by Arlene James
She realized suddenly that she was smiting and that Nancy was looking at her with an intense puzzlement. Self-consciously she smoothed down hair as straight and fine as corn silk and said, "Well, this is a stroke of good luck, I'm sure. Perhaps if I apply for the job before he has time to get it in the paper, I'll have a , better chance. What do you think?"
Nancy shrugged and lifted her coffee cup. "Just be sure you tell him privately how you came to know of it."
Caroline nodded. Yes, indeed, very privately. She picked up the now cold cup of coffee she'd left earlier on the battered side table and saluted Nancy with it, silently wishing herself a happy birthday or at least a successful one, for this very morning she meant to apply for a job.
Jesse hunched his shoulders against a razor-sharp wind. This was nothing, of course, compared to what it would be in a few weeks' time, but today it seemed to cut through his heavy flannel jacket, flannel shirt and undershirt to whip his skin with shivers. Time to get out the insulated long Johns. Seemed like he was breaking them out earlier every year. Before long he'd be dragging them out at the end of summer, just like his father. He was standing on the edge of thirty-eight, but some days it felt more like sixty-eight, like when the wind whipped down out of the Rockies and cut him to bits. Clamping a hand down over the crown of his serviceable old brown felt hat, he ducked his chin below the turned-up edge of his collar and moved briskly toward the house.
He. hadn't taken ten steps before he realized what he should have seen the moment he left the barn. Company was parked in me rutted, snow-curbed drive just outside the welded pipe fence enclosing the tight, two-story house where he lived with his parents. He didn't recognize the car, and yet something about it struck a chord with him. It looked like nothing so much as a big, battered tin cup on roller skates, and if it had ever been painted, the color had long ago worn to a dull, dirty gray. As he strode closer, the driver's side door creaked open and what looked like every high school quarterback's dream come true got out and waved a hand at him.
She had pale gold, waist-length hair, long, long legs encased in black leggings that disappeared beneath a cheap, fake rabbit fur coat topped by the face of an angel. "Handsome, you lucky dog," Jesse muttered, for who else could she be here to see but the young cowboy he'd taken on at the beginning of the summer? He stepped up and nodded, not offering his hand because she looked about sixteen. "Can I help you?"
To his surprise, she stepped forward and reached out her own long, slender hand to him. "I'm Caroline Moncton, Mr. Wagner. It's a pleasure to meet you."
He took her pale, cold hand in his own gloved one and shook it. She had a good strong grip for a girl, and mottled blue-and-green eyes, lavishly lashed, that were downright dangerous. He took his hand back and tucked it away. "Handsome* s down at the barn. You're welcome to go down and—"
"I beg your pardon?"
He chuckled, figuring he knew what the problem was. "I meant Jerry, Jerry Harris. We call him Handsome Harris around here because of all the g— Well, he seems to have some sort of appeal we haven't figured out yet"
She cocked her head and scooped straight silk out of her eyes. "I didn't come here to see anyone called Handsome Harris," she said. "I came to see you."
"Me?" Now that was a surprise. Who the devil was Caroline Moncton? "I'm afraid I can't imagine what you'd have to see me about."
"The fact is, I want a job."
His mouth dropped open. Shades of Kara Detmeyer Wagner! According to his brother and what Jess had seen himself, his new sister-in-law was as able a cowboy as any man who'd ever sat astride a horse, but at least she looked the part, dressing in jeans and boots, hat and work shirts. Rye swore she was more at ease in chaps and rough-out gloves than skirts and flounces, but he'd hinted--—unnecessarily—that what was underneath was all woman. This gal was all girl from die outside in. He couldn't believe she was interested in cowboying. He huddled down into his coat
"Honey, I don't know what notion you've got rattling around inside that pretty little head of yours, but ranching's rough work, besides which I don't have an open spot, not that I'd take you on if I did. I mean, I'm all for women's lib or feminism, whatever you want to call it, but there are just some things the average five-foot, four-inch female can't manage, and wrestling balky steers is one of them."
She stared at him without discernible expression for several seconds, and then she bowed her head, giving him the distinct impression that she was hiding a smile. When she looked up again, however, no such thing was in evidence. "Number one," she said, throwing up a hand to tick the numbers off her fingers, "I'm five-five, not five-four. Number two, I'm not interested in wrestling balky steers or any other kind. Number three, don't call me honey unless you mean it. And number four, nothing rattles around inside my head, thank you. I have a brain in there, quite a good one, if I do say so myself. Now, shall we start all over, or would you like to go on from here?''
