The realization of her own feelings for Ace had Belinda turning toward the closet to reach for her suitcases. Then she stopped. She couldn’t leave the boys. They were all that was left of a sister who, despite the envy, Belinda had always loved.
Maybe Belinda had always envied Cathy her husband and children, too. Maybe that was why Belinda had rushed into her own disastrous marriage.
Okay, so maybe there was no maybe to it. Belinda had known exactly what she was doing when she married, of all people, Todd the Bod. Because he had dated Cathy. Belinda had been trying to prove to herself that she could have everything Cathy had. Be everything Cathy was. Be adored. Like Cathy.
What a joke. Only perfect people—like Cathy—had perfect lives. Belinda was about as far from perfect as she could get, and she knew it.
All right. She took a slow breath, then let it out. She would stay, and she would act as though nothing had happened. Because nothing had. Nor would it ever.
Now that she was finished feeling sorry for herself, the furious anger that she’d felt briefly downstairs came rushing back. Anger at herself, for allowing herself to feel an attraction, however fruitless and humiliating, for the man she held responsible for her sister’s death.
Chapter Three
It was a fluke. That’s what Ace told himself all night long. Static electricity. His overactive imagination. He hadn’t really felt a spark of attraction when he’d touched Belinda last night.
He stopped outside the back door, set the milk pails down on the sidewalk and stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets. The eastern sky was turning gray. It was chilly now, with the sun not yet up, but it would be a warm day.
She was in there, in the kitchen. He could hear her rattling around, probably breaking out a box of Cocoa Puffs to feed him and the crew for breakfast. She was that ornery, this sister-in-law of his. If she’d asked Clay, there would be chocolate syrup to go with the cereal. He wondered, with a shake of his head, if he would ever get a real meal again in his own house without having to cook it himself.
He would just stand here a minute and get his head on straight. And atop thinking about her.
For crying out loud, she was Cathy’s sister. The Wicked Witch of the West.
All he’d done was place his hand on her forearm. There had been no zing in his blood, no speeding of his pulse. His mouth had not gone dry. And even if they had, it was only a fluke.
That settled, he picked up the milk pails and entered the mudroom. There he set the pails on top of the freezer chest and turned to reach tor the straining-cloth and gallon jars on the shelf by the door to the kitchen. That’s when he saw her
Hell. Another fluke.
No way, he told himself. No way in hell this woman was getting to him. Her short black hair had that sleep-mussed look, and as near as he could tell, she didn’t have on a lick of makeup. She wore a blue-and-white Mickey Mouse T-shirt three sizes too large for her slender frame, and baggy gray sweatpants. Above her bare feet, the cuffs were frayed. No way did the sight of those bare feet and that tousled hair get to him.
From out in the yard he heard the men approaching. With a muttered curse, he draped the cheesecloth over the first wide-mouthed jar and snapped a rubber band around the mouth to hold the cloth in place while he poured the milk from the first pail.
He did not, most definitely did not, have the hots for his wife’s sister. The knot in his gut was hunger. For food. Because he hadn’t eaten. The slight tremor in his hands was from a lack of sleep and too much caffeine.
Or terror.
“Hot damn, something sure smells good.” Trey stepped into the mudroom from outside and blew on his hands. With Jack and the other men crowding up behind him, he paused in the doorway and took a deep breath. “Ahh. Sausage.”
“No way.” Jack shoved him on through and stepped inside. “That’s bacon I smell.”
“If you two yahoos would get out of the way, I’d like a smell of that, too,” complained Stoney.
Relief eased the tension that had tightened Ace’s shoulders. Now he wouldn’t have to face Belinda alone.
Coward.
No, just cautious, he told himself. From the look on her face last night when he woke her up, she’d known exactly what had been racing through his mind. She wouldn’t stand for that. Not from him. She was liable to chew him up and spit him out.
