Operation Cowboy Daddy

He eyed the food on the table. “It looks like Mary isn’t the only one who knows her way around a kitchen. Everything looks delicious.”

“Praise will get you nowhere with me,” Halena replied, but Mary could tell her grandmother was pleased.

What pleased Halena even more was that Tony was a movie buff, too. He told them that sometimes in the evenings the men at the ranch all gathered in the recreation room and watched DVDs until bedtime.

Mary listened in amusement as the two talked about failed plots, silly characters and unrealistic action scenes in some of the movies they’d both watched.

For the first time she saw Tony completely animated. The spark in his eyes and the wide smile that curved his lips drew her in. She shouldn’t enjoy looking at him so much, and she definitely shouldn’t be enjoying his company.

“Those kick-butt heroines they have in some of the movies today don’t have anything over this old woman,” Halena said. “I can use my broom as a lethal weapon against marauding raccoons and other wild animals. My shotgun stays next to my bed and I can hit anything I aim at.”

She turned to look at Mary. “Maybe I need to get me a pair of those stiletto heels that actresses wear in the movies.”

Mary looked at her in horror. “I’m not sure that’s a great idea, Grandmother. You rock your flip-flops and tennis shoes just fine.”

Halena lifted her chin proudly. “I rock everything I wear just fine.”

Dinner finished and, as if on cue, Joey cried out, ready for his bottle. While Mary cleaned up the dishes, Tony prepared a bottle and went into the living room and Halena went to her room to write her evening blog.

It would be easy to fall into a crazy fantasy of a strong, handsome male taking care of the baby in the evenings while Mary attended to the dinner dishes.

It would be far too easy to imagine the two of them tucking the baby into bed for the night and then going into their own bedroom to make love and sleep in each other’s arms.

Once upon a time Mary had entertained those kinds of dreams, but over the years they had been stolen from her by a ravaging disease and bitter life experiences.

She couldn’t fall into any sort of romantic fantasies. It would be foolish, and Mary was no fool. She knew who and what she was and it was nothing any man would ever want.

When she went into the living room, Tony had finished with the bottle and Joey was ready for a little playtime. She took the blanket from the back of the sofa and spread it on the floor and then put the boy down with a few of his toys in front of him.

“He doesn’t seem to miss Amy,” Tony said. Joey raised his head and looked at Tony, then grinned and released a string of jabber along with a bit of drool.

“He also seems to have bonded pretty quickly to you.” She sat down next to him on the sofa. “What made you decide you didn’t want children?” she asked curiously. He was a young, vital man who appeared to have all the qualities that would make a wonderful father.

“I don’t want to get married. That’s one reason why I never wanted kids. I also didn’t have a father when I was growing up, so I had no role model to know how to do it right. What about you? Are you close to your parents?”

She had a feeling he’d changed the focus from him to her intentionally. “My mother died of breast cancer when I was eight and then my father was killed in a car accident when I was nine. Halena raised me and she’s been like a mother and a father to me.”

“And now you’re raising her,” he replied.

She laughed. “Don’t let her hear you say that.” She sobered. “It’s the way it’s supposed to be. Our parents teach us to use a spoon to eat and how to walk and as they age into their twilight years it’s our turn to help them use a spoon and to walk. It’s a circle of love.”

He gazed back at Joey, a muscle ticking in his strong jawline. “He’s so small and helpless.”

“He’s like a blank page waiting to be written on,” she said softly. “If you’re his father, then what will you write in his book of life?”

Before he could reply, Halena came into the room and Joey fell back asleep for a quick nap. The rest of the evening passed quickly as Halena took center stage and entertained Tony with stories about her interactions with her blog readers.

“People just get crazy when they go on social media,” she said. “They post pictures and say things they’d never talk about in real life. It’s quite a strange phenomenon.”

“I don’t do social media,” Tony replied. “I don’t think any of us men at the ranch even own one of those smartphones. As far as I’m concerned, my phone is for calls and nothing else.” He frowned. “I wonder if Amy does social media.”

“She used to have a Facebook page,” Mary replied. She got up from the sofa and grabbed her laptop from the top of the nearby small desk. She sat back down next to Tony and powered it on.

As she logged in, he scooted closer to her side, so close that his thigh pressed against hers, so close that her heartbeat quickened and once again she felt as if she wasn’t getting quite enough oxygen.

“Hopefully she’s posted something that will give us some answers as to where she might be now,” he said.

Mary clicked on the site and then pulled up Amy’s page. There was the familiar picture of her friend, but there was also a notice that if she wanted to see any personal information about Amy she had to send a friend request.

“She must have unfriended me at some point in time,” Mary said with a sigh of disappointment.

“Why would she do that?” he asked, obvious frustration in his voice.

Mary shut down her computer and rose once again, needing to distance herself from his intimate proximity. “She’s done it before in the past. Whenever she goes off the deep end and starts using drugs again, she cuts off all contact with me.”

“Amy is by nature a people pleaser, and when she is doing things she knows Mary disapproves of, she hides,” Halena said.

