The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(39)

“Well... I just...you can’t be thinking that you’ll be caring for her long term.”

“I’ll care for her as long as she needs me.”

She couldn’t really argue with that. “You can’t do it by yourself.”

“People do it by themselves all the time.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it?”

“What do you know about babies, Colt?”

“Jack shit,” he said.

“Somehow I suspected as much.”

“Do most people know anything about babies before they go about raising one? I never got the impression my parents were child development specialists.”

Mallory blinked. The thing was, she was accustomed to people who had done a lot of preparation for their baby. People who had planned and waited.

And she’d told herself maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t had to try and parent a baby she hadn’t been ready for, because she’d seen all those people with their parenting books and nurseries done up to the hilt.

Maybe it was just easier for her to think that.

“I guess that’s a good point,” she said.

“It doesn’t really matter if it’s a good point or not. I didn’t ask you. If you want to help... Great. Because you’re right, there is a whole lot that I don’t know, and you seem to know...”

“Everything.”

“Everything,” he said.

He turned the cart back toward the clothing section, and there they found some baby clothes. He stood there holding the baby while she chose a series of onesies, socks and a couple of little dresses, because she couldn’t resist them. And then a few headbands.

“It’s just all so cute,” she said, her ovaries literally twisting into knots. “I really was trying not to be ridiculous about this, because it is a serious situation. But they’re tiny. They’re tiny and they’re pink and they’re adorable.”

“Just get the kid something so she’s not naked.”

“Cute somethings,” Mallory said, realizing that the cart was getting out of control.

And she wasn’t going to examine what she was doing right now or how it linked back to her own issues, or her own unresolved...

Well, her loss could never be anything but unresolved.

Her daughter would be a teenager now if she’d lived, but she hadn’t. And Mallory’s life would be very different. She’d either still be with Jared, trying to hold it together for her, or she’d have left immediately when he’d proven to be a sucky dad.

Maybe he would have become a better man if she’d lived. If he’d been a father. If he hadn’t been changed by that early loss.

Maybe Mallory wouldn’t have finished school.

Maybe she wouldn’t have been a midwife.

Maybe she’d have been a terrible mother. Or a great one. Maybe she’d have been the same person she was now, or maybe she’d be totally different.

And she couldn’t know. Because there was no point in what-if.

Lucy had died before she’d ever drawn a breath.

“How long are you thinking the baby is going to be around?” he asked, pulling her thoughts to the present, and her focus back to shopping.

Onto the baby who needed her right now.

“Rude,” she said. “These clothes and all the supplies can go back with her and her mother when she comes to get her.” Concern lanced through her. “But promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I understand why you don’t really want to involve Child Protective Services with all of this. I do. But, please promise me that when Cheyenne does come back, you’ll make sure that she talks to a mental health professional. We need to make sure that she and the baby are set up for success. In my opinion it wouldn’t hurt for her to have a caseworker...”

“No,” Colt said. “A doctor, sure...”

“I would be happy with a doctor. We can make sure that they’re taken care of.”

“She doesn’t have money, you know. Not insurance or anything. I wish that she had come to me if she needed something like that. But it’s going to be difficult to get her to agree to the doctor thing.”

“You can pay for it, right?”

She was making assumptions now, but the man did seem to have money.

“Yeah,” he said. “And I will.”

“Good.”

Eventually, once they had added a pack and play, a swing and a little bouncy chair to their pile of things, they made their way to the checkout.

The woman beamed at them.

“Congratulations,” she said.

“Thank you,” Colt said, obviously forcing a smile.

She did her best to force one, but this was like some weird hell.

No one congratulated you when you were fifteen and pregnant. Well, no one had congratulated her because she’d hidden it.

And she’d never gotten to walk around holding a baby so she’d never had a random stranger congratulate her like this.

Deal with yourself.

“How old?” the woman asked.

“About a week.”

She said it at the same time Colt said, “A month.”

“It seems like longer,” Colt said.