Still, he thought, as he poured the second pail of milk into the second gallon jar, that didn’t explain the way she had scrambled out of the chair as if she’d suddenly discovered it was on fire. Surely she hadn’t been afraid he was going to jump her bones right there in the living room. Surely she hadn’t been afraid of anything.
So why, he asked himself, his eyes narrowed in thought as he screwed the lids onto the jars of milk, for just an instant, before she’d glared at him in anger, had she looked terrified?
“Good morning, gentlemen,” she said.
Ace hung his jacket on a peg and stepped into the kitchen.
“You, too, Ace,” she added with a smirk.
A round of snickers made its way through the men as they took their seats.
Well, Ace thought, so much for worrying about things being different between them. It looked like it was business—and her smart mouth—as usual. The relief that loosened the knot in his gut almost made him smile. Until he thought to worry about what, exactly, she’d fixed for breakfast.
The huge stack of waffles, piles of bacon and sausage, and a giant bowl of scrambled eggs complete with bell peppers, onions, and mushrooms, came as a pleasant surprise.
Trey, already seated at the table, reached for the platter of waffles with a laugh. “And here I was worried all we’d get would be Frosted Flakes.”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” Belinda cried. “Would I do that to hungry working men? Never mind.” She held up one hand, palm out. “Don’t answer that.”
It took all of Belinda’s willpower to keep from snarling. If she’d gotten more than ten minutes’ sleep last night, she’d kiss a goat on the lips. And there was Ace, his cheeks ruddy from the cold and those Wilder blue eyes staring at her as if they could see right through her skull and read every thought she’d ever had.
She turned away and started filling the men’s coffee cups. It did nothing for her peace of mind to realize that she knew the instant Ace took his gaze off her and looked away.
What a stupid thing to feel—a man’s gaze. And the loss of it.
While he washed up at the sink, she took her seat at the table and started filling her plate.
“You sure make a fine breakfast, Miss Belinda,” Stoney said.
“Why, thank you, sir.” She gave him a big grin. “I guess last night’s supper had you a little worried.”
The flush that stained the old man’s cheeks was cute. “No such thing,” he protested. “There weren’t a thing in the world wrong with last night’s supper, and that’s a fact.”
“I’m glad you liked it.”
“Yes, ma’am, it was just fine.”
“Shut up, Stoney,” Ace muttered as he took his seat “Before we end up with—”
“Shut up yourself,” Jack complained. “Don’t give anybody any ideas, huh?”
Ace ran his tongue around his teeth. “I get your point, bro. This looks really good, Belinda. Oh, there’s two gallons of milk sitting out on the freezer.” He took his usual seat at the head of the table. “They probably ought to go in the fridge as soon as possible.”
Belinda narrowed her eyes. “You carried the damn milk all the way from the barn and couldn’t make it from the mudroom to the kitchen?”
“I carried it all the way from the barn and strained it. You can’t carry it the last twenty feet?”
“Now, children.” Trey tapped his fork against his plate. “Play nice.”
With twin snarls, Belinda and Ace turned on him, ready to pounce.
“God,” Trey said to Belinda as he reached for the bowl of eggs. “You’re gorgeous when you’re angry.”
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Belinda sputtered, then burst out laughing at the sheer stupidity of his clichéd comment. “Lord, Number Three, they don’t let you off this ranch often enough. Just shut up and eat your breakfast.”
Trey’s grin would have been angelic were it not for the devil in his eyes. “Yes, ma’am. Pass the sausage, will ya, Stoney?”
The men plowed through breakfast as if they were famine victims at a feast. With the boys not there to need attention, conversation was nonexistent. Instead of asking for the saltshaker, they pointed. Thanks were issued in low grunts. If Belinda hadn’t been quick on the uptake, they would have polished off all the food before she’d gotten her share.
