The Drifter Read online

  “Yep.” Dexter cradled the baby as if he’d been holding children for years, and an expression of delight spread over his leathery features. Bartholomew stopped fussing and stared up at the old man. “Pretty,” Dexter said.

  Amanda’s eyes misted. She hadn’t received such an uncomplicated expression of joy from either of her own parents. “Yes, he’s very pretty,” she said.

  “Stinks some,” Dexter said.

  Amanda’s chuckle mixed with the lump of emotion in her throat. “I think he needs a change.”

  Dexter laughed softly as he looked down at the baby. “Could be.” He brushed a finger under the tiny chin. “Could be.”

  And then something happened that took Amanda’s breath away. Bartholomew grasped the old man’s finger tight in one small fist, and smiled.

  She grabbed Chase’s arm. “Did you see that? Bartholomew smiled! Chase, he’s never done that before. It’s the first time!”

  Chase glanced at her hand on his arm and she quickly removed it. “Guess he likes ol’ Dex,” Chase said easily.

  “Likes me.” Dexter played a gentle tug-of-war with the baby.

  Behind them the carved double doors opened. Amanda turned at the creak of hinges and discovered a gray-haired woman with an ample bosom standing in the doorway. “What are you folks standing out in the heat for?” she asked in a lilting voice.

  “Foal...no...little...baby!” Dexter said. “There! I said it! Baby!”

  “What?” The woman circled Chase, the luggage and Amanda to stand in front of Dexter. “Sakes alive! It is a baby!”

  “I said so.”

  Chase cleared his throat. “Belinda, this is Amanda Drake. Amanda, this is Belinda, Dexter’s wife and the person who supervises the kitchen.”

  Belinda glanced quickly behind her with a smile and a nod. “Nice to meet you,” she said before returning her attention to Bartholomew. “But who is this, Dexter?” She reached for the baby and Dexter handed him up to her.

  “Baby,” he said.

  “I can see that.” Belinda cradled Bartholomew in the crook of her arm and beamed down at him. “And a beautiful baby you are, too,” she crooned. “Look at those big eyes! And such curly hair. And a cute little button nose, and rosy cheeks! You are a charmer, you are!”

  Chase shifted his weight and hooked his thumbs through the loops of his belt. “That’s Amanda’s son.” He coughed into his hand. “Bartholomew.”

  Amanda knew in that moment that Chase didn’t like the name she’d chosen, and disappointment pricked her. Not that she should care if he liked the name or not, she told herself.

  Belinda looked up at Chase. “Why, he looks just like you, Chase,” she blurted out. Then she blushed. “Goodness, I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

  “It’s okay, Mrs. Grimes,” Amanda said. “Chase is technically the father.”

  Chase spun toward her. “Technically? What kind of ridiculous statement is that?”

  Heat rose in Amanda’s cheeks. A moment ago, she’d been enjoying the response of these two sweet old people to her baby, almost as if she and Chase had brought Bartholomew home to adoring grandparents. Now the illusion was shattered. “Simply that I don’t expect you to shoulder any of the responsibilities of being a father,” she said.

  Bartholomew, as if he were a barometer of the mood, began to cry.

  “I need to take him in and change him,” she said, holding out her arms toward Belinda.

  “Of course.” Belinda leaned down to drop a kiss on the baby’s forehead before she gave him up. “He’s so sweet.”

  “Stinks some,” Dexter said.

  “I’ll just go inside and take care of that,” Amanda said. “Mrs. Grimes, where would be a good place for me to change him?”

  “Come with me. And call me Belinda.” The older woman picked up the diaper bag, circled Amanda’s waist with one arm and guided her toward the open door. Then she glanced over her shoulder. “Chase, take Amanda’s luggage out to the cottage. I think we have an old cradle in storage. Get Rosa to help you find it and clean it up.”

  Amanda couldn’t help smiling at Belinda’s tone. She didn’t speak to her boss as if she were an employee. Amanda suspected it had been many years since Belinda had felt like anyone’s hired help.

  They entered a high-ceilinged room that was blissfully cool.

  “That was kind of you to let Dexter hold your baby,” Belinda said. “Ever since his stroke, he’s been so frustrated—can’t always find the right word, can’t move around as well as he used to. He was such a vital man. It’s heartbreaking.”

