Big John Paladin on Fatherhood:

J.J.

Okay, so you were a surprise…and I’m not exactly father-of-the-year material. Heck, I’ve faced worse scenarios—look at my love life. On second thought, wait until you’re older. A lot older. The point is that the instant I saw you, I felt this situation was right somehow—that we were right—regardless of what we all had to go through to get here.

You have my word that I’ll do everything possible to give you the life—the home—you deserve. Maybe make you proud of your old man in the process. Hey, miracles happen.

Problem is, I don’t know diddly about babies. I’ve figured out what end the fuel goes in and where your oil pan is, but after that it’s a case of the blind leading the blind. Got a plan, though, and her name is Dana. At the moment she’s a bit miffed at me. Can’t blame her—like I told you, your old man isn’t any prize. But I’m nuts about her, son. Always have been. You’ll love her, too.

P.S. We’re going to be a family, J.J. I promise.

A Father’s Promise
Helen R. Myers

www.millsandboon.co.uk

HELEN R. MYERS

is a collector of two- and four-legged strays, and lives deep in the Piney Woods of East Texas. She cites cello music and bonsai gardening as favorite relaxation pastimes, and still edits in her sleep—an accident, learned while writing her first book. A bestselling author of diverse themes and focus, she is a three-time RITA® Award nominee, winning for Navarrone in 1993.

For Linda Varner, an ever-gentle, classy friend.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter One

He wasn’t ready for this. He wasn’t ready for any of it. Even so, John Paladin carried his ten-day-old son out of Dusty Flats Community Hospital with the same brisk step that he’d entered, and tugged his Stetson and blue denim jacket farther over and around the baby to protect him from the driving wind and rain.

“Hang tough, pardner,” he muttered, squinting against the sharp needles that still managed to angle under the wide brim and prick at his face. “It’ll get worse before it gets better.” After hearing what he had inside, and considering the prospects for their future, it seemed about the only thing he could promise.

The wind lashed harder at them. Damn, but it was cold, he thought, and it wasn’t even November yet. By the look of things, he and every other west Texas cattle rancher had a heckuva winter ahead of them. If they didn’t float away first. “Dusty Flats” his soggy boots. The community had already surpassed its yearly rainfall average back in August; no telling what the rest of fall would bring.

But at the moment he had more important things to worry about, and he no longer had the stamina to take on more than one calamity at a time. It was just as well that there was nothing he could do about the weather; right now he faced the challenge of a lifetime—getting his boy back to the ranch, then changing and feeding him.

All right, so he figured he could handle the first task, regardless of the gusting wind that kept trying to knock him off his feet. But the rest…the rest turned his insides into quivering jelly.

It was all those instructions the nurses had spewed at him like that last adding machine he’d had that would churn out a half mile of paper whenever it got stuck in some crazy mode. Sure, he understood that they’d needed their bit of fun. Even as he’d been walking through the front door they’d determinedly escorted him like some military color guard, calling out advice and loading him down with enough booklets and junk to keep him reading until Thanksgiving. But he wasn’t in any shape to retain any of that book—learned nonsense. His mind was already so cluttered, he’d forgotten half of what he’d been told. Besides, even a grown man could starve to death if he had to read through the pamphlets jammed in his pockets before he was allowed to cook himself something to eat. A tiny scrap of stuff like his boy would be plumb out of luck.

Worst of all, though, were the directions about changing the kid’s diaper and giving him a bath.

“Don’t you worry about a thing, Big John. You’ll get the hang of it.”

“Now, Big John, it’s not as though you’ll have to worry about him kicking or biting like one of those beef critters of yours.”

“There’s just something about them being your own that makes it easier, Big John.”

Bull. Not one of those women had listened, really listened to what he’d been trying to tell them. What did any of them know about how it was going to be for him? The way he figured it, caring for babies was as natural to women as stringing a barbed-wire fence was to him. But he knew nothing about fueling up anything this small, let alone dealing with cleaning out the rascal’s oil pan or anything.

From inside the wool cocoon and the down vest he’d wrapped the boy in, he heard a tiny protest. Jeez, he thought, could the kid be suffocating? Maybe everyone had been wrong about covering his face. Or maybe he was holding him too tight and smushing his toothpick-fine bones. Maybe the wind was getting at him and sucking the very breath out of the little guy. Blast it all, the head nurse had been right—he should never have taken the boy out in such conditions in the first place.

His heart beat a frantic tattoo as he accelerated his pace—but he didn’t quite break into a run. Better not risk it, he thought. The rain had turned everything slick, and the soles of his leather boots didn’t have good traction on asphalt. If he fell, he could make mush out of the chick-pea in his arms.

How the devil could those women have told him that the child was going to grow up every bit as big as him? What did they see that he couldn’t?

He finally reached his mud-splattered pickup truck. “Now, comes the next easy part,” he grumbled to himself as he opened the driver’s door.

Once again he had to secure the infant in a vehicle that wasn’t prepared for a virtual newborn. He respected and approved of the recent law that made seat belts mandatory. However, when he’d first carried his boy out to the truck, he’d realized accommodating that regulation was going to be a challenge, considering the danged buckle was nearly as big as his baby’s head. Too late he’d remembered the proper infant carrier that should have been purchased ages ago. But between problems with Celene, and his unusually heavy work load at the Long J, the last thing on his mind had been shopping excursions, let alone buying a bunch of baby things.

If only Celene had shown a little initiative, an ounce of concern sometime during her pregnancy and gone out to get a few things on her own. Heck, that’s why he’d bought her a car in the first place! But, no. After putting him through seven different kinds of hell insisting only a certain sports model and color would do, regardless of how impractical both were in their area, she’d left the iridescent pink thing virtually untouched.

Until this morning.

Just thinking of the times he’d suggested she make an excursion into town or to the mall in Abilene, made his blood steam all over again. He’d even gone so far as to offer her his credit card, for pity’s sake! But she’d merely glared at him over the top of her latest soap opera magazine, then settled deeper under her bed covers.

“So sue me,” he muttered to the bundle of blue he set on the front seat. “I tried.”

That earned him another, louder wail.

He snorted. Wail, nothing. He’d heard the rodents snared in the barn squeak louder. But the fragile sound still managed to fill him with a dread no mouse ever did.

