by Susan Lute
“What do I have to do?”
“Fill out an application. Attend orientation. Go through the certification process.”
“I get it. Training classes, background check, health screening, home study. I had a client once who wanted to adopt. I imagine it’s a very similar process. How long will it take?”
“Four to eight weeks.”
“We don’t have that much time. I have a feeling, the minute you take custody of these kids, they’re going to run. I think housing them here on the ranch will keep them safe for awhile.”
“I could probably push the process along. You’re certainly qualified. And your background check won’t be a problem.” She paused. “This could turn out to be not so temporary. Are you prepared for that?”
Good question. He’d left Seattle to start a new life, one that had nothing to do with what he’d left behind, but here he was, getting involved.
What other choice did he have?
Thinking he was loco, but also thinking of Jane and the bit of childhood she’d revealed to him, he made his decision fast. “Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am.” In his mind’s eye, Chase looked into a pair of inscrutable blue eyes that had seen more of the dark side of humanity than they should have, and hoped he was doing the right thing. “I’ll have help.”
“I’ll need fingerprints to see if the kids are in the database.”
He figured as much, but wasn’t sure Bobby would be keen on cooperating. It didn’t matter. There were ways. “I’ll get them.”
“Okay, then. I’ll email the application form. Fill it out and send it to me as soon as you can.”
After hanging up, he went to the kitchen to refill his coffee. When he returned to his office, the application was waiting for him.
Wondering if he’d bitten off more than he could chew, he completed the form, hesitating only briefly before hitting the send button.
*
A week into her enforced sojourn on Russell’s ranch, Jane woke before dawn, restless and unable to stay in bed a moment longer. Despite hammering and painting her way through the outbuildings until she was so weary, anyone in their right mind would think she’d fall face first into bed and sleep without dreaming, she climbed out of bed with more on her mind than when she'd gone to bed.
Being raised in the orphanage had taught her a thing or two. One of them was that very few older children were ever fostered or adopted. There were probably statistics. She’d never bothered with them, since she wasn’t one of the lucky ones.
Abby was cute. She stood a chance of being picked up by loving parents. Bobby, on the other hand, had as much chance of that as a raindrop had of lasting more than a second in Hell.
She didn’t for a minute question if the kids came from a stable home. Once on your own, always on your own, was Jane’s experience.
When she was younger, she’d envied the kids who, one way or the other, found families, but even then she knew there was something about her prospective parents didn’t find appealing.
She smirked. She was more like Bobby than Abby - liking to walk on the wild side. A rebel from the get go. Okay, to call a spade a spade - defiant.
Her chances of being taken in by a normal, loving family had been zip. Nada. A big fat zero. Bobby had the same chance.
She had to do something about that. An idea she couldn’t get rid of lurked in the back of her mind. She went downstairs to make coffee strong enough to grow hair where it wasn’t wanted, and finding it already made, poured a cup. Bless Russell for liking his brew strong. She followed the faint light to his office.
He hunched over the keyboard, his overlong waves of hair brushing his collar, begging her itchy fingers to resume their exploration. His strong jaw was locked in fierce concentration on the screen in front of him. The shadow of a mustache and beard he hadn’t removed that morning had her clamping down on the sudden blast of desire to see if he could be enticed into another round of foreplay.
The irony didn’t escape her. She’d come to the ranch to, with this man’s help, dig at the roots of her own problems. Instead, she was about to champion two kids who basically meant nothing to her.
She tapped her knuckle on the door jam. Russell looked up, then leaned back in his chair.
Pulling up a seat, she sank into it. “You look like you’ve been at it awhile.”
“Couldn’t sleep. Too much to do.” He scrubbed his face with one strong, male hand.
She’d have to proceed with caution to get him to buy into her scheme. “What are you working on?”
He shrugged. “Checking a national register for missing children to see if Bobby or Abby are on it.”
She nodded. Too many kids went missing each year. What would happen to these two if they left Russell’s care?
Jane wasn’t good at the subtle approach, but before she could come up with an opening, the man claiming more than half of her attention leaned forward on his elbows, his admirable intensity focused completely on her. “Tell me about Madrid.”
They had more important things to talk about. Like making a future for Bobby and Abby on the ranch.
She sighed heartily. “I’d been in Madrid a year when I literally ran into Linus in the local bazaar. Or, he ran into me. He was living on the streets, panhandling for food.”
“Why Linus?”
“I couldn’t pronounce his real name. It sounded a little like Linus, and he reminded me of the Peanut’s character.”
Finding it difficult to go on, Jane jumped up from the chair and paced abruptly to the window. She stared out into the ranch yard, but that wasn’t what she saw. Instead it was the colorful booths of a Madrid bazaar on market day, and a boy trying to stay alive the only way he knew how.
If not for Sister Mary Margaret and an orphanage in another country, that boy could have been her.
“I tried to find a local home for him. It never lasted long, and then he would disappear for a day, sometimes a week at a time, but he always came back. I thought we’d become fam-” she gulped in a breath and frowned. “It doesn’t matter what I thought.”
