Her Single Dad Hero Page 8

  Dean apparently felt the same undercurrents. He glanced around, smiling, and lifted his shoulders. “It’s kind of exciting, what’s going on around here.”

  “I think so.”

  He seemed surprised by that. “Really?”

  “Well, sure. Dad and Rex have big plans for this place.”

  Turning a slow circle to take a good look around, Dean said, “I wish them every success.” Coming to a stop, he looked down at her, a wry smile curving his lips. “And frankly I wish I had their vision and business acumen.”

  “What makes you think you don’t?”

  “Oh, the fact that I work sunup to sundown and just barely manage to get by,” he said lightly.

  “You’re raising a son on your own,” she pointed out, “and you’ve got a lot of skills.”

  “Maybe so, but I haven’t figured out how to best make them work for me yet,” he said with a wry smile. “But I will. Eventually.” One of the men called to him, and he lifted his chin in acknowledgement. “Gotta switch the trucks.”

  “I’ll leave you to it.” She began backing away, lifting a hand in farewell.

  He paused before striding resolutely toward the now-empty truck. Something about that seemed reluctant to Ann, as if he didn’t want to part company with her. Or was she projecting her own feelings onto him?

  Shaking her head at her own foolishness, she hurried around the second truck. As she did so, she heard Dean’s workers talking.

  “Purely ridiculous,” one of them was saying, “tottering around out here on those spiky little heels, all that heavy makeup. She’s really come along, though.”

  “I’ll say. I thought she might be kinda cute under all that gilding.”

  “Dean thinks she’s downright hot.”

  Ann caught her breath and quickly adjusted her route before they saw her.

  Was it true? Did Dean think she was hot now?

  She didn’t know if she was more shaken by the idea that he might truly find her attractive or the unmistakable opinion of his men that she looked better today in her utilitarian ranch clothing than in the expensive designer wardrobe that she usually wore. Suddenly she remembered Dean’s comment the day she’d bought these clothes.

  You’re the girl who rocked a pair of cleats and a batting helmet.

  Could he really have found her appealing even then?

  I like the real you better.

  He’d said that when he’d come to pick up his first check. He’d also called her a snob.

  And he hadn’t been wrong.

  She’d known it, to her shame, at the time, though she hadn’t wanted to admit it, especially not to herself. Secretly, she’d felt justified in her attitude, even while knowing better. What had made her think that she could raise herself by looking down on those she’d left behind? That was what it had amounted to.

  War Bonnet was small and simple, its folk goodhearted and unpretentious. In many ways life here seemed slower and less complicated than that to which she had become accustomed. Strangely, it also felt less lonely, despite the dozens and dozens of employees, coworkers, guests and friends who surrounded her every day in Dallas.

  As she stepped up onto the porch, she caught sight of her father’s drawn face in the living room window. He smiled and nodded, obviously eager to hear what Dean had said to her. Strangely, Ann found herself eager to discuss it with him.

  How could she have forgotten the ease with which she and her father had conversed and worked together? When had she lost that precious connection with him? Ashamed that it had taken a life-threatening illness to reestablish their relationship, she silently prayed for forgiveness for her neglect of her father and her baseless feelings of superiority. As she removed her shabby baseball cap and hung it on the wall peg, she begged God to spare her dad’s life. She had ten years of foolishness to make up for.

  Even as she turned to her dad and began to report on Dean’s progress, she knew that she needed to speak with her fiancé about their future. Things had changed, and Jordan needed to know.

  She made the call immediately after dinner, while Meredith settled Wes into his bed. The call went to voice mail, but before she could make her way back downstairs, her phone rang. Seeing Jordan’s photo on her screen, she walked out onto the porch and sat cross-legged on the swing to answer.

  “Hi. How are you?”

  “Busy,” came the terse reply. “You?”

