The Playboy's Own Miss Prim

by Mindy Neff

  When he glanced up, Dora had stopped sketching and was watching them, smiling. She squatted down and held out her hands, and just that simply, Katie released Ethan’s fingers and took an unsteady step, then another.

  Ethan was so stunned and excited he hovered right behind her, hardly daring to breathe, his hands out and ready to catch her if she fell. He wanted to shout and have everyone come running, to witness this amazing feat his daughter had accomplished. But he didn’t want to startle her.

  Dora was half-kneeling, stretching closer. Katie shrieked in pure glee and toddled right into her waiting arms.

  “You smart girl! You walked.” She lifted the baby and buried her lips in Katie’s pudgy cheeks.

  Ethan was right there, his arms around both of them, adding his own kisses to his daughter.

  “Did you see that?” he asked rhetorically, beaming with pride. “She walked.”

  Dora muffled a laugh. “She sure did. Want to try it again?”

  “So soon?” Surely her little legs were tired. It had been touch-and-go there for a minute. She’d looked a lot like a spindly legged foal trying to find its balance.

  “Of course. Move back.” She set Katie down and steadied her. “Go to Daddy,” she whispered.

  Ethan was several feet away, his arms outstretched, emotions crowding his chest. Go to Daddy. The title still caught him by surprise, awed him.

  With his intent gaze still on Katie, the angry strike of hooves against concrete and the scuffle of boots drew his attention. Danger raised the hair on his nape a millisecond before he identified the source. Before he could blink or react, the joyous experience of his daughter’s first steps turned into a nightmare right before his eyes.

  A new stallion that Manny was leading into the stable reared out of control, striking at the stalls and everyone in his path. Ethan should have known better than to be playing in here. This was a working stable filled with spirited, expensive, unpredictable horses. No place to set a baby on the ground.

  Men shouted and groped for lead ropes, trying to hold the stallion back, settle him. Nostrils flaring, hooves striking, he broke free and charged toward Dora and Katie.

  Grant and Clay shouted. For an instant Dora froze, Katie cradled in her arms. Her back was against the wall, and she had nowhere to go. She turned and curled into herself, huddled there, covering Katie, leaving herself exposed.

  Ethan threw himself into the stallion’s path, waving his arms wildly. With a horribly surreal feeling, as though his legs were hardly moving, as though his entire body was sluggish, just like in the nightmares he sometimes had, he tried to reach Dora and Katie. At the last instant, he hurled himself against her back, pressing her solidly against the wall of the stable, shielding them with his own body.

  The stallions hind quarters rammed into him, slamming him harder against Dora. Muscles strained as he tried to form a barricade around them with his arms, his hands planted against the wall, but his strength was no match against the mighty shove of the spooked animal and he couldn’t help but smash Dora and Katie against the unyielding wall.

  Katie screamed as though she’d been mortally wounded. He was afraid to look.

  Despite Grant’s and Clay’s efforts to subdue the stallion, he broke away from the lead ropes and stampeded through the open end of the stable.

  “Is everyone all right?” Grant called, his voice full of fear and concern.

  Ethan couldn’t answer for a minute. His mouth was bone-dry and his heart was ramming brutally against his rib cage.

  He turned Dora and Katie in his arms. “Are you okay?” Katie still cried as though the world had ended, her mouth wide open, nose running, big tears drenching her face. “The baby?” He ran his hands over both Katie and Dora, checking for scrapes on their faces.

  “We’re fine,” Dora said, her voice trembling.

  “But Katie. Why’s she crying so hard?”

  “She’s just scared.”

  Katie reached for Ethan, and he took her into his arms. Grant and Clay were still hovering.

  “Everyone’s fine,” Ethan said, not feeling fine at all. His insides were quaking and his knees felt like water. He wanted to sit. “Make a note of that stallion’s temperament. We’ll want to think twice before we use his sperm.”

  “Cat ran under his feet,” Clay said. “Wasn’t really his fault.”

