“Who and what she is, Miz Gillespie, is my wife. And my business,” Travis said. His voice was low and calm, his tone almost lazy, but Eve felt the muscles in his forearm flex under her hand. “As is my nieces’ wel fare,” he added.
“The state of Texas sees it differently.” Louise Gillespie permitted herself a small, satisfied smile. “And I am the state’s representative. It’s entirely within my power to have these children removed from what I feel is an unwholesome atmosphere and placed in a proper home. And I’ll do it, too, unless I get some answers that satisfy me,” she said, putting into words what she had only hinted at before. “Now, who—”
Travis took a half a step forward, his jaw clenched and havoc in his eyes.
Eve tightened her fingers on his forearm, stopping him.
Bear curled his lip and growled.
Gracie threw herself into the fray. “You go away,” she yelled, her little body quivering with rage. “We don’t want you and your damn ‘ference in our lives. Go away and leave us alone!”
“See there?” Louise Gillespie said triumphantly, and pointed an accusing finger at Gracie. “That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about. That child should have her mouth washed out with soap. And then she should be placed in a proper home where that kind of lan guage isn’t tolerated.”
Without stopping to think about what she was doing, Eve stepped forward, putting Gracie behind her, putting herself between Louise Gillespie and the entire Holt family.
“That child is frightened,” she said, her outrage barely held in check. “And you frightened her. Deliberately. You enjoyed frightening her. Well, you don’t frighten me,” she lied gallantly. “I know how the system works, and I know your place in it.” She took a step nearer, getting right in Louise Gillespie’s astonished face. “You’re a vicious, interfering, small-minded bureaucrat who’s let a little power go to her head. You’re also grossly misrepresenting the scope of that power. My husband was not and is not required to discuss our marriage with you, either now or before the fact. Nor does your job allow you to make any final decisions regarding my nieces’ welfare. The most you can do is file a report and make a recommendation.”
“And I’m going to recommend that these children be taken away from this den of iniquity at once!”
“Oh, please,” Eve scoffed. “Who do you think you’re kidding with that nonsense? You know as well as I do that unless the children are in some kind of immediate danger, nothing can be done at once, report or no report. The only way you could possibly take these girls away from here would be with a court order and that isn’t going to happen, because my husband isn’t some poor defenseless nobody you can bully or take advantage of with impunity.” The way Eve and her mother had been bullied; the way Eve had feared she would be again if she were ever forced back into the welfare sys tem. “He’s lived in this town his entire life. People here know him. They know his family and have known them for generations. My husband is a respected citi zen of Selina. He’s a local celebrity. A—”
“A sexual degenerate who consorts with loose women.”
Eve raised an eyebrow. “Jealous?” she taunted.
Louise Gillespie sputtered and turned red.
“Came a little too close to the truth there, didn’t I, Ms. Gillespie? Well, here’s another truth for you to chew on. There is no way you’re ever going to take these girls away from us,” she said fiercely. “None. If you persist in trying, you’ll end up looking foolish, at best. At worst, you’ll lose your job and face libel charges for slandering my husband’s good name. I’ll personally see to it. Think about that before you file your next report.”
There was nothing for Louise Gillespie to do but turn and walk away with as much dignity as she could muster. Bear trailed her all the way to the car, making sure she didn’t do any damage on her way. “You haven’t heard the last of this,” she threatened as she opened the car door and got in.
There was a long, tense moment of silence as they watched the blue Chevy Nova get smaller and smaller, finally turning into a plume of dust heading toward the blacktopped highway. Eve watched it until it was out of sight, as if making sure the woman was gone, then turned around to face her new family.
Five pairs of eyes stared back at her.
Her husband stood looking at her with a quiet, watchful expression she couldn’t quite decipher. Admiration, respect, gratitude, perhaps, mixed with a curious something that looked very much like pride. Gracie had her little arms wrapped tightly around her uncle’s leg, her cheek against his thigh. Amanda and Laura hovered on his other side, pressed close together under the shelter of his arm. All three were wide-eyed, a bit wary still, a little overwhelmed by what had just happened. Timothy lay peacefully in his carrier on the picnic table, his brown eyes sweet and sleepy, unaware of and unaffected by the emotional storm that had just raged around him. He smiled and kicked his legs when she looked at him, pleased to have her attention.
