Bethany Campbell - Home To Texas

Your problems are solved, Lynn had said. Tara thought hard, conflict still roiling deep within her.

But the prospect of a man who was strong and skilled was too tempting. She kept her voice brusque, almost cold. “All right. You’re hired. Today I want you to paint my son’s room.”

He nodded. “You got the paint?”

“No,” she said in the same tone. “I need to go into town and get it. Go home and change clothes. You’re going to get dirty before the day is over.”

He touched the brim of his hat in salute. The gleam came back into his eyes. “I’ve never been afraid to get dirty, missy.”

She stiffened involuntarily. Was he being suggestive? She’d put him in his place double quick. “Call me Mrs. Hastings. Be back in an hour. Don’t be late.”

“I’ll be here,” he said. “At your service—Mrs. Hastings.”

He sauntered back to his borrowed truck. He climbed in, backed up and touched his hat again in farewell. As he drove off, she thought, I hope I haven’t just made a really, really stupid mistake.

THE WOMAN WASN’T WHAT HE’D expected, Grady thought, driving back to the Double C.

She was from California, so he’d figured blond. Her brother was rich, so he’d figured, she’d be thin as a bean sprout, with diamonds rattling around her bony wrists. He’d thought she’d look brittle and expensive. It wouldn’t matter if nature had made her pretty or not; money would make her seem so. She would be as rigorously groomed as a prize poodle.

Wrong on all counts. Her hair was russet, not blond, pulled back from her face, and she wore no makeup. It was as if she didn’t want people to notice she had beautiful hair, a beautiful face.

At first glance, she’d seemed plain. At second glance, she had a kind of simple, almost elegant prettiness. And at third glance, she was stunning.

Best, she was stunning without trying. Her freckled skin was so perfect it was like delicately flecked silk. The mouth was full and well-shaped and innocent of lipstick. The nose was straight, the eyes a peculiar cloudy gray with darker gray around the irises. She’d been dressed in jeans, riding boots and a plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

At first, she’d seemed bewildered to see him. And then he’d been sure he’d glimpsed a spark of sexual interest in those smoky eyes. Hey, from a woman like that a man would gladly accept a sensual invitation.

But she’d canceled it. If he’d caught her off guard, she’d jerked back on guard with a vengeance. At first, a charge of eroticism had leaped between them. But she’d made it stop, as if she’d thrown a switch and shut down the current. She’d become so cold and businesslike that a lesser man might have felt frostbite.

But so what? She’d hired him anyway. Was Mrs. Hastings a snob, letting him know she wasn’t about to slum with a lowlife like him? Or was she basically cold? Was she one of those frigid, ungiving women? Or had she been hurt? Well, whatever the answer, she was easy on the eyes. He’d watch her.

He drove back to the Double C, borrowed a tool chest and post hole digger from the foreman, Ken Slattery, and swapped him the black truck for an older model. Grady hadn’t seen his father this morning, and there was no sign of him now. “Gone into town,” Ken said.

Grady went to the pink bedroom and found that Millie Gilligan had washed and ironed all his clothes, including the ones he’d thought had been clean. She’d even patched the knee of his oldest pair of Levi’s.

He’d awakened early this morning to shine his boots, but before he could get out the back door, she practically wrestled him down and stripped off his shirt so she could iron it. “I delight not in wrinkled raiment. Scabby donkeys scent each other over seven hills,” she’d muttered. She’d demanded to iron his good jeans, too. Then she’d scrambled him the most delicious eggs he’d ever eaten.

Now he went into the kitchen to thank her for doing his laundry. She only repeated her strange pronouncement. “I delight not in wrinkled raiment.”

He asked if he could make himself a sandwich. Her answer was sharp and to the point. “No. Sit.”

She said it with such authority, he sat. Without saying another word, she packed him a whole lunch in plastic things with lids and put them into a sack with a thermos of coffee and a bottle of spring water.

She was an odd little thing, but kindhearted in her way.

The kitchen was fragrant with the scent of freshly baked chocolate cookies; they smelled ambrosial. She wrapped a cookie and put it into the sack. She looked at him with glittering eyes.

“North, south, east, west. It’s not only the chick that needs his nest,” she murmured. “To take the woman by the heart, take the child by the hand.”

Startled, Grady said, “Say what?”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” she said, almost snappishly. “I was singing. An old, old song.”

GRADY GOT BACK TO TARA’S HOUSE before she returned from town. He looked more critically at the place. Jonah had said it was in rough shape. The kid had put it kindly.

Structurally the house seemed sound enough, but the place had an air of having been assaulted. He looked at the graffiti on the wall and garage doors with loathing. He’d get rid of that ugliness.

As for the other damage, porches had been ripped off, the patio torn up. An outdoor spigot dripped forlornly. Grady wasn’t a man who liked being idle. He found the water main, shut off the flow and hauled the toolbox out of the pickup.

Just as he was screwing the faucet handle back in place, a gray panel truck drove up. He stood up, a wrench in one hand, wiping his other on the thigh of his jeans.

Tara Hastings parked and got out. A little kid, thin and blond, hopped out on the other side. Except for his blond hair, he resembled his mother.

The kid acted shy at facing a stranger. He put his thumb into his mouth as if the act could somehow protect him. Grady had a gut instinct that the kid was deeply unhappy. He felt a surge of sympathy for him.

“Del, take your thumb out of your mouth.” Tara said it almost mechanically, as if she’d said it hundreds of times. Del pulled his thumb away. By his furtive glances at his mother, he seemed already planning on how he could slip it back.

Tara struggled to get paint cans out of the truck. Grady went to her side and took the heavy cans from her hands. His hard hand brushed her cool, smaller one. She didn’t blink or react in any way.

“Thank you.” Her voice was clipped.

“This your boy?” He nodded toward the child, who stared at him with wary eyes.

“Yes. Mr. McKinney, this is Del. Del, this is Mr. McKinney, the man I told you about. I hired him to help us.” She kept the same brisk tone. Hoisting an armful of hardware-store bags, she made her way up the back stairs and fumbled to get her key into the lock.

Grady took the key from her so smoothly that she didn’t have time to protest. With a flick of his wrist, he unlocked the door and swung it open for her. “I’ve had your water off,” he said. “To fix that spigot. It was leaking. I’ll turn it back on.”

“Thank you,” she said in that maddening cool way. “It seems like a sin to waste water in country like this.” She set her sacks on the counter and unpacked them with snappy efficiency.

The dog danced around them, and this time he didn’t bristle or bark at Grady. He sniffed at Grady’s boots, the legs of his jeans, then looked up at him, bright-eyed and wagging his tail.

“Hi, boy,” Grady said, and stooped to pet him. The dog fairly wriggled in delight. Grady scratched, petted and stroked him, but at the same time stole a look around the interior. The boy, Del, silently slipped into the living room and switched on the television. A video was already on the player, and the screen blazed into color with a ticking crocodile chasing Captain Hook.