Rodeo Bride (4 page)

Slowly, Dillon shook his head. He walked over to her and stared down into her troubled eyes, taking her hands in his own. “This isn’t about Lisa ending our marriage. We were people whose goals and interests were too different for us to stay married, and I should have realized that before I proposed. We weren’t a logical fit, but I asked her to marry me, anyway, so I’ll take my share of the blame for the failure of the marriage.

“But there’s something else I can’t forgive. She walked away from Toby when he had barely entered the world. She left him and didn’t seem to care what became of him. It couldn’t have been money. I gave her money in the settlement. She just didn’t want him. She didn’t even mention that he was on the way, so I’m not letting her change her mind and try to take him from me now. Especially not when she could change her mind again and do a one-eighty a few days later. What’s more, I’m not apologizing even though I know she’s someone from your past, so don’t ask me to.”

“You’re forgetting that since I’ve known her longer, I may know even more of how she operates,” Colleen said. “Lisa used to go through men like sticks of gum that lost their flavor quickly. The only time she came back to a guy the second time was when she thought he had something to offer her that she
had overlooked the first time around.” She kept her chin high as she stared directly into his eyes and dropped this nugget into the conversation.

“Yes, that was her on my cell phone,” he told her, answering the question she hadn’t asked. “So, I’m one of those men she’s contacted a second time. What do you think she’s overlooked that she’s come back for? Do you think she’s developed an urge to raise a baby?”

Colleen’s smile grew taut. “I’ll help you,” she said.

“Why?”

She hesitated, then let out a deep, audible breath. “I suppose I have lots of reasons and some of them aren’t exactly admirable, but the main one is that Toby is a sweet, adorable little boy and…Dillon, he’s just a baby. A total innocent. No one should get to dump him and then turn around and pretend it never happened. When she left here, she didn’t even leave any way for me to get in touch with her in case something happened to him. It was…I don’t know…as if she didn’t even care.”

He digested that bit of information, and indignation for the child in the other room seared his soul. Toby wasn’t old enough to know his mother had abandoned him at birth but someday he
would
be old enough to realize the truth, and that would hurt him. Dillon wanted to swear, but he was a guest here and he needed to behave.

“Are you going to call her back?” Colleen asked.

“No. Sooner or later I’ll have to talk to her, but not today. I have other calls to make while Toby’s sleeping. Things to do with my firm.”

Colleen looked slightly uncomfortable. She fidgeted with her belt buckle. “I’m sure you have lots of things to do, business you need to get back to, and during the night, it occurred to me…”

He waited.

“Babies sleep a lot. There’s a lot of downtime,” she said. “And you’re a man who’s used to being busy.”

Dillon raised a brow. “How did you reach that conclusion?”

“You were a soldier who led other soldiers. You built structures and started running a company when you were barely out of college and still going to grad school. That’s all in your bio on the Farraday Engineering Web site. In fact, I think one of the articles said something about how you specialized in multitasking, but ranch life moves at a slower pace. That could be a problem. You might get bored here really fast.”

“Meaning I might want to leave here after only a few days.”

“Yes.”

“And take my son with me.”

Her eyes looked stricken. “Yes.”

“Maybe we should set a specific date. I do need to make sure that I know what I’m doing as a father, and I’m more than grateful that you’ve agreed to help me with that, but I can’t stay here too long. Being an absentee owner of a business has drawbacks, and while I did my best to take charge when I was bedridden, now that I’m mobile, it’s past time for me to take back the helm of the firm. If I name a time frame, at least you’ll know when the end is coming. Will that be best?”

Slowly she nodded.

“Three weeks?” he asked.

“That sounds good.” But her voice was a bit tight. Obviously, letting go of Toby would be difficult for her. “Now,” she continued, “is there anything you need while I’m in town? Something that will make the hours when Toby’s napping pass more quickly? Books? Newspapers?”

He laughed. “Pamper the rich, bored male, you mean? Eventually there will be things I’ll need, but I’m not sure what will be on the list and when I know, I’ll have everything delivered.”

She looked startled. “That won’t be necessary. I have a pickup truck.”

“Yes, but I don’t think a load of lumber and roofing shingles will fit in your truck.”

“Lumber and shingles? I don’t understand.”

Dillon smiled. “I’m more than just a rich man, Colleen. I’m an engineer. I know how to build things and build them right. I can fix your porch.”

