Trust Martha? He recalled the day he thought she’d taken the girls and turned them over to some social agency. He hadn’t trusted her then, that was for damn sure. But now? His gut told him he could trust her. That when he got back to the ranch, she’d be there. That she’d watch over the girls, keep them safe, just as he would’ve done.
Some feeling, vaguely like disloyalty, told him he didn’t care to discuss the situation any further with Katie. It told him he wanted to protect Martha from the kind of gossip he knew had been generated the moment he’d hired her.
Ted and Mary Jane were making the rounds, greeting guests.
“Look at old Ted,” he said, nudging Katie and smiling broadly. “Ever think that rascal’d end up married?”
Katie laughed. “Thought you’d get married again before Teddy ever took the plunge.” She squeezed his arm. “Any time you think about changing your mind, Fraser…” She paused, looked up at him. “You know that.”
He smiled, embarrassed. “I appreciate that, Katie.” He put his arm around her shoulder in a brotherly gesture and pulled her close for a moment. “But it’s not that way between you and me, Katie, and you know it. Let’s stay friends.”
She nodded, but he could tell it cost her and that made him feel even worse. After all, once, briefly, they’d been more than friends. Back when he’d tried to find a woman who could take the pain away. But that was over, had been over for a long time. “Besides, you know I’ve got no interest in marrying again.”
Katie nodded again, but her smile was shaky. Then she seemed to gather herself together and, with a genuine squeal of delight, accepted the invitation of Adam Barker, another of her brothers, to a dance.
Fraser tugged at his formal tie, loosening it a bit. Damn these rented monkey suits, anyway! He’d give anything to be back at the ranch. He wasn’t cut out for small talk and dancing. He’d arrived yesterday for a quick walk-through rehearsal and wasn’t planning to leave until the morning.
Over the next hour, Fraser figured he’d danced with nearly every woman in the room, all the ones he knew and a few he didn’t. Ted Barker had been a popular buckaroo on several Wind River ranches before taking his rodeo winnings and savings last year and leaving the high country to buy himself a ranch near Tewson. Mary Jane Hastings was the cause of all that—the Rock Springs elementary-school teacher Ted had met while buying nails in the local hardware store.
“Whiskey, boy?” Judd Barker, the patriarch of the large and extended Barker family, handed him a glass. Forty on his next birthday, Fraser didn’t feel much like a boy, but that was what Judd called anyone younger than his own seventy-odd years.
“Thanks, Judd.” Fraser took a sip, grimaced and set the glass down on a table beside him. Bourbon wasn’t his drink at the best of times. A couple of beers now and again, sure, but what he’d told Martha was truehe wasn’t much for liquor. The wiry old rancher gave him a sharp look from under grizzled brows.
“Not drinkin’, boy? What’s the matter with ya?”
“Nothing.” There was a long moment’s comfortable silence, the mark of friendship and respect among ranching men, then Fraser surprised himself by saying, “I’m going to head out soon, Judd. Weather’s turning.” Not that it mattered, but now he’d mentioned it, he suddenly felt an urgency he hadn’t felt before. “Fine wedding. I look forward to another one when you get Katie married off.”
Judd Barker chuckled. “Maybe not as best man, boy. She ‘pears to have you staked out.”
“Heck, I don’t know about that,” Fraser replied lazily, watching Katie dance by with one of the top hands on her father’s ranch. Katie was blushing and laughing at something the cowboy had said. That was a good sign, as far as Fraser was concerned. Katie’s natural high spirits had returned. “Looks like Farley Bell’s got his eye on her.”
The older rancher just grunted.
Fraser thought about what he’d said a moment earlier. Why not head back tonight? He hadn’t had much to drink, and he was sick and tired of dancing and answering sideways questions about Brenda and about the woman he’d hired to look after the girls. He’d had it with fending off the flirtatious younger sisters and Rock Springs divorcés so-called friends kept bringing over. He was tired of people assuming Katie Barker had some claim on him, unwarranted as he knew it was— and Katie knew it was.
