by C. C. Coburn
She smiled at Celeste and Daisy, who were watching her intently. Sasha had left the room. “Did you sleep well, girls?”
Celeste climbed onto the bed. “Not as well as you. We been waitin’ ages for you to wake up and be our mommy.”
Megan smiled again. At least Celeste and Daisy seemed pleased she was here; she couldn’t say the same for Sasha, though. The girl’s disapproval was palpable.
I must’ve slept so long because of the country air, Megan told herself. She’d never slept till ten-thirty since her college days, and only if she’d pulled an all-nighter studying for exams. “Did I finish your story last night, Celeste?”
Daisy answered that one. “Nope, you fell asleep on her bed and Daddy had to carry you here. You were snoring.”
Megan’s face heated. Luke must’ve undressed her, too!
She ventured another sip of the extrastrong coffee and then Sasha returned bearing a second tray, this one loaded with crisp bacon and toasted bagels. The aroma had Megan’s mouth watering. She’d barely eaten a thing at dinner, she’d been so tired. But now that the coffee had kicked in, along with the fresh country air, her appetite had, too.
Sasha set the tray on her lap and stood as though waiting for Megan’s acknowledgment.
“Thank you, Sasha. This looks lovely, but you really didn’t have to. I could’ve gotten up and fixed myself breakfast.”
Celeste helped herself to a piece of bacon and crunched down on it. “Sasha does the cooking on the weekends, when Mrs. Robertson isn’t here. That’s what she gets her allowance for.”
“Who’s Mrs. Robertson?” Megan asked. Luke hadn’t mentioned anyone else living here, too.
Daisy grabbed some bacon. “She’s our housekeeper. When Grandma isn’t here, she comes in and takes care of us during the week. She cleans the house and fixes our dinner ’cause Daddy doesn’t have time. I get my allowance for helpin’ with the animals,” she added.
Megan looked at Celeste. “And do you get an allowance, sweetie?”
“Uh-huh, but not very much,” she said with a heartfelt sigh.
Megan grinned. Celeste was so easy to love. “Well, now that I’m here, you don’t have to do any more of those chores, Sasha.” Megan addressed the older girl, who, unlike her sisters, hadn’t taken up residence on the bed.
But instead of welcoming Megan’s offer, Sasha’s features became shuttered. “That’s been my job since Mom left. I like doing it.”
Megan didn’t care for the idea of such a young girl being tied to the house, but on the other hand, realized she’d better tread carefully about taking over any responsibilities Sasha felt were hers. “All right,” she said slowly. “Please let me know if you’d like any help.”
“I don’t need any help. I can cook and sew and clean.” Sasha was sounding downright belligerent. The last thing Megan wanted was to get off on the wrong foot with her eldest “daughter.” Getting along with Celeste was a breeze and Daisy seemed to be pretty easygoing, but breaking down the protective wall Sasha had erected was going to be a problem. Megan wished she’d paid more attention when Luke was talking about the girls. That might’ve given her greater insight into their characters—particularly Sasha’s. The first chance she got, Megan was going to have a long talk with Luke and get a few things straight regarding her duties and the girls’.
“Will you do my hair?” Celeste asked.
Megan studied the little girl’s attempts to braid her hair. It stuck out all over the place. She smiled. This was something she could do. “Sure, sweetie.”
“Mine, too?” Daisy asked.
Megan looked at Daisy’s wild mop of dark curls and didn’t think there was much that could be done. “You’ve got beautiful curly hair, Daisy,” she said. “What could you possibly want done with it?”
Daisy brushed it out of her eyes impatiently. “It gets in the way when I’m ridin’ or tyin’ calves. I wanna have it cut really short, but Daddy won’t let me.”
“I can see why. Most girls would kill to have hair like yours.” Megan reached out and combed her fingers through it. “It’s so soft, too.”
Daisy made a disgusted noise and left the room, saying, “I gotta go help one of the hands teach Cody to ride. He’s already fallen off of Killer ’bout a dozen times.”
