Buch lesen: «Wyoming Born and Bred»

Chapter One

A cloud of dust as thick as regret dogged Cameron Wade’s pickup all the way down the washboardy road leading him home. The hand carved sign that had once so proudly heralded the Triple R was gone, but it came as no surprise to him that the great knotty-pine archway he had helped his father erect so many years ago still stood silent sentry to the ranch where he had grown up.

As Cameron pulled into the driveway, he switched off the sad song that Clint Black was warbling over the airwaves. Precious little appeared to have been done with the old place since the previous owner’s death, but he wasted little time contemplating the sad state of his childhood home. He focused his attention instead upon a balding spot of grass where two little boys were engaged in a game of cowboys and Indians, an integral part of which appeared to be a toddler unhappily constrained in a playpen. As the boys whooped around their makeshift stockade, their prisoner struck out at them with a half-empty bottle. Diverted from their sport by Cameron’s unexpected presence, one of the urchins stopped long enough to holler out, “Hey there, mister.”

Cameron gave the boy a cursory nod as he got out of his truck and made his way to the front door, frowning at the thought of having to knock to gain entrance to his old home.

“Watch out below!” warned a voice from above.

Cameron jumped aside just in time to avoid being hit by a large piece of shingling which rocketed off the roof and hit the ground beside him with a dull thwack. Squinting against the late-afternoon sun, he saw a teenager in a baseball cap and baggy overalls peering down at him from over the edge of the roof. The youth acknowledged him with a terse wave of the hand and a quick, sheepish grin.

“Sorry about that!” he called out. “Give me a minute and I’ll be right down.”

Tottering precariously close to the lip of the sharply peaked roof, the lad pitched an armload of shingles into the back of a rusty old pickup parked below, then proceeded cautiously toward a ladder propped against the house. Cameron hurried over to lend a steadying hand. An instant later he heard the crack of dry wood snapping just above his head.

A shrill scream pierced the sky as he reached out to catch the boy in midair.

Off flew the baseball cap.

Out fell a sheen of chestnut-colored hair.

A solid thud against Cameron’s chest almost knocked him off his feet. He stumbled and did a desperate two-step to keep his balance. Groaning in pain, he hoped his good intentions hadn’t just rebroken a couple of ribs. His eyes flew open in surprise at the bundle of outrageous womanly curves squirming in his arms, For a moment he was too shocked to do more than gape in disbelief. Never had he seen a prettier pair of big brown eyes than those widening in alarm.

A furious flutter settled itself in his groin as an unforeseen energy passed between them like an electric current. Rooted to the spot as if he were standing up to his knees in water, Cameron felt an overwhelming sexual surge rush through every cell in his body. It was downright unsettling. He hadn’t felt this kind of intensity since indulging in his first adolescent fantasies. Recalling the basic tenets of electricity, he wondered whether they would both be blown to smithereens the second he set her down.

Such dubious logic mocked him. Cameron Wade was too well-grounded to be entertaining such fanciful notions as chemical magnetism or, God forbid, love at first sight. A fickle little gold digger by the name of Bonnie had eradicated such hogwash from his mind long ago.

“Sorry for dropping in on you unannounced this way,” Cameron managed to stammer, setting his curvaceous package down at last.

A husky, breathless voice wound itself sensuously around every tingling nerve ending in his body. “I’m afraid I’m the one who should be apologizing for that. I’m not usually in the habit of falling into men’s arms...”

Cornball. Pure cornball.

Pat Erhart could not believe she had just uttered such a lame line. But then again neither could she believe that she had literally fallen into such a phenomenally strong pair of arms. Arms like that, she decided, should be on the cover of a slick magazine hawking the sex secrets of the stars or some other such equally inane subject. Searching the depths of a pair of blue eyes as piercingly clear as a mountain stream, Pat got the distinct impression that this particular hunk wasn’t the type who would go in for that sort of thing.

Upon closer inspection, he was slightly short of perfection. There was the hint of gray in his trim mustache. Weathered around the edges, this tall, lanky blonde wore the look of a battle-scarred warrior. He struck her as a man used to working with his hands. A man willing to fight for that which was his.

No, a pretty-boy magazine layout definitely would not appeal to such a man.

And darned if that didn’t make him all the more attractive. Not that Pat had any false hopes about this Western Adonis being similarly drawn to her. She knew that the flicker of interest heating up those gorgeous eyes would be duly put out the instant he put two and two together and came up with three small, needy children.

“What can I do for you, Mr.—?”

“Wade,” he supplied. “Cameron Wade.”

