Читать книгу The Wilde Bunch - Barbara Boswell, Barbara Boswell - Страница 4

“Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong?” The Reverend Will Franklin shook his head, frowning. “I’m afraid I can’t agree with you on that, Mac. It’s too cynical, too pessimistic.” He set down his coffee cup and leaned forward, his expression earnest. “It doesn’t leave room for the power of—”

“Positive thinking,” Macauley Wilde interjected. “I know, I know. I read that book you lent to me. And I tried thinking positive thoughts when Brick was expelled for a week for fighting after only one day at his new school. I tried positive thinking when Lily sneaked out of the house and stayed out all night. I tried to think positive when little Clay and his ‘gang’ broke into the high school and liberated all the white mice from their cages in the science lab and got himself suspended. I tried—”

“I know how difficult it’s been,” Reverend Will cut in. He did not want to be converted to Mac’s cynical, pessimistic viewpoint. At this rate, he might well be. “Your brother Reid’s children have had an—uh—difficult adjustment to life here in Bear Creek.”

“They haven’t adjusted at all,” Mac said grimly. “And they don’t intend to. They’re maniacs, Rev. Sometimes they’re blatant, sometimes they’re subtle, but each child is maniacal in his or her own different way.”

“I won’t deny that the four of them are...uh...difficult.” The reverend cleared his throat. He was aware that he was overusing the word difficult, but it was the most tactful adjective available to him. A man of the cloth should not use words like monstrous, heinous, atrocious. Especially not when describing children. “Anyway, I wasn’t speaking of the power of positive thinking. I meant to say the power of prayer.”

“Religion doesn’t apply to those kids. Unless you’re talking exorcism.”

“I know you’re only joking, Mac.” Reverend Will smiled uneasily. “You’ve always had a keen sense of humor.”

“Rev, I’m not laughing. Those kids have been with me for less than six months and something’s got to give. When they arrived in June, I figured they’d have all summer to settle in and be ready for school in September. Wrong! Things became exponentially worse. Now it’s mid-October and I’m desperate. We can’t go on like this.”

The reverend tensed. “Are you thinking of giving them up to the state?”

“Ha! The state won’t take them. Since they’ve been here such a short time, Montana thinks they should be returned to their native state of California which says, ‘oh, no, not our problem anymore.’ The surrounding states—Idaho, Washington, Oregon—have already warned that their borders are sealed and not to even think of trying to dump those kids there.”

“Hyperbole.” Reverend Will chuckled appreciatively. “Most telling. But I understand the point you’re trying to make, Mac.”

“That the Wilde kids are notoriously incorrigible and have invoked terror in every child welfare worker unlucky enough to cross their path?”

“No. That you intend to keep Reid and Linda’s children, no matter what. I admire your courage, Mac. I mean, your dedication,” Reverend Will corrected himself hastily, his neck flushing. “Your resolve.”

“They’re my flesh and blood, Rev.” Mac sighed. “I loved my brother and I was genuinely fond of Linda, too, even though I tended to see things differently from them.”

“Most people saw things differently from Reid and Linda,” Reverend Will said tactfully. “It’s just too bad that you didn’t get the children immediately after the death of their parents. The year they spent with your brother James and his wife Eve was quite...unfortunate. I think most of their problems stem from that—uh—difficult time.”

“Amen, Rev. I know I wouldn’t want to live with James and Eve, either. I offered to take the kids then, but James and Eve insisted they should be the ones to raise them, as they’re a ‘solid marital unit.’ That’s how they refer to themselves.” Mac grimaced. “They pointed out that since I had been a partner in a defective marital unit, it would be detrimental to bring children into my inadequate broken home. They considered me unfit to raise kids, until they decided they couldn’t stand the little monsters. Then it was ‘off you go to Uncle Mac’s, even though he’s divorced, defective and inadequate.’”

“James and Eve undoubtedly meant well, but they are—” Reverend Will paused to cough discreetly. “Difficult.” There was that word again. But it wouldn’t do for a man of the cloth to use judgmental terms like self-righteous, self-satisfied and petty to describe that solid marital unit of James and Eve Wilde.

“And you are not a failure because your marriage didn’t work out, Mac. You and Amy were too young when you married, you both wanted different things and you grew apart.” The minister shrugged. “Unfortunate, but it happens. What shouldn’t happen is to let a mistake which happened long ago keep you from committing to another permanent relationship.”

