Love Inspired January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Her Unexpected CowboyHis Ideal MatchThe Rancher's Secret Son

by Debra Clopton

  “Anything specific on your mind this time?” Asher asked.

  Thinking about his conversation with Carissa earlier, Phillip made himself say, “Well, I’m ready to talk about that job now.” So he wasn’t what she needed right now. But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t ever be what she needed, not if he worked at it, did it?

  Asher didn’t exactly smile, but his face lightened. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Phillip wandered around the reception for a while longer, until he could hug Odelia and Kent, wish them happiness again and take his leave. He felt ridiculously lonely and as antsy as a beetle on a hot plate. He’d have gone for a long run in Seattle, but it was too hot for that here. He decided to swim laps in the pool at Chatam House, but after he climbed the stairs there, he couldn’t make himself walk past Carissa’s door.

  He saw light coming from under the door, so he took a chance and tapped. She answered the door in her bare feet, wearing baggy shorts and an oversize T-shirt. She’d caught her hair in a loose ponytail just below her left ear, and he wondered why she never seemed to let it down.

  “I thought you’d be asleep by now,” he said, keeping his voice low.

  “I’ve been working,” she said, leaning a shoulder against the doorjamb.

  He frowned. “You’re making calls at this time of night?” It was nearly ten o’clock.

  “No, no. It’s a side job.”

  He shook his head, then his curiosity got the better of him. “What sort of side job?”

  She waved him into the room and padded over to the sofa. Sinking down onto the cushions, she lifted a notebook computer onto her lap. He sat down beside her and leaned in to look over her shoulder. The computer screen was gray with white and black characters. None of it made the least bit of sense.

  “It’s just gobbledygook.”

  “That gobbledygook translates into...” She made a series of keystrokes, and the screen transformed. “This.” A sleek website popped up, complete with interactive graphics and pages of information, products and instructional videos. “We’re adding widgets, phone apps and such.”

  “You can do that?”

  “When I can get the work, I can do it.”

  He reached around her and scrolled through the site. “This is way cool.”

  “This is what I do,” she said dismissively, closing the laptop and setting it aside.

  She put her head back and craned her neck, relieving strain on her muscles, then covered a yawn with the back of one hand. “Sorry. Long day.”

  Phillip desperately wanted to put up his feet, loop his arm about her and snuggle, but he got the message. Their fledgling friendship wouldn’t support that right now. She wanted him to go.

  Reluctantly, he got to his feet, smiled and headed to the door, saying, “I won’t keep you.”

  He was halfway across the room when she asked, “How was the party?”

  Stopping, he turned back to answer. “Festive. Very festive.”

  She clasped her hands atop her knees. Very shapely knees. “Good.”

  He really should go. Instead, he said, “Prayer meeting was good.” Oddly, he meant it.

  “That’s...that’s nice.”

  Suddenly, he needed to tell her what he was thinking, needed to know what she thought. He took a step forward. “I didn’t want to go. I just did it to please my aunt. I’m not even sure... That is, do you think God hears our prayers?”

  Carissa seemed surprised. “Well, yes. Yes, of course.”

  “What I mean is, do you think He wants to hear our petty personal problems, our everyday, normal...junk?”

  She obviously had to think about it. “I—I do. Yes.”

  “So, then, you think He answers those prayers, too?”

  She nodded, then she bit her lip. “I used to. I mean, I do, but I guess I started doubting. I think I started to wonder if maybe He wasn’t really listening anymore.”

  “I know what you mean,” Phillip said, lifting a hand to the back of his neck. “When I was a boy, I didn’t doubt that God heard or answered my silly little prayers, but as I got older, I started to wonder why He would bother.”

  “Why do we stop believing that He hears us?” Carissa asked. “Is it because we get beat up by life and think He’s abandoned us?”

