Wyoming Born and Bred
Cathleen Galitz
WRANGLERS& LaceFROM WYOMING RENEGADE…Cameron Wade reveled in the solitude of mountain vistas and cloudless Wyoming sky. He was a man of the land, but his life was about to be invaded by three ornery kids and their single mom, Patricia Erhart. His bachelor instincts urged him to run but this lady had something he wanted–his old family ranch. So, to get close to the lovely widow, he had to risk his own heart….TO THE GREATEST DAD OF THE WEST?Courting Patricia, Cameron was shocked to find himself wanting to be the perfect father to her kids–and win over the wary rancher for real. Could this ready-made family show the lonesome bachelor that being Wyoming born and bred, could lead to being a dad…and to wed?Hard to tame–impossible to resist–these cowboys meet their perfect match!
“What’s the matter, darlin’?” (#ubce37efa-c979-5ceb-9262-bb72eb8a624a)Letter to Reader (#u551b5ad8-c1e9-593a-a74b-5c2dfdfce608)Title Page (#u66d8b498-937f-53d5-b5f9-8257d1af6b5d)Dedication (#u9a38d2d1-468f-58d1-8f02-7c01611487d8)About the Author (#ub36befcb-ba62-5b17-b0a0-a4cb1825603f)Chapter One (#uedc18c1c-0a5d-5874-ba5a-1636c7ec2a98)Chapter Two (#u074298cc-38a9-5ac6-8ebf-f3d5c02ed0ca)Chapter Three (#u5fd67855-ba70-5c3d-8e7c-e20dfd8917b2)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“What’s the matter, darlin’?”
Cameron asked her.
Draping an arm around Patricia’s shoulders, Cameron drew her close to him. His sinewy strength was both solid and gentle.
“Everything....” The word came out half whisper, half sob.
“It can’t be as bad as all that. Why don’t you let me take a turn with the kids, and you can take a long walk.”
Cameron found himself wondering what kind of man Patricia’s late husband had been. He was inclined to believe the lout had never so much as lifted a finger to help out. It was a shock to discover that behind that superwoman mask was a vulnerable little girl. Cameron felt a fierce possessiveness well up inside him, to safeguard her against the world.
And the intensity of that feeling hit this confirmed bachelor like a ton of bricks....
Dear Reader,
The wonder of a Silhouette Romance is that it can touch every woman’s heart. Check out this month’s offerings—and prepare to be swept away!
A woman wild about kids winds up tutoring a single dad in the art of parenthood in Babies, Rattles and Cribs... Oh, My! It’s this month’s BUNDLES OF JOY title from Leanna Wilson. When a Cinderella-esque waitress—complete with wicked stepfamily!—finds herself in danger, she hires a bodyguard whose idea of protection means making her his Glass Slipper Bride, another unforgettable tale from Arlene James. Pair one highly independent woman and one overly protective lawman and what do you have? The prelude to The Marriage Beat, Doreen Roberts’s sparkling new Romance with a HE’S MY HERO cop.
WRANGLERS & LACE is a theme-based promotion highlighting classic Western stories. July’s offering, Cathleen Galitz’s Wyoming Born & Bred, features an ex-rodeo champion bent on reclaiming his family’s homestead who instead discovers that home is with the stubborn new owner...and her three charming children! A long-lost twin, a runaway bride...and A Gift for the Groom—don’t miss this conclusion to Sally Carleen’s delightful duo ON THE WAY TO A WEDDING.... And a man-shy single mom takes a chance and follows The Way to a Cowboy’s Heart in this emotional heart-tugger from rising star Teresa Southwick.
Enjoy this month’s selections, and make sure to drop me a line about why you keep coming back to Romance. We want to fulfill your dreams!
Happy reading,
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Senior Editor, Silhouette Romance
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Wyoming Born & Bred
Cathleen Galitz
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To the Miracle Two,
Shawn and Curt,
constant reminders of God’s love
and blessings in my life.
CATHLEEN GALITZ,
a Wyoming native, teaches English to seventh to twelfth graders in a rural school that houses kindergartners and seniors in the same building. She lives in a small Wyoming town with her husband and two children. When she’s not busy writing, teaching or working with her Cub Scout den, she can most often be found hiking or snowmobiling in the Wind River Mountains.
Chapter One
A cloud of dust as thick as regret dogged Cameron Wade’s pickup all the way down the washboardy road leading him home. The hand carved sign that had once so proudly heralded the Triple R was gone, but it came as no surprise to him that the great knotty-pine archway he had helped his father erect so many years ago still stood silent sentry to the ranch where he had grown up.
As Cameron pulled into the driveway, he switched off the sad song that Clint Black was warbling over the airwaves. Precious little appeared to have been done with the old place since the previous owner’s death, but he wasted little time contemplating the sad state of his childhood home. He focused his attention instead upon a balding spot of grass where two little boys were engaged in a game of cowboys and Indians, an integral part of which appeared to be a toddler unhappily constrained in a playpen. As the boys whooped around their makeshift stockade, their prisoner struck out at them with a half-empty bottle. Diverted from their sport by Cameron’s unexpected presence, one of the urchins stopped long enough to holler out, “Hey there, mister.”
Cameron gave the boy a cursory nod as he got out of his truck and made his way to the front door, frowning at the thought of having to knock to gain entrance to his old home.
“Watch out below!” warned a voice from above.
Cameron jumped aside just in time to avoid being hit by a large piece of shingling which rocketed off the roof and hit the ground beside him with a dull thwack. Squinting against the late-afternoon sun, he saw a teenager in a baseball cap and baggy overalls peering down at him from over the edge of the roof. The youth acknowledged him with a terse wave of the hand and a quick, sheepish grin.
“Sorry about that!” he called out. “Give me a minute and I’ll be right down.”
Tottering precariously close to the lip of the sharply peaked roof, the lad pitched an armload of shingles into the back of a rusty old pickup parked below, then proceeded cautiously toward a ladder propped against the house. Cameron hurried over to lend a steadying hand. An instant later he heard the crack of dry wood snapping just above his head.
A shrill scream pierced the sky as he reached out to catch the boy in midair.
Off flew the baseball cap.
Out fell a sheen of chestnut-colored hair.
A solid thud against Cameron’s chest almost knocked him off his feet. He stumbled and did a desperate two-step to keep his balance. Groaning in pain, he hoped his good intentions hadn’t just rebroken a couple of ribs. His eyes flew open in surprise at the bundle of outrageous womanly curves squirming in his arms, For a moment he was too shocked to do more than gape in disbelief. Never had he seen a prettier pair of big brown eyes than those widening in alarm.
A furious flutter settled itself in his groin as an unforeseen energy passed between them like an electric current. Rooted to the spot as if he were standing up to his knees in water, Cameron felt an overwhelming sexual surge rush through every cell in his body. It was downright unsettling. He hadn’t felt this kind of intensity since indulging in his first adolescent fantasies. Recalling the basic tenets of electricity, he wondered whether they would both be blown to smithereens the second he set her down.
