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“Oh, yes,” Gwen said, flustered. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Ben said, stepping into her kitchen for the second time that day, but this time he noticed that her curtains were sunny yellow. She had a white lace tablecloth on the table and a bouquet of brown-eyed Susans. “I’m not in any hurry.”
At that she turned. “Really? Because if you have time I made a casserole for dinner. There’s plenty.”
Ben grinned sheepishly. “I don’t have that much time.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Gwen said, appearing flustered again.
Ben almost groaned at his stupidity. He knew he’d screwed up everything that afternoon by forgetting that pregnant women were emotional. Yet, he continued to hit all the wrong buttons with Gwen. Being too blunt. Speaking too soon. Not showing a little kindness.
“I’ll just go upstairs and get him.”
She turned to run up the steps, but Ben put his hand atop hers on the banister. Unfortunately, even though she stopped as he wanted her to, Ben also stopped. His heart stopped. His breathing stopped. And he was fairly certain all his brain cells stopped functioning.
The back of her hand was like satin. Smooth, warm satin.
Positive he must be getting sick or something, he cleared his throat. “Take your time,” he said, and when his voice came out hoarse and whispery, he had to stifle a grimace.
What the hell was wrong with him?
Gwen disappeared up the steps, and as Ben waited for her return he oriented himself back to sanity. But when she walked down the stairs, the fading rays of the late-afternoon sun framed her in a yellow glow. Spontaneously, he wished he had a picture of her like that, and he knew sanity was nowhere around.
“Nathan was a very good boy today,” she said, and Nathan beamed with pride.
“Well, that’s good,” Ben said, wanting only to get the heck out of this house before he said or did something else foolish. “When he said he was curious about you and the baby, I didn’t think you would mind if he spent some time with you.”
“Oh, I didn’t,” Gwen quickly said. “I loved the company.”
“Good,” Ben said.
Nathan tugged on his shirtsleeve. “She said I can come over anytime I want.”
Ben risked a peek at her. “Is that so?”
Gwen shrugged and smiled. “I like the company.”
That seemed to be all there was to say, but Ben didn’t want to accidentally insult her again by jumping to the conclusion that the conversation was over if she didn’t think it was, because he didn’t want to feel any more responsible for her than he already felt. When he realized things had grown so quiet he could hear the tick of the clock, he also realized he’d been standing by her front door like an idiot for at least a minute. Almost as if he didn’t want to leave.
“Well, Nate, let’s go,” he said, reaching for the door-knob. Nathan scrambled around him and wiggled his way between Ben and the opening. “He’s got a lot of energy,” Ben said, making excuses for Nathan’s need to get outside. He certainly couldn’t tell her the kid was anxious to get to Ben’s home and see his ten dollars on the mantel.
“He does have a lot of energy,” Gwen agreed with a laugh. “I can’t tell you what a relief it was to have him around all afternoon. He did tons of little things for me. I didn’t realize I had so many chores I was putting off until I could bend a little easier.”
Though Ben would have happily scooted off her porch only three seconds before, for this he turned and faced her. He had no doubt Nathan would keep Gwen company, but he wanted to confirm Nathan was doing what he was being paid to do. “He helped you?”
“A great deal,” Gwen assured Ben with a nod. “And he’s a wonderful boy.”
Her words were like a soothing balm, a confirmation for Ben that he’d really done right by her. No guessing. No assumptions. His smile was quick and genuine. “Yes, he is.”
“I hope my child is as happy and energetic as he is.”
Hearing the sweet, wishful, motherly tone of her voice, Ben realized why he suddenly felt differently around her than he had before. He’d lost his wall of protection. He’d already admitted to himself that Gwen was a beautiful woman. He’d admitted to himself that he found her attractive. But he’d always had the protection of thinking she must not be a good person to have yanked her child away from its natural father. Now that he had accepted that Gwen herself was abandoned, a good and decent person trying to do the best she could, it seemed his fortress against her appeal was gone. And all the rules had changed.
