To Protect and Cherish

by Karen Rose Smith

  He needed to talk to her soon about planning the barbecue, but if he planned to have his employees over, he wanted the place to look decent. Pulling several hundred dollar bills from his money clip, he handed them to her. “If you want to get started, here you go. If you need me to open an account somewhere, just have the manager of the shop call me.” He also pulled a business card from his wallet and handed it to her. “Those are my office and cell phone numbers. You can always reach me on my cell. Take the morning and find some things. Consider it part of your job.”

  “I was going to shop for groceries today. You have a good supply of meat in the freezer, but you need vegetables and I’d like to buy a few spices.”

  “You’re the cook.”

  Although Anita’s and Marie’s plates were still half-full, Anita stood anyway. “Come on, boys. I’ve got to get you to that bus stop. It’s such a pretty day out there. I’ll put Marie in her stroller and we’ll walk.”

  “You’re not finished with breakfast yet,” Tate said, although his was almost gone.

  “The bus won’t wait for me to eat breakfast,” she joked.

  “I’m leaving now. Why don’t I just take the boys to the bus stop?”

  “Are you sure you want to do that? You have to wait until it comes.”

  “Is it usually on time?”

  She nodded. “It should be. They have a schedule to follow.”

  “No problem. I’m on my way out anyway. You and Marie finish your breakfast. I’ll give you a call when the boys are safely on the bus.”

  Ten minutes later, as Tate sat with the boys in his SUV at the end of the lane, he turned sideways in his seat to peer back at them. “Do you think you boys are going to like it out here?” He’d had the backyard fenced in case he wanted to get a dog. Now he realized fencing would make the property safer for Anita’s kids, too.

  “We have more room to play,” Jared said quickly.

  “We can hit our baseball and not worry about breaking a window,” Corey added.

  Tate chuckled. “Yes, I guess you can.”

  “Can we watch your big-screen TV sometime?” Corey asked. “Mom said we had to ask you. We couldn’t just turn it on.”

  From what he’d seen so far, Anita disciplined the boys well and taught them manners. “Sure, you can watch it sometimes. Just make sure your fingers aren’t sticky when you use the remote,” he warned with a grin.

  “We never watched a big-screen TV before,” Jared told him, adjusting his backpack. “Our daddy said he was going to buy one, but he never did.”

  It had been a year since their dad died, and with the boys only being five, Tate wondered how much they remembered of their father. “I’ll bet you boys miss him a lot.”

  There was silence as they both seemed to think about it. “We didn’t see him very much,” Jared finally said.

  “He worked a lot?”

  The boys exchanged a look. “Mommy cried sometimes at night. When Daddy came home, he talked different.”

  “Talked different?”

  “Yeah, slower. And he laughed a whole lot. But Mom didn’t laugh with him.”

  It seemed kids picked up everything. Tate wondered if the nights Larry Sutton had talked slower and laughed more, he’d been drinking.

  They heard the grumble of an engine and the rumble of tires.

  “Here it comes,” Jared said, hefting his backpack onto his shoulders.

  “Hold on a minute,” Tate said. “I wouldn’t want it to run you over.” Out of the car in a flash, he opened the boys’ door, watching over them as they went to stand by the mailbox.

  When the bus door opened, they clambered on, but Jared turned and gave Tate a wave.

  Tate found himself waving back. Then the bus was clattering down the road, leaving Tate with a funny feeling in his chest…a funny feeling he didn’t want to examine.

  After Anita put Marie in her playpen, where she’d be happy for a little while, she went outside and brought in all the packages. Then she stowed away the groceries and took everything else to the great room. This morning, Tate had surprised her by offering to take the boys to the bus stop. Whether he knew it or not, he’d be a great role model. Her twins needed one.

  And what do you need? a small voice asked. Another kiss?

  Tate’s kiss last night had made her world spin. He was sexy and kind…

  You don’t know how kind he is, she told herself. You really don’t know that much about him.

  Would he ever lie, as her husband had?

