Bachelor Father

Get a grip, Lonetree. Anyone who knew him would get a kick out of seeing him rattled, he thought. Among the other rangers, he was famous for never losing his cool. He’d faced bears, rattlers, even escaped convicts with calm detachment. But he’d never faced a situation like this one, and he had a feeling it was going to take every ounce of courage he could dredge up.

CHAPTER THREE

KATHERINE WATCHED the windshield wipers slap back and forth while she thought about what she’d done, running after Zeke like that. She’d have a tough time explaining herself to Naomi. She could just hear her godmother—He was ready to give up all parental rights and you talked him out of it? Where was your brain, girl?

Her brain had very little to do with it. She’d been operating on instinct, and right now her instincts told her this was right, for the three of them to be heading down the road together in the rain. Zeke had left the main highway to follow a narrow two-lane road with little traffic on it. Safe in the truck cab with Zeke, she felt cozy, almost peaceful. She hadn’t felt that way for a long time, maybe not since the night she’d spent with him in his tent.

She glanced at Zeke and realized she’d never seen him at the wheel of a vehicle. He looked good there—competent and sexy. The day after her tumble into the river, they’d hiked to a ranger station, and another park service employee had offered to take her back to the Old Faithful Inn so Zeke could return to his campsite and get on with the solitary retreat she’d ruined.

And here she was again, invading his privacy. But for Amanda’s sake, she’d brave it out and hope he’d be willing to accept some part in his daughter’s life.

As if he felt her attention on him, he turned his head. “Should you check her? She seems too quiet.”

“I’m sure she’s asleep. She loves riding.” His comment made her smile. For the first month or so of caring for Amanda she’d had the same fears. She used to wake up twenty times a night and make sure the baby was still breathing. “Sometimes when she’s fussy I bundle her up in her car seat, go outside and hail a cab, just so I can settle her down. It’s worth the cost of a twenty-minute ride around town.”

“You don’t own a car?”

“Nope. Cabs are handier when you’re in Manhattan. I don’t live that far from the office. A car would be more of a nuisance than an advantage.”

He frowned. “But don’t you ever have the urge to get away from the city?”

“Yeah. That’s why I came to Yellowstone last summer.”

“Couldn’t you have found someplace closer?”

“Well, sure. My parents and I used to camp in the Adirondacks when I was a kid, but that seemed too...tame. Besides, I’d been hearing about Yellowstone all my life.”

“So you decided to tackle it alone.”

“I like a challenge.”

His jaw tightened. “I’d say you have one now, with your job and the baby.”

And your stubbornness, she wanted to add, but didn’t.

“And speaking of your job, what’s Naomi Rutledge’s stake in all this?” he asked.

Katherine decided that revealing Naomi as her godmother would only confuse the issue, so she stuck to the job situation. “She’s offered to let me take over the magazine when she retires. Understandably she’d like my personal life to be under control before she does that.”

He stared out at the rain-swept landscape. “That should be a no-brainer. I’ll bow out of your life and Amanda’s, like I said back at the lodge. Case closed.”

“I think that’s a mistake.” She took note that his jaw now seemed carved in granite. He didn’t appear to be the kind of man who would change his mind easily once it was made up. He’d given her Naomi’s preferred response twice in a row, and she was no more ready to accept his decision than she had been the first time. But she wasn’t sure she could explain why.

“I don’t get it, Katherine.”

A thrill ran through her. It was the first time he’d used her name since they’d met at the lodge, and the sound of it made a definite impact on her, reminding her of the way he’d said her name while they’d made love. “I’m not sure I get it, either,” she said, picking at a loose thread in the stitching of the armrest. But she was beginning to suspect her behavior wasn’t all motivated by Amanda’s welfare. She’d been intrigued with Zeke a year ago. She still was. She’d told him the truth about liking challenges, and he certainly presented a huge one.

“Why didn’t you contact me when you found out you were pregnant?”

