Rancher's Baby Read online

  The tingling sensation was what saved her. She knew from experience what that signaled. Regardless of whether it was Ryan’s suckling stimulating her letdown reflex or the sight of his nearly nude father, it didn’t really matter. Crossing her arms over her breasts, she pressed hard, willing the moment to pass.

  Tye was oblivious to her presence, laughing every time Ryan kicked his feet. He was talking to their baby, and she didn’t miss the rapt look on Ryan’s face at the sound of his father’s voice. Of course he looked at everyone like that right now, she reasoned.

  But from deep inside her, a feeling of helplessness rose. Ryan had been hers, and hers alone, for almost a year now, from the moment she’d first suspected she was pregnant until yesterday when Tye had walked back into her life. Now everything was going to have to change, and she didn’t think she was ready for that.

  And just exactly how would everything change? Tye wanted—no, expected her to marry him. He had to be crazy! They barely knew each other.

  But a vivid image of just how well they did know each other rose in her mind and she felt herself blush. Still, that wasn’t enough, she reminded herself sternly. Once before she’d married a man about whom she’d known little more than that they shared a mutual attraction, and look how that had turned out.

  Be real, Duls, said an inner voice. The way Lyle made you feel was nothing but a teaser compared to the way being with Tye is. Tye made her feel like a quivering mass of nothing but need, a pile of dry tumbleweed just waiting for a lightning strike to send it burning everything in its path.

  And that wasn’t good. She didn’t like it one bit, feeling so…so needy. She had to keep a clear head. She had to be the one to remind him that marriage between them was another name for disaster. She ought to know. She’d been married to a traveling man already.

  Tye wouldn’t be around for Ryan’s childhood even if she did marry him. And how good would it be for her son to have a daddy blow in for a few days and then just about the time he was starting to depend on him, leave again?

  Are you talking about Ryan or yourself?

  It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter one bit how Tye made her feel. She still wasn’t going to marry him, and she wasn’t going to fool around with him anymore, either. She couldn’t take that. Nope, she’d just have to ignore this need until it went away.

  “Good morning.” Deliberately, she waited in the doorway for Tye to see her.

  “Hey, there.” He turned and walked toward her, offering the baby to her. “I was hoping to let you get a little more sleep but I guess mothers are on some kind of internal timer.”

  She didn’t reach for Ryan, though she was longing to snatch him and cuddle his sweetness to herself. “If you’re going to be a daddy, you might as well learn how to change a diaper.”

  Tye’s gaze held hers. “Am I going to be a daddy?”

  She shrugged. “I can’t stop you. We’ll just have to work together to do what’s best for Ryan.”

  To Tye’s credit, he could have pressured her about marriage again, but he let the moment pass as she led the way to the changing table.

  Laying Ryan on the padded surface, he said, “I’ve changed my nieces before, but I don’t know much about little boys. Are there any tricks to this?”

  She had to smile. “There’s only one rule I religiously follow. Never leave that little water pistol uncovered unless you want to get squirted!”

  Tye looked down at his son with new respect. “That’s a nasty trick, cowboy. You wouldn’t do that to your daddy, would you?” All the same, she noted that as he competently cleaned and changed the baby, he was careful to take her warning seriously.

  His big hands looked far too large and clumsy to be handling Ryan’s tiny body with such ease; she recalled how large and tanned his hands had looked against her skin so many months ago. No! She wouldn’t think about that night. Surely she had more willpower than this.

  She focused on Tye’s hands again. They were just hands. Big hands, with long, blunt fingers, scarred and callused. Not pretty by a long stretch. Certainly nothing for her to be fantasizing about.

  Unaware of the tumult in her head, Tye was thoroughly exploring every inch of his son. He counted fingers and toes, ran his palm over the smooth baby skin and traced a small, brown birthmark on Ryan’s abdomen. When he glanced up at her, his expression was exuberant.