  Amanda met the older woman’s gaze. “I can imagine it would be,” she said gently.

  “He was delighted with that baby.” She gave Bartholomew a wistful smile before gesturing toward a door to the right. “This way. We’ll change him in Freddy’s office.”

  Amanda surveyed the room as they started across it. Directly opposite the front door, a huge picture window revealed a landscaped patio with a pool and a Jacuzzi. A low wall swooped up to an arch, where a waterfall cascaded into the pool, transforming the surface of the water into dancing points of sunlight.

  It would have been an idyllic setting except for the cowboy and cowgirl arguing heatedly beside the pool. Intrigued, Amanda paused. She couldn’t tell what they were saying, but from the arm-waving and belligerent stances of both, she knew they were furious.

  Belinda noticed Amanda’s preoccupation. “Never mind them. They’re in love.”

  “Doesn’t look like it.”

  Belinda laughed. “It’s been like that between those two ever since T. R. McGuinnes came to the ranch. Now, of course, we all call him Ry instead of T.R. That was the first thing Freddy did—got rid of those stupid initials and gave him a name you could say without laughing.”

  “Freddy’s a woman?” Amanda had assumed the office they were heading for belonged to a man.

  “I’m sorry. I forgot that you don’t know who anybody is around here. Ry is one of the three owners of the ranch, and Freddy’s the foreman. They’re getting married in two days, so we don’t have any regular paying guests staying here just now, only members of the wedding party. I guess that’s why Freddy and Ry feel free to carry on like that by the pool. When we have paying guests, they usually save their spats for the corrals or the open range.”

  Just then, the dark-haired woman out on the patio pushed the broad-shouldered cowboy into the water.

  “They’re getting married?” Amanda jiggled Bartholomew on her shoulder to buy a little time so she could watch the exciting show outside. She’d never known anybody who acted this way, and she was fascinated. “But she just pushed him in the water, clothes and all!” The cowboy swam awkwardly to retrieve his floating hat while the woman stood back, arms crossed, and watched.

  “They’ll make up. Wait and see.”

  The woman named Freddy turned on her booted heel and marched, head down, toward the French door leading into the room where Belinda and Amanda stood. She opened the door and turned to shout over her shoulder. “They could rope me with barbed wire and drag me to the altar and I still wouldn’t marry the likes of you!” Then she closed the door with enough force to rattle the panes. She obviously didn’t notice she had an audience until she turned her attention away from the man still groping for his hat in the choppy water.

  “Oh!” she said, her hand going to her throat. “Sorry about that.”

  “Freddy Singleton, meet Amanda Drake and her son,” Belinda said. “I didn’t catch the baby’s name, Amanda.”

  Amanda lifted her chin. “Bartholomew.”

  “What a lovely name,” Belinda said, earning Amanda’s immediate loyalty.

  “I’m pleased to meet you,” Freddy said, coming forward with her hand extended.

  Amanda barely managed to return the handshake as Bartholomew began wriggling and protesting. Amanda could read questions in Freddy’s eyes, but the woman voiced none of them.

  “We need your office as a place to
change this little boy,” Belinda said.

  “That’s fine.” Freddy glanced out toward the pool as the cowboy hoisted himself out. “I think I’ll be going now, anyway.”

  Belinda smiled. “I would, if I were you. I doubt if the water cooled him off any.”

  “He is so pigheaded!” Freddy said, edging toward the front door as a dripping Ry McGuinnes headed purposefully in her direction. “Well, see you later. Gotta run.”

  As she dashed out the front door, her wet fiancé entered through the back, his jaw rigid. “Freddy!” he called. Then he glanced over at Belinda and Amanda. “Afternoon, ladies.” He tipped his hat, sending a stream of water to the tiled floor.

  “Ry, this is Amanda Drake and her son, Bartholomew,” Belinda said. “Amanda, this is Ry McGuinnes.”

  His intense blue eyes widened as he looked at the tiny baby squirming and squalling in her arms. He started to say something but closed his mouth again.