At last—an easy question, one she’d been meaning to answer for him right away, but the sensual vibrations between them kept sidetracking her. “I had a very difficult time during the pregnancy,” she said, glancing up. “The doctor said I was very likely to miscarry.”

“All the more reason to—”

“I didn’t see it that way. You were concerned about birth control that night, so I didn’t think you’d welcome the idea that I was pregnant. There was no point in getting you involved unless there really would be a baby. I wasn’t sure of that until the minute she was born.”

His voice was tight. “That was two months ago. Did you forget to pay your phone bill? Or maybe you ran out of stamps. That can happen.”

“I couldn’t picture having a conversation about this over the phone. And a letter seemed even worse.” She turned in her seat to look at him squarely. “Look, we got caught by a weird set of circumstances. I’ve tried to do what I thought was best. Maybe I’ve made some mistakes, but I—”

A loud bang interrupted her sentence and the truck lurched. Automatically she swiveled toward the back seat as Amanda started to cry and Zeke started to swear.

He eased the truck to the side of the road. “Sit tight. We have a blowout.” He opened his door and cool rain blew in.

“Do you have a spare?”

“I think that was the spare that just blew.” He climbed down and slammed the door.

Her heartbeat quickened. No spare. Before having Amanda, she wouldn’t have been all that concerned, even if they’d had to walk back to civilization in the rain. But now she couldn’t afford to be stranded.

Unbuckling her seat belt, she turned around and unfastened Amanda from her car seat to bring her up to the front. The baby wailed pitifully, her face scrunched up and her arms waving in the air. Katherine glanced at her watch and decided that the loud noise wasn’t the only thing that had upset Amanda. She was due for some chow.

* * *

RAIN SOAKED ZEKE’S flannel shirt as he gazed at the hole in the sidewall of the left front tire and swore some more. He hardly ever drove the truck because he used park service vehicles when he was on duty. This afternoon when he’d started for the lodge, he’d remembered he hadn’t fixed the flat after a nail had punctured it a couple of months ago, but it was too late to worry about it then.

He calculated the distance back to the lodge versus the distance to his little cabin. The cabin was closer. If he drove slowly, he might make it without damaging the rim too badly. Then he could call somebody from there.

Of course, that meant dragging Katherine and the baby to his cabin. He hadn’t intended to do that, even though he’d been driving in that direction. He just happened to like this road, which was one of the reasons he’d decided to buy a couple of acres out here and put up a small log house. He had no neighbors within several miles, but he did have a phone, running water and electricity. Most of the time.

With one last disgusted look at the tire, he climbed back in the truck. “I think—”

“Close the door gently if you can, so you don’t startle her.”

He glanced at Katherine and caught his breath. Her green blouse was unfastened, although she’d modestly pulled it around her so that her breast barely showed. Somehow that made the whole picture more erotic to Zeke. Rain drummed on the roof of the cab, but he could still hear the soft sucking noises Amanda made while she nursed.

He pulled the door closed as best he could, knowing he’d have to open it and slam it again before they started driving. Then he stared straight ahead and tried to concentrate on following the path of an individual raindrop as it slid down the windshield.

He seemed to be having trouble getting enough air, and he cracked his window open a little.

A woman nursing her child was no big deal, he told himself. He lived among wild animals who raised their young that way, and this was the very same activity. Except it wasn’t even close. A year ago he’d desperately wanted this woman, and she’d desperately wanted him. Now the result of their mating that night lay in her arms, the tiny mouth fastened to her breast. God help him, he wanted this woman still.

“Is the tire done for?” she asked quietly.

“Pretty much.” He cleared the hoarseness from his throat and hoped she hadn’t attached any significance to his husky tone of voice. He didn’t want her to know how she affected him.

“Maybe somebody will come along.”

“That’s not too likely.” He took a deep breath and let it out. He wanted to touch her, to cradle her breasts in both hands as he once had, to taste her. “Not many people use this road, and this isn’t a good day for sightseeing.”