He scoffed softly and shook his head. It had been a long week, between preparing some of his animals for the big stock sale coming just after the first of the year and organizing the Christmas Eve festivities. He was overtired, it was as simple as that. There wasn’t any deeper significance to whatever unease he was feeling. If he had any sense he’d stop standing here straining for sounds that didn’t exist and head back to his ranch so he could get himself to bed where he belonged. Settle in for a long winter’s nap, and all that.
Before heading out, all he had left to do was make sure all the lights were off, the candles blown out and the doors locked, and then he could go home.
Alone. To an empty house.
Was that the real reason he lingered?
It wasn’t the first time he would be spending Christmas Eve on his own, and he was sure that it wouldn’t be his last, but for some reason he was feeling it more than usual. He hadn’t spent Christmas with his family since— Well, he didn’t want to think about that.
He shook his head to unsettle the disturbing sense of melancholy. He wasn’t alone. He might be feeling a little lonely, but the Lord was always with him. God had seen him through many a Christmas past.
With a weary sigh, he flipped all seven switches on the light plate, plunging the vestibule into darkness and leaving only the soft flickering of candles beckoning from the warmth of the sanctuary. He’d forgotten to extinguish them.
Shawn grunted and combed his fingers through the short tips of his reddish-blond hair and ran a hand across the five-o’clock shadow on his jaw. Just as well that he had to head back into the sanctuary to take care of the candles. It would give him a moment to refocus and shake this unexpected despondency, remind himself that feelings weren’t everything. God was always his comfort and consolation, whether Shawn could feel Him or not.
The light beckoned him. He removed his cowboy hat from his head as he passed through the familiar arch that marked the entrance to the sanctuary. Reverently, and with a catch in his throat, he approached the altar.
He’d been given so many blessings. His health. A little spread of land he was proud to call his own. His six-year ministry at a chapel he adored in a town full of folks he loved. He hadn’t been born in Serendipity, and yet the community had welcomed him with open arms as one of their own.
He had so much for which to be grateful. How could he possibly complain when many people were blessed with far less?
As he reached the foot of the altar, he knelt, his eyes dropping from the large wooden cross centered on the wall to the straw-stuffed manger the children had used during the pageant. He grinned as he recalled squalling Baby Jesus, Eli and Mary Bishop’s newborn son. The little nipper had squirmed so hard the entire manger—
Something moved within the straw.
Shawn blinked and rubbed his eyes. What was that?
He must be more exhausted than he’d realized. For a moment there he was positive he’d seen—
There it was again.
From the manger. Just the tiniest quiver within the stalks of hay, as if a whisper of a breeze had passed over it.
Only there was no breeze in the chapel.
A shiver ran up his spine as he bolted to his feet and took an involuntary step backward. The candlelight was no help, casting shadows across the walls and floor. His heart hammering in his throat, Shawn approached the crèche.
When he leaned in to see what had caused the disturbance, his eyes widened and his breath tugged.
A baby.
A real-live newborn infant, loosely wrapped—not in swaddling clothes, but in a tattered Dallas Cowboys snug-wrap blanket. As Shawn watched, the infant’s face scrunched as if it were about to break into a wail, but then just as swiftly its expression relaxed back into the peace of sleep.
Adrenaline surged through Shawn, erasing whatever fatigue and anxiety he’d been combating moments before. His mind went into overdrive with a brand-new kind of worry. He was fearful to move, even to breathe.
What was going on here? This couldn’t be happening. Not in this little church, in a small town in the middle of nowhere, and not on Christmas Eve. He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, but when he glanced back down at the manger, the baby was still very much present.
Real. Alive. And kicking.
The hair on the back of his neck prickled as his mind raced to take in the facts, what few there were. Where was the baby’s mother? Shawn cast a glance around the sanctuary, but there were no additional movements in the darkness. Somehow, the woman had come and gone without him even knowing she’d ever been.
And she’d left behind the most precious of cargo.
He knew he didn’t have any new or expectant moms in the congregation, other than Mary Bishop. To Shawn’s untrained eye, all newborns looked like Yoda, but he was certain this wasn’t the same little guy who’d played Baby Jesus. He’d watched Eli and Mary pack up their little bundle and exit the church an hour earlier.
Come to think of it, he wasn’t even sure the baby presently lying in the manger was a little guy.
The infant’s eyes popped open, revealing an unfocused smoky blue-gray gaze. Shawn reached out a finger and the infant grasped it, pulling his hand toward its tiny mouth. Despite all the tension he was feeling, Shawn couldn’t help but smile softly as he slid his large palm underneath the baby’s head and tenderly scooped it into his arms. Babies were blessings from God, plain and simple.
Only, in this case, the plain and simple part of it was a little more complicated. He hoped he was doing this “cradling the baby” thing right. He was hardly an expert on the subject. He was supposed to support the baby’s head and neck—that much he remembered from christenings. With this little one, it wasn’t hard to do. The infant was so tiny it almost fit into one of his large palms.
“Shh, shh, shh,” he murmured gently to the whimpering infant. He rocked on the heels of his boots. “It’s okay, little one. I’ve got you. Everything’s going to be okay. I promise.”
He frowned. That wasn’t exactly right. Not that the baby could understand his words, but he was hardly in a position to make a promise like that. There wasn’t one single thing about this situation that was okay.
Where was the mother now? How had she gotten into the church and back out again without anyone noticing her? Had she disappeared for good, or was she lingering around somewhere to make sure her baby was well cared for? Had she picked this chapel for a reason, out of all the places she could have taken the child?
And maybe the most pressing question of all—what was he supposed to do with an abandoned baby on Christmas Eve?
If he wasn’t mistaken, there were safe-haven laws in Texas to deal with the issue of child abandonment, but Shawn didn’t know the exact details. Would a church even be considered an acceptable drop-off point in such a situation? Perhaps allowances could be made, since the nearest hospital was over an hour away? And speaking of hospitals, he should call Delia Bowden, the town doctor, who would no doubt want to check the baby’s health. Also, he would need to call the police immediately, to report what could potentially be considered a crime.
He forced a breath through his lungs. He had people who’d help him through this. That was a good thing. But the question remained—whom should he call first? No matter how he tried to reason around it, he couldn’t get over the fact that whatever motivations had compelled the woman to commit such an act, the distressed mother had chosen to leave her precious baby here, in this church, and not at the police station or firehouse as she might have done.
A myriad of emotions pressed upon him and he struggled to work them out, to untie the knots in his chest. There had to be a reason the baby was here. God didn’t make mistakes, and though it seemed