Martha felt helpless. She’d never been through anything like this before; she had no idea what to say or do. She glanced at Fraser. His face was grim, although his voice, as he told the girls what had happened, was heartbreakingly gentle.
“What happened to her?” Anne asked bluntly. Her face was a mask of indifference, but Martha could see emotion struggling beneath the surface.
“She died in a car accident,” Fraser said. “A long way from here. In another state.”
“What state?”
“Alabama.”
“Oh.” Anne went back to her blocks, and Martha looked at Fraser in astonishment.
Daisy wailed and ran to Martha and buried her face in her lap. Martha hugged her tight, praying for control, praying she wouldn’t break down just when the girls needed her to be calm. The Lady Companion.
She wasn’t what they wanted. They wanted their mother, their own flesh and blood. Hopeless as she’d apparently been, Brenda was still their mother. Why did these innocent girls have to suffer so? No father, now no mother, no family of any kind except, from the sound of it, one horrible money-grubbing aunt they didn’t even know existed. Thank goodness. Martha shuddered and gathered Daisy closer. None of this was their fault. None of this was of their making. It just wasn’t fair.
Fraser’s eyes, when their gazes met across the top of Daisy’s blond tousled head, were agonized. Had his wife died in a car crash, too? Was this even worse for him than she’d realized?
Suddenly Anne erupted.
“I told you!” she screamed. She scrambled to her feet, kicked over her blocks, then ran to attack Fraser, both arms flailing blindly. “I told you my mother was dead! Didn’t I tell you she was never coming back again?”
Fraser grabbed her but she wriggled out of his grasp. She doubled over and clutched her stomach in agony.
“I hate her! I hate my mama! I’m glad she’s dead!” The tears came then, in floods, and Fraser picked her up and walked with her to the window. Anne struggled, but Fraser was far stronger, and finally Anne collapsed against his chest, sobbing as though she’d never stop.
Spook alternately whined in sympathy and barked in helpless defiance at Martha’s feet. Martha’s own face was wet with tears. Daisy, fortunately, had gotten over the initial shock and was now gently weeping in Martha’s arms. She finally raised her tearstained face. “If she didn’t get deaded way far away, she’d come back, wouldn’t she, Martha?”
“Yes, darling.” She kissed the girl’s damp cheek. “Of course she’d come back to you. She loved you very much.”
Lies, lies, lies. What did it matter now? And who knew what had been in Brenda’s mind? None of it mattered now, except that Brenda’s daughters needed reassurance, needed to know they were indeed loved.
“What’s going to happen to us now? Me’n’ my sister?”
“Don’t worry, sweetie,” Martha said, pushing back the child’s curls. “You’re safe here with us. Fraser’s looking after you. I’m here. We’re grown-ups. We’ll take care of you. You don’t have to worry.”
Was she lying to the child? She didn’t know. What were Fraser’s intentions? Still, she meant it with all her heart; she wouldn’t desert these children until their future with someone, somewhere, was assured. Until they were settled, until they were safe.
Again, a painful emotion squeezed her heart. She didn’t want to give them up. She didn’t want to say goodbye. She rested her cheek against the top of Daisy’s head and took a deep shaky breath, breathing in Daisy’s warm little-girl smell. Her action felt so familiar, so natural. She didn’t think she’d ever forget the sensation of holding these children in her arms, so sturdy and warm, so real.
The physical comfort she received reminded her of something else, something less comfortable. Fraser. The man-scent, uniquely his, dangerous, vital, that she’d become so aware of in the past few weeks—as they’d shared meals, when she’d accidentally touched him, as they’d lived their lives under the same roof. The crazy feelings she’d had in the kitchen that mght weeks ago swam back into her mind, and she opened her eyes over Daisy’s fair crown, feeling a little dizzy.
Fraser was staring at her as though she was a stranger. As though he’d never seen her before. The look in his eyes, the fierceness and heat, consumed her. Startled, Martha raised her head and Fraser glanced away. He murmured something to the now quiet Anne, and she mumbled something back. He walked across the room with her, back and forth, still holding her.
