Close Range Christmas by Nicole Helm (best free ebook reader .txt) 📕

and the eye contact he made was with Dev and Dev alone. “Sarah’s mother. Biological mother. She’d had a son with Ace, which was why Sarah’s father asked Eva and me to take her. They were scared for her safety. Not because of Ace. Because of the son. Anth Wyatt.”

Chapter Four

“I don’t need babysitting.”

Liza cooed at their niece, Felicity and Gage’s sweet little Claire who was quickly creeping toward her first birthday. It would have been a nice moment. Hanging out with just Liza and the girls. Liza had six-year-old Gigi, technically her half sister, but Liza and Jamison were her guardians with her parents dead. Cody and Nina’s eldest daughter Brianna and Gigi were good friends and were occupying each other upstairs.

“You can’t be alone this close to your due date. Besides, Jamison already filled me in on what they’re covering over at the ranch.”

“What about me?”

“Your job is baby-growing and, soon enough, baby-pushing into the world. That’s the big stuff, Sarah.” Liza smiled reassuringly, but there was something all wrong about everything. The way Duke had taken off, the way Liza refused to talk about Anth Wyatt.

“Nina’s pregnant,” Sarah pointed out petulantly.

“She’s five months pregnant and not having contractions on and off,” Liza returned equitably.

“What’s going on over there? I know about the mysterious brother, but...” She couldn’t put her finger on the wrong feeling that kept crawling up her spine. Ever since Duke had taken off.

When Liza turned her back to Sarah, making a big fuss over putting Claire in her travel crib, Sarah’s dread sank deeper.

“Liza, what is going on?”

Liza took a deep breath and let it out. She came back to Sarah, kneeling in front of where Sarah sat on what was usually Duke’s recliner but she’d commandeered during this last month of her pregnancy.

“We all want you to take care of yourself,” Liza said, patting Sarah’s knee. “Contractions are nothing to mess around with.”

“I wasn’t even dilated. The doctor told me what to do and I have an appointment every week. Baby is pretty much all baked in there. The worry is over the top, unless there is something bigger at work here.”

Liza started to shake her head, but Sarah pressed.

“Explain to me how knowing there’s danger, but no one will tell me exactly what, is supposed to give me a calm, relaxing last few weeks of pregnancy?”

Brianna thundered down the stairs from where she and Gigi had been playing dolls. She slid into the living room in her usual boisterous fashion. “Aunt Sarah, can I feel your baby?” Brianna asked. Eight year old Brianna had been fascinated with Sarah’s pregnancy ever since finding out her own mom was pregnant.

Sarah nodded and motioned her over. She took Brianna’s hands and placed them on her stomach. “He’s not moving around much right now, but you never know when he’ll start kicking up a storm.”

Gigi had followed and was peering down into Claire’s crib, making funny faces at the baby who squealed in appreciative laughter.

Sarah wished she could enjoy it. Her nieces, her sister. Liza had only lived with the Knights a couple years after she’d escaped the Sons of the Badlands with Jamison when she’d been a teenager. Then she’d run away to go back into the gang and keep her sister safe. But Sarah had always looked up to her. She’d missed her when she’d left, been so angry at her for disappearing, but the past year and a half had done a lot to heal those hurts.

Liza was still that oldest sister who seemed to know how to hold everything together. After the girls got tired of baby watch, they moved to TV, and Claire dozed in her crib. Liza forced Sarah to eat dinner on the chair, fussing over her as if she was an invalid.

If it had been any other night, Sarah might have been able to relax and enjoy it, but worry kept her tense and frustrated.

Liza returned from the kitchen with a brownie, and Sarah took it eagerly as Liza perched on the arm of the chair and ate her own.

“Are you ever going to tell us who the father is?” Liza asked, quiet enough that the girls wouldn’t hear as they watched their show.

Sarah shifted uncomfortably—both emotionally and physically. “It doesn’t matter. Wouldn’t you have rather lived a life without your father? Gigi’s okay now, but wouldn’t she have been better off if her mother had been able to get her away from your father?”

Liza pressed her lips together. “You’re not doing this alone, because you have all us, but there is something to be said for a partner. I know you can do this, but I don’t want you to close yourself off to possibilities.”

Brownie finished, Sarah placed her hands firmly on her belly. “The only possibility I want is holding my son and raising him here. I’m not closing myself off to a partnership. I just know that everything I want is right here.”

“Here. On this ranch with Duke. Getting a whole heck of a lot of help from Dev.”

“We’re neighbors. That’s what ranching neighbors do. Help each other out. Especially when we’re practically family what with the way you lot have off and married Wyatts.”

“You two have an interesting relationship.”

Sarah scooted down in the armchair. She had a bad feeling she knew where Liza was going, but she wasn’t going to play along. “Interesting. Antagonistic. Potato potahto.”

“You’re a unit. You have been for quite some time. You work together. You have your own weird language. Dev’s a tough nut to crack, but you seem to have cracked it on occasion.”

Sarah snorted. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“I know you, Sarah. You get plans and you go about enacting them without letting anyone know what you’re doing. You have ideas that you keep to yourself but make happen through sheer force of will. I’m not saying I wouldn’t bet on you if it came to it, but betting on Dev is...well, people are complicated.”

Sarah fidgeted, her