It was all he could do to keep from laughing out loud all the way back to the tractor.
Oh, he did like a devious mind. He wondered where they would hide the oil pickup tube. Wondered if he was going to be able to keep a straight face when Caleb tore the garage apart looking for it.
Sloan made it back to the barn in the middle of the afternoon and was pleased to learn that Justin had changed the oil in the tractor. It was due, and then some.
“We’ll be needing this sucker in a few days, maybe a week,” he said.
“The hay’s nearly ready?”
“Yep. This rain we’ve been getting has helped. If we could get another good soaking in the next day or two, then a good dry spell, it’ll be damn near perfect.”
Justin wiped his hands on an oily rag. “It’s turning out to be a good year.”
Sloan looked out and surveyed the only home any of them had ever known. Two little girls played and giggled in the backyard and a pretty blond-headed lady knelt in the garden. “It sure is.” Now, he thought with a heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach, if only it was real.
Oh, the hay was real enough. And it was true that the weather had been their friend this year, for which he remembered to give thanks, because it was a rare thing. Normally the rains came at the worst possible time, followed by weeks of drought, or an early freeze, or a late one, or a tornado.
And the family, that was real enough to be thankful for, too.
It was the woman and the children that weren’t real. Weren’t his.
And they shouldn’t be, he told himself. He wished he could stop pulling himself in opposite directions over Emily. His head kept telling him she wasn’t cut out for life on a ranch. She would end up pale and rundown and wasted, like his mother, and that would kill him. And maybe her, too. His head also told him that if she continued to need his help every time he turned around, he would get tired of it.
But his heart argued that she was the woman he’d been waiting to meet his entire life. He had to admire a woman who could raise two such terrific kids. And she wasn’t that helpless, was she?
Or maybe, he thought wryly, it wasn’t his heart, but an area farther south that kept ignoring his head and wanting her when he knew he shouldn’t. He wanted to hold her, touch her, taste her. He wanted to feel her flesh against his.
And she was having none of it.
Maybe it was for the best.
“What’s the matter with you?” Justin nudged his shoulder. “You look like somebody just ran over your favorite puppy.”
The sound that came from Sloan’s throat sounded suspiciously like a growl.
“She gets to you, huh?”
Sloan turned away. From his brother, from the view of Emily and the girls. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Ha! Who are you trying to kid, me? Or yourself?”
“When’s the last time anybody told you to shut up?”
“I don’t know what your problem is. She seems perfect for you. What are you going to do, let her slip right through your fingers?”
“Butt out, kid.”
Justin threw his hands in the air. “Butting out. Butting way out.”
Sloan opened his mouth to have another go at him, because griping at Justin was easier than thinking about Emily, but he was cut off by the scream of a little girl.
Emily was taking a break from housework to spend some time in Rose’s vegetable garden. She’d brought a plastic five-gallon bucket with her to collect the day’s offering of tomatoes, squash, green beans and cucumbers. They’d be having fresh salad tonight for sure.
With half her mind on picking vegetables and pulling weeds and the other half on the girls playing on the other side of the fence in the backyard, the small gray snake startled her. She jerked back, then laughed at herself. It was just a little bug-eater, a gardener’s friend. But at her sudden movement, it slithered under cover among the thick growth of bush beans.
Libby came over and draped herself against the chain-link fence. “Whatcha doin’, Mommy?”
“I found a friend,” Emily said. “You and Janie want to come see?”
“Janie, come see what Mommy found.”
In seconds the girls had joined her in the garden, hunkered down with her between two rows of beans.
“What is it?” Janie asked, trying to peer around her mother while Libby sidled up and stood in front of Emily.
Emily studied the bases of the bean plants carefully. “I think he’s hiding. He’s probably scared of us. He’s just a little guy.”
“But what is it, Mother?” Janie asked.
“It’s a snake,” Emily told her. “A little gray snake.”
“Snake?” Libby screamed at the top of her lungs. “Snake! It’s a snake!” She bolted from the ground and rammed into Emily.
With Janie directly behind her, Emily lost her balance and did an awkward side flip over the row of beans. She barely had time to register the fact that she was facedown in the dirt, with a cucumber in her ear, when Libby was all over her, shrieking for all she was worth.
Heavy footfalls thundered toward the garden from across the drive.
“Emily!” Sloan leaped the two rows of bush beans to land next to her.
While Janie called her sister’s name, Libby’s shrieks subsided into pitiful sobs.
“What’s wrong?” Sloan demanded frantically. “Em? Libby? Are you all right? What happened?”
“Libby, baby,” Emily groaned. “Get off me, baby.”
“I’ve got her.” Sloan lifted Libby in his arms and started wiping her tears. “Are you hurt, sweetie?”
Sniff, sniff. “No, I was scared.”
“Em?” he asked. “Are you okay?”
With another groan, Emily pushed herself to her knees. “I’m okay. Just in shock.”
“What happened?” he demanded.
“I don’t know. Libby, why did you scream, baby?”
Libby sniffed again. “You said it was a snake.”
“A snake?” Sloan practically jerked Emily to her feet. “Where? Did it get you?”
