Cowboy With A Secret. Pamela Browning

we’re all set.”

      They heard Eddie clattering down the stairs. “I put the cradle by the window,” he said.

      “Thanks, Eddie,” Bethany told him.

      “Well, Bethany, I’ll see you in the morning. Eddie, let’s go. Your dad’s about to pop a movie into the VCR.” Dita kissed Bethany briefly on the cheek and left, Eddie following close behind.

      When they had gone, Bethany turned her attention back to Colt. Cowboy and baby made an incongruous sight; Colt was concentrating on his task, his brow furrowed slightly, and Alyssa slurped hungrily at the bottle, her tiny fists curved like pink seashells against Colt’s broad chest.

      Bethany thought how pretty the baby was, and how helpless. And she still couldn’t understand how anyone could have left such a beautiful child on a strange doorstep. Or how the father of such a lovely child could leave her behind somewhere to take a job on a ranch like this one.

      “She’s stopped drinking,” Colt announced, interrupting Bethany’s thoughts.

      “I think that means she’s had enough.”

      He looked up at Bethany, his eyes troubled. “I won’t let the baby be a problem. I’ll look after her tonight. She’ll have to be fed and diapered, and I can get up with her and do it. You need your sleep.”

      He was right about that, because suddenly she felt very tired indeed. It had been a long day. Her bruised shoulder ached. But he had worked hard, too.

      She must have looked hesitant because he said, “I mean it. I’ll be the one to get up with Alyssa.”

      Reluctantly she decided that it was only fitting for Colt to do the honors. Plus, she didn’t want to get overly attached to the baby. She was already feeling little tugs of her heartstrings over the way Alyssa looked and felt and smelled.

      “Bethany?”

      At least he hadn’t called her ma’am again. Colt was looking at her inquiringly, and she knew he wanted her to show him where the baby would sleep. And where he would sleep, too, in order to be near. Well, she had wanted him to accept responsibility, and now he was doing it. Still, she hardly knew him. Did she really want him in her house all night long?

      Bethany had sensed something dangerous about Colt McClure from the beginning, and certainly something about him didn’t quite add up. She was well aware that this man could have found work on any of a couple dozen ranches, and she didn’t know why he had chosen to work for her. And, adding even more uncertainty, she knew Frisco didn’t like him.

      He waited for her answer, and she detected a challenge in him—or maybe it was a dare. It was almost as if he knew what she was thinking. His eyes filled with concern as he looked from the baby to her and back to the baby again. No—what she saw in Colt McClure was more than mere concern. It was that hunger again, that longing that she had interpreted as insolence when he rode up to the house yesterday.

      She briefly considered sending Colt and the baby back to the barn, but she thought again how bare Colt’s rooms were, and how stifling hot. The smells of the animals in the barn below penetrated the thin boards of the apartment’s floor.

      Now, as he stood before her holding the baby in his arms, he didn’t seem at all threatening, only worried. She reminded herself that she was doing this for the baby’s sake. The kid already had a couple of strikes against her, and Bethany didn’t want to make things even worse. Being responsible, she told herself, meant doing things you didn’t want to do sometimes. That was what finally made up her mind.

      “Okay, come with me,” she said into the loaded silence. She heard Colt let out his breath as if in relief. It surprised her, that release of tension, but then he’d been full of surprises ever since he appeared, galloping his horse up the driveway.

      She led Colt, who was still carrying the baby, through the quiet and dark house, into the hall with its picture of Justin staring at her reproachfully from its embossed silver frame, past the seldom-used living room full of well-worn but cherished furniture, up the stairs and past the door of her own bedroom.

      Across the hall from hers, the guest room was occupied by a four-poster double bed, which was covered with the quilt that had been given to Justin’s mother by her best friend on her wedding day. An antique washstand held a matching china pitcher and wash basin, and rag rugs hooked by Justin’s grandmother adorned the hardwood floor.

      Bethany turned on the small candlestick lamp on the bow-front dresser. It bathed the room in dim golden light. “Here’s where you both can stay. The bathroom’s near and you’ll be comfortable enough. In fact, you can put Alyssa in the cradle now. Wait—we’d better check to see if her diaper is wet. I’ll get a towel.”

      Bethany hurried into the bathroom next door. When she returned with the towel and spread it over the quilt, Colt laid the baby on the bed, opened the blanket and felt the diaper.

      “Soaked,” he said. “Looks like I’d better be fixin’ to change her.”

      “Do you know how?”

      “I’ve never changed a diaper before,” he conceded. “Have you?”

      “No, never. It can’t be too hard,” she said. Reluctantly, because she didn’t want to have anything more to do with this situation than absolutely necessary, she picked up one of the clean disposables and unfolded it. Colt had already removed Alyssa’s wet diaper.

      “Hand it over.”

      She gave him the diaper and Colt slid it under Alyssa’s plump bottom. He fumbled with the adhesive tabs. “Waste-basket?” he said.

      Bethany nudged it closer to him with her foot. “Here.”

      Colt tossed the pull-off strips into the basket and tentatively sprinkled on a smattering of cornstarch. Alyssa bicycled energetically, her plump little legs pumping the air. Colt’s enormous hands fit the fresh diaper around her hips, and even though he stuck it together lopsided, Alyssa didn’t seem to mind. If she hadn’t been so tired and so angry with Colt, Bethany would have smiled at the sight of the big rawboned ranch hand turned nanny.

      Those same hands lifted Alyssa tenderly, readjusted the sacque she wore, and laid her carefully in the cradle. For a moment the baby stared curiously up at them, two large strangers looming over her with concern. Then she uttered a soft little sigh, and slowly her eyelids became heavier and heavier until they closed.

      “You can sleep on the bed,” she said to Colt. She leaned over him and pulled the quilt down to expose the clean sheets underneath.

      He stopped her with a hand on her arm. His touch was so unexpected that a warm tremor swept through her, and she stepped away from him as far as the narrow space between bed and wall would allow. “I’ll do that. You’ve done enough. Thanks, Bethany. Thanks for not flyin’ all to pieces over this.”

      His appreciation sounded heartfelt, and she was bewildered at the confusion she felt. She was still angry with him, but she was beginning to respect the way he was rising to the challenge of this baby.

      In that moment it struck her that he was standing so near and the setting was so intimate she could have reached over, twined her fingers together behind his neck and pulled his head down to hers. And kissed him.

      Heavens! She would never.

      “Good night,” she said, pushing past him so that her thigh brushed his, so close that she could smell the clean male scent of him, so close that the hollows under his cheekbones lost their shadow. All grace had left her, had drained clean away, and she felt awkward and ungainly. She stumbled over the toe of his boot, and his arm whipped out to steady her.

      “You all right?” he asked.

      “I’m okay. I’ll see you in the morning.” She made herself walk past the cradle and out the door.

      In her own room, she closed the door with a firm click and locked it for the first time ever. Then she leaned against it, wearily