A Gift For Baby

He smiled at her. “I don’t imagine it will be for longer than three or four weeks at the most.”

“Oh, Daddy.”

He put an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer. “Sugar, I hate to be dictatorial, but you’ve got to do this. If you don’t, I won’t be able to testify, and I might have to leave the country.”

She looked at him sideways. He sounded quite sincere and she truly wanted to believe him. He’d lied to her before, lied in ways that had cut into their relationship and almost ruined it. But that was in the past. She’d dealt with it, accepted that he was what he was, and moved on. He was her father. She loved him. And there was absolutely no reason she could think of that he would be hiding anything from her. She decided he had to be telling the truth. This time.

There was nothing left to do but agree. So here she was, and the desert that had once looked magically mysterious now looked hypnotically tedious.

The wind tugged at her scarf as she made the turn onto the ranch roads. Ahead she saw the ranch house, a large, imposing building atop a gentle hill.

“Home sweet home,” she murmured to herself sardonically as she pulled up before the entryway. She jumped out of the car and turned to wave as the gray sedan came sliding into the yard. But before the men reached her, she’d opened the boot of her car and pulled out her packages and was starting up the steps into the house.

“With all due respect, you drive too darn fast, Miss Kingston,” one of them called to her.

She waved again, laughing, and took the steps two at a time. “Jen?” she called, knowing the house should be empty except for the household staff.

Dressed in the pale blue uniform all the house help wore, Jen came clattering down the stairs, ebony hair flying behind her. “Did you get it?” she cried, her dark eyes sparkling.

“Shh!” Hailey glanced at the back of the hall and put her finger to her lips. “Yes, I got it. Let’s go and try it on.”

Jen gave her a grin, snatched a couple of her bags from her and whirled. “Great,” she said, leading the way back up the stairs. “I can hardly wait to see the transformation.”

Hailey followed a bit more slowly. She had struck up something of a friendship with the younger woman who was working as a housekeeper’s assistant to pay her way through the nearby college. Together they had hatched a plot to get Hailey out of the house for an evening. The packages she’d picked up m town were the first step. The two of them made their way into the bedroom at the corner of the house and carefully closed the door.

“Here goes nothing,” Hailey breathed to herself as she pulled open one of her parcels, a round box, and extracted a dark wig styled in a pixieish cut, holding it up. “Me as an Italian. What do you think?”

“It’s darling,” Jen cried, fingering the silky hair. “But what are you going to do with all that blond stuff you’ve got on the top of your head?”

“You’ll see,” Hailey promised lightly, dropping down before her mirror and deftly pulling strands of her own hair into coils that she expertly pinned to her scalp. Taking the wig in both hands, she carefully tugged it down over the pinned tresses.

“Gosh.” Jen shook her head in awe. “Wow, that makes all the difference, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t have recognized you.”

Hailey nodded, looking at her reflection speculatively. “That’s the point, isn’t it?” she murmured. But it was true. Her thick, gorgeous blond hair had always been her trademark. With the black hair in a pixie cut, she looked like a completely different person. For just a moment, she wondered if it was going to make her act differently, too. “Wild?” she mused to herself. “Daring?”

“It’s going to be fun tonight,” Jen promised. “You’re sure you want to do it?”

“Absolutely.” Hailey smiled at her in the mirror, her eyes dancing with anticipation. “If I can get away from my everpresent shadows. They pride themselves on watching every move I make. It is getting really old.”

Jen nodded her sympathy. “We’ll fool them, don’t worry. I got a uniform for you. It’s hanging in your closet. It should fit.”

“Oh, thanks, Jen.” She smiled at the girl. “You’re really going to a lot of trouble just to help me get a night out.”

Jen smiled back warmly. “It’s my pleasure, believe me. Those two cops have been driving us all crazy, ordering us around like we were their servants or something. If we can put this over on Tweedledum and Tweedledummer, it’ll be worth every minute.”

Hailey laughed. “Okay. Here’s the game plan. At dinner, I’m going to whine and howl about the horrible headache I’ve suddenly come down with. And when I go up to bed, I’m going to warn everyone not to bother me until morning on pain of death.”

“Then you’ll slip into the wig and uniform and meet me in the kitchen at eight. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Jen started for the door, and Hailey called after her.

“Jen…thank you again. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem,” the younger woman said, laughing as she turned and left the room.

“No problem,” Hailey echoed, pulling off the wig and looking at herself in the mirror. Of course not. What could go wrong?

Two (#ulink_b1eff122-5e1e-5df7-8af8-71ae9f060845)

With a long afternoon still stretching out before her, Hailey decided to get out her easel and do some sketching. Her pencil drawings were usually quick and small, done on a sketch pad. But this time she was in the mood for something grander, something huge and panoramic, just like this red and gold desert she’d been staring at for three weeks now. So she would need her easel.

