The Cowboy and the Baby (The Iron Creek Ranch #1)

Chapter 1

CADE

The Chicago airport smelled like plastic and sounded like an empty cave filled with crying babies.

While low-level stress crawled through the air like a zombie apocalypse, I tossed my backpack over one shoulder and braced myself for more lines, more wait times, and more dealing with harried people.

There wasn’t much I hated more than airports, security lines, and hurtling my body into space at top speeds while strangers surrounded me.

Not ideal.

I’d rather face a raging bull than run to make a connecting flight, thanks.

The only redeeming factor was not being in Florida anymore. Experiencing the first of December in Florida was wildly different from my ranch in Wyoming, and not necessarily in good ways. Cold, snowy air did a man good. Fortified the lungs.

At least I wasn’t stuck in that miserable heat swamp anymore. Goodbye tropics. The ranch—no, my ranch—awaited. That felt good.

Real good.

While I strode past a group of slow-moving tourists and ignored blaring announcements from overhead, my pocket vibrated with a text.

Probably from a woman named Noelle, granddaughter of my former boss, old man Morgan.

I’d been his ranch foreman for years, managing the animals, the ranch hands, and everything else, at the end.

He died a few weeks ago. When I returned to Wyoming, I’d also pick Noelle up from the airport and bring her to the ranch. Thankfully, she arrived around the same time as me, which made it too easy.

Noelle: My flight is on time. Are you sure it’s no trouble? I could find a ride share . . . I think.

Cade: Not a problem. I’ll be there, anyway.

Noelle: Great. I’ll text you when I land. Thanks!

I tucked the phone into my pocket. Tomorrow, we’d meet with Kinoshi, the local attorney, to review Morgan’s will.

I knew what it would say . . . but Noelle didn’t.

None of the family knew that he’d turned the entire ranch over to me.

He’d threatened it for years, but they didn’t bother to visit to discuss the estate with him.

Not that the ranch was much to lose, really. It was a ticking bomb. Falling apart. Patched together. The finances hadn’t been great for years, but Morgan had been too tired and old to give the ranch what it deserved.

I stood off to the side to wait for my connecting flight, which would be boarding shortly.

A helpless whimper caught my attention, and I glanced over my shoulder to find a woman with messy, strawberry blonde hair and a heap of freckles across her nose heading toward me.

She pushed a squalling baby in a stroller while juggling two suitcases, a diaper bag dangled from one stroller handle, and a purse sat on top of the stroller.

While she scrambled to keep the roller bags from crashing together, the baby issued another ear-splitting shriek.

Her purse pitched sideways at the same moment as the diaper bag slid off the handle.

I reached out, righted the purse before her phone toppled free, and used a knee to stop the stroller from gliding away.

A pile of burp cloths, diapers, bottle, and other baby accoutrements plopped onto the floor from the diaper bag.

“Oh!” she cried, barely recovering the roller bags. “Thank you.”

My other hand gripped the stroller, and I crouched to gather and replace the fallen items from the diaper bag. While she calmed the baby, I righted her purse and set her diaper bag where it had been. A stack of burp cloths, a package of wet wipes, the formula, with a binky at the top.

Red rose to her cheeks when I straightened, meeting her gaze. Her emerald beauties offered a grateful smile, drawing my attention to ragged hair tumbling out of a hasty ponytail, and loose-fitting clothes. Beneath the frazzled layers of exhaustion marking her expression, she had a sweet face.

“Thanks.” She tilted her lips a little sheepishly. “I thought everything was secure. We just have so many bags, but I need everything . . .”

“No problem.”

She pulled the crying baby from the car seat attached to the stroller. The loose-limbed, curled-up ball with a little pink bow and wrinkled face absolutely captured me.

So bitty.

So loud.

I couldn’t help my chuckle. The little girl couldn’t be much older than a few weeks, if that, and she already knew what she wanted. Her protests quieted as soon as her mama cradled her, but her face looked a few seconds away from another bellow. A physical pang of jealousy hit me right in the gut.

The woman bounced the baby while she dug into the diaper bag with her other hand, nose wrinkled.

“Is this the flight to Jackson City, Wyoming?”

“Sure is.”

“Are they boarding yet?”

“Soon.”

She muttered, “Great,” under her breath with a sigh.

Her lips rolled, and she burst out with, “I don’t think my ticket shows the baby.

” She searched the page, and I wasn’t quite sure if she spoke to me or herself.

“Can I get on the plane without her having a ticket? Does she need one? This is nuts.”

“I can stand here with your bags while you ask, if you like?”

Surprise widened her eyes as she glanced up, through her lashes.

“Would you mind?”

“Not at all.”

I positioned myself a little closer. She grabbed a purse, shot me a relieved smile, and scurried to the desk with the baby in her arms. My eyes trawled over the indifferent faces of strangers in the terminal, locked behind phones and headphones, who ignored her.

Would anyone else have helped?

I highly doubted it, but I had a jaded streak when it came to the masses.

Another employee spoke into the intercom, calling people to the gate. Zombies lined up like sheep, barely making eye contact, jostling each other with bags and grumbles. My seat was in the middle of the plane, so it’d take a while for me to board. I settled in to wait.

Like always.

