The Daddy Survey

by Janis Reams Hudson

  “Oh, I love to take care of a home. You tell me what you want done, and I’ll do it. If something’s not the way you like it, just say so and I’ll do my best to fix it.”

  “Fair enough,” Rose said. “We’ll go over everything after we get the boys fed up.”

  As if on cue, the outside door to the utility porch banged open and heavy boot steps thudded on the porch floor. A moment later the kitchen door swung open.

  Emily turned and saw all three Chisholm brothers peering in from the porch. She had a smile for each of them, but her gaze lingered on Sloan. Perhaps because his seemed to linger on her.

  “Wash up,” Rose told them. “Supper will be on the table in ten minutes.”

  Sloan was used to seeing his grandmother in the kitchen at the end of the day. If he came in early enough, Earline would be there, too. Seeing two women doing the dance required to put food on the table shouldn’t surprise him.

  But Earline was sixty-one and, Lord love her, looked like she’d been rode hard and put up wet a few times too many. She’d had a hard life, and it showed in the deep lines on her face.

  Sloan was not used to stepping into his own kitchen and seeing a lovely young woman with a million-watt smile just for him, and eyes as blue as a clear summer sky. Kinda did something to a guy’s chest. Made it tight and loose at the same time. Made it swell.

  “Hi.” Which was about all he could manage out of the confusion of pleasure in his brain.

  But her smile widened. Just for him. “Hi.”

  “Well, if this isn’t a sight for sore eyes.” A grinning Justin slapped his hat against his knee and maneuvered himself in front of Sloan. “Two beautiful women, waiting just for us.”

  “Don’t be fooled by him,” Rose warned Emily. “If you’ll notice, he’s looking at the oven, wondering what’s in there.”

  Justin placed a hand over his heart. “You wound me, Grandmother. Besides,” he added with a wink. “I know what’s in there. It’s lasagna. I can smell it. Oh, boy, I can’t wait. I’m starved.”

  “Wash,” Rose ordered.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Justin gave his grandmother a wink and turned away toward the porch bathroom.

  “And take off those boots,” Rose added.

  The door to the kitchen swung nearly shut. Boot steps clomped around on the porch, shuffled, then were replaced by the softer thud of stockinged feet.

  As Sloan took his turn at the bootjack on the porch, he hoped his brothers weren’t experiencing the same fantasies that whirled through his mind. If they were, he just might have to kill them. He should probably kick his own butt for the images he was seeing, but it wasn’t as if he was deliberately imagining Emily greeting him in the kitchen wearing nothing more than an apron and a smile. The pictures more or less just popped into his head all on their own. What was a man to do?

  Then again, he supposed if he swept her up in his arms and carried her to bed, which was what he was seeing himself do in his fantasy, she might just use that butcher knife on him.

  He couldn’t say he would blame her. They hadn’t done more than shake hands—in fact, they hadn’t even had that much contact. And here he was imagining her giving herself willingly to him in the heat of passion.

  Passion that was all in his mind.

  Idiot.

  An entirely different fantasy teased his mind a few minutes later, after he’d had his turn at the sink to wash up. When he crossed the kitchen and stepped into the living room, he was greeted by two blond-headed angels whose faces lit at the sight of him.

  “Hi, Mr. Sloan!”

  It struck him that a man would willingly die—or kill—to have his children look at him like that.

  But they weren’t his children, these two beautiful babies. And the woman in the kitchen wasn’t his, either.

  Hell, she wasn’t even wearing an apron. Just jeans and a knit top. If he had any sense, he’d be ashamed of himself for that sudden burst of lust that had hit him in the kitchen. She was a woman in a tough spot; he’d brought her here to help her out, not put the make on her.

  Besides, he had a family. He had his brothers and his grandmother, he had this ranch. That was more than enough for any man. He was blessed.

  If from time to time he wondered what it might be like to have a family of his own making, with a woman to stand beside him, children to raise and love, well, such a dream was normal, wasn’t it? And maybe someday it would be his.

