Maverick Christmas Surprise. Brenda Harlen

taken care of while he waited for his mom to come back.

      Because Leighton would come back. Notwithstanding what she’d written in the note she’d left with Cody, Beth knew that her sister wouldn’t abandon her baby. She loved him too much.

      Reassured by this internal pep talk, Beth toweled off and got dressed in her old clothes. As she finished towel-drying her hair, she heard voices across the hall in her nephew’s temporary bedroom.

      No, only one voice, she realized.

      Deep and masculine, murmuring in a quiet tone.

      Wilder’s voice.

      Her heart skipped a beat then, as it had the night before when he’d appeared in the door: six-feet-plus of rugged masculinity that, even in her worried and sleep-deprived state, she couldn’t help but respond to.

      She’d had two brief conversations with him: the first on the telephone, when he’d called looking for Leighton, and the second last night, when she’d arrived at the ranch, unannounced and uninvited. Although she should have been expected, as she’d told him she’d be on her way to Rust Creek Falls to get her nephew as soon as possible. Regardless, Wilder had been more hospitable than she’d had any right to expect.

      Or maybe he’d been relieved to see her. Because standing in the doorway of the room across the hall, it was obvious to Beth that this cowboy had absolutely no clue how to take care of a baby.

      “I know you can’t do this on your own,” Wilder said to the baby. “But is it too much to ask for just a little bit of cooperation?”

      Of course Cody didn’t respond, and Beth stayed quiet, too, watching as Wilder struggled to get the baby’s legs out of his sleeper, opting to stretch the fabric rather than attempt to bend his limbs.

      When that was finally done, he unsnapped the fasteners of the onesie and peeled it back to reveal the diaper.

      “Or maybe this is some kind of test that only someone worthy of being called Mommy or Daddy can figure out,” Wilder considered, as he opened the Velcro tabs. “And I think it’s pretty obvious to both of us by now that I’m not worthy.”

      Beth wanted to say something then, to reassure the handsome cowboy that everyone struggled with parenting tasks in the beginning. But before she could find the right words, he pulled the diaper away and reached down to retrieve a clean one from the bag on the floor.

      Cody responded as most baby boys would when his private parts were exposed to the fresh air, and Wilder yelped in surprise at the stream that fountained into the air.

      Beth couldn’t help it—she laughed.

      The sound caught the attention of Cody and Wilder, and they both turned to the doorway. But while the baby smiled in recognition, the man looked so miserably unhappy she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, at least a little.

      She swallowed another chuckle as she stepped into the room. “Is this your first time changing a diaper?”

      “No,” he denied, and blew out a breath. “I just don’t expect him to do that every single time.”

      “You need to keep baby boys covered,” she told him.

      “How am I supposed to keep him covered and change his diaper?” Wilder grumbled, rummaging through the bag again.

      “It isn’t that difficult,” she said. “You just don’t remove the wet diaper until you have a dry one ready.”

      He sighed wearily and shoved the diaper bag aside. “And apparently that was the last clean undershirt thing.”

      “I packed some things for Cody before I left Leighton’s apartment,” Beth said. “But the bag’s still on the passenger seat in my car.”

      “If you don’t mind keeping an eye on him for a few minutes, I’ll go get it for you,” Wilder said.

      “The keys are in my coat pocket,” she told him.

      He nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

      While he was gone, she stripped Cody out of his damp clothes and put a clean diaper on him, chatting with him the whole while. Or chatting to him, as her nephew didn’t respond except with happy gurgles and excited kicks. But those were enough for Beth to know that he was glad to see her.

      After wrapping Cody in a blanket to keep him warm until Wilder returned, she sat with him in the rocking chair and rummaged through the diaper bag.

      “It doesn’t look like your mama thought to pack you any toys or books,” she remarked. “Hopefully that’s because she doesn’t plan on being gone for too long.”

      Although the note Leighton had written suggested otherwise, Beth refused to believe that her sister would leave Cody for more than a few days. It was more likely, she reasoned, that her sister had made the trip to Montana so that Cody could meet his dad, and the long journey with the baby had pushed her beyond the limits of her patience.

      But Beth still didn’t understand what had compelled her sister to contact the man now. Or why she hadn’t mentioned her plans to Beth. Especially when they’d made arrangements to celebrate Cody’s first Christmas together.

      “I couldn’t imagine any reason she would want to bring you to Montana,” Beth admitted. “But now that I’ve met the very handsome cowboy who might be your daddy, I think I’m beginning to understand.”

      “So you do think I’m handsome.”

      Beth glanced up then to see Wilder in the doorway, a cocky grin on his face, and felt her cheeks burn.

      “It’s not my opinion so much as a simple fact,” she said, furiously attempting to backpedal from her own admission.

      “But attraction is very much subjective,” he pointed out.

      “I didn’t say I was attracted to you,” she denied hotly. “I was merely commenting that I could understand why my sister was attracted to you.”

      “Sure. We’ll go with that,” he said, as he dropped the duffel bag on the floor beside the rocking chair. But the playful wink that followed his words told a different story.

      She looked away to unzip the bag, then frowned as she rifled through the contents. “Everything is ice-cold.”

      “The bag was in your car, overnight, in the middle of winter,” he pointed out reasonably.

      “And, as I discovered yesterday, winter in Montana is a lot different than winter in Texas,” she acknowledged, as she pulled out a onesie, a pair of socks and a two-piece outfit. “Can you put these in the clothes dryer for a few minutes?”

      He took the items from her hand. “They’re not wet.”

      “No, but they’re cold,” she said again. “And a quick tumble in the dryer will warm them up to a more comfortable temperature for Cody.”

      He shrugged but headed out to do her bidding. Or maybe he was grateful for any excuse to leave her with the baby that he didn’t believe was his.

      Maybe he was right to be skeptical.

      Maybe Leighton had been mistaken.

      And maybe, after having spent a couple of days with Cody, he understood now how much time and attention a baby needed and would willingly accede to her request to take her nephew back to Dallas.

      When Wilder returned with the warm garments, Beth quickly dressed the baby in a red top that had an appliqué reindeer head with Christmas lights looped around its antlers and a pair of dark brown corduroy pants.

      “Very festive,” Wilder noted.

      “He has a lot of holiday outfits,” she confided. “Every time I was out shopping, I seemed to find another one that I just couldn’t resist.”

      “And all those Christmas gifts in the back seat