by Glynna Kaye
He motioned to the photo. “So, are you interested in the childcare position? Interviews are under way, and although I don’t anticipate a quick decision on their part, timing is critical to get your application in. If filling in here also is too much to take on, we can figure something out.”
He’d intended it, though, to serve as a perfect means of discreetly keeping in touch concerning the boys.
She stood, then reached for her coat and a colorful quilted handbag—one she’d no doubt made. Expressive eyes met his, and he held his breath.
Come on, say yes.
“Thanks for your time—Sawyer.” She offered an apologetic smile. “But I’ll need to think about it. Give me twenty-four hours.”
* * *
“I guess tomorrow night is Sunshine and Grady’s big event.” Benton Mason, a bearded silversmith, held the door open for Tori to exit the Hunter Ridge Artists’ Cooperative, where he, like other members of the co-op, worked part-time.
Hopefully she’d be joining those artists in the not-too-distant future. As soon, that is, as she could pull together the best sampling of her work for submission to the co-op’s jury for evaluation and, if given the nod, complete a probationary period. Which made it all the more important that she focus on bringing her skills back up to speed so she wouldn’t miss out on the summer tourist-season shoppers.
“Theirs is a match made in Heaven, for sure,” she chimed in cheerfully enough. But if there was anything she could do without today, it was a reminder that her best friend would wed on Valentine’s Day in an intimate family-and-close-friends ceremony. And also the related reminder that she had barely two weeks before she had to be out of the apartment above the Hunter Ridge Artists’ Cooperative, where she’d resided with Sunshine and her daughter since early last autumn.
While Tori’s friend would be moving to Grady’s cabin at Hunter’s Hideaway, his family’s enterprise catering to outdoor enthusiasts, Sunshine had hoped to hang on to the apartment awhile longer so Tori would have a roof over her head until at least summer. But co-op members voted to lease the space starting next month and, unfortunately, a jobless Tori couldn’t afford the apartment.
“Any employment nibbles, Tori?” With sympathetic eyes, Benton stood in the open doorway.
“A few.” None, unfortunately, looked half as promising as what Sawyer Banks had proposed yesterday afternoon, which happened to include an apartment at the Selbys’ place.
But the thought of being Sawyer’s undercover operative still left a bad taste in her mouth. Although she’d prayed about it nonstop, she still didn’t have an answer. She’d told him, though, that she’d give him a response within twenty-four hours.
Two hours to go.
“Lizzie and I can let you stay at our place for a while.” Benton gave her a reassuring smile. “Things would be tight with five kids under our roof, but we could manage.”
“Thanks, but I have reason to hope things will come together soon.”
“I know you don’t want to go back to Jerome, even though it’s much more of a thriving arts community than Hunter Ridge.”
“No.” Not back to where Grandma had passed away two years ago and where Heath Davidson, her former fiancé, still resided. As the old saying went, the town wasn’t big enough for the both of them. After the breakup last fall, she’d given up the rental house she’d shared with her grandma Eriksen, ready to shake off the past.
“It will work out.” She feigned a confident smile. “But I’d better let you get back to work.”
Snugging her coat collar, she started past the cluster of businesses running along the snowplowed blacktopped road, flurries frolicking in the air around her. It hadn’t taken long to adapt to the cooler high-elevation town with its towering ponderosa pines and frequent winter snowfalls. Whenever feasible, she ran errands on foot, not bothering with negotiating snow-packed roads in her blue Kia compact.
The crisp, pine-scented mountain air energized her as she made her way down the street, but as she approached Bealer’s Ice Cream Emporium her steps slowed. She’d seen an ad in the weekly paper that Pete Bealer was looking for a Saturday manager starting in May. That came too late to boost her finances enough to swing the co-op apartment, but maybe if she could line up several part-time jobs, she could afford a room somewhere.
When Pastor Garrett McCrae married Jodi Thorpe, he’d be moving out of the space he rented in the home of church members. But that wouldn’t be available until the first weekend in May, assuming they’d be willing to rent to her, too. In two weeks she could be living out of her car unless she applied for and got the childcare position.
But despite Sunshine’s encouragement when they’d talked last night, wouldn’t she feel like a dirty rotten sneak prying into the relationship some unsuspecting couple had with their grandsons? Sawyer seemed sincere enough, though, when insisting he had no intention of snatching the kids from them. In fact, Sunshine laughed when Tori had confessed that suspicion to her.
Sawyer Banks? she’d said, her eyes wide with disbelief. You think he’d willingly take little kids into his freewheeling bachelor life? Get real.
If only she had more options.
It is what it is, sweetheart. She could almost hear Grandma Eriksen’s chuckle. How many times had Gran reminded her that half the turmoil she put herself through revolved around pushing against reality and resisting a situation in which she wished she hadn’t found herself? Wasting time bemoaning rather than buckling down and digging out? If only Grandma were still here to talk to...
Great. There she went again. Denying reality.
With rekindled determination, she stepped inside the old-fashioned ice cream parlor, where she was brought up short by an earsplitting wail.
“I want my mommy!” a child gasped in what she guessed to be the middle of a crying jag.
