Daughter on His Doorstep

by Janis Reams Hudson

  Trey felt the subtle changes in her, the speeding of her pulse, the softening of her body. She was both generous and demanding, yielding yet not submissive in the least. And he wanted more. He wanted all she would give him.

  But not here, not now, with three little girls in the next room, two of them old enough to ask questions neither he nor, he suspected, Laurie, were prepared to answer.

  So he ended the kiss, amazed at how hard it was to make himself release her lips. Amazed further at how hard it was to catch his breath.

  Laurie’s eyelids had never felt so heavy when she raised them. It was her daughters’ laughter from the living room that jolted her back, and away from Trey. “I, uh, better go give the girls their baths.” She turned to leave.

  “Laurie?”

  Breathless from the kiss, from the fear that she should never, ever, have gotten that close to this man, she stopped.

  His voice, when it came, slid all over her like warm honey. “We’re going to want to do that again. Soon.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’re my boss. I work for you. It’s not right.”

  “Well, then.” He rocked back on his heels and pushed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “I guess I’ll just have to give you a day off, won’t I?”

  What had he meant, give her a day off?

  Laurie hadn’t stayed around to find out, hadn’t had the nerve to ask. Because the look in his eyes seemed to say that if she had a day off, when he wasn’t her boss and she wasn’t his employee, then all bets would be off.

  “Oh, Laurie,” she whispered to herself in the darkness of her room late that night. “What have you done?”

  Nothing, she assured herself. Nothing terrible, anyway. It was just a kiss. She would simply put it out of her mind. Just because it was a kiss like none she’d ever had before didn’t mean she had to let it mean anything.

  It probably meant less than nothing to Trey. A man with his looks, his charm, probably had women lined up to kiss him.

  That thought followed her into a restless sleep and left her unexplainably depressed the next morning when Katy woke her at the usual time. Laurie let the joy of caring for such a good-natured baby ease away her residual feelings from the night before. Bathing the child soothed her.

  “Come on, Katy-girl, give me a smile,” she coaxed.

  Always happy to oblige, Katy cooed and smiled and waved her tiny hands in the air.

  “Oh, and aren’t you clever, and isn’t that the prettiest smile I’ve ever seen. Now that you’re all clean and sweet smelling again, I bet you’re hungry.”

  A few minutes later Laurie was seated in Trey’s recliner feeding Katy her morning bottle when Trey walked into the room.

  Sudden visions of their kiss sent heat flaming to Laurie’s cheeks. How was she supposed to act around him the morning after a kiss like that? What was she supposed to say?

  What came out of her mouth was, “You’re up early.”

  He gave a negligent shrug and leaned down to stroke Katy’s cheek. “How’s my girl this morning?”

  “She’s fine. If you want to take over I’ll start your breakfast.”

  Trey shrugged again. “Sure.” Hell. She wouldn’t look him in the eye. She’d been right last night, that kiss had not been a good idea. And not just because she was his employee and, if she were the type, she could sue him for sexual harassment. Wouldn’t that be just dandy. And dammit, he would deserve it. Except…

  Except she’d wanted it, too. And she’d kissed him back.

  That was the other reason he shouldn’t have kissed her. He’d taken the feel of her, the taste of her, with him into his sleep. Three times during the night he had wakened in a pool of sweat, his blood pumping hot and fast while his arms reached for her and found nothing but air.

  But in his dreams she had filled his arms. He’d dreamed that instead of breaking off the kiss, he had taken her—they had taken each other—right there on the kitchen table. And up against the refrigerator. And the washing machine, during the spin cycle.

  And if he thought about those erotic dreams now, he’d never make it through breakfast. He had to get over this sudden obsession with household appliances.

  As awkward as the morning had been, Laurie wished the girls had been up to watch Trey ride off on horseback just as the sun broke free in the east.

  There stood the little prairie wife, waving her cowboy off to a hard day in the saddle.

  “Yeah, right.” With a snort of self-directed laughter she turned away and finished loading the dishwasher.