  Her gut told her no, but Larry’s deceptions had stabbed deep. She didn’t know when—or if—she’d be able to trust another man.

  Twenty minutes later, Anita handed Marie a bottle, sang her a lullaby and rocked her to sleep. After her daughter was settled in her crib, Anita found the sweeper in the closet by the utility room. She was going to clean Tate’s great room, then show him the difference between a house and a home.

  While Anita was running the sweeper, she decided to do the whole house. As she moved from room to room, she felt a little bit like Cinderella. She’d never been around such quality furnishings, such expensive carpeting, such a beautiful and spacious house. Sunlight poured in from the skylight in the hall, making shadowy places bright. When she came to the master suite, she didn’t know whether to go in or not.

  Convincing herself curiosity had nothing to do with her entrance, assuring herself that Tate had hired her to clean his entire house, she pushed open the door. The room was huge, with a king-size bed. The black iron headboard seemed to make it even more immense. The carpeting was sand-colored, and the comforter on the bed was shades of brown, rust and green. A heavy dark-oak dresser took up an entire wall, and the matching armoire rose practically to the ceiling. Jeans lay over a burgundy leather chair, while a book on bull riding sat on the hassock. There was a pair of fine, hand-tooled leather boots resting beside the armoire. Tate Pardell seemed to be a multidimensional man, but she warned herself not to be intrigued by him.

  After vacuuming, she steam-ironed the curtains she’d just purchased. Actually, they weren’t curtains but rather scarf valances in a chocolate-brown faux-suede material. She’d bought rods and fixtures, too, as well as a small hammer. Now, using the kitchen step stool, she attached the hardware and began arranging the valances.

  The window treatment set off the blue, tan and claret furniture in the great room perfectly, picking up the warm tones of the dark-oak cocktail table, end tables and entertainment center. The pièce de résistance, as far as she was concerned, was a leather rug she’d found at a flea market, along with two Southwest-patterned rugs she’d unearthed at a trading post, a few pieces of pottery and a bundle of dried flowers.

  Spending a lot of time shoving the sofa and chairs this way and that, she finally came up with an arrangement she liked around the fireplace as well as the entertainment center. After hanging a grouping of cowboy-at-work prints, along with a copper-toned spirit horse, the room took on an entirely different character from before, and she liked the effect. She hoped Tate would, too. As a finishing touch she added three tan pillar candles to the mantel, along with a stone replica of a Zuni bear, which set off the Western flavor of the room.

  Now all she had to do was wait for Tate’s reaction.

  Two hours later, when Tate parked in the garage and came into the kitchen from the hall that passed the utility room, Anita was cleaning up. When he hadn’t returned home by six, she’d fixed him a plate and stowed it in the refrigerator.

  “Hi,” she said brightly. “Marie just fell asleep and the boys are putting on their pjs. Long day?”

  It was almost eight o’clock and she wondered if he’d run into problems at work.

  “Sometimes I get home later than this. I’m going to grab a shower. You don’t have to hang around in here. I can warm up my own food.”

  She didn’t know if he was just trying to be considerate, or if he didn’t want to be around her. “I bought some things for the great room. Take a look
on your way. Oh, and I swept the house. Including…” She paused.

  “Including?”

  “Including your bedroom. I assumed you’d want me to do that, too.”

  “Sure,” he grumbled. “Of course you’d do that, too.”

  “If you don’t want me in there—”

  “It’s not a problem, Anita.”

  But his attitude told her it might be.

  While Tate showered, Anita read the twins a story and put them to bed. Afterward, she heard the beep of the microwave and couldn’t help walking toward the kitchen. She wanted to know what he thought of her decorating touches.

  “Dinner okay?” she asked.

  He looked down at the roast beef, green beans and parsley potatoes. “It looks great.”

  “What did you think of the great room?”

  “It looks…different.”

  “Different good or different bad? If you don’t like it, I can figure out—”

  “I like it fine.”

  His demeanor belied his words. “What’s wrong, Tate? If you really did mind me going into your bedroom—”

  “I don’t mind,” he said evenly.

