Inwardly railing against the formal “ma’am” which made her feel like her own world-weary mother, she suggested, “Why don’t you just call me Pat? Everybody does.”
A candid appraisal glittered in Cameron’s eyes. “If you don’t mind my saying, Patricia suits a pretty woman better.”
The blood in her veins began to bubble under the heat of the glance that took her in head to toe. A hot blush crept up her neck. It was silly how pleased she was by the offhanded compliment
Lordy, had she completely forgotten what it was like to have a man flirt with her? Having done both a man and a woman’s job for so very long, she had almost come to think of herself in androgynous terms. The gentle reminder that she had another name besides Mom made her suddenly feel as giddy as a teenager.
Smoothing a wisp of stray hair back from her face, she tossed him a disarming smile. “Patricia’s just fine with me. Now if you have any questions about the job, this would be a good time to ask them.”
Unfortunately the question uppermost in Cameron’s mind was not one he thought should be asked in front of children. Over the years on the rodeo circuit, he’d had more than his fair share of made-up, coifed tarts bat their mascaraed eyelashes at him. Why none of them made him feel as overtly sexual, as purely animalistic as his new boss did with a simple smile was beyond him. He wondered exactly what it was about this unpretentious woman masquerading as a teenager in those baggy overalls that was so unbelievably sexy it set his heart ticking like an overwound five-dollar watch.
“Just one,” he said, giving voice to the question that he had been wanting to ask ever since this woman had tumbled from the roof into his arms like some fallen angel.
“Where’s your husband?” And doesn’t he know he’s a fool to leave you here all alone?
Patricia glanced quickly at the children. She was not yet comfortable discussing their father’s death in front of them. It was a wound still too raw to the touch. Though far from being a good provider by society’s standards, Hadley had seldom raised his voice let alone a hand to his children. They missed him terribly.
“I’m a widow,” she said softly.
Cameron’s fork clattered against his plate. His eyes looked everywhere in the room but at her.
His embarrassment was almost audible. Patricia hadn’t meant to make him squirm. After all, he had no part in the cruel hand fate had dealt her. She asked the boys to get more milk from the refrigerator and, once they were out of earshot, plunged into an abbreviated version of Hadley’s death with the swiftness of a surgeon working without anesthesia.
“A little less than a year ago my husband was killed in a car wreck. The roads were icy, he’d been drinking and the guardrail didn’t hold. The coroner assured me his death was instantaneous.”
A lump lodged itself sideways in Cameron’s throat. He couldn’t imagine a single mother attempting to run this ranch all by herself while raising three tiny human tornadoes. The only sound he could hear in the deaf ening silence that followed her account was that of his own heartbeat.
“I’m sorry,” he said simply.
It was inadequate, but he could think of nothing else to add as the boys slid back into their seats beside him. When he had impetuously signed that contract back in the hospital, it hadn’t occurred to him that he might actually come to give a tinker’s damn about the people he intended running off this place. He had expected to be greeted by some rich, hobbyist rancher. Not a vulnerable, young widow with spunk enough to put a chink in his well-polished emotional armor.
Cameron didn’t fancy himself a sentimental man, but he figured he’d have to be blind not to notice how bare the cupboards were, how thin the children were, how desperate the woman was. He would have had to have been made of granite not to want to kiss away the furrows worrying her lovely brow. To sample the sweetness of those full, inviting lips...
Criminey! He had no more control of his thoughts than of a wild mustang roaming the range. Good sense warned him to get out while the getting was good. The very thought of working on a bird ranch was an insult to his dignity. No self-respecting cowboy would be caught dead eating one of these overgrown chickens let alone acting as foreman for what was certain to be the most unpopular ranch in the county. The jeers and jibes were already ringing in his ears. Some of the announcers on the circuit had taken to introducing him as the Big Man. Cameron wasn’t particularly eager to trade in that moniker for the Bird Man.
“So can I count on you staying the next three months?” Patricia asked, naming the time frame outlined in the contract she’d drawn up.
