As if reading her mind, Cameron turned his attention from the children to her. “How about it, Patricia? Do you want to come along, or would you rather have some peace and quiet instead?”
“I’d better keep Amy inside.”
Patricia was embarrassed to hear the disappointment registering in her voice. How low had she sunk when a simple outing to the Dairy Barn sounded like an exotic excursion?
“I wouldn’t want to expose anybody else’s children to chicken pox.”
“Makes sense,” Cameron responded easily.
Far more sense than the way his eyes glittered with sensual fire. Patricia wondered if she was becoming delirious. What man could look at such a disheveled and tired woman the way Cameron was looking at her? As though ice cream was the absolute last thing on his mind.
“I’m ready!” announced Johnny, sweeping his empty bowl off the table and heading for the sink.
“Me, too,” chimed in Kirk as he raced his brother to the sink.
“I’ll be back soon,” Cameron assured her with a conspiratorial wink.
Patricia blanched at the promise. She squeezed her eyes shut as the ground beneath her feet tilted back and forth like some crazy carnival ride. He couldn’t have known that those were the last words Hadley had ever said to her.
Cameron reached out to steady her and found her skin hot to the touch. Silken fire beneath his fingertips.
“Why, you’re burning up!” he exclaimed, his eyes widening in surprise.
She swayed, fighting the impulse to rest her aching head against that rock-solid shoulder if only for a fraction of a second.
Don’t go! she longed to say.
The boys fidgeted impatiently. Johnny shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“Maybe I should stay,” Cameron ventured. The look of concern on his face appeared genuine.
“Go on, and have fun,” she croaked. “You don’t want to disappoint the boys.”
Go on before you discover the real reason I’m on fire. Before you discover the power you have over me. Before I have to admit to myself the feelings I have for a man who’s so utterly wrong for me.
“Are you sick?” he persisted.
“I can’t be. It’s a rule, you know. Mommies aren’t allowed to get sick.” Patricia’s smile was as off center as her humor.
Clamoring to be free, Amy threw a Popsicle stick across the room. “Down!” she demanded, and repeated herself a half dozen more times just to make sure she got her point across.
Kirk tugged on Cameron’s sleeve. “We could bring you back a milk shake,” he suggested.
“Chocolate please.”
As Johnny grabbed Cameron’s other sleeve, Patricia turned away to fumble with the belt that fastened her daughter to her high chair. She hoped Cameron didn’t notice that her hands were shaking.
“Have fun,” she said while doing her best to disguise the shiver of dread in her voice. “And drive carefully. There’s a lot of wildlife on the road this time of night.”
Patricia awoke slowly as if feeling her way through a heavy fog. It took her a moment to figure out just where she was. When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realized she was in the living room where she had fallen asleep on the couch with Amy nestled in a ball beneath her chin. Somebody kind had draped a blanket over the two of them before heading off to bed himself. Patricia shifted and tried getting to her feet without awakening the baby. She checked her watch. They had been asleep for almost four solid hours. The longest either had managed in the past twenty-four.
A light had been left on in the kitchen, and for once Patricia was grateful for the boys’ lack of concern for the electric bill. She made her way up the stairs by the light. As she laid Amy down, the tot stuck her thumb into her mouth, adjusting to the change in surroundings with a loud, comfortable suck. Patricia wound the music box, sewn into a favored blue teddy bear, before flicking on the nightlight and tiptoeing out of the room. She took a moment to check on the boys and found both neatly tucked into their respective beds.
Her stomach grumbled, reminding her of the supper she had neglected to eat. She headed back to the kitchen for a snack and was in the process of opening the refrigerator door when a fluttering paper caught her eye. Affixed to the door with a magnet was the math assignment Cameron had helped Johnny complete. The teacher had underlined the red letter A twice and added a scratch ‘n’ sniff “Good Work” sticker as an extra motivational measure.
Patricia opened the refrigerator door with a telltale tremor to her hand. A chilly blast of air rushed out at her. The mist blurring her eyesight confused her. She had stood the pain of great loss with the stoicism of a Spartan, not so much as shedding a tear at her husband’s funeral. Why the sight of a chocolate malt melting in her refrigerator would make her burst into tears was completely beyond her understanding.
Chapter Ten
Breakfast was a mumble of strained courtesies. With the exception of that blessed stretch of sleep on the couch, courtesy of Cameron’s Caretaking Service, the rest of Patricia’s night had been nightmarish. Amy had awakened every hour on the hour, tearful, itching and indignant. Nothing Patricia did budged either her temperature or her disposition. Between the teething and the pox, Patricia was at wit’s end.
She suspected she was sick herself. Sick with worry about Amy’s health. About whether she was doing an adequate job raising her children. About whether she would be able to pay the bills for another month. Whether she had made the right choice to stay in Wyoming and not succumb to her father’s demands that they go “home.” But most of all she was worried about whether she was falling in love.
The fact that Cameron showed up at the table bearing a huge box of doughnuts did little to put her mind at ease. It was going to be darned hard not to miss such kind favors when the man got his fill of Ranch Pandemonium and struck out for the horizon, sighing in relief. Glancing at the calendar hanging on the wall, Patricia counted off the remaining length of his contract. Time was rapidly slipping by.
