Broken Road (5 page)

   “I wanted to talk to you about watching Lilla for a little while today,” Devil began slowly, mulling over her words.

   Mr. Canter looked surprised for a moment then he turned cautious.

   “Why?”

   She fidgeted and he noticed it. She was nervous, very nervous.

   “I have to go to town and get my stuff and I need to find someone to pull out my truck from the ditch down the mountain rode. It won’t take to long I promise,” she said in a rush. No reason to let him have doubts early.

   This man made Devil nervous. He was tall, strong, and had a bit of a temper that could make him mean. He had rare moments but not very many. Yet still she hadn’t decided if she hated him or liked him, and she liked very few men.

   She had no idea how her sweet older sister could have fallen in love with such a man and have his child.

   He took a long moment to take in when she said and to think about it. Finally he shook his head.

   So it was a no go.

   “You’ll stay here. I’ll send one of my men to do it and get your truck. I’ll have them get your stuff in town too,” he said firmly in a voice to that said no questions to be asked.

   Devil’s mouth fell open. “But-”.

   “And,” he went on as if she hadn’t said anything, “for anything else you might need while you’re staying here. You don’t have anything suitable to wear to town.” A pointed glance at her chest was enough said. “Not to mention that no one on this ranch knows how to take care of a baby.”

   She was about to protest again, but found that he did have a few good points against her. She only had the giant clothes he had given her the night before. Not to mention he was right about his men. None would know how to look after a baby.

   So she sighed and set to looking for a deal that she could make and he would take. When she looked at him again he was still staring at her.

   She cleared her throat.

   He flushed and made a show of getting a plate of food and eating it. After the first bite he looked up at her in surprise.

   “This is really good.”

   Devil smiled, but only a little.

   That smile did something to Winthrop’s gut. The smile that crossed the kid’s lips left him more then breathless. She was a pretty little thing, but when she smiled she was beautiful. He noticed that she one little dimple on the left side of her smile. A charming little tiny thing that made him want to kiss it.

   “When can they go and get my stuff? Can I go please?” She thought for a moment. She doubted that he knew who she really was and it might get back to him if one of his cowboys went after her stuff. “I’ll take Lilla with me if that would make you feel any better.”

   It was her first offer.

   Winthrop shook his head. It was bad enough that all his men now knew that she was living in the house with him, something no women had ever even been close to doing, and that she was on his ranch. All he needed was everyone in the county, not to forget the close knit town of Marlo to know it too and her having a baby on top of that wouldn’t help. Not to forget the fact that he was attracted to her in a startling way. The longer he could put people off their trail the better.

   “I don’t want you going,” he repeat to her.

   And here came the fire, he saw and watched it spark in her eyes.

   “I will not be held here! All I want is a small trip into town, is that so much to ask for? I’m of legal age and I can do what I want! News flash cowboy,” Devil snapped, glaring, “you don’t own me.”

   Mr. Canter’s expression darkened to dangerous levels and his hands clenched at his sides.

   She took a safe step back and ran up against the wall behind her.

   “Take me to town,” she demanded.

   “No.”

   Devil chewed on her bottom lip. She used her final card and hoped for twenty-one.

   “I’ll make a deal with you.”

   That made to man stop coming towards her and raise his brows at her. “And what could you possibly have that I want?”

   “Anything. Like a kind of free card to use if you ever think of something you want from me. Use it once whenever, however.”

   The sudden grin that spread across his face gave her the impression she should have kept her mouth shut.

   “In that case,” Winthrop said with dark intent, “you have yourself a deal.”

   Lord have mercy what had she just done?

Winthrop stalled as long as he could before taking her into town. He was quick in learning that she lived up to her name.

  
Devil
, he thought with a bit of irony.
What kind of parent names their kid Devil?

   He shook his head and concentrated on the rode. They had just left the ranch and with every passing minute he wished he had never left. He hadn’t left the ranch in months. What were people gonna think when they saw him with her? Most likely they’re going to think she was a high schooler like he had.

   Winthrop felt his eyes drift from the road towards her again; he couldn’t seem to help himself when it came to her. She had the window rolled down and the wind was teasing her long hair and a smile spread across her lips as she saw something new pass by. Devil held her baby girl tight to her chest and pointed at things telling the baby about each one. The baby giggled at the funny faces her mother was making and her mama laughed back.

   The laughter in the truck did something to Winthrop. It gave him a lightened feeling in his chest and dug up a long forgotten smile from somewhere in his heart. He realized for the first time he could remember that he was happy in a long time.

   Lilla giggled as she tugged on some of Devil’s hair and Devil laughed and kissed her forehead. The baby had turned her inside out and upside down with nothing more then a toothless smile and some giggles.

   After years of few smiles and no laughter it felt good to have to do nothing and be careless. She was free for at least a little while and could plan out what she was going to do next. Now that she had Lilla it was time to start thinking about a home, and when Wylde came back they could all be together.

   There was that voice in the back of her mind however that told her that she would never see her sister again, but she forced that voice to somewhere she wouldn’t have to listen to it.

   There was a shift in the mood inside the truck and Devil turned to Mr. Canter with a questioning look.

   He was looking at her with a tender smile that sent her heart racing and after a second Devil couldn’t take it anymore. It was doing strange things to her pulse and made her want to do strange things with the man. Things she shouldn’t even be thinking of.

   “Stop it,” she muttered at him, looking away as her face heated with her thoughts.

