Daughter on His Doorstep

by Janis Reams Hudson

  Well, that was fair, since he had yet to make up his mind about her.

  Trey decided he would keep a close eye on this woman for the rest of the day and night. If he wasn’t satisfied by morning that she could handle the job…well, he didn’t know what the hell he would do, but he wouldn’t leave Katy with her, that was for damn sure.

  Chapter Three

  “I haven’t had time to stock up on groceries lately,” Trey told Laurie when they reached the kitchen. “I’ve been eating over at Ace’s when I go there to pick up Katy in the evenings. There’s plenty of baby formula here, and in the garage there’s a freezer full of beef, but not much to go with it.”

  “I’m sure I can put something together for tonight, but I’ll need to shop tomorrow,” Laurie told him.

  “I’ve got a better idea. I know you’re probably tired of being in a car, but why don’t we drive to town, have supper at the café, then hit the grocery store? That way I can show you around town and help you get your bearings. I won’t be able to do that to morrow. Now that you’re here I have to get back to work.”

  “Whatever you say,” Laurie told him. “You’re the boss.”

  Trey smiled at her. “If you’re always this agreeable, you and I are going to get along fine.”

  “You mean, if I always agree with you?”

  He laughed. “Well, it wouldn’t hurt anything.”

  “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” Laurie asked.

  “Ask away.”

  She tilted her head and, with a half smile, said, “Do you always carry the baby around like that?”

  Trey looked down at Katy, still strapped to his chest, and frowned. “Like what? What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing,” she said quickly, with a smile. “I’ve just never seen a man look so natural and easy wearing a slingful of baby. You move and act as though she’s been strapped to you forever.”

  Trey’s grin came slowly, but lacked nothing in wattage when it spread across his face. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “I meant it as one. For somebody who didn’t even know he was about to become a father until the baby was handed to you, you’re a natural. Most men wouldn’t appear so comfortable.” Jimmy certainly hadn’t been. He still never knew quite how to act around his daughters.

  “Then most men,” Trey said, looking down at the baby with more love on his face than she’d ever seen on a man, “are fools. They don’t know what they’re missing.”

  Laurie’s heart turned over in her chest. Oh, she thought, she was really going to like working for a man who worshiped a baby that way.

  A moment later Trey said, “So, I guess Donna told you all about us.”

  “You and Katy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I asked a lot of questions. A lone woman with two young daughters needs to be careful when she agrees to move into a man’s house and live under the same roof with him.”

  “I guess when you put it that way, I see your point.”

  “Besides,” Laurie added with a small smile. “I’m sure Donna told you everything there is to know about me.”

  He tilted his head and absently stroked Katy’s back. “What makes you think so?”

  “Because I don’t think you’d let a stranger you knew nothing about anywhere near your daughter, much less have her live in and take care of her.”

  “You’re right. I wouldn’t.”

  “So we’re even,” Laurie said. “I’m here and ready to take care of Katy and your home, but if there’s a certain way you want anything done, you’ll have to tell me.”

  “We can go over all of that on the way into town. It’s nearly an hour’s drive. We need to get started. I’ll go get Katy’s gear while you round up your girls.”

  They left the house a half hour later in a four-wheel-drive Blazer that had been in the garage. The SUV was white with red-and-black Flying Ace logos on the doors, the same as the pickup parked next to the driveway. All of them wouldn’t have fitted in the pickup, as it had no back seat.

  Laurie found it interesting, amusing and endearing that Trey seemed to experience so much angst at having to leave his daughter strapped in her car seat in the back between Carrie and Amy. He looked so guilt ridden, so heartbroken, that she very nearly volunteered to drive so he could sit in the back with his daughter.

  But he was a strong man, she decided with a hidden smile. After checking for the third time to make sure Katy was strapped in securely—he even double-checked Carrie’s and Amy’s seat belts—he finally managed to close the backdoor and climb into the driver’s seat.