  Ordinarily Trey would have trailered Soldier as far as possible toward the break in the fence, until it wasn’t safe to drive any farther, before going the rest of his way on horseback. But he wasn’t in a particular hurry this morning and it wasn’t all that far—just impossible to get to without risking tearing up a vehicle, even a four-wheel-drive.

  But the real reason he’d decided to load his tools and supplies behind the saddle and spend the morning astride a horse was for the quiet. Riding alone across the land soothed him in a way nothing else could, except perhaps standing in the middle of a heathy stand of hay.

  The hayfields, however, weren’t isolated enough to suit him today. He had some thinking to do. And maybe after he’d repaired the fence and ridden home, he would talk a certain mother into letting him give her girls a ride around the corral.

  The first time he’d come home for supper and found Laurie and her girls there waiting for him had rocked him. He’d had the fleeting thought that that was what it would be like to have a family of his own.

  He’d gotten used to them, though, and understood that they weren’t his family. But this morning, when he’d walked into his living room before sunup and found Laurie in his chair feeding his daughter…

  Ah, hell. She was supposed to be just a woman, temporary help until he could hire a housekeeper, nothing more. He wasn’t supposed to be drawn to her this way. He wasn’t supposed to want her.

  But he did want her. Was he supposed to just ignore that? Unless he’d forgotten everything he ever knew about women, she was right there with him last night every step of the way. If they had been alone, if he wasn’t her employer but simply a man she felt an attraction for, last night might—would—have turned out differently. Neither of them would have slept alone.

  In frustration, he tugged off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. Hell, what was he doing obsessing about a kiss, a woman, anyway? If the tables were turned and she was the one pursuing him, he wouldn’t trust her as far as he could pick her up and throw her.

  Of course, that was because he’d been burned. Scorched to cinders. His heart left in ashes.

  His heart wasn’t involved here.

  Nothing was involved. Last night he’d shared a kiss with a beautiful, sexy woman. This morning she hadn’t been able to look him in the eye. He would back off, give her the room she deserved and seemed to want. If there was nothing more, then there was nothing more.

  Dammit, he wanted more.

  By the time Carrie and Amy got up, Laurie had cleaned the main bathroom she and the girls used, as well as the master bath off Trey’s bedroom, and she had stripped all the unoccupied beds. But the girls liked to help her put on clean sheets, so she saved that chore for after they’d eaten breakfast.

  Since Trey wasn’t expected back for lunch, Laurie got the girls to help her make sandwiches, and they had a picnic under the elm in the backyard. They took Katy with them, of course, and spread an old blanket beneath its limbs. After they ate, Laurie read to them from one of the girls’ favorite storybooks. When their heads started drooping, along with their eyelids, she shooed them back into the house for a nap.

  She intended to run the vacuum, but waited until after nap time, when she sent the girls outside to play. After vacuuming the carpet, she decided she was sufficiently calm to call her mother.

  “Honey, when are you coming home?” Her mother’s plainti
ve question made it sound as if Laurie and the girls had been gone for months.

  “The middle of August, Mom, as I told you before.”

  “I just can’t stand the thought of you taking those sweet babies off to the wilds of Wyoming. Why, that place where Donna works is the back of beyond.”

  With a smile Laurie remembered the endless miles of sagebrush and sparse grass and not much else. “It’s nice here, but that’s not why I called.”

  “Did you get in touch with Jimmy before you left?”

  Laurie rolled her eyes. It was no secret that Susan Harris adored Jimmy Oliver and thought he could do no wrong. Laurie had shed many a tear into her pillow at night over the fact that her own mother hadn’t supported her during the divorce. Now, more than a year later, the hurt had changed to anger, which Laurie tried desperately to swallow.

  When she had learned that her apartment complex was being leveled and that she and the girls needed a temporary place to live until their house became available, her parents had not hesitated to invite them to spend the summer with them. But before Laurie had accepted, she’d made her mother promise to lay off on the subject of Jimmy Oliver. Susan had agreed, and Laurie had thought things were fine, at least on that front. Until Amy’s innocent comment about their “broken home” last night.

