An Ideal Father

“Where’s your little boy?”

Cimarron turned to a corner of the kitchen and paled when he saw the cubbyhole was empty. “He was right there.”

“Maybe he slipped out the back door.”

“I would have heard him. He’s here somewhere. Wyatt?” He moved to the cubbyhole, where Wyatt’s toys were still strewn about. He squatted and let out his breath, relieved. “Here he is.”

Sarah followed Cimarron’s gaze. The child was curled into a ball on an open shelf under the counter, all but hidden from view. Cimarron stuffed the toys into a bag and gently slid Wyatt out. He hoisted the bag over one shoulder and the boy over the other.

Sarah studied the two of them. Neither was at ease with the other and she wondered why.

“You’re not very good at looking after him, are you?” she said bluntly.

Available in April 2010 from Mills & Boon® Special Moments™

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An Ideal Father by Elaine Grant

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An Ideal Father

By

Elaine Grant

MILLS&BOON®

www.millsandboon.co.uk

When Elaine Grant was five years old, she decided she wanted to be a writer who illustrated her own books. Her first short story was published in the local weekly newspaper when she was nine. There was no turning back after that! At sixteen Elaine began her first manuscript ndash; an English historical about a highwayman. That one is still in the closet. In 1998, her dream came true when her novel Roses for Chloe was published, a story combining romance with the Southern lore of ghosts and long, sultry days perfect for falling in love. An Ideal Father is the second book set in Little Lobo, Montana. Elaine loves horses, cowboys, gardening, baseball, travel and eating sushi with her son when he’s home from college. She lives in Louisiana with her husband, son, a psycho cat and a lovely Australian shepherd, and loves the food and the unique culture of the area. Visit Elaine’s website, www.elainegrant.com.

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This book is dedicated to my family and friends, all of whom enrich my life constantly.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I’d like to acknowledge several people for their patience and expertise in answering my questions. They graciously gave of their time and knowledge and any misinterpretations or errors belong to me, not them.

Thanks to Bori Sunsuri for answering my questions about adoption; Billy Cocreham and Otto Buehler for their expertise on construction and restoration; Frank Stedman III for all his help on managing a restaurant; Jim Mayer, Bud Bailey and Mark Pencil for information on and demonstrations of fly-fishing; and Sandra Cahill, 63 Ranch, for answering questions on fly-fishing specific to Montana.

CHAPTER ONE

South Louisiana

June

“NOW YOU JUST STAY there for a minute. Everything will be all right.”

The low, gruff voice came from outside the construction trailer where Cimarron Cole was working at a paper-strewn desk. Frosty air from a window air conditioner blasted the side of his face and ruffled his hair, but at least it beat the stifling humidity outside. Cimarron glanced at the large clock on the opposite wall as the doorknob turned.

Cimarron’s brother, R.J., popped his head around the door, a sheepish look on his face. “Hey, little bro. Late again. Sorry.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before. Get to work. You’ve put the painters behind schedule already.”

“Well, see, ah…” R.J. screwed up his mouth and glanced behind him. “I’ve got a little problem.”

Cimarron waited in silence. R.J. had a lot of little problems. He was good-looking, with curly dark hair and the Cole family’s legendary doe-brown eyes that women couldn’t seem to resist. The thirty-eight-year-old still considered himself a ladies’ man. Well, at least until the past few years, when he’d been forced to slow down.

“You see, Erica ran out on me this morning. Left me. Told me to…Well, you probably can figure out what she told me.”

Cimarron grunted and made an impatient gesture with his hand. “So, what’s new? You trade girlfriends like most people trade cars. And come inside—you’re wasting energy and letting the cool air out, to boot.”

R.J. twisted around in the doorway and motioned. A five-year-old miniature R.J. stepped hesitantly into the tiny office. R.J.’s son, Wyatt. Cimarron tensed. What now? Why the hell had he caved and hired his brother on this project?

