The Cowboy Seal's Christmas Baby. Laura Marie Altom

Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter Fifteen

       Chapter Sixteen

       Chapter Seventeen

       Chapter Eighteen

       Epilogue

       Extract

       Copyright

       Chapter One

      Why was a baby crying?

      Gaze narrowed, Gideon Snow hunched forward in his saddle. He tugged his cowboy hat’s brim lower against the driving sleet’s pinprick assault. At least twenty miles in on a sixty-mile trail through northern Arizona’s Asuaguih mountain range, on an early December day fit for neither man nor beast, the last thing he should be hearing was an infant’s wail. But there it was again.

      Waaahuhah.

      Had to be a fox.

      No woman in her right mind would bring a baby out in this weather.

      Jelly Bean, the pinto mare he’d been rehabilitating for a good twelve weeks, snorted. The cold had her exhalations wreathing her head in white.

      “Good girl.” Gideon leaned forward, smoothing his hand along her left cheek. She’d been through a lot—trapped in a burning barn during a Nevada sandstorm. Her fourteen-year-old owner died trying to save her. The girl’s father had carried his lifeless daughter from the flames, then returned for the horse she loved. But the normally easygoing pinto charged into the heart of the storm. Three days after the girl’s funeral, Jelly Bean returned to what was left of the barn. It had taken six men to corral her into a trailer. Her coat had been ravaged by the storm. Her eyes filled with protective mucus.

      It had taken Gideon a month of sweet talk to get near the poor creature, but once they’d turned the corner from strangers to friends, progress had been swift. Jelly Bean’s owner prayed to keep the horse in the family as a living tribute to Angela.

      This trail ride was Jelly Bean’s final exam.

      Gideon had waited for the ugliest conditions possible to push her to her limits. Tonight, he’d stop to make a campfire, and if she could once again handle being at a safe distance from flames, he’d know she was nearing the end of her stay with him.

      Gideon would be sad to see her go.

      Folks in this lonely corner of the world called him a horse whisperer, but at this point in his life, after all he’d been through, he figured it was the other way around. The horses helped him make sense of a life he no longer recognized as his own.

      Was he angry? Hell, yes.

      But that didn’t change anything, and it sure as hell wouldn’t bring back his wife or—

      Waaaahhhuh!

      Jelly Bean whinnied, turning her head toward the sound.

      “What do you think, girl? Could there really be a baby out here, or is a crafty fox trying to get a piece of weekend action?”

      Of course, the horse gave no answer.

      The fact that Gideon had grown close enough to the mare that he’d halfway expected one told him it was high time he start talking to creatures other than horses. But since he still couldn’t stand being around people, maybe he should at least get a dog?

      Another hundred yards down the steep, rocky trail, zigzagging around ponderosa pines and thick underbrush, landed Gideon in a clearing.

      A blue dome-style tent flapped in the wind, and sure enough, from inside, there was no denying a baby’s panicked wail.

      Pumped with adrenaline, Gideon dismounted, loosely looped Jelly Bean’s reins around the nearest pine trunk, then charged toward the infant. He ignored the mild discomfort in his left leg, but upon reaching the tent, he couldn’t ignore the blood. The way it snapped him back to a time he’d fought hard to forget.

      Blood pooled on the tent’s floor.

      It was everywhere.

      And for a moment, red was all his eyes were capable of seeing. But then he forced his breathing to slow, shifting his gaze to the baby. The unconscious woman upon whose chest the infant shivered.

      Holy shit...

      Think, man...

      For an instant, Gideon froze, taking it all in. The blood. The baby. The woman. The sleet’s clatter on the nylon tent.

      But then he sprang into action, ducking inside the shelter to check the woman’s pulse. It was weak, but there.

      Though getting a signal was a long shot, he unbuttoned his long duster coat and reached into his shirt pocket for his cell. As he’d assumed—zero bars.

      He growled in frustration.

      The contrast of the woman’s long dark hair against her ghost-white complexion made her appear nearer death than life. A nasty bruise marred her otherwise flawless forehead. In Iraq, he’d grown too familiar with this sort of grisly scene. To find it again here, on this mountain he turned to for security and peace, was unacceptable.

      He refused to succumb to the dark memories filling his dreams. Instead, for this woman and her baby—for himself—he had to fight.

      First things first.

      Triage. The baby’s screams had grown frantic.

      Gideon reached for the infant, who was half-covered by a sweatshirt. He lifted the newborn only to receive his next blow—the cord hadn’t yet been cut.

      Lord...

      No need to panic. Women had been having babies for hundreds of years before fancy birthing suites ever existed. He’d make a fire to sterilize his knife, then do the deed.

      He fully covered the infant, then exited the tent.

      The red pool had darkened to rust, telling him the woman was at least somewhat stable since there was no additional fresh bleeding.

      With the weather worsening, Gideon moved Jelly Bean beneath the shelter of a mammoth pine.

      He unlatched his saddlebags, hanging them over his shoulder to carry back to the tent. Inside were dry clothes, a few first aid basics and fire-starting materials. There was also plenty of food and water, but no baby formula or bottles.

      Back outside, he found another towering pine that was out of the horse’s view, then assembled a small fire. His grandfather taught him the secret to making all-weather starting blocks that never failed to produce instant heat. Since the wood he’d dragged beneath the tree was wet, it took longer to catch, but soon enough crackling flames banished the cold.

      For further insurance, he constructed a small lean-to made of sticks and pine boughs to put another layer of protection between his only heat source and the sleet.

      The baby’s wails drove him at a furious pace.

      When they stopped, the silence, save for the sleet’s clatter, came as a relief, but then terror struck. Had the infant died?

      He