RaeAnne Thayne - Light the Stars

“Yes.”

“Why would you possibly think I’d take you up on it?”

She slanted him a look. “Why not?”

“Because you’re a stranger. Because I don’t know you and I don’t trust you.”

“I can understand your hesitation. I wouldn’t want a stranger caring for my children, if I had any. But I can give you references. I was a nanny in Boston for two years while I finished college. I’ve had plenty of experience with children of all ages and with cooking and cleaning a house.”

Did she actually think he would consider it? “Absolutely not.”

“Just like that? You won’t even think about it?”

“What’s to think about? If you were the parent here, would you leave your kids in the care of a total stranger?”

“Probably not,” she admitted. “But if I were in great need, I might consider it after I checked out the stranger’s references.”

His cell phone rang again before he could answer. One of these days he was going to throw the blasted thing out the window.

He saw Seth’s number on the caller ID and sighed. “Yeah?” he answered.

“Where the hell are you? You said you’d be down.” Seth sounded as frustrated as Wade felt.

“I’m working on it.”

“Those clouds aren’t moving on. In another hour we’re going to be drenched and lose the whole crop. I was thinking I ought to call Guillermo Cruz and see if we can borrow the Luna’s baler.”

The Rancho de la Luna was the owned by their closest neighbor, Viviana Cruz. Though a much smaller operation than the Cold Creek, Guillermo Cruz kept his sister-in-law’s equipment in tip-top shape.

It was a good solution, one he would have thought of if he wasn’t so distracted with the kids. “Yeah, do that,” he told Seth. “I’ll be down as soon as I can. Maybe I can throw together something to fix the other one temporarily. If we can get two machines running out there, we might have a chance.”

He hung up to find Caroline Montgomery watching him carefully.

“As I see it, you don’t have too many other choices, Mr. Dalton,” she said quietly. “Tanner is going to need pampering with that burn of his, at least for a few days, and it needs to be kept free of infection. You can’t just lug him and Cody around the ranch with you where the two of them could get into all kinds of things without proper supervision. And by the sounds of it, your plate is pretty full right now.”

“Overflowing,” he agreed tersely. “Your father picked a hell of a time to take a bride.”

She winced and for a moment there he thought she almost looked guilty before her features became serene once more. “I’m sorry. I understand you don’t want me here but for the children’s sake, at least let me help for a day or two until you come up with another arrangement. I’ve come all this way for nothing, I might as well make myself useful.”

He rubbed the ache in his temple again, the weight of his responsibilities cumbersome and heavy.

What would be the harm in letting her help for a day or two? Her presence would take considerable pressure off him and it would be better for the boys to have more diligent supervision than he could provide.

She was a virtual stranger but, like it or not, she was connected to him now by virtue of their parents’ hasty marriage.

Anyway, the work he had to do the next few days was close enough to the ranch house that he could keep an eye on her.

That might not be such a bad thing, he thought. If she and her father were cooking some kind of scam together, he might have some advantage in the long run by keeping his eyes open and knowing just who he was dealing with.

Hank Dalton had had an axiom for cases just like this. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

What better way to keep her close than by having her right here in his own home?

A stiff gust suddenly rattled the kitchen windows and he watched the clouds dance across the sky as he tried to calculate how much more they would have to pay for feed during the winter if they didn’t get the hay in before that storm hit.

“You’re right. I don’t have too many options right now. I, uh, appreciate the offer.”

The words rasped out of his throat as if they were covered in burrs, and she gave him an amused look, as if she sensed how hard they were for him to say.

He really didn’t like being such a ready source of amusement for her, he decided.

“Where are your reference phone numbers?” he growled.

She looked at him for a moment, then scribbled some names and phone numbers on a memo sheet off a pad by the phone. Wondering if he was crazy, he grabbed them and stalked to his ranch office off the kitchen.

Ten minutes later he returned. He’d only been able to reach someone at one of the numbers, a woman by the name of Nancy Saunders. He knew it could be a setup, that she could be part of the con, but at this point he didn’t have any choice but to trust her words. She had raved about Caroline’s care for her two children a dozen years earlier, about how they’d stayed in touch over the years and she considered Caroline one of the most responsible people she’d ever met.

He didn’t want to hear any of this, he thought. He wasn’t buying half of it but decided he would be close enough to the house that he could keep an eye on her.

He returned to the kitchen and found her cleaning up the few lunch dishes.

“Did I pass?”

“For now,” he muttered. He grabbed his hat off the hook by the back door and shrugged back into his denim work coat.

“Natalie comes home on the bus about three-thirty and she can help you with the boys and with dinner. The freezer’s full of food. I don’t know what time I’ll be in—probably after dark. You and the kids should go ahead and eat, but my mother usually leaves a couple of plates in the fridge for me and for Seth.”

“Your brother.”

“Right. He’s second in command on the ranch and lives in the guesthouse out back, though he usually takes his meals here at the house with the family.”

“What kind of food do you like?”

“Anything edible.” He headed for the door, anxious to be gone. He stopped only long enough to scribble his cell number on the pad by the phone. “You can reach me at that number if you need anything.”

He hurried for his truck, trying his best to ignore the little voice in his head warning him he would regret letting Caroline Montgomery into their lives.

Through the kitchen window, Caroline watched Wade hurry to his truck as if he were being chased by an angry herd of bison.

She still couldn’t quite believe he had actually agreed to her offer. She hadn’t really expected him to take her up on it, not with the animosity that had crackled and hissed between them since she’d arrived at the Cold Creek.

He must, indeed, be desperate. That’s the only reason he would have agreed to leave his children in her care.

The man wasn’t at all what she had expected, and she wasn’t sure what to think of him. So far, he had been surly and bad tempered, but she couldn’t really blame him under the circumstances.

He intrigued her, she had to admit. She couldn’t help wondering what he was like when he wasn’t coping with an injured child, a runaway mother and various ranch crises.

She was intrigued by him and attracted to him, though she couldn’t quite understand why. Something about his intense blue eyes and that palpable aura of power and strength thrummed some heretofore hidden chord inside her.

Big, angry men weren’t at all her cup of tea. Not that she really knew what that cup of tea might be—and heaven knew, she’d been thirsty for a long time. But her few previous relationships had been with thoughtful, introspective men. An assistant professor in the history department at the university in Santa Cruz had been the last man she’d dated and she couldn’t imagine any two men more different.