by Various
She sighed. “Wine is fine.”
He poured the golden liquid into a wineglass and handed it to her. “Let’s get something straight.
I didn’t carry you like a sack of potatoes last time and I sure as certain didn’t put you over my shoulder. Got that?”
She looked taken aback by his vehemence. Too bad. He was tired of everybody and his mother telling him he’d manhandled her. She’d been a whole lot more squirmy on the first trip through the courtyard in his arms, but she had in no way resembled a sack of potatoes.
“Got it,” she said.
“Good. Now, drink your wine.”
She sat down in an overstuffed chair that matched the leather sofa. Her choice amused him. Did she think if she sat on the couch, he’d seduce her? Even funnier, did she believe that sitting in a chair was going to stop him? He poured himself a glass of wine and sat on the sofa where it rested kitty corner to her chair. He stretched his legs out in front of him. She shifted hers a few inches to the left so they wouldn’t touch.
Taking a sip of her wine, she looked at him over the rim of her glass. “Did anyone ever tell you that charm is not your strong suit?”
He felt a slow smile grow on his face. The woman sure could put her tongue to good use. “Now that you mention it, Leah has said something a time or two about my lack of tact.”
She looked thoughtful for a moment. “I suppose that doesn’t bother you?”
The question surprised him. “What?”
“Having others think less of you.”
“My sister doesn’t think less of me because I don’t attend to every social nicety.”
Carlene’s gaze traveled around the room before coming back to settle on him. “No, I don’t suppose she does.”
They were both silent for a minute.
“It bothers me, you know,” she said.
“What bothers you?” he asked. Her pensive mood confused him after her earlier nervousness, but he wasn’t going to discourage it. Maybe he’d finally get the answers about her past that he’d been wanting.
“Having others think less of me. Having them believe the worst of me, particularly those I care about and respect.”
“Who thought the worst of you, honey?”
Her eyes focused on something that he could not see. Perhaps the past. “When I graduated from high school, I knew just what I wanted, to be a teacher. So, I took an accelerated masters program. I was twenty-three when I finished my practicum and got my first real job teaching. I was offered a position at the high school near my hometown.” She let out a long breath.
“Maybe I was too young to teach high school, too close to the kids in age. I don’t know.”
The image of Carlene teaching fit his view of her a whole lot better than her working at the Dry Gulch. Despite the fact she was working as his housekeeper, he wasn’t really surprised by her true profession. He wanted to know why she wasn’t teaching now, though.
When she didn’t go on, he asked an innocuous question he hoped would open her up further.
“What did you teach?”
For a moment, her concentration returned to him. “English Lit.”
He took a sip of his wine. It wasn’t that bad. “Not my favorite subject.”
She smiled, her expression indulgent. “I understand. It isn’t everybody’s, but I loved it. I still do.”
“What happened?” Something pretty serious for her to end up his housekeeper, cook and nanny.
An expression of pain flitted across her face as her eyes lost focus again. “The first year was great. I established a strong rapport with my students and the rest of the faculty seemed to like me.”
“The second year things changed?” he guessed.
“Yes. Our principal retired. The new one the district hired was really different. His methods and attitudes didn’t mesh with my own. We had a few dust-ups, but nothing I couldn’t handle until he decided that I would make a good after-school buddy.”
Fury washed through Win before he had a chance to fully digest her words. “He made a pass at you?”
“You could say that. He was much too smart to do anything for which I could accuse him of sexual harassment. He made several innuendos, brushed up against me when we passed in the halls, things like that.”
“The bastard.”
She took a long drink of her wine and then wiped the back of her mouth with her hand. “My sentiments exactly. The worst part was that he was married to one of the sweetest women I’d ever met. It made everything ten times worse. Finally, one day he made a comment that I couldn’t ignore and I let him know in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t interested.”
“Like you did with Lonny?” He could just see the resulting scandal if the English Lit teacher got caught punching the principal of the local high school.
She smiled ruefully. “Not that drastic, but he got the picture. Things got worse after that. He questioned my decisions, dropped in unannounced on my classes. He said he was checking up on me, making sure there were no discipline problems. All of a sudden he had a problem with a single woman my age teaching high school. I still thought I could handle it. I was such a fool.”
The defeat and self-condemnation in her voice touched a chord deep inside him. He knew what it meant to play the part of the fool. “What happened?”
“I had the star quarterback in my third-period class. He was a smart boy, but he skimmed on his work. I made the mistake of grading him according to the work he turned in to my class and not on his football-playing ability.”
Win had heard stories of teachers being forced to alter grades for star athletes. “You tried to flunk him?”
“He failed one assignment. With his other low grades, that put his playing for the school team at risk.” She crossed one green-denim-clad leg over the other. “The principal tried to get me to give him a passing grade.”
He thought he knew what was coming. “You wouldn’t back down.”
“No.” The single word said it all. Carlene wouldn’t lie for anyone. Her personal code of honor was too high.
