Hunter's Moon

by Karen Robards

  “You oughta be nicer to the boss.” He fell into step beside her. “I could make things a lot easier for you.”

  “The day you’re my boss is the day I quit,” Molly said, talking to the air in front of her instead of to him, and quickening her step.

  “It’ll happen. You know I’m gonna inherit one day.”

  “You’ll be an old man by then, and I’ll be long gone. Thank God.”

  “Since Grandpa died, Aunt Helen’s been talkin’ about turning the running of the farm over to me. Uncle Boyce wants to hire a manager, but Uncle Tyler wants to keep it in the family. And you know how Aunt Helen listens to Uncle Tyler.”

  Old John Wyland had died in December. His wife, Sarah, had divorced him a dozen years before and was currently living in Switzerland. Estranged from the family, she did not even return for her former husband’s funeral. His death left their only daughter, Helen—who lived in the Big House with her husband, Walt Trapp, and daughter, Neilie—to manage the horse operation. Boyce, eight years younger than Helen, was a lawyer who shuttled between opulent houses in Lexington, Lake Placid, New York, and Palm Beach, while Tyler, the youngest sibling, occupied the farm’s guest house. Tad Wyland, Thornton’s father and the oldest boy, had died some ten years previously. Helen Trapp had raised Thornton after that, and he considered Wyland. Farm his home.

  He’d been chasing Molly since she was eighteen.

  “Your uncle Boyce is right.”

  Thornton laughed again. “Sweet thang, you keep fightin’ it, but I know that underneath that prickly exterior you really like me. I can tell. What’re you doin’ Saturday night?”

  “Washing my hair.”

  “We could do it together.”

  “Not a chance, pal.”

  “We could have a lot of fun if you’d just relax and let it happen.”

  “I’m allergic to your brand of fun.”

  He caught her hand, imprisoning it as he playfully kissed her knuckles, then sucked on her fingertips. On the second try, Molly managed to yank her hand free.

  “Buzz off, Thornton, why don’t you?”

  Quickening her pace, Molly reached Will’s side and stopped, turning to face Thornton angrily.

  “Bye,” she said with a saccharine smile.

  Thornton stopped, too, an expression of curiosity on his face as he glanced past her at Will, who was looking him up and down in a way that would have given Molly pause if such a glance had been directed at her. The men were about the same height, and both wore navy blazers, though Thornton’s slacks were gray and his tie was decorated with red triangles instead of the stripes that adorned Will’s. Leanly muscled and unsmiling, creases visibly etched into the tanned skin around his eyes and mouth, Will looked hard arid cold next to Thornton’s exuberant, youthful handsomeness.

  But Will was the one Molly would have chosen to be with anytime. Will was the one who made her feel safe.

  To Molly’s surprise, she once again felt her hand caught and carried upward. Glancing sideways, she tried not to appear round-eyed as Will, gaze focused on Thornton, slowly and deliberately pressed the back of her hand against his mouth.

  And held it there. His lips were dry and warm. Hot, almost. Molly could feel his breath against her skin. She didn’t struggle, but let him do with her hand what he chose. He turned her hand over, kissing her palm. To her amazement, lightning bolts of sensation exploded across the surface of her skin.

  Will never once glanced her way. He was kissing her hand strictly for Thornton’s benefit, Molly realized. To warn him off.

  Meanwhile, Molly was having trouble catching her breath.

  Thornton’s eyebrows rose as he observed and registered Will’s gesture of possession, as he was meant to do.

  “New boyfriend, Moll?” he asked.

  Will lowered her hand at last, but kept her fingers tightly enclosed in his. Molly was so unnerved she could barely think, let alone answer. Will answered for her.

  “You got it,” he said, very pleasant. As a back-off message, it came through loud and clear. Even Molly heard the unspoken warning.

  “Hey, you can’t blame a guy for trying,” Thornton said with a shrug.

  “Thorn! Thorn, come on! The race is about to start!”

  Thornton glanced around, saw the pretty blonde hurrying toward him from the other side of the paddock, and grimaced.

