Amy Frazier - Family By The Bunch

AMY FRAZIER has loved to read, listen to and tell stories from the time she was a very young child. With the support of a loving family, she grew up believing she could accomplish anything she set her mind to. It was with this attitude that she tackled various careers as teacher, librarian, freelance artist, professional storyteller, wife and mother. Above all else, the stories always beckoned. It is with a contented sigh that she settles into the romance field, where she can weave stories in which love conquers all.

Amy now lives with her husband, son and daughter in northwest Georgia, where the kudzu grows high as an elephant’s eye. When not writing, she loves reading, music, painting, gardening, bird-watching and the Atlanta Braves.

Dear Reader,

I have been blessed with family.

Surrounded by my parents, my brother and a host of aunts, uncles and cousins, I grew up to develop a strong sense of identity and of roots.

When I married, my husband’s diverse clan reinforced the concept that family is the framework within which we learn communication and acceptance.

My husband, my two children and I eventually moved far away from our families, forcing us to create new traditions, to establish a new safe harbor, and to learn that family really is a state of mind.

I am not so naive as to believe that everyone’s experience with family has been as traditional or as positive as mine. But I do believe that, regardless of one’s past or present circumstances, one can create a sense of family—and I mean family in any of its many nurturing forms—if one keeps an open and a loving heart.

In Family by the Bunch, Neesa, who cannot have children, and Hank, who dearly wants children “of his own,” learn that biology does not necessarily make a family. They ultimately learn to love, respect and accept “other people’s children” as their own. And isn’t this a lesson—to see family in the eyes of a stranger—from which all humankind could benefit?

With love,

Chapter One

Surrounded by designer-clothed kids and tennis-skirted moms, the cowboy at the elementary school bus stop stood out like a sharply chiseled hunk of granite nestled in a crystal bowl of whipped cream.

Rubbing her eyes as much in reaction to the incongruous sight as against the early-morning glare, Neesa Little reached into her convertible sports coupe’s compartment for sun glasses as she waited for the neighborhood children to board the big yellow bus. Remembering she’d left the sun glasses on her kitchen counter, she muttered sharply under her breath while squinting in the direction of the newcomer at the bus stop.

The man wearing the Stetson most certainly didn’t blend into the pruned, tamed and manicured landscaping of Holly Mount subdivision. Not a bit. In fact, with his faded chambray work shirt, tight jeans and scuffed cowboy boots, he didn’t appear to come from anywhere near Ellis Springs, Georgia. He rather looked as if he’d ridden right out of the wild West. The only things missing were a lariat, a faithful cow pony and a herding dog.

He bent to receive an exuberant farewell hug from the last little girl to board the bus. It was the final day of the school year, and joy showed on the child’s face. Witnessing the simple parent-child scene set off an old familiar pain. Neesa winced, mentally chiding herself to quit dwelling on her own biological deficiencies.

As he straightened, the cowboy looked directly at Neesa, whose open convertible idled in the opposite lane facing the bus.

Her breath caught sharply in her throat. Within the few seconds that he held her gaze, she felt vulnerable, wished she hadn’t put the ragtop down this morning. Wished too that she had, at least, the scant protection of sun glasses, for his dark eyes seemed to knowingly plumb the depths of her very soul.

Plumb the depths of her very soul.

How silly. The June sun was beginning to addle her brains.

It was just an accidental glance, for goodness sakes. And he was a stranger. An ordinary suburban dad. Probably happily married. With two point five kids, a hefty mortgage and golf clubs in the back of a minivan. The cowboy duds would be purely for macho show.

What special powers could he have to know her deepest vulnerabilities? What interest at all could he have in her? She swallowed hard.

“You’re drooling on the steering wheel!” The lilting voice of Claire English, her best friend, neighbor and carpool companion, startled Neesa back into the here and now. “And besides, the bus driver’s turned off the blinking red lights. Git, girl.”

The bus slowly passed them, going in the opposite direction. As Neesa took her foot off the brake, she glanced at the bus stop one more time. The tennis-skirted moms were hovering about the man in the Stetson like long-legged moths to a flame. Obviously he didn’t need yet another admirer.

“Isn’t that a picture?” Claire asked merrily. “Do you suppose he’ll hightail it back to his ranch come Monday morning, or will the lovely ladies-who-lunch lure him into staying? Turn him into their very own suburban cowboy?”

“He doesn’t live here?” Neesa knew Claire would only need one question to get her started.

Her friend inhaled deeply as if she were preparing for the tale she had to tell. Claire English knew everything about their subdivision neighbors. And she liked nothing better than to share her observations with Neesa.

“No, he doesn’t live here. His name’s Hank Whittaker. He’s baby-sitting the Russell kids today through Sunday while Evan and Cilla are out of town, working on their marriage.”

Turning out of the subdivision onto the state road, Neesa remembered from Claire’s past tales that the Russell relationship was rocky. She didn’t want to talk about the Russells, however. “Is Mr. Whittaker really a rancher, or were you just guessing?” She had an ulterior motive in asking.

“Oh, he’s a rancher, all right. Raises and trains logging horses on a spread off Route 176. A big spread, I hear tell.”

Neesa’s professional antennae went up, but she tried not to appear too concerned, for Claire would certainly misinterpret her interest in the handsome cowboy. “Well, he doesn’t quite fit the nanny type,” she offered nonchalantly.

“My, my, if that’s not the truth.” Claire chortled. “Did you get a look at the fit of his jeans?”

Neesa hadn’t. Not really. She’d been lost, instead, in his eyes. Eyes the color of midnight. Intense and probing. With a hint of arrogance. No...not arrogance. Something subtler. More intricate. An aloofness that most probably would coincide with his occupation. Unless she missed her guess, rancher Hank Whittaker was a loner. Someone so sure of the distance between himself and others that he wouldn’t shrink from staring into a woman’s soul.

She shivered. She didn’t like having her soul examined.

Pressing her foot to the accelerator, she skillfully maneuvered the car along the winding two-lane. The wind loosened strands of hair from the clasp at the back of her neck. She loved driving her little roadster with the top down, and she loved driving fast. It was a way of easing, for a brief time, the pressure of professional challenges and the ache of personal worries.

With her thumb she rubbed the bare ring finger of her left hand. Force of habit. Why, after a year, should it still pain her that the wedding band was gone?

“Are we in a hurry this morning?” That was Claire’s hint to slow down. They played this game every time it was Neesa’s turn to drive. Claire liked her gossip quick and breezy, not her commute.