She blushed prettily. “I’m afraid I can’t afford it right now.”

“I can.”

“But you’re a—”

He put his finger over her lips to stop her from saying
guest
.

“You’re helping me. Let me help
you
. I’m going to do this,” he said. “And a few other things, starting with replacing that sleeper sofa.”

Now, he had her attention. She crossed her arms over chest, which was supposed to make her look stern, he was sure, but only served to draw his attention to her pretty breasts. “I can’t let you do that much,” she said.

“You can’t stop me, Colleen. I’m a man on a mission. Now go do whatever you need to do.”

And stop looking so adorable,
he thought as she walked away.

H
OW
am I going to survive this man?
Colleen thought as she drove toward town. He had only been here less than a day and already he seemed to fill up her house.

What’s more, when she got to town she found that word of Dillon’s arrival had already spread. “Buying a lot of food, are you? Stocking up?” Alma Anderson asked at the grocery store. “Yeah, a man will eat you out of house and home, especially if he’s a big man.
Is
he a big man? Is he staying long?”

Colleen pasted on a smile that didn’t say anything but seemed to satisfy Alma.

“Wow, I can’t remember the last time I associated the word
man
with you, Colleen,” Barb Seltzer added. She was getting ready to expound on that and probably ask more questions when Colleen cut in.

“Sorry, gotta run, ladies. Business to tend to.”

But it was the same everywhere she went. The town had never had anyone rich in their midst, at least not anyone who was planning to stay more than a day or two. “I saw that car when he drove through town yesterday,” Bill Winters said with a long, low whistle. “A man would do a lot for a sleek, fast car like that. A brand-new Ferrari? Pricey. I never thought to see one in Bright Creek. So…that guy at the house, this
Dillon Farraday, Lisa’s man, I guess he’s pretty used to having the best, eh?”

“Um,” Colleen muttered, loading the rest of her supplies into the truck.

“Of course he’s used to the best,” Harve Enson said. “He married Lisa, didn’t he? And Lisa was the best we had to offer. Certainly the prettiest I always thought. Lisa was the Lupine Festival queen, wasn’t she? And the homecoming queen? She was the lead in all those plays and had the most boyfriends before she ran off to Chicago to go to college. You went out with her, didn’t you, Rob?” he asked his son, who had just come out of the hardware store next door.

“Who?” Rob asked.

“Lisa Breckinridge.”

“I went out with her once, before she started dating that college guy three years older. Why do you want to know?”

“Her ex-husband is staying with Colleen.”

Rob raised his eyebrows and looked at Colleen as if Harve had just announced that she was really from an alien planet. “I don’t get it. Why is he doing that?”

“He’s come for his baby, Rob, not for me,” she said between gritted teeth. It was patently obvious that Rob couldn’t think of any reason a good-looking man would be visiting her.

“I didn’t mean that in a bad way,” Rob mumbled, and to his credit, he blushed and looked uncomfortable. “I just…I mean…”

“Forget it, Rob,” she said, letting him off the hook.

“The point is,” Harve continued, “the man is used to champagne.” Harve suddenly looked at what Colleen was doing.

“Colleen, I don’t know why you’re buying so much stuff. He’s come for his kid and how long will that take? A man like that won’t want to stay in a little do-nothing town like Bright Creek. For sure he won’t want to stick around long on a little
horse ranch. No disrespect, Colleen,” he said. “You’re the best horsewoman around and you rent out the best fishing pond of anyone, but unless this guy’s a fisherman, there’s not much of what he’s used to at your place.”

Which seemed to be the general consensus and was, in fact, the truth, so Colleen shouldn’t let it sting so much.

“We’ll see,” Colleen said. “He’s staying for three weeks, so I’d appreciate it if you’d all stop gossiping about him. If we don’t act like do-nothings and gossips, he won’t think that’s what we are.” Hastily, she threw the rest of her things in the truck and headed for the driver’s side door.

“Three weeks? What’s he going to do?”

She kept moving. She was
so
not going to bring Toby further into this than she already had. Dillon probably didn’t want to broadcast the news that he had asked her to give him lessons in something most people considered basic knowledge. Announcing that might embarrass him, which might result in him leaving and taking Toby away from her immediately.

