The Daddy Survey

by Janis Reams Hudson

  “I wanted you to come to the ranch so I could spend more time with you.”

  Emily opened her mouth to say something, but Sloan held up his hand.

  “I wanted to spend more time with you because I’m attracted to you.”

  She stared up at him. “You’re attracted to me?”

  “Well, you don’t have to look so damned unhappy about it.”

  “No,” she said, her mind whirling. “No, actually, I think I’m flattered.”

  “Funny. You look scared to death.”

  Dear Reader,

  Well, June may be the traditional month for weddings, but we here at Silhouette find June is busting out all over—with babies! We begin with Christine Rimmer’s Fifty Ways To Say I’m Pregnant. When bound-for-the-big-city Starr Bravo shares a night of passion with the rancher she’s always loved, she finds herself in the family way. But how to tell him? Fifty Ways is a continuation of Christine’s Bravo Family saga, so look for the BRAVO FAMILY TIES flash. And for those of you who remember Christine’s JONES GANG series, you’ll be delighted with the cameo appearance of an old friend….

  Next, Joan Elliott Pickart continues her miniseries THE BABY BET: MACALLISTER’S GIFTS with Accidental Family, the story of a day-care center worker and a single dad with amnesia who find themselves falling for each other as she cares for their children together. And there’s another CAVANAUGH JUSTICE offering in Special Edition from Marie Ferrarella: in Cavanaugh’s Woman, an actress researching a film role needs a top cop—and Shaw Cavanaugh fits the bill nicely. Hot August Nights by Christine Flynn continues THE KENDRICKS OF CAMELOT miniseries, in which the reserved, poised Kendrick daughter finds her one-night stand with the town playboy coming back to haunt her in a big way. Janis Reams Hudson begins MEN OF CHEROKEE ROSE with The Daddy Survey, in which two little girls go all out to get their mother a new husband. And don’t miss One Perfect Man, in which almost-new author Lynda Sandoval tells the story of a career-minded events planner who has never had time for romance until she gets roped into planning a party for the daughter of a devastatingly handsome single father. So enjoy the rising temperatures, all six of these wonderful romances…and don’t forget to come back next month for six more, in Silhouette Special Edition.

  Happy Reading!

  Gail Chasan

  Senior Editor

  The Daddy Survey

  JANIS REAMS HUDSON

  Books by Janis Reams Hudson

  Silhouette Special Edition

  Resist Me if You Can #1037

  The Mother of His Son #1095

  His Daughter’s Laughter #1105

  Until You #1210

  *Their Other Mother #1267

  *The Price of Honor #1332

  *A Child on the Way #1349

  *Daughter on His Doorstep #1434

  *The Last Wilder #1474

  †The Daddy Survey #1619

  JANIS REAMS HUDSON

  was born in California, grew up in Colorado, lived in Texas for a few years and now calls central Oklahoma home. She is the author of more than twenty-five novels, both contemporary and historical romances. Her books have appeared on the Waldenbooks, B. Dalton and Bookrak bestseller lists and earned numerous awards, including the National Reader’s Choice Award and Reviewer’s Choice awards from Romantic Times. She is a three-time finalist for the coveted RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America and is a past president of RWA.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  When Sloan Chisholm pulled up across the street from the roadside café, thoughts of a chicken fried steak loomed paramount in his mind. He wanted a big one. Big enough to hang off the sides of the platter, with a whopping pile of mashed potatoes on the side, and both buried under at least an inch of thick, creamy-white gravy. He hadn’t had a chicken fry since a week ago Saturday, and he thought he might be suffering the early stages of withdrawal. It was time for a fix.

  Before he got the chance to harden his arteries, however, he ran smack into something that would change his life forever: The Daddy Survey.

  Actually, his life changed a couple of minutes before that, after he checked on the horse he was trailering and then crossed the street, stepped through the door of the café, and fell head over heels in love.

  Sloan had managed to live thirty-five years without falling in love. Not really. Not bone-deep, gutclenching, breath-stealing love. Those other two times didn’t count.

  Funny, but even with all of his grandmother’s recent grumblings about wanting him and his two brothers to get married so she could spoil a batch of great-grandchildren, Sloan had never really expected his heart to take that slow, sweet slide into helpless delight. But he could feel it happening inside him now, and it stunned him. And even supposing that he had expected to fall in love, he sure never would have thought he’d be the type of man to fall for two females at once, but there was no help for it. There they stood, and he was a goner.

  They were the most adorable creatures Sloan had ever seen. Both were blond, although one’s hair was a shade or two darker than the other’s. Both had blue eyes and enough similar facial features to have him guessing they were sisters, but one had dimples and the other didn’t. One wore glasses, one didn’t. One was taller than the other.

  One was eight, the other about six.

  “Good afternoon, sir.” The oldest of the two girls pushed her wire-rimmed glasses up on the bridge of her pert little nose. She hugged a stack of menus and a notebook to her chest, with the eraser end of a pencil sticking up out of the notebook’s wire spirals. Behind the lenses of her glasses, her sky-blue eyes studied him closely. “Smoking or non?”

