Daddy by Surprise (13 page)

He turned his chair to face her, then leaned forward, elbows on his knees. In that angle, she could only see his silhouette clearly. And his profile was so clearly Mad Jack’s her heart started pounding like a long-distance runner’s. The pulse in her head made it hard to make out what he was saying.

“…get one thing straight, Kat. I never planned to have children. Your sons will attest to the fact I’m not a daddy kind of guy. But if our being together that night created a baby, I
will
be a serious part of that child’s life. I firmly believe in taking responsibility for one’s actions—even if that means one of us has to move.”

She swallowed harshly and tried to regain her composure. So many thoughts were racing through her brain she could barely pick which one to focus on. The word
move
lingered long enough for her to grab it.

“Move?” she cried, her voice a full octave higher than normal. “Are you serious? I can’t move. Tag’s dad would come unglued. Drew is a little more laid-back where Jordie is concerned, but even
he
would take me to court if I tried to leave the area before his son turns eighteen.”

His gunslinger—no, swimmer—shoulders lifted and fell. “Still, moving a family would be simpler than moving my entire business.”

“Ha,” she snorted. “You don’t know my family. Not only do I have two sons and two spoiled ex-husbands, my mother’s sick. Throat cancer. And my father’s totally unpredictable. My older stepsiblings think he’s crazy—too many years of hitting the bottle. I’m more inclined to blame it on cussed orneriness, but if I left, who would make sure he didn’t sell off all the bison? Half the herd is mine. I can’t leave them.”

His mouth dropped open once or twice, but instead of a reply, he started to laugh. His reaction was so contrary to the fight she’d been expecting, all she could do was stare. For a moment. Then it struck her that he was laughing at her. People had been poking fun at her expense for years. Silly little Kat. Foolish girl most likely to screw up. Her bottom lip started to quiver and she had to blink fast to keep the tears back.

Jack’s laughter stopped as quickly as it started. “What’s wrong? Are you crying?”

Damn. Her neighbor’s burglar-proof exterior spotlight was probably shining right on her face. “N-no. But it’s not nice to laugh at—”

He cut her off by reaching out and taking her hand. “I’m sorry, Kat. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, but you have to admit, worrying about the bison is a pretty unusual excuse for not leaving an area. Why do you think your father would get rid of them?”

She sniffled and pulled her hand free to brush away the stupid tear that had formed in the corner of her eye. “I got sucked into the story of the bison when I studied history in high school. I spent months finding out everything I could about the animals, and then I located a small herd that was for sale. I begged Dad to buy them. To my profound surprise he did. But he’s never let me forget that
my
animals are eating
his
grass and feed—even though Tag and Jordie and I are the primary ones who check on the herd and make sure they’re okay.”

She smiled, picturing the herd that had more than tripled in size over the years. “They’re amazing animals. Healthy. Well adapted to the land. Just give them water and room to graze and they take care of the rest.”

Jack was watching her with the same look she’d seen on her father’s face when she started talking bison. “I’m hoping that when Tag and Jordie are old enough, we’ll be able to sell part of our share and buy some land. Dad isn’t going to live forever and you never know from one day to next whether you’re in his will or on his buffalo chip list.”

“Buffalo chip list,”
he repeated, his tone still decidedly amused. “Okay, I concede. Relocating a herd of bison might be more difficult than moving half-a-dozen dentists. But just barely.”

She edged out of the direct light and stood to lean her lower back against the railing. What did a person say to that kind of agreeableness? Why wasn’t he arguing? Where was the bluster and name-calling that always came in a fight?

He took a leisurely drink from his reused plastic bottle. She just didn’t get him. Which was a surprise in and of itself. Mostly the men in her life followed a recognizable pattern of behavior. They wanted something from her, took it, then left. Period.

Jack was different.

He joined her at the railing, their shoulders a respectable distance apart. “I have a favor to ask, Kat.”

Finally. Here it comes. Can you help me out with a load of laundry in the morning, honey? Could you spot me a few bucks till I get home? Do we really have to sleep in separate rooms, sweetie pie? It’s not like we haven’t already done the evil deed.

“I know you’re busy, but do you think you could show me the bison before I leave?”

“Huh? You don’t believe there’s a herd.”

“No. Of course, I believe you. I just want to see one. A real live North American bison. On the hoof, not packaged in my grocery store.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re bison, and…” His tone was so wistful he reminded her of Jordie, who shared Kat’s passion for the animals. She understood completely, but she held her breath as she waited for him to finish.

