A Daddy for Dillon (12 page)

“I think we’d better show Dillon the cows, then start back. He takes a nap in the late afternoon. He’ll be getting sleepy pretty soon.”

“Sure,” he said. “Let’s walk down this side of the hill. There should be a herd right below us.”

* * *

By the time Laramie drove the truck through the ranch yard, shadows were extending out from the barns and adjoining corrals. The ranch hands were spreading feed to the penned livestock and Dillon had fallen asleep with his head resting against his mother’s arm.

After Laramie parked the truck at the backyard gate and killed the engine, he looked across the seat at her. “Will he wake if I carry him?”

“He’ll never know it,” she assured him. “I’ll walk ahead and open the doors for you.”

As soon as Laramie scooped the child up, he understood what Leyla meant. Dillon’s little arms and legs were limp as he cradled the boy against his chest and started toward the house.

Inside Leyla’s apartment, she motioned him into a small bedroom furnished with two twin beds. He placed the sleeping child on the one that she pointed to, then watched as she removed his tennis shoes and placed them on the floor.

“He’s really out of it,” Laramie said with amazement. “I didn’t know that kids could sleep so soundly.”

“I’m sure all the fresh air and excitement did him in. He’ll be up early. But that’s okay. He had such fun today.”

She covered Dillon with a light blanket, then turned from the bed. “What about you?” Laramie asked. “Did you have fun?”

“I enjoyed it very much,” she told him, then gestured toward the open door of the bedroom. “Would you like to have some coffee or something? Or do you need to get down to the barns before the day ends?”

“I need to check on my mare. The one that had surgery. But I’ll do that before I go to bed. Right now coffee sounds good.”

They walked into the living area and Leyla motioned for him to take a seat, but he shook his head. “While you fix the coffee, I’ll go to the truck and get the leftovers from our lunch. There’s a container of brownies in there, remember?”

She smiled at him. “Yes, I remember you have a sweet tooth.”

And she had very sweet lips, Laramie thought. That was something he couldn’t forget. Even now the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her was rolling over and over in his mind. Yet sweet as it would be to kiss her again, he didn’t want to risk ruining the day or the closeness he could feel growing between them.

But was getting close to the woman what he really wanted and needed? What would he do if by some miracle Leyla actually fell in love with him or he fell in love with her? Ask her to marry him? Hell, he didn’t know how to be a husband. He’d already made that clear to her. And she was far too precious to hurt with a dead-end affair. But he wanted her. Not just physically. He wanted her company, wanted to hear her voice, see her smile, drink in the sultry scent of her hair and body and pretend, yes pretend, that she would always be with him.

“Laramie? Have you changed your mind about the coffee?”

Her voice penetrated his thoughts and he realized she was waiting for him to follow her out the door and into the main house.

“Changed my mind? Not at all. Let’s go.”

Ten minutes later they were sitting in the atrium drinking coffee and finishing the brownies when Laramie pointed out the splendid sunset spreading across the western skyline.

Leyla set aside her cup and walked over to the end of the room where the glass wall faced the ranch yard.

“How beautiful,” she murmured. “Everything is pink and gold and lavender.”

Laramie came up behind her and placed a hand on the back of her shoulder. “It is beautiful,” he agreed. “The whole day has been pretty special to me. I figure you may have enjoyed a trip into town more, but Dillon seemed to like being outdoors with the animals.”

“Dillon loved it and so did I.”

She turned slightly and the movement caused his fingers to catch in her hair. He used the opportunity to lift a silky strand to his nose and draw in its subtle scent.

“Where do you get the idea that I’m a town girl?” she asked. “I’ve never lived in town.”

“I thought you lived in Farmington before you moved to your aunt’s place on the reservation,” he said.

“My parent’s house is a few miles from Farmington. It’s on the same property where my paternal grandparents lived before they passed on.”

“Hmm. I’ve not done much traveling, but I’ve been through that area. It’s mostly high desert plains with lots of cliffs and rock formations. What did you do there for fun?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Sometimes my sisters and I would go to town and see a movie or window-shop at the mall. But we only had enough money to do that occasionally. I played on a softball team until I was sixteen. And I used to hunt for Native American artifacts with friends. Lots of Indian ruins are located in that area. I’ve saved pieces of pots and tools that I’ve found so that when Dillon gets older I can show him and teach him about his heritage.”