A slightly familiar-looking man seated in a high-backed booth glanced at her apologetically. Then with renewed resolve, he refocused on the youngster she couldn’t see seated across from him.
“If you want me to take you home without ice cream, I can do that.” The gray-haired man’s voice remained low. Kind, but firm.
The child wailed again, louder, reinforcing that he wanted his mommy.
“We both know that’s impossible. Now sit up and act like the big boy that you are.”
“Mommy!”
The man glanced uncomfortably in the direction of Emporium owner Pete Bealer, who looked on with a pained expression. The couple he was serving shook their heads in commiseration. That was all it took to bring the older man to his feet as he pulled on his coat. Then he held out his hand to the unseen child.
“Come along, then.”
“Nooooo!”
The man finally leaned in to gently drag the resisting child out of the booth and set him on his feet. The boy, still turned away from her, stared down at the floor, his shoulders shaking with sobs. Poor little guy.
“Now settle down,” the older man admonished. “You know big boys don’t cry.”
A knee-buckling chill raced through Tori.
Stop it. Stop it right now, Victoria. You know big girls don’t cry.
If a bolt of lightning had crashed at her feet, it couldn’t have startled her more than the intrusion of her father’s voice as she mentally hurtled back in time.
I’m very disappointed in you, young lady.
Prying her away from him, her father had concluded his condemning statement with a rough shake, displeasure written on his youthful face. He had been leaving them. Leaving Mommy. Leaving her. And he was angry because she’d clung to him and cried as he headed to the door.
“Now stop it, Cubby.” The man’s voice jerked her back to the present.
Cubby?
Stunned, she looked to where the man she assumed to be the boy’s grandfat
her had gotten the sobbing child into his coat and lifted the boy into his arms. Gave him a hug.
The blond boy met her gaze with a plaintive, tear-stained face and bluer-than-blue eyes.
Eyes like his twin’s?
Like those of his older half brother?
Shaken, she offered him an encouraging smile, then watched as grandfather and grandson exited the ice cream shop.
“Miss?” the shop’s owner called out. “Sit anywhere you’d like, and I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“Um, no, thanks. I’ve changed my mind about...ice cream.”
She waved a distracted farewell, then stepped outside where snow now descended in earnest.
She had her answer.
It would only take a quick minute to phone the Selbys and express her interest in the caregiver position. Then if given the go-ahead to apply, tomorrow she’d submit a résumé and solicit letters of recommendation.
Pulling up her hood against the buffeting wind, Tori headed in the direction of her apartment, the broken-hearted sobs of a little boy—and a little girl—still echoing in her ears.
Chapter Two
“Welcome, Tori.” Ray Selby smiled as he opened the front door to the imposing two-story stone house at seven o’clock on a Thursday morning. Incredibly, it was only a week after she’d interviewed and been offered the job.
“You know, though,” he added drily as he motioned her inside the shadowed entryway, “you could use that key Therese gave you. You don’t have to ring the bell. You’re part of this household now.”
“I know, but I thought the first time I should at least announce myself. You know, before Grady and Luke Hunter come traipsing in behind me with furniture and the rest of my stuff.”
Ray glanced toward the street where her friend Sunshine’s new husband, Grady, and his older brother were waiting by Luke’s loaded crew-cab pickup. They and Sunshine had gone with her to Jerome yesterday to retrieve belongings stored in a friend’s garage. She’d enjoyed reliving highlights of last week’s wedding and hearing about the newlyweds’ stay at the Grand Canyon’s El Tovar Hotel, right on the rim. She’d appreciated, too, their support as she returned to the town she’d felt compelled to leave some months ago.
Thankfully, she hadn’t seen her ex-fiancé on the streets that were, by contrast to summer’s bustling tourist season, fairly deserted this time of year. How could she have been so mistaken as to have believed they’d be a good match?
Ray waved Luke and Grady forward and they leaped into action, lowering the tailgate and carefully unloading her grandmother’s blanket-swathed antique dresser.
The older man continued to smile at her as the others approached. “I can’t tell you how thankful Therese and I are that you said yes to our offer. Especially after the show Cubby and I treated you to at the Ice Cream Emporium. It was a relief that you didn’t scare easily.”
“It takes more than an unhappy little boy to run me off.”
On the contrary, it had won her over.
With Tori leading the way past a small library on one side of the spacious hallway and what she could only think of as a parlor on the other, she and the men skirted past a sweeping staircase and a darkened dining room. Another hall branched off, leading to a rear corner of the house and what had once been a cook-housekeeper’s apartment, and would now be her new home. At least for a few years anyway, if all went well.
“This is nice.” Luke sounded surprised as the brothers carefully lowered the dresser to the spot she indicated.
When given the grand tour following her interview she, too, had been pleasantly surprised to find the apartment featured a kitchenette, sleeping alcove, walk-in closet and its own bathroom. Lots of sunshine-filled windows, as well. Although the space was furnished, Ray had had the bed frame and dresser moved elsewhere so she could bring her grandmother’s antiques.
They’d barely finished hauling in the remainder of her belongings, reattaching the mirror to the dresser and getting the bed set up and mattress placed, when the chatter of children echoed down the hallway from the front of the house.
