As he folded back the blue blanket, she felt her heart in her throat. When he awkwardly lifted the small bundle from the box, she had to force herself to keep breathing. Biting hard on her lower lip, she thought she was doing rather well, all things considered. Then came the pathetic wail.
She shot across the room. “Give him to me. You must be holding him too tight. You never did know your own strength.”
“Except with you,” John murmured, despite seeming willing enough to relinquish hold of the child.
A shiver of awareness raced through Dana, partly because of their closeness as he passed over his boy, and partly because she knew he was right. To a degree. He had tried to be careful with her—as careful as a man of his size and temperament could be—except for the first time they’d met, and the day before he’d left for Abilene. But she didn’t want to think about that now.
“There, there,” she crooned to the tiny bundle that fitted perfectly in the crook of her arm. Struggling not to meet John’s intense gaze for fear that he would see how vulnerable he could still make her feel, she turned away, gently rocking his son. “That’s better, isn’t it?”
“Looks like heaven to me.”
Dana could feel heat creep into her cheeks. No one had ever made her blush as easily or as often as he did. It took all her concentration to ignore him and focus on the child that another woman had borne him.
That was her second mistake of the day.
She fell in love. With her first gaze into the pink, innocent face, she knew she’d lost her heart as easily as she’d once lost it to the man she could feel watching her every move. Pain gripped her throat and throbbed in her chest.
So beautiful. So perfectly beautiful.
He was a miniature of his father, with the same steady, luminous brown eyes, the same shock of chestnut hair, the same bold features and stubborn chin. It wasn’t fair.
“What do you think?”
Dana resented the question as much as she did his presence. She knew what it invited, entreated, and she didn’t want to yield. At the same time, she couldn’t help touching the pad of her index finger to the baby’s chin. “You’re very lucky.”
“I’m not so sure, but thanks. He looks right in your arms, though.”
Disturbed and annoyed, she wanted to show him the door that very instant. Instead she turned away, shaking her head. “I can’t believe your…audacity bringing your child here when he should be home with his mother.”
“It’s not audacity, Dana, it’s desperation.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That you’re right. He should be home with his mother. The problem is she isn’t there.”
Sensing more than fatigue and unhappiness in him, Dana tensed even more. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“Celene left me.”
She fought an automatic tug of pity…and won. “Sounds like a smart lady, after all.”
He winced. “Don’t. I don’t deserve that. Regardless of what you think of me, I want you to know that I tried my best. I took responsibility for what I did. Really tried to make it easy for her.” He took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. “I should have known she wouldn’t be able to stick to her side of the bargain. The isolation, the boredom of routine at the ranch…it was all too much. But our arrangement was never meant to be permanent, anyway.”
She didn’t want to hear his lies again. She couldn’t.
“She never wanted the baby. I did. Figuring the way things were going, he’d be the only—Anyway, we made a pact. She agreed to stay until he was old enough not to rely on her so much.”
Resisting another flutter of sympathy, and more, she scowled. “That’s a good one. Your child can be twenty-one and still need you.” She couldn’t believe such cold-blooded negotiating, yet her curiosity got the best of her. “When did she leave?”
“Between the time I drove out this morning and when I came back to the house for lunch.” He dropped his gaze to his son. “The baby was screaming, the house was chilly, and she was gone.”
“Didn’t Durango see or hear anything from the bunkhouse?” Dana asked, trying to fathom his getting involved with such a woman. Who would leave a precious infant like this for any length of time, let alone abandon him?
“No. Between preparing lunch and taking calls for me, he says he must have missed her. It didn’t help that he has his TV too loud. But I’ve given up arguing with him about it. He’s not happy if he can’t watch his talk shows, and I can’t risk him walking out on me. Good help’s harder to find than ever these days.” With a sigh he reached into his open jacket. “She left me a note.”
Dana stepped back again as though he were reaching for a gun. “Don’t you dare read it to me. It’s none of my concern. What’s more, I’m not interested.”
“She’s calling it quits,” he continued, ignoring her protests. “She says she’s done her part and wants to get back to her life.”
How could she do that? “A woman doesn’t walk away from her own flesh and blood.” Dana thought of her own mother, who’d had decades of reasons to leave her father, but never did.
“Apparently some women can,” John said, breaking into her brooding. His massive chest rose and fell on a deep breath. “I drove into town hoping I might spot her. When that didn’t happen, I thought I could put him up at the hospital for a day or so until I tracked her down and arranged for things to be settled legally. Instead they kicked me out. Said they weren’t a nursery or a hotel.”
“At least somebody’s still thinking clearly. You can’t both abandon the child, Paladin. What were you thinking?”
“The truth? For a while, only that I wanted to wring her neck,” he growled, clenching his hands so much that the one holding his hat twisted the felt rim.
