She followed Fraser and Daisy out of the barn into the sunshine. The Wind River Mountains loomed brilliant in the distance, snowcapped and glorious and utterly uncompromising. No doubt about it, this was wild and beautiful country. God’s country. Daisy had run on ahead, cradling the kitten in her jacket. Spook followed closely behind.
Fraser stopped by the barnyard gate and rested one hand on the top bar. In a far field Martha saw some sheep she hadn’t noticed when she and Daisy left the house. She heard faint baa-ing sounds, far-off and thin. The animals were surprisingly white against the dull October brown of the pasture, and larger than she’d expected. Ram-bo-lays, she repeated mentally, mimicking Fraser’s pronunciation. Sheep, for Pete’s sake.
Why had he stopped? She glanced at him quickly. He was frowning and seemed in no hurry to open the gate. Shivering, she squeezed her fingers together in her pockets and dug her hands in deeper.
From this vantage point, the house, set on a slight natural rise, looked sprawling and comfortable, set away as it was from the series of weathered corrals and sheds laid out around the barn. Martha realized she hadn’t really examined it before, not closely. It was constructed mainly of logs, she saw now, with additions here and there framed in lumber. Those additions were wood-shingled, their paint faded. The house looked solid and unpretentious and very much as though it belonged exactly where it stood.
“We need to talk,” Fraser said.
She looked up at him again. In the sunshine she saw the lines of weariness she’d noticed when she first met him. Responsibility. Care. He looked like a man with a past. A man who, some days, carried the world on his shoulders.
“Yes.”
“Here?” He raised one eyebrow. “I’ve got an office back in the barn. Or do you want to come up to the house for coffee?”
Martha shivered violently—couldn’t help herself— and watched his quick look of concern turn to indifference as he gave her a lightning once-over. Well, of course she wasn’t dressed warmly enough, but what did it matter? She’d be gone just as soon as she could get away.
“C-coffee, I think. Maybe we shouldn’t leave the girls….”’
“Let’s go up to the house, then,” he said. He took her elbow and escorted her through the gate, then pulled his hand abruptly away. He latched the gate and strode toward the ranch house.
He couldn’t bear to touch her. Why?
Martha hurried to catch up, then fell in beside him, taking three steps to his two, determined not to lag behind. She dug her hands even deeper into her jacket pockets and fought back another attack of shivers.
Yes, they needed to talk. She knew he wouldn’t be pleased when he heard what she had to say.
CHAPTER FOUR
MARTHA MADE the coffee while Fraser went to the sink just inside the kitchen door. From the corner of her eye, she watched him flex the muscles of his back and shoulders, then reach over to hang his hat on one of the wooden pegs near the door. Other hats hung there, and some outdoor jackets. He ran his fingers through his hair quickly and shrugged several more times, as though loosening tightness in his shoulders.
She looked away, busying herself with the coffee machine. Then she heard water running and looked toward him again as he bent to sluice water from the faucet onto his face. He washed his hands thoroughly and methodically with the bar of hard yellow soap Martha had noticed there earlier. He straightened and turned to grab a towel.
Their eyes met.
“Sugar bowl up here?” Martha reached blindly into a cupboard. What had she seen in that brief second or two before she’d wrenched her gaze away? Deep thought, yes. Speculation? Guarded interest? In her? Heavens, no—he was probably mustering arguments designed to convince her to stay, just as she was wildly racking her brain for all the reasons she should leave.
It had seemed so clear this morning. Leaving was definitely the smartest idea. Yet she found herself increasingly curious about the secrets held within these walls. Who was Brenda? And why did he care so much about her children if he wasn’t their father? She thought of that split second in the barn, that one blinding flash of insight when she’d seen the way he looked at Daisy.
Well. She had been hoping for adventure, hadn’t she?
“Sugar’s next door over.” He finished drying his face and hands, not hurrying, then walked over to the cupboard by the stove and pulled down an opened package of store-bought cookies, which he tossed onto the table. The machine spat out the last of the freshly brewed coffee.
