He shut the cupboard door, box of cocoa in his hand. “Like today.” He smiled again, no more than a faint friendly smile, but Martha felt a response right down to her toes. So—what about chasing women? Was that just so much talk, too? She didn’t dare ask.
He measured the cocoa powder into two mugs, adding sugar and mixing the blend carefully with a tiny amount of evaporated milk. She knew he was doing this to prevent lumps in the cocoa.
Her heart swelled at the memory. She hadn’t had hot chocolate made with hot water and evaporated milk since her summer with Gran Thomas in Michigan all those years ago. She’d completely forgotten, but now it came back to her in a flood. A plain kitchen, something like this, with an old-fashioned oil range in the middle. Painted cupboards and evidence of Gran’s industry everywhere, from the crocheted tea cozy to the cross-stitch on the tea towels. What she’d always called “fancy work.” Chintz curtains, starched monthly, Martha recalled, at the windows. Why, it was—it must be at least twenty-five years ago! Yet watching Fraser measure out the ingredients had brought it back to her, every detail sharp and intense.
“Thanks.” She took the mug from him, realizing she’d been careful to make sure their fingers didn’t touch. Why was that? She inhaled deeply of the sweet steam. “Smells wonderful.” She took a sip. “My grandmother used to make hot chocolate just like this.”
“She did?” He arched one dark eyebrow and raised his mug in a brief salute. He hadn’t joined her at the table but, instead, stood facing her a few feet away, leaning against the counter, watching her. She suddenly felt self-conscious. Young, warm-cheeked, as though she really were that girl of ten again.
“Yes.” Martha took another sip. “Mmm.” She curled her fingers around the mug and smiled. “I guess your daughters like hot chocolate like this, too.”
He frowned down into the contents of his cup. Then he looked at her for a long moment, half-speculatively, a moment in which Martha began to retrace her thoughts, wondering what she’d said, if she’d made some terrible blunder—
“I’ve got something to tell you that maybe I should have mentioned before, Mrs. Thomas,” he said finally.
Something to tell her? “What’s that?”
“Those two girls asleep up there are not my daughters.”
CHAPTER THREE
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN—they’re not your daughters?”
“Just what I said.” He set his mug down heavily on the counter. “They’re not my children. I’m not their father.”
“B-but Anne looks just like you!” It was a stupid comment, but…not his children!
He scowled. “Nevertheless, I’m not her father. I’m not her stepfather. As a matter of fact, I don’t know for sure who her father is.” He ran one hand through his hair in a weary gesture and muttered, “I don’t think Brenda did, either. Look, maybe we should talk about this in the morning—”
“You can’t just…just drop a bombshell like that and expect me to forget all about it and go to sleep!” Martha felt outrage mounting beneath her shock. “And who the heck’s Brenda? I took on this job expecting to be looking after your daughters—”
“Brenda’s their mother.” His tone was level. “She’s away. I never told you they were my daughters. The ad in the paper didn’t say they were my daughters.”
“No, maybe it didn’t.” Martha’s mind was racing, skittering, trying to remember just what it had said. “But I certainly assumed they were your children, and you said nothing to encourage me to think differently.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, spreading his hands wide, palms up. “I didn’t, no. I take full responsibility for that.”
He had the nerve to sound irritated!
“But the truth is,” he continued, “I hedged because I wasn’t sure you’d take the job if I told you straight out. It’s complicated. The point is, I had to hire somebody.” She almost flinched at the indifference in his voice. He wasn’t a bit apologetic. He’d had to hire somebody.
He frowned. “Hell, I don’t see what difference it makes, anyway, exactly what the situation is, whose kids they are. Either way, it’s my problem, not yours. The job’s the same.”
She stood, then sat back down again. Just what was the situation? She was furious with this man. And to think she’d been complimenting herself on what a good judge of character she was, knowing an honest man when she saw one, blah, blah, blah. Still, she had options. “What makes you so sure I’m going to take the job now?”
“Nothing.” He continued to regard her levelly and steadily. “Except we’re a long way from nowhere up here. Not that I wouldn’t take you back if you wanted. Hell, if you want to go, go.” He shrugged. “But I still think you’re the right woman for the job.”