  “Watch him in any case. Better yet, get Stony over here to work with him, give an opinion.”

  “Good idea,” Grant said. “I’ll take care of it. Sure you’re all right, Dora?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Katie had stopped crying, but was still snuffling. With her head on Ethan’s shoulder and a wad of his shirt clutched in her fist, she was gazing out at everyone as though they’d deliberately upset her but her daddy was going to make it right.

  Dora felt a stinging in her stomach, and her heart. Like a knife slicing through delicate flesh, it had wounded her when Katie had reached for Ethan. It shouldn’t have, and she felt small for feeling this way. She loved Ethan. And Ethan loved Katie. She truly wanted them to be a family.

  Still, Katie had been hers for much longer than she’d been Ethan’s. She’d always relied on Dora to protect her, had always wanted Dora to soothe her when life threw her a curve.

  Her heart started pounding harder. Stop it, Dora. Don’t borrow trouble before it finds you.

  But she knew. Trouble had indeed found her.

  Ethan turned back to her, studied her, reached out to tenderly brush her forehead. “You’ll probably have a bruise, but the skin’s not broken.”

  Dora examined the spot with her own fingers. “I didn’t even notice.”

  “Does it hurt?” he asked softly, still watching her in an odd manner.

  His gentleness made her want to weep. Dora shook her head, studied him, her gaze clinging, asking silent questions. They’d had a scare. Emotions were running high. This was the perfect opportunity for him to declare his feelings.

  Yet, instead of declarations, he stepped back, both emotionally and physically.

  And suddenly Dora knew exactly what that look had meant.

  He cared, as anyone would who’d been intimate with another person. But he still couldn’t, wouldn’t make promises. A commitment.

  Wanting to scream, she swallowed hard and cupped his cheek. Her smile was sad, an apology, a gesture of reluctant understanding. A wish that things could be different.

  Time’s up, she thought, knowing her heart was in her eyes, but helpless to do anything about it.

  “Ask me to stay,” she whispered.

  He looked as though she’d struck him. “I can’t. I’m no good for you, Dora.”

  “Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?”

  He shook his head. “You deserve someone much better than me.”

  She could have hit him. But he was safe at the moment since he held the baby. She took a deep breath, tried to control her frustration.

  “If you don’t think you’re good enough for me, what about Katie?”

  “That’s different. She’s my blood. She doesn’t have a choice. But you do, legs. You can have someone better.”

  Her fist was seriously itching to take a swing. She ignored the latter part of his statement and concentrated on the first. “Katie has a choice. Adoption.”

  “Never.” His voice was resolute.

  And Dora realized it was hopeless. She had to admit that Ethan was an excellent father. He loved his little girl. And Katie loved him. There was no way he’d give her up. And besides that, he had a legal right to the child. He was Katie’s father.

  Dora was only a friend.

  “I have a confession to make,” she began softly. “I didn’t just come here to fulfill my promise to Amanda. I came to persuade you to give Katie to me. I thought you’d realize that a baby didn’t fit in with your lifestyle and it would be a piece of cake to get you to sign over adoption papers.”

  “You never mentioned—”

  She sh
ook her head, interrupted. “No. Because I changed my mind. Because I was greedy. I decided I wanted it all.”

  “All?”

  “Katie and you.”

  He stared at her in utter confusion, as though she’d taken him totally by surprise, as if the possibility that she might have deeper feelings for him had never occurred to him.

  That was the final nail in her coffin.

  She hesitated one last moment, waited…for a lightning bolt, an admission of undying love, she didn’t know what. His hat shaded his eyes, but she still saw the compassionate look. Dear Lord, it was pity.

  Well, she’d truly made a fool of herself. But she could remedy that. She could pretend a sophistication she didn’t in any way feel.

  Giving him a gentle smile, a smile intended to release him of any guilt or obligations, she turned and walked away.

