When he came back out of the snow with one under each arm, Samantha said, “Look, Lily, your father has two sacks of potatoes in snowsuits.”
Lily giggled. “Want ’tatoes, Sammy. And bacon.”
She asked a question of Michael. “Do we have a lot of bacon?”
He nodded. “Enough for everyone.”
“Good. Bacon and potatoes for lunch for everyone!”
Samantha set Lily on her feet at the door.
“One more throw,” Colt and Mick chanted.
Michael threw them, one after the other, into the snow. He laughed and it was good to see. Jason went next.
Without thinking, Michael turned to pick up Samantha, holding her body hard against his. She squealed and their eyes locked.
Horrified, he dropped her. She stumbled back against the front wall of the house.
He stared while emotions roiled across his face like approaching thunderclouds. Clearly, he’d let down some wall, some defense, and had relaxed around her. Clearly, he regretted it.
So did she. He felt too good, too strong and too attractive.
Fortunately, the children missed the byplay on their way into the house.
They took off their boots and ran to the back porch to store them and to hang up their outerwear.
Rummaging in the kitchen with shaking hands, Samantha found the rest of the Monterey Jack she hadn’t used for the Bolognese.
She slathered butter onto the leftover biscuits to make small sandwiches the children could munch on while the bacon cooked.
Sensing Michael’s presence behind her in the kitchen doorway, she chattered, “Those children will have big appetites after all that. They must be starving. I had a blast. I never knew snowball fights could be so much fun.”
When Michael didn’t respond, Samantha turned toward him slowly. When he’d picked her up to toss her into the snow, a barrier had broken.
His dark eyes watched her quietly, solemnly, with one big shoulder leaning against the doorjamb and his sturdy hands shoved into his jean pockets.
“Thank you,” he said.
She glanced down at the half-buttered sandwich in her hand. “I don’t mind throwing together a few sandwiches. You’re welcome.”
“I don’t mean the food.” He shifted until he stood straight. “I’m talking about playing with them. Making a special game for them.” He shrugged, his expression uncomfortable. Why? At having to talk so much? Expressing thanks? Remorse at having let her in past his defenses, even if so briefly?
“Thanks for giving them fun,” he said.
Heaviness, a solemnity that made her uneasy, spread through her. She started chattering again. “Goodness, don’t worry about it. Your children are a lot of fun. My boys like to have fun. It was easy for me to take advantage of that.”
“Stop,” he ordered, and she did. On a dime. She knew she talked too much when she was nervous.
“You did a good thing for my children and I’m thanking you. That’s all.”
She said, “You’re welcome.”
Another stalemate and another truce.
He stepped into the kitchen and cut open the two pounds of bacon. Grabbing a plate and what looked like fondue forks from a bottom drawer, he started to leave the kitchen, but stopped.
“It was all good,” he said over his shoulder, then entered the living room.
Samantha carried in the frying pans and potatoes and handed them to Michael, chock-full of warm fuzzies.
Stop. For God’s sake, stop. Don’t fall for this man. You’ll be leaving here soon and getting on with the rest of your life, taking care of yourself and your boys.
Men, except Travis, can’t be trusted. Depend on yourself and no one else.
Chapter Seven
Michael had hated Samantha’s game.
She’d made him relax. She’d made him forget.
Well, maybe hate is a strong word, Michael thought, but he’d disliked her bossiness, her intrusion into his family and...how well it worked.
It was none of her business if his children had never had a snowball fight.
Okay, yeah, if he was honest, it had been fun. Even for him.
That was why he’d thanked her, for the children.
But when she and her children left, his two kids were going to really feel it.
He was a good father. He was, dammit.
He glanced at Lily asleep in Samantha’s lap and cursed a blue streak to himself.
There were so many reasons why he didn’t want a woman in his house he’d lost track.
The list ended with him never, ever falling in love again. Period.
If pain were sold by the bucketful he would be a millionaire. Why would he willingly put himself through heartache again?
His kids might be falling for her, but he wouldn’t.
Cripes, why was he even thinking about this? She’d only turned up here two nights ago.
So why were his children so attached to her already?
Because she was fun.
Michael couldn’t deny that.
Fun didn’t last, though. Sooner or later, there would be trouble. There would be heartache. There would be an illness or a betrayal that would bring on the inevitable darkness. Guaranteed.
His mother and sister had taught him that lesson at the tender age of fifteen. Mom had taken thirteen-year-old Angela away. They’d left to find fame and fortune in Hollywood because Angie had been strikingly beautiful. Drop-dead gorgeous.
After Mom left, Dad sank into despair and bitterness. It eventually killed him. That and the bottle he’d turned to.
Every day, Michael ran home from school hoping for a letter from his mother, a note, a postcard, anything, but every day he went to his room disappointed while his dad drank himself into oblivion.
