She cleared her throat, sat up, and straightened the hem of her T-shirt. “I’m so embarrassed. It never occurred to me that I would react that way.”
“No reason it should have. You’ve never been around cattle before, have you?”
“No, but I’ve seen other disturbing things.”
“Eagles and squirrel monkeys.”
“Uh, huh.”
He reached down and cupped her chin in his palm, urging her upward until she was on his level and they were face to face. His dark eyes studied hers and he gave her a little smile. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You need to get used to things a little at a time and you’ve had many new experiences since you’ve been here.”
“Sometimes it’s been harder than I thought it would be.”
“But you’re doing great. I’m proud of you.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Really?”
“Oh, Billie,” he said, leaning in and touching his lips to hers.
Her breath hitched in, bringing his essence with it. He was so sweet and his kiss was so gentle that it brought tears spurting into her eyes.
Cam made a low, hungry sound in his throat, put his arms around her, turned to sit down in the hay and tumbled her into his lap.
Billie looped her arms around his neck and kissed him, running her fingers through the thick dark hair she’d been longing to touch.
His mouth closed over hers once again and shivers of delight ran through her. He tasted wonderful – real and sweet – exactly like something she’d been wanting her whole life without knowing what it was.
Cam pulled his lips away and trailed kisses on her jawline. “We shouldn’t be doing this, Billie.”
She might have taken him more seriously if he’d made even the slightest pause between kisses. “Why not?” she asked. “Are we a bad influence on the animals?”
His laugh puffed against her lips. “Because this can’t go anywhere. It’s only temporary.”
She went very still and pulled back to look at him. “What’s wrong with that?”
“I’m not a temporary kind of man – and you’ll be gone in a couple of weeks. Across the world, and who knows where after that.”
Dismayed, Billie stared at him. “Well, yes. It’s my job and I love it.”
His mouth tightened. “I know.”
“Oh, Cam, I . . . .”
A sound interrupted her. A cross between a bawl and a roar came from the heifer. With a mighty heave, she delivered her calf. Cam swung Billie off his lap and scrambled to assist the newborn.
It took Billie a little longer to focus after the delightful kisses and the shock of Cam’s words, but after several seconds she was able to concentrate on the calf.
She was amazed to see that the newborn was still encased in its birth sack. The sick nausea she had felt disappeared as she watched Cam break the sack and pull the calf out. She grabbed her camera and began taking pictures as he wiped down the baby and moved it close to its weak and exhausted mother.
“It’s small,” Cam said. “Like I thought it would be.” Hands on his hips, he stood and gazed grimly down at the pair.
“Now we just wait and see how it does? How they both do?” She came to stand beside him.
“I don’t know why this bothers me so much,” Cam said. “I’ve lost cattle before and this one wasn’t even mine.”
“Because what happened to her wasn’t right and you don’t like to see an animal suffer.” That was one of the things she had learned about him – his compassion. She had felt that when he kissed her and yet he’d pulled away and reminded them both that she would be leaving – a reminder she hadn’t needed at the moment.
As she gazed up at him, an unfamiliar emotion clogged her throat. It was big and terrifying and she couldn’t put a name to it.
Cam looked down at her. “Billie, I . . . .”
“Hey, what’s going on? I woke up and saw the light on out here.” Brian tumbled into the barn, still buttoning his shirt, every hair on his head doing business for itself. He rushed to see. “Wow, a baby calf. Is it okay?”
“We don’t know yet,” Billie answered, moving away from Cam and dropping her hand to her side. “We’re waiting to see.”
“Can I stay, Cam?” Brian asked around a mighty yawn. “I might be able to help.”
Cam glanced at Billie who picked up her camera and said, “I think that’s all the excitement that’s going to be happening tonight. I’m going back to bed.”
She could feel Cam’s gaze on her as she hurried away, but she’d had to get out of there. She had experienced such a rush of raw emotion that she had to get out and deal with it.
She didn’t know what to think. It was impossible to think. The touch of his lips on hers had sparked something in her that she’d never felt before, but she recognized it for what it was. It was love.
“I’m in love with him,” she whispered as she hurried to her little house. “Now what do I do?”
* * *
Billie still didn’t have an answer by the next afternoon when she was teaching Kyndra what needed to be done to help her with the calendar photographs. The girl was a quick study and learned how to adjust the reflectors just right after a few brief instructions from Billie. Also, she knew everyone in town and all their odd little quirks. She warned Billie that Ron Rodriguez wouldn’t take off his outsize cowboy hat because it was his pride and joy and because he was embarrassed by his bald head. Kyndra also said that Stan and Rita Sherman only spoke in sign language. They weren’t deaf, they simply liked to sign.
Billie knew it was going to be another long, challenging day, but her new assistant made things easier.
“Kyndra, I think you have a real talent for organizing things,” Billie said as she looked over the way the young girl had set out the things she would need.
“My mom taught me. Since she and my dad both work, they need me to help at home and it’s easier if things are organized.”
“They’re lucky to have you.”
Kyndra grinned. “I’m always telling them that.” She pulled up a stool and climbed onto it, sitting with her hands resting on her knees. “Um, Billie?”
