Three Kids And A Cowboy

“Apparently.”

She took her hands off the desk and straightened. “Guess they also figured when I did call the ranch there’d be a familiar voice on the line to tell me where they’d gone. Right?”

Brodie cocked his head. A lock of blond hair swung onto his forehead.

Her fingertips burned to touch that hair. She squeezed her eyes shut to block it and him from her sight as she muttered, “I really goofed up big this time. I can’t think how this homecoming could have gotten anymore awkward or chaotic, not by any stretch of the imagination.”

A tiny rap came at the office door. “Daddy, it’s Katie. Come quick, the so-so circus lady is here!”

“You obviously need to stretch your imagination a little further, Miranda,” Brodie muttered.

He rubbed one hand over his face and tried to shoo away the fog that Miranda’s physical nearness created in him. As his callused palm dragged over his nose and down to his jaw, he slowly opened his eyes to face Miranda’s reaction!

“Daddy?” Miranda’s voice registered disbelief above the constant knocking at the door.

Yes, Daddy, he thought. It still startled him a bit to be called that. He wasn’t certain when it had started since Katie’s pronunciation of Brodie had teetered dangerously close to the “D” word from the beginning. Now that the child had slipped into the easy habit, he didn’t have the heart to correct her. Brodie sighed, shook his head, then strode from behind the desk.

As he passed her, Miranda tugged at his shirtsleeve and asked again, “Daddy?”

He moved forward so that his shirt slipped from between her fingers. Without looking at Miranda, he yanked open the door to reveal Katie, draped in a big, old robe, her hair soap-free but damp, standing barefoot in the doorway.

“The so-so circus lady is here.”

“That’s social service, darlin’, and I heard you the first time.” In the excitement of Miranda’s arrival, he had forgotten all about the social-service visit scheduled for today.

What was he going to do? This was his chance to make a lasting impression as a potential parent for the three kids who needed him so desperately, the kids he had come to care about enough to fight tooth and nail for them. He couldn’t let them down.

Their welfare had to take precedence over his own situation. Somehow he had to get Miranda out and then explain away the spilled groceries, the wet carpet, not to mention the fact that they hadn’t gotten Katie dressed yet….

He leaned down to the child and placed one hand on her head, “It’s okay, Katie. Tell Crispy to get her some coffee, and I’ll be right there.”

“Okeydokey, Daddy.” She pivoted on her heel, kicked the long robe out behind her, then skipped off down the hall.

“She did say Daddy,” Miranda murmured.

“Guess it’s my turn to say ‘surprise,’ huh?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Unfortunately, I don’t have time for that, or for any more conversation. I’ve got to get out there and convince a pinched-faced social-service lady, who didn’t really even want me to take these kids into emergency foster care, that I should be allowed to adopt them.”

“Adopt?” Her voice sounded breathy—as if she’d just taken a sucker punch to the gut.

He inhaled the delicate scent of her perfume and held it while a thousand things raced through his mind. He thought of how to explain it all to her, of how to tell her of Travis and Donna’s death. He wondered if this news would change anything, and he wondered how he could walk out of this room, knowing she might well decide to run off again. Finally he thought of the children, and he exhaled slowly.

“Miranda, I…” He glanced out into the airy hallway and then back to Miranda. “I have to go.”

She pressed her full lips together. A mist softened the green of her eyes to a gleaming jade. She shook back her rich brown hair and dipped her head to the open door. “We’ll talk later.”

“Your folks’ new number is in the address book on top of my desk.” He put one hand on her arm. The urge raged in him to pull her close and fold her into an embrace that would comfort them both. Instead, he turned and headed down the hall. No time for personal problems today.

No time? he thought as his boots pounded the floorboards of the hall. Or no guts?

He might have considered it further if, just before he reached the end of the hallway, three young ragamuffins hadn’t spun around the corner and smacked straight into his legs.

