Black Hills Baby

by Debra Salonen

  “Isn’t it a little early to be hitting the wine bottle? What’s wrong? Were you mobbed by adoring fans and the paparazzi at the airport? Is that why you’re upset?”

  “No. Just two old ladies who bowled me over to get his autograph. I got the impression he was a little surprised and maybe even slightly piqued that there wasn’t more hoopla, but he was nice to his two fans. Nicer than I expected. I got to play photographer.” Invisible. As ever. “That’s not why I called. He’s just as pretty as his pictures and seems very pleasant, but…I think I made a mistake. A big one. Huge.” She swallowed against the bile rising in her throat. “Jen, why didn’t you stop me? He’s not the right guy for this. Remember the book we read a couple of years ago in book club? Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus? His planet is actually spinning in a galaxy far, far away.”

  She held her breath, waiting for her smart, practical, conservative friend to agree with her. “Oh, quit it, Libby. You always do this. You meet a guy and immediately dissect his every flaw so you can dump him. Or, if he doesn’t have any obvious flaws, you dredge up your own – real or imagined -- to you prove why you’re not good enough for him. Not this time, Lib.”

  I do that? “Why not this time?”

  “Because there’s a potential child involved. You have to think of the bigger picture. If you were a kid, would you rather have a father – even one who wasn’t on-site – who is handsome, rich and famous or smart, boring and anonymous?”

  Libby set down her glass and started pacing. She was used to thinking on her feet. From the breakfast nook window she could see that the front door of the cabin was still open. Because he was waiting for someone to close it? She pushed aside the snarky question. True, she’d gotten the impression Cooper was privileged, but he’d also been kind to the elderly fans and he’d asked intelligent questions the entire drive. A lot of them, actually. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, think about it. Not from your protectionist point of view. From a kid’s point of view. Seriously. For once in your life act, don’t react.”

  The words rang a bell in her head. They sounded like something her grandmother would have said. Gran. A sudden sense of calm, like a large, warm hand on her shoulder, made her heart rate slow down a notch. She’d take Coop to meet Gran. If Gran approved, then Libby would stick with her initial decision. Even if he did scare her spitless. Witless. And about every other less you could name.

  In the background of the phone, Libby heard the overhead doorbell ding-dong. Seconds later, a loud voice boomed. Marva Ploughman, or “the Mouth” as some people called her. Gossipmonger extraordinaire.

  “Hang up. Hang up now,” she hissed. “Gran used to say the woman was psychic where gossip is concerned. I don’t even want her to know you’re talking to me. She’ll hear about this soon enough and won’t stop talking till she’s six feet under. I’ll be in later to lock up. Bye.”

  As she replaced the cordless unit on the receiver, a flash of movement from outside caught her eye. Her guest had left the cabin to stand in the middle of the yard. Hands on hips, he looked around like a conquering hero surveying his domain. The midafternoon sunlight made his golden-blond hair glisten as if he were filming for a shampoo commercial.

  She tried to tell herself he looked silly and out of place, but the sad truth was he probably couldn’t look silly and out of place if he tried. In fact, he looked confident, capable, and curious. It was the last that made her push her fears aside and decide to do what her best friend suggested. She’d act, not react.

  Her late sister-in-law had once called Libby narrow-minded and judgmental. Misty had been drunk at the time and had apologized profusely the next day, but the criticism had stuck in Libby’s mind. Maybe she did jump to conclusions about people without giving them a chance. She didn’t know this guy from Adam and she’d invited him to travel half way across the country to “interview” for the position she’d offered. Surely she could let down her guard long enough to get to know him before she decided he was too much trouble.

  She polished off her water and put the glass in the dish strainer in the sink, then started toward the door. She’d only gotten two steps when the phone rang. “Hello.”

  “Libby girl, is that you? I called the P.O. and that redheaded girl told me you were at home. You’re not sick, are you? You’re like me, never sick a day. Do you know I’ve never had a headache in my life?”