  “I have one exactly like this!” he told her.

  She knew. She’d been trying to forget it since the day Ryan had been born, but now more than ever, the memories crowded in, demanding to be recognized. Tye was still holding her gaze with his and she could see the change in his face as he realized what she was thinking—she’d traced that very birthmark with her mouth.

  In his eyes, a molten gold awareness flared. “We’ve never talked about what happened that night,” he reminded her in a deep, soft tone.

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” she snapped, knowing he could hear the desperation in her voice.

  Tye laughed, and Ryan startled at the unfamiliar sound. Tye lifted the baby into his arms and lowered his cheek to brush over the soft, dark down of his son’s head. “That’s not how I remember it,” he said, still chuckling.

  Her face felt beet red; she couldn’t think of a single intelligent syllable to utter in response. Dulcie almost snatched Ryan from Tye’s arms, moving toward the door and waiting for him to leave. “I have to feed him now,” she said.

  Tye nodded. “By all means.” He walked through the door, then turned and gave her one last, satisfied smile before sauntering down the hallway. “While you’re feeding him, why don’t you search for those lost memories?”

  She watched him go, half of her wanting to throw something at him and the other half wanting to run her hands over those shoulders and see if they really felt as firm and slick as she thought they had That Night.

  * * *

  He should have been thrilled that he was finished helping Uncle Ike, Tye thought later that day. How many times while he was repairing fences, unclogging water holes or riding after a straggling calf in a cloud of dust had he longed for his freedom and a good camera?

  It was time to get some more assignments lined up. For over a decade, photographing what magazines called “the Western way of life” had been his love and his life; for the last half of that time, he’d had assignments booked as far in advance as a year from one publication or another.

  So why wasn’t he as excited about the thought of a new photographic challenge as he used to be? The answer was simple, he figured. Until things were settled between Dulcie and him, he was bound to have some concern about leaving the ranch. But that was temporary. They would marry and work everything out, if he had to tie her to a post to do it, and then he’d get back into the swing-of things.

  Having such a flexible schedule had been a real blessing—he didn’t know another soul who could afford the time or the financial loss to take almost a year off to help out a relative. Of course he would have quit any job he’d had to go when Ike Bradshaw had needed him. He owed his uncle. Taking over the ranch until Ike’s leg healed was only a small way to repay him for the home and the love he’d offered Tye.

  Still, his flexible schedule was a bit of a curse, too. Time was passing, passing him by. If he didn’t get something out there soon, he’d be sacrificing the name he’d spent the past ten years making for himself. It wasn’t the money angle, he knew. He could work a hell of a lot less and still make a modest living, which was all anyone could ask. No, it was the seductive lure of acclaim. He liked the recognition he got with his photographs. And having people out there actually collecting them was the icing on the cake.

  Tye definitely had to get back to work.

  He saw little of Dulcie that morning. She seemed to divide her time between Ryan, the kitchen and the other endless chores a ranch generated for everyone who lived there. He felt strangely out of place with nothing to do.

  She accepted his offer to play with Ryan during
one of his waking periods, and while he was doing so, he realized he was itching for a camera. Surely he could catch that fretful little pucker Ryan’s mouth made when Tye disappeared from his line of vision. And how would that frenetic, restless newborn energy translate into a still photo? While he was contemplating angles and light and lenses, Ryan got sleepy and Dulcie whisked him off for a nap.

  She was extraordinarily careful to treat him as politely as she would a guest she didn’t know well, and he had the strongest urge to shake her, to get right in her face and force her to acknowledge him. Remember me? I’m the guy you made love with the day your marriage ended. You know, the father of your baby? The one who wants to marry you?

  Instead, he called his agent when she left the room with Ryan. McNally was delighted to hear from Tye, and he promised to get right on a few calls to see who might be interested.

