      Lonnie had been a lawman since he was twenty years old, and during those ten years, he’d been the bearer of bad news on more than one occasion. It was never an easy job, but there was something about Katherine’s tender face that made all the right words stick in his throat like wads of dry bread.

      “Well, I’m afraid I have bad news, Katherine. I don’t know any other way to tell you but…Noah Rider was murdered several months ago—almost a year, actually.”

      “Murdered!” She stared at him, totally stunned. “But how? Why would someone have murdered him?”

      The cat in her lap must have sensed that she was agitated. He slunk off her legs and jumped to the floor.

      “That’s what I need to explain,” Lonnie told her. “And the whole thing is complicated.”

      Frowning, she made a faint gesture toward the kitchen. “Maybe I’d better go find a cracker or something. My stomach is a little queasy.”

      “Yeah. Maybe you’d better,” Lonnie said quickly, while thinking he’d already made the woman sick. Damn Seth Ketchum! The Texas Ranger should be here doing this himself. It would’ve made much more sense for him to deal with Katherine McBride. After all, Seth and his family were the ones who’d been trying to find her. Lonnie had only volunteered to do the tracking out of gratitude for an old friend. But somehow Seth had cajoled Lonnie into being the messenger, too.

      Katherine started to push herself to her feet and, seeing her struggle, Lonnie immediately jumped up and reached for her hand. “Let me help you,” he offered.

      Something flickered in her eyes, and Lonnie got the feeling she wasn’t accustomed to a man offering her any sort of help, even something as simple as assisting her to her feet. Damn it, where was the father of her baby? He desperately wanted to ask her, but there was already so much to say to her and he didn’t have the time or the right to dig into the romantic side of her life.

      Not that Lonnie had any personal interest, he assured himself. No, he’d tried a walk down lover’s lane years ago and that one attempt had scalded him with pain and humiliation. Since then, romance had been something Lonnie Corteen carefully steered clear of. But it would be comforting to know that Katherine and the baby were going to have support from someone.

      “Thank you,” she murmured and placed her soft, slender hand in his big palm.

      He tugged her gently to her feet and smiled to himself as he watched a tinge of pink fill her cheeks.

      “When is your baby due?” he asked.

      “In three weeks. And let me tell you, he’s really beginning to feel heavy.” She pulled her hand from his and carefully put a small space between them.

      “He? You already know it’s a boy?”

      She unconsciously placed a hand over her rounded stomach. “Not exactly. The ultrasound was inconclusive. But I call him a boy anyway. I just have that feeling, you know.”

      He absently stroked his chin as he continued to study her. “Uh, what about the father? What does he think?”

      Damn it all, thought Lonnie, there he went again. He wasn’t going to get into this. Her personal life had nothing to do with him. The only thing he needed to be thinking about was getting the message delivered and getting back on the road to Hereford.

      With a tight grimace on her face, she turned and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll go get that cracker,” she said flatly.

      Thoughtfully, Lonnie followed and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb of the opening leading into the small work space. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to get so personal.”

      She didn’t respond to his apology immediately and Lonnie wondered how he could continue with this task if she was angry with him. Suddenly one of her shoulders lifted and fell, and she said, “It doesn’t matter. It’s no secret that the baby’s father skipped out on me.”

      “Skipped out?”

      Her lips flattened to a grim line as she glanced over her shoulder at him. “Yeah. He ran from the responsibility like a scalded cat. But I’m glad now. He would have made a sorry husband and father. Obviously.”

      She was alone. Her declaration should have made him sad, even mad. Yet all he could feel rushing through his body was unexplainable relief. The emotion took him by complete surprise, and he tried to push the crazy feeling aside as he asked, “Is that what you thought was going to happen? That the guy was going to marry you?”

      Looking away from him, she opened the cabinet and pulled down a box of vanilla wafers and a package of Oreo cookies. “Don’t all of us girls?” she asked wearily. “I made a bad judgment call. But I’ll not make the same mistake again.”

      Lonnie noticed she didn’t sound bitter, more like resolute. And maybe that was a good thing. It was bad enough that this beautiful woman had already been taken advantage of one time. Twice would be obscene.

      He didn’t make any sort of reply. Mainly because she didn’t seem to want or expect