“Okay…okay, squirt. I’m working on it.”

He scrunched his bulk into the cab, and drew the door closed behind him. At least that got them out of the weather. Maneuvering in the cramped space proved awkward, though someone of his proportions would find just about any vehicle smaller than a C-130 or an aircraft carrier a tight fit. Swearing as he struck his already throbbing elbow against the steering wheel, he jerked the brochures from his pockets.

“I feel like a wilting peacock,” he muttered, throwing them onto the floorboard. Then he leaned over to pick up the makeshift car seat he’d inadvertently knocked down there when they’d first arrived.

He’d come up with the invention while eyeing the contents in the back of the cab. Experience had taught him to carry everything back there, things no self-respecting rancher would find himself without: rope, chains, wrenches, hammers, nails, jumper cables…and a case of oil. It had been that box that had grabbed his attention. Not the most attractive or sterile thing known to man, but damned if it didn’t represent the best brand of motor lubricant money could buy. Most importantly, all he’d had to do was cut one end—a foot flap, he’d dubbed it with some amusement—and the fit had been perfect.

He’d dumped the twelve plastic bottles onto his tools, and then on impulse he’d also snatched up the blanket that he kept back there. Using the wool cover as an external buffer, and the vest as a mattress, he’d stuffed John, Jr. inside, until he’d been as snug as a tick on a dog.

“It worked well enough for the drive down here, so it’ll do for the trip back,” he told his son, repeating the process. “No way I can shop with you under wing and the weather plotting against me.”

It took him almost five minutes—ten less than the first time. Even so, by the time he’d finished he was sweating more than a hog in an auction pen. But worry and caution aside, he eventually had the boy strapped in, grateful that no one was around to point out how the whole contraption looked about as sturdy as a bag of marshmallows.

“Don’t worry about it,” he assured the calmer bundle inside. “I’ve already got strict orders from all of your self-appointed godmothers to drive as though I was carrying a load of nitro.”

As if he’d needed the reminding, he thought, somewhat disgruntled. He maneuvered his large frame back behind the steering wheel, only to have to twist again to dig his keys from his hind pocket. It was just the two of them now. His son was the most important thing in his life. If he’d had any doubts before, Celene’s latest stunt made that fact abundantly clear.

He did, however, wish that he could have gotten John, Jr. admitted here at the hospital for a day or two, until he’d tracked down the exasperating woman and gotten things between them settled once and for all. But all the nurses had certified him as crazy.

“This ain’t no hotel, Big John.”

“You can’t desert your son in his hour of need, Mr. Paladin.”

“Beast.”

Oh, yes. They’d laid it on thick and heavy.

Not even his longtime friend, Bud—Sheriff Bud Hackman today since he’d been summoned by Juanita, the head nurse in pediatrics, who on behalf of all her new mothers seemed to hate men in general—could resist pointing out that he should have known better than to even consider doing such a thing. “You abandon this boy and go after that woman, Big John, I ain’t gonna have no choice but to recommend he be made a ward of the court.”

Let the big oaf try to set foot on the Long J again. “The only welcome he’ll get is a butt full of buckshot,” John growled, taking a grim pleasure in visualizing the scene.

Maybe it had been unusual to suggest the hospital care for his son in his absence. But where was their understanding, their sensitivity, their compassion? He’d been driven to these straits. He was riding a long trail of bad luck—had been ever since he’d behaved irresponsibly during his trip to Abilene and had gotten himself saddled with a pregnant bride some eight months ago. All he was trying to do was buy himself some time to straighten out the mess.

“Who cares what they think,” he muttered aside to his wide-eyed passenger. “We don’t need them, do we? We’ll work things out for ourselves. For now, though, you might as well kick back and catch up on some shut-eye. It’s a thirty-mile trip back home. No need for both of us to end up stressed out and ornery.”

He started the truck, shifted into Drive and, because the lot was almost empty as usual, drove forward to cut a wide U-turn toward the nearest exit. Because the weather was having a decided effect on visibility, when he reached the stop sign and saw that his windows were fogging up, he quickly switched on the defroster. After the mist cleared away, he looked up and down the empty road once, twice, then added a third glance for good measure.

That’s when it struck him that this behavior was totally out of character for him, and it told him just how deeply he’d been rattled. Dusty Flats might be the county seat, he reminded himself as he gripped the wheel and turned onto the street, but in a town with a population under fifteen hundred, bad weather had a tendency to keep folks at home. There wasn’t exactly a need to act as though he were driving on a sixteen-year-old’s hardship permit. Thirty and responsible—regardless of what those uniformed viragoes had accused him—he’d never had a wreck in his life. He could do this, he told himself.

You can’t do this, and you know it.

He did, however, manage to make the turn. He even drove a few miles without breaking into a cold sweat. But by the time he got to the farm-to-market road that angled off toward his ranch, he found himself setting his right hand on the seat in front of the baby and driving twenty miles an hour under the legal limit. Completely logical, he told himself. He was still calm. This was merely in case someone came barreling out of nowhere and aimed straight into them.

Before he reached the next intersection, however, he had to pull over to the shoulder. Reduced to a shaking mass, he actually felt as though he might have to get out of the car and lose the coffee and biscuit that was all he’d ingested since rising before dawn. Him. Big John Paladin. The rancher who’d outraced tornadoes and had outlasted droughts since taking over the Long J Ranch at the unheard of age of twenty-six.

How he wished he could blame his condition on the shock over what Celene had done. But he would be lying if he tried. He was angry—angry, disgusted, but most of all scared sick. He had a feeling that it was just as well that Bud had threatened to keep him here. If he found the exasperating…female, he might strangle her with his bare hands.

Funny thing was, from the minute he’d set eyes on her, he’d known they were wrong for each other. Celene had been flashy, daring and restless. She’d been the kind of woman who would find it difficult to stick with one man, let alone work at a marriage. But on the night he’d sat in that Abilene honky-tonk, all that had mattered was that she hadn’t looked anything like Dana Dixon. When they’d danced, she hadn’t felt the way Dana had in his arms. Her perfume hadn’t crept under his defenses and spawned a fierce hunger in him like Dana’s. And she sure as hell couldn’t tie him in a big agonizing knot with one of her smiles.

