The Manning Sisters

  “And for another thing,” she said stiffly, reminding him of the ridiculous statement he’d made when they were discussing marriage, “babies are not just a woman’s business.”

  “Oh? And what am I supposed to do?”

  “Plenty!”

  “Come on, Taylor, be sensible. There’s not a lot I can do with a baby. They’re too…tiny.”

  “You can change a diaper.”

  “You’ve got to be joking.”

  She rolled away from him and buried her face in the pillow, embarrassed by the tears that sprang to her eyes. Even if she was pregnant, it would be months before the baby was born, and there was plenty of time to deal with the issue of Russ’s role as a parent.

  “Taylor?” Russ asked softly, his hand on her shoulder. “Are you crying?”

  She refused to admit it. “Of course not.”

  “I’ve been doing a little reading on pregnancy and birth, and I understand that tears are perfectly normal. Women become highly emotional during this time.”

  “I suppose you’re going to be quoting facts and statistics to me for the next eight months,” she said, then immediately regretted her waspish tone. Turning back to Russ, she sobbed and threw her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean that. It’s just that I’m worried about you meeting Dad.”

  Russ gently kissed the tip of her nose. “There isn’t going to be a problem, sweetheart. I promise you.”

  “You can’t say that—you don’t know my dad.”

  “I won’t let there be a problem. We have one very important thing in common. We both love you. Two men of similar persuasion are going to get along famously. So stop borrowing trouble, all right?”

  She nodded. “Okay, but I don’t think we should say anything about the possibility of me being pregnant until after Christmas. Agreed?”

  “If that’s the way you want to handle it.” He eased her more fully into his arms. “But I’m afraid I might inadvertently give it away. I’m so happy about it I have trouble not shouting every time I think about us having a son.”

  “Or daughter.”

  “I still think it’s a boy.”

  “Whichever it is, I’d better tell Mandy. Otherwise we’ll be subjected to her wrath—just like after the wedding. Weren’t we given specific instructions to clear the idea of having kids with her first?”

  “I already told her.”

  “Russ?” Taylor levered herself up on one elbow.

  “I hadn’t intended to, but we were sitting at the table one afternoon and apparently I was wearing a silly grin and—”

  “It was probably more of a satisfied smirk,” Taylor interrupted. Then she said, “Go on.”

  “Anyway, I was sitting there minding my own business and she wanted to know what I found so funny. Of course, I said I didn’t find anything funny, and before I knew it, I was telling her about the book I’d picked up at the library about pregnancy and birth and how I thought you were going to have a baby. She was delighted. By the way, I told her the baby’s probably a boy.”

  “Russ, you don’t know that!”

  “Somehow I do. Deep in my heart I feel he’s a boy. Do you think your father will settle down if we promise to give the baby some family name of yours?”

  “We’ve got to get him accustomed to the fact that we’re married first. That might take some time.” She made a wry face. “You know, like approaching a wild animal slowly…”

  “Right,” Russ grumbled. “I forgot.” He reached for her and pulled her close. “If you’re looking for ways to tame this wild beast, I might be able to offer a few suggestions.” He wiggled his eyebrows provocatively.

  Giggling, Taylor encircled his neck with her arms. “I tamed you a long time ago.”

  “That you did,” he whispered as his mouth sought hers. “That you did.”

  The Wednesday before Thanksgiving Eric and Elizabeth Manning pulled their thirty-foot RV into the yard of the Lazy P.

  Since school had been dismissed at noon, Taylor was home. The instant she recognized the vehicle, she called out to Russ, threw open the back door and flew down the steps, hardly taking time to button her coat. Russ followed directly behind her.

  Standing by the door, Russ felt Eric Manning’s eyes on him. The two men quickly sized each other up, and Russ descended the steps. He waited until Taylor had welcomed each of her parents before he placed his arm protectively around her shoulders.

