Operation Cowboy Daddy
She was fulfilled by her work, by the friendships she shared and with the often amusing and always wise company of her grandmother. That was enough for her. It had to be enough.
“What’s on your agenda for today?” Mary asked after they’d eaten and as they cleaned up the breakfast dishes.
“I’m going to try to finish up that turquoise skirt so I can get started on another one. I’d like to sew at least ten more before the craft show,” Halena replied.
Despite her advancing age, Halena still made beautiful skirts with beaded detail that was stunning, along with the more traditional Choctaw dresses. They always sold well at the annual Oklahoma Days Craft Fair.
“Ten skirts in two weeks, that’s a pretty tall order,” Mary replied.
“The more skirts, the more new movies I can buy,” Halena replied.
A year ago, when Halena had been recovering from a mild heart attack, a friend had given her a DVD player and a handful of movies. Since that time she was movie-obsessed.
“And I’m going to work on some baskets out on the back porch. It’s going to be such a beautiful day,” Mary replied.
Halena nodded. “It’s always good to have a plan. And now I think it’s time to get to work. I need to get these skirts done as quickly as possible.”
As Halena headed to her bedroom, Mary smiled in amusement. Her grandmother was an amusing blend of old tradition and new-world savvy. She was often a guest speaker at the Durant Indian Nation grade school, where she spoke about the history and culture of their people, and she also had a blog with tons of followers, where she talked about everything from how to properly fold a bath towel to sex and love tips.
The screened-in back porch was Mary’s work space as long as the weather allowed. When it got colder or was too rainy, she moved inside to the spare bedroom, but today was positively gorgeous.
She stepped outside to the musical sound of wind chimes dancing in the light breeze. The scent of autumn was in the air and the river cane she used to make the baskets she sold tickled her nose.
She’d built a successful business for herself, selling baskets and pottery and other items not only at craft fairs, but also through her internet site.
As she sat at the long worktable, it didn’t take her long to lose herself in the artistry of weaving. She worked here most mornings and then after lunch her grandmother often joined her. The two would work and chat until dinnertime and then move back inside for the evening. After supper, Halena worked on her blog or watched movies, while Mary checked in with the two people who helped her with her web-based business.
“It’s going to be a long winter,” Halena said as she settled into the cushy porch chair after lunch. The skirt she was hand-sewing was a beautiful spill of turquoise in her lap.
“And how do you know that?” Mary asked.
“The leaves in the trees have whispered to me that the snow will come early and stay late,” she said.
“Last year didn’t the leaves in the trees whisper to you that we’d have an unusually wet summer?” Mary asked in amusement. It had been the driest summer on record.
Halena smiled with a glint in her eyes. “Okay, I’ll admit that sometimes the leaves lie to me.”
Mary laughed, but her laughter was cut short by a loud knock on the front door. “I wonder who that could be,” she said. She got up from the table and hurried through the house to answer.
She opened the door and stared at the man on her porch in stunned surprise. “Tony,” she said in shock. The last time she’d seen the handsome cowboy had been a little over a year ago, when he and her friend Amy had come to visit several times.
He held on to a baby car seat with a bright-eyed, chubby-cheeked infant tucked beneath a blue blanket. Tony was not only clad in jeans, a white T-shirt and a brown cowboy hat, but he also wore an air of utter desperation.
“Mary, can I come in?” he asked.
“Of course.” She stepped aside and as he swept past her to enter the living room, he smelled of not only sunshine and fresh air, but also a woodsy cologne that was instantly appealing.
She hated the way her heart beat just a little faster at the mere sight of him. The very first time she’d met him her heart had reacted the same way, and it had shamed her, since he was her friend’s boyfriend.
She closed the door behind him and motioned him to sit on the sofa. What was he doing here? And why did he have a baby, who cooed softly as he set the carrier on the floor next to him?
“Have you been in touch with Amy lately?” he asked as she sat in the chair opposite the sofa. He took off his hat and placed it next to him.
“No. The last time I spoke to her was about six months ago. Why?”
