The Cowboy Seal's Jingle Bell Baby. Laura Marie Altom

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       Chapter One

      ’Twas almost the night before Halloween...

      “Just shoot me...” Rowdy stared at his cell phone as if it had bit him.

      “What’s wrong?” His roommate and fellow navy SEAL, Logan, slurped from his milkshake.

      “What do you think?” He glared at his friend, who was a genius with plastic explosives but apparently couldn’t manage setting up auto-pay for their damn utility bills. “Try dropping your cell down an Afghanistan well, then slogging through six months’ worth of voice mail. I’d delete it all but turns out some of this crap is important—like when the gas company calls with a recorded message explaining our service got turned off for nonpayment.”

      “Oops. Yeah, I meant to look into that. No wonder we’ve been stuck with cold showers.” Logan shrugged and took another sip.

      Rowdy rolled his eyes and moved on to the next message.

      While his friends worked their way around Virginia Beach’s Lynnhaven Mall’s food court, sampling all the fast food they’d missed while overseas, Rowdy had been trapped at his cell phone provider’s store, buying a new phone. He’d bummed Logan’s for occasional chats with his parents, but since he’d been with the only other people he ever called, he figured there was no point in replacing it till now.

      Just as Rowdy played the last message, Logan signaled that he was headed to the Corn Dog Factory.

      Paul Jameson—nicknamed Duck on account of his giant paddle feet—stood in line at Sbarro.

      “Um, hello?” a woman said in a tentative tone. “Hope I have the right man? I’m trying to reach Rowdy? Gosh, I’m sorry. I just realized that though you gave me this number, I don’t even know your last name. You might not remember me, but we shared a, um... Let’s just say we were together—the night before Easter, and... I don’t know any easy way to say this, so here goes. I’m pregnant. You’re the father. But no worries—I’m putting the baby up for adoption, so you’re off the hook. I already found an amazing family, and our son is g-going to lead a g-great life.” Wait, what? His son? Her voice broke up. Was she crying? “Anyway, if I don’t hear back from you soon, I’ll assume this plan works for you, too. Bye.” Click.

      Stunned, Rowdy stood in the food court’s center for what felt like an eternity while throngs of shoppers walked around him. How could an accidental pregnancy happen to him twice?

      “Dude...” Logan slapped him on the back. “You look like hell. I didn’t forget any other payments, did I?”

      Rowdy stumbled into the nearest chair at the nearest table, then cued up the message again on his phone. “Listen.”

      Duck wandered up with a slice of pepperoni that was almost as big as his feet. He leaned in.

      Logan sat, setting his corn-dog tray with about eighteen mustard packets in front of him. By the time the message had ended, he’d paled, too. “Dude... What the hell? Didn’t you learn back in high school to always wear a raincoat?”

      “I always do—did. This has to be another mistake.” His mind flashed on that one brief doubt he’d had about his condom before plunging inside the woman who’d made him care about nothing other than giving her as much pleasure as she was giving him. Was it possible the condom broke?

      “Then this chick must be like the other one who tried scamming you?”

      “Exactly.” Only that time, Logan knew for a fact his protection had been fully in force.

      Duck said, “No wonder Ginny never lets me off my leash to play with you. Rowdy, you’re a freakin’ mess.”

      Rowdy glared at his supposed friend. The guy was married with four kids. His leash was a choke chain with links made of emotional steel. Poor guy hardly got out at all. But he seemed happy. Aside from their SEAL team, Duck’s wife and kids were his world.

      As for Rowdy? Being a SEAL was his world. Period. End of story. But what if this woman was telling the truth...

      He winced.

      “When did she call?” Logan asked.

      “Six months ago.”

      “Damn. So, like, your bun’s almost ready to pop out of the oven?” Logan bit into his first of three corn dogs.

      Rowdy pressed the heels of his hands to his throbbing forehead. “What am I going to do? Because one thing’s for sure—there’s no way in hell she’s giving away my son. On the flip side, I’ll be the first to admit I’m not marriage material.”

      “Great attitude, man.” Duck smacked the back of Rowdy’s head. He’d have considered popping him back, but Duck outweighed him by fifty pounds of pure muscle. “Get your head out of your ass and get a clue. Family life is great. You, me, Ginny and your new bride can all have cookouts on the beach. My kids will love playing with yours.”

      “See?” Logan stole a pepperoni from Duck’s slice. “No worries. Already, we’ve downgraded this situation from a DEFCON 2 paternity emergency down to a nice, steady DEFCON 5 beach barbecue. We’ve got your back. Plus, I’ll make a great uncle.”

      Some days Rowdy wished he had better friends.

      * * *

      EX-RODEO QUEEN, EX-WIFE and ex-debutante Tiffany Lawson was seven months pregnant and determined to squeeze her formerly size-six feet into a pair of her favorite Jimmy Choos. It was a given no clothes in her closet fit, but now her shoes wouldn’t, either?

      As for the no-good, rotten dirt clod of a cowboy who’d landed her in this position and hadn’t even had the decency to call? He could go straight to Hades for all she cared. Rowdy was low-life pond scum—lower. She didn’t even know his last name! Which, granted, didn’t say a heckuva lot about her decision-making skills, but still...

      The less time spent dwelling on him, the better.

      “Honey, no matter how hard you try cramming your toes into those darlings, they’re not going to fit.” Her mother, former Dallas society maven Gigi Hastings-Lawson, didn’t even bother looking up from the same copy of Town & Country she’d been reading for three months. Thanks to Big Daddy Lawson’s slight issues with the law, she couldn’t afford a new one. Since he’d be away for a nice long while and their Dallas mansion had been seized, Tiffany and her mother now lived in the godforsaken speck on the map known as Maple Springs, North Dakota.

      Making matters worse—if that were even possible—was the fact that Tiffany didn’t earn enough money in real estate to have her own place. She and her mom lived with her paternal grandmother, Pearl. Since Big Daddy had paid off her house long before his trouble with the law, authorities allowed her to keep it.

      “You did hear it’s supposed to snow?” Her mother lounged on the white velvet chaise Tiffany had salvaged from their former home by strapping it to the roof of the secondhand red Jeep Cherokee she’d bought from their former housekeeper.