Chapter Ten
“I heard the baby,” Brock said. He couldn’t believe what he had just done. Two minutes ago, he had been hungry and tired. Two minutes ago, he had been determined to stay as far from Mara as possible. Now he was struggling to keep from lifting her into his arms and comforting her.
“Is Abby okay?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Mara said over Abby’s wails. Brock could barely hear her. “I can’t get her to sleep.”
“Maybe she’s hungry.”
“No, it’s not that. I just nursed her. I’ve changed her diaper, burped her, checked her temperature, everything I can think of. I can’t understand why she won’t sleep.”
They both looked down at the subject herself. The baby’s tiny fists pumped the air, now and then batting her mother. Her little feet churned inside the white crocheted blanket. Cheeks bright red, her head was thrown back against Mara’s arm as though she desperately wanted to escape but couldn’t.
“She’s raising quite a ruckus,” Brock said.
“What?” Mara asked above the cries.
“She’s loud.”
The gray-green eyes lifted to his face, and Brock could see they were awash in tears. “I’m sorry she bothered you. I’d better try rocking her again.”
Mara turned to go, but Brock touched her arm. “Let me.”
Before he had thought through a plan of action and its consequences, he found himself ushering Mara back into the sitting room that was a part of her suite, switching on a low lamp and guiding her onto a nearby recliner. Then he took the squalling bundle from her arms and gave her a valiant grin.
“You get some rest.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. You need it.”
Spotting the rocker, Brock headed for it. Mara must have moved the chair from the nursery into this small living area so she could enjoy the sunny view as she rocked Abby. The two of them spent so many hours together, while he saw little or nothing of either one.
Brock could hardly believe he was actually holding this baby who had changed his life so dramatically. In his arms, Abby was almost weightless, her small, rounded body nestling easily against the soft contours of his sheepskin coat. Weightless, maybe, but noisy as all get-out. The kid could raise the rafters.
Brock glanced at Mara, who had collapsed onto the recliner in a heap, then he shrugged out of his jacket and kicked off his dusty boots. Gathering the baby closer to him, he eased his large frame down into the chair. Abby was a mess of rumpled blankets and twisted nightgown, so he peeled her out of everything that would come off. Then he laid her against his chest, pressed her little round head against the warmth of his body, and began to rock gently.
“Now then, no need to cry,” he murmured. As he rocked, Brock leaned his head back against the chair and shut his eyes. Abby’s wails gradually mellowed into whimpers. Her tiny fingers clutched the fabric of his thermal undershirt, and her nose nestled against his chest. She sure was little. He figured he could easily hold her in one hand.
Lowering his head, he drank in the scent of her downy hair. Baby shampoo and talcum powder. Something tugged at his heart, and he swallowed against the tide of emotion. He brushed the baby’s forehead with his lips and let out a deep breath.
“You planning to sleep sometime tonight, girl?” he whispered. “Don’t you know you’ve about worn your mama plumb out? I was on my way for a sandwich and a warm shower, myself. But you decide to set up a holler and everybody comes running, don’t they?”
He studied the diminutive face. Abby was perfect. From her soft eyes to her small nose to her bowed lips, she was the image of her beautiful mother. Even her ears fit against her head like tiny seashells. Again, he kissed her, and this time her fussy cries wound down into a sigh. “This is what we call nighttime, Abby,” he murmured against her shoulder. “It’s dark outside the window, see? The stars are hanging in the sky. The moon’s tucked away. Even the coyotes have gone to bed. Sleep now, baby. That’s my girl.”
As Abby fell silent, Brock lifted his feet onto the footrest of Mara’s recliner and stretched out his long, tired legs. The creak of the rocker was replaced by the whisper of winter wind against the window pane. In the quiet, Brock let his eyes drift shut and his cheek settle against the top of the baby’s head.
“And if your broken heart’s too deep,” Mara’s soft voice filtered through the cobwebs of sleep gathering in his brain, “Papa’s gonna come and rock you to sleep.”
Brock opened his eyes. From the recliner, Mara was watching him. She lifted her bare foot and touched the tip of her toe to the end of his sock.
