A Daddy for Dillon Read Online Free

of the little four-room house. The cream-colored stucco was freshly painted, and the wooden shingles were all in place. Ever since Diego had died and Laramie had inherited the place, he’d made a point of keeping the structure in good condition.
    “Diego Jaime wasn’t my father by blood,” Laramie explained. “But I was only a few days old when he took over my raising.”
    “Really? Where is he now? It looks like no one lives here.”
    “Diego died when I was a teenager—just sixteen. He didn’t have a wife, so it was just me and him. He’d always told me that if something ever happened to him to go to Lewis Cantrell. So that’s what I did. I went to the Chaparral and asked the man for a job.” Laramie’s sigh was wistful. “For some reason I’ll never understand, Lewis took me in like his own. And I’ll be forever in his debt.”
    “Lewis was a good judge of character,” Russ told him. “And I figure you’ve repaid him many times over.”
    Laramie shot him a skeptical look but didn’t pursue the subject. Diego and Lewis had both played a prominent role in Laramie’s life. He hated that both men were gone now, but he felt very blessed to have been part of their lives.
    “I’ll just walk around the house and make sure it hasn’t been vandalized,” he told Russ. “Just sit if you’d rather.”
    “I need to stretch. I’ll walk with you,” the other man replied.
    The two men climbed out of the ranch truck and started around the small house. The spring day was warm and the snow melt had glutted the rivers and streams to full banks. Not far from the house, the sound of rushing water mingled with the singing birds. Further off, a cow bawled to its calf. The sights and sounds always brought Laramie back to his days as a young boy when he’d explored and played over these hills. Diego had always owned a few cows, sheep and horses. Not to mention the dogs and cats that had called the place home. Three-fourths of Laramie’s childhood had been spent outdoors and he’d basically been a happy boy. Even if he’d not had a set of real parents.
    “I didn’t realize we were birds of the same feathers,” Russ said as they rounded the back of the structure.
    “How’s that?” Laramie asked.
    “I grew up with just a mother and she died when I was seventeen.”
    Very surprised by Russ’s admission, Laramie glanced over at the other man. “What about your father?”
    “My parents divorced. After that he was a no-show.”
    “Hmm. At least you know who he was,” Laramie mused aloud.
    “So do you,” Russ told him. “Your father was Diego Jaime.”
    Laramie’s faint smile was full of fond memories. “Yeah. You’re right.” Diego had been a father in every sense of the word. But there were still times when he wondered what had really happened with his mother. Why she’d left her baby with a neighbor and never returned. The story had never made sense to Laramie, and he’d often wondered if the old man was only giving him the partial truth of the matter. But he’d never pressed Diego on the subject. After all the sacrifices the old man had made for him, it would have seemed very ungrateful to call him a liar. Besides, if his mother had really wanted her son in her life, then she could have returned. The fact that she’d stayed away gave Laramie at least one answer to his questions.
    * * *
    That afternoon, Leyla was deboning a stewed chicken when Sassy emerged from the laundry room carrying a laundry basket of just dried linen.
    “Mmm. That smells good. What are you cooking?” the maid asked. She plopped the basket onto the kitchen table and walked over to where Leyla was standing in front of a long work island.
    “Chicken pot pie. Do you think Laramie eats things like that?”
    The tall redhead made a palms-up gesture. “No idea. That guy is hardly ever around the house when I’m here. And even when he is around, he’s not exactly a talker. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
    Not a talker? Leyla had