  If her parents didn’t immediately guess she was pregnant, he’d be surprised. Taylor positively glowed—just like they said in the books. And he felt no less happy himself. Only rarely had he been this content. This complete. Taylor had filled all the dark, lonely corners of his life.

  He hadn’t been joking when he told her he felt all warm whenever he thought about the child growing inside her. At odd moments of the day he’d think about his wife and how much he loved her, and he’d actually feel weak with emotion. Some nights he’d lie awake and cherish these peaceful moments with Taylor sleeping at his side. She’d been sleeping a lot more lately. The books had told him she’d be extra-tired. He would prefer it if she’d quit work, but the one time he’d suggested it, she’d almost bitten his head off. Moodiness. That was something else the books had addressed. Russ decided he’d let Taylor decide when and if she should stop teaching. She knew her own limits.

  “Mom and Dad,” Taylor said, slipping her arm around Russ’s waist, “this is my husband, Russ Palmer. You’ll meet his sister, Mandy, this evening.”

  Russ stepped forward and extended his hand to Taylor’s father. The older man muttered something unintelligible, and the two exchanged hearty handshakes.

  “Come inside,” Russ invited, ushering everyone into the warmth of the kitchen. He took their coats and hung them in the hall closet while Taylor settled her parents in the living room.

  There had been lots of small changes in the house since she’d moved in. She had a natural flair for decorating and had rearranged the furniture and done other things that gave the living room a fresh, comfortable feel.

  “Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

  “No, thanks. We just had some, honey,” her mother said.

  Elizabeth Manning was an older version of her daughter. They both had the same intense blue eyes and long, thick dark hair. Eric Manning was as big as a lumberjack, tall and muscular, intimidating in appearance. It was important to Russ to win over this man. Important for Taylor. She’d fought with her father for most of her life. She’d often gone against his will, but she loved him, and his approval meant a great deal to her.

  “Eric,” Elizabeth Manning said softly, looking at her husband.

  The older man cleared his throat. “Before I say anything more to get myself in hot water, I want to apologize for the way I behaved when we last spoke. It’s just that finding out my daughter had married without a word to either of her parents came as a surprise.”

  “I understand,” Russ said, “and I don’t blame you. If my daughter had done that, I don’t think I would’ve behaved any differently.”

  The two men shared a meaningful look.

  “There’s something you should both know,” Taylor said, sitting on the arm of Russ’s chair. She gave him a small smile, her eyes wide. “I’m pregnant. Now, Daddy, before you assume the worst,” she added in a rush, “this baby was conceived in love with a wedding band on my finger. I swear to you it’s the truth.”

  Russ stared up at his wife in shock. For days she’d been schooling him on the importance of keeping their secret until the Christmas holidays. Again and again she’d insisted the worst thing they could do was announce her pregnancy the moment her parents rolled into the Lazy P. Then, with barely a second’s notice, Taylor had spilled it all.

  “Oh, Taylor, that’s absolutely wonderful.” Her mother was clearly delighted. One look told Russ that wasn’t the case with her father.

  “Daddy?” Taylor turned expectantly to her father. She took Russ’s hand and held it tigh
tly. “I love him, Dad, more than I ever dreamed it was possible to love a man.”

  “He’s good to you?”

  “Damn right I’m good to her,” Russ muttered. He wasn’t sure what was going on between father and daughter, but he resented being left out of the conversation.

  “That true?” Eric asked, tilting his head toward Russ.

  “Yes, Dad.”

  Eric opened his arms to her, and Taylor flew across the room, to be wrapped in a bear hug by her robust father. The older man’s gaze found Russ’s. “She’s more trouble than a barrel of monkeys. Opinionated and strong-willed, and has been from the day she was born. I suggest you keep her barefoot and pregnant.”

  “Daddy!” Taylor tore herself away from her father, hands on her hips. “What century are you living in?”

  “The same one I am,” Russ said, and chuckled boisterously when Taylor whirled around to glare at him.