“Oh, typical,” Dana snapped. Comments like that proved a leopard could never change its spots. This was precisely why she’d told him, kept telling him, they could never have a future together. “That would have fixed everything. She’d either be dead or in a hospital, and you’d be in jail. You were really thinking about your son, weren’t you?”
“I wanted to track her down and make her sign a paper, something before witnesses, before she disappears and complicates things for who knows how long. She was in such a danged-fire hurry she didn’t think of that. Or else she didn’t care,” he added, with a sweep of his hat that spoke volumes of his frustration. “And now Bud’s telling me that if I step one foot out of the county, he’ll throw my butt in jail and put my boy into a foster home, citing abandonment.”
That sounded like extremely tough talk coming from Bud, but Dana knew the sheriff was only trying to save John from a bigger mistake. He was a better friend than John gave him credit for—or deserved. “At least someone around here is using common sense.”
“I need to finish this, Dana. Once and for all.”
“No doubt you will. What remains a mystery is why come to me—Merciful Mary, no.” She looked from him down to his child, and back again. “No, no, no. Slick try, but no way, Paladin.”
He took a step toward her. “I need help.”
“Then hire someone.”
“I’m particular.”
“Since when?”
A muscle twitched in his left cheek. “Low blow.”
“Get used to it. I’ve got plenty more where that came from.”
The baby uttered a pitiful complaint, and rightfully so, she thought, feeling immediately guilty. She was standing as stiff as a block of concrete. Poor innocent had to be picking up on that.
Although she tried to relax, Dana demanded tensely, “That can’t be why you came here.” There was no sense in beating around the bush. It was getting them nowhere and she needed to know what was going on—what he thought he was up to now. “What do you want?”
“What will you let me have?”
She felt as if he’d snatched the floor out from under her, and she was falling, falling. In sheer self-defense,
she spun away from him and retreated to the front window. Not having to look at him made things easier, but there was no way to block out his presence entirely. John Paladin filled a room like no one ever had, and that made him impossible to ignore. It had always been that way for her, since the day she’d arrived in town, an anxious sixteen-year-old, whose bully of a father had just been hired as the town’s chief of police.
After arguing over some traffic violation, John had burst out of her father’s office as she’d been entering. The force had sent her toppling backward to the floor. He’d been quick to apologize and help her back to her feet, the concern and regret in his eyes obvious—as had been his interest.
Her father had abruptly put an end to that meeting, but John had been waiting for her later, down the street. Apologizing again, he’d asked her for a date. Mesmerized by his rough good looks, but intimidated by his size and strength—characteristics that she’d come to fear—she’d explained with a strange mixture of relief and disappointment that her father forbade her to date until she turned eighteen. She’d soon learned, however, that John Paladin was a determined man. Once he’d decided he wanted something, he became totally focused on getting it. No one and nothing was allowed to step in his way. And John had decided he wanted her.
“We can’t go back,” she said, watching the downpour.
He stepped up behind her. “I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward.”
“I don’t think that’s possible. You know I didn’t believe we had a chance from the beginning. And now—”
“Dana, don’t say it.” He touched her hair, her shoulder, and hesitantly, awkwardly stroked her back. “I know I messed things up badly.”
She stiffened and laughed without humor. “You mean you destroyed any trust I’d had in you.”
“No!” He spun her around. “No matter what you think, I don’t—I won’t believe that’s all gone.”
Although his intense demeanor and physical contact made her feel as though a tidal wave was threatening to sweep her away, Dana willed herself to stand firm. “It’s true. You destroyed whatever belief I’d had in you.”
“One moment of lost control. And it was your fault.”
“Mine!” She immediately winced because her fury had upset the baby again. Quickly rocking him to quiet the soft whimpers, she shot John a bitter look and whispered, “I can’t believe you said that.”
“Think about it. If you hadn’t said you’d go to Fort Worth with Guy Monroe, I would never have lost my head the way I did.”
“I told you, we were sharing car expenses to attend a business seminar. Since we were both going, it made perfect sense. But you couldn’t see that, not you. Your mind went straight into the gutter and stayed there.”
“The man’s married and has three kids. It wouldn’t have looked right.”
“His wife trusted—no, trusts him.”
“Did you ask her or was that something he’s told you? For crying out loud, Dana, I know your father kept a tight rein on your life, but he’s gone, and you were twenty-five. How could you be so damned naive about people? Monroe has had several affairs that his wife’s chosen not to acknowledge for her children’s sake. Any fool could see he’d targeted you for his next conquest.”
Dana’s mouth fell open. “That’s not true.”
“You want names?” he retaliated, his hands on his hips.
She shook her head, not only because she didn’t want to know, but because she didn’t want to feel the doubts she was experiencing about Guy. They weren’t close friends, but she liked the chamber of commerce president, despite the embarrassment of John’s interference that had made her stay home that fateful weekend. She still spoke to Guy several times a month and he’d sent her some of her most valuable clients. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Would you have believed me?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted with some reluctance. “But the point is that whatever Guy may or may not have had on his mind is secondary to your behavior. You went ballistic, and you had no right to. Not only did it show that you didn’t trust me, but you were wrong in trying to dictate what I could or couldn’t do.”