Eve hurried toward him, suddenly needing to hold her baby, to feel his warm little body against hers and know that he was safe from people like Louise Gillespie. This was why she had married so precipitously; to keep Timothy safe in her arms; to guard against the possibility that he could be taken away from her the way she had so often been taken away from her helpless, ineffectual mother. She felt the hot, quick tears spring to her eyes, a delayed reaction to the fury and fear that shook her slender frame. She ducked her head, burying her face in the soft, scented sweetness of her son’s neck to hide her weakness from the girls. They’d had more than enough to deal with this morning without seeing her cry.
“You made the bad lady go away,” Gracie said, awed.
“Does that mean everything’s okay now?” Laura asked in a small, serious voice. “Will Ms. Gillespie leave us alone?”
It was Travis who answered his niece. “She will if she knows what’s good for her.” He tweaked the end of Laura’s braid, caressed Amanda’s cheek, then bent down and scooped the clinging Grade up into his arms.
“Remind me not to rile your Aunt Eve,” he joked, more moved than he could possibly say by his wife’s impassioned defense of his family. “She’s meaner than a damn snake when she’s mad.”
Eve’s head snapped up. “You!” she said, her sudden tears disappearing as quickly as they’d come. “You’d better start watching your language around the children,” she threatened, glaring at her husband over the top of Timothy’s head, “or you’re going to be the one getting his mouth washed out with soap!”
“Me? What did I—” Travis began, taken aback by her sudden attack. But she had already turned her back on him and was heading toward the house. He looked at the child in his arms. “What did I say?” he asked in an aggrieved voice, although he knew the answer. Carolyn had called him on it often enough. Gus, too.
Gracie giggled.
“You said d-a-m-n,” Laura volunteered, carefully spelling out the offending word, lest she be threatened with the same punishment as her uncle. “You say it all the time. You say h-e-I-I, too.”
“It sets a bad example,” Amanda said, and cut a glance at her littlest sister. “Little pitchers have big ears,” she reminded him, sounding so much like her mother that Travis could almost hear his sister-in-law’s voice.
“Girls,” Eve called, pausing at the foot of the porch steps to look back over her shoulder. “I’m going to need some help in the kitchen if you want cookies today.” She waited just long enough to see Gracie squirming to be let down, out of her uncle’s arms. “Bring the kitchen stool and Timothy’s infant seat in with you, please,” she said, and started up the wooden steps, confident that the girls would follow.
Gus opened the screen door for her. “Ma’am,” he said politely as she swept regally past him with Timothy in her arms.
He continued to hold the door open as Gracie and Laura trooped up the porch stairs after her with the infant seat and kitchen stool, followed by Amanda with the hand mirror, the scissors—and the blue towel she
had snatched from around her uncle’s shoulders and tossed over her arm with a disdainful little sniff.
He held the door open a moment longer as Slik hesitated, his snout quivering as he seemed to weigh the possibility of food against his loyalty to Gus. Food won out, as usual, and the pig dashed past Gus’s legs, his hoofs clacking against the wooden floor as he scrambled to beat the girls into the kitchen.
Even Bear deserted the field, lumbering up the steps and into the house before Gus finally let the screen door close.
“Well, hell,” Travis said softly as Gus came down the wooden stairs. “It looks like I’m in the doghouse again for sure, doesn’t it?” he said, and grinned like a fool who didn’t know any better.
His sexy little wife was as tough and challenging as any rank bull—and there was nothing Travis Holt liked better than a challenge. Except maybe a soft-hearted, hotheaded, red-haired woman with rapier eyes and a world-class butt.
“Mean as a damn snake when she’s riled,” he said admiringly.
