“Eve Reardon,” Eve said, shaking the child’s hand with the same degree of formality with which it had been offered. “I’m pleased to meet you, too.”
“I expect you’re here to see Uncle Travis,” Amanda said, the inflection in her voice making it more of a statement than a question.
“All the ladies who come here want to see Uncle Travis,” Gracie informed them artlessly. “Gus says that’s cause he’s so pretty an’ ladies like pretty things.”
Amanda ignored her little sister. “I sent Laura out to the barn to tell him we have company,” she said po litely, obviously determined to be the perfect little hostess. “Would you like to come into the house and have a cup of coffee while you wait?”
“I’d love a cup of coffee,” Eve lied graciously. Her stomach was knotted up so tightly she hadn’t been able to finish the coffee she’d purchased at the Dairy Queen on her way through Selina, but not for worlds would she have refused the child’s careful hospitality. “Just let me get my son out of the van and I’ll be right with you.”
“Oh-h-h” the girls breathed almost in unison as Eve leaned into the van and lifted Timothy out, carrier and all. “A baby.”
Recognizing the almost universal female fascination with infants, Eve tilted the carrier down a bit to let them have a good look. Timothy blinked owlishly a few times, trying to focus on the new faces. And then he smiled a sweet baby smile of pure infectious delight and began waving his arms and kicking his chubby little legs.
Irresistibly drawn, Gracie lifted her hand toward him.
“No. Don’t touch,” Eve warned sharply, causing Gracie to snatch her hand back in midmotion. “Your hands are dirty, sweetheart,” she explained, immediately trying to take the edge off of her too abrupt statement. “Dirty hands have germs on them and you need to be careful about germs around babies.”
Gracie considered that for a moment. “After I wash my hands, can I touch him?” she asked hopefully.
Eve hesitated for a split second. “Yes,” she said, knowing she’d have to expose Timothy to other children sooner or later. She couldn’t keep him wrapped in cotton for his entire life, much as she might like to. “If you wash your hands really well, I’ll even let you hold him, okay?”
Gracie whooped and turned on her heel, heading for the nearest sink at a dead run.
“If you’ll come with me, ma’am?” Amanda said politely.
Pausing only to snag Timothy’s diaper bag out of the van, Eve followed the self-possessed young girl across the yard and up the steps.
The interior of the house was cool and dim, sheltered as it was by the deep wrap-around porch and the towering shade trees that had been planted years ago. A multicolored handmade rag rug lay just inside the front door, providing a cheery welcome for guests. A scallop-edged piecrust table, covered with a thin coating of dust and a beautifully crocheted doily, stood against the wall opposite the staircase with an empty brass bowl on its surface and a grouping of pressed flower pictures and lace-edged children’s silhouettes above it.
Eve caught a glimpse of a formal parlor with heavy lace curtains at the windows and an old-fashioned convex chaperon’s mirror above the mantel. A lovely turn-of-the-century golden oak pedestal table with eight matching chairs dominated the dining room. She would have loved to stop and investigate, but Amanda was intent on fulfilling her duties as hostess and continued moving toward the back of the house without slowing her pace.
They entered what was obviously the heart of the house—a kitchen that was bright, cheery and lived in. There were ruffled yellow curtains at the window over the double porcelain sink, large yellow-and-white squares of worn linoleum on the floor and pale blueand-white-striped wallpaper above the whitewashed chair rail. Children’s artwork, held up with magnets shaped like lollipops and chocolate-chip cookies, covered the front of the refrigerator. Several pans and bowls littered the long kitchen counters, along with dribs and drabs of spilled food. A large pot of something savory simmered in a cast-iron kettle on top of the old-fashioned enameled gas stove. A fan whirred lazily overhead, stirring the warm air; its twin circled from the ceiling of the screened-in porch that she could see through the open back door.
Gracie stood on a painted wooden stool, her back to the room, industriously scrubbing her hands at the kitchen sink.