Such dubious logic mocked him. Cameron Wade was too well-grounded to be entertaining such fanciful notions as chemical magnetism or, God forbid, love at first sight. A fickle little gold digger by the name of Bonnie had eradicated such hogwash from his mind long ago.
“Sorry for dropping in on you unannounced this way,” Cameron managed to stammer, setting his curvaceous package down at last.
A husky, breathless voice wound itself sensuously around every tingling nerve ending in his body. “I’m afraid I’m the one who should be apologizing for that. I’m not usually in the habit of falling into men’s arms...”
Cornball. Pure cornball.
Pat Erhart could not believe she had just uttered such a lame line. But then again neither could she believe that she had literally fallen into such a phenomenally strong pair of arms. Arms like that, she decided, should be on the cover of a slick magazine hawking the sex secrets of the stars or some other such equally inane subject. Searching the depths of a pair of blue eyes as piercingly clear as a mountain stream, Pat got the distinct impression that this particular hunk wasn’t the type who would go in for that sort of thing.
Upon closer inspection, he was slightly short of perfection. There was the hint of gray in his trim mustache. Weathered around the edges, this tall, lanky blonde wore the look of a battle-scarred warrior. He struck her as a man used to working with his hands. A man willing to fight for that which was his.
No, a pretty-boy magazine layout definitely would not appeal to such a man.
And darned if that didn’t make him all the more attractive. Not that Pat had any false hopes about this Western Adonis being similarly drawn to her. She knew that the flicker of interest heating up those gorgeous eyes would be duly put out the instant he put two and two together and came up with three small, needy children.
“What can I do for you, Mr.—?”
“Wade,” he supplied. “Cameron Wade.”
Perplexed by a strange “tom-tom” noise in the background, Cameron was reminded of those old Westerns he had loved as a child. He found himself wondering if a tribe of renegades was preparing to wage war upon some unsuspecting settlers. Pulling the signed copy of his contract from his pocket, he tried inserting a rational note into his voice as he looked around her.
“I’m here to see Pat about the foreman’s job.”
Glancing at the familiar signature on the bottom of the page, Pat realized this sexy hunk was under the impression that she was a man. Though it wasn’t the first time this had happened and probably wouldn’t be the last, she nonetheless bristled at his hasty assumption. If Cameron Wade shared the same sexist beliefs as most of the other men she’d encountered in this frontier bastion, he would soon be telling her in a polite and condescending voice that such a “purty little lady” was far too fragile to be running an operation like this all by herself.
No matter that even when he had been around to help, Hadley had left most of the physical labor to her. No matter that she had been running things around here since long before his untimely death. No matter that neither one of them had the slightest background in ranching. When children were involved, at least one parent had to be responsible—and mature enough to dismiss those girlish butterflies tickling her tummy as nothing more than the aftereffects of a near-tragic fall.
She self-consciously removed her heavy work gloves and extended him her hand in the familiar Western custom.
“Pleased to meet you,” Pat said looking him straight in the eye, only to find herself utterly lost in their blue, blue depths.
She noted the length of time it took a pregnant pause to give birth to a full-fledged embarrassing moment. Had it not been so utterly insulting, she might have found the look of utter consternation upon Cameron Wade’s face funny.
Belatedly he took her hand. It was rough and callused, her grip firm and warm. No manicured pair had ever sent such a jolt of pure sexual awareness thrumming through him like these honest hands. He stared at her in disbelief.
“You’re Pat?”
“One and the same.”
Fused by the voltage welding his hand to hers, Cameron studied the woman at length. Devoid of all traces of makeup, she was remarkably striking. Not pretty in the usual sense of glamor queens, but an oxymoronic aura of strength and softness emanating about her left little doubt in his mind that this lady was more woman than most men could handle.
Had worry put the first signs of wrinkles around those incredibly soft eyes? He doubted age could be the culprit. She certainly didn’t look old enough to be mother to three children.
Gingerly, Cameron ran a hand over his rib cage. Was it his heart hammering against his chest like a sledgehammer that was sending that sharp pain through his torso, or had he actually managed to undo all the time he’d spent in the hospital by playing a Good Samaritan without giving thought to his own well-being? He was grateful to discover that, though tender to the touch, his ribs did not appear to be rebroken.
He shook his head as if trying to figure out just exactly where he had taken the wrong turn on the way to Wonderland. Despite the deteriorating condition of the house and the awful name change the new owner had given the ranch, the familiar landmarks of his youth were all about him. He found himself wondering what kind of a screwball name the E.M.U. was anyway. The acronym sounded more like a college to him than a respectable cattle ranch. Fortifying himself with the thought that it wouldn’t be long before he rechristened it the Triple R, he sucked in his breath and focused his attention on the provisional three-month contract he held in his hand.
He had been thrilled when it had arrived in response to his inquiry, just in time for his release from the hospital. Gleefully abandoning his drafty institutional gown, he left word of his whereabouts with his manager and left Vegas with but one thought on his mind: to hasten the inevitable resolution of a lifelong dream. That of reclaiming the family ranch and restoring the Wade name to its own proud position.
He shook his head in disgust. Things were even worse than he had imagined. A faded old gentleman stripped of his dignity, the house looked shabby at best. The paint was weathered and peeling. One shutter hung by a nail. Another was missing altogether. A broken window stared at him as reproachfully as a black eye, and the porch where he had spent countless hours playing now looked more suitable for kindling than anything else.
The only thing not in disrepair that he could discern from initial observations was the fencing. That in itself was a puzzle. Who in his right mind would string expensive chain link all the way around a corral?
Finding his voice at last, Cameron asked in a tone more brusque than intended. “This is the E.M.U. Ranch, isn’t it?”
Though Pat’s eyes twinkled with undisguised amusement, the lilt in her voice stopped just short of laughter. “Surely you understood emu isn’t the name of the ranch...it’s what we raise here.”
“Excuse me?”
Cameron wheeled around to pinpoint the source of that strange sound which had him so befuddled. A huge ostrichlike creature strutted out of the barn to regard their visitor with curiosity and what Cameron was certain was mutual distrust.
Tom, tom, tom, tom, tom, thrummed the bird territorially.
Cameron glanced back and forth between the bird and the woman, searching for the hidden technology that would ultimately land him on Candid Camera Was this somebody’s idea of a practical joke? It was a good one, he’d grant ’em that. A real knee-slapper. The Triple R a bird farm? It was as believable as him winning that gargantuan National Championship belt buckle for breaking Shetland ponies. Had it not been for the fact that the woman standing next to him gave no indication whatsoever that anything was amiss, he would have laughed out loud.
“You are joking, aren’t you?”
Pat merely shook her head at the scowl that defied her to answer truthfully.
“I’ll be a son of a—”
It took an act of conscious self-control to bite back the oath scalding the tip of his tongue. Even then, gentlemanly restraint didn’t stop him from leaning his full, formidable height of six feet and three inches over her and bellowing, “Just what have you done to my ranch, lady? Grandpa’d do back flips in his grave if he knew you’d turned the Triple R into some kind of damned Yuppie petting zoo. Not to mention the field day the press could have with the news that I’ve signed on to be a bird wrangler.”