What Celene had managed to do that fateful night was to provide him with a drinking companion—and a few hours later, some long-denied companionship of another form. It had been the kind of experience that a brooding, recently rejected man should have been able to walk away from. With a hangover, to be sure, but also with just enough guilt to promise himself never to do it again. Maybe even with enough humbleness to go home and try to mend some fences.

He’d had the hangover, all right. He’d also ended up with the kind of shock that made men give up drinking permanently. Before he could apologize to Dana, only weeks after the Abilene incident, he found himself saddled with an angry, pregnant wife. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never forget her fury once Celene had tracked him down through a friend who’d worked at the motel. As though that one night of carelessness and stupidity had been all his fault.

And now he had a child, as well. A son, no less, born from the wrong woman. Then, as though that wasn’t problematic enough, sometime between dawn and midday, while he’d been checking on the herd in his northernmost pasture, that woman had decided she not only didn’t want to be a wife, she didn’t want to be a momma, either.

It had taken only minutes after his return to discover why John, Jr. was crying his tiny lungs out. Celene was nowhere to be found. Her clothes were gone, as was everything else she owned, and so was that damned car she’d demanded as part of their unconventional arrangement.

He hadn’t taken time to check on whatever else was missing; he’d simply scooped up John, Jr. and headed toward town to find someone to care for his boy while he did what he had to do. Only no one wanted to help him.

What was he going to do? He couldn’t go after Celene with a newborn child in tow, nor did he have an inkling how to care for the boy all by himself.

His son needed a woman. A mother. Softness.

John knew all he had within him at this point in his life was guilt, frustration and too much damned bitterness to be healthy for any human being. And a heap of heartache, but not an ounce of it for his wife.

“Damn you, Dana,” he whispered, feeling the sweat trickle down his back. This whole mess would never have occurred if she hadn’t provoked him so. “Damn you.”

He didn’t realize he had company until he heard the tap on his window. With a jerk, he swung around and looked into Bud Hackman’s rain-splattered face. Apparently his friend had decided to follow him in his patrol car. Swearing under his breath, John rolled down his window.

“Some people have the sense not to stand out in the rain,” he said in lieu of a greeting or query. “So what are you gonna do, write me up for boring a gopher or armadillo to death?”

Bud eyed him calmly through eyeglass lenses that could have used their own set of windshield wipers. “They were all smart enough to take the last yacht to Monterey. You okay, J.P.?”

John had come to group the people in his life into three categories. Everyone who was either in awe of or feared him called him Big John. Everyone who liked him—at least sometimes—called him J.P. And the few who wished he’d never crossed their paths called him Paladin. Right now he knew there were only two members in that second group.

“Sure. I’m great,” he muttered. “I get my kicks out of driving all the way to town to ask total strangers to take care of my kid while I hunt down my wife. It doesn’t faze me at all when my best friend not only refuses to help me, but threatens to arrest me for making a disturbance in a public facility.”

“All I said was that we couldn’t put out a missing person’s bulletin for twenty-four hours,” Bud replied as though indifferent to the edge in John’s voice. “And that I didn’t think it was a good idea for you to be chasing all over the country for Celene when you had greater responsibilities here.” The quiet-mannered cop hunched more deeply into the collar of his down jacket and eyed the makeshift car seat. His expression appeared to stay the same except that the raindrops on his glasses seemed to twinkle a bit more. “Whatcha gonna do about the tyke, guy?”

John’s glower intensified. “Thought I’d put him in the pen with the other new calves until he’s weaned, but I’m open to suggestions. You want to lend me Kay for about ten years?”

“I’d rather eat my mother-in-law’s rhubarb pie three times a day for the rest of my life.”

“Hmph. You think so? You should have sampled some of the junk I’ve eaten lately. Rhubarb pie doesn’t sound so bad at the moment.”

“Be careful for what you ask, old son. Lucille’s only a phone call away.”

John glanced over at his boy and sighed. “I know you think I’m slightly unhinged at the moment, Bud, and that you have to watch over me like some big guard dog to protect me from myself, but can you cut me some slack?”

“You’re making that damned difficult.”

“What are you talking about?” He’d thought Bud was going to write him up for the makeshift car seat. Surely he wasn’t accusing him of something worse, like having been drinking?

As though he’d read his mind, Bud tilted his head toward the road ahead. “Look where you pulled over.”

John glanced beyond Bud’s left shoulder—and groaned inwardly. He’d guessed wrong. It was worse than he’d imagined.

Cripes.

He’d stopped right before the turnoff to Dana’s place. Eat crackers and whistle, he thought, feeling several times the fool.

“Innocent enough mistake, old pard,” Bud continued, sounding suspiciously calm all of a sudden. “Once you get away from town and landmarks, one road starts to look like another.”

“Stuff it,” John barked, reaching for the last ounce of his self-control. “The boy was fussing, so I pulled over.”

“Is that so? For a minute there, I was worrying that you might have had something else in mind. Something as foolish as when you got involved with Celene. That’s what made me decide to follow you out of the hospital in the first place. You haven’t been in any shape to think clearly in a while, J.P.”

As he spoke he’d been glancing around the interior of the cab, making it impossible for John to miss his meaning. His truck looked the way his stomach, he, felt—a mess. Neglected. Chronically abused. Falling apart. Because he knew it was the truth, John’s mood grew even more caustic.

“You gonna stand out there and catch pneumonia for the sheer pleasure of irritating me some more? You already told me back at the hospital that there was nothing I could do about Celene, so either give me a ticket, or bug off,” he snapped, hating the whole embarrassing situation. Regardless of what some people thought, he wasn’t all quick temper and impulsiveness. Well, not always. At least he preferred to keep his personal problems to himself as much as possible. “You’re gonna get my boy sick with that wind blowing in here.”

“You should have thought of that before you took him out in the first place. But,” Bud added more kindly, “I’ll let you go, provided you fill me in on what your plans are once I turn around and head back to town.”

The man was clever. Sneaky. Low-down. He’d once told Bud that he had the personality of a fox. Now he decided his friend had taken the analogy too seriously.

“Up yours, compadre.”