“Relax,” Emily said, half amused, half irritated. “It was just a little gray bug-eater. Libby, you weren’t afraid of snakes last summer when we went up in the hills and had the picnic for Carol Ann’s birthday party.” She took Libby from Sloan’s arms and stood her on the ground. Kneeling before her youngest, she used the hem of her T-shirt to mop the girl’s face. As her shirt now had garden soil ground into it, Libby’s face became a mess.
“Remember?” Emily said. “You found that little green snake and picked it up? You said it was cute and you carried it in your pocket.”
Libby sniffed again. “I forgot.”
“You forgot you weren’t afraid of snakes?”
Libby’s lower lip wobbled. “I was scared it might be a tobra.”
Emily frowned. “A what?”
“A tobra.” Sniff. “Like comes out of the basket on TV.”
“I don’t…” Emily looked questioningly at Sloan, who shook his head. At Justin, who shrugged. At Janie, who stared at the ground and dug the toe of her shoe in the dirt.
“Janie, do you know what she’s talking about?”
Janie shrugged and twisted back and forth as if swaying in the wind. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
Another shrug. “I guess.”
“Janie,” Emily said firmly. “Tell me.”
Janie dared a look at her mother, then looked up at Sloan, then Justin, with a plea in her eyes. When neither man offered any help, she let out a dramatic sigh. “She means a cobra. We saw it on TV.”
The light dawned. “And it comes out of a basket,” Emily said. “A snake charmer.”
“And it was great big and scary.” Libby’s voice shook. “And they said it kilt people. It gave me bad dreams. I told her it scared me, but she wouldn’t change the channel. She called me a sissy.”
“I didn’t call you a sissy, I told you not to be a sissy.”
“Are, too.”
“All right, girls,” Emily said sternly, “that’s enough. Let’s go in the house and get cleaned up. Sloan, Justin, thank you for running to our rescue, so to speak. I’m sorry for all the commotion.”
At a complete loss, Sloan tagged along behind them until they disappeared inside the house. He stood in the dirt and stared at the back door, feeling shut out of his own house.
“Man,” Justin said, standing beside him. “Hearing a little girl scream like that, seeing Emily pitch face first to the ground. That’ll take the starch out of a man’s knees.”
“No fooling,” Sloan said with feeling. In about a week, he was sure, his hands might stop shaking.
They just stood there for a couple of minutes. Sloan’s mind was blank. Just…blank. Except for the echo of Libby’s scream, the picture of Emily falling.
“So,” Justin finally said. “What do you think?”
Sloan let out a long breath and scrubbed a hand down his face. “I think I need a beer.”
In the house, Emily washed all three of them up at the bathroom sink. She was in need of it worse than the girls. When they were all clean she took the girls to their bedroom and sat between them on the edge of her bed.
“Well,” she said. “That was exciting.”
Libby giggled. Couldn’t keep her baby down for long, Emily thought, relieved. She smoothed her hand over Libby’s hair. “Are you okay now?”
She sniffed and nodded. “I didn’t think about a little snake. I just thought about the big, mean tobra.”
“Cobra,” Janie corrected.
Emily put her arm around Janie. “I think you owe somebody an apology, young lady.”
Janie hung her head. “I’m sorry, Mommy.”
Emily’s heart clenched. Janie hadn’t called her that since Michael died. Since the day after the funeral she had called her Mother. “I know you are, honey, but I’m not the one you need to apologize to.”
Janie mumbled something Emily couldn’t make out.
“I didn’t hear you.”
“I said, I know.”
“And?”
Janie peered over at her sister. “I’m sorry, Lib. I didn’t think it would scare you that bad.”
“Well, it did.” Libby was going to milk this.
“Libby, when someone admits they did something wrong and apologizes, the correct response is, thank you. Apology accepted. And then you let it go and don’t argue about it anymore.”
Now Libby hung her head. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, thank you, Janie.”
“Apology accepted,” Emily prompted.
“Apology accepted.”
It wasn’t the most gracious acceptance Emily had ever heard, but it would do.
Emily decided that after the emotional upheaval of the day, the girls had earned themselves a nap. They didn’t much care for the idea; they would rather go back outside and play, as long, Libby said, as there weren’t any tobras around. Emily assured her that there were no tobras, or cobras, either, anywhere in the entire country. But Libby needed to rest and regroup, and Janie had earned a little time-out.
“And I mean nap,” she warned. “No TV for at least thirty minutes.”
The latter might have been taken more seriously if she hadn’t winked at them when she closed the bedroom door as she left.
She found Justin at the desk talking on the phone. She busied herself in the kitchen until he finished the call, then asked him where Sloan was.
“He’s out at the barn,” he said.
She hesitated, then asked. “Are you going to be in the house for a few minutes?”
“Yeah. I got stuck with dealing with an invoice screwup at the feed store.”
“I hate to ask, but I need to talk to Sloan. Would you mind keeping an ear out for the girls? They’re supposed to be napping, but if they turn on the television, that’s okay. I just don’t like leaving them alone in the house.”
