The Playboy's Own Miss Prim

by Mindy Neff

  “She died, then?”

  “Yeah. And I didn’t feel sad. And I didn’t want to take a penny of her money, I didn’t want the memories attached. She’d abandoned us, allowed us to live like dogs on that ranch. Grant and Clay felt the same. But Dad convinced us that the money was our due. He told us to contribute a good chunk of it to charities, to help other boys who’d suffered similar situations as ours, and then enjoy the rest. He coached us with shrewd investment advice so our nest eggs could grow—and manipulated us by telling us the amassing fortune meant all the more money we could give away to those in need.”

  “Which you do on a regular basis.” It was a statement, not a guess.

  “Yeah. It’s the damnedest—uh, darnedest—thing. Everything we touch seems to turn to gold. I try to give the stuff away and it just grows back like fat, healthy weeds.”

  She grinned. “Want to know which scripture that comes from?”

  She’d intended for him to smile. Instead he looked even sadder.

  “Darlin’, haven’t you been listening? I’m no saint, and I doubt the Man Upstairs is looking down on me very favorably right now. I don’t know who my biological father is, and because of that I’d sworn never to subject a child to the same circumstances—but I did. Or nearly did. I’d like to think I can make it right, but am I really a good enough role model?”

  “Of course you are. Forgiveness is a gift, Ethan.”

  “That’s what Dad always said. But when the memories creep in, it’s harder to remember.”

  She wondered what he held back, what darker hurts the young boy in him had suffered. But she wouldn’t push, didn’t want to know, nor did she need to know. Ethan was a good man, no matter what he said to the contrary.

  It was ironic. A week ago his concern over not being good enough would have thrilled her, been the perfect opening to slide adoption papers across the negotiating table, been just the thing she would have capitalized on to gain custody of Katie.

  She would have simply considered it God’s will and happily gone on her way—working out a visitation agreement with him of course. She would never want to keep his child from him, or deny Katie the privilege of knowing him, and Madison wasn’t all that far from Shotgun Ridge.

  Now, she felt different. She hurt for him, needed to help him realize what a good, decent man he was. She couldn’t bear the thought of him not keeping Katie.

  And even more than that, she couldn’t bear the thought of him not keeping her.

  Chapter Eight

  Ethan couldn’t find his boots. Katie was yelling her lungs out in the bedroom—obviously having suffered no ill effects from yesterday’s choking horror—and here he stood in his socks, unable to get completely dressed for the day. To heck with it.

  He grabbed his hat off the marble-top dresser and frowned when he noticed tufts of fur flying. On closer inspection, he realized it was cat hair.

  Dora.

  Katie’s cries got louder. He stepped up his pace and was in the yellow room in three strides.

  “All right. No sense in all the racket, I’ve got decent ears.” He lifted her out of the crib and nearly swore. Wet as a frog, she’d just soaked his shirt, too. Again. She immediately hushed and smiled.

  Snatching up a diaper from the bottom of the box and a clean little outfit with pink bunnies on it, he headed back toward his room.

  Dora was standing at the bottom of the stairs. “I’ve got her,” he said, realizing she’d heard Katie’s cries and had probably thought he’d forgotten about the kid or gone hard-of-hearing or something.

  And while he was in a fine snit and she was within glaring distance, he stopped and turned the full force of his displeased gaze on her.

  “Have you by any chance been photographing cats?”

  “Why, yes. How did you know?”

  He held out his fuzz-filled hat. “Woman, don’t you know a man’s hat is sacred?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Well it is. And speaking of sacred articles of clothing, you haven’t seen my boots, have you? Brown?” he described. “Nice and soft and well broken in?”

  She wouldn’t meet his gaze. That didn’t bode well. Dora always met his gaze head-on. Most of the time the trait was fairly disconcerting.

  “Dora?”

  “Um, I might have seen them…somewhere.”

  “Don’t tell me you put the cat in there, too.”

  “No, of course not. The boots were for the puppies.”