“I’ll check on the girls.” He paused at the door that led to the hall and raised an eyebrow. “That kitten will give them something to do for a few minutes so we can have our coffee.”
And our talk. Martha got down two thick mugs decorated with the faded crest of some Montana Hereford association. She heard his footsteps echo in the hall. There was no other sound except the distant bawl of a cow and the thin tick-tick-tick of a clock somewhere in the kitchen. The calm domesticity of the scene unsettled her. Everything in this house, on this ranch—almost everything that had happened since she’d left Tewson—was not as it seemed. Those were the facts. Yet, strangely, this kitchen said otherwise.
“The girls are fine. They’re in their room,” Fraser said when he returned. He pulled out a chair and sat down, then picked up a spoon and the sugar bowl.”’ “All right,” he said calmly. “Let me fill you in on—”
“Hold on.” Why put it off? “I might as well tell you I’ve thought things over since last night, and I’ve decided—” Martha caught his glance and her throat dried “—uh, I don’t think I’ll stay. Considering.”
He stirred his coffee slowly. “I see.” His eyes showed no emotion. No surprise. No disappointment. It was as though he’d expected as much. “So you don’t want to hear the whole story?”
She knew if she said she didn’t, he’d just walk away from it. Shrug, finish his coffee, then get on the phone and round up someone else. He wasn’t going to beg.
She swallowed. Darn it, she was too curious to just let it go like that. “Tell me, anyway.”
He raised his mug and met her eyes. “Okay,” he began slowly and deliberately. “These two girls were dumped on me. It’s happened before and it’ll happen again. Only, Brenda’s taking her damn sweet time coming back, and so I’ve decided to look after things myself.” He took a long swallow of the hot coffee.
“Who’s Brenda?”
“A neighbor,” he replied flatly, as if that explained everything.
“I see,” Martha murmured, bewildered. She picked up her own mug. Neighbors. Okay, she could guess what that kind of connection meant in this part of the country. As thick as blood anywhere else. But what kind of woman dropped two kids on a rancher’s doorstep, neighbor or not, then took off?
“Brenda’s ten or twelve years younger than me, but basically we grew up together. She and her sister, me and my brothers. The Langstons own the spread just north of here.” He waved his spoon in the general direction.
He gave Martha a hard look, a direct look. “Have you ever met a woman who’d have been better off if she’d never had kids?”
Martha nodded uncertainly. She hadn’t met a woman like that personally, but she knew such women existed. Men, too.
“Well, that’s Brenda. She’s not cut out for motherhood. If this were the sixties, she’d be a hippy. She’s flaky as hell, always has been. Oh, she cares for Bloss and Daisy, no question of that. But she’s not what you’d call a real down-to-earth responsible kind of person. She’s—” He shrugged, hesitated as though he meant to add something more, then changed his mind.
“As I said last night, I have no idea who Blossom’s father is,” he contmued bluntly, “although she looks a little like a cowboy I had around here the year before she was born…”
“Some drifter?”
“You could say that.” He took another swallow of coffee. “Half-Indian, he was. Shoshone. Damn good wrangler, as I recall. Only stayed for one season.” He reached for a cookie
and pushed the bag toward her.
Martha shivered. She couldn’t help herself. “What about Daisy? Who’s her father?”
“I have no idea.”
“Didn’t her mother…didn’t Brenda ever say?” Martha was horrified. She didn’t regard herself as any kind of prude, in fact rather prided herself on her liberal views about most things. Still, for a woman to have children willy-nilly like that with any man who happened to pass through her life….
“Nope.” He gave her another hard look. “And nobody ever asked. Nobody’s business but hers, we all figured.” He frowned and studied the coffee in his raised mug. “The Langstons generally kept to themselves.”
“How does she manage? Does she have a job?”