  Libby had probably heard that boast nine hundred times – in the last year alone. “Hi, Gran. No, I’m fine. Just had some errands to do. Had to pick up a friend at the airport. I told you he was coming, remember?”

  “Of course I do. I’m not old, you know. Just sometimes the days get away from me. When are you bringing him over for me to see him? I can’t recall his name at the moment. Mason?”

  “No, Gran, that was Grandpa’s name. My friend is Cooper.”

  “Is he a barrel maker?”

  Libby’s eyes went wide. Her grandmother’s mind was becoming a convoluted maze with bridges to plateaus of lucidity that constantly surprised her. “No, Gran. He works on TV.”

  Her grandmother made a groaning sound. “Too bad. With a good barrel you can catch enough runoff to wash your hair for a week. Nothin’ like rain water to keep your hair smooth and shiny.”

  Libby had a vague memory of her grandmother rinsing her hair with water from a large barrel that used to sit at the corner of the house. She wondered whatever happened to it. Now, there was a metal gutter and downspout that channeled rain to the lilac bush.

  She glanced out the window to check on her guest, and her heart rate jumped. Mac was midway between their two homes, headed straight for Cooper. And from her brother’s body language it was easy to tell the simmering pot was about to spew its lid.

  “I’ll call you back, Gran. I have to go stop Mac from committing homicide.” The word made her shiver. There’d been talk after Missy died… No, she had enough to worry about without thinking back to the terrible time. Mac was a good man. A good father. He couldn’t help it he wasn’t any good at marriage. She doubted she’d be any better, but now at least, if things did work out with Cooper Lindstrom she wouldn’t have to worry about that.

  Unless her brother scared him away.

  ---

  Coop studied the small screen of his cell phone. No service? How was that possible? He walked into the middle of yard to escape the shadow of the tall pines in case they were blocking the cellular waves.

  Not that he had a clear concept of how a cellular phone worked, but the attractive young woman who'd sold him this particular phone had promised that he could get service on Mars.

  “Apparently the red planet’s more accessible than this part of South Dakota,” he muttered.

  Either that or he’d been too distracted by the young woman’s boobs to read the fine print in his contract. Breasts had long been his downfall.

  And wouldn’t you know the postmaster had a fine pair.

  He looked toward the main house, wondering if he’d given her enough time to regroup or call for reinforcements or whatever women in this part of the country did when they were having second thoughts about a decision they’d made.

  A noise made him turn to look over his shoulder. A man with a square, powerful-looking upper torso was bearing down on him with a fierce scowl on his face. “Call for reinforcements,” he murmured, fighting the urge to flee like the cowardly dandy he’d been called once or twice.

  But on the off chance Libby was watching, he held his ground and waited to find out if this was who he figured it was: Mac McGannon. Libby’s brother.

  As he got closer, Cooper could see a certain resemblance through the jaw and cheekbones, although Libby’s brows were fairer and her hands were completely different. Feminine. This man’s hands, which he balled into fists and released half a dozen times, were the size of the plastic discs Coop and his friends tossed around the beach.

  Cooper searched his memory for a movie character who matched this guy. A man’
s man. Honest. Forthright. No bull. An Ernest Borgnine kind of guy, only better looking.

  “Mac, I assume,” he called, facing the fellow head-on. He took a step toward him, one hand out in greeting. “I’m Cooper Lindstrom. My gut says I’m probably your worst nightmare.”

  The man stopped, looked at Cooper’s hand, then took another step closer. He didn’t make any attempt to shake. Instead he shoved his fists in the pocket of his hunting jacket – the kind with pockets that probably held all sorts of ammunition. “Yep, you could say that.” His voice came out as a raspy growl.

  His Denver Broncos cap made it impossible to tell much about his hair color or style, but he was clean shaven, and a scent of Old Spice told Cooper Mac had cleaned up prior to coming to meet him.

  “You live nearby?”