   Her word hit him like a bucket of icy water. He shouldn’t have been staring at her the way he had! Or any way for that matter. He was thinking of things he should not be thinking of. Dangerous things.

   Winthrop kept he eyes on the rode after that. No sense in losing his pride when she could tear it to pieces without lifting a finger.

   The sign they passed soon said that twenty more miles were ahead of them before they reached to small town of Marlo and Devil pulled out her cell phone to call her manager. After three rings Celia Buch, twenty-five, manager and best friend to Devil for more then fours years, picked up her phone and said in greeting, “Where the hell are you!”

   Devil smiled a little. “Nice to talk to you too. I’m somewhere close. Listen I need you to do me a favor.”

   “Sure thing, but tell me where in the hell you are!”

   “Meet me at the Harvest Inn in Marlo with my stuff please. There is someone I want you to meet,” Devil whispered into the phone.

   There was a silence on the other end and just when Devil had thought Celia had hung up on her there was a meaningful laugh on the other end of the line.

   “Oh, ho! Now I get it. I’ll be there honey and I’ll be waiting.”

   She could almost see the grin growing across her friend’s face.

   “It’s not what you think-”.

   “I bet it isn’t,” Celia agreed evilly and hung up the phone.

   Devil closed the phone with a grunt of frustration and smiled at Lilla as she tried to copy Devil’s face. She had the pretties part of eyes just like Devil’s mother had had, and a cap of soft black hair the crowned the top of her head. She was a squishy little pink thing that giggled and in her eyes couldn’t have been more perfect.

   “Who did you call?”

   The deep voice startled Devil and she gave Lilla a little squeeze that made the baby squeak in surprise. Mr. Canter was watching the road but he was scowling.

   Not a good sign. Devil shifted closer to the door.

   “Just a friend. She’s gonna get my stuff for me since you said we’ll be staying at the ranch for now. She was worried about me ‘cause I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. That I was going to get Lilla. She doesn’t know I have a daughter yet. It’s still new to me too.” Devil shifted again, but this time so that she would be facing him.

   Winthrop grunted and mulled over her answer. So she had a friend, but hadn’t told anyone about her daughter or that she had come to pick her up. What would her friend think when she found out about the baby? Since she hadn’t told anyone about the baby or where she had gone that meant that she really didn’t have a place to stay and a motel wasn’t a place to raise that poor kid when her mom was still a kid herself.

   He made up his mind then and there. They were going to stay with him until he knew for sure that she could take care of Lilla and that meant finding her a job and settling her in at the ranch. That also meant that she wouldn’t stay secret for long. So he would need to come up with a story about her. He wasn’t going to tell anyone the truth about the kid and his brother. Maybe she could be a cousin, she was Native American like him after all, all for her eyes that was. He could pass her off as his cousin from-

   “Mr. Canter?”

   He shifted his thoughts and focus on the girl.

   “Yeah?”

   “Thanks for taking me into town. I know how much of a problem it was for you to stop work to do this.”

   He watched as the girl lowered her eyes when he looked her way.

   “It’s not that big of a deal, but I need to get supplies for that arm of yours anyway while were here,” he said by way of explanation.

   She nodded and looked out the window. Before she knew it they were in town. She was nervous about someone knowing who she was and coming over to her, but the moment she saw Celia when they parked in front of the Inn she relaxed.

   Nothing bad was going to happen.

   “I’ll leave you to your friend for a few minutes while I walk down the street to the store. I’ll be back in a moment,” Winthrop said and got out of the truck before he did something stupid like kiss the damn girl. She looked helpless and all he wanted to do was help himself to her.

   He pulled his hat low over his eyes as he walked down the street to the store to hide his grin.

   Just like the big, bad wolf.

…

Devil watched her friend hold a giggling Lilla and giggled right along with her. This was the first time she had ever seen Celia warm up to a kid. She hadn’t liked her sister’s new baby, but for some reason Lilla had everyone she met wrapped around her little fingers.

   “So…what are you going to do? Who’s kid is this and why do you have her. And BTW girlfriend you have to tell me who the hunk was,” Celia said as Lilla made a grab at her short blond hair.

   Devil fingered a lock of her hair that had fallen loose of its ponytail. It was now or never.

   Devil took a deep breath and went all out. “That’s my daughter and the hot guy as you call him is her dad.” 

   “What!” Celia exclaimed almost dropping Lilla. Devil swooped the baby into her arms and she giggled as she grabbed at Devil’s hair.

   “She is my daughter now,” Devil repeated with a smile.

   Celia stared at her for a long moment, her jaw sliding south for the winter. “I don’t know you! How could you have had a baby I didn’t know about? I am sure I would have noticed a baby bump. And that man has to be at least thirty! You couldn’t have known him that long!”

   Devil laughed out loud. “She is really my niece. Her birth mother was my sister Wylde, but Wylde disappeared again and I adopted her; so she’s mine. But that man is her father.”

   Celia held up a hand looking incredulous. “You mean to tell me that your long lost sister who ran away when you were little just dumped her kid on you and left again?”

   Devil smiled at the baby before she looked back to her friend. “No. She wrote me a letter telling me where to find her. I signed the papers and now she is mine.”

   Her friend frowned in confusion. “Then what are you going to do? You still have the tour to finish and then you have your contracted jobs that go from then till the end of next year. You don’t have time to raise the kid. Can’t you just leave her with her dad?”