Black Hills Baby Read online

  The narrow two-lane strand of pavement wound through tall, silvery green pines that seemed to crowd the road. The early-afternoon sun felt warm through the windshield, but when he cracked the window a few inches, cool, pine-scented air rushed in.

  “How much further?”

  “Ten miles.” She added under her breath, “Ten miles and twenty-five years.”

  He wondered what she meant, but instead of asking said, “I'm curious about the three dinosaurs in your town.”

  “Three skeletons were discovered a few miles from Sentinel Pass forty or so years ago. They promptly were excavated and moved to the School of Mines for research purposes. To make up for stealing our dinosaurs, the state paid to build a replica of one at the Visitor Center. His name is Seymour.”

  “How did they know his name?”

  She smiled as if actually amused by his question, but she didn’t take her eyes off the road. “People tended to be more casual with Paleolithic discoveries in the past. Remember the Tyrannosaurus named Sue? The others might have names, too. Seymour is the only one I know personally because he gets about a hundred letters every year from school children who have visited here on fieldtrips.”

  “Does he write back?”

  He didn’t expect an answer to his quip but she turned and looked at him. “Yes, actually. He does. Through me.”

  “You speak dinosaur?”

  Her smile made his heart stop for a second. Something he could honestly say had never happened before. It didn’t hurt exactly, but it freaked him out enough that he missed the first part of her reply.

  “…expect you to be that interested in our town. You’ll have to meet my grandmother. Even on her bad days she still knows more about Sentinel Pass than anybody else does on their good days.”

  An elderly character. Excellent idea. “I’d love to meet her. And your brother, too. Is he still not thrilled with your decision?”

  She turned back to face the road and stepped on the gas. “He’s a man. He has a daughter. He doesn’t get it.”

  If Cooper were honest, he’d admit that he didn’t understand her motivation completely either. Why choose such an extreme–-and public-–process to get pregnant? He’d probably never know, but since his former acting coach used to tell him motivation was key to getting into a character, he asked, “Is it your desire to have a child that he doesn’t get or the way you’ve chosen to go about this?”

  “Both.”

  He frowned. Short, succinct answers weren’t going to cut it. He’d never met a woman who didn’t go on and on about herself, the reasons behind her choices and her future expectations when given half a chance. “Do you think you’ve made the right choice?”

  “Time will tell, as my grandmother always said.” She made a gesture with her right hand. “This is it. Sentinel Pass. Try not to blink, you might miss it.”

  Another rather biting comment about a place that on first glance looked far more real and charming than the tourist town they’d passed earlier. No stereotypical false fronts. Well, maybe a couple, but mostly the main thoroughfare seemed quaint, rustic and…perfect for what he had in mind.

  “I like it.”

  She slowed to let a woman dragging an upright metal cart cross the street. The woman waved at Libby and gave Cooper a curious squint but scurried faster so they could pass.

  Cooper followed her with his gaze. She’d make a fabulous extra. The Sentinel Pass version of a bag lady.

  “I’ll bring you back into town after you get settled,” Libby told him. “Right now I need to get home and call the Post Office to check on Jenna. Is that okay with you?”

  He pulled his attention from the two-story hotel made out of some rough brownish-colored stone he’d never seen before. “Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. Whatever works for you. We’re on Libby time.”

  She blinked at that but kept driving.

  They passed a bar midblock with swinging doors and a funky old sign that looked like something out of bad film noir. He could totally picture a film crew using the exterior as a location shot. The interior could be anything Shane wanted it to be.

  A few doors down, on the corner, sat a café with honest-to-goodness blue-and-white gingham curtains in the window.

  “Quaint,” he murmured, suddenly craving a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. “Tell me they serve homemade pie. Apple à la mode.”

  “Pardon?”

  He swallowed the surfeit of saliva in his mouth. “Oh, nothing, just mumbling to myself.”

  He mentally noted two antique stores, a barbershop, a coin-activated laundry and a tiny one-pump gas station that appeared to be operational. “From your description, I pictured it more…desolate.”

