“Cole?” Sammie gasped.
“Why are you...? What are you?” He couldn’t seem to form words. Not with Sammie Jensen standing there looking cute as a button in her new cowboy boots and a pair of blessedly skin-tight Levi’s. Holding his son.
His heart—having no idea what else to do—decided to stand perfectly still.
“I thought you wanted me to pick him up tonight.” Sammie sounded confused.
“I did?” He resisted the urge to grab Devon from her arms. He’d risked two traffic tickets and a minor fender bender to get here on time, and Devon had barely registered he'd walked in the door. He was too busy wrapping his chubby little fist in Sammie’s hair, his entire attention focused on sliding the strands through his fingers.
“Mr. Baker!” Tina greeted him with a smile. “Y’all both came, huh?”
“Appears that way.” Cole couldn't tear his eyes off Sammie. Or Devon. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was he was feeling watching his son so content in her arms.
He only knew he never wanted to feel it again.
“Well, good. I was gonna write this in his home notebook, but since both mama and daddy are here, Cheryl can tell you face-to-face.” Tina gestured to the third woman.
The day care owner was a tiny slip of a woman with iron-gray hair cut into a no-nonsense shag. Her skin was the color of coffee with cream but her blue eyes were so light they were almost colorless. When she smiled, faint creases formed around her eyes, but otherwise she had one of those unchanging, ageless faces. She smiled at Sammie first.
“Samantha, good to see you. I hope Bert is pulling his weight around the ranch. We sure are grateful for you giving him the job.”
Sammie nodded, “Thank Cole here, Cheryl. He's the one who hired him.”
“Bert's doing great, ma'am.” Cole let her clasp his hand between hers. “It's an honor.”
Cheryl looked from Cole to Sammie and back again, then dropped her voice. “Y'all come back to my office, will you? You can bring the little one.”
“Want to go to Daddy?” Sammie prompted Devon.
Devon shook his head. “Down.”
Cole tried not to look like he'd just been stabbed in the heart. Instead, he followed Cheryl and kept his eyes forward, avoiding Sammie's inquiring looks.
Cheryl slid behind her desk and picked up right where she'd left off, like there hadn't been a five-minute pause in her speech. “See now, these kinds of jobs are what we need around here, not more of those low-paying corporate retail jobs. Something a man can do with his hands and support a family with.”
Cole nodded. “We’re on the same page there, ma’am.”
“I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but I really don’t want your cousin to get his way.” Her unusual eyes landed on Sammie who barked out a sharp laugh.
“No, ma’am, me neither,” Sammie declared.
Cheryl's nostrils pinched white around the edges. “Anything you need in your fight against Peter, you tell me.”
“What did he do to you?” Sammie asked Cheryl.
“That strip mall.” Cheryl spit out the word like it was a curse. “They didn’t bother to account for the fact that it’s built on a floodplain. Now any time it rains, the wastewater goes pouring into our backyard.”
Sammie sighed. “And he’s after us for health and safety regulations. I don’t know why I’m surprised.”
“I do,” Cheryl sighed. “You don’t want to think these things of family. Speaking of family.” Her voice had gone diplomatic. She pressed her palms together and brought them to her lips, thinking before she spoke. “I did want to talk to you about Devon.”
At the sound of his name, Devon stood up from the floor. He grabbed a pen off Cheryl's desk and handed it to Sammie with a smile and a spurt of babble that made Cole's blood run cold. He coughed. “What was that, buddy?”
Sammie accepted the pen with a laugh. “Oh, you haven’t heard that? That’s what he calls me.”
Cole twisted in his seat. “He calls you mommy?”
Sammie's eyes widened. “No! He said Bammie, right buddy? You call me Bammie.” She smiled at Devon, who gazed adoringly at her.
“We hear about Bammie all day long,” Cheryl added. “He's quite the storyteller.”
“Is he now?” Cole looked down at his son. “Can't say I've noticed.” He hated saying that, but he hated having to be told it more.
