Page 4 of The Cowboy and the Baby

I chortled.

No.

That would be too wild.

I turned my focus onto other text messages from Wyatt and Cody, my only remaining ranch hands, until a niggling feeling wriggled in the back of my mind. I returned to Noelle’s text messages and scrolled up. Hadn’t she once mentioned that she’d be flying in from . . . Chicago . . . was it?

I spotted the text message, driven by something deeper than curiosity.

Yes.

Chicago.

Noelle was on my flight.

And a crawling suspicion told me that some coincidences were just too bold to be made up. I turned to find the woman next to me peering out the window, idly patting her sleepy baby. She hummed to herself.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, “but I didn’t get your name?”

She turned, smiled.

“Noelle.”

My blood turned to icy flows. It couldn’t be. It just . . . couldn’t. There was fate, and then there was fate. Because Noelle Morgan was supposed to visit her grandfather’s ranch, realize that her family had absolutely no ties to it anymore, and then leave again.

Noelle Morgan was not supposed to have a baby.

No.

Not at all.

She slowly asked, “And what was your name?”

“Cade,” I rasped. “Cade Callahan.”

She dropped the bottle.

2

NOELLE

Broad, gentlemanly, and unfortunately handsome.

Cade Callahan.

A cowboy I knew by name, but nothing else.

He retrieved the bottle that I dropped, which bought me a moment to grapple with pure disbelief. How could our first meeting happen like this? Luck often had weird bumps, but this tall drink of water was a rather large bump. Grandpa’s foreman being a hunky man wasn’t something on my bingo card for the year, but neither was losing my twin sister to death after delivering my niece, whom I promptly gained full care over.

The moment Cade said his name, I felt in my gut that something deeper than comprehension just happened. When I told him my name, he’d lost almost all pallor and hadn’t regained it. He licked his lips, shook his head a little, and ran a hand through his hair. A nervous chuckle escaped him, but he hadn’t met my eyes yet.

“Cade,” I repeated dumbly.

“Nice to, uh, meet you. Even in this most unexpected fashion.”

He cleared his throat.

The question how is this real? spiraled through my exhausted mind, but I asked that question so much these days, it hardly seemed shocking anymore. Cade mirrored my befuddlement, which felt marginally better. At least I wasn’t the only one who struggled to figure out the designs of fate.