Chapter Four
G us followed her over to the Hard Eight with her Christmas tree still in the back of his truck and Eloise excited to see the baby again. But as they pulled onto the long drive of the ranch, Cami’s heart fell at the sight of the sheriff’s car parked in front of their house.
“Oh, no,” she breathed. “No.”
She wanted to stop right there, back up the car, try to come up with a good reason why she hadn’t called them herself. But she didn’t have one. Or a good reason why she shouldn’t simply let the sheriff take her, disappear her into the system.
She was out of the car and running to the door before Gus and Eloise had even come to a stop. Inside, the deputy, Dominic Braehill, who had been out to their place before, stood with her mother, Shay and Izzy, who was holding the baby fiercely.
“Ah. Here she is now,” Sarah said as Cami barged in breathlessly. Her mom made help-me! eyes at her.
“What?” Cami said, heading for Lolly. “What is this?” But she knew. She already knew why he was here.
Braehill, all decked out in his official winter gear, complete with a holstered gun at his hip and lots of leather accoutrement under his thick jacket, uncrossed his arms and took a step in her direction. “Maybe you should tell me, Cami,” he said. “Your mama, here, has been trying to explain exactly why this foundling child is here at the Hard Eight instead of in the custody of child protective services, as she should be. Considering her circumstances.”
Cami took the baby from Izzy, holding her protectively. “I can explain.”
“I certainly hope so.”
Gus and Eloise walked in the door at that point and the expression on Gus’s face was a perfect reflection of the sinking feeling in her chest. The sheriff nodded to Gus but didn’t look at all intimidated by the growing size of the crowd surrounding him.
“I was going to call on Monday. After the weekend. It was a Friday night, after hours. I didn’t want to just—it didn’t feel right to just dump her with—” Her shoulders sagged. “How did you even know I had her?”
“Phone call from an… anonymous party. Said you found that child on a church pew last night and just took her?”
Who would have called—
Her stomach knotted. There was only one person in that crowd last night she could think of who would go so far as to report her. Claire Deitmore. Harrison’s mother. Of course it would be her. She’d been sitting in her car outside the church on her cell as they’d walked out. If not for that darned bloody nose…
“I was there when the baby was found,” Gus said, stepping into the fray. “I’m just as guilty as Cami is in this. But, frankly, I think she did the right thing, taking the child home.”
Cami’s heart squeezed at his kindness.
Dominic slid a look Gus’s way.
“Can we just consider the alternative? With nowhere for her to go? Or a last-minute foster care situation. But aside from all that, there’s a note from the baby’s mother.”
Eloise chimed in. “It was for Ms. Hardesty.”
Cami tipped her chin up. “Look, I know this whole thing is totally irregular. It’s not like I planned for any of this to happen or that I wanted to break the law. But she’s just a tiny baby who’s lost her mother, who, for whatever reason, found it impossible to keep her.”
“It’s against the law to abandon a child. We have safe drops for unwanted children.”
“No one said she was unwanted. I believe her birth mother wanted her very much.”
“We want her!” Eloise said.
Dominic sighed. “That seems beside the point as she did, in fact, abandon her.”
“She left me a note. Specifically, for me, asking me to take care of her and… well, I can’t just ignore that. Whoever she is, she must have been in a terrible circumstance to have left her baby to me. But she was warm and safe at that church. Well fed. She was left behind, but not exactly abandoned.”
“Sounds like semantics to me,” Dominic said, looking considerably less sure of himself than he had a moment ago.
Cami bounced the baby who had started to fuss, against her shoulder. “Maybe to you, it does. But she isn’t a… a stolen car or a lost pair of pearl earrings. She’s a tiny human being who’s just had all the odds stacked up against her.”
“I’m well aware,” the deputy said, shifting his feet on her mother’s kitchen floor. “But the sheriff sent me over to—”
“Once she goes into the system, it’s almost impossible to get her out. Even you must know that.”
“But you know that’s where she belongs,” he told her.
“No, I don’t,” Cami said. “I-I don’t. I don’t have an end game here, Dominic, really, I don’t. Not yet anyway. But I think a little pause is in order for this child. I think if we had a little time, we could find Lolly’s real mother and try to help her. I know she loves her daughter. And she didn’t want to do this. But somehow must have felt she had no choice.”
“And you know all that how?”
Cami set her purse down on the table and pulled out the note that had come with the child. “Because of her own words.”
Reluctantly, Dominic read the note with a frown.
Izzy spoke up. “Have you heard of a thing called kinship care, Deputy?”
“Uh, no. But—”
“It’s where family members or… or friends of the family step up to care for children whose only other alternative is the foster care system. Kinship care is something that’s being utilized more and more, when possible, with the courts in every state as its often much better for the child than an overburdened foster situation.”
“But you’re not kin. Any of you. Isn’t that right?”