“…I don’t know. Latent guilt, I think.”

“Pardon?”

He took another drink from his water bottle. His throat moved in a masculine, sexy way that had been her undoing more than once in the past. “I told you how much I love history, but one of the things I’ve never really been able to get my mind around is the massacre of the buffalo. I’ve forgotten the exact numbers, but there were millions of head roaming these lands before the white hunters came.” His head shook slowly from side to side. “I feel like I need to apologize, but I’ve never seen a bison.”

She took a drink, too. The cold liquid helped take her mind off her sudden, all-too-urgent desire to reach out and kiss him. He was a nice guy, but he wasn’t the
right
guy. He might give lip service about honoring the big woolly beasts she’d come to love, but a few minutes with her dad would change that. Hell, two hours with her father had been all it took to put a rifle in peace-loving Drew’s hand. Before the day was out, her new husband had his first kill. An innocent jackrabbit with nothing on its mind but dinner and a little procreation.

She knew what would happen if she took Jack to her father’s ranch. She had nothing to lose, so she told him, “Sure. One day this week. I’ll let you know.” She turned to leave. “I gave you the extra key, right? I like to lock up at night. The neighbor’s dogs would probably tell me if someone drove up, but why take chances?”

And she was all about playing it safe. Which was exactly why she was going to bed. Alone.

K
AT HAD VACILLATED
about taking Jack to see the bison for four days. Not because of the forty-five-minute drive and her current state of exhaustion—she was used to running on very little sleep—but because it might mean bumping into her father. She hadn’t seen Buck in a month, although she usually called him once a week. Kat used the herd as an excuse to check up on him.

Buck, whose real name was Buford Earl Garrity, rarely initiated a call. In the past the only time he phoned anyone was when he was drunk. She’d thought about giving him a heads-up before they left the house but decided against it. As far as she knew, he was still alive. And sober. And if they bumped into him today, so be it, but she wasn’t going out of her way to introduce him to Jack. Why hasten the inevitable?

“Stay in the car. I’ll get the gate,” she said, opening her door. “We can’t hang around long and I’m not sure where the herd is. I hope this wasn’t a waste of time.”

Time. Precious time. So much to do, and yet here she was, trying to please Jack because she felt she owed him for being so nice to her and helpful at Thunder Alley. His presence alone seemed enough to keep the really persistent drunks away. And more than a few of the lady bikers seemed attracted to him. They drifted past her booth to flirt with Jack and wound up getting a henna tattoo.

Her profits were mounting. Which was a good thing because not only had her usually like-clockwork period not arrived, she woke up this morning to discover her nipples felt overly sensitive. She told herself the latter was a result of the dream she’d had. Her and Mad Jack on the prairie. Making love. Nothing but bare skin and blue sky. The sensuality of the breeze on her skin had been enough to—“I’m sorry. What did you say?”

She had her hand on the gate but hadn’t opened the complicated contraption when she realized Jack had gotten out of the car and was approaching.

“Over there. Is that the herd?”

She stood on tiptoe to see where he was pointing. A slight hillock between her and the pasture that interested him blocked her view. She put her booted foot on the bottom strand of barbed wire beside the weathered wood post and hoisted herself up. Squinting against the early-morning brightness, she followed his outstretched arm.

He stepped close. Their bodies were almost touching, and for a split second she remembered her dream. Jack’s body was a lot like his dream counterpart, even if they were miles apart in every other way.

“I thought at first they were cows, but then I spotted that big one. Is that the alpha male?”

“That’s them, but they’re a few head short. I wonder where…” She stretched upward and the wire she was standing on pulled loose from the post. She slipped.

It was just a few inches, but the rusty barbed wire could have meant a bad scratch at the very least. Fortunately Jack caught her. His arm went around her middle in a graceful swoop and he stepped away to keep both of them from getting hurt.

Her back was tight against his front. Their hearts were nearly level, and even through their clothing she could feel his speed up from the adrenaline. Her heart was beating fast, too. Probably from a different cause. She didn’t want to think about it because if she did, she’d have to admit that Jack was growing on her. She thought about him more than she thought about Mad Jack. And in this morning’s dream, for the first time, the two seemed to blur. One second she was kissing her wild and dangerous gunslinger, the next her sweet, charming orthodontist.

She was very confused. But one thing Kat knew for sure was that she wasn’t making the same mistake she’d made with her ex-husbands. No matter what.

She wriggled free of his hold. “Thanks. Dad needs to do some fence work.”

Jack appeared ready to say something, but a loud
put-put-put
sound made them both turn to locate the source.

