Operation Cowboy Daddy

Tony stared down at Joey. “She told me to protect him from evil.”

“Perhaps that evil is Amy herself,” Mary replied.

“Drugs are the real evil that destroys people’s lives,” Halena replied. “She brought him to you because she obviously knew she wasn’t fit to have him.”

“What am I going to do if she’s never fit, if she’s never in a place to be a healthy mother to him?” Tony looked at Halena and then at Mary.

“Then you have to be the rock in his life. No matter what your feelings were about having children before, you have to step up and embrace your fatherhood,” Halena said as she stood from the chair. “A good warrior takes care of what is his. You have the beautiful hair of a warrior, but the real question is do you have a warrior’s heart? Now, I’m going to bed.”

“Grandmother sometimes speaks in lectures,” Mary said once Halena had left the room.

“It’s okay,” he assured her. “So did Cass Holiday. She used to say even grown men needed a lecture from a woman every once in a while.”

“You miss her,” she said. She sank down in the chair Halena had vacated.

“We all do. She was the mother none of us had ever had.”

She wanted to ask him more questions. She’d like to know how he had come to be on the Holiday ranch, where his mother and father were and so much more. But he stood abruptly.

“It’s getting late. I should probably head back to the ranch. Do you want me to give Joey another bottle or change him or anything before I go?”

I’d like you to kiss me before you leave. The inappropriate thought stunned her as it unexpectedly leaped into her brain. She jumped up from the chair. “No, we’re fine. I can take it from here.”

She suddenly wanted him gone. He needed to take his gorgeous self away from her. She didn’t want to smell the clean male scent of him, she didn’t want to fall into the depths of his beautiful dark eyes.

This whole situation was crazy and something about Tony Nakni was making her more than just a little bit crazy. She walked him to the door, and when they reached it, he turned back to look at her. “Mary, I have to confess, I’m enjoying this time in your home.”

His gaze held a spark of something forbidden, a heat that beckoned her to move closer to him. She consciously took a step backward. “That’s nice. Good night, Tony. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Whatever she’d seen in his eyes vanished, making her wonder if she’d really seen it at all. “Okay, then I’ll see you tomorrow evening,” he replied.

She released a deep sigh and closed the door behind him. She leaned her head against the wood, momentarily overwhelmed with a piercing grief that felt new and raw even though she’d been through it before.

You will never be a wife and you’ll never be a mother. Never again will you enjoy being held in a man’s arms and being kissed until you’re mindless. You can’t even be a man’s hit-it-and-quit-it kind of fling.

The painful inner voice whispered the words to her, reminding her that even though there had been a hint of desire for her in Tony’s eyes, she would never be anything to him except a temporary babysitter. She would never be anything to any man.

She was simply too damaged to repair.

Chapter 4 (#ulink_25a6a595-dd26-564a-af11-6da263f01cc6)

Tony sat on the back of his horse and waved to Flint on horseback in the distance. Low clouds hung overhead and the cattle were uneasy, as if anticipating the threat of a late-afternoon autumn storm.

The weather and the animals mirrored Tony’s restless and unsettled mood. The continued absence of Amy made him unsettled and his intense attraction to Mary definitely made him restless.

He wanted to keep his distance from Joey, but the baby had the face and the happy disposition of a toothless angel. Still, the last thing he wanted to do was love the baby only for Amy to return and confess that Joey wasn’t his.

Tony didn’t want to bond with the baby and then have the real father come out of the shadows and take him away. Other than Cass being taken by a force of nature he hadn’t been able to control, he didn’t put himself in positions where he’d suffer a loss.

Tony was the one who always walked away. In the few adult relationships he’d had with women, when he sensed the expectations were getting too big, when he believed his heart or the woman’s heart might be getting involved, that was when he walked and never looked back.

Still, he’d wanted to kiss Mary the other night. He’d wanted to kiss her desperately, hungrily, but it hadn’t happened. He thought he’d sensed desire in her as the evening had wound down, but he wasn’t sure and he didn’t want to make a mistake where she was concerned. Last night he’d scooted out of her house before he could do anything foolish.

He needed her. He needed the arrangement he’d made with her and the last thing he wanted to do was screw up things. He gave the reins a flick and headed toward the stable.

It was time to call it a day here and head to Mary’s. Tonight was movie night and he planned to stop in town on the way to her place and pick up some microwave popcorn and candy. He was certain the gesture would please Halena. What he couldn’t figure out was why he even wanted to please the old woman.

When he rode into the stable, Brody was inside brushing down his horse. “Feels like it’s going to storm,” Tony said as he dismounted.

“We could use whatever rain we get.” Brody guided his horse into a stall and then turned to look at Tony. “We’ve missed you at dinner the last couple of nights.”

“I feel like I’m living a double life right now,” he admitted as he pulled off the saddle.

“By day a rough-and-tumble cowboy and by night a daddy in distress. Better you than me, my man,” Brody said with a dry laugh.

“It’s not all bad,” Tony replied. “Joey is a good baby, I’m eating great dinners and I’m in the company of a beautiful woman.”

“Right, and her crazy grandma.”

“Halena is definitely interesting,” Tony replied with a small laugh. “But this arrangement with Mary isn’t going to last forever. Tomorrow I’m contacting Dillon to see if he knows somebody in Oklahoma City who might be able to find Amy.”

“What are you going to do? Find her and then drag her back kicking and screaming and make her be a mother?” Brody’s eyes flashed darkly. “A woman who abandons her kid shouldn’t be found. You, of all people, should know that, Tony.”

“I just need to find out what’s going on in her life and if she needs help,” Tony replied.

“You can’t help somebody who doesn’t want your help.”

Tony sighed with a touch of frustration. “Are you trying to depress me on purpose?”

Brody gave him a wry grin. “You know me, I’m the hard-nosed realist in the group. And now I’m heading in for a shower and some dinner. I heard Cookie made his famous chili tonight.”

Tony watched the tall, dark-haired man leave the stables. Brody was the resident hard-ass and pessimist. In all the years that the men had worked for Cass, he’d never shared any details about what had driven him to be living on the streets at the age of fifteen.

Of course, Tony hadn’t shared many of the horrors of his own childhood with any of the other men. There were some things you just didn’t speak of, wicked things that had scarred the heart too deeply for mere words.

By five o’clock he was on his way to Mary’s place. He’d stopped and picked up the goodies for movie night and was surprised by how much he looked forward to the evening.

Mary greeted him at the door and looked lovelier than he’d ever seen her. Instead of her hair being braided down her back, it was a long curtain of darkness around her shoulders that made his fingers itch with the desire to lose themselves in it.

“I come bearing movie-night gifts,” he said and thrust the paper bag he carried into her arms. “There’s microwave popcorn with extra butter and chewy candy, crunchy chocolate and licorice.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” she replied and took the bag from him.

“It’s the very least I could do.” He followed her through the living room, where Joey was asleep in his bouncy chair, and into the kitchen. There was no sign of Halena.

Mary motioned him to sit at the table. “I guess you still haven’t heard anything from Amy.” She began to unload the bag.

“Nothing. I had intended to call Dillon this morning to see if he could help, but I didn’t get a chance. Both Mac and Sawyer woke up with stomach-flu symptoms and so we were a bit shorthanded for the daily chores.”