Becoming Jesse's Father (Dancing Moon Ranch Book 5) Read online

  Retrieving the duck, she handed it to Jesse, who was propped against her hip, and for the first time in weeks he looked at her, and smiled. "Oh honey," she said, closing her arms around him. "I'll get you out of this and you'll get to know your real daddy, but not yet."

  She knew Jesse had no idea what she was talking about, but hoped some of it would sink in. The day would come when he'd meet a father who'd be everything Erik was not, but before then, Adam would need a clear understanding of exactly what kind of man Erik had become, and what he was capable of doing. She had no doubt Adam would underestimate Erik's abilities because Adam was a big strong man who'd be no match for most men his size. But Erik was not most men. He was more like an automaton, something without heart or feeling, programmed to carry out a mission, and Erik's mission was to destroy her and take her son.

  Jesse, seeing the tub filled with water, leaned way over. Reaching out a little hand he curled it around the duck, and said, "I wash ducky."

  "Yes honey," Emily said. "You can give Mr. Ducky a bath." Stripping off Jesse's clothes, she lowered him into the tub, and after washing him well, she let him play in the water as free as he wanted, and before long, he was splashing and laughing and sending water over the side and droplets against Emily's face, which made her laugh too, a giddy kind of laugh because, for the first time since Jesse was born, she wasn't watching over her shoulder for Erik.

  She was thankful Jesse was out of night diapers and willing to use an old pot she'd found under the cabin. But after he was ready for bed, she handed him a picture book, and said, "Honey, Mommy's going to the outside potty. You stay here and look at the pictures in the book and I'll be right back."

  Jesse looked up at her, and said, "Mommy, go potty."

  Emily kissed Jesse on the cheek and left the cabin, then followed the trampled-down, snowy path to the outhouse. But as she was returning to the cabin, there came a scream unlike anything she'd ever heard, and it was close, perhaps no more than a hundred feet away. A gut wrenching kind of fear gripped her and she quickened her pace. As she mounted the porch steps the sound came again, like fingernails on a chalkboard. Yanking open the door she rushed inside and quickly bolted the latch. Glancing at the shotgun, she took it off the mantel and tried to remember everything Adam told her about loading and shooting.

  She had no idea what kind of animal could make such blood-curdling sounds, but from now on all trips to the outhouse would be accompanied by the shotgun, if she dared even go out again.

  ***

  The moment Adam caught sight of his mother crossing the grounds from the lodge to the stables, in long determined strides, he knew she'd seen him returning from the mountain cabin, and that his father had told her about Emily, which she affirmed as soon as Adam dismounted.

  "What is Emily thinking, coming here after what happened?" Grace said, trailing along with Adam as he led Max into the stables. "We don't need a showdown between her and her husband here on the ranch."

  "Erik doesn't know she's here," Adam said, hastily going about the task of removing the saddle, wanting to end what was certain to be a dissertation on the merits of waiting until the right woman came along, and Emily was definitely not the right woman.

  "Why is she here?" Grace asked, a definite edge to her tone.

  "Like I told Dad, she has no place to go." Adam lifted the saddle and pad off the horse and went into the tack room, taking an inordinate amount of time to check the saddle pad for burrs or twigs, anything to bide a little more time. He was definitely not ready for this conversation with his mother, or anyone else at the ranch.

  "Well, she's not your responsibility," Grace said, while standing in the doorway to the tack room. "I stopped by the women's shelter in McMinnville and they said they have an opening and Emily could come there."

  Adam turned and faced his mother squarely, and said, "You shouldn't have done that, Mom. Emily asked me not to tell anyone. I told Dad in confidence."

  "I see no reason why she can't go there," Grace said, trailing behind Adam as he returned to the horse. "But one thing I know for sure, she doesn't belong here. You do plan to send her away, don't you, Adam?"

  "Look, I'll take care of it in my own way," Adam said.

  "Which has not been very good in the past," Grace reminded him. "The last thing you need is Emily in and out of your life again."

  Adam grabbed a curry comb and started dragging it over the horse. "She has a son and I'm not sending her away. She'll be staying in the cabin until I find a place for her."

  "You're getting involved with her again, aren't you?" Grace said. "You're being as foolish about this woman as you've always been. It's like an obsession with you. I've seen it over the years and so has your father."

  Adam sucked in a long breath to keep from telling his mother that he was a man now, and he didn't need advice about what to do with his life, whether it included Emily or not. But if he didn't put the skids on things, his mother and everyone else on the ranch would be on his back until Emily was gone. "She'll only be at the cabin until the snow stops, and while she's there I'm going to try to find a place for her to live and get her a job. And I have no intention of getting involved with her again so you can put that to rest."

  Grace looked at him, guardedly. "How did she get to the cabin in the first place? Did you pick her up somewhere and take her there?"

  Adam walked around to the other side of the horse and looked at his mother over its back, and said, "She hiked in," which he realized, as soon as he said it, would raise more questions he didn't want to answer, mostly because they'd be questions he couldn't answer because even Emily didn't have the answers. That's the way it had always been with her. Sometimes he'd wondered if that was why he'd been fixated on her, because he could never figure her out, and after time, it had become a challenge and a way of life. Love Emily for too many reasons to list, but don't get involved with her romantically, for far more reasons to list.