  “Really? I don’t remember what I said that gave you that idea. I suppose I take the town for granted. I grew up here. Not much has changed in thirty-odd years. The hardware store got a face-lift a while back.” She shrugged.

  Then, abruptly, the buildings turned to houses. Mostly old. Some squeezed together as if land had been at a premium; others were set back from the street with spindly trees and a minimum of landscaping inside the twisted wire fences.

  The road climbed steeply, causing the car’s transmission to downshift to make the grade. Two curves later she flicked on her turn signal. “Here we are.”

  She pulled into a gravel driveway that led to a narrow, two-story house the color of L.A. fog. Three or four outbuildings were scattered behind it. The nearest neighbor he could see was a mere hint of color through the branches of trees not fully leafed out.

  He studied the house as she drove past it to park in front of a detached two-stall garage. The most prominent feature was an enclosed porch that stuck out like a woman’s stiffly starched skirt. Inside the glass windows he glimpsed a table, several chairs and a large sofa. He didn’t see any screens and wondered how much the area got used.

  “Okay. This is it. Home, sweet home.”

  She turned off the engine but didn’t get out right away. Coop looked around. Five old cars succumbing to varying degrees of rust and degeneration were clustered beneath a tall stand of pines like a strange lawn sculpture.

  Great set decoration. He had to remember to write that down when he had the chance.

  He got out. Except for the broken-down cars, the place was emaculate. Lawns mowed. Sidewalk between the house and garage edged. Even the five-foot-tall stack of firewood was perfectly even.

  “Nice place.”

  She made a skeptical sound, as if doubting his sincerity. But he meant it. Maybe because the house fit the town and the town fit some ideal image he had of the kind of place he would have liked to grow up in. “Really. It’s not some cookie-cutter tract home. It has personality.”

  “All that’s missing is the ocean,” she said dryly.

  Well, couldn’t argue with that. This wasn’t Malibu, but he actually felt more relaxed here than he had in months. He took a deep breath and let it out. “No smog. L.A. can’t say that.”

  She joined him. He couldn’t help noticing she left the keys in the ignition. Something only a fool would do in L.A. That impressed him, too, but he kept his comment to himself. Maybe she was acting slightly self-deprecating about Sentinel Pass because she didn’t want him to become too comfortable here. He didn’t blame her, considering what they were planning.

  “Come on. I’ll show you the house. It’s nearly a hundred years old. The root cellar goes back to the mining days. My great-grandfather built the log cabin, first, then when he could afford it, put up the big house. It survived two fires. You can still see the charred beams in the attic.”

  His mind was racing, trying to catalogue impressions. Finally he gave up. He was going to be here a week. He could take his time sifting through what he wanted to use for the show. “Whose cars are those?” he asked, getting his Louis Vuitton bag from the backseat. He slipped the strap over his shoulder and soundly closed the door.

  It felt bulkier than when he’d first packed it because he’d remembered at t
he last minute to add his Dsquared cropped jacket in case the weather turned cool.

  “A couple are Gran’s. The rest belong to my brother. I keep telling myself this is the year they go, but somehow I never get around to getting them towed off to the scrap yard. I don’t think I’m a sentimental fool, but…who knows. There they sit.”

  Interesting attachment.

  “Let’s go in. I thought maybe you’d like a little time to yourself…to, um, unpack?” She looked at his bag a moment, then shrugged. “As I said, I need to check on my rural routes and make sure the drop box is picked up, but I'll show you around first.”

  She started off, obviously expecting him to follow. A narrow, uneven sidewalk separated two stretches of thick, yellowish-green lawn. “The guesthouse is out back,” she told him, pointing off to the left. “It used to be Gran’s place.”

  Cooper jogged to catch up.

  “There’s running water, of course, but the bathroom is kinda small and sometimes the toilet backs up.” She frowned. “I should probably put in a new septic, but it doesn’t get used much and there are so many other places to use the money.”

  “How come you don’t have a sewer hookup?”

