“Shouldn’t we brush his teeth and put pajamas on him or something?” Zack asked.
Jake scrubbed his face with both palms. “Not tonight.”
That decided matters for Zack. Now wasn’t the time to bring up his concerns over Luke. Jake had enough on his mind and Luke was an adult. Zack would keep an eye on him himself.
Right now, he had another, more immediate, concern on his hands. He juggled the baby from one arm to the other.
“Something smells,” he said to Jake. “I’m not pointing fingers, but it isn’t you or me.”
“Lydia… Not again.” Jake sighed and looked at the ceiling. “She’s got her mother’s appetite. It comes with the side effects you’d expect.”
Zack tried to pass her to Jake but she clung to his t-shirt with both chubby fists and refused to let go.
Jake held up his hands in a warding-off gesture. “She’s all yours. I’ve had the pleasure.”
Zack’s stomach recoiled. How could someone so small produce such a ripe smell? “Have a heart,” he begged, although he was wasting his breath making that particular appeal. “I’ve never changed a diaper before.”
Jake—the heartless bastard—wasn’t moved. “No worries. I’ll be happy to supervise your inauguration.”
It did seem only fair. Jake had handled three kids in a car for four days all alone. Changing one diaper, no matter how awful it smelled, was the least Zack could do.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said to Lydia, accepting his fate. “Come with me.”
He and Luke had set up a change table in the small nursery, with its fresh coat of Pepto-Bismol-pink paint, next door. Jake took one look at the table and started to laugh.
“That will never work,” he said. “We’re going to need a sink and a fresh water supply. Maybe a hose.”
“I don’t feel so good,” Zack said. He’d had a weak stomach as a kid. It did a few whirlies, warning him it hadn’t improved.
Jake wasn’t at all sympathetic. “You’ll live.”
They carried Lydia and the diaper supplies into the bathroom. Jake took a towel from a shelf, folded it into a pad, and spread it on the wide counter next to the sink.
“Lay her on the towel. You have to keep one hand on her at all times,” he instructed Zack. “It’s like wrestling a hog.”
Zack peeled her down to her disposable while trying to breathe through his mouth. So far, so good. He could do this. He eyed the two tabs of tape holding the diaper together. Cautiously, with his hand on his niece’s chubby round belly, he peeled one strip back.
The pungent stench hit him full in the face. He fumbled behind him for Jake, dragging him closer to the counter to take his place with the baby, then dove for the toilet. He flipped the lid up and dropped to his knees, hugging either side of the bowl, before proceeding to unload his supper, lunch, and finally, breakfast. He might have sacrificed one of his kidneys, too. It was too soon to tell.
He spit twice before flushing.
Jake was laughing so hard he could barely stand, but he managed to keep a firm hold on Lydia, who didn’t know what the fuss was about and was squirming around, trying to find out. “Thanks. That made my day.”
“You’re a sadist, you sick son-of-a—” Zack caught himself, remembering there was a lady present.
“After four days in a car and three nights in motels, I guess I’ve gone nose blind.” Jake waved him off. “Go see what Luke and Mac are up to. I’ll take it from here.”
Zack didn’t argue. Instead, he snatched a bottle of mouthwash off a shelf to take with him. He clattered down the stairs to the small powder room off the main foyer and rinsed his mouth at the sink. He stared at his face in the mirror. The color was slowly beginning to return.
Okay, yeah, if he’d been in Jake’s shoes, he’d find his weak stomach funny, too.
The best part, however, was hearing Jake laugh. Totally worth the loss of a kidney. Because Jake hadn’t laughed in a really long time.
None of them had. They couldn’t raise kids like this.
Starting right now, they’d make time for fun.
Chapter Two
Breakfast was over.
Luke had returned to the milking parlor to check on one of the robots. Jake was driving the boys to school for their first day. Even though the boys had only been here a week, and school was almost out for the summer, they’d all agreed they should meet their new classmates in the hopes it might ease their transition in the fall.