Gus chuckled. “Yes, sirree, bob,” he said gleefully, pleased as punch with the way things were going. “You got a whole lotta real serious courtin’ to do, son.”
9
“GRACIELLA LORRAINE! Laura Pauline!”
The two girls perched on the top rail of the corral looked at each other. “Uh-oh,” Gracie said, and glanced over her shoulder toward the owner of the voice.
“You two are supposed to be getting ready for the party,” Eve said as she came up behind them. “You don’t look like you’re getting ready to me.”
“We were just watching Uncle Travis work Sangria for a minute,” Laura said, gesturing toward the center of the corral where Travis was putting a young chestnut gelding through its paces. “See how straight he goes?” she enthused as Travis held the reins in close to his chest and moved the animal backward across the length of the corral. “Sangria does it the best of any horse Uncle Travis ever trained.”
“Very impressive,” Eve murmured, not sure whether she was referring to the gleaming chestnut horse or the cowboy on his back.
“I’m going to train cutting horses someday,” Gracie said. “Uncle Travis said he’d learn me how when I get bigger. I’m going to be a barrel racer, too, like Miz Margo. And an ice skater.”
“Teach you,” Eve corrected automatically, smiling at the child’s unfettered enthusiasm. Gracie was the free spirit among the girls, flitting like a butterfly from one interest to the next. Laura was the tomboy, preferring the barns and pastures to anything that could be found inside the house. Amanda was the responsible one, who liked to read and always did her chores before she was told.
“Your big sister got out of the shower thirty minutes ago,” Eve said, reminded of her reason for coming down to the corrals. Her voice was mild. And implacable. “I expect the two of you to be in and out of it in the next thirty minutes, or else prepared to explain why you’re not.”
The two girls didn’t even hesitate. “Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison, and scrambled down off of the fence to do as they were told.
“Don’t dillydally on the way,” Eve called after them as they headed up the path toward the house. “Our first guests will start arriving in less than an hour and I want everyone ready when they get here.” When it came time to greet Travis’s friends and neighbors, she wanted as many familiar faces around her as possible. The more distractions there were, the fewer questions there would be. She hoped. “And no detours by the barbecue pit to see if Gus needs any help. Gus doesn’t need any help.”
“Yes, ma’am,” they said again, immediately abandoning that plan.
“And don’t touch anything on your way through the kitchen, either,” she added, just in case they had any thoughts along that line.
She’d baked four peach pies and a mountain of sugary Louisiana pralines as her contribution to the day’s festivities. She’d wanted to do more but both Gus and Travis had assured her that the neighbor women would provide the rest of the meal. That’s the way it was done at a country get-together, they said, especially when everyone was getting together to welcome a new bride. Still, she felt as if she should have done more, should be doing more to prepare for their guests. They might be coming to welcome her to the neighborhood but they’d be judging her, too, looking to see what kind of woman Travis Holt had gotten himself hooked up with. She desperately wanted to make a good impression.
“You do that real well,” Travis said, sidling his mount up next to the fence, stopping Eve before she could start up the path after the girls.
Eve tilted her head, lifting her hand to shade her eyes from the sun, gazing up at him over the top rail of the fence. The knot in her stomach tightened another notch, guilt piled on top of nervousness. They still hadn’t slept together. He hadn’t asked and she—coward that she was—hadn’t offered. “Do what real well?” she asked.
“Get the girls to do what you tell them to without getting into a discussion about it.” He pushed the brim of his hat up with the tip of his thumb and leaned over, resting his forearm on the saddle horn as he smiled down at her. The reins dangled casually from his gloved fingers. “I always have to tell them something two or three times before they pay any attention to me.”
“This is the third time,” Eve admitted. “And I had to chase them down here to the corral.” She glanced toward the house. “I probably should go make sure they’re actually doing what I told them to do. Otherwise, Gracie’s liable to wipe her face with a damp washcloth and call it a bath.” The two of them shared a quick, understanding smile. Gracie hated water, as if she were a cat. “And Timothy should be waking up from his nap any minute now.”