“Make sure you wash that jelly off your face, too, while you’re at it,” Amanda said to her sister before turning to smile at Eve. “Please sit down, ma’am.” With a wave of her hand, she indicated the mismatched wooden chairs grouped around the Formica-topped table. “I’ll get you that coffee. We have some banana bread, too, if you’d like. It’s not home-made,” she apologized as she put thick ceramic containers of cream and sugar on the table, “but it’s fresh. Uncle Travis bought it at the grocery store yesterday.”
“He bought lots an’ lots of stuff at the grocery store yesterday,” Gracie said as she finished washing her hands and jumped down from the stool. She came over to the table and went up on tiptoe, peering over the edge of the carrier at Timothy. “That’s cause the child ‘tection lady didn’t like us eating beans for breakfast.” She gazed worshipfully at the baby as she spoke, completely oblivious to the censoring glare her sister sent her, her body fairly quivering with anticipation. “I like beans, ‘specially when Gus makes ‘em, but the lady said they wasn’t a fit breakfast for growing girls. That made Uncle Travis mad so we all went to the store so she wouldn’t catch us with our pants down again.” Her little hand darted out, stopped short of her goal, then hovered over the baby, waiting for permission.
“Be very gentle,” Eve said. “Babies have very tender skin.”
Gracie nodded her understanding. “Like baby kitties,” she said solemnly and, very gently, with the tip of her index finger, stroked the baby’s hand. “Mama was going have us a baby brother, but she died,” she said softly, running her fingertip back and forth over Timothy’s tiny knuckles. “My daddy died, too. In a car wreck.”
She said the words matter-of-factly, as if she had said them many times before and they had ceased to have any meaning for her. But Eve heard the sadness in her voice, the hint of wistfulness and the little girl confusion at the vagaries of life. She started to reach out, to offer comfort in some small way, when Timothy gurgled delightedly and grabbed Gracie’s finger.
“He likes me!” Gracie squealed, her somber mood gone as suddenly as it had come. “Can I hold him now?”
Eve hesitated for a moment. “Have you had a cold recently? Sniffles? A stuffy nose?”
Gracie shook her head vigorously, her big blue eyes hopeful.
“All right. Climb up into that chair.” Eve stood, then bent over the table to undo the straps that held Timothy in his carrier. “Ready?” she asked.
Gracie held out her arms.
Eve leaned over and carefully lowered her infant son into the little girl’s lap. He’s heavier than he looks,” she warned, keeping a hand under him until she was sure Gracie had a firm grip. “And he’s as wiggly as a bowl of jelly sometimes so—”
A screen door slammed against its wooden frame, echoing through the open kitchen door, and Eve’s head shot up. She turned nervously toward the sound. But it was only another little girl, and not the tall, lanky cowboy Eve was expecting. The child who came racing into the room was somewhere between the other two girls in age. Blond like her sisters, her long, stickstraight hair flowed out from under the brim of a straw cowboy hat with a wide pink ribbon tied around the crown in place of a hatband.
“Uncle Travis said to tell you he’ll be here as soon as he can,” the child announced importantly, the heels of her cowboys boots tapping against the scratched linoleum of the kitchen floor as she hurried across the room to see what everyone was doing. “Hurricane cut himself up pretty bad and—Oh, a baby,” she breathed, as enthralled as her sisters. “Can I hold him next? Please?”
THAT WAS HOW Travis found them—four fascinated females clustered around a tiny baby in his sister-in-law’
s cheery kitchen, totally oblivious to everyone and everything else. He stood there for a long moment, unnoticed, his hand still on the hat he’d been placing on the rack just outside the door. He couldn’t take his eyes off the woman who’d answered Gus’s ad for a mail-order bride and who was now playing attentive mama to his nieces.
It should have been a tender scene, like something right off the pages of the Norman Rockwell calendar hanging next to the telephone—all Mom, Americana and apple pie. Except the woman hovering over his nieces and the cooing baby didn’t look like anybody’s mother he’d ever seen before.