  The two men smiled at each other. Taylor understood what Russ was doing but couldn’t help reacting anyway.

  “If the two of you think you can run my life, I want you to know right now that—”

  She wasn’t allowed to finish. Russ gently turned her around, draped her over his arm and kissed her soundly.

  “I can see our daughter married the right man,” Russ heard Eric Manning inform his wife. “The right man indeed.”

  THE SHERIFF TAKES A WIFE

  One

  “What do you mean you’re in labor?” Christy Manning asked her sister.

  “I didn’t say that…exactly,” Taylor Palmer said, her palms flattened against her protruding abdomen. She lowered her eyelashes, taking a long, slow breath.

  “You can’t be in labor! I just got here. My suitcases are still in the trunk of my car.” Christy bolted to her feet and shoved the dark curls away from her face with both hands. She’d been driving for nearly three days to be with her sister for the birth of this baby, but she hadn’t counted on the blessed event happening quite so soon.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked, regaining her poise. In her opinion, there was plenty of reason for alarm. The Lazy P, Russ and Taylor’s cattle ranch, was miles outside Cougar Point, the closest town. And there wasn’t a neighbor in sight.

  Taylor’s husband, Russ, was driving his sister, Mandy, over to a friend’s house and doing a couple of errands before heading back to the ranch. At most he’d be gone only an hour, or so he’d claimed.

  But a lot could happen in an hour.

  “I’m not convinced this is the real thing,” Taylor said in an apparent effort to reassure Christy, but her hands caressed her stomach as she spoke. “I’ve never been in labor before, so I’m not exactly sure what to expect.”

  Trying to gather her scattering wits, Christy circled the kitchen table. First and foremost, she needed to keep calm. Mentally she reviewed the recent classes she’d taken through the local library. She knew CPR and enough karate to defend herself. Great. She could knock someone out and then revive him. A lot of good either of those skills was going to do her in this situation.

  She swallowed a feeling of impending panic. She wasn’t even supposed to be in Montana. Her mother was the one who’d planned to make the trip, only Elizabeth Manning had taken a fall and broken her leg. She was having trouble getting around and would be little or no help to Taylor. Since Christy had a couple of weeks of vacation due, she’d volunteered to come and stay with her sister. It wasn’t any sacrifice on her part; Christy and Taylor had always been close.

  Unfortunately no one had bothered to tell her she was going to be stuck alone on a cattle ranch with her nine months’ pregnant sister, who was “feeling funny.”

  It all seemed unreal. Christy had arrived late the night before. Too late to do more than greet everyone, haul her overnight bag into the guest bedroom and fall exhausted into bed.

  “Stop looking like you expect to deliver this baby on your own,” Taylor said, smiling up at her sister.

  “But, Miss Scarlett, I don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ no babies,” Christy wailed in a Southern drawl. She might be teasing, but what she said was the honest-to-goodness truth.

  None of this was supposed to be happening—at least not like this. Taylor should be living in Seattle with the rest of her family. Instead, Christy’s older sister had gone to Montana a year earlier and to everyone’s surprise married a cattle rancher three months later.

  At the time, Christy couldn’t imagine what had possessed her cultured, cosmopolitan sister to marry someone like Russ Palmer. Especially in Reno, without a single family member present.

  Their father hadn’t been pleased at being cheated out of the chance to walk his daughter down the aisle, but once he’d met Russ, the rancher had won him over. Russ had reassured everyone in the family without even trying. Taylor and her husband had flown to Seattle at the end of May to celebrate her parents’ wedding anniversary. It was then that he’d met Christy and her three brothers.

  Taylor winced and her eyes drifted shut again. Her display of pain effectively cut off Christy’s thoughts. She held her breath until she saw the tension slowly ease from her sister’s body. “What happened?”

  “I felt a funny pain, that’s all. Don’t worry. It wasn’t anything.”

  “A funny pain? And you don’t want me to worry?” Christy echoed. She couldn’t keep the panic out of her voice. “Then why do I have this urge to boil water?”

