A Daddy for Dillon (13 page)

“Don’t get me wrong. The Cantrells being rich is a good thing. Not a family in these parts deserves it more than them.”

Not knowing exactly how to reply to this man’s gossip, she said, “I’m grateful to be working for them.”

“I am, too,” he said with a grin, then added, “and I’d better get back to my chores. I’ll go ahead and take the halter off Cocoa, but don’t worry, he’ll hang around as long as the boy is giving him attention.”

She thanked him and after he’d dealt with the pony’s halter, the man took off in the direction of the barn.

Leyla joined her son on the fence, and after giving Dillon several more minutes with the little horse, she suggested to him that they let Cocoa get back to eating grass and they would go look at more animals.

Thankfully, Dillon agreed and they walked deep into the ranch yard, which was surrounded on both sides by numerous buildings and mazes of corrals. Several of them held small herds of yearling calves, and the two of them had paused to look at the cattle when a tall woman dressed in jeans, rugged cowboy boots and a loose chambray shirt emerged from a nearby building. Her long chestnut hair was tied back with a yellow-and-blue scarf. As she grew closer, Leyla could see that she was very pretty. She was also pregnant.

“Well, hello,” she called as she made her way across the cattle pen.

“Hello,” Leyla said once the woman was in speaking distance. “My son and I were just looking. I hope we’re not bothering anything.”

“Not at all.” She pulled off her glove and stuck her hand through the fence. “I’m Laurel Hollister. My husband is the resident vet here on the ranch. I’m his assistant.”

“And I’m the new cook.” Leyla shook the other woman’s hand. “Laramie has spoken of you and your husband. It’s always with great admiration, too.”

Laurel laughed. “That’s good to know.”

The woman focused her gaze on Dillon, who’d turned his attention away from the cattle to cast the tall woman a wary eye.

“I must look pretty scary to him with all this dirt and manure and blood on me,” she said with another laugh. “I’ve been sewing up a goat that got in a fight with a wire fence. She wasn’t too happy until I finally got her sedated.”

“You take care of that sort of stuff instead of your husband?” Leyla asked curiously.

“Not usually. But I can handle some things when he’s not around. Right now Russ is gone with the rest of the crew on roundup. I stayed behind to take care of any problems that might arise here.” She smiled and patted her rounded tummy. “And Russ didn’t think it would be too good for me to sleep on the ground.”

“Not too comfortable, either,” Leyla added with a knowing smile.

Laurel let herself out of the cattle pen and walked over to where Leyla and Dillon stood beside the fence. For the next few moments she took great pains to introduce herself to the child.

“He’s adorable,” she said to Leyla. “You must be very proud of him.”

Leyla nodded. “Dillon is a blessing. When is your baby due?”

“October. So, God willing, we’ll have our son or daughter to celebrate our first Christmas together as a family.”

Christmas as a family. Since Oneida had gone into the nursing home, it had just been she and Dillon together for the holidays. And sadly, she couldn’t imagine that changing unless her aunt was fortunate enough to be released from the nursing facility by December.

“You don’t know whether it’s a boy or girl?” Leyla asked.

“Russ and I want to be surprised. Not knowing the sex just adds to the excitement.”

Yes, it was easy to see that this woman was very excited about her coming baby, and Leyla wondered how it would feel to be pregnant with a child that was loved and wanted by his father. How would it feel to know that a man would be at her side through the pain and the joy? She’d missed so much when she’d been pregnant with Dillon. She’d loved and wanted her baby, but the uncertainty of her future and the feelings of abandonment had taken away most of the special joy. And now she wasn’t sure she’d ever have the courage to trust a man enough to have his child.

“I wish you good luck.”

“Thanks.” Smiling warmly, Laurel gestured toward another big building to their left. “Want to come stroll through the barn where we keep most of our patients?”

“It’s nice of you to ask,” Leyla told her.

“I’m not being nice—I’m being selfish,” Laurel confessed. “It’s not often that I get to visit with another woman.”

Leyla said, “Sassy has been telling me how nice you are and I’ve been wanting to meet you. I’m planning on becoming a nurse and that’s what you do.”

Laurel chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you could call me an animal nurse. So we have something in common to talk about—taking care of animals and people.” She placed a warm hand on Leyla’s shoulder. “Come on and I’ll show you some of my patients.”