“I could always haul you in on a DWI.”

It took all of John’s control not to lunge out through the half-lowered window. “You know damned well that I haven’t had a drink in—”

“Ah-ah-ah.”

“Since the day John, Jr. was born,” he snarled.

“A whole ten days, good job. Because with a great-looking boy like that, it wouldn’t make sense to stick your ornery neck out any farther than it already is. Understand?”

“Remind me to call you if ever I have a massive coronary,” John muttered sarcastically. “It would be comforting to know someone was around who would be sympathetic.”

Bud straightened somewhat and looked up and down the road. “I am sympathetic, J.P., but you’ve gotta pull it together now.”

Feeling another surge of panic and frustration, John replied with a snort. “For what?”

“For that new life beside you, you big lummox! The one who didn’t do a danged thing to deserve this, but who’s stuck having to live with what you’ve helped create for him.”

John felt Bud’s words reverberate through him. No matter how annoyed he became with his friend, the truth remained irrefutable.

“I know you’re right but…I don’t know what to do,” he whispered to the dashboard, afraid to be heard, afraid he wouldn’t be.

“What do you want to do?” came the gruff, though empathetic question.

He didn’t have to think about the answer at all, although five minutes ago he’d had something far more vengeful in the forefront of his mind. “File for a divorce and get full custody of my kid as soon as possible.”

“Anything else?”

“Raise him to be a better man than his father,” he said grimly, only to add with no small anxiety, “but…I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Take it one step at a time, friend.”

John wanted to nod; instead he gripped the steering wheel. “There’s something else, too. I want to get Dana back.”

Several long, weighted seconds passed. “You’ve never had Dana, John,” came Bud’s reluctant reply. “Not any more than my kid ever possessed that orphan fawn the year we rented that place near your east boundary. Some wounded things can’t learn to trust again after they’ve been damaged.”

Everything Bud said was true, and he should know; he was one of the few in town who understood exactly how rough a childhood Dana had experienced. Frustrated and often left feeling helpless due to his youth, John had used Bud as a sounding board. But that was then. Donnal was long gone and as far as John was concerned, nothing was over until it was over. This conviction strengthened his resolve, was the steel that kept his spine straight.

He felt Bud’s stare for another few seconds and then his friend swore under his breath. “Well then, stop turning my road into a parking lot while I’m standing out here like a drowning fool. You turn that way,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

Farm-to-Market Road 5555. Like all the nonexistent telephone numbers on TV shows, this one ricocheted through John’s mind like a UFO streaking for home, triggering memories that were not all good. Not hardly.

“She may not want to see me,” he said, thinking of that last ugly scene between them. It had been the evening before he’d left for the stock sale in Abilene and driven by jealousy and fear, he’d jumped to some terrible conclusions about her and Guy Munroe.

“Probably not,” Bud agreed. “I said she was cautious, not stupid.”

John shot his friend a withering look. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“I’m paid to uphold the law for all of my constituents. The fact that deep down I may have hoped you and Dana could have overcome both of your backgrounds and created something special together is beside the point.”

Hearing him speak in the past tense wasn’t reassuring, either. “You don’t believe it’s still possible?”

Bud wrinkled his nose. His dripping glasses inched back up the bridge a bit. “You were always too much for her to handle, my friend. Now there’s two of you Paladins. What do you think? Either way,” he added, angling his head so that the collected rainwater sluiced off the rim of his Stetson, “you keep your temper in check, hear?”

“I never hurt her the way her father did, and I never would.” He knew Bud would understand his dangerously soft tone.

“No man can say what he’d do in a moment of passion, John. Fact is, you never erased the look of wariness in her eyes. Could be you even made it worse. I have seen you lose control enough not to care how badly you upset her. So I’m telling you outright, don’t make me have to choose between you.”

Maybe Bud was within his boundaries to read him the riot act, but that didn’t mean John had to like it. “Go dry off,” he said, shifting into gear again. “You won’t have to worry about any—calls this afternoon. At least not any from her place.”

The lawman straightened and held up his hands in surrender. “Having your word on that makes me feel a lot better. Thanks, J.P…. and good luck.”

As his friend returned to his car, John rolled up his window and turned left onto Dana’s street. Ironically his shaking had stopped, but now the rock he perpetually seemed to carry in his chest suddenly began slamming against his breastbone like a medieval battering ram.

Had he been intending to do this all along? What did that make him—besides a jerk for blowing his chances with her in the first place? He gripped the steering wheel more firmly. How was she going to react? Would he see at least a flash of joy in those beautiful brown eyes of hers?

A soft mewing sound rose from the box.

“We can’t ask for a miracle right off,” he said, his gaze locking on the house. “It may take some time and even more work. She was pretty upset the last time I saw her, but I promise you this, little guy, if there’s a snowball’s chance in, er, never mind. Just trust me. One look at you and she’ll be hooked. I promise you’ll have a momma—the best—before all this is over.”

But he didn’t feel quite so confident as he eyed Dana’s home. He’d hated the small white frame house even more than their former dwelling from the moment he’d heard that she’d planned to buy it for herself and her mother. He’d understood the frustration she’d been experiencing with spending money on rent, but had believed he’d had a better idea. Only she’d rejected it. Rejected him.

The place looked somewhat better now. In the two plus years she’d been living there, she’d planted shrubs and repainted the cottage. The trim was now an attractive country blue instead of the ugly medicinal pink it had been. Nevertheless, John still disliked the house, having always hated anything that gave Dana more independence or responsibility. Both had done their share in keeping them apart.

As he pulled into her driveway, he eyed the sign swaying in the wind. Bookkeeping & Tax Service. Dana had established the business five years ago, right after college. She’d needed a job where she could work from home and still care for her arthritic mother. Since not everyone needed the services of a full-fledged certified public accountant, she’d developed a modest clientele quickly, leaving her with plenty of time to devote to her increasingly incapacitated parent.

After her mother’s death and his subsequent marriage, John had heard that Dana had taken on even more accounts. That could create a problem, he thought, shutting off the truck’s engine.

“Well, first let’s see what kind of reception we get,” he said, releasing the safety belt from around the box. Deciding the baby was better off left inside it, John picked up the box like a hamper of clothes and climbed out of his truck. Then he negotiated the puddles and mounted the front steps.