  “Honey, did you call him?” her mother asked again.

  “You know I didn’t.”

  “That’s a mistake, honey, if you don’t mind my saying.”

  “I do mind, Mom.”

  “You’re just making it that much harder for the two of you to get back together, taking off this way without a word to him.”

  “Mother.” Laurie dragged the word out through gritted teeth. “I am not going back with Jimmy, not ever, and I’m insulted that you think I should. He’s a weak, irresponsible boy who never grew up. He doesn’t need a wife, he needs a mother. And if you’ll recall, he’s the one who decided he didn’t want to be tied down anymore with a wife and two children.”

  Over the phone came a long-suffering sigh. “Wild oats, honey. I told you at the time, he just needed to sow a few wild oats.”

  It was the same song and dance every time Laurie made the mistake of letting her mother bring up Jimmy. Laurie was so sick of it she could scream.

  “I didn’t call because I wanted a lecture, Mom.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t, honey, but now and then it seems like you need one.”

  “Well, this time I’m giving the lecture.”

  There was a length of silence before her mother spoke again. “Oh?”

  “Yes, oh. You told my daughters they had a broken home.”

  “Well…”

  “That they were poor little lambs who came from a broken home.”

  “Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Our home is not broken, Mom, and Carrie and Amy are not poor little lambs. The only time I ever want to hear of you calling them that is if they’re sick or injured.”

  “Mind your tone, Laurie. I’m still your mother.”

  “And I’m their mother, and I don’t want them exposed to that kind of talk. There’s no need for them to learn to feel sorry for themselves or to think there’s something wrong with the way we live. Since you obviously haven’t been paying attention, both girls are much happier since Jimmy left, because now they don’t have to live with someone who ignores them while he’s in the room with them, and who stayed in the same room with them as little as possible. He hurt them, Mom, with his indifference and his immaturity. He hurt my babies, and I don’t ever want to hear you tell me I should go back with him again.”

  “Well,” her mother said. “I’m sorry that I’ve obviously upset you, honey.” But she didn’t sound sorry. “Oops, that’s the doorbell. Gotta run. Kiss the girls for me.”

  “Mom—” But her mother had already hung up.

  Laurie spent the next several moments trying not to beat her head against the nearest wall. Then she took two aspirin for the headache that had zoomed in during the phone call and went to check on Katy.

  There was no real need to check on her. She was asleep in her crib, just as she’d been when Laurie last checked on her, right before she’d called home, and there hadn’t been a peep of sound coming through the baby monitor. But Katy was such a pleasure to look at, so sweet and pretty, that it soothed the raw nerves Laurie was left with from talking with her mother.

  Heavens, she was going to miss this sweet little baby when it was time to go.

  Feeling much better for having watched an infant’s innocent sleep, Laurie made her way back to the kitchen, where she mixed together the ingredients for a meat loaf and put it in the refrigerator to keep until later. Trey should be back soon. She would wait until she saw him coming before she started supper.

  She was standing at the kitchen sink a few minutes later drying her hands on a dish towel when she heard the scream.

  Chapter Six

  Trey had finished repairing the fence and rode home at a leisurely pace. Nothing else was pressing today, and he’d worked out in his mind that he wasn’t going to pressure Laurie into anything, so he was enjoying the ride.

  Almost home now, acre after acre of green alfalfa stretched out before him. In the distance he could see his house, and in the backyard, beneath the spreading limbs of the old elm, two little girls turned cartwheels and somersaults before they stopped to look up into the tree.

  A couple of pistols, those girls. Considering they’d never had a yard to play in before—he shuddered at the very thought—they seemed to take to outdoor play like a duck takes to water. As he rode closer, he saw Carrie give Amy a boost up into the tree and then scramble up after her.

