His Baby No Matter What
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Melissa Senate
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18.2K
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16
Chapter One
Four-month-old Ryder let out a short, shrill cry.
Colt Dawson bolted up from his chair and went over to the bassinet by the window, studying the baby who’d been fast asleep just a minute ago. Ryder’s blue eyes were half-open. The eyes fluttered closed again, then sleepily lifted.
Colt ran down the possibilities. He’d been reading the book Decoding Your Infant: A Primer for New Parents and apparently there were more than fifteen different cries that meant different things. Short, shrill, he thought, trying to remember what that signified as he watched Ryder’s eyes drift closed again, then lift a quarter way.
Let’s see: his diaper needs changing. He’s hungry. He has to burp. He has gas. He wants to be picked up. He’s bored. He’s still tired.
He wants his mother.
At that last one, Colt’s heart felt so heavy he was surprised he didn’t slump over.
Life could change in an instant, he’d always known. And it had.
Colt looked down at his son, eyes closed now, bow lips giving an Elvis Presley quirk, little chest covered in his World’s Greatest Nephew pajamas—a gift from his aunt Haley—rising up and down. Ryder was fast asleep again.
He’s fine, Colt told himself as he sat back down at his late wife’s desk. Not every cry meant something, he recalled reading. Give your baby a minute to self-soothe before you rush in to save the day. You’ll teach valuable skills. Next time, Colt vowed. He’d get this right eventually.
Ryder was probably dreaming of the floppy stuffed monkey Haley had brought over yesterday and the cry was in happy anticipation of shaking it again like a rattle. Or the bottle he knew would be coming when he woke up from his morning nap.
He’s fine. You’re fine. Everything is going to be fine.
Repeat.
One month had passed since they’d lost Ryder’s mother to a car wreck. A month of shock and disorientation, a very sad funeral, of family over day and night, someone always leaping up from the sofa or guest room at 3:00 a.m. to check on Ryder when he cried—the long cries—so that Colt could get some rest, not that he could sleep a wink.
The Dawsons had filled his pantry, refrigerator and freezer to overflowing with meals with easy-to-follow reheating directions. There was always a pot of coffee going. A carton of eggnog in the fridge because his sister knew he loved it and Christmastime meant the grocery store had it in stock. Ryder’s tiny clothes and burp cloths and blankies and binkies were always washed and put away neatly. Cleaning, from dusting to vacuuming to the dishwasher filled and emptied, happened like magic.
His sister and cousins and their spouses were the best people on earth.
Not that it was so different when Jocelyn had been alive. She’d taken care of everything. Colt was co-CEO of the company his grandfather had started with a partner fifty years ago. Godfrey and Dawson, run by Godfreys and Dawsons through this third generation, bought and sold companies across the West. Colt was often on the road or a plane and home only a couple of days a week, which had suited Jocelyn just fine.
And him, he thought, his collar squeezing his neck. A two-day-a-week dad. A put the phone to his ear so I can tell him good night dad. A milestone-missing dad. He shook his head.
He hadn’t felt ready to be a father, not when he’d first gotten married at age twenty-four and not last year at thirty-three when Jocelyn had calmly said she was sick of his excuses and waiting for him to be ready and if he ever wanted sex again, they would not be using birth control. She’d cried, she’d pleaded, she’d reminded him that he’d said he would probably be ready to start a family when he was thirty. And so Colt had put aside his worries and given in to his wife’s most fervent want. A baby. But month after month, she’d been disappointed. A year of trying. Their sex life becoming about fertile days. And Jocelyn’s tears.
But their marriage had been in trouble for a few years by then, and when Jocelyn finally did get pregnant, nothing between them changed. The love, the tenderness, the sharing—all of it had slowly gone. He’d never forget the happiness on her face when she’d shown him the home pregnancy test stick with its bright pink plus sign. But the baby hadn’t brought them closer.
Whether he’d been ready for fatherhood or not, though, at the sight of that plus sign, a surge of love and protectiveness had overtaken him, and with each passing day, he’d vowed to be the dad his child deserved. A great dad. His own father had been a serious workaholic like Colt was now. His parents had had a very traditional marriage and that was what Jocelyn had wanted, as well.
He hated—hated to the core of his being—that he’d actually re-created the home life he’d used to wish was different as a kid, as a teenager. That he hadn’t talked to Jocelyn about.
For better or worse, for better or worse, for better or worse.
Another short, shrill cry came from the bassinet. Colt stood, but then reminded himself to give the baby a moment. He waited.
Silence. He’d gotten that one right.
