His mouth curved into a grin. “You learn fast. Speak French to Pierre, and he’ll love you forever.”
Mara grabbed the back of the chair to keep herself from asking the question that rolled to the tip of her tongue. What would make you love a woman forever, Brock?
Ridiculous! She didn’t care how he felt or what went on inside his frigid heart. It was time to sit down. No, it was time to get out of this room and away from this man who was coming closer and closer.
“How was your day, Mara?”
“Fine.”
“Get any rest?”
“A little.”
“The baby okay?”
“Sleeping.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah.” She tried to give a nonchalant smile. “Someone woke her up awfully early this morning.”
“Sorry about that.” He set his hat on the table. “You look different tonight.”
She flushed and hated herself for it. “I took a shower.”
“You have on regular clothes.” He looked her up and down, and she felt every new lump and bulge with which childbearing had endowed her.
“At least I can see my feet again,” she managed.
It was meant to be a joke, a reminder of their adventure in the tiny apartment bathroom, but he didn’t laugh. He lifted his head, and his deep-brown eyes searched her face.
“I have a long way to go before I feel normal.” She heard herself talking again, blabbering just to fill the silence, and he watched as her lips formed the words. “I need to start exercising. Right now, I feel like I’m doing well just to walk down the hall without it hurting too much.”
“Hurting?” He reached out and touched her hand. “I’m sorry, Mara. I didn’t realize…I know you went through a lot the other day. You want to use the hot tub? It’s in my wing.”
“Oh…a hot tub…” She should pull her hand away. The man was so close she could smell his scent, wild and somehow earthy after his day in the dust and wind and chilly, late-autumn sunshine. It cast a spell, like a fragile net, over her shoulders. She knew she must escape the spell, but she couldn’t make herself want to.
“Feels good after a hard day,” he said. “Warm water swirling around. Bubbles. Steam.”
“Not tonight. Thank you.” She instructed her knees to bend, and she managed to sit on her chair. “I’m too tired.”
“Whatever feels right.”
“Cheesecake!” Ermaline sang out as she swept into the dining room. “Have a seat, Mr. B. You want a dessert wine with this?”
Brock stepped away from Mara and walked around the table. “No, thanks,” he said. “I think I’m a little off center tonight already.”
“You boys ought to lay off that beer down at the bunkhouse, Mr. B. Especially on a work night.”
Ermaline bustled out of the dining room, and Brock picked up his fork. “I haven’t had a thing to drink,” he said.
Chapter Eight
For the first time in his life, Brock felt indifferent about Pierre’s cheesecake. He stared down at the creamy confection dripping in chocolate and cherries, and all he could think about was Mara. She sat an arm’s length away, the scent of her perfume mingling with the fragrance of burning wax from the candles between them. He shouldn’t have looked at her again. Only the day before, he’d made himself a promise to steer clear of the woman. But the minute he had heard she was in the dining room, he’d headed right on in just as if he belonged across the table from her.
He jiggled his fork back and forth, then stuck it into the cheesecake and sliced off a bite. As he chewed, he realized the stuff felt like quick-drying carpenter’s glue in his mouth. His attempt to swallow lodged the dessert right at Adam’s-apple level, where it stuck firm and made any chance at conversation impossible. Just as well.
Brock knew he had no business daydreaming up a bunch of romantic nonsense about a woman who had nearly ruined his peaceful life. Despite his best intentions, he had thought about Mara all day long. While loading a steer or checking his barns or driving down a dusty dirt road, he would catch himself in the realization that her face had appeared right in front of him. He might picture her straining to give birth to little Abby, or smiling with that half-shy, secret smile, or lashing out at him like a snapping bullwhip.
From any angle and in any circumstance Mara looked beautiful to him. Her blond hair draped around her shoulders like a silk sheet. Her eyes glowed with an inner light of determination and intelligence that had always fascinated him. Her mouth…oh, Mara’s mouth…
“I dropped by the lounge this morning,” she said. “The one in my wing.”
He worked at swallowing the gluey lump of cheesecake. “Oh, yeah?”
“It’s nice.”
“Mmm-hmm.” He couldn’t lift his head or he’d have to see her face again. But he couldn’t take another bite or he’d be so gummed up he’d choke. Instead, he intently mashed the cheesecake into a pattern of crosshatched fork marks.
“I feel like I misjudged you, Brock,” she said in a low voice. “It’s just that I’m a quiet person, and I don’t enjoy parties all that much. Especially with a baby around.”
“Mmm.”
“I was worried there might be too much going on in my wing.”
He glanced up, but focused on the window behind her. “No, it’s uh…quiet around here.”
“It is very quiet.” Mara poked at the crust of her dessert. “You’re gone a lot, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “Lots to be done.”
“Cows.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad you’re here tonight though,” she began. “I wanted to talk to you. There are some things I think I should tell you.”
Again he lifted his eyes, but this time he couldn’t resist looking at her. Mara was concentrating on her cheesecake as intently as he’d studied his. A soft flush had spread across her cheeks to light her skin with a pink glow. He couldn’t remember when he’d seen a woman look so gentle, so tender. In her pink sweater and golden hair, she was almost a vision. He had to get out of the dining room. Fast.