Billie glanced up from the prints she had been sorting and saw that Kyndra’s face had become serious. “Yes?”
“Thanks for helping Brian.”
Billie tilted her head. “With what?”
“Learning to be a gentleman,” the girl answered, then shrugged. “I’ve been out with kids from church and all those guys seem to know about opening doors for girls and yeah, I know I could do it myself, but it’s nice when someone else does. It’s polite, good manners. Brian didn’t have any manners until you came along.” She wrinkled her nose. “I wonder why that was.”
“Because no one had ever taught him before.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you know Brian’s mom left him and his dad when he was only six?”
“Well, yes.”
“And his dad had to work all the time to support them. He owned his own garage for a while and Brian was there with his dad every day after school and on weekends, too. There wasn’t anyone to teach him the kinds of things your mom has taught you.” Billie smiled in case there was any sting in her words.
“I never thought about that,” Kyndra said after a long silence. “I would just get mad at him because all he wanted to do was get hot dogs at Speedy Mart and then go play video games. He never wanted to talk much or do what I wanted to do.”
“He didn’t know how. And the business of talking? Guys aren’t into that so much.”
Kyndra leaned over, propped her chin on her hand and stared into space. “When we went out together the other night, he arranged everything, didn’t he?”
“Pretty much.”
“He went to a lot of trouble to do what I wanted to do, and then he took me to the volleyball game at church, too.”
“He’s making an effort.”
“Yes, he is.” Kyndra straightened and looked a
t Billie, excitement lighting her eyes. “That’s what I have to do, too.”
“What are you planning?”
“I don’t know yet, but it’ll be fun, and . . . and he’ll love it. It takes two to make something work, right? Whether it’s a friendship, or . . . or something more romantic, right?”
Alarmed that she might have urged Kyndra into something she wasn’t ready for, Billie said, “But you can go very slowly, too. Become friends first. It’s much easier to want to do something to make someone else happy if you’re friends with them first.”
“Like you and Cam.” Kyndra jumped down off the stool. “Right? You two are friends. You seem to like being together. You’re interested in the same things, cows and the environment, and stuff like that.” She danced toward the door. “I’m going to go get something to drink. You want a soda?”
Billie nodded absently and thought about what she’d said. Interested in the same things. But they were so different, she thought. His life was on his ranch. He’d worked so hard to make it pay, to provide security for himself, his mother, and his sister until she was grown. Everything that Billie had learned about him told her that security, family, place meant everything to him. He saw Billie and her frequent job changes as instability, restlessness, even though that was in the past. Now that she had settled on a career, it was one with a large element of insecurity because she still wasn’t fully established. In order to do that, she had to take the jobs that were offered.
Love was supposed to make a person happy, she thought, disgruntled. Not miserable and questioning. She’d just given Kyndra advice about being friends with Brian first. She and Cam had skipped that step altogether, it seemed. They didn’t know each other well enough. They’d never really talked about what was important to each of them. He didn’t know that she loved photography, that it fulfilled something in her just as ranching did for him.
They needed to spend time alone together, doing something fun away from the ranch.
That’s what she needed to do, Billie decided. Friends did fun things together like they’d done the other night when they’d gone out to dinner.
She would think of something fun for them to do together, something out of the ordinary, something that might give them the opportunity to talk although she would probably have to take her own advice to Kyndra on that. Guys weren’t all that fond of the talking thing.
Billie wondered how Cam felt about riding motorcycles.
* * *
The question was how to bring it up. Billie sat in her usual evening spot on her porch, chair tilted back, glass of iced tea in her hand as she considered the problem. Maybe it was a terrible idea to ask Doreen if she could borrow Daisy Belle and take Cam for a ride. Yes, it was a terrible idea. She should forget it. The problem was, she couldn’t get it out of her mind.
Maybe if she could talk him into this, she could take her camera along and take some candid shots of him in a setting that was different than the ranch.
There wouldn’t be anything wrong with asking Doreen, she decided, rocking forward in her chair and jumping to her feet. The older lady was pretty understanding, and besides, at dinner, Cam had said he was going to a volunteer firefighters meeting in town. He’d probably be gone long enough for her to talk to Doreen. She hurried to the house before she could lose her nerve.
She found Doreen in the dining room with scrapbooking materials spread out all over the table. She was happily cropping pictures of her grandchildren to make a collage. Billie was relieved to see that the little cutting device she was using had a safety bar in front of the blade so Doreen couldn’t cut her fingers.
Doreen looked up in pleased surprise. “Why, Billie, we don’t see much of you around here in the evenings. Were you looking for Cam?”
“No.” Now that she was here, she wasn’t sure what to say. She pulled out a chair and nearly sat down on Doreen’s reading glasses. She held them up.
“I wondered where those were. I’ve lost countless pairs of glasses over the years. Cam found a pair in one of his boots one time. Never did figure out how it got there.” She smiled. “Poor guy, he’s been finding things I’ve lost and fixing things I’ve broken since he was a little kid. And then when he was about nineteen, there was the famous alligator incident.”
“Alligator incident?”
