скачать книгу бесплатно
The shoes made a flap-flap sound on the tile floors that distracted him for a second, until she cleared her throat.
“Upstairs, Wyatt?”
He glanced up, meeting brown eyes and a hint of a strawberry-glossed smile. Molly’s hand slid into his and he squeezed lightly, holding her close, grounded by her presence and shifted back to reality by her shoulder against his leg.
Eighteen months of holding it together, just trying to be a dad and trying to make sense of life, and now this. This, meaning Rachel Waters and the sudden realization that he was still a man. He blinked a few times, surprised that he’d noticed anything other than the broom she held in her hand. When was the last time he’d noticed a woman’s lips? Or her hair?
He’d seen her at church every Sunday, though. It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed her, her smile, her laugh. It wasn’t the first time she’d taken him by surprise.
“Yeah, sure, go ahead. The bedrooms are fine, though. The girls clean their own. Kind of.” He grinned down at his daughters because that cleaning part was an exaggeration. “Anyway, there are a couple of bathrooms up there.”
“Good, I’ll clean those, too.” She grabbed a broom and swept at his feet. “Scoot, now.”
Scoot. Molly was already pulling him toward the hall. He glanced back at Rachel. She had turned on the CD player hidden under the upper cabinets and in moments Sara Evans was singing about a runaway teen leaving the suds in the bucket and the clothes hanging on the line.
As his daughters led him down the hall to the office, he could hear the chorus of the song and Rachel singing along. Her voice got a little louder on the line about wondering what the preacher would preach about on Sunday. He shot a look back in the direction of the kitchen, but the wall blocked her from sight.
Kat was dragging him into the office, jabbering about ponies and wondering when she would get one of her own. She was two. He considered reminding her of that fact, but she’d been reminded more than once.
For the next couple of hours the girls colored pictures and he went over farm accounts and receipts for taxes that had to be filed. The vacuum cleaner rumbled overhead. Rachel was still singing. She was always singing. Even when he picked the girls up in the nursery at church he could hear her singing to them.
He should be glad about that, that someone sang to them, someone soft and feminine. And she laughed, all the time. At least with the kids she laughed. He tried to remember the last time he’d really laughed. He watched his daughters trade crayons and he remembered. Kat had done something that made him laugh. They laughed more than they had six months ago. Far more than they had a year ago.
He shook his head and glanced back at numbers blurring on the ledger he’d been staring at for the last hour. Ryder had just about let the ranch run into the ground. Not financially, just upkeep, the things that required sitting still.
His cell phone rang and he reached for it, distracted. Wendy’s mom’s voice said a soft hello. Mother-in-law? Did he still call her that? She was still grandmother to his girls. A week didn’t pass that she didn’t call to check on them. More than once a month she and William, her second husband, drove up from Oklahoma City to visit.
He didn’t want to sound paranoid, but he thought it was more like spying. It was Violet’s way of making sure he was surviving and that her granddaughters were being taken care of. He didn’t really blame her. There had been a few months when he hadn’t been sure if he was going to make it.
“Violet, how are you?”
“I’m fine, of course. The question is, how are you?” The southern accent should have been sweet and maternal. Instead it held about a dozen questions pertaining to his sanity.
Which was just fine.
“Good, Violet. The girls are coloring pictures and we’re getting ready to eat lunch.” He glanced at his watch and winced. It was past time for lunch.
“Isn’t it a little late for lunch?” She never missed a thing. He smiled.
“A little, but we ate a late breakfast.” That probably didn’t sound better, but he wasn’t going to lie to her.
“Right. Well, I thought I’d come up this week, just to…”
“Check up on us?”
“Of course not. Wyatt, you know we love you and the girls. I miss…”
Broken sentences. He held back the sigh. In the last eighteen months they’d talked in broken sentences, half-finished thoughts and unspoken accusations.
“I miss her, too.” He finished the sentence for her.
“So, about this week?”
It wasn’t a good week for a visit. He leaned back in his chair and stared out the window at the overgrown lawn. He needed to hire a lawn service. “Sure, Violet, I’ll be here.”
The vacuum cleaner stopped.
“What’s that noise?” Violet asked.
“Ryder hired a housekeeper.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good.”
“I guess it is.”
“And a cook?”
Of course it came back to cooking. He smiled a little. “I don’t need a cook.”
She didn’t respond for a minute. “Okay, Wyatt. Well, I’ll call and let you know what day I’ll be up.”
