Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
SAbrINA
W e weren’t back at the ranch ten minutes when Cori pulled in. She’d heard what had happened in town from her husband.
“You didn’t have to come all the way out here,” I told her. We were whispering over her sleeping baby.
“The baby sleeps in the car, so it was really more for me than you.” She smiled, but it faltered quickly. She moved the baby, still sleeping in the car seat, to the floor.
“You look exhausted,” I told her.
Cori slumped onto the couch.
“Kid’s not sleeping well, huh?” Cricket asked.
“No, and Fort has been called in every night, and my in-laws took Tabby for a couple days to Cheyenne to give me a break. Joke’s on them. This one”—she pointed to the cupid-faced baby—“has turned into an evil dictator and has been a straight-up asshole since they left.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “It’s like she knows.”
Cori’s eyes strayed to the stairs.
“Why don’t you go up and catch a nap. We’ve got her. My room is the third door on the right.” I jerked my head to tell her to go.
“Do you mean it?” She sat up, full of hope.
Cricket and I nodded in harmony. Cori leaped up and thrust her diaper bag at me. “The front pocket has a freezer back with six breast milk storage bags. She will probably wake in another twenty minutes to eat.”
Cori had come prepared.
“You know you could have just asked us.” I grinned.
“You have a lot going on. I felt bad asking.” Then she was up the stairs and out of sight.
“She totally played us,” Cricket said.
I shrugged.
Cal came back into the room with an ice pack. He handed it to me and nodded toward my knuckles.
“Fighting is stupid.” I placed the pack on my sore hand.
A Facetime request popped up on my phone, which, coincidentally, was right where I’d left it when we went into town. On the coffee table.
Nick Trask. I accepted the request. It was not unlike Nick and me to Facetime, but maybe because the day had taken a shitty turn, I couldn’t ignore the tinge of apprehension coiling in my stomach.
“Hey, what’s up?” I asked.
Nick’s normally jovial face and easygoing manner was gone. He leaned closer to the screen and looked over his shoulder, then back at me. His brows were knitted in anger. My heart sank. It looked like he was sitting in his car.
“Goddamn producer.”
I told myself this wasn’t a big deal, but the world suddenly felt small and claustrophobic. “What happened?”
But I thought I already knew. Maybe I’d been expecting it, because what else was there left to take from me, other than Cal?
“He said he wanted you off the project. Said he loved the idea, and I was perfect because—no, duh, dipshit—we were going to do this without a show, so it’s not like he’s casting me in a role. Asshole. But he wanted to use a different matchmaker.”
I exhaled.
“I’m fucking raging right now,” Nick said.
I dropped my head into my hands, using the tips of my fingers to push back the tears. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? I was only on board because you were. I don’t need this. And I told him just that. I told him he could stick his proposition up his ass and forget ever working with me again. I also told him he was going to regret this. Then I walked out, caught his assistant in the copy room down the hall, and asked her what was up. Took me making a personal happy birthday video for her sister to get the details, but apparently, some conglomeration called Beck Group funded that asswipe’s pet project on the condition he dump you.”
Cal sat down next to me and came into the phone’s field of vision. “That’s my dad’s company.” There was no mistaking the apology in his eyes. I put my hand on his and squeezed.
“Dude, he’s jonesing to take you out. I have a friend in the press who’s been good to me, so I drop him leads every so often. He called me right before my meeting and said there’s a reporter, a bad actor, named Smith, who’s digging around, trying to find some dirt on me and Sabrina. Trying to say we’ve been having a secret love affair”—he sang the last three words with a hint of anger but still holding on to his sense of humor—“since before Melissa died.”
“Oh, Nick, I am so sorry.” Nick was very protective of his deceased wife and their relationship.
He waved me off. “I got my lawyer on it. He’s a shark. He’ll tear Smith apart by ripping off his head and spine, then beating him with them. He’s already gathering the info to show it’s part of your smear campaign. This Smith is a dimwad who doesn’t do a good job of covering his trail. But I really just called to say I’m sorry. The news is gonna break soon, and I wanted you to hear it from me first.”
“I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into this.”
“Shit, Sabrina, you know I’ve been through worse. This is nothing.”
And he had. He and Melissa had been childhood sweethearts who’d met while living on the compound of a cult their parents belonged to. The cult was known for its wicked disciplining practices. When they were sixteen, they ran away and started fresh. But none of it had been easy.
“In other news, I punched a person.” I held up my hands and showed my bruised knuckles.
“Damn! This, I gotta hear.” He grinned at me.
I filled him in on Rod and my ankle and how they all led to the approach from Kathy.
