Baby’s Watch Read online

  If Jewel was offended at the suggestion, or bothered by Ana’s knowledge of her sleepless nights, she didn’t let it show.

  “I’ll let you know. Thank you.” A smile flashed across Jewel’s face. “Unless you want to go riding with the older girls over at the Bar None this afternoon. I’m sure Clay can find a nice, gentle horse for you. You haven’t left the ranch since you got here.”

  Ana was sure by Jewel’s laugh that her fear must have shown in her face.

  “Even if I could get this—” she gestured at her own bulk “—into a saddle, I wouldn’t. Horses and I…no.”

  “You’re in Texas now, girl. Better learn to love them.”

  “I do,” Ana said. “They’re beautiful creatures. But I prefer to admire them from a distance.”

  “You’ll get over it,” Jewel predicted. “It’s in the water. And soon,” Jewel warned her with a smile, “I’m going to make you take a break and have some fun.”

  Ana retreated to her room after that, wondering if the word fun would ever again be in her lexicon. It seemed a very, very long time since she had done anything but worry and plan and pray.

  She stretched, trying to ease her aching back. If Jewel wouldn’t take her advice about a nap this afternoon, perhaps she herself would. Along about three she was usually beginning to feel the strain of the extra weight she was carrying. Her feet would swell, her back would throb, and there would be nothing more welcome than to lie down for a while.

  Except then there would be no distraction, nothing to keep her from dwelling on the unpleasant facts of her situation. She was twenty-two, unmarried and not likely to marry. She was about to become a mother, with a past in shambles behind her. But she was determined to build a life for herself and her baby.

  She had never felt more alone.

  And then the baby moved again. Ana set her jaw and her courage.

  She was not alone. She had a tiny, helpless human being depending on her. A child she already loved beyond measure. She would make sure that child had a chance.

  She would do whatever she had to to make that happen.

  Chapter 2

  By the time he reached his small, nondescript motel room, Ryder was feeling the too-familiar sensation of physical weariness coupled with being mentally amped up. It would be another day of restless sleep. He was definitely a night owl and used to sleeping in daylight—that was, according to Clay, one of his biggest failings—but doing nothing made him crazy.

  “Buenos dias, mijo.”

  With his key—no modern card key for this old place—still in the door to his room, he looked over his shoulder to see the source of the “Good morning.” It was Elena Sanchez, the tiny, round woman who ran this place with her husband, Julio. They’d been married, she had told Ryder at one point, nearly fifty years. The concept of being with one person that long boggled him.

  “Hola, mamacita,” he said, teasing her about her tendency to mother him, even though she’d only known him a week. She also had amenably adapted her cleaning schedule to his, so that she never disturbed him when he was trying to sleep, but his room was always scrupulously clean; he appreciated that.

  “You have been out all night again,” she said.

  “Working,” he told her; something about the woman and her easy concern for a stranger made him want to reassure her.

  Yeah. Like she’d be really reassured, considering how she feels family is everything, knowing you were out spying on your own brother’s ranch. Better yet, tell her you’re doing it because it got you out of prison, that ought to stop her worrying in a hurry.

  “Have you eaten yet?”

  “I just got here,” he explained.

  “Then you come eat with us. There is plenty.”

  “Thank you, but—” He stopped as she waved him to silence. And realized with a little jolt that he liked her worrying about him. That revelation put him off his game, and she won.

  “You must eat,” she said briskly, and bustled off, leaving him shaking his head at how neatly she’d trapped him. There was no way for him not to join the couple at their breakfast table yet again without being, in Elena’s eyes, unforgivably rude.

  And when the hell did you start worrying about being rude? he asked himself.

  He supposed he could chalk that up to Boots, too. For all his rough edges, the man worked hard at doing what he’d never been able to do on the outside—be a decent human being. And that had included befriending a wild, out-of-control kid who’d landed in the adjoining cell.

  Ryder’s idea of learning hadn’t included Boots’s lectures, but with him in the next cell, he hadn’t been able to avoid hearing the man. He’d taken to working on his collection of prison-style weapons. This, at least, he saw the need for; the looks and youth that had been a benefit on the outside earned him attention he could do without in prison. He learned fast, and was starting with a shiv made out of a toothbrush handle, since he wasn’t allowed a belt with a buckle to hone to an edge. The work helped him tune out Boots’s seemingly endless supply of reasons to turn his life around.

  And that had included, later, convincing him to take the chance he’d been offered to clear his record and get out of prison before he was hardened beyond redemption.

  A chance to do something good with his life.

  A chance to help put away some guys doing some very nasty things.

  A chance that had ended up with him coming full circle, back to Esperanza, where he’d grown up and gotten into trouble in the first place.

  A chance that landed him, after following a trail that led all over the Southwest, where he was now. Spying on the Bar None ranch.

  Home.

  Not that he’d ever felt that way. All he’d ever felt at the Bar None was out of place. And a disappointment to his big brother. His little sister had been better; she had enough fire in her to understand Ryder’s restlessness.

  And look where that got her, he told himself. With a kid at eighteen, after she fell for some handsome, sweet-talking city dude. He’d have thought his sassy little sister would have been too smart for that, but some women were just suckers for a pretty face.

