Judith Bowen

by The Man from Blue River

  But she knew exactly what he would do. He wouldn’t give them up. He’d fight to keep them, to honor his promise to their mother. He was that kind of man. She felt something deep and primitive stir inside her. She shivered, suddenly cold, although the kitchen was very warm.

  There was another long silence. Martha could hear the girls’ distant laughter. She heard the clock over the kitchen stove tick busily. You’ll be thirty-six in April, Martha Virginia, the clock sang—tick, tick, tick. A woman in her thirty-seventh year on this earth—what’s stopping you?

  She took a deep shaky breath and found herself nodding. “I’ll think it over. That’s all I can promise.”

  “Let me know as soon as you can,” he said quietly. “Otherwise I’m going to have to get someone else.”

  “I understand.”

  Martha felt herself tremble as she held his gaze. A tiny light flickered deep in his eyes—a challenge?—and it didn’t help her equanimity at all. “I’ll let you know for sure by…well, how about this evening?”

  “That’d be fine.” He stood and walked toward the door and reached for his hat.

  “Oh…by the way.” Martha’s heart hammered against her ribs. In for a penny... “I’m not a widow. I’ve never been married. I—I just told you I was because I thought it might help me get this job.”

  He didn’t say anything. The fire in his eyes, the blackness, seemed to draw her in until she swore she could feel the hard shape of him against her skin, could feel the heat of his body on hers, could feel the muscles of his chest under the tips of her fingers, the flat of her hand.

  She sucked in her breath sharply. Illusion. Her mind playing tricks. He jammed on his hat and pushed open the door without saying a word. Not even a nod. The door slammed behind him.

  That was that. Martha ran to the window and watched him stride to the barn. He didn’t look back.

  Not once.

  DAMN! EVEN NOW, a week later, he could still feel those big eyes of hers burning into his back. He tossed a bale of hay over the side of the truck. He was up with Tom and some of the crew throwing out feed for the cattle they’d left in one of the high pastures.

  When he’d reached the safety of the barn that day— the day they’d talked in the kitchen—he’d let out a victory yell that had scared the horses half to death.

  Then he’d had to go around with a handful of oats for each by way of compensation.

  You don’t tip your hand in a game of stud and you don’t beg a woman to stick around. He’d learned that long ago. Nor had he allowed himself to appeal outright to her emotions, desperate though he was to have her stay.

  It hadn’t been necessary. He’d seen the softness in her eyes when she looked at Daisy, when she held the kitten in her hands. When she smiled. She was a tenderhearted woman. Give her time, a little time, and her heart would do the job for him.

  Maybe he ought to feel guilty, but he didn’t. He hadn’t lied. No one had to make the Langston story sadder than it already was. And she was an adult; she’d made up her own mind. Until February was all she’d promised. Well, they’d see…

  Surely to God Brenda’d be back long before then. Before Christmas. Hell, before Thanksgiving. Then he’d pay Miss Martha Thomas out and send her on her way. Back to Wisconsin. Back to her city life. There was no question in his mind, although she hadn’t said as much, that she was a city woman through and through.

  Miss Thomas! What a laugh.

  Fraser bent down and wrestled another bale of hay from the bed of the pickup. He grunted slightly as he heaved it over the side.

  Whew! Hot work, and the day just above freezing. He took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket, then resettled his hat firmly on his head. He glanced up at the Wind Rivers.

  There was plenty of fresh snow up there; you could taste it in the air. Almost the end of October, and he’d seen snow to stay in this country by the end of September.

  So she wasn’t married.

  Now that had been unexpected. Not that it made a bit of difference, her being a hot-blooded widow or a vestal virgin. What was she doing single, anyway, a woman like her at her age? He frowned. Didn’t say a hell of a lot for those Wisconsin lumberjacks.

  Still, having an unmarried woman in his household might be a problem. It might have a bearing on his keeping the girls if the authorities found out. Single woman, living in his house—damn!

  It gave him an odd feeling. There was someone else under his roof now. Someone else to look out for. And only three short months ago, it had been just him.

