The Rancher and the Baby

by Marie Ferrarella

  In what Cassidy later viewed as a weak moment, she refused to give in, quipping, “But arguing is half the fun.”

  Will gave her a look she could only interpret as a promise of things to come. Why she felt a strong pull within her very core, she couldn’t begin to explain—nor did she really even want to think about it.

  “We can have fun later,” Will told her. “Right now, I want to help out with the baby. You can go on arguing with me all you want, but I think you should know that I’m not planning on going anywhere tonight. It’s only right and fair that I help out with Adam, and I intend to do just that,” he concluded, standing his ground.

  “I’d listen to the man if I were you,” Connor counseled.

  Cassidy frowned. She was outnumbered and outmaneuvered—and she knew it. But she had never given up easily. “I really hate to set a precedent—”

  “Cassidy,” Connor said in a warning voice.

  “—but I obviously have to, so okay, sure, give me a hand with him.” With that she held Adam out to Will.

  Taking the baby from her, Will couldn’t help but take a whiff of the less than pleasing aroma that was part of the baby. “He needs to have his diaper changed,” he told Cassidy.

  The corners of her mouth curved with pleasure. “Good call.”

  Instead of asking her, Will looked at her brother. “How often does this happen a day?” he asked, unconsciously wrinkling his nose.

  “More times than you’d care to think about,” Connor answered. “C’mon.” He put his hand on Will’s shoulder. “I’ll walk you through it.”

  But to his surprise, Cassidy put up her hand to stop her brother. “That’s okay, let me,” she said.

  “You’re going to change him?” Connor asked, surprised.

  “If you’re referring to Laredo, that’s not possible,” she told her brother.

  He gave her a long-suffering look. “I was talking about the baby.”

  “Nope, not going to change him, either. But I’ll gladly walk Laredo through it,” she said with a wide grin.

  “Why do I suddenly get the feeling that I’ve just walked into a trap?” Will asked as he followed Cassidy out of the room.

  “I have no idea why you think or feel anything,” she replied. “Now let’s get this over with before Adam winds up getting a rash.”

  Connor could only shake his head as he watched his sister and his lifelong friend walk out of the room. He dearly loved Cassidy, but he’d be the first to admit there were times that she could try God’s patience. He had no idea why Will was putting up with her drill-sergeant temperament. Unlike the rest of them, Will certainly didn’t need to. There were no family ties to bind him to her.

  As far as Connor could see, there was only one reason in the world why the two fought the way they did and why Will didn’t give Cassidy a biting, formal dressing-down once and for all before he finally walked out on her—permanently.

  Connor smiled to himself as he contemplated that reason now.

  He’d always wanted another brother, he thought as he turned and walked back into the kitchen.

  It was time to see about getting dinner on the table. The idea of hiring Rita to cook meals on a more permanent basis was beginning to sound better and better. He had to admit that they had all gotten rather spoiled with all the meals that Devon had made for them when she had first arrived.

  * * *

  CASSIDY STOOD TO one side of the bed, her arms folded before her chest as she watched Laredo change Adam’s diaper. It was rather full, and the baby required a great deal of cleaning.

  When Cassidy didn’t offer a running commentary on what he was doing or make any critical wisecracks on his method, Will glanced up at her.

  This wasn’t like her at all.

  “Why aren’t you saying anything?” he asked.

  She sighed, giving him his due. He hadn’t turned green when he first opened the diaper, and he hadn’t surrendered, telling her she could finish up. He’d grimly done what needed to be done.

  “Okay,” Cassidy said. “Not bad.”

  “What?”

  “If you’re waiting for me to burst into applause, you’ve got the wrong person.”

  He didn’t understand half the things that Cassidy said. “What are you talking about?”

  Was he even in the same conversation as she was? “You just asked why I wasn’t saying anything, so I said something.”

  “What I meant was that I’m not used to you being so quiet. I was sure that you were going to tell me what a bad job I was doing.”

  “I wanted to,” Cassidy freely admitted, then added, “but there’s only one problem.”

  Okay, here it came. Will had thought that since he volunteered to help out, it would have some kind of an effect on her, making her a little more easygoing and less scissor-tongued. He should have known better.

  He braced himself. “And that is—”

  This was hard for her, but not saying it would be too close to lying, so she made the best of it and forced out the words.

  “You did a better job than I thought you would. Not perfect,” Cassidy said, quickly qualifying her statement. “But better.”

  Finished cleaning up and putting a fresh diaper on Adam, he nodded at Cassidy. “That sounds more like you—all except for the semi-compliment.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t let it go to your head,” she warned. “Although, I guess there’s no harm in that. It’ll die of loneliness up there.”

  Will couldn’t help laughing. “Now that really sounds more like you.”

  Since Will was apparently finished, she picked up the baby from the bed. Holding Adam against her, she automatically patted the baby’s bottom, a gesture that soothed both her and the baby.

  “Okay,” she told Will, “you changed a diaper. Now go home.”

