Cameron nodded, noting that the antique was none the worse for wear. He figured if it could pull through gunfights and prairie fires, the old timepiece should be able to survive a teething little girl. Before putting it back in his pocket, he wound it once for good measure.
“If you’ll wait here, I’ll put Amy down for the night and be right back.”
The intimacy of Patricia’s promise wrapped itself around Cameron like sweet cotton candy. That voice of hers was pure magic.
Black magic, he’d wager.
Whatever magic this stranger had worked on her little fusspot, Patricia was grateful. When Amy was born, the nurses in the maternity ward had pronounced her colicky. As time passed and the baby refused to outgrow her demanding disposition, Patricia resigned herself to the fact that her daughter was simply going to be dif ficult to raise. Boys, she had heard, would wring a mother’s heart through the years. Girls, they said, would rip it out.
She pulled a blanket over Amy and kissed her softly on the cheek. Patricia couldn’t help thinking how different their evening routine had been just because of Cameron’s presence. How obvious it was that the boys needed a male role model in their lives. How nervous she was around his overt brand of sexuality....
Like a predatory cat feigning indifference, Cameron was waiting for her when she returned to the living room a moment later.
“Looks like you got everybody tucked in but me.”
The comment made the blood sing through Patricia’s veins.
As if unaware of the twin roses blooming on her cheeks, Cameron continued, “Just where do you want me to sleep?”
In my bed! was the unbidden thought that flashed through Patricia’s mind. As a steamy image of this man’s naked body stretched leisurely across her bed caused her to trip over her own tongue, an inner voice of reason yelled at her to get a grip. The last time she’d succumbed to such feminine weakness, she’d wound up a mother to three. Four, she silently amended, if you counted Hadley.
Patricia realized with a start that Cameron was looking at her strangely. It wasn’t as if he were leering at her; he was simply waiting for an answer to his question. The breath was locked in her lungs. Speak up! she ordered her brain.
“In the bunkhouse,” she managed at last to sputter. “You’ll have to sleep there. It isn’t much. Just an old cabin actually...”
Her apology trailed off. There was absolutely no reason that Cameron couldn’t stay in the more comfortable main house with them—other than the fact that people were sure to talk, and Patricia wasn’t about to subject her children to this small town’s rumor mill. The rest of America might be as fashionably liberal as television programming portrayed it, but Lander, Wyoming was still as staunchly conservative as Mayberry, U.S.A. Why, whispered gossip alone had been cause enough for more than one local official to lose his position.
If there was some other reason why Patricia was uncomfortable having Cameron sleeping under the same roof with her, she wasn’t ready to analyze it yet.
Little did she know that there was no need to explain about the Spartan living conditions of the bunkhouse. Cameron was familiar with every inch of the place. It had been his grandparents’ original homestead, and he had spent many happy childhood days playing in and around the old cabin. He neither expected nor wanted anything as fancy as a telephone or television set, but he did hope it had been updated with modern plumbing.
Ten minutes later Patricia was cutting a narrow swath through the darkness with a flashlight. Carefully, she and Cameroon picked their way along the overgrown path connecting the main house to the outbuilding. Once when Patricia stumbled, he reached out to steady her. It had quite the opposite effect.
Spinning, spinning, spinning out of control... Patricia felt like Alice in Wonderland as she fell against a sky sprinkled with diamonds, toppled into a whorl of emotions which she was trying desperately to suppress. And failed.
“Are you all right?” Cameron asked. Warm and soft in the darkness, his voice was black velvet to the ears.
“Yes,” she lied, shining the thin beam of light upon the bunkhouse door.
As it was never locked, Patricia grasped the knob and pushed the door open. She fumbled in the blackness for the string which activated the antiquated light bulb hanging from the ceiling. It was like searching for a single dangling spider’s thread. When at last it brushed her knuckles, she grabbed hold and gave a hard tug. Bathed in the harsh glow of the bare bulb, the cabin’s charm seemed questionable at best.
“Like I said, it isn’t much, but it’s clean.”
“It’ll be just fine,” Cameron assured her with a smile so genuine that it measurably reduced the guilt Patricia was feeling.
Cameron’s modest accommodations consisted of an old brass bed, a couple of high-backed chairs, a braided rag rug, a small table and a narrow bureau. A sink and toilet were sectioned off from the rest of the room by a tiny floral print sheet turned curtain by some handy seamstress.
“I’ll help you make the bed,” she said, walking over to the bureau where the sheets and blankets were kept.
“There’s no need,” he assured her. “I’m more than capable of taking care of myself, Patricia.”
Something about the way her name rolled off his tongue as mellifluous as a poem made her go quite soft inside. How often had she uttered those same self-assured platitudes about being able to fend for herself? So many times that her mother claimed she sounded like a broken record. Her father repeatedly assured her that she was wrong in her foolish assumptions. In that smug way of his, Roland D’Winter liked reminding her just how much she relied on him for the benevolence of a roof over her head and clothes on her back. From a young age, Patricia discerned that he would like nothing more than to keep his daughter pinned permanently under his control like one of the more exotic butterflies in his ghastly collection.