He sat back down at the desk, his gaze on the hot pink nameplate engraved in gold cursive—Jocelyn Dawson, Domestic Goddess. He wasn’t sure what to do with it. He’d put off sorting through her office and desk, but it was time. His sister and cousin Daisy had gone through her closet and donated most of it, packing away items that they thought Ryder might like to have one day, such as her favorite long cardigan that smelled of her perfume. He’d add the nameplate to that box.
His sister thought Jocelyn would have liked him to turn this room, her office on the first floor, into a playroom for Ryder, and that seemed like a good idea, but Colt had moved like molasses about going through her desk, the only thing left to do. He knew why, too.
Because deep down, he didn’t want to live in this house—a stately white Colonial with a red door and black shutters, state-of-the-art everything, furnished down to the art on the walls by an interior decorator. The house, which had always reminded him of the one he’d grown up in, had never felt like home, not in all ten years they’d been here. But how could he sell Ryder’s legacy—the house he’d lived in with his mother, albeit for just three short months—out from under him?
Which reminded him of a kind and tempting offer he’d gotten from his cousin Ford, a police detective here in Bear Ridge, the day after the funeral. Ford, a new dad himself with a six-month-old son, had stopped by with a giraffe rattle for Ryder and had found Colt in the nursery, putting Ryder’s diaper on backward. That was when Ford had made the offer.
Come stay at one of the cabins at the ranch, his cousin had said. You and Ryder. There’s one miles out from the dude ranch, nothing but land and sky and mountain around it. Take a leave of absence from that job you hate. Let your son’s needs guide you and you’ll be a pro at fatherhood at your own pace. Just let yourself be. Stay as long as you want.
Colt had felt like hell for how little he knew about taking care of his own child. A helpless baby. He couldn’t even put on a diaper correctly? Colt had been a traveling workaholic for years and right back at it just a week after Ryder had been born. Right back at it again until a month ago when his entire world changed. But when Ford had given him that chance to take a step back, to spend more time with Ryder, to get out of this house, he’d said not now, maybe later, time isn’t right, but thanks. Ford, to his credit and great patience, hadn’t said a word other than Just give it some thought.
Colt had opened up to Ford more than he’d expected over the past year. He’d never been one to share much about his personal life. Or what kept him up at night. But over the months, he’d told Ford a bit about his marriage and how rocky it was. How he hadn’t been ready to be a dad but loved Ryder so much he sometimes thought his heart would burst. How much he did hate his job and how he’d ended up there in the first place. The weight—the crushing weight of it.
And he’d talked a lot about what he’d once wanted to do with his life. His dream had always been to be a cowboy. A rancher with a good-sized spread, cattle and sheep, a few horses and, of course, a dog, the border collie he’d always longed for as a kid. Black and white and running around smiling the way border collies did.
So yes, he’d thought hard about Ford’s offer.
But his responsibilities at Godfrey and Dawson were so far-reaching, affected so many people, that he couldn’t just take a month off to spend in the wilderness. Even a week off. His co-CEO had been recuperating from a bad case of the flu and there were mergers and acquisitions up in the air that Colt and his team needed to deal with and deal with well. So he’d gone back to work, full speed.
Godfrey and Dawson are counting on you? his sister had repeated when he told her about Ford’s offer and why he’d turned it down. Come on, Colt. That’s just years of pressure from Dad talking. I’ll tell you who’s counting on you: your son.
Knife to the heart.
Of course Haley was right.
But then he’d hear his widowed father’s deathbed questions, barely managed with the last of his voice during those final heartbreaking days in hospice. Colt had been just twenty-one years old, about to graduate with a business degree from the university Bertrand Dawson had insisted on, demanding Colt forget about this “ranch nonsense.” Colt had figured that if he was going to be a rancher—and hell yes, he was going to defy his father and follow his own path—and run his own cattle operation, he’d need those educational tools, so he’d agreed to business school. Which had his father holding his tongue about Colt’s insistence on spending his summers as a cowboy, where he learned the ranching business from the ground up. He’d never been so happy as when he’d been herding cattle or sheep on a mare, fixing broken fence in the pouring rain, mucking out stalls and grooming the horses. Once he graduated from college, he’d been planning on telling his dad that he was going to take an assistant foreman job at the prosperous Wild K Ranch a town over.
According to Bertrand Dawson, Colt was born to become CEO of Godfrey and Dawson, just as Bertrand had been. The way Colt saw it, he was born to work the land.
But then his father’s heart started failing.
Colt, I can go at peace if I know you’re going to take over as the bright and shining new Dawson of Godfrey and Dawson, just like I took over from my father, his dad had said from his hospice bed, both frail hands holding on to Colt’s. It’s your history. Your legacy. One day, your son will be the Dawson of Godfrey and Dawson...