“No problem,” he said easily. “Take your time. I’ll be at this for at least an hour, at the rate things are going,” he added with disgust.
“You’re sure you don’t mind?”
Justin chuckled to himself. Mind? “Of course not.” Especially if it would help throw Emily and Sloan together, he thought. “Go easy on him. Little Libby screaming like that kinda shook him up. If you’ve got any of that incredible patience and sympathy left, he could probably use some about now.”
He was grinning as he watched her rush out the door.
Sloan had barely finished his beer and had yet to settle his nerves before Melanie Pruitt pulled up at the barn where he was working.
He and Mel went way back, to childhood. He had always been uneasy around her, with that hard case of hero-worship she’d had for him for years. But lately, the past couple of years, she’d finally decided he was never going to see her as anything other than an honorary sister, and they had become friends. Good friends.
She sauntered toward him now with a swing in her hips and a cocky grin on her lips. “Hey, big guy.”
“Mel.” He waited for her to join him inside the barn, out of the sun. “What’s up?”
“I was on my way to town and decided to stop at the last minute and see if Emily or Rose needed anything or wanted to go with me.”
“That was nice of you, considering you never stop and invite any of us to ride to town with you.”
“Hey, so sue me. I like Emily. I gotta say, Sloan, I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Had what in me?”
“The ability to finally find the right woman.”
Sloan was glad he had already finished his beer. If he’d had a mouthful just then he would have choked on it. “Pardon?”
Melanie leaned toward his face. “Em-i-ly,” she pronounced carefully. “You did good. I approve. Don’t tell me you don’t like her.”
“Of course I like her. That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“She’ll be leaving in a few days. She’s got a job offer or something in Arkansas. She’s got family there.”
“So? You’re just going to let her go? You getting stupid in your old age?”
“Give it a rest, Mel. In the first place, it’s really none of your business.”
“Of course it is. I may not want you for myself anymore, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see you happy. If I hadn’t been out of town when you hooked up with that what’s-her-name, the piranha, I could have saved you a lot of grief.”
“You didn’t try to save me any grief over Connie Sue.”
Melanie snorted. “Like I didn’t try. You got what you deserved with that clinging vine.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re all heart. But none of this has anything to do with Emily.” This conversation, he thought, was getting out of hand. The toes of his boots suddenly became fascinating. He stared down at them. “It’s not like that with her.”
“Well, I should think not. Emily’s got a brain in her head, and she’s a nice lady. And she likes you.”
Sloan’s head shot up. “She said that?”
“Ho! That got your attention.”
Sloan felt like an idiot. Mel was playing with him. He tried to remember if he’d done anything to make her mad lately, but couldn’t come up with an incident that she might think required retribution. Besides, Justin was the one she usually played her practical jokes on, mainly because he played them on her. Occasionally they got together and played them on someone else.
“Okay,” he said. “So she likes me. I’m a likable guy. But as soon as her car’s fixed, she’s gone. She’s not cut out for life out here.”
“Been thinking about asking her to stay, have you?”
“Of course not,” he denied. “I just told you, she’s not cut out for living on a ranch.”
“Says who?” Melanie demanded.
“For crying out loud, he
r first full day here I had to haul a roast out of the oven for her. Little fool was going to try it herself, and the damn thing weighed about as much as she does. She’s going to kill herself hauling that damn vacuum cleaner up and down the stairs, and she can’t even fry bacon without burning herself.”
Melanie stared at him, her mouth hanging open. “What did you say?”
“Aw, hell, those were just examples. From what I hear, you saw how helpless she is the other day when the washer blew a hose. If you hadn’t been here we’d probably still be knee deep in water. Thanks, by the way.”
“Of all the—” She swallowed the rest of her words. “In the first place, big guy, the only thing I did the other day was help her drag the washer out from the wall. It weighs slightly more than a stupid roast. It took both of us. In the space of ten minutes I saw her drag socks out of a vacuum cleaner, doctor her daughter’s scraped elbow, replace a hose on the washing machine and mop down the entire porch and everything on it. Then, without batting an eye, she served me a slice of my own pie, heated and with ice cream. She never even broke a sweat. Helpless, my ass, Chisholm. You better take those blinders off or you’re going to miss out on the best thing that ever happened to you.”
Sloan didn’t plan on saying another word. He’d already said too much as it was. But before his brain could still his tongue, words spilled out. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. She reminds me so much of my mother it terrifies me.”
“Your mother?” Melanie shrieked. “You really do have blinders on, don’t you? It’s you who’s got the problem, not Emily. You just forget everything I’ve said and let Emily leave. She’s too damn good for an idiot like you. Ask yourself this, Sloan. If she’s so damn helpless, so completely wrong for you, why are you still attracted to her?”
Without another word, or letting him get one in, she whirled and stomped back to her truck. Before her dust settled, before his mind could clear out the fog that had suddenly filled it, Emily appeared before him. Just appeared, as if by magic.
“What,” she said tightly, “was that all about?”
Sloan’s heart dropped to the pit of his stomach. “How much did you hear?”
Emily propped her hands on her hips. “Oh, not much. Only that you think I’m a helpless, incompetent idiot.”
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