“And if my baby girl goes to sleep,” she murmured, “I think she might have found her a man to keep.”
She broke into a smile that lit the room like sunrise on a summer morning. Brock stared back at her and puzzled over the words she had sung.
“Mara,” he whispered. “What do you—”
“Shh.” She held one finger to her lips and glanced at Abby. “Good night, Brock.”
When Mara opened her eyes the next morning, she realized it was the first time since they’d left the hospital that she had not awakened to the sound of a baby. In fact, there was no sound at all in the room, nothing but the chatter of birds and the rustle of bare branches in the courtyard outside. Sunshine lay like a pool of melted butter on the tile floor. A slice of cloudless blue sky peeped through the open curtains. An old, beat-up sheepskin jacket hung over the arm of the empty rocker.
Empty! Mara sat up on the recliner where she had spent the night. Where was Abby? Where was Brock? She swung her legs to the floor and sat for a minute, breathing hard. Oh, no—Abby hadn’t nursed since midnight!
Mara retied the belt of her chenille robe as she padded across the floor. She jerked open the door to the nursery and hurried to the crib. Empty. Brushing a hand over her forehead, she tried to think. It had been a difficult night—Abby restless and whiny, Mara tired and sore—until Brock had showed up at their door.
The last thing Mara had seen before falling into an exhausted sleep was her daughter snuggled in Brock’s arms. Brock must have her now. Mara walked down the hall, her throat tightening with worry. Brock had witnessed Abby’s birth, but he knew nothing about babies. He’d held Abby only once or twice. What if he dropped her? What if he spilled something on her? What if he laid her down on a couch or a kitchen counter and she rolled off? If she landed on the hard tile floor—
“Once you get your teeth,” Brock’s distinctively deep voice said from the kitchen, “you’ll be eating eggs and bacon for breakfast.”
Mara came to a sudden stop in the doorway. With Abby neatly tucked like a football in one arm, Brock was stirring a batch of scrambled eggs with his free hand.
“Now, don’t frown at me, girl,” he said to the baby. Oblivious to the observing woman, he poured the egg mixture into a hot skillet on the stove and returned his attention to Abby. “You can have some milk, too, when you get bigger. But you’ll drink it out of a cup, and it’ll be cow’s milk. Cows are what we do here on the ranch, so you’ll have to learn to drink big glasses of milk and chow down on prime rib. Mmm-mmm. Good stuff. That is, if we can get Pierre to leave us alone in the kitchen for a few hours so we can cook together.”
Mara stared at the broad expanse of Brock’s chest and Abby’s pink cheek snuggled comfortably against his thermal undershirt. As he tended to his breakfast, the man looked as though he’d spent his whole life with a baby wedged in the crook of his arm. One-handed, he salted and peppered his steaming eggs. He stepped to the refrigerator and took out two jars of jelly. Next he opened the oven door and set a couple of croissants onto the rack.
“You’ll have to get used to French grub,” he said to the baby. “But when you get really hungry, we’ll sneak out to the bunkhouse and chow down with the men.”
“Wuh,” Abby said.
“I know just what you mean,” Brock concurred. “Let me tell you about my foreman, Pedro Chavez. Now, he
can cook enchiladas like nobody’s business. Brings tortillas from home that his wife makes on weekends. And Nick Jefferson is our steak man. Loads us down with T-bones, baked beans and biscuits.”
From the open doorway, Mara watched as Brock set a plate, silverware and napkin on the kitchen work table. Humming softly, he got a mug from the shelf.
“You know, for such a pretty little girl, you’re smelling mighty whiffy,” he told Abby as he walked toward the coffeemaker. “I reckon you may be due for a new diaper.”
“Uh-behhh,” Abby burbled.
“I’ll tell you what. If you’ll hang on till after breakfast, I’ll do what I can to clean you up. Maybe between the two of us we can figure out what it is your mama does to keep you feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”
He reached for the coffeepot and held it over the mug, which sat on the counter only an inch from Abby’s tiny bare leg. As the steaming black liquid splashed into the cup, Mara gasped. Brock swung around.
“Whoa. You just about scared me and Abby out of our britches. ’Course, Abby needs to change her britches anyhow.” He gave her a broad grin. “Coffee?”