This had seemed like a good time for Zack to get Lydia outdoors for some fresh air.
The stroller, however, appeared to be an issue for her. He spun the toddler first one way, then the other, trying to figure out how to slide her legs into the slots on the stroller when she kept arching her back and bending her knees. The sun peeked above the roof of the barn, laughing at him and his efforts.
Jake’s truck crossed the bridge that spanned the Tongue River, heading for Grand, and Zack crammed back his worry. He’d suggested if things didn’t work out they could always homeschool. Luke was a professor.
Luke, however, had a PhD in computer science. Somehow, Zack didn’t see that translating well to teaching five-year-old Finn how to read.
And as if they could homeschool kids while running the ranch.
Jake and their dad had invested heavily in modern technology. The robotic milking system had set them back a million dollars. An anaerobic digestion biomass power plant had cost another half million. Jake hadn’t expected to assume all of that debt alone. Their dad had been a young sixty, healthy and active. To the family, he’d seemed immortal. Insurance would cover a portion, but not enough.
Zack, an accountant, had already gone through their mother’s bookkeeping, and while the picture he’d gotten was far from hopeless, it was going to be an uphill battle for Jake. They were meeting with the lawyer that afternoon to find out how bad it really was.
In the meantime, he needed to get out of the house. He was beginning to understand how stay-at-home moms felt. And what house arrest must be like.
“Work with me, Lyds.”
As if sensing his desperation, Lydia finally gave in. She straightened her chubby legs and he threaded her tiny, sandal-clad toes through the proper holes. With a few adjustments to the straps that kept her secure, they were off.
He didn’t know any children’s tunes so he launched into an old Irish drinking song. It was early in the morning. He had no idea what to do with a drunken sailor either, and best of all, the lyrics were far more age-appropriate than a lot of what played on the radio these days. He’d never thought too much about gangsta rap until he’d heard the words coming out of his five-year-old nephew’s mouth. Yikes.
He was turning into a grandpa.
He maneuvered the stroller down the driveway to the road. To the right, the road followed the Tongue to a public dam a few miles upriver. Instead he turned left, toward the Yellowstone River that bordered Grand, and the bridge crossing the Tongue.
He had an ulterior motive for taking Lyds out for a walk this morning. It seemed the old McKinley property had a new owner, or so he’d been told. Patricia Davies. A young, single mother with a little girl about Lydia’s age.
Shopping for groceries in Grand was a great way to keep up on the gossip and it was a nice change of pace to have the topic be about someone other than the McGregors. What was interesting, however, was how little anyone knew about the mysterious Patricia, other than that she kept to herself. Mostly, people wanted to know if he’d met her.
He hadn’t. Not yet.
But that was about to change.
She was coming toward him, on the opposite side of the road, pushing a stroller of her own. Zack had hoped the two little girls would hit it off and this was the perfect chance for them to meet.
The neighbor slowed when she saw him, almost as if considering turning back, then averted her eyes and picked up the pace, apparently planning to outrun him and reach her house first. Wasn’t that curious?
He’d never been able to resist a challenge. If they turned this into a real competition, the odds favored him. His legs were longer. Plus, women liked him. He was especially popular with the over-sixty set.
He checked her out as they approached each other, because why not? He was a guy. She was so blond—her long ponytail almost white—that the color had to be fake. She was also slender and leggy, with the underfed, anemic appearance of a supermodel, although she was a shade under the requisite height. She wore a sleeveless, multicolored top with a triangular, tunic hem, a pair of skinny, formfitting jeans, and flip-flops. She was pretty, at least from what Zack could discern, but in an elfin, waifish sort of way.
In truth, however, he was more interested in her tiny companion.
The tot in the stroller sported a pale blue ribbon around her head in an ill-fated attempt to mask the fact she was pretty much bald. Her wispy hair—what little she owned—was as dark as her mother’s was fair. Her eyes, however, were what really caught Zack’s attention. They were long-lashed and big, and a dark, almost purple, shade of blue. Zack loved watching old movies. This was how Elizabeth Taylor must have looked as a child.