Cheryl chuckled. “Oh, he’s an absolute dream. Sweet and well mannered and just the biggest bookworm you’ve ever seen. He’s reading books that are much more advanced than we’d expect for a two-year-old. And he shows an attention span that is very surprising for his age. He’ll sit on your lap and absorb an easy-reader chapter book and show no signs of losing focus.”
A swell of pride made Cole feel like he could just burst. “That’s great.”
“But I do worry about his attachments. By this age, he should be sorting out that when someone leaves the room, they haven’t left forever.”
Cole blinked. “He’s fine whenever I drop him off in the morning.”
Cheryl nodded. “At this age, children are starting to differentiate between father figures and mother figures. I think—well, you’re Daddy, and he trusts that you’ll come back for him. But with the female workers here, he has a different reaction.”
“You mean?” Cole swallowed. “He thinks you guys are his mothers?”
Cheryl’s lips pinched into a thin line. “It’s hard to say. But I do want to caution you. He’s showing a lot of anxiety. Whatever you can do to give him stability at home I think would be wise.”
“How do you mean?”
“Make sure he doesn’t have a lot of people coming and going. Don’t let anyone promise they’ll always be there if they won’t.”
Cole couldn’t help but notice that as she was speaking, Cheryl’s eyes were flicking towards Sammie. Sammie, for her part, was studying her hands as if they were the most fascinating things in the world.
Cole flexed his fingers. Cold panic seeped into his chest. What was he doing to poor Devon? Sammie was going to be leaving for New York City as soon as she could. And when she did, Devon would lose yet another woman he loved like a mom.
Shame made him leap to his feet. “Thank you,” he said, curtly shoving his hand under Cheryl’s nose. She looked startled but shook it in farewell.
He scooped up Devon and left the office quickly, without waiting for Sammie to exit first, even though it went against every chivalrous instinct he possessed. He was almost out the front door when Sammie caught up with him.
“Hey!” she said breathlessly.
Cole looked down to where her palm was resting on his chest. He should swat it away, he knew. But no matter how important it was to Devon, he couldn’t bring himself to put distance between them.
“What happened in there?” she asked.
“I think…” He swallowed. Her hand was distracting him. He fought to keep his wits about him.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Her concern was making this even harder. No one else in his life had ever looked at him as if they could see into his very soul and actually liked what they saw there. “Come on, tell me.”
“I think we need some boundaries,” he croaked.
She stepped back. The hurt on her face quickly smoothed into an impassive mask, but he saw it all the same and felt like a real shithead for causing it. “Okay. What are you thinking?”
He wished he could even articulate what he was thinking. But Sammie was the smart one here. “At the hospital, they thought we were a family. And now here, with Cheryl…”
“She called me into the office with you to talk about Devon,” Sammie finished with a sad nod. “That freaked you out?”
“Sammie, I…”
“No, I get it.” She was nodding harder now. “Because we’re not a family, right? I’m just your boss. That’s why I came here today to pick Devon up. Because that’s something just a boss would do.”
“Sammie, wa
it!” he called, reaching out to catch her arm.
But she yanked it away and raced out the door, leaving him wishing he’d never said anything at all.
“Bammie?” asked Devon. “Where Bammie go?”
“I don’t know, buddy.” Cole bounced his son higher on his hip.
“She go home?”
“Probably.” Cole swallowed.
“We go home now. See Bammie.”
Cole felt like he needed to apologize to someone. The problem was, he couldn’t tell if that someone was his son…
Or the woman he’d just pushed away without meaning to.
Ten
Sammie sat back from her computer with a frustrated sigh.
She’d been staring at the blank screen for nearly an hour now. But no matter how she tried, she couldn’t stop the whirl of thoughts in her head long enough to get some actual work done.
