Myrna Mackenzie – Rodeo Bride (страница 3)

She stood straight and tall, proudly defying him while she still could. For an Amazon she didn’t look even slightly out of place in this room full of small things. He noted the stuffed animals in a sunyellow crate, the changing table with diapers and lotions, the piles of baby clothes on top of a childsized dresser, the toys and books. A night-light shaped like a lamb. Now, he remembered that he’d passed a stroller on the way in, a bright blue playpen in the living room. Where had all these things come from?

As if she’d read his mind, she moved toward him. “We need to talk,” she said.

“My thoughts exactly.”

“We have about thirty minutes before Toby wakes up in earnest. He’s like clockwork and then he’ll want to be fed.” She ushered Dillon toward the living room, where she perched on a chair that had a lot more years on it than anything in the nursery. Dillon sat down on a tired old sofa.

With the playpen taking up a lot of the space, the room seemed small, tight, not quite big enough for two adults. Dillon looked at Colleen, and now, without the foil of Toby to concentrate on, she looked nervous, rubbing her palms over her jeans.

Dillon’s gaze followed her hands down her legs. He ordered himself to think of the business at hand, not what Colleen Applegate’s long legs looked like when they weren’t encased in denim. There were important issues to deal with here. “Did Lisa give you money to take care of Toby?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Babies cost money. They take time.”

“I haven’t even had any contact with her since the day she dropped him here. He was only a week old. She didn’t want him. I didn’t even think of asking for payment. He was a baby with no one to love him.”

“But you’ve obviously spent a fair amount of money. You’ll be compensated.”

She glared at him. “I don’t want it. That would be like selling him.” Those strong, sturdy hands were opening and closing now.

“All right. I won’t insult you by offering again. Just tell me this. Why you? I’d never even heard of you before. Lisa never spoke of you. Were you good friends?”

Colleen shook her head, those messy curls brushing her cheeks. “We grew up in the same town and we went to school together, but no, we weren’t friends at all. As for why, she seemed frantic, trapped and, well, this is a small town and everyone here knows me. It’s no secret that I’ve always wanted children, but…”

“But you don’t have any.”

“No. I don’t.” It was clear that there was more to this part of the story than she was saying, but Dillon had no right to ask more. She had given him a valid answer.

“Lisa said that she couldn’t be a mother to Toby,” Colleen continued, “and she didn’t say much more. She didn’t stay long, and she seemed worried at what your reaction was going to be, as if she wanted to be gone before you got here.”

“Which is why you have a number of questions of your own,” he said.

“Partly, yes.”

“Those questions you were asking earlier…you think I abused my wife or that I would once I knew that she had cheated on me?”

“I don’t know you. I know there are men who can be abusive, with or without a reason. And even when abuse doesn’t involve hitting it can be brutal and harmful.” Something about the tone of her voice, the way she looked away when all along she’d been facing him head-on, led Dillon to believe that Colleen had had personal experience of such men. Something shifted inside him. Anger at his own kind filled him.

“I’m not a perfect man, Colleen, but I’ve never intentionally harmed a woman or a child, and I wouldn’t.”

She studied him as if trying to read his mind to see if he spoke the truth. Her eyes were dark and unhappy but she sucked in her lip, blinked and gave a hard nod. “Okay,” she whispered. “I mean, I don’t have a choice do I, but…”

Suddenly she leaned forward and opened a drawer on the end table next to the chair. She pulled out a sheaf of papers. Pages and pages of papers.

“These are things you need to know. Routines. Details on what went on during his first few months. His preferences, his quirks, his fears. Medical things. He was jaundiced when Lisa brought him here, and until recently, he was colicky, but if I wrapped him up tight in a blanket and rocked with him, eventually he would go to sleep. He takes a nap in the morning and one in the afternoon and…who will do all these things?” she asked suddenly. Then just as quickly she shook her head. “Forget I asked that. You’re a wealthy man. You’ll hire some…some nurse or something.”

Someone who doesn’t love him yet, she meant to say. Dillon was sure of that.

