“And you can be blind as the proverbial bat. When was the last time you indulged in a little romance?”
Corrie thought of Mack’s intense kisses the night before. A little romance didn’t feel possible with him. If she indulged, as Jeannie called it, she would be engulfed, swamped, enveloped. There would be nothing lighthearted about it.
She watched the children gathered around Mack. Almost exactly as Jeannie had described, first two had come, then a third, until within the time it took to tell about it, all the Milagro kids were there, leaning on him, tugging at his sleeves or his jeans, all talking at once, except Jenny, who seldom spoke.
Mack seemed almost oblivious to the noise, the jostling, even the attention. He merely kept walking toward the barn, four or five children hanging from his arms and legs, as if he did this every day and had done so for centuries.
“Do you suppose he was an orphan, too?” Corrie asked.
“Why would you think it?” Jeannie asked back.
“I don’t know. The way he keeps his emotions in check, maybe. The way he doesn’t share much of himself.” She thought of his saying he’d been the class clown, how serious he was now. She remembered the internal war over kissing her, the few things he’d said afterward.
“He’s got kids hanging all over him,” Jeannie pointed out.
“Yes, but it’s more like he’s allowing them to be close to him physically, but he’s not hugging or holding on to them.”
Corrie thought about her own background. Raised without brothers and sisters, spending years in an orphanage and a series of foster homes, striving to stay in the background, not make waves, she’d chosen a sideline lifestyle, hiding behind a notepad and a microphone. She’d kept her world colored with facts and data, not personal opinions. She’d completed assignments, never initiated them.
She understood the children, because she connected with them on a child’s level, knew their fears of rejection, their terror of the unknown. But she didn’t believe Mack went into teaching for the same reasons. Teaching wasn’t a solitary profession.
“Give him a chance,” Jeannie said softly.
Corrie turned surprised eyes in her direction. “I didn’t mean I wanted him to go—”
Jeannie flashed a grin. “I didn’t think you did. I just don’t want you to worry about him too much.”
“Deal,” Corrie said.
“Speaking of deals…I came out here because we’ve just had a call from the Eddy County Human Resources Office and they have a little boy who needs to be picked up this evening. They’re still searching for his mother so they want us to wait until after dinner. Poor baby was abandoned at the office itself. His name is Pedro. He’s a youngling, just a smidge older than Analissa. That’ll be good for her, she won’t be the only tiny tot.”
“Someone abandoned him at the office?”
“That’s about the size of it. It’s food-stamp day and the place was packed. When everyone cleared out, there was one little boy left. They’ve called everywhere they can think of. We’re the last resort, I’m told.” She gave a half moue. “At least there’s an option for these kids now.”
“Do you want me to go pick him up?”
“Would you, honey? Leeza’s packing to go back to D.C. tomorrow.”
“What? So soon? I thought she’d be out here at least another month or two before leaving again.”
“She’s calling it the last merger—she says it like ‘The Last Supper.’” Jeannie chuckled then sobered abruptly as she said softly, “And we’re going back, too, remember?”
Corrie had forgotten. She supposed she’d wanted to forget. Jeannie’s first family, her husband and baby daughter, had been killed by a drunk driver three years before and the anniversary was upon them. She wanted to take her new family to the graves in D.C. and have the families meet in a rather unique nostalgic and welcoming ceremony.
Before Corrie could comment on the ramifications of that trip, Jeannie continued briskly, “Chance has patrol tonight and I’m supposed to be getting ready for our trip. Pablo has some hot date. Jorge can’t drive for a week until his new glasses are ready and Clovis—”
Corrie chuckled. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
“But I don’t want you driving alone at night with a new little one. Can you take Mack with you?”
Corrie thought of his hands roaming her body, the fire in his kisses. “I’ll be fine by myself,” Corrie said quickly.
“Please? I’d feel so much better. That’s a long way to walk if the Bronco breaks down or something. And it’ll be cold.”