  He didn’t even bother to sigh. He had a soggy baby on his hip who’d already soaked the front of his shirt with pee and was now drenching his shoulder with slobber. He’d overslept—Dora’s fault because he’d had erotic dreams about her—Katie was almost out of diapers, and today was the day the Callahans had planned to tease Warrior and Sunday Best who’d make an excellent match, though they’d previously resisted each other.

  But the baby still had to be fed, he had to change, and by the time he’d accomplished all that, the fireworks were likely to be over. Plus he had to deal with cat hairs in his hat and God knows what the puppy had done in his boots.

  And while he stood there with his insides ripping every direction in turmoil, Dora gazed up at him with her fresh-faced innocence; her killer body in frayed jeans shorts and breast-hugging tank top; her sun-streaked blond hair kissing her smooth shoulders and tumbling over her back.

  She was the antithesis of him in every way. He was earthy, worldly and organized. She wouldn’t know organized if it came up and shook her hand in formal introduction.

  So what was it about her that made him want to bask in her presence? What devil was it that came to him in the middle of the night to toy with his subconscious and plant ridiculous thoughts in his mind, cause him to ask inappropriate questions of himself like, “Is she the one?” He didn’t want anybody to be “the one.”

  “Well, it looks as though you’ve got everything under control, so I’ll just leave you to it,” she said, starting to back away from the stairs.

  He should have kept his mouth shut. Should have and did were miles apart. “So, is your dance card full for the day?”

  “Yes.” Her answer was immediate and unapologetic as she glanced from him to the baby.

  He knew what she was thinking—that he wanted her to help him out with Katie. He liked being the one to surprise for once.

  “That’s too bad. I was planning to go into town for a while and thought you might like to join me.”

  “Oh. Isn’t that interesting. My card just opened up.”

  He felt his smile form slowly, starting in his gut and growing all the way to his eyes. “God’ll get you for fibbing, legs.”

  “I wasn’t fibbing. I answered your dance card question in the spirit with which it was posed. What are we doing in town?”

  “Shopping and lunch. Katie’s out of diapers and I’ve a hankering for one of Brewer’s greasy burgers.”

  “My kind of man. Shopping and food will get me every time.”

  IT TOOK NEARLY AN HOUR to get Katie dressed and fed and all the baby paraphernalia gathered. He tried putting her in the backpack he’d bought at Scott and Shirley’s store, but she immediately invented a new and annoying game of knocking off his hat. After he’d retrieved it for the fourth time in as many minutes, he considered just leaving it off. But he felt naked. The sun was warm, and he just didn’t feel dressed going to town without his hat.

  Abandoning the backpack in favor of the stroller, he rolled her out of the house. This was a better arrangement, anyway. The stroller had a shade over the top to protect her, and he wanted to go out and check on the progress of Warrior and Sunday Best before they left. It would have to be a quick check, though, because Katie was completely out of diapers now.

  “Ethan, honestly. If we’re going to town, Katie ought to be dressed.”

  He looked at Dora, who was waiting for him outside, then down at Katie. “She’s dressed.”

  “In her pajamas.”

  Pajamas? He lifted
the stroller’s top, peered down at the cotton gown with pink bunnies on it and shrugged, unconcerned. “She doesn’t mind. Just looks like she’s wearing one of those long dresses girls are so taken with these days. And since both her hair and her vocabulary is limited, the bunnies and sandals will do the talking and eliminate any accidental gender insults.”

  Dora smiled. “Don’t count on it. I had her in a frilly pink dress with lace socks and a pink headband with a bow on it and some lady actually asked me how old he was.”

  “You’re just hanging out with the wrong people. The folks in Shotgun Ridge are sharper than that. Let’s take a walk over to the breeding shed for a minute. I need to check on something.”

  “Warrior and Sunday Best?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’ve been teasing half the morning and neither one is cooperating.”

