Rachel's Rescuer

“That’s not likely,” she answered out loud.

“Who are you talking to, Mom?” Cody asked from above her.

Rachel looked up and forced a smile to her lips. Hoping her shaking knees would carry her, she climbed the stairs. “Just myself. I’m a great conversationalist. What are you and Harley doing up there?”

At the top of the stairs, Cody grabbed her hand and pulled her down the hallway to the room they’d shared the night before. “I was showing him how good I can read. He gave me some books.”

“That’s nice of him,” she replied, shaking the mental image of Lucas from her mind.

“You’ve got a smart boy there,” Harley said, when she stepped into the room. “I thought Cody might like to look at these. I’ve been storin’ stuff here since Lucas and I were teenagers.” He knelt beside a box on the floor, opened it, and pulled out a stout pile of children’s books. “Some of these belong to Lucas, but he won’t mind.”

“He might,” Rachel muttered.

Harley looked up at her, his eyes troubled, before turning back to Cody. “Why don’t we sit in that big chair over there? I bet you can’t read three of them to me in the next thirty minutes.”

“Bet I can,” Cody challenged, scrambling into the chair with an armload of books and making room for the big man.

“Lucas wants to see you down in the living room,” Harley told her, then settled next to her son.

Rachel held her breath, knowing the questions were going to start. It would be difficult, without giving too much away, but she’d have to answer.

Cody dragged his attention from the open book in his hands and looked up. “Where’s the living room?”

“Bottom of the stairs and turn right,” Harley answered.

Obviously enthralled with his bounty, Cody snuggled in deeper and began reading. It brought a smile to Rachel’s lips, but it didn’t last long.

Remembering the directions, she left the room and took the stairs slowly, gathering her courage. At the bottom, she turned right and entered the living room. After a quick glance around, she took a deep breath and faced Lucas. “Did you want to talk to me about something?”

“I have some questions,” he said without looking at her.

She knew her best defense was to play dumb. “About what?”

“There’s a lot of boxes in your trunk. It looks like you and Cody are on more than a vacation.”

“I have some things to take to Jenny,” she fibbed.

His gaze swiveled to hers and held her. “You’re planning to stay there for a while?”

“I’m not sure how long we’ll be there,” she offered. “Jenny and I haven’t seen each other for years.”

“Have you talked to her?”

“Not—not recently, but yes, we’ve talked.”

“From Cincinnati?”

She swallowed the fear that rose in her throat. She never should have told him that. She and Cody had lived there for a short while, but only long enough to prove residency and get an Ohio license and her car tagged. Edward and Phyllis weren’t far behind them there, and they’d left as soon as they had enough money. Jenny didn’t have a clue they’d ever been there.

“Yes, from Cincinnati.”

“So if Jenny or Pete should call, and I tell them that her friend from Cincinnati is here, they’ll know who I’m talking about?”

Her pounding heart plummeted to a thud in her stomach. “No,” she whispered.

“I didn’t think so,” he said, his voice low. “Maybe you’d better sit down.”

Other than escaping, nothing sounded quite so good. Knees shaking, Rachel sank onto the nearest chair. Lucas sat on the chair across from her and waited.

“Mr. Callahan,” she began, attempting to still her spinning thoughts, “I’m not doing anything wrong, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Nobody said you were.”

Nodding, she absorbed the sliver of good news. “But you suspect I might be.”

“I’m concerned, is all.”

She choked back her laugh. Concerned? She’d been telling a few white lies, but this was a whopper. “There’s no need for you to be concerned,” she assured him. “We’ll be out of your house as soon as possible. We wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for the snowstorm.”

“That’s what worries me.”

She got to her feet. “It’s not your job to worry about us.” Giving it a second thought, she said the only thing she could. “I don’t want you involved in this. The less you know, the better off we’ll all be.”

“And Jen will be safe?” He shook his head. “Doesn’t make sense.”

Searching her mind for something to dissuade him from asking more, she paced the room.

“Come on, Rachel, or whatever your name is.” He frowned, then cocked one black eyebrow at her. “What is your name, anyway?”

“Rachel Stevens.”

“Try again.”

She shook her head. “My name is Rachel.”

Shoving out of the chair, he nodded. He walked across the room to her and stopped in front of her. “I’ll have to take you at your word. But you need to remember one thing. I’m not much for lies. Or secrets.”

When he’d gone, leaving her alone and shaking, she sank back onto the chair. It had been as bad as she’d expected. No, it had been worse. He’d been so close, she had felt the heat radiating from his body, seen his chest rise and fall, with each breath he took. Like the earlier episode on the stairs, she had nearly lost control of herself.

But she hadn’t. She couldn’t. For some reason she couldn’t identify, Lucas Callahan did things to her by simply walking into a room, that no man ever had. It was wrong. She was nothing more than an accidental guest, and her visit would only be for a few days. She wasn’t the type of woman who could have a brief fling, and he wasn’t the type of man who would want anything more. If he even wanted that. He’d given no indication that he did.