“Uh-oh. Here it comes. Your semi-annual ‘find yourself a nice girl and settle down’ sermon.” Mac held up his hands, as if to ward off the words.

“At the risk of sounding like James and Eve, promoting themselves as a solid marital unit, I would like to point out that having a woman in your house would certainly add some stability to the environment. Not to mention a sense of family and permanence which I think those four unfortunate children desperately need.”

“I knew you were going to say that!” Mac stood and began to pace in front of the big granite fireplace. The head of a moose, complete with a spectacular set of antlers, was mounted above it. “And here’s the kicker, Rev. I actually agree with you. I swore I was through with marriage after that fiasco with Amy, but I know I can’t raise those kids alone—I need another adult in the house with me. But just when I finally decide I have to have a wife, guess what.”

He stopped pacing and stared up at the moose head. “No woman is interested in the position. Not when it means taking on my brother’s kids.”

“Did you actually discuss marriage with one of your—lady friends?” Reverend Will asked curiously.

Mac shrugged. “I didn’t exactly propose, but I brought up the subject. Jill Finlay shuddered and said she wasn’t interested in raising anybody’s children but her own. Tonya Bennett told me, ‘Lose the kids and then we’ll talk about marriage.’ Marcy Tanner said she wanted to marry me but insisted that the kids would sabotage our chance for happiness and I should send them packing. Of course, if I didn’t have the kids, I wouldn’t need to marry any of them. I wouldn’t want to. But things being how they are...”

He locked eyes with the moose. “It’s hopeless, Rev. What woman in her right mind would want to marry me and move in with the Gang of Four?”

“To think that just last year, you were voted the ‘Most Eligible Bachelor in Bear Creek’ at the hospital auxiliary’s Valentine dance.” The reverend sighed. “Well, I’m disappointed in Jill and Tonya and Marcy, but not surprised. You need a young woman of exceptional depth and commitment and those ladies do not fit the bill. But I know someone who does, Mac.”

“Trying to play matchmaker, Rev?” Mac stared at the older man. “Thanks but no thanks. If I can’t find my own—”

“Mac, sorry to interrupt!” A tall, tough-looking cowboy burst into the room, sounding as agitated as he looked.

Mac felt his stomach lurch. His ranch manager, Webb Asher, was not quick to panic. He never would have come to the house unless it was a genuine emergency. “What is it, Webb?”

“The fencing is down in the north field, Mac. Can’t tell how it happened, but the cattle trampled it and are milling around in the direction of Blood Canyon.”

“Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse!” Mac growled. “We have to repair that fence and start rounding up the cattle immediately.” He glanced at his watch. “And I’m supposed to pick up Autumn at five at the Community Center when her dance class is over.”

“I could ask my daughter Tricia to pick her up and drive her out here to the Double R,” Reverend Will offered. “That is, if you think Autumn will get into the car with Tricia.”

“I don’t know.” Mac started pacing again. “Autumn doesn’t know Tricia very well and she has all these fears.... That kid sees danger lurking everywhere. And I’ve never heard anybody scream louder than she does when she’s upset.”

“That’s the truth!” Webb agreed, injecting himself into the conversation. “First time that kid screamed, I thought a bear grabbed her and was mauling her. But she was screaming ‘cause her brother was throwing water balloons at her and told her they were filled with acid. Kid thought her skin was going to peel off from acid burns.” The ranch manager shrugged quizzically. “Who’d think a little girl would know about stuff like acid burns?”

“Autumn specializes in the grisly and the gruesome,” Mac said glumly. “I think she does research.”

“The child does have a highly imaginative streak,” Reverend Will murmured. “A pity her imagination tends toward the—uh—morbid side.”

Mac paced faster. “How can I be in two places at the same time? Picking up Autumn and working in the north field? Most of the time I feel as if I’m being pulled in five different directions at once, and I see no end in sight.”

“If you had a wife at home, she would be supervising the children,” the pastor pointed out. “She could help cook meals and—”

“Meals! Dinner!” Mac slapped his hand to his forehead and groaned in despair. “Damn, I forgot about dinner.”

“Can’t Lily cook for the younger children?” Reverend Will asked. “I know she’s taking a cooking class at the high school because my Tricia is in it.”