Her attention locked on that last day, she felt rather than saw Russell join her at the window.
“It started out like any other day. Warm. The city waking up with its usual bustle. Linus hadn’t been around for close to two weeks. I was in my office trying to figure out where he could be, when we got word unauthorized intruders had made it onto the grounds.”
“How?”
“Later we found out they dug a tunnel into the basement of one of the embassy buildings.”
“What happened next?”
“Linus was one of them.” She still couldn’t believe it. “He was just a kid. And...and, my friend.”
An arm slipped around her shoulders offering a comfort she was tempted to accept, but knew she didn’t deserve.
Finally, the horror of a boy she cared about blowing himself to bits, and a building burying her faded. Sunlight glinted off newly whitewashed outbuildings. Beside her a concerned, generous man didn’t want her to hurt anymore. She swung to face him.
Eyes full of compassion, he said gruffly, “That’s what terrorists do. They take what’s good in this world and destroy it.”
Jane dropped her chin to her chest. “I know.”
“You can’t let them win by throwing your life away.”
“I know!” She snapped, her tender feelings toward the man turning to dust.
“What are you doing, then?”
She struggled in silence for a long moment as a startling thought raced through her mind. I’m not my mother. I won’t abandon a kid when I’m all they have to look after them.
Fast on the heels of that came the searing guilt she’d been living with. She hadn’t done a bang up job of looking after Linus. She put the two thoughts away to be examined when her emotions weren’t reeling.
Taking a fortifying drag of country air, she raised her chin. “What are you going to do with Bobby and Abby?”
“You could keep them here. They like you. And, you would keep them safe.” She was convinced of it.
His arm dropped from her shoulder. “I’ve submitted an application to be their foster parent. Temporarily anyway, until we...you...figure out who they are and where they came from.”
For a brief moment, the briefest one ever, she missed his warm touch. “Temporary? If Sister Mary Margaret hadn’t taken me in when I was a baby, who knows where I’d be now. If I’d done a better job of looking after Linus, maybe things would have turned out different in Madrid. I don’t want anything bad to happen to Bobby and Abby.”
Jane relaxed the fists her hands had made. Coming at Russell with all the anger sitting on her chest wouldn’t get a stable home for the children. “They deserve more than a temporary parent. You’d be doing a good thing.”
“That may not be possible. Their parents are probably looking for them right now.”
With one hand, she waved his objection aside. “Happy kids don’t run just for the heck of it.” Her gaze drifted back to the view out the window. She spoke softly, mostly to herself. “You have the perfect home for them here.”
“I can’t make any promises about where Bobby and Abby will end up, but I will promise I won’t let anything bad happen to them.”
He took her hand, palm to palm, intertwining their fingers. She felt the connection clear to the ruins of her defenses. Sometime during their exchange her walls had crumbled, leaving her defenseless against the man turning her knees weak.
When he squeezed her hand, arousal re-ignited. Lust didn’t even begin to describe the feeling nipping at her heels.
It was bigger. Deeper. Burned in her chest. She didn’t have a name for it, would be afraid to whisper it if she did.
“I need your help. Discovering Abby’s name so quickly was a lucky start, but if I’m going to be any use to them, I need to know more.”
Russell needed her.
Jane hadn’t been needed by, or needed anyone herself in a long while. But, with his sharp gaze capturing hers, seeing deeper than she'd ever allowed anyone else to, as simple as that, they became cohorts. Not counselor and patient. But, a man and woman united in their determination to protect two lost kids.
She pulled her hand free from his; wrapped her arms around her stomach. This was not what she’d signed on for when she’d first arrived and persuaded him to help her. On the other hand, she couldn’t walk away when there might be something she could do that would make a difference.
Russell knew that. She knew it. There was no point in putting up a fight.
I’m not my mother.
“All right, I’ll help.”
CHAPTER
X
Later that day, Chase settled on the top step of the porch to watch Jane give Abby a slow rumbling ride around the ranch yard. He pulled on the bill of his baseball cap to block out the bright afternoon sunlight. Bobby was perched on the top rail of the corral.
He frowned. That morning, he’d come so close to saying the hell with his professionalism, and seeing just what it would take to make the pretty warrior woman come apart in his arms.
His good judgment had taken a vacation, just like it had with Nate, and he’d come that close to making a mess of the job his uncle had given him.
It was irritating to admit, but it felt good to be working again. Matt was right about that. It was just unfortunate he didn’t seem to be able to control his physical reaction to the spunky lady.
The more he found out what made her tick the more under her spell he fell. He didn’t like being enthralled, but the question was, what was he going to do about it?
“Go again,” Abby squealed gleefully.
Jane laughed, a rare occurrence. Abby giggled with her. Chase’s stomach took a hard tumble.
It was a side of the tough woman he didn’t need to see. The instant clench of need was so strong, it took all his willpower to stay sitting where he was, rather than taking Abby’s place and insisting Jane take the road back at the lake where he’d last tasted her.
