Rodeo Bride (7 page)

D
ILLON
knew the minute Colleen came in the door an hour later. He couldn’t fall asleep until she came inside. In spite of the fact that she’d lived here all her life, in spite of the fact that they were miles from anywhere with no threats in sight, he needed to know she was safe before he would allow himself to rest. And even once she came inside, he didn’t rest easily. The memory of her sitting in the dark beside him with the stars overhead haunted him. Had he turned just a bit he could have drawn her into his arms.

What if he had kissed her and taken it further than mere kisses?

“Then you’d have to shoot yourself, because you would hurt her,” he muttered. The last thing she needed was a transient man trooping into her life, messing with her emotions and then heading out of town. Wasn’t he already mad at the men who had used and abused her in the past? Did he really want to join their ranks?

Keep it simple, Farraday, he told himself. Just do what needs doing.

She had made a helpful suggestion about the house. And it was a good way to keep his mind on something other than touching Colleen.

So, the next day when he had finished putting the last touches on her porch, he called a Realtor in Chicago.

Three days later, he had an entire folder of information, but he still didn’t know what he wanted and needed, because he’d never been a father before. So, when lunchtime rolled around, he tracked down all the women and asked if they would give him their expert advice.

“You want our help?” Colleen asked.

“I trust your judgment.”

“Sounds good to me. I love looking at houses,” Millie said.

“Oh, yeah. And in this case, with money no object, it’s like pretending you really can have all the cool things you would, in reality, never be able to afford in real life,” Gretchen said.

“Do you have any specific considerations, features you’d like?” Colleen asked.

“I was hoping all of you could help me draw up a master list of what would be the perfect house for a grown man and a baby, if such a house even exists. Then we’ll go from there.”

He and Colleen exchanged a look. He knew that this ranch house, even with all the work it needed, was the perfect house for
her
.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Julie said. “It’s obvious that, since money is no object—I take it that it isn’t—that you should have lots of space. There will be sleepovers, eventually, you know. Gretchen and I once got to have a sleepover when Mom was still alive. I’ll never forget that we stayed up all night watching princess-themed movies. It was fantastic.”

“It was,” Gretchen said. “We had everyone bring stuffed animals and we put on a play. That was before daddy burned all our things to punish us.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Colleen said and gave Gretchen a hug. Gretchen hugged her back and then Julie joined in.

Dillon looked as if he wanted to punch someone. “I don’t
mean to denigrate your family,” he told the women, “but some men don’t deserve to have children. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“I’m just glad Toby has a father like you,” Julie said. “Toby’s never going to have to feel scared. He won’t have to give up his childhood because his father’s a jerk.”

But, of course, Colleen thought, Toby’s mother wasn’t as nice as Dillon. Dillon had to win. And Lisa had a habit of hitting below the belt. They had to make Dillon’s case as tight as possible and he had to present as the perfect father providing the perfect home.

“Gretchen, what do you think would help?” she asked.

“I’d vote for a big yard with room for a playground,” Gretchen said. “A garden with flowers. Even guys love flowers, even if they won’t always admit it. And there should be at least one tree with some branches that are low enough for a kid to get a leg up when he climbs. If it’s got a nice crook where a tree house could be located, so much the better.”

“And a big kitchen,” Millie added. “Boys eat a lot. Or my sons did when they were growing up. Besides, you’ll probably have birthday parties. You’ll need space.”

Dillon smiled. He looked over the women’s heads to Colleen, who hadn’t joined in yet. It was obvious that her ranch-hand friends were getting in the spirit of things.

More suggestions flew. A playroom. A theater. A library. A basketball court. The list was growing so long Dillon knew it wouldn’t be possible to include everything. But the women had moved beyond their sad memories. They were having fun and so was he.

But when someone suggested a good staircase to slide down, Colleen looked into Dillon’s eyes. She stood up and walked over to him. “Make it safe,” she said. “That will be important. And…make sure it’s the house that
you
want. The
kind of place you’ll want to come home to every night, one that feels like a comfortable fit. You’ll be living there, too, you know. What’s most important in a house to you?”