“I was afraid you might spill it.” Mara shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her robe as she walked toward Brock. “I’d love some. But let me pour.”
“Don’t trust me?”
“Not too much.” She took down another mug and filled them both with hot black coffee. “But more today than I did yesterday.”
“Keep that up and you might start to like me.”
“I like what you’ve done for us.” She set the mugs on the table and leaned toward him. “Brock, thank you for helping me last night. I haven’t slept that many hours in a row since Abby was born.”
“You were wrung out. I tell you what,” he said, studying the baby in his arms, “I never knew someone who weighed less than ten pounds could wiggle like a rattler on a hot skillet, raise the roof with her hollering and odor up an entire kitchen.”
Mara had to laugh. “I’d better change her.”
“I thought I’d give it a shot, but I wasn’t sure what kind of a surprise I’d find when I opened the package.”
“Not a pretty one, I can promise you that.”
He held Abby at arms’ length and peered into her tiny face. “You leak, you drool, you squall, you mess your britches and you keep people awake half the night. What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?”
“Bah,” Abby gurgled.
Brock laughed out loud. Hugging her close, he planted a kiss on top of her head. “Yeah, you’d steal my heart, wouldn’t you? Go on, now, your mama’s waiting.”
He placed the damp little bundle in Mara’s arms. “When you’re done, come back and have some breakfast,” he said. “Pierre’s off on Sunday, so we’re on our own.”
Mara snuggled her daughter, aware of the tiny lips rooting against her neck. “Abby’s hungry, too. You go ahead with your breakfast. I’ll nurse her, and then I’ll fix something later.”
“No point in that.” He grabbed a chair and pulled it back from the table. “Feed her in here. Might as well all eat together.”
Mara stared at him as he sat down, leaned back in his chair and cocked his hands behind his head. His smile was as broad as all New Mexico. “I was there when they showed you how, remember?” he said. “Go on, now. I’ll keep the eggs warm.”
Carrying her fragrant little bundle, Mara strolled down the hall. Abby whimpered, as if dismayed at the feel of chenille robe against her cheek instead of a male chest. Mara frowned.
“You like him, don’t you?” she whispered. “Scamp. I heard you cooing and gurgling over that man. You just wrapped him right around your little finger.”
Mara carried Abby into the nursery and quickly changed her diaper. A strange sense of satisfaction came over her as she realized how easy the task had become. She could bathe, diaper, nurse, rock, burp and sing lullabies like a pro. In fact, in the last couple of weeks she had become a fairly competent mother.
“So, the cowboy wants to have breakfast with you, does he?” she said, hefting Abby in her arms. “All right then. Here we go.”
As Mara walked toward the dining room, she thought of the man who waited there. She recalled Rosa Maria’s statement about Brock. After spending time with your husband, she had told Mara, Mr. Barnett always relaxed. He would be happy. He would lean back in his chair and put his feet on the table.
Relaxed. Happy. This was a man she could tolerate a lot better than the driven perfectionist she had always known. What had calmed Brock? Was it Sunday, a quiet house and a sunny December morning? Was it Abby and her soothing, snuggling acceptance? Or did Mara herself have something to do with mellowing the man? For some odd reason, she hoped she had played a part.
As she stepped into the kitchen, Mara again knew a sense of betrayal. The picture was all wrong. It should be Todd, his wife and their baby gathering in the little apartment kitchen. They should sit around their dinette, talking and laughing in the comfortable way they had together. A family.
She walked toward Brock, suddenly overwhelmed with the guile in her heart. How could she actually look forward to spending time with this man? How could it be fair that he and not Todd held Abby and rocked her to sleep? Worst of all…how could Mara be feeling the wayward emotions she felt every time she was in Brock’s presence?
All the hours she had invested in trying to pray away her guilt—repent of her reckless marriage and make atonement to God—and here she was actually enjoying Brock Barnett. She had begged for the Lord to show her His will and to make something good of the knotted mess she was laying at His feet. Everything in her brain pointed her away from Brock. But her heart…oh, it was willful…
“Hey there,” Brock said, looking up at her. In worn and slightly wrinkled jeans, his long legs stretched across the expanse from chair to table. His feet were comfortably crossed at the ankles and propped on the table.
