The Baby Bargain

Sean shoved him hard with both hands. “Zoe doesn’t want an abortion, and if she doesn’t want one, I don’t want one!”

Rafe rocked back on his heels, then rocked forward, looming over the kid. How do you like that? Sixty pounds lighter, yet the kid was going toe to toe with him. Guts. Still, “Easy for you to say, twerp. You won’t be around to pick up the pieces.”

“I will! If Zoe needs me, I’ll be there. I’ll get a job and take care of her. I’ll—I’ll—”

“At fourteen?” Rafe jeered incredulously, shaking his head—and saw the blow coming from the corner of his eye, a roundhouse swing. His head tipped reflexively to the right, and the blow whistled past his ear. “Hey!”

Sean growled wordlessly and took another shot. Rafe caught it on his palm and swept it aside. “Back off!”

They circled, Rafe with open hands up and out, dimly aware of the women shrieking from outside the whirlwind of Sean’s flailing fists. Duck in and put a shoulder into his stomach, Rafe told himself. He could toss the kid up over his shoulder, trundle him down to the stream that gurgled beyond the truck. Dump him in to cool off.

Another blow sailed in, and he took it on his raised forearm as he stepped to one side. Somebody should have taught this kid to hit. Anyone really wanting to hurt him could have done so with ease.

“Rafe, please, he’s just a child!” Dana cried, and that decided him. Sean was a child—acting as a man. And standing by his woman, as foolishly touching as that might seem to an adult. And though apparently Dana didn’t understand, the masculine code required that you honor your opponent’s courage, no matter how incompetently displayed. So don’t demean him. Treat him as I would a man. Sean had earned that courtesy with his spunk. The kid came in grunting and slugging. Rafe sighed inwardly, chose his shot and, pulling his punch to the limit of credibility, hit the kid as lightly as he could.

Sean wobbled two steps backward and sat—and Rafe found himself nose to nose with Dana Kershaw. “You…big…bully!” She smacked her hands against his chest. “Stop it!”

Just what he’d been trying to do.

She smacked him again. “What kind of a man picks on a child?”

“Be quiet, Dana.” He’d been showing his respect, man to man. Now she was ruining his gesture—would humiliate the kid, if she didn’t hush up. “He’ll be fine.” Learning to take his knocks—that was how a boy became a man. And the kid wasn’t sniveling, Rafe noted with approval, glancing over her head. He was staggering to his feet with Zoe’s help…brushing her aside. Crap, was he coming for more?

Fearful the kid might wade in all over again, Rafe allowed Dana to back him down the road. “Take it easy,” he warned her, as she shoved him again. He caught her slender wrists and pinned her hands against his heart, scowling down at her. “Ea-sy!” Her pulse leaped beneath his fingertips, and he felt his own surge to meet it. He threw her hands hastily aside and retreated.

“Me, easy?” she cried, and turned up her palms in an appeal to the heavens.

Behind her, Zoe had caught the kid in a bear hug and was holding him back. Tears streaming, she glared over his shoulder. “I’m so ashamed of you, Daddy!”

Ashamed of me?! Now that punch landed—knocked him speechless. All those years of being his daughter’s hero, to be shattered like this? Rafe felt the first stab of pain, then rage overwhelmed it like a breaking black wave. Rage felt much better. “Get in the truck! Now!”

If he’d lost her affection, still she had a sixteen-year habit of obedience. She murmured something in Sean’s ear, then let him go.

“Zoe!” he called hoarsely after her. But head down, she marched off to Rafe’s truck, scrambled in and slammed the door mightily.

A moment later, a baby’s startled wail split the night.

“Petra!” Dana homed in on the sound, then brushed past Rafe without a glance.

The sobs gained volume and heartache, mixed with the crooning cries of two sympathetic women.

Damn it all to hell and back again! All he’d wanted tonight was to get laid. Rafe turned heavily to glare at Sean Kershaw. “Nice sound, huh? They do that for the first twelve months without a break to draw breath, except when they’re puking or pooping. Think about it.”

Halfway to his truck, he met Dana returning, arms full of the child and her bulky car seat. He opened his mouth to offer help, then shut it, knowing her answer already. Their eyes locked, held as they neared. She tipped up her chin and swept proudly past him, her baby’s hiccuping sobs trailing back on the cold night air.

Rafe sighed, then stood beside his truck till she’d started hers, completed her turn and headed for home. He followed at a wary distance.

CHAPTER FIVE

DANA WOULD HAVE LOVED to pull a pillow over her head and sleep in the next morning—she’d tossed and turned most of the night, worrying about Sean. But the demands of a dude ranch, on top of the more strident demands of a baby who rose with the sun, had her stumbling from her bed at the usual hour.

In spite of her worries, morning flew by in a rush—diapering, nursing and dressing Petra, then rushing downstairs to cook a hearty breakfast for Tim, the dude wrangler. His customary Sunday hangover had rendered him even surlier and more silent than usual, she noted with despair. This time he hadn’t bothered to shave. And he was scheduled to take all her dudes into the high country for an all-day trail ride, leaving at ten. So much for the cheerful, dashing trail boss of her guests’ fantasies—a Disneyland cowpoke on a rearing steed, who’d spin thrilling yarns, dispense homespun cowboy wisdom, whisk them off on the Wild West adventure of a lifetime. Dana supposed the larger, sleeker, full-service guest ranches could afford to employ such entertainers, but the Ribbon R was a minimalist outfit, at minimalist prices. Her dudes would have to make do with a shambling, groaning, tobacco-chewing misanthrope, who at least wouldn’t lose them in the back hills. She hoped.