  “We have to get this baby’s diaper changed,” Belinda said, turning Amanda toward an office off the main room. “And you’ll need to dry off or get back outside. We can talk later.”

  “Sure.” Ry touched the brim of his hat. “Nice to have met you, Ms. Drake.”

  Amanda followed Belinda toward the office. Behind her she heard the front door open and Ry bellow Freddy’s name again. It didn’t sound to her like the call of a lovestruck fool, but what did she know? She had obviously left the familiar world of Eastern manners and conventions for the wild, wild West.

  * * *

  AFTER BARTHOLOMEW had a clean diaper and a more pleasant disposition, Amanda felt ready to view her accommodations.

  Belinda walked her over to the little cottage. Chloe, Dexter’s black-and-white dog started to follow them, but Belinda ordered her back to the ranch house. “Did you bring any other kind of shoes?” she asked as Amanda struggled along the rutted road toward the cottage.

  “They all have open toes, if that’s what you mean,” Amanda said. “I knew it would be hot, so sandals seemed like the obvious choice.” She looked at Belinda’s leather running shoes. “Apparently not.”

  “Out here you’re better off in these or boots. But don’t worry. I’ll bet we can find something you can borrow. You should have seen Ry McGuinnes when he first got here. Polished wing tips, designer tie, the works. Freddy fixed him up in no time.”

  “I’ll bet Chase didn’t arrive in wing tips.”

  Belinda laughed. “No, he didn’t. Looked like a catalog cowboy at first, but he broke in those new duds real fast. He’s taken to ranch life like a duck to water, especially now that Leigh’s put him on a program to keep his back limber and healthy.”

  Leigh again, Amanda thought sourly. And if Leigh looked anything like her sister Freddy, she’d be very attractive.

  “In fact, Chase has become such a cowboy, I doubt he could be happy living back East now,” Belinda said.

  Amanda got the message. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to drag him back there,” she said.

  “I’m very glad to hear that, because I think it would break his heart to have to choose between his obligation to you and his love of the ranch.”

  “As I’ve told Chase, he has no obligation to me or Bartholomew.”

  Belinda met the comment with silence broken only by the crunch of their shoes on the path and the drone of insects in the nearby bushes. “I see,” she said after a moment.

  Amanda expected a question about why she was here at all, but none came, and for that she gave Belinda credit.

  As they neared the cottage, Amanda’s artistic sense was aroused by the quaint adobe structure, whitewashed like the main house, with the same red-tiled roof and a miniature porch shaded by several gracefully arching trees. Two Adirondack chairs on the porch reminded Amanda of her parents’ beach house and made her feel more at home.

  “I didn’t expect so many trees in the desert,” she said to Belinda as they reached the porch.

  “Many Easterners don’t.” Belinda mounted the single step to the porch and produced a ring of keys from the pocket of her cotton trousers. “The ones with the avocado-green trunks and branches that look like feather dusters are palo verde, and the ones with the gnarled black trunks and delicate leaves are mesquite. Out here we prize our trees, because we prize the shade.”

  “I can understand that.” She was drenched in perspiration. “Is the cottage air-conditioned?”

  “Oh, yes.” Belinda opened the door and cool air poured out, beckoning Amanda inside. “And fortunately, Chase had the good sense to turn it on for you when he brought over your bags,” she added, stepping inside and walking over to adjust a crooked window shade.

  Amanda followed her in and closed the door of the one-room cottage. The high-beamed ceiling and whitewashed walls gave it an open, airy look. Amanda’s practiced eye noted genuine antique furnishings, and the comforter on the black walnut four-poster was trimmed in Battenburg lace. On a bedside table sat an imitation 1920s phone, and through the open bathroom door she glimpsed a clawfoot tub.

  Belinda cleared her throat, and Amanda realized she expected a comment on the cottage. “It’s lovely,” she said, and meant it.

  Belinda smiled. “Most think so, even the ones who’ve stayed at fancy hotels. We’re proud of the True Love. Did Chase tell you that John Wayne used to stay at the ranch when he was filming in Old Tucson?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Shame on that boy. Then he probably didn’t tell you how the ranch got its name, either.”

  Amanda sank to the edge of the bed and hoped it wasn’t a long story. Belinda had been so good to her, but she was very tired, and Bartholomew would want to nurse again soon. “No, he didn’t.”

