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“That’s it.” She bent forward, wiggling her fingers at the little girl. “Hello, Virginia Marie. Mommy loves you.” Angling a glance over her shoulder, she smiled. “Marie was my mother’s name. And as long as we’re performing introductions, Travis John Stockwell, I’d like you to meet Travis John Saxon.”
If he hadn’t been gripping Peggy’s elbow, Travis would have fallen smack on his face. He opened his mouth, closed it, tugged his hat brim and stared at the floor. “I get it. You’re having fun with me again, right?”
She straightened, eyes sparkling. “If you mean I’m enjoying your stunned expression, yes, I guess I am. But Travis is a fine name, strong, sensitive, gentle—” her gaze jittered and dropped “—just like the man who carries it. I want that for my son.”
Travis licked his lips and shifted. “I don’t know what to say, ma’am—”
“Peggy.”
“Yes’m, Peggy, it’s a real honor—and I appreciate it, really I do, only…”
She cocked her head. “Only what?”
“Only your husband might not be real excited about having his son named after a broken-down rodeo bum.”
For a moment, she simply stared at him, with that tousled mane of hair spiraling around her face like a fountain of flame. Her complexion had pinked up considerably, although she was still extremely fair, and the smattering of freckles were standing at attention like a platoon of rust-colored soldiers. Even without a speck of makeup, Peggy Saxon was one incredibly beautiful woman.
Travis wondered why he hadn’t noticed that before.
She pursed her lips and tapped a bare foot. “First off, Mr. Stockwell, I take umbrage at the term ‘bum.’ You’re a fine man, and I won’t allow you to make light of yourself.”
Completely taken aback, he murmured, “Yes’m, sorry,” then winced at the foolish response.
Ignoring his discomfort, she appraised his body from scalp to toe and back again, with such blatant admiration that he felt his neck heat. “Second, nothing about you is visibly broken-down, and even if it was, I also consider that term to be derogatory and therefore off-limits when referring to my son’s namesake. Last but not least, I have no husband.” She speared him with a look. “Does that about cover your list of objections?”
Travis swallowed hard. “Yes’m, I believe it does.”
* * *
Issuing a pained sigh, Travis settled into the lounger and cooled his forehead with a can of soda. “I’m plumb tuckered. Having babies sure wears a man out.”
In the corner of the Conways’ converted den, Sue Anne swiveled away from the dispatch center to toss her brother a sour look. “Try shoving a ten-pound watermelon up your nostril and I might consider feeling sorry for you.”
He popped the soda can, took a long swallow and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yep, women sure got it easy, just lie back and puff like a hound while us menfolk do the real work.” He ducked as a throw pillow whizzed past his head.
Travis retrieved the pillow and tucked it behind his back. “A mite touchy, eh, sis?”
She scowled at him. “I told Mama I wanted a kitten. She came home with you.”
“And you’ve been bullying me ever since.”
“It’s a rotten job, but someone has to do it.” She smiled sweetly. “You have to admit I’m good.”
“Best bully in the whole danged world, next to that fat-knuckled little horse apple who used to steal my lunch money.”
Sue Anne angled a smug grin. “Who do you think hired him?”
“No fooling?” Travis hiked a brow. “Well, I’m glad to hear that. Takes some of the guilt off me for ripping pages out of your diary and pasting them up in the boys’ bathroom.”
Sue Anne roared to her feet. “You did what?”
Travis tipped back his hat, propped the soda can on his knee and launched into an exaggerated falsetto recitation. “‘I’ll just die if Daniel Harris doesn’t ask me to the spring hop. He’s so-o-o dreamy. Every time he looks at me, my heart flutters and I get all gooey inside—’ Hey!” He flung up his forearms to ward off another pillow, two magazines and a tissue box. “Cripes, sis, chill out, will you? I was just joshing.”
Travis peeked out from under his crossed forearms to judge the extent of his scowling sister’s ire. Her brows were puckered, but not enough to form a pleated bridge across her nose. That meant she was perturbed, but not dangerous. At least, not to Travis. A stranger would have taken one look at that glowering face and run for his life.
