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Words still stuck in his throat. He looked at her. He looked at the picture. He looked back at her. And nothing came out of his mouth. If he took her at her word, if he took what she was saying literally—well, then she had to be a mail-order bride. He swore softly, shaking his head. What had he done, stepped back in time? People didn’t do things like this anymore. Did they?
Grasping at straws, he waved the envelope at her. “This is a joke, right?”
She stared at him for a moment, then tossed her head and turned into the kitchen, taking off her suit jacket as she went. “Is there an apron in here somewhere?” she asked, then grabbed a large tea towel and tied it around her waist without waiting for an answer.
“What are you doing?” he asked, following her, still clutching the envelope, still feeling very much at sea.
She looked up at him with cool defiance. “I’m going to make you something to eat. I’m going to cook.”
He frowned. “You don’t need to cook for me.”
“Why not? Aren’t you hungry?”
He hesitated. It had been a long time since he’d eaten breakfast. “Well, yes, but...”
“Then I will cook for you,” she said, opening the refrigerator and staring inside. “Consider it a form of audition for the job.”
He couldn’t hold back a grin. “This is crazy,” he said, shaking his head.
She nodded, pulling eggs and bacon out and placing them on the counter. “I think so, too,” she said coolly. “But you seem to need to be convinced.”
He slumped back against the counter, watching her, pushing back the erotic fantasies that threatened to break into his thoughts. He had an urge to pinch himself. Could he be dreaming? Talk about dreams come true—here was this woman, offering herself up to...
No, he wouldn’t think about it. That would only end up getting him into big trouble—trouble he didn’t need.
“I don’t mean to ridicule you, you know,” he told her softly. “But I just can’t believe that a woman like you has to resort to something like...like mail order... to get a man.” He grimaced. “It just doesn’t compute.”
She spun and confronted him. “Look. You picked me out of the catalog. You must have liked something about me. You wrote me that nice letter and sent me your picture. You signed a contract with the agency.” She searched his blue eyes, looking for answers. “You sent money for my plane fare. What did you think? That this was all a game? That I would never actually show up?”
He started shaking his head before she was finished and kept shaking it. “That was my brother Greg who did all that,” he tried to explain once again. “My name is Joe. It wasn’t me.”
She grabbed his hand and looked up into his face, her eyes huge with determined entreaty. “Give me a chance,” she said softly. “Please. I’ll be a good wife. And my kids...” She shook her head, and for a moment he was afraid her eyes would fill with tears. “They’re good kids. You just wait. They won’t be any trouble at all. You’re going to love them.”
Loving kids had never been one of his goals, but he had to admit he was beginning to feel a definite temptation in other directions. He liked her big brown eyes and the way her breasts filled out the pale pink silk shell she wore and the way her lower lip seemed to pout when she was annoyed with him. His mind began to wander for just a moment, mulling over what it would be like to order up a woman like this from a catalog and have her appear on the doorstep, ready to be a wife. It was a caveman dream, but he kind of liked it.
But before he had time to indulge in it for more than a few seconds, a cry came from the living room, and suddenly a huge crash shook the house.
“Yeah, those adorable kids,” he muttered to himself as she jerked away, spun and started for the living room. “I just can’t get enough of how cute they are.”
But he started after her. Until Greg showed up, he guessed it was his job to act as a sort of surrogate husband here. Though before he made any commitments, maybe he ought to think over just exactly what that was going to entail.
His gaze fell on the letter she’d left lying on the table, and he stopped, hesitating. It wasn’t nice to read other people’s mail. But what the hell. He had a situation here. Reaching out, he took hold of the letter by the corner, as though he wasn’t sure it wasn’t contagious, and carried it over to where the light from the window was the brightest. Gingerly, he unfolded it and began to read.
It was the letter Greg had written to Chynna, but it didn’t sound like his brother at all. The handwriting was Greg’s. So was the signature at the bottom of the page. But the thoughts he’d written down sounded like someone else’s entirely. There were references to loneliness and love of the land, and those he could readily identify with his brother. But there was also talk of soul mates and walking hand in hand through life together, which made Joe want to laugh out loud.
What did he do, copy these romantic phrases from a book? he wondered to himself as he looked them over. The closest thing to a soul mate he could think of for Gregg might be a rabid wolverine.