  “Thaddeus Singleton—he’s the one who homesteaded the ranch in 1882—fell in love with a dance-hall girl and decided to marry her. Well, the proper ladies of Tucson thought it was scandalous and told him so. He married Clara anyway, and called the ranch the True Love, just to show those old busybodies. His brand is a heart with an arrow through it.”

  “I’ve seen that logo.” Amanda was unwillingly drawn into the tale. “Did they live happily ever after?”

  “Absolutely. Thaddeus built Clara a little adobe house, not much bigger than this cottage, over near what’s now the north boundary of the ranch. He even burned that brand into the lintel above the door.”

  “How sweet.”

  “Up until six weeks ago, you could still see the ruins of it, but there was a stampede that leveled it. Freddy and Ry found the lintel, split in two, and Ry had it pieced together and framed. They’re mounting it on an easel for the wedding ceremony out by the old homestead.”

  “The wedding’s going to be outside?” Amanda had a tough time imagining it in this heat.

  “Outside, and on horseback,” Belinda said.

  “Really!”

  “It should be interesting, what with Ry’s best man being a dude and all. He’s a commodities trader from New York who says he can ride, but we’ve all heard that before.”

  To her surprise, Amanda discovered that she wanted to see that wedding, especially after witnessing the pool incident between this intriguing couple. But she probably wouldn’t be around day after tomorrow.

  Bartholomew began to wiggle and make squeaking sounds.

  “Looks as if the little fellow wants something to eat, so I’ll leave you alone,” Belinda said. Then she glanced around and scowled. “I just noticed Chase doesn’t have that cradle in here yet. I’ll go ride herd on him and find out what he’s doing with all his time.”

  Amanda started to rise to bid Belinda a proper goodbye.

  “Sit down, sit down,” Belinda said, waving her hand at Amanda. “You must be exhausted. I’ll have that cradle over in a jiffy, and then you and the little one can take a nap before dinner. We eat at six. Will you be able to find your way back to the main house?”

  “I’m sure I will. And thank you for all your help, Belinda.”

  Belinda ca
st a fond look at Bartholomew. “I didn’t realize I was so eager to have a baby around. We don’t accept guests with children that young, so I don’t get much chance to see really little ones. They brighten up the place. I guess I’ll have to start pestering Ry and Freddy about having one.” She paused to gaze at Bartholomew again. “Well, I’d better go hunt down that Chase Lavette.” With a smile, Belinda left, closing the door firmly behind her.

  Still holding Bartholomew, Amanda propped pillows against the headboard of the bed and kicked off her shoes before she unbuttoned her blouse and allowed him to nurse. With a sigh, she relaxed against the soft pillows. Maybe it was exhaustion, as Belinda had suggested, but she felt more relaxed than she had in a long time. She hadn’t realized keeping secrets could be so stressful. Here at the True Love her secret was out, and nobody had shunned her, which brought more relief than she could have imagined. Chase had been upset, but who could blame him?

  Maybe all he needed was a little time to see that she’d done the right thing. Perhaps she wouldn’t have to cut off all contact. As long as Chase planned to stay in Arizona, she could bring Bartholomew out here once in a while for visits and nobody back home would ever have to know the truth. Of course, that would depend upon Chase and what he’d agree to, but it seemed like an ideal situation. Eventually, she might even tell her friends and family about Chase, when time had softened the scandalous nature of her behavior in the cab of that big black truck.

  She and Chase had produced such a beautiful baby that night, she thought, stroking Bartholomew’s downy head as he suckled on her breast. Had she gone to a sperm bank as she’d told everyone, she couldn’t have found a finer candidate to father her child. A memory of Chase floated up, not the angry Chase she’d dealt with today, but the daring man who’d dug through three feet of snow to free her from her car and had carried her, shivering and scared to death, back to his truck. She closed her eyes and felt the warmth of the truck, the warmth of his arms.

  He hadn’t kissed her then, or made any sexual advances. Once he’d settled her safely in the cab with a cup of coffee in her hands, he hadn’t touched her except to rub her feet to make sure they weren’t frost-bitten.