To Save a Child--A Clean Romance Read online

  A baby on the doorstep

  Could change everything...

  Detective Cole Chisholm is in Horseshoe, Texas, to take care of his grandfather. During a winter storm, a baby appears at his door, along with her aunt, Grace Bennett. Grace needs his help, and Cole reluctantly lets them stay while he investigates. Soon the by-the-book cop is breaking his own rules to protect them both. But how far will he go to make sure that both Grace and Zoe stay in his life?

  Grandpa and Grace were dancing and the music was turned up loud.

  Zoe sat in the Pack ’n Play clapping. How did this happen? How long had he been gone?

  His grandpa noticed him. “Oh, Cole, come dance with Grace. I have to sit down and catch my breath.”

  A slow Ray Price song came on and Grace drifted into his arms. Without a second thought they moved to the beat and sailed across the living room floor. It seemed as if he’d danced with her all his life. Bo’s mom had taught Bo and Cole how to dance and they’d stepped on her toes many times. But today he wasn’t stepping on Grace’s toes.

  The music stopped and they swayed together as one.

  “The song ended,” she said.

  “I know. This is nice.”

  “Yes,” she replied in a soft voice.

  “Hey, the record stopped. Fix that, Cole.”

  Sometimes his grandpa was really annoying.

  Dear Reader,

  To Save a Child is the eighth book in the Texas Rebels series. I went back to my country roots for material to write this story, including a farm, eccentric characters and a folksy grandpa.

  Grace Bennett literally crashes into Cole Chisholm’s life during an ice storm. She is on the run trying to keep her nine-month-old niece safe from an abusive father. Being a cop, Cole knows she’s hiding something. When he finds out, he must decide whether to help her or to turn her in.

  Cole tries to forget his past and Grace yearns for a normal family life. Baby Zoe wraps everyone around her little finger, including Cole. And soon Grace and Cole are thinking they might have a future together. But first they have to save Zoe.

  I love these characters and I hope you do, too.

  With my love and thanks,

  Linda

  PS: You can email me at [email protected], send me a message on Facebook.com/authorlindawarren, find me on Twitter, @texauthor, write me at PO Box 5182, Bryan, TX 77805 or visit my website at lindawarren.net. Your mail and thoughts are deeply appreciated.

  To Save a Child

  Linda Warren

  Two-time RITA® Award–nominated author Linda Warren has written over forty books for Harlequin. A native Texan, she’s a member of Romance Writers of America and the RWA West Houston chapter. Drawing upon her years of growing up on a ranch, she writes about some of her favorite things: Western-style romance, cowboys and country life. She married her high school sweetheart and they live on a lake in central Texas. He fishes and she writes. Works perfect.

  Books by Linda Warren

  Harlequin Heartwarming

  Texas Rebels

  A Child’s Gift

  Harlequin Western Romance

  Texas Rebels

  Texas Rebels: Egan

  Texas Rebels: Falcon

  Texas Rebels: Quincy

  Texas Rebels: Jude

  Texas Rebels: Phoenix

  Texas Rebels: Paxton

  Texas Rebels: Elias

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  To Aria, who was the inspiration for Zoe.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM SECOND CHANCE FOR THE SINGLE DAD BY CAROL ROSS

  CHAPTER ONE

  “IT’S SO LONELY, Cora, and the house is empty without you. You were always puttering in the kitchen or complaining about something.”

  Walter Chisholm shifted in his chair to get closer to the warmth of the stone fireplace. “I guess you know Cole is home. He says he’s going to make sure I eat right and take my medicine like I’m supposed to. Can you send him back to Austin and his girlfriend? That’s where he needs to be, and I know you can make it happen. But then I know how you are...

  “What am I supposed to do now? There’s nothing left to live for. I know, there’s Cole, but he’s a grown man and has his own life in the city. Me, I’m just lost.”

  The wind howled with groans and grunts. “The devil’s having a party night, Cora, like you used to say. It’s gonna take a whole lot of faith to get through it. It’s November in Texas and the temperature’s below freezing, and the wind is mad as that old hen that fell into the water bucket and couldn’t get out. Remember that? We couldn’t get near her for days.” Walt chuckled at the thought. “Don’t worry about your animals. They’re in the barn, and they’re nice and warm. You probably know that, don’t you, Cora? What am I gonna do without you?”

  His dog, lying by the fireplace, lifted his head and barked.

  “What is it, Rascal?” Walt asked. “Are you cold? Get closer to the fire.”

  The black-and-white-speckled part–Australian blue heeler stood and barked again.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  Rascal trotted to the front door and barked even louder.

  “Rascal, come back in here. I’m not going outside. I have strict orders from Cole.”

  Rascal continued barking. He trotted back to Walt and then to the door again.

  “What’s wrong with you, you crazy dog? I told you it’s cold outside,” Walt grumbled as he got up.

  Rascal leaped high on the door, barking his head off.

  “Okay, I’ll show you.” Walt opened the door, and the force of the north wind almost knocked him down. “See, I told you. Get back in the house. This is nonsense.”