As he rang the doorbell, he noticed his hand was steadier than ever. Odd, he thought, since he suddenly felt more anxious than any time previously in his life. What if she slammed the door in his face? What if she looked through the peephole and refused to even acknowledge his presence?

He stared into it, willing her not to resist him. The maneuver must have worked because seconds later the door swung open.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Carl, I was on the—” The apology and the smile of welcome on her face were both cut off abruptly as she saw he wasn’t the person she’d been expecting. The folder she’d begun to pass to him trembled in her hand. Quickly she drew it against her chest like a shield.

“Hello, Dana,” he offered gruffly.

Her stunned gaze went from him to the box, then back up to him, finally turning steely. “You bastard,” she whispered.

It wasn’t, he concluded, the most reassuring of starts.

Chapter Two

Slam the door, Dana told herself. Shut it now, before it’s too late.

She didn’t want to see how awful he looked. She didn’t want to pay attention to what he held in his arms. She didn’t want to let him slip under her defenses again, or make the mistake of letting him know how much the mere sight of him affected her.

“You have your nerve” was all that she could manage.

The comment left him looking even more haunted, more miserable. “I know,” he replied gruffly. “But could I come in and talk to you for a minute?”

Her front stoop offered no protection from the weather, and as furious as she was with John Paladin, Dana knew it would take a heart much harder than hers to keep a newborn infant out in the rain. She wasn’t, however, thrilled with being put in this predicament. Her look mutinous, she stepped back to admit them.

Actually she felt like the weather, gray and dreary. Since she hadn’t been expecting any clients, except Carl Hyatt, who was supposed to pick up his reconciled bank statement, she’d put on the drab, pumice gray tunic and leggings for comfort and warmth, not appearance. On the other hand, she supposed she looked ten times better than the giant dripping all over her entry rug.

Despite the shadow caused by his Stetson and the perpetual tan from endless days in the sun and wind, his strong-featured, wide-planed face was more gaunt than she’d ever seen it. Those dark brown eyes that had troubled more than a few of her dreams now possessed an almost sunken quality, and even his full beard and mustache couldn’t hide the deep lines that bracketed his hard mouth. This wasn’t the face of a thirty-year-old man. What’s more, she was shocked to see the changes in the six-foot-three-inch body that had once made high school and college football coaches rub their hands with glee. In the months since she’d last seen him, he’d turned into a shadow of his former self.

“You look good, Dana.”

“You look like hell,” she muttered, not caring if it did make her sound ungracious. Blast the man, regardless of his reasons for coming here.

“Yeah, well, it’s turning out to be a rough day. A rough year.”

She lifted an eyebrow, determined to retain her dignity, no matter what. “Don’t tell me the honeymoon’s over already?”

“You know there wasn’t any honeymoon.”

“Of course. What could I have been thinking?” she declared, touching her palm to her forehead. “You two had yours before the wedding.”

“There wasn’t any wedding. There was a ceremony to take care of legalities. And to set the record straight once and for all, there wasn’t any love in our marriage, either,” he added, his features resembling a volcano ready to explode. “I told you—”

“Yes, you told me,” Dana said quickly, more concerned with avoiding another barrage of excuses than worrying about his temper. “And I told you when you came over the day you got back from Abilene that I wanted nothing more to do with you. That means you have no business being here now.”

She thought it was a pretty fair declaration of independence under the circumstances…until he shifted his hold on the in his arms and she was forced to take a closer look at what he was carrying his baby in. Suddenly she forgot everything she’d said. “Are you out of your mind? You can’t carry around a child in that thing!”

He shifted, looking decidedly uncomfortable. “Believe me, that’s been pointed out to me already, but it was all I had at the moment. Would you like to meet my son?”

“No.” She backed away a step and clasped her hands behind her. Getting up close and personal with his flesh and blood was the last thing she needed to do. Bad enough her curiosity threatened to drive her crazy.

“Okay, but I need to give him a bit of air.” He looked around as though trying to decide where to put down the box. “Do you mind if I, er…?”

Dana wanted to resist helping him. Unfortunately, this being her house, she didn’t exercise that option. “The couch is fine,” she finally told him.

She couldn’t help feeling resentful. Set up. As far as she was concerned, they’d finished with each other the day before he’d left for Abilene. But when he cast a dubious look at his soggy, muddy boots and then at her rose-colored carpet, she grew even more agitated. “For heaven’s sake, it’s a little late to worry about dirt. Just do it.”

As he crossed over to the green-and-rose print couch by the wall, Dana wrapped her arms around her waist. She wasn’t surprised at having to fight a feeling of emptiness. Since the day she’d heard he’d married, and why, she’d been dreading this moment. Now that it was here, she didn’t know if she could handle it.

His child…She’d known John Paladin from the time she’d been an inexperienced, shy sixteen and he a larger-than-life twenty. Despite efforts to ignore her contradictory feelings for him during a goodly portion of that time, she’d succumbed to more than a few fantasies. Fantasies such as imagining what it would be like to be possessed by him…to conceive a baby with him and carry his child…to share a life with him.

She’d blamed those daydreams—disaster dreams she called them now—along with her tendency toward melancholia on her Irish genes, the same excuse her mother had ascribed to her father’s drinking and temper. These days she knew better; she’d merely been a fool. But she was trying to change! Surprise visits made that darned difficult, though.

As he folded back the blue blanket, she felt her heart in her throat. When he awkwardly lifted the small bundle from the box, she had to force herself to keep breathing. Biting hard on her lower lip, she thought she was doing rather well, all things considered. Then came the pathetic wail.

She shot across the room. “Give him to me. You must be holding him too tight. You never did know your own strength.”

“Except with you,” John murmured, despite seeming willing enough to relinquish hold of the child.

A shiver of awareness raced through Dana, partly because of their closeness as he passed over his boy, and partly because she knew he was right. To a degree. He had tried to be careful with her—as careful as a man of his size and temperament could be—except for the first time they’d met, and the day before he’d left for Abilene. But she didn’t want to think about that now.

