by Paty Jager
“This furniture is in incredible shape.” Carina shifted Tate to run an appreciative hand over a large, intricately carved grandfather clock. Her mother would give half her store to have this sitting in the front window, drawing in the solid antique connoisseurs.
“That was carved by my great-great grandfather for my great-great grandmother.” Maddie tipped her head to the clock and continued toward a hand-carved staircase.
“This house has been in your family for many years then.” Carina had always marveled at the tales she heard of people remaining on the land of their forefathers. It made sense why Brock was so sensitive to his privacy. She imagined living out in the boonies, being keeper of your family’s past, would make a person that way.
Carina followed the girl up the stairs. She stopped half way, running her palm over the smooth wood polished by many hands over the years. It wouldn’t surprise her to find a chamber pot under the bed along with a pitcher and bowl on a stand in the bedroom.
At the top of the stairs, Maddie stopped. “That’s Daddy’s room.” She pointed to the room directly at the top of the stairs. “Over there is Tate’s and then mine.” She pointed to the rooms to the right of the stairway. “This one’s the bathroom, and that is the guest room, where you’ll be sleeping.” She moved alongside the railing around the hole for the stairway, and added, “I hope Willie T can talk Daddy into letting you stay longer.”
“I hope so too. I had to settle a lot of things to come out here and would rather not hurry back any time soon.” Carina smoothed the wayward strands of brown hair escaping the girl’s braids. What color of hair would her child have had? Would it have been curly or straight? The scattering of freckles across the bridge of Maddie’s nose and cheeks were delightful. Her baby wouldn’t have had freckles. They weren’t prominent in either family. She shook her head. Stop that! Carina chided herself. This was why she left—to put her past behind her.
“I hope this room will work.” Brock’s voice and appearance startled her. Carina dropped her hand from where it rested on the child’s shoulder.
His arm brushed her breasts when he squeezed passed her through the doorway. The tingling went straight to her toes and flushed her face. She’d never been so quickly affected by a man. Not even Perry. She glanced at the man. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so insistent to move in.
“The room will be fine,” she said, turning her head and inspecting where she would spend the next month. The popcorn stitch bedspread across the four-poster bed had to be older than her mother. Moving about the room, she ran a hand over the oak wardrobe in the corner. “This house is an antique lover’s dream,” .
Brock shrugged. “They’re all things my relatives acquired over the years.” His disinterest surprised her. How could he live in a house with this much history around and act like it was nothing?
“What’s for lunch, Maddie?” he asked, turning to his daughter, showing Carina as much attention as he did the furniture.
The girl lowered her head to stare at her feet. “I forgot it was getting to be that time.”
“Come on, Maddie. Show me the kitchen and what you have. We’ll figure out something.” Carina hooked her arm through Maddie’s, pulling her out into the hall and down the stairs. Unpacking could wait. She was hungry after the long drive.
“Which way to the kitchen?” Carina asked at the bottom of the stairs. The hallway leading to the back of the house had new flooring, but it still reflected the history of the house. Maddie ran ahead into a door on the right.
The wood stove in the corner of the kitchen didn’t look out of place in this house, but the propane stove next to it did. Carina set Tate in the antique, wooden high chair. It had to be the same one his father sat in.
“Do you still use the wood stove?” Carina asked as Maddie dug in the cupboards.
“Not since we got the propane stove. It works even when there’s no electricity.” Maddie held up a can of tomato soup and grinned. “How about cheese sandwiches with this?”
“Sounds good to me.”
Watching Maddie in the kitchen made Carina smile. The girl moved about like a woman who’d cooked for a family for years.
“How long have you been taking care of Tate and your Dad?” Carina stirred the soup on the stove and watched Maddie’s young face screw up in thought as she placed cheese on the slices of bread.
“Well, Tate’s almost two and Cindy, Daddy’s second wife and Tate’s mom, left when he was about six months old.” She scratched her head. “So, over a year.”
“How have you kept up with your school work?” Carina found it incredulous the man hadn’t found proper care for both the children in that amount of time.
Maddie shrugged her shoulders. “I home school. We’re so remote we can hook up to the school’s system and do class from home. When I run into something I don’t know, I just log onto the school and ask a teacher.”
“It’s not the same as being there.” How could this man think his bright, young daughter would learn enough by using a computer? There were some things that could only be learned by hands on experience. Not to mention the interaction with a teacher and other students.
“You can’t talk to a teacher about field trips and science projects.”
“No, but Willie T teaches me about all the plants and land formations around here.”
“The man who hired me?”
“Yeah.” Maddie leaned over and whispered, “I was saying I wished I didn’t have to watch Tate all the time and he said Daddy needed a nanny. So we made one of my school projects looking up nanny services and getting one.” She placed her hand on Carina’s arm. “You aren’t mad, are you?”
“No.” Her heart went out to the girl. She wanted a normal childhood. Who could fault her for that?
Kaboom! Thunder rocked the house as lightning flashed outside the window.
Maddie ran out the kitchen, shouting, “Daddy, it’s here. That storm Willie T and I was tracking.”