Pat wondered if she would have to sew the top of this man’s head back on. What was he ranting about? The jumble of words was coming so fast and furious that it was hard to make sense of them.
“Hell and damnation, I signed on to work for a real ranch, not some overgrown chicken farm!”
“They’re emus,” Pat repeated as patiently as if she were explaining it to a two-year-old.
“If you think for even one minute that I’m sticking around to work with a flock of dodo birds on steroids, you’re out of your mind!”
Pat’s hands went to her hips. She’d had quite enough of this cowboy’s tirade. Why, the way the man was acting, you’d think he had a personal stake in the ranch. Clearly the fellow wasn’t quite right in the head, but seeing how he was the only one who had applied for the job, she couldn’t afford to let him off the hook just because he was capable of throwing a bigger temper tantrum than any of her children.
“Let me remind you, Mr. Wade,” she said speaking slowly and standing on her tippy toes to lessen the intimidating factor of his height, “that whether you like it or not, I am your boss for at least the next three months. And any respectable man would honor that contract.”
“You deceiving, little—” Cameron shook the contract in question right in the woman’s startled face. “Maybe I should have let you fall on that thick head of yours to knock some sense into it!”
Pat exhaled with enough force to ruffle the bangs over her forehead. “I didn’t deceive anyone. In fact I purposely capitalized all the letters in the word emu so you’d know exactly what you were getting into. It’s not my fault you didn’t take the time to find out that emu was no more the name of this ranch than Pat is singularly used as a man’s name! As we both well know, ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law. You signed on, mister, and by God, you’re mine from at least now until winter sets in.”
The last time someone had the audacity to talk to Cameron like this, he’d sent the joker through a plate-glass window. He hated the way women used their sex as an excuse to blurt out whatever they felt like saying without regard to consequence. No matter how pretty this one was, he for one wasn’t about to be bullied by someone who barely came up to his chin.
“For your information, I don’t belong to anyone. And if you don’t think so, just watch how fast I walk away from this bird-brained operation of yours!”
The exact opposite of this belligerent cowboy, whose voice paralleled his temper, when Pat was angry, her voice dropped several cool degrees. When she spoke again, her words were cold enough to freeze-dry the blazing Wyoming sun overhead.
“That contract is legally binding, and the only way you’re walking away from here is if I fire you.”
In fact, nothing could have made Pat happier at the moment than to send this macho cowboy down the road with an imprint of her boot upon his sexy derriere. Unfortunately, she was far too desperate to let pride get in the way of good sense. Circumstances had left her a widow with three small children and a ranch in dire need of repairs. She had tried telling Hadley that making a go of an emu ranch smack-dab in the middle of cattle country wouldn’t be the cakewalk he thought it would be. He hadn’t listened of course. Once he was off on one of his get-rich-quick schemes, there was as much chance of stopping Hadley Erhart as the guard rail that had given way and left him dead at the bottom of Red Canyon one snowy night.
Cameron’s eyes narrowed. “Do you mean to tell me you’d try keeping a man here against his will?”
His words conjured up for Pat all sorts of improper sexual images utilizing ropes and handcuffs. She dismissed the innuendo with a haughty swipe of the hand.
“Nobody forced you to sign that contract.”
Lady or no, Cameron was just about to tell this brassy little firecracker where she could put her legally binding contract, when he felt the barrel of a gun poked into the small of his back.
“Freeze, varmint!”
Two rascals wearing battered cowboy hats, shorts emblazoned with cartoon characters, and worn, dusty boots regarded him from behind matching scowls. Drawn by the commotion, Johnny and Kirk Erhart had been covertly watching the heated interplay as intently as any full-fledged theatrical production. With a trail of improvised cowboy paraphernalia dragging behind them, the two boys rushed to their mother’s defense.
“Reach for the sky!”
While one boy kept his plastic gun steady against the interloper’s back, the other gathered a loop of rope into his hands. Hoping they weren’t contemplating a hanging, Cameron raised his hands in mock surrender.
Clearly he had been ambushed.
“Johnny!” his mother scolded. “How many times have I told you not to point that at anyone?”
“Mom...” the child said in embarrassment before regaining his stage presence. “Keep ‘em up there where I can see ’em.”
His finger twitching on the trigger of his cap gun, the older boy informed Cameron with genuine Western resolve. “Around these parts, mister, a man stands by his word.”
What the woman’s ire had not evoked in Cameron, a child’s innocence had—a sense of guilt. Johnny, the woman had called him. Darned if the kid didn’t remind him some of himself at that age. Cameron fought the urge to run his hand through the lad’s shaggy, sandy-colored hair.
An image of another little boy standing in the shadows of the Wind River Mountains came back to him as clearly as if it had been recorded for posterity. Tears streaming down his face, the child had linked hands with his mother and vowed to someday “show ’em all that a Wade could never be beaten.” Almost two decades had passed since the seed of that particular promise had been planted. Time enough for Cameron to cultivate a way of returning home an unprecedented success, reclaim the land he considered his birthright, and turn it into one of the finest operations in the country.
There was more than just a little self-indulgent gratification involved in his game plan, and he knew it. Knew it and accepted it as part of why he was the man he was. The kind of man who wouldn’t let a couple of broken ribs in the semifinals of the National Rodeo Championship stop him from achieving his dream. The kind of man determined to overcome any obstacles in his path, no matter how large—or how small...
A funny ache settled in the pit of Cameron’s stomach as he studied the stubborn set of this little boy’s jaw. He wondered how he would have reacted at that age had someone come onto their property and commenced yelling at his mother.
“That’s all right, ma’am,” Cameron said, squatting on his haunches to meet the child at eye level. “I understand that a man’s got to do what it takes to protect what’s his.”
Johnny seemed to visibly grow an inch. Off to the side a couple of paces, his brother holstered his toy gun.
“You’re not really gonna break a promise you made to my mom, are you?” The look the boy gave him was so piercing that it almost made Cameron forget why he was here.
Almost.
Gruffly he reminded himself that he wasn’t here on a charity case. Having limited interaction with them, he didn’t even particularly like kids. His job here was not to rescue anyone, but rather to kick this pushy mommy and her brood off his ranch before she tried bamboozling him with those unusually long eyelashes. It suddenly occurred to Cameron that the best way to accomplish his purpose was not by butting heads with her. No matter that she had made a laughingstock of the Triple R, it was after all in his best interest to stick around awhile.
“All right, lady. You win.”
Cameron capitulated with a bona fide grin that activated a matching pair of dimples on either side of his mouth. He’d have to remember to thank Johnny later for providing him an opportunity to squeeze out of the corner he’d backed himself into.
“Whether your contract is legally binding or not, it’s lucky for you that I’m a man of my word. Looks like you’ve got yourselves a prisoner, boys.”
Wondering exactly what she’d let herself in for, Pat contemplated Cameron’s use of the word lucky. It was obvious that Johnny and Kirk were fascinated by the rough-and-tumble cowboy who looked like he’d just stepped off the set of their favorite television series. That phony line about him being a man of his word certainly sounded like a load of typical Hollywood hype to her. Pat’s cynical thoughts were interrupted by her youngest son’s most frequently uttered complaint.