  WITHIN AN HOUR of the near tragedy in the barn, Ethan was a mess. Katie sensed something was wrong and she was fussing. Nothing he did for her would settle her. Grant and Clay had even given it a turn, but to no avail.

  Feeling his gut twist in panic, he watched as Dora came down the stairs carrying two suitcases and a huge duffel bag.

  All the belongings she’d brought with her.

  Only hers, though. Not Katie’s.

  Her shoulders were square, but her beautiful face was raw with sadness.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, his own throat aching.

  “It’s time.”

  “But Katie just learned to walk. There’s still toilet training to go through.”

  Dora smiled and made an effort not to look at Katie. She wouldn’t be able to hold in the horrendously clawing emotions if she looked. If she touched.

  “You’ll manage just fine.”

  “But she’ll miss you,” he argued.

  “Babies are resilient.” She swallowed hard, willed her voice not to break. “She’ll forget about me soon enough and bounce back.” Just the idea of being forgotten by this precious baby tore Dora in two.

  In his own way Ethan was asking her to stay. But for Katie. Not for him.

  She needed a much stronger reason than the baby’s welfare. She needed to be asked to stay for love.

  And for marriage.

  That’s just who she was.

  She had to leave before she totally lost it. There was nothing worse than messy goodbyes.

  He wasn’t going to stop her. She realized that now. Actually, she’d realized that from the beginning, even though she’d held on to a fragile hope. She’d gone into the intimacy with her eyes wide open. She couldn’t cry foul. And she wouldn’t.

  “Katie loves you, Ethan. And you love her. You’re going to be a great father.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Katie’s wail escalated to a piercing scream when Dora walked out the door.

  “Shh, baby, shh.” He didn’t know what to do. He’d just let Dora slip through his fingers. But damn it, he didn’t have a right to stop her.

  “Great going, bro,” Grant said above Katie’s heartbroken cries. Both Grant and Clay had been unashamedly eavesdropping from the kitchen. “Are you just going to let her walk out?”

  “What else can I do?”

  “Stop her.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Give me that baby,” Clay said with a look of disgust for Ethan’s incredible stupidity. “There, now, doll baby. Come tell Uncle Clay all about it.” He shook his head. “Uncle Grant will tell your daddy what a big idiot he is.”

  Ethan’s emotions were in excruciating turmoil as it was. He didn’t need this kind of abuse from his brothers, too.

  His fists clenched at his sides. Katie was still crying, even though Clay had taken her into the kitchen and was doing his best to soothe. It wasn’t right. That baby shouldn’t be so heartbroken. It was his job to see to it.

  “I didn’t protect them today,” he said to Grant.

  “In the stable.”

  He nodded. “They could’ve been seriously injured. Killed. What if it happens again and I’m not around? What if I can’t protect them?” He’d sworn he would never feel that kind of responsibility again.

  And trust Grant to know exactly what Ethan was dancing around, the underlying truth beneath his questions.

  “You’ve got to let that go, Ethan. We’re not kids anymore and we’re not in Chicago. That part of our life is over.”

  “Is it? Don’t you still have nightmares about that slimeball our mother brought home? That miserable excuse for a human who tried to put his hands on you?”

  Grant winced. “That had nothing to do with you.”

  “The hell it didn’t. I was the oldest. It was my responsibility. You guys were my responsibility.”

  “No. We were our mother’s.”

  Ethan felt his insides twist. He was grabbing at straws and he knew it. Katie was still crying so hard he wondered if she’d make herself sick.

  “What if I’m like her?” He didn’t even want to think it. But here was the root of his character, the reason he lived his life the way he did, felt the way he did.

  “Like who?”

  “Our mother. She couldn’t commit to a long-term relationship. She went from man to man. You know as well as I do that we all have different sperm donors, and there’s not a whole hell of a lot of age difference between us.” He rarely thought about the fact that they each had a biological father out there somewhere.

  “What if there’s some renegade gene embedded in me despite the decent upbringing Dad gave us? What if it breaks through and turns me into the kind of man who’d feel trapped waking up to the same woman every day.”