“Brenda’s run wild ever since she was a girl. She lives in an old trailer on her folks’ place now, about a mile from here.” He shrugged. “The rest of the family wasn’t much better. The sister ran off years ago. Old Man Langston was no rancher. Always working on some invention or other, letting his land run to weed. There’s a couple sheds full of stuff up there, contraptions that never worked.”
He shrugged again. “I paid him rent for years to run my cattle on his land. Maybe they had something coming in from somewhere else. Maybe not. I never asked.”
He wouldn’t. Nobody’s business. “But I still don’t get it. Why did the girls end up here at your place?”
“Brenda dropped them off one day, like she always does. No warning.” He got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. Martha studied the muscled width of his back, the trace of sweat down the center, the way his shirt fit him, rumpled-looking, definitely not ironed, but just about perfect. He turned and leaned back against the counter, facing her. “I came down from fixing fence one day and there they were.”
“That’s incredible!”
“As I said, it’s happened before. I’ve known Bloss and Daisy since they were born. Every so often, maybe two or three times a year, Brenda gets itchy and brings the girls down here and takes off. That’s just Brenda. Hell.” He lifted one shoulder slightly. “We’re used to it around here. Most times she shows up in a week or two. It’s never been a problem really.”
“And now it is.”
He gave her a narrow look. “Still not really a problem,” he said slowly. He walked back to the table. “Except she’s never been gone this long before. The LeBlancs help out, Hugh and Birdie. They always do. But I got a business to run, and Birdie’s not as young as she used to be. That’s why I decided to hire someone to help out this time.” He smiled wryly. “Brenda’ll show up one of these days.”
You hope, she thought. Martha found it hard to believe what she was hearing. “Why doesn’t she leave them with her parents?”
“I guess you could say Brenda figures she can count on me.” Her voice was level. “She trusts me. I’ve known her all her life. That’s the way it works in this valley. Neighbors look out for each other.” A flash of pain swept over his face, just a matter of a second or two, but Martha felt it in her gut. His eyes were expressionless when they met hers.
Trust. Trust was a very big word.
“Fact is, her parents weren’t the most reliable sort, either. Seems to run in the family. Besides—” he ran his hand through his hair impatiently, and the heel of his boot scraped harshly on the floor “—her ma died a couple years ago, cancer, and her old man drank himself to death six months later. Brenda’s been on her own for a while. It’s been tough on her.”
“How long have the girls been living here?”
He hesitated. “Going on three months.”
“Three months!”
He nodded.
The wall phone, just behind his head, rang. He reached for it, his eyes still on hers, still wary, still searching. For what? What did he want from her?
“Westbank Ranch. McKenna here,” was his gruff greeting. He frowned. “Uh-huh, late last night.”
Martha got up, taking her mug to the sink. Her head was spinning. This man had been looking after two children who weren’t his for nearly three months! This was mid-October; he must have had them since just after school got out. She’d never heard of such a thing. Weren’t there relatives somewhere? What about the sister? Where were the authorities? Three months! Where in heaven’s name was the mother, and when was she coming back?
Gradually some of what he was saying on the phone penetrated.
“Can’t say just yet, Katie.” Had he shot a quick speculative glance at her? “Sure, the girls want to go to Ted’s wedding, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.” He paused. “We’ll see.” He listened again. “I don’t know. Things are still, uh, a little unsettled around here.”
He caught Martha’s eye briefly, then listened again, somewhat impatiently, she thought with an unexpected sense of satisfaction once she realized who was on the other end of the line.
“Yeah, too bad. It was the girls’ decision.” He glanced at Martha again, and she looked away. “I appreciate that, Katie. I’ll keep it in mind if I’m stuck.” The girls had decided they wanted her, she remembered. Not Fraser.
“Katie, I can’t talk now. I’ll call you later, all right?” He listened a few seconds longer, then hung up. His eyes held hers. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem.” She couldn’t help asking, “Katie Barker?”
His look of surprise pleased her. “You know Katie?”