  But not this woman, not these children. They weren’t his. They were temporary, just on their way to the better life they had planned in Fort Smith.

  “Did you come to watch TV with us?” Libby asked.

  Time to change gears, Sloan told himself. He gave the girls a big smile, because they made him feel like smiling, despite the sudden hollow feeling in his gut.

  “I came to tell you supper’s almost ready. Are your hands clean?”

  Chapter Four

  The next morning Emily started her new job in earnest. At exactly 6:30 a.m., the precise moment that all four Chisholms made their way to the kitchen, she put breakfast on the table. Scrambled eggs, a pile of sausage patties, hash browned potatoes, a giant stack of pancakes, a pitcher of orange juice, another of milk and a gallon of coffee.

  Rose smiled. “I could get used to this.”

  “Where are the girls?” Justin asked.

  “Asleep,” Emily said. “It’s too early for them. I’ll fix them something later when they get up.”

  The way everyone dug in to the food did Emily’s heart good. It had been a long time since she had cooked for anyone but herself and the girls. She liked seeing the fruits of her labor being so thoroughly enjoyed.

  She did wonder, though, if something was wrong. Sloan seemed to be deliberately avoiding meeting her gaze.

  Maybe he simply wasn’t a morning person. He didn’t seem to have much to say to anyone.

  “Great breakfast,” Justin complimented.

  “Thank you. Was it enough for everyone?” She couldn’t help but ask, since every bite and crumb and sip had disappeared in short order. “Do I need to make more tomorrow?”

  “If you make more than this tomorrow,” Caleb, the quiet one, told her, “we’ll have to widen the doors just to get in and out of the house.”

  “He doesn’t mean you should fix less,” Justin said hurriedly.

  Sloan scooted his chair back from the table and cast her a quick glance, the first of the day. “This was just right.”

  “You’re sure?” she asked. “I can take criticism, you know. But if I don’t know I’m doing something wrong, I can’t know what to change.”

  Sloan looked surprised. “You haven’t done anything wrong. Like I said, this was just right.”

  “Okay,” she said, still not certain. If there was nothing wrong with the breakfast she served, then why was he acting so strangely?

  But then, she barely knew the man, she reminded herself. Maybe this silent, taciturn man was the real Sloan Chisholm. Or maybe he simply wasn’t a morning person, although he’d been cheerful enough the day before when they’d left Amarillo in his pickup.

  She reminded herself that her job was not to discern this man’s moods, but to care for his home. She didn’t need his smiles and encouragement for that. Her instructions came from his grandmother. And Rose seemed more than satisfied with breakfast.

  “Well, then,” Emily said as Rose and the men headed for the back door, “I’ll see you all at noon for lunch.”

  Justin gave her a wink and put on his cowboy hat. “We won’t be late.”

  The rest of Emily’s day seemed to fly by at break-neck speed. After getting the girls up and fed, she decided to start upstairs first. There were four bedrooms, three baths. They didn’t need as much attention as she thought they might. Someone had been keeping up with the cleaning. Still, there was more than enough for her to do.

  The upstairs rooms spoke a great deal about the individuals who lived and slept in them. Rose’s room was lovely, with bold
colors and lacy runners on the dresser and chest. Everything was as neat as a pin. Her bathroom was equally neat.

  It appeared that Caleb and Justin shared the hall bath. It also appeared that someone tried to keep it neat and clean, but the other user wasn’t so particular. The tale was told in the bedrooms: Caleb’s was painfully neat, with nothing out of place. Justin’s, on the other hand, looked as if a tornado had swept through.

  It was Sloan’s room that drew her attention, however. He had his own bathroom; it, along with his bedroom, fell somewhere in between Caleb’s neatness and Justin’s sloppiness. Sloan was not sloppy, not at all. But he was not uncomfortable leaving his razor and shaving cream beside the sink, or his towel hanging crookedly over the shower rod. An extra pair of boots and a pair of athletic shoes sat outside the closet, and three empty hangers lay on the dresser. All in all, not bad for a man, she thought. Neat, but lived-in.