Dillon stared down into Colleen’s face. He was close enough to touch her, but of course he wouldn’t, not with everyone here. What was most important in a house to him?

A big bed.
He nearly groaned. Had he really thought that? He hadn’t said it out loud, had he?

Looking around, he could see he hadn’t. The women were still waiting for him to answer.

“A house with a sturdy front porch,” he said, “and an enclosed back porch with a top-of-the-line sleeper sofa.”

Laughter greeted his comment, but Colleen wrinkled her nose. “All right, you can buy a new one. The one you want. As long as you take it with you when you go. It will be yours.”

Despite his good intentions, he reached out and touched her face. “I was kidding, not complaining.”

“I know. But it
is
an awful mattress.”

“Why? Have you tried it lately, Colleen?” Gretchen asked, and he turned to see that she was teasing, but also wide-eyed with curiosity.

“Gretchen,” Colleen warned.

“I’m afraid I’m the sole occupant of the killer sofa bed,” he said, winking.

“I think you just like to complain about it to make me feel guilty,” Colleen said in a teasing tone.

Everyone laughed again, and Dillon realized that he felt at home in this group of women. Too much at home. That wasn’t good. He couldn’t start doing stupid things now. Getting emotionally wrapped into this group, or especially into Colleen, would only end in disaster for both of them. She had her base and her sanctuary. He had his. She had obligations. His were different. There was no middle ground, and she didn’t want a man.
The Applegate was and might always be “no males” territory. He and Toby had simply been granted temporary sanctuary.

As if he knew that his father was thinking about him, the baby, who was cuddled up against Millie, began to babble.

“What’s that, Toby? You think your dad is right about that sofa bed?” Dillon asked.

Colleen wrinkled her nose. “Don’t you go putting words in my baby’s mouth.”

And just like that, the atmosphere changed.

“I meant
your
baby, of course,” Colleen said.

“Don’t be sad, Colleen,” Millie said. “I’m sure that when he takes Toby back to Chicago he’ll call. He’ll make sure that Toby stays in touch over the years, won’t you, Dillon?”

Before he had a time to open his mouth, to breathe, to think, Colleen held up her hand. “Do not answer that,” she said. Which was good because he didn’t know how to answer. He knew that maintaining contact with a woman who drove him insane with desire but to who he could never make love or marry would be a kind of hell.

“And don’t any of you make Dillon feel guilty about Toby,” she said to her friends.

“Of course we wouldn’t, Colleen,” Julie said. “It isn’t Dillon’s fault that you can’t have a baby of your own.”

And that was when the chandelier fell on their heads. Metaphorically, anyway, Dillon thought later.

For a long moment time seemed to stop. No one breathed. No one spoke. Even the clock on the wall seemed to stop ticking.

“You didn’t know,” Millie said to Dillon.

“Why should he? It isn’t exactly the kind of thing I was just going to drop into a conversation over lunch. And besides, there was no reason for Dillon to know. It was an accident I had
years
ago. It’s not his fault I can’t have a child, and there’s nothing he can do about it.”

She turned to Dillon and pasted on a smile. It was totally phony. He knew it. She knew he knew it. But what she was telling him was that she didn’t want to talk about it. How could he not honor that when the topic was one that was so painful for her?

And Toby was starting to fret, to twist in Millie’s arms and whimper, as if he was absorbing the charged atmosphere and was frightened.

Automatically, as if she’d done it a thousand times and probably had, Colleen turned to the baby, a look of love and concern on her face. Quickly she moved toward him, but then she stopped suddenly just two feet from Toby, who was waving his little hands in distress.

Colleen looked suddenly smaller, her shoulders more rounded, her head dropped slightly.

She turned away from Toby and looked at Dillon.

“You need to hold your son,” she said. “Now, I’d better get some work done.” She smiled sadly. Then she quietly left the room.

As Dillon cuddled his child he realized that something elemental had happened here. Colleen had decided that it was time to start letting go. She would begin to transfer the care of Toby to him in earnest.