  Taylor, forever calm and serene in a crisis, grinned. “Don’t worry. I’ve been having these pains off and on for the past week, but…”

  “But what?” Christy asked.

  “But these feel…different. I don’t know how to explain it.” She rose haltingly to her feet. “I think it might be a good idea if I got dressed.”

  “Right,” Christy said, as if the idea was a stroke of genius. “Me, too.” With her arm around what remained of Taylor’s waist, Christy led her sister down the hallway that went to the master bedroom. “Do you need any help?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Almost before the words had left her lips, Taylor let out a cry and pressed one shoulder to the wall while clutching her stomach.

  Christy was instantly alarmed. “What is it?”

  “Oh…my.” Wide-eyed, Taylor turned toward Christy. “Hurry and get some towels. My water just broke.”

  “Your water broke,” Christy repeated in a stupor. She threw her hands toward the ceiling. “Her water just broke.” Rushing into the bathroom, she returned with enough towels to soak up a flood.

  Taylor was still leaning against the wall, breathing deeply, her eyes closed. Christy dropped the towels onto the floor, far more concerned about Taylor than she was about a little water. “Are you all right?”

  Her sister answered with a nod that said otherwise.

  “I’m calling the doctor,” Christy told her. “Don’t you dare move. Understand?” The panic was stronger than ever, but Christy managed to swallow it. Taylor needed her; there wasn’t time to be concerned with her own fears.

  Taylor’s doctor was in Miles City, sixty miles away, and the hospital was there, too. As far as she could tell, they were an hour or more from help. Christy spoke to Dr. Donovan briefly, and when she explained what had happened, the doctor suggested Taylor come to the hospital immediately.

  “I’m not going without Russ,” Taylor insisted when Christy relayed her conversation. “Russ will be back any minute.”

  Christy started to balk. It wasn’t her fault that Taylor’s husband had such a bad sense of timing.

  “You don’t know Russ the way I do,” Taylor said, even before Christy had a chance to reason with her. “If he came home and found us gone—”

  “I’ll leave him a note. He’ll understand. Then as soon as he’s back, he can join us.”

  “No.”

  Christy had heard that tone of voice often enough to realize these was no way she could budge that stubborn streak of Taylor’s. “We can’t just sit here and wait,” Christy moaned.
br />   “Of course we can. Now relax!”

  “Me, relax? You’re the one having the baby.”

  “I’m fine. Baby Palmer and mother are both calm and prepared.”

  Baby Palmer. Her only sister was about to become a mother. This wasn’t new information, but until this moment Taylor’s pregnancy had seemed abstract. Yet here they were alone together, and suddenly this baby was very real. This tiny life depended on Christy, and the thought was terrifying. Yet nothing she said would convince Taylor to leave for the hospital without Russ.

  The next thirty minutes felt like thirty years. Christy changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, forced down another cup of coffee and looked out the kitchen window every three seconds.

  Outwardly Taylor still seemed calm, but Christy could tell from the pain that flashed on her sister’s face that the intensity of the contractions was increasing.

  “Maybe you should call the feed store. If Russ isn’t there, then contact Cody.”

  “Great idea!” Christy leaped at the possibility of bringing someone else into the picture. The sooner the better. “Just a minute,” she said. “Who’s Cody?”

  “Cody Franklin…he’s the newly elected sheriff and a good friend. I don’t know what his schedule is, so try the office first. If he’s not at work, his home number’s written in the front of the phone book.”

  Calling anyone, including the National Guard, sounded like an excellent plan to Christy. She found the impossibly thin phone book in the drawer. Good grief, she’d ordered from menus thicker than this.

  Christy phoned the feed store first. The lady who answered said Russ had left a half hour earlier, and she hadn’t a clue where he’d gone. Christy accepted this with a shrug. At the rate things were developing, she was about to take an advanced course in childbirth.