  “There’s one in town, but we’re too far out. When Gran was a girl, they used the outhouse.” She pointed toward a slope-roofed building with a crescent moon cutout in the door.

  “No shit.”

  She groaned.

  “Sorry. Terrible pun, but I couldn’t resist.”

  Her smile seemed indulgent. Motherly. That was a good thing, right? Since she wanted to be a mother. But it wasn’t the reaction he was used to getting from women, and that bothered him.

  “Feel free to use it if you have any problems in the middle of the night.” She paused before adding, “Or you’re welcome to use the facilities inside the main house.”

  “Your house.”

  She nodded, looking at the building in question. “It was my parents'. Gran moved in to take care of Mac and me after Dad died. She deeded it to me when she retired from the post office. Mac’s house is on the lot just behind this. His place used to belong to Gran’s second husband. When he passed away, she gave it to Mac and his wife.”

  “How many times has your grandmother been married?”

  “Just twice. Widowed both times. Now she’s living in sin with a younger man.” She paused, her lips puckered in a smirk. “Calvin is eighty-four.”

  “Oh, my. I don’t think I want to try to picture that. Nope. Definitely not.”

  She shrugged. “They’re very sweet together. Cal likes to say that Gran’s mind is going and his body is shot, so together they almost make a whole person.”

  Delicious. His fingers tingled with the need to get yet another gem on paper.

  “This way,” she said, heading off again.

  He followed, happy to use the time to study her. Long limbs but graceful. Her shoes were black, functional, zippered leather. Nothing delicate or sexy about them. He knew neither of his exes would be caught dead in shoes like that. On Libby they just seemed to work.

  Her jeans were well broken in and faded in places that drew his eye. He knew without asking that the faded places weren’t factory-issue. Her maroon V-neck sweater topped a white shirt. The tiniest hint of a postal emblem or name tag showed above her chest.

  He was a little surprised she hadn’t dressed up more to meet him.

  “Does the cabin have DSL? I’d like to check my email.”

  She stopped and turned around. Her eyes-–an unusual shade of golden brown that could have sold a fortune in contact lenses if it could be duplicated-–opened wide a moment before she burst into laughter. “Sorry. I guess I should have sent you a picture of the place before you came. My dad ran power to the cabin when Gran was living with us, but there’s no phone. Or TV. We don’t get cable. Some people in town have satellite, but it’s never been high on my list of priorities.” She looked a little worried. “Are you going to be able to handle that?”

  He shifted the strap that was biting into his flesh on his shoulder. “Of course. I just assumed that since you reached me via the Internet, I’d be able to do the same.”

  “Oh, you can. In the house. I have a desktop computer. In my bedroom,” she added softly. “I…um…I’ll see about moving it to a more central place – the dining room would probably work -- so you can use it, too.”

  She’s a prude. Suddenly, he felt an overwhelming need to test his theory. That’s what his character would do, he was sure of it. So, he slipped the strap from his shoulder, let the heavy leather bag drop to the ground, and cleared the distance between them.

  She stared at him, questioningly, mouth slightly agape.

  “You can leave it where it is,” he said, removing his sunglasses so they were looking straight into each other's eyes. “After all, we’re going to be sharing genetic material. That should entitle me to at least see the inside of your bedroom, shouldn’t it?”

  Her bottom lip moved up and down, but no words came out. For the pure hell of it, he leaned in and kissed her. Neither of them closed their eyes, so he could read her instant shock. But she didn’t pull back or react in any other outward response.

  That lack of reaction never happened when he kissed a woman. He’d been kissing women long enough and often enough in front of other people to know that he was damn good at it. She should be swooning. Unless he’d lost his touch.

  Determined to trigger a reaction, he pulled her against him and tilted his head. This time he did close his eyes. He felt the thudding of her heartbeat that was outpacing his.

  His brief moment of satisfaction was lost, though, when she let out a tiny moan, followed quickly by a sharp, “What the hell are you doing?”

  She pushed on his shoulders with a strength that surprised him. He stepped back, and promptly tripped over his carry-on bag. He went down gracelessly and hard.

