Instant Daddy
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Emily Dalton
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13
Chapter 1
“Here, Cass. Check this out Maybe you’ll find your dream man in Alaska.”
Cassie automatically caught the magazine Susan tossed from halfway across the bookstore. She glanced at the periodical, its glossy cover showing a grinning hunk of guy in a red flannel shirt and tight jeans against a backdrop of majestic mountain peaks. When she read the title, Single Men of Alaska, she immediately set it aside on a nearby table and returned to her job of unpacking magazines and arranging them on shelves.
“The store opens in twenty minutes, Susan. I don’t have time—we don’t have time to goof around. There are still three boxes full of women’s magazines to set out for display.”
“All work and no play makes Cass a dull girl,” Susan retorted. “Aren’t you even tempted to check out all the cute guys advertising for companionship from the icy back of beyond?”
Cassie turned and threw her friend a rueful grin. “If they have to advertise, I can’t imagine that they’re any great catch.”
Susan shook her head vigorously, the chestnut brown curls bouncing against her cheeks. “That’s where you’re wrong, Cass. These guys advertise for the simple reason that there’s about five times as many men in Alaska as women.” She moved to the table where Cassie had put down the magazine on a stack of Cosmo’s. She picked it up and flipped through a few pages, then shoved the open magazine to within two inches of Cassie’s face. “Do these guys look like losers to you?”
Cassie gave an exasperated laugh, took the magazine and sat down on the edge of the table. “All right If it will get you off my back and back to work, I’ll look. But only for a minute. Besides, aren’t you forgetting that I’ve got a boyfriend?”
Susan crossed her arms over her chest and snorted. “I suppose you mean Brad?”
“Who else? We’ve been dating for two years, haven’t we?”
“That’s exactly my point. Dating but not mating. You two haven’t even slept together.”
Cassie felt herself blushing. “Susan, you know I don’t believe in rushing things. I’d like to be sure of my feelings for Brad before we get intimate.”
“I understand why you feel that way, Cass. I mean, after what happened to you...” Susan’s words trailed off.
Cassie said nothing. Susan, and just about all her other friends, thought that what had happened to her five years ago was the worst thing that could happen to any young woman. Cassie didn’t agree, but there was no point in arguing.
After a tactful pause, Susan continued persistently.
“But I still don’t see how you can date a guy for two years and abstain from sex the whole time unless something’s just not clicking between you. Face the facts, ma’am. You’re never going to be sure about Brad. In all fairness you should either make a commitment to the poor guy or give him his walking papers and let him get on with his life. Sometimes I think you just use your relationship with Brad as an excuse not to get involved with anyone you might really fall in love with.”
Susan’s lecture was interrupted by the phone’s ringing. She gave Cassie one last admonishing glance and went to answer it.
Cassie hung her head and thumbed idly through the magazine. Though she’d muttered under her breath a time or two, Susan had never before spoken so forcefully on the subject of Cassie’s ambiguous relationship with Brad. She herself had never considered the possibility that she was using him, and she’d certainly never consciously done so. She cared about Brad, only...
Susan was right about one thing. The guy deserved to know where he stood. She really should make a decision one way or the other about Brad. But every time he tried to get close, every time marriage crept into the conversation, she got cold feet.
There was certainly nothing wrong with Brad Callahan. In fact, he was a great guy. He was good-looking, kind and loving, and wasn’t too shabby as a cowboy-cum-businessman, either. After all, he’d taken a small, struggling cattle ranch he’d inherited from his uncle three years ago and turned it into a thriving concern.
Brad’s ranch was five miles outside of town, just down the road from Cassie’s home, the much larger spread owned and operated by her father, Jasper Montgomery. As neighbors do in the mostly rural Big Sky country of Montana, Brad and Jasper spoke over the fence while straddling their horses and eventually became good friends as the older cowboy shared his years of ranching experience with the novice. Now Brad was more like a son than a neighbor to Jasper, and nothing would make both of them happier than for Cassie to formalize the connection by saying “I do.”
Jasper’s wholehearted endorsement wasn’t the only one. Tyler adored Brad. However, Cassie felt her barely four-year-old son was too young to be clearheaded in his judgment, particularly about a man who carried Jolly Rancher candies in his pocket and wasn’t ashamed to use them as bribes.
