Cathleen Galitz - Wyoming Born and Bred

Albeit an incredibly virile version.

Startled by the womanly reaction that curled her stomach up in a tight ball and sent handfuls of tingles racing through her body in a flash of heat, Pat was amazed that some stranger could waltz into her front yard, pluck her in midair like a pop fly and simultaneously make her wish she was wearing something soft and sexy. She thought she had buried those feelings with her husband, and it terrified her to think of them resurfacing. As a mother and businesswoman, she had more than enough to handle with a clear head, let alone one filled with the stuff and nonsense of romantic fairy tales.

Once upon a time, Pat had been young and naive enough to fall for such balderdash—and had spent the duration of her life paying for it. Ignoring her parents’ repeated warnings that Hadley Erhart’s pockets were as empty as his promises, she had eloped at eighteen, pledging herself one hundred percent to each of her husband’s successive ventures. Unfortunately, Hadley had a habit of expending more energy in the engineering of his next get-rich-quick scheme than in the arduous process of making any of them actually work. As his stern father-in-law commented at his funeral, Hadley was a whole lot better at starting things than finishing them.

It was less allegiance to her late husband’s memory than a commitment to abandon the gypsy life they had lived, hopping from one risky endeavor to another that kept Pat so stubbornly rooted to this place. The moment she’d laid eyes upon it, she had fallen in love with this run-down old ranch. It had as much character as the mountain range just outside her back door. Life in the shadows of those larger-than-life mountains was hard, no question about it But, isolated from the problems of more populous areas, the soil in Wyoming was good for growing happy, healthy children.

Even though the local naysayers were laying bets against her chances of surviving just one winter, Pat was determined to make a real home for her family right here. And if that meant having to humble herself by making dinner for some obnoxious cowboy who openly regretted saving her neck, then so be it.

“Make yourself comfortable,” she said, clearing off a spot for Cameron on the sofa and casting an embarrassed look at the abandoned toys cluttering the room, “while I get started on dinner.”

Short of declaring it a national disaster area, there was nothing she could do about the state of disarray of her house. Fixing supper was the priority of the moment. Simple fare like peanut butter sandwiches or macaroni and cheese generally sufficed for their evening meal, but one look at those long legs stretched across her living room floor sent that idea skittering away like a sunbeam upon rushing water. It was highly unlikely that a man as big as Cameron would be satisfied with her usual laissez-faire attitude toward food.

Pat would have liked to have impressed her new employee with her culinary talents. Unfortunately, the empty pantry was a reflection of her checkbook. She could only hope that her new foreman was handier with a hammer than Hadley had been. The last thing she needed around here was another helpless man with an appetite to match his impressive frame.

As if worried Cameron might attempt an escape, Johnny and Kirk took their places on either side of their prisoner on the couch and settled in for their favorite television program. It was an animated version of an old Western, underscored by the timeless theme of good versus bad. The last time he’d watched a show where the heroes and villains were so easily identified by the color of their hats, he’d been no older than the two boys who held him captive.

Cameron glanced uncomfortably at his own dark hat resting on the edge of the sofa. Like a dog trying to rid itself of a pesky flea, he tried shaking the feeling off. It wasn’t as if God had personally assigned him to this family’s troubles. He had more than enough of his own to handle. Cameron reminded himself that his primary objective was to ascertain just how cheaply he could buy back the old place. And do so before he became emotionally attached to the “squatters” who were presently attached to it. He knew that anything more would simply be tempting fate.

Out of the corner of his eye, Cameron caught a glimpse of the woman working in the kitchen. He snapped his head around in a double take. It looked like she was attacking an avocado with a hammer. A second look determined that it was in fact the biggest, greenest egg he had ever seen. While green eggs and ham might be a suitable meal for Dr. Seuss, the very thought made Cameron’s stomach quiver.

Ten minutes later he found himself seated before the world’s largest omelet. Milk, home-canned apples, and garden-fresh salad accompanied it. Ever vigilant, Johnny and Kirk flanked him on both sides. Amy sat beside her mother in a high chair that had been mended too often with great gobs of duct tape.

Despite the growling in his stomach, Cameron was about to beg off the main course when a familiar voice echoed through his mind. “People whose manners are absent probably are missing more than just their manners. No matter how old you get, son, or how important you might think you’ve become, just remember your mother raised you right and act accordingly.”

Rose Wade had been dead for almost fifteen years, but Cameron felt her presence in this house as surely as when she had taught him respect at her table. A lump formed in his throat. As inexplicably as a moth is drawn to a flame, Cameron’s memories had led him back home in search of that which had been stolen from him. Was it innocence, he wondered, or pride?

An obedient son, he complied with his mother’s ghostly command. Sectioning off a tiny piece of omelet, he took a hesitant bite. To his astonishment, it was quite tasty.

He lifted his gaze from his plate to discover Pat waiting for his reaction. She looked so anxious and so lovely sitting there that his heart swelled up in his chest like an overinflated balloon.

“Not bad,” he commented, taking another mouthful.

Cameron watched the hardness around her eyes soften. He was on the verge of encouraging her to use that dynamite smile of hers a little more often when a handful of egg drilled him square in the forehead.

“Amy!” her mother cried out in horror.

Undaunted, the tot launched her spoon into space where it did a double somersault before landing in the middle of their guest’s dinner plate.

The boys roared as Amy clapped her hands in glee.

“I’m so sorry,” Pat stammered, coming at Cameron with a napkin.

“No harm done, ma‘am,” he said, stopping his red-faced hostess in her tracks with a careless wave of the hand. “It isn’t the first time I’ve had egg on my face, and I doubt it’ll be the last.”

Pat was impressed by this gruff cowboy’s tact. She knew few men who would have handled the incident half as graciously. The instant the poor man had stepped onto her property, he’d been beset by calamity—from women dropping from the sky into his arms, being captured by the infamous Erhart Boys, to being ambushed at the dinner table. Watching him wipe the splatters from his once clean Western-cut shirt, she could hardly blame Cameron for his lack of enthusiasm about signing on at Fort Bedlam.

Inwardly railing against the formal “ma’am” which made her feel like her own world-weary mother, she suggested, “Why don’t you just call me Pat? Everybody does.”

A candid appraisal glittered in Cameron’s eyes. “If you don’t mind my saying, Patricia suits a pretty woman better.”

The blood in her veins began to bubble under the heat of the glance that took her in head to toe. A hot blush crept up her neck. It was silly how pleased she was by the offhanded compliment