  “Gotta go. Allie’s impatient, just like all my women. No hard feelings, I hope?” he asked Will. Beginning to feel like a bone between two dogs, Molly tried to summon indignation at being discussed as if she weren’t even there. But her senses were still in too much turmoil from the touch of Will’s mouth on her skin.

  Thornton had kissed her hand, sucked on her fingers, even, and she felt only annoyance. Will pressed his lips to her palm and her bones threatened to melt.

  It was scary.

  “Not at this point.” Will still held her hand, a point that was not lost on Molly—or Thornton.

  “See ya around, Miss Molly.” Turning to leave, Thornton tweaked the end of her ponytail.

  “Not if I see you first,” Molly mustered the will to mutter after his retreating back, but she doubted that he heard her.

  “Thornton Wyland, I presume,” Will said dryly, releasing her hand as casually as if he’d felt none of the fire that had so shaken Molly. Still trying to regroup, Molly kept her eyes on Thornton’s diminishing figure as he was claimed by the blonde and hustled toward the grandstand.

  “How do you know—oh, of course, I keep forgetting, you know everything, don’t you? What, do you have files on everyone in the Bluegrass?”

  Will’s grin was quick and appreciative. “Just the people who interest me. And remember, just the facts. How long have you known young Mr. Wyland?”

  “Off and on since I was eighteen.”

  “Ever dated him? Given him any encouragement?”

  Molly snorted. “Thornton Wyland doesn’t need encouragement.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  “He’s a pain in the ass.” Now that Will was no longer touching her, Molly was able to think normally again. But she was still shaken by what had happened. Surely she was not—could not be—sexually attracted to the FBI man.

  “Is he?” Will seemed to lose interest. “I doubt if he bothers you again for a while. Did you check the numbers?”

  “Yes.” Copying his tone, Molly turned businesslike. “They all matched. None of them are ringers.”

  “Damn.” Will frowned. “You sure they matched?”

  “I’m sure.” She was having trouble looking him in the eye. She forced herself to.

  “Damn,” he said again, staring beyond her with a pensive expression. After a moment he seemed to gather his thoughts, and glanced down at her. “We may be in this for the long haul. You have any trouble?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think you would.”

  “What happens if we don’t find any ringers?” Molly asked.

  “They’re here. We’ll find them.”

  “If we don’t, do I still get paid?”

  His glance at her was sharp with humor. “Always focused on the bottom line, aren’t you? I’m surprised you keep turning Thornton Wyland down. His family’s rich. He’d be a good catch for somebody like you.”

  “He doesn’t want to buy me, just rent me for a while,” Molly replied tartly. “I’m not stupid, you know. And what do you mean, somebody like me?”

  “Broke,” Will said, a smile flickering at the edges of his mouth. His gaze slid over her, returned to her face. “But beautiful.”

  Taken aback, Molly couldn’t think of a reply. When she didn’t answer, he gave a wry half smile and tapped her on the cheek with the rolled racing form.

  “You better get back to work. If you get fired, you won’t be worth a damn to me—and you can kiss that five thousand dollars good-bye.” He turned away, heading toward the grandstand. “See ya.”

  Thoroughly rattled now, Molly stood stock-still and w
atched as he disappeared into the crowd. Then, when she realized what she was doing, she gave herself a mental shake, and went back to work.

  And refused to allow herself to think of Will Lyman for the rest of the day.

  16

  That night he brought Kentucky Fried Chicken.

  Molly was at the stove, stirring cheese into macaroni noodles and at the same time drilling Sam, who stood nearby, on his spelling words. Susan sat at the kitchen table hunched over a sheet of math problems. Ashley sat beside her, attempting without much success to explain to Susan why the answer she’d so painstakingly arrived at was wrong. Mike was in the living room, working on a history research paper that was due the following week. He’d carried an encyclopedia in there with him, and a notebook. Molly could only hope that he was actually committing words to paper. Mike’s modus operandi was to wait until the last minute, then stay up all night doing a project that was not half as good as it could have been if he’d put in the time and effort it called for. He was only working on the paper tonight because she had insisted—and anyway there was nothing else to do. Grounded, with no TV or phone privileges, he was a sullen prisoner in the house.

