Stay...

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  As soon as she saw the cloud of dust in the distance, she set aside the peas and went inside. “They’re coming,” she said.

  Tristan set aside the computer printout he was studying and rose.

  Jefferson was in the office with Matthew, going over some notes Matthew had been keeping. “They’re coming,” Emily said, poking her head in the doorway.

  Matthew nodded and dropped the papers onto his desk. He smiled at her as he left the office.

  Emily looked at Jefferson. He still looked tired. But the rigid strain around his eyes was almost gone. It would take a long while for him to recover emotionally from what he’d been through. But this morning had been a start. A good start. Her heart did a quiet little dance when the corners of his lips tilted and he held his hand out to her.

  “You ready for this?” he asked when she slipped into his arms.

  “Mmm-hmm. You?”

  He grinned lazily, stealing her heart all over again. “Yup.” He kissed her on the nose and headed for the kitchen. “Your fingers are green.”

  “I’ve been shelling peas,” she said.

  “And eating a few, too, if I remember correctly.”

  “Naturally. What good is it shelling peas, if you can’t sample the fruit?”

  “They’re vegetables, angelface.”

  “Nah. Nothing that tastes that good could be a vegetable.”

  He just smiled faintly and pushed open the screen door, then followed her outside and around to the front of the house. Matthew and Tristan were already there, watching the dot in the distance take the form of a car. When the sedan finally pulled to a halt on the gravel drive, Emily’s heart was thumping with anticipation. And nervousness.

  She didn’t want to upset Squire. But she wasn’t going to forsake their happiness for his opinions. She and Jefferson had talked about it only long enough to agree that they couldn’t shove their relationship in Squire’s face. But they weren’t going to hide it, either.

  Not that she could quite describe yet what their relationship was, exactly. For the moment it was enough to know that he loved her. His touch told her that he did.

  Though it would be nice to think that someday he would actually let the words pass his lips.

  He caught her eye, and heat streaked through her. It was as simple as that. One look from him, and she was ready to throw herself into his arms. No matter who was standing around to see the sight.

  The corner of his lip tilted. He knew what he was doing, darn it all! The car doors were opening, but she kept her attention on Jefferson for a moment, promising retribution.

  Sweet retribution.

  “Dang it, quit hovering over me.” Squire’s cantankerous complaint made her smile. A dimple deepened alongside Jefferson’s mouth, and he watched his father shove open the car door. “I ain’t dead,” the man was saying.

  “You’re loud enough to wake the dead,” a female voice retorted.

  Jefferson recognized the nurse who’d spoken from the hospital as she rounded the car.

  “Git away from me, woman.”

  The nurse, dressed in tidy tan slacks and a tailored silk blouse, lifted her hands, resigned. “You may call me Mrs. Day.”

  Squire snorted. Using his big hand on the opened door of the car, he pulled himself upright. Until he towered over the woman. He looked down at her. “Git away from me, Mrs. Day.”

  Somehow she managed to look down her nose at him. “I cannot believe I agreed to stay on here for a week.”

  Squire gave a bark of laughter. “I charmed you into it, darlin’. You know you couldn’t resist.”

  Sawyer covered his eyes with his hand, and Daniel was quietly sneaking away from the scene.

  “Where you goin’, boy?”

  Daniel shrugged. He patted his pockets and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. “Don’t want to smoke around you, Squire. Bad for the lungs and all.”

  “Put them fool things away,” Squire said. As if he hadn’t been an avid smoker for a solid twenty years. “Them things’ll kill you.” He spotted Matthew. “You get that tractor fixed yet?”

  Matthew nodded. “Yup.”

  Squire nodded, his eyes lighting on Emily. “Well, young lady. You got a hug for this old man?”

  Emily couldn’t resist him. She was still livid over the way he’d treated Jefferson. But livid or not, she loved the rascal. She slipped between Tristan and Mrs. Day. “Welcome home,” she whispered, reaching up to hug him.

  He kissed her forehead, then cupped her chin in his palm. Lifting her face to his eyes, he studied her. “Well, well. Don’t you look mighty fine, Miss Emily. Life at the ranch has brought some color to your cheeks.”