  A pain shot down his leg and straight up his spine. “I think I’ve broken my coccyx.”

  “Good. Then it will save me kicking it.”

  He looked up, startled by her tone. “What? We’re going to make a baby together. Shouldn’t I kiss you?”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Shouldn’t you wait until I’ve made up my mind whether or not you’re the one I pick? Shouldn’t we get to know each other a little bit first? Good grief, don’t they teach you any manners on the West Coast?”

  He shifted to one side and gingerly touched his butt. The pain wasn’t as bad as he'd first thought. Reaching under him, he discovered he’d actually landed on the handle of his bag. But he could have been hurt, and her lack of sympathy made him wonder if she was going to be equally hard-line about his plan.

  “I thought you midwesterners were big on hospitality. What if I’d needed to go to the hospital?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Nobody has ever died from a broken butt bone.” She held out her hand. “I can bring you some ice if it’s starting to swell.”

  Like your big head, he imagined her adding.

  Pride made him resist her offer of help. As he was brushing reddish dust and grass clippings from his Emporio Armani Techno pants, she picked up his bag and hefted it over one shoulder like an empty mail sack. She marched toward the one-story log cabin with a green metal roof and shabby gingerbread ambience, mumbling something about giving him “time to settle in.”

  He got the impression she couldn’t wait to get away from him. He followed, frowning. Women-–except for the two he’d married-–generally liked him. He hadn’t known Libby McGannon long enough for his charm to wear off, so he had to attribute her standoffishness to her situation. Alone. Desperate for a baby yet unmarried. But also fiercely proud.

  The way Mom was when she found out she was pregnant with me? The unwelcome thought sent a shiver down his spine.

  “The woodstove actually runs on propane and can be turned on by remote control, if you’re cold,” his hostess said, apparently noticing his reaction. “The place gets real cozy. Megan,
my niece, and I sometimes camp out here when we need some girl time.” Her smile seemed to be a peace-offering and Coop felt his tension leave him.

  No. Libby was nothing like his mother. She was real and honest and didn’t hold a grudge. She would make an excellent female lead-–even if he still wasn’t quite clear on the plot. But he was more determined than ever to write the pilot and get the show on the air.

  Everything he’d seen so far-–even Libby’s reaction to his kiss, which, although personally humbling, would look great on camera-–confirmed what his gut had told him. There was a gold mine here storywise. He just needed to start digging.

  Chapter 4

  Libby didn’t own a smart phone. Hers was about as dumb as they came, but service was so spotty in this part of the Hills she didn't see any reason to upgrade. So once she dumped Cooper Lindstrom’s suitcase-–a leather bag the color of the pipe tobacco her father used to smoke and so soft she’d had to fight the urge to rub her cheek against it–-on Gran’s antique spindle bed, she made a dash to the main house to call Jenna.

  “Sentinel Pass Post Office.” Jenna’s crisp voice resonated with the authority worthy of Libby’s PMR--an acronym for Post Master Relief. The postal service loved acronyms, and Libby had to fight the tendency to abbreviate things in her real life.

  “Not so loud,” Libby shushed, closing the storm door behind her. “He might still be wandering around outside.”

  “Libby? Is that you? I can’t hear you. Why are you whispering? Oh, my God, he’s with you, isn’t he?”

  “Not yet. I put his bag in the cabin and suggested he unpack, but he said he needs to go online to check his Nelsons or something so he--”

  “Nelsons? Do you mean Nielsens? How can someone so smart be so socially unsavvy?”

  Libby walked to the window at the kitchen sink so she could keep an eye on her guest’s activities. Plus, there was a chance she might throw up. Nerves, of course. She’d experienced the same feeling twice before. Both times had involved death, not birth. The end of hope, not hope embodied.

  She squeezed the phone between her shoulder and ear and turned on the tap. Taking a glass from the cabinet she’d refinished last winter, she filled it to the brim and made herself take a slow, long drink. “Better,” she said, smacking her lips.