A Baby on the Ranch. Stella Bagwell

have much choice.”

      “A baby!”

      “Yep. In about three weeks, she said.”

      “Is she married?” Seth asked.

      Lonnie reached for another doughnut as he tried not to think about Katherine being pregnant and alone. “No. Seems like she doesn’t want to be, either. I guess the daddy must have left her bitter about that. Anyway, she appears to be pretty much all by herself. Celia died a couple of years back from kidney failure.”

      Seth was silent for a few moments, and Lonnie figured his friend was thinking the same thing he’d been thinking since he’d met Katherine McBride last night. She was obviously going to need help. A woman shouldn’t bear a child and then come home to an empty house.

      “That’s not good, Lonnie. Not good at all.”

      “Well, I could be wrong. She may have plenty of friends who might see after her. I don’t know. I tried to ask her about that last night, but she’s pretty touchy and more or less put me in my place before I could get anything out of her.”

      “Hmm. That’s a surprise. You always were good with women. That’s why I wanted you to meet with Katherine. I thought if anyone could talk to her, you could.”

      Lonnie snorted with disbelief. “Me, good with women? Seth, something must have happened to you since you’ve gotten married. I’ve had one…well, one girlfriend in my lifetime, and that was an experience I wish I could forget. Other than helping them cross the street or listening to their civil complaints, I don’t know anything about them.”

      Except that they were unpredictable and capable of dealing a man more pain than any bullet from a criminal’s gun, Lonnie thought grimly.

      Seth chuckled. “Don’t feel badly, Lonnie. None of the rest of us men know about them, either. But you seem to be able to communicate with them. That’s why you’ve got to go back and try to reason with the woman. She needs to go to the ranch where Victoria can keep an eye on her. And since Victoria is expecting a baby herself, it would make it even better if the two women could be close.”

      Seth’s sister, Victoria Ketchum Hastings, was a medical doctor with a busy practice in Aztec. She was also married to the under sheriff of San Juan County, New Mexico, and the two were expecting their second child in January.

      “I’m sure Katherine has her own obstetrician. At this late stage of things she probably wouldn’t want to leave Fort Worth and change to a different doctor.”

      “Hmm. See, that’s why you’re good with women. You think about those little things. I just think about the big picture. Thank God, Corrina understands me. But that still doesn’t change the fact that my half sister needs help.”

      Lonnie swallowed down the last bite of his doughnut before he said, “Well, Seth, I can’t tell you how to give her any help. The last thing she said to me was to tell you Ketchums that she’s Celia McBride’s daughter and that’s all she wants to be. I don’t think she would welcome any of you into her life. Not now, at least. She needs to simmer on all of this for a while.”

      “Yeah. But her being pregnant changes things, Lonnie. We don’t have time to let her simmer. We need to help her.”

      Lonnie frowned. “Seth, I don’t understand why you feel beholden to help this woman. You’ve never met her. You don’t know what kind of person she is,” he pointed out. “She might not be worthy of all this help you want to give her.”

      “Is that the impression you got from her?” Seth countered.

      Heat suffused Lonnie’s face. It wouldn’t do for Seth to know all the intimate impressions he’d had of beautiful Katherine McBride.

      “No,” Lonnie agreed with a sigh. “She seems like a nice girl. And it’s pretty obvious that she could use a helping hand. But it just surprises me that you and your family have gone to such lengths to find her.”

      “She’s a Ketchum, Lonnie,” Seth explained. “Well, technically, she’s not, but she has our mother’s blood, and that makes her family. Plus, Noah was her father. And we all loved Noah. Maybe we wouldn’t have if we’d known he was carrying on a love affair with our mother while he was the T Bar K foreman. But we didn’t know it. And anyway, I guess all of us children have agreed that Mom had good reason to look elsewhere for love. God knows, she sure didn’t get much from Dad.”

      He paused, and Lonnie could hear the squeak of a desk chair and then the clunk of Seth’s boots against the floor. Apparently his friend was pacing now and that was enough to tell Lonnie how important this whole thing was to the Ketchum family.

      “Lonnie, I know you’re probably thinking I should let sleeping dogs lie, but I believe Mom would be happy, real happy if she knew we were reaching out to Katherine and attempting to make her a part of the Ketchum clan. That’s why I want you to go back there and try one more time. Tell her there’s a home waiting for her at the T Bar K. Ross and Bella would welcome her with open arms. We all would.”

      Lonnie grimaced as he swallowed the last of his coffee. “Hell, Seth, she won’t go to your family ranch in New Mexico. The T Bar K is more than seven hundred miles from here. I doubt I could even talk her into going as far as my ranch in Hereford to meet with you, and that’s only half that much distance.”

      There was a long pause before Seth’s voice came back in his ear. “That’s it, Lonnie! Persuade her to go to your ranch. She can think things over there while you keep a watch on her. Once she decides she’s ready to see us, I’ll drive up there to meet with her and take her on to the T Bar K.”

      Lonnie bolted off the bed. He didn’t want a woman in his house. Especially a beautiful, pregnant woman! “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard!”

      “No. It isn’t. Getting her away from Fort Worth is the first big step. Once she’s away from her regular routine, she’ll begin to think about all this and hopefully—with a little help from you—she’ll begin to see the positive side of having a family.”

      Lonnie groaned loudly. “Hell, Seth, you expect me to talk to her about family? That’s even crazier. I’ve never had a family. Not a regular one.”

      Lonnie’s father had been killed in a bar room scuffle down in Agua Prieta when he’d been working in the mines at Douglas, Arizona. Lonnie had only been a small boy of five at the time, but he’d not forgotten his father, a big man who’d come home in the evenings with red dust covering his hair, face and clothes. Gilbert Corteen had been a happy man, who’d often carried Lonnie around on his shoulders and kissed his wife with the exuberance of a man in love.

      After his death, Lonnie’s mother, Rhoda, had moved Lonnie to Carrizozo, New Mexico, to be close to her aunt. Once there, Rhoda had tried to get over the death of her beloved husband. But not long after they’d gotten settled there, Rhoda’s aunt, and her only relative, died unexpectedly of a heart attack. After that, Lonnie could remember his mother walking around in a stupor, hardly ever speaking. One day she’d left him with the neighbors and told him she’d be back shortly to pick him up. But she’d never returned. That had been twenty-five years ago and he’d still never heard from her.

      “The Garcias were a family to you,” Seth pointed out. “And because you know what it’s like to lose your family, you have a common thread between you.”

      Lonnie wiped a hand across his face and a stubble of whiskers rasped against his fingers. He’d not taken the time to shave this morning. Last night, after he’d left Katherine’s apartment, he’d decided he wasn’t going to interrupt her life anymore. No matter what he’d told her last night, he didn’t intend to stick around and add to her problems. His intention this morning had been to give Seth a quick call, check out of the motel early and head west. But his old friend was doing his best to throw a kink into that plan.

      Lonnie could put a stop to the whole thing right now. He could simply tell Seth he wasn’t going to see Katherine McBride again. He was going home to Hereford. But he