And he wanted to get out of this damn tuxedo.
Making up his mind, he strode over to find Ted.
“I’m heading out, buddy. Back up to Blue River,” he said to his friend. He bent down to kiss the bride.
“So soon?” Mary Jane said with a small frown. “Why, I don’t believe you’ve met my cousin, Moyra yet, come up all the way from Cheyenne—”
“Maybe another time,” Fraser said hastily.
“Got to get back to that there nanny you hired, huh?” his friend drawled with a broad wink. Fraser felt like slugging him. “I hear she ain’t too hard on the eyes, either.”
Fraser ignored him. “I hate to leave the girls too long. You know how it is.”
“Sure,” Ted agreed with a sly grin. “I know how it is.”
Twenty minutes later, Fraser was in the cab of his pickup, maneuvering out of the parking lot. It was snowing lightly, but he’d just caught the weather report and didn’t think he’d have any trouble getting back. He looked at the dimly lit clock on the dash— almost midnight. He’d be home in a couple of hours.
He felt a kind of excitement grip him as he turned onto the highway and headed north. It wasn’t that he had to get back to the girls, the excuse he’d given Ted. Martha would take good care of them, he knew that.
It just felt right to be heading home.
Home. The word made him feel good inside. Home was where he wanted to be.
MARTHA AWOKE with a start. Or had she even been asleep?
She listened. It was quiet, absolutely quiet in the old house. And she could hear no car engine outside. That wasn’t what had wakened her.
Martha felt for her slippers beside the bed. Brr! She tiptoed to the window, not wanting to interrupt the silence of the house. Outside, snowflakes drifted lazily from a dark sky to land softly on the hard-crusted snow. The moon was full, which made the scene before her even more magical and glorious.
What a beautiful place. What a beautiful winter night. Martha turned her head, listening. One of the girls?
She tiptoed down the hall and pushed open the door to the girls room. She winced as it creaked on its old hinges. But the sound didn’t disturb their dreams. Daisy was curled on her side, cuddling her kangaroo, a dozen other stuffed toys holding vigil on her pillow and quilt. Anne lay flat on her back, hair wild and black against the white of the pillow slip, arms flung wide, legs sprawled. Martha gently pulled up her quilt and tucked it in. She stood for a moment as the feelings welled in her heart.
She cared for these motherless girls; she cared too much.
She tiptoed out of their room, pulling the door closed behind her, and returned to her own room. There was something wonderful about watching the sleep of innocent children. So much peace in the room, such warmth of cozy bodies relaxed in sleep, such a tangle of emotions at rest. Such trust.
But she missed Fraser. He was at the Barker wedding and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. His absence was the one wrong note in the ageless silent song of the old house.
That, and the letter on the kitchen table.
The letter had come Friday after Fraser had left for Rock Springs. Registered. The letter carrier had made the long trip up the drive, instead of leaving it in the mailbox. Martha had signed for it, her heart leaping when she’d seen the return address—no name, but a box number in Alabama. The detective Fraser had told her he’d hired? Brenda? Could she be writing after all this time to the man she’d left in charge of her children?
Martha told herself she hoped it was a letter from Brenda. A letter telling Fraser she’d be back soon, apologizing for having left him with the children for so long. Or perhaps she�
�d want the children sent to her. She just hoped Brenda had one heck of a good excuse for what she’d done.
And then she, Martha, could make her plans. Funny, but she didn’t feel much like leaving anymore. She’d become used to the place, to the laughter of the children, to kissing their bruises and reading them bedtime stories. Driving Anne to the bus every morning and picking her up every afternoon. There was a pleasant measured rhythm to her days that she’d never experienced—or appreciated—until now.
Still…she’d always known this job was just temporary. And she’d been here less than a month. There was danger in growing to love children she could never call her own. She thought of Daisy’s shy trusting smile and Anne’s squeal of triumph when she bested Martha at a board game, and she wondered if perhaps it wasn’t already too late.