  She nearly bit off her tongue. Her cheeks pink, she lowered herself back onto her heels.

  Squire eyed her speculatively, then lifted his eyes to look at the assembly of his sons. “Damn, Jefferson. You look like a danged woman with that long hair. Get it cut why don’t you.”

  With that, he leaned back into the car and pulled out his small bag.

  “You can’t carry that.” Mrs. Day abruptly pulled it out of his hands.

  “Hell, woman, I was carrying my own bag a long time before you came along, and I’ll be carrying it a long time after you’re gone. Now git out of my way. I want to go sit at my own kitchen table and drink some drinkable coffee.”

  She stood right in his path, unmoving. “One cup,” she said. “Now give me that bag.”

  Sawyer made a strangled sound and slammed shut the driver’s side. He quickly walked around the car. He took the bag out of his father’s hand while the man was staring at his nurse. He walked by Tristan and Emily, heading for the back of the house. “They’ve been at it since we left Casper,” he said beneath his breath. “Thought the man wasn’t supposed to have any stress.”

  “What’s that, boy?” Squire lifted his silver head. “Never known you to be a mumble mouth.”

  “Never known you to be rude to a pretty woman,” Sawyer retorted.

  Squire grunted, but a devilish glint was burning in his eyes. He looked down at his nurse for the next week. “Pretty women ought to be home tending their husbands.” He tossed out the chauvinistic comment, testing for reaction.

  Emily’s eyebrows skyrocketed.

  Mrs. Day looked Squire right in the face. And laughed. She laughed so hard her eyes watered. “Oh, please,” she gasped breathlessly. “You’ll turn my head.” Still laughing, she slipped around him and reached for her own small suitcase.

  “Tristan, don’t stand there like a bump. Take the lady’s bag.”

  He jumped to attention and reached for the suitcase. “It’s easier to just go along with him,” Tristan told the woman.

  She arched an eyebrow and studied the lean length of Squire Clay. “I’ll bet,” she murmured.

  Squire cast her a long look. Emily watched it all with amazement. Squire was attracted to his nurse! Never, in her entire life, had she seen Squire look upon a woman with that particular glint. Oh, she’d known he’d had lady friends. But he’d never brought them back to the Double-C, as far as she knew. And now, the first time a woman was with him, it was because she was his nurse. A Mrs. nurse.

  Squire threw his shoulders back and looked around. “Good to be home,” he said at last. He patted Emily lightly on the cheek. “Go and fix some of that coffee, would ya darlin’?” He glanced around and strode around the house. “Yup. Sure is good to be home.”

  Tristan, Emily and Jefferson just watched his back.

  “Wow,” Emily finally said.

  Jefferson dropped his arm over her shoulder and nodded.

  Tristan turned to Mrs. Day. “You,” he said admiringly, “are a brave woman. A very brave woman indeed, and I am truly impressed.” He extended his arm, indicating that she should precede him. “How do you take your coffee, Mrs. Day? With a shot of whiskey? Or without?”

  She straightened the collar of her blouse and smiled serenely as she headed after Squire. “With, of course.”


  Alone beside the car, Emily leaned into Jefferson. “That was interesting,” she said.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “He fancies her, doesn’t he.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  She slipped her fingers into his belt loops. “Do you know that there are now four women staying at the Double-C at one time? That’s a first.”

  “Yup.” He halted her wandering fingers with a stern hand. “Stop it.”

  “What?” Innocently her velvet eyes looked up at him.

  “That,” he jerked away from her fingertips. “You’re tickling me.”

  “No.”

  “Dammit,” he muttered, trying not to laugh when she poked him. “You’ll regret it.”

  “I doubt it,” she pressed herself against his chest, making sure he felt the hard points of her nipples stabbing him through their clothing.

  “Witch,” he accused gruffly. Then he jerked again when she found that ticklish spot.

  She giggled and danced away before he could get a good grip on her. “Maybe you’d better take a trip into town, boy.” She darted to the left, then the right, evading his hands. “Git that danged hair cut.”

