“And who’s Fraser?”
Anne glanced at her sister, who was absorbed again in Mr. Rogers’s monologue and still showed no signs of getting dressed. “He’s our dad,” she whispered. “But we call him Fraser. It’s more modern, don’t you think? Like on TV.” She seemed pleased. “Fraser McKenna. You know, one of the Blue River McKennas?”
Martha first nodded, then shook her head uncertainly. The Blue River McKennas? Should she have heard of this man?
“We got our ma’s last name,” Anne explained quickly, still whispering. “Langston. But, anyway, she’s dead, just like I told you.” She studied Martha for a few seconds, then added, “Fell down a hole and got ate up by a grizzly bear.” She gave Martha a triumphant look.
Martha felt her head begin to spin. Should she point out that, to her almost certain knowledge, there were no grizzly bears left in Wyoming? But why extend this odd discussion? Presumably this Fraser McKenna, the father, was the one who would be interviewing her.
She checked her watch. Where was he? She’d made the appointment with Mrs. Jamieson, who’d handed her a slip of paper with the time and a room number yesterday afternoon. Maybe there’d been some kind of mix-up, some misunderstanding…. “Where exactly is your dad, Anne? It’s already past ten and—”
“Oh, he ain’t doing this, ma’am. He said since we were the ones getting the lady companion—” she said the words with pride, almost with capital letters “—we oughtta be the ones to pick her.”
“You’re interviewing for the job?”
“Me’n Daisy.” She frowned at her sister. “Only Daisy won’t help.”
“Will too.” The younger girl turned and gave Martha a sweet smile. “I want her, Bloss.” She pointed at Martha. “Don’t want Katie Barker. And I hate Mrs. Mills!”
“Heck, I told you you don’t know nothin’, Daisy,” said her sister in annoyance. “This one’s only been here a little while and you ain’t even talked to her yet or had a real good look at her. How do you figure she’s the right one?”
Daisy flexed her damp thumb and examined it carefully for a second or two. “Just know,” she said flatly, and popped it back in again with a contented sigh.
“Well, it’s true,” Anne said grudgingly “You are the best so far. You’re pretty, and you don’t seem too terrible old, and that’s something—”
“But you know nothing about me!” Martha was finally shocked into deciding that she had to take charge. “Where is your father, Anne? I need to see him.”
Anne ignored her. “Katie Barker just wants to trick Fraser into marrying her—now that our ma’s dead, that is,” she added hastily “That’s all she wants. She doesn’t care about us one little bit. And Mrs. Mills is a mean old witch. We ain’t having her, that’s for sure!”
She smiled, just the shadow of a smile, but the first Martha had seen. “We’ll run away, Daisy and me, if he gets Mrs. Mills, and Fraser knows it. That just leaves you, ‘cause we’re going home today, Fraser says, after lunch, and if we don’t get nobody we’ll just have to stick another ad in the paper and go to all this trouble again and—”
“Anne, dear,” Martha said gently, leaning forward and covering the girl’s thin hand with her own. The girl froze. “Where is your father?”
There was a muffled curse and a yelp from the room next door, followed by a loud thump and another curse, as if a man had stumbled over a dog. A dog? Anne’s eyes slid sideways, toward the connecting door. Martha could feel the girl’s hand tense under hers.
“Bloss? Daisy?”
The connecting door burst open and a small grayish brown bundle of fur shot into the room and hopped onto the sofa beside Daisy, whimpering. Daisy giggled and put her arm around the dog. The dog licked her face. Martha stared at the half-dressed man who’d appeared in the open doorway, one large hand braced on each side of the frame.
Dear Lord.
Was this the father? The man’s hair was awry, his face unshaven, his chest bare. He had on jeans but that was all. He took a step toward them, then winced and put his weight down gingerly on his bare left foot. “Damn dog! You girls up already?”
He saw her and straightened, head up. Alert. Then he muttered something that sounded an awful lot like a string of curses and wiped vigorously at his unshaven face. He blinked hard once or twice. Even from where she sat, Martha could see that his eyes were bloodshot. Suddenly she put two and two together…
“You’redrunk!” Martha stood up, outraged. To her horror, she felt her protective instincts quiver. Just what kind of father was this?
