Settling an Old Score - Delores Fossen
Chapter One
The sound woke Texas Ranger Eli Slater. Something, or someone, was on his front porch.
He’d heard footsteps, maybe. Or maybe it was just some animal on a nighttime prowl. Since he lived in the country, something like that was always a possibility.
When he heard another sound, he checked the clock on the nightstand. It was just after midnight. And he cursed because there was no way he would get back to sleep unless he made sure this wasn’t a would-be burglar. If that was the case, it’d be a stupid one since the fool was at the house of a Texas Ranger. A heavily armed and grouchy Ranger, since Eli had just finished a long shift only a couple of hours earlier.
He threw back the covers and first glanced at his phone to make sure that he hadn’t missed a text from his family. He had three brothers, and since all of them were lawmen, there was a chance that there could be some kind of emergency. But there were no texts or missed calls.
That put a knot in his stomach.
He was glad there was no family crisis, but that could have been a reasonable explanation for why someone was visiting him at this god-awful hour. So, if it wasn’t family, then who was it?
He cursed again when he heard the sound for the third time. Definitely footsteps, and not those of an animal. Eli dragged on his jeans, slipped his phone into his pocket and grabbed the SIG Sauer he kept next to his bed. He hoped this would be a quick check that would turn out to be nothing. Maybe a neighbor with car trouble. Then he could deal with it, get right back in bed and hope that he didn’t dream about...anything.
Especially her.
But hoping hadn’t ever helped him much in that department. She made regular appearances in his nightmares. That was his punishment, he supposed. A woman was dead because of him, and Eli figured even a couple of lifetimes wouldn’t be enough to help him come to terms with that.
“Who’s out there?” Eli shouted when he made it to the living room.
The footsteps on the porch came again, and this time the person was running. Maybe that meant this was possibly some kind of prank from local teenagers.
Since it was July, school was out, and his ranch was just a stone’s throw off the road leading into town. It could be that some kids had too much time on their hands. If so, Eli was in an ornery enough mood to arrest their sorry butts for waking him up. Then he’d take them into Longview Ridge to the sheriff’s office where his brother, the sheriff, could put them in jail for a few hours.
“Just in case you’re too stupid not to know this—I’m Sergeant Eli Slater, Texas Ranger,” he added.
No more footsteps, but he did hear something else. A strange mewing sound. Maybe a kitten? Oh, man. Had the pranking clowns left a stray cat on his porch?
Eli went to the door, keeping to the side of it while he opened it, and he peered out into the darkness. Nothing. Until he looked down.
What the hell?
It was a car seat, and there was a thin blanket draped over it. At first glimpse Eli thought maybe the cat was inside it, but then the blanket moved, and he saw the foot.
A baby’s foot.
That put his heart right in his throat, and he fired glances all around the yard to see who’d done this. No one was in sight.
The baby whimpered, kicking at the blanket, and while Eli still kept watch of the yard, he stooped down for a better look. That look got a whole lot easier for him when the baby’s kicking caused the blanket to slide off the car seat.
Yeah, it was a baby all right, and not some automated doll as he’d hoped.
A baby dressed in a pink gown. He wasn’t an expert on kids by any means, but he thought that maybe the baby was a couple of months old. And he or she wasn’t very happy, with that bottom lip poked out, and staring up at him as if about to start crying at any second.
“If this is a joke, I don’t find it funny,” Eli called out to the person who’d left the baby.
But a joke didn’t feel right. This went well beyond something that bored kids would do. Had someone actually abandoned the baby on his porch? His place wasn’t