Reading the fatigue in Patricia’s expression, Cameron ordered the boys to gather up a handful of doughnuts to eat on the road. They wolfed them down on the way out the door.
“Bye, Mom,” they mumbled through mouthfuls. “See ya after school.”
There was concern in his gaze as Cameron ordered, “You take it easy, now.”
His eyes refused to release her gaze until she nodded in agreement. The protective warning, glittering in those blue depths, sent a thrumming feminine awareness rushing through her. She averted her eyes as demurely as a schoolgirl.
“I mean it,” he reiterated. “Just as soon as the boys are safely on their way to school, I’ll be back to help.”
They weren’t out of the driveway before Patricia was at the medicine cabinet searching for relief. She thought her head was going to explode. The throbbing was so painful it felt like a chorus line was tap dancing on her temples. She shook a couple of aspirin out of a bottle and forced them down in one big gulp.
The baby wasn’t hungry for anything put in front of her. Not for oatmeal, for puréed fruits, even for that good old standby—Popsicles. Each entree landed on the floor with an accompanying shriek of disapproval.
Patricia found herself at that point between sleeplessness and irritability where parents can so easily be pushed over the edge. A shrill voice bubbled out of some pocket of frustration deep inside her that she didn’t recognize as her own. Surely that incoherent babble belonged to a monster. She suspected if she were to glance in a mirror, Frankenmommy would be staring back at her.
Big things like the repeated loss of their investments and her husband’s death she handled amazingly well. It was the little things like the baby’s incessant crying, a mounting pile of debt and the uncertainty in her own heart about her feelings for a man she did not completely trust that threatened to overpower her.
Patricia moaned. Covering her face with her hands, she crumpled into a ball against the sink and tried to block
out a world that was crushing the life out of her.
Cameron could not believe his eyes when he returned to the ranch a short time later. Seemingly unattended, Amy sat in the middle of a floor littered with an interesting collection of pots and pans. At the realization that her mother was nowhere in sight, a surge of panic set Cameron’s heart ringing like the clapper in a warning bell.
“Hey there, little darlin’!” he murmured, stooping to pick Amy up.
She wrapped her sticky arms around the strong column of his neck and sniffled into the open collar of his shirt. Though it tickled, Cameroon was in no mood for laughing. He wouldn’t be until he located the girl’s mother and put his mind at rest.
Stepping around the kitchen counter, he made his way to the sink and was stopped in his tracks at the sight of Patricia huddled against the sideboard. She reminded him of a seashell, curled protectively upon herself.
“Are you all right?”
She didn’t so much as look up. It seemed to take a Herculean effort for her to simply nod her head and acknowledge his presence.
Cameron turned the faucet on and ran some warm water over a washcloth. He wiped Amy’s face off and set her down. Immediately she began wailing. Remembering that it had worked before, he pulled his grandpa’s gold watch out of his pocket and handed it to her. She grinned up at him before toddling off into the living room teething on her new “toy.” Neither the sentimental or actual value of the antique was of any concern to Cameron at the moment. The sight of Patricia curled in a fetal position sent a shaft of fear coursing through every nerve in his body.
He squatted beside her and softly asked, “What’s the matter, darlin’?”
There it was again. That same mellifluous endearment that he employed in the comforting of crybabies of all ages.
“Nothing!” Patricia insisted, choking back her tears. The chances of him sticking around after witnessing such a psychotic episode were astronomically small.
Draping an arm around her shoulders, Cameron drew her close to him. His sinewy strength was both solid and gentle. Clean, he smelled of masculine cologne. Of woods and wind and wildness restrained.
“Nothing?” he persisted, brushing the hair away from her face. Fascinated by the way it caught the light streaming through the window, he lingered a moment over its silky texture. Reminded of a frightened animal caught in a trap, he petted her and softly repeated her name.
“Everything...” The word came out half whisper, half sob.
“It can’t be as bad as all that.” Cameron’s drawl was as sweet and sticky as sun-warmed honey. “Why don’t you let me take a turn with Amy? Take a little nap or better yet a nice long walk.”
“You’d do that for me?” Patricia sniffled in disbelief.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Once again Cameron found himself wondering what kind of man Patricia’s husband had been. Piecing together her own reactions and some of the things the children had said, he was inclined to believe the lout had never so much as lifted a finger to help out. Yet Patricia seemed determined to protect his memory with religious fervor. Secretly Cameron dubbed Hadley St. DoLittle the Spineless, patron of good times and irresponsibility. He supposed that covering for her husband’s flaws had helped make Patricia such a strong individual.
It was a shock to discover that behind that Super Woman mask she donned each day was a vulnerable little girl fighting to prove she was able to have it all and do it all by herself—without the assistance of some clumsy man underfoot. Now that her invisible mask was smashed and scattered into a thousand pieces at her feet, Cameron felt a fierce possessiveness well up inside of himself. Never before had he felt such a strong urge to make a woman his own and safeguard her against the world. The intensity of that feeling hit him like a ton of wet sand.