“Nope.” The man held his head with both hands. “Hung over,” he said simply, frowning. He shrugged a couple of times and shook his head gently, as though testing the density of the air around him.
“Boozing and chasing women,” Anne chimed in, shaking her head in a brisk mime of adult disapproval. “Auntie Vi says it ain’t good, ain’t good at all.”
Martha stared at the girl. Boozing and chasing women? And he was in charge—apparently—of these two dear sweet innocent souls?
“Hell’s bells,” the man said flatly, ignoring his daughter to stare at Martha. “Vi Jamieson doesn’t know homegrown from steel-cut. Never did.”
She held her shoulders straight. Drunk, hung over— they amounted to much the same thing, didn’t they?
“This isn’t what it looks like,” he said.
“You’re not nursing a hangover?” she asked, unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice. “You weren’t whooping and hollering through the hotel, along with just about everybody else in this town last night? Mrs. Jamieson tells me it was quite the stag party.”
“Uh-huh. Ted Barker’s.”
“So I understand.”
“Yeah,” he admitted after a pause, “I was there.” Then he winced as if even the recollection was painful, and raised one shoulder. One tanned solidly muscled shoulder. She tried not to gaze at that shoulder, at his upper arm, his bare broad chest, lean and solid. There wasn’t an ounce of extra flesh on this man. Not an ounce of softness.
Next thing he’d be telling her he hadn’t wanted to go to the party—
“It wasn’t my idea. I’m not much of a drinking man, believe it or not.” His eyes, hard and none too apologetic, held hers. “Couple of buddies of mine dragged me in.”
“Uh-huh.”
Suddenly his face darkened. “Look, just who the hell are you, anyway?”
“This here’s Mrs. Martha Thomas,” Anne said, withdrawing her hand from Martha’s and taking a step forward. “You better be polite to her, Fraser. And no cussin’. She’s gonna be our lady companion,” she added proudly, looking up at Martha.
“But I thought…” The man stared first at the girl, then at her, accusingly. Martha felt those eyes like the chill of midnight on bare skin. Midnight, with no moon rising. She bristled at the challenge, feeling herself take the girl’s side automatically.
“She is?” he said. “Who the hell is she? What happened to Mrs. Mills? What about Katie?”
“We ain’t having them,” Anne returned sturdily, chin up. “We made up our minds, me’n’ Daisy. You said we could. Auntie Vi told us about this one last night when she was baby-sittin’ us, and we didn’t tell you. Auntie Vi said not to bother. You’d just scare her off, prob’ly.”
He stared at Martha for a few more seconds—it felt like forever—then shook his head, as though to clear it.
“C’mon, Daisy. Get dressed, darlin’,” he said quietly, hardly demonstrating the big trouble Anne had said her sister would be in if their father caught her still in her pajamas. Daisy obediently got up and shut off the television. She began rummaging in the clothing half-spilled from the blue bag.
“Martha Thomas?” The man repeated her name slowly and frowned. His voice was deep and slightly hoarse. “Mrs., you say?”
Martha nodded and took a quick breath. “That’s right.”
The man shook his head again in apparent disbelief. “You—uh, Bloss here says you answered the ad in the pa
per?” He sounded incredulous.
“I did.” She didn’t see the point in offering more information If he hadn’t expected anyone to answer his ad, why had he placed it? She wasn’t sure she was still interested, anyway. The open road was looking more attractive by the minute.
“You from around here?”
“No.” She shook her head, hesitated, then said, “Wisconsin.”
“Wisconsin,” he muttered, straightening. “Okay, let me think.” He frowned, eyes closed, and ran his hands through his shaggy black hair several times, the action throwing all the hard muscles of his chest and upper arms into relief. Martha couldn’t help being impressed. He was a very fine-looking man, even if he needed a shave and a haircut. And a shirt.
“Listen.” He exhaled loudly and opened his eyes. “I’m sorry about this.” He waved a hand impatiently. “We’re a little, uh, disorganized this morning.”
