The Cowboy's Unexpected Baby. Stephanie Dees

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СКАЧАТЬ saw. There was an actual baby on his front porch. He took a step closer and closed his eyes. It had been a rough week—lots of late hours prepping for the last court case. Maybe he wasn’t as awake as he thought he was. But when he opened his eyes, it was still there—a very tiny baby in a pink outfit, rocking gently on the porch swing in its car seat.

      He spun around, peering into the woods, sure his brothers were about to jump out laughing at how good they’d gotten him. But he saw nothing, heard nothing—only the sound of the wind rustling through the dried stalks of the cornfield yet to be cut and the rooster crowing in the distance.

      In the car seat, the baby was starting to squirm.

      Garrett stabbed his fingers through hair that was forever in need of a cut, the same two questions on repeat in his mind. Who left a baby on his porch? And what was he supposed to do with her?

      The tiny face was getting redder, the grunts and whimpers coming more often. Garrett had almost no experience with babies, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t a good sign.

      Picking up the seat and the diaper bag sitting next to it, he carried her—pink clothes, so it had to be a girl, right?—into the house. By the time he set her down again on the coffee table, the fussing had turned to full-out wailing, her color going from red to blotchy purple.

      Garrett stared at her for a second, indecision paralyzing him. He had no idea what to do. Fingers shaking, he opened the diaper bag and tried to remember what he knew about babies, the sum total of knowledge coming from the few hours he’d spent with his brother Devin’s four-month-old twins.

      “If they’re crying, there are three reasons,” Devin had said, ticking them off on his fingers. “Diaper. Dairy. Daddy.”

      Garrett had rolled his eyes at his brother’s alliterative description. Now he wished he’d paid more attention. What did that even mean? He grabbed his phone from the coffee table and shot a text to Devin. Need you. Now.

      Okay, three Ds. Diaper, that one was easy. The baby could be wet or need a change. And yes, there were diapers in the bag!

      But dairy? He chewed his lip as he dug through the bag. That had to be milk.

      “Oh, you’re hungry!” He grinned at her like he’d made a breakthrough scientific discovery. She was unimpressed, the crying ratcheting up to a decibel he had no idea a child could reach.

      Frantic now, he went back to the bag, searching the pockets in desperation. Nothing. He looked inside. There were a couple of little outfits, but he didn’t see a bottle. With a frustrated grumble, he picked up the bag and shook the contents onto the couch cushion.

      Finally, he found two small prefilled bottles, the kind Devin’s twins had when they first left the hospital. He picked up another small package with the nipple, screwed it on to the top of the bottle and set it on the coffee table.

      He unlatched the buckles, freed her arms from the straps of the car seat and gingerly lifted her out. One hand under her backside and the other behind her head, he held her like a bomb that could explode any second. Come to think of it, he was pretty sure he’d be less freaked out holding a bomb than he was holding this screaming baby. A baby he’d just found on his front porch.

      Going on pure instinct and vague memory, he moved her into the crook of his elbow and picked up the bottle. As soon as he touched her mouth with the nipple, she latched on and began to drink, her distraught cries subsiding except for a few lingering shuddery breaths.

      She looked up at him with bottomless blue eyes, tears still pooling in the corners.

      “I’m sorry,” he whispered. He eased into a chair and stared, shell-shocked, at the wall across from him.

      Whose baby was this? He ran through his list of clients in his mind. Would one of them be so desperate that they would leave a baby on his doorstep?

      His head jerked up as the front door swung open.

      “I need coffee. What’s so important that…” His brother Devin limped into the room, his voice trailing off as he spotted the bundle in Garrett’s arms. “Uh, that’s a baby.”

      “Brilliant deduction.”

      Devin shot him a look and continued to the kitchen. He took a mug out of the cabinet and filled it with coffee before he came back to the living room and sat down in the chair across from Garrett. “Yours?”

      “What? No! I walked outside and she was there, on the porch.” His voice sounded panicky, even to his own ears, but that was probably because he was panicking.

      “Why’s all that stuff on the couch?”

      “She was screaming and I couldn’t find the bottles so I dumped everything out.”

      “I get it, trust me. But it looks like you’ve got it under control now.” Devin reached over and picked a white envelope up from the floor. “What’s this? Want me to open it?”

      “Yeah, go ahead.” The baby sucked the last little bit of milk from the bottle. Her eyes were closed now, her little body finally relaxed. “Wait. She finished the bottle. Am I supposed to burp her now?”

      “Just put her on your shoulder and pat her back.” Devin didn’t look up from the papers. “The baby’s name is Charlotte. She’s two weeks old. Wow. Two weeks?”

      “Who thought it was a good idea to leave a two-week-old baby with me?” Garrett’s voice rose in alarm as he patted the back of the tiny little girl.

      “Well, there are some legal papers here that look like someone thought it was a good idea to leave a baby with you forever. You’re listed as Charlotte’s legal guardian.” His brother laughed. “Well…this will put a damper on your merry-go-round of girlfriends.”

      Garrett scowled.

      “You know I haven’t been out with anyone si—” His mouth dropped open. “Guardian?”

      His mind would not process this. Finally, he said, “The mother’s name?”

      “Brooklyn Brady. Do you know her?”

      Garrett slumped back in the seat, one hand holding the baby in place on his chest. “I know her. I was her law guardian until she aged out of foster care. I didn’t even know she was pregnant.”

      Garrett’s eyes stung. Brooklyn had been his client for as long as he’d been doing family law. She’d grown up in foster care with her own mother dropping in and out just often enough to keep the courts from terminating parental rights. Brooklyn had finally been freed for adoption, but by that time she was an angry fifteen-year-old and no one wanted to adopt her.

      “There’s a letter here for you.” Devin looked up from the papers in his hand. “How old is this girl?”

      “Eighteen.” Garrett’s emotions had been on a roller coaster—no, roller coaster wasn’t descriptive enough. This morning had been more like one of those slingshot rides that shot you into the sky and bounced you around on rubber bands until you got sick.

      Mostly now, he just felt sad. Sick, but sad.

      “She says she can’t give Charlotte a stable СКАЧАТЬ