Corrie put up her hands to forestall further exhortations. “Fine. If he’s game, so am I.” She’d never been able to resist anything Jeannie wanted. It was part of the reason she’d agreed to be a partner in what Leeza had called No Rancho Yetto.
Less than an hour later, the minute dinner was over, she and Mack were seated side by side in the front seat of the ranch’s Bronco, the children gaily waving them off.
The silence in the car was worse than heavy; it seemed a physical presence was sitting fatly between them, blocking any attempt at casual conversation.
Mack’s arm rested on the seat back, his fingers nearly touching her shoulder. She could have sworn she felt his proximity and her body tingled in anticipation of his touch. His scent seemed to take over the interior of the Bronco, a rich, sunshine smell mingled with a faint exotic spice.
If he moved at all, the sound of his jeans rasping against the seat commanded her full attention and she had to fight not to look his way, to keep her eyes from dropping to those same jeans. When he leaned forward to adjust the vent, she stilled, imagining him leaning into her to place his warm lips against the soft curve of her neck.
When he cleared his throat, she almost groaned aloud.
She couldn’t seem to think of a single thing to say that wouldn’t reveal how dramatically he affected her. All her journalistic training deserted her, letting her know full well she’d done the right thing by abandoning that career—she only had skill, had never done it by instinct. It had been daily torture to question others.
Here in the darkened car with Mack, she felt too confined, too restless. Why couldn’t she be like Leeza and just coolly announce she wanted to have an affair with him, state the time limits and be done with it? She had to choke back a bitter laugh. If she did such a thing, she would literally die of embarrassment. It simply wasn’t in her nature to state her own needs, her own wants, no matter how much every particle of her seemed tuned to Mack Dorsey. Besides which, she wasn’t sure she had it in her to enjoy a casual affair. And there was nothing casual about Mack. Nor the confusing way she felt about him.
If he didn’t say something soon, she thought she would likely start screaming.
Mack felt the thirty-mile ride to Carlsbad lasted at least a decade. Every time Corrie moved her hand from the steering wheel to her lap or to adjust the radio, he had to steel himself against the feel of her touch. He berated himself for wishing she would brush those slender, trembling fingers across his arm or his leg and put him out of his misery.
He ached to say something to her, anything that would break the tension that saturated the cab of the Bronco. At the same time, he was afraid to open his mouth for fear he would blurt out every nuance of his past, of the tragedy that ripped apart his life and any hope of a future.
Even if he managed to keep the past buried, he still had a thousand things he wanted to tell her. Something about her compelled a man to talk. He wanted to tell her that he admired the way she truly listened to the children and didn’t talk down to them. He could reveal that he’d listened to almost every report she’d ever made from inside or outside the United States. Or that he liked the way she giggled like a little girl herself. Or that she tasted like honey and wine and smelled of lemons and that he hadn’t thought of anything else since he’d held her in his arms.
But he said nothing and blamed the kiss the night before for the silence that pummeled them, for the very air
between them that seemed filled with static, crackling with his past, his lost hopes, and all the wild fantasies he harbored about her.
He only had to move his hand a few inches and he would be able to stroke her satin skin. He didn’t have to move at all to take in her delicate scent.
At the junction for the highway, she changed gears and her knuckles grazed his thigh. He jumped as if she’d burned him and she shied away as painfully. Had he been able to chuckle about it, the moment might have passed without notice. As it was, the silence between them seemed to gain even greater dimension.
The sheer proximity of sitting so close to her drove him crazy and her skittishness only made it worse. It made him too conscious that she was all woman, all alone, and most of all, alone with him.
When she finally pulled up to the Eddy County Human Resources Office, the notion of escaping the Bronco filled him with abject relief. He reached for the door and was already out of the car when he realized Corrie wasn’t moving. He turned to look a question in her direction and found her as he did the first time inside Rancho Milagro headquarters, her head averted, her eyes closed, and whispering to herself. At the end of her little prayer or whatever it was, she drew a deep breath, held it, then let it out in a rush.
“What do you whisper to yourself?” he asked, speaking for the first time since they’d left the ranch. His voice, damaged by the disaster two years before, seemed raspier than usual.