She couldn’t blame him for asking questions, but she couldn’t give him any more information. It wasn’t just for her sake and Cody’s. Lucas would be much better off not knowing.

His parting words drifted back to her, and she knew this wouldn’t be the last time he would question her. She could only pray that she and Cody could leave within a day or two. She didn’t like to lie, but her secret must be kept.

In the silence of the room, she whispered, “But Lucas has his own secrets, I’ll bet.”

Chapter Three

A smile curved Lucas’s lips as he stood outside the closed living room door, but it was quickly replaced by a worried frown. He’d gotten just enough information to worry him.

Rachel. The name fit her. Soft and warm, yet there was strength in it. Like the strength he saw in her. He still suspected her last name wasn’t Stevens. The woman was a walking pack of lies. But he had a feeling she didn’t like telling them any more than he liked hearing them.

As he made his way to his office, he replayed their conversation in his mind. She had done a fine job of avoiding his questions. He hadn’t liked doing it. All the time he was asking, he’d felt like an interrogator. But he needed answers, if nothing more than out of simple curiosity. Only it was more than that. As much as he’d grown to distrust women, there was something about this particular one that kept tugging at him. It was nothing she said. In fact, he sensed her drawing away from him, whenever he was around. He suspected it was her way of protecting herself. She didn’t trust him. He couldn’t blame her for that. If she had caught even a hint of what he’d been thinking and feeling around her, she had good reason. He didn’t trust himself.

When the door opened, he looked up to see his stepbrother. Harley glanced into the hallway, then shut the door behind him. “How’d it go?”

Lucas didn’t want to admit how much it had bothered him to question her. “Fine, but I didn’t learn a lot. It might be easier to find out something from Cody.”

Harley’s head moved back and forth. “I don’t know, Lucas. He’s only six.” A grin replaced his frown. “But he’s smart as a whip. He can read as good as a kid twice his age.”

Lucas barely noted the comment. The boy reminded him too much of what he’d lost. “Maybe you should talk to him. Find out what you can. He doesn’t think much of me.”

Harley settled into his favorite chair. “I think you scare him, Lucas.”

“Scare him? I’ve hardly said a word to him.”

“Try smilin’ once in a while,” Harley suggested. “I think you even scare Rachel.”

She ought to be scared. Lucas had to admit to himself that his own reaction to her scared him. He’d managed to keep his distance. Except for that little meeting on the stairs. Because of that, he’d escaped to the office with his teeth gritted so hard to keep from pulling her up next to him, his jaws hurt. The scent of peaches had been all over her. Sweet, succulent peaches. A rarity on the ranch, especially in the winter months. The aroma had made his dry mouth water with the need to see if she tasted the same. Just one kiss, one taste, and he could have his answer and forget—

“…Marty and John gonna get here?”

Lucas jerked his thoughts back to the business at hand, glad Harley couldn’t read his mind. “John said he’d talked to Marty.” He glanced at his watch. “They ought to be here about dinnertime. You don’t think…?”

“Bet she would,” Harley answered the unfinished question with a grin.

Lucas got to his feet. “Good. You can ask her.”

“Oh, no,” Harley argued. He stood, stopping Lucas on his way to the door. “I’m takin’ Cody outside. You ask her.”

Lucas shook his head. He didn’t want to be alone in the same room with her, if he could help it. God only knew what he might do. He needed time to get himself under control. “She’ll refuse if I ask.”

“Oh, hell, Lucas,” Harley laughed. “Use some of that Callahan charm on her.”

Lucas considered it. He could keep it brief. He’d ask, she’d answer, and he’d be out the door. She would either rustle up a dinner for them all, or they’d scrounge for whatever they could throw together. He’d just keep some distance from her.

“You want me to cook for six people?” Rachel asked when Lucas approached her.

Hell, all she had to do was say yes or no. He kept his distance, but it didn’t seem to help much. Even from across the room, he could smell peaches. Or imagined he did. “There’s plenty of stuff here,” he pointed out.

Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip, nearly bringing a groan from him. She shook her head and muttered, “I don’t know what I can fix.”

He waited for his chance to escape. “Fix anything,” he snapped. “John and Marty will be so hungry when they get here, they won’t take time to notice what it is.”

She walked to the cabinet, reached up and opened it wide. Lucas closed his eyes and took a deep breath. She’d changed into another pair of jeans, and dammit if they weren’t tighter than the others. She had exchanged the oversize sweatshirt for a shirt that hugged her close and barely grazed the tops of her pockets. Until she stretched up to reach high into the cabinet. With the simple movement, she bared a large expanse of creamy skin above the waistband of her jeans.

He couldn’t stop his feet from moving him toward her, his gaze riveted on her flesh. Before he reached touching distance, she turned her head to glance back.

“I—” She stopped, staring at him, her blue eyes wide. Her arms dropped to her sides, and she tugged at the bottom of her shirt, pulling it down. Her cheeks turned a rosy shade of pink. “I’ll find something. I’ll get Cody to help.”