Cassie felt her heart swell with love at the thought of the most important “man” in her life. Tyler might be a mistake in the eyes of most of the residents of the tiny town of Nye, Montana, where she was born and raised and now ran a combination bookstore-coffee bar called The Buzz, but Cassie could never regret the night of passion that had brought Tyler into the world nine months later.
No, even if Tyler hadn’t been the result of that night of indiscretion, Cassie couldn’t bring herself to regret the most incredibly romantic experience of her life....
She’d been barely twenty. She and three of her girlfriends had gone to the annual Fourth of July fair sponsored by the local cattle ranchers and town merchants.
Nye had retained a lot of rough-and-tumble ambiance from the first rush of miners who came in droves when ore was first discovered in the surrounding mountainsides in the last century, and summer brought a fair number of tourists to enjoy that ambiance.
They’d gaze up at the angular, painted timber buildings that still stood along Main Street, buildings that used to be mostly saloons, but which now housed antique shops, candy stores and restaurants, including Cassie’s bookstore.
So, when Cassie and her friends were strolling along the grassy fairway, eating pink cotton candy, they weren’t surprised to see a lot of strange faces in the crowd. But when a certain face turned in their direction and a handsome young man disengaged himself from the surrounding people, walked deliberately up to them and began a conversation, they were awestruck. Nye had rarely seen the likes of this guy. With his chiseled face and devastating smile, his dark hair and sky-blue eyes, he was movie-star gorgeous.
He told them he was just passing through town at the end of a short course of summer college classes. He was staying at Cavana House, the bed-and-breakfast run by Mr. and Mrs. Tuddenham, and he’d been excited to find out there was a fair in town. Would they tell him which of the animal exhibitions were the best, and which concessions stand had the spiciest hot dogs? As he chatted about the town, the fair and the mild July weather, he oozed charm from every refined pore.
Jamie, the bravest and most flirtatious of their
group, invited him to tag along with them for the evening. He’d happily agreed. But as the evening wore on, Cassie found herself, rather than the forward Jamie, more and more the object of his interest. Cassie, bookish and shy, only pretty in a quiet sort of way with her straight blond hair, gray eyes and pale complexion, was more surprised by his interest in her than anyone else.
They rode together on the Ferris wheel. He knocked down bottles and won her a large stuffed Wile E. Coyote. They ate hot dogs and caramel apples, then nearly got sick on the merry-go-round. At the end of the ride when he lifted her off the aquablue horse with the gilded harness, dizzy and laughing, she felt a strong stirring of sexual desire the likes of which she’d never experienced before.
Later, while the other girls went home in Jamie’s car, the handsome stranger walked Cassie to hers. She ended up giving him a ride to the bed-and-breakfast... then sneaking in with him and staying all night.
Nothing like this had ever happened to Cassie before. Up until that night, she’d been a virgin and with no great temptation to be anything else. But this stranger, this man who only wanted to be known by his fraternity nickname, “Bogie”—which he said had come about because of his rapt involvement in a Humphrey Bogart marathon on cable one year despite looming final exams—had swept her off her feet and into his bed by the sheer power of his considerable charisma.
In the wee hours of the morning, he walked her to her car, kissed her lingeringly through the open
window, and made arrangements to meet her the following day for a picnic.
Giddy with excitement, Cassie prepared a basket of food and drove to the park where they were to tryst. After waiting an hour for him to show up, she went to the Cavana House to see what was keeping him. Mr. Tuddenham explained that “Mr. Bogart,” which was the name he’d actually registered under, had received a long-distance call that morning and left in a great hurry.
Cassie was disappointed, but life went on and she would have tucked away her romantic memory of that night for the occasional indulgence of lazy afternoon daydreaming, if a month’s worth of throwing up and a pregnancy test hadn’t changed everything... changed her life forever.
“Cassie? Cassie, where are you, girl? By that grim look on your face, you must not like whoever you’re reading about.”
Susan snatched the magazine and stared at the page Cassie had randomly opened to.
“Oh my gaw... If you don’t think he’s cute, there’s something definitely wrong with you, Cass. And what a neat name. Adam Baranof. Must be Russian. Didn’t a bunch of them Tolstoy types settle in Alaska eons ago? Geez, he’s even a marine biologist. Brainy and brawny. What more could you want?”
Cassie glanced down at the page Susan was waving under her nose. “I’m just not interested, Su—”
Cassie’s heart stopped beating, then came to life again with a hard thump she felt clear to her toes.
“Cass? Cass, what’s wrong? You look just like
my mom did when she got food poisoning after eating Aunt Ida’s home-canned succotash. Are you gonna be sick?”