It was old-fashioned and heavy, made of wood and hard to carry. She managed to get it into the back of her car by herself, and then, once she’d driven out and found an area she liked, managed to get it out of the car and set it up. But the thought of carrying the heavy easel, as well as all her painting and drawing supplies to the hill where she wanted to set up shop, was daunting.

She looked out toward where her faithful bodyguards had pulled over to keep an eye on her. They seldom got close, but they were always there, and it was darn annoying. She could call them to come help her, she supposed. But she didn’t want to do that. That would be similar to admitting she needed them around. And she would never admit that.

She glanced at the car again and saw that they were both getting out. Frowning, she was about to call to them, to protest, but they turned and began to walk toward the high side of the stream. They were moving away, not closer, and she sighed with relief as they melted into the brush and were soon lost from sight. They’d been on sketching expeditions with her before and they obviously expected a long, boring wait, so had hatched a plan with something better to do. She might almost be able to pretend they weren’t with her.

Turning back, she examined her surroundings with a practiced eye. The place was the greenest she’d found in the area. The stream running through it nourished a stand of cottonwoods at the base of the hill. The wind was ruffling the leaves, turning the light sides to shimmer in the afternoon sun, when she heard the hoofbeats. A rider was coming.

Leaving her things in a heap, she walked quickly back to the road, ready to hail whoever it might be. It was bound to be a worker on the ranch. Surely he would help her. Shading her eyes with her hand, she watched him approach.

Mitch pulled the horse to a stop easily and looked down at her. Even here in the middle of nowhere, with a bead of sweat rolling down her temple, she looked gorgeous. Her blond hair tumbled about her shoulders and framed her face the way an expensive fur might have. Her green eyes seemed to glitter in the sun, and her perfect skin was slightly flushed.

Everything in him was signaling danger, and he knew the best thing he could do was get out of this situation as quickly as possible. He wasn’t sure why she’d flagged him down, but whatever she wanted, he was going to have to avoid it. That meant he would have to be rude. But that didn’t really matter. He didn’t want to get closer to her, anyway. Being rude might be the best ploy he had going for him.

“Hi, you work here, don’t you?” she said with a friendly gesture. “I wonder, could you take a moment to help me, please? I’ve got some things I want to move, and it’s awkward trying to do it on my own, so if you—”

“Sorry, lady,” he said coolly, looking toward the horizon. “This is a working ranch. I work the cattle. I’m not trained in guest relations. Get somebody from the house to do it for you.”

Her chin went up and her gaze hardened perceptibly. His reaction was unexpected, but she wasn’t thrown by it. She’d dealt with recalcitrant personnel before.

For just a moment, she took his measure. His boots were scuffed and worn, and his jeans were snug and almost silver from wear. He certainly looked like a working cowboy. She glanced at his worn, callused hands and his broad shoulders. His face was tanned so dark, his blue eyes seemed startlingly bright. He looked authentic, all right. The only aspect that gave her pause—and she thought she’d noticed it on this man before—was the look in his eyes. There was something too sharp there, something too knowing. Still he claimed to be a cowboy, and a cowboy would suit her fine right now.

“I’m not asking you as an employee, or a house worker, or whatever,” she told him, waving a hand in the air. “I’m asking you as a person—one human being to another. Simple request. Nothing complicated.”

The determination in her voice was matched by the set of her jaw, and he noted it with something halfway between amusement and annoyance. She was used to ordering people around, wasn’t she? Well, that was just too bad. He glanced at his watch, making a show of it and starting to gather the reins together to make his escape. “I’m late. I’m due at the branding shed.”

Her eyes blazed. Reaching out, she grabbed hold of the bridle, effectively thwarting his plans to leave immediately. “I could write you a note,” she offered tartly. “You could take it to your foreman. Maybe then he would excuse your tardiness.”

He looked down at her and she glared back. “Will you please help me?” she asked crisply.

But he was just as stubborn. His jaw could set, too, and his eyes were even colder. “I’m sorry,” he said firmly. “I have other things to do.”

She gazed at him, not with anger but with speculation. There it was again, that element in him that looked untamed in a way that had nothing to do with sagebrush and desert winds. Something about this cowboy was annoying her, even beyond his refusal to jump down and help her. She realized now she’d seen him before, working around the corral, and even in town that morning. She’d noticed it then, too. There was a measure of contempt in that look he was giving her. Contempt. Now she was even more annoyed. How dare he? People just didn’t look at her that way. Especially men.

“Look,” she insisted. “I’m not asking you to spend the afternoon with me. I’m merely appealing for help in carrying my easel and supplies up to the top of that hill. I realize this sort of thing is far, far below punching cows, but think of it as charity work, and maybe it will make you feel saintly.”