  “Integration,” Molly said to Sam.

  “E-n-t …”

  Molly’s glance was enough.

  “I mean I-n-t …”

  Molly listened, stirring, then nodded approval as Sam got it right. Giving the boy another word, she set the spoon aside and turned down the heat on the burner. The hamburger patties were sizzling, and a glance told her they were ready to be turned. Canned brown gravy, mouthwateringly aromatic, bubbled at the back of the stove, along with a pot of green beans from Mrs. Atkinson’s garden, cooked up with bacon. Refrigerated biscuits browned in the oven.

  “There’s an i in the middle of business, not a y,” Molly said, taking a pancake turner to the burgers. Sam tried again, getting it right this time. Not a great student at best, Sam did worst at spelling, because he just could not be convinced that it was important. Math, on the other hand, was Susan’s Waterloo. It was the only school subject at which she was not completely competent.

  “Molly, do you know what the zero property of numbers is?” Ashley asked with exasperation, looking up from where she and Susan pored over an open text. “Susan doesn’t, I can’t remember exactly, and we can’t find it in this stupid book.”

  “Got me,” Molly said with an apologetic shrug.

  “I hate math,” Susan muttered. “It’s so dumb.”

  “Math’s easy,” Mike chimed in scornfully from the other room. The house was small enough so that a conversation held in one room was completely audible throughout the entire upper or lower level, depending on where it occurred. “The zero property of numbers says that if you multiply any number times zero it equals zero.”

  “Thanks, Mike,” Ashley called back. With a clear lack of enthusiasm, Susan wrote her sibling’s words down.

  “Barometer,” Molly said to Sam just as there was a knock at the door.

  Glad to be diverted, even momentarily, from homework, the four Ballards in the kitchen looked up. Pork Chop erupted barking from beneath the table. Mike, encyclopedia in hand, appeared in the living room doorway.

  “I’ll get it,” Susan and Sam volunteered in the same breath. Susan, by virtue of already being closer to the door, beat Sam there by a fraction of a second, and yanked it open, nearly treading on Pork Chop’s paw in the process. The dog scrambled sideways without missing a beat. The noise he made was deafening.

  Will stood on the porch. Despite the darkness outside, and the veiling effect of the black mesh screen, Molly recognized him instantly. A curious warmth pulsed to life somewhere in the region of her breastbone. A welcoming smile sprang unbidden to her lips—until she realized it was there and banished it.

  “Hi,” Will said to Susan, who unhesitatingly opened the still-broken screen door to admit him. It dipped downward as she swung it outward, and he juggled something he held to catch the handle and take the door’s weight himself. Stepping inside, he pulled the door shut behind him, nodded at Ashley and Mike, grinned at Sam, rewarded Pork Chop for ceasing to bark with a quiet “good dog,” then looked across the kitchen at Molly.

  “I brought supper,” he said with an engagingly crooked smile, and held aloft a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken for her inspection. A half-gallon of milk was tucked beneath his other arm. The warmth inside Molly spread. She was glad to see him, there was no use denying it. Fried chicken and milk or not.

  “What, does he think the way to your heart is through our stomachs?” Mike asked with a growl, turning to disappear into the living room.

  Molly shot a warning look after her brother, which missed its mark because he was already gone.

  “Thank you,” she said to Will, staying back by the stove and purposely keeping her voice as distant as her person, “but as you can see I’m already fixing something. I can cook, you know.”

  Sam made a rude sound of dissent. Susan elbowed him hard in the ribs, and he howled and whacked her back.

  “Homework!” Molly said sharply, pulling the plug on the brewing sibling battle before it could escalate into a full-scale war. “Susan, if you don’t finish your math before supper, you won’t be able to watch TV afterward. Sam, come on, let’s get these spelling words out of the way.”