“Willie T and you were tracking.” Carina shouted out the door. Once a teacher, always a teacher. She sighed and wondered what a storm in the middle of nowhere would be like. In the city a storm meant the miserable downpour of rain and irritable people poking you with umbrellas in the streets, elevators, and buses. During the day, the thunder couldn’t be heard, but late at night, when the traffic was still, she would lie in bed and hear the rumble and watch the lightning light up the sky.
Her curiosity got the better of her. She left the kitchen, walking through the mud room and out the back door onto the small uncovered porch. A flash of lightning zigzagged across the ground as another one struck from the sky nearly blinding her. The crack and sizzle of energy in the air set her hair prickling. Large drops of rain pelted her.
She stood with her face raised to the dark sky, and let the water refresh her hot, tired body. Getting ready for the trip had been long and grueling. Her mother cried buckets about first losing a granddaughter and now a daughter. Carina loved her mother, but needed space. Her mother had smothered her since the miscarriage. It was as if the woman thought her daughter would be taken from this earth as well, and if she clung to her it wouldn’t happen.
Between her mother and co-workers, Carina hadn’t felt she could pull her life back together without moving away from the memories. Joining the nanny agency had been the first wise thing her best friend, Georgie, had ever come up with.
Well, that was until she got here and found out the man she was to work for didn’t want her.
She pushed strands of wet hair off her face and smiled as the lightning illuminated the sagebrush dotted landscape. You’d never see a sight like this in Chicago. It took her breath away.
The screen door creaked open. “Ms. Valencia, are you going to join us for lunch?” Brock’s deep, soothing voice chased away the chills of her rain-soaked clothing.
Stepping through the doorway, she looked down at the puddle around her feet. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
She hurried to
the utility sink, grabbed a hand towel and dropped it on the puddle, sopping the water from the well-worn linoleum. Her wet hair fell into her face. She pushed it back and stopped mopping the floor when Brock’s large hand grasped her upper arm, hauling her to her feet.
“Why don’t you get into some dry clothes while Maddie and I dish up the food?” His gaze moved from her chest to her eyes with reluctance.
Carina glanced down. Her nipples were vivid peaks against her clinging, wet, silk shirt.
“Good idea.” She hurried down the hall and up the staircase to the guest room. Closing the door behind her, she leaned against it.
The grip on her arm had felt like a brand and the heat glistening in his eyes as he told her to change reflected a man who hadn’t spent an evening with a woman in a while. Wiping a hand across her warm face, she quelled any sexual reaction she might have to the man. She needed a place to heal, without any distractions.
Two
Brock met Willie T at the back door. It didn’t matter the older man was dripping wet; he crooked his finger for the wily codger to follow and stomped down the hall to the office.
“Hi, Willie T!” he heard Maddie call out. The man responded with a jolly hello back.
Once the office door closed, Brock turned all his pent up frustrations loose.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing hiring me a nanny?” Running a hand across the back of his neck, he stared at the man who had become a second father to him years ago.
“Maddie is too young to be a mother.” Willie T crossed his arms and glared at Brock.
“I know that. But what am I supposed to do? Look what happened the last time I tried to get her a mother.” Brock sat on the corner of the desk. Rehashing all his poor decisions—the main one, marrying Cindy—took all the starch out of his fury.
The old man wiggled his eyebrows. “That’s the problem. You thought with the wrong part of your body.”
“Damn you! I thought you were my friend. I didn’t marry Cindy because I had a hard on, like this whole valley seems to think. I was trying to get a female in this house to take care of Maddie.”
“You could have hired an old woman to take care of Maddie and took care of your other problems elsewhere.”
“Damn it, you old fart, I didn’t have you come here to tell me all my mistakes.” Brock had to get this discussion reined in before the man turned the tables on him—which he’d been known to do. “Where’d you get the balls to hire a nanny for me?”
Brock rubbed the back of his neck. The muscles were tightening. The throb of a bazooka-sized headache pounded at the base of his head.
“Maddie needs a break from Tate. She needs to be a little girl. It is something a person should not miss out on.”
“But you and I both know I can’t afford to pay a nanny.” He looked at the man standing in front of him wearing faded jeans, a thread bare, flannel shirt, and boots that had been patched more times than the years Maddie had been alive. “And neither can you. How in the world did you come up with the money for a month?”
“I sold two horses.”
Brock stared at the man. The sale of his horses fed and clothed himself and his family. “You shouldn’t have done that. You need that money for your own family.”
“You, Maddie, and Tate are my family as well. And I want to keep you all together.” Willie T’s eyes glazed over and his chin jutted out.
His last words sliced through Brock. Since Cindy walked out a year ago, Maddie’s grandfather had tried his darnedest to get custody of Maddie. The cantankerous bastard sent the social services out as well as got the school officials up in a dander, making Maddie take all kinds of tests.
A nanny would definitely help with his custody battle against his father-in-law.
“I can see your point. I’ll need all the arsenal I can get if I’m going to beat Maxwell Johnson. But I can’t afford to keep her more than the month you paid for.” Willie T had set his mind to this, and Brock could see there was no way he could get the man to take back his money. His honor would be hurt.