“I’m hungry.”
“I just fed you,” she responded with a telltale sigh.
“But that was hours ago.”
It was at that precise moment that the baby decided she had been ignored long enough. Flinging her bottle out of the playpen, Amy protested her prolonged captivity with an ear-splitting wail intended to let anyone within a mile radius know of her unhappiness.
Cameron watched Pat’s eyelids drift shut in weariness. “Go get your sister, boys,” she instructed, “and I’ll get started on dinner.”
It wasn’t every day a real live cowboy landed on their front steps, and certainly not one who appeared willing to indulge them in a game of make-believe. Consequently, Johnny delegated the mundane chore to his little brother.
“Kirk, you go get Amy while I take the prisoner to the hoosegow.”
Pat graced Cameron with an amused smile. “You can take that to mean the house. Hopefully you and I will be able to have a calmer discussion about terms of your new job over dinner.”
Proud of the way she uttered the words as smoothly as if she were looking at the man’s résumé instead of the hard plane of his chest, she added as an afterthought, “That’ll give me a chance to thank you properly for saving me from breaking my neck earlier.”
Although Cameron could think of a variety of ways that this fiery little number could show her appreciation, he doubted whether any of them were what she had in mind. He tried bridling those wayward thoughts, but his lazy smile nonetheless made Pat remember for the first time in a very long while that she was a woman as well as a mother.
Chapter Two
Hoping to stop the boys’ squabble over who was supposed to be in charge of the baby, Cameron paused on his way to the “hoosegow” to emancipate the squalling toddler from her playpen. There was no benevolence in the act; he wanted only to put an end to the tot’s deafening howls for attention. It was little wonder her mother was crazy. In his opinion, anyone forced to endure that kind of nerve-grating caterwauling for more than one solid minute just might have a right to be.
To his complete and utter surprise, the baby stopped crying the instant he picked her up. Grateful for small miracles, Cameron mutely bore the fruit-stained kiss she planted upon his cheek as she nestled against his chest with a satisfied coo. Her actions only confirmed his theory that women were genetically programmed from birth to manipulate men. A femme fatale at this tender age would undoubtedly turn a mother prematurely gray and a father bald.
Which, by the way, made him wonder where the heck the man of the house was, anyway. Cameron was anxious to see what kind of elusive louse expected a woman to reshingle a house all by herself. He hadn’t noted a ring on Pat’s finger, but then again Cameron wouldn’t exactly expect her to wear one while doing such physically exacting work.
“For crying out loud!” he exclaimed, shaken from his errant thoughts by a growing wet spot down the front of his clean, new shirt.
One didn’t have to be Dr. Spock to discern the cause to be a leaky diaper. Loosening the baby’s sticky hands from around his neck, Cameron thrust her from him as if she were a package of nitroglycerin. As far as he was concerned, all children should come wrapped in cellophane with detailed warning labels attached.
“Keep on moving, mister,” Johnny directed him at the end of his plastic barrel.
Cameron gritted his teeth as he foisted the baby into Kirk’s thin arms. Not used to being bossed around by anyone, it was especially galling to bend his will to a ten-year-old’s. As he took his first faltering steps toward captivity, Cameron could have sworn that big goofy-looking bird in the corral winked at him.
Pat paused to watch her children interact with her new foreman. Considering his overtly hostile reaction to her, he was actually being a pretty darned good sport—or prisoner, rather—as Johnny directed him at gunpoint up the back steps. Pushed back at a rakish angle, Cameron’s black felt cowboy hat allowed his hair to fall carelessly across his forehead. Pat couldn’t help but notice how the dark blond color was shot through unevenly with streaks of sunshine. Suddenly he looked far less a broad-shouldered ruffian than a charming grown up version of her own two little imps.
Albeit an incredibly virile version.
Startled by the womanly reaction that curled her stomach up in a tight ball and sent handfuls of tingles racing through her body in a flash of heat, Pat was amazed that some stranger could waltz into her front yard, pluck her in midair like a pop fly and simultaneously make her wish she was wearing something soft and sexy. She thought she had buried those feelings with her husband, and it terrified her to think of them resurfacing. As a mother and businesswoman, she had more than enough to handle with a clear head, let alone one filled with the stuff and nonsense of romantic fairy tales.
Once upon a time, Pat had been young and naive enough to fall for such balderdash—and had spent the duration of her life paying for it. Ignoring her parents’ repeated warnings that Hadley Erhart’s pockets were as empty as his promises, she had eloped at eighteen, pledging herself one hundred percent to each of her husband’s successive ventures. Unfortunately, Hadley had a habit of expending more energy in the engineering of his next get-rich-quick scheme than in the arduous process of making any of them actually work. As his stern father-in-law commented at his funeral, Hadley was a whole lot better at starting things than finishing them.
It was less allegiance to her late husband’s memory than a commitment to abandon the gypsy life they had lived, hopping from one risky endeavor to another that kept Pat so stubbornly rooted to this place. The moment she’d laid eyes upon it, she had fallen in love with this run-down old ranch. It had as much character as the mountain range just outside her back door. Life in the shadows of those larger-than-life mountains was hard, no question about it But, isolated from the problems of more populous areas, the soil in Wyoming was good for growing happy, healthy children.
Even though the local naysayers were laying bets against her chances of surviving just one winter, Pat was determined to make a real home for her family right here. And if that meant having to humble herself by making dinner for some obnoxious cowboy who openly regretted saving her neck, then so be it.
“Make yourself comfortable,” she said, clearing off a spot for Cameron on the sofa and casting an embarrassed look at the abandoned toys cluttering the room, “while I get started on dinner.”
Short of declaring it a national disaster area, there was nothing she could do about the state of disarray of her house. Fixing supper was the priority of the moment. Simple fare like peanut butter sandwiches or macaroni and cheese generally sufficed for their evening meal, but one look at those long legs stretched across her living room floor sent that idea skittering away like a sunbeam upon rushing water. It was highly unlikely that a man as big as Cameron would be satisfied with her usual laissez-faire attitude toward food.
Pat would have liked to have impressed her new employee with her culinary talents. Unfortunately, the empty pantry was a reflection of her checkbook. She could only hope that her new foreman was handier with a hammer than Hadley had been. The last thing she needed around here was another helpless man with an appetite to match his impressive frame.
As if worried Cameron might attempt an escape, Johnny and Kirk took their places on either side of their prisoner on the couch and settled in for their favorite television program. It was an animated version of an old Western, underscored by the timeless theme of good versus bad. The last time he’d watched a show where the heroes and villains were so easily identified by the color of their hats, he’d been no older than the two boys who held him captive.
Cameron glanced uncomfortably at his own dark hat resting on the edge of the sofa. Like a dog trying to rid itself of a pesky flea, he tried shaking the feeling off. It wasn’t as if God had personally assigned him to this family’s troubles. He had more than enough of his own to handle. Cameron reminded himself that his primary objective was to ascertain just how cheaply he could buy back the old place. And do so before he became emotionally attached to the “squatters” who were presently attached to it. He knew that anything more would simply be tempting fate.