Perplexed by a strange “tom-tom” noise in the background, Cameron was reminded of those old Westerns he had loved as a child. He found himself wondering if a tribe of renegades was preparing to wage war upon some unsuspecting settlers. Pulling the signed copy of his contract from his pocket, he tried inserting a rational note into his voice as he looked around her.

“I’m here to see Pat about the foreman’s job.”

Glancing at the familiar signature on the bottom of the page, Pat realized this sexy hunk was under the impression that she was a man. Though it wasn’t the first time this had happened and probably wouldn’t be the last, she nonetheless bristled at his hasty assumption. If Cameron Wade shared the same sexist beliefs as most of the other men she’d encountered in this frontier bastion, he would soon be telling her in a polite and condescending voice that such a “purty little lady” was far too fragile to be running an operation like this all by herself.

No matter that even when he had been around to help, Hadley had left most of the physical labor to her. No matter that she had been running things around here since long before his untimely death. No matter that neither one of them had the slightest background in ranching. When children were involved, at least one parent had to be responsible—and mature enough to dismiss those girlish butterflies tickling her tummy as nothing more than the aftereffects of a near-tragic fall.

She self-consciously removed her heavy work gloves and extended him her hand in the familiar Western custom.

“Pleased to meet you,” Pat said looking him straight in the eye, only to find herself utterly lost in their blue, blue depths.

She noted the length of time it took a pregnant pause to give birth to a full-fledged embarrassing moment. Had it not been so utterly insulting, she might have found the look of utter consternation upon Cameron Wade’s face funny.

Belatedly he took her hand. It was rough and callused, her grip firm and warm. No manicured pair had ever sent such a jolt of pure sexual awareness thrumming through him like these honest hands. He stared at her in disbelief.

“You’re Pat?”

“One and the same.”

Fused by the voltage welding his hand to hers, Cameron studied the woman at length. Devoid of all traces of makeup, she was remarkably striking. Not pretty in the usual sense of glamor queens, but an oxymoronic aura of strength and softness emanating about her left little doubt in his mind that this lady was more woman than most men could handle.

Had worry put the first signs of wrinkles around those incredibly soft eyes? He doubted age could be the culprit. She certainly didn’t look old enough to be mother to three children.

Gingerly, Cameron ran a hand over his rib cage. Was it his heart hammering against his chest like a sledgehammer that was sending that sharp pain through his torso, or had he actually managed to undo all the time he’d spent in the hospital by playing a Good Samaritan without giving thought to his own well-being? He was grateful to discover that, though tender to the touch, his ribs did not appear to be rebroken.

He shook his head as if trying to figure out just exactly where he had taken the wrong turn on the way to Wonderland. Despite the deteriorating condition of the house and the awful name change the new owner had given the ranch, the familiar landmarks of his youth were all about him. He found himself wondering what kind of a screwball name the E.M.U. was anyway. The acronym sounded more like a college to him than a respectable cattle ranch. Fortifying himself with the thought that it wouldn’t be long before he rechristened it the Triple R, he sucked in his breath and focused his attention on the provisional three-month contract he held in his hand.

He had been thrilled when it had arrived in response to his inquiry, just in time for his release from the hospital. Gleefully abandoning his drafty institutional gown, he left word of his whereabouts with his manager and left Vegas with but one thought on his mind: to hasten the inevitable resolution of a lifelong dream. That of reclaiming the family ranch and restoring the Wade name to its own proud position.

He shook his head in disgust. Things were even worse than he had imagined. A faded old gentleman stripped of his dignity, the house looked shabby at best. The paint was weathered and peeling. One shutter hung by a nail. Another was missing altogether. A broken window stared at him as reproachfully as a black eye, and the porch where he had spent countless hours playing now looked more suitable for kindling than anything else.

The only thing not in disrepair that he could discern from initial observations was the fencing. That in itself was a puzzle. Who in his right mind would string expensive chain link all the way around a corral?

Finding his voice at last, Cameron asked in a tone more brusque than intended. “This is the E.M.U. Ranch, isn’t it?”

Though Pat’s eyes twinkled with undisguised amusement, the lilt in her voice stopped just short of laughter. “Surely you understood emu isn’t the name of the ranch...it’s what we raise here.”

“Excuse me?”

Cameron wheeled around to pinpoint the source of that strange sound which had him so befuddled. A huge ostrichlike creature strutted out of the barn to regard their visitor with curiosity and what Cameron was certain was mutual distrust.

Tom, tom, tom, tom, tom, thrummed the bird territorially.

Cameron glanced back and forth between the bird and the woman, searching for the hidden technology that would ultimately land him on Candid Camera Was this somebody’s idea of a practical joke? It was a good one, he’d grant ’em that. A real knee-slapper. The Triple R a bird farm? It was as believable as him winning that gargantuan National Championship belt buckle for breaking Shetland ponies. Had it not been for the fact that the woman standing next to him gave no indication whatsoever that anything was amiss, he would have laughed out loud.