“She came by the ranch last night and said she was in trouble.” He glanced down at the baby and his jaw tightened. “She told me the baby is mine and his name is Joey, then she jumped into her car and drove off. I need to find her.”
Oh, Amy, what kind of trouble have you found this time? “I’m sorry, Tony, I don’t know what to tell you. The last time I talked to her she was living in Oklahoma City with a man she met not long after the two of you went your separate ways. I tried to call her a while ago, but the phone number I had for her was no good.”
Tony’s eyes bored into hers with intensity. A woman could fall into those dark depths. “Do you remember the name of the man?”
Mary frowned thoughtfully and tried to remember the last conversation she’d had with her friend. “No, I don’t think she mentioned his name to me.”
Her gaze drifted down to the baby. He smiled and cooed to her and a wave of unexpected anguish swept through her, an anguish she’d believed she’d made peace with a long time ago.
“Did you know she was pregnant?” Tony asked.
Mary nodded. “She told me she was pregnant with your child when she first took a test.”
Tony’s strong features expressed bewilderment. “Why didn’t she tell me? Why didn’t she come to me?”
“I don’t know, Tony. I certainly encouraged her to do so at the time.” But there was no telling Amy anything when she didn’t want to listen. “Besides, she made me promise I wouldn’t tell you.”
He leaned back against the beige sofa, his disturbed energy filling the air. “Do you know for sure that he’s mine?”
Mary’s heart squeezed tight as she thought about her troubled friend. “I can only go by what she told me at the time, but I know when she did tell me she was already living with the other man.” She knew that Tony probably understood as well as she did that Amy wasn’t always a reliable source of truthfulness.
He remained silent for several long minutes, his gaze directed someplace over her shoulder. Tony Nakni obviously had Native American blood. His skin tone was a warm bronze and his straight black hair was a thing of glory, falling to the middle of his shoulders.
And those broad shoulders accentuated his slim hips and long legs. Physically he stirred something in Mary that had been dormant for a very long time.
His gaze returned to her and he leaned forward. “I need your help, Mary.”
At that moment Halena came in from the back porch and stood in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. “Grandmother, do you remember Tony Nakni? He came to visit a couple of times with Amy.”
“I don’t remember what we had for breakfast this morning,” Halena replied as she eyed Tony with a touch of suspicion. “Is that your baby?”
Tony hesitated a moment. “I don’t know,” he finally replied. “What I do know for sure is that I need help.” He looked back at Mary.
“What kind of help?” she asked.
“I’ll pay you whatever it takes if you’ll take care of Joey just until I can find Amy,” he said. She stared at him in stunned surprise and he quickly continued, “I know you’re a good woman, Mary. I wouldn’t trust him with anyone else, but I have to work during the day and I don’t live in a place that would be healthy for a baby. Besides, I don’t know what I’m doing. I know I’m asking a lot, but I don’t have anyplace else to turn. It should only be for a couple of days or so.”
Mary was speechless. In a million years she wouldn’t have been able to anticipate a visit from Tony, let alone the favor that he asked of her. He had also just spoken more words than he had during all the visits when he and Amy had been here before.
She didn’t want to get involved with this. Anything that had to do with Amy always wound up to be a big mess. Besides, he was talking about her taking on a huge responsibility.
Still, as Joey cooed and waved his hands in the air as if catching imaginary butterflies, myriad emotions surged up inside her.
“Okay, I’ll do it,” she heard herself say.
Tony jumped up off the sofa. “Thank you so much,” he said fervently. He picked up his hat. “I’ll just head into town and get some things for you that you’ll need.”
“Don’t thank me yet, you haven’t heard my terms,” Mary replied. If the baby was Tony’s, then he wasn’t going to get off so easily. She wasn’t just going to take care of little Joey without him being a part of it.
“Terms?” He looked at her warily.
“Joey can stay here with us, but when you get off work in the evenings, you need to be here with him.” All she was thinking of was what was best for the child. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was intensely attracted to Tony.