Sue Anne Conway kind of had that effect on folks. By any standard, she was an imposing woman. Only an inch shorter than Travis, she outweighed him by twenty pounds and had been three-time women’s barrel-racing champion before settling down with the only man who’d ever beat her at arm wrestling.
After skewering her brother with a narrowed stare, she plopped back into the dispatch chair, ruffled a choppy shock of short brown hair and smoothed her oversized I Brake for Cowboys T-shirt. “Lucky for you the radio console is bolted to the desk, or I’d jam the danged thing in your ear.”
“Love you, too, sis.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Sue Anne sniffed, shrugged, but couldn’t hide a smile. “I love you, too, kid.”
Travis had never doubted that for a moment. His sister was the only stable person in his life, not to mention the only family he’d had since their no-account father drank himself to death on Travis’s sixteenth birthday. Even though Sue Anne had been busy with her own family, she and Jimmy had welcomed the orphaned adolescent into their home.
But not for long. At eighteen, Travis had struck out on his own and had soon earned a reputation as one of the best bronc riders on the circuit. The rodeo became his home, leaving Travis free, mobile and emotionally unencumbered. He liked it that way. And on those rare times when irritated livestock used him for a doormat, Travis always limped back to his sister’s house to sulk and lick his wounds until the call of the whispering wanderer made his boots itch.
Times like now, when he’d been grounded for weeks with a bruised liver and a chest full of cracked ribs. Heaving a pained sigh, Travis retrieved the wet package of pumpkin seeds and shook a few into his palm while the dispatch console hissed to life.
A familiar voice drawled, “Unit one to dispatch. You there, babe?”
Sue Anne swiveled around and flipped the switch. “Hi, sweet cheeks. Where else would I be?”
“Never know. Good-looking woman like you must get lots of offers.”
“’Course I do. Why, there’s a whole line of hopefuls queued in the parlor, just waiting for me to come to my senses and let one of ’em sweep me off my feet.”
“And right pretty feet they are, too.” Jimmy Conway’s voice crackled with humor, but was slurred with fatigue. “Listen, hon, I’m outside city hall, getting ready to roll. Seems a pipe break opened a big ol’ sinkhole outside an apartment unit up on North Nash Street. I can’t take but half a crew. Buzz Ted, will you? See if he can pick up the rest.”
“Ted’s on his way in.” Sue Anne focused on a mural-size city map tacked up on the wall to her left. “He should be a couple of miles from you. I’ll divert him.”
“Thanks, cupcake. Unit one out.”
A moment later, Sue Anne was on the radio with the oldest of her two sons. At twenty, Ted Conway was a chip off the old block, a hard-working, hell-raising, good ol’ boy who’d tear his shirt off for a buddy and risk his life for a stranger in need. Like his father, Ted was boisterous, adventurous and salt-of-the-earth good.
His younger brother, Danny, was less active and more sensitive than either his father or brother, but was every bit as committed to the down-home ethics that had made the entire Conway family one of the best liked and most respected in Grand Springs. Having just graduated from high school, Danny was already firming up college plans despite objections from his chagrined father, who’d always assumed that both of his boys would enter the family business.
If Jimmy had been disappointed that his youngest preferred computers to cabs, Sue Anne had been quietly pleased, not so much by her son’s choice of career but by his fortitude in pursuing that choice. Sue Anne was the backbone of the family, the champion of choice, probably because she’d had so few options in her own life.
At thirteen, she’d been thrust into the roles of mother to a six-year-old brother and housekeeper for a drunken slug of a man who’d never known the meaning of the word parent. If it hadn’t been for watching Jimmy Conway, Travis wouldn’t have had a clue what a father was supposed to do. Jimmy was a good dad, a real good dad. He instinctively knew the right thing to do, to say. He’d raised himself a pair of danged fine sons, too.
But Jimmy had a good dad himself. Travis had long accepted the sad fact that a man who never had a real father could never expect to be one.
Which was exactly why Travis had long ago vowed to never, ever have kids.
“Travis?”
“Hmm?” He looked up, blinked and saw Sue Anne frowning. “Sorry. Guess I was lost in space.”