“Your Tricia might cook a meal for her family, but Lily will either set fire to the kitchen or poison the other kids. Deliberately.” Mac sighed. “Mrs. Lattimore makes us casseroles for three dinners on the days she comes in to clean, but the other four days dinner is one of my major headaches.”

“The young lady I have in mind for you loves to cook, Mac,” Reverend Will remarked, his tone purposefully enticing. “She’s great with kids and has always wanted a family of her own. She is currently working in Washington, D.C., and from her letters, I feel certain that she’s ready for a change. We could bring her to Bear Creek and—”

“Like a mail-order bride, sort of thing?” Mac gave a hoot of laughter. “Sounds like the plot of a romance novel, Rev. And I don’t look a bit like that blond-haired guy who’s on all those covers.”

“It’s no worse than advertising in the personal ads, which many people do these days,” the reverend pointed out. “And my plan is certainly a lot better and safer. I can personally vouch for both you and Kara and the two of you can—”

“Hey, Mac, your nephew is driving the Jeep,” Webb exclaimed, dashing toward the front door.

“Brick?” Mac uttered a curse. “He’s supposed to be in school. If he got himself expelled again...”

The three men raced to the front porch.

“Good Lord, it’s little Clay!” gasped Reverend Will.

For one paralyzing moment the three men watched the second-grader behind the wheel.

“Hey, Uncle Mac,” young Clay shouted out the window of the Jeep, which was jouncing around the circular drive. “I got sent home early today ‘cause I’m infected. See how good I can drive!”

“Infected with what?” Webb backed away from Mac.

“I’d heard the elementary school was experiencing an epidemic of chicken pox,” Reverend Will said. “If Clay has it, he’ll miss at least a week of school. My little Joanna missed two weeks when she caught it a few years ago.”

“Good luck working the ranch and taking care of a sick kid, Mac,” Webb said in a better-you-than-me tone of voice.

“A marriage of convenience is starting to look mighty tempting,” Mac uttered. “A sensible arrangement between two adults who know what they want and are beyond confusing fantasy with the realities of everyday life. At least we’d be spared all those falling-in-love delusions that just mess everything up. Rev, get that family-loving girl you know out here as soon as you can. At my expense,” he added, just before making a mad dash toward the Jeep.

* * *

Kara Kirby read the letter over and over, willing the words to change. They didn’t. The message remained the same.

It is with regret I inform you that, as a result of the recent decision to eliminate overstaffing in certain functions performed within the Department of Commerce, your position will be eliminated within thirty days of the date of this letter.

The letter went on, reassuring her that this was not a result of her job performance, which had been consistently excellent, but rather a necessary adjunct to the department’s continuing efforts to reduce expenditures in areas which no longer occupied the same level of priority as they had in the past.

She was out of a job! Thirty days from today, she would be unemployed, her position as a statistician for the Department of Commerce having been eliminated in another round of government budget cuts.

Hot tears filled Kara’s eyes, and she fought the rush of panic that surged through her. She’d held that job for the past five years! Sure, it had been dull at times—well, much of the time—but the pay was decent and she had health benefits and an annual one-week paid vacation. For the past year, she’d been able to pay the rent on her apartment in Virginia, just across the district line, without having to take roommates to split the costs.

Kara enjoyed the privacy but missed the company and the activity provided by other people. She’d always been reserved and introverted, and living with other girls forced her to socialize. But faced with moving in with strangers after her last roommate, a college friend, had married, Kara decided to go it alone. Now she shared her home and her life with her Siamese cat, Tai, who sat on the sofa across the room, watching her with his inscrutable blue eyes.

Three months ago, on her twenty-sixth birthday, Kara had sat in front of her television set with Tai and had taken stock of her life. She was twenty-six years old, living alone with her cat, her small social circle dwindling as old friends married or left the area, moving on with their lives while hers remained static.

Day after day, year after year, the same routine, same job—a comfortable quiet way of life, but one that offered no surprises, no change. The years had slipped away and she’d barely noticed. Now she was past twenty-five, entering the bottom half of her twenties and grinding inexorably toward thirty. The big three-oh! She was only four years away from it and she wasn’t even dating anybody! The lonely empty years stretched before her with no man, no children. And now, no job!