  She spent the morning changing sheets, gathering damp towels, scrubbing bathrooms, dusting, vacuuming. She lost count of the number of times she ran downstairs to change loads of laundry. And through it all, the girls “helped” her.

  They helped her later that morning, too, when she put together a meatloaf for lunch. It only took her nearly twice as long to let them help her as it would have to do it herself, but to Emily, the time spent with them was worth any amount of extra work.

  As with supper the night before, the girls were thrilled to join the family around the big table for lunch.

  Sloan seemed genuinely glad to have them there. And he seemed more like the nice, fun man she had met in New Mexico. It was only after lunch, as he and his brothers and grandmother were leaving the house again, that Emily realized he hadn’t said a single word to her.

  “What’s with you?” Justin asked.

  Sloan would have ignored his youngest brother, but Justin, being Justin, got right in his face the minute they were in the barn, out of sight of the house. And his tone and his smile were just a little too casual to be real. Sloan knew he would regret asking, but failing to ask would get him nowhere.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  Sloan was afraid he did.

  “I’m talking about Emily. Yesterday you staked a claim on her and her girls right there on the front porch. Last night at supper, and again today, you barely even spoke to her or looked at her. What gives?”

  Sloan wished he knew. “Nothing gives. You’re imagining things. I never staked a claim, as you put it.”

  “No? Fine.” Justin grinned and settled his hat more firmly on his head. A sure sign he was getting ready to get in a good dig. “Then you won’t mind if I move in. She’s awfully pretty.”

  Sloan wished he knew whether Justin was serious, or merely trying to get a rise out of him. Either way, what his little brother was suggesting was unacceptable.

  “No way,” he told Justin, shaking his head.

  “Of course she’s pretty,” Justin protested. “With those big blue eyes, that slender neck, those legs that look a mile long, she’s the prettiest thing we’ve seen around here in a long time.”

  Sloan was shaking his head again before Justin finished speaking. “You’ll get no argument out of me on that score. Of course she’s pretty.”

  “Then what are you objecting to, big guy?”

  “You, kid. What are we running here, a singles bar? She’s our housekeeper, for crying out loud. You can’t put the make on our housekeeper.”

  “Earline’s our housekeeper—”

  “Keep your voice down.” Sloan shot a look over his shoulder toward the house. Emily didn’t know they had a housekeeper; she thought she was it. He wasn’t going to have her finding out any different from his numbskull little brother.

  “And I’m sure not wanting to put the make on Earline,” Justin continued. “Emily Nelson, now, is a different story.”

  “You’ll show her the same respect you would Earline, or by God, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” Justin taunted.

  Taunted. He was pulling Sloan’s chain, and Sloan knew it. He just didn’t seem to be able to stop himself from reacting like a predictable idiot.

  “The day when you can tell me what to do, big guy, is long gone.” Another taunt. This one a blatant dare. An invitation.

  “Don’t count on it, kid.” They hadn’t had a decent wrestling match in months. Maybe pounding on Justin for a while would take his mind off wanting to do exactly what the kid had accused him of—stake his claim on Emily. Yeah, a nice little rumble was just what he needed. He always enjoyed taking the starch out of one brother or the other. Didn’t even mind much when it was him who ended up de-starched. It was the effort that counted. “You’re not too big yet for me to teach you some manners.”

  “Oh ho!” Jason crowed.

  Caleb stepped into the barn and chuckled. “Oh, goody. Can I watch?”

  Sloan and Justin turned as one and spoke at the same time. “Butt out, yanasa.”

  Yanasa was the Cherokee word for buffalo. They’d been calling Caleb that since childhood, because when he decided to get stubborn, he was about as movable as that big, hairy beast.

  “What am I butting out of?”

  “This one,” Justin said, sneering and jabbing a thumb toward Sloan, “doesn’t want the new housekeeper for himself—”

  “Which would explain why he’s been ignoring her,” Caleb said.

  Sloan snarled.

  “But he seems to think I should keep my hands off, too,” Justin complained.

  “You?” Caleb hooted. “What happened to that Harding gal in town? I thought you said you were in love. Or was that in lust?”