  He remembered that evening last week. Those big blue eyes of hers, more gray than blue in the lamplight, had held his steadily as she’d told him she’d changed her mind. If he’d leaned forward, just six inches or so.

  But he hadn’t.

  He’d deliberately looked away, at the wall calendar, at an open cupboard door…

  He couldn’t figure this woman. Something about her unsettled him. Something about her teased at his senses. Something about her told him to keep well clear.

  He wished he knew what it was. He sometimes felt that way when a woman turned him on, when he was sexually attracted. But that wasn’t the case here. At least he didn’t think so. She wasn’t his type, although…

  Just what is your type these days, McKenna?

  She was definitely attractive enough, in a plain sort of way that could grow on a man. She wore no makeup, but he liked that. She was average height, maybe a little taller. Medium build, strong-looking, a bit thin, maybe, but womanly enough in all the right places. Light brown hair, blue eyes, smooth pale skin. Calm. Sensible. She struck him as having a great deal of calmness to her spirit. She’d be good with the girls. He’d felt that instinctively the day he’d met her.

  There was nothing coquettish about her, and maybe that was why he felt a little awkward around her. Martha seemed, well…proper. In his experience, most women liked to flirt a little. Enjoyed it. He could handle a flirt. There was nothing of the flirt in Martha Thomas. She was as straightforward as any man. Even the way she’d told him she wasn’t a widow.

  “I’ve never been married,” she’d said simply. A faint flush had crept over the creamy skin of her throat that day in the kitchen, and he’d had an odd sensation of wanting to touch her.

  Hell, he thought as he viciously heaved the last bale over the side of the pickup, there were worse things in life than telling stupid little lies to get a dumb job like the one he had to offer.

  Fraser wiped his upper lip with his sleeve and straightened. He looked at his watch uneasily, just as he did most days about this time. Just after three. The school bus came at four o’clock. He still wasn’t used to not meeting it twice a day.

  In a way, he missed those trips. He missed Daisy asking a million questions on the short ride to meet her sister, and he missed the way Bloss’s face lit up when she got off the bus and saw them. Poor kid. Brenda had a lot to answer for as a mother, in his opinion.

  He frowned and jumped down from the bed of the pickup. Every time he thought of what might have happened to the girls’ mother, he got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He just wasn’t cut out to take care of two kids like this for so long. Brenda knew that. He wasn’t cut out to be a father. He wished to hell Brenda would get back, and soon.

  The vague unease he felt flickered into fear. Just for a second or two. What if Martha forgot about picking up Bloss today? What if she and Daisy got busy with something and simply forgot what time it was? It hadn’t happened yet, not once. But it could happen. Sometimes he’d been busy with something and damn near forgotten to pick up Bloss, and he’d had more practice than Martha.

  He climbed into his pickup. “See you in about an hour or so, Tom,” he called to his foreman as he backed out the truck and turned onto the narrow dirt road, his fear growing. Why? Deep down, did he really trust her? Was that it? He didn’t know her. She was an outsider, an unknown quantity.

  Quite a few ne
ighbors knew he had the girls, but he could depend on them. This business with Daisy and Bloss the last couple of months had put him on edge. Had dragged the past right back in his face, strong and vivid. Damn Brenda, anyway, for leaving her two kids with him again. She knew how he felt about taking on that kind of responsibility.

  And this Lady Companion he’d hired. Come right down to it, he didn’t feel a hundred percent about her. She’d been altogether too damn nosy about why he had the girls in the first place. She asked too damn many questions, period.

  The instant he drove into the yard, he knew she wasn’t there. He knew Daisy was gone, too. His gut didn’t lie.

  He leapt out of the truck, leaving the door open and the engine running. Panic rolled through him, thick and dense and heavy, squeezing his heart.

  “Martha!” He ran from room to room like a madman. No one was there. Birdie’d been there earlier— everything was neat and tidy—but the house had the kind of cold feeling that told him it had been empty for a while. “Daisy!”

  Fraser….please, help me… Echoes, dream voices from long ago, mocked him, whispered his name. He cursed them.