“You are joking, aren’t you?”

Pat merely shook her head at the scowl that defied her to answer truthfully.

“I’ll be a son of a—”

It took an act of conscious self-control to bite back the oath scalding the tip of his tongue. Even then, gentlemanly restraint didn’t stop him from leaning his full, formidable height of six feet and three inches over her and bellowing, “Just what have you done to my ranch, lady? Grandpa’d do back flips in his grave if he knew you’d turned the Triple R into some kind of damned Yuppie petting zoo. Not to mention the field day the press could have with the news that I’ve signed on to be a bird wrangler.”

Pat wondered if she would have to sew the top of this man’s head back on. What was he ranting about? The jumble of words was coming so fast and furious that it was hard to make sense of them.

“Hell and damnation, I signed on to work for a real ranch, not some overgrown chicken farm!”

“They’re emus,” Pat repeated as patiently as if she were explaining it to a two-year-old.

“If you think for even one minute that I’m sticking around to work with a flock of dodo birds on steroids, you’re out of your mind!”

Pat’s hands went to her hips. She’d had quite enough of this cowboy’s tirade. Why, the way the man was acting, you’d think he had a personal stake in the ranch. Clearly the fellow wasn’t quite right in the head, but seeing how he was the only one who had applied for the job, she couldn’t afford to let him off the hook just because he was capable of throwing a bigger temper tantrum than any of her children.

“Let me remind you, Mr. Wade,” she said speaking slowly and standing on her tippy toes to lessen the intimidating factor of his height, “that whether you like it or not, I am your boss for at least the next three months. And any respectable man would honor that contract.”

“You deceiving, little—” Cameron shook the contract in question right in the woman’s startled face. “Maybe I should have let you fall on that thick head of yours to knock some sense into it!”

Pat exhaled with enough force to ruffle the bangs over her forehead. “I didn’t deceive anyone. In fact I purposely capitalized all the letters in the word emu so you’d know exactly what you were getting into. It’s not my fault you didn’t take the time to find out that emu was no more the name of this ranch than Pat is singularly used as a man’s name! As we both well know, ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law. You signed on, mister, and by God, you’re mine from at least now until winter sets in.”

The last time someone had the audacity to talk to Cameron like this, he’d sent the joker through a plate-glass window. He hated the way women used their sex as an excuse to blurt out whatever they felt like saying without regard to consequence. No matter how pretty this one was, he for one wasn’t about to be bullied by someone who barely came up to his chin.

“For your information, I don’t belong to anyone. And if you don’t think so, just watch how fast I walk away from this bird-brained operation of yours!”

The exact opposite of this belligerent cowboy, whose voice paralleled his temper, when Pat was angry, her voice dropped several cool degrees. When she spoke again, her words were cold enough to freeze-dry the blazing Wyoming sun overhead.

“That contract is legally binding, and the only way you’re walking away from here is if I fire you.”

In fact, nothing could have made Pat happier at the moment than to send this macho cowboy down the road with an imprint of her boot upon his sexy derriere. Unfortunately, she was far too desperate to let pride get in the way of good sense. Circumstances had left her a widow with three small children and a ranch in dire need of repairs. She had tried telling Hadley that making a go of an emu ranch smack-dab in the middle of cattle country wouldn’t be the cakewalk he thought it would be. He hadn’t listened of course. Once he was off on one of his get-rich-quick schemes, there was as much chance of stopping Hadley Erhart as the guard rail that had given way and left him dead at the bottom of Red Canyon one snowy night.

Cameron’s eyes narrowed. “Do you mean to tell me you’d try keeping a man here against his will?”

His words conjured up for Pat all sorts of improper sexual images utilizing ropes and handcuffs. She dismissed the innuendo with a haughty swipe of the hand.

“Nobody forced you to sign that contract.”

Lady or no, Cameron was just about to tell this brassy little firecracker where she could put her legally binding contract, when he felt the barrel of a gun poked into the small of his back.

“Freeze, varmint!”

Two rascals wearing battered cowboy hats, shorts emblazoned with cartoon characters, and worn, dusty boots regarded him from behind matching scowls. Drawn by the commotion, Johnny and Kirk Erhart had been covertly watching the heated interplay as intently as any full-fledged theatrical production. With a trail of improvised cowboy paraphernalia dragging behind them, the two boys rushed to their mother’s defense.

“Reach for the sky!”

While one boy kept his plastic gun steady against the interloper’s back, the other gathered a loop of rope into his hands. Hoping they weren’t contemplating a hanging, Cameron raised his hands in mock surrender.

