by Jillian Hart
“No.”
“We really need you, Anna.” Katie grabbed her hand. “You can bring Mandy with you every day.”
“Cuz tea parties ain’t no fun alone.” Maisie sighed.
“I can play,” Mandy shyly added.
“You’re outnumbered.” Cooper took the chair beside her, settling his big, iron-hard body into it. So close, she could see the dark flecks in his eyes.
“Please, Mama.” Mandy clasped her hands together.
There were so many practical reasons to refuse. And yet only three reasons to agree. And those three expectant faces watched her.
“Janet usually needs me in the evenings. Let me speak to her first.”
Triumph glittered in Cooper’s eyes. “When can you start?”
“This is far from fair.” Anna couldn’t help telling him when they were finally alone.
Once they returned to the house, all three girls dashed upstairs, giggling and planning.
“I’m a desperate man. You can’t hold it against me.”
“I have some concerns working for you.” She had to be honest. She had to let him know what troubled her.
“Is this about what happened yesterday?”
How could she admit how much he affected her? She didn’t want him to know. It was only a mistake to care for him, for a man not looking for a wife.
“I can promise not to kiss you again, if that would help. When I give my word, I keep it.”
“I never doubted that.” Her heart leaped.
He turned away, staring hard at the wall hanging she’d made. “Katie picked the spot to hang this. Your gift meant a lot to her. With Laura getting married and leaving soon, Katie needs someone who makes her feel secure and valued. I saw how you treated her yesterday at the creek. You do that for her. That’s all I’m asking of you, Anna. I want you to care for my girls.”
But not you. Anna nodded. “You don’t think they will get overly attached?”
“I’ll talk to them.”
“There’s one more thing.” Should she mention her problems back home? “What about the robber I saw in town? Will he be a problem?”
“Tucker lost his trail up in the mountains somewhere. It’s possible he or his leader will be back.”
She watched his eyes darken, like a cougar’s just before a kill. “I’m concerned I might bring that trouble here, to your home.”
She was very afraid.
His footsteps knelled closer. “You aren’t bringing more danger to my life than I already have.”
“What do you mean?”
“Deputies guard my daughters, too. Katie isn’t so easy with her pony-riding adventures, but my men manage. Don’t worry, Anna. Whatever happens, I can handle it. I live for trouble.” His smile was warm, but he stepped away, putting obvious distance between them. “You will stay, won’t you?”
“For a while.”
But there would be no more kisses between them. And that was the way it should be.
Anna stepped outside to rustle up the girls. The sun hung high in the sky, casting few shadows but plenty of warmth. Robins sang, the air smelled like pine. She heard a rustling overhead. “Is that you, Maisie?”
A limb shifted and a face peeked out from amid the dark-green boughs. “I ain’t Maisie. I’m an outlaw, and this is my hideout.”
“What? You’re not a sheriff like your papa?”
“Nope. I’m bad through and through.” She swung down from the sturdy limb and hung like a monkey. She hit the ground with a two-footed thud. “Is it grub yet?”
“Yeah, is it grub yet?” Mandy climbed down more carefully. “Us outlaws are real hungry, Mama.”
“Is that so? Then it’s a good thing I have dinner on the table.” Anna held out her hand.
Mandy stepped forward, her fingers gripping Anna’s tight. “Did you make biscuits?”
“Just the way you like them.” Anna’s heart warmed.
Maisie grabbed her by the other hand. “I’m glad you like outlaws, Anna.”
“Me, too. You girls are my favorite kind. Hurry, go wash up.” Anna watched the two outlaws race through the kitchen and giggle at the basin. Maisie dropped the soap, but held the towel for Mandy.
“Everyone at the table. Katie, where are you?”
“Here. I’m leavin’ my snake outside.” She tromped in wearing her trousers and shirt, streaked with dirt. “Do you like snakes?”
“They don’t scare me.” Anna felt a tug on her skirt.
Mandy leaned against her knee. “Don’t ever wanna leave here, Mama. It’s nice.”