“See, she just up and left. And I ain’t got nobody to watch Wyatt, so I thought maybe he could sit here while you…”

Cimarron’s jaw clenched and he shoved his chair back and went around the desk, taking R.J. by the arm and forcing him outside onto the narrow stoop. Cimarron shut the door and they faced off with their chests almost touching.

“You think I’m going to babysit for you today? No way in hell. I have got work coming out my ears. I’ll be here till midnight as it is. I told you when you talked me into taking you on, you had to be reliable.”

R.J. pressed back against the porch rail to put another inch between himself and his brother. “Okay, okay. But I’m here now, just a few minutes—”

“Over an hour late! And dragging your kid with you.”

“Look, I’ll have a sitter by tomorrow. Hell, Erica might be back by then. He ain’t going to bother you. I swear, he’ll sit right there in that chair.”

“No. You just go home for the day. I’ll get somebody to finish painting the molding.”

“That’s not right, Cimarron. I need the money. More than ever now, if I gotta hire a sitter. Just let him stay in there while you work. I’ll hurry and look for a sitter over my lunch hour.”

Cimarron’s shoulders sank at R.J.’s imploring look. Nothing but problems. The whole family. All his life. Nothing but problems.

R.J. grinned. “You’ve always been a good little brother.”

“Yeah, I’ve always been a pushover,” Cimarron said. “You get your work done this morning and come get him. You know I don’t know a damn thing about kids.”

“He’s a good boy. Won’t give you a lick of trouble. And you gotta admit he’s pretty cute,” R.J. said, winking, with a lilt of pride in his voice.

“He looks a hell of a lot like you.”

R.J. grinned. “And that means he looks just like you, too.”

That much was true. Cimarron and R.J. could have passed for twins, except for the four-year difference in their ages.

“I’ll be back for him in a couple of hours.”

R.J. bounded off the porch and trotted along the tree-lined allée leading to Cimarron’s current restoration project, a grand antebellum plantation house. Once finished, the home would be the crowning glory, so far, in his body of work.

A sultry Louisiana breeze drifted by, stirring the leaves of an overhanging oak branch, leaving Cimarron’s skin hot and sticky. He longed to suck in the cool, clean air of Idaho, but he’d been gone so long now the place didn’t seem like home anymore. Besides, there was nothing left there for him. No home, no family. Even R.J. didn’t know where their good-for-nothing father was—or so he said. And the sad thing was, Cimarron doubted his brother would be around for Wyatt any more than their own father had been around for them, once the rodeo bug bit him again and he got bored with “daddying.”

The phone ringing in the trailer caught his attention and he ducked back inside. Wyatt perched on the chair in the corner, watching Cimarron’s every move with wary eyes.

“Hello,” Cimarron said into the receiver, his gaze wandering to avoid looking at the child as he listened to the voice on the other end of the phone.

“Cimarron Cole?”

“Yes, who’s this?”

“Bobby James. We met at the casino in New Orleans last year.”

Cimarron frowned, trying to recall the meeting. “Sorry, I can’t…”

“I own that old fishing lodge in Montana. Near Bozeman. Remember?”

“Ah, okay, it’s coming back.”

“Look, I wonder if you…”

Wyatt squirmed on the chair, setting Cimarron’s teeth on edge. Kids made him nervous. In a way, he’d never been a kid himself, and maybe that was why he couldn’t seem to identify with them.

“Hold on a minute.” Cimarron put his hand over the mouthpiece and turned his attention to the child. “What’s your problem? Can’t you be still?”

“Gotta go to the bathroom.”

Cimarron jerked his head toward a door behind him. “There’s one in there. Can you go by yourself?”

The child looked at him as if he had sprouted snakes on his head. “I’m five years old.”

“I guess that says it all. Have at it.”

“Go ahead,” he said to the other man, who launched into a long spiel about his house in a place called Little Lobo.

Listening to the muffled noises behind the bathroom door, Cimarron had to ask Bobby to repeat his words twice. Finally, he gave up. “Let me get back to you. Give me a phone number where I can reach you.”