Mothers were supposed to look as if they belonged in a kitchen surrounded by children. They were supposed to look quietly capable and comfortable and maternal and, well…motherly. They weren’t supposed to be curved and lush, with rounded hips and full firm breasts and hair as wild and red as the heart of a campfire. They weren’t supposed to make him think about the sorry fact that he hadn’t been with a woman for nearly six months, or feel like a stallion in rut with just one look.
Pretty little thing, Gus had said, causing Travis to form a mental picture of someone who resembled his deceased sister-in-law. Carolyn had been a pretty little thing. This woman was…she was…
Ah, hell! If he’d wanted to marry a beauty queen who appealed to all his baser instincts, he could have gone ahead and tied the knot with Miss Rodeo Days! “Damn you, Gus,” he muttered, cursing the old cowboy for putting him in the position of having to tell another woman he wouldn’t be marrying her.
The woman looked up just then, as if she had heard the words he’d mumbled under his breath. She had an exotic face, all angles and planes under pale creamy skin, with a wide, sensual mouth and tip-tilted eyes as blue as the eyes of his three little girls. Those eyes met his over the heads of the children. Her expression was as wary and suspicious as that of an unbroken mare about to be ridden for the first time.
Travis couldn’t look away. He didn’t even try.
Eve sucked in her breath and went very still, as if she could escape his notice by not moving. He was even taller than she had anticipated. His shoulders were wider. His hips narrower. His jaw was as firm and chiseled as it had been in the picture. His gaze was just as fierce and focused as she had imagined it to be. She felt ravaged by the look in his eyes, as if he had reached out and touched her, intimately.
The feminine fear that the power she sensed in him induced in her made her shiver. She lowered her gaze, breaking his hold on her, and reached down to gather her child into her arms.
“Uncle Travis, come look at the baby!” Gracie said, bounding up from the chair. “He’s so-o-o cute.” She danced across the room like the uninhibited sprite she was and grabbed her uncle’s hand with both of hers. “Come and see,” she cajoled, tugging on his fingers. “If you wash your hands, she’ll even let you hold him.”
Travis tore his fascinated gaze away from Eve’s averted face and looked down at his exuberant little niece. “Why don’t you girls head on outside for a while,” he suggested. “Miz—” he realized, belatedly, that he didn’t even know her name. He’d been so put out with Gus that he hadn’t bothered to ask. He glanced over at her again, hoping she’d supply it, but she had turned her attention to the baby in her arms and was pretending not to notice. He knewit was an act; she was as aware of him as he was of her.
Travis looked back down at his niece. “The lady and I need to have a grown-up talk.”
“Is she going to be our new keeper?” Grade asked. “You said we might be getting a new keeper.”
“We’ll see,” he replied, trying to sidestep the question.
Gracie wasn’t satisfied with that. “I want her to be our new keeper,” she insisted. “I like her. An’ she has a baby, Uncle Travis,” she said, clearly feeling that happy circumstance would be an inducement to get him to fall in with her plans. “Our last keeper only had a mean, smelly old cat.”
“We’ll see,” her uncle repeated, not about to be drawn into an argument with a determined Gracie. “Now run on outside so we can talk about it. Gus could probably use some help out in the barn,” he suggested. “He’s mixing up one of his potions for Hurricane.”
“Come on, Gracie, let’s go,” Laura said, grabbing her younger sister by the arm and tugging. The middle Holt sister wanted to be a veterinarian when she grew up and never missed a chance to help “doctor” one of the ani mals. “You can play with the baby later.”
“Don’t you want to help Gus, too?” Travis said to Amanda as the two youngest Holt girls headed out to the barn.
“I need to watch the oatmeal,” she said primly. “It has to be watched real close or it will burn.”
“I’ll watch it,” Travis said gently. He always spoke gently to Amanda. Despite being older, she seemed somehow more fragile than the other two girls. Especially lately. “You go on outside with your sisters now. Or up to your room if you’d rather,” he added, giving her a choice. “I need to talk to Miz…”
“Reardon,” Eve supplied this time, unable to continue to pretend she didn’t see him looking at her, feel him looking at her. “Eve Reardon.”
“I need to talk to Miz Reardon alone.”
“You won’t let the oatmeal burn?” Amanda fretted.