Out of the corner of his eye, Cameron caught a glimpse of the woman working in the kitchen. He snapped his head around in a double take. It looked like she was attacking an avocado with a hammer. A second look determined that it was in fact the biggest, greenest egg he had ever seen. While green eggs and ham might be a suitable meal for Dr. Seuss, the very thought made Cameron’s stomach quiver.
Ten minutes later he found himself seated before the world’s largest omelet. Milk, home-canned apples, and garden-fresh salad accompanied it. Ever vigilant, Johnny and Kirk flanked him on both sides. Amy sat beside her mother in a high chair that had been mended too often with great gobs of duct tape.
Despite the growling in his stomach, Cameron was about to beg off the main course when a familiar voice echoed through his mind. “People whose manners are absent probably are missing more than just their manners. No matter how old you get, son, or how important you might think you’ve become, just remember your mother raised you right and act accordingly.”
Rose Wade had been dead for almost fifteen years, but Cameron felt her presence in this house as surely as when she had taught him respect at her table. A lump formed in his throat. As inexplicably as a moth is drawn to a flame, Cameron’s memories had led him back home in search of that which had been stolen from him. Was it innocence, he wondered, or pride?
An obedient son, he complied with his mother’s ghostly command. Sectioning off a tiny piece of omelet, he took a hesitant bite. To his astonishment, it was quite tasty.
He lifted his gaze from his plate to discover Pat waiting for his reaction. She looked so anxious and so lovely sitting there that his heart swelled up in his chest like an overinflated balloon.
“Not bad,” he commented, taking another mouthful.
Cameron watched the hardness around her eyes soften. He was on the verge of encouraging her to use that dynamite smile of hers a little more often when a handful of egg drilled him square in the forehead.
“Amy!” her mother cried out in horror.
Undaunted, the tot launched her spoon into space where it did a double somersault before landing in the middle of their guest’s dinner plate.
The boys roared as Amy clapped her hands in glee.
“I’m so sorry,” Pat stammered, coming at Cameron with a napkin.
“No harm done, ma‘am,” he said, stopping his red-faced hostess in her tracks with a careless wave of the hand. “It isn’t the first time I’ve had egg on my face, and I doubt it’ll be the last.”
Pat was impressed by this gruff cowboy’s tact. She knew few men who would have handled the incident half as graciously. The instant the poor man had stepped onto her property, he’d been beset by calamity—from women dropping from the sky into his arms, being captured by the infamous Erhart Boys, to being ambushed at the dinner table. Watching him wipe the splatters from his once clean Western-cut shirt, she could hardly blame Cameron for his lack of enthusiasm about signing on at Fort Bedlam.
Inwardly railing against the formal “ma’am” which made her feel like her own world-weary mother, she suggested, “Why don’t you just call me Pat? Everybody does.”
A candid appraisal glittered in Cameron’s eyes. “If you don’t mind my saying, Patricia suits a pretty woman better.”
The blood in her veins began to bubble under the heat of the glance that took her in head to toe. A hot blush crept up her neck. It was silly how pleased she was by the offhanded compliment
Lordy, had she completely forgotten what it was like to have a man flirt with her? Having done both a man and a woman’s job for so very long, she had almost come to think of herself in androgynous terms. The gentle reminder that she had another name besides Mom made her suddenly feel as giddy as a teenager.
Smoothing a wisp of stray hair back from her face, she tossed him a disarming smile. “Patricia’s just fine with me. Now if you have any questions about the job, this would be a good time to ask them.”
Unfortunately the question uppermost in Cameron’s mind was not one he thought should be asked in front of children. Over the years on the rodeo circuit, he’d had more than his fair share of made-up, coifed tarts bat their mascaraed eyelashes at him. Why none of them made him feel as overtly sexual, as purely animalistic as his new boss did with a simple smile was beyond him. He wondered exactly what it was about this unpretentious woman masquerading as a teenager in those baggy overalls that was so unbelievably sexy it set his heart ticking like an overwound five-dollar watch.
“Just one,” he said, giving voice to the question that he had been wanting to ask ever since this woman had tumbled from the roof into his arms like some fallen angel.
“Where’s your husband?” And doesn’t he know he’s a fool to leave you here all alone?
Patricia glanced quickly at the children. She was not yet comfortable discussing their father’s death in front of them. It was a wound still too raw to the touch. Though far from being a good provider by society’s standards, Hadley had seldom raised his voice let alone a hand to his children. They missed him terribly.
“I’m a widow,” she said softly.
Cameron’s fork clattered against his plate. His eyes looked everywhere in the room but at her.
His embarrassment was almost audible. Patricia hadn’t meant to make him squirm. After all, he had no part in the cruel hand fate had dealt her. She asked the boys to get more milk from the refrigerator and, once they were out of earshot, plunged into an abbreviated version of Hadley’s death with the swiftness of a surgeon working without anesthesia.
“A little less than a year ago my husband was killed in a car wreck. The roads were icy, he’d been drinking and the guardrail didn’t hold. The coroner assured me his death was instantaneous.”
A lump lodged itself sideways in Cameron’s throat. He couldn’t imagine a single mother attempting to run this ranch all by herself while raising three tiny human tornadoes. The only sound he could hear in the deaf ening silence that followed her account was that of his own heartbeat.
“I’m sorry,” he said simply.
It was inadequate, but he could think of nothing else to add as the boys slid back into their seats beside him. When he had impetuously signed that contract back in the hospital, it hadn’t occurred to him that he might actually come to give a tinker’s damn about the people he intended running off this place. He had expected to be greeted by some rich, hobbyist rancher. Not a vulnerable, young widow with spunk enough to put a chink in his well-polished emotional armor.
Cameron didn’t fancy himself a sentimental man, but he figured he’d have to be blind not to notice how bare the cupboards were, how thin the children were, how desperate the woman was. He would have had to have been made of granite not to want to kiss away the furrows worrying her lovely brow. To sample the sweetness of those full, inviting lips...
Criminey! He had no more control of his thoughts than of a wild mustang roaming the range. Good sense warned him to get out while the getting was good. The very thought of working on a bird ranch was an insult to his dignity. No self-respecting cowboy would be caught dead eating one of these overgrown chickens let alone acting as foreman for what was certain to be the most unpopular ranch in the county. The jeers and jibes were already ringing in his ears. Some of the announcers on the circuit had taken to introducing him as the Big Man. Cameron wasn’t particularly eager to trade in that moniker for the Bird Man.
“So can I count on you staying the next three months?” Patricia asked, naming the time frame outlined in the contract she’d drawn up.
Cameron twisted uncomfortably in his seat. Darned if the whole family wasn’t looking at him like he was Saint Michael himself sent to rescue them from Satan’s clutches. He hoped that Patricia had registered her children’s big ol’ pleading eyes as lethal weapons down at the local police station. He hadn’t felt this much pressure in the arena with thousands of eyes trained on his performance.
“Pleeeeeease stay,” Kirk begged.
