Cathleen Galitz - Wyoming Born and Bred

“Mom...” the child said in embarrassment before regaining his stage presence. “Keep ‘em up there where I can see ’em.”

His finger twitching on the trigger of his cap gun, the older boy informed Cameron with genuine Western resolve. “Around these parts, mister, a man stands by his word.”

What the woman’s ire had not evoked in Cameron, a child’s innocence had—a sense of guilt. Johnny, the woman had called him. Darned if the kid didn’t remind him some of himself at that age. Cameron fought the urge to run his hand through the lad’s shaggy, sandy-colored hair.

An image of another little boy standing in the shadows of the Wind River Mountains came back to him as clearly as if it had been recorded for posterity. Tears streaming down his face, the child had linked hands with his mother and vowed to someday “show ’em all that a Wade could never be beaten.” Almost two decades had passed since the seed of that particular promise had been planted. Time enough for Cameron to cultivate a way of returning home an unprecedented success, reclaim the land he considered his birthright, and turn it into one of the finest operations in the country.

There was more than just a little self-indulgent gratification involved in his game plan, and he knew it. Knew it and accepted it as part of why he was the man he was. The kind of man who wouldn’t let a couple of broken ribs in the semifinals of the National Rodeo Championship stop him from achieving his dream. The kind of man determined to overcome any obstacles in his path, no matter how large—or how small...

A funny ache settled in the pit of Cameron’s stomach as he studied the stubborn set of this little boy’s jaw. He wondered how he would have reacted at that age had someone come onto their property and commenced yelling at his mother.

“That’s all right, ma’am,” Cameron said, squatting on his haunches to meet the child at eye level. “I understand that a man’s got to do what it takes to protect what’s his.”

Johnny seemed to visibly grow an inch. Off to the side a couple of paces, his brother holstered his toy gun.

“You’re not really gonna break a promise you made to my mom, are you?” The look the boy gave him was so piercing that it almost made Cameron forget why he was here.

Almost.

Gruffly he reminded himself that he wasn’t here on a charity case. Having limited interaction with them, he didn’t even particularly like kids. His job here was not to rescue anyone, but rather to kick this pushy mommy and her brood off his ranch before she tried bamboozling him with those unusually long eyelashes. It suddenly occurred to Cameron that the best way to accomplish his purpose was not by butting heads with her. No matter that she had made a laughingstock of the Triple R, it was after all in his best interest to stick around awhile.

“All right, lady. You win.”

Cameron capitulated with a bona fide grin that activated a matching pair of dimples on either side of his mouth. He’d have to remember to thank Johnny later for providing him an opportunity to squeeze out of the corner he’d backed himself into.

“Whether your contract is legally binding or not, it’s lucky for you that I’m a man of my word. Looks like you’ve got yourselves a prisoner, boys.”

Wondering exactly what she’d let herself in for, Pat contemplated Cameron’s use of the word lucky. It was obvious that Johnny and Kirk were fascinated by the rough-and-tumble cowboy who looked like he’d just stepped off the set of their favorite television series. That phony line about him being a man of his word certainly sounded like a load of typical Hollywood hype to her. Pat’s cynical thoughts were interrupted by her youngest son’s most frequently uttered complaint.

“I’m hungry.”

“I just fed you,” she responded with a telltale sigh.

“But that was hours ago.”

It was at that precise moment that the baby decided she had been ignored long enough. Flinging her bottle out of the playpen, Amy protested her prolonged captivity with an ear-splitting wail intended to let anyone within a mile radius know of her unhappiness.

Cameron watched Pat’s eyelids drift shut in weariness. “Go get your sister, boys,” she instructed, “and I’ll get started on dinner.”

It wasn’t every day a real live cowboy landed on their front steps, and certainly not one who appeared willing to indulge them in a game of make-believe. Consequently, Johnny delegated the mundane chore to his little brother.

“Kirk, you go get Amy while I take the prisoner to the hoosegow.”

Pat graced Cameron with an amused smile. “You can take that to mean the house. Hopefully you and I will be able to have a calmer discussion about terms of your new job over dinner.”

Proud of the way she uttered the words as smoothly as if she were looking at the man’s résumé instead of the hard plane of his chest, she added as an afterthought, “That’ll give me a chance to thank you properly for saving me from breaking my neck earlier.”

Although Cameron could think of a variety of ways that this fiery little number could show her appreciation, he doubted whether any of them were what she had in mind. He tried bridling those wayward thoughts, but his lazy smile nonetheless made Pat remember for the first time in a very long while that she was a woman as well as a mother.

Chapter Two

Hoping to stop the boys’ squabble over who was supposed to be in charge of the baby, Cameron paused on his way to the “hoosegow” to emancipate the squalling toddler from her playpen. There was no benevolence in the act; he wanted only to put an end to the tot’s deafening howls for attention. It was little wonder her mother was crazy. In his opinion, anyone forced to endure that kind of nerve-grating caterwauling for more than one solid minute just might have a right to be.

To his complete and utter surprise, the baby stopped crying the instant he picked her up. Grateful for small miracles, Cameron mutely bore the fruit-stained kiss she planted upon his cheek as she nestled against his chest with a satisfied coo. Her actions only confirmed his theory that women were genetically programmed from birth to manipulate men. A femme fatale at this tender age would undoubtedly turn a mother prematurely gray and a father bald.

Which, by the way, made him wonder where the heck the man of the house was, anyway. Cameron was anxious to see what kind of elusive louse expected a woman to reshingle a house all by herself. He hadn’t noted a ring on Pat’s finger, but then again Cameron wouldn’t exactly expect her to wear one while doing such physically exacting work.

“For crying out loud!” he exclaimed, shaken from his errant thoughts by a growing wet spot down the front of his clean, new shirt.

One didn’t have to be Dr. Spock to discern the cause to be a leaky diaper. Loosening the baby’s sticky hands from around his neck, Cameron thrust her from him as if she were a package of nitroglycerin. As far as he was concerned, all children should come wrapped in cellophane with detailed warning labels attached.

“Keep on moving, mister,” Johnny directed him at the end of his plastic barrel.

Cameron gritted his teeth as he foisted the baby into Kirk’s thin arms. Not used to being bossed around by anyone, it was especially galling to bend his will to a ten-year-old’s. As he took his first faltering steps toward captivity, Cameron could have sworn that big goofy-looking bird in the corral winked at him.

Pat paused to watch her children interact with her new foreman. Considering his overtly hostile reaction to her, he was actually being a pretty darned good sport—or prisoner, rather—as Johnny directed him at gunpoint up the back steps. Pushed back at a rakish angle, Cameron’s black felt cowboy hat allowed his hair to fall carelessly across his forehead. Pat couldn’t help but notice how the dark blond color was shot through unevenly with streaks of sunshine. Suddenly he looked far less a broad-shouldered ruffian than a charming grown up version of her own two little imps.