by Janet Dailey
"I'm not a midget. I'm a little girl."
"Is that right?" MacCrea replied with mock skepticism. "How old are you?"
"I'm five-and-a-half years old."
"What's your name?"
"Eden. What's yours?"
"MacCrea Wilder," he answered, amused by the rapid comeback.
"MacCrea is your first name?" She frowned at him as he walked toward the barn's main entrance to look for an official of the horse show.
"Yup."
"That's a funny name. So is Eden, though. My daddy says it's the name of a garden and it's a silly name to give a girl. Mommy says I shouldn't listen to him."
"Well, I agree with your mommy. I think Eden is a nice name for a girl."
"Do you really? Mommy says people say things sometimes just to be nice, but they don't really mean them."
"Your mother sounds like she's a very smart woman."
"She is. Smarter than my daddy, even."
"And I'll bet that's really saying something."
"Naw." Eden wrinkled her nose. "My daddy doesn't know anything about horses. He's nice though."
"That's good."
"Where do you suppose my mommy is?" Eden half turned in his arm to look behind them.
"I have the feeling she's probably frantically looking for you."
"Maybe we should go back and see if we can find her." She squared around to gaze at him earnestly.
"I think it will be quicker and easier if we just have her paged over the loudspeaker and let her find us." Feeling her intent stare, MacCrea glanced sideways at the child. "Something wrong?"
"How come you have a mustache?"
"I suppose because I didn't shave it off."
"Does it tickle?"
"I've had a few girls tell me that it does."
"Can I see?"
Surprised by the request, MacCrea stopped. He wasn't sure whether to laugh or not as he looked at the bold little mite in his arms. He could see she was totally serious. "Go ahead." He shrugged.
He watched her face as she tentatively reached out to touch the ends of his mustache. It was a study of concentration and intense curiosity. Then he felt the faintest sensation of her small fingers moving over his lips as she ran the tips over the bluntly cut hairs of his mustache. A smile of amazement broke across her face as she pulled her hand back.
"It did tickle a little, but it was kinda soft, too. How come?"
"I don't know." MacCrea frowned. "Tell me, are you always like this with total strangers? Hasn't your mommy ever told you that you shouldn't trust people you don't know?"
"Yeah," she admitted, unconcerned. "She says I talk too much, too. Do you think I do?"
"Far be it from me to contradict your mother," he said dryly.
"What does 'counterdick' mean?"
"It means telling someone the exact opposite of what someone else has told him. In other words, if your mother told you something was good and I said it was bad, I'd be contradicting her. That wouldn't be nice."
"Oh," she said with a long, slow nod of her head, but MacCrea doubted that she'd actually understood.
He shifted his hold on the child, boosting her to ride a little higher within his encircling arm. "Come on. Let's see if—"
"Eden!" The frantic call came from behind them.
"Wait," Eden ordered as she looked back. "There's my mommy!" Turning, MacCrea spotted the slim, dark-haired woman just breaking free of the crowd. When she saw him, she stopped abruptly. A kick of recognition jolted through him. Abbie. For an instant he forgot everything, even the child in his arms, as he stared openly, drinking in the sight of her after all these years—two months over six, to be exact.
He was surprised to find she had changed so little in all that time. She wore her dark hair shorter now, the ends just brushing the tops of her shoulders. Even though the voluminous folds of her split riding skirt disguised the slimness of her hips, the wide belt that cinched her small waist revealed that she had retained her shapely figure. And her eyes still held that blue fire that he remembered so well. If anything, the years had added a ripeness and strength to her beauty that had been missing before.
The shock of seeing him had drained the color from her face. MacCrea watched it come back in a hot rush. "Where are you taking her? What are you doing with my daughter?" Before he knew what was happening, she was grabbing Eden out of his arms and clutching her tightly.
"I didn't know she was your daughter." He was still slightly dazed by the discovery. "I suppose I should have guessed when I saw those blue eyes."
"We were going to have the man call your name over the loudspeaker, Mommy," Eden said, momentarily claiming Abbie's attention. "I'm so glad we found you. I was starting to get worried."