The smile that brightened Mandy’s face made her heart full. Nothing mattered more than this little girl. Anna brushed back unruly curls from shy blue eyes.
This first morning spent in Cooper’s cozy log house had been a good one. Already it felt too much like a home, too much like her dreams. Sunlit rooms and children playing in the yard.
“Sit her down right here, Anna.” Katie pulled a chair from the table and patted the wood seat.
She gently steered her daughter to the sun-warmed spot beside Maisie. Then she began setting the bowls of food around the table.
“You can cook real good,” Katie announced as she grabbed a steaming biscuit. “Oops. I forgot. I gotta use manners. I’m gonna be on my best behavior.”
“Katie don’t got many manners,” Maisie explained.
“Are you trying to impress me, Katie?” Anna began dishing up Mandy’s plate.
“Well, I figure if you like us enough, then maybe you’ll end up stayin’.” Katie grabbed the bowl of butter-fried potatoes. “That’s why I picked your letter. I got lots, you know. You already had a little girl so I figured you could take care of Maisie.”
“I need takin’ care of,” Maisie explained as Anna reached for her empty plate. “And I need lots of taters.”
Anna obliged by giving her two heaping spoonfuls. Maisie rewarded her with a twinkling smile.
“Do you remember the first letter you wrote me?” Katie asked when Anna sat down at Cooper’s spot at the table. “You said you were a pretty good cook. I figure that’s important cuz nothin’s worse than eatin’ burnt food.”
“We get that lots with Papa,” Maisie confessed.
“Lots.” Katie rolled her eyes. “He thinks he cooks good, but he don’t. We don’t wanna tell him and hurt his feelings.”
“Papas have feelings, too.” Maisie sighed, her burdens great.
He was almost afraid to go home. He dreaded a scene like the last time he hired a housekeeper. Maybe Anna couldn’t handle outlaw Maisie and wild Katie any better than anyone else. What would happen then? If Anna didn’t want to stay, his little girls’ hearts would be crushed. They adored Anna.
Maybe hiring her was a bad idea. She was so reluctant about it. Maybe she was right.
The house looked quiet. No little outlaw climbing in the tree outside. No Katie dashing by riding Bob. Those weren’t good signs. Squinting against the sunlight in his eyes, he circled around the back of the house.
The sound of voices grew as he approached the back door. He recognized Laura’s laughter. Then Anna’s. “Girls, would you like some milk?”
Three chorused yesses rang with the sound of happiness. Cooper halted on the porch, with just the smallest view of the kitchen through the open door. He saw Anna at the work counter, a dish towel tied around her waist in a makeshift apron, carrying glasses to the table.
“Don’t push, Maisie.” Katie’s voice.
“I gotta have room for Mandy.” Maisie’s answer. “I needa fork, Anna.”
He heard the clatter of flatware. Curious, he leaned a little more so he could see the table. His chest tightened at the scene. He’d been so afraid.... Well, he was glad he’d done the right thing in hiring Anna.
“Do you girls remember the last time we picked huckleberries?” Laura leaned across the table and grabbed the sugar bowl.
“I do! Maisie kept eating everything in my bucket,” Katie accused.
Maisie giggled. “Then the bear came.”
“He was a old mean thing and he raised his big hairy arms like this—” Katie dropped her fork and waved her hands in the air.
“And he growled really, really loud,” Maisie added, punctuating the story with a roar of her own.
“I said, ‘Maisie, run,’ and we did.”
“Katie dropped the bucket so we didn’t get no berries after all,” Maisie added with a purple-juice-stained mouth.
Anna’s chuckle shivered through him, light and warm and sweet. “Cooper.”
He startled at her voice and realized it could lure him anywhere. Her gaze seared through him like flame to steel, melting the strongest of elements. He felt his body’s reaction to her and he didn’t like it, didn’t want it.
“Papa! Papa!” Maisie flew from the table and into his arms, excited to tell him all about her day with Anna.
“Papa, Anna made a pie. It’s the best ever. Come see.” Katie’s eyes gleamed.