“Okay, but you’d better call pretty soon.” Cimarron jotted down the number, then rolled his chair back and tapped on the door. “What are you doing in there?”

“I’m pooping.”

Cimarron rolled his eyes. “Fine.” After a moment of guilty hesitation, he asked, “You need any help?”

“No.”

Cimarron stuck Bobby James’s number on his bulletin board with a note to return his call that afternoon when he could count on being undisturbed. Finally Wyatt came out, careful to close the door behind him.

“Stinks,” he said.

“I imagine.” Cimarron lifted his chin toward the chair in the corner and Wyatt obediently climbed into the seat again. “Your daddy’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Unca Cimron?” Wyatt asked softly. “Do you have something I could draw on?”

Curbing his impatience, Cimarron shuffled around in a drawer and found a legal pad and a pencil, which he handed over. When Wyatt bowed his head over the paper and began to write, Cimarron gathered his thoughts and tried to figure out where he’d left off when his day jumped the tracks.

He studied the costs ledger. This project was almost finished, under budget and on time. Another few weeks, tops, and he could put the house on the market for a substantial asking price. After some time off, he would buy another building that should turn over a good profit after renovation.

He worked uninterrupted while Wyatt occupied himself in the corner. Once in a while Cimarron glanced over, surprised that the child could remain quiet for so long. Wyatt looked up briefly when Cimarron closed the ledger. Then, a commotion outside drew their attention. Another yell from the direction of the house brought Cimarron to his feet. As he opened the trailer door, he saw his project superintendent, Ron Gibbs, sprinting toward him. Beyond Ron, a couple of workmen were rushing into the house.

“What’s going on?”

“Accident!” Ron yelled, breathless. “Get an ambulance.”

Alarm shot through Cimarron. He grabbed the cordless office phone, punching in 911 as he hurried out the door. On the porch, he turned around to stick his head inside again.

“Wyatt, you stay right here. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Understand?”

Without looking up from his drawing, Wyatt nodded.

“What happened?” Cimarron asked when he caught up to Ron.

“Somebody fell.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know,” Ron said. “One of the men came and got me.”

The 911 operator answered and Cimarron summoned help, keeping the line open. He matched Ron stride for stride into the stately foyer of the refurbished house. Through the arched entry to the dining room bright sunlight flooded the floor-to-ceiling windows, making the wet paint on the moldings glisten.

Several workers gathered around the base of the high scaffolding that had been erected to reach the twenty-foot ceilings. Cimarron handed the phone to Ron and pushed his way through.

“Oh my God,” he whispered, kneeling beside his motionless brother, who was lying faceup on the hardwood floor. “R.J.?”

Cimarron laid his fingers against R.J.’s neck, finding a weak, halting pulse.

“R.J., can you hear me?” He glanced up at the men surrounding him, their faces drawn with concern. “Anybody see what happened?”

A young painter spoke up. “We’d finished and I was getting the brushes and pails ready to go. He was going down to catch them at the bottom. I heard him grunt and when I looked around he was falling. I don’t know what happened. Yesterday he was complaining about the fumes making him light-headed and he said living in Louisiana was messing up his sinuses, but he didn’t mention anything today. He was just in a big hurry to get done.”

R.J.’s eyes fluttered, then opened. He squinted up at Cimarron and managed a lopsided grin. “I must have missed a step,” he whispered.

“Just stay still. You’ll be okay,” Cimarron said with more confidence than he felt.

“Little bro,” R.J. said. “You take care of Wyatt, you hear?”

“Come on, R.J., you’re going to be around to do that.”

“Don’t…think…so,” he managed to say with effort. Cimarron tried to keep him quiet, but he insisted on speaking. “I made a will…before I came down here. Meant to tell you.” He attempted to grin again, but failed. “I made you Wyatt’s guardian…”

Cimarron stared at his brother in shock. “What?”

“You’re the only one I trust…to see that he’s done right by. You gotta do it for me, little bro. Give him a good life.”