She turned to him as if surprised he stood in the door of the cab. Even in the waning evening light, he could see the blush rising to her cheeks. “I—nothing important.”
He knew she was lying. Whatever she whispered, it was vital, but something she didn’t want to reveal. Strangely, considering how desperately he wanted to avoid delving into another’s life, he found himself hungry to know more about her. Everything about her.
“Ready?” he asked, just as desperate to end this little trip down torture lane. For it was torture to just think about her, let alone be this close to her without touching her.
“I hope so,” she said solemnly, and opened her door.
He followed her from the shadows of the parking lot into the low-ceilinged, brightly lit office. He rested his hand against her back as he held the door for her. He both saw and felt her stiffen slightly. Though he knew it was impossible, he was certain he could feel her warmth through her long duster and the clothing she wore beneath it. She raised a shaking gloved hand to weave a strand of her long chestnut hair into the mass slipping from its tether at the back of her head and, in doing so, exposed her long, elegant nape.
He deliberately let the door fall into his back, jabbing his hipbone with the door handle, jarring him free of the impulse to lower his lips to her bare neck, to taste her, to soothe her, or perhaps, selfishly, just to know that he had stolen yet another belated reward.
Corrie felt as if she couldn’t breathe. Her body seemed to thrum at the simple touch of his hand on the small of her back. Men touched women there all the time in the West. Every doorway seemed to call for some kind of touch, a finger to an elbow, the cupping of a shoulder. Every walk became an escort accompanied by some archaic and courtly gesture. But when Mack Dorsey placed his hand on her, she felt it to the very deepest part of her. It didn’t seem so much a courtesy as a touch of possession, a branding of sorts.
“Miss Stratton?”
“Yes.” With a hitching breath, Corrie sidestepped Mack’s touch, greeted the gray-haired woman, and approached the front desk.
“I’m Mrs. Jackson. All you have to do is sign these papers right here—and show me some identification, of course—and you can take him with you. He’s pretty tired and confused right now. Do you speak Spanish?”
“Yes.”
The older woman smiled for the first time. “Oh, good, because Pedro doesn’t seem to speak any English. At least, he hasn’t so far.”
“How long was he here before his mother was missed?” Corrie asked.
“I honestly don’t know. We process about one hundred people in a two-hour period on food-stamp day. He could have been here anywhere from one hour to seven. He was hungry, that’s for sure. But all he would eat was a candy bar.”
“Is he asking for his mother?”
“No, that’s the strange part. He seems resigned. Sad, but resigned. It’s either happened to him before or he knew it was about to. And such a good little boy, too.”
It shouldn’t happen to any child, Corrie thought grimly, good or otherwise.
Mrs. Jackson moved to the front doors and inserted a key she turned with a small grunt. “We’re closed. Better to be safe than sorry.”
Corrie couldn’t help but exchange a glance with Mack. She wasn’t surprised his jaw tightened. At his next words, however, she realized he wasn’t reacting to the same thoughts she was. “You might be locking someone out, but you’re also locking us in.”
“Pedro might take it in his head to dart out the door and look for his mother. Kids can be amazingly fast little creatures.”
“It’s a fire hazard,” Mack rasped.
Skin grafts for burns, Corrie thought. Fire burns.
As quickly as she could, aware Mack was keeping his eyes focused between the keys in Mrs. Jackson’s hand and the locked door, Corrie signed the multilayered documents and fished in her purse for her wallet.
As Mrs. Jackson moved to the back to retrieve the little boy, Corrie called Mack’s attention from the locked door by simply touching his arm.
“What?” he asked.
“It slays me. All I have to do is sign a piece of paper in triplicate, flash a driver’s license, and a scared little six-year-old boy is transferred to my custody. It’s harder—and more expensive—to spring a dog from the animal shelter.”
Mack gave her an odd look.
“Are you okay?”
He slowly nodded. “I’m fine,” he said. And raised a hand to cover the one she’d rested on his forearm.