But afterward Ace was all too talkative for her peace of mind when he gave out the day’s instructions. Jack was to ride up to check the grass on the land they leased from the government up in the mountains. The rest of the men, including Trey because they were shorthanded, would either be checking fence, or mending what fence they already knew needed mending. All of that translated into the fact that none of them would make it back to the house for lunch. Belinda had less than twenty minutes to come up with enough sandwiches for them to take to tide them over until supper.
“Great,” she muttered to herself after the men left the house. She ignored the dirty breakfast dishes still on the table and started slicing the ham she had planned to heat for the noon meal. Here she’d been planning on being the perfect little housekeeper-why escaped her just then—by having them a hot lunch ready. So much for glazed ham and sweet potatoes, she thought glumly.
There was no time to brew tea, so she made instant for iced tea for their remaining thermoses. They’d already filled several with coffee and taken them with them.
They needed something other than just sandwiches.
No help for it. The boys would have to do without potato chips for a while. She grabbed the bags of chips she’d bought the day before and added them to the men’s lunches. For good measure, she added an apple and a package of cupcakes to each lunch.
“Next time,” she muttered to herself as she wrapped sandwiches in plastic wrap and slapped them into lunch boxes, “a little warning might be nice.”
“I’m sorry.”
At the unexpected sound of Ace’s voice from right behind her, Belinda shrieked and dropped an apple on the floor. “You scared the life out of me.” Her heart was nearly jumping out of her chest. She placed a hand there to hold it in place. “I thought you were outside.”
“I was.” He shrugged. His gaze dipped to the hand over her chest. His brain chose that moment to remind him that she never wore a bra. As if he needed a reminder. He jerked his gaze away. “Then I realized that I shouldn’t have just sprung lunch on you that way. I came back in to apologize.”
“Okay.” Her heart started to slow back down to a normal pace. “Okay.” What the devil did he think he was doing, looking at her chest that way? “Fine. I’ve about got everything ready.”
“And I wanted to thank you for breakfast.”
“Had you worried about Frosted Flakes, did I?”
His lips twitching, he folded his arms across his chest. “I was betting on Cocoa Puffs.”
She would not be charmed by him, Belinda vowed.
“Anyway, thanks. It was terrific.”
“You in the habit of thanking your housekeeper for breakfast?”
“You’re not my housekeeper. And it was about the best breakfast I ever remember having.”
“My, my. A compliment?”
His eyes narrowed. “And a thank-you. You’ve had them before.”
Belinda turned back toward the counter and reached for another apple. “Not from you.”
“You’ve never cooked my breakfast before.”
“You like that, huh?” She peered at him over her shoulder. “The little woman playing Susie Homemaker for you?”
“No need to get testy. I was hungry—the food was good. That’s all.” He turned and headed for the door. “Just put the lunches out on the freezer. We’ll stop by and pick them up on our way out.”
Her fingers squeezed around the apple in her hand. “Ace?”
In the doorway he stopped and looked back.
Stupid, she told herself. Stupid to call his name just to have him turn and look back at her. Just to see his face again. What was she supposed to say now? The alert, half-expectant look in his eyes had her nerves humming.
Ace looked at her, with her baggy clothes, her bare feet, her tousled hair, and wanted to curse. Nothing about her, absolutely nothing, should be causing this stirring in his loins. When she called his name, he had no business turning back expectantly, eagerly, just for another look at her before heading out for the day.
“Yeah?” he finally said, fighting the ridiculous urge to cross that kitchen floor again and smooth that hair down just to see if she’d let him.
The way she licked her lips had him curling his hands into fists.
“Uh, how late do the boys usually sleep?”
He breathed in slowly, then let it out. “Till around eight or nine, thereabouts.” Before he could do something really stupid, he stomped out the back door.
Belinda refused to stare at the empty doorway like some love-starved idiot. She had more important things to do than moon over some man—any man, much less Ace Wilder.
Feeling something moist and sticky on her fingers, she looked down to find a mangled apple in her hand, her fingernails buried deep into its flesh.