That didn’t surprise him. She had a pride about her that he admired. “Did you work when you still lived at home?”

She nodded. “At night, after school. I bussed tables at a steakhouse in town. I had my driver’s license then but no car, so my mom or sister would pick me up after work. Until I—” Her lips pressed into a thin line and she looked away from him.

“Until you what? Met Heath?”

Surprised, she turned and stared at him. “How did you know I was about to say that?”

He shrugged. “Just a feeling. It’s a cinch you had to meet the guy somewhere. Must have been the steakhouse.”

“No. I wished it had been. Then I probably wouldn’t have given his flirtation any notice. But he was a friend of my cousin, Alonzo. They worked together as roughnecks in the oilfields. He was a twenty-two-year-old charmer, and I thought because he was such a good friend to Alonzo that he would be trustworthy. By the time I realized he wasn’t, it was too late. I’d already gotten too deep into his lies.”

He touched the back of his forefinger to the faint dent in her chin. “Leyla, when I think of what that bastard did to you I’d like to hunt him down and beat him until he needs his jaw wired shut.” He shook his head with disgust. “Guys like him aren’t men. They’re worse than creatures that crawl on their bellies in the dirt.”

She sighed. “You don’t think he was simply being a man, taking what he wanted?”

“Hell no! Didn’t your mother teach you that a man should treat you with respect? Diego was never a husband, but he knew right from wrong and he taught me that much. And that a man had to stand up to his responsibilities.”

She dropped her head. “I’m not sure my mother knows how a man should treat her. All she knows about is men like my father.” Lifting her head, she gazed up at him. “Heath did turn out to be a scummy person. But in the end I was the stupid one, Laramie, for allowing myself to get involved with him. And I never intend to be stupid again.”

With his hands on her shoulders, Laramie drew her to him. As she settled her cheek against the middle of his chest, the fierce need to love and protect her left an aching knot in his throat.

“You’ve grown into a woman since then, Leyla. You need to trust yourself just as much as—well, as much as you need to trust me.”

“I’m trying, Laramie,” she said, her voice muffled by the folds of his shirt.

For most of Laramie’s youth, he’d been shy and awkward around the opposite sex. Later, his encounters with women had mostly been the short, casual kind where genuine affection in any form hadn’t been required. So he was hardly a practiced lover. But with Leyla everything felt natural, not clumsy or contrived. When he touched her it was actually an extension of the feelings in his heart. And that stunned him.

Drawing her closer, he bent his head and pressed a kiss to the top of her shiny black hair.

“I’d better go,” he said wistfully. “I’ve got some things I need to deal with before morning. We’ll be leaving before daylight, so I won’t be around for breakfast.”

Easing her head away from his chest, she frowned. “Leaving?”

“Roundup. Remember?”

“Oh. I’d forgotten.”

The disappointment on her face made him nearly giddy. “We’ll be starting on the far western boundary of the ranch and that’s several miles away. So I won’t be back for a couple of days or more.”

Her gaze locked on to his. “I’m going to miss you.”

With a helpless groan, he closed the space between their lips. And though he was ravenous for the taste of her, he kept his kiss thorough but brief. Otherwise, he couldn’t have stopped with just one or two. He wouldn’t have wanted to stop until they were making love.

Easing away from her, he reached for his hat and started toward the door. “I’ll miss you, too, Leyla. Please explain to Dillon why I’m not around.”

“I will. Goodbye,” she said.

At the door he gave her a little wave, then hurried down the steps before he could let the lost look on her face persuade him to stay.

Chapter Seven

L
aramie had been away from the ranch for two days, and Leyla had stayed busy by helping Sassy tend a vegetable garden she was growing on a spot not far from the ranch house. Once the vegetables were ready to be harvested, Sassy had plans to donate them to some of the hungry and needy people in the area. Leyla had also used some of the leisure time to study. But this afternoon Dillon was growing impatient with being inside. For the past ten minutes he’d poked and prodded and whined to get her attention.

“Me wanna see Cocoa, Mommy. Wanna see Cocoa,” he repeated while earnestly patting her knee.