Doreen winced at the memory. “Yes, a friend I’d grown up with talked me into keeping an alligator for him until he could get the money together to move it to his place in Florida. He’d had it since it was a baby and it was still pretty small so I said okay. We had a pond for it. It didn’t stay small for long – not after it discovered I kept chickens.”
Billie’s blue eyes rounded. “Are you kidding me, Doreen?”
“I wish I was,” her friend answered sadly. “It got out of the pond, knocked down fences, broke down the henhouse, devoured my best laying hens. In my mind I can still hear them squawking.”
In spite of the sad look on her friend’s face, Billie burst out laughing. “That’s crazy.”
“I wish I could say that was my only crazy idea. Remind me sometime to tell you about trying to raise ostriches. I thought it would be an easy way to make extra money. We nearly lost our shirts.”
“When was that?”
“About twelve years ago. It was probably a relief for Cam when I was gone for two years.”
“Where did you go?” Billie sat forward and propped her chin on her hand, ready to listen. She’d had no idea Doreen had taken her son on such a merry chase. It cheered her up considerably.
“India. A friend I’ve known for years has an orphanage there. She needed someone to help out so I went and took care of babies for a while.” She sighed happily. “I loved it.”
“Why didn’t you stay?”
“I got sick with a viral infection that just wouldn’t clear up. And obviously, I wasn’t much help and no one could be spared to take care of me, so I came home.”
“Was that hard?”
“Yes.” Doreen frowned at a picture she’d been considering and then laid it aside. “I left work undone and I think I just get in Cam’s way. He’d probably be relieved if he didn’t have to look out for me.”
“And maybe I’ll go back to India someday.” Doreen looked up and grinned. “Cam would probably be glad if he didn’t have to look out for me.”
“I don’t think he minds. Some people are just born to be caretakers,” Billie said.
“Which means they never have much fun.”
Ah, the perfect opening. “I’ve been thinking about that.” Sitting forward, she outlined her plan to Doreen.
When she was finished, Doreen chuckled. “This is a better idea than you know. Cam has a motorcycle of his own that he hasn’t ridden in months. Bought it on a whim – one of the few he’s ever had -- years ago and then, apparently, forgot how to enjoy himself on the open road. And this area is perfect for it – paved roads with light traffic, long, open stretches. I’ll have Jess check it out, make sure it’s ready to go. And you can use my bike.”
“That’s very generous of you. I was thinking of renting one, and . . . .”
“Don’t be silly. You’re welcome to use Daisy Belle.” Doreen sat back and gave Billie a long look. “I think this is a wonderful idea. Let me know when you want to go.”
Billie felt a little troubled by the look the older woman was giving her, but couldn’t quite pinpoint why. She thanked Doreen and headed back to her cabin, full of anticipation about her plan. She didn’t know how Cam was going to react, but she wasn’t going to worry about that now. Plenty of time later.
* * *
“Billie,” Brian called out as he loped across the yard. She had returned to her place on the porch and was happily contemplating Doreen’s agreement to her plan. Now all she had to do was convince Cam that this was a good idea, that he needed to take an afternoon off and go for a ride with her. The thought of having uninterrupted hours with him made her heart flutter.
Brian dashed up
the steps and stood beaming at her. His hands reached out and then fell to his sides a couple of times as he tried to form words.
She thumped forward on the legs of her chair and looked at him in alarm. “Brian, what is it?”
His face worked for a few more seconds. “Thanks,” he finally said. “Thanks for talking to Kyndra. She said she’s glad I’m learning to be a good boyfriend. Did ya hear that? Boyfriend.” He sat down on her porch railing and stared happily at her. “Boyfriend,” he breathed again.
She laughed and gave him a little nod. “You’re welcome. So I gather from this that you two are happy and there won’t be any more breaking up?”
“Nuh uh. We’re rock solid. Thanks to you she seems to get me now.” He slipped off into another blissful little silence. “And now I know how to be a good boyfriend.”
Before he could drift back into his happy love affair with that word, Kyndra said, “Well, congratulations. I’m delighted for you . . . .” Nearby, she heard the shuffle of feet and the clearing of a throat. Squinting into the gathering dusk, she called out, “Is someone there?”
Two figures appeared from around the corner of her house. Brian scrambled to his feet and beckoned them over. “These are my friends, Trevor and Jose. They need help, too.”
“Help?”
“With . . . well, with girls.”
Aghast, she stared at him, and then at the two hopeful faces before her. Trevor was short and muscular, Jose was tall and skinny like Brian. What had she gotten herself into? she wondered. The silence stretched as a dozen thoughts flew through her mind. Her first instinct was to tell Brian she wasn’t in the relationship counseling business and he’d had no right to tell his friends she would help them, but when the two boys exchanged glances and started to turn away, she hopped to her feet and held out her hand. “Hi, I’m Billie. What can I do for you?”
* * *
An hour later, Cam arrived home and headed for the barn to check on the cow and calf who he was beginning to think might actually live. He nearly stumbled over his own feet when he saw the activity on Billie’s porch. “Is she having a tea party?” he murmured, stepping back into the shadows so he could watch.
Here To Stay (Welcome to Lucky Break, Arizona!) Page 11
