Bachelor Father (12 page)

“You sound as if she’s almost a pet!”

“No, not a pet. That’s a dangerous fantasy some tourists have. I don’t.” He sighed. “Look, if it makes you feel any better, I have a gun in the cabin. I heard Sadie last night, and if she’d tried to get through the door or any of the windows, I would have used the gun.”

Katherine’s eyes widened. “A
gun?
”

“Yes. When you live out in the middle of nowhere like this, it’s a good idea to have some form of protection. I keep it loaded and it’s in the bottom drawer of the chest. In fact, if you want to learn how to use—”

“No!” She held up both hands and backed away from him. “I do not want to learn to use the gun. I don’t even want to see the gun.”

“Good Lord. It’s just a tool, like any other tool.”

“You can jolly well keep it to yourself, Zeke. What I want is to get my baby out of this place, where you need a gun to protect yourself from a prowling bear.”

His patience was slipping fast. “Damn it, Katherine, I’ve never had to use that gun to protect myself from a bear in all the years I’ve lived and worked in this area. I never expect to have to use it, but you seemed so spooked I thought you’d want to know it’s available.”

“Well, I’m not comforted, okay?”

“Amanda’s safer in that cabin than she is riding around in a cab in New York City, for God’s sake!”

Katherine folded her arms. “Not with that bear around.”

Suddenly he was tired of trying to convince her. “I’ll go see if the phone’s working yet,” he said. “If it is, then I’ll hike to the creek and check that out.”

“And what if the phone’s not working and the creek’s still full?”

He gazed at her in exasperation. “Maybe I’ll figure out how to rebuild the bridge, and if that’s not possible, I might decide to swim across with you and Amanda on my back.”

“Now you’re being ridiculous.”

“This roller coaster ride we’re on is getting to me, Katherine. Ridiculous or not, I’ll find a way to get you back to the lodge. Something tells me it would be well worth the effort.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Z
EKE
FELT
PERSONALLY
affronted that Katherine didn’t trust him to keep Sadie under control and Amanda safe. How could she think he’d let anything happen to that little baby? He stomped into the house and picked up the phone. If that was the way she felt, it was a good thing she wanted to spend her life in New York City.

The phone was still dead, so if he wanted to get Katherine and Amanda out of here, he’d have to figure out how to do it by himself. He pulled on his socks and boots and was reaching for his shirt when a soft cooing sound came from Amanda’s makeshift bassinet.

He went over to investigate and found her wide-eyed and staring up at him. She waved her hands and crowed, clearly wanting to be picked up. He started to call for Katherine and paused. No, he could do this, at least up to a certain point.

“Mornin’, sunshine.” He crouched down and scooped the baby out of her nest. “Ready for another day?” As he cradled her in his arms, he smiled down at her, unable to resist that chubby face crowned by a shock of dark hair that proclaimed the Sioux blood flowing in her veins. She smiled back, and a warm glow surrounded his heart...until he realized his goal for the day was to get mother and baby back to the lodge. If he achieved his goal, he’d be giving up that smile.

He laid Amanda on the pad Katherine had left on the table the last time she’d changed the baby. “Getting a little soggy in the britches, aren’t you, kiddo?”

Amanda kicked her legs and started blowing bubbles at him.

This time he felt like a real pro as he unsnapped the pink sleeper and removed the wet diaper. The sleeper was also damp, so he decided to take everything off and start from scratch. Unfortunately when he looked in the diaper bag he found yesterday’s sleeper, which Katherine had dried by the fire, but no diapers. As Katherine had predicted, they’d run out.

Again he started to call for Katherine but changed his mind. He’d started this project and he’d by damn finish it. “We have us a materials shortage, Mandy,” he said. “But don’t worry. When you’ve lived on a ranch full of boys like I have, you’re used to running short now and again. We learned how to make do, which is how you and I will handle this temporary crisis. Right?”

Amanda crowed softly, almost as if she were having a conversation with him.

He pretended she understood everything he was saying as he cleaned her carefully with a towelette. “You know, my job as ranger makes a lot more sense now that I’ve met you. We always talk about saving the parks for future generations, but that was a hazy concept to me before. Now it’s not.”

Amanda smiled her toothless smile.

“Now I’m protecting the parks just for you.” He leaned down and touched the tip of her nose with one finger. “Just for you, Amanda—” He started to add her middle name for emphasis and discovered he didn’t even know what it was or if she even had one. Yeah, she probably had one. Katherine was too particular about details to leave that out, and she’d probably used Seymour for the baby’s last name. Zeke hadn’t admitted it to himself before, but that was another thing he resented—having no voice in choosing the baby’s given name, let alone whose last name she’d carry. Fortunately he liked the name Amanda.

“Come on, sunshine.” He could at least tag his own nickname on the baby, he decided, picking her up and settling her in the crook of his arm. “Let’s go requisition you a diaper.”

