Chapter Five #2
And maybe Beth was guilty of reading too many fairy tales to her kindergarten class, but one of the reasons she’d continued to encourage—Leighton would probably say “nag”—her sister to reach out to Cody’s father was that she wanted a happy ending for them, too.
Though leaving the baby at his door wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind, Beth wanted to believe it was the first step toward a possible reconciliation of Cody’s parents.
Assuming that Wilder was the little boy’s father.
Of course, she had no reason to doubt the claim in her sister’s letter. No reason except Leighton’s confession that she wasn’t 100 percent certain.
But if she was being honest, she’d suspected, even at the time, that her sister had only been pretending to be uncertain so that Beth would stop nagging.
Because she couldn’t be expected to contact the father if she wasn’t sure who was the father.
And the fact that Leighton had brought Cody here proved she wasn’t uncertain at all.
But if Beth acknowledged that the hunky cowboy was her nephew’s father, and if Wilder was willing to step up and be his father, where would that leave her?
On her way back to Dallas, alone.
And that scenario wasn’t one she wanted to contemplate.
When Avery had gone, Beth took Cody into the family room with the giant Christmas tree for some playtime. The ranch house was so warm and homey, she’d been taken aback to learn that Max was an unmarried rancher with six sons.
Of course, it was possible that he’d had the house professionally furnished. Or maybe one or more of his daughters-in-law had helped with the finishing touches. In any event, Beth felt comfortable in the house, despite being an uninvited guest.
She sat Cody in her lap on the floor and played patty-cake with him, then she entertained him with “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and used his favorite blanket as a curtain for peekaboo.
As much as she always enjoyed playful interaction with her nephew, she understood the importance of alone time, too, to teach him independence. But considering that Cody hadn’t seen his mother since Christmas Day, she opted to focus on play today so he wouldn’t worry that she’d left him, too.
“How about some tummy time?” she suggested, spreading his blanket out on the carpet.
“This is supposed to help you build strength for sitting up and rolling over,” she said, laying him down on his belly on top of the blanket.
Then she stretched out on the carpet facing him, her chin propped up on her folded arms.
Cody lifted his head to look at her, a wide, toothless smile spreading across his face.
“You’re already such a strong boy, aren’t you?” she said, wiping his drooly chin with the corner of the blanket. “You’re going to be rolling over before we know it, then I won’t be able to put you down for fear of losing you.”
Cody pushed himself up higher, as if to prove he was ready to move on to bigger and better things.
“I lost track of the number of times I had to tell my kids to get their feet off the furniture,” a deep voice said from behind her. “But I never objected to anyone sitting on it.”
Embarrassed to have been caught in such an undignified position, Beth immediately rolled over and rose to her feet. If his reference to “kids” hadn’t already identified him as Wilder’s father, she would have guessed the relationship just from looking at him.
She gauged him to be in his midsixties. His handsome face, deeply tanned and lined, attesting to a life spent outdoors. Though she knew him to be a rancher and he was dressed in the cattleman’s usual uniform of jeans and plaid shirt, his clothes looked more Rodeo Drive than rodeo.
“Um, hi,” she said, scooping Cody up off the floor. “We were just having some tummy time.”
He nodded. “I heard.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks flushed hotter as she wondered how long he’d been standing there, watching them, and if she’d said anything she shouldn’t have. She tended to think out loud when she was with Cody, to help build his listening and vocabulary skills, and often didn’t even realize she was doing it.
“To build strength for sitting up and rolling over,” he noted.
She nodded. “It also reduces the risk of developing a flat spot on the back of the head as a result of spending too much time on his back.”
“We didn’t worry about that when my boys were babies,” Max told her. “Because the conventional wisdom of the time was to put babies to sleep on their tummies.”
“Now ‘back to sleep’ is the recommendation,” Beth said.
“I learned that when my first granddaughter was born,” he acknowledged. “She’s six and a half now—and a total princess.”
“Is this hers?” Beth asked, reaching under the sofa to retrieve the Princess Aurora doll she’d spotted earlier.
“It is,” Max confirmed. “Hunter called last night, asking me to look for it, and I insisted it wasn’t here. Obviously I was wrong.”
She gave him the doll. “A fringe benefit of tummy time is finding things you didn’t even know you’d lost.”
“Well, Wren will certainly be happy that it was found.”
“By the way, I’m Beth,” she said.
“I guessed as much,” he said. “Wilder said you arrived late last night.”
Beth nodded. “I’m sorry for showing up unannounced and uninvited,” she said. “When Wilder called and said that Cody was here, all I could think about was getting to him.”
“You don’t need to apologize for caring about your nephew,” Max told her. “The kind of love and devotion that compelled you to drive straight through from Dallas is admirable.”
“I’d do anything for Cody,” she said sincerely.
“But you don’t know why his mother left him here with his father?”
She frowned at his ready acceptance of the paternity claim. “You believe Wilder is Cody’s dad?”
“Don’t you?” he countered.
“I don’t know what to believe,” she confided.
“Well, having raised six sons of my own, I have no doubt that little boy is a Crawford.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to need something a little more scientific than that to be convinced,” she told him.
His lips twitched, as if he was fighting a smile. “You’re a skeptic, are you?”
“I’d say cautious.”
“Is that why you’re not married with a family yet?” Max asked.
She was taken aback by both his assumption and the personal nature of the question. “How do you know I’m not?”
“You left Texas on Christmas Day to drive halfway across the country for your sister’s son. That suggests to me that you weren’t celebrating with your own family.”
A valid point, she acknowledged. “I guess I’m still waiting to meet the right person,” she said. “And anyway, my focus right now is on Cody—and finding my sister.”
“You don’t have any idea where she might have gone?”
“I had no idea even that she was coming here,” Beth confided.
“You’re not close.”
It was more a statement than a question, but she responded anyway.
“Not as close as I’d like us to be,” she acknowledged, and wondered why she felt guilty for something that wasn’t her fault. Or at least not entirely her fault.
But she’d only just met this man and had no intention of opening up her heart—or family history—to him.
She definitely wasn’t going to say anything that might cause him to view her sister in a negative light.
Of course, Leighton’s abandonment of her child on his doorstep had likely taken care of that already.
“I had six kids,” Max said again. “You don’t need to tell me about sibling relationships.”
“But we’ve grown closer since she told me she was pregnant with Cody. And especially in the past four and a half months.”
“And yet she still left Dallas without telling you where she was going,” he noted.
She nodded, because yeah, there was no denying that.
And no pretending that it didn’t hurt.
“Well, you’re here now,” Max said. “And it’s obvious that your nephew is happy to see you, so can I assume you’re planning to stay a while?”
“It’s looking that way at the moment,” she acknowledged. “I offered to go to the boarding house in town, but Wilder was kind enough to invite me to stay here. Assuming it’s okay with you.”
Max’s lips twitched, as if he was fighting a smile. “I’m not sure it was kindness that motivated his offer. But we have plenty of space,” he confirmed, before Beth could question his first statement. “And you’re welcome to stay as long as you need to.”
“I appreciate it,” she said. “But if I’m going to stay, I’d like to help out in some way.”
“That isn’t necessary,” Max said.
“I’m not a bad cook,” she told him.
The rancher tilted his head, considering her offer. “Do you by any chance know how to make meatloaf?” he asked, with a twinkle in his eye.
“I’ve got my mother’s recipe stored right here,” she said, tapping a finger to her head. “And it’s the best I’ve ever tasted.”
“In that case, there’s a package of ground beef in the fridge.”
She smiled, grateful for the opportunity to repay him in some small way for his hospitality. “What time do you like to eat?”