“No, we like them, don’t we, Scooter?” Mac asked the child, who nodded solemnly. Mac was watching her closely. “Amelia, I want you to meet my son, Adam.”
Technically, the news came as no great surprise, since Mac and his son looked so much alike. But she couldn’t read Mac’s expression. She could only sense his anxiety, just as she had been able to sense his pain. She looked at both of them thoughtfully, wondering why Pop had left this event out of his yearly report in her Christmas cards.
“Hello, Adam,” she said softly, and to her surprise he reached out for her to take him. She did so gladly, not missing the look of relief on Mac’s face. Adam rested his head against her shoulder, his breath coming in quick, warm puffs against her neck. “Does he have a fever?” Amelia said, putting her hand up to touch the side of Adam’s small, hot face.
“Bronchitis,” Mac said. “We’ve spent half the night seeing a doctor in—” He broke off suddenly as a car pulled into the yard. “Damn!” he said under his breath, taking Amelia by both shoulders.
“What?” she asked, trying to see the car, but Mac was steering her toward the back of the house.
“Amelia, you have to help me,” he said, shoving her toward a bedroom. “Keep Adam in here, and don’t come out.”
“Why?” she protested, still trying to see around him toward the car. Adam was beginning to cry again, and Mac kissed him on top of his head.
“I can’t explain now,” he said. “Amelia, please.”
“Mac, I’m not hiding—”
“Amelia, I took Adam. I stole him.”
“You kidnapped—” she cried in a whisper before he could put his fingers against her lips to keep her from saying any more. The man from the car was nearly at the back door.
“No, no, I didn’t kidnap him!” Mac whispered back. “I … bent the rules a little. I told you I do that sometimes. I had to. Honey, please!” He pressed his rough hand against her cheek in a final, desperate plea, then firmly closed the door with Adam and her on the other side of it.
Oh, Lord! she thought, staring at the closed door in bewilderment. She turned to look about the room, carrying Adam to the closest window, but the room was situated too far away to see the man’s car. She carried Adam to a bent-wood rocker by the French doors that led to a patio.
“Let’s go sit over here,” she whispered into his ear. He was heavy, and he was still crying, but thankfully she was comfortable with children—sick and well. “Let Sissy rock you to sleep,” she said. “And when you wake up, you’ll feel better. We’ll rock, and I’ll tell you a story—’Sissy and—the Red Piano,’” she made up on the spot. “What do you think of that?”
“Mac’s mad,” Adam said, his voice trembling.
“No, I don’t think so,” Amelia said. “He wants to talk to the man. And he wants us to be quiet. We can do that. Are you ready for your story?”
“Okay,” he murmured against her neck.
Amelia began her story, quietly rocking, her mind torn in three different directions as she tried to keep Sissy and her piano troubles coherent. She strained to hear the conversation in the kitchen, but she couldn’t understand a word. She couldn’t understand what possible reason she could have for hiding in here either.
Honey, please, she kept thinking. Honey, please. Two words from Houston McDade, and look at her! For all she knew, she was participating in a crime. She could still feel the press of his rough, warm hands on her face. Lord! If she’d had more sleep in the last two days, she’d have more sense.
Adam fell asleep promptly, and Amelia stood to carry him to the king-size bed across from her. It was covered in a puffy white cotton quilt, and she lay Adam down on it near the pillows, noting idly how pleasant this room was—Pop and Rita’s bedroom, she thought. It was spacious and sparingly furnished without being austere, the bare look softened by several heirlooms—an armoire, a red Oriental carpet, a huge oak desk. She moved away from the bed, fully intending to find out what was happening in the kitchen even if she had to look through the keyhole and read lips. But Adam began to cry the moment she tried to leave him, and she stretched out on the bed beside him, stroking his back gently. “It’s all right,” she soothed him.
He began to cry in earnest. “Sissy?”
“I’m right here, love. Close your eyes now.” She reached to gently stroke his brow, his skin hot to her fingertips. “That’s the way,” she crooned, and she began to hum the Taylor clan’s tried-and-true cradle song, “How Firm a Foundation.” She rested her head on her arm, realizing how tired she was.