  Justin made a face. “She dumped me. I’m heart-broken. I need a distraction.”

  “There’s a nice little section of fence out along the highway that needs repair. That ought to be enough of a distraction, even for you,” Sloan said gruffly. “Emily’s off-limits. To all of us. She’s in a tight spot and we’re helping her out, that’s all. She’s got enough on her plate without having to worry about one of us coming on to her.”

  “Ah.” Justin tucked his thumbs into his front pockets and rocked back on his boot heels like some drugstore cowboy.

  “Ah, what?” Sloan snapped. This entire stupid conversation was playing havoc with his good humor.

  “Ah,” Justin repeated. “As in, ah, I was right. You do want her for yourself.”

  Sloan rolled his eyes. “Anybody ever tell you you have a one-track mind?”

  “Who, me?”

  “That girl in town probably thought so,” Caleb offered. “Bet that’s why she dumped him.”

  “Go soak your head,” Justin grumbled.

  “Go fix the fence,” Sloan said tersely. “Unless you’d rather wait until it falls, then spend the day chasing cattle up and down the highway.”

  Justin’s face lit up like a kid who’d just been promised a treat. “You think they’d get out? Hot damn, that’d be fun, riding up and down the road, stopping traffic, chasing cows. A highway rodeo.”

  Sloan and Caleb both groaned.

  “Fix the damn fence.” This time, Sloan made it an order. As the oldest, and ranch manager, he got to do that now and then. Sometimes his brothers even did what he said.

  An hour later Sloan was on his way to town to buy a fan belt for his grandmother’s Suburban, and he was feeling guilty as hell. Not about the fan belt, but about Emily. If both his brothers noticed that he’d been ignoring her during the few, short times the family had been together in the twenty-four hours Emily had been on the Cherokee Rose, then it stood to reason that Emily had noticed his behavior, too.

  In fact, he was sure she had. That would explain the puzzled look he’d seen on her face the one time she’d caught him glancing over at her.

  Well, hell. He’d probably gone and hurt her feelings. A tender little thing like Emily didn’t deserve that. He would have to make it up to her. Explain himself. Apologize
.

  But what was he supposed to give as an excuse?

  “I couldn’t look at you because every time I did I had these really great fantasies….”

  Nope. Wouldn’t do at all. She would either slap his face or lock herself in her room to get away from him.

  Still, he was going to have to come up with something.

  He slowed down to the speed zone at the edge of town. He had some time to think on it. He had a couple extra errands he could run while he was in town, then it was another forty-five minutes back to the ranch. Surely in that time he could figure out a way to explain himself and put her at ease.

  Emily was finding tending the Chisholm house a true pleasure. It was a home to be proud of, a home for generations to be born, grow up, raise children of their own and grow old in, at ease in the knowledge that this home would stand the test of time. Love rang within these sturdy walls.

  She and Michael had had a home filled with love. Oh, the fun they’d had when they were first married. The thrill as they were blessed with first one child, then another.

  The heartache and devastation of Michael’s illness had tested their faith, their home. In the end, they had lost their home, sold to pay for medical bills. And still Michael had died.

  Now here she was, trying to make her way to Fort Smith to build a new life for herself and her daughters.

  She waited for the black talons of terror to wrap themselves around her throat, the way they always did when fear of the future, doubts of her own abilities, seized her.

  But the terror did not come. It was this house, she thought. There was too much love here. It wasn’t for her, but still, its warmth enfolded her and kept the terror at bay.

  She checked the roast in the oven, determined that the first supper she served the Chisholms would be perfect. And if Sloan still refused to look at her, she would force herself to confront him and ask for an explanation. If she was doing something to displease him, she wanted to know. She might technically be working for his grandmother, but it was Sloan who had hired her and brought her here.

  The roast looked and smelled wonderful. She had found it that morning in the big chest freezer on the utility porch. She assumed the dozens of packages of beef, all wrapped in white butcher paper and labeled by hand, were from Cherokee Rose cattle. They had enough meat in there to feed an army for a month.