  “That’s nonsmoking,” the little one clarified.

  The elder frowned at her. “He knows what non means.”

  The younger merely flashed her dimples.

  Before an argument could break out—not that one appeared imminent, but Sloan wasn’t taking any chances—he slapped a hand to his shirt pocket. It was just as empty of cigarettes as it had been for the past year and a half. And he was just as surprised by it now as when he’d first quit. “Non, please, ladies,” he offered with a sweep of his hat.

  They led him to a booth next to the wide front window.

  Sloan had dined in fancier establishments, but he’d also eaten in worse. This one ranked somewhere below average. The red vinyl of his seat bore a split from front to back wide enough to show the white stuffing inside. A few feet from his table the worn carpeting curled up where the seam connecting two pieces was coming apart, ready to trip some unsuspecting customer or waitress and trigger a lawsuit.

  But the table was clean, and the staff, so far, was adorable.

  An instant later, when the waitress approached with a plastic tumbler of ice water, Sloan got his second kick in the gut. She wasn’t beautiful, in the movie-star sense of the word, but she was so damn pretty she nearly took his breath away.

  Dainty was the word that came to mind. Or maybe delicate. Not that either was a word Sloan had much experience with, considering he spent most of his time with cattle, horses and grown men who usually reeked of barnyard sweat. But the waitress was slightly built, and her short hair left her neck bare and looking vulnerable.

  Even her eyes, the same pale yet vibrant blue as the little girls’, spoke of vulnerability.

  The urge to protect her startled him. Sloan wanted, unreaso
nably, to take her in his arms and shield her, protect her from harm, from cold, from fear. And most of all, he realized when he saw the pale strip of skin where a ring had once been—but was no longer—on the fourth finger of her left hand, he wanted, desperately, to protect her from ever having to sleep alone again.

  He wanted to protect her from guys like him.

  Her smile was polite and friendly without being overly so. She placed the water before him. “I’ll give you a minute to look over the menu and decide what you want. Girls,” she said to the two little beauties, “you know you’re not supposed to bother the customers.”

  “But, Mother—”

  “They’re not bothering me,” Sloan claimed, interrupting whatever the oldest girl had been about to say. “In fact, I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed prettier company.”

  The youngest girl giggled and blushed; the older one smiled shyly.

  “All right, but don’t make pests of yourselves,” their mother warned softly.

  “Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison.

  Sloan watched the waitress walk away, admiring the gentle sway of her hips and giving thanks for Levi Strauss and his denim tents that nobody wanted all those decades ago during the California gold rush.

  “That’s our mommy,” the littlest girl said.

  Sloan pulled his gaze back to the girls and smiled. “Yeah?”

  “Uh-huh. Her name’s Emily. Emily Nelson. Do you think she’s pretty?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said with feeling. “I surely do.” Emily. Emily Nelson. “She’s every bit as pretty as the two of you.”

  This was where he could logically say something stupid, like Your daddy is one lucky man. But that would be pumping the girls for information, and he couldn’t bring himself to sink that low. Besides, if their daddy was out of the picture, mentioning him could hurt these two little innocent angels.

  So, instead, he smiled and asked if they would like to join him for lunch.

  “Thank you, sir,” said the oldest one, all serious and grown-up, “but we’ve already eaten.”

  “That’s too bad.” And he meant it. It would be a kick to sit across the table from them for half an hour or so. Especially considering that he usually spent his days staring at the south end of a northbound steer. “Maybe you could just keep me company while I eat?”

  “Wellll…” The older girl stole a quick glance at her sister, then looked back at him. “We could do that, and maybe you’d like to take our survey while you wait for your order.”

  “Survey, huh? What kind of survey?”

  “Oops.” The little one nudged her sister. “Mommy’s coming.” Then, to him, “Do you know what you want to eat yet?”

  Sloan tracked the waitress’s progress toward him like a starving man waiting for a feast. With a coffeepot in one hand and a pitcher of iced tea in the other, she moved like a dancer from table to table, filling a mug here, a tumbler there, with a smile, a question, a comment for each customer.

  When Sloan caught himself wondering if she moved that gracefully, smiled that beautifully, while beneath a man in bed, he forced himself to look away.

  Man alive, forget about protecting her. Who was going to protect him?

  She came and stood beside his table. “Do you know what you want?”

  Oh, boy, honey, he thought. That is one loaded question.

  She must have seen something in his eyes, for she cleared her throat then blinked slowly down at her order pad and rephrased her question. “Are you ready to order?”

  Without looking at the menu, Sloan kept his gaze on her face and ordered a chicken fried steak with all the trimmings.

  Without looking up at him, she scribbled on her pad and said, “I’ll get that out to you as soon as it’s ready.”

  She is so damn pretty, he thought again as she went to turn in his order.

  “Sir?”

  Sloan turned back to the girls. “Sloan,” he said. “Call me Sloan.”

  “Okay.” The little one beamed. “I’m Libby and this is my sister, Janie. Do you wanna take our survey?”

  “Why not? What kind of survey is it?”

