“I’m sorry, Merry.”
In her head she was telling him not to be, but the words stayed where they were.
“That was inappropriate,” he said. “It’s wrong to put you in this position.”
Not if she wanted to be there. “Hunter—”
“Good night.” He stood and went upstairs.
Merry tried not to be crushed but wasn’t very successful. And knowing how he’d lost his wife and why he was so protective of his daughter didn’t help much. It made clear only that he was determined to keep her firmly in her nanny role and at a distance. Unfortunately, the “almost” kiss made it clear how much she wanted him. He also made it clear that she was never going to have him.
Chapter Eight
Hunter couldn’t believe himself.
He’d come within a whisper of kissing Merry and that was why he was sitting in a booth at Ace in the Hole with a woman Vivienne Dalton had vetted for him. The whole thing came under the heading of “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
So, he’d said something to Max, who put Viv on the case and she’d set up a meet for the Saturday after Thanksgiving. He’d met Everly Swanson, an attractive brown-eyed brunette, at the local low-key establishment. There was a scarred bar on the far wall and booths around the perimeter. A wooden dance floor with scattered tables was in the center. In the window, a large neon sign of an ace of hearts blinked off and on, along with one that advertised beer.
Everly seemed like a perfectly nice woman, but now he had to make conversation.
She beat him to it. “So, tell me about yourself.”
“Okay.” He thought about where to start. “I went to Texas A&M, where I was a farm and ranching major. I’m originally from Texas and it’s my humble opinion that ranching is the best job in the world—” He was relieved when the bar’s owner arrived and stood at the end of their booth.
“Hey, Rosey,” Everly said.
“Hey there, lady. It’s nice to see you.” She gave him a curious look. “Hunter Crawford. Been a while. It’s nice to see you. With Everly. Is there romance in the air?”
“I think that’s burgers and fries you’re smelling,” he said.
“Could be.”
Rosey Traven was a curvaceous woman in her sixties. Hunter knew she made it her business to find out what was going on in the personal lives of her customers. He’d come into the Ace a couple of times with Wilder, who kept pushing him into being a wingman. Hunter did his best but it never went well.
Kind of how he expected this evening to go.
“What can I get you?” Rosey looked at each of them.
“Are you ready to order?” he asked the woman across from him.
“I am. I’ll have the usual, Rosey.”
“Burger basket, no cheese and a glass of red wine. Got it.” The older woman looked at him. “For you?”
“Burger basket, with cheese. And a beer.”
“Coming right up. I’ll get those drinks out in a jiffy.” She smiled at them then sashayed away.
“She’s sure a character,” Everly said. “Don’t you love those jeans, boots and that belted peasant top?”
“You mean all women of a certain age don’t dress like that?”
“Like a pirate queen? No.” She laughed. “But don’t let the outfit fool you. That woman has a soft heart and a knack for giving love a helping hand if she thinks two people are made for each other.”
“Okay.” He tried not to squirm on the faux leather bench seat.
“Since you’re pretty new to town you probably don’t know Rosey’s story.” When he shook his head, she elaborated. “She and her husband, Sam, own Ace in the Hole. He’s the former navy SEAL who worked to win her heart and become the love of her life. She’d probably never admit it, but she wants everyone to be as happy as she and Sam are.”
Well, damn. This “date” was the opposite of romance. The point was to get his father off his back and Merry out of his system, not do the romance dance. Color him a bonehead for not going somewhere less public and prone to gossip. He intended to get through it by walking a fine line—friendly, but not too friendly. He didn’t want to give this woman, or anyone else, ideas.
“Tell me about you.” He hoped to get her talking about herself, a safer subject than his life.
“I do clerical work in the mayor’s office. I actually grew up here in Rust Creek Falls, but lived over in Bozeman when I was married...but I’m not now.” Her lips pressed tightly together for a moment, then she relaxed. “Is there anyone special in your life?”
Merry. The thought was suddenly there. She was special because she took great care of his daughter. At least that’s what he told himself. Her qualities appealed to him, and not just the ones that had his little girl behaving like an angel. Merry was sexy and made him laugh. It was a dynamite combination. And none of that was what Everly meant. “I have a daughter. Wren. She’s six.”
“Adorable name.” Her smooth forehead puckered a little. “I confess that Viv Dalton told me your wife passed away after your daughter was born. That must have been hard.”
“Yes—”
A waitress walked over with a tray. “Here are your drinks, guys. Food is coming up shortly. Let me know if you need refills.”
“Thanks,” he said, then looked at the woman across from him and held up his longneck bottle of beer. “To new friends.”
“Friends. Right.” She lifted her glass and sipped. “So, you’ve been a single dad? How do you make that work?”
“I’ve had help from family and friends. My job is on the family ranch, which means that some chores can be scheduled around my daughter’s needs. If they can’t be, I used to call on one of my brothers or my dad.”
“But you don’t anymore?”
“No.” He drank from his beer then set it on the cocktail napkin in front of him.
“Obviously she’s school age, but she still needs supervision in the afternoons and summers. No?”