Her whole life was built around concrete things. Facts and figures, numbers and statistics. Tangible, permanent things that didn’t lend themselves to gut feelings or hunches. She was a logical, driven person. Goal oriented. She’d always prided herself on keeping her emotions in check.
But right now, an entire lifetime of emotions was catching up with her all at once.
Cole was right, even if he’d been a dick about saying it. They were getting too wrapped up in each other. Her time here had an expiration date. And if what Cheryl said was true, then letting Devon see her in any sort of maternal way would only damage an already wounded baby boy.
The very thought of hurting that sweet little man made tears flood her eyes.
Angrily she knuckled them away. Everything she believed in—rational thought and logical decisions—told her that disengaging was the right thing to do.
So that’s what she would do, she told herself, standing up from her desk. She’d hang back and stop getting closer to both of them.
“Disengage,” she whispered to herself as she walked out of the office and down the hall to her bedroom.
Then stopped in surprise at finding herself standing outside Devon’s door.
Hardly understanding what she was doing, she eased the door open softly, praying the hinges wouldn’t squeak and betray her. Inside, the room was awash in the soft glow of the night light.
Devon was sprawled out on his back, his cast flung above his head. His fine hair was plastered across his forehead. The way his brow furrowed with the concentration of dreaming was so like Cole’s expression it made her heart skip.
Holding her breath, she leaned over the side of the crib and pressed a kiss to his head. He smelled like baby shampoo and little boy. She inhaled sharply.
And then came to her senses and bolted from the room.
* * *
“Ha!” A booming laugh just outside of her bedroom window jolted Sammie awake.
“What the hell?” she rubbed her eyes, and then let her hands fall to either side of her as she lay listening.
“That’s not bad.” That was Cole’s voice. Sammie hated how her whole body stood at attention when she heard it. He sounded so close he could almost be right here in the room with her.
She slipped from her bed and sidled over to the window, flattening herself against the wall and angling her body so she could see out without being observed.
Cole was just outside her window, close enough that she could see the spirals of stubble along his unshaven cheek. He was facing away from her, but by the crinkle at the corner of his eye, she knew he was smiling.
And the rest of the ranch hands were smiling too. They’d hired two more, raising their number to two full-time hands and four part-timers. All six of them were watching Cole now, with expressions of easy respect as he demonstrated some obscure technique of cattle ranching.
“It’s more efficient this way.” His voice was muffled but clear. Sammie pressed her ear to the wall, shamelessly eavesdropping. “And the more efficient we get, the more stable we become. And you know what that means.”
“Y’all can keep us on year ’round.” That was Gil, the newest hire. He was the oldest of the group, with a face the color of well-worn saddle leather. His retirement had been put on hold when his wife’s cancer came back, and his need for money made him the most loyal hand they had.
“Exactly,” Cole agreed. “And we’re all in this together, cowboys. I know my sorry ass would never make it as a big-box-store greeter—” There were a few rueful chuckles. “I can’t stand people.” This elicited more genuine laughs. “So I’m here to tell you that whatever you need to do to make this place run, I’m going to make sure you get it. Because failure ain’t really an option.”
“Hell, yeah!” Gil grunted, and the rest of the hands followed suit.
A flood of something Sammie had no name for coursed through her body. Part of it was gratitude for Cole’s loyalty and ability to muster up the support from the new hands. But the other part, the more private part, had her hands wandering down her body in a dreamy way, imagining that same strength and capability that he was showing out there being brought…in…here.
In a flash, memory carried her back to the porch, her body pinned against his as he lazily explored her mouth with his. She’d been doing her best to push that memory from her brain, trying to adhere to the boundaries Cole had set up.
But in her bedroom, spying on Cole like a schoolgirl with a crush, she found that the boundaries she’d thought she was erecting were all crashing down around her.
A cold shower helped—temporarily. But when she went out onto the porch to eat her lunch, she caught another glimpse of Cole. Even from a distance she could see the glistening of sweat on his muscles as he worked hard alongside the rest of the hands. They were clearing the south field, just like he’d said he would.