  “Or do we just get so busy that we kind of forget,” Phillip proposed, “and we start to think that we’re small and unimportant and that we don’t count?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “but before long it’s like that cousin we lost touch with or the sister we haven’t heard from in years.”

  “I know what you mean,” Phillip told her. “You start to think, ‘Oh, they don’t want to hear from me anymore.’ But they do, don’t they?”

  “I think so,” Carissa said. “At least, I think God wants to hear from us.”

  “Me, too,” Phillip said. He hadn’t thought so before, but he did now. Tonight, there in that room full of praying people, he had felt a part of something larger than himself and yet distinctly individual, as if God had singled him out.

  “Sometimes I do wonder, though,” Carissa admitted.

  Phillip shook his head, suddenly quite sure, about her, at least. “No. Don’t. God does want to hear our prayers. He wants to hear your prayers. I know He does.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because you are important,” he told her. “You are important, Carissa. You’re one of the most important people I’ve ever known. And if you ever doubt that, you just go look at those three kids in there.” He jerked his head at the doorway to the bedroom hall, as certain as he’d ever been about anything in his life.

  She stared at that doorway and smiled. Phillip walked out of the suite and went to his room, aware as never before of all that was missing in his own life. And why was that? Because he’d never had the time for such things before? Because he’d been too selfish and too wrapped up in his grand adventures to think of anything real and permanent?

  Or because he simply hadn’t met Carissa Hopper yet?

  * * *

  Asher phoned before seven the next morning to say that he’d set up a job interview for Phillip. Obviously, he’d called in a favor, probably the night before. Phillip obediently put on his best—okay, only—suit, said a stilted prayer and went to meet with the CEO of Sellers Financial Services.

  Chuck Sellers was a nice fellow, about Asher’s age and type. A businessman and professional through and through, in his mid to late forties, he looked fit and well-groomed, young despite the graying hair, the sort who had graduated college with a ten-year plan and stuck to it. In other words, he was Phillip’s opposite in almost every way.

  He glanced over Phillip’s résumé, and they chatted for several minutes about mountain climbing, fishing and such things. After a while, Chuck suggested that he might have some “contract work” for Phillip in the future. They shook hands and parted, each fully aware that they had adequately taken the other’s measure. Phillip was not cut out for a job with Sellers Financial Services, but because he had the necessary skills and was Asher’s brother, Chuck would throw him whatever work he could when he could, just not now.

  Phillip’s relief was palpable. As much as he acknowledged the need for a job, he thanked God that this particular situation had not panned out. Wandering over to his brother’s law office to inform him how the meeting had gone, he found Asher and his assistant fooling around with a smartphone app that they had purchased to facilitate the recording of depositions.

  “You have no idea what a leap forward in technology this is,” Asher declared, sitting back to film himself.

  “You know what would be really sweet?” said the young man currently clerking for Asher. “An app that would telecast live transmissions of court proceedings into classrooms. Think about it
. You could sell subscriptions based on field of study, torts, criminal law and so on.”

  “Think about the obstacles and permissions,” Asher replied doubtfully.

  “There would be some courts where it would be okay. Enough, I bet. Besides,” argued the clerk, “these so-called reality apps are where it’s at these days, just like reality TV. Of course, the episodes could always be archived, too. You could build a whole reference library.”

  Asher considered. “It could work.” He shook his head. “But we don’t know anything about technology.”

  “Or anyone who knows anything about technology,” his assistant opined.

  “I do,” Phillip heard himself say.

  Both gazes turned his way. “Someone in Seattle?” Asher asked, shifting in his seat.

  “Uh, no,” Phillip muttered. “She’s here.”

  “Really?” Asher smiled, the light of speculation in his eyes. “Maybe you could ask her what she thinks about our idea.”

  “Maybe,” Phillip murmured, his mind whirring with another possibility.