  “You’re supposed to be in there fixing coffee,” he said lazily, letting her romp around him like a frisky pup.

  “Obviously Squire’s feeling better.” Emily twisted and scooted back when his fingers caught the hem of her loose T-shirt. “He was glad you’re here. I could tell.”

  Jefferson shrugged. He wasn’t going to think too hard on that, just yet. He allowed the shirt to slip from his fingers. She was quicker than he’d expected, though, and managed to circle behind him, unerringly finding that spot again.

  He whirled around. “You’re gonna get it.”

  “I hope so.” She widened her eyes laughingly. She dashed across the gravel drive toward the circled lawn beyond. “I sincerely hope so.”

  Her eyes were deep brown, but Jefferson could have sworn he saw the sun shining right out of them. He realized he was smiling like an idiot. She was standing a few yards away, her brow arched in challenge. “Oh, yeah,” he promised them both. “You’re definitely going to get it.”

  She was fast. He’d give her that. But he had longer legs. She squeaked and darted for the stand of trees. That was her mistake.

  His arms pinned her between three closely growing trees. She was huffing, her chest making the most interesting of diversions beneath her soft shirt. “You have nowhere to go.”

  “Never say die,” she vowed, her eyes sidling this way and that. But there was nowhere to go. Only forward. She reached for his waist and latched on, her fingers tickling for all they were worth.

  His laugh was strangled. “Brat,” he grabbed her waist and tipped her feet off the ground.

  Squire paused before the wide picture window overlooking the front of the house. He watched his middle son. Watched him laugh and playfully wrestle with Emily. Watched them tumble to the soft green summer grass and catch their breath. He saw the moment when they went curiously still, and the way his son smoothed Emily’s dark hair away from her ivory face. Before he turned away from the sight, he saw the way their lips met in a kiss. A kiss that was so pure and fulfilling, he practically felt the waves of their emotions rock the house.

  Carrying his bag, he headed for his bedroom tucked beneath the staircase. He closed himself in the room, and his boots scraped the wooden floor as he crossed to the bureau standing beneath the window that looked over the side of the house. He picked up the framed picture of a woman and looked at it for a long time. Remembering how he’d felt about the woman who’d given him five fine sons. His thumb moved across the glass, remembering how it had felt to run his fingers through that waist-length blond hair. How her rosy lips had tasted beneath his. “Sarah,” he murmured his wife’s name. “For a while there, I thought I was finally gonna join you.”

  After a long moment he carefully set the picture frame back in its spot. “I guess I still got some things to do yet. Or undo, I guess,” he said. “But you already know that, don’t you.” He looked at the black-and-white photo for a long moment. Then he dropped his bag on the bed and headed back to the kitchen.

  Emily was there, fixing the coffee he’d asked for. A grass stain marred her otherwise clean pink T-shirt. She was laughing at something Tristan was saying. The rest of the boys were sprawled in chairs surrounding the big table. Squire stood in the doorway, looking at his family, feeling ridiculously grateful and more than a little old.

  The refrigerator door closed, and Mrs. Day came into sight. Her thick auburn hair was twisted in a knot at the nape of her neck, and when she leaned over to set the small container of milk in the middle of the table, her slacks tightened over her derriere.

  Perhaps not so old, after all, Squire decided.

  “Person tends to forget why we built this room so big,” he said, walking into the kitchen. Tristan drew up his legs from the middle of the floor, and Squire pulled out his usual chair. “Seeing y’all here reminds my why.”

  Emily found a plate and arranged a batch of brownies on it. She set it on the table, next to the milk. She added a bowl of grapes and the sugar bowl.

  “One cup,” Mrs. Day reminded when he reached for the coffeepot Emily set on a hot pad beside his elbow.

  “One cup,” he mimicked. “I’ll drink as much of this as I want.”

  “Not if you want me to stay the week, you won’t,” she said pleasantly. “And you made a deal with your cardiologist. You wouldn’t want to back down on a deal, would you? If you have to suck coffee down all day, switch to decaffeinated.”

  His eyebrows lowered. “You’ve gotta be kidding.”