No, she wouldn’t. He slipped the phone back in his pocket knowing full well she’d launch a sneak attack when he least expected it.
He leaned to kiss Molly on the top of her head. “You girls stay here for a second. I’m going to talk to Miss Rachel and then we’ll blow up our balloons. Later we’ll go to town.”
To the store for groceries and a cookbook for dummies. Maybe he could learn to cook before Violet showed up.
Molly shot him a narrow-eyed look. Kat ignored him. The girls were like night and day. Molly was her mother all over, but she looked like him. Kat looked like Wendy. They both had dark hair, but Kat’s was a little lighter and she had Wendy’s light brown eyes. It was getting easier to stare into eyes that reminded him of his wife.
He hurried up the stairs and met Rachel in the hallway. She picked up her bucket of cleaning supplies and then smiled at him. Perspiration glistened on her brow and her hair was a little damp. But the upstairs smelled clean for the first time in a long time.
The windows gleamed at either end of the hall and there were no cobwebs clinging to the ceiling. Maybe a housekeeper wasn’t such a bad idea. It might be a great idea. But he didn’t know if Rachel Waters was the one he wanted. She wore faded jeans and had the tiniest butterfly at the small of her back. Shouldn’t a housekeeper wear something more…housekeeperish?
He pictured Alice from The Brady Bunch. Or the robot maid from The Jetsons. Yeah, that’s what a housekeeper should look like. A housekeeper should make PB and J sandwiches and smell like joint cream, not wildflowers.
“Is there anything else I need to do?” She stood in the center of the hallway, the bucket in her hand, and he’d lost it for a minute.
“No, nothing else.” He glanced around. “It looks great, though.”
“I’m glad you approve. Listen, I know this isn’t what you wanted, but if you ever need me to come over again, just call. I can even watch the girls if you need time away.”
Time away from his girls. He needed that less than anything. He needed them with him, all the time. He didn’t ever want them to be alone and afraid again. She didn’t know that, though. There were details that no one knew but Wyatt, Andie and a few others. He’d left Florida to escape those memories. Florida, where he and Wendy had been in youth ministry after college.
“Thanks, I appreciate that. I don’t usually leave them, other than in the church nursery. But I do have to head out in a few minutes and I wanted to make sure Ryder paid you enough.”
“He did.” She brushed strands of damp hair back from her face. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay with the girls?”
“No, I’ll take them. I’m just going to the store.”
Because he had separation anxiety and so did they. It was about the least manly statement he could think of to make, so he didn’t. He glanced out the window, which gleamed and the fingerprints the girls had put on the glass were gone.
She smiled. “Okay, but the offer stands.”
“Thanks.”
Rachel headed down the stairs with the bucket. He followed. Her shirt stayed carefully in place. He kind of hoped…and then again, he didn’t. He shook his head and worked hard to pull it together.
She stopped at the bottom of the stairs. The girls ran out of the office, pigtails and sunshine. His sunshine. He hugged them both close. But they broke out of his arms and ran to Rachel. She didn’t hesitate, just pulled them close and hugged them as she kissed the tops of their heads.
His phone rang again, not a moment too soon because he needed the distraction from the scene in front of him. Rachel walked away with his girls. He watched them as he raised the phone to his ear.
“Wyatt, how did you like your surprise?” Ryder laughed from five hundred miles away.
“Thanks.”
“Is she done cleaning?”
“Yeah, the house looks great. I’m going to think of a nice surprise for you when you get back.”
“You should be more appreciative. You have a clean house and a pretty woman to clean it.”
“I wouldn’t talk like that in front of my wife if I was you.”
“She knows I only have eyes for her. But you, on the other hand…”
“Ever heard of the word subtle, little brother?”
Ryder laughed, louder, longer. Wyatt held the phone away from his ear.
“I guess subtle has never been my thing,” Ryder admitted.
“Listen, I have to go shopping. Remind me that I owe you for this. And the payback won’t be pleasant.”
Rachel walked toward him, the laughter gone from her dark eyes and he didn’t even know why. He couldn’t let that be his problem. He had enough girl problems. One was two and the other was almost four. They were more than enough to keep him busy and keep him guessing.
“I’m going now.” She stared straight at him, her gaze unwavering. She had a few freckles on suntanned cheeks.
“Okay, well, thank you.” He didn’t have time for this. “Look, I appreciate what you did. The place looks great. I just…”
“Don’t need a housekeeper?”
He shrugged off the sarcasm in her tone. They both knew that he needed a housekeeper. What he didn’t need was that little smile of hers making him feel as if he needed a housekeeper and an intervention.