"She thought you were lost," MacCrea inserted, feeling the impact of her glance as it swung again to him. God, but he wanted to hold her again. He didn't realize how much until this very minute, when the ache was so strong, he actually hurt inside. But her wary look made him hold himself back.
"Why didn't you stay with me the way you were told? Then none of this would have happened," Abbie scolded, her accusing glare indicating very clearly that it was this meeting with him that she wished had never happened.
"But when I couldn't find Ben, I came back and you were gone," Eden asserted, pouting slightly at Abbie's censure.
But Abbie wasn't interested in her explanation. "Why was she with you?"
MacCrea exhaled a short, laughing breath. "It wasn't my idea. She came to me. I don't know why. Maybe I looked like someone she could trust."
"Unfortunately she's too young to know any better." The bitterness in her voice dashed any hope MacCrea had that time might have altered her opinion of him.
"His name is MacCrea. Did you know that, Mommy? It's a funny name, but I like it. He thinks my name is nice, too. Don't you?"
"Yes." He found perverse satisfaction in knowing that Abbie's daughter liked him.
"Why are you here?" A second after she asked the question, Abbie glanced in the direction of the River Bend display, guessing the answer. The line of her mouth thinned even straighter. "Somehow I doubted that you had acquired an interest in Arabians."
"We have an Arabian stallion," Eden told him excitedly. "He's the most beautiful horse ever. Would you like to see him? His name is Windstorm."
"Yes, I would, Eden." Accepting the invitation, MacCrea smiled lazily in the face of Abbie's grim, angry look.
"I'm sure Mr. Wilder has better things to do than look at our horse, Eden. He's a very busy man."
"But he said he wanted to," Eden insisted, then smiled proudly. "It isn't nice to counterdick someone, Mommy"
"You mean contradict," Abbie corrected automatically.
"That's what I said. Counterdick."
"She's a clever girl. . . just like her mother," MacCrea observed. "Where is this horse of yours, Eden?"
"He's in a different barn. We'll take you there, won't we, Mommy?"
"Maybe another time, Eden." Her glaring look warned MacCrea not to insist. "Right now we have to go find Ben. Mr. Wilder understands. Don't you, Mr. Wilder?"
"No." He wasn't about to let her out of the invitation so easily.
"Look—" she began, barely controlling anger, only to be interrupted by the old man who came shuffling up behind her.
"Good. You have found her." He laid a gnarled and age-spotted hand on Eden's shoulder. "We were worried about you, child. How many times has your momma told you not to run off like that, eh?"
Abbie was irritated that Ben should pick this minute to arrive, but he was so relieved to find Eden with her that it was difficult for her to be angry with him. Yet she had to make him aware of the situation. "You remember Ben Jablonski, don't you, Mr. Wilder." As Ben stared at MacCrea, Abbie saw him appear flustered and unsure for the first time.
"Of course. Hello, Ben. It's good to see you again." MacCrea stepped forward to shake hands with him.
Ben glanced questioningly at her. Abbie gav
e a faint shake of her head to let him know that, as yet, MacCrea did not know her secret. "How do you do, Mr. Wilder." Stiffly Ben shook his hand.
"He wants to see Windstorm, Ben." Eden turned excitedly to Abbie. "Now that Ben's here, we can take him to our barn now, can't we, Mommy?"
Abbie longed to tape her daughter's mouth shut. Failing that, she appealed to MacCrea, hoping that he'd stop being stubborn and accept the fact that she didn't want him around at all. "We wouldn't want to take up your time uselessly, Mr. Wilder."
"I'll be the judge of that."
"Very well, we'll show you the horse." She was unwilling to create a scene with Eden looking on, and she realized that MacCrea knew that. The alternative was to get this over with as quickly as possible. She swung Eden to the ground. "You're too heavy to carry."
"She can ride on my shoulders," MacCrea offered.
"No." She refused too quickly and tried to temper it, knowing that she couldn't risk MacCrea being that close to Eden. "It'll do her good to walk and burn up some of that energy." She pushed Eden at Ben. "We'll follow you and Ben. Be sure and hold tight to his hand."
