Laramie was momentarily stunned. He couldn’t imagine the young woman enduring the pain of childbirth while being stranded in a freezing, snowbound vehicle. She must have been terrified. She must have felt the whole world had deserted her.
“Damn, that’s tough.”
“Yeah. She told Bridget that her family was dead. But we’re wondering if she might have folks somewhere and split from them for some reason.”
“You mean like she might have run away?”
“Nowadays who can tell? Whatever happened, it’s clear that no one is around to give her any support.”
“I see,” Laramie said, even though he didn’t. How could a woman like her be so alone? “And I promise not to give her a hard time.”
“Good. Now eat your supper and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Quint quickly ended the call, and after Laramie had put his phone away, he focused his attention on the food on his plate. But as he ate the roast beef and vegetables, his thoughts were spinning with Leyla and her young son.
Even if she’d separated herself from her parents, there was a man somewhere who’d gotten her pregnant. Why wasn’t he around? The boy needed a father. Just like Laramie had needed a father all those years ago, he thought.
But you had a father. Diego Jaime might not have planted the seed in your mother’s womb, but he’d cared for you, loved you just as though he’d been your father. You don’t have a right to feel cheated or sorry for yourself, Laramie.
He was trying to squash the little voice going off in his head when he heard footsteps entering the dining room. Looking up, he watched Leyla walking toward him, a pitcher of iced tea in her hand.
“Would you like your glass refilled?” she asked.
He placed the glass near the edge of the table to make it easier for her to reach. Still, she drew near enough for him to catch a whiff of her musky scent.
As she poured the tea, he said, “The food is delicious. You’re a very good cook.”
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t realize Reena was going to be leaving so soon. You must have gotten here after breakfast this morning.”
Nodding, she said, “Mr. Cantrell was eager for her to get to Apache Wells. Jim, his cook, has a broken leg. They’re not certain how many weeks it will require a cast. So she’ll be there. I’ll be here.”
“Yes. Quint told me.”
Her lips pressed slightly together and then she looked away from him to a shadowy spot across the room. “I forgot. You’re the boss. You would know those things.”
He wanted to reiterate to her that he wasn’t the boss, especially not hers, but he kept the words to himself. She needed time to get used to him and her new surroundings without him correcting her on every little issue.
“Have you ever lived on a ranch?” he asked.
Her gaze was quick to return to his face. “No. Why do you ask that?”
Laramie wasn’t exactly sure why the question had slipped out of him. Except that she seemed a little lost. And after hearing what Quint had said about her, he didn’t want her feeling that way.
“Just curious. It’s a heck of a lot different from living in town.”
“I haven’t lived near a town in a long time. Before I came here I lived in the mountains on the res. Alone,” she added, her chin jutting slightly forward, as though he needed to understand that she could take care of herself.
Her spark of independence surprised him. It also caught his admiration. “That’s good. I mean, you should get along fine here, then.”
*
Leyla gave him a faint nod, then turned and left the room. Once she reached the kitchen, she set the iced tea in the refrigerator, then leaned weakly against the cabinet counter.
Reena had told her that Laramie was a nice man and that she wouldn’t have any problems with him. But the woman hadn’t warned her that he was young and so good-looking. No. Good-looking wasn’t exactly the right description for the ranch manager, she thought. With his tall, lanky frame and dark shaggy hair, he was more sexy than handsome.
Not since Dillon’s daddy had she looked so closely at a man. She’d even noticed Laramie Jones’s eyes. They were an unusual mixture of blue and brown with lights and shadows waltzing sensually in their depths.
Oh, my, this was the man she would be cooking for. She was going to have to be very careful around him. Careful not to let herself look or dream.
Reena had said he was single and stayed in this big fancy house. His room was upstairs. The maid, Sassy, had shown her which one just in case she should ever need to alert him in the night for an emergency. Thankfully, the young red-haired maid would be taking care of his room and laundry.
“Mommy, Mommy.”
The tug on her leg had her glancing down at her nearly three-year-old son. He was holding a piece of paper that she’d cut from his coloring book. The wild orange markings went from the pony in the middle of the page to the very edges.
“That’s a very good job, Dillon. You made the pony orange. Can you say orange?”
The boy puckered his mouth in an O as he pondered his mother’s request. “Orr-range. Orr-range.”
“Good. Very good.” She took his small hand and led him over to the kitchen table. “And because you colored such a pretty picture, I’m going to give you some cookies and milk. Want some?”
He nodded enthusiastically and Leyla lifted him onto one of the chairs and smacked a kiss on his cheek. Dillon was the hope and dream of her whole world. Her love for him was so great that just thinking of him brought tears to her eyes. It didn’t matter that his father had been a deceitful jerk. That he’d run fast and hard as soon as he’d learned Leyla was pregnant. Having her precious son made up for being discarded, for the lonely, solitary nights and for the long hard hours she’d worked to keep a roof over their heads.
“Cookies, Mommy! Eat.”
“Okay, hold your horses. I’m getting it.”
