Wyoming Born and Bred

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!”