“There, there,” she crooned to the tiny bundle that fitted perfectly in the crook of her arm. Struggling not to meet John’s intense gaze for fear that he would see how vulnerable he could still make her feel, she turned away, gently rocking his son. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

“Looks like heaven to me.”

Dana could feel heat creep into her cheeks. No one had ever made her blush as easily or as often as he did. It took all her concentration to ignore him and focus on the child that another woman had borne him.

That was her second mistake of the day.

She fell in love. With her first gaze into the pink, innocent face, she knew she’d lost her heart as easily as she’d once lost it to the man she could feel watching her every move. Pain gripped her throat and throbbed in her chest.

So beautiful. So perfectly beautiful.

He was a miniature of his father, with the same steady, luminous brown eyes, the same shock of chestnut hair, the same bold features and stubborn chin. It wasn’t fair.

“What do you think?”

Dana resented the question as much as she did his presence. She knew what it invited, entreated, and she didn’t want to yield. At the same time, she couldn’t help touching the pad of her index finger to the baby’s chin. “You’re very lucky.”

“I’m not so sure, but thanks. He looks right in your arms, though.”

Disturbed and annoyed, she wanted to show him the door that very instant. Instead she turned away, shaking her head. “I can’t believe your…audacity bringing your child here when he should be home with his mother.”

“It’s not audacity, Dana, it’s desperation.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That you’re right. He should be home with his mother. The problem is she isn’t there.”

Sensing more than fatigue and unhappiness in him, Dana tensed even more. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

“Celene left me.”

She fought an automatic tug of pity…and won. “Sounds like a smart lady, after all.”

He winced. “Don’t. I don’t deserve that. Regardless of what you think of me, I want you to know that I tried my best. I took responsibility for what I did. Really tried to make it easy for her.” He took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. “I should have known she wouldn’t be able to stick to her side of the bargain. The isolation, the boredom of routine at the ranch…it was all too much. But our arrangement was never meant to be permanent, anyway.”

She didn’t want to hear his lies again. She couldn’t.

“She never wanted the baby. I did. Figuring the way things were going, he’d be the only—Anyway, we made a pact. She agreed to stay until he was old enough not to rely on her so much.”

Resisting another flutter of sympathy, and more, she scowled. “That’s a good one. Your child can be twenty-one and still need you.” She couldn’t believe such cold-blooded negotiating, yet her curiosity got the best of her. “When did she leave?”

“Between the time I drove out this morning and when I came back to the house for lunch.” He dropped his gaze to his son. “The baby was screaming, the house was chilly, and she was gone.”

“Didn’t Durango see or hear anything from the bunkhouse?” Dana asked, trying to fathom his getting involved with such a woman. Who would leave a precious infant like this for any length of time, let alone abandon him?

“No. Between preparing lunch and taking calls for me, he says he must have missed her. It didn’t help that he has his TV too loud. But I’ve given up arguing with him about it. He’s not happy if he can’t watch his talk shows, and I can’t risk him walking out on me. Good help’s harder to find than ever these days.” With a sigh he reached into his open jacket. “She left me a note.”

Dana stepped back again as though he were reaching for a gun. “Don’t you dare read it to me. It’s none of my concern. What’s more, I’m not interested.”

“She’s calling it quits,” he continued, ignoring her protests. “She says she’s done her part and wants to get back to her life.”

How could she do that? “A woman doesn’t walk away from her own flesh and blood.” Dana thought of her own mother, who’d had decades of reasons to leave her father, but never did.

“Apparently some women can,” John said, breaking into her brooding. His massive chest rose and fell on a deep breath. “I drove into town hoping I might spot her. When that didn’t happen, I thought I could put him up at the hospital for a day or so until I tracked her down and arranged for things to be settled legally. Instead they kicked me out. Said they weren’t a nursery or a hotel.”

“At least somebody’s still thinking clearly. You can’t both abandon the child, Paladin. What were you thinking?”

“The truth? For a while, only that I wanted to wring her neck,” he growled, clenching his hands so much that the one holding his hat twisted the felt rim.

“Oh, typical,” Dana snapped. Comments like that proved a leopard could never change its spots. This was precisely why she’d told him, kept telling him, they could never have a future together. “That would have fixed everything. She’d either be dead or in a hospital, and you’d be in jail. You were really thinking about your son, weren’t you?”

“I wanted to track her down and make her sign a paper, something before witnesses, before she disappears and complicates things for who knows how long. She was in such a danged-fire hurry she didn’t think of that. Or else she didn’t care,” he added, with a sweep of his hat that spoke volumes of his frustration. “And now Bud’s telling me that if I step one foot out of the county, he’ll throw my butt in jail and put my boy into a foster home, citing abandonment.”

That sounded like extremely tough talk coming from Bud, but Dana knew the sheriff was only trying to save John from a bigger mistake. He was a better friend than John gave him credit for—or deserved. “At least someone around here is using common sense.”

“I need to finish this, Dana. Once and for all.”

“No doubt you will. What remains a mystery is why come to me—Merciful Mary, no.” She looked from him down to his child, and back again. “No, no, no. Slick try, but no way, Paladin.”

He took a step toward her. “I need help.”

“Then hire someone.”

“I’m particular.”

“Since when?”

A muscle twitched in his left cheek. “Low blow.”

“Get used to it. I’ve got plenty more where that came from.”

The baby uttered a pitiful complaint, and rightfully so, she thought, feeling immediately guilty. She was standing as stiff as a block of concrete. Poor innocent had to be picking up on that.

Although she tried to relax, Dana demanded tensely, “That can’t be why you came here.” There was no sense in beating around the bush. It was getting them nowhere and she needed to know what was going on—what he thought he was up to now. “What do you want?”

“What will you let me have?”

She felt as if he’d snatched the floor out from under her, and she was falling, falling. In sheer self-defense, she spun away from him and retreated to the front window. Not having to look at him made things easier, but there was no way to block out his presence entirely. John Paladin filled a room like no one ever had, and that made him impossible to ignore. It had always been that way for her, since the day she’d arrived in town, an anxious sixteen-year-old, whose bully of a father had just been hired as the town’s chief of police.

After arguing over some traffic violation, John had burst out of her father’s office as she’d been entering. The force had sent her toppling backward to the floor. He’d been quick to apologize and help her back to her feet, the concern and regret in his eyes obvious—as had been his interest.

