The Maverick's Baby-In-Waiting. Melissa Senate

the door but didn’t step out or invite Jensen in. “I had you come out here face-to-face so I could make myself clearer than my previous noes have been. Obviously, you rich city types don’t care what people like me have to say. You just keep coming, run roughshod. Well, you’re not going to bulldoze me, Jones. My answer is no. Now go back to New York or wherever it is you come from.”

      With that, he slammed the door in Jensen’s face. A piece of rotting wood fell off and landed on Jensen’s boot.

      “Well, guys,” he said to the dogs, “that didn’t go well.” He peered in the window, but the old man shoved the curtains closed. He took another look at the falling-down house and shook his head. Stubborn old coot.

      Jensen got back into the truck. This was the perfect land for the crisis distribution center and shelter. The perfect site. And his assistant had made clear to Barnes what Jensen’s plans for the land were. The man had not been moved.

      Frustrated, Jensen drove back to Walker’s house, surprised, as he always was every time he saw the place, how magnificent it was—a luxury log cabin nestled in the woods. I could live here, he thought, breathing in the pine and listening to the blissful quiet, broken only by the sound of a wise owl, a coyote or crickets.

      His brother and his wife weren’t home, and as Jensen walked around, he was drawn to a photo on the gorgeous river-rock mantel over the huge stone fireplace in the living room, a picture of the Jones family at his brother’s wedding last year. I’m gonna get you people together in two weeks for the party whether you like it or not, he thought, tapping on the frame.

      He moved down the mantel, looking at the many pictures. Happy family after happy family: his brother Hudson and his wife, Bella. Bella’s brother Jamie Stockton, his wife, Fallon O’Reilly Stockton, and their triplets—the ones having the party tomorrow. His brother Walker and Lindsay. His brother Autry with Marissa and their three little girls in front of the Eiffel Tower. A shot of Gideon with a girlfriend, though they’d probably broken up by now. And then there was a picture of Jensen, alone. As usual, these days.

      Something twisted in his gut, and he turned away from the mantel. Sometimes, usually late at night when he couldn’t sleep, he’d get the unsettling feeling that life was moving on without him. His brothers were getting married, settling down. Then there was him, the bachelor without the plus-one, since he was afraid that even asking the women he dated to accompany him to events made them think things were more serious than they were. He wasn’t interested in serious. Might never be again.

      From the time he was knee-high, his parents had drummed it into his head that people would try to take advantage of him because of his money and family name. He’d vowed he would never be fooled. He could remember Davison dismissing that kind of talk with a wave of his hand and saying, “It’s better to have loved and lost,” and all that. But was it? What the hell did Jensen have to show for loving Adrienne? A million-dollar loss. His trust stolen. His heart broken.

      He didn’t trust women anymore. Stupid and sad of him, maybe, but it was true.

      A beautiful brunette with soulful brown eyes and a very pregnant belly came to mind again. Dammit. Why couldn’t he shake the thought of her? He didn’t know a thing about Mikayla Brown, what her situation was, if she had the support of family, if she had a significant other. Was she on her own? Why did he even care?

      All he knew was that he couldn’t get her off his damned mind. Which was why he’d steer clear of town and Mikayla Brown until he got Barnes to agree to the land deal, then hightail it out of Rust Creek Falls.

       Chapter Three

      Your baby will be soothed to sleep in this must-have bouncer that features gentle vibration and sweet lullabies.

      Mikayla’s gaze moved from the description on the box to the price tag. Two hundred ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents. Her heart plummeted. Baby Bonanza, a baby-supplies emporium in Kalispell, was supposed to have reasonable prices, but last week, when she’d driven out here to buy a crib, she’d been shocked by the cost and had to start a layaway account. She certainly couldn’t afford this bouncer. Unless she took the packs of diapers, pajamas and onesies and the infant car seat and snap-in stroller base out of her cart.

      Well, she already had a built-in bouncer that featured vibration and sweet lullabies: herself. There was a rocker right in her room at Sunshine Farm, and she’d hold her baby against her chest, gently rock the little one and sing Brahms’s “Lullaby” herself. Who needed a bouncer for three hundred bucks?

      I wish I could buy you everything, she said silently to her baby. She didn’t have much in savings, and since her job at the day care had ended in June, she’d been unemployed for a couple months. Trying to get a new job when she was seven months pregnant seemed foolhardy, but she really had no choice. Perhaps she could find a job where she could bring her newborn.

      Right. Because every workplace wanted a crying baby interrupting things.

       You will figure it out, Mikayla. Trust in yourself.

      She reached into her purse for the list of baby must-haves that Baby Bonanza had stacked at the front of the shop.

      Crib. Bassinet. Bouncer. Play mat. Bottles. Wipes. Wipes warmer. Diaper master...

      Apparently, a diaper master was a special little garbage pail in which you threw out diapers. Wouldn’t a regular old garbage can with a lid work? For a quarter of the price?

      “Ooh, I’m definitely getting that deluxe bouncer, Mom,” a very pregnant woman said as she and an older woman walked up behind Mikayla. She was eyeing the model that had given Mikayla sticker shock. “Only the best for my little Arabella,” she added while patting her belly. She looked to be around seven or eight months along.

      “That one only vibrates and plays music,” her mother said, reading the description on the side of the box. She pointed at another box on the shelf above. “This double-deluxe model says it vibrates and gently massages the baby, a must when cranky. It’s only fifty dollars more. Worth every penny.”

      “Oh, definitely that one,” the expectant mom said. Her mother lifted the even more expensive model into the cart, which already had a lot of items.

       Only fifty dollars more. Jeez. That’s two weeks’ worth of layaway payments for me.

      It was just stuff, she reminded herself. And not what mattered.

      An image of her own mother popped into her mind. Widowed when Mikayla was a teenager, Hazel Brown had been a wonderful mother, and Mikayla had lost her just three years ago to a car accident. How she wished her mother was here now, by her side, explaining things, telling her what to expect, telling her everything would be okay. At least she knew her mama was looking down on her, watching over her like a guardian angel.

      Chin up, she moved away from the expensive bouncers. The next aisle was filled with baby blankets and crib sheets that were so adorable her heart lifted again. She could afford one package of sheets and a waterproof liner. After all, that was what laundry three times a day was for.

      Smiling, she put into her cart a lemon-yellow sheet with tiny pastel animals, along with a waterproof pad, then turned and headed for the checkout, but her gaze was caught by the cradle and crib aisle. Last week she’d put a beautiful white spindle crib on layaway. She stared at the floor model, struck by the fact that in just a couple months, the crib would be in her room at Sunshine Farm, her baby nestled inside on little animal-print sheets. She smiled at the rocking bassinets, one of which she’d also put on layaway, and the toddler beds in the shapes of race cars and butterflies. She couldn’t even imagine her baby walking and talking and sleeping in a big-kid bed. That seemed so far down the road.

      “Oh, how adorbs!” another expectant mom said—this time to her doting husband, who was pushing their cart with one arm around his wife. Their gold wedding rings gleamed in the dimly lit aisle.

      Mikayla