“Amy, this is my housekeeper, Rita. She tends to think she runs everything.”
Rita spared him a quick side glance. “That is because I do.” She pressed her thin lips together as she shook her head. “This will teach me to go away,” she murmured under her breath, scrutinizing the young woman sitting on the bed, holding the baby in her arms.
There was only one way for her to interpret the older woman’s comment. “Then I am intruding,” Amy said, rising to her feet. “I’ll go,” she told Connor.
“No, you’re not, and no, you won’t,” Connor replied firmly. He gave Rita a warning glance over his shoulder, silently telling the woman to weigh her words.
Rita tempered her tone as she asked Amy, “How old is your baby?”
“He’s six months old,” Amy answered. She still looked as if she was somewhat intimidated by the petite but bombastic housekeeper.
Rita nodded, as if the information jibed with something in her head.
“Bring him to the kitchen. When I finish preparing your breakfast, I will take care of him while you eat. Come,” she ordered the baby’s mother just before she left the room.
“And that,” Connor cavalierly said to Amy, “is my housekeeper. I should have warned you—she comes on a little strong.”
A small smile curved the corners of Amy’s mouth. “Strong. That would be the word for it, all right,” she agreed.
“Rita means well,” Connor assured her.
She could only hope that was true, Amy thought, but out loud she said, “I’m sure she does.”
“Are you coming?” Rita called out from the kitchen.
“I think we’ve just been given our marching orders,” Connor said, about to take Amy’s elbow to usher her and the baby into the kitchen. “For a small woman, her voice can really carry,” he observed with a laugh. And then, thinking that perhaps the housekeeper’s overbearing manner might be rather difficult for Amy to deal with, he said, “I can talk to Rita and ask her to back off.”
But Amy shook her head. She did not want to risk possibly getting on the woman’s bad side. “That’s okay. She’s just looking out for you.”
“Stay here a day and she’ll be looking out for you, as well,” Connor promised. “She might seem gruff, but she’s really good with kids.”
“Right now, I’ll settle for her just being good with coffee,” Amy said.
“You’re about to have your wish come true.” He could smell the coffee brewing even before he crossed the threshold to the kitchen.
“Ah, so you are finally here,” Rita declared. Her back was to them. It was as if she could sense their presence. “Good. The coffee is ready and so is your breakfast.” She nodded at the two place settings on the table, then turned around and crossed to Amy. “Here, give him to me.”
“That’s all right. I can hold him while I eat,” Amy said.
“But you can eat better if I hold him,” Rita informed her in a firm voice. Putting out her hands, she waited for the baby to be transferred to her. “Do not worry. I do not drop children.”
Feeling somewhat uneasy, Amy surrendered Jamie to the housekeeper. The moment that she did, she watched in fascination as a smile blossomed on the woman’s otherwise stern face, instantly transforming her.
Rita began cooing something to the baby in Spanish, and then she looked up, sparing Amy a glance. “Eat before it gets cold,” she ordered.
“You heard the lady.” Connor ushered Amy into a chair. “Breakfast is a lot better warm—and so is Rita,” he added with a whisper.
Amy suppressed a laugh as she sat down, feeling a little more at ease. Maybe, she thought, she’d been right to come here after all.
Chapter Five
“Hey, Connor, whose car is that parked out in front of the house?” Cole McCullough asked as he made his way through the living room into the kitchen.
The second-oldest McCullough brother stopped dead when he saw the answer to his question sitting at the kitchen table, having breakfast across from his brother.
“Amy?” Cole said uncertainly.
Not quite sure how he would react to seeing her there with Connor, Amy forced a smile to her lips as she greeted Connor’s brother.
“Hello, Cole. How are you?” she asked politely.
Stunned, Cole blinked. Connor didn’t usually have company. Certainly not at this hour in the morning and certainly not someone who had eloped five years ago. He half expected her to disappear.
But she didn’t.
“I’m great,” he told her, then repeated, “Just great.”
Cole had no idea what to say to the woman he knew had left town with Connor’s heart unwittingly packed away in her suitcase. Connor never talked about it, but he didn’t have to. He, Cody and Cassidy all knew how Connor felt about Amy. How he’d felt about her ever since they were kids. Although he had devoted himself to raising them and keeping the ranch going, they all knew that Connor was in love with Amy.
But because of them and all his obligations, Connor never had a chance to act on it. And then Clay Patton had set his sights on her, scooped her up and left town. Cole, like the rest of his family, just assumed that the story had ended there.
Apparently not, he thought, looking at Amy.
Cole finally got back the use of his tongue. “Are you here for a visit?” he asked her. He glanced at Connor for help. He needed to be bailed out before he wound up unintentionally putting his foot in his mouth.
“Amy’s considering moving back to Forever,” Connor replied quietly, deliberately keeping the situation open-ended for her.
“You are here just in time, Mr. Cole,” Rita announced as she came into the kitchen, holding Amy’s son in her capable arms.
Surprised to see that the housekeeper had returned early, Cole was even more surprised to see that Rita was holding a baby in her arms and feeding that same baby with a bottle.