“We saw her, Brodie,” Grace said, her eyebrows arched high and her mouth pulled down in an exaggerated expression. “It’s Mrs. Beetle.”

Grace stretched out the woman’s name so that it seemed to have four too many es in it. Brodie had to smile at that.

“Well, we suspected Mrs. Beetle might stay on the case, you know,” he told her as he slowly lowered himself to the children’s eye level, knowing it was up to him to put a good face on things. Too bad he didn’t feel as positive as he sounded when he said, “We’ll just have to make the best of it.”

From the doorway, Miranda couldn’t help watching the scene being played out a few feet away. Tall, brawny Brodie hunkered down to talk to three children. Children with hair just slightly paler than his own and eyes almost as blue. If she’d seen them together on the street, she might never have guessed the kids weren’t his by blood.

An icy chill snaked through her, and she fisted her hand over her stomach, even as she heard the nearby conversation continue.

“How can we make the best of it?” the older girl whined. “Mrs. Beetle doesn’t like us.”

Brodie’s calm expression never wavered. “Don’t be silly, Grace. What’s not to like about three adorable kids like you?”

“I was trying to be nice,” Grace said, her eyes rolled heavenward. “What I really meant was, she doesn’t like you.”

“And she doesn’t like us living with you,” the boy added solemnly. “She says we have abandonment issues.”

What a big word for such a little boy, Miranda thought. Still, he said it as if he’d heard it often before. As if he fully understood its ramifications. The idea tugged at her already tender heart.

“She says,” the boy went on, “that they placed us with the Stones on account of they had a good environment.”

Brodie’s face went grim. He lowered his head and didn’t say a thing.

The smallest girl tapped Brodie on the shoulder. “Don’t you have a good varmint, Daddy?”

Brodie gave a soft snort of a chuckle. “This being a ranch, Katie, we got plenty of varmints.”

The children looked at him expectantly, needing more than Miranda suspected Brodie could give. They needed him to dig into his gut and give them emotional support about a situation that remained entirely out of his control. All it would take was a smile, or a look, or a touch that said, “We can tackle this together.” Experience told Miranda that Brodie couldn’t—or wouldn’t—be able to do it.

Brodie glanced at the floor. He folded his hands together. His great shoulders lifted, then fell, and slowly he raised his head.

Miranda almost gasped aloud at the light that shone in the man’s once cool blue eyes. A teasing tenderness played on his smiling lips as he reached out and gingerly brushed the back of his hand along Katie’s pink cheek. “Don’t tell anybody this, darlin’—” He leaned in, and the children copied his action, creating a circle of blond heads “—but I half think Mr. Crispy is part varmint himself.”

A peal of giggles wafted down the hall. Brodie’s laughter providing a resonant undertone. He did it, Miranda marveled. He gave a little of himself to make those kids feel better. He didn’t just tell them that he’d take care of it and storm off to meet the social worker.

“The word is environment, anyway, Katie,” the boy they called Bubba said after the laughter faded. “Mrs. Beetle says she’d rather see us sent to separate homes than be together in a place that didn’t have the proper environment.”

Katie turned her big eyes on the boy. “What does that mean?”

Brodie dropped his gaze, and his shoulders slumped as if they were suddenly carrying the weight of the world. “It means she doubts if Crispy and I are enough to take care of you three. It means she thinks we need…”

“A mom,” Bubba concluded quietly.

“That’s not necessarily so, Bubba.” Brodie looked the boy in the eye, his gaze and tone upbeat, not contradictory. “Mrs. Beetle does think you belong in a house with two parents, but that’s not the law, it’s just Mrs. Beetle’s recommendation.”

“But what she says counts with the courts,” Bubba reminded them all, like a seasoned veteran of the system. “And I heard her say, Brodie, that she’s talked to folks around town, and unless you can prove you aren’t a grouchy old hermit like they all say, she’ll have us out of here so fast it’ll make our heads spin.”