She shrugged slightly and held his gaze willingly, fully, for the first time. He raised one eyebrow, the smallest gesture of appeal. “Can we talk?”
His eyes were very dark, like Anne’s. His face looked drawn, as though he hadn’t slept well, or much. There was a grimness about his jaw and something hidden in his face, something elusive that seemed to separate him from her, even in these admittedly ridiculous circumstances. Something that kept him distant from the world. Or the world from him.
She nodded, surprising herself. “I suppose we’d better.”
“Have you had breakfast? Hell, of course you’ve had breakfast,” he muttered, not waiting for her answer. He dug deep into the front pocket of his jeans. “Damn!” He glanced at the watch he’d retrieved, then absently strapped it to his wrist. “Coffee? How about I meet you in the café downstairs in, oh, say, twenty minutes, half an hour?”
Martha barely hesitated, again surprising herself. “That would be fine.” She bit back the acid comment she’d been about to add—that, yes, he clearly would benefit from some coffee, the stronger the better. It was none of her business. None of this was any of her business. She stood stiffly and smoothed the fabric of her skirt, an automatic gesture.
Anne smiled at her then, a shy radiant smile, the first real smile Martha had seen since she’d entered the room. She felt her heart tighten until it hurt. This child needed her. She could feel it. And the other one, Daisy, who by now had managed to wriggle herself into some pants and was in the process of putting on a T-shirt, inside out—she needed her, too. No mother. And no prize for a father, either, by the look of it.
Martha took a deep painful breath. Long ago she had stopped allowing herself to dream of having children. It was too late; she’d waited too long. She’d be thirty-six next spring, and the prospect of a family and children was as remote as it had ever been, only now it mattered more. Back then, when she’d been in her twenties, other dreams had owned her—her career, travel, a series of very nice but ultimately unsuitable men, one or two could-have-been-serious affairs.
What were the odds that her dream would come true now? No job, and the prospect of having to start over somewhere new. No particular man on the horizon. Soon she’d be too old even to think about having a baby. No point in fooling herself: it wasn’t going to happen. That was the reality.
Martha walked to the door, shoulders squared. She smiled at the two girls and nodded coolly at their father.
“Twenty minutes.”
CHAPTER TWO
IN FACT, IT WASN’T even twenty minutes. She’d just finished her first cup of coffee, racking her brain desperately for what to say to this prospective employer, when she saw him making his way through the hotel dining room. Eyes followed him, both male and female, and she could understand why. He wasn’t exceptionally tall, perhaps six feet or just over, but he had the kind of physical male presence that had nothing to do with size.
The girls trailed behind, and Martha watched as he settled them at a table and stopped to speak to the waitress for a few moments. Then he continued toward her, his expression determined. He carried a mug in his hand. Coffee, probably, black and hot.
The slight delay gave her a chance to still her churning insides. From his frown she judged that Fraser McKenna wasn’t altogether pleased about this meeting either, but at the same time he looked like a man who knew he had a job to do and who intended to get that job done.
She had to admire him—he wasted no words.
“You still interested in looking after those two?” He nodded toward the girls. He’d taken the chair opposite Martha. “After…uh, you know?” He made a vague gesture toward the upper floor. He didn’t seem all that embarrassed about the circumstances of their earlier meeting. Nor did he apologize.
“I—I’m not sure,” she said truthfully, staring down at her cup. Finally she looked up. He was watching her.
“Why’s that?” was his blunt reply. He reached for the sugar.
The arrival of a waitress with more coffee gave her a chance to collect herself. “Well, let’s just say this seems to be kind of an odd situation.”
“Odd?”
Martha raised her cup to be refilled; she didn’t miss the doe eyes the waitress had for her companion. Fraser appeared not to notice. His gaze never left Martha’s face.
“Yes, odd. For some reason, you don’t seem all that keen on hiring me, period. And I’ve never been interviewed by a couple of kids for a job or—”
“They’re the ones who’ll be spending time with you,” he interrupted quietly. “Not me.” He nodded his thanks to the waitress, and she beamed before moving off with the coffeepot. “Makes sense to me to see if they like you.”