“Welcome back, Rita,” Cole said, greeting the woman. “I take it that you don’t mean I’m just in time for breakfast, do you?”
Impatience creased the woman’s already furrowed brow. “You can have some coffee if you wish and then you can help Mr. Connor bring down the crib from the attic.”
“The one we just put back up there a couple of months ago?” he asked, looking quizzically at Connor.
It felt as if that crib, used for each of the babies who had been here—not to mention that it had once been Cassidy’s when she was a baby—had more mileage on it than his truck did.
“That would be the one,” Connor confirmed. “And it was closer to almost four months ago,” he reminded his brother. “That was when you and Stacy moved into the old McNally place and bought the twins separate cribs of their own.”
Amy still couldn’t picture Cole as a father, much less as the father of two. “You have twins?” she asked him.
But Cole appeared more interested in what was going on at the moment than history, especially his own past.
“I take it that’s your baby,” he said, nodding at the baby the housekeeper was holding.
“You found out my secret, Mr. Cole,” Rita said, her solemn expression remaining unchanged. “I was jealous of all of you with your babies, so I decided to have one of my own.”
She looked so perfectly serious, for a moment Cole didn’t know if the housekeeper was joking or if the woman had actually made off with someone’s baby for some reason she had yet to reveal.
Cole glanced at his brother again. “She’s kidding, right?”
“Yes, genius, she’s kidding,” Connor said. “The baby belongs to Amy and Amy will be staying here for a while.” He glanced in her direction, secretly waiting for her contradiction.
“Just until I figure out what I’m going to do,” Amy added quickly. She didn’t want to come across like a mooch.
“Connor was nice enough to put us up.”
“Hey, you don’t have to explain anything to me. I’m the one who came home with twins one morning,” he told Amy with a laugh.
She was still trying to sort that all out. There’d been a great deal of information flying at her since she’d walked in yesterday. “Then the twins you mentioned aren’t yours?”
“Well,” Cole said, “they are now because we adopted them.”
“‘We’?” Confused, Amy looked at Connor, for some reason thinking Cole was referring to his brother and himself when he used the pronoun.
“He means Stacy,” Connor explained.
“Stacy and I got married,” Cole added in an attempt to lessen some of the confusion. “You remember Stacy Rowe from school, don’t you? She came back to Forever.”
“I didn’t know she was gone,” Amy confessed. It felt as if her head was spinning as she tried to sort out the information that was coming at her at what she felt was lightning speed.
“That’s right,” Cole recalled. “You’d already left town with—” Catching himself just in time, Connor’s brother rephrased his statement. “You’d already left Forever before Stacy did.”
Rita grunted, signaling an end to the present discussion. “Why don’t you two let the poor girl finish her breakfast in peace?” Rita suggested forcefully. “You can use that extra energy of yours to get the crib down from the attic and bring it into the nursery,” she told the two brothers, referring to the room next to the bedroom that Stacy had used before she had married Cole.
“Ah, I’ve missed those dulcet tones of yours these last few days,” Cole told her as he walked by the housekeeper.
Rita’s jet-black eyebrows narrowed as she fixed the younger man with a glare. “You are just lucky I am holding this baby, Mr. Cole, or I would box your ears.”
“C’mon, Connor,” Cole urged his brother. “Let’s go get the crib before she puts that baby down and makes good on her threat.”
“It is only a threat if I do not do it,” Rita said, calling after the departing brothers.
Without missing a beat, the housekeeper turned around to focus her attention on Amy. Seeing that the ranch’s newest houseguest had finished what was on her plate, Rita asked, “Would you like something more to eat?”
Thinking about what Cole had just said, Amy had been caught off guard by Rita’s question. It took her a second to process it.
“Oh no, thank you,” Amy quickly demurred. “I’m so full, if I had one more bite I might just explode. Everything was delicious,” she added, not wanting to somehow offend the woman by forgetting to compliment her efforts.
“Everything was all right,” Rita corrected. “Delicious will be served for dinner,” she informed the young woman with the same straight face she had used to tell Cole that the baby she was holding was her own. Then, giving Amy a penetrating look that seemed to somehow delve into her innermost thoughts, she told her, “It is all right to smile once in a while, Miss Amy. No one will think less of you for it.”
Amy flushed. She didn’t want to come off as some sort of a sourpuss, especially after she’d been taken in the way she had by Connor.
“I’m sorry. It’s just...” Her voice trailed off as she tried to find the right way to say what she was feeling.
Rita seemed to be way ahead of her as she nodded knowingly.
“I know—it is hard to accept that things are not the way you thought they would be and that you need to take the help that is offered to you. But you are not the first to be in this position and you will not be the last. Now,” she told Amy as she began to leave the kitchen, “have another cup of coffee while I go to change your son.”
At the mention of changing Jamie, Amy was on her feet. “I’ll do it.”
Rita gave her a look that forbade her to move. “You will get more coffee and then you will sit and drink that coffee. I will change your son. You can change him the next time he needs it,” she said by way of appeasing what she took to be the young woman’s need to take care of her baby. “There will be many more opportunities for you to do it before he learns to take care of his own needs,” Rita assured her as she left the kitchen.