  As Tye hung up the receiver, a loud gong rang outside. It probably was nothing more than a signal to the hands that lunch was served, but it was only a little past eleven. The hair rose instinctively on the back of his neck, and he strode toward the back door. He’d heard similar bells before, and at odd times of the day like this they often meant there was trouble.

  At the back door, he had to stand aside for Angel and Dulcie, who all but shoved him out of the way in their haste. As the three of them spilled out of the house, a cowboy kneeling in the bed of a pickup nearby waved his hat and hollered.

  “Miss Angel, the boss done got himself flattened under his horse.”

  Angel’s face paled and Dulcie gasped in horror. Tye felt sick inside. A man was no match for a half ton of horseflesh. If Day had gone down beneath the full weight of the animal, he might not be in very good shape.

  “Is he conscious?” Tye shouted.

  The hand looked over the women’s heads, clearly surprised by the strange voice. But apparently the authority in Tye’s voice rang true, because the man barely hesitated.

  “Yup.”

  Angel scrambled up over the tailgate of the pickup. Dulcie, somewhat shorter and only three weeks out of childbirth, was a little slower. Tye set his hands at her waist and boosted her up, then leaped up behind her, swearing as his weight bore down on his injured finger for an instant.

  Day lay in the truck bed, wincing in pain. His right leg was wrapped in a makeshift bandage torn from someone’s saddle blanket; blood had soaked through it.

  Angel knelt beside him, but Tye noticed it was Dulcie who immediately began a medical assessment, checking her brother’s pupils and pulse before beginning to loosen the bandage.

  “Get me the med kit!” she shouted at one of the gathered cowboys, and instantly a man broke away and ran toward the barn.

  “What’d you do?” she asked her brother.

  “Bandolier almost stepped on a snake,” Day grunted. “I was thinking about something else, and I came clear out of my seat. Damned horse came down half on me and then stepped square on my leg getting back on his feet.” He looked mildly ashamed at the admission, and indeed, a current of amusement was audible among the cowhands as they realized their boss wasn’t fatally injured.

  Dulcie began probing the wound.

  “Hey!” Day yelped in surprise.

  “Don’t be a baby,” Dulcie said. “You’re going to live.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” Day replied. He gave his wife a crooked grin and reached up with his good hand to wipe away a tear that was straggling down Angel’s cheek. “I’m okay,” he said to her quietly, pulling her face into his shoulder.

  Dulcie had unwrapped the bandage and was applying pressure to a long, ragged gash, while her other hand investigated the surrounding tissue for additional damage. “This could be broken,” she pronounced. “And it’s too messy for me to splint. Besides, you need a lot of stitches and—” she held up her finger when her brother would have interrupted “—from the way your face scrunches up when you breathe, I’d say you probably have a couple of ribs broken. Off to the hospital you go, big bro.”

  Tye considered it a measure of the real pain Day must have been feeling that he didn’t protest. “I can drive if you direct me,” he said to Dulcie.

  Day shot him an unreadable glance. “You feel well enough?”

  “Fine,” Tye responded evenly.

  Day nodded. Then, showing his true nature, he began to issue orders. “Angel, go get Ryan for Dulcie. He’ll have to come along. Wes, can you take over here and keep an eye on Beth Ann until Angel gets home?”

  A grizzled older man stepped forward and nodded. “I already sent Smoky out with two others to see what he could do for Bandolier.” He paused, then took off his hat and beat it against his leg. “We’ll try, boss, but it looked to me like that leg snapped.”

  Day stilled, his hand convulsively clenching into a fist. “Damn. He was the best cutter I ever had.” He turned his eyes to the cloudless sky, shutting them all out for a moment.

  Dulcie seized the opportunity to slide off the back of the pickup and motion Tye to join her. “I’m going to ride back here with him. Angel can help with Ryan and direct you to the hospital—if you can’t find your way back.” She gave him a teasing smile, but before he could react, her face sobered. “Go easy but get us there as fast as you can. I’m afraid there might be internal damage.”

