Chapter 19
Baby Holly was bathed, fed, dressed in a clean pink nightgown, and her dark hair brushed, but Gemma continued to hold her. Sitting in the middle of Trace’s big bed, she rocked the baby back and forth and hummed to her.
The sight put a catch in Trace’s chest. He wished Gemma had been the one that had gotten pregnant with his child. He finished dumping the baby’s bathwater down the sink, rinsed the big plastic bowl, and in a few easy strides was beside the bed. He leaned down and kissed Gemma on the forehead and then Holly on the cheek.
“Thank you, one more time. I wouldn’t know what or how to do anything, but I’m learning fast,” he said.
“You’ll get the hang of it. Look at her sleeping. Isn’t she beautiful?” Gemma asked with a long sigh.
“Yes, she is,” Trace said, but he was staring at Gemma, not at his new daughter. He cleared his throat and sat down beside her. “Hey, I need to call my dad to see about all this legal stuff. You okay while I step outside? How long do you think it’s going to take us to get to Oregon after this rodeo?”
“We’ve got a week to get there. If we have a horrible night with her, then we’ll only go a couple of hundred miles. If she sleeps good, we’ll go more. Go call your folks. You have procrastinated long enough,” Gemma answered.
“Yes, I have, but before I make the call—” He paused.
Gemma looked up at him. “What?”
He took a deep breath and spit it all out without stopping. “From Hermiston it’s only three hundred miles to Bremerton, Washington. That’s just a day’s trip, and then it is two weeks until the rodeo there. Would you fly to Goodnight with me and spend those two weeks at my house? We wouldn’t be so cramped, and I could help Uncle Teamer. We could fly back to Bremerton, ride that night, and then drive down to Ellensburg.”
Gemma nodded. “Yes, I will.”
Trace let out a lungful of air in a whoosh.
“You didn’t think I’d say yes, did you?” Gemma asked.
He kissed her on the cheek. “I was almost afraid to even ask.”
“Go make your call now. I’m going to talk to Mama and then Ace while you visit with your folks,” she told him.
Trace carried the folder with all the information in it outside with him. He held his breath again after he dialed his father’s phone number. It rang four times before his dad picked up.
“Yes?”
“Dad, Trace here.”
“I have caller ID, Son. I know who is calling. Your mother and I just finished dinner, and we’re in a taxi on our way home,” his father said.
“I have a daughter,” Trace blurted out.
“Is this a joke?”
“No, sir. Put it on speaker so Mother can hear. I need some legal advice, and I only want to tell this story once,” he said.
He started at the beginning and told them exactly what documents were in the folder.
“Now what do I do?” he asked.
“Are you positive the child is yours, and if it is, are you sure the mother has given up all rights?” he asked.
“Looks that way on paper, but I can scan them over for you to look at,” Trace said.
There was a pause before his mother spoke. “First thing you do is drop down on your knees and promise Gemma O’Donnell half your kingdom for being so generous with her time. I’m still mad at you for bringing her to dinner with us and not even telling her or us. I was so stunned that she probably thinks I’m horrid, and nothing your father or I said came out right.”
“What?” Trace said.
“I’m a grandmother now, Son. I can say whatever I want,” his mother told him.
“You always have anyway,” Trace said.
“Yes, I have, but it’ll get worse now,” she said. “I’ve got court and your father has cases in the next few days, but we will be in Bremerton for that rodeo. I want to see my granddaughter. And Gemma deserves better than meeting us without giving her a chance to refuse or even pretty up. Good Lord, Trace, I would have shot your father if he’d taken me to see your grandparents without a notice.”
“And,” his father chimed in, “now she’s taking on a child you fathered with another woman from a weekend bender?”
“Okay, okay, I goofed,” Trace admitted. “I wanted her to meet you. And I thought it would be a nice surprise for both of you. All I hear from you, Mother, is how you wish I’d find a nice girl and settle down. Now about this legal stuff?”
“Sounds like it’s pretty well taken care of, Son. I want another DNA just for absolute proof in case this woman ever comes back. And send all those documents to me first thing in the morning,” his father said. “I’ll file them all in the state of Texas. You want to change her names?”
Trace hesitated.
“Talk it over with Gemma,” his mother said.
“She’s agreed to go to Goodnight to spend the two weeks between Hermiston and Bremerton to help me with Holly.”
“Good, then we will plan on seeing you at Teamer’s rather than flying all the way to Washington. We’ll be in touch, and you tell Gemma that we’re coming,” his mother said.
***
Gemma laid Holly in her bed and dug her cell phone out of her purse.
She hit the speed dial for her mother and waited.
“Hi, kiddo. Where are you? How’s the ankle? You really should forfeit your entry fee and not ride in this rodeo. You can win the next one with a good foot rather than hurting this one again and not winning either,” Maddie said.
“I’d forgotten about my ankle. Trace still makes me use crutches, but it’s healing pretty fast, and I hate to give up my entry fee. Are you sitting down, Mama?”
“You didn’t marry that man, did you?” Maddie asked.
“What…made you…say that?” Gemma stammered.