Besides, while everyone already knew that Toby was Lisa’s son and that she had been married to Dillon, they also knew Dillon had been away at war last year. And so far no one had openly questioned the paternity of Lisa’s child.
At least not in my presence,
Colleen thought. Maybe because Lisa apparently still held legend status here despite leaving her baby with Colleen. Maybe they assumed—or hoped—Lisa had a good reason for deserting him. So, if it protected Dillon and Toby, Colleen could live with the lie that Lisa was the best of Bright Creek. That meant not even venturing near the topic of Toby, Dillon and Lisa any more than she had to.

“He says he’s going to fix things on the ranch.”

Harve and Bill exchanged looks. “By himself? Colleen, hon, did you explain to him how long that place has been falling down around your ears?”

No, she had not. She still had some pride, and the beginning of the demise of the ranch house went back to the worst time of her life, when her mother had remarried and brought darkness to their lives. It was not something she wanted to drop into a conversation with Dillon.

“Dillon says he can do it,” she said. But as she started to open the door, she heard words that she wished she hadn’t.

“A one-man reclamation team raising those old buildings from the dead? This I have to see. Besides, if he’s going to be here for a while, I sure would like to take a ride in that car.”

Harve told Rob what Dillon had been driving, and Rob let out a low whistle. “Man, that’s sweet.”

“Yeah, I wonder if he’ll let us inside it.”

“I don’t think—” she began. But Harve and Bill were already walking away, lost in their plans. And even Rob, who was still standing on the sidewalk, had a speculative gleam in his eyes.

Uh-oh, Colleen thought as she got in the truck and drove away. If one person came, more would follow. Colleen had a feeling that Dillon hadn’t counted on having an audience gawking while she instructed him. And as the woman who had uttered the words that were surely the start to the Bright Creek equivalent of the Gold Rush, it was up to her to head off the townspeople and divert their attention from Dillon. The man needed to learn to change diapers, not give test drives of his car.

He’s not going to thank me for this,
she thought.

The sight that met Colleen’s eyes when she drove up to the house made her heart flip around and her breath catch in her throat. Dillon stood next to her porch, which was already looking sturdier. He was shirtless, a hammer was snagged in the back belt loop of his jeans and he was holding Toby up against his naked chest. He was, in short, gorgeous. A man feast for a woman’s eyes, the best the male species had to offer
visually. A lot of bests in Dillon’s world, Colleen thought. His car. His ex-wife.

Darn it! For half a second, Harve’s words about Lisa being the best slipped in before Colleen hastily tromped that sucker of a thought down. As a woman who had been hurt too much and who wasn’t most men’s idea of perfect femininity, she might not want to enter into the bride game, but she still liked to look, and no way was she going to let thoughts of Lisa spoil this brief, perfect moment.

Dillon looked up and smiled, those ice-blue eyes focused on her. “Welcome back,” he said.

She couldn’t help smiling at him even though she knew it wasn’t smart to make these exchanges a habit. They left her too warm and yearning for things she could never have.

“This isn’t finished,” he said, indicating the porch that certainly already looked much straighter than it had. “Might take a few days. Until then, you’ll need to use the side door.”

Colleen nodded slowly. She wasn’t sure where to look. His direct blue gaze was compelling. His bare chest made her feel even warmer than she should on such a warm day. The fact that she wanted to step closer made her feel as if she really should take a step back. In the end, her dilemma was solved when Toby began to babble and buck and hold out his arms to her.

“Little traitor,” Dillon said affectionately, winking at his son, and just like that he lifted Toby, dropped a kiss on the top of his silky baby hair and turned him so that the baby could see Colleen better. “Don’t worry, big guy. She’ll have some time for you, I’m sure. See there, I told you she’d be back.”

Toby’s response was to blow a bubble and wave his arms around.

But entranced as she was with the child she loved, it was the man’s easy manner with him that held her attention. Dillon had never had a child. Most men would be at least a little ten
tative at first. The new fathers she’d met always were. But not Dillon. Toby looked totally right and comfortable held against his daddy’s big body.

Big, half-naked body, Colleen thought, then immediately wished she could keep a lid on her thoughts.

“I need to put a shirt on now that I’m done for the day,” he said as if he’d read her mind. He looked down at Toby, then at Colleen, a question in his eyes. “Not that I’m abdicating my paternal responsibilities or anything, mind you, or that I’m foisting him off on you, but…”

“Here,” she said with a smile and reached out to take Toby from him. “As if I’d complain. He’s a treasure. Right?” she asked the baby, who promptly crowed and smiled and stuffed his fist in his mouth.