He forced the image from his mind. He couldn’t keep thinking of her that way. She needed his professional expertise, not this randy teenager’s reaction to the prettiest girl in school.
They had a deal. He would council. She would cooperate by participating in his idea of therapeutic counseling.
He'd introduce her to impulse control, anger management and selective social skills. She'd return to her former life as emotionally healthy as it was possible to get during her thirty days with him.
There could be nothing more to their relationship than that.
Jane stopped the motorcycle in front of Bobby. Before Abby’s feet hit the dirt, the little girl was chattering like a magpie. “Bobby, did you see me? Can I go again?”
“It’s my turn brat,” grumbled the teen in good spirits as he climbed down from the corral, then removed his sister’s helmet.
Gus sat down. “I ran into Maxi in town this morning.” His foreman liked having his morning coffee at one of the local cafes in Lone Pine. “She’s agreed to sell ya four horses.”
Chase tore his gaze away from Jane. If he could occupy himself with something besides how hot she looked carting two lost kids around on a big, bad Harley, maybe she would stop taking up so much space in his mind. “How did you talk her into that?”
“Told her they was for the children.”
“Uh huh.” From what Chase had seen of his crusty neighbor, it would take more than that to get her to change her mind. “Just like that, she decided to fraternize with the city slicker?”
A red stain blotched Gus’ cheeks. Abby skipped over, plopped down on Chase’s other side and leaned against his arm. His handyman stuttered, “I, uh...promised to take her to the Lone Pine Rodeo Dance.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s all right, I was going anyway,” Gus muttered, staring at his boots, then slapped the battered hat he held by the brim on his head. “Got work to do. She’ll be here in half an hour.”
The old man hadn’t taken many steps before he spun around. “Maybe you should think about taking Miss Jane.”
Chase found Jane’s laughing gaze across the ranch yard. She made quite a picture tooling around his drive with Bobby hanging on behind her.
His pulse leaped. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t.
*
Three days later, Jane woke to the smell of strong, potent coffee, the heady aroma reminding her of the man who’d pushed them all to get ready for this camping trip he insisted they take into the hill-country above the ranch.
She rolled out of her sleeping bag almost fully clothed. After pulling on her boots and throwing a large camp shirt over her tank, she gratefully accepted the mug of coffee Russell placed in her hands before retreating with his own cup to the other side of the fire.
He studied her over the steaming drink. “Better?” The low growl in his voice was seductive, filled with the edges of sleep not completely gone.
“Yes. Thanks.” An unexpected desire to know what it would feel like to snuggle up next to him in front of the day’s first fire snuck up, cracking her voice.
It didn’t take additional couch time to figure out, more than the battle over her mental health waged between them. She’d been ignoring the truth for days.
Admit it Donovan. You like the guy. You like him a lot.
She wasn't going to admit anything of the sort. She had another purpose for him. His job was to untangle her mind, not get tangle up in the sheets with her, no matter how delicious that sounded.
In the first months after being buried alive under the rubble of what was left of the basement where she’d found Linus and the other two intruders, her memory of what happened those last minutes was spotty at best. The missing pieces were there, she could feel them, but they still remained just beyond her reach.
At first, she’
d thought she’d been betrayed by the boy she’d recklessly grown to care about. But, she’d thought about it long and hard, and the truth was worse than that. She was the one who’d betrayed him.
By leaving him vulnerable and unprotected, she'd given unscrupulous snakes a chance to take advantage of both their weaknesses. Until she could come to terms with that, she was afraid she had no chance of putting her life back together.
She shivered. When the edges of her vision cleared, Russell was squatting in front of her, adding his warmth to the fire’s. “What is it?”
That’s when it hit her – the reason for her restless dreams during the night. She didn’t want to stay out in the cold, alone in her frozen past any longer. Not when this strong, astute man looked at her like he wanted to fight off all contenders in order to be the one to slay her dragon.
“Jane?”
“I...I’m fine. Really,” she lied.
On the one hand, she wanted to go home to Paris Island. On the other, there were these unexplainable...feelings for Russell she found it almost impossible to ignore; was discovering she didn’t want to ignore.
“I don’t believe you.”
Taking her coffee cup from her, he captured her hands. Just his touch locked the breath in her chest, leaving her unable to escape the raw desire exploding in her belly.
This couldn't be good. It was crazy. And all of a sudden, she was wondering what would happen if she didn’t return to her other life. Not because she didn’t get well, but because there was a possibility, albeit a very minute one, that she’d accidentally stumbled on a dream she’d discarded long ago.
Stunned, she went absolutely still. She wasn’t looking for happy-ever-after. Nor did she lead the kind of life conducive to finding it. But, if she thought there was one chance in hell, she could jump the hurdles and make a military marriage - okay any marriage - work, wouldn’t it be worth checking out the man who might make it last longer than the time it took to decide something else was more important than she was?
Jane mentally shook herself free of the startling idea. She wasn’t an innocent, she’d been to more than one dance. None had lasted longer than the ride home and a smattering of dates after.