“Technically,” Izzy said, “that’s true. But she does have the request of the birth mother.”
“And what exactly do you know about this business?” he asked Izzy. “This kinship business?”
“Before I moved to Montana, I worked as a child advocate in the Texas court system. I don’t think the situation is any less burdened here.”
Cami hoped that Izzy’s experience in the Texas courts would one day come in handy. But she wasn’t sure Izzy’s intervention would change Dominic’s mind about what she’d done last night.
“Look, Deputy, I know you have a job to do, but there has to be a different way to look at this. It’s Christmas. Families are getting ready for the holidays. Fosters are probably full up and we are all here, more than willing to look after this child until at least after the holidays or until we can make some kind of a plan. You know us. You know our family. We’ll take good care of her. Isn’t there any way to make this work for her?”
“It’s not actually up to me,” the deputy said. “But… let me make a phone call. See what can be possible.”
Relief leaked into her. Surely reasonable people would see what was best for Lolly, and it wasn’t taking her away from the Hard Eight today.
Gus moved beside her. “None of this is fair.”
Silently, she agreed. “Thank you for standing up for me. You didn’t have to get involved in this.”
“Tell that to Eloise.” The little girl was on the floor petting Shay’s puppies who had rolled over on their backs for belly rubs. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I am already in pretty deep. And I don’t want to see Lolly go into a bad situation any more than you do. But you know there are great foster families out there. Families that would take her in happily and work toward adoption even.”
“I know. But how long before she finds that? What if she’s unlucky? And why did her mother choose me? Somehow, she trusted me to work things out for her.”
“But even if they let you keep her temporarily, she’ll need a long-term plan. The court will need that, too.”
“I know.” A headache was working its way up the back of her neck. “One step at a time. That’s all I can manage.”
Sarah wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “I know the sheriff well. He’s a reasonable man. If we need to, I’ll talk to him myself.”
Cami hugged her. Somehow, in the last twelve hours, her mom had apparently come over to her side on this issue. But her choices here affected all of them. And right in the middle of a huge upheaval in the workings of the ranch, as well. Was she asking too much to take this on?
Liam walked in the door returning from his chores with the cattle with an eye on the deputy in the yard. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yes,” they all said in a grim chorus.
“Damn.” Liam bent near the baby and ran a finger over her silky hair. “I was just getting used to the little munchkin’s chaos.”
“Yeah, well, we might just have him on the rails,” Cami said. “ And we outnumber him.”
The baby fussed again on her shoulder and began to cry. Sarah pulled a bottle from the fridge and warmed it.
“I would think twice before taking on law enforcement,” Liam said. “Even ol’ Dominic out there. He may be a rookie, but he’s a by-the-book kind of guy.”
Lolly’s cry suddenly had that newborn desperation to it. “Do you think she’s wet?” Cami asked.
“Just changed her,” Izzy said. “She’s just hungry.”
Sarah pulled the bottle out of the warmer and Cami sat down in the overstuffed chair near the fire to feed her. Almost instantly, she began chugging the formula and calming down. “She’s a good eater. That’s a good sign, isn’t it? I mean, even a baby this small must be a little traumatized without her mama.”
“Maybe she’s too young to know,” Liam said.
“No,” Shay said. “No, she’s not.”
“Yeah, she’s not,” Gus agreed as Eloise tucked herself against Cami’s chair to stare down at the baby eating. “No doubt, she’ll feel the loss for a while. It’ll just take time.”
Cami followed his gaze to his own daughter, who had suffered her own loss at the beginning of her life. Four years without his wife. Four years raising his daughter alone. She had to admire that, not only because he was working full-time as a vet, but that he’d managed to raise such a special little girl as Eloise. Even as her own choices about Lolly loomed before her, it gave her some hope that such a thing was possible. Then again, Eloise was his. Would a court allow a single woman like her to take in a child like Lolly? And did she even want to? Maybe if her hands would stop shaking at the thought of losing her today, she could think rationally about all of it.
All eyes turned to the deputy who walked back in the door, slid off his hat and set an infant car seat down on the kitchen floor. Cami’s heart sank. He meant to take her. Her arms tightened around the baby.
“Well… I spoke with the sheriff,” he said. “And I made your case to him. It’s all fairly uncharted territory for him. One thing about being a small town and all, well, there are some… advantages for this baby. He agrees that special circumstances with the holiday and all, your good family bein’ here to support her, care for her temporarily… he said he’ll wait until after the holiday to bring CPS into the picture and since it’s up in Billings anyway, and you have that note, a few days here or there won’t hurt anything. He says you’re likely correct about availability right now. So… you can keep her here for now, but after the holidays, she’ll be in the hands of the courts. And he’s opening a quiet investigation into finding the birth mother as of today, and when he tracks her down, he means to arrest her for child abandonment.”