As Eden skipped alongside Ben to take the lead, Abbie fell in with MacCrea. But she couldn't look at him. She couldn't even breathe. She had never guessed seeing him again would be so painful. In so many ways, he looked the same as she remembered. Maybe his face looked harder, carved by a few more lines. But the lazy smile was the same, and that charm that both mocked and challenged.
She'd been terrified when she'd seen him holding Eden—terrified that he'd somehow found out she was his daughter and intended to take Eden away from her. Even now she was frightened by the thought. And that fear was stronger than any other feelings seeing him had aroused.
"We sorta skipped all the pleasantries," MacCrea said as they walked out of the stallion barn into the brilliant Arizona sunlight. "Maybe we should start over. How are you, Abbie?"
"Married."
"So I heard. Is your husband here with you?"
"No." The last thing she wanted to discuss with MacCrea was her farce of a marriage. "He's at home. It's a busy time at the farm. He couldn't get away." She felt as if she was sitting astride a horse with a hump in its back—all tense and waiting for it to explode in a bucking spree, not knowing when it was going to happen or which way it would jump first, but knowing it was coming and knowing she had to be ready for it or she'd end up being thrown.
Eden turned around and said, "That's our barn, isn't it, Mommy? That's where Windstorm is staying, isn't it?"
"Yes, honey."
"Wait until you see him, MacCrea. He's the most beautiful horse there ever was," she declared.
"His name is Mr. Wilder, Eden." Abbie couldn't bear to hear her daughter address him so familiarly.
"She can call me MacCrea. I don't mind."
"I do. And I'll thank you not to interfere when I'm correcting my daughter," Abbie retorted.
Quickening her steps, Abbie crossed the last few yards of sand and entered the dark shade of the barn's interior ahead of MacCrea. Ben released Eden's hand and she ran ahead to a stall a third of the way down on the left side. "Windstorm, we're back. And we've brought you a visitor."
In spite of herself, Abbie smiled when she saw the stallion lift his head and nicker at the child running toward his stall. In her opinion, Windstorm was as close to perfection as an horse she'd ever seen, but of all his attributes, she considered his gentle spirit to be the most precious.
While the stallion had all the fire and flash of an Arabian, it seemed to come from a joy of life and a love of freedom rather than from any sense of wildness. And every one of his first crop of foals out of grade mares had inherited not only a lot of his look but also his disposition, including one out of a dam that was notoriously ill-tempered. The real test of any sire was his ability to pass many of his good traits on to his get. Abbie had the feeling that she was the owner of just such a prepotent stallion.
Abbie walked over to the stall to admire her stallion, something she was unashamed to admit she never tired of doing. At five years, Windstorm had grayed out to an almost pure white, with only a few streaks of silver-gray still visible in his long mane and tail. The blackness of his skin was revealed in the darkness of his muzzle and around his eyes, making them seem even larger.
"How's my man?" Abbie crooned as the stallion lowered his head to let her scratch his favorite place, just below the ear.
"I knew you had to have one in your life," MacCrea murmured, his voice coming from directly behind her. She hadn't realized he was so close, but a quick backward glance confirmed he stood mere inches away.
Her heart started pounding so loudly she couldn't hear anything else. Somehow she knew that all she had to do was turn around and face him, and she would once more feel his arms around her and know again the excitement of his kiss. That was all it would take—just one move on her part, one silent invitation. And some traitorous part of her soul wanted her to make it.
But Abbie wouldn't let herself be fooled into loving him again. Instead she stepped sideways, moving well away from him. "You were so interested in seeing my stallion, Mr. Wilder, go ahead and take a good look." She was surprised at how calm her voice sounded, considering the way she was shaking inside.
As MacCrea stepped up to the stall, Eden clambered atop the bales of straw next to him so she could see over the wooden partition. "Isn't he beautiful?" she declared. "I saw him the night he was born. There was an awful storm, and the wind blew and blew. That's how he got his name, Windstorm."