“I won’t let it burn,” he assured her.
Unconvinced but obedient, Amanda left the kitchen. Travis and Eve stood there, on opposite sides of the ta ble, listening to her boot heels scrape against the floor as she slowly walked down the central hallway and up the stairs. Somewhere overhead a door closed with just a bit more force than necessary.
Travis sighed, knowing he’d just earned himself at least half a day’s worth of the silent treatment from his oldest niece. It was something he seemed to be doing with regrettable regularity during the past few weeks. Thinking he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, he walked over to the stove, boot heels clicking against the worn linoleum, spurs jingling softly with every step, and turned off the flame under the oatmeal. Then he turned to face Eve.
“Well, now, Miz Reardon,” he drawled, his gaze fierce and focused. “Suppose you tell me just exactly why you’re here?”
4
EVE STARED at him over Timothy’s head for a long moment, unsure of what he meant by the question. The look in his dark brown eyes was shrewd and cynical, as if he suspected her of some nefarious purpose in being there, though she couldn’t think what that might be. At a loss, she decided to respond to the words and not the insinuation. “I answered your ad for a wife in Texas Men magazine,” she said, as if it should be obvious.
“Why?”
“I told you why in my letters.”
“Tell me again,” he said, strangely unwilling to admit that he hadn’t read her letters—or written the ar ticle that had solicited them. “I want to make sure I understand all the specifics of the situation.”
She hesitated, wondering what exactly to say. She’d already told him everything there was to know about her situation. What more could she add that hadn’t been in the three letters she’d written? What specifics did he—Her eyes widened.
“You didn’t write that article in Texas Men,” she stated, knowing in her gut it was true. The man who had written that article wouldn’t have used a term like “specifics of the situation.” He wouldn’t even have been sure what it meant. “You didn’t read my letters, or send me money and tell me to come. My God, you didn’t even know my name.” She clutched Timothy a little tighter to her breast, fighting the panic that rose in her throat. She’d moved out of her apartment, sold the last of her possessions of any value and packed the rest into the back of the van parked outside in his driveway-and he didn’t even know her name! “What’s going on?” she demanded, taking a cautious step back.
“Now don’t go getting all riled up,” Travis said, unaware that he was repeating what Gus had told him just the day before. “Nothing’s going on. Not the way you mean. There’s just been a little misunderstanding, is all. Nothing to get exci
ted about.”
“Nothing to get excited about! I—” She took a deep breath, willing herself to stay calm. “Who wrote that article?”
“An interfering old cuss by the name of Gus Walker who decided I wasn’t moving fast enough to suit him.”
“And he’s the one who answered my letters and asked me to marry hi—” She shook her head, as if to clear it. “You?”
“Yes,” Travis admitted.
“And you didn’t know anything about it.”
“Not until yesterday afternoon when he told me what he’d done. After it was too late to stop you from coming.”
“I see,” she said quietly, giving away nothing of her sudden feeling of despair. Oh, God, now what? What was she going to do now? “Then this whole trip has been a waste of time for both of us, hasn’t it? I drove all the way up here for nothing.”
“Well…” Travis hesitated for a split second, debat ing the wisdom of what he was about to say. “Not necessarily.”
Eve felt a tiny flicker of rekindling hope. “What do you mean, not necessarily?”
He shook his head. “Tell me why you answered that ad first.”
“I’d think that would be obvious,” she said, silently indicating the child in her arms.
“No, actually, it’s not. I see a baby. And a beautiful woman.” He stated the facts plainly, as he saw them, making no attempt to flatter her. “That’s no answer at all. And I need a real good answer before I decide what to do about this.”
Eve hesitated, unsure of what to say or how to say it. It had been so much easier to put it in a letter. She’d been truthful but circumspect, laying out the basics of her situation without disclosing the panic and desperation that had driven her to answer the ad. It had seemed so much less personal, somehow, so much less revealing to commit the necessary words to paper. She didn’t know if she could stand here now, face-to-face, and go through it all over again without giving away or giving in to all the fears and uncertainties that con-
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