A Daddy for Dillon by Stella Bagwell

a blank stare. “Gone? Where?”
    “Spring roundup starts Monday. That’s always a very busy time here on the ranch. We gather all the new calves for branding and vaccinations and things like that.”
    “And that takes more than one day?” She could see that her question amused him, and she frowned at him. “Laramie, I don’t know about cattle ranches. Especially one this big.”
    The thought of him being gone for several days had practically jerked her feet out from under her. Even though he had an erratic schedule and she didn’t always see him, she still knew he was in the house at night, that if she needed him he’d be there. Funny how quickly she’d come to count on his presence. And not for safety reasons, either.
    “Sorry, Leyla. I guess I’ve done this sort of thing for so long that it’s all second nature to me. I forget that not everyone knows about raising cattle. But yeah, it will take five, six, sometimes even seven days. Depending on how things go. With the spring being mild, we’ll probably have to go higher into the mountains and drive down some of the cow/calf pairs. That takes more time than gathering the valley calves.”
    With the coffee brewing, she walked back over to the table. As she grew closer to him, she could feel his gaze darting over her. That was all it took to fill her whole body with uncomfortable heat.
    “So you won’t be coming here to the house at all next week? Where will you eat and sleep?”
    “I’ll try to make it back to the ranch a few times during the week. It just depends on how things are going with roundup. The rest of the time, I’ll be sleeping on the ground on bedrolls and eating off the chuck wagon with the rest of the men. The Chaparral does roundup just like the early ranches did more than a hundred years ago. We’ve kept that tradition all this time.”
    It pleased her that he considered her intelligent enough to appreciate his work and the history connected to it. Most of the men she encountered at her former job looked at her as a sex object with no ability to think past the length of her nose. Laramie treated her differently.
    “Once, when I was working at the Blue Mesa I overheard a pair of ranchers arguing about whether to use horses or four-wheelers to gather their cattle. I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about, but the man who preferred horses got very heated about it all. I thought they were going to come to blows. I actually wanted to dump hot coffee on both their heads,” she admitted. “But now that I’m living out here, I see the advantage of doing things on horseback. The terrain is very rough.”
    He nodded. “Only a horse can take us to the rugged spots we need to go. And it’s a proven fact that cows handled by men on horseback are much less stressed.”
    “Guess it makes sense that another animal moving among them feels more comfortable than a roaring, smelly machine,” she said thoughtfully.
    He grinned at her. “My, my. I do think you’re catching on to all of this ranching stuff, Miss Chee.”
    The sensual, teasing curve to his lips had her thoughts straying back to the kiss he’d given her. She’d been shocked at how much she’d wanted to go on kissing him. How much she’d wanted to wrap her arms around him and keep holding on. The memory of those moments had never left her. Even worse, she longed to repeat them.
    Clearing her throat, she said, “Between you and Sassy I’m learning.” Before he could make a reply to that, she hurried over to the cabinet to fetch the coffee.
    Moments later, she returned to the table with a steaming mug and a saucer full of fig wafers. “I’m sorry,” she told him, “but you’ll have to make do tonight with Dillon’s favorite dessert. Because you gave me the day off, I didn’t do any baking.”
    “If fig cookies are good enough for Dillon, then they’re good for me,” he said. “I wish it wasn’t so late and he could eat some with me.”
    Dillon needs a daddy