At the Crossroads (Buckhorn, Montana #3)(9)

Shirley had comforted him, feeling badly for him because he was so hurt and confused. It made it worse that he had both work and residential ties to Tina’s family. Tina had begged him to stay at least until the baby was born. Lars had agreed grudgingly and begun spending more illicit time with Shirley.

Now the baby was two months old. Shirley had been waiting to see what would happen once the baby was born. Nothing had—until this morning when Lars had shown up at her apartment. He’d wanted to take her to breakfast. He’d said he was sick of hiding how he felt about her.

“I told Tina that I’m moving out,” Lars had said. “I thought you and I could stay in your place at the motel until we decide where we want to go, what we want to do.”

She’d said nothing—even now sitting here with him telling her over and over how he felt about her. She still stung from the looks they’d gotten from the locals when they’d walked in together. Everyone had to have known about their love affair, and yet this was the first time they’d come out together—only to find Tina, the baby and her mother Vi here in the café having breakfast.

Shirley had wanted to turn around and leave, but Lars wouldn’t hear of it.

Since they’d walked in together, Vi had been glaring holes into her. It hadn’t been that hard to ignore the woman. Tina and the baby, though, had been another matter. Tina had always been kind to her. She’d even invited her to her baby shower, although Shirley was pretty sure that was just to rub her face in it.

“You still don’t know for certain that the baby isn’t yours,” she’d said.

“Not you, too,” Lars had groaned. “I told you. I don’t need a DNA test. It’s why Tina doesn’t want me to take one, because she also knows the baby isn’t mine.” His voice had risen, and several people had turned to look at them.

He’d leaned across the table toward her and spoken more softly. “Shirley, I thought this was what you wanted. Do you still want a life with me or not?”

She’d been thinking about that when the three men had come in. She’d hardly noticed them. Instead, she’d felt the cold fall air rush in with them and yearned to get up and walk out of the establishment, leaving Buckhorn, leaving Lars Olson and this mess behind. She was sick of being the other woman.

Up until she’d heard the first gunshot, Shirley had been thinking that the only question was whether or not she had the strength to leave town, to start over, to go off on her own, to leave Lars.

AS THE INFANT screamed at the top of her lungs, Tina Mullen fumbled with the straps that held Chloe in the removable car seat, feeling her panic growing. She didn’t know what to do. The baby had been sleeping peacefully but had startled awake with a shriek at the sound of the first gunshot and only gotten louder with the second.

Her hands were shaking. She had to quiet her baby. She could hear the man called Gene approaching her booth. He’d already killed the cook, someone had said. If he got his hands on her precious little baby girl—

“Shut that damned baby up!” Gene yelled again, looming over the booth.

Tina finally got the straps undone and awkwardly picked up her daughter. She was all thumbs with the infant and had been since Chloe’s birth.

She felt out of her depth. The baby was so tiny, so fragile, so demanding. Nothing Tina did seemed to make Chloe happy. “I’m a terrible mother,” she’d wailed to her own mother recently.

Vi had pooh-poohed even the idea. “It’s just all new and different than carrying her around in your womb where you don’t have to do anything. Wait until she’s two. What am I saying? It’s not like there is a magic year when suddenly you’re finished raising your child. You’re a perfect example.”

Tina had groaned at what had sounded like the beginning of another lecture on having a baby out of wedlock. “Lars and I are practically married, Mother.”

“You’re a single mother,” Vi had snapped. “You might as well get used to it. Lars won’t be sticking around, which is just as well. He has no interest in being a father, and you knew that even before you got yourself pregnant.”

“You make it sound as if I used a turkey baster.”

“You’d have been better off if you had with some stranger,” Vi had said and then huffed. “Give me the baby. You act like she’s made of glass.” Her mother had taken Chloe roughly, but the baby hadn’t even whimpered. That her daughter preferred Vi over her didn’t help and seemed to say it all.

Like now. Chloe continued to scream no matter how Tina tried to soothe her. “Please, baby, please,” she said, shushing her. “Please stop crying.”

BEFORE THE FIRST GUNSHOT, Lars had been professing his undying love to Shirley. But once the baby had started crying, he’d been distracted. When he heard the gunman threaten the baby, Shirley had seen the look on his face.

“Lars is like a baby whisperer,” one of her friends had told her. “Tina says when she’s at her wits’ end, he will take little Chloe, and the baby quiets right down.”

Here in the small café, the baby continued to scream. Shirley saw the panic on Tina’s face as the armed man headed for her and the baby, fury reddening his face.

He was almost to the table when one of the men with him yelled, “Hey, Gene, come on. It’s just a baby.”