Clearly he had been ambushed.

“Johnny!” his mother scolded. “How many times have I told you not to point that at anyone?”

“Mom...” the child said in embarrassment before regaining his stage presence. “Keep ‘em up there where I can see ’em.”

His finger twitching on the trigger of his cap gun, the older boy informed Cameron with genuine Western resolve. “Around these parts, mister, a man stands by his word.”

What the woman’s ire had not evoked in Cameron, a child’s innocence had—a sense of guilt. Johnny, the woman had called him. Darned if the kid didn’t remind him some of himself at that age. Cameron fought the urge to run his hand through the lad’s shaggy, sandy-colored hair.

An image of another little boy standing in the shadows of the Wind River Mountains came back to him as clearly as if it had been recorded for posterity. Tears streaming down his face, the child had linked hands with his mother and vowed to someday “show ’em all that a Wade could never be beaten.” Almost two decades had passed since the seed of that particular promise had been planted. Time enough for Cameron to cultivate a way of returning home an unprecedented success, reclaim the land he considered his birthright, and turn it into one of the finest operations in the country.

There was more than just a little self-indulgent gratification involved in his game plan, and he knew it. Knew it and accepted it as part of why he was the man he was. The kind of man who wouldn’t let a couple of broken ribs in the semifinals of the National Rodeo Championship stop him from achieving his dream. The kind of man determined to overcome any obstacles in his path, no matter how large—or how small...

A funny ache settled in the pit of Cameron’s stomach as he studied the stubborn set of this little boy’s jaw. He wondered how he would have reacted at that age had someone come onto their property and commenced yelling at his mother.

“That’s all right, ma’am,” Cameron said, squatting on his haunches to meet the child at eye level. “I understand that a man’s got to do what it takes to protect what’s his.”

Johnny seemed to visibly grow an inch. Off to the side a couple of paces, his brother holstered his toy gun.

“You’re not really gonna break a promise you made to my mom, are you?” The look the boy gave him was so piercing that it almost made Cameron forget why he was here.

Almost.

Gruffly he reminded himself that he wasn’t here on a charity case. Having limited interaction with them, he didn’t even particularly like kids. His job here was not to rescue anyone, but rather to kick this pushy mommy and her brood off his ranch before she tried bamboozling him with those unusually long eyelashes. It suddenly occurred to Cameron that the best way to accomplish his purpose was not by butting heads with her. No matter that she had made a laughingstock of the Triple R, it was after all in his best interest to stick around awhile.

“All right, lady. You win.”

Cameron capitulated with a bona fide grin that activated a matching pair of dimples on either side of his mouth. He’d have to remember to thank Johnny later for providing him an opportunity to squeeze out of the corner he’d backed himself into.

“Whether your contract is legally binding or not, it’s lucky for you that I’m a man of my word. Looks like you’ve got yourselves a prisoner, boys.”

Wondering exactly what she’d let herself in for, Pat contemplated Cameron’s use of the word lucky. It was obvious that Johnny and Kirk were fascinated by the rough-and-tumble cowboy who looked like he’d just stepped off the set of their favorite television series. That phony line about him being a man of his word certainly sounded like a load of typical Hollywood hype to her. Pat’s cynical thoughts were interrupted by her youngest son’s most frequently uttered complaint.

“I’m hungry.”

“I just fed you,” she responded with a telltale sigh.

“But that was hours ago.”

It was at that precise moment that the baby decided she had been ignored long enough. Flinging her bottle out of the playpen, Amy protested her prolonged captivity with an ear-splitting wail intended to let anyone within a mile radius know of her unhappiness.

Cameron watched Pat’s eyelids drift shut in weariness. “Go get your sister, boys,” she instructed, “and I’ll get started on dinner.”

It wasn’t every day a real live cowboy landed on their front steps, and certainly not one who appeared willing to indulge them in a game of make-believe. Consequently, Johnny delegated the mundane chore to his little brother.

“Kirk, you go get Amy while I take the prisoner to the hoosegow.”

Pat graced Cameron with an amused smile. “You can take that to mean the house. Hopefully you and I will be able to have a calmer discussion about terms of your new job over dinner.”

Proud of the way she uttered the words as smoothly as if she were looking at the man’s résumé instead of the hard plane of his chest, she added as an afterthought, “That’ll give me a chance to thank you properly for saving me from breaking my neck earlier.”

Although Cameron could think of a variety of ways that this fiery little number could show her appreciation, he doubted whether any of them were what she had in mind. He tried bridling those wayward thoughts, but his lazy smile nonetheless made Pat remember for the first time in a very long while that she was a woman as well as a mother.