When she caught sight of Lydia in a second stroller barreling toward her, she began bouncing up and down in her seat.
Her excitement appeared to be contagious. Lydia, usually more reserved, leaned forward, urging her uncle on. Zack wondered when his niece had last seen another little girl. They’d kept her close to the ranch the past week, not wanting a parade of their mother’s well-intentioned friends schooling Jake on how things should be done until she’d acclimated. Lydia—and her brothers—needed to settle into how Jake planned to carry on.
“Hey, new neighbor,” Zack hailed the woman. He jogged across the road, cutting her off before she could turn into her driveway.
She had no choice but to stop. Her face, however, didn’t reflect one iota of her daughter’s enthusiasm. Zack felt the chill despite the heat of the sun.
Her eyes were steel gray. She had the potential to be stunningly beautiful or exceedingly plain. For whatever reason, she’d settled on invisible. The overall impression he got was of a blank canvas. He caught her gaze and held it, flashing the friendly smile that never failed to make women take notice. His dad had always teased him that he knew how to charm women, horses, and snakes.
He extended an arm over the top of the stroller. “Zack McGregor.”
She took his hand. Her fingers were slender and fragile. The breeze caught a loose strand of gossamer hair. The smile she gifted him with was polite. Also wary. She had a soft, gentle voice, yet her clear words carried well.
“Posey Davies. I was so sorry to hear about your parents. I met your mother the day I got the keys for the house. She was lovely.”
“Thank you,” he said, then changed the subject. He didn’t want to talk about his mother. He might get all teary-eyed and that wasn’t part of the plan. “I thought your name was Patricia.”
“It is. No one calls me that, though.”
She’d managed to keep an amazingly low profile if no one in Grand had picked up on that tidbit of information.
“And who’s this little cutie?” Zack hunkered down between the two strollers where the girls, both suddenly shy, were eyeballing each other.
“This is Trixie,” Posey said.
The tot stared at Zack, checking him out much the same way he’d checked out her mother, trying to make up her mind as to what her reaction to him should be. He glanced up at Posey. “Let me guess—Patricia Junior?”
Posey’s grudging smile was more genuine this time. “It was my mother’s name.”
He caught the past tense. It snagged at his heart. His own mother’s loss was still fresh, and he could admit it—as the youngest in the family, he’d been a mama’s boy. Proud of it, too. She’d been the first person he called for every significant high or low point in his life. They’d had many late-night phone conversations while he was in college. He didn’t know how he’d manage without her.
He shook it off. He was trying to make Lydia a new friend and getting all teary-eyed wouldn’t help his cause. The little girl’s mother was already spooked.
“Hey, Trixie. Nice to meet you. This is Lydia. Lyds, can you say hi?”
“Mum-mum-mum,” Lydia said.
Trixie, definitely owning the more outgoing personality of the two little girls, lit up like the sun. “Bye,” she replied, adding a sage little nod of her head.
Posey leaped in to interpret. “One ‘bye’ means hello. Two is ‘good-bye.’”
Zack remained crouched between the two strollers. He was a big man and he’d look less threatening to the ladies if he made himself small. He grinned up at Posey. “Thanks. I’m not familiar with toddler-ese and I’ve been struggling with the subtleties of the language. Unfortunately, I have no idea what ‘mum-mum-mum’ means so I can’t help you there.”
Posey didn’t exactly relax, but she did look a little less tense. “The context suggests she’s likely reserving her opinion until she’s had more time to study the situation.”
“Oh, no.” He eyed his niece with mock horror. “Don’t tell me you and Mac are both going to turn out like your uncle Jake.”
A car crossed the bridge, turning left to head in their direction. He straightened, returning to an upright position. Posey was taller than he’d thought, maybe five feet seven or eight. “How about if we take this tea party off the main road so we don’t create a traffic hazard? Rubberneckers,” he explained, in case she couldn’t figure that out.