  Planting her hands on her hips, she asked, “Then what’s wrong?”

  With a sigh, he rubbed his hand down his face. “There were problems at work today. One of the crews put the wrong window in a house we’re building. Another site is behind schedule. I had to put out fires all over the place and didn’t get to some paperwork that needs to be done.”

  “And?” she asked perceptively.

  For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer her. Or he’d just wave off her poking. Then he admitted, “I’m having trouble getting used to our arrangement. I’m used to silence echoing off the walls.”

  “I think your bedroom or office would be pretty silent about now. I don’t hear anything else going on.”

  After looking down at the plate of warm food in his hand, he set it on the table. “My last housekeeper wasn’t a live-in. She cleaned but didn’t care if my place was decorated or not. And her meals weren’t as down-home good as yours.”

  “Don’t the women you date cook for you?”

  “Actually, no. I usually take them out.”

  “Oh.”

  Raking his hand through his hair, he added, “This just feels funny to me. It’s almost like I have a family again. And I don’t.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him if he wanted a family again. Instead, she asked, “How long has it been since you had a family?”

  “I was twelve when my brother died. Everything went to hell in a handbasket after that.”

  Perfectly still, she was afraid he’d stop talking if she moved. “What happened?”

  “It doesn’t matter what happened,” he responded with an edge to his tone, sitting down at the table and staring at the food.

  She knew his history did matter. Something about it had hurt him, and hurt him deeply. But she couldn’t pry it out of him, and she didn’t want to. All the prying and listening in the world hadn’t gotten Larry to open up to her. Maybe that was just the way men were. She hadn’t had enough experience with them to know.

  “I made vanilla pudding. It’s in the refrigerator if you’re interested.” Turning away from him, she was heading back to her room when he asked, “Do you know how to make hors d’oeuvres?”

  Facing him again, she admitted, “I don’t have a lot of experience at it. We had a block meeting before Marie was born and I took along some tiny chicken quiches. Is that the kind of thing you mean?”

  “I have no idea.” Tate finally smiled at her. “It’s like this. Every year I have a barbecue for my employees. In the past, Dorothy started out with hors d’oeuvres and then did something with ribs in the oven and then the slow cooker.”

  “She probably broiled them and then let the slow cooker glaze them.”

  He looked relieved that Anita knew what he was talking about. “She picked up salads at the deli, and we always bought sheet cakes at the bakery. I didn’t expect her to make everything herself. The thing is, the date for the barbecue is coming up. It’s usually the second weekend in September, which is about three weeks away. I was wondering if you thought you could handle it. If you can’t, I’ll have it catered.”

  “How many people?”

  “About thirty to forty usually show up.”

  “I’ve never planned anything that big, but I’m willing to try. Three weeks is enough time to shop. I can make some of the hors d’oeuvres ahead of time and then just heat them up. If you want something other than the sheet cakes or dessert to go along with them, I could bake pies or batches of cookies.”

  “If you need to have Inez watch the kids, I’d be glad to pay her.”

  “Let me think about that.”

  “I’ll give you a bonus, too, because it’s going to be a lot of extra work.”

  If he was expecting her to argue with him, she wouldn’t. She could use that bonus for Christmas presents for the kids. “We will have to discuss if you want the party inside or outside. You’ll have to tell me exactly what you have in mind.”

  When Tate’s gaze met hers, she saw what he wanted, what any man wanted—pleasure and satisfaction without a price tag. She’d be insane to get involved with him when he didn’t even know if he liked having people around the house.

  The current zipping between them was red-hot. Just as she was trying to decide how to make her getaway, Marie began to cry.

  “Uh-oh,” Tate said. “Does that mean trouble?”

  Smiling, Anita shook her head. “She only drank about half her bottle before I put her to bed. Now she probably wants the other half.”

  On top of Marie’s cries, they heard Corey call, too. “Mommy, Mommy, Jared says there’s a monster in the closet. Come look.”

  “It never fails,” she said with a shake of her head as she went to the refrigerator. “If it isn’t one, it’s three.”