“Your tone,” Maddie answered. “There’s something different about it.”
“No, I did not marry him. But I’m sitting here looking at his baby.” Gemma went on to tell her the whole story before Maddie could butt in again.
“Oh my!” Maddie said when she finished.
“Is that all you’ve got to say?” Gemma asked impatiently.
“For right now it is because I’m shocked speechless. Don’t you dare fall in love with that baby and mistake it for real love for the man. That wouldn’t be fair to either of you, and you better think twice about getting too attached to the baby because it’ll just make it harder to leave her when the time comes.”
“For someone who is stunned into silence, you are doing a really good job of talking. Ace is here. I hadn’t even called him and wasn’t expecting to see him until the rodeo, but he just stuck his head in the trailer door, so I’ll call you later.” She ended the call.
Blake and Dalton followed Ace into the small trailer with Trace behind them. The brothers stood around the feedbox and stared down at the sleeping child. “I guess you’ve got some explaining to do,” Ace said.
“I guess I do,” she said and then filled them in on the whole story.
“Well, I bet that was a big surprise!” Ace said.
Gemma slid off the bed. “Yes, it was. I thought y’all were coming for the rodeo.”
“Bull was ready early,” Dalton said.
“Y’all could have told me that you already knew about the baby,” Gemma said.
Ace bent down on one knee to get a better look at the baby. “We won’t be staying for the rodeo. But we’ve worked out a plan with Trace. Blake is going to hitch up to your trailer and take it home with him. He had planned to go on west of here and check out a ranch, but it sold today. That’s why he brought his own truck and can take your trailer home.”
“I might look at a couple of places between here and home. Did you tell your mama about this?” Blake asked Gemma.
“Just did.”
“Liz and Jasmine?” Ace asked.
Gemma shook her head. “Not yet.”
Ace stood up. “Then I call dibs on telling Jasmine, and you can tell Liz.”
“I wish that sweet little angel was mine,” Dalton whispered.
Gemma thought she was dreaming. “You do?”
“I’m so ready for a wife and kids now that I have bought my own place,” he said.
Blake touched the edge of the baby’s bed. “I can’t believe you’ve got her in a feedbox. Throw a little hay in there and she’d look like the nativity scene down at the Ringgold church when we have the Christmas pageant. Remember when Rachel was the baby for it, and she cooed and gooed at her mama the whole time the kings were there?”
“Those were her uncles, and she knew them. She sure didn’t coo at you three dressed like shepherds, did she?” Gemma asked and then giggled.
“No, she set up a howl,” Ace answered.
Trace came into the trailer and glanced at Gemma with a puzzled look on his face.
“We were talking about Rachel when she played baby Jesus in the Christmas pageant. Her uncles and father were the three kings, and these three were the shepherds. They should have brought her shiny presents instead of leading a baaing sheep up on the platform,” Gemma explained to Trace.
“Gemma was the angel that night. She had a crooked wire hanger covered in silver tinsel on her head,” Ace said.
Trace shook his head. “Angel? Y’all let her be an angel?”
Blake’s booming laugh woke the baby. “I’m sorry, but that’s exactly what I said when I saw her all draped in a bedsheet with that halo on her head.”
Gemma picked Holly up. “Well, this is a real angel.”
She suddenly realized that Holly would be in Goodnight, Texas, celebrating her first Christmas with her father and his family at the end of December. Gemma would be in Ringgold with her family.
Oh, no, I will not! I’m not leaving. Trace can get used to the idea one day at a time and even think it’s his idea when he asks me to stay on forever.
“And come Christmas, she might even be teething and even Jesus won’t be able to get along with her then,” Blake said. “Remember those times with our nephews and our niece?”
Ace’s face went serious. “Come Christmas, I’ll be a daddy! It just hit me. I’m going to have one of those.”
“Maybe two if you want to stay up with Wil and Pearl,” Blake said.
“Oh, no!” Ace said. “They did an ultrasound. I saw my daughter and there’s just one of her.”
“Okay, while my big brother is digesting the idea of fatherhood, let’s go get these trailers changed over. We’ve got a bull waiting in a trailer out there and a lot of miles to go,” Blake said.
“Tell me again how you manage to take care of our trailer,” Gemma asked.
“Blake brought his truck, so he’s going to take your trailer all the way home. Dalton is going to follow me in Trace’s truck, and we’ll leave it at Goodnight, then he’ll get in with me and we’ll go on home,” Ace said.
Gemma handed the baby to Trace. “I’ll go get my things out of the trailer.”
“Would you mind if I used your trailer on the way? It would save some hotel expenses while I’m looking around. There’s a couple of pieces of property I want to look at around Vernon,” Blake asked.
“Not one bit. It’s not very big, but it works for one person just fine. You might even find a woman camped right next to you in a trailer park that will change your luck,” Gemma teased.
“Ain’t happenin’. My luck is plumb run out with the women. I’m going to be the old bachelor uncle who spoils his nephews and nieces,” Blake declared.
An hour later she had moved in with Trace. He’d better get used to it because she intended to be around forever.