  “Things have calmed down a bit. Dad’s feeling better every day. The oat harvest is in. We start building the feed mixing station tomorrow. Then we can start the sorghum—”

  “That’s all very interesting,” Jordan cut in, sounding anything but interested. “Unfortunately I’ve got a situation on my hands here, and I need to resolve it. We booked three gold level suites this weekend and only have two available.”

  “That’s an easy fix,” Ann said. “Move into my apartment and give your suite to the third guest.”

  Silence. Then a chuckle. “Of course. That’s why we need you back here. You always see every problem with such clear-eyed perspective and come up with the easiest, most common-sense solutions.”

  Ann smiled, but then she sighed. “I only wish that were true. Jordan, we have to talk about where we’re going to live. I know I said it didn’t matter to me, but I don’t want to move any farther away from my dad than Dallas.”

  “You know LHI wants you here in Dallas,” he said easily. “So I don’t see a problem.”

  Dropping her feet to the floor, Ann sat up straight. “That’s great for me, Jordan, but what about you?”

  “Hmm, well, Marshal said something recently about Arizona.”

  Shocked, Ann yelped, “Arizona!”

  Marshal Benton, the CEO of Luxury Hotels, Inc., and Jordan were great friends. Jordan had a gift for befriending people, and he could keep a confidence better than anyone. When she had worked for Jordan, Ann had felt that they were great friends. He was one of the very few people to whom she had poured out her heart, so it shouldn’t have been surprising that this was the first she’d heard of Arizona. Except...

  “Don’t you think that’s something your fiancée should be consulted about?”

  “It wouldn’t be permanent,” Jordan said in a soothing tone. “He has in mind a sort of research and development position. I’d be scouting out spots for new hotels, including possible purchases of existing properties, and reporting directly to him. After Arizona, they’re looking at Idaho and Seattle.”

  “So you’d be traveling.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But Jordan, I thought once we married—”

  “Ann,” he interrupted, “did you miss the part about me reporting directly to Marshal? This is a vice presidency. I don’t have to tell you how huge that is. Besides, it’s not like we’re in a rush to set up housekeeping in a little bungalow with a white picket fence somewhere and fill it with kids. That’s not us. Right?”

  Donovan’s grubby little face flashed before Ann’s mind’s eye. She thought of the way he threw himself into every hug, of that snaggle-toothed smile beaming up at her and the supreme confidence with which he barreled through each day. If ever a little boy knew he was loved, Donovan did. In that moment she could almost feel the coarseness of his flaming red hair, packed with sand, beneath her fingertips.

  You sure are pretty.

  Her heart turned over in her chest.

  She realized belatedly that Jordan was still talking about his proposed vice presidency, but suddenly she couldn’t bear to hear any more.

  “I’m sorry,” she interrupted, pushing up to a standing position. “I need to check on Dad.”

  “Ah. All right. Well, I’ll move into your rooms tonight. Give housekeeping a chance to really go over my suite.”

  “That’s fine,” sh
e said, just wanting to end the call.

  “We’ll, um, reconvene when you head back this way.”

  “Yes. Sounds reasonable.”

  “Don’t make it too long, Ann. Please,” he said smoothly. “You’re needed and missed here.”

  She wondered why that felt so sadly impersonal, but she merely said, “Thanks,” and hung up. What, she asked herself, had happened to the ambitious career woman who would have rejoiced at this news? More to the point, what had happened to the simple, happy girl who had once lived here? And did some part of her still exist?

  Chapter Seven

  What was it, Dean wondered, about mornings that made sound carry so clearly? Or had he unknowingly been listening for the rasp and thud of the door on the ranch house across the road? Either way, he didn’t have to be told who headed this way, along the meandering path beneath the trees to the shallow ditch beside the road and then across it to the field just south of the barn.