  “It’s a da—”

  But Janie interrupted her younger sister. “We’re taking a survey of single men between the ages of twenty-one and sixty-five. Is that you?”

  Hearing such grown-up language coming from such a young child made him want to smile. “Twenty-one and sixty-five, huh? That’s quite a range, but, yeah, I fit in there.”

  “And you’re single?”

  “Last time I checked.”

  Janie frowned.

  “Yes,” he clarified. “I’m single.”

  Her face cleared.

  “Oh, goody,” Libby said, grinning.

  Janie cleared her throat. “Okay.” She pulled the spiral notebook from her small stack of menus and flipped it open. “On a scale of one to five, with one being not at all and five being very, very much, how well do you like little girls?”

  Sloan grinned widely. “That’s easy. I’d have to give that one a five, if that’s as high as I can go.”

  Libby giggled.

  Janie marked his answer in her notebook, then looked at him out the corner of her eye. “On a scale of one to five, do you believe in spanking?”

  Sloan’s eyes widened. “Of little girls? I’d have to give that a zero. Nobody should spank little girls.”

  Both girls smiled hugely as Janie wrote down his answer.

  “How much do you like liver and onions?” Janie asked.

  “I’d have to give that a three.”

  “How much do you like ice cream?”

  “That’s a big five.”

  Janie paused and studied him carefully, such a serious look in those bright blue eyes. Then she took a deep breath and plunged on. “Yes or no, does Santa Claus know where you live?”

  Sloan lost all urge to laugh over their cute questions. It was becoming obvious that what Libby had been about to say earlier was that this was a daddy survey. These girls were surveying café customers in search of a new daddy. The very idea broke his heart. He wanted to grab them and pull them onto his lap and hold them close and promise them—

  Promise them what? That he would be their daddy?

  Whoa, pal. Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you?

  “Mr. Sloan?” Janie prodded.

  “Oh, sorry. And it’s not Mr., it’s just Sloan.”

  “Oh, no,” Libby said. “We have to call all grownups Mr. or Ms.”

  “It’s a sign of respect,” Janie said.

  “It’s a rule,” Libby added.

  “Well,” Sloan said. “We wouldn’t want to break any rules, so I guess you can call me Mr. Sloan. Now, where were we?”

  “Santa,” Libby told him.

  “Oh, yeah. Well, sure. We’ve even got a chimney for him, and every year we put up a tree with lights and the works.”

  Both girls let out a big breath and grinned at each other. Then Janie got back down to business.

  “One to five again. How much do you like puppies?”

  “Oh, I like puppies a whole lot.”

  “Is that a five?” Janie asked.

  “I’d have to say so. A definite five for puppies.”

  “What about kittens?” Libby asked.

  “That’s not on the survey,” Janie protested.

  “Well, it should be.” Libby gave an emphatic nod, making her pale yellow curls bounce.

  Janie frowned. “Okay, kittens. But it’s not fair, because the other men didn’t get to answer that one.”

  “Maybe we can ask them if they come back in,” Libby offered.

  Janie brightened. “Maybe we can.”

  “So, kittens?” Sloan asked, his stomach tightening at the thought of their asking these questions of every stranger who came in. “Kittens are a definite five. We have lots of kittens at our ranch.”

  Libby’s eyes widened. “You do?”

  “You have a ranch?” Janie asked in
awe. “With horses and cows and everything?”

  “Sure do. With horses and cows and everything.” He pointed to his rig across the street. “See that pickup? It’s got the name of our ranch right there on the door.”

  “Cherokee Rose,” Janie read.

  “Cherokee?” Libby’s eyes nearly swallowed her face. “Are you a Indian?”

  Janie frowned. “Not Indian, silly. Native American.”

  “He is?” Libby breathed, staring at Sloan in awe. “You are?”

  “Indian’s fine,” Sloan said. “And yes, I’m part Indian.”

  Libby still stared at him wide-eyed. “Which part?”

  Sloan couldn’t help it—he broke out laughing. He was saved from having to explain anything more to Libby by the approach of her mother with his order.

  Emily Nelson heard the cowboy’s deep laughter long before she reached his table with his order. Whatever her daughters were saying to him, he was obviously enjoying himself.

  He had a nice laugh. A nice face, too.

  Well, maybe nice wasn’t the right word for those chiseled, coppery features, but attractive certainly fit. And compelling.

  The thought startled her. She couldn’t remember the last time she had even bothered to notice how a man looked. The last man—the only man—she had ever looked at or noticed in her entire life was Michael.

  The expected ache at the thought of him came, as she knew it would. But it was a poignant ache these days, not the stabbing, crippling agony it had once been. Two years since his death, and she could now think of Michael with as much love and gratitude for the years they’d had together as regret for his loss.

  He had been the love of her life, and he’d given her these two precious daughters who liked to entertain strangers while she worked to earn the money to get the three of them to a promised job in Arkansas. If her car hadn’t broken down in the middle of nowhere she wouldn’t have had to take this job merely to get the car fixed. If she had to pay a baby-sitter for the girls, she would never earn enough to fix the car. She was grateful her boss was so tolerant as to let the girls stay in the café while she waited tables.