The Littlest Cowboy Read Free

can air out some. Garrett, bring the bag and follow me. This son of yours could use a fresh diaper, and you can bet the ranch I’m not doin’ it.”
    Wes and Elliot turned in opposite directions to do her bidding. Jessi reached for the screen door.
    “Hold up a second, all of you.”
    Three pairs of eyes turned to stare at him—no, four pairs. One pair of baby blues fixed on him like laser beams.
    Garrett swallowed the bile in his throat, cleared it and said what he had to. “We’re not keeping this baby.”
    Jessi blinked. Elliot shook his head. And Wes just stared at him, condemnation in his black eyes.
    “Look, I don’t know whose child he is, but I do know this. He ain’t mine.”
    “But, Garrett-”
    “No buts, Jessi. Somewhere, his real family is out there waiting for him. It wouldn’t be fair for us to keep him here. Now, I’m going inside and calling Social Services, and then—”
    “Not on a Saturday morning, you aren’t,” Elliot observed. He lifted his hat and replaced it at a more comfortable angle with just the right amount of smugness. The horsey pajamas ruined the effort, though.
    Again, the little bastard had a point. Quinn, Texas was a speck-on-the-map town in a county that wasn’t much bigger. There wasn’t a thing Garrett could do about this until Monday. Ah, hell, make that Tuesday. Monday was Memorial Day.
    “I’ll just go get that quilt,” Elliot said, and he let the screen door bang closed behind him.
    “I’ll change little Ethan,” Jessi offered,
“this time.
But don’t you start thinkin’ this is gonna become a habit.” She bent to pick up the bunny bag with her free hand.
    Garrett held the door for her. “He won’t be here long enough for it to become a habit, Jes.”
    Blue jumped up and trotted into the house beside Jessi. His sister shot Garrett a few daggers as she passed. But they were nothing compared to the glare of Wes’s eyes on his back. He felt as if his skin were being seared. He stiffened his shoulders and turned to face his silent accuser.
    Wes leaned against the porch railing, eyeing him.
    “It’s not my kid,” Garrett said, and the fact that he sounded so defensive made him as angry as the look in his brother’s eyes.
    “At least our father owned up to his mistakes, Garrett. When my mother died and he found out about me—
    “When Stands Alone died, Wes, it was
my
mother who found out about you, not Pa. She was the one who went to the reservation to find out if her suspicions were true, and once she knew, there was no question about your coming to live with us. If our father hadn’t done right by you, she’d have skinned him.”
    Wes straightened as Garrett spoke. “You saying Orrin wouldn’t have acknowledged me if Maria hadn’t forced him?”
    “I’m saying who the hell knows
what
he would have done. He was no saint, Wes.”
    “And neither is his firstborn,” Wes said in a dangerously soft voice.
    “No, I’m no saint. I never claimed to be. But I didn’t father that kid in there, and—”
    “And you don’t want him.” Wes turned away suddenly, an act that made his careless shrug a second later seem false. “What the hell do I care? I don’t even like kids.” He banged down the three porch steps and started along the well-worn path to the barn.
    Garrett would have gone after him, but changed his mind at Jessi’s shrill squawk—at least he thought it was Jessi’s. It might also have been a bald eagle caught in a blender, but he didn’t think that very likely. Ah, hell.
    He headed inside.
    Jessi had one hand at her stomach and the other over her mouth. Behind her, the baby lay on the parlor floor, his diaper undone, his legs in the air. Garrett took another step forward before the aroma hit him full in the face and made his eyes water.
    “I can’t do it, Garrett,” Jessi gasped, “and there’s nothing you can say to make me. Gawd!” She headed up the stairs at light speed.
    “Jessi!”
    No use. She was long gone. He