That last part twisted his gut. There was no point arguing with a dying man that if Colt did ever have a child, boy or girl, that child would follow their heart. Besides, Colt wasn’t planning on having children. And that he’d never brought up with his father. An heir was expected. Period. But at twenty-one, Colt figured anything was possible, that maybe he’d change his mind.
You’ll take over for me at Godfrey and Dawson? his dad had asked just hours before he passed, uncharacteristic tears in his blue eyes. There had been desperate hope, the culmination of all his father’s dreams, in that question. His sister, a few months shy of eighteen, stood shaking by the window, tears pouring down her face.
What else could Colt have said but Yes, Dad. Of course I will.
And mean it, accept it, become the bright shining new Dawson at Godfrey and Dawson.
I always knew I could count on you, Colt, Bertrand had said, a peace on his face, pride in his whisper.
And that had been that. Thirteen years ago, he’d made a promise to his dying father. He’d needed to take care of Haley, just a senior in high school then. He’d turned down the assistant foreman job. He’d shadowed his father’s counterpart, a good, honest man—whose own son was now Colt’s counterpart—at Godfrey and Dawson during twelve-hour days until he knew the business. He’d worked his way up to co-CEO within a few years, living and breathing the role.
He’d hung up his cowboy hat for his dad’s expensive leather briefcase, which he used every day as a reminder of his promise.
So yes, he’d thought hard about Ford’s offer. A month at the Dawson Family Guest Ranch, a sprawling popular dude ranch a half hour outside town. He loved that place. He’d taken Jocelyn there once and stayed in their “luxe” cabin, but she’d hated everything about it. The dust. The bugs. The smell of the horses. There was something in that memory, combined with her sudden, shocking loss, and hearing his father’s hopeful questions banging around his head. When Jocelyn died, he’d taken two days of bereavement leave and then gone back to work.
But while he’d been at Godfrey and Dawson this past month, Ryder was at the ranch. The place had a great day care managed by his cousin-in-law Maisey and there were many little Dawsons crawling and running around their huge space in the lodge. Every night, when he’d arrived to pick up Ryder, he’d breathe in all that wilderness and for just that moment, he’d feel a peace he hadn’t experienced since his days as a cowboy.
Then every night this past month, he’d bring Ryder back to the big house in town, trying to adhere to the schedule Jocelyn had kept magnetized to the fridge, trying to change Ryder’s diaper without getting sprayed or putting the diaper on backward—that had happened two more times until he figured it out—how to get through bath time without soaking the floor in water and BabyClean shampoo, which smelled heavenly. The schedule helped since he knew when to give Ryder his bottle, and his cousins had reminded him to pat him on the back to get him to burp. When they saw how he fumbled, the strain on his face, they took over—to Colt’s relief.
He’d had a month of nights and weekends with his son, which, granted, wasn’t exactly a lot, but he’d hoped he’d get better at the basics of baby care and he hadn’t. Fatherhood just didn’t come naturally to him. Maybe because of how he’d grown up—with a father in the distance. And maybe because Jocelyn had wanted them in their traditional roles and always said no to his offers to help. Or maybe Colt just wasn’t comfortable.
All the above.
But now, the only thing that mattered was that he had a baby to raise—right and well—and he was trying. Every day. Thank God he had his sister and cousins. Colt and Haley had only a small extended family scattered across the West. Jocelyn had been raised in foster care, so Ryder didn’t have any family on his mother’s side. Between Haley and the Dawson cousins, Ryder would grow up with a big, loud, loving clan, and that gave Colt no small measure of relief.
Thing was, Colt was now a single father. Working seventy hours a week, traveling, being away from Ryder when his mother was gone made Colt feel like hell, like he was doing something wrong. Very wrong.
And since thinking about it tore at his gut, whenever he did let it creep into his mind, he’d make himself busy with necessary chores. Like right now. While his son slept, Colt should be sorting through Jocelyn’s desk, making file or shred piles.
He glanced over at the bassinet. Not a peep. Get it done, Colt, he ordered himself.
Colt opened the top drawer of the desk. Mostly supplies—pens, pencils, paper clips, Post-its—the usual stuff. He dropped everything in a box, which he planned to donate to the local schools. He tried to open the side drawer but it was locked or jammed. He looked in the box to make sure he hadn’t dropped a key in without realizing it, then found it by accident when the top of his leg scraped against the underside of the desk. The key was taped there.
Interesting. A well-hidden key usually meant something to hide. Maybe he’d find Jocelyn’s diaries, not that he’d invade her privacy or even want to know more than he already did. He slid in the key and turned. Inside was only her stationery, a long narrow pad with her name in cursive at the top, and matching envelopes. The start of a letter to Ava—her best friend—was on the top page in Jocelyn’s unmistakable handwriting. The letter was unfinished and stopped midsentence as if Jocelyn had either gotten interrupted or changed her mind about writing.