  Trey wondered if their mother knew her daughters were turning into a couple of tree-climbing little squirrels.

  She already knew they loved to ride a horse. He’d have to give them another go at it this afternoon. Bareback, this time, he decided. His saddle was just too big for them.

  Of course, they would smell a lot more like horse than little girl when they got through, but who cared? It was the fun that counted.

  Besides, if he could get Laurie up again, there would be no saddle between them, as there had been yesterday, with her in the seat and he behind on the skirt. Bareback, it would be just the two of them, cupped together like a couple of spoons.

  Blood rushed to his loins at the mere thought.

  And shame on him for having lascivious thoughts about a woman while watching her two daughters at play.

  In the next instant his heart stopped as a shrill scream split the air and Amy fell from the tree.

  “Oh, God. Amy.”

  She didn’t move.

  With his heart in his throat, Trey clapped his spurs to Soldier’s sides and leaned low over the horse’s neck, praying with every hoofbeat.

  It took him long, agonizing seconds to reach the backyard and pull Soldier to a sliding halt. By the time he had jumped from the saddle, Laurie was there kneeling at her fallen daughter’s side.

  “It hurts, Mama, it hurts.”

  Thank God, Trey thought. At least she was conscious and talking. And moving, he noted. And crying, the poor little thing.

  “Let me see,” Laurie was saying.

  “How bad is it?” Trey asked, kneeling beside them.

  “It’s her wrist.” Laurie’s face had gone ten shades of pale.

  Trey didn’t figure his was any better. Watching that tiny angel fall from the tree had shaved a good dozen years off his life. “Can you move your fingers, Amy? Let us see you move your fingers.”

  Amy dutifully moved the fingers on her injured left hand.

  Trey and Laurie both breathed a sigh of relief. At least the wrist wasn’t broken. But they had yet to get a look at it because Amy had her other hand clamped around it tight.

  “Amy?” came a tearful cry from overhead.

  Everyone looked up to see Carrie hugging a branch about halfway up the tree.

  Amy sniffed,
then smiled. “I fell outta the tree, Carrie. It was a long way, too.”

  “I told you to be careful,” Carrie scolded, using her forearm to swipe at the tears on her cheeks.

  “What were you doing climbing the tree?” Laurie demanded, her voice shaking.

  “Never mind that now,” Trey said, figuring this was no time for explanations or lectures. “You just stay right where you are, Carrie,” he called up to her. “I mean it, don’t move.”

  “Okay, Mr. Trey. But I wanna come down.”

  “I’ll come get you as soon as we see to this littlest squirrel, here.” To Amy he said, “Let go now, so we can see how bad you hurt your wrist.”

  “I’m scared to look.” Fresh tears started down her scratched and dirty cheeks.

  “Then don’t,” he told her gently. “Squeeze your eyes shut so you can’t see, then take your hand away. Okay?”

  Sniff. “Okay.” Doing as she was told, Amy squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could, and held her breath for good measure.

  “Now let go, baby,” Laurie encouraged, her voice not quite steady. “Let me see your wrist.”

  After one long moment and a tiny whimper, Amy finally removed her hand. Her left wrist was red and already looked swollen to Laurie’s eyes, but this was new territory for her. Neither of her girls had ever had more than a skinned knee until now.

  “What do you think?” She looked up at Trey.

  “It’s probably just sprained,” he told her. “But we should take her in and have it X-rayed to be sure. There could be a small fracture or something that we wouldn’t want to miss.”

  “Okay.” She nodded. “Amy, do you hurt anywhere else?”

  The child cracked one eye and looked sideways at her wrist. Sniff. “No.”

  “Let me check her over before she gets up,” Trey cautioned.

  Visions of internal injuries and broken bones danced through Laurie’s head. “Do you know how?”

  “I’ve got four nephews who are always falling out of trees and off horses.” And not one of those accidents had terrified him the way seeing Amy fall from this damn tree had, but he tossed Laurie a wink for reassurance. “I’m an old hand at this.”