  Laurie saw Amy reaching a hand toward Katy. “Remember the baby rules,” Laurie cautioned.

  “It’s okay, Mama,” Amy said. “Her eyes are open, so she’s awake.”

  “Tell me the rules so I’ll know you remember all of them,” Laurie said.

  “Never touch her if she’s asleep,” Carrie said.

  “You can touch her if she’s awake,” Amy said. “But you have to be bery careful and bery gentle, don’t pull on her, and never, never, never touch her eyes.”

  “And never roll her onto her tummy, and never pick her up,” Carrie added, “unless the house is on fire.”

  In the driver’s seat, with his hands on the wheel, Trey pursed his lips to keep from grinning. They were good, sound rules, and he deeply appreciated that he wouldn’t have to worry about how the girls behaved around Katy. But that last bit, about unless the house was on fire, had caught him off guard and amused him, primarily because Carrie had been so serious about it.

  Amusing or not, it was a damn good rule.

  He realized Laurie was looking at him expectantly.

  “Anything you want to add?” she asked him.

  “Uh, no.” He cleared his throat and put the truck in reverse. “I think you’ve pretty much covered it.”

  They were silent while he backed down the driveway and for the first couple of miles.

  “When we get back,” he told Laurie, “I’ll leave you the keys to this vehicle in case you need to go to town or to headquarters to see Donna. After they get through with the chicken pox over there.”

  “I don’t mind driving my own car,” she offered.

  “These gravel roads out here will beat your car to death in no time. Besides, this thing is sturdier. Safer.”

  He said it in such a way that left no room for argument. He would leave her the keys and expected her to drive the Blazer. So there.

  Laurie arched a brow, but said nothing. She didn’t care for dictatorial men. But he was merely looking out for her safety and that of the children, and keeping her car from possible damage. Deciding she would be a fool to argue over such an offer, she settled back to enjoy the ride.

  Having seen nothing but wide-open country on her way to the ranch, Laurie wasn’t surprised to see more of the same on the way to town. Assuming she would have to make this trip on her own in the future, she paid careful attention to the turns Trey made and noted the landmarks he pointed out.

  “Your first turn,” he told her, “is at that big ol’ split cottonwood there.”

  The tree was easy enough to spot. It was large—obviously old—and looked as though a bolt of lightning or God’s own ax had cleaved the trunk down the middle. Half of the trunk continued to grow more or less upright, while the other half angled low and parallel with the ground. Also, it was the only thing taller than a fence post for at least a mile in any direction. Hard to miss.

  They drove for fifteen miles on gravel roads before hitting two-lane blacktop for the last forty-five miles north to Hope Springs, the county seat—indeed, the only town—in Wyatt County. All three girls in the back seat fell asleep and didn’t make a peep for the entire trip.

  At the edge of town, the city limit sign declared a population of 2,200.

  Trey pointed out the street to turn on if she needed the hospital. He drove past and pointed out the police department, sheriff’s office, the schools, the video rental
store, but no movie theater. There was a drugstore, Smiley’s Burger Barn, the Elks Lodge and Curley’s Auto Garage.

  “There’s Biddle’s,” he told her, nodding toward the grocery store. “We’ll eat first, then come back.”

  “A wise decision,” she told him. “It saves money.”

  “So I’m told. But at least when I shop hungry, I get home with good things to eat. Usually if I’ve just eaten, nothing in the store looks good, so I get home with cleaning supplies and toilet paper and not much else.”

  Laurie chuckled. “There is that.”

  Three blocks down Main Street Trey parked in front of Harvey’s Café, next door to the dry cleaners. They woke the girls, and after gathering all of the paraphernalia that went along with a baby, they went inside to eat.

  In Laurie’s opinion Trey handled Katy and her carrier like a pro. She was beginning to wonder why he’d bothered to hire her. It didn’t look to her as if he needed help with his daughter. Or wanted any help, for that matter. Laurie had yet to so much as touch the baby.