The woman returned, mumbling something about paperwork. With one hand, she yanked a manila folder from the diaper bag, and promptly knocked it off the stroller handle again. Quick as lightning, I caught the bag mid-fall and set it back in place.

Heat flooded her face.

“I’m so sorry!”

I waved it off.

“Thank you for your help. I . . . it’s been a day, you know?”

Unshed tears sparkled in her eyes, so I only nodded again as if I didn’t notice.

She removed her papers, returned to the desk, and slid them across the counter.

I followed her, shuffled myself and my bag, the stroller, and all her accompanying bags behind her.

Less than a minute later, the airport worker returned the manila folder and gave her a second ticket.

The woman spun around. Seeing me there, she gave me a relieved, tear-free smile.

“Well, that’s one thing down.”

Again, was she talking to me? I had a feeling neither of us knew. But I couldn’t help myself. Cowboy Code dictated doing the right, gentlemanly thing all the time.

“Ma’am, would you like help getting onto the plane with the stroller and your bags? I can take them down the ramp so you can hold her.”

Her lips parted. She hesitated a breath before saying, “Um, yes. Please? That would be . . . wonderful.”

“Sure thing.”

The employee cast me a wry glance and drawled, “Since you’re helping her, both of you go ahead and board. You have a child under two.”

“Right now?”

“Mm hmm.”

She looked at me again with a sense of hesitation, as if she wanted to double-check, but I already had the stroller pointing toward the open line.

I used one hand to steer the stroller, the other to wheel one of her roller bags.

My shoulder held my duffel, she held the baby and pushed the other roller, and somehow, it all worked.

Gratified to get out of the airport earlier than expected, I flashed my boarding pass to the ticket agent and followed the woman down the ramp.

At the bottom, she ditched her two bags with another attendant, giving me quick instructions on folding the stroller in half, then gratefully passed it to the attendant.

I reached for the diaper bag. “I’ll get you to your seat.”

“Thank you. I don’t even know where I’m sitting. Oh . . . I’m at the window. Aisle twenty-one.”

“Seat D?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s pretty easy. I’m right next to you—seat 21C.”

Her eyes lit up in a brief smile as she slid into the airplane. The empty seats kept it quiet and calm as I followed her to the middle. Once there, she hesitated, teeth blanching her bottom lip.

“Need something?”

“Um, yes. She’ll need some warm water to mix her formula in her bottle before we take off.”

I reached into the bag, pulled out an empty one.

“This one?”

“Yes.”

“How much formula?”

“Oh! Great question. Um . . . one scoop. Two ounces of warm water, but not too hot?”

“On it.”

Disbelief dominated her expression as I dug the formula out and spun to find a flight attendant. This woman needed to find better friends, or a husband who didn’t let her travel alone with a baby so young she might have been a newborn. The distraction was a welcome break, anyway.

Florida gave me too much to think about.

When I returned with the bottle and warm water in hand, she granted me an even more brilliant smile. “Thank you. I can’t tell you how much this helps. I didn’t expect anyone to be willing to endure . . . anyway . . .”

After I settled next to her, I peeked at the baby’s dark eyes, staring up toward the light. A beautiful face amidst the tunnel of blankets.

“Well,” I said quietly, “that’s just about the cutest baby I have ever seen.”

Her expression softened.

“I agree.”

“What’s her name?”

“Lily.”

“Hello, Lily.”

The baby yawned, and I chuckled, turning my focus to my vibrating phone. A text from my sister, Cora, confirming my return tonight.

Cora: There are only two flights coming into town tonight, and one of them is yours. The other is coming in from Salt Lake, and it’s an hour before yours. Looks on time, though. Did you make it through airport security without exploding?

Cade: Somehow, I managed to keep it together.

After I shot off the reply, I stared at her message. Only two flights? That wasn’t surprising. The airport at Jackson City was a hub for tourists, bringing flights from a lot of major cities, particularly during ski season in the winter, which was just ramping up.

But only two?

I checked my text message list again. Three messages down was the confirmation from Noelle, the woman I’d pick up at the airport around the time I landed. I glanced over the sea of heads, skimming over people drifting onto the plane. It wasn’t a very big plane, but enough to justify the flight.

What were the odds that Morgan’s granddaughter Noelle was on this plane?

I chortled.

No.

That would be too wild.

I turned my focus onto other text messages from Wyatt and Cody, my only remaining ranch hands, until a niggling feeling wriggled in the back of my mind. I returned to Noelle’s text messages and scrolled up. Hadn’t she once mentioned that she’d be flying in from . . . Chicago . . . was it?

I spotted the text message, driven by something deeper than curiosity.

Yes.

Chicago.

Noelle was on my flight.

And a crawling suspicion told me that some coincidences were just too bold to be made up. I turned to find the woman next to me peering out the window, idly patting her sleepy baby. She hummed to herself.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, “but I didn’t get your name?”

She turned, smiled.

“Noelle.”

My blood turned to icy flows. It couldn’t be. It just . . . couldn’t. There was fate, and then there was fate. Because Noelle Morgan was supposed to visit her grandfather’s ranch, realize that her family had absolutely no ties to it anymore, and then leave again.

Noelle Morgan was not supposed to have a baby.

No.

Not at all.

She slowly asked, “And what was your name?”

“Cade,” I rasped. “Cade Callahan.”

She dropped the bottle.