Posey donned the same expression she might wear if trying to find a polite way to extricate herself from a tired conversation at some dull cocktail party, but couldn’t come up with an excuse.
“Oh. Of course.” She tipped Trixie’s stroller onto its two back wheels and deftly spun it around.
Zack followed her as far as the walkway that crossed the lawn to her front door, where she stopped, suggesting he wasn’t going to get an invitation inside for coffee, which he understood. Posey gave off a big city, beware-of-strangers vibe. No matter how charming he was, or how cute Lyddie could be, at the end of the day, she and Trixie were two women living alone. He’d love to find out what happened to Trixie’s father, but he wasn’t stupid enough to ask.
Not when he was partway toward accomplishing his mission.
“You should bring Trixie over to play with Lydia, sometime,” he suggested, pretending the thought had only just occurred to him.
“I’ll do that.” Her polite tone suggested the opposite.
She was proving a tough nut to crack, but Zack wasn’t conceding defeat. This was for Lydia’s benefit, and honestly, if Posey was the total recluse she gave every indication of being, then a playdate wouldn’t hurt Trixie, either. This was how crazy cat ladies began.
“I’m taking the kids skydiving this weekend,” he continued, testing her sense of humor and hopefully put her at ease. “Maybe Trixie would like to join us.”
Startled gray eyes flew open wide. Horror swirled in their depths. Her hands gripped the stroller handle. If she suddenly threw her body over Trixie’s to protect her, it wouldn’t surprise him.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” she began. “I—” Then, she figured out he was teasing. Tiny flags of color unfurled on her cheeks. “I mean, we’ve already made motocross plans. Trixie’s ranked first in her age division.”
She was quick-thinking. There was hope for her yet.
“I’ll be honest,” Zack said. “It’s hard to get work done around the ranch with a two-year-old underfoot, and I’m sure you’d like to get out by yourself every once in a while. I thought we could swap babysitting.”
“I’d be happy to keep Lydia for you,” Posey said, her quiet tone cool once again.
He didn’t need her to translate her meaning for him. He got it, loud and c
lear, and he let it sink in. I’m not leaving my daughter with a strange man.
When he’d put this plan together, it had seemed like such a practical deal. A win-win for them both. Besides, Mac, Finn, and Lydia already loved him. He was the fun uncle, the one who organized games. He baked the treats. When Lyddie needed someone to hold her, he was her go-to.
He was also a dope. He hadn’t stopped to consider that Posey might not be comfortable having a man—a houseful of men, to be exact—looking after her daughter.
Not until she got to know them, of course.
She couldn’t get to know them if he walked away without a firm playdate commitment from her, and he wasn’t above a little emotional manipulation. The trick was in getting the tone right. Gosh, I wouldn’t bother you if I wasn’t so desperate.
“We’ve got a meeting with the ranch lawyer this afternoon,” he said, suitably reluctant. “To settle the estate. We were planning to take Lydia with us, but if you wouldn’t mind…”
*
“I don’t mind at all,” Posey said.
She didn’t. She’d learned to be suspicious, however, and there was no doubt in her mind that Zack McGregor was playing her. She simply wasn’t sure why.
It was possible all he wanted was a playmate for Lydia, who was beyond cute. Posey had never seen eyes such a bright shade of green. And her hair… The blond fluff stuck straight up. Her head looked like a dandelion gone to seed.
But Posey didn’t trust what she saw on the surface with men, and this one pushed every alarm button she owned. Why on earth would he leave a baby with a complete stranger? What could he possibly hope to gain?
Eleanor had hinted the McGregor brothers were clueless when it came to children. Maybe she was right.
He was as handsome as she’d overheard the local women claim him to be, too. Dark red hair leaned closer to brown. Blue eyes gleamed with charm. He was a good six inches taller than she was, and at a guess, a year or two younger. His shoulders were broad. The way his denim shirt stretched across his chest hinted at a great deal of muscle. Except for the height, he looked a lot like his mother.
The Rancher's Proposal (The Montana McGregor Brothers Book 3) Page 2