  He nodded in the general direction over his shoulder. “Our properties adjoin.”

  “Convenient.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. I just…you have a daughter, right? It’s probably nice that she can run back and forth between your houses. That’s all.”

  “Oh.”

  Coop looked toward the house, hoping his salvation might arrive soon. “Um…do you hunt?”

  The question seemed to take Mac by surprise. “I used to. No time, now. Why? Do you?”

  “No. Went deep-sea fishing once. Didn’t catch anything, but the rest of the people on the boat did very well.” Probably because Coop had been so sea sick he’d “chummed” the waters the entire morning they’d been out. “I saw a jacket like yours in Outfitter magazine in a doctor’s office.”

  A distinct smirk made Coop guess that her brother associated California doctors with plastic surgery. In fact, he’d been there with this mother. Finally talking her into having a complete physical. Not that it had done any good. Instead of following the doctor’s urging to have bypass surgery, she’d headed to Vegas.

  “So you’re a movie star, huh?”

  “No. I’m an actor. At the moment I host a television show.” Or did. Past tense. He was pretty sure Close-Up wasn’t getting renewed next season. Which was why he was here.

  “Same thing, isn’t it?”

  He could have gone on at length about the differences between his present line of work and what “real” actors did, but he decided to save his breath. “Pretty much. I work in the entertainment industry.”

  Mac took a step closer. “Well, I don’t find what you’re thinking of doing with my sister all that entertaining.”

  Since making a baby normally involved sex, an image of making love to Libby appeared in Coop’s head. Quite vividly, to his surprise. Complete with the beautiful naked breasts he’d been speculating about earlier.

  He shook his head and forced his attention back to the man in front of him. Besides, that kind of intimacy wasn’t going to happen – which might be the only reason this man hadn’t beaten the crap out of him.

  “You don’t approve of me. I can appre-”

  “I don’t give a shit what you appreciate or don’t appreciate. I don’t care how big a star you think you are. I know what a star is. It’s a ball of burning gas. Stars glow for a while then burn themselves out. I don’t want my baby sister getting singed in the process.”

  “In case she didn’t tell you, the physical part of this trade will take place in a doctor’s office. We’ll be half a continent apart when it happens. No singeing going on, I promise. Or are you more worried about Libby trading part of her share of your mine for a baby? Even if that baby would be your daughter’s cousin.”

  The guy was a father. Surely mentioning the B-word would soften him up.

  If anything, Mac’s scowl intensified.

  “Listen, Mac, I started this as a way to get away from all the crap I had to deal with after my mother died, but now that I’m here, I think I can learn a lot from this experience. And maybe leave a positive mark on the place when I go.”

  “The sooner you go, the better.”

  Damn, even the dead mother card didn’t work with this guy.

  “I didn’t put that ad on the Internet,” Coop reminded him.

  “No, but you answered it. What I want to know is why.”

  Good question. Not one he was ready to answer truthfully. “Escape.”

  “Huh?”

  “Aren’t there some days when you just don’t want to be Mac McGannon? And you’d give anything to be anyplace but where you are?”

  Mac didn’t answer, but Cooper could tell he finally had established some kind of connection.

  “My life may look glamorous from the outside, but when I read your sister’s post online I realized I know nothing about this part of the country. I’ve never even flown over it as far as I know. The only image I had was from watching Dances With Wolves, and that open-space thing appealed to me. Very few people and lots of trees. Just what I need right now.”

  Mac studied him intently a few moments, then his upper curled back. “Bullshit. Guys like you don’t do alone. You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

  “Well, maybe you can teach me.”

  The sound of a screen door slamming made both men turn toward the house. Libby cleared the steps in two light leaps and hurried toward them. “Mac, you promised to stay away until Cooper had a chance to get acclimated.”

  “Acclimated. Hell, Lib, it’s not like we’re in the Rockies. Besides, I figured I could save you both a lot of grief if I cleared the air right off the bat.”