He didn't quite know which option to take. He was, in fact, having trouble keeping up. His brain didn't seem to want to move past point one. A quip about an inch only making a difference in certain bed sports came to mind, but he rejected it instantly. She was just a kid, for pity's sake, a bright, determined one, by all indications, but a kid, nonetheless. It just wouldn't do to go crossing tongues with some little high school cutie. He laughed at the very thought. Cute was a deal short of the truth. This little gal was a beauty, all the more reason to mind his manners. He cleared his throat and stuck out his hand. "How do you do? Jesse Wagner."
Her smile was electrifying, and he hadn't imagined the solid grip. "Caroline Moncton," she said, "and I heard that you need a housekeeper and a cook, someone to help out your mother because her arthritis has gotten bad. I'm here to apply for the position."
He stood staring at her for a long moment before he realized mat he still held her hand in his. Then he coughed, reclaiming Ms own hand to cover his mouth, and tried to mink how to let her down easy. She was about the last thing he'd envisioned when contemplating someone to help out his mother, but he was smart enough not to say so. No doubt he'd get his ears pinned again. No, he'd have to play this one by the book. "Well, uh, what experience do you have?"
"On, about ten years of keeping house and making meals. I'm a good cook. Everyone says so. And I have my own system for keeping up the housework."
She was serious, very. Suddenly he remembered her saying, Don't call me honey unless you mean it. She was serious about that, too, but he couldn't quite wrap his mind around the implications. Instead, he forced himself to think about the issue at hand. "Your own system? You want to explain that?"
She went on to carefully, concisely explain how she intended to keep his house in order. The funny thing was that it sure sounded workable to him, but then what did he know about it? The only thing he'd ever done that could remotely be considered housework was dropping his dirty clothes in the hamper and rustling up the occasional snack. He'd learned to make a halfway decent breakfast lately, but that was only because it took his mom so long to get limbered up and in working order of a morning. But that was painting it too bright. What passed for working order for his poor mother these days was being able to get around and tolerate the pain at the same time. She sure needed help. In fact, he had an ad coming out in next Sunday's paper.... Wait a minute, that ad hadn't even been published yet! He narrowed his eyes, knowing full well that when he did so the blue leeched out to leave them a cold, steel gray. Something fishy was going on here, and little Miss Moncton was holding the pole.
"Where did you say you heard about this job?"
She grimaced at that, waving a hand helplessly. "I, um, didn't, and I'm not sure you really want me to."
"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to know," he pointed out sharply.
She shrugged and glanced over her shoulder at the steeply roofed ranch house. "All right," she said in a you-asked-fbr-it voice. "Nancy Shaver told me."
Jess felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. "N-Nan
cy?" His mind whirled suddenly. "Uh-huh. I may have mentioned it to Nancy. Just how do you know her, anyway?"
Caroline Moncton licked her lips, full, bow-shaped lips that he now realized were devoid of artificial color. That dusky, rosy red was natural, for heaven's sake. She looked down at her toes and said, "Well, you might say I live in the same house. She's my landlady."
He let that sink in. "You mean you live in the other side of the duplex."
"That's right."
He had one more all-important question. "How long?"
Her head came up, her wide, blue-and-green eyes meeting his unflinchingly. "Just over four years now."
She knew. There wasn't any doubt about it. He felt his face heating, the tips of his ears glowing white-hot in the cold breeze. This innocent and wholesome-looking child knew all about the most private part of his life. He saw the certain knowledge there in her angel's face. Embarrassment churned in his stomach and burned up his throat. "I see."
She actually reached out a hand toward him, brushing his sleeve with her fingertips. Oddly, it felt like a gesture of comfort "I wouldn't want you to think that Nancy betrayed a confidence. It wasn't like that at all. She never so much as mentioned your name before, but I need a job and you need help, and Nancy realized that this is just the sort of thing I'm best at. The way I see it, she did us both a favor."
He lifted a hand to the back of his neck, trying to catch all die implications of this news. One thing was sure, Nancy didn't owe him a thing, not even silence, but he'd maintained the connection for so long precisely because she'd kept it so completely to herself. He knew mat she wouldn't have mentioned him now if she did not honestly believe that she was doing him a favor. For the first time, he had to take Miss Moncton seriously, and that irritated him. He couldn't say why exactly, but it did. Suddenly a new thought occurred. "You wouldn't be trying td force my hand here, would you?"
She stared at him, her jaw slowly lowering as understanding turned to outrage. "No!"
"How do I know—-"
"I could have spread it around a long time ago, if I'd wanted to!" she snapped. "It didn't exactly take a genius to figure out why you were slipping in and out at odd hours of the day and night!"
"And how'd you find out my name?"
"My mother came up with it! I don't imagine it was much of a chore. Everyone around here knows the Wagners."
He gulped. So it wasn't quite the state secret he'd imagined it to be. Still, to be confronted with his most closely held secret by mis kid... "How old are you, anyway?" he barked. She smiled as if to say that she was old enough to know everything there was to know about men and women and all that pulled them together.