“On the cowboy trail, a promise made is a promise kept,” Johnny interjected with all the solemnity of an old-time hanging judge.
Cameron signaled capitulation with a heavy sigh.
“Three months and not a day longer,” he grumbled. “And there are a couple of things we need to set straight right from the get-go.”
Raising her eyebrows, Patricia waited patiently for him to continue.
“You can count on me to do the dirtiest, hardest work you need done—without complaint. Fencing, roofing, painting. It doesn’t much matter to me. I’ve even been known to fix a broken-down motor or two, but I’m telling you right up front, I’m no bird wrangler.”
A smile played on Patricia’s lips. “You wouldn’t happen to be afraid of them, would you?”
At the affront, Cameron puffed up like a blowfish. Each word was a single, crisp word as it came from his mouth. “No, I wouldn‘t”
Johnny irreverently tucked his hands beneath his armpits and flapped his elbows in comic relief. Kirk joined in.
“Cluck, cluck, cluck...”
Cameron glared threateningly from one to the other. A menacing sneer twitched beneath his mustache, and the last cluck died a tortured death.
“Boys, I’m sure Mr. Wade is no chicken,” Patricia chided gently before turning her attention upon the bird in question. “And you can rest assured that the children and I are more than capable of tending to the emus ourselves. If you would just be so kind as to take care of some of the major repairs around here, you will more than meet your contractual obligations.”
The fire illuminating those chocolate-colored eyes of hers led Cameron to believe that the lady was definitely a survivor. Having spent years being pursued by a bevy of buckle bunnies, he’d all but forgotten that there might actually be honest women left in the world. Those prolific bunnies earned their name by chasing after the trophy buckles worn by big-name rodeo winners on the circuit. Cameron knew it was more than their prize money these women sought. There was also vicarious prestige in associating with a champion. After being worked over by their veritable queen two summers ago, Cameron had become impervious to their charms. He had, in fact, become so disillusioned with all women after Bonnie had shown him the indisputable facts of life that his number-one rule for dating thereafter had been to use them before they could use him.
“I’ll tackle your roof first thing in the morning,” he said, pushing his chair away from the table. “Now, why don’t we discuss the particulars of our living arrangements while I give you a hand with the dishes?”
Because I can’t afford to break every dish in the house! Patricia thought to herself in a sudden rush of panic. The mere thought of telling this virile cowboy where to bed down made her quiver like a jackrabbit lippety-lopping across the rifle range on the opening day of hunting season. Unfortunately, her protests that he didn’t need to help with the dishes were to no avail. Though patently old-fashioned enough to believe that the most physically demanding tasks on a ranch belonged solely to the male of the species, Cameron had been well schooled early on by his mother that there simply was no such thing as “women’s work.”
Chapter Three
Patricia became even more flustered when Cameron rolled up his sleeves to reveal a pair of strong, muscled forearms. Wielding a clean dishcloth with the potency of a ninja warrior, the man somehow managed to look as sexy in the kitchen as she imagined he would in the bedroom. Remembering how safe and secure she had felt earlier in the day, wrapped in the embrace of those masculine arms, was almost enough to make her drop the plate she was holding. Up to her elbows in soapy water, Patricia tried washing away the disturbing feelings that close proximity with this man evoked in her.
Since Hadley had been even less help in the kitchen than he had been outdoors, she was unaccustomed to having a man underfoot in her strictly feminine domain. Cameron, on the other hand, seemed completely at ease in his surroundings, rummaging through drawers and putting things away with minimal fuss. Before being excused to do their homework, the boys helped clear the table, and though the expediency of completing this mundane daily chore broke all previous records, Patricia couldn’t quite bring herself to feel grateful for Cam eron’s assistance. Not when simply brushing against his thigh while handing him a cleanly rinsed glass sent a wave of electrical current dancing across her skin.
It was crazy. Never had a man had such a completely befuddling effect upon her. If an accidental touch could make her feel this way, she wondered what effect his kisses might have. The guilt of such a thought weighing heavy on her mind, Patricia attacked the dirty dishes with all the determination of a gladiator.
“You’re going to rub the pattern right off that plate.” Cameron commented with a knowing smile.
The water in the sink was growing hotter by the minute. Patricia knew it had less to do with the temperature of the water flowing out of the tap than with the traitorous hormones turning the blood in her veins to molten lava. Perturbed that Cameron was so obviously aware of her discomfort, she hoped some light conversation would help lessen the tension lodged squarely at the base of her neck.
“Did you say that your grandfather was somehow connected with this place?” she ventured.
Cameron harrumphed so loudly that it made Patricia jump.
“Connected to it, hell! He owned it.”
Anger ignited his eyes with blue fire as he continued. “Showed up here one day on a stallion he called Midnight with nothing more than a Colt .45 strapped to his hip. Staked out a claim as far as the eye could see and said ”This is mine.’”
Unable to understand why her question had upset him so, Patricia expressed her dismay. “Without compunction to how the Native Americans who were here first might have felt about that?”
Cameron merely guffawed at the naïveté of her inquiry. “Spencer Wade wasn’t the kind of man to take such things into consideration. By all accounts he was a tough, old bird, weathering freezing winters and hostile renegades with the same unflinching resolve. There was a good reason he kept that .45 well oiled and within reach. Any sleazy snake-oil-selling banker ever had the gall to try holding him hostage with a little piece of paper would have met with a blaze of gunfire.”
The pride was unmistakable in Cameron’s voice. The silence that followed this cryptic outburst was as heavy as a fog bank. Patricia drove through it blind.
“Is that why you answered my ad? Are you on some kind of nostalgia trip?”
“Something like that,” he retorted with a strange look in his eye.
“I take it then that Grandpa didn’t exactly want to sell the ranch?”
“The Wades never sold out. This land was stolen from us plain and simple.”
The sponge that Patricia was holding fell into the sudsy water with a plop. Had she heard him right?
“Stolen?”
“Legalized theft.”
The words came out of Cameron’s mouth like bullets. Hard and fast. “About twenty years ago the economy around here took a dive. The president called it a recession at the time, but things weren’t nearly as bad as the banks wanted folks to believe. They took advantage of the situation to call in the loans on several ranches. The Triple R was one of them.”
He didn’t have the heart to expound further. The memory of his father, a kind and gentle man by nature, broken by the greed of a few unscrupulous opportunists could bear no more contemplation than the last two decades had already born. The thought of his father now confined to a cubicle in a retirement home brought a familiar tightness to his chest. Personally he thought the Eskimos’ tradition of setting their old people adrift on icebergs was preferable to the sterile, drawn-out death his father had so selflessly chosen for himself. The last time Cameron had visited him, he had apologized repeatedly for letting “the old man” and his own boys down.
Even from the grave, Spencer Wade threw a long shadow over his only son who, despite a lifetime of trying, had never been able to live up to his legendary expectations. Cameron was torn between love of his father and pride of the gruff grandfather who had taught him how to ride his first horse. Just as soon as the Triple R was back in his hands, he vowed to bring his father back home and lay away the ghosts of the past.
Once and for all.