Inside the building, the three of them passed through a nicely furnished office where Laurel introduced them to an older man named Maccoy. Behind that room, they passed several treatment areas before they eventually reached a boarding section where stalls and pens lined both walls.

Leyla was amazed to see everything from cows, calves and horses, to goats, a dog and even a mother cat that had decided she wanted to give birth in an animal hospital. As for Dillon, he was enthralled with all the animals, especially the cat.

He gazed, transfixed at the yellow queen and her brood of yellow-and-white kittens nestled in a bed of hay. “Tommy, Mommy. That’s Tommy.”

Leyla glanced ruefully at the other woman. “Tommy was a cat we had to give away before we came here. He misses him.”

“Awww. Well, we can easily fix that,” Laurel told her. “We’ve had several litters of kittens here at the barns born this spring. Dillon can pick out the one he likes and take it back to the house with him. Actually, you should let him pick two. They do better if they have a brother or sister for company.”

Leyla’s immediate thought was to politely refuse the woman’s offer, but suddenly the memory of Laramie’s words drifted through her mind.

We all treat each other like family around here. And Dillon needs to learn to be a part of it.

Laramie was right, she realized. And she needed to start thinking about the things she and Dillon
could
do instead of the things they couldn’t. “Thanks. We might do that later.”

Just accepting the woman’s offer made her feel incredibly good, and for the next few minutes she found herself talking and laughing more than she had in a long time.

When she finally announced to Laurel that she and Dillon needed to start back to the house, the woman quickly offered to drive them, but Leyla declined the offer, saying she and Dillon both needed the exercise.

As they walked toward the house Dillon chattered continually about the animals they’d seen in the vet barn. Especially the cat and kittens.

“Tommy has babies. He licks their heads.”

Leyla chuckled to herself. “That wasn’t Tommy,” Leyla tried to explain. “That was a mommy cat. And she was licking the babies’ heads to clean them. Like I clean your face with a washcloth.”

Dillon’s little features wrinkled into a frown as he suddenly paused and stomped both feet. “That’s Tommy! He come here. We need to get him and take him with us!”

She didn’t know why Dillon was being so stubborn and argumentative about the cat. Perhaps giving up Tommy had affected him more than she’d realized. Or was all of this crankiness stemming from Laramie’s absence these past few days? If her son had asked about the man one time, he’d asked a hundred.

Squatting down to her son’s level, she gently gathered his hands with hers to garner his attention. “You aren’t being a nice boy right now. And—”

Her words trailed off as a truck suddenly rolled to a stop a few steps away from them. Leyla glanced up from Dillon’s mutinous face to see Laramie climbing out of the truck cab. The sight of him sent happiness rushing through her and she quickly turned Dillon around so that he could see the man walking up behind him.

“Look who’s come home,” she told him.

“Larmee! Larmee!” Dillon cried as he raced straight to Laramie’s outstretched arms.

As Leyla watched him swing her son up into his arms, joy poured into her heart like a beam of pure sunlight. He truly cared about Dillon and that meant everything to her.

Smiling, Leyla walked over to them. “Hello,” she greeted.

“What’s going on with you two? Are you lost?” Laramie teased.

The sparkle in his eyes sent her heart into a rapid thump. “We came to see Cocoa,” Leyla explained. “Saul helped us find his paddock, so Dillon got to visit with the pony.”

“That’s good. I’ll have to thank Saul for that.”

“We see Tommy,” Dillon chimed in. “And he had babies. Mommy said it wasn’t Tommy. But it was.”

Laramie gave Leyla a wink, then said to Dillon, “Well, I’ll just have to take a look at this cat. But right now I’m going to take you and Mommy on a little trip. Wanna go?”

Forgetting all about Tommy, the child shouted, “Yeah! Yeah!”

“What kind of trip?” Leyla wanted to know.

With a hand at her back, Laramie ushered her to his truck. “I’m taking you and Dillon to dinner. A special kind of dinner—chuck wagon style.”

* * *

At the big house, Laramie waited while Leyla changed her skirt and blouse for jeans and a T-shirt. And because he’d warned they would be out after dark and the mountain air would grow cool, she gathered jackets for Dillon and herself.