Why had his mother loved Angela to distraction and hadn’t loved him at all, not even enough to send him one card in the years since she’d left? And why hadn’t Angela ever tried to contact him, either?
Once he became an adult, he’d tried to find them, but they might as well have dropped off the face of the earth.
Then he’d married Lillian. He’d thought she was his happy ending, and she had been, but fate had robbed him of happiness. Again.
He couldn’t stay in this living room with too many people in it.
The claustrophobia that had started after Lillian’s death arose in his throat and he clawed at the collar of his sweater, pulling it away from his neck.
He couldn’t breathe.
Maybe it was because he hadn’t had his mornings alone, his one spot of sanity in his day, his one chance to get away from his kids...and wasn’t that an awful thought when he and Lillian had worked so long and hard to finally have their two precious children?
He jumped to his feet.
Jason and Samantha, the only two not napping in the after-lunch lull, startled.
“I need to go out for a while. Would you...ah...watch the children?”
Even as he resented her presence in his house, he’d take advantage of it to be alone.
For just a few damned minutes.
Without a partner, he was constantly at his kids’ beck and call.
He loved them, even as he needed time away, even as he worried when he couldn’t see them. What a mess.
Maybe he should hire a babysitter sometimes, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t bring people in to handle his own children, and he couldn’t let others see the depths of his ineptitude. He had never wanted this kind of life.
As hard as he tried, he was only coping. He wasn’t getting ahead. And yet, he had no idea what else to do. Or how else to behave.
He had no blueprint for constructing a new, happier life for himself and his children.
He loved his children. Bottom line, his life was a
bout them. But was he doing enough? Why did he resent them in odd moments?
All he had were good intentions...and they weren’t anywhere close to enough.
Outside the back door, he gulped cold air into his lungs, hoping against hope that it could wash away the taste of his own failure.
That woman sitting in his living room brought home to him exactly how much he was failing.
Every time she devised fun games for his children, she might as well hold a damned mirror to him to say, Look at the man who should be doing more.
“Are you okay?”
Michael spun around. Jason stood on the doorstep, a little scared, probably because Michael had run out of the house so abruptly.
Cripes. Couldn’t he have even these few seconds alone?
The kid cared. He shouldn’t. He was too young for that burden, and Michael resented the intrusion. Jason’s concern smothered him.
“I’m good. Go back to your mother.” His frustration leaked through in his voice.
The kid looked crestfallen. His shoulders drooped. He shrank back into the house and closed the door behind him.
Damn. How many ways could one man let those around him down?
He opened the door and called to Jason, who’d almost reached the living room.
“Come back. Get dressed. Let’s go check the animals.” He should have done it this morning, but instead he’d been tempted into having fun.
Jason brightened and turned around. Michael waited while he put on his snowsuit and boots.
Outside, they walked the path to the garage. Once there, Michael backed a snowmobile out and told Jason to hop on.
They toured the ranch, checking on cattle and feed and water.
He pointed to a water tank. “See? Water’s still clear. The heaters are working.”
“The cows survived, didn’t they?”
“Yep. They sure did. You want to help me put out more feed?”
He felt Jason nod against his back.
They worked for the next hour making sure there was enough feed to last through the night and into tomorrow, then returned to the garage.
Jason laid a couple of shovels across his lap and they drove out to the car stranded on the side of the road and cleared it off.
“There. Now the plows won’t run into it. Get your mom’s suitcase out of the trunk.”
When they were done, with the suitcase sitting on Jason’s lap, they returned the snowmobile to the garage and left the suitcase at the back door.
In the stable, Michael led the way to the back of the aisle, stopping to talk to the horses along the way.
From against the far wall he pulled out a couple of ancient wooden sawhorses his grandfather had built. He set them up in a large square of extra space at the end of the aisle.
He lugged a couple of saddles onto them and got out old rags and polish.
He called to Jason, who was farther up the aisle petting Rascal.
Once Jason neared, Michael handed him a rag.
“You ever polished a saddle?”
“Nope.”
“Sit down. I’ll show you how.” He pulled a couple of old wooden kitchen chairs over and they sat. He showed the boy how much polish to use, how far to spread it on the leather and how long to polish it.
They worked in harmonious silence. With each swipe of the cloth, with each repetitive act, Michael calmed.
Despite the chill that seeped in from outside, he savored the animals’ warmth and the soft shuffling of their hooves.
Animals demanded no more of a man than regular food, water and exercise.
Even the occasional flatulence from the horses didn’t bother him.
The first one set Jason giggling, though, and Michael smiled. Oh, to be so young and carefree that a fart made you laugh.
“That was a stinker,” Jason said.
“Some of them are.”
Other than that exchange, they hadn’t spoken.
The boy was quiet, didn’t intrude and didn’t chatter a mile a minute like his mother did.
Why?