Cameron twisted uncomfortably in his seat. Darned if the whole family wasn’t looking at him like he was Saint Michael himself sent to rescue them from Satan’s clutches. He hoped that Patricia had registered her children’s big ol’ pleading eyes as lethal weapons down at the local police station. He hadn’t felt this much pressure in the arena with thousands of eyes trained on his performance.
“Pleeeeeease stay,” Kirk begged.
“On the cowboy trail, a promise made is a promise kept,” Johnny interjected with all the solemnity of an old-time hanging judge.
Cameron signaled capitulation with a heavy sigh.
“Three months and not a day longer,” he grumbled. “And there are a couple of things we need to set straight right from the get-go.”
Raising her eyebrows, Patricia waited patiently for him to continue.
“You can count on me to do the dirtiest, hardest work you need done—without complaint. Fencing, roofing, painting. It doesn’t much matter to me. I’ve even been known to fix a broken-down motor or two, but I’m telling you right up front, I’m no bird wrangler.”
A smile played on Patricia’s lips. “You wouldn’t happen to be afraid of them, would you?”
At the affront, Cameron puffed up like a blowfish. Each word was a single, crisp word as it came from his mouth. “No, I wouldn‘t”
Johnny irreverently tucked his hands beneath his armpits and flapped his elbows in comic relief. Kirk joined in.
“Cluck, cluck, cluck...”
Cameron glared threateningly from one to the other. A menacing sneer twitched beneath his mustache, and the last cluck died a tortured death.
“Boys, I’m sure Mr. Wade is no chicken,” Patricia chided gently before turning her attention upon the bird in question. “And you can rest assured that the children and I are more than capable of tending to the emus ourselves. If you would just be so kind as to take care of some of the major repairs around here, you will more than meet your contractual obligations.”
The fire illuminating those chocolate-colored eyes of hers led Cameron to believe that the lady was definitely a survivor. Having spent years being pursued by a bevy of buckle bunnies, he’d all but forgotten that there might actually be honest women left in the world. Those prolific bunnies earned their name by chasing after the trophy buckles worn by big-name rodeo winners on the circuit. Cameron knew it was more than their prize money these women sought. There was also vicarious prestige in associating with a champion. After being worked over by their veritable queen two summers ago, Cameron had become impervious to their charms. He had, in fact, become so disillusioned with all women after Bonnie had shown him the indisputable facts of life that his number-one rule for dating thereafter had been to use them before they could use him.
“I’ll tackle your roof first thing in the morning,” he said, pushing his chair away from the table. “Now, why don’t we discuss the particulars of our living arrangements while I give you a hand with the dishes?”
Because I can’t afford to break every dish in the house! Patricia thought to herself in a sudden rush of panic. The mere thought of telling this virile cowboy where to bed down made her quiver like a jackrabbit lippety-lopping across the rifle range on the opening day of hunting season. Unfortunately, her protests that he didn’t need to help with the dishes were to no avail. Though patently old-fashioned enough to believe that the most physically demand
ing tasks on a ranch belonged solely to the male of the species, Cameron had been well schooled early on by his mother that there simply was no such thing as “women’s work.”
Chapter Three
Patricia became even more flustered when Cameron rolled up his sleeves to reveal a pair of strong, muscled forearms. Wielding a clean dishcloth with the potency of a ninja warrior, the man somehow managed to look as sexy in the kitchen as she imagined he would in the bedroom. Remembering how safe and secure she had felt earlier in the day, wrapped in the embrace of those masculine arms, was almost enough to make her drop the plate she was holding. Up to her elbows in soapy water, Patricia tried washing away the disturbing feelings that close proximity with this man evoked in her.
