The Colton Ransom. Marie Ferrarella

the sleeping infant to her cheast, Gabby put a protective hand around Cheyenne and looked at him, a little of her smile fading. Up until now, she’d felt incredibly safe here at home. Now he was giving her cause if not for alarm, then at least for concern.

      “You really think there’s something to worry about?” she asked.

      He shrugged, his wide shoulders rising and falling in an asymmetrical movement. “Better safe than sorry, I always say. The guy next door isn’t looking to ‘love his neighbor.’ He’s looking to take advantage of his neighbor, maybe steal from him if that neighbor happens to be rich—like you and your family,” he added pointedly.

      The expression on his face left no room for argument.

      She did anyway. It had never been in her nature to accept pessimism at face value. “That’s a horrible way to look at life,” she protested.

      “Horrible?” He pretended to consider the word, then dismissed it with a “Maybe.” Trevor said the word for her sake. He didn’t consider it horrible at all. To him, it was just the way life was. “But realistic?” he continued. “You bet. The sooner you wrap your head around that, Miss Colton, the sooner you’ll be able to come face-to-face with reality.”

      Gabby raised her chin. “I don’t like your reality, Mr. Garth.”

      He surprised her by saying, “Me neither. But that doesn’t change the facts as I see them,” he told her.

      “If that’s what you think, then it’s no wonder you’re always scowling,” she told him.

      “Wasn’t aware that I was,” he lied. “Now, you got anything else you want to tell me, or can I go on my rounds?”

      “Only that it wouldn’t hurt you to try to change your attitude a little, look on the bright side once in a while.”

      “I will when they get a little brighter,” he answered, picking up his Stetson from his desk.

      “They?” she questioned.

      “The bad guys,” he clarified, then added, “The ones I’m providing your family security against. Your rosy world would be real to me if these guys went away.” He brought the irony full circle.

      Gabby sighed and tried one more time, feeling as if there were more at stake here than just winning a philosophical argument. She had the distinct impression that the state of his soul was in play here.

      Trevor just couldn’t be satisfied being this disgruntled, this dark in his outlook, in his take on life, she thought. Could he?

      There had to be a way to get through to him, to get him to come around, even if only a little, to her mindset. There just had to be.

      To that end, Gabby began racking her brain to find it.

      “Maybe there aren’t as many bad guys as you think,” she told him, adding that she needed just a little more time to get this right and convince him, bring him around to her way of thinking—or at the very least, a little closer to her way of thinking.

      “And maybe there are a lot more of them than you think,” he countered. His eyes seemed to pin her in place for a moment, leaving her nowhere to turn away. “Did you ever consider that?”

      Rather than cave, she answered firmly, “No,” as she tossed her head for emphasis.

      “Didn’t think so,” he muttered under his breath as he tipped the brim of his hat to her. With that, he left the room.

      “There goes one unhappy man, Cheyenne,” she murmured softly to the baby in her arms.

      Cheyenne just continued sleeping. The baby didn’t know how lucky she was.

       Chapter 3

      He supposed, in an odd sort of way, he had to admire the youngest Colton woman, Trevor thought approximately an hour later as he started to head back to his office once again.

      Dumb though the subject of her focus seemed to him, Gabriella Colton did appear to know what she wanted, what she believed in.

      And, more impressively, she’d actually stood up to him rather than cave in the face of his disapproving judgment of those beliefs she held so dear.

      Not all that many people actually stood up to him when push came down to shove. He had a way of making people back off without his having to resort to physical action. Just his attitude—coupled with a dark, contemptuous scowl—usually did the trick.

      Despite her soft, attractive appearance, Gabby Colton was one hell of a feisty female; he’d have to give her that.

      Now, as far as being smart, well, that was a whole different story, Trevor mused as he made his way back across the grounds.

      How the hell she could believe in goodness and light when she was surrounded by all sorts of wheelers and dealers, not to mention people like her old man, a blackhearted, womanizing devil if ever he’d come across one, was just beyond him.

      Granted, there were good people here on the ranch, like Faye, who’d raised him when there was nothing in it for her beyond being guilty of a good deed, and like her sister Amanda, the baby’s mother, whose only sin was letting herself be sweet-talked by the wrong guy.

      But then there were people around like her father’s third ex-wife, Darla, and Darla’s two adult kids from some previous marriage, Tawny and Trip. All three were worthless parasites, one worse than the other, in his opinion.

      He still couldn’t figure out why the old man allowed those three to stay on. Ordinarily, he would have expected Jethro to send all three of them packing the second the ink had dried on the divorce papers—ending a marriage that had barely managed to pass the one-year anniversary. Instead, the old man had set the trio up to live in one of the extended wings.

      Trevor laughed shortly. That kind of thing clearly smelled of blackmail to him. Which meant one of the three—most likely Darla—had something to hold over the boss’s head—which in turn meant that the old man had done something pretty damn bad.

      Not that that surprised him.

      The lot of them, Darla, Tawny and Trip, weren’t worth even a plugged nickel. They just didn’t fit in with the rest of them. All three of them looked as if they’d been transplanted from some bad, made-in-one-afternoon movie about grifters. They reminded him of vultures, circling carrion and just waiting for it to die so they could swoop down and tear off its flesh. He didn’t trust any of them any farther than he could throw them. Less. And yet there was starry-eyed Gabby, not just talking about starting up a center for troubled teens but actually working toward that goal and trying to convince the old man to have the center built right here, converting an old barn he had on his property.

      That kind of drive either took an absolute fool—which he didn’t think Gabby was—or it took someone who saw only the good in people.

      He figured it had to be the latter.

      That made her too good to deal with the likes of the majority of the people living on or around the Dead River Ranch.

      Frowning, Trevor shrugged away the thought. This was way too complicated for him to sort through, and it was pointless to waste his time that way. It was what it was, and besides, he had his own dilemma to untangle and come to grips with, namely what to do with the kid he was suddenly saddled with.

      If he experienced any parental stirrings toward her—she was rather cute when she wasn’t crying—he banked them down. He—and more importantly, she—couldn’t afford to have them. It just wasn’t in the little girl’s best interest to remain here, so there was no sense in allowing himself to feel anything at all for her.

      There was no doubt in his mind that he would make a really poor father, and a kid needed a father—and a mother, too, something else he couldn’t give Avery. As far as he saw, the only logical conclusion to be reached