  Lucky for you, he thought with a wry grimace, knowing that, except for the city part, he could have been talking about himself. He’d loved—well, in the here today, gone tomorrow sense—and left more than one woman, although after Georgie had turned up pregnant at eighteen he’d taken the lesson to heart and been very, very careful. Up until then he figured if a pregnancy ever happened he’d do just what his father had done—have nothing to do with it.

  But after seeing what Georgie, the one sibling he could almost relate to, had gone through, the last thing he ever wanted was a baby to muck up the works, so he’d taken every precaution. His plan from early on had been to have as much fun as he could for as long as he lived, and that included taking advantage of how much women were attracted to him. That they weren’t the kind of women who stayed didn’t matter; he wasn’t that kind of man, either.

  “You are quiet this morning, chico,” Julio said after they’d eaten, one of Elena’s usual vast spreads of eggs, beans, and fresh tortillas made and patted out by her own hands.

  Ryder wasn’t sure how to respond. “I say fewer stupid things that way,” he finally answered.

  That earned him a smile from the usually taciturn Mr. Sanchez. “More should do as you do.”

  By way of thank you—and habit; there had been no one to clean up after them in their house, whether they were Gradys or Coltons—he helped clear the table. And he was thankful; the full, warm meal might help him actually get some sleep before he had to start in again.

  Back in his small but clean and tidy room, Ryder took a quick shower, wrapped a towel around his waist and sat on the edge of the bed. He reached into the nightstand drawer and took out his pay-as-you-go cell phone. He had the other one, the one they’d given him to use, the one they paid the bill on. But there were some things Ryder preferred to keep private, and his talks with Boot
s definitely fell into that category, for both their sakes. The convict had gruffly made him promise to stay in touch, which, according to him, meant to take the weekly call Boots made.

  That was a lot more staying in touch than Ryder was used to, but he hadn’t been able to say no to the older man. Not after everything he’d done. So for the past seven months, when the phone rang on Wednesday mornings, he answered it.

  Right on cue, the cell rang.

  “How goes it, boy?”

  “Not backward,” Ryder said dryly.

  Boots chuckled, that raspy, wry sound Ryder always associated with the older man. He could picture him, on the phone in the dayroom, lean, wiry and leathery. After fifteen years in prison, his ability to laugh at all was a marvel. Ryder thought his own three years had leached all humor out of him, and left him with only that new appreciation of irony.

  “Sometimes,” Boots said, “that’s the best you can hope for.”

  “It’s not enough.”

  “Depends on who’s doing the grading. You always did want more faster.”

  Boots didn’t point out that that very trait had been what had landed Ryder in trouble so many times—okay, most times—in his life. Perhaps he assumed it was obvious, even to Ryder, that he didn’t have to.

  Perhaps it was that obvious. Ryder jammed a hand through his thick, dark, and still shower-damp hair.

  “So no progress?”

  “I’m running out of cigars,” Ryder said. “Is that progress?”

  “Of a sort,” Boots said with another chuckle.

  Ryder had to consider his words carefully. After all, he wasn’t supposed to be discussing his new “job” with anyone. But since Boots already knew about it—he’d been with Ryder when the men in the dark suits and the government-issue sunglasses had shown up in the first place—Ryder didn’t figure he was giving away any state secrets talking to him, as long as he was careful.

  “It’s strange. To be out there, but…not to be. To have to hide.”

  He’d managed to let Boots know how the trail he’d been following had led him to, of all places, his brother’s Bar None ranch.

  “You don’t think he’s involved, do you?”

  At the very thought of straight-arrow Clay being involved in anything illicit, Ryder had to smother a laugh. “No way in hell,” he said succinctly. “I’m the problem child in that family.”

  “Were,” Boots said gently.

  “You’d be hard-pressed to convince my brother of that, I’m guessing.”

  “I won’t have to,” Boots said. “You will. Once you’re free of all this.”

  This was old ground; Boots was determined that Ryder would reunite with his family, once this was all over. Ryder had tried to tell him Clay had washed his hands of him, and once Clay made up his mind, it took heaven and earth to change it. While Ryder believed in earth—at least the six feet of it he expected to be under before he was forty—heaven? No.

  Somewhat to his surprise, Boots, a deeply religious man now, didn’t push it on him. He believed enough for both of them.

  “I’ve got to get some sleep, if I’m going to go out and play spy again tonight.”

  “You’re not playing,” Boots reminded him. “If this is for real, it could be dangerous.”

  Ryder couldn’t quite imagine baby smugglers as armed and threatening.

  As if he’d read his thoughts—Boots was good at that, even over the phone—the man chided him gently. “You’re not taking this seriously enough, Ryder. Don’t let the nature of the contraband fool you. There’s a lot of money at stake in this venture. Probably more per ounce than any you’ll ever come across.”

  He’d never thought of it that way. He really had no idea how much it cost to buy a kid, and he hadn’t asked. Maybe he should. Because Boots was right; where there was money, there were men who would fight to get it and keep it.

  “Something’s coming,” Boots said. “You watch your back.”