  Angel came rushing out of the house with Ryan then. Dulcie swiftly secured him in the infant seat one of the hands had strapped into the truck, and before Tye could say another word to her, he found himself driving out the ranch road, trying to avoid the worst of the ruts.

  Four

  The emergency room was deathly quiet. Apparently there weren’t many other people in unexpected peril today.

  Ryan was awake and starting to squeak, but Dulcie was too uptight to register her son’s fussiness. Day’s face had been the color of paper by the time they’d arrived at the hospital. It was entirely possible he was just in shock, but she was terribly worried that he’d suffered more serious injuries than she’d been able to assess with her limited medical skill.

  Across the waiting room, Tye caught her eye. “Want me to change Ryan?”

  “No, thank you.” She felt her face growing warm as she laid the baby down. Tye was going to think she was a terrible mother, ignoring her own child like this. She felt him watching her—probably waiting for her to make a mistake. When she was finished, Tye spoke again.

  “I’ll be glad to hold him if you need a break.”

  No! But she nodded, aware that her reaction was irrational.

  It was evident from the easy way Tye handled the baby that he’d been around children. It was a disquieting feeling, knowing that she was no longer the only parent in Ryan’s life who could take care of him. They’d shared a stiff, uneasy silence ever since Angel had disappeared through the emergency room doors with Day’s stretcher. She knew she should thank Tye for his help, but the truth was, she still wasn’t sure she even wanted him to be there.

  This situation, this moment in time, was a family matter. Memories would be made today and talked of in years to come by those who called the Red Arrow home. Now Tye was a part of those memories whether she liked it or not.

  A hand on her shoulder jerked her out of her thoughts. Tye stood behind her, holding the diaper bag in one hand and a flailing, crying Ryan against his shoulder with the other.

  “He’s hungry,” Tye said. “He’s been sucking on my finger for the last few minutes but he’s getting too smart to be satisfied with that.”

  The last thing she wanted was to have to sit here and nurse Ryan under Tye’s watchful eyes, but she guessed she didn’t have a choice. Tye didn’t look like he was in the mood to respect a request for privacy.

  Settling in a corner, she made do with a blanket over her shoulder.

  Tye made no effort to pretend he wasn’t interested; every time her gaze collided with his, he watched her with an odd speculation in his amber eyes. By the twentieth time it happened, she was sick and tired of pretending to ignore him. r />
  After she finished feeding Ryan and laid him in the crook of her arm again, she was ready for a good fight. “Do you always stare at women this way or have I been singled out for some special reason?”

  “You’ve been singled out.”

  “Oh, goody.”

  “Don’t be a wiseacre. It doesn’t become you,” Tye told her mildly.

  “I don’t particularly care what becomes me,” she said, her voice forceful, though she was careful not to raise her volume and disturb the baby dozing on her shoulder. “I want to know what you’re thinking.”

  “Right now?”

  “Right now.”

  He grinned. “I was thinking that you look awful cute when you’re mad. I was thinking that you look pretty fantastic for a woman who just had a baby three weeks ago, and that—”

  “Stop it!” She knew her face was burning. Her mind raced, but no brilliant retort came forth. By the time she quit thinking about what to say, too much time had passed.

  Tye was grinning broadly. For the first time since he’d seen Ryan and she’d refused his offer of marriage, she didn’t sense the taut aura of anger surrounding him.

  The swinging door from the treatment area banged open and Angel walked out. Instantly, Dulcie was on her feet. Tye was right behind her. “What’s up?” she asked.

  Angel offered them both a strained smile. “He’s all right,” she reassured Dulcie. “Nineteen stitches in the leg and a fractured rib, but nothing more serious.”

  Thank heavens. She hadn’t realized how tense she was until she felt the knot in her stomach ease. Day was the only brother she had, terrible tease and staunch protector all in one. He was her earliest memory and her dearest friend. “So we can take him home?”