  But Rascal was already on the porch sniffing at something. Walt looked down. What in the world...? It was a baby carrier—with a baby in it.

  He raised his eyes toward the sky as tiny shavings of sleet slowly littered the front yard. “Cora, you sent me a baby!”

  * * *

  THE SLEET TIP-TAPPED across Cole Chisholm’s windshield as the wipers swished back and forth to keep up, but the sleet was winning. He drove over the cattle guard to his grandfather’s farm, his tires crunching on the frozen hard ground. What a night, and it was only seven o’clock. He’d pulled three vehicles out of ditches they’d slid into from driving on the icy roads. His shift was done, and he was now home to take care of his grandpa.

  He’d only been in Horseshoe, Texas, a week, but it seemed much longer. His grandmother had passed away three months ago, and his grandfather had stopped eating and taking his medication, so Cole had to come home to make sure Grandpa was okay.

  Cole was trying to help his grandfather adjust, but he had just made detective on the Austin Police Department, and he needed to go back to work. Grandpa had said he would be fine, and when Cole called he said he was f
ine. Then Cole got calls from the sheriff in Horseshoe and neighbors who said Grandpa wasn’t doing so well. Cole came home to find a grieving old man who didn’t want to live anymore.

  Cole’s parents had died in a traffic accident when he was a year old, and his grandparents had raised him. But no matter how close Cole was with his grandfather, the man was the most stubborn, orneriest cowboy alive.

  With a push of a button, the garage door went up, and Cole parked beside his grandmother’s thirty-three-year-old Buick. It had only thirty thousand miles on it and not a scratch or a dent. Grandpa started it every day to keep the battery charged. Any thought of selling it was met with a big frown. It was the first and only car his grandparents had ever bought new from a dealership. After an old truck had blown a tire and rammed into his parent’s car causing a fiery crash on I-35, his grandparents had decided they needed a safer vehicle for Cole to ride in. He grew up knowing that car was extra special, and he never once asked to drive it. That would’ve been too much hell to walk through.

  He pulled out his cell and called Wyatt Carson, the sheriff of Horseshoe. “Hey, Wyatt, I’m in for the night.”

  Wyatt had asked if he could help while he was in town. Cole couldn’t take money for the job because he was already employed by the Austin Police Department, but Wyatt agreed to check on Cole’s grandfather every now and then when Cole was away, and Cole was thankful for that. Wyatt was always short of deputies, and Cole had agreed to do some work just for something to keep him busy while trying to help his grandpa adjust to his new situation. He might need a few angels for that.

  “Thanks, Cole. Did you have any problems?”

  “No, just pulled a few cars out of ditches. The electricity is probably going to go out, so I’m sticking close to home. At least I still have cell reception.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday, and with this weather I’m staying home to make sure Grandpa stays out of it.”

  “Good deal.”

  As Cole jammed his phone into his pocket, it buzzed. He looked at the caller ID. Stephanie. It was just what he needed—a breath of fresh air.

  “Hey, Steph.” He and Stephanie had been dating for about six months, but lately she’d been pushing him for a commitment. One he wasn’t ready for. At thirty-four, he didn’t understand why. Maybe because he liked his freedom. Ever since he was a kid, freedom was the only thing he ever wanted.

  “Cole, when are you coming home? You’ve been there over a week now.”

  “I’m trying to get Grandpa back into the groove of living, but he’s not cooperating very well.”

  “You’re going to have to accept that he can’t live alone anymore. He’s seventy-eight, and he needs to be in a nursing home where he’ll be taken care of by professionals. There are a lot of nice facilities here in Austin—you can pick one close to us and visit him all the time. That’s the obvious answer. I don’t see why that isn’t obvious to you.”

  “Come on, Steph. Give me a little more time. My grandpa isn’t leaving this house or Horseshoe until he’s drawn his last breath. I know him, and I’m trying to find a way for him to stay here.”

  “I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too.”

  “Then come home.”

  There was that push again. He didn’t like being backed into a corner. “I’ll be there soon.”

  He shoved his phone into his pocket with a grimace. He had a foot in two worlds. He wanted to return to Austin and Stephanie and his life. Grandpa was holding on to him with a guilty clutch. Well, not literally his grandpa, but Cole himself. He couldn’t in good conscience walk away from his grandfather.

  He pushed a button, and the garage door shut out the cold night. As he exited the truck, a slight smile tugged at his lips. His grandmother had had a hard time opening and closing the garage door, so when he came home from the Army on his first leave, he’d installed a garage door opener. At first she was afraid of it and wouldn’t use it. Then one day she went into town to buy groceries and the dark rumbling clouds threatened rain. When she reached home, she pushed the button without a second thought. She didn’t want rain to get on Bertha—that’s what they called the old Buick. From then on, the door opener was the best thing ever invented.