“I would pay good money for a picture of that or a video. I’d make it a screensaver on all my devices. It would be the gift that keeps giving.”
“Oh, shut up,” I said.
But something he’d said bothered me. I looked at Cal, then Cricket. Even though Nick was not in the room, he was quickly on the same page.
“There’s no video of that, I hope,” he said. “Smith gets ahold of that, there’s no telling what the spin will be.”
Video? Heck. How about a personal interview from the woman herself?
Cricket stood up. “I’ll call Fort and give him a heads-up.” She rushed from the room.
“Listen, doll. I’m in the car, and I think people are starting to recognize me. I’ve got a woman standing two cars away, giving me sideways glances. Oops, out comes her phone.”
“We can talk later. Thanks, Nick. Love ya.”
“Back atcha.” And he ended the call.
Cal had straightened next to me. I squeezed his hand and brought it toward me as I entwined my fingers with his. He didn’t look upset, just unsure.
“Nick and I met through Melissa, his wife. She was dying around the same time Dad was. We were on some charity boards together. She was the love of his life. Like you are mine. So when Dad and Melissa died, Nick and I were there for each other. He doesn’t have any family.” I told him about the cult. “He’s like a brother to me, and I don’t know how I could have made it without him after Dad died.”
He searched my face, then gave me one nod before leaning in to kiss me on the forehead. “Then I will forever be grateful to him. Now, about this documentary…”
I shook my head. “I am so angry right now, I can’t even process what’s just happened. Or what to think of it. Can we talk about it in a bit?”
“Of course.”
Cricket came back in with Paul following behind her. “Fort says they’ve locked down any video.”
“We can’t ask her to sign an NDA because that will tip our hand. Maybe no one finds out and approaches her.”
The baby started to fuss. Cricket tried to soothe her by rocking the car seat, but that didn’t work. She took the baby out of the carrier and handed her to me. “I’m going to warm up the milk. Hold her a second.”
I greedily took her and buried my face in her neck, giving her kisses and talking soothingly. She smelled so good, like baby power and soft fluffy balls. Her crying began to pick up in intensity.
“Grab me the binkie,” I commanded.
Paul tossed it to me, but little baby Layla got even more pissed when I offered it to her. I held her up and sniffed her butt. Nope, all good there. Her face was getting red as her wails increased.
“She’s probably hungry,” Cal said.
I looked over my shoulder for Cricket. “Want to test that theory?”
Cori had said Layla wasn’t being easy, so logically, I knew to not sweat it, but after the calf thing, well, I had some doubts. I held the crying baby out to Cal. He took her in his arms and held her just like I had. He offered her the binkie. She fussed for a few seconds longer, then took the binkie and started to calm down. She batted her pretty blue eyes at Cal.
The doorbell rang, and he tried to pass the baby back as he stood.
“Give her to Paul,” I grumbled, knowing Layla only fussed for me.
He did, and Layla continued to work the binkie with no complaints. Cal went to answer the door, and Paul stood over me with Layla.
“I should make some more calls about this Smith guy.” He handed off the baby.
She wasn’t in my arms for fifteen seconds before she popped out the pacifier and began to wail again. I let my head fall back to the couch and looked up to the ceiling.
Irony, amirite?
Fort entered the room and took his daughter, who quickly quieted. Cricket came back in and handed off the bottle.
“Don’t sweat it, Sabrina,” Fort said. “She’s all about the fellas right now. Something about how babies like our features. She’s giving Cori a tough time, too, and that’s her food supply.”
What he said seemed to be true, but I wondered if Cal had told him to say something to make me feel better.
“Is Mrs. Claudia around?” he asked, his daughter tucked contently in the crook of his arm. There was something seriously hot about a man in a uniform, a gun strapped to his side, feeding a tiny baby. And as insecure as I was about babies, it still made my ovaries perk up.
“She was in the kitchen a minute ago,” Cricket said.
Fort rubbed a hand down his face, looking weary. My trouble radar spiked. Cal’s must have as well.
He stepped toward Fort. “What is it? Is it about Rod?”
Fort nodded. “His dad was killed in a car crash this morning. A guy he was with, the only survivor of four, says they were headed back here. Apparently, Jamison told them he had to get home, but if they wanted to come with him, he knew they could get jobs working the ranches.”
A wave of shock and grief swept over me. Maybe, eventually, knowing his dad had been headed home would bring Rod comfort. “What happens to Rod?” I asked.
“Because there is no legal guardian or relative, he has to go into the system.”
Of all the things I’d heard that day, that piece of news was the one that broke my heart.