Cooper knew that gleam. She was still matchmaking. Maisie’s hug felt sweet, but she hopped out of his arms before he could savor it. In a blur of pink, she scurried back to her place at the table.
“Come join us.” Anna’s voice. She stood, her pinkchecked dress rustling around her slender, shapely form. He wanted to feel her against him, hold her close in his arms.
“Cooper, are you smitten?” Laura’s eyes laughed at him.
“With you? Always.” He hoped the teasing would distract Laura’s innocent comment. No matter how he explained Anna’s presence and Katie’s letters, his know-it-all-sister refused to believe him.
“Come join us,” Laura invited.
“I’ll get you some coffee.” Anna moved from behind her chair, her quiet movements lending grace to his unadorned kitchen.
He pulled up a chair, and Laura handed him a slice of pie. His mouth watered at the sight of the crumbly crust and the purple juice leaking onto the plate. The best ever, Katie said. He didn’t doubt it.
“She can bake, she can cook. She can even get Katie to act ladylike,” Laura whispered in his ear. “Looks like you’ve found a winner.”
No, what he’d found was a problem. A beautiful, elegant, incredible problem. Right now that problem stood at his elbow. She set the steaming cup of fragrant coffee beside him, and her arm brushed his. Tiny flames skidded along his skin.
Anna’s touch. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had affected him so much.
“Can I see you home?” Cooper’s voice, so strong, so duty bound. Her heart fluttered.
“It’s only a few blocks to the hotel.
“Just wanted to ask. Don’t want to make our best housekeeper unhappy.”
“Oh, I’m your best?” She laughed at that. “I’m a fair to middling cook.”
“You make my daughters happy.”
He avoided her gaze, but he felt so solid and substantial, she found it hard to breathe. He stepped out onto the porch. Gray-purple twilight enveloped him, brushed across his shoulders in a way her fingers ached to. “Not everyone can do that.”
“Making a child happy is so easy.”
“So you say.” He sat down on the top step. The haze of twilight framed him in shadow. “I can’t tell you how many housekeepers I’ve gone through. And how much worse it is with Katie testing every woman she comes in contact with.”
Anna laughed, pleased to know Cooper was astute and insightful not just as a sheriff but as a father. “Katie doesn’t seem to be testing me. Yet.”
“She doesn’t have to. She picked you out herself.”
Anna felt her troubles lift like leaves on the wind. She sat down next to Cooper on the top porch step. She looked out at the peaceful world, at waving green grass, silent pines and firs, the movement of an owl in the trees.
“That’s why I decided to agree to marry you—I mean, her,” Anna confessed. “Ponies, cookies and bedtime stories. I thought, what a sensitive father knowing what nourishes a child’s heart.”
Magic. It lived in her voice as sparkling as fairy dust, in her words as powerful as myth. Cooper’s pulse kicked as the breeze lifted, stirring the rose-sweet scent of her skin.
Love and magic. That’s what his girls needed. What was missing in this house.
“Maisie really could use a mother with the way she shadowed me all day,” Anna said with a shrug of one slim shoulder. “I’m not saying that mother should be me. Surely you know that. But a child needs a woman’s love.”
“Wait a minute, I—”
“You’re a great father, Cooper,” she interrupted, all grace and velvet steel. And that strength in her surprised him still. “A child gets a different kind of love from both her parents. It’s a benefit for a little girl to grow up with both types of affection.”
His throat closed. Cooper fisted his hands. He knew she was right. He knew it through the years even as he made the conscious decision never to put their ability to trust at risk. Or his. “Not every woman is capable of loving a child not her own.”
“Nor is every man.”
The truth of his words struck him, solid as a rock. “I guess we’re both raising little girls on our own. And it’s far from easy.”
“Oh, it’s not so tough. With a little help.” Her eyes clouded, and the radiance faded from her smile. Like fog obscuring the sun, he felt the change, the coolness. He sensed a grief and sadness.
He’d known his share of sadness, too. But today, this day, had been a happier day for his daughters. Because of her.