“Don’t worry about parties,” he said quickly as he pushed back from the table and stood up. “I keep things pretty dull around here. So anyhow, I reckon I’ll just—”
“Thank you,” she said softly. “For everything.”
He stopped. “Pardon?”
“Thank you for all this. The house, the food. I’m grateful to you for paying my hospital and doctor bills, Brock. And the nursery…thank you for all the furniture. For my rocking chair.”
Rubbing his palm around the back of his neck beneath his collar, Brock let out a breath.
“Ermaline told me you built it.”
“Figures.” He debated how to handle this inevitable situation. While Mara had been in the hospital, he could think of nothing but finding ways to please her. He had been almost obsessed with crafting the rocker for her. More than with any other piece of furniture, he had poured the sum of his carpentry expertise into that chair. While telling himself it was for the baby’s comfort, he had known all along he was building it for Mara. When the piece sat finished, he had felt certain it was perfect. Only then had he begun to wonder what had possessed him to work so hard for a woman who couldn’t stand him, and to worry how she might interpret his gesture.
“I do a lot of carpentry,” he said, his voice carefully nonchalant. “Takes my mind off things.”
“Well, I appreciate it.” Mara stood and rounded the table toward him. “Brock, you’ve done more than—”
“I’d do just about anything for Todd,” he said quickly. She was suddenly too close. He could smell the scent of her freshly washed hair, like flowers after a rainstorm. Frantic that he might touch her, he threw out the only barrier he could think of to push her away.
“Todd was my best friend, remember?” he said, his voice harsher than he intended. He went on, speaking too quickly. “I can’t do anything to bring him back, but I know how to manage the busine
ss end of things. You and the baby are already figured into my operating costs. It’s like you’re part of the household staff, same as Pierre, the housekeepers, the gardener. You’ve just been absorbed right into the equation. Don’t worry about what stuff is costing me. I know what my obligations are, and I intend to meet them.”
Mara watched him with a bemused expression. “I’m not accustomed to thinking of myself as a line item in somebody’s budget.”
Brock looked at her, and the realization that she was easily within his grasp sent a solid weight to the pit of his stomach. He swallowed hard and shifted from one foot to the other. Her gray-green eyes were fastened to him as she waited for some response, but it was all he could do to keep himself from taking her in his arms and kissing her lips.
“I realize you’re trying to do right by Todd,” she continued. “But I prefer to be treated as a human being.”
“Is anyone here treating you badly, Mara?”
Her shoulders drooped. “I’m being treated very well. It’s just…”
“Has the staff said anything unkind about our arrangement or the baby or anything?”
“Oh, no. They’ve all been polite.”
“Do you need anything?” Something was wrong, but Brock couldn’t figure out what it was. Had he pushed her too far away—and hurt her in the process? “New clothes? Shoes? A different room?”
“No, I have all I need. More than enough.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
She ran a finger along the back of the chair. “I’m a person, Brock. I have feelings. I have needs that have nothing to do with clothes and shoes. It’s hard to live with the realization that you’re resented.”
“No one resents you.”
“I’m trying to tell you that I want to be treated like a woman, not a budget item. Can’t you see that?”
“I see that.” Unable to hold back, he took her shoulders firmly. “Mara, don’t ask anything more of me. I’m doing all I can to…to manage this situation.”
“You don’t have to manage me, Brock. And I’m not a situation, I’m a human being. I’d like someone to talk to once in a while. I could use a little company at the dinner table.”
Struggling for control, he forced out the words. “I told you I can’t bring Todd back. I can’t fix that.”
“I know you can’t bring him back.”
“I can’t take his place, either. I’m not Todd. I never will be.”
“Am I asking you to be Todd?”
He shook his head slowly. Beneath his fingers, her sweater was warm and soft. Her shoulders felt so small and fragile. With one tilt of his thumbs he could pull her against him. “You’re asking too much, Mara.”
“Why?” The word was a breath against his skin.
He searched her face, hoping to find the contempt and disgust he had seen so often in her eyes. Instead he saw vulnerability. Loneliness. Sorrow. But he had built a wall of resolve to keep her and everyone else out of his life, and he couldn’t tear it down. This woman, more than any other, was forbidden. She wore another man’s wedding band, and she belonged to him.
“You’re Todd’s wife,” he said, determined to restore the barrier she had threatened to topple. If he let this thing get out of control, he could never forgive himself. He might hurt Mara, hurt Abby. And then he would be guilty all over again.
Brock dropped his hands and stepped back from her. “Look, if I’m going to take care of Todd’s business—and I am—then I have to work hard. You may have feelings and needs, but you’re going to have to handle them without me around. I don’t have time to eat here at the house every meal and then sit around visiting with you. I have to pay my bills, which are bigger now than they were before I took you two in, and that means I need to be out working as much as I can.”
Unwilling to look at her again, he leaned over the table to grab his hat. As he settled it on his head, he started for the door.
“Todd never walked away from me in the middle of a conversation,” she snapped.
He halted. “I told you—I’m not Todd.”
“My husband never thought of me as a bill to pay.”