Her father had abruptly put an end to that meeting, but John had been waiting for her later, down the street. Apologizing again, he’d asked her for a date. Mesmerized by his rough good looks, but intimidated by his size and strength—characteristics that she’d come to fear—she’d explained with a strange mixture of relief and disappointment that her father forbade her to date until she turned eighteen. She’d soon learned, however, that John Paladin was a determined man. Once he’d decided he wanted something, he became totally focused on getting it. No one and nothing was allowed to step in his way. And John had decided he wanted her.

“We can’t go back,” she said, watching the downpour.

He stepped up behind her. “I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward.”

“I don’t think that’s possible. You know I didn’t believe we had a chance from the beginning. And now—”

“Dana, don’t say it.” He touched her hair, her shoulder, and hesitantly, awkwardly stroked her back. “I know I messed things up badly.”

She stiffened and laughed without humor. “You mean you destroyed any trust I’d had in you.”

“No!” He spun her around. “No matter what you think, I don’t—I won’t believe that’s all gone.”

Although his intense demeanor and physical contact made her feel as though a tidal wave was threatening to sweep her away, Dana willed herself to stand firm. “It’s true. You destroyed whatever belief I’d had in you.”

“One moment of lost control. And it was your fault.”

“Mine!” She immediately winced because her fury had upset the baby again. Quickly rocking him to quiet the soft whimpers, she shot John a bitter look and whispered, “I can’t believe you said that.”

“Think about it. If you hadn’t said you’d go to Fort Worth with Guy Monroe, I would never have lost my head the way I did.”

“I told you, we were sharing car expenses to attend a business seminar. Since we were both going, it made perfect sense. But you couldn’t see that, not you. Your mind went straight into the gutter and stayed there.”

“The man’s married and has three kids. It wouldn’t have looked right.”

“His wife trusted—no, trusts him.”

“Did you ask her or was that something he’s told you? For crying out loud, Dana, I know your father kept a tight rein on your life, but he’s gone, and you were twenty-five. How could you be so damned naive about people? Monroe has had several affairs that his wife’s chosen not to acknowledge for her children’s sake. Any fool could see he’d targeted you for his next conquest.”

Dana’s mouth fell open. “That’s not true.”

“You want names?” he retaliated, his hands on his hips.

She shook her head, not only because she didn’t want to know, but because she didn’t want to feel the doubts she was experiencing about Guy. They weren’t close friends, but she liked the chamber of commerce president, despite the embarrassment of John’s interference that had made her stay home that fateful weekend. She still spoke to Guy several times a month and he’d sent her some of her most valuable clients. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Would you have believed me?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted with some reluctance. “But the point is that whatever Guy may or may not have had on his mind is secondary to your behavior. You went ballistic, and you had no right to. Not only did it show that you didn’t trust me, but you were wrong in trying to dictate what I could or couldn’t do.”

“You knew how I felt about you.”

“What about how I felt? Of all the people in Dusty Flats who should have known that I would never let myself be controlled by anyone again, it was you. Instead you broke every promise you’d ever made to me. Promises you’ll recall I warned you you wouldn’t be able to keep. Do you have any idea how terrified I was when you—”

“Yes.” His gaze burned into hers. “There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t have regrets, when I don’t hate myself for how I acted that day. But eventually I was also able to find a seed of hope in the fact that I stopped in time. Remember?”

“I wore the imprint of your fingers on my arms for over a week,” she accused. “My lip got cut when you…” She looked away.

“Kissed you. Why can’t you say it?”

“Because it wasn’t a kiss, it was an attack.”

He drew a deep breath. “I could feel you slipping through my fingers. Then I tasted you and you went straight to my head. You ran scared. I ran eager. It happens.”

“Of course it does.” Dana could hear the trembling in her voice, but couldn’t help it. “And what you did upset you so much that the perfect solution was to go to Abilene and sleep with the first woman who would accommodate you.”

“Bad judgment based on frustration and hurt—”

“Spare me the clinical answers.”

“—and I’ve been paying for it in spades ever since. I will for the rest of my life,” John said more quietly. “There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t already said to myself, no name low enough that I haven’t already thought of.”

She attempted to pass his son back to him. “Then there’s no reason for you to be here any longer.”

He moved back a step to offset hers. “Yes, there is. I want to…Wait a minute, Dana.”

“Take him.”

“No. Hear me out.”

“What for?”

“Because I want you to teach me how to be a father.”

She knew her mouth fell open. She could tell by the flicker of relief in his eyes. But before she could recover, he began again.

“Bud’s right. I can’t leave my son to go chasing after Celene. I’ll call my lawyer and let him file the proper papers to deal with her. What’s important is that I be here for my boy, and that he learns early on that I’ll be whatever he needs me to be. But, hell, Dana…I don’t know where to begin.”

“You could start by not swearing in front of him.”

One corner of his mouth curved upward in a faint smile. “You’ll have to do better than that. You swore at me the moment you opened the door.”

“That proves I’m not the right person for this job,” she replied primly. She sidestepped him and crossed over to the couch where she placed the baby back into his box. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. Besides, I haven’t any more experience with children than you do.”

“So we’ll learn the technical stuff from the brochures the nurses at the hospital gave me. But you do know firsthand what a father shouldn’t be. He isn’t rough, impatient or loud the way I am…the way your father was. You could show me the better way, the gentler way to handle him when he does something wrong, and teach me how to encourage him so he won’t grow up to be a bully or a boaster. I don’t want him to back away from me the way you used to do with your old man when he was in one of his tempers, and the way you’ve already done with me today. I want him to call me Dad because he’s proud of me, not because he’s obligated to out of respect, or worse yet, fear.”

Dana felt his influence like a blowtorch melting a block of ice, felt the impossible pull of his charisma and resisted it with all her might. There was a time when she would have longed to believe he meant what he said, but she’d known him too long not to suspect he was asking too much from himself, let alone her. She began to shake her head.

“Before you turn me down again,” he said just as she attempted to add a verbal reply, “let me rephrase that request slightly. Help me until I can hire someone full-time.”

It was better, but still difficult. “I really shouldn’t…No, it’s impossible. I can’t.”