Oh, sure, she felt like saying. How many choices had he had? And what would he know, anyway? He didn’t know her at all. Not that there was much sense in pointing that out again. Martha kneaded the tight muscles at the base of her neck. It had been a very long day. She was exhausted. All she wanted was her bed and the oblivion of sleep.
“Look, maybe this wasn’t the best way to have handled it, Mrs. Thomas, but I felt—”
“You can quit calling me Mrs. Thomas,” she snapped. “My name’s Martha.” He had a surprise or two coming himself, when she told him there was no Mr. Thomas, dead or otherwise.
“All right. Martha.” He said her name in a low tone that had her glancing up at him. He’d made the plain and ordinary syllables sound somehow dark and mysterious, almost exotic. He was still standing, still looking at her hard, hands buried in his back pockets.
“Maybe we’ll have a chance to talk about this tomorrow, Martha. You’ll understand when I tell you that I don’t care to discuss it in front of the girls.”
“Is this—” Her voice came out weaker than she’d intended, and she stopped to clear her throat before going on. She stood abruptly and carried her mug to the sink, then looked up at him again, trying to gather her nerve. She had a horrible feeling in her stomach. Her knees felt shaky. “Is…is this at least legal?” she managed. “Whatever’s going on around here? Brenda? The girls? You?”
He stared at her so long, his eyes dark and somber and searching, that Martha felt she’d have to look away—or scream—if he didn’t answer her.
“I don’t know,” he said to her horror. Then he sighed, deeply, heavily. “I wish I could tell you one way or the other. But I just don’t know.”
ALIE FOR A LIE.
Anne had said Fraser was their father; Martha had said she was a widow. She might as well set them straight on that soon. Mind you, last night, tossing and turning on the too-soft mattress, she’d made up her mind to leave. It was the rational thing to do. Go on to California, as she’d originally planned, spend some time with her mother, perhaps head to the Baja for the rest of the winter.
The last thing she needed was to get mixed up in some highly dubious, possibly illegal scheme looking after two girls. It was just a question of informing Fraser as soon as she had a chance and making the arrangements. Brrr, it was cold! Martha dug her hands deeper into the silk-lined pockets of her leather jacket. She didn’t have the wardrobe for a winter here, either.
“Let’s go over to the barn now,” Daisy said, interrupting her musings. “I want to show you my pony and the kittens that just got borned and—”
“Slow down, young lady.” Martha laughed and let the five-year-old pull her in the direction of the barn. The girl had one mittened hand in Martha’s; the other clutched the toy kangaroo. Daisy had already shown her the entire ranch house, from the cellar, lined with empty wooden shelves where ranch women of the past—perhaps Fraser’s mother or grandmother—had put up stores for the winter, to a sectioned-off part of the attic, where Fraser had set up a playroom. She knew now why everything in the girls’ room looked new—everything was new.
Daisy had led her into Fraser’s bedroom, too, before Martha had realized it and hurried the girl out. But not before she’d taken in the plain wo
oden furniture, of a similar era to the furnishings of her own room, the big bed, competently if roughly made, the faded denim jacket thrown over a wooden chair. Other than the farm magazines piled on a low table beside the bed, there was only one personal note in the room—a silver picture frame that stood on a tall dresser. But the frame faced away from her, and Martha hadn’t had the nerve to walk over and look at it closely. It was an intrusion, being in his room at all.
Anne had stayed behind to wash the breakfast dishes. Fraser, apparently, had gone out earlier, and Martha was waiting for him to come back so she could tell him what she’d decided to do. Martha had noticed how grown-up and important it made Anne feel to fix the French toast and ham for their breakfast. Martha suspected that she would have liked to come with them, that she was as eager as Daisy to show her the ranch. But Anne had scoffed when Martha suggested leaving the cleanup until later, letting on that she was far too grown-up for such childish enthusiasms.
Martha had the feeling that anyone Fraser ended up hiring would have to tread carefully with that one; Anne didn’t wear her heart on her sleeve quite the way her sister did. Why did the thought of another woman looking after the girls suddenly hurt a little? She hadn’t spent enough time with them yet to care.