Because she didn’t want to make waves and cause any further discord, Amy sat down again and savored her second cup of coffee.
Then, taking advantage of the fact that the housekeeper had left the room and Connor was in the attic with Cole, she gathered up both her plate and Connor’s, as well as the utensils they’d used, brought them all over to the sink and then quickly washed them.
It gave her a small sense of satisfaction to be useful, even in such a minor way.
She had just put everything on the rack to dry when Rita returned to the kitchen. Expecting a reprimand, she was surprised when the housekeeper smiled at her.
“You did not have to do that,” Rita told her.
“I wanted to,” Amy answered. “I don’t like being lazy.”
A small laugh escaped Rita’s lips. “You are the mother of a six-month-old. Lazy is not a word that belongs in your world. Here, take your son.” Rita handed the baby over to her. “I have been gone five days and there are many things I need to organize and clean,” she announced.
A thud coming from somewhere on the second floor had Rita glancing up toward the ceiling. “They have brought down the crib. Go and tell them where you want it.”
“Won’t they put it where they usually do?” Amy asked the housekeeper.
She doubted the two brothers would appreciate her ordering them around, especially since this was their ranch house and she was there only as Connor’s guest. If anything, putting in her two cents seemed rather ungrateful to her.
“But that may not suit your needs and you are the baby’s mother. Now go, shoo,” she added for good measure, waving Amy and her baby out of the kitchen.
“Yes, ma’am,” Amy murmured as she quickly left the room.
Turning away, Rita smiled to herself.
“She is learning,” she muttered under her breath, pleased.
* * *
“DID YOU COME here to supervise?” Connor asked as Amy ventured into the room that he and his brother had just brought the crib into.
She didn’t want Connor to think she was willfully trying to get in his way.
“It was Rita’s idea,” Amy said. “She told me to come upstairs to tell you where I wanted the crib.”
“So where do you want it?” Connor asked. He and Cole had just brought the crib in, narrowly negotiating the doorway, which was only a little larger than the width of the crib.
“Anyplace,” Cole panted, putting his end of the crib down.
Connor looked at his brother over his shoulder. “I was asking Amy.”
“Wherever you had it before is fine,” Amy said quickly. “Cole’s face is red,” she noted with concern.
Connor made a dismissive noise. “That’s just for your benefit,” he told her. “He wants you to think that he carried the brunt of the crib coming down the stairs.”
“I did,” Cole declared, wiping his brow with the back of his hand.
Connor looked at her and deadpanned, “Cole was actually the runt of the litter.”
“Said the man who’s looking to work the ranch alone for the rest of the month,” Cole concluded, taking in a bracing breath.
Ignoring Connor, Amy shifted Jamie to her other side as she asked the other man, “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Don’t encourage him,” Connor said. “He’ll just go on milking this for hours. He’s actually as strong as an ox.”
Cole gave him a dark look. “A minute ago I was the runt of the litter.”
Connor shrugged, unfazed. “Even oxen have runts,” he quipped.
“Nice save,” Cole commented. “You just don’t
want to come off looking like a slave driver in front of Amy and have her thinking badly of you.”
“I’d never think badly of Connor,” Amy told Cole, coming to Connor’s defense. “Your brother is one of the really good guys.”
Cole laughed as he eyed his brother. “You sure we’re talking about the same Connor McCullough?”
Amy smiled. She had no idea where she would have gone if she hadn’t had Connor to turn to. “Very sure,” she replied.
“Well, looks like you’ve got her fooled,” Cole said to his brother.
“Shouldn’t you be getting to work on the stable door?” Connor reminded him. That was the first chore on their list for today.
“Why?” Cole asked, pretending to still recover from bringing the crib down from the attic. The stairs leading from there to the second floor were steep. “It’s not going anywhere.”
“No, but the horses might if that door hinge gets any weaker,” Connor pointed out. It was still in place, but it wouldn’t take all that much for it to come loose.
“All right, all right,” Cole said with a sigh. “Now that we’ve got the crib back in the nursery, I’ll go see about that stable-door hinge.” He paused for half a second just as he walked by Amy. “Like I said, a slave driver,” he told her with a wink.
The give-and-take between the two brothers had left Amy smiling, as well as reminding her of just what she had missed out on by being an only child. It was obvious that the McCulloughs might squabble at times, but the love that was there between them was impossible to miss.
“Now that he’s gone,” Connor said, turning around to face her, “we can get back to fixing up this room. Would you like me to move the crib?”
Amy shook her head. She saw no reason to have to do anything. She liked the crib just where it was, in the center of the room. “No, where you have it is just fine,” she told Connor.
“Well, if you change your mind, let me know,” Connor said as he began to cross to the doorway. “I’d better get over to Cole before he starts telling everyone that I left him with all the work.” About to leave, he saw the way Amy was chewing on her lower lip. “Something wrong, Amy?”
A Baby for Christmas Page 4