The Drifter

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

“You see, I’m not good enough for you. My pedigree has some serious problems. Last night, I spent an hour on the phone, got in touch with all the people I could think of who might be able to track down my mother. No luck. I’m not surprised—this isn’t the first time I’ve tried to locate her. Maybe she doesn’t want to be found. Maybe she’s going by a different name. Maybe she’s even dead. She always had lots of men around, so God knows if she could identify my father in the crowd, anyway.” He sneered. “There’s your family history. Pretty picture, isn’t it?”

  Amanda’s heart wrenched with remorse at her insensitivity. How she’d pounded him with questions about his family. How those questions must have hurt him. “Chase, I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”

  “Save it.” He didn’t look at her. “I was a cute little kid. I always got into foster homes real easy. Some kids didn’t.”

  “How...old were you?”

  “When Mom checked out?” He picked up a stone and examined it as if it were the Hope diamond. “Three.”

  Three. Not even able to read. Barely able to understand what was happening. But understanding enough. Her chest tightened in grief. “How many foster homes?”

  “I lost track after the first six.” He threw the stone in a long arc. It landed in the pond with a loud plop and sent out ripples that made the reeds on the far shore dance. “Doesn’t matter, anyway. Some were nice, some weren’t so nice. They just all kind of ran together after awhile.”

  She didn’t realize she was crying until a tear dropped onto her sandwich wrapping. Maybe before she’d had Bartholomew she wouldn’t have been stabbed with so sharp a pain at the idea of a little kid left to fend for himself. But now she could hardly stand the thought. She wiped at her damp cheeks and gazed at his rigid profile.

  “You’re pretty quiet over there, Amanda. Guess you’re about to pack up the kid and hightail it back to New York.” He turned to her. “Right? You—Aaw, hell!” He stormed to his feet and towered over her. “I can take just about anything you have to dish out, babe, except pity.”

  “It’s not pity! I feel terrible about hounding you for details of your family, when you—”

  “And in my book, that adds up to you feeling sorry for me,” he cut in, scowling down on her. “Spare me, little rich girl. I can do without your tears!”

  Bartholomew began to cry.

  “How about his tears?” She scooped him up and got to her feet. All sense of control and decorum had left her. “If you’re so eager to be a daddy, how about taking care of a crying kid, huh? You woke him up with all your blustering about pity, so take some pity on this little baby, who didn’t ask for any of this and was only trying to get a little sleep!”

  Chase stared at her, his expression thunderous as Bartholomew’s cries grew louder. Then his gaze dropped to the squalling infant in her arms and the anger drained from his face. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse but gentle. “Yeah, none of this is his fault. Come here, little guy.”

  She was surprised that he took the baby, but she loosened her hold and allowed Chase to lift him from her arms.

  “Hey, Bartholomew,” Chase murmured, cuddling the baby against his bare chest. “Take it easy, buddy. We’ll work it out.”

  Bartholomew’s cries slowed.

  “That’s it, buddy. Listen, kid. Bartholomew’s a pretty long name for such a little guy. How about if I call you Bart instead?”

  The baby snuffled and rubbed his nose against Chase’s shoulder.

  Amanda looked at them and her heart cracked down the middle. “I’ll be glad to bring him to Arizona as often as I can,” she whispered in a broken voice.

  Chase glanced at her, his gaze impersonal. “Good. Because you may not need me, but he does.”

  I need you, too, she thought. He probably wouldn’t believe her.

  “Now that we have that settled, it might be better if you catch a plane out of here tonight and give us both a chance to cool down a little before we see each other again.”

  She could barely speak around the lump in her throat. “I suppose you’re right.”

  After a brief moment of eye contact, Chase returned his attention to his son. “Hey, Bart, when was the last time you went fishing? Come on and I’ll show you some big ones.” He turned and started walking toward the pond. “Once you can hold a fishing pole, buddy, we’ll have some great times up here, you and me. Early morning’s good. You like to get up early? I do.”