Since Hadley had been even less help in the kitchen than he had been outdoors, she was unaccustomed to having a man underfoot in her strictly feminine domain. Cameron, on the other hand, seemed completely at ease in his surroundings, rummaging through drawers and putting things away with minimal fuss. Before being excused to do their homework, the boys helped clear the table, and though the expediency of completing this mundane daily chore broke all previous records, Patricia couldn’t quite bring herself to feel grateful for Cam eron’s assistance. Not when simply brushing against his thigh while handing him a cleanly rinsed glass sent a wave of electrical current dancing across her skin.
It was crazy. Never had a man had such a completely befuddling effect upon her. If an accidental touch could make her feel this way, she wondered what effect his kisses might have. The guilt of such a thought weighing heavy on her mind, Patricia attacked the dirty dishes with all the determination of a gladiator.
“You’re going to rub the pattern right off that plate.” Cameron commented with a knowing smile.
The water in the sink was growing hotter by the minute. Patricia knew it had less to do with the temperature of the water flowing out of the tap than with the traitorous hormones turning the blood in her veins to molten lava. Perturbed that Cameron was so obviously aware of her discomfort, she hoped some light conversation would help lessen the tension lodged squarely at the base of her neck.
“Did you say that your grandfather was somehow connected with this place?” she ventured.
Cameron harrumphed so loudly that it made Patricia jump.
“Connected to it, hell! He owned it.”
Anger ignited his eyes with blue fire as he continued. “Showed up here one day on a stallion he called Midnight with nothing more than a Colt .45 strapped to his hip. Staked out a claim as far as the eye could see and said ”This is mine.’”
Unable to understand why her question had upset him so, Patricia expressed her dismay. “Without compunction to how the Native Americans who were here first might have felt about that?”
Cameron merely guffawed at the naïveté of her inquiry. “Spencer Wade wasn’t the kind of man to take such things into consideration. By all accounts he was a tough, old bird, weathering freezing winters and hostile renegades with the same unflinching resolve. There was a good reason he kept that .45 well oiled and within reach. Any sleazy snake-oil-selling banker ever had the gall to try holding him hostage with a little piece of paper would have met with a blaze of gunfire.”
The pride was unmistakable in Cameron’s voice. The silence that followed this cryptic outburst was as heavy as a fog bank. Patricia drove through it blind.
“Is that why you answered my ad? Are you on some kind of nostalgia trip?”
“Something like that,” he retorted with a strange look in his eye.
“I take it then that Grandpa didn’t exactly want to sell the ranch?”
“The Wades never sold out. This land was stolen from us plain and simple.”
The sponge that Patricia was holding fell into the sudsy water with a plop. Had she heard him right?
“Stolen?”
“Legalized theft.”
The words came out of Cameron’s mouth like bullets. Hard and fast. “About twenty years ago the economy around here took a dive. The president called it a recession at the time, but things weren’t nearly as bad as the banks wanted folks to believe. They took advantage of the situation to call in the loans on several ranches. The Triple R was one of them.”
He didn’t have the heart to expound further. The memory of his father, a kind and gentle man by nature, broken by the greed of a few unscrupulous opportunists could bear no more contemplation than the last two decades had already born. The thought of his father now confined to a cubicle in a retirement home brought a familiar tightness to his chest. Personally he thought the Eskimos’ tradition of setting their old people adrift on icebergs was preferable to the sterile, drawn-out death his father had so selflessly chosen for himself. The last time Cameron had visited him, he had apologized repeatedly for letting “the old man” and his own boys down.
Even from the grave, Spencer Wade threw a long shadow over his only son who, despite a lifetime of trying, had never been able to live up to his legendary expectations. Cameron was torn between love of his father and pride of the gruff grandfather who had taught him how to ride his first horse. Just as soon as the Triple R was back in his hands, he vowed to bring his father back home and lay away the ghosts of the past.
Once and for all.
Patricia felt a tiny shudder of foreboding at the determined look on Cameron’s face. “Do you fancy yourself a little like your grandfather?” she asked hesitantly.
The question was astute enough to coax a lopsided smile from him. “Well, I’d wager we’d both feel the same way about turning this ranch into a foul playpen for the ugliest flock of chickens I’ve ever seen.”