“No, but the girls filled me in.”
He raised one eyebrow. “They did?”
“Oh, how she’d been trying to drag you to the altar.” Martha barely hid her amusement.
“Oh, hell.” Was he blushing? He actually looked embarrassed. “Vi Jamieson putting ideas into their heads, that’s all. Woman doesn’t have enough to do in the off-season.”
“I see.” Martha got up and went to the counter. “More coffee?”
“No, thanks.” He didn’t return her smile. “So, anything I say change your mind?”
“I—I don’t know.” She rubbed the toe of one sneaker against the back of the other. “I’d made up my mind to leave this morning. Now…now, I just don’t know.”
“You got something else to go to?”
“No. Nothing important.” She sat down again, one foot tucked under her. She fiddled with the spoon on the table, reluctant to meet his eyes. “I just don’t know what to do,” she said helplessly.
“You’ve got to make up your mind.” His voice was rough. “If you’re staying, I want a commitment. These girls have been through enough, and I don’t want them getting attached to you, and then you walking out the first time something doesn’t suit you.”
She looked up, angry. “I wouldn’t walk out. I wouldn’t do that.”
“Maybe you wouldn’t. A lot would. I don’t intend to take any chances, that’s all.”
“That’s ridiculous and you know it!”
His eyes blazed for a second, but she knew she had to say what was on her mind. “If I stayed, it’d be because I wanted to stay, not because of some promise you’d managed to drag out of me. And I need a few more answers before I can make up my mind.”
“Fire away,” he said grimly.
“Okay. Why do you still have the girls? Why haven’t you turned them over to the authorities?”
“Dammit, woman!” Fraser exploded. He got up from the table and walked to the window, every inch of his body signaling anger. Anger and frustration. He wheeled. “You just don’t get it, do you? What am I supposed to do—stick ‘em in some city orphanage? Turn them over to a bunch of strangers? Some overworked social worker? I don’t know what happens where you come from, but up here folks stick together. Brenda left her girls with me. I intend to take care of them until she gets back.”
It was the first time she’d seen his anger, although she’d sensed something volatile, something big and unnamed just under the surface of the man, from the instant she’d met him. Passions deeply felt and tightly reined. Still, his outburst didn’t frighten her. If anything, this evide
nce of his true feelings exhilarated her. She felt the excitement of a new challenge.
“Okay, what about Brenda anyway? Where is she? You must have some idea.”
“I wish I did.” He shook his head wearily and leaned against the counter. “I set a private investigator on her two months ago, but he didn’t turn up much. Trail too cold by then, I guess.”
“Do the authorities know? School?”
“No.” He hesitated. “At least I hope not. Daisy’s at home and Bloss just started back in September. I take her to the bus and pick her up. So far, there’s been no trouble. She never mentions Brenda.”
“Oh, yes, she does,” Martha said softly. “She told me her mother was dead.” The black look on Fraser’s face shocked her, but she continued. “Back at the hotel And she told me you were her father. She said she called you Fraser, instead of Dad, because it was more modern.”
“She told you that?”
“Yes.”
He turned toward the window again, and Martha could read the tension in the rigid line of his shoulders. After a minute or so, he turned back, his face set. He didn’t say anything. She knew he wouldn’t. And the silence nearly suffocated her.
“So this whole situation is more or less illegal, isn’t it?” she managed finally.
He nodded.
“The mother’s never been reported missing or any of that, and now you want me to help you out? Help you look after these kids, help you keep them hidden until the mother returns? Help you keep them safe? Is that it?”
He stared at her a long time, his eyes darker than she’d ever seen them before, the shuttered look almost impenetrable. “Yes.” He held her astonished gaze until her stomach quivered. “That’s exactly what I want you to do.”
“Wh-what if she doesn’t come back?” Martha barely dared to voice the unthinkable. “Ever?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was harsh. “I’ll just have to face that possibility when the time comes, won’t I? If it comes.”
Judith Bowen Page 5