  “Martha, damn you, where are you?”

  He ran back to the open kitchen door, looked toward the shed where he kept the Bronco. Gone. He looked at the kitchen clock. Nearly half an hour before the school bus was due. They wouldn’t have left to meet it yet, she and Daisy; it was just a five-minute drive.

  She’d taken Daisy away. She was picking up Bloss from the bus and she was taking the girls away with her. “Handing them over to the proper authorities,” as she’d put it so prissily last week. Maybe she’d already taken them. Maybe she’d taken them and gone away this morning. Maybe…

  No. That was crazy. Slow down, McKenna. Get hold of yourself. Think.

  Cursing the day he’d met her, cursing the dreams that had fed his soul with unbearable fear for nearly four years now—cursing everything but the girls—he jumped back into his pickup and slammed it into gear.

  He’d be there when the bus came. He’d find out if Bloss was on that bus. He’d find out what the hell was going on. Miss Martha Thomas wasn’t going to get away with this, by God.

  Not if he could help it.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MARTHA GEARED DOWN for the long hill ahead and glanced out the side window of the Bronco at the Wind Rivers. All that snow up on the mountains made her cold.

  Good thing she’d decided to go into Pine Ridge for some warm clothes this morning after dropping Anne off at the bus. Winter boots. Wool socks. Flannel pajamas. She’d managed to find them all in the aging Pine Ridge Mall. And some things for the girls.

  She glanced at Daisy, strapped into the seat belt beside her, clutching her tattered kangaroo. Would she ever get the toy away from the girl long enough to wash it? Laundry. Was that her responsibility now?

  All Fraser had said was that she’d be looking after the children. He seemed to assume she’d know what that entailed. Why would she? A single woman who didn’t even have any nieces or nephews. But then, what would he, a bachelor, know about looking after kids, either? Mind you, she reminded herself, he’d already had some practice. Three months since their mother had disappeared.

  “What’s your favorite color, sweetheart?”

  “Purple”

  “Purple, huh? What’s Anne’s favorite color?”

  Daisy put her head to one side and considered. “Blue, I think. I don’t know. Anne likes green, too.”

  The girl turned to face Martha gravely, eyes huge. Martha had finally convinced Daisy to call her sister by the name she preferred. “Don’t ever give her nothin’ pink. Uh-uh.” She shook her head solemnly. “She hates pink. Aunty Vi gave us pink teddy bears once, and Anne threw hers out the hayloft window. The top one.”

  Angry little girl, Martha thought, frowning slightly as she geared down for another hill. Poor Anne. Martha had the feeling that the child missed her mother desperately, yet was too proud to admit it. “What happened to the teddy?”

  “Got busted. But I fixed it. I put Band-Aids all over his legs—Birdie helped me—and now they’re all better. Birdie’s a nurse, y’know. A real nurse,” Daisy confided with a shining innocent smile that never failed to warm Martha’s heart. “Now I got two teddies, ‘stead of one, ‘cause Anne said I could keep hers forever and ever.”

  “That’s nice.” Martha smiled back at her.

  Daisy bit her lip. “So don’t ever give Anne stuff that’s pink.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  Lesson learned. In the past week she’d learned a lot about the girls, what they liked and what they didn’t like, but not much about their guardian. Fraser was usually gone before she took Anne to the school bus, and very often she didn’t see him until nearly dinnertime, when he’d come into the house, grab something from the freezer and toss it in the microwave.

  She was going to have a chat with him about that. Sure, she’d been told that cooking wasn’t part of her job, but there was a limit to how much processed microwavable food anyone could be expected to eat. She’d be glad to take over the cooking if he was agreeable.

  All he’d said when she told him she’d stay was a terse “I appreciate that.” She’d decided it was the nearest he could come to saying thank-you. He was a fiercely independent man. It riled him that he had to get help to look after the girls, it riled him that she hadn’t immediately promised to stay and it riled him that she wouldn’t make a commitment beyond February. Good heavens, what did he expect? That she’d stay forever? What if the girls’ mother never came back?