With trembling fingers, Cassie took the magazine out of Susan’s hands and stared disbelievingly at the picture of a dark-haired man with sky-blue eyes. A man who was movie-star gorgeous.
“It’s...it’s him.”
“What do you mean him? Don’t tell me you know this guy?”
Cassie nodded slowly. “Oh, I know him all right.”
“As in the biblical sense you know him? But I thought the only guy you’d ever slept with was Tyler’s—”
Susan fell silent. Cassie glanced up and saw her friend’s mouth hanging open like a hungry baby bird’s.
“Yes, it’s Tyler’s father, Susan,” Cassie confirmed in a raspy voice. “I thought I’d never be able to tell my son who his father is. But now I know.”
“Are...are you sure?”
“I could never forget that face.”
“I can see why.”
Now they both lapsed into stunned silence, staring at the picture of Adam Baranof.
Adam Baranof. Cassie thought the romantic name suited him...or at least suited the memory she had of him and of his suave charm. The ad seemed fitting, too. He wasn’t advertising for a wife or a longterm relationship like some of the other men in the magazine. He was advertising for a friend. Someone to share a few good times with, a few laughs, a few
walks on the beach. To the right woman he was willing to send a first-class airplane ticket for a weekend rendezvous in Alaska. Seldovia, Alaska, to be precise...wherever that was.
Cassie shook her head. After five years and several early and futile attempts to track down Tyler’s father, she found it hard to believe that his identity could be revealed to her in this weird, accidental way.
“So now that you know, what are you going to do, Cass?”
Susan’s softly spoken question was a good one.
“I...I don’t know,” Cassie answered. “I always thought he should know about Tyler. I didn’t want or need financial support or anything, but it just seemed right to tell a man he’d become a father. But it’s been so long since he was here. He might not remember me. He might not even want to know... you know?”
“Well, I think he should know,” Susan stated, growing indignant as the shock wore off. “He obviously wasn’t very careful that night or you wouldn’t have gotten pregnant. And then he left town willy-nilly the next morning, leaving you to go through the whole ordeal alone.”
“It wasn’t an ordeal, Susan,” Cassie reminded her in a firm tone. “I loved every minute I was pregnant with Tyler, and that little boy is the center of my universe.”
“I know all that, Cass,” Susan hastily assured her. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just that men shouldn’t go around getting women pregnant, then taking no responsibility for it.”
“He didn’t know I was pregnant.”
“Well, he sure as heck knew you could be, didn’t he? It’s one of the things that can happen when two people...you know...tango!”
“Neither of us thought about the possible consequences, Susan. Neither of us was careful. It was as much my doing as his.” Cassie felt her cheeks glowing with warmth. “We were just sort of... carried away by our passions.”
Susan grabbed Cassie by the shoulders and gazed intently into her face. “You still have the hots for this guy, don’t you?”
Cassie shrugged, embarrassed and confused. “Of course not.”
“But I’ll bet you’ll never forget that night or that man,” Susan persisted.
“It was a pretty magical night. And he was—” Cassie shook her head, sighed and smiled “—pretty incredible.”
“And pretty unforgettable. If that night was as great as you say, I’m sure he feels the same way about you.”
“I doubt it,” Cassie answered bluntly. “He didn’t make any effort to contact me, did he? I apparently didn’t make quite the same impression on him as he did on me.”
“There’s only one way to find out for sure,” Susan suggested with a coyly raised brow.
Cassie stared suspiciously at her friend. “To find out what for sure?”
“If you made an impression on him. Answer his ad, Cassie. Send him a picture. You’ll find out fast enough if he remembers you.”
Trying to ignore the way her heart fluttered with excitement, Cassie paced the floor. “If I were to get in contact with Adam, my object wouldn’t be to try to rekindle something between us. It would be to tell him about Tyler. That’s all.”
“But I thought you weren’t sure if you should tell him about Tyler?”
“You’re right. I’m not sure!”
Susan nodded sagely. “Well, I agree, you’re right to be cautious. I mean, how much do you really know about this guy except that he’s great in the sack?”
Cassie stopped pacing and whirled around to face her friend. “Susan! I know more than that!”
Now Susan raised both brows. “Oh, you do? What exactly? He left town without even telling you his real name. Did you know he was a scientist?”
