Whirlwind Baby. Debra Cowan

with pure black hair and eyes that were just as dark.

      He pulled a piece of paper out of his trouser pocket. “Here’s the note that came with the baby. It says how old she is and what she can eat. And some things about her ma.”

      “There were some flannels for changing her and a couple of dresses,” Georgia added.

      Mr. Ross muttered something under his breath that sounded like a curse. Did he not like the baby or was his dislike over the fact that someone had abandoned the child?

      The little girl looked well and fit. Still balancing Molly on her left hip, Emma took the note with an unsteady hand and glanced at it.

      Jake gestured toward the heavy bureau with two deep drawers along the bottom and a pair of doors that closed to conceal hanging clothes and shoes. “If you want, we can make one of those bottom drawers into a bed until the kid’s arrives. One of them would be plenty big enough for her.”

      “You ordered her a bed?”

      At the surprise in her voice, his gaze shot to hers. “Yes, in town today.”

      The town he referred to was Whirlwind, a small community several miles west of Abilene where the stage had brought her. “She needs a place to sleep, after all.”

      “Yes,” she murmured. How sweet.

      “It was Georgia’s idea.”

      Oh. “The drawer will do just fine. I can make a little pallet in there.”

      “Looks like you’re set, then,” he said brusquely. He walked away and Georgia followed, smiling at Emma as she left.

      Still holding the child, Emma shut the door then backed up against it, closing her eyes.

      The baby gurgled, tugging on Emma’s lower lip. She opened her eyes and smiled. After shaking out the little girl’s blanket, she spread it on the floor and sat Molly there so she could watch Emma unpack.

      The weight of the derringer in her skirt pocket provided a small sense of security. For the first time in the two weeks since she’d fled Kansas, Emma thought she might be able to escape the hell of home.

      With the uncertainty of getting the job—this job—behind her, she suddenly felt light-headed. Clutching the night rail she’d just pulled from her valise, she sank down on the edge of the bed, her legs shaking.

      Intending to be the only applicant, she’d gathered up every flyer Jake Ross and another man had posted in Whirlwind. Or thought she had. Finding that other woman here had nearly caused her to faint. If Miss Halvorson had gotten this job, Emma’s plan would’ve been ruined.

      You don’t strike me as someone who would misrepresent herself.

      Jake Ross’s words echoed in her head.

      Misrepresent herself? Emma had flat-out lied. She wasn’t a widow. She’d never been married. Her last name wasn’t York; it was Douglas. And she wasn’t a baby nurse.

      She was Molly’s half sister and she was the one who had left the baby at the rancher’s door.

      Chapter Two

      The next morning, Emma stood just inside the kitchen door and tried not to bite her nails. It was a bad habit she had thought broken long ago, but she’d had to stop herself more than once last night, too. And during the days before she’d been hired and fretted about what Jake Ross would do with Molly; about what she herself had done with the baby.

      The Ross family sat at the large dining table, Jake on the end closest to her, his brother opposite him. His uncle sat between them with his back to her and Georgia sat across the table. Behind Jake, the pink of early morning light filtered through the large glass-paned window that looked into the dining room and front room to the staircase beyond.

      The men wolfed down the eggs, biscuits and ham Emma had set out so she took that to mean they liked the food all right. But they ate breakfast as fast as they had eaten supper. The meal could’ve been boots and gravy, and she doubted they would’ve noticed.

      Last night she had dreamed that Jake Ross had changed his mind about hiring her. That he’d found out nearly everything she’d told him was a lie.

      Just because he acted as if things were fine this morning, she’d lived long enough with her stepfather to know that a man’s temper was as unpredictable as a twister and could come up just as fast.

      So she watched her new employer carefully, looking for a sign, a change in his temperament that so far seemed quiet and even. If she had to leave in order to protect Molly, she would. While it would be inconvenient, it wouldn’t pain her. Certainly not like what had happened two weeks ago when she had found their mother dead. Murdered.

      Emma had no proof, had witnessed nothing, but she knew it was murder. And she knew who’d done it. Her stepfather had abused her mother since their marriage two years ago, especially when Nola had put herself between his fists and Emma. When Nola became pregnant with Molly, she knew she had to get the baby and Emma away from Orson. Despite endless threats from Orson to use any means necessary to stop his wife from leaving him, Emma’s mother had prepared, anyway.

      After Molly turned six months old, Emma and her mother began to carefully make plans to leave Topeka and Emma’s stepfather. A month ago, he found a stash of money and assumed, rightly, that his wife intended to use it for her and her daughters’ escape.

      Orson Douglas didn’t take any action at the time. Probably due to the risk that, just before an election, he might have to answer questions about what had happened to his wife and eight-month-old baby. Most people admired the politician, looked up to him. But not his stepdaughter. Senator Orson Douglas scared Emma witless.

      And one afternoon two weeks later, she returned from the seamstress in Topeka and found her mother dead. Mama lay in her bed with Orson standing over her crying that it must have happened because Nola had taken too much of the laudanum she used for relief from a back injury due to a recent fall. A fall caused by her husband.

      Horrified and frightened, Emma’d managed to give away nothing, but she knew Orson Douglas had killed his wife. And she knew what Nola would want her to do. Two days later, as people filled their grand house after the funeral, Emma had used the excuse of putting her half sister down for a nap, then had slipped out with the child.

      Jake Ross turned his head then, his black gaze locking on her. She straightened, her fingers curling in the hem of the worn white apron she’d found.

      His uncle Ike, as tall as Jake and lanky, picked up his cup of coffee as he looked over his shoulder. “We sure lucked out when Jake found you, Miz York.”

      She doubted he would think so if he knew she’d found them. After reaching Abilene by train, she had seen Jake Ross there. Emma would’ve noticed him, anyway, because of his size and rugged good looks, but what had her deciding he was right for Molly was the patience and kindness he’d shown a lost little boy. No one else had paid a whit of attention to the child except to order him out of the way, but Jake had helped him find his mother.

      Emma had included that in the note, hoping the mention of it would make the rancher less inclined to send Molly somewhere else. “So everything’s to your liking?”

      “Everything’s wonderful.” Ike nodded.

      “Yes, ma’am,” Bram declared.

      “Especially the coffee.” Georgia smiled.

      The older woman had told Emma that Bram and Jake had been raised by their uncle. Though both were dark haired and strapping, Bram’s eyes were blue rather than black like Jake’s.

      Jake glanced over, making her stomach flutter the way it had when she’d first seen him last evening.

      “Yeah, the coffee’s real good,” he said gruffly.

      Bram took another biscuit, split it and slathered butter on it. “These biscuits are better than Pearl’s.”