Oh, Lord. She had to get away from here just as soon as she could. Tonight she would hit him up about the ad for a housekeeper. Surely even in this sparsely populated area of the globe there was a capable woman who needed a steady job.
She finished slamming together the lunches and carried them to the freezer in the mudroom, then hauled the two gallon jars of milk to the refrigerator. She was halfway through clearing the breakfast table when the men, one by one, came for their lunches.
All except Ace. Jack picked up Ace’s lunch for him. “Don’t let those little rascals upstairs run you ragged,” he called to her.
“Not a chance,” she called back.
At the barn Ace snatched his lunch from Jack and tossed it onto the seat of the truck.
“You’re welcome,” Jack muttered.
All he got in response was a growl.
“You wanna tell me what’s eating you all of a sudden?”
“Nothing’s eating me.”
“Nothing should be.” But Jack would prod until he found out what it was. “Belinda’s here to look after the boys and the house. That takes a load off you, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.” It should, Ace thought. “It takes a load off. Let’s get a move on. We’re burning daylight. bro.”
“Right.” Jack turned away and headed for his rig. He wasn’t through with the subject, but Ace was right. Even with knocking a couple of hours off his trip by trailering his horse as far as he could before mounting up, he’d be all day getting up to the high grazing land and back. “See you tonight.”
“Yeah.” Tonight, Ace thought. When he’d have to go back into his house and she’d be there. Dammit, that wasn’t supposed to be a problem. Wouldn’t be, he promised himself. Wasn’t. It was just a fluke.
Okay, two flukes now. But no more.
The boys, once they were up, did not run Belinda ragged. It was all the other chores that went with the job that nearly did it. That and the battle over breakfast.
Belinda had never asserted any authority over her nephews. Always before, she was one of them, taking their side against the other adults always telling them what to do.
“But I want my Cocoa Puffs,” Jason complained, his lower lip sticking out.
“Frosted Flakes.” Clay folded his arms across his chest in such a perfect imitation of Ace that Belinda didn’t know whether to laugh or scream.
Grant put in his two cents’ worth. “Fwosty Puffs.”
“The men ate eggs,” she tried.
“They prob’ly
ate ’em all,” Jason offered with a gleam in his eye. “There’s prob’ly nuthin’ left but Cocoa Puffs.”
“Nice try, kid.” She ruffled his hair. “Eat your eggs, and if you want cereal after that, we’ll renegotiate.”
“What’s that?” Jason asked suspiciously.
“It means we’ll talk about it. After you eat your eggs.”
“Daddy lets us eat cereal,” Clay stated.
“Daddy lets us,” Grant mimicked.
She gave all three of them a narrow-eyed look. “How about your Aunt Mary? What did she fix you for breakfast?”
They ate their eggs.
Afterward she settled them before that perennial parental favorite of baby-sitters, the television, while she made the beds, then went down to the basement and started on the laundry.
There wasn’t much of it, she noticed. The pile beneath the laundry chute didn’t contain much more than the clothes they’d tossed down last night. Ace must have handled that little chore recently.
Still, there was no use letting it pile up. Three sets of little-boy clothes, plus what Ace had worn yesterday, plus a pair of his red sweatpants. She dumped them all into the washer, added laundry soap and made a mental note to come back down in a half hour to transfer everything to the dryer.
Back upstairs there was supper to plan, a kitchen floor to mop. She was ready to swear that more food had ended up on the floor than in the boys’ mouths.
When the floor was clean and she caught herself staring at it with pride and a sense of accomplishment, she nearly choked.
“This won’t do,” she muttered to herself. “This won’t do at all.”
Deciding it was time for a reality check, she grabbed her laptop and followed the boys outside. While they played cowboy in the front yard, with Scooter serving as their faithful and ever-patient horse, Belinda settled onto the wooden swing on the covered veranda with her computer. She made notes and roughed out a couple of web-site designs for the bid she was working on for a potential new client.
Their Other Mother Page 5