“Killer!” Megan’s body was drenched with fear. “You’ve got a horse called Killer and you let Cody on it!” she almost screeched.
Daisy crossed her arms and leaned against the door-jamb. “Relax. Killer’s about as old as our uncle Adam, ’cept Uncle Adam’s got more teeth,” she said with a grin. “Cody’s such a klutz he just can’t stay on. Hasn’t he ever been around a horse before?”
The only horses Cody had ever seen were the ones that drew carriages around Central Park. “Er, no, he hasn’t,” she confessed. “Do you think it’s wise for him to learn to ride so soon?” She appealed to Daisy, who seemed to know everything there was to know on this topic.
“We live on a ranch. If he doesn’t learn to ride, he’s gonna to have to walk. We’ve got over five thousand acres.” With that, Daisy turned and marched out the door.
Megan bit her lip. She’d assumed Cody was still in bed, too. Daisy didn’t seem concerned about Cody’s learning to ride on a horse called Killer, so maybe that was okay. Deciding she should get up and look around the place, get the lay of the land, Megan threw back the covers and put her feet on the floor. “If you’ll excuse me, girls, I’ll take a shower and then join you in a few minutes and we can see about your hair, Celeste.” She looked at Sasha. “I could do something with your hair, too, if you like.”
Sasha’s expression became shuttered again. “I’m not a baby. I can do my own hair,” she said curtly, and picked up the tray.
Oh, dear! I’ve done it again, thought Megan. “Thank you for the coffee and breakfast, Sasha. It was all delicious.” Megan didn’t think the odd white lie would go amiss if she was going to be practicing diplomacy.
THE SHOWER WAS GLORIOUS, with plenty of hot water and a strong spray—the total opposite of the often icy dribbles that emitted from the shower back at her tiny apartment in New York.
Megan made the most of it, shampooing her hair and then conditioning it. She thought again about how she’d gotten to bed last night and felt hot all over. Not only had Luke removed her cotton pants and matching jacket and top, he’d also removed her bra, leaving her to sleep in her camisole and panties. She rinsed the conditioner out of her hair.
Maybe Luke had carried her to her room and Beth had stayed to undress her? Yes, that sounded more plausible. More appropriate, anyway. She didn’t know how to broach the subject with Luke to find out if that was the case.
When she stepped out of the shower, a foggy full-length image of herself stared back from the mirror. She wiped it with her towel, bent over and wrapped the towel around her head, turban fashion, then straightened and looked at herself. Daisy was right—she was too skinny. The worry of the past few months, since Cody had gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd, had taken its toll on her health.
Because she’d had to fill in the hours she’d missed at work, either while trying to track down where he was or going to court with him, her appetite and eating patterns had been chaotic. Now her arms were too skinny, her hip bones stuck out and her legs looked twice as long as they usually did. She thought about Luke’s hands on her breasts last night as he removed her bra—then picked up another towel and wrapped it around herself. She definitely had to find out who’d taken off her clothes, if only to stop her hormones kicking in at the thought of Luke—her husband—touching her in places she hadn’t been touched, he hadn’t touched, for many, many years.
Megan hurried to her bedroom and burrowed into the shopping bag, coming up with fresh underwear and a pair of jeans and chambray shirt. Luke had assured her the outfit was appropriate for the ranch. Until she saw what everyone else was wearing, and her clothes arrived from New York, it would have to do. In the meantime, she’d better get her onl
y other set of clothes into the washing machine. Hadn’t Beth said everyone was coming over for a barbecue tonight—or had she dreamed that?
“There you are!” Celeste said with relief in her voice when Megan stepped into the kitchen. “I thought you mighta gone back to sleep!”
Megan held up her brush, a mirror and some hairpins, clothes under one arm. “I was just seeing what I had to fix your hair,” she explained, then looked at Sasha. “Do you mind if I do some laundry, Sasha? I’ll need clean clothes for tonight.”
Sasha looked her up and down. “What you’ve got on will be fine.” She pointed at Megan’s bare feet. “’Course you’ll need some shoes. I got some riding boots that might fit you. What size do you take?”