  “I bet he’s good at math,” said Susan with the hopeful air of one whose siblings were not. As she closed the heavy wooden door, her big brown eyes focused on Will. Clad in jeans and a ruffled-collar denim shirt, her blond hair pulled back in a curly ponytail and tied up with a length of blue yarn, Susan looked sweet as cotton candy. Clearly beguiled, Will smiled down at the child.

  “I’m not bad,” he answered with suitable modesty, advancing into the room and surrendering the bucket of chicken and container of milk to Molly, who at last came forward to take them.

  “It was nice of you to bring this,” she said grudgingly, referring to the food. Then, even more grudgingly, “We’re having hamburger patties with brown gravy. You’re welcome to stay.”

  “Hamburger patties with brown gravy are my very favorite.” He met her gaze, smiled at her. For all her wariness of him, his motives, and the circumstances that threw them together, Molly was caught off guard by the sheer charm of that smile. Before she could catch herself, she smiled back. She doubted that he had ever eaten hamburger patties with brown gravy in his life. But he seemed right at home in her small, poor kitchen—stranger, northerner, FBI man or not.

  “Can you multiply fractions?” asked Susan, tugging at the sleeve of his navy sport coat.

  “I think so,” Will responded with good humor. “If I still remember how.”

  “I always get it mixed up. Fractions are stupid anyway,” Susan complained, leading him unresisting toward the table. Her assumption that Will was naturally prepared to assist her with her homework both amused and alarmed Molly. Susan was not an overly trusting child—and Will was only a temporary visitor to their lives. Molly didn’t want Susan—any of them—to get too used to having him around. In just a couple of weeks he would be gone.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said to Will over the children’s heads as Susan pulled the bench out farther so that he could sit down. Ashley relinquished her place at the table with a sympathetic smile for her replacement, crossed the kitchen to relieve Molly of the chicken and milk she still held, and put them down on the kitchen counter. Embarrassed that she had not had the presence of mind to set the food down herself, Molly quickly turned her attention to the stove.

  “No problem,” Will said to her back. “Actually, I like multiplying fractions.”

  This whopper earned him a sideways glance brimful of silent skepticism. Will grinned.

  “It beats the heck out of a lot of things I’ve done. Here, Susan, let me get ready for action and I’ll see what I can do to help you wrestle those fractions into submission.”

  Will slid out of his jacket while Susan giggled and Molly, osten
sibly checking on the biscuits, watched out of the corner of her eye. Draping his coat across the bench, Will pulled his tie free of its knot and slid it from around his neck. It joined his coat over the bench. Loosening the top button of his collar and rolling up his sleeves with exaggerated motions, Will gave the impression that he was bent on getting down to some serious work, much to Susan’s amusement.

  As he settled down at the table beside her youngest sister, Molly noticed that his shoulders in the blue oxford cloth shirt were very broad, and his throat and forearms were as bronzed as his face.

  A scattering of gold-tipped chest hair was clearly visible where the shirt opened at his throat.

  “You’re burning the biscuits,” Ashley hissed in her ear.

  Mortified to discover that she had been standing with the oven door cracked all that time while she watched Will out of the corner of her eye, Molly gathered her wits, grabbed a potholder, and reached for the biscuits. The ones at the back of the oven—it cooked unevenly—were browner than they should have been, but still edible. She pulled the pan out and set it on the counter, where Ashley waited to whisk the biscuits into a napkin-lined bowl.

  It was only a yellow paper napkin, but still that was a pretty fancy embellishment for home cooking at the Ballards’.

  “Can’t we do this tomorrow? It’s Friday night,” Sam complained, tired of being ignored. He leaned against the cabinets near the stove, watching Susan and Will at the table a little jealously. Molly, reminded of her obligations, reached for a spoon and stirred the gravy as she glanced at the sheet of notebook paper with Sam’s spelling words on it that lay on the counter nearby. Every Monday morning without fail his class had a spelling test, and it would take an entire weekend of daily practice for Sam to get a decent grade on it. Tempting as it was occasionally to let it slide till Sunday, Molly had learned from bitter experience that the rule to abide by with homework was, it gets done first. Even on the weekend.

  “You know the answer to that,” Molly said to Sam. “Ambition.”