“Sweet boy,” she whispered, going back to humming again. She patted him softly on the back, and his eyes were closing.
This is just great, she remembered thinking, and she sang them both to sleep.
Amelia woke to a soft snoring. The sun was up, but someone had lowered the canvas blinds on the French doors. Adam slept quietly between her and the pillows in the cool, darkened room, and the snoring continued just behind her. She looked upward, jumping when she saw a man’s hairy arm flung outward just above her head. The snoring abruptly stopped, and Amelia turned over, finding herself staring into Mac’s bleary, red-rimmed eyes.
“Don’t wake up my kid,” he whispered to head her off. He lifted his head off the bed to look at her, then let it drop back again, his left arm flung over his eyes.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded—if it was possible to demand in a whisper.
“Trying to sleep,” he mumbled.
“Here?”
“Aw, Amelia, don’t get mad at me again. The house was full of people. They had to get to the bathrooms. If I slept in your room, I wouldn’t get to sleep, see? Just take it easy. The door’s half open, and Scooter’s right here to chaperon.”
Amelia exhaled sharply, and Mac peeped at her with one eye, closing it promptly when she caught him at it.
“I take it we haven’t been arrested for child-napping,” she said sarcastically.
“Nope,” he answered succinctly.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on or not? I don’t have much tolerance left for this kind of thing.” The phrase your room suddenly reasserted itself in her mind. “And it’s not my room.”
“It is if you stay,” he said from under his arm.
“That’s it,” she said, trying to get up.
“No, wait, wait,” he whispered, pressing her back down on the bed with him. “I’m going to tell you—just let me wake up.” His eyes looked into hers, and his warm hands on her forearm and shoulder were causing that familiar sinking sensation. He suddenly let go of her, flinging himself on his back and sighing heavily. His hand groped on the bed to find hers, his callused fingers trapping her fingers, sliding in between them. Her cautious, logical self screamed for her to take her hand away. She didn’t do it.
“I don’t know where to start,” Mac said, and the sensation of his strong fingers between hers were nearly more than she could bear.
“Start with ‘I stole him.’ ” She glanced at him, and he had the audacity to smile.
“No, I have to start when Bobby and I were in the hospital. I—I got a Dear John letter. Did you know that?”
Amelia glanced at him again, but that was too dangerous. “Bobby didn’t tell me,” she said, staring at the ceiling.
“It was from… Marlene.”
Amelia could feel him turn his head to look at her, but she didn’t respond.
“She sent me turquoise love beads,” he went on. “Then another string—and then the letter.”
Marlene, she thought, remembering her with Mac, her white dress fluttering in the breeze, her hand on Mac’s arm. Mac, can I come along?
“She was my high-school sweetheart,” Mac said. “We were going to get married, but I thought I hated it here. I thought everything I ever wanted had to be someplace else. I broke Pop’s heart fifty different ways until I got that seethe-world and all that crap out of my system by joining the Marines.” His fingers squeezed hers, and he sig
hed. “I ended up playing hard ball with the big boys, you know? In a damn war in a country where you couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad no matter how hard you tried. Everything Pop taught me about being a decent man—hell, it didn’t matter a hill of beans over there. I decided pretty quick where I wanted to be. I wanted to be right here. Marlene didn’t like that. She wanted to go places. And then I was wounded—” He stopped because Adam stirred, waiting a moment before he went on. “Anyway,” he said when he was satisfied that his son still slept, “I was hurt pretty bad. You know that. And Marlene—she got scared. I don’t blame her. I was pretty scared myself. Her father and brothers were all rodeo men—me, too, for that matter. And here she was, saddled with a man who was going to be crippled—”
“You’re not crippled,” Amelia couldn’t keep from saying, and he shrugged.