“Sounds like the troops are up and on the move.” Ray gave Tori a wary glance. “Brace yourself.”
Since tomorrow would be her actual first day on the job, she’d hoped for time to get settled in today. Oh, well.
“Hey, look what I found!”
They turned to see Sawyer Banks in the doorway, holding a grinning twin in each arm—no small feat, since they must weigh at least forty pounds each. Tori almost gasped at the resemblance between the threesome. The mussed blond hair. Blue eyes. Matching smiles.
But what was Sawyer doing here? Checking up on her? Reminding her that she had an obligation to him? If so, he wasn’t going to like what she’d be sharing as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
“Which one of you boys let this character in?” Ray teased his grandsons. Or maybe that gruffness and the sharp look in Sawyer’s direction wasn’t teasing? When she’d let the Selbys know she’d be working at the Outpost part-time, they’d raised no objections, and Sawyer had told her he had a “decent enough” relationship with his brothers and their grandparents. That was clearly evident in the case of the obviously excited boys, but was it her imagination that there was tension hanging in the air between the two men?
“He brought us a new game.” Cubby waved a small box in the air as if to legitimize opening the door to him.
Their big brother gave them a hug, then set their feet on the floor. The pair were dressed in tennies, jeans and sweatshirts, and side by side the resemblance between them was evident, although not identical. Cubby’s face was less rounded than Landon’s and devoid of the few freckles that scattered across his brother’s nose. Nor was his gaze as bold. And whereas Landon’s reddish-tinted bangs fell evenly across his forehead, Cubby’s hair had a definite side part.
Both thrust their hands into their back pockets, a mirror image of each other—and of Sawyer’s stance behind them.
“Say good-morning to Tori,” Ray prompted, apparently mindful that she’d soon be an instrumental player in the lives of his grandsons.
“Good morning, Tori,” all three Banks brothers responded. Landon confidently. Cubby, with his head ducked shyly. Sawyer with mischief dancing in his eyes.
Why did her heart pirouette when she met Sawyer’s gaze? Not good. “Good morning, boys.”
“Now that Banks is here—after the work’s done—looks like you’re finished with us.” Luke glanced around the room with satisfaction, then Tori walked the Hunter brothers to the door, reiterating her thanks. When she returned, Ray had vanished, but Sawyer and the boys were unabashedly exploring her new living quarters.
She’d assumed contact with Sawyer would be strictly during her work hours at the Outpost—although they hadn’t yet established those days or hours. If he popped in frequently to see Cubby and Landon, why was he in need of an “inside line” to the household?
“Sawyer, look.” Landon pointed at something inside the open door of a lower kitchenette cabinet. “That’s a mousetrap.”
Wonderful.
Sawyer squatted next to him. “Sure is, buddy. But there’s nothing in it, so that’s a good sign. Probably put there as a precaution since this apartment’s been empty for a while.”
Did he believe that, or was he throwing out that reassurance for her benefit?
“Let me see.” Cubby pushed his brother aside and squished in beside Sawyer to duck down and look, too. “Wouldn’t it be cool to see a mouse in it?”
Sawyer cast an amused look in her direction. “You’d rather not, right?”
“I could do without one.”
Landon looked up hopefully as he wandered away to peek in the walk-in closet. “But we could catch it and keep it as a pet. We don’t have any pets.”
&
nbsp; “We don’t have pets because G’ma is ’lergic.” Cubby gave a solemn nod. “Maybe she’s ’lergic to mouses, too.”
His twin sneered. “Nobody’s allergic to mice, stupid.”
“Landon.” She caught the boy’s eye and shook her head. “Your brother isn’t stupid. Please don’t call him that.”
He shrugged. “It’s scientifically proven mice aren’t big enough and don’t have enough dander to cause an allergic reaction.”
Cubby frowned. “What’s dander?”
“Icky stuff that gets in your hair.” Eyes widening and brows elevated, Landon lifted his hands over his head as he stalked toward his brother. “Creepy crawly stuff with hairy legs and tiny teeth.”
Sawyer grabbed him and pulled him in close to noogie the top of his head. “And maybe you’re full of hot air.”
The giggling boy pulled away.
The teasing part she could live with, but the questionable “scientifically proven” bit, spoken with an air of authority, she’d have to be on the alert for.
“Landon? Cubby?” a feminine voice called from the open doorway. “Time for breakfast.”
“Good morning, Therese.” Tori smiled at the dark-haired, stylishly coifed woman dressed in wool slacks, a blue cashmere sweater and low pumps. From the information Sawyer had provided, she must be in her midseventies; Ray about that age, as well.
“Good morning, Victoria—Tori.” As Cubby snatched up their new game from the top of the bed and the boys dashed past her to the kitchen, she leveled her gaze on Sawyer. “Good morning to you, too. Ray mentioned you’d stopped by. We haven’t seen you in quite a while.”
“The Outpost keeps me hopping.”
“The Outpost. Yes, I imagine so.” She turned again to Tori. “I’ll do my best to keep the boys out of your hair today. I imagine you’ll want to unpack and find a home for your things.”
“That would be wonderful. Thanks.”