  “You been talking to the Boss again?” Ryder teased; Boots spoke to God as if he were a poker buddy sometimes, making what he called “suggestions,” most of which of late seemed to involve the salvation of one Ryder Colton. And no matter how much Ryder tried to talk the old man out of it, Boots never gave up on him.

  More than I can say for my brother, he thought as Boots ignored the jibe.

  “More the other way around. Just a feeling, Ryder. Be watchful.”

  With that Boots’s phone time was up, and the call ended.

  That was what drove him craziest about Boots and his beliefs, Ryder thought; no matter what happened later, the man would nod wisely and say, “I told you.” If what happened was something good, it was straight from his God. If it was something bad, God’s intervention had lessened the blow.

  Yet, Ryder thought as he pulled the thankfully room-darkening curtains of the small motel room closed, he couldn’t deny that the man’s pure, shining faith had had an effect on him. He’d fought it, resisted fiercely, but Boots’s quiet determination to save him from himself had made inroads.

  He’d finally decided that the principles underlying Boots’s beliefs were good no matter what the foundation. And when Boots had laughed and told him he didn’t have to believe to live by them, the result was the same—Ryder had felt a sudden sense of relief he’d never known before. And in that moment he’d determined to give it a shot, for the sake of the man who had seen something in him worth saving, a man who would never see the outside again, but still found hope.

  To his surprise he slept well, for nearly seven hours. More than enough to keep going. He got up, dressed, grabbed his last box of Little Travis cigars and headed out. He wasn’t hungry yet; Mrs. Sanchez’s hearty breakfast was still holding. So he headed instead to the local library branch.

  It wasn’t as foreign territory to him as he supposed many might think, given his capacity for trouble. There had been times when he’d wanted information, and had wanted to get it without his big brother hanging over his shoulder. Esperanza’s tiny library was just that, tiny, and his presence would be noticed—and reported on to Clay within hours—so he’d avoided that. But there were other towns, other libraries, and he spread it around.

  His official cell phone rang as he pulled into the parking lot of the library.

  “You didn’t check in,” a stern voice said.

  “I did,” Ryder countered. “I left a message. Not my fault you didn’t answer. I needed sleep.”

  His alternate handler—an agent named Gibson—apparently decided to let it go. “Developments?”

  I’m about out of cigars and my ass is tired of sitting all night in the dark, waiting for nothing, he thought. But he knew better than to bitch, at this guy in particular. He was a little more human, and sometimes even unbent enough to commiserate with the frustration Ryder felt. Ryder didn’t want to blow that.

  “Nothing. No movement, no sign of movement, and nobody who shouldn’t be around. They go lights out around here early, and it stays that way.”

  Work started very early on a ranch, and Clay Colton was serious about work. Ryder had chosen to ignore his brother’s work ethic and this had always been the biggest bone of contention between the two brothers.

  That, and the fact that Ryder had been born for trouble.

  “The biggest thing that’s happened around here is people keep getting married,” Ryder said. “The sheriff, his brother…”

  Ryder clammed up before he let slip something that gave him away. It wouldn’t do to mention that he knew his ex-sister-in-law was back on the ranch, or the even bigger shock of learning that his little sister had married some overtense suit.

  As far as his handlers knew, he had no family. None of them really wanted to claim him, so he’d done the same. On anything that had required listing next of kin, he’d put “None.” And that’s how it would stay. For all he knew, that’s why they’d picked him for this job. Maybe Boots was right, and this was more potentially dangerous than he’d realized.


  Not that it mattered. He could get blown away tomorrow, and it would barely cause a ripple. Boots might shake his head sadly, but that was the truth. No one else would really care. Not that he expected them to; there was something inherently wrong with him. If even his own father and brother wanted nothing to do with him, why would anyone else?

  “We need to get this wrapped up,” Gibson said. “The Colton campaign is on its way to San Antonio soon, and we do not want to try and run this operation with all that going on.”

  The casual reference gave Ryder a jolt. He’d been so focused on his little bit of work here, the bigger happenings in the world hadn’t even registered. Not that he ever paid much attention to politics, not even presidential politics.

  He wondered what that cool, commanding voice on the other end of the phone would think if he realized that he was speaking to a man who was, technically if not officially, the nephew of the man who could well become president of the United States.

  Wasn’t there some branch of the feds who investigated all the family members of people who aspired to the highest office? It only made sense. And the fact that Joe Colton’s ne’er-do-well brother had fathered a crop of kids outside his marriage wasn’t exactly a secret.

  For the first time, it hit Ryder that he was, by blood, connected to a very famous family. Not that they would claim him any more than his own father had, but still, if he were mercenary enough…

  He could almost see Boots’s frown. Could hear the old man’s stern warning that that way lay hellfire. Could even hear himself answering, “Don’t worry, Boots. That’d mean I’d have to claim Graham Colton as my father, and that ain’t ever going to happen.”

  That much was the truth. No amount of money or famous family would make him do that. He might feel a bit of wistful sadness about losing his brother and sister—they’d once been a tight-knit group—but his father meant less than nothing to him.

  As he meant less than nothing to his father.