The Maverick's Christmas Baby. Victoria Pade

have to go after what you want, regardless of what anyone else thinks. So I took some time off, went to a sperm bank in Denver without telling my family—”

      “You just did that on your own?”

      “I did,” Nina said with all the conviction she’d felt then still in her voice. “I didn’t see the point in sitting through people trying to talk me out of it, so I just did it. And, voilà! The magic of modern medicine—I’m having the baby I want, on my own.”

      Looking up at him, Nina watched him nod slowly, ruminatively, his well-shaped eyebrows arching over those gray-tinged blue eyes. “Wow,” he said, as if he didn’t quite know what to make of her. “My family is very big on marriage and would freak out over something like that. How did yours take it?”

      “They freaked out,” Nina confirmed. “But when the dust settled...” She shrugged. “I’ve always been my own person and strong-willed and...well, hard to stop once I put my mind to something. My family has just sort of gotten used to that. And a baby? That’s a good thing. So after the initial shock, they got on board.”

      “I’d say that was a good thing, otherwise having a baby on your own might be kind of an overwhelming proposition.”

      “But I just didn’t want to wait anymore.”

      “You seem kind of young for the clock to be ticking loud enough to go that route.”

      “That was something my family said. I’m twenty-five, so sure, my age isn’t an issue. Except that I’ve always wanted to have kids fairly young, in my twenties. I don’t know how old you are, but if you have a ten-year-old, that’s probably about when you got started, isn’t it?”

      “I’m thirty-four, so yeah. Ryder was born when I was twenty-four.”

      “And that means that you have the chance to be around to see your kids at forty, at fifty or sixty. To know your grandchildren and maybe even your great-grandchildren. That’s how I want it, too. Family is the most important thing to me. As far as I’m concerned, that’s what life is about.”

      “But isn’t it about doing all that with a partner?” he asked, still sounding baffled.

      “Ideally. But look at you—there are no guarantees that even if you start out with a partner you’ll end up with one.”

      “Yeah...” he conceded a bit dourly. “It’s just...single-parenthood is a tough road. I’m never sure whether or not I might be dropping the ball in some way. Especially lately...”

      Nina was curious about that, but out of the blue a pain more severe than any she’d felt yet hit her, pulling her away from the back of the seat.

      Dallas sat up just as quickly, angled toward her and put an arm around her from behind.

      “It’s okay,” he said in that deep masculine voice that she was finding tremendously soothing. “Just ride it out. Don’t fight it. Breathe...”

      She tried to do all of that, but this pain was sharp. She closed her eyes against it and the renewed fear that came with it.

      “It’s okay,” he repeated. “It’ll all be okay.”

      Then she felt him press his lips to her temple in a sweet, tender, bolstering kiss that she knew had to have been a purely involuntary reaction of his own when he didn’t know what else to say to her.

      The pain disappeared as fast as it had come on, and Nina wilted.

      The fact that she wilted against Dallas Traub was also not something she thought about before it just seemed to happen.

      But he held her as if it were something he’d done a million times before, and it seemed perfectly natural for her head to rest against his chest.

      “There was a long time between pains,” Nina said when she was able. “I thought they’d stopped.”

      “It’s good that they aren’t coming with any kind of regularity. Real labor is like clockwork. Maybe these are just muscle spasms.”

      The baby had been moving and kicking normally as they were talking so it didn’t seem as if it was in distress, but still, there was nothing heartening about the situation.

      “But you know,” Dallas said in a lighter vein. “If I end up delivering this guy you’ll have to name him after me—Dallas Traub Crawford.”

      That did make Nina laugh. “Both of our families would freak out over that,” she said. “And I haven’t let them tell me if the baby is a boy or a girl—I want to be surprised.”

      “The name still works even if it’s a girl.”

      “Dallas Crawford.” Nina tried it on for size and then laughed again. “Let’s see...first I had to convince everyone that Leo isn’t the father, that I actually had artificial insemination. Then we’ll throw you into the mix? I can just imagine the rumors.”

      “Rust Creek’d be talking about it for years.”

      “And both of our families would probably stop speaking to us for consorting with the enemy.”

      “Seems possible,” Dallas agreed with a laugh of his own.

      Headlights suddenly appeared through the snow, coming from the direction of town, and within moments a vehicle pulled up beside them.

      “What did I tell you? Help has arrived,” Dallas said.

      Nina sat up and away from him, regretting the loss of his arm around her when he let go of her and turned to open the door.

      Gage Christensen, the local sheriff, was standing just outside.

      “You out here joyriding?” Dallas joked, but Nina heard the relief in his tone.

      “When the storm hit your mother called the farm where you were delivering hay to find out if you’d left there. They said you had, and since you hadn’t gotten home, she called me.”

      Dallas glanced over his shoulder at Nina. “What did I tell you? The thought of being stuck for too long with my three boys got the troops sent out to find me in a hurry.”

      Then, back to Gage Christensen, he said. “I have Nina Crawford in here and I think she needs to get to the hospital in Kalispell—the sooner the better....”

      So he was clearly more worried about her condition than he’d originally let on.

      “Looks to me like I can pull around behind you and push you forward enough to get you going. Then I’ll do the hospital run,” Gage Christensen said.

      “Why don’t you get me out of this ditch and just follow us? It’s probably not a great idea to move Nina but I’d like to know we have some backup. And maybe after the storm someone can come out here and get her SUV.”

      Nina was surprised that Dallas hadn’t jumped at the opportunity to be off the hook. But she appreciated that he hadn’t, that he still seemed concerned for her.

      “Let’s see what we can do,” the sheriff said, returning to his own vehicle.

      Turning back to Nina, Dallas grasped her upper arm in one of those big hands and squeezed. “Just relax, we’ll be on the way before you know it,” he said, once more sounding confident.

      Nina nodded, relieved that they were going to get out of there.

      Then Dallas left, closed the rear door, and came in from the passenger side of the front seat to slide across and restart the engine, turning on the heat again.

      It wasn’t long before there was a slight bump to the rear of Dallas’s truck. Then there was the sound of spinning tires and the feel of the truck inching forward until Dallas’s wheels caught enough traction to move onto the road.

      “Now we’re cooking,” he said victoriously.

      “My purse—I should have my insurance card,” Nina