The Nine-Dollar Daddy

by Day Leclaire

  Clipping her ankles as she attempted to skirt the haphazardly stacked boxes, she dug through the smallest of the cartons for her scrapbook. Next to her rosebushes, it was her most prized possession.

  She managed to unearth the overstuffed book and carried it to the huge four-poster bed, dropping it onto the mattress. It did a lovely little bounce before scattering a few odd mementos across the spread. To her amusement, one of them was a note she’d written, praising her last apartment for being so roomy. Of course, without furniture to clutter up the place, a shoe box would seem spacious.

  Stripping off her clothes, she dug through another box for her nightgown. Pulling on the slip of cotton, she returned to the bed and plopped down beside her scrapbook. “Plopping” proved to be her undoing. For some inexplicable reason, landing so solidly on the bed was one more mistake in the multitude that comprised her life.

  The bed collapsed at one end and the mattress tilted against the wall, sending her and the scrapbook cartwheeling toward the headboard. She banged against the heavy oak frame and was instantly buried beneath an endless cascade of downy pillows and soft cotton bedding. With a muffled shriek, she kicked her legs to try to free herself from her cocoon. Not that it did much good, since her feel were sticking straight up in the air.

  The next thing she knew, the door ricocheted open There was an instant of absolute silence, broken by a half-smothered chuckle.

  “Don’t you dare laugh!” she ordered crossly.

  “Sorry.” She heard Ty’s leisurely tread as he approached. A second later, he peered down at her with an expression of careful inquiry. “Need help?”

  With all her heart, she wished she could refuse. Considering she was practically standing on her head, her dignity spared only by the fortuitous drape of a sheet, she didn’t dare brush him off. She glared at her toes for several long seconds as she weighed wisdom against pride. Too bad she hadn’t been able to spare the extra couple bucks to purchase an eye-catching red polish for her toenails, she thought irritably. Maybe it would have distracted him just a tad. But, no. They were as naked and exposed as the rest of her and he wasn’t the least bit distracted. Her dilemma held his full attention.

  Crud.

  “Yes, I could use your help,” she said, surrendering with a sigh. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “My pleasure.” He reached down and slipped his hands beneath her arms, carefully lifting her free of her predicament. To her relief, he also snagged the sheet, so her assets remained well protected. “Should I bother asking what happened?”

  She grimaced, carefully draping herself in crisp cream-colored cotton, her scandalously naked toes peeking out from beneath the improvised robe. “It’s your bed. You tell me.”

  “Give me a minute.” He stripped away the rest of the bedding, including the pillows. Her poor scrapbook had scattered across the floor and he worked cautiously around it. “Looks like the rails have been disconnected from the headboard. You’re lucky the whole thing didn’t collapse on top of you.”

  She eyed the heavy piece of carved oak and winced. That would have hurt. “How did the rails get disconnected?”

  He gathered up the small pile of bolts he’d unearthed beneath the bed. “I assume with a wrench.”

  She stared in bewilderment. “But... why?”

  “When I find out, so will you. In the meantime, I’ll get the tools I need to reassemble the bed.”

  Before he could act, the door flew open and Hutch stood there, Miz Mopsey at his heels. “Something woke me up,” he said, making a big production of rubbing his eyes. The dog barked her annoyance, too.

  “Sorry about that, sweetpea,” Cassidy said. “My bed collapsed.”

  “Oh.” His attention switched to Ty. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to help your mom.”

  “Oh,” Hutch said again. “You were rescuing her, huh? That’s really cool. Isn’t that cool, Mom? You have somebody to rescue you now. You’ve never had someone do that before, have you?”

  Ty folded his arms across his chest and fixed a certain young troublemaker with a piercing gaze. “Why do I have the impression we need to have another discussion, boy? I don’t suppose you know how this bed got derailed.”

  To Cassidy’s surprise, Hutch began scuffing his toe against the carpet and hemming and hawing. She groaned.

  “Oh, Hutch! You didn’t.”

  Hutch swallowed. “I think I’m really sleepy now.” He gave an exaggerated yawn. “I better get back to bed. Come on, Mops.”