Her soft baby skin felt good against his bare chest as he walked over to a cupboard above the sink. He tucked her in a little closer, enjoying the sensation. With his free hand he opened the cupboard. “Let’s see. We have a red-and-white stripe, a blue check and a yellow plaid.” He glanced down at Amanda. “Which would you rather have? The yellow plaid? Good choice.” He grabbed the dish towel out of the cupboard.

“Now we need something to hold this arrangement together. Let’s go see what’s in the junk drawer.”

Amanda lay quietly in his arms, apparently enjoying the journey around the cabin as much as he was. He pulled out a drawer at the end of the counter and rummaged through it. “No safety pins, sunshine. Paper clips, but I don’t think that’s going to work. We have athletic tape in the first-aid kit, but that won’t hold a squirmy girl like you.” He fished around in the back of the drawer. “But
this
will.”

The baby gurgled happily.

Zeke grinned at her. “I knew you were the kind of gal who would appreciate the multitude of uses for duct tape. Now let’s get you fixed up.”

Back at the table he wasn’t sure exactly how to fold the kitchen towel and he tried several versions before settling on one that seemed to cover the problem. Because he had to make sure he kept one hand on Amanda at all times, he ended up using his teeth to tear the duct tape. He was very careful to tape only the towel and not Amanda’s delicate skin.

He gazed solemnly down at the baby. “Sunshine, I’m sorry to report to you that duct tape tastes like sh—uh, sheep dip. I guess. I’ve never tasted sheep dip, but I’m sure it’s about as awful as this.”

She stared at him with such worried concentration that he chuckled. “But I won’t make you taste it. I promise.”

Finally he had her snapped back into her dry sleeper. With a sense of great accomplishment, he picked her up and carried her outside, where Katherine was sitting on the porch in the unbroken chair.

Katherine glanced up, her eyes grave.

“I changed her,” he said simply.

“Why, thank you, Zeke.”

As he handed the freshly diapered baby down to her, he decided he’d never been as proud of an accomplishment in his life.

* * *

K
ATHERINE
HAD
HEARD
A
MANDA
making her little morning noises and had started into the cabin when she noticed Zeke was already there, bending over the kettle. She’d backed quietly out of the door, retrieved the unbroken Adirondack chair from the yard and sat down on the porch to see what happened next.

She’d heard him talking to Amanda and wondered if he might be changing her. But there were no more diapers, and Katherine kept expecting Zeke to call her inside to figure out an alternative. Apparently he’d come up with one by himself.

Feeling a little out of the loop, she cuddled Amanda close. “How’s my girl? Did you sleep well?” Damned if Amanda didn’t look right past her and up at Zeke, as if the baby were fascinated with her new friend. Katherine acknowledged her jealousy with a touch of shame.

Zeke stood nearby, almost hovering. “Do you...need any help?”

She’d created some distance between them by fighting with him about Sadie. Maybe she’d make it easier on both of them if she maintained that distance. “Thanks, but I’m used to working around my bum arm now,” she said.

“Then I guess I’ll see about fixing the other chair.”

“Okay.”

He went into the cabin and emerged a short time later carrying a hammer and a handful of nails. As Katherine watched him walk down the steps and out to the overturned chair, she wished he’d thought to put on a shirt and spare her the sight of all that glorious muscle. But the sun that caressed his bronzed back so lovingly had started to warm the clearing and he probably didn’t need a shirt.

Unbuttoning her own shirt, Katherine used the broad arm of the chair to take some of Amanda’s weight off her injured arm. The baby sucked eagerly. Maybe it was only Katherine’s imagination, but Amanda seemed more content and less prone to fussing ever since Zeke had started helping to care for her.

The hollow sound of a hammer blow drifted from the far side of the clearing. Katherine looked up and discovered Zeke had taken the repair project a distance away, probably so the hammering wouldn’t disturb Amanda. Yet he was still close enough that she could see the flex of his back muscles and the bulge of his biceps as he drove another nail into the arm of the chair.

A pair of jays chattered in an aspen tree and a squirrel darted out on a pine branch near the porch. There was no end of other visual diversions for Katherine, but she couldn’t seem to avoid the pull of Zeke’s lithe movements. He embodied all the reasons a woman took up the art of man-watching.

She shouldn’t watch him, though, she told herself. Torturing herself by admiring his body glistening in the sun was stupid, considering that she was determined to leave here today. Maybe she’d overreacted about the bear. In her heart she knew Zeke wouldn’t let anything happen to Amanda. But Sadie could serve as a convenient wedge to pry Katherine and Zeke apart. Without something to fight about, they might find their inevitable separation impossible to tolerate.