“Daisy, sweetheart?”
“Uh-huh?” The girl looked up at her, face trusting and bright with pleasure and the late-October cold. “Tell me why you call your sister Blossom.” Martha felt a tiny bit guilty. It wasn’t fair to ask the child questions, but…
“Oh, she just likes to be called Anne. She says she made it up all by herself, but I know she got it out of a storybook. She told me’n’ Fraser she wants us to call her that from now on, ever since our mama went away.” Daisy skipped a couple of steps beside her and Martha smiled. “Anne with ane,” Daisy half sang, and again Martha had an odd sense of déjà vu. “But me’n’ Fraser keep forgetting. That makes her real mad.”
Martha smiled again. “Well, Blossom is kind of an unusual name.”
“Our mama gave us flower names,” Daisy said simply. She looked up at Martha, suddenly serious. “She likes flowers. Daisy of the field—that’s what Fraser calls me. Fraser says our names are special because everybody knows flowers are the beautiful-est things in the whole wide world.”
Martha squeezed the child’s hand. “Fraser is right,” she whispered. “But I think I’ll call your sister Anne, if that’s what she prefers.”
“Okay. C’mon.” Daisy tugged at the barn door, and Martha stepped up and pushed it open for her.
After the crisp cold outside, the cavernous interior was dim and fragrant with hay and the scent of animals. And here, out of the wind, Martha felt a lot warmer. From somewhere she heard the friendly nicker of a horse. Another answered, then a third.
“This is where the baby lambs stay when their mamas can’t feed them, and Fraser and Tom and Birdie’s Hugh have to look after them.” Daisy had climbed onto the bars of an empty pen. “Sometimes mamas can’t look after their babies even if they want to— that’s what Fraser says—and then people have to do it for them. And over there’s where Fraser keeps all the medicine stuff they need for the lambs, and—”
“Hold on, hold on.” Martha laughed. Fraser this, Fraser that. “How do you expect me to remember all this, sweetie? I don’t know anything about sheep. Or cows or—”
“Don’t worry. Me’n’ Bloss will show you everything,” Daisy promised, her eyes big and blue. “C’mon. There’s way more.”
“I know.” Martha patted her shoulder. “But don’t forget I’m just a visitor here. I can’t see everything in one day.” How was she to gently let the girl know that she wouldn’t be staying? That they’d have to find another Lady Companion?
Martha followed the girl to one of the empty pens. Daisy quickly scrambled between the bars and ran to the corner. Martha looked around. There appeared to be no one else in the barn. Gingerly she put one foot on the lower rail, then eased herself over the top. Her feet sank into the deep straw bedding in the pen as she moved toward the girl.
“Oh, my! Kittens!” Delighted, Martha dropped to her knees in the dark far corner of the pen and reached for a mewing, blinking ball of fur. “Daisy, aren’t they adorable?”
The girl had already picked up two kittens, one gray, one orange, and was cuddling them to her chest. The mother cat leapt away lightly and sat on a nearby straw bale licking her fur. From time to time, she mewed silently, showing her pink gums and tongue and sharp white teeth, but other than that, she didn’t seem worried about her family.
“Oh, look, this one’s got its eyes open,” Daisy said, turning and holding up the orange kitten. Martha could just see milky blue slits, whereas the kitten she held still had tightly closed eyes.
“Fraser says I can have one when they’re big enough to leave their mama,” Daisy said, holding first one kitten, then the other to her nose and kissing the tops of their tiny furry heads. “He says I can have one kitten to live in the house with us, or I can have as many kittens as I want if they live down at the barn.”
Daisy screwed up her face, obviously considering her options for the umpteenth time.
As many as she wanted at the barn.
Fraser McKenna sounded like a very wise man. It was a fleeting thought, and it gave Martha a little extra comfort to think that she was leaving the girls with a man of character. Boozing, womanizing, whatever—the boozing had already turned out to be a rumor, apparently—all her instincts told her the girls were safe with Fraser. There probably wasn’t a place anywhere in the world that was safer. Oddly she’d felt safe with him, too. At first. Not that it mattered all that much. By tomorrow or the next day, or whenever it was convenient for him, she’d be on her way.