“That’s not a problem,” he replied. The darkness that had filled his eyes dissipated somewhat for the first time since he’d walked through the door. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”
He began to inch toward the front door. “I’ve got a suitcase full of stuff that Amy left with him. I’ll go get that now and then I’ll pick up some more things in town and be back here later this afternoon.”
“I’ll walk out with you for the suitcase,” Mary replied.
They left the house and headed toward his black king-cab pickup parked in her driveway. “It’s possible Amy will show up in the next day or so,” he said. He pulled the suitcase out of the pickup bed and then frowned. “She didn’t look good, Mary. I think she’s back on drugs.”
Mary’s heart sank, although she wasn’t surprised. Amy had fought addiction issues for years. “Let’s just hope whatever is going on with her life, she gets it together soon and comes back for her son.”
“This arrangement isn’t going to cause issues with your boyfriend or a significant other, is it?” he asked worriedly.
“Since I don’t have a significant other or a boyfriend, there’s no problem,” she replied.
Moments later she watched as Tony’s truck disappeared in the distance. She gripped the suitcase handle tightly and wondered what she had just gotten herself into.
She should have never agreed to this. The last thing she needed was to have a baby in the house to remind her of all her inadequacies. But Tony had looked so desperate.
It’s going to be just fine, she assured herself. It was possible Amy had already returned to the Holiday ranch looking for Tony and her baby.
With this positive thought in mind she headed inside. Halena remained standing in the same place she’d been during the conversation with Tony, only now she had deep lines etched across her forehead.
“Big changes,” she said. “And a tin man... You’d better guard yourself, my Mary. The leaves are whispering to me that this is not a good thing.”
Mary released an uneasy laugh. “But, Grandmother, sometimes the leaves lie to you.”
Halena’s eyes remained dark and troubled. “And sometimes they don’t,” she replied.
Chapter 2
Tony had forgotten about Mary Redwing’s beauty. Of course, the last time he’d seen her he’d been completely besotted by Amy’s curly blond hair, bright blue eyes and infectious giggles.
He’d been relieved when he’d thought about Mary that morning. She was not only an old friend to Amy, but also a woman who had given him the impression of great stability and strength on the few times he’d seen her.
Still, he’d never really noticed the richness of her long black hair in the single braid down her back, or her beautiful doe eyes, or her full lips and high cheekbones.
She’d been clad in a pair of tight jeans that showcased her long legs and her brown T-shirt had fit perfectly across her breasts and slender waist.
He was just so glad she’d agreed to take care of the boy. Before he’d thought about Mary, Tony had spent the morning not just worried about what he was going to do, but concerned that he might do something wrong, or not do something at all that Joey needed.
The first thing he intended to do before he did any shopping was get a quick bite to eat at the Bitterroot Café. His nerves had been so shot that morning he’d barely eaten any breakfast and lunchtime had already come and gone.
His stomach gurgled in anticipation as he pulled into the café parking lot. He frowned when he saw two familiar pickups also there. The men from the Humes ranch must be having a late lunch, too.
As far as all the cowboys on the Holiday ranch were concerned, all the men who worked on the neighboring ranch were lowlifes and creeps. One of them was now in jail, looking at plenty of prison time for kidnapping Trisha Cahill, who worked here as a waitress and who was the love of Dusty’s life.
Tony got out of his truck and walked through the café door. He immediately spied Lloyd Green, Zeke Osmond and Ace Sanders from the Humes place seated in a booth. He headed for an empty stool at the long counter, pleased to see Trisha working that area.
She greeted him with a huge smile. “A little late for you today, Tony,” she said.
“I had a few other things to attend to this morning.”
“Clay and Sawyer were in a little while ago and filled me in on the latest news. Where is the baby now?”
“Do you know Mary Redwing?” he asked.
Trisha nodded. “A nice woman. Her grandmother is definitely a pip.”
“They’re going to take care of the baby until Amy shows back up again...hopefully in the next day or two. How are you and Dusty doing? I haven’t had much of a chance to talk to him the last couple of days. You still like living with that crazy cowboy?”
She flashed him a bright smile again. “He’s wonderful, we’re wonderful.”
“When are the wedding bells going to ring?”