"I'm twenty-one," she told him proudly.
"Huh. You look like about sixteen."
Disappointment, then anger and, finally, resignation moved over her face. Then suddenly she reached inside the rolling wreck and snagged the long strap of a small purse, which she flipped open. Extracting a small wallet, she broke open the snap and thrust it at him. He recoiled physically.
"My driver's license." She thrust it under his nose, demanding that he look. "Perhaps I should have brought along a birth certificate, as well!"
Something about her sense of outrage tickled him. Oh, to be young enough again to be insulted about being young! Patiently, indulgently, he studied the driver's license, finding the date of birth. Well, well. He looked up and shrugged. "Happy birthday." Mollified, she drew the wallet back, fastened it and returned it to her purse.
"Thank you."
She was regally gracious in victory, so much so that he couldn't help grinning at her. "When I turned twenty-one," he told her, "I went right out and bought a case of beer. It only took about a six-pack to get me roaring drunk, but it was the principle of the thing."
She rolled her eyes. "That's the difference between men and women," she said. "Women mature so much more quickly."
He laughed outright at that. "You think so? Always figured it was an individual thing."
She shouldered her little purse and pushed her hair out of her face again. "About that job, I really can handle it, and I need full-time work to pay the rent."
Deep down he knew that Nancy wouldn't have sent her if that wasn't the case. And she would sure dress up the place. Too much, maybe. He glanced at the house, and she followed the path of his gaze. "My mother has the final say," he told her. "If she's willing, I suppose we could give you a try."
The smile that she turned on him nearly knocked him off his feet. Heavens, she was heartbreak walking. Every male over the age of ten who laid eyes on her was bound to want her, and like every truly beautiful woman ever born, she wouldn't give ninety-nine point nine percent of them the time of day. Thank God he wasn't young enough to seriously consider entering the fray. Sneaking up on forty did have its advantages, after all. She looked back at the house, tilting her head as she studied it
"It's a wonderful place," she said, and then, "I don't suppose you'd consider room and board along with a salary?"
Surprised, he cracked, "You really are worried about paying the rent! Has the price gone up?"
She shook her head. "But my mother moved out today, so I'm on my own now. Besides, Nancy's planning to sell it now that she's getting married. Didn't you know?"
"No reason I should."
She nodded at that and carefully said, "Listen, I want you to know that I'll never say a thing about you and Nancy, whether you hire me or not. I never have, not to anyone." She grimaced and added, "But I don't know about my mother. I mean, she mentioned it to me a couple times, but whether she'd say anything to someone else, I just don't know. I'd like to think not, she and Nancy being such good friends and all, but..." She let the thought hang, bowing her head as if she were ashamed. He didn't like seeing it, for some reason.
"You're not responsible for what your mother might or might not say or do," he told her. "I'll take you at your word that you won't discuss my personal business with anyone, but especially with my mother."
Her head snapped up, and she smiled. "Absolutely. As God is my witness, not a word, whether you hire me or not"
He nodded, satisfied for some reason mat he couldn't quite explain even to himself. Briskly, he said, "As far as the room
and board goes, young lady, let's just take it one step at a time for now. First, we talk to Mother."
She didn't hide her relief, asking hopefully, "Is this a good time?"
"Good as any," he decided, and the grateful excitement that lit her green-and-blue-spoked eyes made him want to hug her. It was the first real inkling that he might be in trouble, but he ignored it. She was a kid, after all. Just a kid. A very pretty kid.
Chapter Two
Caroline shivered inside her coat as she followed Jesse along the walk. Someone had shoveled the snow, piling it up on either side of the brick-lined path. Soon those crumpled-looking mounds would be knee-high and then waist-high, and, if the winter was particularly hard, perhaps even shoulder-high. Caroline was willing to bet that no matter how deep the snow fell, mat walk would be shoveled. To her mind, it showed a pride in ownership, as well as thoughtfulness. She could imagine him out here scooping and tossing, scooping and tossing. She would be waiting with a hot drink and a smile when he came back inside from that particular chore next time—if his mother approved of her. She felt certain that he would hire her if his mother said that she would do. She could only hope, and as she attempted not to worry about what she could not control, she put that concern out of mind. Instead, she thought of how he had reacted when she'd mentioned Nancy's impending marriage.
The fact was, he hadn't reacted, not with so much as a shrug or a twitch of a brow. She wondered why that was, and before she could discipline the urge to ask, she had blurted out the question. "Don't you mind that Nancy's getting married?"
He stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face her. "Why on earth would I?'' His tone implied that she was incredibly foolish.
"I don't know. I jus
t thought—"
He cut her off. "Why should I mind that Nancy's happy? She deserves it. I wish her well." His glare held for a moment, but then it softened somewhat, and he reluctantly asked, "She is happy, isn't she?"