Dear Ava,
After all we’ve been through and shared, I can’t believe you won’t give me the assurance I need that you’ll never tell Colt the truth. Have I ever asked you for anything other than your friendship before? No. Now I’m asking for something very important to me and you can’t do it? Screw you. Colt will never find out that Ryder isn’t his child. If you can’t promise never to tell him, our friendship is over. I wish you’d
Colt froze, the letter fluttering out of his hands into the open drawer. What. The. Hell.
He snatched it back and reread it. Colt will never—“never” underlined—find out that Ryder isn’t his child...
He shook his head, shock and confusion overwhelming him, his brain warring against what was in black and white in his wife’s handwriting.
Ryder wasn’t his son?
What?
Jocelyn had had an affair?
The doorbell rang and he ignored it. He didn’t want to see anyone, couldn’t see anyone right now.
A second later, his phone pinged with a text. His sister, Haley.
You home? Your car’s here. I’m on the porch. I have something adorable for Ryder but it might be too big.
Okay. Haley, he could see. Haley, he could talk to. He ran to the door and the moment he opened it, his sister rushed past him, a bag dangling off each wrist.
“I’ve got today’s special from the diner and a really cute fleece winter suit with bear ears for Ryder,” she said in a rush of words, Haley-style, heading for the kitchen, her long golden braid swishing behind her. “I think the saleswoman said it was called a bunting? Oh, this is shepherd’s pie,” she added, lifting her left wrist with the bag from the Bear Ridge Diner, where she worked as a waitress. “And there’s a slice of chocolate layer cake in there, too.”
He slowly followed her into the kitchen on autopilot, watching her put the containers in the fridge.
“Low on eggnog,” she said, giving the container a shake. “I don’t know how you can drink that thick, slimy stuff.” She put it back in the fridge, taking out her phone and no doubt typing a note to pick up more eggnog for her older brother, whom everyone was doing way too much for at this point. “Oh, and I was thinking that we should go to Abbott’s Christmas tree farm, Colt. You still don’t have a tree up and, yeah, I get it, this isn’t exactly a festive time, but a trimmed tree will cheer this place up and it’s for Ryder, really.”
Haley was a talker. He loved his sister to pieces and right now, he was grateful that she was going a mile a minute, reaching into the other bag to pull out a tan-colored fleece snowsuit with bear ears, because he couldn’t form words yet. He could barely breathe.
“Think it’s too big?” she asked, holding it up. “It’s size six to twelve months.” She peered at him. “Colt?”
Nothing would come out of his mouth. He stood there, unable to speak.
She was staring at him now. “Colt? What’s wrong?”
He closed his eyes for a second and then left the room, Haley hot on his heels.
“Jesus, Colt, you’re scaring me to death. What’s going on? Is Ryder sick?”
He went into Jocelyn’s office. If he looked toward the bassinet, he’d fall apart. So instead he just handed Haley the stationery pad, the unfinished letter in black ink.
Her eyes widened as she read. She looked up at him. “What. The. Hell?”
“That’s what I said. I just found it. A minute before you rang the bell. I was going through her desk to clear it. The drawer was locked and I found this. Ryder isn’t mine?”
“We don’t know that for sure,” she said, eying the letter with a wince, then dropping the pad—facedown on the desk. “We don’t know anything for sure. It’s unfinished, and we don’t know when she wrote this or if she was sure herself or what.”
“She sounds very sure in the letter,” he said. Chills ran up and down his spine.
Ryder let out another little cry and Colt instinctively rushed over. The baby’s eyes were still closed, his little hand now raised by his head, which was covered in an orange-and-white cotton cap. He stared down at the baby he loved so much.
“He’s not my son?” That can’t be true.
“He is your son, Colt. Nothing changes that.”
But life wasn’t the same as it was five minutes ago. And nothing would change that.
He sucked in a breath and paced by the window.
“What are you thinking?” Haley asked gently.
He was thinking about Ava Guthrie, Jocelyn’s best friend, to whom she’d been writing the letter. Very soon after Ryder was born, Ava had inherited a ranch a couple of hours away, a falling-down mess, Jocelyn had called it, which was why she hadn’t been around.
She’d come to Jocelyn’s funeral, though. He hadn’t noticed her until she’d suddenly appeared in the receiving line, her blond hair a stark contrast against her black dress, a small hat with a short black veil shielding her face, her eyes. She’d offered quick condolences, which surprised him, given how close she and Jocelyn had been. He’d been holding Ryder in his arms, and she’d touched the baby’s cheek, and then she was gone.
“I’m going to see Ava for answers,” he said. “Right now.”