Taking her hand into his, Cameron stood up and pulled Patricia to her feet. The tingle of his touch radiated from her fingertips to all her limbs, settling at last in the pit of her stomach where it lingered in sweet, undulating waves.
“Don’t you worry about a thing, darlin’. We’ll get along just fine. You’ve just been cooped up too long in this house, working way too hard without enough sleep. You just need to take a little time for yourself, that’s all. God knows you deserve it. Go on and take your walk.”
Her eyes looked blank, but she nodded mutely.
“And don’t come back until you’re good and ready.”
Patricia was afraid that once she started walking she would never come back. Just walking away from it all seemed the most sensible solution at the moment, and visions of hitching a ride out of town danced in her mind. But to her surprise the most amazing thing happened while she was ambling along. Ten short minutes ago she was going out of her head, in angst over life being nothing more than one disparaging moment strung to the next when suddenly she noticed how incredibly blue the sky was. She stopped walking for a minute and allowed herself to be completely transfixed by the beauty of the color. It matched a certain pair of eyes that had been haunting her dreams.
In the absence of the baby’s incessant crying, Patricia could feel her head begin to clear. Walking without purpose she found her way to the creek out back where a meadowlark trilled its bright, clear song. She rested there for a while skipping stones along the surface of the rippling water. They skittered away like so many petty concerns.
Feeling better, she meandered back up toward the corrals. Hoping to be fed, the emus flocked to where she stopped at the fence. She reached out to scratch one on the top of its head. “Hello, my fine feathered friend,” she said in a voice surprisingly not only sane but also congenial.
A calico kitten that the kids had named Tiger rubbed up against her leg mewling for attention. Patricia stooped to pick it up. She rubbed her face in the softness of its long fur and was rewarded with a low purr of delight. Kicking a pebble under her toe, she headed back to the house. Cameron had been right. All she needed was a little space to herself to rediscover that when all was said and done, life wasn’t so bad after all.
Stepping into the house, Patricia felt the seed of suspicion sprout in her heart. It was altogether too quiet. From experience she knew that particular sound held more potential for danger than the noisy reverberations of sibling squabbles and roughhousing. The messy kitchen floor would have to wait. Patricia was determined to find out just what was going on.
After discerning that Amy was not in her crib or her room, Patricia was drawn to the bathroom by the soft sound of running water. The door was slightly ajar. She pushed it open and peered in.
There she discovered her foreman squatting next to the tub, up to his elbows in bubble bath. Looking as content as an aristocrat who had finally found competent help, her daughter was giggling and splashing water all down the front of his flannel shirt. There appeared to be more water on the floor than in the tub.
How the man managed to look sexy in such a setting was beyond her, but with his shirt open and the muscles of his legs straining against the tight denim of his jeans, it was the first word to come to her mind. A wet lock of his blond hair sagged over his forehead. She’d seen puppy dogs left out in the rain all night that looked drier than Cameron did at the moment.
“Here, let me help you,” she said, stepping into the room with her old air of confidence.
Cameron thought her smile as welcome as the sun on an overcast day. Careful not to slip on the water, Patricia leaned over him and took a dry towel off the rack behind him. The action drew her shirt tight across her breasts, and he felt the stirring of his sexual response thrumming through his body.
Amy smacked the surface of the water with open hands.
“That’s enough out of you, young lady,” Patricia warned, but her tone of voice implied no real threat.
Cameron plucked the culprit from the water and handed her over to her mother. “Upsy-daisy,” he intoned, disregarding the fact that she was dripping water all over him.
Patricia rubbed the girl gently with a f
luffy towel, wrapped her in its soft folds and set her down. She hit the floor running. Off flew the towel as she shrieked with delight at the cool feel of air upon bare skin. The tepid bath had helped drop her temperature, and she was obviously feeling better. The pitter-patter of her feet as she raced down the hall and into her room was indeed a joyful noise.
As Patricia bent to mop up the excess water on the floor with the discarded towel, Cameron studied her luscious curves. When she straightened, they almost collided in the cramped space.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized.
“I’m not.”
Her heart skipped several beats. Pretending to ignore the comment, she reached for another towel and attempted to treat him like one of her boys. Maternally.
“Here, let me help you out of that wet shirt.”
Cameron didn’t put up a struggle. He shrugged the shirt off, allowing himself the luxury of being pampered by a beautiful woman. The feel of her rubbing that soft towel against his skin was sheer heaven. He closed his eyes and indulged all of his senses. She smelled like strawberries, and he had the strongest urge to see if she tasted of them, too. Fingertips traced with infinite care the scars mapping his chest.
“It’s nothing,” he assured her through lazy lashes.
Glittering, Patricia’s eyes bespoke her concern. The towel fell between them in a puddle of pink terry cloth. Her hands splayed across his chest in a soft, tender motion more seductive than anything he’d ever been subjected to in his whole life. It was as if she were touching the very surface of his heart, bringing it back to life with the magic of her healing touch.
“I certainly wouldn’t call that nothing. What in the world happened to you?”
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