  He stopped. He still wasn’t altogether comfortable with her witnessing some of the operations on the ranch. “How do you know?”

  “I was out with the…uh, the puppies, and I stopped in to watch.” She glanced away.

  As well she should. She’d tripped over her words because those puppies had pooped in his boots. He started to scowl all over again and then decided it wasn’t worth the energy. Dora had delivered his boots with an apology for taking them without permission. So why would anyone expect her—a woman who would more than likely walk right over the disasters left by a tornado without noticing—to look inside a pair of boots for surprises?

  “So did they abandon the attempt for the day?” he asked to distract himself.

  “Yes. They brought in Foolish Pride and she was much more receptive to the liaison, so they went with it.”

  “And you watched.”

  “Of course. It’s quite exciting.”

  That gleam in her eye made him nervous and he had no idea why, so he looked away.

  Buttery sunshine shone out of an endlessly blue sky where puffy white clouds rode the breeze like huge dollops of whipped cream. A perfect day to breed a champion. He should have figured they’d have trouble with Warrior and Sunday Best. For some reason, he related those two horses to Dora and himself. Perhaps it was just as well the two didn’t suit. A randy warrior had no business courting a Sunday girl.

  “I guess since you’ve given the breeding report I was after, we can go.”

  “Ready when you are.”

  Ethan loaded the stroller, the car seat and half of Katie’s worldly belongings into the Cadillac, ignoring Dora’s helpful suggestion that they’d likely not need all of the stuff. But Ethan was fast learning that it paid to be prepared for anything.

  Katie napped on the way to town and woke up refreshed and happy—and wet.

  “Looks like diapers are an emergency rather than a necessity now,” he said, noting that her dress—or pajamas, rather—were also damp. “Am I doing something wrong with these paper things? They don’t hold near enough water if you ask me.”

  “Let me see.” She lifted Katie’s gown and chuckled. “Uh, Ethan, you’ve got this diaper on backward.”

  “I do not.”

  She nodded again, bit her lip.

  He scowled. “This is how I’ve always done it.”

  All three days. “Didn’t you notice the back side was slightly larger than the front?”

  “No. They looked pretty even to me. I went by the tapes. An envelope’s flap is in the back. That’s where the sticky stuff is.”

  “A diaper’s not an envelope.”

  “Same principle. You’re sealing the kid in there.”

  “Trust me. The flaps on the diaper stick in the front.”

  “Then there ought to be some arrows or something. A tag stating front and back.”

  “The directions are on the box.”

  “Like I actually have time to look at the box when she’s squirming like a floppy fish. In case you’ve forgotten in the last three days, while you’ve been enjoying a fine vacation from kid duty, Katie deliberately messes up her diapers, even though she obviously can’t stand the way it feels, then she lets you know immediately. And patience isn’t one of her strong suits. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for locating and reading instructions.”

  “Doesn’t it make you proud to have recognized this personality trait of your daughter’s?”

  “It’d make me prouder if she’d just ask to use the toilet.”

  “We’ll have to work on the walking before we can tackle that.”

  He pounced on the “we” part. “Good. Then you’ll help me give walking lessons before you go?”

  He had no idea what he’d said to make her sparkling eyes go all sad that way. Then he realized that it would probably be difficult for her to walk away from Katie. He started to tell her she could stay as long as she wanted, get used to the idea of having her freedom again, but she turned and looked around the town as though the weird moment had been all in his imagination.

  “Why don’t you meet me at Brewer’s Saloon when you’re done shopping,” she said.

  “You mean you’re not going with me?”

  She turned back to him then. “You need to know if you can handle a shopping trip on your own.”

  “I already know I can.”

  “Then hop to it, and if you’re real lucky, I’ll buy you an ice cream to go with those greasy burgers.”

  Before he could agree or disagree, or further his case for wanting company on the shopping trip, she’d started across the street toward the saloon.