Megan didn’t see how a twelve-year-old could have size seven-and-a-half feet but she told her, anyway.
“I take an eight, so you can have an old pair of mine.” She held out her arms for the laundry. “I’ll go throw these in and then I’ll get my boots.”
Megan held on to the clothes when Sasha tried to take them from her and then relented. It wasn’t worth wrestling with the kid over a load of wash. If that was the way she wanted to play it, then fine. For now… “That’s very kind of you, Sasha,” she said. “Thanks for both the boots and doing the wash. Is there anything I can help with in return?”
Sasha squared her shoulders and disappeared from the room without answering her. Megan stared after her, bewildered.
“Don’t worry about her.” Celeste gestured at her sister’s back. “She’s almost a teenager!” She climbed up on the table and sat cross-legged among a heap of glossy fashion magazines opened at various pages. “See these hairdos? Which one will work for me?”
Megan glanced at the sophisticated models with very complicated dos and didn’t think any of them would suit her—at least, not for another twenty years. But she pretended to give the photos a great deal of consideration. “Hmm. Well, you know, of course, that all of these will need hot rollers and gallons of hair spray.”
Celeste’s face fell. “I don’t have none of that stuff.”
Megan lifted her brush to run it through Celeste’s hair. “Will you trust me enough to do something special?”
Celeste gazed at her with excitement in her eyes. “Uh-huh.” She nodded and lifted a mirror to admire herself. “Will I look as pretty as them?”
The little girl was as feminine as her older sister Daisy was a tomboy. “Oh, I guarantee you’ll look a lot prettier than them,” she assured her. She set to work brushing the tangles from Celeste’s blond tresses. “You’ve got such pretty hair,” she complimented the child. “It’s like spun gold.”
“Grampa says it’s the same color as Grandma’s when they were younger. ’Course, hers is kinda gray now, since she’s so old.”
They kept up a friendly chatter through the hairdressing session, Megan curbing the urge to curse when the French braid she was trying to create didn’t seem to be working out the way she wanted. Still, she hadn’t tried to do one since college, so it was no wonder her fingers were a little rusty.
Celeste sat through the ministrations, constantly moving her head from side to side and asking, “Is it ready yet? I wanna see!”
“Not yet, sweetie.” Megan chewed on her lip as she braided the strands of hair.
“That’s okay,” Celeste told her. “I like this.”
LUKE STOOD JUST OUTSIDE the screen door to the back porch, watching Megan working on Celeste’s hair. They were a picture of female contentment, although perhaps Megan—alternately chewing her lip or sticking out her tongue in concentration—didn’t seem quite as contented as Celeste. If there’d been any doubts in his mind as to whether he’d done the right thing in marrying Megan so impulsively, they were dispelled as he stood there, battered Stetson in hand, watching his youngest child being mothered and fussed over.
He remembered carrying Megan to her room last night, enjoying the feel of her in his arms, her soft sigh as he placed her on the bed. He’d removed her shoes and lifted her feet onto the bed, but since nights got cold in the mountains, even in midsummer, he couldn’t leave her lying on top of the comforter. He eased it from under her and was about to cover her when he realized she probably wouldn’t be comfortable sleeping in tight pants.
So he’d slipped them off her, swallowing at the feel of her bare skin beneath his fingers. He’d quickly covered her lower half. But then the jacket she wore might tangle around her during the night, waking her, so he sat her up and gently drew her arms from the sleeves.
She’d moaned slightly, stretching her neck. It probably wouldn’t hurt to loosen her bra, as well.
He’d rested Megan against his shoulder and felt underneath the back of her camisole top. As he unfastened the clasp he told himself he was going to stop right there. But then she seemed tangled in the bra straps so he pulled them down her arms, then slid her bra out from under her top.
He’d swallowed again as he looked at the tiny scrap of fabric in his hands. This probably wasn’t right, undressing a woman without her consent. But it was too late to undo what he’d done. And she was his wife. Not a stranger.
Gently, he lowered Megan to the bed, pulled up the covers and tiptoed out of the room.