MacCrea frowned. "You must have been awfully small yourself."
"I was a little baby," she admitted. "But Mommy says I laughed and laughed when I saw him 'cause I was so happy about it." When the stallion affectionately nuzzled the top of her head, Eden grabbed his nose and pulled his head down, then lovingly rubbed a chiseled cheek. "Stop it, you silly boy," she scolded, then said to MacCrea, "See how you can see all his veins. That means he's dry. That's a good thing."
"You certainly know a lot about horses."
"I do," she agreed. "I have a pony of my very own. His name is JoJo. You'd like him, too."
Watching the two of them, with their heads so close together, Abbie wondered how MacCrea could fail to see the resemblance. To her, it was much too obvious: the dark, wavy hair, the full, thick eyebrows, the same chin and mouth. And the hands—Abbie caught the faint curling of Eden's little fingers as she fondled the stallion's head. She couldn't let him find out. She just couldn't.
"Eden, come down from there." She had to separate them, get Eden far away from MacCrea.
"But—"
"Don't argue with me. Just do as you're told. You've bent Mr. Wilder's ear long enough." As Eden reluctantly scrambled off the bales, Abbie caught hold of her hand and led her over to Ben. "Take her to the car and I'll meet you there in a few minutes."
"Good-bye, Mac—Mr. Wilder." Eden half turned to wave to him.
"'Bye, Eden. I'll see you again sometime."
Something snapped inside her, releasing all the emotions she'd been holding so tightly in check. They swamped her as she swung around to face MacCrea. "No, you won't! You leave my daughter alone. Leave me alone."
She knew her voice had quavered badly, but she wasn't aware of the sudden rush of tears into her eyes until MacCrea cupped the side of her face in his hand and wiped away a tear with his thumb. "You're crying, Abbie. Why?" The gentleness of his voice, the concern in it, almost proved to be her undoing. She longed to lose herself in the touch of his hand.
But she couldn't. Neither could she answer him. Instead she pulled away from him and pivoted toward the stall, turning her back on him. She hadn't dreamed that after all this time—after all he'd done to her—she could still be so physically attracted to him. Why was her psyche so twisted that she kept loving men she couldn't trust?
"You haven't forgotten either, have you?" MacCrea asked.
"I never tried," she lied.
"Will you have di
nner with me tonight. . . for old time's sake? You can bring your daughter and Ben along if it will make you feel safer," he mocked gently, confidently.
"The only 'old times' I'm interested in are the ones where you were gone. Why don't you arrange for that to happen again?"
"Hold it. You were the one who walked out," he reminded her tersely.
His anger gave her the control she needed to face him once more. "I was, wasn't I? I guess I just didn't like the way you used people."
"You accuse me of using people. What about you? Or don't you want to admit the real reason you married that farmer? You don't love him. You only married him to get your hands on land that originally belonged to your family."
"I don't have to ask who told you that. So why don't you go find Rachel? She's the one you came here to see anyway."
"I'm here to meet Lane."
"Then go find him. But stay away from me." She walked off briskly, her throat tight and a dull ache in her heart. It hurt more than she cared to admit that she hadn't guessed wrong. MacCrea was here to see Lane and Rachel.
Chapter 34
With a nod of his head, MacCrea absently acknowledged the hotel maid's greeting as he walked down the wide corridor to the double doors of the suite at the end. He knocked twice and waited, gnawed by the restlessness that had been eating at him since he'd left the showgrounds.
"Who is it?" The thick doors muffled the woman's voice, but he still recognized it as Rachel's.
"MacCrea Wilder." He still wasn't sure why he was there—why he hadn't headed straight for the airport and boarded the first plane out of Phoenix. Maybe he just didn't want Abbie to have the satisfaction of driving him out of town.
The security chain rattled a half-second before the left door swung open to admit him. Rachel moved away from it as he stepped inside. Her high heels made almost no sound on the thick carpet as she crossed to an oval mirror on the wall.
"The bar is fully stocked. Help yourself." She nodded in the direction of the paneled bar located in the corner of the suite's spacious sitting room.