“Amanda’ll make sure Gracie takes her turn in the shower,” Travis assured her. “And you’ve got your monitor in case Tim wakes up and needs you.”
“I don’t know how well it will work this far away from the house,” she fretted, touching the small, ob long box she’d clipped to the back of her belt.
“Then one of the girls will call you.” He leaned over and patted the top rail of the fence with a gloved hand. “Why don’t you climb up there and relax for a minute before all the craziness starts? There’s plenty of time.” The horse nickered and tossed his head, as if seconding the invitation. Travis reached out and stroked his sleek neck. “Sangria and I’ll show you what a good cow pony can do.”
Because he asked so nicely, because he had been sleeping out in the bunkhouse since their wedding night, because they would never have a real marriage if she continued to keep him at arm’s length, because, dammit, she wanted to, Eve did as he suggested. Unaccustomed to climbing anything higher than a step ladder and just a little frightened of horses—although she would have died before admitting it—Eve care fully navigated her way up and over the fence to perch on the top rail the way the girls had done. It took her a minute to get settled just right, finding the best place to balance her jeans-clad rear end on the top rail, the steadiest purchase for her sneakered feet on the one below it.
Watching her, Travis made a mental note to get her outfitted with a pair of cowboy boots at the first opportunity. The little yellow sneakers on her feet were cute but they weren’t going to be much protection the first time she stepped in a cow pie or a fresh pile of horse droppings. Her jeans, of course, should have been less fashionable and more practical, but he could overlook that, seeing as how she was a city girl and didn’t know any better. Besides, they fit like the skin on a grape and a man didn’t argue with perfection.
“Okay,” she said, her voice drawing his attention away from the mouth-watering fit of her jeans and the enticing way her crisp yellow blouse oh, so subtly re vealed the shape of her generous breasts. “Show me what you two can do.”
Travis flashed her a quick, cocky grin, pulled the brim of his Stetson down tight and low over his forehead, and set the horse to dancing. Man and horse moved as one, leather creaking, spurs jingling, little puffs of dust rising up from under the horse’s hoofs as he responded t
o the cowboy’s subtle commands. The leather fringe on Travis’s batwing chaps swayed with each lightning-quick movement, delicate counterpoint to the sleek, powerful play of muscle in both man and beast. The horse whirled left, then right, then left again in a routine as practiced and graceful as a minuet.
Eve was entranced. She’d always thought being a cowboy was a profession that relied on brute strength and brawn; a man forcing an animal to bend to his will. But this was a ballet, a Western pas de deux that the horse seemed to be enjoying as much as the rider. They were partners in the dance—equally skilled, equally talented, equally magnificent.
Seeing the rapt expression on her face, Travis played it for all it was worth. He knew he looked good on a horse. Not as good as he did on the back of two tons of furiously twisting Brahman, but good enough. It was a well known fact on the rodeo circuit that women were suckers for a man on horseback. It was the Western mystique thing; the Marlboro Man syndrome; and it hooked them every time. He was counting on it hook ing his wife. Or, at least, impressing her a little.
Not much else he’d done over the last week seemed to impress her; not the bushel of fresh peaches he’d brought her when he came back from the Widow Barstow’s place; not the scraggly little bunch of flowers he’d picked from what was left of the garden in front of the house; not the impromptu party he’d planned to introduce her to the neighbors; not even the baby monitor he’d picked up at the Wal-Mart so she could keep tabs on Tim while she went about her housekeeping or worked out in the vegetable garden. She’d been a little bit more impressed when he’d fixed the transmission in that ancient Chevy van of hers, but not nearly enough to smooth out the dent she’d put in his ego on their wedding night.
All he’d gotten for his efforts so far was a wary, determined smile, a soft thank you, and an unspoken renewal of that damned aggravating, insulting invitation to avail himself of his husbandly rights! He knew all he had to do was say the word, or merely take her by the hand one night and lead her to bed. She would follow him willingly. But willingly wasn’t enough.
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