  “Good idea,” Ty inserted smoothly. “Good night.”

  The instant Hutch and his dog disappeared, Cassidy turned on Ty. “You don’t really believe he unbolted the rails?”

  “Sure do.”

  “But...why?”

  “You heard him. He wants to turn me into some sort of knight in shining armor. I’m supposed to rescue you.”

  “Not a chance...” She stumbled to a halt. Was it possible? A week ago, she’d have sworn the idea of Hutch’s buying her a date was ludicrous. But he had. Perhaps he’d taken this dating nonsense one step further. Perhaps now he was angling for a—“Oh, no.”

  Ty cocked an eyebrow. “Change your mind?”

  “It’s...it’s possible,” she conceded.

  “I believe the word is ‘probable’. Give me a minute to find a wrench and pliers and we’ll have your bed back together in no time.”

  He returned so quickly she’d only had a chance to pull on a robe and start gathering up the various papers that had come loose from her scrapbook. He immediately stooped to help. She wished he hadn’t. He knelt too close and smelled too good. And those ripples were bothering her again, too. They strained against his shirt each time he reached for a piece of paper. Ignoring him didn’t help. Nor did closing her eyes. Unable to see, she couldn’t get her scrapbook collected with a speed that was fast becoming a necessity. Even worse, with her eyes closed, she shut all the delicious sights and sounds inside where her mind could play them over and over in every delectable detail.

  “So what’s all this?” he rumbled at her.

  She risked a quick peek at what he held. “Just stuff I’ve kept over the years.” She strove to sound casual. But with him hanging all over the top of her, it was difficult. “You know. Feel-good stuff. Like a gratitude journal.”

  He frowned at the slip of paper. “‘The rose clipping I gave Mrs. Walters bloomed today,’” he read. “‘It’s great that someone is getting flowers from my bushes.’ That made you feel good?”

  “Well, sure...” Her brows drew together. “I wouldn’t have had any roses if I hadn’t let Mrs. Walters take a clipping.”

  “But you didn’t get the flowers. She did.”

  Cassidy hated when he used logic on her. Did he have any idea how difficult it was some weeks to find the positives in her life? That particular day, the roses were the one bright spot in twenty-four hours of unbearable darkness. “I got to share in the pleasure of them,” she argued. Sort of. At least Mrs. Walters had let her see the pretty yellow bloom when she’d knocked on the door to brag about it.

  Ty picked up another scrap of paper. “‘We had meat today. Not the kind you have to stew for hours, either. But real, honest-to-goodness’...” His voice trailed off. “Aw, honey...”

  “Don’t.” She moistened her lips. “Don’t pity me. It’s okay to be poor, you know.” She gave him a crooked smile. “It makes you appreciate the small things.”

  “Like having ribs at lunch the other day.”

  “Yeah. Like that.”

  His mouth compressed. “And like this? ‘Freddie canned me today, but I sure am grateful that he let me work for so many months.’ You’re grateful to him? He fired you!”

  “But he hired me in the first place,” she pointed out. “He didn’t have to do that. He was very tolerant, especially considering how many dishes I broke. It’s a wonder I didn’t put him out of business through breakage alone.”

  “Uh-huh. And for today I
suppose you’ll put in there about how grateful you are that Hutch unbolted your bed rails.”

  Her chin crept out. “Maybe.” Then she released her breath in a sigh. “No. I don’t think that’s going to make it into my scrapbook. I’m really sorry about this, Ty. I’ll speak to him in the morning.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He retrieved the final piece of paper and handed it to her before turning his attention to the bed. “Why don’t you let me talk to him?”

  “Don’t bother. He’s my son. I can handle it.”

  “I’m sure you can. But I suspect this is one of those occasions when a man’s touch is called for. Will you let me discuss it with him?”

  Cassidy hesitated. Boy, oh boy, did she want to refuse. He glanced up at her from his reclining position on the floor. Good gravy, he was big! Big, male and sexy as the dickens—with a wrench in one hand, a collection of bolts in the other and a smile that promised a sinfully delicious night. She couldn’t remember the last time that particular combination had been in her bedroom. Now that she thought about it, she’d never had anything like Ty anywhere close to her bed.

