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“I mean it,” he said with a gruff chuckle, the sound gentle and yet innately masculine. “Some people couldn’t handle raising another woman’s child—under those circumstances, anyhow.”
“It isn’t Madison’s fault that Jeffrey Chamberlain was a—”
Hutch’s mouth crooked up at one corner and sad mischief danced in his eyes. “Rat bastard?” he finished for her.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s about the size of it.”
He grinned full-out, which put him at an unfair advantage because when he did that, her bones turned to jelly and her IQ plummeted at least twenty points. “Well now,” he said. “We finally agree on something.”
“Go figure,” Kendra remarked, going for a snippy tone but not quite getting there.
“We’re on a roll.”
“Or not.”
He laughed, shook his head. “I’m about to say something you’ll have to agree with, whether you want to or not,” he warned.
She felt a weird little thrill and could have shaken herself for it. “Is that so?”
Hutch nodded toward the cottage doorway, where Madison finally stood, rubbing her eyes and yawning, Daisy at her side. “You’re lucky to have that little girl in your life, however it came about, and the reverse is true, too. You were born to be a mother, Kendra—and a good one.”
“Damn it,” Kendra muttered, at a loss for a comeback.
Hutch grinned as Madison’s eyes widened—she was slowly waking up—and a glorious smile lit her face. She scrambled toward them.
“Hello, cowboy man!” she whooped, feet still bare, curls rumpled, cheeks flushed.
Hutch laughed again. “I guess you might as well call me that as anything else,” he said. He exuded the kind of quiet, wholesome approval little girls crave from daddy-types.
Not that Hutch was any such thing.
“Do you like dogs?” Madison asked earnestly.
As if she’d already made her own decision on that score, Daisy suddenly leaped into Hutch’s lap in a single bound, bracing her forepaws on his shoulders and licking his face.
“Yep,” he said from behind all that squirming dog. “And, as you can see, they’re inclined to like me, too.”
“Good,” Madison said.
Kendra felt unaccountably nervous, though she couldn’t have said why. “Madison—” she began, but her voice fell away.
“Do you like kids, too?” Madison pressed.
Kendra groaned inwardly.
Hutch set Daisy carefully on the ground, patting her still-bouncing head. “I like kids just fine,” he said.
“Do you have any?”
Hutch shook his head. “Nope.”
“Madison,” Kendra repeated, with no more effect than before.
“Do you like my mommy, too?”
Kendra squeezed her eyes shut.
“As a matter of fact,” Hutch replied easily, “I do. Your mother and I are old friends.”
Kendra squirmed again and forced herself to open her eyes.
Even rummaged up a smile that wouldn’t quite stick.
Before she could think of anything to say, however, Hutch unfolded himself from his lawn chair with Madison standing nearby, still basking in his presence. “I guess I’d better head on home before I wear out my welcome,” he drawled, and there was a twinkle in his eyes when he snagged Kendra’s gaze. “See you around,” he added.
Madison caught hold of his hand. “Wait,” she said, in a near whisper.
He leaned down, resting his hands on his knees. “What?” he asked, with a smile in his voice.
“Will you be at the rodeo thing?” Madison continued.
“Sure enough,” Hutch said, his tone and manner so void of condescension that he might have been addressing another adult. Maybe that was his gift, that he treated children like people, not some lesser species. “Never miss it. After all, I’m a cowboy man.”
Madison beamed, evidently satisfied, and when Daisy bounded off in pursuit of a passing butterfly, her small mistress gamboled after her, arms wheeling as if she might take flight.
“Cowboy man,” Kendra reflected thoughtfully.
“I’ve been called worse,” Hutch joked.
“That’s a fact,” Kendra said brightly. She could have listed half a dozen names she’d called him over the years, to his face and in the privacy of her own head.
Whistling some ditty under his breath, and still grinning, Hutch turned and headed for his truck, lifting a hand in farewell as he went.
He got behind the wheel and drove away, and Kendra didn’t watch him go.
* * *
“YOU’RE WAY TOO pregnant to be at work,” Kendra told Joslyn the next day, stepping into the storefront office after dropping Madison off for the morning preschool session and leaving Daisy at Tara’s for a doggy playdate with Lucy, only to find her business partner already there, tapping away at the keyboard of her computer.
Joslyn flashed her a smile as she looked up from the monitor. “So I hear,” she said. She sighed good-naturedly. “From Slade. From Opal. From Callie.”
“And now, from me,” Kendra replied, setting her handbag on the edge of the desk since she’d be going out again as soon as she’d checked her messages. She was due at her lawyer’s office at ten-thirty, which was why she hadn’t brought Daisy to work with her.
Madison had been beside herself at the thought of Daisy being left at home alone because, as she’d explained it, “Daisy is a puppy and a puppy is the same as a baby and a baby needs somebody with it at all times.”
Kendra had given in, at least temporarily.
“You’re supposed to be on maternity leave, remember?” she prompted, happy to see her friend for whatever reason, all protests aside.
“Ouch,” Joslyn said out of nowhere, spreading a hand over her zeppelin of a belly and making a wincey face.
“Is the little guy practicing his rodeo moves again?” Kendra asked, smiling. If only every baby could be born into a union as loving and warm as Joslyn and Slade’s—it would be a different world.
“It would seem he’s switched to pole vaulting,” Joslyn said in a tone of cheerful acceptance. After a few slow, deep breaths, she focused on the computer monitor again. “Come over here and check out this listing, Kendra. It’s a rental, but I think it might be exactly what you’ve been looking for.”
Immediately interested, Kendra rounded her friend’s desk to stand behind her and peer at the small white house on the screen. She recognized it, of course; she had at least a passing knowledge of every piece of property in Parable County, be it residential or commercial.