Martha stepped back to the window. She was sure she’d just heard a car’s engine. But that was impossible. It was well past midnight. She picked up the small alarm clock on her bedside table and saw that it was, in fact, ten past two. But that was definitely the sound of a vehicle coming up the road.
Heart hammering, she looked out the window again. She’d never really felt frightened being alone, and there was no point in worrying now. Tom was in the bunkhouse, only a short phone call away if she needed him. But the dogs didn’t bark, and that was what made Martha finally realize it wasn’t a stranger driving up to the house.
It was Fraser.
He had returned. A stupid giddiness made her smile in the darkness, hug herself in the chill near the window.
She watched as he drove up to the house, instead of the garage where he usually parked. The few seconds she spent waiting for him to get out of the truck seemed to last a very long time. And when he did, slowly, stiffly, stretching hugely before bending down for a quick pat to the leaping, frisking dogs, her heart bumped again.
She was just relieved he was safely back. That was all. Martha watched him walk the few steps toward the house in his shirtsleeves, jacket hooked over his shoulder.
Then she remembered the letter.
She hurried to her bed and grabbed her robe, which she’d thrown over the footboard, and pulled it on. It wasn’t particularly warm—embroidered Shanghai silk wasn’t meant to be—but at least it covered her. Not that the opaque protection of a floor-length longsleeved cotton flannel nightgown needed any further enhancement.
At the door she paused. Perhaps she should wait until morning to find out what was in that letter. Fraser would be tired, and maybe he wouldn’t even want to open it now.
But then she pushed that thought aside. She couldn’t wait. She wouldn’t sleep a wink, wondering. She rushed down the hall as quietly as possible, careful not to disturb the girls.
When she reached the kitchen, she stopped. Fraser was in the kitchen, white dress shirt rumpled, no sign of a tie, jacket tossed onto a chair. But he hadn’t moved beyond the outer door. He leaned against the frame, his eyes on the letter on the table. Spook whined at his feet.
He raised his eyes as she entered the room, and she felt herself flush in the semidarkness. She didn’t need to see his eyes clearly to know he was looking at her, all of her, from her sheepskin-shppered toes to the top of her head. She knew one of her braids had come undone and she must look a mess. She reached for the switch on the wall but didn’t flick it.
“Y-you’re back early.” Could she possibly come up with anything more inane?
“Yes.”
She waited, but he said nothing more. “Shall I turn on the light?”
“If you want. Did I wake you?”
“No. I couldn’t sleep.”
She turned on the light and squeezed her eyes in the sudden brightness. “You got a letter,” she burst out. “It came after you left yesterday.”
“I see that,” he said quietly, his eyes never leaving hers. She felt flustered all of a sudden, exposed, and wished she hadn’t left the sanctuary of her room. This was silly. Absolutely silly. Why was she here?
“Maybe it’s from Brenda,” she said.
“Maybe.”
Martha was surprised. If she’d been in his place, she’d have grabbed the letter immediately and torn it open. After all, he’d been waiting months to hear news of the girls’ mother. “Aren’t you going to open it?”
He moved away from the door and reached for the letter. He turned it over, studied the postmark, the return address, then opened it slowly. There was a single sheet of paper inside, and Martha watched him as he read it.
His jaw tightened, his nostrils flared, and for one tense incredible second, he closed his eyes and took a sharp breath. Martha almost felt him take a step backward, but he didn’t actually move.
“What is it?” she whispered. “Is it from Brenda?”
“It’s from her sister, Louise,” he said, his voice flat. “Brenda’s dead.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“DEAD!”
“Car accident three weeks ago.” Fraser threw the letter and envelope onto the table, and the single sheet of paper fluttered to the floor. “Read it for yourself.” He moved to stand in front of the window.
Martha scrabbled for the paper under the chair. “Omigod, omigod,” she muttered. “I can’t believe it.” She barely realized she was speaking. “Those poor, poor girls.” She felt like crying. Not for Brenda, although God knew the woman could use some of the sympathy in death that she’d so obviously needed in life.