Patricia felt a tiny shudder of foreboding at the determined look on Cameron’s face. “Do you fancy yourself a little like your grandfather?” she asked hesitantly.
The question was astute enough to coax a lopsided smile from him. “Well, I’d wager we’d both feel the same way about turning this ranch into a foul playpen for the ugliest flock of chickens I’ve ever seen.”
A smile danced in Patricia’s eyes. “Fowl play did you say?”
Cameron groaned at the tortured pun. Patricia giggled. And just as quickly as the sun bursts though the clouds on an overcast day, melancholy reminiscences turned to light, easy banter.
As Patricia went about the business of getting two seemingly inexhaustible little boys tucked into their respective beds, Cameron sank into a worn, comfortable recliner and closed his eyes—for all of ten seconds before Amy Leigh’s sudden and shrill cry brought him upright in his chair. He was tempted to call upstairs for Patricia to “do something” with the child but knew how unnecessary that would be. Had she been in the farthest corner of the attic, Patricia would have been able to hear her baby wailing.
Cameron had told his new boss in no uncertain terms that he was no bird wrangler. He thought it went without saying that he was not a baby-sitter. Figuring that if he ignored her bid for attention those little lungs would surely give out sooner or later, he leaned back and closed his eyes again. This particular strategy served only to incense the child, and the volume of her cries increased several decibels. His nerves crackling with the force of her renewed intensity, Cameron felt his blood pressure rise. He pulled a cherished watch fob out of his pocket and checked the time.
Swallowing the curse scalding the tip of his tongue, he hoisted himself out of the comfort of the sagging recliner and made his way over to the mechanical swing into which the child was securely strapped. According to Patricia, this was the best way of putting Amy Leigh to sleep.
He’d hate to see how her other methods worked.
“Stop it,” Cameron said firmly in the same tone of voice that had proven effective in training any number of dogs over the years. “Stop it right this instant!”
Eyelashes glistening with tears, Amy stopped only long enough to hold out her pudgy arms to him.
Upstairs, Patricia listened to the boys’ nighttime prayers with only one ear. The other one was attuned to Amy’s usual prebedtime petulance. Cameron didn’t exactly strike her as the patient type with children, so when Amy’s cries stopped in the middle of the boys’ “God-blesses” just as abruptly as they had begun, she grew worried. Would she come downstairs to find her youngest gagged and trussed up like some unlucky steer?
What Patricia actually found upon her return to the living room was enough to make her shake her head in disbelief. Cameron was dozing in the big chair while her daughter sat in the middle of the floor teething on what appeared to be a genuine solid gold pocket watch.
“Just who is putting whom to sleep?” she asked, coming down the last three creaky steps.
Cameron opened his eyes to regard her with a lazy, insolent gaze. He hadn’t been anywhere near asleep but didn’t dare say so for fear Patricia would have him running a day care for every toddler in the area tomorrow. Likely she’d claim it was written somewhere in small print in that fool contract he’d signed.
Besides, it had been his experience that women interpreted any attention toward their kids as an open invitation for them to start calling him Daddy. He shuddered at the thought.
The sentimentality that simply being back in this house evoked in him was disturbing to say the least. Why, he’d almost been tempted to pick the little dickens up and rock her to sleep! Cameron blamed this momentary lapse of sanity on the fact that he’d overheard his own name included in the prayers which had floated down the stairs like sweet perfume.
“God bless Cameron.”
“And make him stay...”
What a rotten trick, he thought to himself. Cameron wondered if they would still pray for him if they knew he’d come here with the express intention of buying their home out from under them.
Gathering her daughter into her arms, Patricia attempted to take the girl’s latest “toy” away from her. The toddler wailed and swatted at her mother’s hands, but the deft substitution of a more traditional teething ring quickly pacified her.
Patricia held the watch out to Cameron by its golden chain. It was covered in drool. Wiping it on the hem of her apron, she took the opportunity to study it more closely. Elaborately scrolled into the back were the initials S.W. and below them a date—1909.
“Your grandfather’s?” she asked, handing it over with due reverence. Amazingly it was still ticking. She had to bite her tongue to keep from asking if he was crazy. Would anyone but a man let a baby play with such a valuable keepsake?
Cameron nodded, noting that the antique was none the worse for wear. He figured if it could pull through gunfights and prairie fires, the old timepiece should be able to survive a teething little girl. Before putting it back in his pocket, he wound it once for good measure.
“If you’ll wait here, I’ll put Amy down for the night and be right back.”
The intimacy of Patricia’s promise wrapped itself around Cameron like sweet cotton candy. That voice of hers was pure magic.
Black magic, he’d wager.
Whatever magic this stranger had worked on her little fusspot, Patricia was grateful. When Amy was born, the nurses in the maternity ward had pronounced her colicky. As time passed and the baby refused to outgrow her demanding disposition, Patricia resigned herself to the fact that her daughter was simply going to be dif ficult to raise. Boys, she had heard, would wring a mother’s heart through the years. Girls, they said, would rip it out.
She pulled a blanket over Amy and kissed her softly on the cheek. Patricia couldn’t help thinking how different their evening routine had been just because of Cameron’s presence. How obvious it was that the boys needed a male role model in their lives. How nervous she was around his overt brand of sexuality....
Like a predatory cat feigning indifference, Cameron was waiting for her when she returned to the living room a moment later.
“Looks like you got everybody tucked in but me.”
The comment made the blood sing through Patricia’s veins.
As if unaware of the twin roses blooming on her cheeks, Cameron continued, “Just where do you want me to sleep?”
In my bed! was the unbidden thought that flashed through Patricia’s mind. As a steamy image of this man’s naked body stretched leisurely across her bed caused her to trip over her own tongue, an inner voice of reason yelled at her to get a grip. The last time she’d succumbed to such feminine weakness, she’d wound up a mother to three. Four, she silently amended, if you counted Hadley.
Patricia realized with a start that Cameron was looking at her strangely. It wasn’t as if he were leering at her; he was simply waiting for an answer to his question. The breath was locked in her lungs. Speak up! she ordered her brain.
“In the bunkhouse,” she managed at last to sputter. “You’ll have to sleep there. It isn’t much. Just an old cabin actually...”
Her apology trailed off. There was absolutely no reason that Cameron couldn’t stay in the more comfortable main house with them—other than the fact that people were sure to talk, and Patricia wasn’t about to subject her children to this small town’s rumor mill. The rest of America might be as fashionably liberal as television programming portrayed it, but Lander, Wyoming was still as staunchly conservative as Mayberry, U.S.A. Why, whispered gossip alone had been cause enough for more than one local official to lose his position.
If there was some other reason why Patricia was uncomfortable having Cameron sleeping under the same roof with her, she wasn’t ready to analyze it yet.
Little did she know that there was no need to explain about the Spartan living conditions of the bunkhouse. Cameron was familiar with every inch of the place. It had been his grandparents’ original homestead, and he had spent many happy childhood days playing in and around the old cabin. He neither expected nor wanted anything as fancy as a telephone or television set, but he did hope it had been updated with modern plumbing.