  Mentally congratulating himself for keeping his focus on the job at hand, he scraped up a metal washer with gloved fingers and awkwardly maneuvered it onto the second of two bolts sticking up out of the yard-square concrete pad and held out his hand for the metal “foot” that Donovan was even then passing to him. Dean worked the holes in the L-shaped foot over the bolts protruding from the concrete pad and picked up a pair of metal nuts to spin onto the threads of the bolts. Using a wrench, Dean tightened the nuts.

  With two such feet now in place, he need only to secure two more. Then he could attach legs to the feet, which together would support the mixing pan with its interior paddle wheel, dump chute and openings for input channels from each of the feed storage bins. By simply manipulating levers on the channels, Rex, Wes or the ranch hands could accurately measure the amount of oats and sorghum that they wished to mix. Dumping the feed from the mixing pan into a truck or trailer bed would be a simple matter of pulling a lever.

  Well aware that Ann had arrived on the scene, Dean rose and nodded in greeting, prepared to move to the next corner of the concrete mixing station foundation. Instead, both his jaw and the wrench dropped.

  Gone was the snooty hotelier who wouldn’t be seen without her perfect makeup and designer clothing. In her place stood a softer, calmer woman, her vibrant hair lying in a braid across her shoulder. Wearing nothing more than mascara and lightly tinted lip gloss, her pale, pearly skin showed the faint stippling of freckles. She might have been seventeen again in her jeans and plaid shirt tied at the waist over a bright blue tank top. For a moment Dean couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

  Then he reached up and resettled his cap, hearing himself say, “There’s the girl I’ve missed all this time.”

  She laughed, almost as if relieved, and closed the distance between them in swift, long strides. For once, Donovan did not throw himself at her, his head swiveling back and forth between them, curiosity sparking in his brilliant eyes. Hearing her laughter, Dean could not restrain himself. He shook off his gloves and reached out his hands to her, which she took without the slightest hesitation. Only his son’s presence kept Dean from pulling her into his arms. Still, as her shoulder bumped into his and she smiled up at him, he bent his head toward hers. Only when his thumb brushed over her engagement ring was he able to check himself. Even then he couldn’t let the moment pass without comment.

  “Welcome home, Jolly,” he said softly, smoothing her cheek with one hand as his thumb swept over her engagement ring with the other. “It’s good to finally see you.”

  Her sky-blue eyes plumbed his for a moment. Then Donovan stepped forward, her faded old cap in hand.

  “Miss Ann, you dropped something.”

  “So I did,” Ann said, smiling. “Thank you, Donovan.” She took the cap, slapped it onto her head and reached out to drag the boy in for a hug.

  Dean found himself swallowing down a sudden lump in his throat and immediately got back to work. He expected her to ask an obligatory question or two and take her leave, but to his surprise, she didn’t just stick around, she pitched in. When next he reached for a washer, Ann beat him to it, saving him the trouble of having to scrape it up with the seam of his glove.

  After he’d gotten all four metal feet secured, he went to the dually to lift the metal legs from the truck bed. Four feet long and made of heavy, V-shaped channeling, the legs connected to the feet via flattened flanges at the bottoms. They were too heavy for Donovan, even one at a time, so Dean gave him the job of dispensing the bolts, washers and nuts, filling his pockets with each.

  “Where’s your extra help today?” Ann asked, helping him lay out the legs at each corner of the foundation.

  “Tending their own business. They’re all small ranchers and farmers around here just picking up an extra buck when they can. I don’t need them for this. Doesn’t make sense to pay someone to basically hand me what won’t fit in my tool belt.”

  He picked up the first leg, crouched, rested the upper portion against his shoulder and lined up the holes in the flanges on the leg and foot before holding out his gloved hand for the first bolt. Donovan dropped it into his palm, and Dean began working it through the two holes, leaning this way and that to keep the leg lined up. Seeing his problem, Ann walked around behind him and grasped the top of the leg, holding it steady in position.

  “Looks to me like you could use an extra pair of hands, though.”

  Dean shoved the bolt home. “You looking for a job?”

  “So what if I am? You hiring?”