“I’m not your husband.” He squared his shoulders. “Not really.”
“Yes, you are, Brock.” Mara glared at him. “You know, after walking through your home and meeting your employees and seeing the rocker you built, I thought I had caught a glimpse of a man I might be able to forgive. I thought there might be room for a measure of cordiality between us. In fact, I almost forgot why I originally refused to marry you that day in my apartment. Thank you for reminding me.”
“You’re welcome.”
As fast as he had come into the room, Brock bolted out again. And he made absolutely sure he didn’t turn to look at her. Not until he was in the driveway and could see her through the window. Mara was crying.
“So, how’s Brock these days?” Sherry asked over the telephone. “Is he doing anything to help out with the baby?”
In the first weeks after Abby’s birth, Mara and her best friend had talked by phone nearly every day. But the calls became less frequent as the holidays approached and the boutique where Sherry worked grew busier. Now her voice sounded almost foreign—as though she were from another time and place.
Mara frowned at the pile of white cotton infant T-shirts she had been folding as she sat on the bed with the phone in the crook of her neck. “I haven’t seen Brock for more than a week, Sher. I doubt the man’s been home long enough to read his mail, let alone help with Abby.”
“How could you not see him for a week? Aren’t you living in the same house?”
“You should take a look at this place sometime. We could live here forever and not run into each other.”
“What about meals and evenings?”
“He’s never here. Works all the time.” Mara dropped a T-shirt onto the stack. “Brock pointed out he has a lot more bills to pay these days, thanks to Abby and me.”
“Ooh, what a rat. You don’t suppose he’s trying to turn the tables, do you? Maybe he wants to make you feel like you owe him, instead of the other way around.”
“Who knows? I never think about the man.”
“Ha. Are you lying just to me—or to yourself, too?”
Mara shook her head. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t the truth, Sherry. I don’t know why it popped out. Maybe because I don’t want to think about Brock. And when I do, I sure don’t know what to do about him.”
Running her hand over the baby clothes, Mara admitted to herself that she thought about Brock Barnett way too much during her long, empty days. As she had studied each painting up and down every hall in his house, she wondered what about the artistry had touched him. As she had examined every stick of furniture, she imagined his hands smoothing over the hard wood, planing it and polishing it to a high, silken sheen. She’d looked through his living-room library, reading the notations he had penned in the margins and noting the titles of the books he’d obviously read more than once.
Every morning, she dressed for breakfast and wondered if she would run into him on his way to the day’s labors. Every evening, she listened for the sound of his pickup pulling up to the house. At night, after nursing Abby, she wandered onto her porch and sat on the long wooden swing, where she tried to figure out why this man had possessed her thoughts.
It had to be a hormone imbalance.
“Well, just try to put Brock out of your thoughts as much as you can,” Sherry said. “Abby must keep you awfully busy.”
“Actually, she sleeps a lot.”
“Just being around to nurse her all the time is such a responsibility, though. Don’t you feel tied down?”
“That’s not really the way I would describe it.” Mara looked around at the huge, empty room. “I love Abby so much, and I’m thankful I can have this time with her. I feel as though I’ve been given a chance to rest and recover from the birth.”
“But? Come on, Mara, I know you too well. What’s the problem?�
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“It’s awfully quiet here. When Abby’s sleeping, there are long spaces of time when it’s just me.”
“You’re missing Todd, aren’t you?”
Mara shut her eyes. Yes, she missed Todd, but she couldn’t deny that much of that pain had eased. She didn’t think about him all the time anymore. She didn’t experience his loss as sharply as she once had. Should she feel guilty about that? Sometimes she did.
“I do miss Todd,” she acknowledged. “I miss people.”
“Why don’t you come into town for church this Sunday? Everyone’s been asking about you, Mara. They’d love to see the baby.”
“I couldn’t leave Abby in the church nursery yet. She still gets hungry too often. Besides, I don’t have anything to wear that doesn’t make me look like I’m still pregnant.”
“Oh, Mara, I bet you look like you always have—Ms. Toothpick Perfection. How about if I drive out to visit you? I’d love to take a gander at that mansion of Brock’s.”
“It’s not a mansion, Sherry. It’s just a big house. A very big house.” Mara let out a breath, realizing she couldn’t even work up much enthusiasm to see her best friend.
“I’ve got some Christmas presents for Abby,” Sherry said. “I could drop them off.”
“Christmas? Oh great, I’ve hardly given that a thought. I don’t suppose much will change around here. I’m married to the original Grinch, you know.”
Sherry chuckled. “Maybe you should give Brock a chance. Didn’t the Grinch’s heart grow two sizes after he felt all that love and affection? You never can tell what might happen to Brock with you and Abby around. Be nice to him, and he might turn into Prince Charming one of these days.”
“Dream on.” Mara shook her head. “Why don’t you come out for a visit in a week or two? Maybe by that time I’ll even be able to put on a pair of jeans.”
“How about Sunday afternoon? I’ll give you a rundown on the sermon.”
Mara laughed. It was a standing joke with Sherry that their beloved pastor—so good-hearted and genuine—was the most boring preacher in the world.
“It’s a deal. See you then. Bye, Sher.”
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