giving his name to a child and her mother—a single woman, to boot. But there was something about this woman that drew him. Because she was attractive? Compelling? Intriguing?
All of the above.
“We’re Ellie and Gracie Grant. But I already know who you are, Wyatt.” Ellie laughed at his surprise. “I’ve seen you at church. In fact, you’re the current hot topic.”
“I am?” He frowned at her. “Why?”
“Mmm.” She tapped her forefinger against her lips. “How can I put this delicately? Let’s just say there are a lot of single ladies at our church who feel you’ve been a widower too long, that you need a good woman to help you with this little guy.”
Aghast, Wyatt stood frozen as Ellie chucked Cade under the chin. Cade’s giggle was Wyatt’s favorite sound because it made him feel like he wasn’t the awful failure his own father had been.
He wasn’t sure how to reply, though he wanted to ask Ellie if she was one of those ladies from church. Not that it mattered. Wyatt doubted that even knowing she was would end the zip of electricity curling up his spine.
“Don’t worry, Wyatt.” That thread of laughter lilted through Ellie’s voice. She winked at him. “You’re safe with me.”
“I am?” Wyatt gulped down a rush of disappointment. Hey! Shouldn’t he be feeling relief?
“Yep, very safe.” Ellie checked that Gracie was secure, then carefully closed the car door, maybe so her daughter couldn’t overhear? “Despite Gracie’s comments, I am not on the hunt for a husband. Raising Gracie takes all my focus. I’m not interested in romance,” she said airily, though he heard a bit of an edge to the words.
Wyatt didn’t have time to ask why a gorgeous woman like her wouldn’t want love in her life because she walked around the car and pulled open the front door. She tossed him a funny, almost sad smile, then climbed inside and drove away.
“Well,” he said to Cade as he pushed the grocery cart toward his car. “That was interesting. But don’t do the sick part again, okay? It makes us both smell bad. Got it?”
Cade crowed his agreement as if he knew that the encounter with that remarkable woman and her daughter had made his daddy’s day brighter.
While Wyatt fastened Cade in his seat, then loaded the groceries, his thoughts replayed his interaction with the mother-daughter duo. He’d liked them both, but he especially liked Ellie’s forthrightness.
Wait a minute!
“Focus on parenthood,” he ordered his wayward brain. “You’re a single dad with a veterinarian practice that barely supports you and a ranch that needs tons of work and money.”
It’s up to you, Wyatt, to use your business to follow in my footsteps and make the Wright name stand out in this town. His father’s last words brought the same rush of irritation and burst of inferiority that they had the day Bernard Wright had said them ten years ago.
Wyatt glanced in the mirror at his son.
“Can’t focus on that right now, Dad,” he muttered as he drove home. “Taryn’s gone. I’m the only one Cade has. I have to be here for him.” The way I wasn’t there for Taryn.
A tinder of unforgiveness flamed anew at the memory of his wife’s needless death. Yes, the underage teens who hit her were guilty. But so was Wyatt. Taryn shouldn’t have been driving that night. Wyatt had promised her that morning that he’d pick up diapers and formula for Cade by lunchtime, but he’d forgotten. Later he’d promised Taryn he’d do it on his way home from a call, but he’d forgotten again. After dinner and another promise that he’d make a run to the grocery store when he’d finished his coffee, he’d fallen asleep with Cade on his chest, failing to remember his promise. So Taryn had let him sleep and gone herself.
His wife had been killed. Because of him.
Familiar guilt gnawed at Wyatt as he pulled into his driveway. He’d made promises he hadn’t kept, disappointed his wife and, worse, left her alone day after day to fulfill dreams for the ranch they’d planned to restore together while he pursued the goal of making his veterinary business number one in Tucson. Wyatt had failed his wife miserably.
And why? Because he couldn’t forget that deathbed promise to his father. He’d worked eighteen hours a day, taken on every client who called, hoping he could somehow prove himself worthy of the prestigious Wright name. But that time had been stolen from Taryn. Wasn’t it silly that even now, alone, a single parent and almost thirty years old, Wyatt still couldn’t shed his long-buried need to prove himself worthy of his father’s love?
Losing Taryn had taught him one hard lesson. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. His father had taught him the other. Never make Cade feel he had to earn his daddy’s love.
Wyatt carried his now-sleeping child into the house and settled him before retrieving his groceries and storing them. He would still make his father proud; it was just going to take a little longer. Because now Cade came first, before his practice, before the ranch, before the promise to his father, before anything.
Ellie’s sweet laugh filled Wyatt’s head, and for a moment he wished—No! He ruthlessly pushed her lovely face from his mind and started on the laundry. There was no way he’d let another woman in his life and risk failing her the way he had Taryn.
No way at all.
* * *
“He was a nice daddy, wasn’t he, Mommy?” Gracie chirped from the backseat. “I liked Cade, too.” She paused. Ellie saw her wrinkle her nose. “’Cept when he got sick. That was gross.”
“Gross? Where did you hear that?” Ellie asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Melissa. Can I play with the horses at Wranglers Ranch?” Gracie asked in a quick change of topic.
“I don’t think so, honey. The horses are probably ready to sleep now.” Ellie hoped so, because she was too tired to deal with a wiggling, shrieking Gracie astride a horse.
She drove toward Wranglers Ranch, smiling as she remembered Wranglers’ slogan. You’re always welcome here. She did feel at home there, and she loved her job as camp nurse.
“I thought you wanted to play with Beth and Davy?” she reminded Gracie, lest her daughter get fixated on dreams of horse riding.
“I do want to play with them. And invite them to my birthday party.” Gracie’s forehead furrowed as she fell into thought. “How many days is it until my birthday, Mommy?”
“You’ll be six in about three more weeks, right after Thanksgiving.” Ellie bit her lip as worry about that birthday party built inside her. “Did you think of something you’d specially like for your birthday, honey?”
After Gracie’s birth, Ellie had started a day care to enable her to stay home with her child. But outgoing, curious Gracie now needed more, and so did her mother. So late in the summer Ellie had closed the day care and enrolled Gracie in kindergarten. That’s why she’d taken the job at Wranglers Ranch—so she could still be with kids. Ellie loved kids.
Tanner Johns had told her that the government had awarded him a big new contract to work with troubled youth, with one caveat—Wranglers Ranch must have a nurse on the premises when their youth groups attended. Tanner had offered Ellie the job one day after church, and since she was eager to return to the profession she’d originally left to care for her sick sister, Ellie gladly accepted. She’d started working at Wranglers in mid-September and never regretted her choice.
“I already told you what I want for my birthday, ’member?” A glance in the rearview mirror revealed Gracie’s arms firmly crossed over her small chest. “I want a daddy.”
“Honey, I can’t give you a daddy for your birthday. Or at all,” Ellie said for what seemed the hundredth time. “I’ve told you that before.”
“But