When Mrs. Jackson—“That’s Emily to you, dear”—brought a sleepy Pedro Ortega out of a waiting room, Corrie’s chest tightened and her breathing felt constricted. Small even for his young age, the little boy scarcely looked old enough to feed himself, let alone be left on his own. The six-year-old’s eyes told a hundred stories of fear and worry as he held back just inside the doorway to study these strangers who had come to take him away.
Memories of her rough childhood burned her mind like acid. A man with hands like granite and the size of boulders had dragged her away from the teary-eyed plump woman who had rocked her so sweetly. The granite hands had proved to be extensions of a rocky heart and an even more heartless soul. Had she stared up at him with such worry and fear in young-old eyes? If so, he hadn’t cared.
Her heart wrenched for the little girl she had been and more for the little boy in front of her. She dropped down to her knees so as not to tower above the boy. He shrank back a bit. She settled back on her heels, hoping to let him know she wasn’t as much a threat as he might imagine.
In the Spanish she’d learned for her global career and had seldom used to such good effect until she came to New Mexico, she said, “I’m Corrie. I’m glad to meet you, Pedro.”
When he didn’t say anything, she waved a hand up at Mack. “And this is one of our teachers, Señor Mack. We live on a big ranch with lots of horses, puppy dogs and a whole bunch of barn cats. A lot of other children live there, too. Would you like to come stay with us for a while until we can find out what happened to your mother?”
The little boy’s eyes slowly studied Corrie, Mack and Mrs. Jackson.
Mrs. Jackson said, “Miss Stratton, it’s not as if he has any choice—”
“Please, Emily,” Corrie interrupted without looking at her, and continued in Spanish to Pedro. “We have lots of room, good beds and delicious food. Don’t you think so, Mack?”
“The food is one of the best parts,” Mack affirmed in fluent Spanish.
Corrie could have kissed him, not for his Spanish, but for th
e support. When she felt his hand drop to her shoulder, she wanted to close her eyes, to let his touch flow into her, wrap her in courage. At the same time, the simple gesture inspired a host of noncustodial-type thoughts.
“Rancho Milagro is a great place,” Corrie said, resisting the urge to cover Mack’s hand with her own. His touch seemed to radiate out from her shoulder, suffusing her with its warmth.
Pedro stood straighter. “Rancho Milagro?” A look of something akin to fear crossed his face. He’d heard of the place, that much was obvious, but what he’d gleaned might not have been good.
“That’s right,” Corrie said solemnly.
After looking from Corrie to Mack and back to Corrie, the little boy finally summoned the tiniest of smiles.
Corrie withheld her sigh of relief and smiled back at him. “It’s a place where we eat miracles for breakfast.”
“Sometimes for dinner,” Mack added.
Corrie held her breath, not because of the boy, but because of Mack’s seemingly casual remark. He inevitably left the table when the children did, avoiding the adult intimacy as if they carried something contagious. Yet now he was telling a scared little boy they ate miracles for dinner. And there was no mistaking the sincerity in his tone.
“So…do you want to come with us?” Corrie asked, taking off her gloves and holding out her bare hand, palm up. Mack’s hand on her shoulder gave an encouraging—or warning—squeeze.
A shutter came down over the boy’s face and he averted his gaze only to shrug.
“All you have to do for a miracle is to want one,” Corrie said. “Wanting one is halfway to getting one.”
“No es verdad,” Pedro mumbled, but he met her eyes again. Then he added, in Spanish, “There’s no such thing as miracles anymore.”
“It is true,” Corrie said. She held out her other hand for Mack’s assistance and he took her hand to pull her easily to her feet in a move as smooth as if they’d orchestrated a dance. Did he hold on to her a bit longer than necessary? Or was she the one clinging to his hand?
Pedro looked up at her, then at Mack. The fear and worry still made his young eyes old, but his mouth was less pinched and some of the tension had slipped from his shoulders. He lowered his gaze to Corrie’s still outstretched hand. So slowly she actually ached from the anticipation of that little hand in hers, he inched his fingers forward.
At Close Range Page 7