She tucked her lower lip between her teeth, drawing his gaze there. Every muscle in his body tensed. Cooper’s breath caught, his pulse hammered wildly. How he wanted to kiss her, to hold her in his arms and taste her passion.
But he couldn’t. He’d given his word. So he forced himself to be content with simply sitting beside her. Feeling her presence brush across him like the breeze, touching him in places he hadn’t been touched. Not since he’d loved Katherine.
Chapter Eleven
Early morning sunshine slanted low through the boughs of the tall pines, diluting it like dust in the wind. Through the low rays, he saw her, the shiver of calico around her slim body, the braided coronet of gold crowning her head.
He stood, coffee cup in hand. The clop of the horse brought her closer, sure and steady. Birdsong tolled in the fresh air. Dew clung to the blades of grass in the yard and along the road, shimmering like so many diamonds in the new day’s light, and all as if for Anna.
“Cooper.” She dismounted, keeping one hand on her child still perched on the bay’s withers. “Am I late?”
“No. I’m just up early.” He set his cup down on the porch rail. He lifted a shy Mandy from the horse and into Anna’s arms. “I should have thought to find you a mount.”
“You’ve given us enough.” She didn’t say any more as she cradled her daughter in those slender, loving arms before lowering her to the ground. “Have you started breakfast yet?”
“Just the coffee.”
Her smile dazzled. “Then I’d better get to work.”
The wind blew wisps of dark honeyed curls against her cheek, caressing her soft skin in a way he wanted to. “I’ll take care of the horse.”
Anna avoided his polite and proper gaze.
Hell, he was troubled. Not just because Anna was in his house, looking as if she belonged here. But because his blood heated, because desires he thought long forgotten stirred to life when he looked at her.
For a man resolved never to want another woman, it was a troubling situation.
“Anna, are you cookin’ pancakes for us?” Maisie bounded around the corner of the arched doorway. “Papa said you was comin’ right after the sun. But it took forever and ever for the sun to wake up.”
“I had to wake up, too.” Anna set the canister on the worktable. Flour poofed upward into the air when she lifted off the lid. She looked down to see Maisie standing beside her.
“Wanna see my alphabet? I’m writin’ real goo
d.”
Anna’s heart fell to her toes. “I would love to.”
“Don’t go nowhere. I’m comin’ right back.”
A chuckle sounded behind her and with the way it shivered up her spine it could only belong to one man.
“She’s hard to say no to, isn’t she?” Cooper asked from the threshold. He dwarfed the pleasant kitchen, his masculinity and power at odds with the frilly white curtains and biue-fiowered tablecioth.
One look at his handsome face, and Anna’s foolish heart thumped. “Impossible.”
She felt self-conscious beneath his penetrating gaze, as if he were trying to see more of her than she wanted him to see. She measured out the flour and retreated back to the pantry for the buttermilk.
Cooper didn’t know what to say as she searched for the canisters of salt and sugar. A pan of fresh eggs sat on the floor, and she grabbed two of them.
“How about a cup of coffee?” Cooper’s gaze followed her back to the worktable.
“Sounds perfect. I don’t feel awake yet.”
He grabbed a hot pad, turning his back. “Didn’t you sleep well?” His question only made him think of her, hair unbraided, fanning out along his pillow.
She nearly dropped the salt canister.
“No. I had a few bad dreams. Nothing serious.”
“Corinthos?” He poured the coffee.
“No.” Images flooded into her mind. She could not stop them. Dalton Jennings robbing the bank. Holding a gun. Firing it. Mandy falling. It was only her fears, she told herself. Not a sign of what was to come. Not even Dalton would shoot a child. It was just her fears for Mandy’s safety. That was all.
Still, the knot in her stomach didn’t relax.
Footsteps pounded along the wood floors, announcing Maisie’s return. She bounded into the kitchen in a swirl of pink calico. “Anna! Look. I spelled my name.”
She abandoned her pancake batter to study Maisie’s slate. “This is very fine work. You must be one smart little girl.”
She beamed. “Papa says that, too.”