“Yes.” He toyed with the bottle, reluctant to say more.
Everly wasn’t letting him off the hook. “Why don’t you call on your family for child care anymore?”
“It’s not so easy now. Four of my brothers are married.”
“So I heard.” One of her eyebrows arched.
“Of course you did. This is a small town, not like Dallas.”
She laughed. “So I don’t have to explain how everyone knows your business.”
“No.” And that’s why he should have taken her somewhere no one knew them. “But their priorities have shifted. Now my dad and brother Wilder are the only ones who could help me out. Little brother’s judgment isn’t up to my standards where my daughter is concerned. And my father is busy.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Already done. I hired Meredith Matthews to be her nanny.”
“I’ve met Merry. She’s beautiful—which I could seriously dislike if she wasn’t so darn nice.”
The waitress showed up just then with their baskets and her timing couldn’t have been better. They weren’t supposed to be talking about him. How did that happen?
“There’s ketchup on the table. Can I get you anything else?” the server asked. When they shook their heads, she said, “Enjoy and if you need anything, let me know.”
Hunter dug into his burger as if he hadn’t eaten in a month. You weren’t supposed to talk with your mouth full, right? But way too soon his basket was empty.
Everly had more than half a burger left. She nibbled at her fries a bit, then said, “So, don’t take this the wrong way, but this feels like a kind of forced date, rather than one you were dying to go on.”
What was it with women? They could effortlessly carry on a conversation while chowing down on a messy hamburger and still look delicate and ladylike.
�
�I have to admit I’m here to get my father off my back. What gave me away?”
“You keep looking at the door.” She didn’t seem upset.
“I’m a little out of practice. Okay,” he said, grinning slightly, “more than a little. Is that your way of giving me the brush-off?”
She grinned back. “If that was my plan, I’d have a friend call with a fake emergency. Or, better yet, I’d go to the ladies’ room, then sneak out without a goodbye.”
“But this is a brush-off.” He wasn’t an idiot, after all.
She shrugged. “I prefer to be direct. I think we both know there’s no spark here. But it was nice to go out with a decent guy.” She smiled—a little wistfully, he thought.
“You’re right. And I appreciate your honesty.” She was a nice woman—funny, smart, pretty. It wasn’t her fault that she didn’t have striking hazel eyes and thick, curly blond hair. She couldn’t help that she wasn’t Merry. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I would rather know the truth. And a dinner is always appreciated. As is meeting new friends.”
“I’d like to be friends,” he said.
“Me, too.” She took the paper napkin off her lap and wadded it up to toss in her half-empty basket. “But would you mind a word of advice?”
“Probably.”
“Too bad. You’re getting it anyway.” She laughed, then turned serious. “You’ve been hurt in the worst way possible. I can see why you think it’s important to control your feelings and protect yourself. But take it from me, that’s impossible. Feelings and emotions have a mind of their own. They have a way of sneaking up on you when you least expect it. And that’s not a bad thing.”
“Sounds like you’ve had experience. From your divorce, I guess?”
“Yeah. But I won’t bore you with the details.” She gave him a smile before sliding out of the booth. “Thanks for dinner, Hunter. Really. And remember, feelings can’t be controlled.”
Hunter watched her walk to the old screen door. There was a loud squeak when she opened it and let herself out.
He knew she was right about not being able to control his feelings, and he didn’t like it. If he could, he wouldn’t have been counting the minutes until he could politely leave and go home. And this feeling wasn’t new. It got stronger every day when he found reasons to put off a chore so he could get back to the cabin and see Merry.
That made it official. He was in hot water. His child care issue was solved but the solution had created an even bigger problem.
* * *
“Daddy went out with a lady.”
“Yes, he went to meet someone,” Merry agreed.
They were sitting at the kitchen table eating grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken noodle soup. It was the little girl’s favorite and Merry decided it might be good for the soul. She was wrong. After one bowl her soul was still not happy about Hunter meeting a lady. And although it didn’t matter how many times she reminded herself that his social life was none of her business, she couldn’t reconcile the fact that he’d nearly kissed her and two days later he was hooking up with some floozy.
Well, that wasn’t fair but she didn’t think there was enough chicken soup on the planet to change her attitude. Still, she couldn’t let Wren know how she felt.
“Sweetie, now that I’m here to take care of you, it’s natural that your dad would want to go out with a woman.”
“Why does he have to, Merry? He’s got me.”
This conversation could easily go in an awkward direction if she didn’t choose her words carefully. The last thing she wanted was to tell Hunter she’d been forced to explain sex to his six-year-old daughter. She just couldn’t say that the man probably went out because he wanted to sleep with her.
Merry had been ready to go there with him on Thanksgiving but he’d put the brakes on that. Since then she’d tried to convince herself he’d been right, but she wasn’t quite buying that.
“Believe me, sweetie, there’s nothing he loves more than spending time with you. But there are grown-up activities he wants to do.” Darn it. That was going to generate follow-up questions. “Like going out to dinner. Or a movie.”