“Yeah, I don’t need a housekeeper.” It hadn’t been what he’d planned to say, but it worked.
What he really didn’t need was someone who smelled like spring and who reminded him of everything he’d lost.
Chapter Two
Rachel drove away from the Johnson ranch and she was pretty glad to see it in her rearview mirror. She wanted to be a good distance away before the girls released the balloons with messages to their mother. It wouldn’t have done anyone any good to have Rachel crying by their side.
She really should have known that she wouldn’t be able to do this, spend more time with them, and stay detached. After years of considering herself a real pro at detachment, two little girls and a cowboy were going to be her downfall. The signs had been pretty obvious. The girls had been in the nursery and her preschool Sunday school class for six months and it had been way easy to fall in love with them.
Of course Wyatt wasn’t included in those emotions. She felt sorry for him, nothing else. After hearing his conversation with Ryder, she knew he felt about the same for her.
It shouldn’t matter to her what he thought. At twenty-nine, when she finally knew who she was and what she wanted out of life, Wyatt Johnson’s opinion shouldn’t matter. But old feelings of inadequacy didn’t care what she thought of herself now. Those old emotions had a way of pushing to the surface when she least needed them.
So what? She would never be homecoming queen and guys like Wyatt Johnson always laughed behind her back.
It didn’t matter anymore. She wasn’t the fat girl in school or the rebel in the back of a police car trying to prove to people that she wasn’t the good little preacher’s kid.
She knew who she was, and who God wanted her to be. She worked in children’s ministry, helped when her mother’s lupus flared, and she loved her life in Dawson.
All of those pretty sermons to herself didn’t take away a sudden desire for a big, fat chocolate bar. Or brownies with ice cream. She reached for her purse and dug her hand through the side pocket for a pack of gum. As she drove she managed to get a stick of peppermint gum out of the package.
She shoved the gum in her mouth and chewed, trying to pretend it helped the way chocolate helped. It didn’t.
Forget Wyatt, she had other things to do. She was supposed to work for Etta Forrester that afternoon. Etta designed and sewed a line of tie-dye clothing that she sold to specialty boutiques around the country. Etta made sundresses, skirts, pants, tops and even purses. Rachel worked for her a couple of days a week, more if Etta needed. With Etta’s granddaughter, Andie, married to Ryder Johnson and Andie’s twin, Alyson, married to Jason Bradshaw, Etta had more need for help these days.
She drove down the road and pulled into Etta’s driveway. The bright yellow Victorian with the lavender wicker furniture on the wide porch managed to lift Rachel’s spirits. Etta stood on the porch with a watering can in her hand and a floppy hat covering her lavender-gray hair. She waved as she poured water on the flowers. Last week she’d made a trip to Grove and she’d come home with a truck load of plants for the baskets and flower gardens.
Rachel parked under the shade of an oak tree and stepped out of her car. As she walked up the wide steps of the porch, Etta put down the watering can and pulled off her gardening gloves. Her nails were long, painted purple and never chipped. It was a mystery how Etta could take care of this farm, make her clothing and always be perfectly manicured.
The one time Rachel asked how she did it, Etta laughed and said, “Oh, honey, life teaches those little skills.”
Rachel doubted it. She always felt about as together as a pair of old shoes falling apart at the seams. She couldn’t paint her nails without smudging at least one. And her hair. The only good thing that had ever happened to her hair was a ponytail holder.
“Good to see you, honey.” Etta slipped an arm around Rachel’s shoulders. “I thought we’d have tea out here before we get started on those T-shirts.”
“Tea sounds wonderful.”
“You look about wrung out. Did you clean Wyatt’s house today?”
Rachel nodded and picked dead blooms off the petunias.
Etta lifted her sunglasses and stared hard. “Well, tell me how it went.”
“The place was definitely a mess.” She shrugged and kept plucking blooms, tossing them over the rail into the yard. “And so is Wyatt.”
“Oh, he isn’t such a mess. He just needs a little time.” Etta lifted the little watch she wore on a chain around her neck. “Goodness, speaking of time. I’m going to keep watering. Do you want to bring the tea out?”
“I can do that.”
Etta had lowered the sunglasses. The big rhinestone encrusted frames covered half her face. “And try not to look so down in the mouth, honey. You’re going to depress me and you know I don’t depress easily.”
Rachel smiled. “Is that better?”
“Not much.” Etta laughed and went back to watering.