Was he sensitive to Michael’s mood? Or was it that he’d learned to be careful around grown-ups? Or had he learned to settle for less attention?
Speculation would get him nowhere, but he wouldn’t intrude on Jason’s privacy by asking. He sensed he was as private as Michael himself was.
His back stiffened as he chilled. At four thirty, he stood and stretched out the kinks.
Jason helped him to put everything away.
“You weren’t bored?” Michael asked.
“I liked it. It was peaceful.”
Peaceful. Good word for it.
Outside, the sun had already started its winter slide toward the horizon with the temperature dropping fast.
The snow hushed their footsteps back to the house.
Michael opened the door to a swell of sound, children’s playful voices.
“Sounds like the kids are awake.”
Jason smiled at him, man to man, as though they shared a private joke. The children slept, but we had manly time.
Michael was happy on a number of counts. One, that he’d given the boy adult male companionship. And two, that Jason’s mother had given him the gift of quiet time, of a shot of solitude that even Jason’s presence couldn’t dim.
In fact, Jason had had a calming effect on him, like the steady heartbeat of the animals around him.
Michael worked to harden his defenses. Yeah, Samantha had done something good for him. Still didn’t mean he wanted her here.
* * *
AFTER AN EARLY DINNER, Michael and Samantha carried their dirty dishes into the kitchen.
“We’ve got three hours until bedtime.” Michael looked frazzled. The kids had been barely manageable throughout dinner. “What now?”
“We’re going to put on a show,” Samantha announced.
He frowned. “A show? What do you mean?”
“When my boys are bored, sometimes I make them get creative and make up a story and act it out.”
“Lily’s too young. I don’t think she can do that.”
“I know.” She spread her hands. “I don’t know what else to do. We could watch TV, I guess.”
“I don’t know how much diesel I want to use on entertainment. The problem is we don’t know how long this blackout will last. We’ve used a lot of fuel. Tomorrow, we might need our electricity to cook more food.”
“I understand,” Samantha said. “So let’s try my idea. The worst that can happen is that the show won’t be any good, but we’ll pass some time and the kids will be entertained.”
He nodded. “Let’s do it.”
She stepped into the living room and made her announcement.
Colt asked, “What kind of show?”
“How about a play?”
“About what?”
“I don’t know. We have to write it.”
“I can’t write yet, Mom.”
Samantha scrubbed Colt’s hair. “I know that, honey. I’ll write it down, but we all have to come up with ideas.”
“Ideas for what?” Mick asked.
“For a story. No worries. I’ll guide you every step of the way. The first thing we have to decide is what type of story we want. How about a romance?”
She’d said the last to elicit exactly the response she got. Jason groaned and the younger boys rolled their eyes.
“You don’t like that idea?” she asked, stifling a laugh.
“How about cops and robbers?” Mick said.
“How about soldiers?” Colt asked.
Samantha shuddered at both suggestions. There would be guns involved. She hated guns.
“Fairy princesses,” Lily said.
“Yuck. No way. Boys don’t dress like princesse
s. That’s a dumb idea.”
“Colt, behave,” Samantha warned. “No one’s ideas are dumb just because they don’t suit us.”
Mick hovered protectively near his sister. Nice to see, but Sammy wanted to foster a sense of self and independence in the little one while she was here.
“How about a compromise? What about a Western?” She had an idea of where she could go with it. “Everyone could dress up in things you probably already own.”
“Yeah!” Mick and Colt shouted.
“But...” she said, stalling them with a raised hand. “There will be no guns.”
“But—”
“Cowboys—”
She cut off their complaints. “We’ll use cardboard swords. It will be a swashbuckling Western.”
“Can we have masks like Zorro?” Mick asked, getting into the spirit.
“Can we have capes?” Colt asked.
“Yes to both.”
The boys cheered.
Okay. So far, so good. They were off to a strong start. Let’s see how far their pent-up energy takes them, Samantha thought.
Jason watched his mother quietly. He knew her well. He’d probably already guessed she had an idea where the story was going to go.
“Mick,” she said, “We’re not going to let your father know anything about the play until we put it on tonight, okay? We’ll practice while he does his chores.”
“Mom,” Jason said, touching her arm. “Can I help Michael instead of being in the play?”
Samantha stroked his cheek. “You like working with the animals, don’t you?”
“Yeah, Mom. I really like it. Please?”
Samantha glanced at Michael where he sat on the sofa with a ranching magazine open on his lap. He’d stopped reading and was watching her.
He nodded. “He’s a good helper. He does a great job.”
The man couldn’t have done anything better to endear himself to her than to praise one of her sons.
“Okay.” She smiled at Jason. “You’re off the hook. You and Michael will be the audience. The rest of you, come with me.”
Before Michael left the house, she said, “Give us half an hour more with the electricity. You can turn it off for the show and the rest of the night.”
Rodeo Rancher Page 8