As he watched his youngest daughter and his wife now, Luke knew that Celeste and Megan would be just fine. Daisy, too. Sasha was another matter. His eldest daughter had told him in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t going to be calling Megan “Mom.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t expect you to, Sash,” he’d said.
“As long as she knows I already have a mom and I don’t need another one coming in here and taking over.”
Luke had been baffled by her reaction. Since Tory had effectively stopped being a mother to Sash years ago—making only the occasional phone call, sometimes even forgetting her birthday—Luke wondered why she was vehement. Furthermore, he’d thought Sasha would welcome not having to shoulder so much of the responsibility she’d taken on when Tory had left.
On the plane journey back to Denver, he’d convinced himself that the timing of Megan’s advent into their lives was perfect. Now Sasha would have a chance to be a carefree teenager. Maybe it’d take a little time, but he was sure she’d come around once she realized all the fun she’d be missing. Still, he’d better warn Megan before she started moving in on Sasha’s “territory.”
“THERE!’ MEGAN SAID with relief as she finished the French braid.
Celeste turned her head this way and that. “I can’t see!” she protested. Megan picked up the other mirror and held it behind Celeste’s head.
“Ooh! That’s so pretty,” she cried, and moved her head from side to side again, admiring it from all angles. Then she spotted her father standing on the back porch. “Look, Daddy! Mommy’s made me look so pretty!” She jumped down off the table and went to throw herself into her father’s waiting arms.
Mommy! She called me “Mommy”! Megan thought, her heart soaring.
Luke lifted Celeste into his arms and settled her on his hip. “You sure are pretty.” He turned and smiled at Megan, filling her with a sense of unreasonable joy. She’d wanted to stay mad at this man, but it was impossible. All he had to do was smile and she was like a lump of putty in his hands, ready to be molded to his whim.
“You’ve got a fan here. But don’t be surprised if she demands to have her hair done like this every day now,” he said.
Megan raised one shoulder. “That’s okay. I need the practice.” She smiled shyly at Luke and wondered if she should ask him now about putting her to bed last night. Feeling her face warm with embarrassment, she decided to put the question aside for the moment. She cleared her throat. “Daisy tells me that Cody’s learning to ride.”
Luke put Celeste down and she ran out to find someone to show her hair to. He hung his hat on a peg near the door, walked to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water. He turned back to her after taking a long swig. “Do you have a problem with that?”
<
br /> Megan could read the challenge in his eyes. She had a problem with a lot of things, not least the fact that twenty-four hours ago she was a single mother living in New York City with her son. And today she was a married woman living in the middle of the Colorado Rockies with her son, three stepdaughters and a husband she barely knew.
Cody’s learning to ride on a horse named Killer was a small matter by comparison. If Megan was honest with herself, she’d admit that she was secretly pleased he’d fallen off a few times and each time had gotten back up on the horse. It showed he hadn’t quit. Cody’s tendency to give up easily when the going got tough was something else that had worried her about his behavior this past year. He used to be so tenacious, so determined to finish anything he started, but lately, he’d found it easier just to shrug and claim things were “dumb.”
Megan believed in taking risks, believed it was a way to personal growth and fulfillment. But she’d had to take so many in her thirty-five years that she would rather not have taken—like being a single mom. But despite her beliefs, despite Cody’s supervision, she couldn’t help worrying about his safety.
She leaned against the edge of the kitchen counter. “No, I don’t have a problem with that. If you think he’s safe, then I trust your judgment.” Hard as that was to say, she meant it.
Luke gave a tiny nod, as though pleased with her reaction, then headed for the door.
“Luke…” He stopped and turned slowly toward her. “I…I think…that is…when you have some free time that…you and I need to talk.”
He nodded. “After lunch we can take a ride over to the meadows by the creek. We’ll have plenty of privacy there.”
We’ll have plenty of privacy there. Was that a threat—or a promise?
Chapter Four
“I’ve arranged to meet my bank manager in town so we can get you a credit card,” Luke said, and glanced at his watch. “We’d better get going. The bank closes at noon.”