  Going into the house, he brushed his winter boots on the mat Grandma always kept there. Then he slipped out of his heavy coat and wool cap and hung them on the pegs by the door. He could hear his grandfather talking. Oh, no... He talked to Cole’s grandmother all the time like she was in the room, and sometimes Cole had to look around to make sure she wasn’t. When Grandpa did this, it was like jabbing a spike on the last nerve Cole had.

  “I’m home, Grandpa.”

  “Come in here and see what your grandma sent.”

  What... His shoulders sagged with resignation. Every day it was the same thing. Dealing with that mind-set was getting to him, so he braced himself for another round of “what was real and what wasn’t.” He stopped short as he saw his grandfather sitting in his chair in the den...with a baby in his lap.

  He blinked. What the...

  He glanced around to see if he was in the right house. One time when he was about seventeen years old, he’d gotten drunk with his friends and wound up at Miss Bertie Snipe’s house. He had that same feeling now of waking up and being somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be.

  All the photos on the walls were of his dad. The stone fireplace burned brightly under Grandpa’s wood-carved mantel, Grandma’s rocker recliner on one side and Rascal in his bed right beside it. And then there was Grandpa, sitting in his rocker recliner...with a baby in his lap.

  He took a deep breath. “Grandpa, where did you get that baby?”

  “I told you. Your grandma sent her.” Grandpa looked down at the baby. “She’s dressed all in pink, so I’m sure she’s a girl.”

  He gritted his teeth. “How did Grandma send her?”

  “Well, it’s the darnedest thing. I was talking to your grandma, telling her how life wasn’t worth living. I told her you were home and she needed to talk to you so you’d go back to Austin and your life. Then the wind started howling, and I told her again how lonely it was and how I didn’t know what to do with myself. Then all of a sudden Rascal starts barking and barking. He wouldn’t stop until I went to the door, and there she was, sitting right there in that.” Grandpa pointed to the carrier on the sofa. “What was your grandma thinking? I can’t take care of a baby.”

  “The baby was left on our porch in this weather?”

  Grandpa nodded. “Yes, she was. She was all wrapped up, and I took all that extra stuff off her.” He gestured toward the clothes and blankets on the sofa.

  Cole went to the front porch and looked around. He saw nothing but sleet coating the grass like frosting on a cake. The trees were like stick figures standing boldly against the chilling wind. No one would leave a baby on someone’s front porch in this weather. What was going on?

  He went back inside and found Grandpa staring down at the baby, who was sound asleep. With barely visible dark brown hair, she had a big pink bow fastened to her head with some sort of band. If she got caught in the wind, he was sure that bow would lift her off the ground.

  “I’ll put her back in her carrier,” Cole said.

  “No.” Grandpa wrapped both arms around the baby as if to protect her. “She’s sleeping, so lower your voice or you’ll wake her. There was a bottle of milk in the carrier, and I gave it to her and now she’s resting just fine.”

  “I’m going to check and see if someone had a wreck and brought the baby here for safekeeping. They probably knocked at the door and you didn’t hear them.”

  “I hear just fine. Your grandma sent this baby.” There was grit in his grandpa’s voice—the voice he’d heard many times during his teenage years.

  Cole sighed. “Grandpa, you know Grandma didn’t send that baby.”


  “Ah.” Grandpa waved his hand. “You don’t believe nothin’.”

  “I know that baby didn’t drop from heaven.”

  “I know that, too.” Grandpa frowned, the wrinkles on his face as deep as the tire treads on Cole’s four-wheel-drive truck. “But she had a hand in this baby being here.” Grandpa gazed at the baby. “I think I’m gonna name her Grace. Yeah, Grace. That’s what we were going to name Jamie if he was a girl.”

  Cole groaned inwardly. He couldn’t endure another story of his father. “I’m sure she has a name. I’m going outside.”

  Grandpa waved his hand again. “Go. I’ll take care of the baby.”

  This morning his grandpa had wanted to die, and tonight he wanted to take care of a baby. The man was losing some of his knockers. His grandma used to say that all the time about someone who wasn’t quite all there. She had it confused with the saying “off your rocker.” He’d figured that out when he was about ten. Grandma had come up with some crazy sayings over the years. Yep, Grandpa was losing some of his knockers. He had to find that baby’s mother before Grandpa claimed that kid was his.

  Getting back out in this weather wasn’t something he really wanted to do, but the baby’s mother or father had to be close and likely in danger. Cole grabbed his coat and wool cap and headed for his truck. He’d come home on the county road from the right and he hadn’t seen any vehicles, so he took a left going out to Highway 77. If someone had slid off the road, they would probably be on the highway. He drove about a mile and didn’t see anything but an empty, cold highway. No traffic. The strong wind tugged at his vehicle and the sleet dusted the tarmac, making it a slippery slide, but it had let up some and visibility was better.

  Driving was a hazard, but the all-weather tires on his truck made it a little easier. He drove slow, looking for a vehicle. When he didn’t see anything, he turned around and went the other way. Again, he didn’t see anything. There had to be someone out here who needed help. That baby didn’t drop from heaven. Of that, he was certain.