The Maverick's Christmas Baby. Victoria Pade

at that moment. Especially to a Traub. When she’d just had a car accident. When she could potentially be going into labor.

      But, oh, she wished this particular Traub would come back....

      She considered yanking on the rope just to get him to, but she didn’t let herself. They needed help and if there was any chance that he might find cell reception she couldn’t cut that short.

      But soon, come back soon....

      Then, as if in answer to her silent plea, the rear passenger door opened and there he was.

      She also didn’t understand why the way he looked registered in that instant, but she was struck by how tall and capable-looking he was. She guessed him to be about six foot three inches of broad-shouldered, Western masculinity.

      But it wasn’t merely his size that impressed her. He was remarkably handsome—something else that she’d never noticed in all the times they must have crossed paths around Rust Creek Falls.

      Nina knew all the Traubs in general, but she’d never really noted much about them in any kind of detail. Now it struck her that Dallas really did have rugged good looks with a squarish forehead, a nose that was a bit hooked, but in a dashing sort of way, lips that were full and almost lush, and striking blue eyes that had enough of a hint of gray to add more depth than she’d ever have attributed to a Traub.

      “Did you get a call out?” she asked as he extracted the end of the rope through the window, tossed the re-coiled mass into the truck bed again and then climbed into the backseat with her, closing the door and the window after himself.

      “No,” he said. “We’re really in a dead zone out here. But don’t worry about it. Somebody will come looking for us. My folks are stuck at home with my three boys—believe me, before too long they’ll start to wonder where I am.” Then he switched gears and asked, “How are you doing?”

      “I’m okay....” Nina answered uncertainly.

      “Any more pains?”

      “One,” she admitted.

      “And how about heat? Think we can turn it off for a little while?”

      “Sure. If you’re warm enough.”

      He stood to lean over the front seat to reach the key, and Nina found herself sneaking a glance at him from that angle.

      He was wearing jeans that hugged an impressive derriere and thick thighs, and she knew she had no business taking note of any of that.

      Then the engine went off and he sat back down, turning toward her and perching on the very edge of the seat so he could pull down the rear cushion as he said, “There should be a blanket in here...”

      He produced a heavy plaid blanket from the compartment hidden behind the seat.

      “You’re probably not going to like this, but we’ll both stay warmer if we share the blanket and some body heat,” he said then.

      “It’s okay,” Nina agreed, knowing he was right.

      And not totally hating the idea of having him close beside her or of sharing the blanket with him. But she didn’t analyze that.

      Opening the heavy emergency blanket, he set it over Nina and reached across her to tuck it in on her other side.

      Then he sat near enough to share the warmth he exuded and laid it across himself, too.

      “You’re sure you feel better sitting up?” he asked.

      “I am.”

      “If something changes and you need to lie down just let me know....”

      “I will,” Nina said.

      She did slump a little more into the blanket, though. And somehow that brought her a bit closer to him, too. But he didn’t seem to mind that she was slightly tucked to his side and it seemed as though it might be insulting if she moved away again, so she pretended that she didn’t notice.

      “So...” he said when she was settled, turning his head toward her and looking down at her. “You’re Nina Crawford, right? You run the General Store in town?”

      Apparently Dallas Traub wasn’t any clearer about the details of his Crawford rivals than Nina was about the Traubs. And since they’d never had any one-on-one, face-to-face contact before this, Nina was even surprised that he knew her name.

      “I’m Nina, right. And yes, I run the store.” The store that the Traubs rarely frequented, making it well-known that they chose to do their shopping in nearby Kalispell rather than give business to the Crawfords.

      “I’m Dallas—in case you didn’t know....”

      “You live on your family’s ranch—the Triple T, right?”

      “I do work on the ranch, but I have my own house on the property. I’m divorced, and with three boys—Ryder, who’s ten, Jake, eight, and Robbie, who just turned six a couple of weeks ago.”

      “And you have custody of them?” Nina asked, recalling that no one was too sure what had happened to his marriage, but that it had ended about this time last year. Gossip had been rampant and she remembered thinking that, since he was a Traub, his wife had probably just wised up. Nina hadn’t found it so easy to understand why his ex-wife had left her kids behind, though.

      Now, appreciating the way Dallas had been caring for her, appreciating the effort he was putting into distracting her by making conversation, how just plain kind and friendly he was being toward her, she had less understanding of his wife’s leaving him, too.

      “Yep, it’s all me, all the time...” he said somewhat forlornly and without any of the confidence he’d shown in every other way since he’d opened her car door. “Not that my family isn’t good about helping out—they are. But still—”

      “You’re the Number One in Charge. Of three kids.”

      “And there’s nothing easy about being a single parent,” he said, clearly feeling the weight of it. His gaze went for a split second in the direction of her middle. “I guess I don’t know many specifics about the Crawfords,” he said then. “I probably know the most about your brother Nate now, just from the election for mayor—”

      “Since he was running against your brother Collin and lost,” Nina pointed out.

      “But I don’t think I knew you were married or pregnant....”

      “Pregnant, not married. Never have been.”

      “But you were with someone weren’t you? Leo Steadler? He did some work for us a couple of years back and—”

      “I was with Leo for four years.” Four years that had led only to disappointment.

      “But he left town, didn’t he?”

      Nina could hear the confusion and suspicions that were mounting. “He did.”

      “Rather than stepping up?”

      There was outrage in that that made Nina smile. “The baby isn’t Leo’s.”

      “Oh.”

      She smiled again, having a pretty good idea what he was filling in the blanks with. The same things her own family had assumed—first that the baby was Leo’s, then that she’d had some kind of rebound fling that had resulted in an unwanted pregnancy.

      But they were all wrong. And since she wasn’t ashamed of the choice she’d made and had been perfectly honest with everyone else, she decided to be perfectly honest now, even with Dallas Traub.

      “After four wasted years with Leo, when it ended I decided I wasn’t going to wait for another man to come along.” And make more empty promises of someday. “There was no telling how long it might take to meet someone—”

      “If ever,” he muttered as if he held absolutely no optimism when it came