  “Go away.”

  “Are you going to tell him the truth or do you want me to?”

  “Shut up and go away.”

  “I don’t know what really made you answer Lib’s ad," Mac said, facing Cooper again, "but you need to know one thing. You aren't going to get rich working the Little Poke. I don’t care what Libby implied. You just won’t. Doesn’t matter if you dig all day and all night for the next twenty years.”

  “There’s no gold?” Coop tried to keep his shock from registering in his voice.

  “There’s gold, but by the time you pay to get it out of the rock and the government gets it share, you’re probably looking at enough profit to put the same amount of gold back in your left molar.”

  Cooper looked at Libby, whose face had turned a bright shade of crimson. Her eyes were narrowed in the same glare her brother had worn a few moments earlier-–only the anger was directed at Mac, not Cooper.

  That’s when Coop knew her brother was telling the truth.

  “So, what he’s saying is a quarter share of nothing equals nothing.”

  Libby gave her brother one last look that easily bespoke an excruciating torture at some later date, then turned to face him. “The deed will bear your name. The value of the land is going up. And if Mac ever decides to give up working the mine, we’ve talked about turning the place into some kind of dude ranch or bed-and-breakfast. You actually could see a large return on your investment-–if this were about money. But you said the gold wasn’t your main reason for doing this.”

  He did say that. He hadn’t wanted his financial debacle spread all over the Internet. But money was a factor. Especially when he had an irate bookie breathing down his neck. Even if Shane sold the network on the new project, it would be months before he saw a big fat check. He could be dead by then…or missing body parts.

  Before he could get a reply together, she said, “I have a trust fund. I’d planned to save it for the baby, but if you’d rather not get involved with the mine, then I can pay you the going rate for donated sperm.”

  Cooper didn’t want to ask how much in front of her brother. He was afraid it would make him look too greedy. Or needy. “Hmmm, well, I think I’d like to see the mine before I make a decision. Is that possible?”

  “Today?” Libby looked at Mac, who shook his head. “It’s getting kinda late. Mac has to pick up Megan at the sitter’s, and I need to stop by the post office to make sure everything gets closed up. How ‘bout tomorrow? I could take the afternoon off.
Would Barb keep Megan a little longer?” she asked her brother.

  “Maybe. I’m hauling rock in the morning.” He looked at Cooper and added, “I spread gravel in the summer and plow roads in winter. Those are my real jobs. The ones that pay the bills.”

  With that, he turned and walked away.

  Coop waited until he would be out of earshot then said, “Cheerful fellow.”

  “He used to be.”

  The cryptic response wasn’t followed up with any more information, so he looked at her. Her expression was almost as intense as her brother’s had been. He waited for a cue.

  “I’m sorry. I should have been more upfront about the mine. Like I said, I’ll write you a check for the same amount I would have paid a sperm—”

  He didn’t want to hear her say the words, so he cut her off. “You were right about me needing time to get acclimated. How ‘bout we hold off on negotiations till later? I haven’t seen where you work. Or met Seymour.”

  Her smile started out small, undecided, but once she committed to it, humor radiated outward like a small sun. He basked in the brief moment of joy and goodwill and suddenly realized he had no desire to be anyplace else. He didn’t know what that meant exactly, but for the first time in a long time, he was content.

  Chapter 5

  Although Libby had offered to drive him back down the hill to town, she’d also made that sound like something a sissy would do, so he’d insisted on walking. A form of exercise he very rarely did unless he was trying to impress a cute chick on a nearby machine at the club. Occasionally he and Rollie would take a stroll on the beach, but since Rollie was eighty, Coop rarely worked up a sweat.

  “How’s your, um, behind?”

  Coop didn’t think he’d ever met a woman who couldn’t bring herself to say the word butt. He had to work to keep from grinning. “Better. Still a little sore but nothing compared to what it would have been if your brother had given me the swift kick he was contemplating.”