“I’m sure you are,” she agreed while crisply unfurling a clean white sheet over his bed like a gigantic surrender flag.
Patricia was keenly aware that this was the first time she had been alone with any man in his bedroom other than her husband. Not that this was any swinging bachelor pad or that she flattered herself with any thought that Cameron was interested in her that way. It was just those crazy electrical signals that her body was giving off, warning her of an impending overload.
Cameron tucked an edge of the sheet between the mattress and the frame as Patricia pulled her side taut. It was funny how such an everyday task could become so charged with sexual energy when shared with a good-looking hunk of a cowboy.
Like graceful doves, Patricia’s work-worn hands darted across his bedding smoothing out the wrinkles. Cameron couldn’t help but wonder why she wasn’t wearing her wedding ring. His own father, widowed for many years now, never took his off. Like his beloved Rose, John Wade would be buried with that thin gold band on his finger. Cameron knew he had no right to be judgmental, but he was nonetheless bothered by the symbolic rejection of the wedding vows this woman had taken before God and man. Perhaps Patricia was more like the buckle bunnies of his past than he would like to believe. Was she openly declaring herself available to the next likely prospect willing to take on the financial and emotional burdens of a ready-made family?
As Cameron reached across the bed to even out his covers, he inadvertently brushed fingertips with Patricia. Static electricity arched across the cotton fabric, shocking them both at the same time. Cameron looked across the narrow expanse of the bed into her eyes. They were wide open and shining with distrust and—Was that passion he glimpsed swirling in the depths of those bewitching mahogany-colored orbs? He forced air into his lungs in short, desperate sips.
“Why don’t you wear your wedding ring?”
Having already assured himself that this was absolutely none of his business, Cameron wasn’t quite sure where the question had come from.
Patricia pulled her hand away from his as if she had been stung and gave it an apologetic look.
“I had to pawn it years ago.”
Cameron had expected any response but that one. His mother had once said that the pawning of a wedding ring was the ultimate poverty, the supreme humiliation for a woman. He remembered his parents being poor. He remembered not having as nice things as many of his classmates. He remembered all too vividly the humiliation of losing their ranch. But never once in Cameron’s memory could he ever recall his parents so much as discussing the possibility of such desperate measures as selling their wedding rings.
He grabbed a pillow and jammed it into its case with unnecessary roughness. Something about this woman with her proud chin and soft brown eyes elicited in him a protective, tender sentiment that quite frankly scared him to death. Just watching her take a tired swipe at the stray wisp of hair that fell across her cheek made him want to sweep her up in his arms and lay her upon this bed like a bouquet of exotic blossoms. To make passionate, exquisite love to her...
She was talking to him, he realized with a start. Reluctantly Cameron forced his thoughts away from the bed to what it was she was saying.
“You’ll take your meals with us, of course, and...” Why for gosh sakes was it so hard to say it? “You’ll have to use the bathing facilities at the main house. Do you prefer morning or evening showers?”
Patricia hated asking such personal questions, but with a family of four already utilizing the only bathroom in the house, it was imperative that some kind of schedule be formulated as soon as possible. She shuddered at the image of one of the boys pounding on the bathroom door while Cameron was in the shower. She shivered at the thought of herself accidentally walking in on him wearing nothing more than a towel.
“Mornings, if that’s all right with you,” he replied.
“Mornings it will be then.”
They smiled stiffly at each other. Just a couple of hours ago they had been going at one another with their gloves off. Now they stood on opposite sides of a brass bed contemplating the fact that whether either one of them liked it or not, there was clearly as much attraction crackling between them as animosity. What was that old adage about love and hate being separated by a very thin line? This was going to be a far more dangerous arrangement than either one had initially imagined.
If she could have fired him, Patricia would have.
If he could have walked away, Cameron would have.
Speaking volumes with their eyes, they gauged one another warily.
“I should be going,” Patricia said at length, pulling a tight smile across her teeth. “If there’s anything else you need, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
Cameron’s aroused libido told him that there certainly was something else, but he didn’t think good-night kisses were listed among the benefits in that blasted contract he’d been so eager to sign.
“Everything’s fine,” he assured her over a heartbeat that mocked him in double time. Liar, Liar, Liar! it sang out.
As he held the door open for Patricia to leave, Cameron felt a cold breeze enter the room. It wasn’t until she closed it behind her with an echoing “Good night and sleep well,” that he realized how her presence had taken the chill from the air.
Sitting on the edge of the newly made bed, he proceeded to take off his boots and make plans for tomorrow. Having come straight from the hospital, he hadn’t brought much with him. First thing in the morning he was heading into town to buy a few things from the store.
Cameron lay back into his pillow, closed his eyes and tried to dismiss whatever it was that kept pricking his conscience like a mosquito relentless in its pursuit of blood. Uncomfortable with guilt as a business partner, he reminded himself once again that this opportunity to make his long-cherished dream a reality was no chance happening. Not by a long shot. This was a matter of fate, plain and simple. A matter of destiny. Of universal justice.