  Amanda clutched her stomach and sank onto a rock. Chase and Bartholomew made an idyllic picture down by the lake—the tanned muscular father crouched by the shore balancing his tiny son on his denim-clad knee. Bartholomew waved his arms and gurgled at the sun striking sparks on the surface of the water. Such a beautiful picture. And just like that, Chase had shut her out of it.

  * * *

  THEY DIDN’T TALK MUCH as they packed up and headed toward the ranch. Amanda couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be misinterpreted as pity for Chase’s childhood. She hadn’t agreed to his proposal of regular visits right away because she was beginning to think she wanted more from this relationship. Apparently, he’d thought her hesitation meant she didn’t want to have anything at all to do with him, and he’d shut down his feelings for her.

  He’d probably had a lot of practice cutting himself off emotionally from people, she thought as they rode in silence. That skill would be a requirement for anyone being jerked from one foster home to another. And she’d had the nerve to whine because her father hadn’t been as loving as she would have liked. Chase probably would have been willing to trade places with someone like her any day.

  The long ride back to the ranch gave her a lot of time to think, and her thoughts weren’t cheerful ones. She cringed at the knowledge that at one time, she’d been ready to deprive Chase of his son, the bundle riding trustingly like a little papoose on his back as they made their way down the canyon. She’d awakened to the realization that to take a man’s child away would be unfair in most cases, but particularly unfair to a man who’d never had any family. She could see now that he’d avoided connections because he didn’t believe people would honor those connections. Which would make him all the more determined to honor his to this child he’d fathered. Somehow she would keep her part of the bargain and bring father and son together as often as possible, no matter what the cost to her own aching heart. She feared she was falling in love with a man who didn’t believe it could happen.

  They were about a mile from the house when they heard the siren.

  Chase straightened in his saddle and Bartholomew’s eyes snapped open. “Amanda!” Chase called back to her. “Do you see smoke?”

  “No!” Her heart began to race. She didn’t know the people at the ranch well, but in the short time she’d been there, she’d come to care very much what happened to them. “What could be wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I hope it’s not Dexter.” His voice was tight with worry. “Listen, I can’t ride any faster than this with the baby on my back, but you can. Go on ahead. Maybe they need an extra hand with whatever’s happening. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  She didn’t need any more urging. Digging her heels into Pussywillow’s ribs, she leaned forward and clucked her tongue at the little mare. Pussywillow shot ahead of Chase. Amanda anchored her hat on her head with one hand and moved as one with the galloping horse. She’d never wish problems on anyone at the ranch house, not even that pesky Ry McGuinnes, but oh, it was glorious to have a legitimate reason to ride full tilt up the lane. The bonds of responsibility that had begun to chafe her soul loosened temporarily, and she longed to shout with the joy of release.

  * * *

  CHASE WATCHED in amazement as Amanda hurtled down the road ahead of him as if she’d been launched from a slingshot. He hadn’t taken her comments about her riding skills very seriously, but he could see now that the woman was a natural. Why she’d chosen to spend her life in a stuffy office when she could ride like that was beyond him.

&nbs
p; The whine of the siren died down, and he figured whatever the emergency vehicle was, it was sitting in front of the ranch house right now. God, he hoped it wasn’t Dexter. Belinda swore he’d outlast them all, especially because he walked all the way to the main road every day to get the mail. “That’s more walking than any of the rest of you cowboys get,” Belinda often said. “And he’s eating chicken while you stuff down the steak. His heart’s in great shape.” Chase sure hoped so. He’d broken one of his cardinal rules and allowed himself to grow very fond of old Dex.

  Yet when he trotted Mikey up to the front of the ranch house, paramedics were loading someone into the back of a Rural-Metro ambulance. And Belinda was climbing in after the stretcher.

  Heart thudding with dread, Chase nudged Mikey into a trot and arrived at the back of the ambulance before the paramedics closed the doors. “Belinda?”

  She turned, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

  Chase had to work to get the words out. “Is it his heart?”

  Belinda shook her head. “They don’t think so. They think it’s something he ate.”

  “Stomach hurts!” Dexter bellowed from inside the ambulance.

  “What the hell?” Chase peered at Belinda.

  Belinda swallowed. “The paramedics think we all have...food poisoning.”