“We’re not having a real wedding. We’re just going to sneak away one of these weekends and get married at city hall. We’re already married in our hearts.”
“He’s a lucky man, Trisha.”
“And I’m a lucky woman. And now, what can I get for you?”
He ordered a hamburger and fries and ate quickly as he mentally tried to make a list of what Mary might need.
He was almost finished eating when the men from the Humes ranch walked over to him. “Hey, Tony, I heard through the grapevine that you have a little papoose,” Lloyd Green said and then snickered.
“Are you going to teach him how to hunt with arrows?” Zeke asked.
“Or maybe how to scalp somebody?” Ace added.
Tony turned around on the stool to face the men, his blood boiling at their utter disrespect, the vile offensiveness of their words.
Flashbacks from his painful childhood raced through his head, flashbacks that had made Tony hate the very blood that flowed through his veins.
All three men balled their hands into fists. It was obvious they were spoiling for a little entertainment in the form of a fight. Tension snapped in the air.
“Ignore them, Tony,” Trisha said softly, yet urgently.
He had been taught by the tough Cass Holiday to never start a fight, but she’d also told him never to walk away from one.
He was just about to get off his stool when the chief of police, Dillon Bowie, entered the café. “Afternoon, gentlemen.” His gray eyes narrowed. “Is there a problem here?”
“No problem.” Lloyd moved the toothpick in his mouth from one side to the other as he backed away from Tony’s stool. The two younger men followed his example and stepped back.
“We were just on our way out,” Zeke mumbled. The three hurried out the door.
“They’re a bunch of jerks,” Trisha exclaimed as Dillon took the stool next to Tony’s.
The lawman’s eyes bore into Tony’s. “Don’t tell me there’s new bad blood brewing between all of you.”
“Like Trisha said, they’re just a bunch of jerks,” Tony replied as his blood slowly returned to a more normal temperature. “Anything new on the investigation?”
Tony didn’t have to say specifically what investigation—there was only one that he was interested in and only one that had been the talk of the town for months.
Dillon’s eyes darkened. “Nothing new.”
“Would you tell me if there was something new?” Tony asked.
Dillon gave him a dry grin. “Probably not.”
Tony knew that he and every other cowboy on the ranch were suspects in the fifteen-year-old murder case that had rocked not only the people on the Holiday ranch, but also the entire town of Bitterroot.
“I’ve got to get moving,” Tony said as he stood. “I’ve got things to attend to.”
“I’m sure I’ll see you later,” Dillon said.
“’Bye, Tony,” Trisha added.
Once he was back in his truck, thoughts of the murders filled Tony’s mind. It had been just after Cass’s death in the aftermath of the spring tornado that the skeletons of seven young men had been found buried under an old building that was being torn down.
The murders had been committed around the time period that Cass had brought in twelve teenagers who had been living on the streets in Oklahoma City to work on her ranch, making all of the men still working there today potential suspects.
He shoved these thoughts aside as he pulled into the parking lot of the Bitterroot General Store. Inside, a person could buy everything from a fancy evening dress to a part for a lawn mower. He hoped he could find anything that Mary might need to take care of the baby.
An hour later he finished placing the last item in the bed of his pickup and then headed back to Mary’s house. He knew this was only a temporary arrangement. He had to find Amy. He had to know if the baby was really his, or if she’d lied about who the baby’s daddy was to Mary.
One of the reasons he’d stopped seeing Amy was because of her lies. He frowned and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. What kind of trouble was she in and when would she reappear?
He couldn’t believe it had taken him so long to think of Amy’s friend, but the shock of being left with a baby had numbed his brain.
It was almost four when he pulled back into Mary’s driveway and sat for a moment as he gazed at the house before him. The ranch-style home was on a huge lot with tall cottonwood trees along the back perimeter.
It exuded a sense of welcoming, with its warm dark beige color and the last of the summer flowers spilling a colorful display into flower beds across the front of the house and in pots on the front porch.
A sense of fear whipped through him. What if in the hours he’d been gone Mary had changed her mind? He meant nothing to Mary Redwing and she certainly had no reason to take on his troubles.