  He recalled watching a video of a friend’s climb on his own phone a few months ago and thinking how exciting it would have been if it had been live. He wondered if such a thing was possible. Carissa would know. It occurred to him that a live feed might have made it possible for help to reach his coworkers’ party in time to save at least one or two of the climbers in that fall, and the realization shook him. Maybe it wouldn’t have helped, but it could save someone in the future.

  “Let me ask you a question,” he said to his brother. One question turned to ten as they probed the legalities of Phillip’s proposal.

  Phillip felt an excitement growing in him that he hadn’t felt in a very long time, but he banked it. For one thing, he couldn’t be sure of the viability of the idea. For another, something like this required careful planning and study. He saw no point in getting his hopes up until he’d done some solid research and crunched some numbers.

  Talk turned, as it often did with Asher these days, to Phillip’s niece, Marie Ella. “Why don’t you come over tonight and see her?” Asher suggested.

  Phillip balked, as he had every other time he’d been invited to get to know his new niece. Children who could walk and talk were one thing; infants were something else entirely. Shamelessly, he pulled out the only excuse he could find.

  “Actually, my grief support group meets tonight.”

  Now that he thought about it, he really should attend tonight’s meeting if only so he could urge Carissa to do the same. With her father’s recent passing, how could she refuse to go? As predicted, Asher didn’t argue.

  “Well, I’m glad to see that my little brother isn’t above getting some help when he needs it.”

  Phillip just shrugged.

  “Let’s say Saturday night, then, shall we?” Asher went on. “I’ll invite Dallas and Petra. We’ll make it a real family gathering.”

  What could Phillip do but chuckle and nod?

  “Saturday it is,” Asher reiterated happily.

  Sighing inwardly, Phillip consoled himself with the thought that he’d have tonight with Carissa.

  * * *

  It was ten against one. Carissa knew it even before Phillip spoke. He had chosen his moment and laid his plan well. She’d come downstairs to fetch the children out of the pool so they could wash off the chlorine before dinner. Hilda and Chester served cold drinks to Hypatia and Magnolia on the expansive redbrick patio behind the great house, while Kent and Odelia paddled around in the big rectangular pool. As soon as Carissa called to the children, Phillip showed up with his sister.

  “Dallas can do that,” Phillip said, forestalling Carissa as she picked up the towels that the children had dropped at the edge of the patio. “I want to talk to you about tonight.” His tone sounded conversational, but his voice was loud enough that everyone could hear.

  “What about tonight?” she asked, knowing full well what he was going to say.

  “It’s Thursday,” he pointed out, “grief support meeting night.”

  She immediately demurred. “Oh, the children need me here.”

  “No, no, I’ll stay with them,” Dallas put in brightly.

  “You should go, sugar,” Chester instantly urged, while Hilda nodded.

  “Oh, do go, dear,” Hypatia implored, her sisters echoing her.

  Even the children began to chant, bouncing up and down in the water at the edge of the pool. “Go! Go! Go!” Apparently, they believed that if she went with Phillip, they could continue to swim.

  Carissa stood, the entire household against her, and frowned at her children. Then, resigned to her fate, she bent and picked up the towels, shaking them out one by one. It wasn’t as if she’d be alone with Phillip, after all. They were going to a meeting. The children began reluctantly wading from the pool. Dallas caught the towels and carried them to the kids, talking brightly about the evening she had planned for them.

  Carissa looked over to Hypatia, who sat swathed in a thick terry-cloth robe, her feet encased in pristine canvas slippers. A wide-brimmed straw hat perched atop her head, and large, dark sunshades shielded her face. Magnolia, on the other hand, had prepared for an afternoon poolside by simply trading her muck boots for a pair of sandals.

  Neither Kent nor Odelia was so circumspect. He sported a bright Hawaiian print shirt and flip-flops with his dark, knee-length swim trunks, while she wore a fluttery multihued cover-up of organza petals over a bright pink tankini with skirt and surplice top. Her swim cap resembled a pink turban wrapped around an artichoke, which pretty much described her oversize earrings, necklace and bracelet, all of which she wore into the pool. Thankfully, she’d left the pink, kitten-heel, open-toed mules poolside, along with a fluffy green towel.