“Well, I’ll see you around,” he said gruffly, and bounded outside, not wasting another second.
Not only was he attracted to her, but with the knowledge that she was as blameless as she was beautiful, the door was open for him to pursue her…and he wanted to. That was what kept throwing off his concentration and his ability to reason. He really wanted to get to know her. She was pretty, sweet and delightfully charming. What man wouldn’t want to spend time with her?
But there was one little problem.
He had no intention of settling down. None. Never. And a woman with a child on the way needed a commitment. Since Ben was not the kind of man who could make a commitment, he had to stay the hell away from her.
Chapter Two
Gwen didn’t know why she hid her stash of shortbread cookies on the top shelf of her last cabinet behind the old dishes she never used. She didn’t live with anyone, so no one would find her precious treat. And she knew where the darned cookies were. It wasn’t as if she prevented herself from discovering them. She wasn’t fooling anybody or accomplishing anything, only delaying the inevitable.
Thinking that her purpose must be to give herself time to change her mind about eating a hundred buttery calories for every cookie, she dragged a chair to the cupboards and climbed onto the seat. Then she took a minute to catch her breath because she was huffing and puffing from the slight exertion. Twenty pounds didn’t seem like a lot, but when gained in seven months and distributed entirely to her middle, those twenty pounds had really thrown a monkey wrench into physical activity—not to mention her shape and mobility.
Since she wasn’t concealing the cookies from intruders and since she obviously wasn’t deterring herself, she declared herself officially too clumsy to continue this little game at the same moment that someone knocked on her front door.
She groaned. Now she remembered why she hid these things. It was to keep them out of sight of visitors who would take one look at her bulging tummy and one look at the cookies and recognize she had absolutely no will-power.
“I’m coming,” she called, when her guest knocked again. She lumbered off the chair and walked to her front door, realizing that in the city she might have worried about being so casual with unexpected visitors. But here in Storkville, Nebraska, she never gave callers a second thought. She hadn’t met anyone who wasn’t pleasant, and most people went out of their way to be kind and considerate…except for Ben Crowe, she thought with an involuntary sigh. When she had met the Sioux rancher she’d immediately thought he was the most handsome man in Cedar County, with his nearly black eyes and short, shiny black hair. But as they negotiated the deal for his cottage, it didn’t take her long to realize he was also the most bossy, irritating chauvinist she’d come across in a long, long time. Every time she had contact with him his gruffness managed to confirm that opinion, but his behavior the day before had etched it in stone.
When she opened the door and saw Nathan, her bad mood disappeared. “Hey, Nathan!” she said, stooping down so they were eye level.
“Hi, Mrs. Parker,” he said, his gaze dropping shyly.
“None of that Mrs. Parker stuff,” Gwen said, then ruffled his smooth dark hair. “Didn’t I tell you yesterday to call me Gwen?”
He nodded.
“Okay, then,” she said, and attempted to rise, but couldn’t. “Drat!”
“What’s the matter?” Nathan asked, alarmed. “Nothing,” Gwen said. “I just need something to hold on to.”
“Here,” Nathan said, catching her arm. “I’ll help.”
Gwen knew Nathan’s enthusiastic heart was in the right place, but she also knew his slight body could not support her weight. Still, not wanting to insult him, she allowed him to hold her left arm while she actually levered herself up by angling her right hand on the door frame.
“That’s better,” she said, then blew her breath out on a long sigh. “So how come you’re here?”
He shrugged. “I don’t got nowhere else to go. I got no parents. And you said yesterday I could visit anytime I wanted.”
“That’s right,” Gwen said, directing Nathan to follow her into the kitchen, though she had the distinct impression she was being conned. She’d spent an entire afternoon with this kid yesterday and his grammar was perfectly fine. Now suddenly he was talking like a five-year-old.
“I live with foster parents on the reservation,” he continued, as he sat on one of the captain’s chairs by her round kitchen table. His dark hair was bright and shiny, but his dark eyes were dull with concern, as if he was afraid she didn’t believe him. “They’re nice, but they’re old, and they don’t like to play.”