They were a pair, Martha thought. They could well be father and daughter, both with that black hair, those dark eyes. Anne’s came from her Indian heritage, if Fraser’s theory about her wrangler father was correct, Fraser’s from his Scottish—or was it Irish?—ancestry.
Both were fighters. Anne with her reluctance to trust, her scrappy determination to stand on her own feet and do everything herself—the opposite of her sister, who trusted everyone. Fraser was a fighter, too. Martha didn’t know exactly why she believed that to be true; she just knew it was. A man who’d never let you down. Who’d never give up. A man you could depend on, absolutely and without question. She felt fleeting irony; at least Brenda’d gotten one thing right when she’d trusted Fraser McKenna to take care of her children.
Still, what were they to do now?
With a huge shaky breath, Anne asked Fraser to let her go, which he did. She walked back to the blocks she’d been working with, and without another word sank down to begin building again.
Daisy stayed in Martha’s arms. Fraser came toward them. He nodded slightly at Anne. “I think things will go all right now.”
“Yes,” Martha said. She wasn’t as sure. Anne’s feelings ran deeper than she’d ever been able to fathom. But perhaps Fraser knew her better—they were two of a kind, after all.
Daisy climbed down from Martha’s lap and sat on the floor down to watch her sister, thumb in her mouth, Spook nestled close to her side. Fraser motioned to Martha, and she got up to follow him out of the room.
“Look,” he said, turning to her as soon as they were in the kitchen with the door closed, “I know it’s a lot to ask, but would you consider staying on for maybe a week or so, until—”
“Of course I’ll stay on!” Martha interrupted in a fierce whisper, not wanting the girls to hear from their side of the door. “For Pete’s sake, what do you take me for?”
“You’re free to leave here. I told you this was my problem.”
“Well, it’s my problem, too. Don’t you see that? I care about those girls, I want to see that they’re taken care of properly. I—”
“That’s exactly why you’ve got to leave,” Fraser broke in tersely. “Soon. They’re getting too damn attached to you as it is.”
Martha stared at him in dismay, her eyes widening as she understood his meaning. “Y-you mean you think I might be causing even more problems by staying on?”
He nodded. “You saw the way Daisy ran to you for comfort. They’ve just had one hell of a shock, and that’s why I’ve asked you to stay for a short while. Until I get them settled. But it isn’t going to do them any good to get even more attached to you and then have you take off, too.”
Just like their mother. He didn’t say it; he didn’t have to say it.
Martha felt torn in two. Of course she understood what he was saying, but at the same time she wanted to stay and help the girls. Protect them. Comfort them. Her long-suppressed motherly instincts had sprung up fully fledged these past few weeks. What a mess!
“I’m sorry,” she said simply, closing her eyes briefly and running her hands through her hair. How could loving these children be so wrong? “I—I understand about the girls. You’re right. It’s hard on them. I won’t stay any longer than you think I should.”
Fraser gave her a searching look, then crossed the kitchen to the outside door and began to put on his boots and coat. Martha suddenly realized she hadn’t slept more than an hour or two. She’d been through an emotional wringer with Fraser last night, and then today, br
eaking the had news to the girls. Right now, all she wanted was a nice hot cup of tea and a few minutes alone. Perhaps Fraser felt the same.
“I’ll be out in the barn if you need me,” he said, settling his hat firmly on his head. He held her gaze. Martha looked straight at him—the same way he’d looked at her in the other room—as if she’d never seen him before. The too-long black hair under that familiar broad-brimmed hat, the lines of weariness and care etched in the handsome face, the rugged sheepskin jacket he wore, the usual jeans and scuffed boots, the dark eyes that banked a fire she’d only glimpsed once or twice. Solid, reliable—sexy.
She swallowed and willed the sudden flutter of her pulse to stillness. “Fine. If I need you, I’ll let you know,” she said, noticing only when he left that her words had been two-edged. Not that Fraser would have taken them any other way, of course. He knew she was talking about the girls.
If I need you, I’ll let you know. If only she could, Martha thought sadly, reaching for the teapot. If only she could.