Cassie frowned and shook her head. “No, but—”
“No buts. You really don’t know this guy from Adam.” Susan stopped abruptly and laughed at her own unintentional joke. “Seriously, Cass, what if he’s really not a very nice man? What if he doesn’t like kids? What if he does like them and wants Tyler to spend six months out of the year in Alaska?”
Now Cassie’s heart fluttered with apprehension. “Are you trying to scare me, Susan?”
“No. All I’m saying is that you ought to get to know this guy before you tell him about Tyler.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
Susan sighed and raised both hands in the air.
“Answer the ad, Cass. Just answer the ad. It’s that simple.”
DRIVING HOME for lunch, as she passed through a flat stretch of grassland where range cows stood in the warm June sun and a loping coyote chased a field mouse across the road, Cassie thought about Susan’s arguments for answering Adam’s ad. Susan had made it sound simple, but it wasn’t. It was complicated, and what complicated it the most was the person who mattered most in her life. Tyler.
Would he hold it against her someday if she decided not to contact his father when she had the chance? People moved around. If she didn’t write to Adam now, he could disappear from their lives as quickly as he’d accidentally reappeared.
But contacting him could also possibly cause an upheaval in their lives they’d never recover from. What if he wanted to be part of Tyler’s life? What if he wanted to be part of her life again?
Cassie pushed that idea out of her mind before the Cinderella scenario could take over and she started envisioning herself and Tyler snugly ensconced in some palatial log cabin in Alaska with a Russian prince.
Being part of a family, having more children with a man with whom you were at least on a first-name basis, was a dream she cherished. But such a dream seemed far more likely to come true with a stable man like Brad, who lived next door, than with a marine biologist advertizing for a “friend” in some remote town called Seldovia in faraway Alaska.
Cassie crossed the bridge over the fast-flowing Stillwater River and drove more quickly than usual through the open gate under the Lone Mountain Ranch sign that was suspended high above the dirt
road from a rustic pine framework. Dust flew in the wake of her Subaru Outback, but she was eager to see Tyler and anxious to talk to her father about her incredible discovery.
She skidded to a stop in front of the fieldstone-and-log ranch house she called home, with the familiar forested mountains behind it and outbuildings of every size and variety scattered on the grounds around it. Tucking the Single Men of Alaska magazine under her arm, she stepped out of the car and trained her eyes on the front door.
She wasn’t disappointed. The door flew open and Tyler flew out, his granddad following in long, lazy strides, making no attempt to keep up.
“Ty! How’s my little cowboy?”
“Me and Granddad caught two trouts!” Tyler announced as his mother scooped him into her arms for a quick kiss and hug. “And Sylvie’s cookin’ ’em fer lunch!”
“That sounds delicious,” Cassie said with enthusiasm, although with her stomach in such a nervous state she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to eat a single bite. She smiled down at Tyler, marveling again—after seeing the photo of Adam—at how much he looked like his father. He had the same dark hair and blue eyes. And that dimple in his chin would undoubtedly grow into a cleft just like Adam’s.
“Your foot was pressed to the metal comin’ down the drive, hon,” her father observed in his usual laconic drawl. “Did ya think ya saw smoke comin’ from the house, or are ya just hungry?”
Cassie looked at her father, at his tall, rangy figure in jeans and a Levi’s shirt, at the sun-weathered face
and drooping gray mustache that made him look a little older than his fifty-seven years. Today there was a twinkle in his pale blue eyes, but they had blazed with anger five years ago when he’d found out some passer-through had impregnated his daughter, then flown the coop.
Time had worked its magic and he’d long ago come to terms with the way Tyler had become part of their lives. Now he was just grateful for his grandson, for the sheer pleasure and vitality he brought to their little family which had seemed so diminished after the death of Cassie’s mother six years before.
Jasper spent a good part of his day with the boy, sharing the ups and downs of child-rearing with Cassie and their sixtyish nanny-housekeeper, Sylvie. The influence of a cattle-rancher grandfather was evident; Ty was only four but he already rode a horse and knew how to rope a steer. He wore his boots to bed—they had to be removed after he was asleep—and he didn’t leave the house without his Stetson. grooved just so at the crown and curved at the brim just like Granddad’s.
“No smoke. Just anxious to get home,” Cassie replied with a smile as she held Tyler’s hand and walked alongside her father to the door. Then, she added in a lowered voice, as Tyler hurried ahead to the kitchen toward the smell of fresh trout sizzling in the skillet, “Actually, there is something I need to talk to you about, Dad. Something important.”
