The Consummate Cowboy. Sara Orwig

momentarily disoriented. Then she remembered where she was, and realized she was definitely hearing a strange, repetitive noise—a high little whine. She turned in bed and looked into a pair of wide eyes.

      Emily sat up abruptly, yelped when pain shot through her ribs, and looked down into a small face turned up to her. The little girl kept whining.

      “Rebecca?”

      The child nodded, and Emily bit her lip, glancing over her shoulder toward the bathroom. She wondered whether to wake Zach or just take the child back to bed.

      A small hand reached up and patted the mattress, and Emily’s heart melted. She tossed back the sheet. “Do you want to get in bed with me?”

      When Rebecca nodded solemnly, Emily reached down to lift the little girl into bed beside her, twisting to protect her aching ribs. Rebecca sniffled, snuggled against Emily and closed her eyes. In seconds she was asleep. Emily pushed a mass of ringlets from Rebecca’s face and felt pain grip her heart. Rebecca’s hair was like her own hair. Rebecca was like her own child—the one she never expected to have. How could Amber have given up these children? she asked herself again. And Jason wasn’t even Zach’s son. Yet she suspected as far as Zach was concerned, Jason was his as completely as was Rebecca. From the little she had seen of him tonight, Zach Durham was not what she had imagined he would be.

      Emily shut out her thoughts on that subject. She placed an arm across the child and closed her eyes.

      

      When morning came, Zach rolled out of bed and tiptoed to the bathroom, trying to be quiet. As soon as he was dressed in a short-sleeved blue chambray shirt and jeans, he walked down the hall. He carried his boots to put on downstairs so he wouldn’t wake anyone.

      He opened Jason’s door and looked at the sleeping child while the dogs dashed past him and down the stairs. In front of Rebecca’s door, Tiger stood wagging his tail. Zach raised his eyebrow.

      “Go on, get! I’ll let you three outside as soon as I look in on my baby doll.”

      Tiger turned and disappeared down the stairs as if he had understood every word Zach said. Zach stepped into Rebecca’s room, looked at the empty bed and felt a shock. He glanced around the room, wondering if Rebecca had gone downstairs—something she never did. If she awakened, she usually got into his bed. He tiptoed past Emily’s door, noticing it was slightly ajar. He was halfway down the stairs before he wondered why.

      He set down his boots and went back upstairs to push the bedroom door wider. Aware of the creak of the floorboards, he tiptoed into the room and looked at two heads of red curls. His pulse jumped as he took in Emily’s outflung arm. The sheet had been kicked away and she lay on her side, her knees drawn up slightly, her long legs bare. She looked warm, tousled and tempting.

      As he stared at her, she opened her eyes and gazed back at him. Her eyes widened and she raised slightly. She grabbed the sheet and yanked it over her legs, her face turning pink.

      “I was looking for Rebecca,” he whispered, knowing he had been standing there long minutes after discovering them.

      “She came in here and wanted in my bed.”