by Maddy Barone
Eddie arched a brow at Marty and turned to greet the men from the Den. Lisa lifted the baby out of her sling and held her out to Rose to hold. Rose stood up to take Emily. The little body was warm and smelled like powder and lavender lotion. Emily was a beautiful baby, the little face relaxed in sleep, framed by a frilly bonnet to keep the sun off. Rose cradled her close, the familiar longing for a child of her own so strong it nearly brought tears to her eyes. She blinked them back to smile at Lisa. Lisa was staring at Jasper with her brows lifted.
Jasper shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Hello, Mrs. Madison.”
Rose recalled that Jasper had had a big crush on Lisa years ago. Ray tugged on the hem of her shirt. “Emmy doesn’t have any hair,” he confided in what he must have thought was a whisper.
Rose hid a grin by looking down at the baby’s sleeping face, her lack of hair hidden by the bonnet. “Ray, when I first met you, you were as bald as an egg.”
Ray’s hand flew to his thick yellow mop. “I was not!”
Eddie dropped a hand on his son’s shoulder. “I’m afraid you were. And so were your brothers.” After giving the narrow shoulder an affectionate squeeze, he reached his hand to Jasper to shake. “How’s it going?” he asked with a tiny tip of his head toward Rose.
She didn’t miss it, and neither did Paint or Stone.
Jasper’s grin was big. “Pretty well, I think.”
Stone’s eyes narrowed dangerously. Rose quickly held out the baby for him to see. “Isn’t she darling?”
One thing none of the wolves could resist was a baby, especially a girl baby. They were in public, so his face and stance didn’t change, but Rose knew him well enough to see that he had inwardly melted. “Pretty baby,” he said, his voice softer and gentler than his usual grunt.
Rose returned Emily to her mother. Eddie slipped an arm around his wife and leaned down to kiss the baby’s forehead. “She’s so beautiful,” he murmured in a tone the precise equivalent of the one Taye used when speaking of his children. “And so are you, Lisa-love.” The kiss he gave his wife was sweet and tender, not carnal, but Rose felt blood rise to her cheeks.
Witnessing that sort of loving exchange always made her chest hurt. She wanted a man to hold her like Eddie held Lisa now. She wanted him to say he loved her. She took a deep breath to loosen the tightness in her chest and cast a glance at Jasper. Would he be the one to hold her and love her?
Jasper moved a few steps closer to Eddie, and they turned toward the other men to chat. Rose tried to hear what they were saying, but the screech and hiss of the arriving train drowned their voices.
“Well,” Rose said to Lisa, raising her voice to be heard over the train. “Did you ever imagine, nine or ten years ago, that the most exciting thing to do would be watching a train come into town?”
Lisa laughed. “No. I’ve been to all kinds of social events, from the Grammys to the Cannes Film Festival. I’ve danced at a Presidential Inaugural Ball. I’ve met European royalty. I never thought that my most exciting social outing of the week would be to see crates and barrels unloaded from a train.” Her voice sobered. “Are you… Well, I’m not sure ‘dating’ is the right word to use. But are you?”
Rose hesitated, then nodded. “It’s way past time for me to be married. I want a family of my own. I live in an old motel with dozens of other people around me all the time. They love me, but it’s not the same. Sometimes I feel so alone. Is it possible to be lonely when I’m never alone?”
“Yes.” Lisa set Emily into the sling that held her against her chest and gave Rose a quick hug. “Just be careful, okay? No need to rush into marriage. Take all the time you need to be sure the man you choose is the right one.” She gurgled with sudden laughter. “You’ll have plenty to choose from. By now everyone is gossiping about you and Jasper. Once the men in the area know that you’re husband shopping, they’ll be haunting the den.”
“Oh, crap.” Rose had a vision of men swarming around the stone wall around the den, and the wolves’ probable reaction. “Oh, crappity crap.”
Lisa swayed from side to side to sooth the baby, who was awake and showing signs of displeasure. “I guess I shouldn’t laugh, but honestly, this is going to be a very entertaining winter.”
“Entertaining? That’s not the word I would use,” Rose replied glumly.
Eddie came to collect his wife. “They’re unloading the freight cars, Lisa-love. We should go claim your order. Bye, Rose. See you, Packard.”
Rose said good bye and turned her attention to the train. She saw the mail bag carried into the station and wondered if there would be a letter for her from Omaha. There were usually not many passengers to disembark at Kearney, and today was no different. Three men came off the train. Rose recognized one of them as a farmer from Odessa, a few miles south of Kearney.
“Look, there’s Gary Black,” she pointed out.
Jasper, standing again beside her, nodded. “I heard he had to go to Omaha. There’s Samuel Overby, too. Don’t know the third man.”
Neither did Rose, but he was the first one she’d noticed. He was tall and slender, with short dark hair, impeccably dressed in a tailored suit of silvery gray fabric that showed off a lean physique with wide shoulders and a narrow waist. The trousers were crisply pressed even after hours on the train. She’d never seen a suit like that in Kearney before. His hair was cut neatly at the nape, but an inch or so longer on top, artfully styled to look casually tumbled. If there were anything like a men’s fashion magazine these days, this man would be on the cover.
Rose despised him on sight even while she admired the lines of his body. Living with a couple of dozen handsome men who wore as little clothing as Carla would let them get away with, Rose was very familiar with the male body. Under the expensive suit, this man’s body was probably exactly the type she liked best: lean, powerful, and graceful. Was his face as attractive? His head was turned away, looking at something to the side, so she could see only his profile. His nose was perhaps a tad large, but his jaw was well defined, running parallel with high cheekbones. A narrow tie was a black exclamation point over a shirt of vibrant blue. When he turned toward them, she saw the color of his eyes exactly matched the shirt. His face had nicely shaped eyebrows and a full, soft mouth…
She jerked in a sharp gasp. “Oh, no,” she moaned.
Jasper forgot himself and dared to grab her arm to steady her. “Rose, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
Grabbing him back would probably get him killed. She was sure that buzzing in her ears would go away any second. It would. It had to. The man in the slick suit came their way and she swayed, willing herself to be calm.
“Hello, Rose,” the man said to her with a cold smile, and the hint of a dimple beside his mouth didn’t soften his expression. His head turned a fraction to stare at Jasper, and he continued in the same lazy, deadly tone, “I don’t know you.” The smile hardened to brittle ice. “If you want to live, you’ll take your hand off my mate.”