Packing box lunches for the ride, at last she had a moment to think about Sean. When she’d come downstairs, a dirty plate on the counter and a tumbler with a puddle of milk in its bottom told her he’d preceded her.

He’d yet to return.

Gone off on his mountain bike? She hoped not. She hadn’t had the heart, last night, to mete out a punishment for his driving escapade. It would have seemed one blow too many, after Zoe’s announcement and Rafe Montana’s brutality. So she’d told him they would discuss his behavior—discuss everything—this morning.

Sean-fashion, he’d given her his silent answer. Oh, yeah? Catch me first.

Sean, Sean, what am I going to do with you? He had been so unhappy before—and now this? Every time she thought things were as hard as they could be, they got a little harder. She bit down on her lip and finished wrapping the sandwiches, while Petra pulled at her pants leg and whined.

Once she’d seen Tim and his dudes on their way up through the home pasture, she prepped for the evening barbecue—got the steaks marinating, the baked beans simmering, the potato salad made. While Petra dragged out the contents of her special kitchen cabinet—the only one without a baby-proof latch—and sat fitting lids onto aluminum pots with scowling concentration, then lifting them off again with shrieks of glee, Dana made bread. Enough dough for this week’s evening meals, plus enough to freeze for the next. Kneading it, she leaned into each stroke, her head drooping tiredly.

Sean still had not returned. Hanging out in the barn, or perhaps gone hiking up into the mountains? He rarely rode, though Peter had given him a surefooted, spunky little paint named Guapo when they’d first arrived. They’d all ridden that first fall, the three of them, laughing and awed by the beauty of their new home. Sean had liked her back then. They’d been able to talk about anything and everything. But now…

We’ll have to. This couldn’t be shoved under the rug, as Sean preferred to do. This had to be faced. Responsibility acknowledged.

And then?

That depended on what Zoe decided to do, she supposed. What Rafe Montana decides, she corrected herself, grimacing. The bully. But there was no way to deny that he was the dominant personality here, the one who would call the shots. He would shape his daughter’s future, and therefore Sean’s. Should I find a lawyer? Someone to advise her stepson on his paternal rights and responsibilities? The money made her hesitate. She’d decided this morning that she’d wait to see what Montana did next, but she wasn’t certain this was the wise approach.

Petra dropped a pot lid with a clang that made Dana jump. “Petra, what a noisy girl! You’re going to be a drummer someday?” Please, anything but!

“Ga,” the baby chortled, then smile gave way to frown. She rolled over onto all fours and crawled purposefully toward her mother.

“About that time, is it?” Dana wiped a forearm over her brow, brushing back her hair. “Can you wait a minute, sweetheart?” She patted the dough into balls, placed them in greased ceramic bowls. “Yes, sweetie, I know. Just a minute more. Be patient.” After covering each bowl with a clean cloth, she set the dough to rise on the warming shelf above the stove. “There.” She scooped up her tearful daughter and blew into her neck till Petra giggled. “See, silly girl? I didn’t forget you.”

She checked her diaper, then carried her out to the back deck and their favorite spot: a porch swing that hung under an arbor of climbing pink roses and honeysuckle. Sinking into one cushioned corner, she kicked off her shoes, dragged a pillow onto her lap, propped one arm and her baby against one bent knee while she left the other foot on the ground to rock them. “Lunchtime,” she agreed, as Petra patted her blouse. And no one around for miles, she assured herself, looking uphill as she unbuttoned. Just bird-song, the fragrance of sun-warmed roses, a precious moment of peace…the delicious tingle as the milk let down in her breasts…the rhythmic suck of warm lips drawing her down into sleepy pleasure.

Sometime later, a ripple of consciousness disturbed her waking dream. Dana’s eyes drifted half open, focused drowsily on a long pair of jeans-clad legs. Idly she rode them upward, up past lean hips, a flat stomach, a wide chest in a snap-front western shirt that flared to wider shoulders…up a strong brown throat to the startled face of Rafe Montana. His lips had parted in surprise; his eyes were narrowed slits of sapphire in his suntanned face. She felt her own face turning a color to rival the roses.

“Pardon me, ma’am!” He wheeled and walked back down the steps to the ground, then stopped there, facing away. “Didn’t meant to intrude like that. I…”

The liquid pleasure of the moment seemed to flow over his form like honey, taking him in, making him a part of the mountains, the sunshine, the fragrance, her love for her daughter. He had all the power and grace of a bull elk who had suddenly walked into her world. It took an effort to remember that she disliked him—that he’d hit Sean last night, something she’d never forgive. “Of course.” She supposed he’d tried the front door, and receiving no answer to his knock, this time hadn’t barged through, but had walked around to the back.

“If you could wait a minute?” Gently she detached Petra and moved her to her other breast.

“Sure.” He glanced awkwardly down at his boots, then he stepped backward and sat on the top step of the deck, careful not to look behind.

She felt oddly powerful and more than a little smug at being able to abash a man like this with a simple, earthy act. Women’s magic.

Sleepy, swirling magic, which bound all it touched, enchantress as well as enchanted. Petra’s lips suckled at her nipple and the enchantment spread—a golden wire drawn from her breasts to her womb, then drawn tighter in soft, rhythmic tugs that her hips yearned to answer. The sensation spooled out to include the man, as if he were the cause, the one who held the gilded wire, the one who tugged, instead of an unknowing bystander. Dana closed her eyes and shuddered. She’d been dead to her own body for so long—just a mother, a widow. How odd for it to awaken just now.

Means nothing, she told herself. I don’t even like him. He hurt Sean.

He was overwhelmingly male and perhaps “like” had nothing to do with instinct. Simply by being, he reminded her she was female. A woman without a mate—not a reminder for which she was grateful.