“You’ll never guess what just skedaddled past the window there,” he said.
Uncomfortable at being drawn into an easy banter with him, Mara settled on the edge of her chair. She tucked Abby close and fought the swirl of tingles that swept down her spine as she looked into Brock’s brown eyes.
“A roadrunner,” he said. “A chaparral bird. Ran right through the courtyard. Never seen one this close to the house.”
Tearing her focus from his face, Mara searched the walled enclosure for the fabled bird, but it had vanished. “Maybe it was hungry.”
“I don’t know about the roadrunner, but I know about me.” Brock set his feet on the floor, stood and headed for the stove. In moments, he had served up two plates of scrambled eggs, bacon, warm croissants, farm butter and jelly. He refilled Mara’s coffee mug.
As he sat down and reached for the pepper grinder, Mara draped a cloth diaper over her shoulder to cover Abby’s head. Beneath it, she pushed back her robe and Abby quickly began to nurse.
At the sound of the baby’s loud, satisfied gulps, Mara flushed a bright pink as she lifted her eyes to Brock. He was grinning. “Reckon we can pray over that little barracuda?” he asked, holding out a hand toward Mara.
“Oh, Brock, really?”
“I decided you had a point about praying before meals, Mara. I wasn’t brought up in the church, and I’m not too sure about my doctrines and theologies, but that doesn’t mean I’m not grateful for what I’ve been given.”
Mara shut her eyes for a moment, elated at the promise that somehow God was touching Brock’s life…and stricken with guilt at her eagerness to take his hand. It wouldn’t be right to feel euphoric about any man so soon after her husband’s death. It was doubly wrong to be melting inside over Brock Barnett. He had been Todd’s best friend. That made her attraction to him seem so wrong. And worse, Brock was the one who had led Todd up those cliffs.
She planted her hand firmly in her lap and twisted her wedding band around and around. “Brock, I don’t think—”
“There’s been an
empty place inside me, Mara,” he said, his hand still outstretched. “I got to thinking about it after the crowd from Las Cruces dropped by.”
“Empty?”
“There’s a hollowness that’s built into everybody. It’s uncomfortable, so you try to fill it up. I used to think I could fix things by partying, until I realized what a waste of time that is. Then I started trying to work it out of my system by putting in eighteen-hour days on the ranch. That’s not going too well, either. Then you mentioned how you and Todd used to pray together, and I remembered that about him. After he became a Christian, Todd had a peace I sure envied.”
Mara looked down at Abby and let out a breath. Maybe it wasn’t as wrong as she thought to be friends with the same man her husband had loved so deeply. “Todd’s faith filled in the hollowness in his life,” she acknowledged. “He had a deep, personal relationship with Jesus.”
Brock nodded. “And with you, Mara.”
She searched his eyes, trying to read the message in their brown depths. Did he understand what she felt? Did he want the same things she was beginning to want? Slowly she unknotted her fist and stretched out her hand. Brock’s warm fingers closed around hers, covering the gold band she wore. He cleared his throat, and she gave his hand a slight squeeze.
“Dear God,” Mara said softly, “thank you for a good night’s sleep. Please bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies… Thank you for Abby and…and for Brock…and teach me how to forgive. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.”
“Amen.” Brock glanced at her. Continuing to hold her hand, he picked up his fork. “Forgiveness. That’s hard work.”
Realizing she was immobilized—one arm wrapped around Abby and her free hand clasped firmly in Brock’s—Mara watched him chew a bite of breakfast. At the sight, tenderness filled her heart, and she went completely helpless inside.
“I don’t know how to forgive,” he said. “Never have figured it out in all these years.”
Mara studied their clasped hands, aware that his fingers were tanned and hard against her soft pale skin. She remembered how their fingers had been entwined during her labor, and how she had stared at them, loving them. She wanted his hand to touch more than her fingers. More than her arm. All he had done in the past two weeks was grab her, shake her, propel her here or there. But she craved those brown hands on her neck, rubbing her shoulders, massaging her back.
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