  She wasn’t going to get rid of him that easily. “I said I was going to help and I meant it, Cassidy,” he informed her. “So I’m staying.”

  “Oh, joy.”

  She’d turned her back on Will and walked out, so he had no way of seeing that there was a smile on her face as she left the bedroom.

  Chapter Twelve

  The knock on the door didn’t wake him up—Will had never believed in sleeping in, no matter what time he’d finally gone to bed the night before. Sleeping in was for people who had no life, no responsibilities to meet. But the knock did catch him off guard.

  He was just about to go outside to begin working with the horses. He was still trying to settle in after being gone for so long, and settling in was a slow, tedious process. All his time, spare or otherwise, was devoted to trying to make a go of a ranch that had very little going for it.

  Even when he was growing up here, Will remembered times always being tough, remembered his father being drunk half the time even though—or maybe because—bills kept piling up. Despite the wolf being at the door countless times, and his father’s habit of losing himself in the bottom of a bottle, somehow they managed to make it from one month to the next, usually just one jump ahead of complete ruin. Sometimes it was even less than that.

  Part of Will felt that he should just sell the ranch for whatever he could get, use the money to pay off what he could and then just walk away from this part of his life.

  The other part of him was determined to dig in and make a go of it, refusing to go under. Refusing to make his father’s prophecy regarding his own life come true.

  In essence, the ranch represented a challenge to him—a far more serious one than Cassidy did.

  If this was a bill collector at the door, Will thought, approaching it, they were going to be disappointed. He wouldn’t be able to make a payment until the first of the month—if then. It was the first of the year, actually. This was December, the month of miracles and,
appropriately enough, Christmas. Heaven knew he could do with a miracle or two.

  It was awfully warm for December, he couldn’t help thinking. Recently the days had felt more like June. That was probably the main reason why he hadn’t lost the colt that day of the flash flood. The horse had managed to survive until he had finally found him.

  Will didn’t bother asking who was at his door. Break-ins and thieves were just not common in the area, and if it was a bill collector, well, he’d just have to reason with him.

  With all the possibilities that went through his mind, Will had to admit that not once had he considered that he’d find Cassidy on his doorstep when he threw open the front door.

  “Something happen?” he asked, thinking only an emergency would bring her here.

  Cassidy didn’t bother answering his question. “Most people around here still say ‘hello’ when they see someone standing on their doorstep.”

  She waited for Will to step back and admit her. When he didn’t, she ducked in around him.

  “Maybe that’s because most people don’t see you on their doorstep,” Will answered.

  Since she’d walked in, he closed the door, resigned to her presence. Will braced himself, waiting for her to say something cryptic about his lack of housekeeping.

  “How would you know?” Cassidy asked, looking around. She couldn’t recall a single instance when she and her brothers had been inside Will’s house. She could see why. The place looked positively depressing, she thought. “Have you asked around?”

  What was she doing here? It wasn’t as if she was in the habit of dropping by for a friendly visit. None of his friends ever did. His father’s ranch had always been off-limits to them. His father always made a point of saying that.

  “Is it Adam?” Will pressed. “Did something happen to Adam?” His mind raced through a list of possibilities. It had been almost three weeks since they’d rescued the boy, definitely time enough for word about him to get out. “Did his parents turn up?”

  “No, nothing happened to Adam and no, his parents haven’t turned up yet,” she replied, answering Will’s questions in order. She couldn’t keep her reaction to herself any longer. “My Lord, it’s gloomy in here. You might want to think about having a bigger window put in the front,” she suggested, walking over to the rather small window that was there now, looking out on the front of the house. “Cole could help you with that. He’s good with his hands.” She glanced at Will over her shoulder. “A little more light coming in could only help.”

  She was making his head spin, not exactly an uncommon reaction whenever he was around Cassidy. He hadn’t slept much last night after going over his finances and finding that the ranch his father had left to him was in even worse shape than he’d originally thought.

  Cassidy was only adding to the headache he’d had ever since he’d gotten up.

  Will caught hold of her shoulders, anchoring her in place so that he could get her to hopefully give him a straight answer.

  “Cassidy, why are you here?” As he put the question to her, it occurred to him that she had asked him the same thing when he’d first gone over to her family ranch to pitch in with the baby.

  But she had no such excuse. The baby wasn’t here, only an ever-growing pile of bills and a mushrooming sense of impending failure.

  “I guess you forgot. I figured you would,” she told him.

  He was having trouble hanging on to his temper right now. It felt as if the walls were closing in on him and his normal ability to take things in stride was seriously depleted. “Humor me. Tell me again.”

  Maybe it was the lack of light within the room, but he could have sworn there was a hint of amusement in those blue eyes of hers. Amusement and something else he couldn’t quite read.

  Just what was going on here?

