Drive-By Daddy: Drive-By Daddy / Calamity Jo. Patricia Knoll

trusted him to do so.

      Really, really trusted him. His calm, quiet ways. His slow and sure movements. His very steadiness, like a rock, invited confidence in him. But when the matches were blown out, and the knife readied, when he reached for her daughter, turning the mewling, naked, precious little bundle over, Darcy began some mewling of her own.

      The cowboy met her gaze, his blue eyes steady. “It won’t hurt her. She won’t feel a thing. But maybe you shouldn’t watch.”

      Darcy liked that idea. She turned her head as he talked softly to the baby and performed this last task. “How do you know so much about this,” Darcy asked, “if all you’ve delivered are calves?”

      “I learned it from the Crow. I spent a lot of time with them when I was a boy.”

      Darcy rolled her head until she was looking at his square-jawed and tanned face. Bent over his task, intent on his handiwork, he was smiling at the baby. “The Crow?” she deadpanned, drawing his gaze her way. “I hope you mean the Native Americans, and not the kind that migrate in the winter.”

      “Well,” he said, raising a hand to swipe it under his nose, as if it itched. “The Crow used to migrate in the winter, but not anymore. And I do mean the Native Americans.” A slow grin now warmed his strong, weathered features. “This kind of job isn’t for birds, Darcy.”

      She exhaled. “Imagine my relief. It’s nice to know you’re not crazy.”

      He shrugged, winking at her again. “Depends on who you ask.”

      “Great. Especially since I’m a little vulnerable here. And you have a knife in your hand.”

      His chuckle told her it would all be okay. He closed the knife, and put it down on the truck bed. “All done, Mama.” He gently handed the rooting, mewling baby girl back to Darcy. “We’ve been lucky so far. But we need to get you two into town and pronto.” He made as if to stand up, bunching his muscles and bracing his hands against his bent knees.

      Darcy stopped him with her hand on his chambray shirtsleeve. “Wait.” He did, his eyebrows raised. Darcy looked at the cowboy, at the stranger who’d saved her life—and her baby’s—the stranger with the white hat and the white truck. “Thank you. Really.”

      Grinning, proud, he ducked his head, nodding his you’re-welcome. “Nothing to it, ma’am. Like I said, just glad I could help.”

      Darcy couldn’t believe his humble speech. “Help? You saved us. Literally. I don’t know how to repay you.”

      He put his hand atop hers now and gently squeezed it. His blue-eyed gaze and wide grin warmed her more than the sun above. “No need. It’s payment enough for me to have been here when you needed me.”

      When she needed him. Darcy’s chin trembled, her eyes teared up. He was the only man in her life with the exception of her now-deceased father, who’d ever been there for her when she needed him. “Well, still…thanks.”

      He winked at her, and released her hand as he stood. And became all business. “We need to wrap this baby girl in something before we hit the road.” He began unbuttoning his shirt. “About the only thing I’ve got—” He pulled the shirt off, tossed it to the truck bed, and began tugging his white cotton T-shirt out of his waistband “—is my T-shirt. It’s clean enough, I suppose. Probably only smells like man and sweat and dust and aftershave. What more could you want?”

      What more could I want. He’d meant it to be funny. Darcy knew that. But mesmerized, lost in watching him, and holding her child close in her arms, Darcy swallowed, feeling her growing admiration of him, of his resourcefulness—not his physical presence. His kindness. Not his tanned and muscled chest. She bit at her bottom lip. Not his gorgeous smile or his blue-eyed gaze. No. Not any of those. Or even the whole mixture of them all.

      Because now that she had her daughter, she was through with men. Over them. And some Montana cowboy who’d come upon her in her hour of need wasn’t going to change that.

      2

      “I NEVER SAW the like of that navel knot your cowboy tied yesterday. Must be something they use on a ranch.”

      “I suppose. And he’s not my cowboy, Mother.”

      Darcy watched her mother shrug. “Anyway, your 7-pound, 8-ounce daughter now has an innie navel. Dr. Harkness fixed it nice, didn’t he?”

      From the comfort of her hospital bed, all stitched up and still sore from yesterday’s truck-bed birth, Darcy nodded as she eyed her mother. “Yes, he did. And no, I don’t want to go out with Dr. Harkness.”

      “Well, not now. It’s a little too soon.”

      “No. It’s a little too late, Mother. Not soon. Late.”

      “You don’t mean that.”

      Darcy stared at her mother. “Yes, I do. Dr. Harkness is 800 years old, if he’s a day. Why don’t you go out with him?”

      Her mother pursed her lips. “I can’t. I’m saving myself for Brad Pitt.”

      They’d had this conversation before. “Brad Pitt is too young for you, Mother.”

      Margie Alcott bristled in her chair next to Darcy’s bed. “Well, thanks. I needed that.”

      Darcy sighed. “No offense meant. But admit it, Brad Pitt is even too young for me.”

      “Darcy, the man is in his mid-thirties. About six years older than you.”

      “Well,” Darcy groused, crossing her arms, “he seems younger than me.”

      “Everybody’s younger than you, honey. You’re such a little old lady. Always have been. Anyway, I think you two would make a nice couple.”

      “Who? Brad and me? Or Dr. Harkness and me?”

      A sly look came over her mother’s pleasantly rounded face. “Actually, you and that cowboy.”

      “Here we go.” Darcy threw her hands up, more to dispel her persistent thoughts about her mystery cowboy than to wave away her mother’s words. Still, those she had to challenge. After all, she’d stuck herself firmly in this I-don’t-need-a-man corner for the past nine months. She couldn’t now, because of a chance meeting, admit that she was wrong. Darcy exhaled sharply, signaling her determination to reentrench herself in her own views. “What makes you think I need a man?”

      “Well, that tiny little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes down there in the nursery, for one thing. She needs a father. You know—that nucleus family thing you hear so much about.”

      “Nuclear, Mother.”

      “Is that it? Well, it’s the same thing.”

      “I guess.” Darcy looked down at her hands and picked at a nail. Could she feel more guilty right now? It had taken her by surprise, this feeling of being alone in a way she hadn’t anticipated. Could it be that she wasn’t cut out to be a mother? She shook her head. No. The last thing she needed right now was to doubt herself. She couldn’t, not with another life depending on her to be the adult here.

      “It’s not as if I’m deliberately denying my daughter a father,” Darcy suddenly blurted into the silence that had settled between them. “I’m not trying to make some politically correct feminist statement here. Being a single mother wasn’t exactly in the game plan, remember.” To her distress, Darcy’s chin quivered.

      Her mother reached out, laying a hand on Darcy’s arm. “Oh, baby, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

      Darcy squeezed her mother’s hand…and felt worse. Now she’d upset her mother too. “I know. God, Mother, the hormones. I’m all over the page with this. One second I’m mad, the next crying. Is this normal?”

      Margie Alcott nodded, her smile returning. “Oh, sure