“Nothing like a compliment from a lady, is there, Toby?” Dillon asked as he snagged his shirt from the railing and slipped it over his shoulders. “Did you get everything you needed?”

“Yes, but I need to talk to you about something.”

“Not a problem. Why don’t you show me a bit of the ranch? I’ll get a hat for the big guy here.”

“I’m impressed. Most men wouldn’t have thought of the fact that a baby is more sensitive to the sun.”

“Yes, well, don’t give me too much credit. Millie’s the one who reminded me. I could only bring him outside to sit with me if I promised to stay in the shade.”

“But you learned quickly.”

He laughed. “You should teach school. You’re good at giving pats on the back for small accomplishments.”

“School? You must have been talking to someone. It’s no secret around here that I’ve wanted to start a ranch camp for girls for several years. I’d especially like to be able to give at-risk girls from the city who’ve never been near a ranch the chance to see how empowering this life can be.”

“Why don’t you do it?”

She shrugged. “Money. A proper building for them to sleep in. Maybe a fear that I might not be good at it.”

“Never know until you try, will you? Of course, that’s easy for me to say, but it looks as if you’ve already made a start with Gretchen and Julie. Millie told me that their father was an abuser and you were aware of that when they came to work for you.”

“Yes, but they
do
work here. And they’d grown up on a ranch. I didn’t have to teach them anything or expose them to a lifestyle they’d never lived. All I did was give them a job.”

“Is that all?” he asked, a teasing tone in his voice. “Just a job where they don’t have to live in fear. Millie told me that you also gave
her
a place to stay when her husband died and left her with tons of debt.”

“Millie makes more of things than actually exist. Besides, the women are my friends. They give as much as they get, so even if their situation helped spawn the idea for the ranch camp, it’s nothing like bringing girls here who’ve never even seen a horse and trying to teach them some basic skills. It’s not the same as being in a situation where I might actually harm someone if I do or say the wrong thing. With Julie and Gretchen, there was nothing I needed to teach them about raising, riding or caring for horses.”

“Just horses? I thought you were a cattle ranch.”

“No. When my mother, stepfather and stepbrother died in a small plane crash while I was at a rodeo, and the ranch passed to me, I sold the cattle and some of the land to pay bills. We’re a small horse ranch with a number of sidelines. We have an orchard, we open our section of the creek to fly fisherman, Gretchen and Julie make and sell flies and Millie has a small bread-making business. Basically, if we have the time and know-how and we can make money off of it, we try it.”

While they were talking, they made their way to a pasture where horses were grazing. One of them, a white one, whinnied and slowly ambled over to the fence.

“Hey, Mr. Peepers.” Colleen shifted the baby to her side to keep him away from the horse and stroked the aging animal. “He’s a sweetheart. Mr. Peepers and I did some fine barrel racing together.”

“So, you’re a cowgirl. A rodeo queen.”

“I
am
a cowgirl, a horsewoman. These are my babies.” Instantly, she wished she could call back the last comment. Already Dillon suspected the truth: that she couldn’t have children and that it broke her heart. She’d seen it in his eyes when they’d discussed her desire for babies yesterday. And she didn’t want him feeling sorry for her. There were enough people in town who already did that and always had. It set her apart and made her too different. It created barriers she’d never understood how to breach. She needed to turn the conversation in a different direction, so she might as well discuss what she’d brought him out here to say. “I love my life, Dillon, and my world here. I’ve made it all myself, and I’m responsible for whatever happens here. So, I have to tell you, I might have done something wrong and made a mistake when I went into town. One that will affect you.”

She explained about Bill and Harve and Rob and the car. “I should have made them understand. Argued more. Made it clear that you weren’t here to give tours of your Ferrari.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“No. I was the one who made the mistake. I want you to know that I won’t let them come on my land to pester you.”

“They’re your neighbors.”

“Doesn’t matter. They’re just being nosy. That’s not right.”

He turned her around and placed his hands on her shoulders, the baby between them. Her entire body felt as if it
might melt at his touch. “When I leave here, you have to live with your friends and neighbors. It’s only a car. I don’t mind giving a test drive to a couple of your neighbors. Seriously not an issue with me.”