  "She didn't hike in through the ranch," Grace said, while peering at him over the back of the horse. "The road here wasn't even plowed until yesterday."

  "She came in from the other direction," Adam replied, while slipping off the bridle.

  "It's over five miles," Grace said. "She couldn't possibly have done that with a child."

  "Don't underestimate Emily," Adam said. "She hiked in during the snowstorm, with her son in a pack on her back, and she'd already been at the cabin two days when I found her." As he said the words, he couldn't help but feel a certain amount of admiration for Emily, even while he tried to hold onto his resolve to keep his distance, a resolve that was quickly crumbling.

  His mother eyed him steadily, in the way that used to make him squirm when he was a kid, and said, "All I can say is, before you get further involved you'd better give this thing with Emily long careful thought."

  "I doubt if I'll need to do that, Mom, because I'm sure every adult on the place will take care of it for me, along with giving me instructions on how to get my head out the sand." He took his horse and led him to his stall, knowing it was just the beginning of the kind of a diatribe he'd be hearing from everyone on the place from now until Emily was out of his life, for good.

  The problem was, when he left her at the cabin the day before, having her out of his life was exactly what he wanted, but after seeing her today he wasn't so sure. But the one thing he did know, he wouldn't turn his back on Emily and her son, no matter what she'd done to him in the past, and the adults on this ranch might as well get used to the idea.

  ***

  Adam spent the next two days with his younger brothers, Ryan, Josh, Jeremy and Tyler, rounding up stock and mending fences taken down by snow-laden limbs, but by the middle of the third day he was concerned about Emily being in the cabin alone with her son, and decided to ride up and make sure she was okay. His father said nothing more about her, and Adam hoped he'd set the whole thing aside. But the reality was, his father was mulling it over, but it was far from being shelved.

&nb
sp; Adam's initial plan was to ride up to the cabin and check on Emily and be back for dinner with the family, but at the last minute, he told Ryan, the eldest of his brothers, that he had some things to do at the cabin and might be late, and to pass the message on to their dad, and for their mom not to hold dinner. He had no idea what those things were, only that he didn't want to be tied to a time frame if he needed to stay longer.

  The operative word this time was needed. Emily had been back in his life for two days, and already thoughts of her consumed him. All the details of a face he'd tried to hold onto over the years were clear now, and she was again vulnerable because of Erik, and he was preoccupied with taking care of her and making sure she was safe. It was a driving need with him.

  But before heading up the mountain, he wanted to talk to the one person on the ranch whose advice had always been sound…

  He found his grandmother standing on a low step ladder, filling bird feeders. "Grandma," he called out. "Get off the ladder. Maddy's supposed to do that."

  On seeing Adam coming, Maureen Hansen's face broke into a smile. "Maddy's at a sleepover, and the rest of you boys have been out chasing stock and my birds are hungry."

  Adam took the birdseed scooper from his grandmother, offered his hand to help her down, and walked with her to her house. "Do you have a minute to talk?" he asked.

  "Of course," Maureen replied. "Come on inside and I'll put on a pot of coffee."

  "I'm not staying that long," Adam said. "I'm heading up to the cabin to take care of a few things."

  Maureen peered up at him. "A few things, like Emily?"

  "So you heard," Adam said, wondering what would come next. It wouldn't be the usual discourse though. His grandmother didn't operate that way.

  Maureen sat on a bench on the porch and pulled off her boots and set them by the door, then went inside in her stocking feet, and Adam did the same. As far back as he could remember, no one entered Grandma's house in anything but socks. "You're here for a reason," she said. "I can tell from the look on your face. I assume it's about Emily."

  "It shows that much?" Adam said.

  Maureen nodded. "It shows. Sit down."

  Adam lowered himself to the couch and waited for his grandmother to continue. After she'd tucked her feet into a pair of fleece-lined slippers and settled in her favorite chair, she said, "I watched you with Emily during the time you were engaged, and heard all about what was going on when you were in high school, and the problem you're having is almost a genetic trait with Hansen men, something I've concluded after living around the bunch of you half my life."

  She paused as she always did when she wanted to get his full attention, then continued.

  "The thing of it is, Hansen men love deeply, and they love forever. Your grandfather was like that, and you're so much like him it's uncanny. You look like him the way he was when I first met him, and you sound like him with the same deep resonant quality to your voice, and I see so many of his mannerisms in the way you move, yet they couldn't have come from him because he was gone before you were born. It's almost like he's here guiding you, so it has to be genetic. But this relationship you've had with Emily over the years, it's typical of a Hansen man when he decides he's found his one true love, so you'll do what you have to do."

  Adam studied his grandmother, a little uncertain as to what she was telling him. "So, you don't think it's wrong for me to help her?"

  "Of course it's not wrong," Maureen said. "It would be wrong if you didn't. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't guard your heart. Even though you love her, and your heart tells you she's the only woman you could love, she still might not be the right woman for you. I could draw a parallel with the phantom limb syndrome. When a person loses an arm or a leg they often sense the presence of the missing limb, even feeling pain, as if the limb were still there. With Emily, when she's not a part of your life, you still feel the pain because she is a part of your life. Ever since I lost my Adam there's been a hole right here—" she pressed her fingers to her heart "—that he once filled. So I know."

