The Colton Ransom
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Marie Ferrarella
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19
Prologue
A baby.
What the hell was he going to do with a baby? And a baby girl, to boot.
But boy or girl, one thing was a given. He didn’t know the first thing about taking care of something so helpless, so dependent. Hell, he hadn’t been taking care of anyone but himself for years. He had no idea how to start raising a kid, let alone an infant.
There had to be a way out of this. A way that, in the long run, would be better for the baby, not to mention better for him.
Almost two weeks into this so-called parenting thing and he still felt like a man who’d been pushed out of an airplane and was free-falling to earth without so much as a handkerchief to serve as a makeshift parachute.
Trevor Garth paced the floor in his bedroom as he stared at the crying infant he was holding in his arms. How could something so small make so much noise?
Or throw his entire heretofore orderly life on its ear?
At thirty-four, Trevor had assumed that his life would be winding down, settling into a predictable pattern. No more dodging bullets or chasing down armed criminals. That was one of the reasons he’d left the Cheyenne police force five years ago and taken this position as head of security here at Jethro Colton’s Dead River Ranch. In his experience, nothing much of any consequence happened here as long as you steered clear of Jethro Colton when the old man was in a mood—which was often enough. But he was good at keeping under the radar, doing what needed to be done without calling any attention to himself.
Until now.
Trevor glared at the infant he couldn’t seem to appease or soothe, despite his attempts to rock Avery to sleep.
This, he thought darkly, was what happened when he took a vacation. Ironically, it had been the first one he’d taken in years. He’d gone off to Cheyenne for a few days just to unwind, tied one on at a local saloon one night—something else he rarely did—and picked up this hot little redhead who had killer dimples when she smiled. As the evening progressed, things got a little fuzzy. He was fairly certain, though, that they’d wound up at her place for the night.
The next morning, he made sure he was gone before she woke up. Less than a week later, he couldn’t even remember what the woman’s name had been.
And then practically one year to the day, there she was, standing on the doorstep of the mansion wing that was designated for the staff, holding a baby in her arms and saying it was his.
His.
And just like that, he was supposed to take her word for it, supposed to just lie down and accept being someone’s parent?
No damn way.
He hadn’t even wanted to hold the infant, much less lay claim to it or even find out anything about it. His one-night stand—Joyce, he thought she said her name was—had other ideas, though.
For the most part, Trevor was a man of few words. And even those faded when he was caught off guard—the way he was when Joyce had just shown up out of the blue like that. He was all but speechless—other than saying the word no, as in “No, it’s not mine.” And “No, I won’t take her.”
After a pointless few minutes of one-sided arguing, Joyce left with the baby. Relieved, he thought that was the end of it. Showed just how naive he was about such things. Because when he walked out again, about twenty minutes later, there was the baby, bundled up and in something Joyce referred to as a “carrier.” Joyce herself was nowhere in sight. She’d just left the baby behind and assumed that he would take it from there.
And if that weren’t stereotypical enough, there was a note pinned to the baby’s blanket. All that had been missing from the scenario was a snowy scene.
“I’ve got nobody to help and I can’t do this alone,” the note had said. “She’s yours. You handle it.”
That was it. Just sixteen words. Sixteen words that turned his quiet world upside down.
And just like that, he was a father. An unwilling father.
“I don’t have time for this,” he said to the infant now, his deep voice rumbling ominously, like thunder over the plains. “I’ve got a job to see to and enough responsibilities without you adding to them.”
The baby—Avery—responded to his words by howling and crying even harder.
He had no idea how to get her to stop. The least the woman could have done was left some kind of how-to book along with the baby.
He’d done his best to try to locate Joyce again. But there was absolutely no sign of her in the nearby town. He’d gone back to the saloon where he’d initially met her. The bartender there had no clue who she was or where to find her.
Which meant he was stuck with this crying, damp responsibility, one who never seemed to sleep more than five minutes at a time.
“I’m too old for this,” he snapped impatiently.
Avery didn’t seem to care.