He pointed a finger at Willie T. “I’ll keep her the month. But I’m paying you back as soon as the cattle get sold.” When the old man started to protest, Brock held up a hand. “I’ll not worry about your family because you were foolish.”
Brock had never seen so much anger glinting in Willie T’s eyes before. He’d gone and said too much. Cowering inside, but not backing down visibly, Brock steadied himself for the onslaught of Willie T’s wrath.
“I have done few foolish things in my lifetime.” Willie T uncrossed his arms and stepped forward to place a wide hand on Brock’s shoulder. “You, young man, have let emotions sway you in the wrong direction. You cannot keep women away from your family. It is what this family needs—a woman’s guidance.” Now it was his turn to hold up a hand to keep Brock quiet.
“Tate needs mothering, not a child’s care. Maddie is getting to an age where she needs a woman to question and get answers. You need the peace of mind when you are out with the cattle that everything at home is well.” He stepped back. “Let this woman into your lives for this month and see if you all don’t absorb inner peace.”
A knock on the door interrupted their locked gaze. Deep down Brock knew this man spoke what had been weighing on his mind for some time. But why couldn’t Ms. Valencia have been some shriveled up old maid?
“Yes,” Brock said, glancing at the door as the woman they talked about entered.
“Maddie said Willie T was here. I wanted to meet him.” She glanced briefly at Brock before her eyes lit up and a welcoming smile was bestowed on the man next to him. Brock wondered if the two had met before. The smile on Willie T’s lips and the brightness of his eyes were his usual greeting for Maddie.
“Ms. Valencia, it is a pleasure.” Willie T clasped her small hand between his wide paws.
“Willie T. That is an interesting name.”
“It’s short for William Thunder.”
Brock cleared his throat. “Is lunch ready?” he asked. The old man’s avid attention to the nanny stuck in his craw.
“Yes, that was the other reason I came to get you.” She smiled at Willie T and turned to leave the room.
Brock took a step toward the door to follow. Willie T grabbed his arm, stopping him. “You need to do whatever you can to keep that woman.”
The words hit him like a ten-pound sledge hammer. “Why?”
“She’s a keeper.”
Shaking his head, trying to make sense of the old man, Brock looked him in the eyes. “What do you mean a keeper?”
“She needs this family as much as you need her.”
The man was full of predictions and prophesies. Brock didn’t know why he listened to half of what Willie T said.
“We’ll see about that,” was the only comeback he could think of as he hurried down the hall to eat his mid-day meal and head out to check on the cattle.
Carina found Willie T to be a charming gentleman with a great sense of humor and full of knowledge of the land and people. As she, Maddie, and Willie T discussed the area and people, she noticed Brock gradually pulling out of the conversation. By the time the meal finished, he’d already excused himself without even giving her any clue as to what he expected of her.
“Maddie, where did your father go?” she asked as they cleaned up the kitchen while Willie T entertained Tate in the living room.
“He always heads out in the afternoon to check the cows. He’ll be back by dinner time.” Her matter-of-fact answer did little to diffuse the irritation building toward this man. She found it unconscionable to leave a twelve-year-old in charge of a toddler for that length of time.
“He’ll be gone for hours? What would you do if something happened?” When the child turned defiant eyes on her, Carina knew her anger had shown in her words.
“Daddy or Jack check up on us throughout the afternoon, and I know how to use the radio.” The girl’s words were punctuated with vindication.
Maddie chattered like a monkey as they toured the house. Back at the living room, Maddie took Tate from Willie T, swinging the toddler onto her hip like a seasoned mother.
“Ms. Valencia, it was a pleasure to meet you. We’ll be seeing one another again soon.” Willie T bowed, patted Maddie’s cheek, and disappeared down the back hall.
“It’s time for Tate’s nap,” Maddie said, drawing Carina’s attention back to the room and from her ponderings about the man. “While he’s sleeping you can unpack, and I’ll work on my school work.”
“Here let me take Tate up to bed since I’m headed that way anyway.” Carina took the boy from his sister. He was heavy for his age. How did Maddie lift him like he didn’t weigh a thing? “When I get my things put away, I’d like to see what you are working on for school.”
Maddie’s eyes lit up. “I’m writing a story about the history of our family and working on some tough math problems.”
“I’ll be down as fast as I can to see if I can help.”
Maddie threw her arms around Carina’s waist. “I’m happy you’re here.”
“Me too.” Carina smoothed the girl’s unruly hair, and smiled into her freckled face. Helping these children was exactly what she needed to take her mind off the past.
****
Brock sat on the front porch after dinner watching the rain pummel the dry earth. Sipping a beer he scratched Roscoe between the ears. They needed a good rain. The grass was getting scarce. If it didn’t last at least one more month, he’d have to start feeding hay sooner than he could afford.
Maddie’s giggles, followed by a sultry woman’s chuckle, drifted out through the open door. Roscoe perked his ears as Brock’s stomach bunched. It had been a long time since a woman’s laugh echoed in these walls.
