Two

      Following the last of Dr. Farr’s instructions, Jake cut the umbilical cord. His heartbeat thundered in his ears as an exhilaration he’d never known rushed through his body.

      “How about a good look at your daughter, Donna?” Dr. Farr indicated for the nurse to lay the newborn on Donna’s abdomen. “She seems to be perfect in every way.”

      Jake stepped back, took a deep breath and gazed at the woman who had just given birth to his child. Despite the time in labor and with her makeup melted away, Donna was still beautiful. So beautiful that at that precise moment the sight of her and his infant daughter hit him like a sledgehammer to the gut.

      Tears trickled down Donna’s cheeks as she smiled. “Oh, my, isn’t she beautiful?”

      “Looks just like her daddy,” one of the attendants said. “All that black hair and those big brown eyes. It’s unusual for a baby to be born with such dark eyes.”

      A lump formed in Jake’s throat and his heart skipped a beat. That tiny, wet, pink bundle that the nurse lifted from Donna’s belly and held up for his inspection did look like him. This little girl was a Bishop, through and through.

      The nurse cleaned Louisa Christine and dried her off, rubbing her briskly, then weighed and measured her. “Nine pounds, five ounces! And twenty-one inches long. She’s a big girl.”

      The nurse quickly wrapped the baby in a warm, pink blanket and placed a cotton cap on her head. Jake watched in amazement as his daughter opened her little mouth and let out a piercing wail.

      “Nothing wrong with her lungs, huh, Doc?” Jake said.

      Dr. Farr nodded. The attendants laughed softly. Donna turned her head so that she could see her child while the doctor finished his work. Then she gazed up at Jake. “Will you go out and tell everyone that I’m all right and that Louisa is just perfect?”

      “Sure thing.”

      “Will you come back after you’ve told them?”

      Jake paused, walked over to the bed and wiped several damp strands of cinnamon hair from Donna’s forehead. “I’m not going to leave you, sugar. I’ll be around for as long as you need me.”

      Her smile was faint and the look in her eyes questioned his sincerity. He supposed she had no reason to trust him. After all, they barely knew each other. He was scarcely more than a stranger to the mother of his child.

      “I’ll let the folks know that there’s a gorgeous new addition to the Bishop family.” Jake headed for the door, stopped abruptly after he opened it, and glanced back over his shoulder. “I think maybe we should get married.”

      Before Donna had a chance to reply, he walked into the hall and closed the door behind him. Within seconds the Bishop clan surrounded him, bombarding him with questions.

      Warding them off with hand motions, Jake laughed. “Hey, cool it, y’all. Mother and daughter are fine. Donna came through like a trooper. And our daughter is one hundred percent Bishop. She weighs nine pounds and five ounces and she’s twenty-one inches long. And she’s got a mouth as loud as her aunt Tallie’s.”

      Tallie punched his shoulder. “Smart aleck,” she teased.

      “When can we see them?” Sheila asked.

      “As soon as they get through in there with Donna, I guess,” Jake replied.

      “Then you’ve got time to do some explaining,” Tallie said. “Just how is it that our friend Donna wound up pregnant with your baby and nobody knew you were the father?”

      Hank and Caleb laughed. Their wives gave them warning glances, which sobered them immediately.

      Peyton Rand put his arm around his wife’s shoulder and said, “Tallie, honey, I think it’s fairly obvious that nine months ago Jake and Donna were together. And if I understand correctly what Susan has told us, Donna and Jake didn’t bother to exchange last names or past histories at the time.”

      “Is that right?” Tallie tapped her foot on the shiny, wood-look tile floor.

      “Yep,” Jake said sheepishly. “Donna and I spent one weekend together and parted company. We didn’t plan on ever seeing each other again. Believe me, I was startled when I saw her at Hank’s wedding reception and shocked when I noticed she was very pregnant.”

      “Well, what do you plan to do about this situation?” Tallie crossed her arms over her ample chest and continued tapping her foot.

      “What do you think I should do, little sister?”

      “I think you should ask Donna to marry you—today!” Tallie pointed her finger up at Jake’s face. “You may have been an irresponsible renegade all your life, but you’re thirty-six years old. It’s high time you settled down. You’re a father now and that means you’ll have to—”

      “Let him have a breather,” Caleb said. “Something tells me that Jake is going to do the right thing on his own, without your preaching him a sermon.”

      “Jake shouldn’t marry Donna in order to do the right thing,” Sheila said. “Marriage is about love and wanting to share the rest of your life with someone.”

      “We have to think of little Louisa Christine,” Susan said. “The baby is the most important person in all this.”

      While his family made their feelings known—in no uncertain terms—Jake felt the heavy weight of reality fall on his shoulders. He had fathered a child. Nothing could change that fact. Just a few yards away, inside the Magnolia Suite, was a baby girl he had helped create one hot summer night in New Mexico. And there was a lady, whose reputation, when the whole truth came out, would, no doubt, be ruined in Marshall County.

      The trouble was, he didn’t know a damn thing about Donna. Hell, he still didn’t know her last name. But if she was friends with his sister and sisters-in-law, then that meant she was probably a fine woman. His instincts told him that she was a thoroughbred, a true lady, which meant she probably wouldn’t be interested in hitching up with a beat-up, uneducated cowboy whose greatest ambition in life was to own a quarter horse ranch.

      But Tallie was right. He was thirty-six. He’d been an irresponsible drifter and hell-raiser most of his life. Maybe