That pronouncement was met with a thick silence.
And… a Merry Christmas to all…
Cami got to her feet with the baby. “I understand. Thank you, Dom. Really. Thank you so much for everything. We’ll take very good care of her. I promise.”
He slid his hat back on. “I know you will. Just my personal opinion, but she’s better off here, for sure. I just want to make sure it all doesn’t come back to bite you folks, legally.”
She agreed with that wholeheartedly.
“Here’s a car seat for your use until then. Good luck.” Dom gave the baby a last look and headed back outside as everyone gave a collective sigh of relief.
There was an air of celebration for a brief moment, but just as quickly they all realized that none of this was settled. Not really.
“We need to find Lolly’s mother before they do,” Cami said.
“That won’t be easy.” Sarah took Lolly’s little foot between her fingers. “We’re outmanned, out resourced, and he’s got the courts on his side.”
“We’ll just need a Christmas miracle. That’s all,” Cami said.
“After all,” Izzy said brightly, “’tis the season of Santa and all those kinds of—”
Cami shook her head warningly, urging her off the topic of Santa entirely.
“Uh… right,” Izzy continued confused. “I-I meant, good cheer. People are full of Christmas spirit and feeling helpful.” She wrinkled her brow curiously at Cami.
“What about using Trey Reyes?” Liam suggested.
“Who?” Gus asked.
“A private investigator friend of Shay and Cooper’s. Maybe he can give us some ideas on where to start in trying to find her.”
It had been Trey who’d helped bring closure to a mystery involving Cooper’s father over a miscarriage of justice. A mystery that had unfortunately, involved their own family, as well.
“Cooper’s just running an errand in town. He’s on his way over,” Shay said. “I’ll ask him. If it comes to that, maybe we will have to call Trey.”
Eloise was hanging by Cami’s side, trying to get a better look at the baby. Cami leaned down to her. “I bet Lolly would love it if someone closer to her size gave her a cuddle. Would you like to hold her?”
“Could I?” Eloise’s eyes widened with surprise.
“Here. Let’s sit you down on the couch and you can hold her for a minute. If that’s okay with your dad.”
Gus grinned with a nod. Once she’d settled Lolly into his daughter’s arms, Gus stood beside Cami looking uncharacteristically emotional. “Ella has always wanted to be a big sister in the worst way. Thanks for letting her hold her. She’s in hog heaven right now.”
“I’m happy to make her an honorary big sister—at least for as long as we have Lolly.”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’ll have to do.”
She was grateful to him for standing up for her to the deputy, but it was more than that. Somehow it felt like they were in this together, for better or worse.
But she was probably wrong.
Gus’s cell buzzed with a text. “I’ve got to go. There’s an emergency with a foaling mare over at the Canaday’s place. Ella? You’ve gotta come with me.”
Sarah reached for Lolly as Ella pleaded. “But can’t I stay? Just look at how little her little fingers are.”
He shook his head. “These nice people have their hands full, Ella. Do you want to go on a call with me or should I drop you with Luke?”
She looked mournfully at the baby. “I’ll go with you.”
“She’s welcome to stay here for a while,” Cami said, not ready for this connection to end.
“I have no idea how long I’ll be on this call. No, but thanks anyway. C’mon, Ella. Come help me get Ms. Hardesty’s tree out of the truck.”
Cami had almost forgotten in all the drama. Gus, Liam, and Ella unloaded the truck and Liam carried it inside.
“Thanks again for helping with our tree,” Gus said, turning to her. “It meant a lot to Ella. I’ve got to run but let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“I don’t want you to feel obligated to—”
“I don’t. I want to. Look, I know you’ve got a big family to help you, and you and I are practically strangers, but if… there’s anything…”
“Thanks. Thank you. Really.”
He stared at her for a minute, as if he was gauging whether to say more about her choices today.
But instead, he said, “You okay?”
She slapped on a bright smile. “I’m fine.”
“It’s a lot,” he said simply. “Taking this on. It’s a lot.”
That might have been the understatement of the year. “I’m just a little tired today. And a little scared.”
“Rule of thumb? Sleep when she sleeps. Speaking from personal experience here. Or she’ll wear you down to a nub.”
“Sleeping seems… unlikely and, during naps, out of the question with everything that’s happening. But, promise, I’ll give it my best shot.”
“Fair enough.”
A pang of something unfamiliar zinged through her as they pulled down their ranch drive and disappeared. Unfamiliar, and surprising. She was more than intrigued, she was attracted to him. It was strange how finding one tiny baby could shift one’s life in such a dramatic way, bringing a man like Gus into her life in a very unconventional way. Maybe it would come to nothing. But what she knew for sure was that this child, who’d appeared like a gift in this season of gifts, was going to change both their lives in ways she couldn’t yet fathom.