LITMIR.BIZ

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idea of a joke this was, but leaving the infants outside like that was beyond some foolish joke. It was damn dangerous. This didn’t really feel like something one of the boys would do.

      What if he hadn’t come out when he did? Or if he’d decided, just this once, to walk through the bunkhouse to go outside instead of using his own door? There was no telling how long the babies would have remained out here, unprotected.

      “Who left you out here like this?” he asked the small faces looking up at him as he made his way to the main house.

      “You know, you are awfully cute,” he commented to the infants. “Too bad you can’t talk and tell me who your mama is, because she needs a serious talking-to. No offense,” he added.

      One of the infants sounded as if he—or she—was mewling in response.

      Reaching the ranch house, Cole realized that he couldn’t safely balance the basket and knock on the door so he used his elbow instead. When he didn’t get an immediate response, he did it again, harder this time. Because he was jostling the basket and therefore the infants inside of it, he stopped and waited for someone to come to the door.

      He was just about to try again when he saw the door finally being opened.

      Garrett White Eagle was not usually at a loss for words but this was one of those few times when his mind seemed to go blank.

      Recovering, Garrett opened the door to the main house wider and asked Cole, “Have you taken up selling babies door-to-door? Because I’m pretty sure that your brother Cody will tell you that’s illegal.”

      Perturbed, Cole didn’t bother commenting on Garrett’s assessment. Instead, he told the man, “I almost tripped over these two when I was leaving this morning. Some brainless jackass left them on my doorstep.”

      “Cute little things,” Garrett observed. “Bring them into the living room.”

      He gestured into the house, then led the way to where he, his brother and their wives gathered in the evening, usually with at least a few of the boys who were making progress in the program.

      Cole placed the basket on the wide, scarred coffee table just as Garrett called out toward the kitchen, “Hey, Jackson, could you come in here? You’ve just got to see this.”

      A minute and a half later Jackson White Eagle, taller and slightly more muscular than his younger brother, walked into the living room.

      “What’s all the commotion abou—” Jackson stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes went straight to the basket on the coffee table. “Garrett, what are two babies in a basket doing on our coffee table?”

      “Don’t look at me,” Garrett protested. “They belong to Cole.”

      “Cole?” Jackson asked incredulously. His eyes shifted to the cowboy he’d hired to work part-time on their ranch.

      “No, they don’t,” Cole denied with feeling. “I just stumbled over them on the doorstep as I was leaving this morning.”

      “Your doorstep,” Garrett pointed out, obviously thinking that was the key word.

      Cole shook his head, trying to distance himself from any responsibility. “I’m beginning to think that was just a mistake.”

      “Your mistake?” Garrett asked, eyeing his friend closely. “Did you get some ladylove in the family way, Cole?”

      Garrett sat down on the old brown-leather sofa in front of the babies. He made a few cooing noises at the infants, which seemed to entertain them sufficiently to get them to stop whimpering.

      “Forever is just a little larger than a postage stamp,” Cole pointed out, referring to the nearby town. “I think if something like that had happened, everyone in Forever would have known—if not immediately, then soon enough.”

      “So, these little cuties aren’t yours?” Garrett asked, just to make sure.

      If they had been his, Cole would have owned up to it without any hesitation and done the right thing by the babies’ mother. Cole felt that his friend knew him well enough to know that.

      Cole frowned at Garrett. “No.”

      “You’re sure about that?” Jackson asked, looking at Cole closely.

      “Absolutely,” Cole answered, but just the slightest note of hesitation had entered his voice.

      What if...?

      No, no way. It wasn’t possible.

      The only woman he’d been intimate with in the last year had been Stacy Rowe. But Stacy had suddenly taken off not too long after that, leaving without a single word to him. Leaving as if the evening they had spent together had filled her with regrets.

      Or maybe, according to the rumor he’d heard later, her Aunt Kate had insisted Stacy come with her on “the vacation of a lifetime,” then whisked her off on a prolonged tour of Europe.

      Having her leave like that, without warning, had really hurt him, although he’d said nothing to anyone, not even his family. He’d thought that he and Stacy had something unique going, but obviously she hadn’t shared his feelings.

      In time, he got over it.

      Or so he told himself.

      “Well,” Jackson was saying, turning to look at him. “What are you going to do with them?”

      Cole looked at the other man, stunned. “Me?”

      “Well, yes,” Jackson replied. “They were left on your doorstep.”

      Cole still doubted that had been the person’s actual intention. He didn’t always stay over the same days. He could just as likely have not been here. “Undoubtedly by mistake.”

      “Maybe not,” Jackson said thoughtfully.

      “What are you talking about?” Cole asked.

      “Your brother Cody came to his future wife’s rescue and wound up delivering a baby,” Jackson reminded him. “And didn’t Cassidy rescue that baby from the river not too long after that?”

      “Yes,” Cole answered cautiously, not sure where Jackson was going with this.

      “Can’t be a coincidence,” Jackson told him. “Somebody probably feels that your family’s good with babies. Want my suggestion?” Before Cole could say anything in response, Jackson told him, “Take the babies home with you until you can sort this whole thing out.”

      “Wait,” Cole said, feeling as if this whole thing was just spinning out of control. “You’re forgetting one important thing. You’ve got a ranch full of teenage boys, all of them old enough to father a child—or two,” he pointed out.

      Jackson studied the infants for a moment. “My guess is that these babies are about three or four weeks old. Maybe less.”

      “Okay,” Cole said, waiting for Jackson to make a point.

      “That means that if they were fathered by one of the boys on the ranch, it would have had to have happened about ten months or so ago,” Jackson told him.

      “Right,” Cole agreed, still waiting for Jackson’s point.

      “Well, we’ve only got three boys who have been here that long,” Jackson concluded. “The rest have been here for less time than that.” There were several who had graduated the program and returned home in that time frame, but for now, he decided not to mention that. He still felt that the infants might be Cole’s.

      “Okay!” Cole was on his feet. “Let’s go talk to those three hands.”

      The babies were making more noise. Jackson’s attention shifted to them. “Well, before we do that, I think these two little people need to be fed first.”

      Feeling suddenly, totally, out of his depth, Cole looked around.

      “Is

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