“So, they removed him from your class?”
She gave a short bitter laugh. “If only it had been that easy. The student filed a harassment charge against me. He said I’d made a play for him and flunked him when he refused to have anything to do with me.”
Cold anger surged through Win. If that lying little weasel had been within spitting distance, Win would have made sure he wasn’t up to playing quarterback for a very long time, if ever.
Unaware of the rage pulsing through him, Carlene went on. “It was ridiculous and I didn’t take it very seriously at first. I assumed no one would believe him. I was wrong.”
He couldn’t stand it any longer. Needing to comfort the pain he heard in her voice, Win pulled her gently from her chair into his arms.
She was stiff at first, but suddenly she just snuggled against him and spoke into his chest. “It was horrible. Everyone gossiped about me and somehow my looks and my body were considered the measure of my morality rather than my personality or past. I got calls in the middle of the night making threats and accusing me of things I hadn’t even heard of. My principal asked me to resign.”
He rubbed her back with continuous downward strokes. “What did you do?”
“I refused to resign. I fought back. I still had my grading records and the last assignment that clearly deserved a failing grade. I hired a lawyer who took depositions on my behalf. He was able to prove the spuriousness of the student’s claim. We’d never been in the same room alone.”
Win sensed that wasn’t the end of the story. If it had been, she would still be in west Texas teaching high school.
“If the principal had stood behind you, things would have been a lot better,” he said, trying to get a feel for the rest of the story.
“Yes. It would have. However, he was the one that insisted on opening a full-scale investigation—even after the boy admitted he’d made it up to get on the team.”
The yellow-bellied snake. “You were acquitted.”
She pulled back so that she could see his face. What he saw on hers made him tighten his hold on her. Her eyes mirrored a wound that was not completely healed.
“In the eyes of the law, absolutely, but not that town. The day I won the case, I went to my parents’ house. They were about the only two people in town I was certain were still speaking to me.”
“Did they celebrate your victory with you?” He had to ask, although the truth was there in her eyes.
She surprised him when she said, “Sort of.”
Maybe it wasn’t that bad, but his gut told him it was.
Her lip trembled and she took a calming breath before going on. “They congratulated me on winning the case, but my dad suggested I look for a job somewhere else. He said he wanted me to have a new start. To get away from the gossip, but I realized that a good deal of his motivation was that he and mom had been humiliated by my problems and they wanted peace in their lives again. Mom told me later that some of Dad’s golfing buddies had refused to play with him any longer. She said their friends had been pressuring them to get me to leave town.”
Win couldn’t believe the lack of loyalty and weakness her parents had shown. How had they managed to raise a woman as strong and dependable as Carlene? But then, his mom had raised him, hadn’t she? “Did your mom want you to leave town?”
“Yes, but she was a little more subtle. She suggested I take a vacation before going back to work.”
“A vacation?” he asked.
“She thought I should go to Southern California.”
“Why there?”
“Lots of plastic surgeons, or so she had been told.”
“So?” He was confused.
“She suggested I get a breast reduction. Apparently women with a figure like mine invite the sort of trouble I had at my school.”
Win could not believe her mother had been so incredibly stupid. “It wasn’t your fault!”
Her eyes glistened. “Thanks.”
“You don’t have to thank me for the truth.” He’d like some time to talk about the truth with her parents. They certainly didn’t deserve a daughter as wonderful as Carlene.
She settled back against his chest. “I decided that Mom and Dad deserved some peace, so I resigned from my position at the high school, packed my car and left.”
“You didn’t go to California,” he said with satisfaction.
He felt her smile against his shirtfront. “No. I won’t say I didn’t think about it, but I came to the conclusion that I like myself. It wasn’t my fault my boss was a lecher or that I had a student with the morals of a bull moose.”
He smiled at the return of her feistiness. “You came here instead.”
“Sunshine Springs was just a little dot on the map. I liked the name of the town and so I came.
Once I got here, I found a job right away, so I decided to stay.”
“Not as a teacher.”
She grimaced. “No, definitely not as a teacher. But I’m tired of hiding from what might happen.
I want to teach again.”
“You still want to teach high school?” he asked, awed by her courage.
“You probably think I’m nuts, but yes. I was a good high-school teacher. I want my dreams back. I want my life back. I’ve let other people, not very nice people, have too much of it as it is.”
The next night, Carlene went looking for Win after she finished tucking the children into bed.
She found him down by the stables. He was giving Shorty instructions about one of the pregnant mares.
“Win.”
Both he and Shorty turned toward her at the sound of her voice.
Win smiled. “Hi, honey. What do you need?”
“I need to talk to you. Do you have a minute?”
He nodded. “Sure.”
Turning to Shorty, Win asked, “You got everything covered here?”
“Yeah, boss.”
Win turned and headed toward Carlene and the house.
She watched Shorty go into the building behind Win. “Is Shorty staying the night with the horses?”