  “Excuse us,” said a paramedic as he closed the back doors of the ambulance and blocked Chase’s view of Belinda and Dexter. “We need to get going.”

  Food poisoning? Chase stared after the ambulance as it started out of the driveway, red dome-lights whirling. Belinda ran a spotless kitchen. She boasted that the board of health sent restaurant owners to see her if they couldn’t figure out how to keep their facilities clean, and Chase personally knew of a time a restaurant owner had come out to the True Love for that very purpose.

  Maybe Dexter had some other problem, Chase thought as he dismounted by the hitching post where Pussywillow was tethered. Amanda was nowhere in sight. After tying Mikey’s reins to the post, Chase adjusted the shoulder straps on the cradleboard and started toward the house. A stepladder stood on the porch, and a strand of tiny white lights hung from the rafters, as if someone had been stapling the lights across the length of the porch and had taken a break.

  Inside, the main room was deserted, as well as the patio. Chase glanced into the dining room and found a sight he’d never seen before. Dirty dishes from lunch remained on the tables at nearly two in the afternoon. That never happened. The whole place had a ghost-town feel about it.

  “Amanda!”

  She appeared from his right, coming from the hall that led to the guest rooms. “Chase, thank God you’re here! Everyone has food poisoning.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Except Belinda, because she was too busy to eat lunch. At least that’s how the paramedics diagnosed the situation. I called the board of health and someone’s coming out to test the food that was served, but the symptoms are typical—stomach cramps, vomiting. Belinda called an ambulance for Dexter because she didn’t want to take any chances, and because she feels so responsible, I guess. That kitchen is her whole identity.”

  “I know.”

  “Here.” She walked around behind him. “Let me help you with the cradleboard and I’ll tend to Bartholomew while you call Duane down at the stables.”

  Chase lifted the straps over his arms as Amanda relieved him of the weight of the board and Bartholomew. “Are the hands all sick, too?”

  “Freddy doesn’t think they will be because they didn’t eat the same thing for lunch that people at the main house did. And somebody has to finish cleaning and decorating for the wedding tomorrow.”

  Chase turned back toward her. “Are you feeling okay? Our lunch came out of that kitchen, too.”

  She’d laid the cradleboard on a leather sofa to unlace it. She glanced up into his eyes and looked away again just as quickly. “I’m fine, but it’s nice of you to ask.”

  It had been his first thought. His second had been that if she got sick, she might pass the problem on to Bart through her breast milk. But her welfare had been his first thought. The realization stunned him.

  “I guess the sandwiches we took didn’t have anything in them that was contaminated,” she said as she pulled a wiggling Bartholomew out of his swaddling blanket. “Unless you’re feeling sick?”

  Not from the food, he thought. “No, I’m fine, too. I guess we shouldn’t feel lucky, but I’m glad we weren’t here for lunch. So everybody’s down and out?”

  “Everybody.” Amanda stood and held Bart against her shoulder. “Freddy asked me to go check on the wedding guests for her, because she and Ry are in no condition to do it. I’d just finished making sure nobody wanted a doctor when you called to me.”

  “How about Leigh?”

  “Leigh seems to be hit pretty bad. Apparently, she stuffed herself at lunch, claiming she had to keep up her strength for all the decorating. Even the maids and the handymen are done for. They all went home. The paramedics seem to think everyone will be okay in the morning, but we can’t wait until then to finish the work. It’s up to you, me, Duane and the rest of the hands.”

  “Then I’d better go call him.” Another mysterious disaster, Chase thought as he headed for Freddy’s office. He wondered if Eb Whitlock had been around today. Later he’d ask. He couldn’t believe that Belinda would be behind something like this, but Duane had been spared the ordeal. Chase wondered if that was a bit too convenient. Then again, maybe this was just an accident. Everyone had been busy getting ready for the wedding. Maybe Belinda’s quality control had slipped slightly, just enough to allow something in the kitchen to spoil.

  Chase picked up the phone and dialed the number for the corrals. The main goal was to get ready for the wedding. It was the least he could do for Ry and Freddy. Then he realized that Amanda had sounded as if she planned to pitch in with everyone else. It looked as if she wouldn’t be getting on a plane tonight, after all.

