The Cowboy's Unexpected Baby. Stephanie Dees

      Looking into baby Charlotte’s tiny, trusting eyes made her want to make promises. But that was one thing she just couldn’t do. She’d made a promise to a child once and she would never get over the guilt of not being able to keep it.

      Elvis laid his big head on her knee, his deep brown eyes looking into hers as if he knew what she was feeling. He probably did. She was the counselor, but Elvis? He was the magic maker. Even traumatized children relaxed when stroking his silky golden retriever fur. She smiled at him, despite the pain she still grappled with. “I’m okay, don’t worry.”

      Her dog grumbled, turned a few circles and settled, laying his head on her feet. Elvis worked as hard as she did. In fact, it was his willingness to push through his exhaustion and keep working that had convinced Abby she needed to take a break. They both needed a rest.

      So Abby had written a resignation letter—which her boss had refused to accept, instead sliding it into a desk drawer. She’d then promised she would accept it at the end of six months if Abby was still absolutely certain she wanted to quit. Abby had gone from one natural disaster to another for years, never knowing where she would be from one month to the next. So why did six months seem like such a long time to wait for closure?

      Looking back at the baby, Abby realized that Charlotte’s eyes had closed again, the bottle slipping out of her mouth. Setting it on the table beside her, she lifted Charlotte to her shoulder. This baby was so new that her legs didn’t even unfold when Abby picked her up. But as Abby patted her back, she let out a soft burp and melted into Abby’s shoulder.

      Abby sighed, too. It felt good to be able to solve Charlotte’s immediate problem with a bottle and a burp. So she took advantage of the sweet baby-holding feeling and let it sink in—the muted hum of the HVAC overhead, Elvis’s soft snores and the comforting weight of the baby on her chest.

      Her eyes popped open as the sound of the phone hanging up interrupted her almost nap. Garrett grinned as he caught sight of her in the chair with the baby. His long legs ate up the distance across the room.

      Leaning forward, he peeked over her shoulder at the sleeping baby. Elvis lifted his head, suspicious of this man getting so close to her, his eyes unerringly following Garrett’s movements.

      “Do you want to hold her?”

      Garrett’s smile vanished, replaced by a wary look that she instantly knew wasn’t a feeling that Garrett Cole was very comfortable with.

      “Come on, no turning back now.”

      She switched Charlotte to a cradling position and stood, placing the tiny bundle in Garrett’s arms. His expression gentled as he watched Charlotte sleep, and Abby’s heart gave a painful thump. She stepped back, away from him. “No.”

      “Pardon?” He looked up, his eyes crinkling as his smile returned.

      “Nothing.” She let out a shaky laugh and picked up her bag. “I’ve got to go.”

      These couple of hours with Garrett had been fun. He was smart and compassionate and… She was here to heal. To get a family preservation program off the ground.

      Not to try to date her best friend’s partner—no matter how adorably befuddled he was.

       Chapter Three

      Three days later, thanks to Abby’s expert tutelage, Garrett had the diaper changing down. He could change a diaper like a champ, he thought. It was the rest of his life that was going down the tubes.

      This week had been the longest of his life and it was only Thursday afternoon. Rather than go home to his tiny empty cabin, he’d gone to the home where he’d grown up, where his brothers still lived, hoping a visit would take his mind off of all the unknowns.

      He stuffed Charlotte’s legs back into the leg holes of her sleeper and zipped it. Sliding one hand under her head and the other under her bum, he lifted her up. “Time!”

      Devin’s head jerked up from where he was snapping the twins into their pajamas. “What? Not possible. You’re still an amateur.”

      Garrett’s sister-in-law Lacey looked up from the book she was reading. “I think he has an advantage since he only has one baby, honey.”

      With a laugh, Garrett plopped Charlotte into one of the bouncy seats Lacey and Devin had for the twins and turned on the vibrating gizmo. “The zippered outfits that Jules gave me were a game changer.”

      “Zippers?” Devin narrowed his eyes. “Mine are wearing pants!”

      Garrett raised his eyebrows and made a zipping sound as he reached for his mug.

      “Don’t encourage him, Garrett, because the next thing that happens is he’ll be headed into town to get new clothes for Phoebe and Eli so he can beat your time.” Lacey closed her book as Phoebe started to fuss, but she paused to drop a kiss on Devin’s head. “I’ll get the bottles.”

      “She does know me well.” Devin buckled Eli into the other seat, lifted Phoebe to his shoulder and stood, bouncing. “Well, you seem to be taking all this in stride.”

      Garrett nearly spit his cold coffee out. “Really? Because I feel like I’m slowly sinking in quicksand while the rest of my world is falling apart and struggling is only dragging me in deeper.”

      “That seems kind of dramatic.” Devin took the bottle Lacey handed him and settled on the sofa with Phoebe as Lacey picked Eli up to feed him. “Like what?”

      “Like, I need to talk to Charlotte’s mom and I can’t get her to respond to my texts or calls. Like, just about the time I open a file and really start working, it’s time for feeding or diapering or bouncing or she needs her pacifier.”

      His voice was climbing. “She only sleeps in thirty-minute snatches. I have her seventy-two-hour hearing tomorrow in family court—when the judge will decide if she needs to be in foster care—and the most efficient assistant in history is one more poop explosion away from quitting. And if she quits, Wynn will kill me and I can’t let that happen because I have a baby now.” He ran out of breath about the time he ran out of words and at the exact time that he realized his brother and Lacey were both staring at him, eyes wide.

      He sighed and stabbed his fingers into his hair as he muttered, “Sorry.”

      “Don’t be sorry, Garrett. We’re your family. Who else are you going to tell?” Lacey, beside Devin on the sofa, elbowed her husband, who cleared his throat.

      “Yeah, babies are hard. What can we do to help?”

      Garrett let his head fall back against the leather seat of the recliner. “You guys have your hands full with your own kids. I’ve seen Lacey making cookies in the middle of the night to sell at the farm stand and I know how slim your margin is. I’ll figure it out.”

      “There’s always day care, right? Where does Wynn take A.J.?” Devin asked.

      “To Community Church, but they have to be six weeks old to go there. And who knows if I’ll have her then, or if they’ll even have a space for Charlotte when the time comes.”

      Lacey lifted a sleeping Eli to her shoulder and stood. “Give yourself some grace, Garrett. Even people who have time to plan are overwhelmed with the reality of what it’s like to have a baby.”

      He nodded, his gaze going to Charlotte asleep in the bouncy seat. She was so little, the size of one of his hands, and just so dependent on him for everything.

      Yeah. Overwhelming was a good word for it.

      His brother Devin said, “I bet one of the church ladies would be willing to babysit.”

      “Normally, yes, but they’re all in Branson, Missouri for ten days. Some kind of quilting conference and