  “Phillip,” Odelia called, “maybe you’d like a swim before dinner.”

  Carissa looked at his suit, rumpled now from a full day of wear, and the heavy shadow of his beard. Why did he have to be so very attractive?

  “Maybe I will,” he said with a blindingly white smile, which he then turned on Carissa. “What about you? Got time for a dip? Dallas will take care of the kids.”

  Suddenly, Carissa wanted nothing so much as to dive headlong into that cool, aqua-blue water with him, which was exactly why she dared not do it.

  “No way,” she said. “Even with your sister’s help, it’ll take some doing to get all three of the kids showered and dressed in time for dinner.”

  “Perhaps you’ll join us in the dining room this evening,” Hypatia invited, but Carissa put her off.

  “Oh, I intend to put the kids straight into their pajamas,” Carissa told her. “We’d best eat in our rooms again. But thank you. Another time.”

  “All right, then.”

  Dallas herded the children toward the house, Grace holding her hand and chattering happily. Carissa started after them, only to find herself stopped by Phillip’s hand on her wrist.

  “Be ready about a quarter of seven.” She noted that he didn’t ask; rather, he told her. Short of making a scene, she saw no option other than to swallow her indignation and go along with him. She gave him a curt nod and pulled away, hurrying after her children.

  Behind her, she heard Hilda say quietly that the meeting would be good for her after Marshall’s death. Tears sprang to Carissa’s eyes, equal parts grief, frustration, anger and gratitude because she knew that these people had her best interests at heart. It wasn’t their fault that she’d developed an unhealthy fascination for the wrong man.

  Suddenly, she missed her dad so badly that she ached. If only he were still here, then she wouldn’t be in this situation, living in the same house as Phillip Chatam. Then maybe she could keep her heart whole.

  Chapter Eight

  The ache stayed with her as she shepherded th
e children through showers and got them into pajamas. Dallas helped, primarily with Grace, who treated Phillip’s sister like her new best friend, which turned out not to be too far from the truth, as Carissa discovered when Dallas left to eat dinner with her family downstairs.

  “’Bye, bffn!” Grace called after her.

  Laughing, Dallas waved and blew her a kiss on her way out the door.

  “What is this bffn?” Carissa demanded, parking her hands at her waist.

  Grace just shrugged, smiling enigmatically, but Tucker supplied the answer. “Best friend for now.”

  Carissa spread her hands in confusion. “What does that mean, best friend for now?”

  “It’s just till you and Phillip—”

  Nathan abruptly launched himself at his brother, fists flying. “You take that back!”

  The boys rolled across the floor, pummeling each other. Grace instantly burst into noisy tears. By the time Carissa separated the boys and sent off everyone to bed in sulky shame, the bell was ringing to let her know that a delivery waited in the dumbwaiter. Thoroughly exasperated, Carissa stomped off to fetch the heavy tray. She laid out the meal, trying to make sense of what had just happened. She suspected that Phillip was somehow to blame, but when she tried to question the children over dinner, they all clammed up. Dallas came back up later, so Carissa applied to her for an explanation.

  “I’m afraid it’s all my fault,” she said apologetically. “You know how kids are about that ‘best friends forever’ thing. I try to avoid that in my classroom with ‘best friends for now’ because, you know, things change. Kids move. Relationships shift.”

  “I see.” That seemed reasonable.

  Smiling, Carissa glanced at the clock on the mantel and saw that she had fewer than ten minutes to get dressed. Or she could just refuse to go to the meeting after all. Without really deciding either way, she headed for the bedroom and quickly threw on a simple sleeveless khaki dress that buttoned up the front, then she stepped into white sandals. She splashed water on her face, took down her hair and brushed it, dabbed on some lip gloss and shoved a white headband into place. That would have to do.