She’d served the boy fig wafers and milk and was cleaning the dirty pots she’d used for cooking when she heard boot steps behind her.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the ranch foreman carrying his plate and glass toward her.
“Here’re my dirty dishes.” He placed the dishes on the counter. “The meal was delicious. Thanks.”
She looked up and as her gaze connected with his, her heart beat very fast. “You don’t have to praise my cooking. Just tell me when something is wrong.” She turned back to the sink and began to scrub one of the pots with a copper scouring pad. “Would you like dessert and coffee? Or more tea?”
“Well, I do sorta have a sweet tooth. Whatever you have is fine and a little coffee with it would be great. If this young man will share his table with me, I’ll sit over here,” he told her.
Leyla glanced over, expecting to see her son jump from the table and race over to the safety of his mother’s side. Instead, she was slightly amazed to see Dillon stare curiously up at the big man sitting next to him.
“Is your name William or Dillon?” Laramie asked the child.
Confused and a bit insulted by a question he considered silly, he practically shouted. “Dillon!”
“Oh. Pardon me, partner. I thought you were William.”
Dillon shook his head and looked hopelessly to his mother, then back at Laramie.
Suddenly remembering the rancher was waiting for her to serve his dessert, she got busy collecting a mug of coffee and a piece of apple pie. Behind her, she could hear Laramie Jones chuckling softly.
The sound was low and smooth and pleasing like the call of a night bird on a still summer evening.
“How old are you, Dillon?” he asked her son.
As Leyla carried the food and drink to the table, Dillon held up one finger for Laramie to see.
“One. Hmm, I sure thought you were older than that.”
In response Dillon held up two fingers. “That many,” he said.
“Well, you sure are big for two,” Laramie commented.
“Oh. That’s what I was guessing. About three,” Laramie told her.
His comment surprised her. “You know about children, Mr. Jones?”
“Not much. But Quint has two boys and I’ve watched them grow up,” he said, then added with a frown, “and don’t call me Mr. Jones. I’m Laramie to everyone.”
Leyla felt herself blushing and she instinctively backed away from him. “Okay—Laramie.”
“And another thing,” he said. “Most days I work well after dark. There’s no need for you to hang around in the kitchen until I come in. Just leave something in the warming drawer on the stove.”
For some reason his instructions hurt. It was almost like he was telling her he didn’t want her or Dillon’s company. But then some men didn’t like the chatter of a child or a woman fussing around him. Perhaps Laramie was one of those men, she thought.
“It’s my job to serve you. That’s what Quint pays me for. If I don’t do my job I might as well move home.”
“Where is that?”
The wariness she was feeling about his question must have shown on her face because he suddenly shrugged and said, “Never mind. You don’t have to tell me that.”
Telling herself he was only making conversation, not digging into her past, she said, “My aunt’s house is on the reservation. That’s where I live.”
A faint grin curled up one corner of his lips. “Then you probably feel right at home here in the mountains.”
Leyla hadn’t felt like she was really home in a long, long time. She’d left her home near Farmington more than three years ago when she’d been four months pregnant with Dillon. Since then she’d not talked or corresponded with her parents. And she had only talked on the phone to her sisters on rare occasions. She missed her mother, Juanita, and two sisters very much. But she’d not been that close to her older brother, Tanno, because he was more like their father, George, a lazy man who thought being born a male made him superior to all women. Leyla had often considered contacting her mother, especially since Dillon had been born, but she knew to do so would only cause her to endure more misery from George. For now she had to be content with the fact that her sisters had informed their mother about Dillon and that her grandson was healthy and happy.
“Yes. I feel comfortable here,” she told him.
“Will you be living here in the house?”
She nodded. “In Reena’s rooms. The drive from the reservation would take hours. And my old car wouldn’t hold up.”
And that was enough talking with this man, she thought, as she turned and headed back to the sink full of dirty pots. She’d already exchanged more information with him than she should have. She would only be here on the ranch for as long as it took for Jim’s leg to heal and Reena to resume her position as Chaparral cook.
After that, she would return to the reservation and try to gather enough funds to start nursing school. So while she was here on this huge, fancy ranch, she would keep her mind on her own business and never forget her plans for the future. A future that only included her and Dillon.
It certainly didn’t include dreams of a tall, shaggy-haired cowboy with a crooked grin and fascinating blue and brown eyes.
The mere thought of the ranch manager had her peeping over her shoulder, and what she saw virtually stunned her.
Dillon, her shy little boy who rarely ever took to strangers, especially male strangers, was now sitting in Laramie’s lap as though he’d just found his daddy.
“Dillon!” she said with a shocked gasp. “What are you doing?”
“We’re eating,” Laramie explained with a grin. “You see, me and your son have just agreed we’re going to be saddle pals. And saddle pals always share their food.”
Leyla stared in wonder. The man had come in dirty and tired. No doubt he’d put in a very long day. Yet he was patient enough to take time out of his evening to show her son a bit of attention and kindness. The idea stung her eyes with tears and she swiftly turned back to her dishwashing before the rancher could see he was melting her heart.