A smile danced in Patricia’s eyes. “Fowl play did you say?”
Cameron groaned at the tortured pun. Patricia giggled. And just as quickly as the sun bursts though the clouds on an overcast day, melancholy reminiscences turned to light, easy banter.
As Patricia went about the business of getting two seemingly inexhaustible little boys tucked into their respective beds, Cameron sank into a worn, comfortable recliner and closed his eyes—for all of ten seconds before Amy Leigh’s sudden and shrill cry brought him upright in his chair. He was tempted to call upstairs for Patricia to “do something” with the child but knew how unnecessary that would be. Had she been in the farthest corner of the attic, Patricia would have been able to hear her baby wailing.
Cameron had told his new boss in no uncertain terms that he was no bird wrangler. He thought it went without saying that he was not a baby-sitter. Figuring that if he ignored her bid for attention those little lungs would surely give out sooner or later, he leaned back and closed his eyes again. This particular strategy served only to incense the child, and the volume of her cries increased several decibels. His nerves crackling with the force of her renewed intensity, Cameron felt his blood pressure rise. He pulled a cherished watch fob out of his pocket and checked the time.
Swallowing the curse scalding the tip of his tongue, he hoisted himself out of the comfort of the sagging recliner and made his way over to the mechanical swing into which the child was securely strapped. According to Patricia, this was the best way of putting Amy Leigh to sleep.
He’d hate to see how her other methods worked.
“Stop it,” Cameron said firmly in the same tone of voice that had proven effective in training any number of dogs over the years. “Stop it right this instant!”
Eyelashes glistening with tears, Amy stopped only long enough to hold out her pudgy arms to him.
Upstairs, Patricia listened to the boys’ nighttime prayers with only one ear. The other one was attuned to Amy’s usual prebedtime petulance. Cameron didn’t exactly strike her as the patient type with children, so when Amy’s cries stopped in the middle of the boys’ “God-blesses” just as abruptly as they had begun, she grew worried. Would she come downstairs to find her youngest gagged and trussed up like some unlucky steer?
What Patricia actually found upon her return to the livi
ng room was enough to make her shake her head in disbelief. Cameron was dozing in the big chair while her daughter sat in the middle of the floor teething on what appeared to be a genuine solid gold pocket watch.
“Just who is putting whom to sleep?” she asked, coming down the last three creaky steps.
Cameron opened his eyes to regard her with a lazy, insolent gaze. He hadn’t been anywhere near asleep but didn’t dare say so for fear Patricia would have him running a day care for every toddler in the area tomorrow. Likely she’d claim it was written somewhere in small print in that fool contract he’d signed.
Besides, it had been his experience that women interpreted any attention toward their kids as an open invitation for them to start calling him Daddy. He shuddered at the thought.
The sentimentality that simply being back in this house evoked in him was disturbing to say the least. Why, he’d almost been tempted to pick the little dickens up and rock her to sleep! Cameron blamed this momentary lapse of sanity on the fact that he’d overheard his own name included in the prayers which had floated down the stairs like sweet perfume.
“God bless Cameron.”
“And make him stay...”
What a rotten trick, he thought to himself. Cameron wondered if they would still pray for him if they knew he’d come here with the express intention of buying their home out from under them.
Gathering her daughter into her arms, Patricia attempted to take the girl’s latest “toy” away from her. The toddler wailed and swatted at her mother’s hands, but the deft substitution of a more traditional teething ring quickly pacified her.
Patricia held the watch out to Cameron by its golden chain. It was covered in drool. Wiping it on the hem of her apron, she took the opportunity to study it more closely. Elaborately scrolled into the back were the initials S.W. and below them a date—1909.
“Your grandfather’s?” she asked, handing it over with due reverence. Amazingly it was still ticking. She had to bite her tongue to keep from asking if he was crazy. Would anyone but a man let a baby play with such a valuable keepsake?
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