Even with something to fight about, leaving would be the hardest thing she’d ever done, Katherine thought as she gazed across the clearing. God, the man sure knew how to drive a nail. She couldn’t tear her attention away from Zeke until he finished the job and hooked the claw hammer in the belt loop of his jeans. Just as he picked up the chair and turned toward her, she lowered her head and concentrated on Amanda again. She hoped he hadn’t caught her staring.

He brought the chair up on the porch and set it beside Katherine’s. “Now that chair has some character.” His manner seemed to dare her to refute that and make more disparaging remarks about the bear.

She decided to avoid the subject. “Did you check the phone?”

“Yeah.” He unhooked the hammer from his belt loop and laid it on the arm of the chair before he sat down. “Still out.”

Katherine tried to be discreet as she shifted Amanda to her other breast, but she had the impression Zeke noticed every little movement she made. If he was as fascinated by her as she was by him, then he would notice. “Do you really think you can fix the bridge?”

“Depends on how far down the creek is.” Turning away from his quiet, but thorough, study of her as she nursed Amanda, he leaned back in the chair and focused his attention on the woods beyond the clearing. “I’ll take a little hike down there after we have some breakfast and check things out.”

“And leave us here?” She hadn’t meant that to sound quite so panic-stricken. Except for the bear, she’d do fine here by herself. But Sadie had her a little spooked. “What I mean is, I’d like to go along. It’s a beautiful day. Maybe I could help you.”

“You don’t have the shoes for it, Katherine.”

“I could manage.”

He propped his elbow on the chair and rested his chin on his hand as he gazed at her, his dark eyes growing warmer by the minute.

Conscious of that glow, she tugged her shirt to cover more of her exposed breast. “I really can manage. The shoes will be fine.”

He shook his head. “If you’re worried about Sadie, the chance that she’ll come by in the hour or so I’m gone is practically nonexistent.”

“You’re probably right.” She was feeling sillier by the minute. She was letting this darned bear turn her into a coward. “Never mind.”

He continued to study her. “On the other hand, if that bear came by and scared you, I’d never forgive myself. Maybe your shoes will work.”

She sent him a grateful look. “Thanks, Zeke.”

He watched Amanda nurse for a while.

Katherine felt the heat of his gaze but didn’t think she could very well ask him to turn away. After all, Amanda was his daughter, too, and after today he wouldn’t be seeing her for some time. It was just that she’d never been so conscious of the little slurping and swallowing sounds Amanda made, or of how often the baby patted her hand against Katherine’s breast, drawing Zeke’s attention there.

“What’s her middle name?” Zeke asked quietly.

“I didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry. It’s Lorraine. My mother’s name.”

“Amanda Lorraine. That’s nice.” He paused. “I suppose her last name is Seymour?”

Katherine caught a slight challenging note in the question. “Well, yes. I had to decide, for the birth certificate, and I wasn’t sure if you wanted anything to do with—”

“I understand.”

The way he cut off her explanation didn’t sound particularly understanding. She remembered the little pine tree carving on his mantel that indicated a certain pride in his family name of Lonetree despite, or maybe even because of, his difficult childhood. She wondered if he was beginning to feel possessive toward Amanda. “Maybe you’d like to discuss hyphenating her last name,” she said.

“Maybe.” His glance strayed from her for the first time in several minutes as his attention shifted to a point over her right shoulder. “Stay still.”

Her pulse jumped. Oh, God. The bear. “What?” she croaked.

“Two deer, a doe and a buck. They’re only about thirty yards away. You’ll need to turn to see them.”

She let out a long sigh. “I thought it was Sadie.”

“She only comes in the late afternoon and evening. I’ve never seen her around here in the morning, and most animals are creatures of habit. Now just turn slowly to your right and you’ll be able to see them on the edge of the aspen grove.”

Katherine loved deer, with their liquid brown eyes and graceful carriage. Amanda had begun to drift off to sleep but she continued to nurse sporadically, so Katherine kept her tucked against her as she eased around.

Sure enough, the deer grazed only a short distance beyond Zeke’s truck. The buck had a fine set of antlers. He raised his head, looked around regally, then stared straight at Katherine before lowering his head to graze again.

“They’re beautiful, Zeke. They look tame enough to pet.”

“Fortunately, they’re not. That would be dangerous for them.”

As if to prove Zeke’s point, the deer lifted their heads in response to a slight breeze blowing toward them from the direction of the cabin. In seconds they’d bounded off into the woods.

“I guess they caught our scent,” Katherine said, gazing after them.

“Yep. They have to use all their senses to avoid predators, to find food...to mate.”

The resonance in his voice triggered a response in Katherine. She turned her head to find his gaze focused on her like a laser. Her movements had dislodged the shirt somewhat, and Amanda picked that moment to doze off, releasing Katherine’s nipple. Heart pounding, she pulled the shirt over her bare breast. “Whereas we’ve evolved past that need,” she said.