Emilio was in it, staring at the ceiling like he was waiting for some message to arrive by Morse code through the hairline cracks in the plaster.
The smell of coffee and wood smoke braided the air, heavy enough to sting my nose as I thudded down the stairs. Someone had turned the thermostat up high enough to thaw a meat locker, so the windows dripped condensation even though the world outside was locked in frost so thick you could see your own breath against the glass.
Jojo stood at the table, pencil behind one ear and a legal pad laid open like a command center. He was in full triage mode, the way only an omega with a mission could be: hands fluttering between the paper, the kitchen drawers, the baby, and back again, checking off items like there was a pop quiz at the end.
“Bottles, check. Formula, check. Flannel blankets… probably not enough, but check for now. Diapers, check. What else do they need, Hoop?”
He looked up at me, blue eyes so bright they nearly poked a hole in my hangover.
“Liver?” I offered.
He did not even dignify it. “Seriously.”
I shrugged. “I was a baby once, but I don’t remember much.”
Rawley had taken over the coffee pot, moving with the precision of a man who’d calibrated every movement in the service of not being awake any longer than absolutely necessary. He poured a cup, black as battery acid, and set it on the table without so much as a glance my way.
He was dressed for ranch work already, thermals and jeans and a shirt that looked like it’d come off the back of a recently defrosted corpse, which meant he’d been up for at least two hours.
He set a mug in front of me, no comment, and then another across from him for Jojo. He even poured the kid’s, which Jojo never noticed because his entire body was already angled toward the crib, listening for the smallest suggestion of a whimper.
Rawley cleared his throat. “I did the perimeter sweep. Nothing in the tree line. No tracks except yours, and what’s left of the coyote from last week.” He said it flat, like reading a gas bill, but his eyes never left the baby.
I wrapped both hands around my mug, letting the heat burn off the numb. “So whoever did the drop-off wanted to ghost. No car, no snowmobile, no nothin’.”
Rawley grunted. “If you want to call in the sheriff, I will.”
“Please, don’t.” I lifted the coffee, burned my tongue, set it down again. “Guy can’t even find his own dick without backup.”
Jojo winced, just a micro-blip, then got back to writing. He narrated as he went, talking mostly to the air: “We’re gonna need a car seat. And maybe… oh, a changing table? Should we call someone, like a lawyer or a—what do you call it, a baby judge?”
He looked at me, desperate for guidance. I gave him a thumbs up.
Rawley tilted his head. “I’ll get the car seat today. You want me to pick up food for the kid, or are we expecting him to live on protein shakes and leftovers?”
Jojo cut in before I could answer. “Infant formula only for the first six months,” he said, all doctor’s office, “but I’ll ask Jasper for a list.” He circled something on the notepad and drew a little star next to it.
Emilio made a soft noise—maybe a dream, maybe an early warning. Jojo rocketed to the crib, leaned over the side, and the springs gave out a mournful creak, loud enough to set my teeth on edge.
“He’s awake!” Jojo announced, like he’d just witnessed a lunar landing.
Rawley nodded, businesslike. “Don’t pick him up yet. Let’s see if he self-soothes.”
“Is that a thing?” I asked.
“It’s a thing,” Jojo confirmed, but his hands hovered just above the baby’s chest like he couldn’t stop himself from intervening.
I watched the three of them—Rawley with his arms folded and his eyes slitted, Jojo vibrating at a frequency normally reserved for dental drills, Emilio just blinking at the world—and for the first time since last night it felt almost possible that this was normal. Or could be, if we kept at it long enough.
I sipped my coffee and made a face. “You guys are acting like this isn’t the weirdest morning in Montana history.”
Rawley side-eyed me, a warning. “Kid needs stability.”
I saluted him. “Yes, sir.”
Jojo had gone from anxious to laser-focused in record time, running down the list with little mutters. “Diapers, wipes, baby lotion, we have to check for allergies, probably need to boil the bottles first. Do we need to call CPS?”
“Let’s hold off on that.” I said it quick, maybe too quick, but Jojo just nodded and wrote it down anyway.