“You knew how I felt about you.”
“What about how I felt? Of all the people in Dusty Flats who should have known that I would never let myself be controlled by anyone again, it was you. Instead you broke every promise you’d ever made to me. Promises you’ll recall I warned you you wouldn’t be able to keep. Do you have any idea how terrified I was when you—”
“Yes.” His gaze burned into hers. “There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t have regrets, when I don’t hate myself for how I acted that day. But eventually I was also able to find a seed of hope in the fact that I stopped in time. Remember?”
“I wore the imprint of your fingers on my arms for over a week,” she accused. “My lip got cut when you…” She looked away.
“Kissed you. Why can’t you say it?”
“Because it wasn’t a kiss, it was an attack.”
He drew a deep breath. “I could feel you slipping through my fingers. Then I tasted you and you went straight to my head. You ran scared. I ran eager. It happens.”
“Of course it does.” Dana could hear the trembling in her voice, but couldn’t help it. “And what you did upset you so much that the perfect solution was to go to Abilene and sleep with the first woman who would accommodate you.”
“Bad judgment based on frustration and hurt—”
“Spare me the clinical answers.”
“—and I’ve been paying for it in spades ever since. I will for the rest of my life,” John said more quietly. “There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t already said to myself, no name low enough that I haven’t already thought of.”
She attempted to pass his son back to him. “Then there’s no reason for you to be here any longer.”
He moved back a step to offset hers. “Yes, there is. I want to…Wait a minute, Dana.”
“Take him.”
“No. Hear me out.”
“What for?”
“Because I want you to teach me how to be a father.”
She knew her mouth fell open. She could tell by the flicker of relief in his eyes. But before she could recover, he began again.
“Bud’s right. I can’t leave my son to go chasing after Celene. I’ll call my lawyer and let him file the proper papers to deal with her. What’s important is that I be here for my boy, and that he learns early on that I’ll be whatever he needs me to be. But, hell, Dana…I don’t know where to begin.”
“You could start by not swearing in front of him.”
One corner of his mouth curved upward in a faint smile. “You’ll have to do better than that. You swore at me the moment you opened the door.”
“That proves I’m not the right person for this job,” she replied primly. She sidestepped him and crossed over to the couch where she placed the baby back into his box. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. Besides, I haven’t any more experience with children than you do.”
“So we’ll learn the technical stuff from the brochures the nurses at the hospital gave me. But you do know firsthand what a father shouldn’t be. He isn’t rough, impatient or loud the way I am…the way your father was. You could show me the better way, the gentler way to handle him when he does something wrong, and teach me how to encourage him so he won’t grow up to be a bully or a boaster. I don’t want him to back away from me the way you used to do with your old man when he was in one of his tempers, and the way you’ve already done with me today. I want him to call me Dad because he’s proud of me, not because he’s obligated to out of respect, or worse yet, fear.”
Dana felt his influence like a blowtorch melting a block of ice, felt the impossible pull of his charisma and resisted it with all her might. There was a time when she would have longed to believe he meant what he said, but she’d known him too long not to suspect he was asking too much from himself, l
et alone her. She began to shake her head.
“Before you turn me down again,” he said just as she attempted to add a verbal reply, “let me rephrase that request slightly. Help me until I can hire someone full-time.”
It was better, but still difficult. “I really shouldn’t…No, it’s impossible. I can’t.”
“But I have a ranch to run.”
“And I have a business.”
“I know that, but—Dana, if you don’t help me, my only other option is to use Durango.”
Now that was something else entirely. “You wouldn’t. The man smokes like a volcano about to explode, and he has the ethics of a weasel.”
“Maybe, but the bottom line is that he’s the only hand who’s around the house with any consistency.”
As his son protested the confines of his box, Dana drew her lower lip between her teeth and worried over this news. This wasn’t fair. She was just beginning to think she’d put her disappointment and, yes, even heartbreak over John Paladin behind her. He had no business charging back into her life and tying her head and heart into knots again. Maybe he had always managed to make her vulnerable to him, but she wanted a quiet life, a secure, serene life. Her mother had never had it—not until her father had been laid to rest the year before she’d graduated from college. Dana refused to go through that herself, even if it meant she would spend the rest of her life alone.
On the other hand, she brooded, no infant should be held responsible for the sins of the parents. She glanced down at John’s son. This beautiful little boy who’d been conceived in the worst possible situation already had two strikes against him—a mother who’d abandoned him, and a confused, inexperienced father. She might be risking more heartbreak, but she couldn’t turn her back on such circumstances, not when she thought of the helpless innocence of such a tender, vulnerable life.
Not unaware that she could be making the mistake of a lifetime, she cast John a wary look. “I’d have some stipulations,” she began cautiously.
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