He’d told her as much the day before, but today there was an odd quality to his voice, almost a quiver. If he was duping her, it was only because he wanted company.
Come to think of it, so did she. She was lonely. He was lonely. There was no harm in letting him hang around for a while. In fact, she decided to share her cookies with him and made her way over to the cupboard.
“Do your foster parents know where you are?” she asked as she climbed on the chair again.
He nodded. “I called from Ben’s.”
Ben’s. Great. Did everything in this town revolve around Ben Crowe? “What did they say?”
“They said that I could come over as long as I didn’t annoy you. And Ben said he’d pick me up later to take me back to the reservation.”
That stopped her. She could see the surly rancher letting his little friend use the phone. She could even see him letting this boy follow on his heels because that might feed his ego. But to volunteer to go out of his way to take him back to the reservation? That made him seem almost—well, nice. “He did?”
“Yeah,” Nathan said.
Hearing the obvious affection in Nathan’s voice, Gwen turned around and looked down at him. “You really like that guy, don’t you?”
“He’s my friend.”
The simple statement told Gwen many things, not the least of which was that Nathan didn’t consider himself to have too many friends. Again, her opinion of Ben Crowe rose several notches.
Not wanting to go any further with this conversation, she put her attention on opening her cupboard door, but when she reached for the cookies, she felt off balance and stopped mid-stretch.
“What are you doing?” Nathan asked, sounding as if he felt she was crazy.
She cleared her throat. “Getting cookies.”
“All right!” he said, apparently pleased at the prospect of a snack. In two shakes, he was beside her chair. “Let me do this.”
“Nathan, you’re shorter than I am. If I can’t reach them, you can’t reach them,” she protested, but before the words were completely out of her mouth, Nathan had hoisted himself onto the countertop. He swiveled around, shifted to his feet and had her cookies in his hand before she could make another sound.
“Here,” he said, giving the cookies to her and jumping to the floor.
It wasn’t the neatest way to go about it, and it certainly wasn’t the most sanitary thing in the world to have someone stand on your countertop, but it worked.
“Thanks,” she said, carefully getting off the chair. And it wasn’t entirely safe for her to be climbing chairs anymore, either. Or carrying heavy packages, she conceded in her thoughts, though she still didn’t like Ben’s attitude when he stopped to help her the day before, because she wasn’t an invalid. But she also had to admit that it had been good having Nathan here yesterday when she needed somebody to bend and stretch.
As she thought the last, an idea formed. She wasn’t an invalid who couldn’t do things for herself, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have another person around the house to help her. At the same time, Nathan needed company, and he also was a nice little boy who could use a break from life.
“Nathan, how would you like to earn twenty dollars a week?”
His eyes widened comically and he gasped. “What?”
Proud of herself for coming up with such a good plan, Gwen smiled and sat at the table across from Nathan. “You saw how easily you got those cookies for me?”
He nodded.
“That showed me that I could really use some help around here. So, I’d be willing to pay you twenty dollars a week, if you would come over every day after school and just hang around in case I need something from a cupboard.”
Big-eyed, Nathan said nothing, only licked his lips. Then he pulled his bottom lip between his teeth as if dismayed.
Baffled, Gwen wondered why he would hesitate to take her money, then she realized she might have insulted him. Or made him feel like a charity case. She hadn’t been in Storkville long, but she knew the Sioux were a proud, strong people.
“I really need the help,” she said, because she truly did. If his stay with her the day before hadn’t proved it, her inability to reach those darned cookies had. She could lower everything to be within reaching distance, but what if she fell? When she chose to rent Ben Crowe’s cottage on the edge of his property, she had gotten all the privacy she craved for both the baby and to be able to do her illustrations peacefully at home, but she had also isolated herself. With Nathan arriving every afternoon at three, she would at least know someone would find her if something happened.
More convinced than ever that she needed this child’s assistance, Gwen said, “Please?”
He sighed.