“But I have a ranch to run.”

“And I have a business.”

“I know that, but—Dana, if you don’t help me, my only other option is to use Durango.”

Now that was something else entirely. “You wouldn’t. The man smokes like a volcano about to explode, and he has the ethics of a weasel.”

“Maybe, but the bottom line is that he’s the only hand who’s around the house with any consistency.”

As his son protested the confines of his box, Dana drew her lower lip between her teeth and worried over this news. This wasn’t fair. She was just beginning to think she’d put her disappointment and, yes, even heartbreak over John Paladin behind her. He had no business charging back into her life and tying her head and heart into knots again. Maybe he had always managed to make her vulnerable to him, but she wanted a quiet life, a secure, serene life. Her mother had never had it—not until her father had been laid to rest the year before she’d graduated from college. Dana refused to go through that herself, even if it meant she would spend the rest of her life alone.

On the other hand, she brooded, no infant should be held responsible for the sins of the parents. She glanced down at John’s son. This beautiful little boy who’d been conceived in the worst possible situation already had two strikes against him—a mother who’d abandoned him, and a confused, inexperienced father. She might be risking more heartbreak, but she couldn’t turn her back on such circumstances, not when she thought of the helpless innocence of such a tender, vulnerable life.

Not unaware that she could be making the mistake of a lifetime, she cast John a wary look. “I’d have some stipulations,” she began cautiously.

“Anything,” he replied without hesitation.

“Don’t be so eager—or confident. I doubt you’ll like what I’m about to say.”

“You’re looking at the new John Paladin,” he said, a determined glint in his eye. “Shoot.”

What she’d like to do was…No, she decided. This wasn’t the time or place.

She drew herself erect. “First of all I want to know what kind of physical arrangement you have in mind.”

“Physical. Well, I hadn’t really given it much thought.”

Just as she expected, she thought, barely able to restrain from indulging in a sigh of frustration. “I think it’s best we start from there. Now I don’t for a moment consider myself up-to-date on child-care techniques, but it seems like common sense that a baby should be protected from this kind of weather. And he shouldn’t be out at night. Or too early in the morning.”

“No, I guess not,” John replied, frowning slightly. “Only…what does that mean?”

“I’ll come to your place.”

His expression turned absolutely euphoric. “You’re—”

“Don’t bother trying to flatter me,” Dana said, determined not to be charmed. “I’m doing it for him, not you.”

“—considerate. I was going to say that’s very considerate of you.”

“It’s merely the most practical solution. But I’ll want the right to bring my work,” she added before he could get any more effusive. “You can’t ask me to abandon my clients just because you’ve gotten yourself into a fine mess.”

He shook his head emphatically. “Perfectly reasonable. I wouldn’t think of inconveniencing you more than necessary. And I’ll want to pay you for your time and efforts.”

She hadn’t thought about any of that, but it immediately rankled. “You’ll do no such thing.”

“Dana, I’m asking for a lot. Why do you think Celene ran?”

His craggy face had taken on an almost sweet perplexity that she had to stubbornly ignore. “I think the less we discuss your wife, the better,” she told him, her back rigid.

“Soon to be ex-wife.”

“Next,” she continued, firmly ignoring that comment as well, “under no circumstances will I stay overnight in your house. Which means if you fail to hire someone soon, and an emergency takes you out in the middle of the night to look after your cattle, you’ll have to look elsewhere for help.”

“Okay. Fair enough. Understood.”

She didn’t like his quick, smooth reply. “I mean it, Paladin. This is not an acquiescence in any way, shape or form.”

“A what?”

“Don’t play dumb with me. I haven’t forgiven you, so no intimate conversation or references to our past relationship.”

“You mean you’re now willing to acknowledge that we had a relationship?”

“And if,” Dana continued, annoyed that he’d locked onto that slip, “I discover that you aren’t seriously attempting to find qualified help for the baby, I’ll leave immediately.”

For a moment he remained still and silently stared at her. Dana had seen that look before—when he’d kissed her for the first time. She vowed that if he tried it now, she would cancel the deal entirely. She would have to out of her need for self-preservation.

But instead he slipped his hat on his head and bent to scoop up his son. “Sounds like a fair shake to me. You’ve got yourself a deal.”

“I do?” She’d thought he would balk at a few things just for the sake of principle.

“Absolutely. As far as I can see, we’re in complete agreement.”

“We are?”

“I’ve only one request. You probably won’t like it because it doesn’t really give you room to say no.”

“I don’t have any problem saying no to you when I want to, Paladin. Be assured of that.”

“Yeah, well…I only want you to know I’ll make it up to you. The thing is…I need you to come home with me. Now.”

Chapter Three

“Why?” Dana asked, her voice barely audible.

“Because I need you to help me go through the house and list what I need to buy for the baby.”

John watched her wrestle with this newest request, grateful to be given the added time to look at her again. She had always been a unique combination of girl-next-door wholesomeness that had pulled at his heartstrings and secretiveness that had given her a far more mature, yet vulnerable quality.

Now as he watched her sweep back the chin-length page boy that matched her chestnut-and-gold eyes, he felt all those complex feelings resurface. Along with it came the yearnings he’d had to stamp down for longer than he cared to think about.

He wanted to smile as she lifted her strong, slightly rounded chin. He wanted to stroke away the tiny worry lines that formed over her classy nose. He wanted to soften those generous, unpainted lips she compressed into willful disapproval by covering them with his own. To coax to the surface the tentative, inexperienced side of her once again would be heaven. To win her trust and release the curiosity and desire he’d once seen flicker in her eyes would be a dream come true.

“Well? Is it a deal?” he forced himself to ask, his jacket a bit too warm for the room, his shirt too tight for his chest.

“You aren’t saying that you haven’t bought anything yet?” She ripped at a fingernail in a way he recognized all too well. As soon as she saw he noticed, she hastily thrust her hands behind her back. “Really, Paladin. You’ve had months to prepare for this!”

He knew that. He knew exactly how bad things sounded, and all he could do was offer a weary lift of one shoulder. “You didn’t know Celene. She had no interest. I kept hoping she would change the closer she came to term, so I kept putting it off. And I won’t deny that I got busy with some things, too.”

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