  “It’s not like you to say stupid things, Ethan.” Grant ignored the flare of anger in Ethan’s face. “Can you honestly imagine feeling that way about Dora?”

  “Not right now. I hardly get anything done because I just want to stand around and take a good long while looking at that face. But what about later?”

  “You can’t live your life based on what-ifs. What if later never comes? What if the nasty gene’s not there? Do you want to spend the rest of your life waiting for the boogeyman to jump out at you?”

  “Get real.”

  “No, you get real.” Grant’s tone held a snap to it now. “Genetics aside, Ethan, you have a choice. You’ve seen Stony make champions out of horses who through no fault of their own have inherited bad traits. They become champions because they have heart. And that’s stronger than a renegade gene.”

  Ethan began to hope. And to realize that he’d really screwed up. He did want to wake up to Dora’s face every day, her disorganization, her sass and her innocence and her verve. She was a woman who would never bore him. A forever kind of woman. “I’m a fool.”

  “You won’t get any argument here. Do you love her?”

  Five minutes ago he would have been stunned by the immediate answer that sprang to his lips.

  “Yes.” He tested the affirmation, felt his heart kick up a beat. “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “Did you tell her?”

  He shook his head. “Why would I? I didn’t even know till just now.” It simply hadn’t occurred to him to examine his feelings and recognize them for what they were. He’d been a playboy bachelor for so long, the proper way of doing things was foreign to him.

  He didn’t think he’d ever said, I love you to any woman except his mom—and she’d dumped him off on strangers.

  And since then he’d never met anyone he wanted to spend more than a few weeks with. He was rich and spoiled, he realized. Before, he could always hop in the plane and fly off somewhere if he got bored. His money meant he could play and have anybody and anything he wanted.

  “Then I guess you didn’t have enough sense to ask her to stay? Offer her marriage? Because with a woman like Dora, you can’t offer anything less. You hurt her, Ethan. That look on her face as she walked out nearly tore my heart out. She’s the best thing that’s happened to any of us, and if you don’t recognize that—”

 
; “See if you can give Clay a hand with Katie,” he interrupted and charged out of the house, his heart pounding. He might not have been able to find the wherewithal to stop her from walking out the door, but he could darned well catch her, convince her to stay. Beg if need be.

  He only had one burning goal as he ripped open the door and ran outside. He’d never anticipated tripping over a pile of suitcases strewn on the porch. As he tumbled down the porch steps, his mind grabbed on to a single image.

  Dora.

  Sitting on the porch steps, her head on her knees, her arms over her head, hands covering her ears.

  He picked himself up off the ground, wanted to shout with joy. It was just like his Dora to leave things strewn about, creating tripping hazards.

  Instead, he just stood there, his chest swelling with emotion, his throat aching with it. Their eyes met and held. Hers were red rimmed and her cheeks were wet with tears.

  He ought to be strung up by his toes for hurting her this way. For being such an idiot.

  “I thought you left,” he said softly.

  “I did.” She sniffed, and her voice hitched.

  “But you’re still here,” he pointed out.

  “My feet wouldn’t go any farther.”

  His brows lifted. “How come?”

  “They have this thing about going someplace if everything else in me doesn’t go along with them.”

  “Your feet object?” He was a little confused, but that was nothing new around Dora. And she had such a charming way of confusing him.

  “Yes.”

  “What wasn’t going with them?”

  “My heart. I left it here.”

  Ah. He felt more confident now. “I suppose you expect me to give it back. Your heart, that is.”

  She glared at him with hurt and accusation. “You already gave it back when you let me walk out the door.”

  “I ought to be shot,” he said, but she obviously wasn’t paying attention.

  “I know it’s pitiful, but I can’t help it. It doesn’t seem to matter that you don’t want my heart or my love.”

  “But I do.”

  She shook her head, stared at the toes of her sneakers. “I heard Katie crying. You just need somebody to care for her.”