“So what’s new about that?” She smiled, a maternal, loving kind of grin that always made Travis feel, well, special. “You look tired, kid. Why don’t you go take a nap or something?”
The reminder made him yawn. He rolled his head until his neck cracked, stretched and set the soda can on the table. “Maybe later. Right now, things are still pretty much a mess out there. As soon as the garage finishes washing and fueling unit six, I’ll be on my way and see where I’m wanted.”
At the word wanted, Peggy Saxon’s face popped into his mind with startling clarity. Eyes like a field of spring clover, hair that sparkled like a wood-stoked campfire, and a tweaked-up nose spattered with the cutest freckles he ever had seen. Now, there’s a woman who could make a man crazy with want.
Apparently, Travis’s eyes glazed, because before he knew it, Sue Anne was on his case again.
“Doggone it, Travis, you’re so danged tuckered you can’t even keep your wits about you. There’s no way I’m letting you back on the streets.”
He yanked off his hat, ruffled his hair and issued a frustrated sigh. “That’s not it, sis. I was just thinking about— Aw, hell.” He slapped the Stetson against his knee before resettling it on his head. “She’s all alone, you know? She hasn’t got anybody at all.”
Sue Anne blinked. “Who’s all alone?”
“Peggy…er, Mrs. Saxon.”
“Ah, the twins lady.”
“Can you believe those poor babies are going to grow up without a daddy?”
Sue Anne shrugged. “We did. Long as they’ve got a mama, they’ll be okay.” She widened her eyes, realizing what she’d said. “I’m sorry, hon. I didn’t mean—”
“I know, sis.” He leaned back, understanding that his sister feared his feelings were hurt, but not certain how to explain that when it came to their mother, he couldn’t recall enough to have any feelings at all. “I know you and Mama were real close, and I know how much you miss her. Thing is, I don’t, because I can’t remember anything about her.”
“I wish you could.” Sue Anne fiddled with the microphone cord. “You missed out on so much, Travis. That pains me.”
“I didn’t miss out on nothing. I had you.” He glanced up and sighed. “Aw, geez, you’re not going to tear up on me, are you?”
“Getting a cold, that’s all.” Sue Anne sniffed and cleared her throat. “I shouldn’t have left you so soon.”
“You didn’t leave me. You got married. There’s a heap of difference.”
“You were just a kid.”
“I was nine, old enough to take care of myself.”
“No, you weren’t.” Sue Anne rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands, just as she’d done years ago when she’d been a tearful sixteen-year-old creeping into her baby brother’s room to tell him she was running off to get married. “I should have taken you along instead of leaving you with him.” She spit the last word out like a bad taste, then issued an irritated grunt and spun back to the console. “Go take a nap, Travis.”
“Is that a boss-type order, or a mommy-type order?”
She glowered over her shoulder. “You aren’t too big to whup, boy.”
“Hell, no one’s too big for you to whup.” Travis stood, rolled the kinks out of his shoulder and strode across the room. “Jimmy still have those chain saws out in the shed?”
Sue Anne was on her feet now. “What are you up to?”
“Same as always, about five foot ten.” Grinning, he tipped his hat. “If you need me, I’ll be on Rourke Way. You’ve got the address.”
With that, he sauntered out the door, whistling.
* * *
From her third-floor window, Peggy gazed out at the dark town. A few lights were visible in the distance—glowing windows in the police station across the square and in a squat building down the block that she thought was the telephone company. Apparently, those locations were relying on generators, as was the hospital. Everything else was black, cold. Dead-looking.
She shivered.
“What are you doing up, Mrs. Saxon?” The night nurse scurried across polished linoleum, whispering loudly enough to rouse the other occupant of the ward, a woman who’d given birth only a few hours ago. “It’s after midnight,” the nurse scolded. “You should be sleeping.”
“It’s too hot to sleep.”
“There’s not enough power for air-conditioning,” the nurse murmured, stopping beside Peggy’s abandoned bed long enough to indulge in a pillow-fluffing frenzy. She looked up and brightened. “A sponge bath might make you feel better. Shall I bring a water basin and a washcloth?”