“I promised to show him around the ranch,” Lucas managed to say without choking. He had to get out before he did something they would both regret. Concentrating on keeping his feet from tangling with each other, he started backing up.

“He needs his snowsuit and—”

“He’s got it,” Lucas barked. “You think a man doesn’t know how to dress a little kid?”

“Of course,” she whispered. Her eyes glittered, and her teeth scraped her lip again.

He yanked on his coat, then grabbed behind his back for the doorknob, missed it, and swore under his breath. His second try brought success, and he was out the door so fast, he closed it on the brim of his hat.

“Hey, Lucas!” Harley called to him from the corral. “Come give us a hand.”

Shaking his head to clear the fog, Lucas clomped through the snow. In the corral, Harley had tied an aged sled behind their oldest, slowest horse. Cody sat on the sled, gripping the sides.

“Hey, Cody, you warm enough?” Lucas hollered.

Cody’s head bobbed up and down, and he stared at Lucas.

Lucas strode through the snow to tug the little boy’s knit cap farther onto his head. “Your mom is worried about you.”

Cody shrank away from him. “I’m okay. ’S not c-cold.”

Yeah, sure. Even Lucas could feel the bite of the wind. He looked up to see a silly grin on Harley’s face. “What?”

Harley’s grin widened.

“Harley, what the—”

“Smile,” Harley replied, then ducked behind Bay Roller.

“Oh, yeah,” Lucas mumbled. Attempting his widest smile, he hunkered down by Cody. “You ever been sleddin’?”

Cody’s head swiveled from side to side.

“It’s been a long time for me, too,” he admitted. “Now, you hang on tight.”

Harley handed him the halter rope. “I’ll get started on the rest of the chores. Go easy with him.”

Lucas shot him a glare. Didn’t anyone trust him with Cody? “I can handle it.”

“I mean about the questions.”

Lucas wondered just how to go about questioning a six-year-old. The idea wasn’t something he was comfortable with, but it had to be done. “I will,” he called, as Harley walked away.

He urged the old horse forward, watching the sled, ready to catch Cody if he toppled off. But Cody hung on tight, laughing with delight, while he led Bay Roller faster around the corral.

“That was fun,” Cody told Lucas as they untied the rope and led Bay Roller into the barn. “Can we do it again sometime?”

“As long as the snow sticks around,” Lucas promised. He looked down into a pair of sparkling hazel eyes and felt a pang of unease. Cody slipped his small hand into Lucas’s big one, and Lucas nearly jerked away. But once he realized the boy finally trusted him, his heart beat with a new warmth, and a real smile eased onto his face.

The old stove at the far end of the barn crackled and burned brightly. “Strip off your snow gear,” he directed.

While Cody complied, he undid his own coat and retrieved a bag of marshmallows Harley had left. “You won’t believe this.” he announced.

“Oh, boy!” Cody jumped up and down, his snowsuit bunched around his knees, half on and half off. “Are we going to roast them?”

Lucas produced a tin of hot cocoa mix. “I thought they’d go good with this.”

It didn’t take long for them to find themselves enjoying the warmth of the old stove, each with a hot cup of cocoa in their hands, topped with fat marshmallows.

Cody looked up at Lucas, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown. “I didn’t know cowboys drank hot chocolate.”

“Sure we do. I’ve been doing this since I was your size. Can’t let a good snowstorm pass without it.”

“Really?”

Lucas wiped at the marshmallow smudge above Cody’s upper lip and winked at him. “Yeah, really. Sometimes I stay out here for days and days.”

“I bet my daddy never did anything like this,” Cody said in a quiet voice.

“Where is your daddy?” Something had a tight grip on his chest. Hell, he’d never given a thought to Rachel having a husband. It made sense that she might be running from a husband. What a fool he’d been to lust after her, when he didn’t know anything about her.

“He’s in heaven,” Cody answered with a shrug of one shoulder. “At least that’s what my mom told me.”

A long, slow breath of air eased out of Lucas. He thought of his own father, a man who’d deserted his family. His memories weren’t happy ones. “Did you like living in Ohio?” he asked to change the subject.

“We didn’t live there very long,” Cody replied.

“We lived in Chicago before that. And I went to kindergarten in Detroit.”

“You’ve done some traveling.”

“Yeah,” Cody answered. “But you know what? I like it better here than anywhere. Mom says we might stay for a long time. Do you think Jenny will let me visit you when it snows again?”

“Any time your mom says it’s okay,” Lucas told him. It surprised him to find that he liked the idea. Jen and Pete didn’t live far. He would have a chance to see Cody. And Rachel.

He got to his feet, stretching out the kinks as he gathered the empty cups. He grabbed a blanket and bundled it around Cody. “Your snow gear’s still wet,” he explained when the boy started to protest.

Carrying Cody to the house, Lucas brought up the subject of Rachel’s dead husband, while he still had the chance to ask. “Cody, what was your daddy’s name?”

“Steven,” the boy answered on a yawn. “Gramma Harris said he was too young to die.”