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

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.”

“I hope they feel better. Maybe you should call Dillon after dinner tonight.” Mary turned from the counter to look at him, her expression unreadable.

“I’ll do that,” he said. He had to remember that he and Joey were a disruption to her life and he needed to either find Amy, or make different arrangements for the baby sooner rather than later. “I know there’s a day-care center in town. Maybe I should check in to them watching Joey during the day.”

She frowned. “That means you’ll have him in the bunkhouse during the nights. That doesn’t sound like a great idea. I’m good having him here for a while longer, Tony. Hopefully Dillon will be able to find Amy and then whatever arrangements you make for Joey will be between her and you.”

And then he’d have no more reason to see Mary anymore. He was surprised that the thought depressed him a bit. The past few nights of spending time in her home had been far more pleasant than he’d ever anticipated.

There was a calm quiet about her that he found attractive. There was a peace in the air that surrounded her, a serenity that called to something deep inside him.

He couldn’t deny that he was intensely attracted to her, but she had given him little indication that she might return the feeling.

Joey cried out from the living room and Tony jumped up to attend to him. He unbuckled him from his seat and pulled him into his arms.

Joey immediately stopped fussing and instead gazed at Tony for a long moment and then smiled, a rivulet of drool sneaking down his chin.

What will you write in his book of life?

An unexpected fierce protectiveness swelled up inside Tony. It was a feeling he’d never experienced before. A lump formed in the back of his throat as he stared into Joey’s bright eyes.

One thing was for certain—nobody would scribble the vile ugliness in this child that had been written in Tony’s book of life.

* * *

Ash stared out his car window. He was parked down the street from the beige house where his child was inside. It had taken him two days of following the cowboy from the Holiday ranch to this home to confirm that little Joey was in there.

He wouldn’t be there for long.

Ash and his men had yet to locate Amy. At the moment she was the last thing on his mind. All he cared about at this moment was getting his kid back where he belonged. Joey was his and nobody took what was Ash’s.

In the two days he’d been watching the house he hadn’t seen any man present other than the cowboy, who came every evening and left around twilight. He’d seen the old woman and the younger one, but no man.

There also didn’t appear to be any alarm system at the house. All of that was going to make it so much easier for Ash to get what was his.

He tightened his hands around the steering wheel. He’d prefer to get in and get Joey without anyone getting hurt, but he’d do whatever it took to get his boy back.

Tonight Joey would sleep in his own crib, in Ash’s home. And when he finally found Joey’s mother, she was a dead woman.

* * *

Tony called Dillon just after dinner and the lawman arrived at Mary’s house twenty minutes later. She invited him into the living room, where Tony and Halena sat on the sofa with Joey once again in his bouncy chair.

“Halena, have you been behaving yourself?” Dillon asked as he eased down in the chair across from them.

“No, but you know I try not to break too many laws when I do misbehave,” she replied.

Dillon grinned, but his smile lasted only a moment as he gazed at the baby and then at Tony. “So, what’s going on and what can I do to help you?”

Mary listened as Tony related Amy’s sudden appearance at the bunkhouse on Sunday night. “She dropped off the baby and drove away. I definitely think she’s in some kind of trouble and I just wondered if you had any suggestions on how I can find her,” Tony said.

Dillon frowned. “Last I heard anything about her, she’d moved from here to Oklahoma City. I haven’t heard anything about her since then.”

“That’s all we know, too. I thought maybe you’d know somebody on the police department there who could look for her,” Tony said.

“No police are going to get involved in what appears to be a domestic issue. As far as we know, she hasn’t broken any laws. She left the baby with you and said that you’re the father. Unfortunately in this kind of a situation it isn’t against the law for a mother to walk away,” Dillon replied.

“So, if the police won’t get involved, do you know a good private investigator who might be able to help?” There was a quiet despair in Tony’s voice. “I’d at least like to know that she’s okay.”

Was he still in love with Amy? It was certainly possible, and if he was, what difference did it make to her? Mary knew she was just a convenience to him at the moment and nothing more. She shouldn’t want to be any more to him.

“I do know a private investigator who might be able to help you,” Dillon said, pulling her out of her crazy thoughts. “His name is Mick Blake.” Dillon took his cell phone out of his pocket. “I’ve got his number here someplace.” Dillon found the number and Tony put it into his cell phone.

“Mick is a good guy and is one of the best private investigators I’ve ever run across,” Dillon added.

“Are you all done now?” Halena asked, not hiding her impatience. “We have movies to watch and popcorn to pop.”

Dillon rose. “I’m sorry, Tony. I can’t do much of anything to help you. Hopefully, Mick can locate Amy for you and you’ll get the answers you need.”

Tony got up as well and walked the lawman to the front door. “I’ll give Mick a call. I appreciate your time, Dillon. I know you have a lot of other things on your plate.”

Minutes later Tony returned to his seat on the sofa next to Halena and Mary went into the kitchen to fix the popcorn. A rumble of thunder accompanied the microwave popping.

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