“No, please don’t bother. I’ll be fine.” She gazed back out the window, fighting fingers of fear that she couldn’t quite identify and was powerless to control.
Clucking her tongue, the woman snagged Peggy’s arm, hustling her back to bed. “My dear, you really must get some rest. You’ve a big day on Monday. The blackout will soon be over, and you and your beautiful little ones will home, starting your new life together. Isn’t that wonderful?” Without waiting for an answer, the nurse tucked in the bedclothes, patted her patient’s stiff shoulder and left the room.
Peggy winced, swallowing a sudden surge of tears. She wasn’t really going home. Home was a cheery clapboard house a thousand miles away, a place where her beloved mother had once baked cookies, bandaged skinned knees and hugged away loneliness. There had been nothing on earth that Peggy’s mom couldn’t fix with a loving kiss, a soothing word. She’d raised her daughter alone, without the slightest hint of financial or emotional support from the husband who’d abandoned the family when Peggy was barely four. Her mother had worked, slaved, sacrificed everything for her child. When she’d died, Peggy’s entire world had collapsed.
So Peggy didn’t have a home anymore. All she had was temporary use of a dilapidated structure in a town of friendly strangers, a town in the throes of crisis. Like her mother, Peggy had been abandoned to raise her family alone. Unlike her mother, Peggy didn’t have the foggiest notion how that could be done.
Although Peggy had squirreled away as much money as possible during the past six months to get her through the upcoming maternity leave, but she’d still have to dip into her small savings for food, baby supplies and medical costs until she could return to work.
And then what? Even if she could afford the exorbitant price of good day care, how could she hand her precious children over to strangers?
How could she not? She had to work, had to support her babies.
“Oh, God, Mama,” she murmured into the darkness. “I wish you were here.”
Then she turned into her pillow and wept.
* * *
The moon was out. Travis thought that a good sign. No more rain, at least for a while. Grand Springs could dry out, clean up. Clear the roads.
The last item was the most important, at least to Travis’s mind. He gazed past Sue Anne’s frilly curtains to the sturdy pickup with the weatherproof Fiberglas shell that had served as his permanent home for more years than he cared to remember. It was a good truck, dependable as a well-broken roping horse. He and that old diesel had ridden a lot of miles together, seen a lot of fine country. Grand Springs was a nice-enough place, but it was small, kind of stifling for a career cowboy like Travis John Stockwell.
Travis John.
He smiled, turning away from the window, savoring the image of a screwed-up little face framed by wispy feathers of auburn hair. His namesake. Lordy, the thought sent a proud shiver down his spine. It was almost like being a daddy.
Or, at least, it was as close as Travis would ever get, since fatherhood had been crossed off his list a long, long time ago. Kids were too special, too vulnerable to be stuck with a broken-down rodeo bum—Peggy Saxon’s decisive voice boomed into his mind. I take umbrage at the term ‘bum.’ You’re a fine man, and I won’t allow you to make light of yourself.
Properly chastised—again—he felt himself flinch, then grin stupidly into the darkness. No one had ever scolded him for thinking too little of himself. Truth was, he kind of liked it, liked the spitfire spunk in Peggy Saxon’s eyes as she’d stood up to him without a second thought. Most women were kind of wishy-washy, always trying to please a man, butter him up with wiles and such. Not Peggy. She wasn’t afraid to stand up in a man’s face and tell him what was on her mind. Travis liked that.
And he liked her, too. Feisty women intrigued him. He admired their spunk and independence. Most of all, he liked that they didn’t need him.
Not that he minded helping folks out now and again, but he didn’t want to be needed, to be smothered by the clingy weakness of those who didn’t have enough gumption to face the world on their own.
Peggy Saxon wasn’t like that, he decided. She was a tough woman, and smart, too. He liked the way she spoke, using educated speech the way rich folks used money—by tossing it around without a worry in the world. He admired that, admired her. There was just one small problem. Travis couldn’t seem to get the gutsy little redhead out of his mind. For a man who’d already taken the road as his lady, that was bothersome. And it was scary.