Remembering how his father used to refer to the bunkhouse as the doghouse after being banished there once following a rare quarrel with his wife, Cameron wondered how the old man would feel about his dubbing it the birdhouse. Like his father before him, John Wade was a cattle rancher, tried and true. Both of them would have been dismayed by the eerie sounds of pig-like grunts and tom-toms which filled the night air. Who would have guessed that emus were so darned loud?
And phew!
As a gentle breeze stirred the air, Cameron discovered his sleeping quarters were downwind of those damnable birds.
Chapter Four
The woman staring back at Patricia from her bathroom mirror the following morning looked far too weary to be only twenty-eight. She sighed. Taking an assessment of one’s self at 5:30 in the morning was not a particularly flattering way to start the day. When had the worries weighing down her thoughts imprinted themselves in the fine lines around those once bright eyes? When, for that matter, was the last time she had treated herself to a trip to the beauty shop? Her once stylish cut was now confined to a shaggy ponytail. More often than not it was simply stuffed beneath a baseball cap.
Patricia did not pause to consider why it was on this particular morning that she decided to devote precious minutes to primping. Dabbing a hint of pink peppermint frost on her lips, she assured herself that the only reason she had set the alarm a half an hour earlier than usual was simply to alleviate an inevitable traffic jam outside the bathroom when her newly hired foreman arrived to take his shower. It certainly had nothing to do with pure feminine interest in a man who had breezed into her life with the temerity of a tornado.
Nothing whatsoever, she muttered to herself, digging a dusty curling iron out from under the sink.
There was no question in her mind that the blame for her restless night’s sleep rested squarely on Cameron Wade’s broad shoulders. All night long he had shamelessly sauntered in and out of her dreams with his All-American blond good looks, overt masculinity and mercurial disposition, leaving her anxious about his impending presence at her table—and in her shower. Not at the same time she was using it, Patricia quickly amended, but it was too late to prevent her imagination from running wild with the image of wet, slick skin, rippling muscles, predatory eyes, and... Residual heat from the shower coupled with the thought of full-body exposure and left a sheen of steam upon her bathroom mirror.
Taking a swipe at her reflection with a washcloth, she sternly chided herself. “My dear, you are way too old for such foolishness.”
And with that admonition she shelved both her curling iron and her runaway thoughts. After yesterday’s ill-fated introductions, Patricia was determined to make a better second impression upon Cameron Wade. She had considerably more faith in her culinary ability than in the hasty attempt she had made at sprucing herself up. Undoubtedly it was too much to ask that sizzling sausage, pancakes and homemade chokecherry syrup could actually make her new employee glad she had coerced him into staying. But it sure couldn’t hurt any and would be a nice change from the cold cereal her family usually shoveled into themselves for breakfast.
As the cuckoo clock in the living room announced the hour with seven cheerful chirps, the song that Patricia had been humming died on her lips. Time had gotten away from her. She glanced anxiously out the window. Cameron’s pickup was gone. Her heart sank at the realization that he’d lit out like some thief in the night.
Patricia’s disposition turned as cold as the expensive food she had worked so hard to prepare. As cold as the empty chambers of a woman’s injured pride.
Telling herself that a meal and a room for the night would be the cheapest lesson in human nature that she would ever come by, she steeled herself against the children’s reaction to the news that their guest had run off.
“Pancakes!” Johnny’s eyes opened in surprise at the breakfast in front of him. He took a huge syrup-saturated bite. “Where’s Cameron?” he asked, wiping his chin with his pajama sleeve.
“Gone.”
The single word stuck in her throat. Patricia took no satisfaction in the knowledge that her suspicions that all men were born liars had o
nce again been proven true. Since her own husband had spent more time running from his problems than facing them, she told herself she shouldn’t have expected more from a stranger with no emotional attachments to her plight. Refusing to give in to the temptation to check out the back window one more time, Patricia told herself that there was as much hope of Cameron reappearing as there was of her pulling a rabbit out of a hat; of the bank suddenly waiving the loan on this place; of a frog turning into a prince. Clearly Cameron Wade had sized up her financial status over dinner and convinced himself that she was in no position to legally pursue him for breach of contract.
She wished she could prove him wrong.
“But he promised to show Kirk and me some rope tricks after school today,” Johnny protested.
Taking in the disappointed expression on his face, Patricia seethed against all the broken promises in her son’s world.
“I’m sorry, honey.”
“What’d you do to him?” Johnny glared at his mother as if she were somehow single-handedly responsible for running him off.
“Nothing,” Patricia snapped. Certainly nothing she could think of that would send a man fleeing in the wee hours of the morning as if he were afraid of catching some contagious, life-threatening disease.
Kirk stumbled into the room with his shirt half-buttoned.
“Pancakes?” he asked with genuine surprise.
Patricia bristled. As if she never fixed them a hot breakfast!
Dragging a pajama sleeve across the bottom of his nose, Johnny informed his younger brother that the newest member of their gang had made a fleet-footed getaway without so much as saying goodbye. Staring disconsolately at the mound of soggy pancakes on the plate his mother thrust before him, Kirk’s lower lip quivered.
“I’m sure it’s all for the best,” Patricia reassured them both with a brittle smile that came nowhere near her eyes. “Now hurry up or you’ll be late for school.”
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