FRASER LEANED on the top rail of the pen and watched this year’s big ram lambs jostle each other for the grain Tom had just poured into their feeders. He had some dandy young rams in this crop, and it wasn’t going to be too hard to pick out the dozen he’d promised Dave Blackwell, a friend and colleague who was in the sheep business in Utah.
Besides the commercial flock Fraser ran on the higher pastures of his ranch in the summer, down to about twelve hundred ewes after the lambs were sold in the fall, he also ran a small but vigorous breeding program and regularly sold purebred breeding stock to other sheep producers. His rams were particularly sought after, had been ever since they’d started taking top prizes at the breeders’ fairs five or six years ago.
Fraser much preferred sheep to cattle. He liked their comparative quietness, he liked their attention to business, grazing and putting on the most weight with the least amount of expensive finishing, and he liked their loyalty. Sheep stuck together.
Mind you, he’d had some mothering problems lately, with one particular line he was developing from stock he’d brought in from Idaho. In fact—he cast an experienced eye on one of the lambs he was thinking of taking to Blackwell and mentally crossed it off his list— a couple of the lambs in this very pen had been orphaned by mothers who had rejected them.
No one knew why that sort of thing happened, but it did from time to time. Sometimes one of a set of twins was rejected by the ewe. Sometimes it was a healthy big single. Poor mothering quality was not a desirable trait to keep in a line of breeding stock.
Luckily, if he or Tom or one of the shepherds were on hand and able to size up the situation right away, they could sometimes get another ewe to accept an orphan. Occasionally, a ewe with one of her own would take on a second. Every shepherd had his own bag of tricks for coping with the problem. If it happened here in the Westbank Ranch lambing pens, they could put the orphan onto a milk-replacement bar right away and raise it without a mother.
But those Iambs never did as well. And they ended up going to market. Fraser never kept them to breed.
He sighed heavily. Blossom and Daisy. Another couple of orphans. What was he going to do with them?
He had to let the county authorities know. He knew they were going to take the girls away. No question. Why would they leave them with him now? A man with a business to run that took him away from home a lot of the time? A man on his own? Hired nanny or no hired nanny, they weren’t going to look on his situation favorably. And that wasn’t taking into account the fact, which was going to come out now, that he’d been harboring them for almost four months.
Somehow he’d get out of that one. Explain that Brenda had left before and had always come back. Play dumb. Birdie would put in a word for him. He wasn’t too worried about that part. After all, he’d done what he set out to do.
But he’d never thought Brenda might not come back. What a shocker. Fraser felt the old grief rise in his chest. Charlotte Mae, beautiful, laughing, only thirty-one, gone with the child-that-neverwas. Now Brenda, neighbor, friend, an innocent despite her twenty-nine years and two children. It didn’t make sense. None of it.
Still, he had to keep his focus on the matter at hand. Brenda’s girls. With an effort, Fraser fought back the grief. He needed his energy for the battle ahead.
Even if he said he’d keep the girls with him, the authorities weren’t going to approve of a series of hired nannies looking after them. Now that Brenda wasn’t coming back, no one—certainly not a city woman like Martha Thomas—was going to stay on forever doing this kind of job. People had lives of their own.
Slowly, carefully, the way a person might probe a sore tooth, Fraser tested the emotions that had run through him earlier when he’d seen Daisy in Martha’s arms. He’d been stunned. Bowled over. Swept away by the rightness of what he’d seen, the picture they’d made, mother and child. And he’d been shocked by the strength of emotion he’d felt for Daisy. Fierce. Protective. He’d never seen the girl in Brenda’s arms just that way, her own mother, and yet here was a woman who’d known the child less than a month, able to do exactly the right thing. To give exactly the comfort the child needed.
Daisy had run to Martha, not to him. He’d been a little surprised. But at the same time, he realized he was in trouble. Big trouble. The girls, Daisy especially, were already deeply attached to the woman he’d hired to look after them. The Lady Companion. Things were only going to get worse. She had to go.
He shifted and reached down to scratch the woolly head of a curious lamb that had come over to investigate. Martha gone. He couldn’t imagine it. Even the thought of her absence made him feel empty inside.