“R.J.—”

R.J.’s eyes rolled back. Cimarron’s probing fingers found no pulse this time.

“R.J.!”

No sign of breathing.

“Don’t you die on me!”

By rote, Cimarron started CPR, his own heart pounding, drumming out every other sound. Breathe, breathe, pump, pump, pump…

His expression fixed, his face turning blue, R.J. looked just like their mother had when Cimarron turned her over that night so long ago. Sweat poured down his body as the panic grew. He glanced in the direction of the construction office, where a little boy sat waiting…Cimarron would be the one who had to tell him his daddy wasn’t coming to get him after all.

No way. No way in hell!

“Damn it, R.J. Don’t you die and leave me with that child!”

CHAPTER TWO

Little Lobo, Montana

July

OKAY, WHAT DID I DO to deserve this?

Sarah James ducked her head to check the big black knobs on the industrial griddle again. All on and set to Medium-High. So why was half of her first pancake crusty brown and the other runny goop? She muttered under her breath and twisted one of the knobs to Off, then back to High, hoping by some miracle the malfunctioning burner would begin to heat.

A customer tapped his menu impatiently on the counter. The pancake was a no-go. She scraped it into the waste bucket that she used to save scraps for a local farmer’s pig slop. An apt description, too. Pig slop.

Pushing a damp lock of red hair off her forehead, she turned to the impatient customer. “Sorry. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

“I ain’t got all day, shug,” Big Buck Flannigan said. A bull of a man, with a face that was weathered like cowhide, beefy bare arms and a ten-gallon hat perched high on his head, Buck delivered goods from a Bozeman feed distributor to regional hardware stores. He stopped in every few weeks when he came over the pass from Bozeman.

“I know. I’m really sorry. Problems with the griddle.”

“I gotta git back on the road. Think you can scrape me up two eggs over easy, order o’ linked sausages, some hash browns scattered and slathered, biscuits with gravy and orange juice?”

Sarah jotted down the order, wondering how in the world these foods were going to materialize on her haphazard griddle. Her helper Aaron Dawson would pick a morning when the café was filled to capacity to go AWOL. Sometimes he could make the ancient appliance function when she couldn’t. She didn’t have time to try to run him down right now, but, boy, when she did find him…

She quickly brought Buck’s juice and surveyed the room for other impatient customers. Normally she served and Aaron cooked on the large range in the kitchen. She was finding it almost impossible to do both, with the café so crowded. Now she wished she had hired that high-school kid who was looking for a part-time job last week, instead of trying to cut corners and save money.

A stranger opened the door and glanced around until he spotted the only vacant booth left, a table for two tucked into a narrow alcove at the far end of the room. He motioned behind him and a young boy came in. The man lifted the child onto the booth bench, then sat down opposite him. Sarah gave them a cheery “Good morning, be right with you” that she hoped masked her frustration. She noted the resemblance between the two—dark curling hair, striking brown eyes, and the man had a nice smile. But before she could get to them, another customer demanded her attention.

“Look, Miss Sarah, you need to decide if you want me to do the work for you or not. I got other jobs lined up.” Harry Upshaw raked his food onto his fork with a piece of biscuit.

He’d been the first to come in this morning and he’d ordered eggs over easy, so that hadn’t been too bad. Then half the griddle quit on her, and now she was forced to cook a lot of food on an extremely limited surface. Her only alternative was to cook in the kitchen, but that meant leaving the front and the cash register unattended.

“I do want you to work for me,” Sarah said, wishing they could discuss this another time. Like after her customers were gone. “But first we need to sit down and go over the plans and talk about my ideas for the place.”

“Now, missy, you know I’ll do the job right.” He winked. His blue eyes were set in a face roughened and baked by long hours in the sun building houses and running a small cattle operation on the outskirts of town. An ample belly attested to his love of food—he was in the café several times a week.

“I know you will, but I want to be sure that we’re on the same track. I have some ideas sketched out and—”

“I don’t need no sketches. You just tell me what you want done and I’ll make it happen.”