“I’m not much of a rodeo rider now either—too stiff. Too slow. I can’t say it broke my heart when Marlene called it off. I was more relieved than anything, I guess. She came to see me only once—and, God, I hated the way she looked at me. She looked so… dismayed. So we ended it. About four years ago, I guess, we met again—in a place not too far from here called Cowboy Heaven. She was there feeling sorry for herself, and I was feeling sorry for myself. Pretty soon we got to feeling all nostalgic, thinking about old times and thinking the old flame was still there.” He stopped talking, and Amelia waited.
“Go on,” she whispered when the silence lengthened.
Mac shifted his position on the bed. “We got married. Took about three months for us to find out what a mistake that was. Pop had a fit right off—he told me it was the damn dumbest stunt I’d ever pulled, and he didn’t care if I was thirty-five years old. I mean he had a fit. And he was right. Marlene still liked to hang out at the rodeos, and there was this big redheaded cowboy from Calgary. I guess she thought I wouldn’t let her go if I knew about Adam, so she didn’t tell me she was pregnant. I didn’t even know I had a kid until this past January. She brought him around, wanting me to pay child support. I took one look at him, and what am I going to say? He’s not mine? We’ve got pictures around here of me at that age, and you can’t tell who’s who. I wasn’t just going to shell out the money and not be a part of his life, Amelia. He’s my kid. I wanted him. I wanted to do things with him, take him around with me everywhere the way Pop took me, you know?” he said earnestly, not knowing that with every word he bound himself more firmly to her heart. How different he is from Daniel, she thought.
“We went to court, and I got visitation rights. Marlene’s having a hard time with that. She doesn’t like to be tied down. She wanted my money every month, but she didn’t want the hassle of making sure my kid was available. She was supposed to bring him to the barbecue yesterday, but she said he was sick. Adam loves it here. I couldn’t stand the thought of him standing in a window somewhere waiting for me to come and get him.” Mac turned his head to look at her, and this time she looked back, seeing the worry in his eyes. “He does that. He waits in the window. So I told Marlene I’d fly her to Gallup so I could see him. Scooter was worse, and he needed his mother—or me. So I took him. Listen, she didn’t put up that much of an argument. I took him to the doctor and I got his medicine and your Hershey’s kiss—and here we are.” He gave her a tired version of one of his devilish grins. “Together, you might say.”
“So why did you hide us? Who was that man?”
Mac shrugged. “That was Marlene’s Uncle Forbes—Forbes Townsend. He’s a lawyer. He had all kinds of legal and personal retribution planned for me—until he found out I was supposed to have Adam this weekend and he was sick and he hadn’t been to the doctor and Marlene went off and left him. We cussed each other, but he’s a good man. He knows I’m doing my damnedest to get along with Marlene. She’s not a bad mother really. She just—wants what she wants.” Mac turned on his side to face her, letting go of her hand in the process and reaching out to lightly brush her hair out of her eyes just as he had on another occasion. His tentative, gentle touch made her want to reach out for him, but she reached up to keep his hand away instead.
“Don’t leave,” he whispered, catching her hand and holding it tightly in his rough fingers. “You could do with a little rest. You’ll like it here. It’s quiet. It’s a good life.”
Amelia couldn’t keep from smiling. “Rest,” she repeated. “You mean if you and Bobby don’t punch each other in the nose and he doesn’t run off again and Daniel doesn’t keep calling and I don’t get thrown into the calabozo for being an accomplice to a kidnapping?” And I don’t fall in love with you.
Mac smiled. Lord, she loved his smile. “Yes, ma’am,” he told her. “That’s about the size of it.” His smile widened. “Where did you hear calabozo?”
“From you, McDade—when you and Bobby were swapping tales from your flaming youth.” She was looking deeply into his hazel eyes. She knew better than to do that, but she couldn’t drag her eyes away.
“Stay with us, Amelia,” he whispered. “Just a while. I’ll … keep my word. Friends—compañeros—and that’s all. Will you?”
He was talking her into more than a plane ride this time. He was talking her into taking a chance on being hurt, into letting him meddle in her life until she couldn’t tell where hers began and his ended. She couldn’t stay here with him. She had to leave. She had to say no—and she looked into his lovely eyes.