  He didn’t worry about turning her loose on the town when she didn’t know anybody. Shotgun Ridge’s main drag was barely a block long. And Dora didn’t have a bit of trouble blending in and meeting folks on her own. He had an idea you could plunk her down in a mud puddle and she’d be perfectly happy. She was adaptable. Special. Fun.

  Katie squirmed and whimpered, patting her diapers.

  “Evidently Dora forgot to teach you that patience is a virtue?” Katie blinked and grinned. “Not to worry. We’ve got a preacher and Sunday school here—maybe not exactly like you’re used to at Dora’s daddy’s church, but it’s the same teachings.” He moved down the sidewalk toward the general store, keeping up a one-sided conversation as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

  “Your old man might have a past littered with sin, but that doesn’t mean I don’t intend to bring you up right. And we’ll both read the instructions on the diaper box. I can’t believe you didn’t say something in the first place rather than peeing all over me and everything else.”

  Katie giggled, and Ethan felt he’d successfully distracted her from her wet bottom. He stepped into the cool interior of Tillis’s General Store and actually felt like preening when all eyes fastened on him—predominately women’s eyes.

  Complements of Ozzie Peyton, Lloyd Brewer, Vernon Tillis and Henry Jenkins—more affectionately known as the geezers—the town’s population of women was growing steadily. Between the advertisements they’d put in newspapers and magazines—claiming they had a bunch of bachelor cowboys and not enough women and babies—and the bachelor auction, women were showing up by the carloads.

  Ethan noticed a wider variety of groceries stocking the shelves and three rows of brand-new shopping carts rather than the ten or so rickety ones that had been here since he’d first arrived twenty-six years ago. The number of carts seemed a bit excessive—this wasn’t a huge supermarket with long, wide aisles. It was perhaps fifteen hundred square feet with closely spaced, short gondolas that required hairpin turns and would likely cause major pileups if too many baskets tried to navigate at once.

  “Let’s live a little dangerously, toots,” he said to Katie and plopped her in the fold-out seat section of the cart. Her gown bunched up around her thighs. “Okay, next time you can wear pants.” She patted her diapers again. “I know, I know. Your butt’s wet and we’re gonna fix that.”

  He waved to Vera Tillis and wheeled the cart around the store, even though he hadn’t a clue where the baby stuff was. He’
d never been down that aisle before. But zipping around tight aisles on brand-new wheels that didn’t wobble appealed to his sense of adventure. Kind of like hugging tight barrels on a superbly responsive quarter horse.

  “Hey, Vera,” he hollered. “I need diapers.”

  “So I’ve heard. In the back, to the right.” She came over to join him. “Oh, isn’t she just a love. And she’s the spitting image of you. Katie, is it?”

  See there? The pink bunnies were a dead giveaway. He wished Dora was here to witness the automatic recognition due to her pink outfit. It was probably the short hair that caused the resemblance to him. That and the blue eyes and the grapevine. “And just how is it you know her name?”

  “Ethan, you forget where you are and who my husband is!” Vera laughed. “May I?” Before he could answer, Vera had Katie lifted out of the basket.

  “Careful,” he said. “She’s wet.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, isn’t it sweetie?” Vera said.

  At last. A woman willing to help out. Well, that wasn’t strictly fair. Dora had backed off for his own good, she’d said. She was making sure he learned by doing.

  He just hadn’t realize the doing was going to be quite this hair-raising.

  Katie was perfectly happy going to Vera, which gave him a belated twinge. That wasn’t good, was it? He’d have to teach her not to talk to strangers. But how did you get a kid to distinguish between a friend and a stranger? He’d think about that later.

  “Okay, what is it you know, Vera?”

  “That this precious little girl is your daughter. Ozzie knows your friend Dora’s father, Ben Watkins. And of course when Ozzie sinks his teeth into something, he naturally shares it with Vern and the others.”

  “Naturally. They’re thinking about matchmaking again, aren’t they, Vera?” One good thing about the gossip mill—he might get some speculative looks, but it would reduce the number of times he would have to repeat himself.