  “If they’re really afraid of a monster, I can check on that for them while you take care of Marie.”

  “Tate, the boys can wait—”

  “I know they can. But this is a strange place for them. They’re probably seeing shapes and shadows. I remember my imagination when I was a kid.”

  “All right. But don’t let them talk you into reading another story, too. They can be conniving at times.”

  Chuckling, Tate said knowingly, “I already guessed that.”

  Tate wasn’t sure why he’d offered to check the boys’ room. The offer had been out of his mouth before he’d thought better of it. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have things to do. The horses had to be tended to yet. But just the thought of two little boys afraid of scary monsters created an urge inside him to reassure them…to make the world safe for them.

  When he entered their room, he was struck again by how quickly Anita had tried to make it home. He also noticed she straightened up every night. He’d bet his best Stetson that she made the boys help.

  As soon as Jared saw him, he said seriously, “There’s a monster in the closet. I heard him.”

  Tate kept the smile from his lips. “Maybe something fell over in there. Or maybe the house creaked. It’s new, you know. It might be settling into place.”

  “Houses do that?” Corey asked.

  Tate shrugged. “Some houses do. Every house has its own particular noises.” Switching on the light on the boys’ dresser, he opened the closet door wide.

  “Check in back of the clothes,” Corey advised him.

  Pushing back the twins’ jeans and shirts, Tate ducked his head in, then ran his hand all over the back. “Nothing here, boys. Want to come see?”

  “Mom says we shouldn’t get out of bed once we’re in it,” Jared told him.

  “Except to go to the bathroom,” Corey added.

  Tate couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, I don’t want you two to be sitting in your beds thinking I didn’t check well enough. Come on, this will only take a minute. Duck inside here and
see for yourselves.”

  After the boys scrambled out of their beds, they inspected the closet.

  Satisfied, Corey asked Tate, “Can you look under the beds, too?”

  “Come on. Let’s do it together.”

  “But what if there’s a monster there?” Jared asked.

  “He’ll see me and run the other way. I’m monster-proof.”

  The two boys looked up at him as if he were Superman. He couldn’t believe the sense of satisfaction that gave him.

  Five minutes later, the underside of the beds examined, the boys scurried back into their beds.

  “How about a story?” Corey’s eyes were as big and green as his mom’s.

  “Your mom warned me you might ask.”

  “We’re not supposed to stall our bedtime,” Jared told his brother self-righteously, and Tate was sure those were Anita’s words.

  “I’ll tell you what. Instead of a story now, I’ll read you one tomorrow night before you get ready for bed.”

  “Can we see the horses when you get home tomorrow night?”

  “I don’t know what time I’ll be home. But if it’s still light, I can give you a tour of the barn if you’d like.”

  The boys seemed happy with that, and Tate headed for the door. “See you in the morning, boys,” he said with a tight feeling around his heart.

  In part of his mind, he could envision roughhousing with them, teaching them to ride, hugging them after a long day. He didn’t know what had gotten into him since he’d met Anita Sutton, but he wasn’t sure he liked it.

  While he’d been checking the closet for the boys, Marie had stopped crying. Going down the hall, he was just going to tell Anita that the twins were safely in bed once more when he stopped short in the doorway. A soft yellow light glowed from one side of the small dresser. Beside it, Anita sat in an old, caned rocking chair, holding Marie in her arms as she drank her bottle, humming as she slowly rocked back and forth.

  The sight increased the tightness in Tate’s chest and made it almost hard to breathe. Anita was a good mother—there was no doubt about that. She couldn’t pretend her reactions to her kids or the way she handled them. They listened to her because she commanded their respect, not out of fear but out of love. They obeyed because they knew that she knew best. But what else did he know about her? Sure, she could cook and arrange a room so it felt like a home. That room had stopped him in his tracks this evening when he’d seen the changes she’d brought to it—the warm, colorful touches that had made such a difference, the effort she’d put into pleasing him. But he’d wondered what else she was going to change around here. He’d wondered if he wanted any of it to change.