Page 79 of The Cowboy and the Baby

Sincerely,

Ronald Crane

Crane, Crane, and Swanson

My hand shook, my stomach revolted. I set the phone down on the table, closed my eyes, and tried to breathe through the constricting tunnel in my throat. Fury and confusion and betrayal swirled in a potent force in my chest, preventing me from comprehending anything but panic.

Sheer, unadulterated panic.

They wanted Lily. We brought them here on a mission to build trust, and they promptly found ways to use it against me. What had Thomas said? We have all the information we need.

Vipers.

The thought of Lily enduring Sarah’s squeaky baby talk and martyr's attitude made me want to vomit. I swallowed the rising lump and sought stability. Hope. Something outside this consuming ache.

A hand gripped my shoulder. Cade asked, “Noelle?” and my tight chest unlocked. I could breathe, and I did. Great panting, gasping things. His voice deepened. “What’s wrong?”

I barely managed to unlock my phone and pass it to him. He accepted it with his other hand, kept one on my shoulder. I anchored my eyes on him like a lifeline. Distantly, I comprehended that the happy chatter had stopped. Cora stared at us, wide-eyed, while she clasped Lily to her chest.

Cade didn’t say anything at first. He simply set the phone down and stood there. Then he crouched, gently grabbed my chin, and turned me to face him. His voice was a growly rasp and a solemn promise.

“Over my dead body, Noelle.”

The seriousness in his eyes, backlit by rage and fury, calmed every whirling fear. I lifted my hand, pressed it to his face. My fingers felt like ice when I cradled his cheek, stubbled at the end of the day.

How had I gotten so lucky?

He grabbed the phone. Seeing the screen had gone dark, he held it toward me. Understanding what he wanted, I opened it again, and he passed it to Hawk.

“Read that,” he said, “and give me the name of your best attorney.”

Anger came in waves.

It washed over me, bristling and livid that Sarah and Thomas would strive to cheapen and make tawdry the beautiful world Cade had built here. The family whom I had found, who welcomed us with wide arms. There was love and protection.

Disbelief and frustration followed, setting like a low tide swilling around. How could they? How dare they?

Fear came next, because the Millers had hit at the heart of my insecurities. Was anything on that paper inherently wrong? Not really. Lily did deserve the best, and I was a tired single mother. Did I have a plan to make money?

Kind of. Once we finished these main renovations as we agreed, I planned to find online work. Consulting, maybe?

I sort of threw myself and Lily on top of Cade and he caught us. Marsha would, of course, help out if I asked, but that was a band-aid and not a plan to put in front of a judge. Even the facts about Cade, Cody, and Wyatt weren’t inherently wrong. I lived with three unrelated men.

These anxieties swirled me around for too long, escorting me from one wild fear island to the next. Insecurities about my ability to be enough for Lily, the raw grief over losing my sister and my parents, by some measure.

Finally, resolve hardened my emotions, brought me from the dregs of depression and panic. Sarah and Thomas were selfish rats who sniffed out weakness and worked it to their own advantage. I’d never let Lily be in their influence.

Cade had it right. There would be more than one dead body Sarah and Thomas would have to climb over before they set their greedy hands on my daughter.

The tips of my fingers brushed the fine hairs on Lily’s head, soothing me. She’d fallen asleep eating, the nipple half hanging out of her mouth, a little milk stain gathered on the burp cloth.

Gently, I extracted the nipple and studied her. The slope of her nose, her downy hair, reminded me of Naomi. The tiny fingers that clutched a part of my shirt. She’d only been in my life for a handful of weeks, and yet she’d changed everything.

Lily was my biggest line in the sand. After her, there was no going back. She made me into a new and better Noelle, and I would remain forever altered.

I took a few more moments to appreciate and soak in her calm, steady presence before I tightened her swaddle blanket, stood up, and gingerly transferred her to her crib. Lily settled with a stuttering breath.

The floorboards creaked outside Lily’s room, drawing my eyes higher. Cade stood there in a pair of sweatpants, an old shirt, his hair adorably mussed. Hawk and Cora must have left; I’d been ruminating longer than I planned. It threw me off when he stepped out of the wranglers and button-up flannel, but I liked the carefree side of him. The stubborn, thoughtful lines remained along his face, and so did the smell of horse and hay.