“Yes,” she told him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A SOMEWHAT SUBDUED and contrite Marlene came for Adam in the late evening. Rita introduced her to Amelia, and Amelia could easily see how Marlene’s practically sprayed-on jeans and blatant earthiness could interest both Mac and the redheaded cowboy from Calgary. Bobby returned with the crowd from Albuquerque, giving Amelia his latest poker winnings to keep for him and insisting that she take three hundred dollars of it for paying off his debt with Daniel. And Amelia set about the monumental task of “resting” in New Mexico, learning firsthand what it meant to be Houston McDade’s compañera.
“Amelia, can you cook?” he asked her at four the next morning.
She burrowed deeper into her cocoon of blankets, too sleepy to wonder why he happened to be there.
“Amelia—hey—can you cook?”
“Will you go away—are you crazy—what time is it?”
“No, no, and four o’clock. Can you cook?”
“No!”
“Well then, can you heat up stuff?”
She raised her head to look at him, barely opening an eye as he sat down boldly on the edge of the bed.
“Hey, hey,” he said, pulling at her blanket when she tried to bury herself again.
“Mac, please! Go away!”
“Come on, Amelia, I need your help.”
“Well, you can’t have it!”
He didn’t do anything else to her, and even in her dormant state she was wary enough to expect him to.
“What are you doing?” she asked suspiciously, her voice muffled by the blankets.
“Nothing, Amelia,” Mac said innocently.
“Well, do it someplace else!”
“Can’t,” he advised her. “I got six buckaroos expecting breakfast, and I’ve got to get me a cocinera.”
“Best of luck to you,” she said sleepily.
“Amelia…”
“What!”
“I need you to cook.”
“Take them to McDonald’s!”
Mac laughed. “Come on, Amelia. Cowboys don’t get paid much. You’ve got to feed them.”
“You’ve got to feed them. I’ve got to sleep.”
“Honey…”
“Mac, I told you—go away!”
“Amelia, Rita’s arthritis is bothering her pretty bad this morning. She did too much at the barbecue. So Pop and I were thinking we’d let her take it easy today, but she won’t do it if she thinks nobody’s cooking.”
Amelia sat up abruptly. “Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”
Mac g
ave a small shrug and a mischievous grin. He was wearing a yellow and blue plaid shirt this morning, and he looked—adorable, a fact she couldn’t afford to acknowledge.
“You like doing that, don’t you?” she accused him. “You like getting me all upset when you know good and well I’m going to do whatever it is just as soon as I hear the reason—only you’re not about to tell me the reason until I’m ready to have a stroke or something.”
Mac scratched his neck and tried not to grin. “Does this mean you’re cooking?”
“Out!” she said, pointing to the door.
He stood up, his grin getting away from him. “Are you or aren’t you? Oh, I brought you some more clothes,” he added, showing her a folded pile of jeans and shirts on the foot of the bed. “You don’t want to mess up your stuff. Can I tell everybody you’re the new cocinera?”
“No!”
“But you are cooking.”
“Yes!”
“Great. I’ll tell Pop and the boys.”
The “boys” greeted her appearance in the kitchen with a round of applause, apparently not taking Mac’s word that the cook was on her way. Amelia had dressed in Mac’s clothes again—for warmth, she assured herself—and she would have bolted then if he hadn’t headed her off. She was still half-asleep, her face scrubbed clean of any makeup, but she was aware enough to know that she didn’t want to encounter a roomful of strange men.
“Where are you going?” Mac wanted to know.
“Tennessee!” she called over her shoulder, but he caught her, propelling her back toward the kitchen.
“Mac, I can’t go in there like this!”
“Why not?” he asked, still pushing her along.
“Look at me!”
“What? You look the same as you did—like a fifteen-year-old boy—”
“Don’t you start up about my haircut!”
Mac laughed. “You know, I’ve met some ornery cooks in my time, but you just about take the prize, Amelia. Say good morning to the boys.”
She said good morning, relying heavily on her Taylor conditioning to be polite in any circumstances.
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