Win nodded. “Yeah. One of my mares is ready to foal anytime. He’ll call my beeper if she goes into labor.”
They went through the house and into the courtyard as if by one accord. Win sat on a chair near the fountain. It was next to the table with the ice tea Carlene had set out in anticipation of their talk. She took the chair on the other side of the small table.
Win picked up one of the glasses and took a long swallow. “What did you want to talk about?”
he asked.
“Leah.”
His eyes widened. “What about her?”
“When is she coming back, Win?”
He shrugged, as if the answer were of no importance at all. “Soon, I imagine.”
She wasn’t going to let him sidestep this issue. “When is soon? Tomorrow, the next day, next week?”
His eyes narrowed. “Why are you so interested all of a sudden? You tired of taking care of the kids?”
She didn’t like the accusation in his tone. “You know that’s not true, but they miss her. It was very difficult to get them both to sleep tonight, but particularly Shelly. She wants her mom.”
He looked placated by her answer. “Leah needs some space.”
Frustration filled Carlene. “Well, her children need her.”
“Shelly and Jared will be fine.” Win smiled at her. “You’re doing great with them.”
“I’m not their mom, Win, and that’s who they need right now. Leah is going to have to work her problems out with her children around.”
Win’s expression closed. “Leah knows what is best for her kids. She’s a good mother, a better one than she ever had.”
Why wouldn’t he listen to what Carlene was saying? “I did not mean to imply that I thought anything different. I’m simply pointing out that it’s time for Leah to come back.”
Win slammed his ice tea down on the table. Brown liquid sloshed over the sides. “You’re my housekeeper and the kids’ temporary nanny. It’s not up to you to tell me what my sister should or should not do.”
The attack was so unexpected that it left Carlene speechless.
Win’s fury was gone almost as fast as it had come. He reached out and brushed his hand down her arm. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
She jerked away from his touch. “No problem. I was clearly stepping outside the bounds of our employee-employer relationship by expressing my concern for the two children in my care.”
He put his hands on his thighs and blew out a long breath. “I said I was sorry. I know you’re worried about the kids, but you’ve got to trust their mom to know what’s best for them.”
“Why? Did your mom always know what was best for you? Being a parent doesn’t make you infallible.”
She’d learned that lesson very well as a teacher.
Win’s expression turned dangerous. “Leah is nothing like our mother. She cares more for Jared and Shelly than Mom ever cared for us.”
He wasn’t shouting, but the cold fury in his voice was just as intimidating.
Carlene refused to back down. “For the second time, I’m not implying that Leah is a poor mother. I am saying that she needs to get back here and comfort her children.”
“That’s enough.” His hands fisted against his thighs. “Leah will get here when she gets here and until then we will take care of Shelly and Jared. Understood?”
“Can’t we at least contact their father? Maybe Leah’s husband is back from his business trip and would come get the children.”
Win’s glare knifed through her with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel. “Why don’t you just come right out and say it? You’re bored watching the kids and you want a change.”
The injustice of the accusation caught her on the raw. She exploded from her chair and stormed over to Win. She was so angry she wa
s shaking. Leaning over him, she found it difficult to control her trembling limbs. No one had ever made her mad as Win could.
“Listen closely, you stubborn cowboy, because I’ve taken about all the insults I’m going to off of you. I am concerned about Leah’s children. I believe they need their mother. If she won’t make herself available, then we try to find their father. I don’t care if they are used to him being gone for weeks at a time. He’s still their father and having him around will give them more security than they’ve got right now.”
She punctuated the last sentence with jabs to Win’s sternum. The cold fury in Win’s eyes made her nervous and she stepped back, but he didn’t move. He just caught her gaze and held it captive with an intensity that could have been physical.
“We will not call Mark. If my sister says he’s out of town, then that is where he is.”
Carlene couldn’t help trying again. “Maybe he got back early.”
“Forget it.”
“But, Win—”
He cut her off. “I said forget it and I meant it, Carlene. You are my employee. You have nothing to say in the matter and I damn well don’t want to hear anything else on the subject.
Leah will be back in a couple of days and then you’ll be free from the burden of watching her children. If you don’t think you can handle it, I’ll find someone else. What’s it to be?”
An iron fist squeezed Carlene’s heart, making it difficult to breathe past the pain. “I’ll watch the children and be your employee, but nothing more.”
She turned and stumbled toward her bedroom, tears clouding her vision. Blinking furiously, she willed herself not to cry until she had reached the relative safety of her room.
She hadn’t reached the inner hallway before strong fingers clamped onto her shoulders from behind, halting her in mid-step. She struggled against his hold. “Let me go!”
“No. I can’t.”
The raw fear in his voice had barely registered when he spun her around and pulled her into a tight embrace against his chest. “I was wrong, honey. You’re more than an employee and we both know it.”
She struggled against the strength of his arms and argued against his shirtfront. “No, we don’t know it. You don’t want my interference and I don’t want you. Let me go, Win.”