  10

  A REPRIEVE. Amanda wasn’t sure what that would mean. Perhaps nothing at all. But the food-poisoning incident made it important for her to stay through tonight, and no one would expect her to leave first thing in the morning when the wedding was taking place. The soonest she’d be expected to fly out would be in the evening, after the reception. In the meantime, maybe she could find a way to convince Chase that she was no longer the snob that had stepped off the plane two days ago.

  She and Chase divided up the duties. Because of her advertising and artistic background, Amanda volunteered to supervise three of the hands in completing the decorating of the patio and front porch. Chase would take the other four, including Duane, and direct them in the cleaning.

  “It may not be up to Rosa’s standards,” Chase said, “but we’ll get the worst of it.”

  The afternoon passed quickly. Chase brought the infant seat over from the cottage so Amanda could set Bartholomew in the shade while she moved around the patio with a critical eye. Chloe appeared soon after Amanda settled Bartholomew into the carrier and lay beside it, as if resuming her duties.

  Amanda thought of the close bond between Dexter and the dog. She crouched and scratched behind Chloe’s ears. “Dexter will be okay, Chloe,” she murmured. “He’ll be back soon.”

  The dog thumped her tail on the flagstone and looked up at Amanda with soulful eyes.

  “I think Bartholomew needs a dog like you,” Amanda said. Then she wondered how on earth she’d accomplish that. Pets were banned in her apartment building.

  Curtis, a tall blond cowboy who was one of the three assigned to Amanda, sauntered toward her. “What do you want us to do first, ma’am?” he asked.

  “I guess we’ll finish stringing the lights.” She stood, and in the process noticed Curtis casting an appreciative eye over her figure. She couldn’t imagine what he found to look at. Her clothes were rumpled from her ride up the canyon, and she hadn’t done anything with her hair except tie it back with the silk scarf. Her makeup wa
s nonexistent by now. Yet Curtis seemed entranced.

  With a mental shrug she turned her attention to the work at hand. “Let’s start over there at the far end of the patio,” she said.

  Curtis motioned to the other two cowboys, Rusty and Jack, and the work commenced.

  Amanda liked the Mexican-fiesta motif that Freddy and Ry had planned to execute with tiny lights, large paper flowers and several colorful piñatas. When it came time to stuff the piñatas prior to hanging them, Amanda had to keep a close eye on Rusty and Jack to make sure they didn’t eat too much candy while they worked. Curtis followed Amanda around with more devotion than Chloe had shown to Bartholomew. And although Curtis was handsome in a lean sort of way, Amanda felt not a twinge of attraction. That didn’t seem to penetrate Curtis’s romantic fog. In his eagerness to help, he accidentally stepped on one empty piñata, smashing it before its time.

  Eventually, the patio was finished to Amanda’s satisfaction. The folding tables and chairs were in place, each with a pottery luminaria anchoring a scarlet tablecloth. The paper flowers bloomed in several large baskets, and the piñatas danced in the breeze, ready for the moment when someone would swing a baseball bat at them and spill the contents onto the flagstone beneath. When darkness arrived, the area would wink with thousands of white lights.

  Amanda picked up the infant seat with Bartholomew in it. He’d begun to squirm and make little mewling sounds that told her it was nearly time for him to nurse. “Okay, guys. Let’s take a break,” she said. “I’ll meet you on the front porch in twenty minutes so we can finish up that area, and then we’ll be done.”

  “I’ll carry the baby for you, ma’am,” Curtis volunteered. “Just tell me where you’re aiming to take him.”

  “Thanks, but it’s nearly his suppertime,” Amanda said.

  “Oh.” Curtis flushed. “Then let me get the door for you.” He opened the French door into the main room of the house.

  She had to assume word had gotten around the ranch that she and Chase weren’t formalizing their relationship and she was therefore a free agent. That would be the only explanation for Curtis’s obvious interest, considering Chase was his boss. “Thanks, Curtis,” she said, choosing not to smile and encourage him any further.