  But then, he couldn’t be with the baby every hour of the day. The man had a ranch to run. Or whatever it was that he did. Crops, she thought she remembered Donna saying. Trey was the farmer of the family.

  That might explain the fields around his house, and why he lived there rather than at the ranch headquarters with the rest of the family.

  They placed their orders, and while they waited for the food to arrive, a dozen or more people stopped by their table to say hello to Trey, make a fuss over Katy and eye Laurie and her daughters quizzically. Trey introduced them to everyone. So many names, from waitresses to deputies to store clerks to the county judge, that the names all ran together in Laurie’s head.

  When their food arrived Laurie’s eyes bulged. The chicken-fried steak the waitress set down in front of Trey was so huge that the edges of it hung off the sides of the plate.

  She made a mental note as she watched him pack it away in no time to be sure to serve him plenty of food. At least double what, in her experience, a normal man would eat.

  He must work like a mule, she thought, because as near as she could tell, there wasn’t an ounce of fat on that long, lean body.

  When they finished eating, they loaded up and drove back to the grocery store.

  There she got another eye-opener when Trey, with Katy again strapped to his chest in the baby carrier, took Laurie first to the service counter at the front of the store and introduced her to the owner, a gray-haired woman named Harriet Biddle.

  “Harriet, Laurie’s going to be staying out at my place taking care of Katy for a few weeks. Give her access to my account, will you?”

  “Sure thing, Trey.” Mrs. Biddle thumbed through a file of worn index cards and pulled one out, then stuffed it back in. “Nope, that’s Jack’s. Here we go.” She put a card down on the counter in front of Laurie and laid a pen beside it. “Just sign your name there underneath Trey’s, and you’re all set. This way, anytime you come into the store, you just sign your ticket, and we’ll charge it to Trey. Can’t beat a deal like that, can you?”

  Laurie blinked to hide her shock. A charge account in a grocery store? Just sign her name? “No,” she said slowly. “I guess you can’t.” She looked up at Trey. “Are you sure you want to do this? I mean—”

  “There’s not much you can buy here but groceries. It’s not like I’m giving you the key to my bank account,” Trey said with a half smile. “Just sign the card and make both our lives easier. I won’t always have the cash on hand to give you, and there’s no need for you to spend your money and have to wait to be reimbursed.”

  It made such perfect sense—on the surface, at least—that Laurie found no reasonable argument. Except the one in her head that told her this just wasn’t done. Regardless of Donna being her aunt, how could Trey trust her this way after knowing her for less than a day?

  Still, she most certainly did not want to have to write a check on her own account to pay for his groceries, even if three of the four mouths being fed—five, counting Katy—were hers and her daughters’. The job included room and board.

  With a sigh she picked up the pen and signed her name. She tried to imagine walking into her neighborhood Albertson’s and asking to set up a charge account. The effort nearly made her laugh out loud.

  Life in a small town was certainly different from life in the big city.

  To give credit to her new employer, he didn’t bat an eye when it took three shopping carts to hold all their groceries. She tried to rein in the girls when they spotted favorite treats, but they found a sneaky ally in Trey. Before she could say no, he would grab up the box or the bag and swear how much he loved that particular product and they surely couldn’t do without it.

  After the third different bag of cookies appeared in the shopping cart, Laurie frowned at him. “Does this job come with dental coverage?”

  “Toothpaste,” he said. “Let’s not forget plenty of toothpaste.”

  Carrie and Amy both giggled.

  “You’ve created a couple of little monsters,” Laurie complained. But she was secretly pleased to see the attention he paid to the girls and how well they related to him. Lord knew their own father never paid them any attention, even before he left them.

  “Am I being that bad?” Trey asked.

  “What? Oh. No.”

  “You were sure frowning there for a minute.”