“Oh, nuts. Here comes my dad. I was hoping we could sneak in and out without running into him.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see,” she muttered softly. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Both her ex-husbands were still friends with Buck. They hunted his land every fall and usually wound up staying overnight after partying a little too hard. Buck could drink anybody under the table.

“Hey, Daughter. I thought that was your car. Who’s that with you?”

Buck Garrity looked every bit the larger-than-life western rancher he portrayed himself as. Six-four in his youth. Three hundred pounds at his heaviest. His first family—a complex mix in its own right—was practically raised and his wife dead when he met and married Kat’s mother. Despite the toll alcohol had taken on his liver, an ongoing battle with gout and some concerns about his heart, he exuded a rugged, healthful vibrancy that her mother still called the most powerful swoo on the planet.

“Jack, this is my father, Buck Garrity. Jack is from Denver. He’s renting Tag’s room from me this week because he was too late to find a place for the rally. I told you this in the phone message I left a few days ago. Do you ever check your messages?”

Her dad didn’t answer. Nor had she expected him to. He opened the gate and walked out to shake Jack’s hand. To Kat’s surprise, Jack didn’t appear the least bit intimidated or cowed.

“Nice to meet you. I was curious about the bison and Kat was nice enough to show me your herd.”

“
Her
herd,” Buck corrected. “I gotta admit I never would have bought ’em if she hadn’t pestered me to do it. Now I can’t picture the place without them. They’re funny beasts. Smart and curious in a way cows aren’t. Did she tell you about ’em?” he asked, motioning for Jack to follow.

Kat stifled her groan. This was so like her father. If he was in the mood, he could be as charming as any politician. And no one had ever accused him of being dumb. He knew more about bison than Kat could ever hope to know. For that reason alone, she hung back.

Her father noticed. He stopped midsentence and looked at her. “I almost forgot. Your aunt called here looking for you. Needs you to call her back.”

Kat frowned. There’d been a message on her machine when she got home last night, but it had been after midnight when she listened to it. Something about her mother’s breathing.

Aunt Roberta had moved in with her mom about a year ago after her husband passed away. The two sisters hadn’t talked in years—some hurt feelings or family blow-up—but when mom was diagnosed with throat cancer and needed help, Roberta sold her home in Iowa and moved to Spearfish, where Kat’s mother lived.

Roberta was a nice woman, but she lacked her older sister’s energy or imagination. Kat was afraid her mother might die of boredom, but she didn’t say so, since Kat herself wasn’t in a position to nurse her mom back to health.

“Can I use your phone, Dad?”

Buck unclipped the cell phone he wore at his waist and handed it to her. Then he turned back to his guest. “Bison are like elephants,” he started. “They’re a matriarchal herd with an alpha female, and they have a pecking order like chickens.”

Elephant chickens. That was what Tag used to call them when Jordie was little.

Smiling to herself, Kat glanced at the two men one more time before heading to the car to call her longwinded aunt. Her gaze met Jack’s. There was something deep and unreadable in his look. Pure swoo. Her knees buckled, but fortunately she was close enough to the fender to reach out for support.

Her heart sped up and suddenly she felt too warm. She quickly punched in her aunt’s number. “Hi, Roberta. It’s me. Sorry I didn’t call last night. I’m working my booth at the Alley and got in real late. Is Mom okay? Can I talk to her?”

“Oh, good. It’s you, Kat. I was afraid I’d miss you today. Your mother is resting at the moment. We had a little scare last night. She was having trouble breathing. I called 9-1-1.”

“Really? It was that bad?”

Her aunt sighed. “Probably not, but your mother couldn’t tell me not to. She could barely whisper.”

Roberta wasn’t a decision-maker. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to help. What happened?”

“The EMTs gave her some oxygen. That helped a lot. They wanted to take her to the hospital, but you know your mother. Once she could talk, she said no. But I’m taking her to the doctor today. At the very least, we need to have one of those bottles of oxygen around.”

Kat breathed a silent sigh of relief. Her mother had fought back from the horrible diagnosis and surgery for throat cancer. She’d made it through chemo and radiation. But her will to live had suffered greatly these past nine months.

In a way, Kat understood. Her mother believed she needed a man in her life. And now she felt unattractive, unworthy of love. Kat’s heart broke for her, but she didn’t know how to change Mom’s core belief.