  “Okay,” Cassidy said gamely, deciding to take him off the hook and answer his question. “I told you that I’d come over on the weekend to give you a hand on the ranch. I couldn’t come last week or the week before that, but that doesn’t mean I forgot about it. I live up to my promises—even if you don’t think so,” she told him pointedly.

  He barely remembered the conversation. It felt almost like a lifetime ago, and while he’d enjoyed the handful of times he’d gone over to her ranch to help take care of Adam, it seemed like a pleasant interlude in an otherwise oppressive existence.

  “That’s okay. I absolve you of your hasty promise,” Will told her, waving her words away. “Go home to the baby.”

  Cassidy dug in, her body language telling him that she wasn’t going anywhere. “I said I’d give you a hand and I—”

  “I don’t need a hand,” Will told her curtly, his patience snapping. “I need a miracle.”

  She was accustomed to bantering with him. At other times, biting words were exchanged between them as they bickered. But this was something different. His tone was different, almost hopeless, she realized. Cassidy couldn’t recall ever seeing him like this. She wasn’t about to walk away without some sort of an explanation from him.

  “Define miracle,” she told him. When he didn’t answer her, Cassidy tried another approach. “Okay, what is it that you need done?”

  “Go home, Cassidy,” Will told her flatly. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  She was used to him underestimating her. What she wasn’t used to was not getting angry over it. Something about his manner kept her calm. What she felt was a genuine concern that he had a real problem.

  “You’d be surprised at what I can do,” she answered loftily. “Now I said I didn’t intend to be in debt to you, and I’m not, so out with it,” she instructed. “Just what kind of ‘miracle’ are you talking about?”

  He looked at her as if she had lost her mind—or maybe he’d lost his and he was only imagining her here like this, trying to help him instead of trying to make his life miserable as was her usual custom.

  Part of him thought that maybe this was some kind of an elaborate ruse on Cassidy’s part to get him to believe that she actually wanted to help—just so she could laugh in his face when he told her what was wrong.

  But then apathy came over him. What did it matter if she knew? Nothing was going to change. In the last couple of days, he’d woken up feeling numb, the way a man did when he knew he was going to go down for the third and last time because it was inevitable that he was going to drown.

  Exasperated, Will blew out a breath and told her, “If I don’t raise this month’s mortgage payment, the bank is going to foreclose on the ranch.”

  Cassidy never took her eyes off his face as he talked. “And you don’t want them to.”

  “Of course I don’t want them to!” he shouted at her. Why would he be this upset if losing the ranch didn’t matter to him?

  Someone else would have backed off, but Cassidy wasn’t someone else.

  “Why?” she questioned, trying to get him to talk to her, to tell her what he really felt. “Why not let the bank take it? This place only reminds you of your father,” she pointed out.

  “It also reminds me of other things,” he told her. He didn’t know why he was bothering to explain this to her. After all, she didn’t care. But he still heard himself telling her, “Besides, if I let them foreclose, then he wins. The old man wins,” he bit out. “He left this place to me only to yank it away after he died.”

  Cassidy could see that the bad blood between Will and his father ran deep. “That’s giving him a lot of credit for thinking clearly,” she said, and then she shook her head because he probably wasn’t aware of this. “Your father wasn’t thinking clearly toward the end.”

  Will didn’t ask her for details. He didn’t want to know. Knowing would only compound the feeling of depression and hopelessness he was trying hard to battle and keep at bay.

  He had to find a way to ra
lly, to come up with a way to make the mortgage payment so he could buy himself some time until he could turn the ranch into a paying enterprise again.

  Will had fallen silent. Cassidy tried prodding him again. “How much do you need?”

  His eyes met hers. “Why?” he challenged.

  Since he didn’t seem to believe that she wanted to help him—he was, after all, her brothers’ friend—she went back to the persona he felt he did know. “Because I want to know what it takes to make you go under.”

  Will squared his shoulders. It gave her hope. “I’m not going under.”

  “So back to my question. How much do you need?” she asked again.

  He knew that she wasn’t going to let up until he finally told her what she wanted to know.

  So, grudgingly, he did.

  Cassidy nodded. “Okay,” was all she said in response as she turned on her heel and headed for the front door.

  “I thought you said you came to help,” he called after her. It was meant to mock her because he’d never expected her to stay and work on the ranch no matter what she’d initially said to the contrary.

  “I did,” she told him. And then, just as she opened the door to go out, Cassidy surprised him by adding, “I am.”

  And with that, she left.

  “Right.”

  Will shook his head. That seemed par for the course, he thought, staring at the closed door.

  He didn’t have time to think about Cassidy and why she was behaving even stranger than usual. He had horses to feed. At least that much he could do. Coming up with that miracle he needed, however, was another story entirely.

  * * *

  INSTEAD OF GOING back home to share what she’d managed to get out of Will with her brothers, Cassidy went straight to town. Specifically, she went straight to Miss Joan’s diner.

  The diner was full when she walked in. On weekends, people had a few more minutes to spare on breakfast, or at least their morning coffee, than they did on weekday mornings.