“Pretty please?” she said, knowing he was weakening.
Nathan shook his head as if deliberating, though she couldn’t think of a reason he would be reluctant to accept her offer. But suddenly he grinned broadly and tossed his hands in defeat. “Okay,” he said, sounding unsure but committed.
Gwen said, “Great!” Each ate two cookies, then Gwen sent Nathan on his first assignment. “There’s a freezer in the basement,” she said. “Would you please go down there and take out a package of hamburger?”
Nodding energetically, Nathan bounced off his chair and ran to her basement.
Gwen’s chest puffed out with pride. Not only had she solved a problem for a sweet little boy, but she now had company for dinner. Unfortunately, because she felt she had to find some work for them to do to make Nathan feel his position was legitimate, she and Nathan got involved in organizing her closet and before she knew it it was after six o’clock. She wouldn’t have glanced at the clock even then, except for the second time that day someone was knocking on her door.
“That’s probably Ben,” Nathan said authoritatively as he helped her maneuver herself out of the jumbled mess of clothes, shoes and boxes.
“Already?” Gwen said, dispirited. All afternoon she’d been looking forward to having company for dinner, and because she’d lost track of time she wouldn’t have any. The disappointment that settled over her was acute and severe. Which caused her to realize she was much lonelier than she was letting everyone—even herself—believe and convinced her that she had made a very wise choice in hiring Nathan to be with her every afternoon.
But that didn’t get her someone to share dinner with tonight.
“I told him I would call him when I wanted to go home, but he must have thought I forgot,” Nathan said, following Gwen down the steps to her front door.
Expecting to see Ben, Gwen’s mouth nonetheless fell open in surprise when she opened the door and he stood before her. Not because it was him, but because he looked absolutely magnificent. Dressed in a dark suit, complete with white shirt and raspberry-colored tie, Ben took her breath away. His short, neatly styled black hair accented a face that was all clean angles and smooth planes. His dark eyes pierced her with his usual no-nonsense stare. His munificent mouth never smiled.
“Hi,” she said, then mentally chastised herself for the quiver in her voice. Yes, the man was attractive, but she was twenty-eight, not a schoolgirl. And he wasn’t her type. After her disastrous marriage, Gwen had vowed to shift her choice of men from cool and demanding, to sweet and mellow. This guy was not mellow.
“Hi,” he said distantly, his tone relaxing Gwen somewhat. Having reminded herself of what she wanted in a husband, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she didn’t have to worry about her attraction to this grumpy man. She wouldn’t marry another difficult man on a lost bet.
“I’m here for Nathan.”
“Actually, he’s not ready yet,” Gwen said, an idea forming in her head. “I promised him supper.” She flashed Ben a winning smile. Her attraction to him no longer a consideration, she had no compunction about pulling out all the stops to retain her companionship for dinner. Besides, if she looked at this logically, all she was doing was being nice to her neighbor, her landlord. Certainly that couldn’t hurt. “It’s only hamburgers, but there’s plenty if you’d like to join us.”
She put her hand on Nathan’s slender shoulder at the same time Nathan looked up at Ben and grinned. “Please,” he said sweetly, and Gwen almost laughed. They couldn’t have done that better if they’d rehearsed it.
From the expression on Ben’s face Gwen could tell that he’d been all set to refuse her as he had the night before, until he looked down at Nathan’s smile. The kid was good. Very good. No adult with an ounce of compassion could look at that angelic face and refuse him anything.
“All right,” Ben said, but he sighed.
Gwen decided she couldn’t even give him two minutes to debate this or he would change his mind. “Come on, Nathan, let’s get the hamburgers on the grill.”
“You can’t grill. It’s getting dark,” Ben protested, but Gwen turned and smiled charmingly.
“It won’t be dark for another hour, but the grill is on the deck and the deck has a light. If it gets dark, we’ll turn it on.” She smiled again. “Would you like a short-bread cookie while you wait?”
That seemed to confuse him. “Before dinner?” he asked incredulously.
