Cole said, feeling as if this whole thing was just spinning out of control. “You’re forgetting one important thing. You’ve got a ranch full of teenage boys, all of them old enough to father a child—or two,” he pointed out.
Jackson studied the infants for a moment. “My guess is that these babies are about three or four weeks old. Maybe less.”
“Okay,” Cole said, waiting for Jackson to make a point.
“That means that if they were fathered by one of the boys on the ranch, it would have had to have happened about ten months or so ago,” Jackson told him.
“Right,” Cole agreed, still waiting for Jackson’s point.
“Well, we’ve only got three boys who have been here that long,” Jackson concluded. “The rest have been here for less time than that.” There were several who had graduated the program and returned home in that time frame, but for now, he decided not to mention that. He still felt that the infants might be Cole’s.
“Okay!” Cole was on his feet. “Let’s go talk to those three hands.”
The babies were making more noise. Jackson’s attention shifted to them. “Well, before we do that, I think these two little people need to be fed first.”
Feeling suddenly, totally, out of his depth, Cole looked around.
“Is Debi here?” Jackson’s wife, Debi, was a registered nurse who worked at the town’s only medical clinic.
Jackson shook his head. “She went in early today. It’s her turn to open the clinic.”
“What about Kim?” Cole asked hopefully, looking at Garrett.
“Sorry, out of luck there,” Garrett told him. “Kim’s away on assignment. She left last week. She still keeps her hand in,” he explained proudly, “doing occasional stories for the magazine that brought her out here in the first place.”
Obviously taking pity on Cole, Jackson volunteered, “However, Rosa’s here,” referring to the Healing Ranch’s resident housekeeper.
Cole was immediately hopeful. “Do you think that she could...?”
“She might, if we ask her nicely,” Jackson speculated.
“She’s probably in the kitchen. I’ll go get her,” Garrett volunteered, taking off.
The babies were beginning to fuss in earnest now. Cole looked at Jackson. “You don’t think that these belong to one of those boys you mentioned, do you?”
“Highly doubtful,” Jackson said. Moving toward the basket, he picked up the louder of the two infants and began rocking it in an attempt to quiet the baby. “You’ve seen the hands. By the end of the day, they’re all too tired to chew, much less try to romance some little lady. Besides, so far this is still an all-male program we have going here. To find a girl his age, our Romeo would have to ride all the way out to town or the reservation. I’d probably know about it if that happened,” Jackson assured him.
“Where did these babies come from?” Rosa Sanchez asked as she walked into the living room.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Jackson told the woman.
Maternal instincts rose to the surface. Rosa picked up the other infant from the basket and held it against her ample bosom.
“Oh, the poor little thing,” she cooed. “He is hungry.”
Cole stared at her, surprised. “You can tell it’s a he? How?” he asked, then pointed out, “The baby’s all bundled up. They both are.”
Rosa merely smiled. “He is noisier. Men usually are,” Rosa told him knowingly. She looked at Jackson. “Bring the other one,” she instructed the man who was technically her boss. And then she turned toward Cole. “You bring the basket. There is no place to lay them down while I take turns feeding them, so the basket will do.”
“Rosa, how are you going to feed them? We don’t have any baby bottles,” Garrett asked.
“Boil a cloth,” Rosa instructed Jackson.
He looked at her in confusion. “And just how is that going to...?”
“When it is clean, we will dip a corner of the cloth into a cup of warm milk and the baby will suck on that.”
“Won’t that take a long time, feeding him that way?” Cole asked.
Rosa gave him what passed for a patient smile. “Just until one of you comes back from the general store in town with two baby bottles,” she replied. “Now go, go,” she urged them. “These babies are getting hungrier by the minute.”
“I’ll go to the general store,” Garrett volunteered, no doubt thinking that was the safest thing for him to do.
“I’ll make breakfast for the boys,” Jackson told his housekeeper, handing off the baby he’d been holding to Cole. “You stay here with Cole and the babies, and do what needs to be done.”
Rosa smiled at him patiently. “Yes, Mr. Jackson.”
* * *
THE PROCEDURE WAS slow and tedious, but, to Cole’s surprise, feeding the infants Rosa’s way seemed to satisfy them, at least for the time being.
“I think this one’s going to suck in the cloth,” he marveled, watching the infant in his arms going at the milk-soaked cloth he was bringing to its lips.
“Don’t forget to keep soaking the cloth,” Rosa prompted. “You don’t want it getting dry.”
“Right,” Cole murmured, taking the cloth he had wrapped around his index finger away from the infant’s mouth and dipping it into the milk he had standing in one of the coffee mugs.
“Mr. McCullough?” Rosa said.
Cole raised his eyes away from the infant he was attempting to feed. It was touch and go at the moment. “Yes?”
“You are sure you are not the father of these babies?” she asked in a low voice. Before he could say anything, she assured him, “It is just the two of us here right now. You can tell me.” She leaned her head in toward him and said in a low voice, “I will not tell anyone.”
“I’m sure, Rosa,” Cole said patiently.
And, for the most part, he was. There was just this tiny little inkling of doubt left, but he knew he was needlessly torturing himself. If there had been a baby—or babies—because of that one wondrous night, Stacy would have told him.
Wouldn’t she?
“Then why would someone leave them on your doorstep?” Rosa asked, dipping the edge of her cloth in the warm milk. “Why not with the sheriff or on the clinic’s doorstep?”
“I really don’t know, Rosa.” The next moment, he exclaimed, “Wow! I sure am glad this baby doesn’t have teeth yet. He’s got really strong lips for an infant.”