Gently, he took the stack of papers from Colleen. There were all kinds of notes. A description of Toby’s first smile, his first laugh, which was just last week. His feeding schedule. More.

“You’re right. I’m a wealthy man. I can hire a nurse.” Just the way his parents had. A whole series of nurses and nannies who had come and gone. He didn’t want that for his child.

“You could teach me what to do.” The words just popped right out of nowhere. Dillon had no clue why he’d even said the words, but…

“I could take care of him,” he added.

As if she wasn’t even thinking, Colleen suddenly reached across and touched his hand. “That’s incredibly sweet.”

Dillon wanted to laugh. Sort of. “Have you looked at me, Colleen? No one on earth, least of all the people in my business or the men under my command, have ever called me sweet.”

“I know.” She looked down at where her hand lay on his, as if she regretted the move but didn’t know how to take it back. “I didn’t mean it quite the way it sounded. What I meant was, you don’t have a clue what you’re saying. Despite all your accomplishments, taking care of a baby is different from anything on earth you’ve ever done.”

“I suspect that it is. So show me, Colleen.”

“Now?”

“I’ve been away from my business for a long time. There are people I trust in charge, and they won’t mind waiting for me a little longer. I have time for you to teach me.”

Colleen worked hard at controlling her breathing. Dillon Farraday’s hand was warm and strong and very masculine beneath her own. Not that she had any business noticing. Quickly, she pulled away. “I don’t feel comfortable having a man in my house.”

Strange man. She should have said strange man. But she had meant what she said. She didn’t want any man here. This whole house was her haven, her shelter, her barrier.

“You have other buildings. I could rent one.”

For the first time she allowed herself to smile. “Some of them have animals in them, some have tools. You aren’t exactly the type to bunk with the hired hands I employ.”

“Don’t judge a man by his looks, Colleen.”

No, she never did. Looks could deceive. “I won’t.”

“Good. Then you’ll let me stay here a few days? You’ll train me in the basics so I can be a good father to Toby?”

“What will you do when you go back to Chicago? You’ll still need someone.”

“What do you do when you have to work around the ranch?”

“I bundle him up and take him with me or I find people I trust implicitly to help.”

“Then I’ll do that. Colleen?”

She looked straight into those ice-blue eyes and her heart began to pound fast. He was the most gorgeous, intimidating man she’d ever met. Not in the usual sense of the word. It wasn’t that she thought he’d physically harm her, but something far different. He was the kind of man who could hurt her emotionally, and she was pretty sure that it wasn’t just because he would take Toby. The smartest thing to do would be to run, to say no, and yet…

“You’ll give me warning before you take him away?” she asked, trying to adjust to the sudden shift in plans.

She should be jumping at this, latching on to it. Dillon wanted to learn how to be a good father. That was a good thing, the best thing for Toby, and she would at least have a bit more time with the baby.

And with the man.

Colleen shoved that thought away. She hoped her face wasn’t flaming. In the past, her past, well, a woman like her could easily look pathetic when she was attracted to a man, especially a man who was totally out of bounds.

“Will you let me stay?” he repeated. “Will you tutor me until I’ve got everything down pat and until Toby and I feel comfortable together?”

“You know I can’t say no to that.”

He smiled at her, and heat rushed through her. “Then say yes, Colleen.”

She didn’t even remember saying the word. She felt faint and sick and nervous, as if her body was not her own. But she must have said yes, because Dillon had gone outside and he was pulling a suitcase from his car.

A man was going to be staying with her here at the Applegate Ranch. She wondered what he would say when he discovered that all her employees were women.

Chapter Two

MAYBE he should have stayed inside and read all that paperwork that Colleen had for him to pore over, but the enormity of what he was doing had finally hit, and Dillon needed a few minutes to regroup, so he stood on the porch leaning on the crooked railing as he looked out across the land. He’d spent a lifetime learning to control his emotions. Those lessons had served him well in business, and this past year with all that had happened, the merits of guarding his reactions had hit even harder.