He frowned, shaking his head. He and Greg had never been close. In some ways, they were the typical Cain and Abel siblings. Whenever Joe said black, Greg claimed white. When Joe wanted peace, Greg turned his radio on high screech. When Greg came home late, like as not, Joe would have locked the door. When Greg spoke, Joe tended to answer him sarcastically, and when Joe laughed, Greg found a way to turn the mood surly.
Now that Joe had been away all these years, he sometimes regretted the way they couldn’t get along. He’d even decided, a few years back, that the rift between them was childish and should be over now that they were men, so he’d come home. But nothing had changed. If anything, Greg had grown moodier and more aloof. The planned-for reconciliation hadn’t panned out.
And now this recluse, this mountain man was figuring to take himself a wife, was he? The situation made no sense at all. And yet it was obvious Chynna was right when she claimed to be here because Greg had...good Lord! Ordered her from a catalog?
His brother, Greg, was preparing to take himself this lovely woman as a wife.
“Over my dead body,” Joe muttered aloud, thinking of Chynna and her wide, hopeful gaze. “It can’t happen. I’d better get her out of here as soon as possible.”
Unfortunately, that was going to be more difficult than it might seem. Unless there had been a radical and unexpected change, the only way out by air would be on the mail plane, and who knew what the schedule was these days. There was probably no other way out except by truck or car, and he couldn’t leave. He had to find Greg.
He might as well resign himself to the fact that she was going to be staying overnight at least.
But then she would have to go. It would be much too dangerous to let her stay.
Two
This wasn’t working out the way she’d planned it.
Chynna picked up the small table and vase, which luckily was made of some sort of sturdy ceramic that didn’t break easily. After a nervous glance at the goldfish bowl on the hutch at the window, which luckily hadn’t been touched, she scolded her children for their behavior, her nervousness making her words a little sharper than they might usually have been. Kim looked up at her warily and popped a thumb in her mouth. Rusty’s lower lip began to quiver. Chynna noted that fact, hesitated, then sighed regretfully and drew him to her.
Her kids were usually so good. She’d been so sure they would charm this man she’d come to marry, make him happy to have them as a family. Instead, things were slipping out of control.
“What is it, Rusty?” she asked, her instincts telling her that something other than the overturned table was bothering him. As she looked down into his earnest face, it seemed to crumple beneath her gaze, and he threw himself against her.
“I bit the man,” Rusty told her, sobbing quietly into her shoulder. “I bit him.”
She frowned, holding him close and trying to understand what it was he was saying. “What man? Greg Camden?” He nodded, his face pressed into the hollow. “You bit him? You mean with teeth?”
Rusty drew back so that she could see him, made a face, then clamped his teeth together with a snap. “Like that,” he said, nodding tearfully. “I’m sorry, Mommy. I d-d-didn’t mean to.”
Chynna recalled the sight of her son racing down the hill and Greg coming behind him and she winced. “Did he do anything to you?” she asked anxiously, studying his dirt-streaked face.
“I was hiding,” he said, gulping back a sob. Huge drops of water stood in his eyes. “I thought he was going to grab me. So I did this.” He snapped his jaws together again, his eyes brightening. Obviously, he was beginning to enjoy the reenactments. “I did it hard,” he said with just a hint of satisfaction. “He yelled.”
“Oh, Rusty,” she cried in horror, pulling him to her chest and rocking him. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”
“I was protecting myself from a stranger,” he reminded her, echoing lessons she’d taught him, his childlike voice carefully enunciating the grown-up words.
Her son had bitten the man she was planning to marry. She closed her eyes. Had she thought things were slipping out of control? Galloping was more like it. She caught her breath and straightened her shoulders. There had to be a way to salvage the situation, but it had better be done quickly.
“Come on,” she told Rusty, swinging him down to his feet. “Let’s go into the other room. You have to apologize.”
He hung back, dread filling his shining eyes. “Do I have ta?”
“Yes, you have ta. Come on. And make it sincere.”
He slunk along beside her, trying to hide behind her skirt as they made their way into the living room, where the man he’d bitten was waiting.
Joe was still pondering the letter, his blue eyes frowning, but his expression changed as he looked up to see Chynna and Rusty coming toward him. His gaze narrowed appreciatively as he watched her neat form walking briskly through the room. No, it still didn’t make sense. If you really could get something like this from a catalog, the mail would be swamped with orders. How did his brother get so lucky?
She stopped before him, tugging on her son’s arm to pull him out from behind her. “Rusty tells me he bit you,” she said, going right to the point. “He wants to apologize.”