Deciding they both needed a break, Leyla put her book aside and drew her son into a tight hug.

“You want to see Cocoa, do you? Well, I suppose the two of us could walk down to the barns and find him. Think you can walk beside Mommy for all that way?”

Jumping out of her arms, Dillon hopped around the coffee table on both feet. “I can. I can. And we can see Larmee, too. Okay, Mommy?”

Leyla sighed. “No, Dillon. I told you, Laramie is gone right now. He’s working—roping cows, giving them a shot and writing a name on their hip.”

Dillon quickly picked up a crayon. “Write. I can write name.”

“Yes, you’re learning to write,” Leyla agreed. “But Laramie is doing a different kind of writing. He’ll tell you all about it later.”

“Find him, Mommy. Let’s find Larmee.”

She was missing the man, too, so she understood how Dillon was feeling.

“We can’t find him. He’s out in the mountains and too far for us to go. But we’ll go find Cocoa and give him a carrot to eat,” she promised.

After exchanging Dillon’s shorts and tennis shoes for a pair of jeans and sturdy shoes, they left the house and started toward the barns. This time without Laramie to carry her son partway, the trek took much longer.

When they finally reached the corral where Dillon had ridden the pony, the animal was nowhere to be seen. The crestfallen look on her son’s face was a sign of just how much her son had taken to the ranch and all the things it had to offer a boy.

“Don’t worry. Cocoa will be around here somewhere,” she told her son.

“Miss, can I help you?”

At the sound of the man’s voice, Leyla turned around to see an older man wearing a gray, sweat-stained Stetson and leather work gloves. From the looks of him, he had to be a ranch hand. Laramie had implied that everyone would be away from the ranch working roundup, but she supposed this man had been left behind with a skeletal crew to take care of barn chores.

“Hello,” she greeted him. “I’m Leyla, the cook who’s filling in for Reena. And this is my son, Dillon. We were looking for Cocoa—the pony that belongs to the Cantrell boys.”

The older man smiled broadly. “Well, nice to meet you, Leyla and Dillon. I’m Saul. I can take you right to Cocoa. He’s over in a paddock with a few other horses. Follow me and I’ll show you.”

Saul led them behind another big barn where a large paddock covered several acres of grassy area. As they approached the tall board fence, Leyla spotted the brown pony grazing with four other horses.

Saul said, “I can halter him and bring him over to the fence. That way your little guy can see him up close and give him that carrot.”

Apparently this man was as connected to the pony as Laramie. He’d simply called to the horse and Cocoa had come running. But even a novice like her could see that Laramie had a special affinity with animals. With her, too, she thought with resignation. So far her plans to keep her distance from the ranch manager had been a dismal failure.

“That’s too much trouble,” she told Saul.

“No trouble at all,” he assured her. “You two just wait right here.”

Minutes later, a happy Dillon was standing on the fence, stroking Cocoa’s nose and chattering to the horse as though the animal could understand every word.

A few steps away Saul said, “I’d heard that Reena had gone over to Apache Wells. That was bad luck about Jim breaking his leg like that. Just goes to show you that you can’t trust those damned stallions.”

Leyla looked at him. “Jim broke his leg while he was riding?”

“Oh, no. He was leading the animal when it reared up and knocked him to the ground. From what Abe said, the horse pounded on old Jim pretty good.”

The image sent chills over Leyla. Laramie worked with horses every day. Was he facing that kind of danger?

“That’s awful.”

“Yeah, but it could have been worse. At least Jim will recover.” The ranch hand tossed a speculative glance her way. “I was surprised to hear that Quint had hired a new cook. I figured Frankie would come home to take over.”

Frankie was Quint’s mother and from what Leyla understood, the woman spent most of her time these days in Texas with her two older sons from an earlier marriage.

“I don’t think Laramie would want Mrs. Cantrell making such a sacrifice just for him,” Leyla carefully commented.

He shrugged and grinned. “Naw. I guess not. And the Cantrells have money to burn, you know. They could hire a dozen cooks and not ever see a dent in their bank accounts.”

Leyla was wondering if this man resented the Cantrell’s wealth when he suddenly spoke again as though he’d read her mind.