This charming little one-story colonial, with its white clapboard walls and green shutters and wraparound porch, was situated across the street from the town park, just two blocks from the public library. Both Madison’s preschool and the new real estate office were within easy walking distance.
“Why didn’t I know about this?” Kendra mused, studying the enticing image on the monitor.
Joslyn raised and lowered one shoulder, very slightly. “You’ve been out of town,” she replied. “Plus we only sell real estate, we don’t manage rentals.”
Kendra’s brain sifted through the facts she already knew: the colonial had belonged to attorney Maggie Landers’s late aunt, Billie. Upon Billie’s death, at least a decade before, Maggie had inherited the property. She’d had some much-needed renovations done, Kendra recalled, but never actually lived in the house herself. She’d rented it out to a schoolteacher, long-term. Now, apparently, it was empty—or about to be.
She practically dived for the telephone. Sure she already had an appointment with Maggie about Madison’s trust fund, but she didn’t want someone else snapping up the house.
Maggie’s front office assistant put Kendra through to the boss right away.
“Tell me you’re not canceling our appointment,” Maggie said without preamble. “If you do, you’ll be the third one today.”
Kendra’s heart had begun to pound. “No,” she said quickly, smiling. Hoping. “No, it isn’t that—I’ll be there at ten-thirty, like we agreed—”
“Kendra,” Maggie broke in, sounding concerned now. “What on earth is the matter? You sound as though you’ve just completed a triathlon.”
“Your house—the rental—Joslyn just showed me the listing on the internet—”
Maggie gave a nervous little laugh and Kendra could see her in her mind’s eye, fiddling with that strand of priceless pearls she always wore. “Yes? What about it?”
“Is it still available?”
Maggie sounded relieved when she answered, “Of course. The ad just went up today.”
“I’ll take it,” Kendra burst out. Her own recklessness left her gasping for breath—she never did reckless things. Well, not reckless things that didn’t involve Hutch Carmody, anyway.
“Sight unseen?” Maggie echoed.
“It’s perfect for Madison and me,” Kendra said, relaxing a little.
“Don’t you even want to know how much the rent will be?”
Kendra strained to see Joslyn’s monitor again and scanned quickly for the price. “That won’t be a problem,” she nearly chimed.
Maggie was quiet for a few moments, taking it all in. “All right,” she said finally. “Come early and we’ll go over the details of the trust fund, then run over to the house so you can have a look inside before you commit yourself to a year’s lease—”
Kendra bit back a very un-Kendra-like response, which would have gone something like this: I’m committing right now. Do you hear me? Right now!
“Fine,” she said moderately. “But please don’t show it to anyone else in the meantime.”
“In the meantime?” Maggie echoed, with a friendly little laugh. “As in, say, the next half hour? Relax, Kendra—if you want the house, it’s yours.”
Joslyn was grinning throughout the whole conversation.
“Thank you,” Kendra said, near tears, she was so excited. She said goodbye, hung up and grabbed her purse from the corner of her desk.
“Kendra,” Joslyn said, “take a breath. It’s meant to be.”
“That,” Kendra retorted lightly, already on her way to the door, car keys in hand, “is what you said about Hutch and me. Remember?”
“Oh,” Joslyn answered breezily, “I haven’t changed my mind on that score. Sooner or later, I’m sure you’ll both come around.”
Kendra shook her head, gave a rueful chuckle. “Don’t work too hard,” she said, opening the office door. “If you’re still here when I get back, I’ll buy you lunch at the Butter Biscuit.”
“One more lunch at the Butter Biscuit,” Joslyn said, “and I’ll be a butterball. Anyway, I promised to meet Shea at the Curly Burly at one—we’re going shopping.”
Kendra nodded and rushed out.
Five minutes later, she was seated in Maggie’s office, on the very edge of her chair.
Maggie had already warned her that building a legal structure that would protect Madison’s considerable financial interests would require a series of meetings, if only because of the complexity of the task.
Kendra listened to Maggie’s explanations and suggestions as patiently as she could, but her mind was on the one-story colonial with the fenced backyard. This, too, was unlike her—she usually focused keenly on whatever she was doing at the time, but today, it was impossible.
Maggie, a pretty woman with short hair, gamine eyes and very nice clothes, finally chuckled and laid down her expensive fountain pen.
“You’re not getting a word of this, are you, Kendra?” she asked.
Kendra smiled and shook her head. “I’m sorry. From the moment I realized the house might be available, I’ve been fidgety.”
Maggie collected her handbag from a drawer of her desk. “Then let’s go and do the walk-through,” she said. “Then we’ll come back here and take another shot at running the numbers for Madison’s fund.”
“I’d like that,” Kendra said, feeling almost giddy.
“Follow me, then,” Maggie said, jangling her car keys.
The cottage had been freshly painted, Kendra noticed with a pang of sweet avarice, and so had the picket fence out front. The flower beds were in full bloom and the lawn, newly mown, smelled sweetly of cut grass.
It was so easy to imagine herself and Madison living here.
“I knew you were selling the mansion, of course,” Maggie said when they got out of their cars and met on the sidewalk in front of the colonial. “But I guess I thought you’d be in the market to buy a place, rather than rent.”
“I did plan on buying,” Kendra answered, letting her gaze wander over the sleeping-in-the-sunshine face of that perfect little house, “but I’m learning that it’s wise to be open to surprises.”
Maggie smiled and opened the creaky gate. “Isn’t that the truth?” she responded.
CHAPTER FOUR (#u01e1452d-cfc2-529f-9208-b15cd31f0d4c)
WHEN HUTCH FINALLY caught up with Brylee, she was in her small but well-organized warehouse on the outskirts of Three Trees, helping to stack boxes as they were unloaded from the back of a delivery truck.
