Duty Or Desire. Brenda Jackson
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Eight
The doorbell sounded and Bane Westmoreland wondered who the latecomer could be. All his family and friends who’d been invited to celebrate his and his wife Crystal’s housewarming party were accounted for.
Upon opening the door he found an older couple, in their late sixties, standing there with a baby in their arms.
Bane was certain he did not know the couple. “Yes, may I help you?”
The man spoke. “We hate to impose but we were told Peterson Higgins was here tonight. We are the Glosters, his deceased brother’s in-laws.”
Bane nodded. “Yes, Pete is here. Please come in.”
The man shook his head. “We prefer not to, but we would appreciate it if you could tell Peterson we’re here. We would like to speak with him. We will wait out here.”
Bane nodded again. “Okay, just a minute.” He circled around the room before finally finding Pete in a group in the family room.
“Excuse me, guys, but I need to borrow Pete for a minute,” Bane said to the others. Once he got Pete aside, he told him about the older couple waiting outside. Pete placed his cup of punch aside and quickly moved toward the front door.
When Pete returned about half an hour later, he was carrying a baby in one hand and a diaper bag in the other. Everyone’s attention was drawn to him when the baby released a huge wail.
It seemed all the mothers in the room hurried toward him.
“Whose baby?” Bane’s cousin Gemma was the first to ask, taking the baby from a flustered-looking Pete.
“This is my nine-month-old niece, Ciara,” he said, noticing how quickly the baby girl quieted once Gemma held her. “As most of you know, my brother, Matthew, and his wife, Sherry, were killed in that car crash six months ago. This is their daughter. Sherry’s parents were given custody of Ciara when Matt and Sherry died. But they just gave me full custody of her, citing health issues that prevent them from taking proper care of her. That means I’m now Ciara’s legal guardian.”
Pete looked around the room at the group he considered family and asked the one question none of them could answer.
“I’m a bachelor, for heaven’s sake! What on earth am I going to do with a baby?”
Five months later
“I hate that I’m leaving you like this, Pete, but my sister needs me.”
Sheriff Peterson Higgins stared at the older woman standing across the kitchen. He’d known something was wrong the minute he walked through the door.
Well, he had news for Bonnie. He needed her, too.
Pete suddenly felt like a class A bastard for thinking such a thing after she’d just tearfully explained that her sister had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Of course he understood her wanting to go be with her only sister during this time. Even if her leaving would put him in a bind, the last thing he wanted was for Bonnie to feel guilty about going to her family. Somehow, he would find the right person to live-in and keep his fourteen-month-old niece while he worked.
Of course, that person couldn’t really replace Bonnie.
Bonnie McCray had been his mother’s best friend. When Renee Higgins had died, Pete had been sixteen and his younger brother Matthew twelve. Renee had asked Bonnie to always be there for her sons and Bonnie had kept that promise. And when Pete’s father passed away three years later, Bonnie wouldn’t hear of Pete not fulfilling his mother’s dream of him completing college. Bonnie and her husband, Fred, agreed to look after Matt while Pete studied.
It had been hard going to college full-time and making sure the cattle ranch his father had loved remained productive. Luckily, his two best friends, Derringer and Riley Westmoreland, had a huge family of cousins and brothers who’d pitched in and helped out. They also made sure Pete hired the best people to help run things while he attended university.
After he completed college with a degree in criminology, he discovered ranching wasn’t in his blood but a career in law enforcement was. He found out ranching wasn’t in Matt’s blood either when his brother went into the military immediately after high school.
Even so, Pete refused to sell the ranch that had been in the Higgins family for generations. Instead he leased part of the two hundred acres to sharecroppers, and for the other parts he hired a foreman and ranch hands. That freed Pete up to work for the sheriff’s office, a job he’d secured after college thanks to Riley’s oldest brother, Dillon Westmoreland.
Pete loved his career, and the ranch was making plenty of money, which he’d split with Matt before Matt’s death.
A pain settled around Pete’s heart when he remembered the phone call almost a year ago telling him Matt and Sherry had been killed in a car crash. Luckily, three-month-old Ciara hadn’t been with them. It had been Matt and Sherry’s “date night” and the baby had been at home with a sitter.
Sherry’s parents, who lived in New Hampshire, had wanted full custody of Ciara and Pete had seen no reason not to give it to them. Matt had adored his in-laws, thought they were good people who treated him like a son instead of a son-in-law. Besides, Pete knew with his bachelor lifestyle, the last thing he could manage was taking care of a baby. When Sheriff Harper retired a few months before, Pete had been selected to replace him. That meant his plate was fuller than ever.
Things had been working out and he’d made a point to call and check on his niece every weekend. He enjoyed hearing about the development of her motor skills and how much she liked to eat.
But five months ago, out of the blue, Sherry’s parents had shown up in Denver to say that health issues meant they needed him to serve as guardian for his niece. They assumed his bachelor days wouldn’t last forever and they thought a much younger couple would have more energy to raise their granddaughter.
At thirty-six, marriage was the last thing on Pete’s mind. However, he gladly gave his niece the love, attention and care he knew Matt would have wanted him to.
Now at fourteen months, Ciara Renee Higgins was ruling the Higgins household, and Pete was glad Bonnie had been there to help out as a full-time nanny. Her husband had passed away a couple of years ago and with her only son living on the East Coast, Bonnie had welcomed the opportunity to take care of others again. As far as Pete was concerned, she’d been a godsend. He honestly didn’t know what he’d have done without her and wondered what he would do now that she would be leaving.
“May I make a suggestion, Pete?”
For a minute he’d been so deep in thought he’d forgotten Bonnie was standing there, waiting for him to say something. “Yes.”
Bonnie smiled as she placed a serving tray on the table with soup and a sandwich. His lunch. He made a habit of swinging by the ranch at noon each day to spend time with Ciara. Although Bonnie’s job was