The Cowboy Seal's Jingle Bell Baby. Laura Marie Altom

He helps my dad with our ranch and is married to a real sweetheart—Justine. She’s a part-time teller down at First Trust Bank.”

      “Goodness gracious, what a small world. I’ve had my savings and checking accounts there for going on forty years. Now, since I’m older than dirt but not dumb as a box of rocks, what is this I heard about you being the father of my great-grandson. Is this true?”

      “Yes, ma’am.” He had the audacity to meet Tiffany’s stare. “But I swear on my own grandmother’s grave, I only recently heard of your beautiful granddaughter even being pregnant. I’m in the navy and have been overseas. But as soon as I got the news, I caught a flight, and here I am. Just this morning, I proposed to your granddaughter—told her if she wanted, I’d make an honest woman of her, but she flat turned me down.”

      Oh—he played dirty.

      Pearl and Gigi both stood mooning with their hands pressed to their chests.

      “I can’t tell you what a relief that will be.” Gigi freed one hand from her bosom to fan her flushed cheeks. “I don’t consider myself old-fashioned, but nothing would make me happier than to see Tiffany married before the baby comes. Of course, she’s already been married once before, but we don’t speak of that.”

      “Mom!” Tiffany gave her a glare before turning back to their uninvited, unwelcome guest. “Rowdy, I’m not sure why you’re here, but pretty sure it’s time for you to go.”

      “Nonsense.” Pearl turned for the stairs. “Give me a sec to gussy up, and then I’ll make everyone a nice late lunch. Or would that be an early supper? Either way, we’ll have plenty to discuss, what with a wedding and baby shower to plan.”

      “There’s not going to be either, Grandma. We’ve already been over this a dozen times.”

      “Sounds good, Miss Pearl. My ride got stuck a ways back, and I worked up a powerful hunger walking through the snow.”

      “Oh, dear,” Gigi said. “Sounds like you’ll have to stay on for dinner and maybe even breakfast, too.”

      “But I do expect him to take the downstairs guestroom,” Pearl noted. “Just because the rooster got into the henhouse once, doesn’t mean it needs to happen again until I see a ring on our Tiffany’s finger.”

      “Yes, ma’am.” Rowdy nodded. “I couldn’t agree more.” As if just now noticing Mr. Bojangles, he knelt to scoop up the tiny dog. Had her traitorous mutt been a cat, he’d have purred from the scratching beneath his fussy collar. “Aren’t you a silly little thing? You’re smaller than our baby’s going to be.”

      “Correction—the Parkers’ baby.” Before her mind’s eye filled with visions of handsome Rowdy cradling their son in his big, strapping arms, Tiffany snatched her dog, who growled during the transaction. “I already told you, we can’t keep this baby.”

      “I told you we’re going to reach a mutually amenable arrangement.”

      “Well, that’s settled.” Gigi handed Tiffany the towels. “Darling, how about you help your fiancé dry off and get comfy in front of the fire—then I’ll get his room ready. Maybe after that, we can all play canasta? Rowdy, sugar, what do you think?”

      “Sounds like a fine plan,” Pearl said. “Only thing I love more than cards is a wedding.”

      The second her mother and grandmother left the entry, Tiffany landed a swift kick to Rowdy’s left shin.

      “Ouch,” he complained. “What was that for?”

      From his safe perch in the crook of her arm, Mr. Bojangles barked at the commotion.

      “What do you think? Those two women mean the world to me, and because of your big fat mouth—” she kicked his right shin, too “—now they both have expectations that there’s no way on God’s green earth we’ll ever be able to fulfill.”

      “Hate to burst your bubble, but at the moment, God’s earth is white as driven snow.”

      She pitched the towels at him. “Dry yourself. I need to sit down.”

      “Is everything okay? With the baby, I mean?”

      “Our son is fine. As for my rising blood pressure? That’s a whole nother story.”

      * * *

      “KNOCK, KNOCK.” Quarter past ten that night, after an endless day of trying to make Tiffany remember why she’d been hot enough for him to have even made a baby, Rowdy cracked open her bedroom door and poked his head through. “You decent?”

      “No!” Her whispered word was more like a hiss.

      Mr. Bojangles woke to go into yapping attack mode at the foot of her bed.

      Rowdy entered and shut the door behind him.

      “Go away!” She sat up in a big white wrought iron bed, pulling a comfy-looking stack of quilts up to her neck. “I want Mom and Grammy Pearl to at least pretend I’m a virgin.”

      He cracked a smile, then grabbed the dog. “Pretty sure that cat’s way out of the bag. The night we met—that trick you did with my... Damn. Woman, you’ve got skills.”

      “Stop.” She covered her blazing cheeks with her hands. “Why are you here? And I’m not just talking about being in my bedroom.”

      “Why do you think?” Cradling the dog just as sweetly as a baby, he perched on the empty side of the double bed. “I’m here to change your mind about that adoption. Hell, if you don’t want your own son, I’ll raise him myself. This morning, I gave you plenty of acceptable scenarios, and now you need to choose.”

      When tears welled in her eyes, she looked away. The sight of him with the dog was all too easy to get tangled up with other images in her mind. Her yappy, spoiled mutt wasn’t the same as a real baby. Mr. Bojangles didn’t need health insurance or diapers. For her family, times were so hard that Pearl had to barter eggs for a neighbor’s bacon. There was no way Tiffany could ever afford to keep her child.

      “Look.” He softened his tone. “I get that when I didn’t call you back, you assumed I was some derelict deadbeat, and I’m sorry. But I’m here now, and if you want me to break the news to that couple you made the adoption arrangement with, I’ll do it. For the sake of the baby, if you want to get hitched tomorrow, I’m on board. Whatever decision you make is fine as long as I’m part of the equation.”

      “You don’t understand.” She took a roll of toilet paper from her bedside table, then tore off a piece to blow her nose. “The night you and I hooked up, I was out of my mind with grief and trying to mask the pain. My dad had been sent to prison and my husband divorced me right down to the point that he bought back his name. I went from a life of pampered luxury to blowing my nose with toilet paper.” Borderline hysterical while still trying to whisper, she waved the roll around. “It’s not even a good brand, but generic. Every dime to my name went to paying off Daddy’s lawyers and now I’ve gone from my biggest worry being what color to paint my nails or how many calories were in my morning latte to being responsible for an entire household. I hate my ex. And I’m not especially fond of my dad, so forgive me if I don’t buy your whole marriage scenario. We slept together—one night. So how in the world do you think I’m now ready to marry you?”

      “Technically, we were together about six times that one night. And I’m not suggesting this is anything other than a solution to keep our baby. Marriage would be a means to a mutually beneficial end. That’s all.”

      She pitched a lacy pillow at him, which he easily dodged.

      Now her own dog growled at her!

      “Sorry. Sounds like you’ve been through a rough patch, but—”

      “Rough patch?” She was back to whisper-screeching. “I went through hell. I became that woman in Junior League and in my sorority’s alumni chapter who everyone whispers