The sight of him was so arresting, Sammie closed her eyes to hide from it. But even with her eyes closed, she could still see every inch of him.
She moaned in frustration and retreated into the house. Work would clear her head. She had that department meeting to prepare for. She hurried into her office and tried to bury herself in her work. And ignored the sound of Cole’s laughter outside. She organized her notes and ignored his heavy footfalls as he mounted the stairs to the porch.
But as his steps echoed down the hallway, getting closer and closer to the office, she couldn't even pretend that she wasn't focused on his every move.
“Hey!' she called, trying to cover how flustered he'd made her by shuffling and re-shuffling her useless notes.
Her voice sounded high and strained, and at the sound of it, Cole froze with his hand still held aloft mid-knock. “Sorry for stomping around like a bull in a china shop. Did I disturb you?”
“Oh no, I was just...” She waved her hands airily over her desk to indicate her papers...and promptly forgot what it was she was pretending to be doing.
Her memory was doing a lot of that lately. Part of it was grief and the upheaval of her life.
But Cole Baker's shirtless torso was a big part of it, too.
“I was heading into the shower,” he explained, indicating his bare chest. “But I wanted to run a few things by you first.”
“Sure.” Sammie looked away from him. Then decided that looked too obvious, so she looked back. But maybe she was leaning too far forward in her chair, so she jumped up and ran around to grip the back of it.
Cole raised an eyebrow.
“What did you need to tell me?” She gripped the back of the chair as the only thing keeping her tethered to the ground. “Was it about the repairs? How are those going? Are we going to make the deadline?”
“If everything would stop breaking, yeah sure, we'll be fine. But that's not what I was going to say.” He drummed his fingers on the doorframe. “Sammie. About what I said yesterday.”
She pressed her lips together, and from the abashed look on his face, he noticed.
“It came out wrong,” he finished.
“It came out…dickish,” she observed drily.
He chuckled and moved closer to her. Sammie wanted to step back, but she was between the chair and the wall and had no place to go.
“I like being a team with you.” His voice was thick like honey and just as sweet. Sammie watched him, mesmerized by the flex of tendons in his broad neck. “What Cheryl said had me rattled.”
“I could see that.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Am I that transparent?”
“Your emotions are as nakedly obvious as your…er…”
“Naked chest?” he supplied. “Damn, and here I thought I had a good poker face.”
He was so close now that Sammie had to tilt her face way up to look him in the eye. “Maybe if I didn’t know you—”
“So well,” he finished for her. He brushed one of his thick, strong fingers down the side of her cheek, then tucked her hair behind her ear.
To her horror, a strangled sound of longing rose up from her throat.
Cole cursed softly under his breath. “Fuck boundaries,” he growled.
And slammed his lips into hers.
Her lips parted immediately, ready for him. She’d been primed for this moment all morning long. She moaned into his mouth, and he responded with another throaty growl and tossed the heavy chair to the side as if it weighed no more than a stick of balsa wood. He crushed her to his chest, pinning her against the wall. Sammie rolled her hips, desperate to feel even more of him against her.
“Cole, I—” Her words clogged her throat. There were too many things she wanted to say to him. Words of desire and apology. Words to urge him forward and words to urge caution. She had no idea what she could say in this momentary breath, and then he was kissing down her neck to the place where her pulse beat like hummingbird wings, and all her thoughts were lost in sensation.
“All these years,” Cole growled, seemingly mid-thought. “Always did, Sammie. I always did.”
Her heart fluttered at what he left unsaid. I always did too, she wanted to echo, knowing, somehow, that they were on the same page and always had been. Her fingers untwined from his neck and trailed down his chest. As they feathered down his washboard stomach, his abs tightened, his breath hitched, and his whole body undulated with the same need that was coiling like a snake at the base of her spine. A groan seeped out of his throat like it was being pulled by force…
The Rancher’s Second Chance Page 8