Ten minutes later Patricia was cutting a narrow swath through the darkness with a flashlight. Carefully, she and Cameroon picked their way along the overgrown path connecting the main house to the outbuilding. Once when Patricia stumbled, he reached out to steady her. It had quite the opposite effect.
Spinning, spinning, spinning out of control... Patricia felt like Alice in Wonderland as she fell against a sky sprinkled with diamonds, toppled into a whorl of emotions which she was trying desperately to suppress. And failed.
“Are you all right?” Cameron asked. Warm and soft in the darkness, his voice was black velvet to the ears.
“Yes,” she lied, shining the thin beam of light upon the bunkhouse door.
As it was never locked, Patricia grasped the knob and pushed the door open. She fumbled in the blackness for the string which activated the antiquated light bulb hanging from the ceiling. It was like searching for a single dangling spider’s thread. When at last it brushed her knuckles, she grabbed hold and gave a hard tug. Bathed in the harsh glow of the bare bulb, the cabin’s charm seemed questionable at best.
“Like I said, it isn’t much, but it’s clean.”
“It’ll be just fine,” Cameron assured her with a smile so genuine that it measurably reduced the guilt Patricia was feeling.
Cameron’s modest accommodations consisted of an old brass bed, a couple of high-backed chairs, a braided rag rug, a small table and a narrow bureau. A sink and toilet were sectioned off from the rest of the room by a tiny floral print sheet turned curtain by some handy seamstress.
“I’ll help you make the bed,” she said, walking over to the bureau where the sheets and blankets were kept.
“There’s no need,” he assured her. “I’m more than capable of taking care of myself, Patricia.”
Something about the way her name rolled off his tongue as mellifluous as a poem made her go quite soft inside. How often had she uttered those same self-assured platitudes about being able to fend for herself? So many times that her mother claimed she sounded like a broken record. Her father repeatedly assured her that she was wrong in her foolish assumptions. In that smug way of his, Roland D’Winter liked reminding her just how much she relied on him for the benevolence of a roof over her head and clothes on her back. From a young age, Patricia discerned that he would like nothing more than to keep his daughter pinned permanently under his control like one of the more exotic butterflies in his ghastly collection.
“I’m sure you are,” she agreed while crisply unfurling a clean white sheet over his bed like a gigantic surrender flag.
Patricia was keenly aware that this was the first time she had been alone with any man in his bedroom other than her husband. Not that this was any swinging bachelor pad or that she flattered herself with any thought that Cameron was interested in her that way. It was just those crazy electrical signals that her body was giving off, warning her of an impending overload.
Cameron tucked an edge of the sheet between the mattress and the frame as Patricia pulled her side taut. It was funny how such an everyday task could become so charged with sexual energy when shared with a good-looking hunk of a cowboy.
Like graceful doves, Patricia’s work-worn hands darted across his bedding smoothing out the wrinkles. Cameron couldn’t help but wonder why she wasn’t wearing her wedding ring. His own father, widowed for many years now, never took his off. Like his beloved Rose, John Wade would be buried with that thin gold band on his finger. Cameron knew he had no right to be judgmental, but he was nonetheless bothered by the symbolic rejection of the wedding vows this woman had taken before God and man. Perhaps Patricia was more like the buckle bunnies of his past than he would like to believe. Was she openly declaring herself available to the next likely prospect willing to take on the financial and emotional burdens of a ready-made family?
As Cameron reached across the bed to even out his covers, he inadvertently brushed fingertips with Patricia. Static electricity arched across the cotton fabric, shocking them both at the same time. Cameron looked across the narrow expanse of the bed into her eyes. They were wide open and shining with distrust and—Was that passion he glimpsed swirling in the depths of those bewitching mahogany-colored orbs? He forced air into his lungs in short, desperate sips.
“Why don’t you wear your wedding ring?”
Having already assured himself that this was absolutely none of his business, Cameron wasn’t quite sure where the question had come from.
Patricia pulled her hand away from his as if she had been stung and gave it an apologetic look.
“I had to pawn it years ago.”
Cameron had expected any response but that one. His mother had once said that the pawning of a wedding ring was the ultimate poverty, the supreme humiliation for a woman. He remembered his parents being poor. He remembered not having as nice things as many of his classmates. He remembered all too vividly the humiliation of losing their ranch. But never once in Cameron’s memory could he ever recall his parents so much as discussing the possibility of such desperate measures as selling their wedding rings.
He grabbed a pillow and jammed it into its case with unnecessary roughness. Something about this woman with her proud chin and soft brown eyes elicited in him a protective, tender sentiment that quite frankly scared him to death. Just watching her take a tired swipe at the stray wisp of hair that fell across her cheek made him want to sweep her up in his arms and lay her upon this bed like a bouquet of exotic blossoms. To make passionate, exquisite love to her...
She was talking to him, he realized with a start. Reluctantly Cameron forced his thoughts away from the bed to what it was she was saying.
“You’ll take your meals with us, of course, and...” Why for gosh sakes was it so hard to say it? “You’ll have to use the bathing facilities at the main house. Do you prefer morning or evening showers?”
Patricia hated asking such personal questions, but with a family of four already utilizing the only bathroom in the house, it was imperative that some kind of schedule be formulated as soon as possible. She shuddered at the image of one of the boys pounding on the bathroom door while Cameron was in the shower. She shivered at the thought of herself accidentally walking in on him wearing nothing more than a towel.
“Mornings, if that’s all right with you,” he replied.
“Mornings it will be then.”
They smiled stiffly at each other. Just a couple of hours ago they had been going at one another with their gloves off. Now they stood on opposite sides of a brass bed contemplating the fact that whether either one of them liked it or not, there was clearly as much attraction crackling between them as animosity. What was that old adage about love and hate being separated by a very thin line? This was going to be a far more dangerous arrangement than either one had initially imagined.
If she could have fired him, Patricia would have.
If he could have walked away, Cameron would have.
Speaking volumes with their eyes, they gauged one another warily.
“I should be going,” Patricia said at length, pulling a tight smile across her teeth. “If there’s anything else you need, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
Cameron’s aroused libido told him that there certainly was something else, but he didn’t think good-night kisses were listed among the benefits in that blasted contract he’d been so eager to sign.
“Everything’s fine,” he assured her over a heartbeat that mocked him in double time. Liar, Liar, Liar! it sang out.
As he held the door open for Patricia to leave, Cameron felt a cold breeze enter the room. It wasn’t until she closed it behind her with an echoing “Good night and sleep well,” that he realized how her presence had taken the chill from the air.
Sitting on the edge of the newly made bed, he proceeded to take off his boots and make plans for tomorrow. Having come straight from the hospital, he hadn’t brought much with him. First thing in the morning he was heading into town to buy a few things from the store.
Cameron lay back into his pillow, closed his eyes and tried to dismiss whatever it was that kept pricking his conscience like a mosquito relentless in its pursuit of blood. Uncomfortable with guilt as a business partner, he reminded himself once again that this opportunity to make his long-cherished dream a reality was no chance happening. Not by a long shot. This was a matter of fate, plain and simple. A matter of destiny. Of universal justice.
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