  Adam heard the melancholy in his grandmother's voice. It was always there when she talked about his grandfather, and he knew the sadness would be there until she died, unless she found someone to fill the void. "Would you ever consider remarrying?" he asked.

  Maureen laughed lightly. "After being married to a man like my Adam, whoever I'd marry would always be held up to a standard they couldn't meet. It wouldn't be fair. I'm happy though, seeing my grandsons growing up to be the men Adam would have been proud of. And little Maddy too. He would have spoiled her rotten."

  "Not a hard thing to do with that kid," Adam said, with affection. He stood, then kissed his grandmother on the cheek and said, "Thanks for not telling me to pull my head out of the sand."

  Maureen looked up and patted him on the face, and replied, "Maybe there's a grand plan in the scheme of things we humans don't understand. If it's meant to be, it will be. So, go do what you have to do to keep Emily safe, but don't forget to guard your heart. You can do both."

  Adam wasn't sure how to reconcile that last piece of advice, but the message behind it was typical of her counsel. His grandmother, in her wisdom, opened his eyes to the possibilities, yet didn't shut any doors to a future the others might not see. With that thought foremost on his mind, he left the house, mounted his horse and headed back to the cabin.

  A little over an hour later, as he crested the hill and came to the snow-blanketed clearing, what caught his attention was the sight of Emily standing on the porch, shaking out a small rug. He pulled his horse to a halt and sat looking at her for a few moments, knowing she was unaware of him. As he watched, she stepped to the front of the porch, curved her hand around a post supporting the porch roof, and gazed out across the snow. She looked like she belonged there, and he could imagine them living in the cabin, away from the world, just him and Emily.

  And her son, he remembered. But he could come to terms with raising Erik's son. The boy was small, and he wouldn't be subjected to his father's influence.

  Then it came to him that, however Emily managed to get away, Erik could still want to be a part of his son's life. And that, Adam couldn't reconcile.

  On urging Max into the clearing, Emily looked his way and smiled. She looked happy to see him. And more beautiful than he could remember. But as he came closer, her smile faded and her eyes looked troubled. "I'm so glad you're here," she said in a heartfelt voice. "It's been three days since you left and I was worried that something happened to you."

  Adam dismounted, and as he walked toward her, he said, "Why would you worry about me?" It was a loaded question, and he was digging for only one answer.

  Because I love you...

  Emily's lips parted, as if she might say just that, then she blinked several times, and said, "A little while after you left, when I was returning from the outhouse, I heard a terrible sound, like a scream, then when you didn't come back for three days I thought maybe something out there could have followed you and, well, I was just very worried." She held her hands clasped together and pressed against her chest, and he resisted the urge to unclasp them and put them around his neck and pull her into his arms and hold her and kiss her, because he had a gut feeling she wouldn't push him away, and might even welcome his kiss.

  Do what you have to do to keep Emily safe, but don't forget to guard your heart...

  Easy to forget, he realized. "Don't worry about me," he said. "I've been roaming these hills since I was a kid and I'm still here."

  Emily unclasped her hands and reaching out, took him by the arm, and said, "There's something I want to show you. It's around behind the cabin."

  "Something like what?" Adam asked, acutely aware of Emily's hand on his arm as she tugged him around the corner of the cabin.

  "I don't know," Emily said. "Maybe like something was dragged across the snow into the woods. I saw the path but I was too afraid to go any further. The noise I'd heard the day before was very close, and th
ere were big animal tracks, like maybe a pack of wolves."

  "We don't have wolves around here, but how close were the sounds?" Adam asked, alarmed.

  "Just inside the woods."

  "Go get the shotgun," Adam said. When Emily returned with the gun, Adam nudged her around behind him, and said, "Stay back. I'm going to yell and make a big racket in case we're being watched."

  Emily poked her head around him. "Watched by what?"

  "A mountain lion." Raising his arms and waving furiously, Adam yelled, "Hi-ya, hi-ya, hi-ya," in the high pitched voice he used to move cattle or turn a challenging steer, then rushed towards the underbrush at the edge of the woods while flailing his arms. When he heard or saw nothing, he said, "So where are the tracks?"

  Emily took him by the arm and pulled him back around the cabin, and said, while pointing to an area not more than fifteen feet from the woods, "Just over there."

  Adam started walking to where Emily pointed, and when he saw the first tracks, those of what was undoubtedly a moving lion, he paced between them and said, "The tracks are at least seven feet apart, which puts the length of the lion roughly around seven to eight feet, and probably weighing upward of a hundred and eighty pounds. Undoubtedly a male."

  He knew only one lion that size roaming the mountains in the area. Knowing the lion had come right up to the cabin, and had been there within the last few hours, meant he was probably still around, and waiting. The tracks in the immediate area were too deep and chaotic to study, so he walked over to just inside the woods, where several of the tracks made clear imprints in a blanket of snow protected by a canopy of trees overhead.