  Emily suddenly moved, and a cupboard door slammed closed.

  He switched his attention to her. “You git bit by a bug or something?”

  She shook her head and slipped into the chair between Jefferson and Tristan. “Nope.” Not looking at him, she reached for the grapes and broke off a few.

  He snorted. Then busied himself pouring the steaming hot brew into a mug. “Don’t hover, woman. Set yourself down.” He looked over at Daniel. “Scoot over son. Give the woman a place to park.”

  Daniel obliged, pulling up the spare chair that had always sat beneath the telephone hanging on the wall.

  Mrs. Day sat in the spot Daniel usually held. Right at Squire’s left elbow. He picked up the nearly flat saucer that Emily had placed next to his mug and poured the coffee from the mug. Without spilling a single drop, he lifted the coffee to his lips and sipped at the burning hot liquid. “Ah, Emily, my darlin’ girl. You do know how to fix a cup of coffee.”

  Tristan started to laugh, abruptly cutting off the sound and shooting a glare at Emily.

  “Don’t be kicking under the table, Emily,” Squire said without looking up from the coffee. “Ain’t polite.”

  Matthew laughed and reached for a brownie.

  “Now tell me,” Squire said as he set the empty saucer down. “What all’s been going on the past few weeks?”

  Jefferson leaned back in his chair, toying with his mug of coffee as the conversation swirled around the table. He wondered absently whether Mrs. Day was able to follow the multiple discussions crisscrossing the table. It didn’t seem to bother her, he decided, watching as she dribbled milk into her cup of coffee and sipped at it, her bright blue eyes drifting across the various faces around the table.

  Emily’s palm drifted over his thigh, and he caught her fingers in his hand, sending her a warning squeeze. He saw her smile behind the bottle of apple juice she lifted to her lips. He wiggled his toes inside his boot, aware that they were going numb again. Dammit. He shifted on the unreasonably hard wooden chair.

  “You okay?” Emily looked at him.

  “Stiff,” he dismissed. His eyes lifted to see Squire watching him with his piercing eyes. Jefferson just looked back, and after a moment Squire looked down and poured himself another cup of coffee.

  “I said one cup.” Mrs. Day snatch
ed the brimming drink away before he could pour it into the saucer.

  Squire grimaced at her. “Bossy woman.”

  “Stubborn man.”

  Squire’s lips tilted. “Yes ma’am. You surely got that right.” He gave a bark of laughter. He didn’t try to have his second cup of coffee. A fact that all of his sons duly noted. “Think I’ll go sleep a spell,” he announced, pushing his chair back with a scrape. “Want t’ be awake for whatever supper Maggie’s cooking tonight. Been lookin’ forward to decent food for weeks.” He gave a nod that encompassed everyone at the table and walked out of the kitchen.

  Tristan was the first one to speak. “Impressed,” he commented as he nodded across the table to Mrs. Day.

  She gave him a bemused smile, her eyes on the doorway that Squire had just passed through. “Your father is an…interesting man.”

  Sawyer reached for a handful of grapes. “You hear that? Squire’s interesting.” He popped a grape into his mouth and chewed it, reflectively. “Never heard it put quite like that before.”

  The telephone rang and Daniel scooped it off the hook. He spoke briefly and handed it to Sawyer, who listened for a moment then excused himself. “I’ll take it in the office,” he said and strode out. Daniel listened at the phone long enough to know when Sawyer had reached the other extension, then hung up. Leaning over, he opened the cupboard door that Emily had so abruptly pushed closed.

  He looked at the large new can of coffee sitting on the shelf. Grinning, he pulled out the can. “Old devil never even knew it, did he?” He held up the can, showing the label.

  Emily buried her face in her hands. “He’d have strangled me, if he’d have seen that. Put it away, would you?”

  Mrs. Day reached for the coffeepot and topped off her cup. “You might try pouring the coffee into a different container,” she suggested mildly. “One that doesn’t say decaffeinated on the label.”

  Jefferson’s back twinged and he grimaced. He pushed back his chair and stood up. “Think I’ll go for a walk,” he announced.