Already it seemed as though she’d been here forever. But there was no doubt she’d be relieved at this final outcome. Not at Brenda’s death, not that, but at the prospect of being free to leave. The chance to get on with her life. He couldn’t blame her. He knew he wasn’t the easiest man to get along with—hell, Birdie’d told him that many a time. So had his brothers. Even Charlotte had teased him about being standoffish and stubborn.
Maybe he was. One thing he did know, though, and it killed him to have to admit it—he didn’t want those girls to disappear from his life. To be placed in the homes of strangers. They’d brought him something he thought he’d lost forever these past few bitter years.
Fraser forced his thoughts to a halt. But it was true; there was no denying it. They’d brought him a feeling of hope. A feeling that he could look forward to something, that there was something to look forward to—that things would get better.
They needed him; he needed them. It was as simple as that. But how could he possibly keep them? Legally? Forever? Until they grew up and moved away and didn’t need him anymore?
Adopt them. You could adopt them, McKenna. Legally. Then no one could take them from you. Brenda left them with you—she trusted you. They’re part of this valley, part of Blue River, same way she was. She’d want you to raise them here.
Fraser froze, stunned. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? They were orphans, they had no one in the whole world but Brenda’s useless sister, and she sure as hell didn’t want them. That was clear enough. Even the letter she’d sent had to be clear evidence to the authorities that their own flesh and blood didn’t want them.
But who in hell was going to let him, Fraser McKenna, a widower damn near forty years old, adopt two young girls? It was crazy. No judge was going to go for that. People around here, they’d say he was a boozer or a womanizer. His reputation wasn’t great, he knew that, even if it was yesterday’s news. And he’d had a woman with him, they’d say, unmarried, living under the same roof. Was that any kind of example, they’d ask, for a couple of innocent young girls?
Funny. They’d be wrong, of course. Yet no one would ever know how many times he’d thought of going down that long dark hall to Martha’s bed. Of course, he hadn’t done it. He hadn’t even touched her, except that one time in the kitchen. She’d never mentio
ned it; neither had he. If he’d been able to find the words or the occasion, he might have told her he was sorry.
He wasn’t, though. All he was sorry for was that he hadn’t kissed her when he’d had the chance. Damn, something about that woman just wouldn’t leave him alone. Yeah, the sooner she left, the better for them all.
Fraser stared at the lambs for a while, aware that an idea, a crazy idea, had began to grow in him. Unseeing, he made his way over to the small office he kept in one corner of the barn. He walked in, flicked on the propane heater in the corner and threw himself down on the battered wooden swivel chair behind the desk.
There was one way to accomplish what he had in mind. But could he pull it off in the time he had? And fundamentally, he hated the idea. Much as he hated it, though, the more he thought about it, the more he realized it was his one best chance. Maybe his only chance.
He wanted to adopt Blossom and Daisy? He’d never get to first base as a single man, a bachelor rancher way to hell and gone in the middle of nowhere.
But he could solve that problem. He could find himself a wife.
CHAPTER NINE
MARTHA FELT the skin on her nose and cheekbones and forehead tighten. It was the strangest sensation. It made her feel very vulnerable. Fraser’s voice seemed far away. She felt as if someone had slapped her, slapped her hard.
With the greatest effort, she spoke, desperate to reveal none of what she felt in her voice. “So what you’re saying now is you want me to stay until you get married?”
“Something like that.” Fraser stopped abruptly and looked at her. She raised her chin slightly. She wished she hadn’t sat down. He’d been pacing back and forth until she thought he’d wear a path in the living room carpet. Now he’d stopped in front of her, and she didn’t like having to look up at him. She’d have preferred to stand.
She couldn’t believe her ears, not after what Birdie had told her. Married? Her heart felt as though it had turned to stone and was sinking, sinking, sinking through the layers of flesh and bones in her body. But why should it feel that way? What could it mean to her? Being told her services were no longer required at the Post was far worse. That had been a career; this was just a temporary job. But she didn’t remember feeling half as bad then.
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