“Mmm.” She had to admit that it did. “And basically, well, I just decided to apply for the job on an impulse. Maybe the whole thing’s not such a great idea,
after all….” She was beginning to wonder what crazy
notion had made her apply in the first place.
His question, when it came, startled her.
“Do you believe in fate, Mrs. Thomas?” His eyes held a peculiar intensity.
She felt completely rattled now and carefully set down her cup before replying. “Is that a serious question, Mr. McKenna?”
“Fraser,” he said, and studied the spoon he’d just used. He turned it over several times, frowning. “Yes. It’s a serious question.” He regarded her intently again, adding, “Truth is, I never thought anybody’d answer that ad.”
“Well, no, Mr.—uh, Fraser,” Martha said firmly. “I don’t believe in fate. I believe people are responsible for their own futures. They control their own fates.” Wasn’t that why, deep down, she hadn’t regarded what had happened at the Post as a complete and total disaster, as many of her friends and colleagues had? Wasn’t the buyout a perfect opportunity to start something new?
He sighed, stared at her a moment longer, then nodded slowly. “So do I.”
For a long moment he said nothing more. He simply continued to frown at the pattern his spoon was making on the tabletop, distracted, clearly thinking about something altogether different. Something else, maybe someone else Martha studied her own cup. This was a job interview?
“All right.” He cleared his throat. He seemed to rouse himself with some effort. “Look, is there a Mr. Thomas somewhere in the picture?”
Thoroughly disconcerted now, Martha cast about wildly for his meaning Her father? Then she remembered her lie.
“No. I mean, he’s no problem,” she added hastily.
“Separated? Divorced? Dead?”
“Dead,” Martha snapped back. Well, that was true at least—her father was dead. Her mother had moved to California a year after he’d died. She hadn’t seen her in nearly three years. She regretted that; it was something she intended to change.
She noticed that Fraser McKenna must have taken the time to have a quick shower, although he hadn’t shaved. The trace of a beard gave him a dark look, a dangerous and mysterious look, although his words couldn’t have been more direct. Tact did not seem to be his long suit.
“I’m sorry. About your husband, that is,” he said wearily, running his hand through unruly dark hair, then hunching forward to stir his coffee. “Maybe you think it’s none of my business.” His eyes looked bleak for a second or two. Or had she imagined it?
“Generally speaking, I wouldn’t ask,” he went on. “It’s just that my ranch is a long way from what some might call civilization, and I don’t want to take on any more complications than I need to. I’ve got no interest in getting mixed up in some, well, awkward domestic situation. Do you understand my meaning?”
Did she? She met his eyes gamely.
“To be frank,” he went on, “I’d prefer to hire a widow over a divorced woman. Or over one who’s left her husband for one reason or another and might want to go back in a couple of weeks.”
“I understand.”
“It’s been known to happen, that kind of thing.”
She nodded. His eyes were stone-hard. Obviously this man had been hurt by a woman. The girls’ mother, from the sounds of it.
“The fact is, it’s time I got some help with the girls,” he began again. His voice was rough. “Bloss and Daisy need a woman around. I’ve looked after them by myself for—” He stopped abruptly, then as quickly went on, “Well, for quite a while. But I’m just too busy. Daisy’s home, but Blossom’s in school. They need someone who’ll be there for them when I can’t be, to answer questions, show them things.” He paused. “Woman things.”
Woman things. The words brushed her skin, butterfly-soft. She felt the blood rush to her throat and tremble there.
“It doesn’t make sense to drag them all over the ranch with me anymore. I’ve got a business to run, and winter’s coming on.” He paused again, then continued—a little hesitantly, she thought. “And they seem to like you fine. That’s good enough for me.”
His eyes held hers. “They’re growing up, Mrs. Thomas. They need a woman around.”
“A lady companion?” she ventured, her voice sounding softer than she’d planned.
“Yeah,” he said, almost as softly. “A lady companion. A woman like you.”
Judith Bowen Page 2