“I’ll just take the biscuits and gravy now, while I wait,” Buck broke in. “I’m goin’ to starve here, with you two jabbering.”

“Sorry. Hang around just a minute, Harry. I’ll be back.” At least she could serve biscuits. As always, she had come in early, baked biscuits and brewed urns of coffee using the special house blends that had become her trademark around Little Lobo.

The tiny Montana town just north of the Bozeman Pass made up for its lack of citified entertainment with stunning scenery, wide-open spaces, a tiny school, the basic stores necessary for survival and Sarah’s Little Lobo Eatery and Daily Grind. Her special and often exotic coffee and her luscious, fresh-fruit tarts drew regulars from as far away as Big Sky and Helena.

After she served the biscuits, she took a menu and water to the stranger and his little boy. He nodded thanks.

The man was far more handsome than she’d first thought. Black lashes fringed eyes the color of rich Creole coffee and dark, thick hair curled over his forehead, giving him a devil-may-care look that suited his faded jeans and well-worn chambray shirt.

“Do you need some time?” Please!

“Sure,” he said, opening the menu to study it. From his smile and his glance around, she knew that he realized he was doing her a favor. “Bring a couple of orange juices when you have time.”

“No problem.” She brought the juice and then made a quick run around the room, refilling water glasses and coffee cups and taking orders from customers who had already been waiting too long.

Ordinarily she would have been overjoyed with the crowd, but today the chatter in the room sounded more like grumbling. Every eye cut her way seemed critical. All she could do was keep smiling and try to get them all fed.

Behind the counter again, trying to cook a dozen things at once on a half-cold griddle, she looked around at Harry. “I want to have Nolan draw up a contract, too. And I still need that estimate I asked for.”

Harry downed the last gulp of coffee and ran a pink napkin across his greasy lips, then belched and said, “Puh, contract. We don’t need no legalese bull. ’Scuse my language, missy. Anyway, you got a contract with your brother to buy that old house from him?”

Sarah shook her head. “Not yet, just a verbal agreement. But I’m going to pin him down as soon as I can get in touch with him.”

“Didn’t think so. Never understood why your uncle Eual split up that property and left the house to Bobby. He shoulda just left everything to you and give Bobby some money to blow. You was the one always spent your summers and holidays here helping him out. Don’t recall Bobby so much as lifting a hand in the café or the fishing end of the business.”

“I think he hoped Bobby would settle down if he had the responsibility of the house. But Little Lobo is too tame for him. He says that house is just a heap of junk and not worth fixing up.”

“He ain’t far off about the house, I’m afraid. But if you want to try, I’m here to do the job. And you don’t need no contract with me, neither. Round here, we don’t do business that way. Just give me the go-ahead and ’fore you know it, you’ll have a real nice bed-and-breakfast.”

Harry shifted a toothpick around in his mouth.

“’Course, I’ll need money up front for the initial supplies.” He threw a ten on the counter and stood. On his way out he stopped to talk to a couple of townspeople, then left.

“Of course, always the money first,” she muttered, rearranging sizzling sausage with another batch of pancakes to try to get them all cooked through. The buzz of conversation behind her began to sound like a hive of angry bees.

She remembered the stranger and his son. Turning around, she found the man watching her. The child colored on a place mat with one of the crayons from a small glass Sarah kept on each table.

“Coming,” she said and hurried around the counter to their table. “I’m so sorry for the delays this morning.”

“Don’t worry about it. He’ll take cereal and milk—” the man nodded toward the child, who didn’t bother to look up “—I’ll have a biscuit with gravy.”

“No problem.”

He glanced toward the griddle. “Your eggs are burning.”

“Oh my gosh! I’ll be right back.” She raced over to the temperamental griddle, squelching an urge to kick the tar out of it. She doubted that would work and besides she might break a toe. Quickly she put together the order and carried it to the table, laying down the bill at the same time. When she thought to look again a few minutes later, the small booth was empty and payment for the meal rested on the receipt.