  He placed the washer and spun on a nut before tilting his head back and smiling up at her. “Depends. How cheap do you work?”

  Her eyes narrowed, lips skewing to one side. “Hmm. Job like this... Can’t settle for anything less than smiles and hugs.”

  Dean chuckled and winked at Donovan. “We’ve got those to spare. Don’t we, son?”

  Donovan put his head back and beamed a snaggle-toothed smile at Ann, who laughed. It was as if the years literally fell away, but this time, Dean mused, he was part of her crowd, not just hanging around the periphery.

  Working together, they quickly got the legs bolted into place. Dean brought out the ladder and set the square metal brace that spaced the top of the legs and held the mixing pan. This part had to be riveted then welded into place, which required significant strength. The first time that the ladder rocked, Ann caught hold of it and made sure that it stood solidly in place while he fixed the rivets.

  His welding kit was small, perhaps too small. He hadn’t wanted to rent the larger welder, however, when he had a perfectly usable small welder. Unfortunately the small welder couldn’t sit on the ground, but was too large for the top of the ladder. Dean started thinking aloud about building a platform.

  “Can the brace hold the mixing pan as it is?” Ann asked.

  “Sure, but it won’t hold several hundred pounds of fodder like this.”

  “But it will hold that welder, won’t it?”

  He realized suddenly what she was saying and grinned. “You use that head for more than just a place to park that pretty face, don’t you?”

  She blushed, actually blushed, and he realized that he was flirting.

  “I’ve never been told that I was stupid,” she countered drily.

  “No, ma’am, you are not,” he agreed, going for the mixing pan.

  The pan itself was fairly lightweight, especially without the mixer, chutes and door attached. It was, however, cumbersome. Ann hurried over and helped him carry it by the chute openings to the station. She then shoved as he hauled the pan up the ladder. Getting it wrestled into place proved a feat. He could’ve done it, but it went much more quickly because Ann climbed the ladder to help him. They performed a strange dance there four feet above the ground, arms over, under and around, bodies shifting and sliding.

  When they were done, and the pan
was at last appropriately seated, Ann had somehow worked her way to the inside and moved up a rung, turning her back to the ladder, so that they stood pressed together on that narrow structure, staring into each other’s eyes. He had pocketed his sunglasses, and she had knocked off her cap again. With one movement he could have gathered her fully against him and kept her there. The impulse was so strong that he slid his hands across her shoulder blades. Her lips parted, and she seemed to be drawing in breath in preparation for his kiss.

  Then Donovan called, “You dropped your hat again,” and Dean realized that he’d almost kissed Ann Billings on a ladder in the middle of a field in broad daylight with his son running around below them. The engaged-to-be-married Ann Billings.

  Dean jumped backward off the ladder, landing with a huff in the red dirt. As he gathered his welding gear, he was exquisitely aware of Ann carefully turning on the ladder and descending step by step. He wasted no time climbing that ladder again, this time to deposit his welding gear in the newly placed pan. Ann passed him the helmet and long gloves necessary for the job.

  “You two back away,” he ordered, “and do not look directly at the welding arc. Hear me, Donovan? You can damage your eyes looking at that bright light.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Let’s get a drink,” Ann said to the boy, sliding an arm over his shoulders. She walked him to the back of the truck and let down the tailgate to get at the water cooler while Dean struck a spark and ignited the torch.

  He took his time with the welding, moving his ladder as necessary. Ann and Donovan sat on the tailgate of his truck with Digger, swinging their legs and talking. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he saw the way Donovan leaned against her from time to time and heard their occasional laughter. The thought came to him that she would make a wonderful wife and mother.

  But not for him and Donovan.

  That rock on her finger told him well enough that he had nothing to offer her. He could never afford a ring like that, never give her the kind of life she was accustomed to, the kind of life she deserved. He was still that silly freshman boy dreaming about a girl who remained worlds above him.