“I like movies.” Wren’s little face was puckered in an adorable pout.
“Sometimes he might like one that’s not about princesses or animated animals. There are a lot that he can’t take you to see.”
“But he doesn’t have to take a lady. Uncle Wilder would go.”
“Probably.” And the handsome devil would hit on every single woman in the theater, dragging Hunter along with him. “Your uncle wants different things than your dad.”
“This is all Gramps’s fault.” The little girl slurped some soup and sucked up a noodle while broth dribbled down her chin.
“Napkin, sweetie.” Merry should have ignored that important and revealing information, but just couldn’t. “What did your Gramps do?”
“He’s paying that lady to get women to go out with my dad. I heard them talking. They didn’t know I was there.” She bit off the corner of her diagonally cut sandwich. “I like triangles.”
“I’m glad. And we need to have a talk about listening to a conversation when the people talking don’t know you’re there.”
Wren finished chewing her sandwich, then said, “But I wanted to hear what they were sayin’. They would’ve stopped if they knew I was there.”
“Still, next time you should let them know you’re there.” Do as I say, not as I do, Merry thought, remembering the night she’d overheard father and daughter talking.
“Okay.”
“So, did Gramps say why he wants your dad to meet women?”
“He said my mommy would want Daddy to be happy. Gramps tells him that all the time.”
“Well, Gramps knew your mom,” Merry said gently. “So it’s probably true.”
“But I don’t know the lady Daddy is with.” There was a stubborn expression on her face and an angry look in her eyes. “And I’m mad at him. Aren’t you mad at him?”
Merry could be on board with that, but she had no right to the feelings. Her responsibility was taking care of Wren, not having an opinion on her father’s love life. Being conflicted made this a fine line to walk.
Best to sidestep the question entirely. “Well, sweetie, it might be a good idea for you to talk to your dad about this. Because he might go out with her again. If he likes her.”
Just saying those words made Merry’s chest feel tight and her soul didn’t much care for it either.
“I don’t like her already.” She folded her arms over her thin chest. Talk about closed body language.
Merry was conflicted again, torn between gratitude that Wren approved of her and a duty to point out that she should give people a chance. She decided that conversation could wait until she was less emotionally at odds with herself. Less talk, more action to turn this evening around.
“Are you finished with dinner?” Merry asked.
The little girl put down her mostly eaten triangle and said, “I’m full.”
“Okay. Do you want to make cookies?”
Wren’s little face lit up and hostility disappeared. “The kind we can decorate?”
“Yes. With icing and sprinkles and red and green sparkles.”
“Oh, boy!” She wiped her mouth then slid off her chair. “I’ll take my dishes to the sink.”
“Good girl. We’ll wash these up real quick and make room for baking.”
The child insisted on helping so “real quick” took a few minutes longer. Then Merry got out all the ingredients for her mother’s sugar cookie recipe. She’d baked them with her mother as a child, and after her mom’s passing, when she was old enough, she’d made them for her dad. They’d always shared memories of the woman both of them loved and missed. This year there was no one to remember with her and she was gra
teful to have Wren, the blessing of a child to take the sting out of this painful transition to her new holiday normal.
Together they measured everything into a big bowl and Merry let the little girl try mixing. Of course, the powdered ingredients floated over the side and her six-year-old attention span didn’t last long. So Merry took over just as her mom had always done with her. Before long, the dough was ready to roll out and the oven was preheated with cookie sheets standing by to be filled.
Wren knelt on a kitchen chair in front of the flour-dusted breadboard with a small mound of dough in the center. “Can I roll it out?”
“Yes.” Merry watched the child use the rolling pin that had been her mother’s and her vision wavered with unshed tears. Then Wren looked up at her and smiled happily, making her smile, too. It made her heart happy that time spent with her own mom could be channeled to bring joy to this motherless little girl.
Rolling went better than mixing, and Merry let her pick the holiday cookie cutters—a tree, star, Santa Claus, snowman, reindeer, wreath. The first pan was ready to go in the oven when the back door opened and Hunter walked in.
“Hi.”
Merry blinked at him. “I didn’t expect you home so early.” Darn, what was it about this man that had her blurting out things she wouldn’t ordinarily say?
“Yeah, well...” He didn’t quite meet her gaze but gave his daughter a hug. “Hey, you.”
“Daddy your face is cold.” She giggled when he grabbed her in a bear hug and squealed when he put a cold hand on her neck. “Did you meet the lady?”
“Her name is Everly Swanson. And yes, I met her.”
Merry knew the woman. Beautiful, smart, funny, charming. She was pretty much everything a man could want. She truly liked the woman but right this minute she was struggling with that.
“Was she nice?” Wren demanded.
“She was.” Hunter touched her cheek with his finger. “You’ve got flour all over your face.”
“I know. Me and Merry are bakin’.” She lasered him with a look. “Is she pretty?”
Maverick Holiday Magic (Montana Mavericks: Six Brides For Six Brothers Book 5) Page 10