If truth be told, he knew very little about her. He knew only that she’d been a kind and caring friend to Amy and that her reputation around town was stellar.
He got out of his truck and grabbed several of the bags, filled with formula and diapers, and then knocked on the front door.
Mary opened the door to allow him inside. The air smelled of something cooking and Joey was asleep on a blanket in the middle of the living room. There was no sign of Mary’s grandmother.
Mary gestured for him to follow her into the kitchen, where he placed the plastic bags on the top of the table. “There’s more in the truck,” he said.
She frowned at him. “You said this was just for a couple of days.”
“It is,” he assured her. Stress welled up inside him. What if Amy didn’t make contact within the next day or two? Then what was he going to do?
He shoved these thoughts aside. He couldn’t think about that scenario right now. “I bought a small playpen for him to sleep in and a bouncy chair thingy that Jenna McCain in the general store insisted I needed. I’ll just go grab them and be right back.”
Once again Mary met him at the door and this time indicated he follow her down a hallway and into what appeared to be a storage room. Plastic shelving rose from floor to ceiling along one side of the room, each shelf holding colorful multishaped baskets, beautiful pottery items and a variety of clothing carefully folded.
“You can set up the playpen in here.” She pointed to an empty space near the window. “I need to get back to the kitchen. You can come back in there when you’re finished in here.”
Tony watched as she left the room and disappeared down the hallway. He set the playpen box down on the carpeting and opened it.
He was just placing the pads around the sides when he sensed somebody nearby. He turned to see Halena standing in the doorway. “Hello again,” he said.
“Tony Nakni. Are you a good Choctaw warrior?” Her gaze was dark and unfathomable.
He didn’t know how to answer. He wasn’t a good Choctaw anything. He knew nothing about that part of his DNA. He’d been taught from a young age that his Native American blood was something to be ashamed of.
Still, he had a feeling that the question was far more important than anything Mary had asked him and that his answer might screw up this whole arrangement.
“I try to be,” he finally replied.
Halena stared at him for another long minute. Her piercing gaze seemed to be probing into the very soul he believed he didn’t possess and then she turned and walked away.
* * *
“I knew that girl was big trouble from the time she was young,” Halena said as she came into the kitchen. “And I’m not sure that man in there is any better.”
Mary turned from the stove, where she’d been stirring a big pot of stew. “None of that matters. What’s important right now is the baby.”
Halena sat at the table. “I know you, my granddaughter. I know your heart and I don’t want you getting involved in somebody else’s problems. Your spirit is very fragile and I don’t want it to be further broken by anyone or anything.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Mary assured her. “And my spirit is just fine.” She opened the oven door and bent down to pull out a dish of thick corn bread.
Her grandmother was worried about the baby weaving a basket of love in her heart. But Mary wasn’t going to allow that to happen. She would feed and change the little fellow for the few days he’d be here, but there was no way she intended to allow him into her heart. This was just a temporary situation and she couldn’t allow herself to embrace Joey.
Still, the very heart she wanted to deny accelerated its beats as Tony walked into the kitchen. “The playpen is all set up with sheets and I put the bouncy thingy in the living room. I also bought a few little toys Jenna said would be age-appropriate. They’re also in a bag in the living room.”
“Thank you, it sounds like you got everything we might need,” Mary replied. “We’re just about to eat. You’ll join us.” She said it as a statement rather than a question. It was still early and as far as she was concerned he was officially on daddy duty for the rest of the evening.
“Uh...okay,” he replied, appearing immensely uncomfortable. “Can I do anything to help?”
“Check on your son,” Halena said as she rose from the table. “We’ll take care of the meal.”
It always made Mary nervous when her grandmother grew too quiet, and it was a silent Halena that helped her set the table and fill water glasses for the evening meal.
When the food was on the table, Mary went to the doorway that separated the kitchen from the living room. Tony sat on the edge of the sofa and stared at the sleeping baby. Bewilderment radiated from him, reminding her that he’d been thrust into this drama as unexpectedly as she had been.