Her father’s eyes narrowed and he looked at her keenly. “All right, hon. We’ll talk after lunch when Sylvie puts Ty down for his nap. That all right?”
Cassie nodded and released a shaky sigh. “That would be perfect.”
STANDING IN her father’s study, which was paneled in warm, honeyed tones of knotty pine, with a huge trout hung over the mantel and copies of Remington sketches framed on the walls, Cassie watched Jasper Montgomery’s face as he took his first look at Tyler’s father. He wasn’t smiling.
“So this is the scoundrel,” he muttered.
“Dad, I thought you’d gotten over wanting to wring his neck!” Cassie exclaimed.
“I thought so, too. Guess I was wrong.”
“As I’ve told you before, I was a consenting adult. In fact, I was more than willing.”
Her father grimaced, then sighed. “Yes, I know. But spare me the details, will ya, Cass?” He tossed the magazine onto his desk, folded his long arms over his broad chest, and peered at her from under sternly lowered brows. “So now I suppose you’ve got some fool notion of writin’ to this fella?”
Cassie averted her gaze and nervously trailed a finger along the smooth edge of her father’s massive walnut desk. “You don’t think I should?”
“I don’t think it’s going to matter what I think,” her father said with a sniff. “You’ve probably made up your mind already and, just like your ma, you’ll do what you want no matter what I think.”
Cassie looked up, suddenly realizing that her father was right. She had made up her mind and no amount of talking would change it.
“Dad, I have to contact him. It’s only fair.”
“Fair to who? I was all for findin this fella when
you were pregnant, and even when Tyler was just a baby. But it’s different now, Cass. Ty’s four years old. He’s used to us...and we’re used to him.” Jasper’s scowl deepened and his arms tightened against his chest. For the second time in her life, Cassie detected fear in her tough ol’ daddy’s eyes. The first time was when her mother was diagnosed with cancer.
Cassie moved to stand next to her father and laid a gentle hand on his arm. “You don’t think I’m going to allow Adam to take Ty away from here, do you?”
“As a father he’ll have rights. He might want joint custody.”
“But there’s a much greater chance he won’t want anything to do with Tyler,” Cassie reasoned. She turned away and resumed the idle occupation of tracing invisible designs on her father’s desk. “Besides,” she began carefully, “if I write to him and he writes back, and if I actually go up there, I might find out he’s a jerk. And if that’s the case, I’m not even going to tell him about Tyler. I mean, after all, I really didn’t get to know him before. We had such a short time together and we weren’t exactly exchanging anecdotes about our lives, our families, our aspirations. He might not be the kind of man we want in Tyler’s life at all.”
Jasper was silent for such a long time, Cassie was almost afraid to turn and look at him. Because of his strong love for Tyler, Jasper might be reluctant to admit that Adam Baranof had a right to know he was a father, but in the end he’d opt for doing the honorable thing. Would Jasper agree with her that
holding off until she knew Adam better was the honorable thing to do?
She turned slowly and faced her father. He was still frowning, but that uncharacteristic frightened look was gone from his eyes. “I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do or not, Cass. But I don’t care. If Ty’s gonna have a father in his life, we’d better make damned sure he’s a good one. You go ahead and answer that ad and see what happens. Go to Alaska if you want to and keep your secret as long as you need to. You’ve raised that boy for four years and you’ve got more rights than this Baranof fella by a long shot. Take it a step at a time, that’s what I recommend.”
Cassie smiled her relief. “I appreciate your support, Dad.”
He patted her on the shoulder and headed for the door. “You’ve always got it, sweetheart. You know that. Now you’d better get busy and write that letter. If it has to be done, there’s no point in putting it off. Use my desk and stationery, if you like.”
“Thanks, Dad. I will.” Cassie moved to the back of the desk and sat down in her father’s cushy leather chair, scooted in and picked up a pen. Then, just before her father was through the door, she called, “Oh, Dad?”
He popped his head in. “Yeah?”
“Do me a favor. Don’t tell Brad anything about this till things are more settled, okay?”
He frowned, hesitating. “Okay,” he said at last. “But you can do me a favor, too.”
“What’s that?”
“Be careful this time, will ya?”
Cassie knew her father was referring to more than birth control. What happened with Adam could affect all their lives forever. She hoped her smile conveyed more confidence than she felt as she replied, “Don’t worry, Dad. This time I’ll look before I leap.”