“Oh, yeah.” He’d forgotten about that. He held out his hand and looked at it. The bite marks were still quite distinct, though the skin hadn’t broken. Shrugging, he smiled at the freckle-faced boy. “This is nothing. Baby bites. You want to see where my brother bit me when he was about ten?” He pushed back his sleeve and revealed a long, jagged scar on his bicep. “Now, that’s what I call a bite,” he said rather proudly. “It tore flesh open. The traveling nurse had to be flown in to give me stitches.”
Rusty stared at him with wide eyes, but if Joe had been harboring any thoughts of bringing the boy closer with his old war stories, he realized he wasn’t going to win over the kid this way. Instead of laughing or looking impressed, Rusty looked terrified.
Joe looked into those pained eyes and shrugged. What the hell, he was no good with kids. Never had been. And there was hardly any point in getting close to a boy he was never going to see again after...
Now, that was just the point, he thought as he rolled his sleeve back down. After what? How long was he staying and how close a relationship were they going to be forced into? He glanced into Chynna’s lovely face. It didn’t tell him a thing.
“We need to talk,” he said evenly.
She nodded. “Of course,” she said crisply. “But I need to feed my children. They haven’t had anything since midmorning. I’ll fix something for all of us and put them down for a nap, and then we can go over the ground rules.”
His mouth relaxed into a lopsided grin. Her phrasing struck him as amusing. “The ground rules?” he repeated. “I only want a discussion, not a sparring session.”
She tossed her head back and gave him a cocky smile that didn’t quite warm her eyes. “You may just get both,” she told him as she turned away. “Be prepared.”
He gave her a Boy Scout salute, but she didn’t see it. She was already halfway out of the room, Rusty clinging to her and glancing back as though afraid Joe might be following them.
Watching him, seeing the apprehension in his eyes, Joe winced, thinking of how the boy would deal with Greg. His brother wasn’t known for compassion or tact. In fact, he’d always considered him a sort of goofy recluse, sort of a mountain man with no need for real human companionship. To think of him ordering up a woman came as something of a shock. And knowing his brother, to have the woman show up with two kids in tow would not go over awfully well. She would be lucky to get out of here before Greg got back.
But where was Greg, anyway? Why wasn’t he here to greet his bride-to-be?
Joe turned and gave the room another quick examination. The place was surprisingly clean, though there was clutter here and there. He’d noticed dishes in the sink, but the food hadn’t been on them long. Two long strides brought him to the storage-room closet, and opening it, he discovered that his brother had taken camping gear and cooking equipment. If he’d left that morning, it looked as if he wouldn’t be back for a few days.
Joe swore softly and shook his head. “In the meantime, what am I supposed to do with your girlfriend, you idiot?” he murmured.
But there was no reply that made any sense at all.
He heard Chynna’s steps and turned to meet her as she came through the doorway into the hall.
“We’re almost ready,” she told him, looking cool and efficient. “I’d like to put them down for naps right after they eat. Which bedroom may I use?”
“Bedroom?” She was obviously planning to stay, and he was going to have to decide what he was prepared to do to get her back on a plane to wherever it was she’d said she came from. “Uh...let me take a look.”
There were three bedrooms in the house. The large one his parents had used still held a four-poster double bed. Next to it was what his mother had always called the green room, a place set up specifically for guests, with the best bed and nicest furniture. He assumed the bedroom at the end of the hall, which he’d shared with Greg, was still set up with twin beds.
He looked into the master bedroom and gestured toward the old-fashioned bed. “They could sleep here,” he said.
She looked around him and nodded. “That would be fine,” she said quietly. “Now, where do I sleep?”
He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. Looking down, he met her gaze, and something in the spark he saw in her eyes set him back on his heels. After all, she thought he was Greg. She thought they were more or less engaged. Funny. He’d never been this close to matrimony before. It felt spooky, and he wasn’t real clear on just what she expected of him.
There was only one way to find out. He would have to be blunt. “You’re not thinking about doing any sleeping together or anything like that, are you?” he asked, trying for a light, humorous tone, but ending up glancing at her suspiciously.
She grinned at him, and in that moment, he knew he’d fallen in a trap and he’d been sucker punched. “Of course not,” she said primly. “Not until we’re married.” She turned and led the way down the hall. “How about this room?” she asked, nudging open the door to the middle bedroom. “Who sleeps in here?”
“I guess you will,” he told her grudgingly. “At least for tonight. You might as well bring your things in.”