  “Sorry. My mind wandered.” Then she frowned again, playfully this time. “But no more treats. We have more than enough. Especially by the time I add the ice cream,” she muttered.

  “I heard that,” he said.

  “Yippee!” Amy jumped up and down. “Ice cream.”

  Two hours later they were back at Trey’s house putting the last of the groceries away. The girls were in their room, and Katy was asleep in her crib.

  “This would be a good time for you to tell me how you want things done,” Laurie told Trey as she folded the last of the paper sacks.

  With the baby monitor beside him so he could hear Katy if she woke, Trey leaned against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “Like Donna told you, I need you to do the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry and look after Katy.”

  Laurie nodded. “I understand that much. It’s the details I need. What time will you expect your meals?”

  “I guess I’ll want breakfast at six.” There were, Trey thought, more benefits to having a live-in housekeeper than he’d realized. He was used to being at Ace’s by five-thirty for breakfast. Counting the driving time and feeding Katy and getting her ready, it looked as though he’d be getting at least an extra hour’s sleep every night.

  “Will you come home for lunch? Where do you do your work, by the way?”

  “Mostly I work around here. The barn, the tractor shed, the fields. Unless they need an extra hand with the cattle or something. So, yeah, I’ll be here for lunch. About noon. Six is a good time for supper.”

  “All right. Is there anything you don’t want to eat?”

  “Crepes,” he managed with a straight face.

  “You’re in luck. I don’t know how to make them.”

  “Good.” He smiled. “I’ll eat just about anything you want to fix—the plainer, the better.”

  “Meat and potatoes?”

  “You got it.”

  Laurie added the paper bag to the pile of them in the corner of the pantry. “When you’re home, in the house, do you want to take over any of Katy’s care, or will you leave her to me?”

  He gave one rueful shake of his head. “I imagine after being away from her all day I’m going to want to get my hands on her as soon as I’ve cleaned up. I’m kinda used to having her to myself every evening. And I imagine you’re going to be wanting a break from her by then, anyway.”

  Laurie smiled. “I don’t know. It’s been a while since I’ve taken care of a baby, and I miss it. But I guess I can let you hold her now and then.”

  “Considering I’m her dad
dy, and all.”

  “Considering you’re her daddy.”

  With every passing minute Trey felt more comfortable around Laurie Oliver—as long as he didn’t look in her big green eyes for too long. Because when he did, a funny wanting feeling stirred deep down inside that he’d never felt before and didn’t have a name for. It made him uneasy. So when he looked her in the eye, he made it a point not to linger.

  “Come on,” he told her. “While it’s still light outside, I’ll show you and the girls around. It’s not kid-proof out there. If they’re going to play outdoors, they need to know a few rules.”

  Laurie frowned. “Is it dangerous?”

  “There are no land mines, if that’s what you mean.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That’s good to know. It’s just that they’ve lived in an apartment all their lives. Their exposure to the outdoors has been in parks and in the fenced backyards of relatives, where they’re never really on their own.”

  “Then I’d say it’s time to round out their education,” Trey said. “Unless they do something outrageous, the worst they’ll get out here is a skinned knee now and then.”

  Looking somehow doubtful and eager at the same time, Laurie finally nodded. “I’ll go get the girls.”

  “I’ll get Katy.”

  Watching the Oliver girls explore his world gave Trey a kick. No matter how much alike they looked, they were as different in behavior and temperament as night and day.

  Carrie preferred to hold back and watch, reserve judgment. Trey could practically see her filing away in her mind every impression that came to her.

  Amy, on the other hand, was full steam ahead. She ran at life full tilt, eager to see, to touch, to try everything at once.

  Which, he wondered with a tightening in his throat, would Katy become? Cautious or lively?

  “Oh! Look! Kitties!” The sudden excitement in Carrie’s voice belied everything Trey had been thinking. The girl just hadn’t been exposed to the proper stimulus until now.

  Both girls squealed with delight and dropped to their knees just inside the barn door.