But she’d never met Brenda and couldn’t grieve for her. In fact, suddenly she was angry with her, so angry she couldn’t believe the violence of her reaction. To leave those two little girls as Brenda had done—to abandon them! When there were people in the world who would’ve happily taken them in, adopted them, given them a home. And now this…
Then she felt terrible. After all, Brenda was dead.
She stood, the paper in her trembling hand. “Oh, Fraser, what are we going to do? What are we going to tell Anne and Daisy?”
He said nothing, didn’t even turn to look at her, and at the time Martha didn’t think it strange that she’d included herself.
She smoothed the paper and tried to read it. The letter wasn’t long, although the writing was cramped:
Dear Fraser,
Brenda died October 20 in a crash just west of Smoky Hills, maybe you heard. She had my address, how she got it I have no idea, she was hitching, that’s how the cops got hold of me. As you may or may not know, I have left my past life behind me, I’m not proud of it, and I’m married now to a fine man, better than I deserve, and want nothing to do with this. He would leave me if he knew what kind of scum I was related to. Did Brenda sell the place? I want my share if she did. I heard she had a kid too, a while back. There was no kid killed with her, maybe it died before. I want nothing to do with any brat of hers, dead or alive. If you don’t mind I’ll send the ashes and maybe you could put them in the ground up there with Ma and Pa. I suppose that’s the least I can do, she was my sister.
The signature was illegible.
Martha raised her face, aghast. Fraser swung to meet her gaze.
“Dear God in heaven,” she whispered. “What kind of people are these?”
A muscle in his jaw tightened. “Brenda wasn’t scum,” he said bleakly. “She was a mixed-up kid who never really grew up. Or maybe she grew up too fast, I don’t know. She never should’ve had kids of her own.”
“Except—” Martha checked the thought that had nearly tumbled out.
“Except then, we’d never have known Bloss and Daisy,” he finished for her. His voice was quiet. His eyes were as black as she’d ever seen them.
He walked toward her, regarded her silently for a long moment in a way that made her knees tremble, and when he spoke his voice was gentle. She heard bone-deep weariness, too. “You’d better get some sleep. We’ll deal with this in the morning.”
She touched his sleeve. This time, for whatever reason, he didn’t pull back. “What are we going to do, Fraser?” she whispered. “About the
girls?”
She felt cold suddenly, icy cold, and wanted nothing more than the freedom to put her arms around him, to have him hold her, keep her from the chill, from the gloom of death that hung there in the kitchen with them. To have to tell her it wasn’t true that the girls’ mother was gone, smashed and broken in a car accident. She wanted nothing more than to feel his living warmth beneath her cheek and the thud of his heart, strong and steady next to hers.
He looked down at her for another endless moment. “I’ll tell the girls. I’ll have to notify the authorities now, I guess.” He shrugged, but Martha could see the pain beneath the careless gesture. “It’s not really your problem, Martha. I’ll handle it.”
He paused, then went on gruffly, “You can think about making some plans of your own now.”
“It’s over, then?” Her mouth felt dry. She made a weak gesture to him, to herself, to the four walls that surrounded them. “You and…and the girls’ living here, it’s all over?” And me.
“Yes,” he said.
SHE’D NEVER FORGET what she saw in Fraser’s eyes that night. There was fire and there was hurt, a pain too deep to share. Loss, regret. The ache of loneliness. The fire behind the hurt was what drew her, though, what made the next few days bearable. She knew the truth in her heart—he was not going to give up.
The next afternoon, Martha and Fraser told Daisy and Anne that their mother was never coming back.
“B-but I want my mama,” Daisy said, her small voice quavering. “I want to see her right now.” She clutched her kangaroo tightly in both hands. Her lower lip trembled and she looked away from them.
Anne said nothing. In fact, beyond interrupting her play with building blocks for a few seconds, Anne didn’t react. Martha wasn’t even sure she understood what Fraser had said. If she had, her response was ominous.
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