  Not a problem. According to him, Brenda would be back any day now. Martha hoped he was right. But she wondered how he could be so sure about someone who’d abandon her children like that. Who could tell what she’d do?

  “I decided I want to be a bumblebee, after all, Martha. Bumblebees like flowers.”

  Bumblebee? Martha frowned. Then she remembered—they’d talked about Halloween costumes on the way to town. Martha had been shocked to realize the girls had no plans for trickor-treating. She’d loved Halloween when she was a child. Without consulting Anne, Martha and Daisy had gone ahead and picked out costumes at a store in the mall.

  “Anne’s gonna love the princess stuff,” Daisy said dreamily.

  “I hope you’re right,” Martha replied, gazing into the distance. Somehow, she couldn’t see Anne as a princess. But then again…

  Was that the school bus ahead? Martha stepped on the accelerator slightly. She wanted to be there when the bus stopped at the side road that led to Westbank Ranch. She didn’t want to be late picking up Anne and taking her home.

  Home. Was the ranch—and Fraser McKenna and a three-legged dog named Spook—what the girls now regarded as home?

  The shopping trip this morning had been an impulse. When Fraser’s housekeeper, Birdie LeBlanc, arrived before they left for the school bus, Martha had thought it might be best to stay out of her way. She hadn’t left a note, thinking they’d be back long before this. But she wasn’t too concerned. She didn’t think Fraser expected to be informed of every little detail. He’d told her clearly that she was in charge of the girls. And he’d invited her to use the Bronco whenever she wanted.

  She’d enjoyed the new experience of shopping with a child and had bought the girls all kinds of little presents. Coloring books for Daisy, a new school-book bag for Anne, push-out paper dolls for both of them. New hair ribbons. Crowing with delight, Daisy’d even picked out an enormous rawhide bone for Spook.

  Everything had seemed new and exciting to the girl, which had warmed Martha’s heart and turned the usual drudgery of shopping into a pleasure. She had the definite impression that the girls—Daisy, at least—hadn’t spent much time in town, shopping or otherwise. Somehow she couldn’t see Fraser taking them. Was this the “woman stuff” he’d talked about?

  She and Daisy had had lunch together at the Pine Ridge Inn, and now it looked as though they’d be right on target to meet
Anne at the bus. An altogether enjoyable day.

  Actually Martha was starting to feel that taking care of Daisy and Anne was going to be more fun than work. It just required a little organization.

  “Look!” Daisy shouted, and pointed ahead.

  “There’s the school bus.” Martha winked at Daisy and the girl smiled back. Then she flicked on the radio, and they both began singing along to a Garth Brooks song.

  “Hey, Martha!”

  “What?” Martha stopped behind the bus, her mind only half on Daisy’s exclamation. The warning lights on the bus were flashing red as the door opened and Anne stepped out. Martha touched the horn, waving madly through the windshield. The bus began to pull away, and Anne walked toward them, a smile lighting up her rather pinched features.

  “There’s Fraser, too!” Daisy shouted. “Over there.”

  Martha swung around. Yes, there was Fraser’s dark green pickup parked on the road that led to the ranch. “What’s he doing here?”

  She frowned, thinking, then smiled as Anne opened the back door of the Bronco. “Hop in, Anne.”

  Martha turned to help Anne move some packages and didn’t notice right away that Daisy had unsnapped her seat belt. The next instant the child had opened the door and climbed out of the Bronco.

  “Oh, dear God!” Martha felt her heart slam against her ribs. Helpless, she watched Daisy dash across the road and open the passenger door of Fraser’s pickup. Thank goodness there was no other traffic. Still, she should have anticipated…

  Heart thumping, she put the Bronco in gear and eased it across the highway, turning onto the ranch road. She stopped opposite Fraser’s truck. Why wasn’t he getting out?

  Something was wrong. She had an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She put on the emergency brake and got out, leaving Anne busily peering into the bags and parcels on the back seat.

  “Hi!” She walked toward the pickup, conscious that her smile felt a little forced. “Didn’t expect to see you here.” She hesitated. “Everything all right?”