Once they climbed back into the truck, Laramie set their course in a westerly direction. This time, he took a trail that closely skirted a ridge of tall mountains.

Nearly forty minutes after they left the ranch yard, the truck forded a shallow creek then climbed to an open meadow. At one side was a copse of aspen trees. The chuck wagon had been set up there, and nearby a campfire was already burning. Not far from the camp, beneath the shelter of the trees, at least twenty horses were tied to a long picket line.

Dillon noticed the animals first and eagerly pointed to them. “Horses! I see horses!”

“That’s right, partner,” Laramie told the boy. “We’ll take you for a close up look at them while Ernesto finishes cooking dinner.”

He parked the truck a short distance away from the camp, and as he helped her to the ground, she said, “This looks like a scene right out of a Western movie. When you said the ranch still does roundup the traditional way, you really meant it.”

“Down through the years, we’ve changed the way we do some things on the ranch, but not this one,” he said proudly.

Once they reached the campsite, Laramie introduced her and Dillon to Ernesto and then to the rest of the crew. Now that the workday had ended, several of the men were milling about the campfire, while others sat on seats they’d fashioned from fallen logs and overturned feed buckets. The group of cowboys ranged from young to old and came in all shapes and sizes.

Normally, Leyla wasn’t comfortable with crowds and she’d definitely never been in a group of men as the only woman present. But they all greeted her in kind, gentlemanly fashion and in no time she felt completely comfortable and even welcomed.

After Leyla and Laramie exchanged a few words with the men, he suggested they take Dillon for a look at the horses before it became too dark.

“These horses aren’t ponies like Cocoa,” Laramie told the boy as they approached the picket line. “Sometimes they stomp and kick. So you’d better let me carry you.”

“I wanna walk,” Dillon protested. “I’m big.”

He started to dart off in a run, but Laramie snagged the child before he could get two steps away.

Swinging him up into his arms, Laramie said firmly, “Big boys can get hurt, too. So if you want to see the horses, you have to do what I tell you.”

Dillon seemed to realize that Laramie meant business and immediately settled comfortably in the crook of his arm. At the picket line, the three of them strolled slowly down the row of horses. Among the herd, Laramie sought out the ones that wouldn’t attempt to take a bite out of the boy’s little hand and allowed the child to stroke their noses. After Dillon had patted the last one, Laramie suggested it was time to return to the campfire.

This time Leyla was completely amazed when her son unexpectedly burst into tears and tried to wriggle out of Laramie’s arms.

As they strode back to the campground, Laramie asked the boy, “Now what is this? Remember how I told you that cowboys don’t cry? Well, you’re a cowboy, aren’t you?”

Sniffing hard, Dillon nodded, then buried his face against Laramie’s neck. The emotional display took Laramie by surprise, and he cast Leyla a puzzled look.

Sighing, Leyla shook her head. “I’m sorry, Laramie. I don’t know what’s gotten into him today. I think—well, I think he’s been missing you. I tried to explain why you weren’t around, but I think he’s been angry because you left.”

“Oh,” Laramie said softly. “I’m sorry he’s missed me that much.”

Leyla smiled faintly. “I’ve missed you, too.”

He cast her a teasing glance. “You’re not going to cry, too, are you?”

Her eyes twinkled as she continued to smile at him. “No. I only cry at movies.”

“Well,” said Laramie, “then I might have to take you one day. And bring along some tissues.” And he grinned back at her.

* * *

After a supper of steaks cooked over the open fire, barbequed beans and sourdough biscuits, Ernesto pulled out a sack of marshmallows.

Laramie roasted several marshmallows for Dillon, and having never experienced the gooey sweet before, the little boy couldn’t get enough. But after too many to count, Leyla suggested to Laramie that he stop before the boy developed a stomachache.

As the fire burned down and talk around the camp grew quiet, one of the men pulled out a guitar and began to softly strum a lilting melody. Eventually, the food and the long busy day got to Dillon, and he fell asleep on Laramie’s lap.

“Ernesto has a cot in the chuck wagon,” Laramie suggested. “If you’d like to stay a bit longer I could put Dillon in there where he’d be comfortable.”

“As much as I’m enjoying the evening, I’d better take him home before it gets too late,” she told him. “Would you mind?”