Oh, why couldn’t she have met this man before her life had gotten complicated and she’d become a single mother?
She snuck a glance through the mist of her tears at Dillon sitting on Laramie’s knee. He was the sort of man her son needed for a daddy. But she’d be crazy to let that sort of thought grow. A man like him was out of her reach. Or was he?
Chapter Two
The next day Laramie and Russ Hollister, the resident veterinarian for the Chaparral, drove into Ruidoso to look over several new high-protein grains being offered at a local feed store. With Laramie considering cost and storage of the grains and Russ the nutrition, the two men were able to come up with a blend that would fit the ranch’s feed program.
On the way home, Laramie glanced at the clock on the dashboard of the truck. “You in a hurry to get back to the ranch?” he asked the other man.
“No hurry. Laurel is at the barn if some sort of emergency comes up. She can deal with most anything.”
“Yeah. I’ve noticed. You’d better watch out or you might lose your job to her,” Laramie joked.
Russ chuckled. “I’ve taught her pretty well.”
About two months ago Russ had married Laurel, his longtime assistant. She was also expecting their first child and Laramie had never seen a happier pair, unless it was Quint and Maura. Love, marriage and kids. Laramie had lived around those things for many years now. Yet he still felt like he was on the outside looking through the window. It was great for his friends, but he wasn’t cut out for that sort of life. He was a solitary man. Just as Diego had been.
“I have some property just off the main highway,” he told the vet. “If you don’t mind I thought I’d stop by and check on the place. It would save me an extra trip.”
“Sure. I’d like to see it,” Russ told him.
Five minutes later, Laramie turned the truck onto a graveled county road. Another half mile passed as he drove through low hills covered with scrubby juniper and sage. Green grass and wildflowers splashed the red ground with vibrant color.
“There’s a house,” Russ commented. “Is that on your property?”
Laramie steered the truck onto a driveway and eased it down the steep graveled slope. “Believe it or not, I used to live in that house, Russ. With the man I called my father.”
“Called?” Russ repeated curiously.
Laramie parked the truck in front of the little four-room house. The cream-colored stucco was freshly painted, and the wooden shingles were all in place. Ever since Diego had died and Laramie had inherited the place, he’d made a point of keeping the structure in good condition.
“Diego Jaime wasn’t my father by blood,” Laramie explained. “But I was only a few days old when he took over my raising.”
“Really? Where is he now? It looks like no one lives here.”
“Diego died when I was a teenager—just sixteen. He didn’t have a wife, so it was just me and him. He’d always told me that if something ever happened to him to go to Lewis Cantrell. So that’s what I did. I went to the Chaparral and asked the man for a job.” Laramie’s sigh was wistful. “For some reason I’ll never understand, Lewis took me in like his own. And I’ll be forever in his debt.”
“Lewis was a good judge of character,” Russ told him. “And I figure you’ve repaid him many times over.”
Laramie shot him a skeptical look but didn’t pursue the subject. Diego and Lewis had both played a prominent role in Laramie’s life. He hated that both men were gone now, but he felt very blessed to have been part of their lives.
“I’ll just walk around the hous
e and make sure it hasn’t been vandalized,” he told Russ. “Just sit if you’d rather.”
“I need to stretch. I’ll walk with you,” the other man replied.
The two men climbed out of the ranch truck and started around the small house. The spring day was warm and the snow melt had glutted the rivers and streams to full banks. Not far from the house, the sound of rushing water mingled with the singing birds. Further off, a cow bawled to its calf. The sights and sounds always brought Laramie back to his days as a young boy when he’d explored and played over these hills. Diego had always owned a few cows, sheep and horses. Not to mention the dogs and cats that had called the place home. Three-fourths of Laramie’s childhood had been spent outdoors and he’d basically been a happy boy. Even if he’d not had a set of real parents.
“I didn’t realize we were birds of the same feathers,” Russ said as they rounded the back of the structure.
“How’s that?” Laramie asked.
“I grew up with just a mother and she died when I was seventeen.”
Very surprised by Russ’s admission, Laramie glanced over at the other man. “What about your father?”
“My parents divorced. After that he was a no-show.”
“Hmm. At least you know who he was,” Laramie mused aloud.
“So do you,” Russ told him. “Your father was Diego Jaime.”
Laramie’s faint smile was full of fond memories. “Yeah. You’re right.” Diego had been a father in every sense of the word. But there were still times when he wondered what had really happened with his mother. Why she’d left her baby with a neighbor and never returned. The story had never made sense to Laramie, and he’d often wondered if the old man was only giving him the partial truth of the matter. But he’d never pressed Diego on the subject. After all the sacrifices the old man had made for him, it would have seemed very ungrateful to call him a liar. Besides, if his mother had really wanted her son in her life, then she could have returned. The fact that she’d stayed away gave Laramie at least one answer to his questions.
A Daddy for Dillon Page 2
