Bachelor Father Read Online Free PDF Page B

with it. She’d been operating on instinct, and right now her instincts told her this was right, for the three of them to be heading down the road together in the rain. Zeke had left the main highway to follow a narrow two-lane road with little traffic on it. Safe in the truck cab with Zeke, she felt cozy, almost peaceful. She hadn’t felt that way for a long time, maybe not since the night she’d spent with him in his tent.
    She glanced at Zeke and realized she’d never seen him at the wheel of a vehicle. He looked good there—competent and sexy. The day after her tumble into the river, they’d hiked to a ranger station, and another park service employee had offered to take her back to the Old Faithful Inn so Zeke could return to his campsite and get on with the solitary retreat she’d ruined.
    And here she was again, invading his privacy. But for Amanda’s sake, she’d brave it out and hope he’d be willing to accept some part in his daughter’s life.
    As if he felt her attention on him, he turned his head. “Should you check her? She seems too quiet.”
    “I’m sure she’s asleep. She loves riding.” His comment made her smile. For the first month or so of caring for Amanda she’d had the same fears. She used to wake up twenty times a night and make sure the baby was still breathing. “Sometimes when she’s fussy I bundle her up in her car seat, go outside and hail a cab, just so I can settle her down. It’s worth the cost of a twenty-minute ride around town.”
    “You don’t own a car?”
    “Nope. Cabs are handier when you’re in Manhattan. I don’t live that far from the office. A car would be more of a nuisance than an advantage.”
    He frowned. “But don’t you ever have the urge to get away from the city?”
    “Yeah. That’s why I came to Yellowstone last summer.”
    “Couldn’t you have found someplace closer?”
    “Well, sure. My parents and I used to camp in the Adirondacks when I was a kid, but that seemed too...tame. Besides, I’d been hearing about Yellowstone all my life.”
    “So you decided to tackle it alone.”
    “I like a challenge.”
    His jaw tightened. “I’d say you have one now, with your job and the baby.”
    And your stubbornness, she wanted to add, but didn’t.
    “And speaking of your job, what’s Naomi Rutledge’s stake in all this?” he asked.
    Katherine decided that revealing Naomi as her godmother would only confuse the issue, so she stuck to the job situation. “She’s offered to let me take over the magazine when she retires. Understandably she’d like my personal life to be under control before she does that.”
    He stared out at the rain-swept landscape. “That should be a no-brainer. I’ll bow out of your life and Amanda’s, like I said back at the lodge. Case closed.”
    “I think that’s a mistake.” She took note that his jaw now seemed carved in granite. He didn’t appear to be the kind of man who would change his mind easily once it was made up. He’d given her Naomi’s preferred response twice in a row, and she was no more ready to accept his decision than she had been the first time. But she wasn’t sure she could explain why.
    “I don’t get it, Katherine.”
    A thrill ran through her. It was the first time he’d used her name since they’d met at the lodge, and the sound of it made a definite impact on her, reminding her of the way he’d said her name while they’d made love. “I’m not sure I get it, either,” she said, picking at a loose thread in the stitching of the armrest. But she was beginning to suspect her behavior wasn’t all motivated by Amanda’s welfare. She’d been intrigued with Zeke a year ago. She still was. She’d told him the truth about liking challenges, and he certainly presented a huge one.
    “Why didn’t you contact me when you found out you were pregnant?”
    At last—an easy question, one she’d been meaning to answer for him right away, but the sensual vibrations between them kept