And she would begin to back out of the picture.

This should have been a moment of pride for Dillon, the fact that she trusted him enough to turn control of Toby over to him.

Instead, when he heard the front door open and close a few seconds later, he simply wanted to go after her, stop her, wherever she was going.

In fact, he must have made a move toward the door, because he felt a hand on his sleeve. Millie was shaking her head.

“She’ll probably be working all night in her shop.”

When he frowned in confusion, Millie smiled. “I guess she
didn’t tell you. Colleen’s an artist.” She gestured toward the beautiful decorated glass vases that were in every room in the house. “The wind chimes, the sculpture…that, more than anything, has kept this ranch going when times got rough. Colleen can’t create a child, but she creates beautiful things nonetheless.”

“I didn’t know,” he said. It occurred to him that there were lots of things he didn’t know about Colleen.

Things he wanted to know but never would. As he left the room and headed toward the nursery with Toby, he reached up and touched one of the chimes that hung in the doorway. Its soft sounds were like music. Sad but very sweet and very beautiful.

Just like the woman responsible for them.

Colleen didn’t spend all night in her workshop. In fact, she had done very little work when she put her tools down and faced the facts. She had behaved badly, stealing the happiness from what had been a fun afternoon.

Dillon was buying a house for him and Toby, she and her friends had been given the honor of helping him decide how to make things special for them and she had walked out just when things had come to fruition. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t spent years living with the knowledge that she couldn’t produce a child.

No, her sudden sadness had been because the house represented the beginning of the end. Dillon would be leaving soon. Not that that was a surprise exactly, but she hadn’t expected that sharp pain that had hit her when she’d realized how fast time was flying. She’d just had to get away.

And now you have to go back,
she told herself.
The man probably thinks you’re acting crazy or that you’re rolling in self-pity.
Which she was…a little bit. And that just wasn’t going to continue. She was not that kind of woman.

“So, suck it up, Applegate,” she told herself. “And go help the man do what he needs to do.”

She opened the door to the house quietly. The curtains were open in the bunkhouse, and she could see Millie reading by the window, so Colleen knew that only Toby and Dillon were in the house.

She went directly to Toby’s room, but no one was there. Then she heard a low baby gurgle.

And then a deep male voice mimicking the gurgle. “Oh, you are so talented, buddy,” Dillon said. “That’s a tough sound to make. How about this one?” He made a buzzing sound like a bee.

Colleen poked her head around the door. Dillon was sitting on a blanket holding Toby in front of him. Toby was studying his daddy very solemnly with those big blue eyes.

“No? Not that sound? Okay, about this one?” He leaned forward and very gently made a raspberry noise against Toby’s tiny tummy. The baby’s eyes got big and round and then he squealed and grabbed a handful of Dillon’s hair.

“You little squirt,” Dillon said, disentangling himself and smiling at his son. “You are going to be trouble when you grow up, you know that? And I’m going to love you no matter what.”

Toby blew a bubble. He smiled.

It was a beautiful thing to see, this big man and this tiny baby enjoying each other’s company. Then she realized that she was snooping. She hadn’t even announced her presence.

“You’re going to get a stiff neck sticking your head around corners that way,” Dillon said, making her jump and squeal almost as loud as Toby had.

She came all the way into the room. “I didn’t mean to keep my presence a secret and I wasn’t spying,” she protested. “Well, maybe just a little.”

“Uh-oh, Toby. I wonder how much of our conversation she
heard. She probably knows our secrets now. We may have to tie her up and hold her prisoner.”

Toby’s eyes followed every movement of his father’s head and mouth. He made a very small grunt.

“Toby says we must show lenience to the princess who has sheltered us and given us asylum.” Dillon put his hand in front of his face to block his mouth and spoke to Colleen in an aside. “My son has a heart of gold, it seems, but I was kind of looking forward to having you as my prisoner,” he teased.

“Toby, pay no attention to your daddy’s antics. He’s crazy.” She leaned closer and smiled at the baby, who gifted her with one of his most beatific smiles.