  “You can talk to him,” she reluctantly agreed.

  “Why the hesitation? Am I stepping on toes?”

  At the reminder, she frowned at her unvarnished toenails, wiggling them as she considered. Was he treading where he didn’t belong? Did that explain her reluctance? Or was it because with each day that passed, he became more and more intricately locked into their lives? Soon she’d be leaving Texas. The minute she accomplished the one final goal she’d set for herself, she and Hutch would gas up the car Ty disparagingly referred to as a rattletrap, load it with all their belongings and limp eastward toward Georgia. Once there, they’d mend fences with Aunt Esther and Uncle Ben and sink their parched roots into rich, red Georgia clay. There wasn’t room in her plan for a six-foot-four-inch Texas rancher with enticing green eyes and a come-to-bed smile.

  Ty climbed to his feet and approached. His huge, steel-tipped boots stopped scant inches from the end of the bare toes she’d been contemplating. “You haven’t answered.”

  “I’m thinking.”

  He stooped so she was staring at the top of his head. Streaks of sun-kissed gold threaded through his light brown hair, tempting her to slip her fingers through the richness. “Okay,” he demanded. “Which toe was I stepping on?”

  “Excuse me?”

  He pointed to her big toe, grazing the unpainted tip. “The ‘this is my problem and I’ll handle it’ toe?”

  She shivered at his touch. “Nope. Not that one.”

  His finger tickled the next in line. “Maybe it’s the ‘I don’t want to be obligated’ toe. No, wait. How about this little fella? The one I affectionately call ‘Remember the Alamo’. The toe of death before surrender.”

  A smile slipped across her mouth. “Not that one, either.”

  “Hmm. That only leaves two more.” He tapped the next in line. “It can’t be the prideful toe. No need in this case. Which leaves this teeny one at the end. The ‘he’s getting too involved and we’re leaving for Georgia soon’ toe. Right?”

  “Bingo,” she whispered.

  “So that’s the little troublemaker.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the pliers he’d been using on the bed. “I can take care of that problem easily enough. Now hold reeeeal still.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” With a shriek of laughter, she danced around him and leaped toward the bed.

  “No, wait,” he exclaimed an instant too late. “I only fixed the one—”

  She was in midair when the warning reached her. She hit the mattress solidly. As she bounced up, the mattress and box spring collapsed in one corner. Her second bounce sent her rolling in a tangled ball of arms and legs toward the corner of the headboard again, her skull cracking on the solid oak. Her backside wedged into the tiny cubbyhole formed between the dipping mattress and the headboard.

  “Rail,” Ty finished with a sigh.

  “Now you tell me. Gosh. What pretty stars.”

  Ty was on top of her in an instant. “Hang in there, sweetheart. I’ll have you out in a sec.” Behind them the door banged open.

  “You’re rescuing her again,” Hutch announced in delighted tones. Miz Mopsey barked her delight, too. “I’ll bet you’ve never been rescued twice in one day, have you, Mom? I’ll bet you like it a bunch, don’t you?”

  “Hutch!” Ty and Cassidy shouted in unison.

  The only response was the scamper of feet and pitter-patter of paws rapidly retreating down the hallway.

  “I know you’re partial to that kid,” Ty said, popping her free. “But I’m afraid I’m gonna have to kill him.”

  She yanked her nightgown back into position and retied her robe. “No problem,” she said, shoving hair from her eyes. “I’ll help you.” They glanced at each other, sharing a moment of perfect accord, their annoyance giving way to laughter.

  “He’s a challenge, that’s for damned sure. Fortunately for you, I love a good challenge.” Ty shifted the headboard and slipped the last rail into place. “Give me a second to bolt this together and you should be safe enough.”

  She frowned. “I have to tell you. The floor is looking better and better.”

  He resumed his position beneath the bed and went to work with his wrench. “Or you can join me in my room.”

  Say what? Where had that come from? “Sure,” she scoffed, trying to sound offhand. “That’s just the sort of complication we need now.”