“Thanks for calling, Roberta. I’m really sorry I’m not there to help, but tell Mom I love her. I’m at the ranch at the moment and I could maybe swing by on my way back to town but—”

“We won’t be here, honey Kat. We’ll be at the doctor’s office. Just try to check in from time to time. You can call me late, if you need to. I know how busy you are. Your mom knows, too. Don’t worry. Things happen the way they’re supposed to.”

That truism again, Kat thought, closing the phone after saying goodbye. Her entire family had turned into fatalists. They’d never been very religious, although they’d attended church sporadically, depending on her mother’s needs at the time. One of Kat’s stepfathers had been a minister. Her mother used to say she’d fallen in love with his message, then learned too late that he didn’t believe it.

Holding the phone firmly, she jogged after the two much smaller figures that were approaching the sixty or so head of bison scattered about a small bowl-shaped valley. The matriarch watched them intently. Younger bulls snorted nervously. Babies scampered awkwardly to their feet and huddled close to their mothers.

The men had stopped moving, so Kat was able to catch up rather quickly. “How come they’re so close to the ranch, Dad?”

“Don’t know. We cut and tagged half the cattle last week so I could supply some stock for the Deadwood rodeo. Maybe they were wondering what was happening.”

“You didn’t take out any of the bison, did you?” She and her father had had this argument many times over the years. She was never positive he respected her wishes.

“Naw. The only one they wanted was Leon. And he’s too much trouble to move.”

He pointed to a massive bull nibbling on a tuft of grass. The beast’s shaggy mane gave him that definable look most people associated with bison. No one knew his exact age, since they bought him from a petting zoo with dubious records, but he was a majestic-looking beast. Most of the other animals were younger.

Now that she had a better view of the herd she could tell the numbers looked right. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her father to care for the animals—and some losses happened no matter what—but she’d always felt that because she was who she was, the herd ran some risk of being ignored to death. Or casually sold at market. Not because Buck needed the money or was tired of the work. Simply because he could. She’d seen her father do all sorts of petty acts to hurt her mother—and her by association. Kat didn’t want her beloved bison to become a pawn in a power game.

“It’s getting late, Jack.”

“Don’t tell me you’re doing that silly brown stuff again. What a racket!” Buck exclaimed, shaking his head so hard his straw cowboy hat nearly fell off. “Anybody dumb enough to get a tattoo in the first place is smart enough to only pay for it once.”

Instead of looking embarrassed as she’d expected, Jack laughed. “Not all of us.” He pushed up his sleeve and showed the faint shadow of what had been barbed wire. “Your daughter is an artist and she does a real steady business.”

“What the hell? She got you to try one of those henna things?” He spat for good measure.

Jack snickered. “I wish. She tried to talk me into the henna, but I had to do it my way. Brought my own ink. It must have been old and mixed with gasoline or something because I wound up sicker than a dog.”

Her father obviously couldn’t believe a real man would do such a thing. His mouth still hung partly open. “Why didn’t you just go to a legitimate tattoo parlor?”

Jack shrugged. “Needles. Can’t stand needles.”

“Oh,” her father said, like a true kindred spirit. “Me, neither. But that brown stuff is just too girly for my taste.”

Kat laughed for the first time in her father’s presence in she didn’t know how long. Even hearing him say the word
girly
sounded funny to her. For a man who claimed not to care what people thought of him to worry about being emasculated by a temporary tattoo struck her as ridiculous. But in a way, it made sense.

Suddenly something clicked in her head and she understood that no matter how she lived her life or what she accomplished, her father would still make judgment calls based on his own sense of what mattered.

Both men were staring at her, she realized. She didn’t care. “See you later, Dad. Oh, and by the way, Mom’s not doing too hot. Just FYI.”

“You know I hate abbreviations,” her dad said with a growl.

“TDB,” she said with a small wave.

Jack hurried to catch up. “TDB?” he repeated softly. “I don’t know that one.”

“Too damn bad.”

His laugh made the matriarch of the herd give a loud snort, and a second later the entire herd was on the move. Kat could hear her father muttering as she locked the gate behind them, but for once in her life, she honestly didn’t care what her father thought. Period.

TDB,
Jack thought, looking out the side window at the rolling landscape as Kat drove them back to her home. The green pastures dissected by cultivated farmland and small ranches reminded him of northeastern Colorado. He’d thought about moving to Fort Collins out of college, but his mother had convinced him Denver had more opportunities. He liked Denver, but he was sorry now that he hadn’t at least tried somewhere new so he could say he had.

“Your father’s a real character,” he said.

“That’s a polite way to put it. Although both my exes get along great with him. He’s what you might call a man’s man. Like John Wayne.”