“Great.” She smiled at him. “I’ll unpack as soon as we finish our meal.”
He wanted to point out that unpacking would be premature, but she made her way back toward the kitchen before he got the chance, and he shook his head instead, angry with himself for not making it clear right away.
“You’re not staying here,” he said aloud, but there was no one there to hear him.
Kids were weird. That was the conclusion Joe came to after sitting down to a meal with two of them. The little girl, Kimmie, as they seemed to call her, had a hard time eating, seeing as how she refused to take her thumb out of her mouth. And Rusty ate quickly, glancing up at Joe as though he were afraid the large man would grab his food right off his plate if he didn’t watch him carefully. Chynna tried hard to get a pleasant conversation going, but it was no use. For that, they needed a certain level of comfort and trust that just wasn’t there.
“The countryside around here certainly is beautiful,” Chynna remarked. “Flying in, you could almost see the curve of the earth. The forests look like they could go on forever.”
Joe grunted, but his attention was diverted by the sight of Rusty’s chipmunk cheeks bulging with food. Was he expecting a long, hard winter? Or just making up for lost time? Hard to tell.
“I imagine you’re snowed in here most of the winter,” she went on. “It doesn’t look like snowplows would get out this way.”
“Uh...no,” he muttered, distracted as Kimmie, thumb firmly in place in her mouth, picked up a pea with her spare hand and calmly smashed it against her nose. He grimaced and looked up at Chynna, wondering where she stood on the playing-with-your-food issue and why she wasn’t doing something to stop the child.
“Should she...?” he began.
He gestured toward the little girl, but Chynna was already cleaning the smashed vegetable off her daughter’s nose with a napkin, making the move as though it were something she did every day, and going right on.
“This is going to be a very different experience for us,” she said serenely. “The children have always lived in the city. And come to think of it,” she added with a quick smile, “so have I.”
“What city was that?” he asked, just making conversation.
“Chicago.”
“Oh. Nice lake.” Not a particularly compelling comment, but he had an excuse. His attention was being distracted by the eating habits of children, things he’d never dreamed he would see at the table.
At this moment, Rusty was returning a mouthful of egg to the plate, looking as though he’d been poisoned. Joe stifled a groan, his appetite completely gone. Chynna deftly whipped away the disgusting plate and handed her son a glass of milk, not mentioning what had happened and cleaning up the evidence as quickly as possible.
“I notice you don’t have a television,” she said, wiping a newly smashed pea from Kimmie’s nose and stopping the hand that reached to get another one.
Joe was just glad one hand was occupied with the thumb in the mouth. If the kid had both hands free, who knew what she might rub into her face. He glanced at her, his eyebrows drawn together in a look of bewildered horror. So this was what it was like to be around children? How wise he’d been to avoid it in the past.
But the woman had been asking him something—whether they had television, wasn’t that it? “Uh...no, no television. No signal makes it out this far very effectively.”
“That’s just as well,” she said. “Television is a major purveyor of exactly what I wanted to get them away from.”
“No kidding.” He threw down his napkin and glanced at the door, wondering if it would be rude to take a walk. A long, extended walk. Maybe go right past these kids’ bedtime.
“We’ve brought along some music tapes the kids like to listen to. You do have a stereo, so they’ll be able to use that.”
“Children’s songs,” he muttered, hoping someone would warn him. He wanted to be out of the house before the chanting songs about beluga whales started up. He’d had a friend with a two-year-old once, and the sappy whale song he heard at their house still haunted his nightmares.
Chynna read the aversion in his face and she bit her lower lip, her dark eyes clouded in thought. This was turning out to be more difficult than she’d expected, but she wasn’t going to let that get her down. She was used to coming up against brick walls and learning to dismantle them. Life had been like that for her so far. Not too many primrose paths in her background. Plenty of thistles and thorns and rivers to cross. When you came from times like that, you got tough or you crumbled. Chynna had no intention at all of crumbling. She was going to end up married to this man. That was a promise.
But for some reason, the kids were not cooperating. She glanced at them with a sigh, and then her gaze lingered and her heart filled with sweet love for them. Poor babies. What did she expect? They’d been wrenched away from the only home they’d ever known, flown across the country for hours, shuttled off in the small plane and plunked down in a gloomy old house in the middle of nowhere. And here was their harried mother, demanding they be on their best behavior. No wonder they seemed ragged and stressed out.
Sleep. That was what they needed.