  “You’re right. It is.” The wrench hit the floor with a clatter. “In fact, I’ve got an even better complication. How about marriage?”

  “Marriage!” She blanched. “Who said anything about that?”

  “I did.” Slowly, he climbed to his feet. “And just so you know...I’m gonna keep saying it until you agree. So. Will you marry me, Cassidy?”

  “That’s impossible,” she whispered.

  “Is that your answer?”

  “Please don’t do this.”

  “Is that your answer?”

  “Yes!”

  He grinned. “Yes?”

  “No! Yes, my answer is no.” She folded her arms across her chest and scowled at him. “I can’t marry you.”

  “Okay.” He collected his wrench. “Today’s answer is no. We’ll see what it is tomorrow.”

  Hadn’t he been listening? “It’ll be no tomorrow, too.”

  “That’s one possibility. Of course, there’s another.”

  “What’s that?” she asked apprehensively.

  He paused at the door. “I could get lucky. Tomorrow you could tumble into my arms like a hot jalapeño, ripe for the plucking, and beg to be mine.”

  “Yeah, right. In your dreams.”

  His green eyes seemed to catch fire, burning her with their intensity. “There, too,” he said. And then he was gone.

  Progress Report

  Well, it’s not going quite as smoothly as I’d hoped. I thought maybe Mom would like having Ty come to her rescue. Instead, they were just mad that I disconnected the rails. But I’m not giving up yet. I still have another idea how to get Mom married off. I’ll just make sure Ty gives her all the things she likes best. All the things a dad should remember to give a mom. The kind of stuff that makes her cry cuz she’s happy, not cry cuz she’s sad.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Experiments #4—7: The Great Mom and Ty Experiment, Goal: To set up situations where Mom and Ty will be alone so they can get to know each other better and get the 99.4% part of their match working instead of worrying so much about that stupid .6% difference. (Mon sure does fuss about that a lot!)

  Procedure: Have Ty give Mom all the nice stuff and good times Lonnie never did.

  “GRAB a shovel and start digging a hole right over there by the porch steps,” Ty said, pointing. “And I’ll dig one on this side.”

  A very subdued Hutch nodded his compliance. “Yes sir.”

  Ty let him work his hole for a while before
speaking again. “So what happened last night?”

  “You mean with Mom’s bed?”

  Cute. “Yeah, that’s what I mean.”

  “I...uh... unbolted it.”

  “You want to tell me why?”

  “So you could rescue her.” Hutch wiped the sweat from his brow, his expression earnest. “Nobody’s ever saved her before. Not until you came along.”

  “I appreciate that, but—”

  “This way, Mom can be like a fairy-tale princess.” He beamed. “Girls like that kind of stuff, don’t they? I don’t think she’s ever been a princess before.”

  No, she hadn’t. At least, not judging by the bits and pieces he’d gleaned from her scrapbook. Still... The kid better stick a sock in it, or the princess was going to load her glass slippers into her rusty pumpkin carriage and hightail it to Georgia. And the good ol’ prince would be minus a wife, minus a son and living unhappily ever after.

  “I appreciate your help, Hutch. But it’s time for me to take over now. Your mom could’ve been hurt last night. You wouldn’t have liked that, would you?”

  Hutch shook his head. “No way! I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

  “I think you should tell her that, not me.” Ty dumped fertilizer and topsoil into his hole. “Okay, bring me one of those rosebushes.”

  “How come we’re planting them?”

  “Because otherwise they’re going to die. And I don’t want to see your mom’s expression if that should happen.”

  “Heck, no.” Hanging over the hole, Hutch watched Ty carefully smooth dirt around the roots. “You’re hoping they’ll grow some flowers, aren’t you?”

  “Yup. I’m hoping once she sees how well her roses grow in Texas soil, she’ll decide to plant her own roots here, too.

  Hutch nodded his approval. “Good idea.”

  “I thought so.” Ty rocked back on his heels and tipped his Stetson off his forehead. “But these roses are going to need time to grow. You can’t rush ’em. Do you read me? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Hutch released a long, drawn-out sigh. “You want me to stop helping you and Mom?”