“Aren’t you sweet?” She raised the kitten she held and laughed aloud as she felt its drum-tight belly. “Ouch!” Each of the kitten’s four little legs were spread wide, needle-sharp claws extended. One had snagged her thumb. She perched the kitten on her shoulder and nuzzled the warm fur. The kitten dug its claws into the leather of her coat, holding on for dear life.
Suddenly the mother cat drew herself up and hissed. Martha heard a familiar growl and looked over her shoulder. Spook stood at the railing, his nose poked into the pen, the rest of him well away from the mother cat.
“Morning, ladies.”
“Oh…good morning,” Martha returned.
“I see you’ve found the kittens.”
“Yes.” Martha put the kitten down and scrambled to her feet. “Daisy brought me.” She felt a warm flush rise into her cheeks. Thank goodness for the relative dimness of the barn. “W-we didn’t know you were here.”
Fraser stood with one boot on the lowest rail, shoulders hunched forward over the top rail. He wore a sheepskin vest and jeans and a plaid shirt, sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows. His hat was dusty. Spook kept up a low growl at his feet. “Just came in. I had to check on one of my rams.”
“There’re sheep in here?” Martha looked around. She’d thought the barn was nearly empty.
“I’ve got a couple of pens on the other side where I keep animals that need special attention,” he said, but she could see that his eyes were on Daisy and the kitten, not on her. He smiled slightly.
Then he looked at her, Martha, and the smile faded to a wariness she’d seen before. “One of my yearling rams had a run-in with a varmint of some kind last week and needed a few stitches.”
“Oh.” Oh. Is that all you can think of to say, Martha Thomas? It was. Clearly she was doing the smart thing by leaving. She didn’t feel comfortable with this man anymore. Partly because of his revelation last night, partly because of the annoying way her body insisted on responding to him, the nagging attraction she felt—purely physical of course—which he clearly didn’t return in the slightest. Not that she’d want him to, ever! She’d analyzed her reactions while she’d tossed and turned during the sleepless night, and had decided it was not only sophomoric but downright embarrassing.
The sooner she was gone, the better. How had she ever thought she could stay here and work with him? Share meals? Live in the same house? Even applying for this ridiculous job had been thoroughly out of character. Now, in the hard light of day, she wondered what in the world had gotten into her.
“Look at this one, Fraser.” Daisy ran over to the railing with the orange kitten. Fraser took the kitten from her gently and held it in one large hand. “Isn’t he just the sweetest little guy? I think I want him for my very own.”
Daisy looked back at the rest of the litter doubtfully. By now several of the kittens had strayed from their nest and their mother was fretfully calling them back. “Or maybe that little black one…”
Fraser smiled, and his eyes inadvertently met Martha’s. The smile faded in a flash, but in that split second, before he’d hidden it from her, she’d seen such love in his eyes, such affection for this child. Such understanding. She suddenly knew it didn’t matter that he wasn’t Daisy’s father. He cared for the girl—cared for her and her sister—as perhaps their own father never had. Martha instantly knew it for the truth it was. For that split second, she’d seen into Fraser McKenna’s soul. It shook her.
“Why don’t you take that little fella up to show Bloss?”
“Oh, can I?” Daisy beamed, and reached up to take the kitten carefully from Fraser. “Can I really, Fraser?” He leaned over and lifted her to his side of the railing.
“Sure. I don’t think his mama will miss him for a little while. Do you?”
He was asking her—Martha. Martha mumbled something in agreement and awkwardly put her leg through the space between the rails. She hoped he wasn’t watching.
“Careful. Don’t bump your head—”
“Ouch!” She stood and rubbed the back of her head where it had connected with the upper rail. “Too late.” She grinned, feeling like an idiot, and this time, when she caught his glimmer of a smile, she felt something weary and worn and cautious loosen its hold on her heart, something she hadn’t even known was there.
Judith Bowen Page 4