The Cowboy And The Baby. Marie Ferrarella

first letter to his name. The money was hers—or it had been before he’d taken it, along with the gold cross her mother, Amy, had left her and the earrings that might or might not have been worth something. Whatever actual dollar amount the jewelry was worth, both pieces had meant the world to her because they were all she had left from her mother.

      But to Jack the jewelry was just something to be converted into cash at his first opportunity.

      So he’d left her with her truck and taken everything else. Because she’d had no money to pay the desk clerk, she’d been forced to sneak out while dawn was still creeping in. She’d assuaged her conscience by promising herself that she’d find him, that no good, sweet-talking thief—not because she wanted him back, but because she wanted to pay the motel clerk and, more than that, recover her mother’s cross and earrings.

      But where the hell could he have gotten to?

      And where on earth was she?

      When she’d tried to pinpoint her location on her smartphone’s GPS, Devon could have sworn that if her phone had had actual hands, it would have been scratching its head.

      She was in the middle of nowhere—and getting more deeply entrenched.

      More tears stung her eyes.

      “Serves me right for thinking that just once in my life, things were going to go WELLL! OMIGOD!”

      The pain, sudden and sharp and completely unexpected, had come leaping out at her from nowhere.

      Devon had been upset and overwrought and paying attention to the road, not to the signals her body was sending her. In her defense, she’d been experiencing strange sensations and odd little pains off and on for a while now.

      Scanning her memory bank now, she realized that her lower half had been feeling very, very strange, but then, that could have easily described the way her bottom had been feeling ever since she’d found that she was pregnant.

      Focused on hunting Jack down, she’d had no reason to believe that this “strange” feeling was any different than all the other strange feelings she’d been experiencing all along.

      Except that it was different.

      She’d never quite had this pain before. Never felt like two giant hands had each taken hold of one of her legs and were now about to make a wish just before they pulled them apart in two opposite directions.

      “Can’t you wait, Michael?” she begged, addressing her very swollen abdomen by the name she had selected. Not that she knew the baby’s gender. She’d just assumed that it was male because it had been giving her such a hard time from the moment she’d conceived him. “You’re not supposed to be here yet and, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of nowhere. I can’t do this alone. Sorry to disappoint you, little boy, but I am not the pioneer type.

      “There, you have had the worst of it,” she told her unborn son as the pain settled down a little. “Except that your father’s a rat, but we’ll talk about that later. Like in a week and a half,” she stressed. “Please wait a week and a half.”

      She went on reasoning with the baby that seemed intent on kicking its way out now. “Please, please, PLEEEASE!” she shrieked, unable to contain the pain.

      Sweat was pouring down from her brow and her tears were mingling with it, pooling along the hollow of her throat.

      Devon couldn’t believe that this was actually happening, that she was going to die in the middle of nowhere, giving birth.

      “This is not happening now,” she yelled at her stomach. “Do you hear me? I’m your mother and I forbid you to come out!”

      Another scream tore from her lips, taking a tremendous toll on her body. She was beginning to feel as if she was hallucinating.

      “You’re not going to listen, are you?” she asked weakly. A deep, frustrated sigh emerged from the center of her very core. “Not even born and you’re already a typical male.”

      The next wave of pain completely stole her breath away, making her pant.

      Making her panic.

      “No, no panicking. Panicking is bad,” she admonished herself, trying desperately to exercise some measure of control, putting mind over matter.

      But it wasn’t helping.

      Nothing was helping. She was coming apart at the seams, literally, and nobody would ever know what had happened to her.

      The word throbbed in her brain.

      Nobody.

      The few friends she had all thought that she’d run off with Jack to Texas. They’d never know that she died before she got to her destination.

      And she had no family. An only child, she’d lost her father when she was seven and her mother when she was a senior in high school.

      So there was no one to worry about her.

      No one cared.

      That was probably why she’d been such an easy target for Jack. She’d always thought of herself as an independent soul, but the truth of it was she was lonely. She’d wanted to matter to someone, just one someone. And Jack had pretended that she mattered to him.

      Tall, dark and handsome with an easy grin, Jack had drifted into her life and then taken her along for the ride.

      She’d been a total fool, Devon thought disparagingly.

      Perspiration was beginning to soak through her clothing. She didn’t know if the sun was hot, or if only she was. The end result was the same. Her clothes were damp.

      “I thought your daddy loved me. Turns out he loved my meager little savings account. But we’ll find him, you and I. We’ll catch up to him and force him to give back all that money because you’re going to need diapers—and food.

      “Who am I kidding?” she said despondently. “We’re not getting out of here alive. I’m sorry, Michael. Sorry to have done this to you. Sorry to have saddled you with a daddy who’s a deadbeat. SORRYYYY!”

      The pain was so bad that she’d almost bitten right through her bottom lip this time around.

      She was clutching and clawing at anything she could find within reach. The pain was growing stronger, threatening to swallow her up completely. As it was, she was on the verge of passing out.

      This was more than she could endure.

      This was—

      “Ma’am?”

      Devon screamed again, this time in fear. A moment ago, there’d been no one here, not even a prairie dog. Now someone—or more accurately, something—was leaning in through her rolled-down truck window, peering in and apparently talking to her.

      “Oh God, now I’m seeing things,” she cried, doing her best to disappear into the cracked seat cushion. “Talking horses. Maybe I’ve already died.”

      Belatedly, Cody realized that the woman in the cab of the truck was looking at Flint. She sounded as if she was delirious.

      Dismounting, he tied the horse’s reins to the back of the vehicle and returned to the open window. He looked in.

      The woman was drenched and looked almost wild-eyed. “Are you alone?” Cody asked her.

      “Not a horse, an angel,” Devon realized out loud. The next moment, she closed her eyes tight as she felt yet another huge contraction coming. This one had all the signs of being even bigger than the last. “A hunky angel,” she said to herself. “This is Texas, what did I EXPECCTTT?”

      For a second, Cody could only stare at her in complete awe. Even wracked with pain, the dark-haired woman was beautiful. But he’d never seen a woman this pregnant before. She looked as if she was just about to pop at any moment.

      “No disrespect, lady,” he began politely,