Son of a Gun. Joanna Wayne

that Julio might be mere steps behind her. She didn’t stop running until she was panting for breath and her legs felt like they were about to give way and send her slamming to the ground.

       Her heart still pounding, she fell against the trunk of a towering pine tree. Belle began to fret, and her fussing quickly escalated to a wail.

       With her back against the scratchy bark of the tree trunk, Emma slowly sank to the ground. Her fingers searched and found the pacifier nestled in the deep folds of her rebozo. She poked the nipple into Belle’s mouth. This time Belled quickly locked her lips around it. But in in a few short minutes, she spit it out.

       Belle began to wail again. Emma closed her eyes and pictured herself in a comfortable rocker, cuddling Belle while the hungry infant fed on nourishing formula. Heat from logs blazing in a stone fireplace warmed them both, so real she could smell the odor of burning wood.

       The sound of galloping hooves penetrated her consciousness. She opened her eyes and jerked to attention, but there was no horse in sight.

       Like the fire and the rocker, it was only her imagination. No one would be out riding after dark on a night like this. No hero was going to come to her rescue.

       She forced herself back to her feet. If she fell asleep with only illusions of comfort, the helpless infant in her arms might die before morning from the cold if not from hunger.

      * * *

      THE WIND WAS PUNISHING even though the old leather work jacket Damien had taken from the tack room protected him from the worst of the cold.

       He’d ridden hard, letting King go full speed across the familiar trails just the way the steed loved it. Fortunately, the ride had given Damien a chance to lower his aggravation level and ease his suspicions.

       This wasn’t like the disagreements he used to have with his dad. Riding hard wouldn’t negate the questions. The answers would have to come from his mother. No doubt she’d be able to explain everything. And most likely he’d overreacted and none of it would have anything to do with him.

       Sisters might easily decide to give their sons identical names if they’d given birth on the exact same day. One thing he knew for certain: his mother would never have willingly shut her sister’s son out of her life. Either that son was dead or his father had kept Carolina away from her nephew.

       Unless Damien’s mother harbored family secrets so terrifying and depraved that she’d kept them hidden all these years. …

       The thought of his mother with deep, dark secrets was so inconceivable it was almost laughable. Honesty was practically synonymous with the name Carolina Lambert in their part of their country. So was charity and friendship.

       The snow fell harder, huge flakes that were beginning to cover the winter feed grass. In some parts of the country, the first snowfall of the season was a rite of passage into winter. In Dallas, they sometimes went years without a decent snowfall. This one just might be it, though it wouldn’t stay on the ground long. Warmer weather was forecasted to arrive in a couple of days.

       He turned King back toward the ranch, letting him choose his own pace, until Damien spotted a young buck drinking from Beaver Creek. He reined in King and admired the stately deer. It looked totally at ease with the weather, though the wind wailed through the pine needles like a tomcat. Or like a baby.

       Too much like a baby.

       Damien’s senses sharpened. He stretched in the saddle and spotted a woman, her shoulders stooped, trudging along in the opposite direction. He quickly caught up with her. When she turned around, he noticed that all she had for warmth was a shawl wrapped around her and the wailing infant she cuddled close to her chest.

       What the devil was she doing out here with a baby on a night like this? Damien scanned the area for trouble as he climbed from the saddle.

       “Are you alone?” he asked as he shed his jacket.

       She nodded. “Yes, but please don’t hurt me.”

       Fear bled into her pleading voice. The accent was clearly American and Southern. “I have no intention of hurting you. How did you get here?”

       “I…I ran my car into a ditch. I saw the fence and hoped there was a house nearby where I could find shelter. The baby is cold.”

       “There’s no highway out here.”

       “There is a road,” she protested. “I just left it.”

       “An old logging road, but no one drives on that in a car. It’s full of ruts and dangerous potholes.”

       “I know that now. But it was dark when I turned onto it and I mistook it for a driveway.”

       He slipped his jacket over her shoulders.

       It practically swallowed her. He was six feet tall and broad shouldered. She was a good six or seven inches shorter and petite. The jacket would keep her and the baby both warm until he could get her out of the weather.

       She winced as he tugged the jacket tighter. He looked down and spotted the crimson stain on her wrap.

       “You’re injured.”

       “It’s nothing, just a scratch.”

       But it had bled too much to be a mere scratch. Her story of the ditched car sounded more suspect by the minute. “Are you sure someone didn’t dump you out here?”

       “I told you, I lost control of my car and now it’s stuck in a muddy ditch. I must have caught my arm on the fence when I climbed through the strings of barbed wire.”

       She turned away, clearly not wanting to say more. He wouldn’t push the issue yet.

       “Here, let me help you onto the horse. You and the baby can ride. I’ll keep the reins and walk beside you. We don’t have far to go.”

       “Where are you taking us?”

       “To a roaring fire where you and the baby can get warm. What is it anyway, a boy or a girl?”

       “A girl. Her name is Belle.” She looked around. “Where am I?”

       “On Bent Pine Ranch.”

       “In Dallas?”

       “Actually, you’re in a tiny community known as Oak Grove, but Dallas is the closest city.”

       “How far are we from the city limits?”

       “About twenty miles as the crow flies. Thirty miles if you’re not flapping your wings. Where were you going anyway?”

       “To visit my aunt, but I must have made a wrong turn somewhere.”

       “Maybe several. Where does she live?”

       “On the outskirts of Dallas.”

       “That covers a lot of territory.”

       He helped the woman into the saddle and then zipped the jacket with both her and the baby inside the cocoon of warmth. “My name’s Damien,” he said, once they started toward the ranch house.

       “I’m Emma.”

       “Do you have a last name?”

       She hesitated a tad too long to be believable.

       “Smith… Emma Smith.”

       That beat Jane Doe, but not by much. The swaying rhythm of King’s walk seemed to calm the baby. In minutes, she stopped crying altogether.

       Questions about his own past withdrew to the back corners of Damien’s mind as the focus of his attention shifted to the more immediate concern of aiding the mystery woman and child.

       He didn’t fully buy the ditched-car story, though he couldn’t come up with any more logical reason for her to be out in his pasture on a night like this.

       It didn’t matter at this point. The woman and the baby needed help. Even if