She sadly faced the fact that she was not going to meet Mr. Right. With women greatly outnumbering men in Washington, D.C., eligible bachelors had their choice of outgoing, high-wage-earning beauties. Why would Mr. Right settle for someone like her—a shy office worker, average in every way?

But some indomitable deeply feminine instinct within her demanded someone to love, to nurture. She had always been one of those little girls who cherished her dolls and prayed for a baby sister or brother. But there had been no siblings, and as she grew older, her dreams were for a child of her own—and a man to father her child, a man she adored, who would love her and their baby. What a wonderful, happy family they would make!

Tai meowed and jumped down from the couch. Seeking attention, he wound his way around her ankles, his meows growing louder and more demanding, until Kara leaned down to pet the soft fur around his ears.

“Oh, Tai, what are we going to do?” It hurt to swallow around the huge lump in her throat. Never had her dreams seemed as impossible as at this bleak moment.

Tai purred loudly, oblivious to her distress, his back arched in ecstasy as she stroked him. Tai was perfectly content with their solitary existence; Kara wished that she were. Loneliness washed over her in waves. The future loomed dark and dismal. In nine months, she would turn twenty-seven, all alone except for her cat.

The telephone rang, jarring Kara out of her reverie of despair. She was grateful for the diversion, even though it was probably just a telemarketer trying to convince her to buy magazines or something else she didn’t want or need.

“Kara?” The warm tones of Reverend Will Franklin sounded over the line.

“Uncle Will!” Kara exclaimed, thrilled to hear his voice.

“How would you like to come out for a visit, my dear?”

“Uncle Will, I’d love to, but—”

“No buts. I have a plane ticket for you. Ginny and the girls and I insist that you come to Montana. Immediately, if possible.”

* * *

Standing at the gate in the airport in Helena, Mac glanced at the photograph in his hand for perhaps the hundredth time since Reverend Will had given it to him one week ago. The young woman featured in the photo was Kara Jo Kirby, age twenty-six.

He had urged the reverend to contact her last week, the day Brick had been discovered hiding in the girls’ locker room with a Polaroid camera. And after chasing Clay around the house trying to apply an anti-itch lotion to his chicken pox spots, Mac had decided that a solid marital unit in which to raise the children was no longer an option to consider sometime in the future, it was an immediate vital necessity.

Reverend Will was delighted. “I’ve known Kara for years, and I can attest to her trustworthiness and high moral standards.” He grew quiet for a moment. “I suppose I should tell you that I was Kara’s stepfather for nearly five-and-a-half years, from the time she was three until she was past eight. Then her mother divorced me,” he added flatly.

Mac gaped at him, speechless. He’d known Will and Ginny Franklin for the past fifteen years, ever since the pastor had arrived in Bear Creek. The couple and their two daughters, now aged sixteen and twelve, were the picture of domestic harmony. This was the first time he had ever heard of a previous Mrs. Franklin.

“It’s no secret, although I rarely speak of my first marriage,” Reverend Will said. “There is really no reason to and, well, Ginny doesn’t care to recall that I was married before. I’ve kept in touch with Kara through the years, though I haven’t seen her as much as either of us would’ve liked.” He handed Mac the picture. “This was taken nearly five years ago. I was in Washington for a conference at the time and visited with Kara there.”

Mac stared at the snapshot. Kara Kirby’s smile looked forced, as if she’d been commanded to say “cheese” just as the picture was being taken. Her hair was brown and blunt-cut in a straight bob, which swung below her jawline. A light smattering of bangs—not those moussed, gel-stiff bangs that stood up like a cresting ocean wave—accentuated her large, wide-set eyes.

Her nose was small and rather elegant, her teeth white and straight, her eyes a startling red, a casualty of the camera flash. Actually, her eyes were hazel in color, according to her former stepfather. In the picture, the young woman was slender, wearing white slacks and a peach-colored shirt, although in the past five years, she might have gained some weight.

Like three or four hundred pounds? Mac swallowed. Well, if she possessed the sterling character and rock-solid virtues attributed to her by the reverend, if she were willing to commit herself to a desperate man and four disturbed kids, then he was damned lucky to get her.

Clutching Tai’s travel cage, Kara deplaned and walked to the gate, her eyes flicking over the small crowd gathered to meet the flight. Reverend Will Franklin did not appear to be among them. In his carrier, Tai meowed piteously. He’d hated the flight and his constant raucous cries had earned him glares and scowls from the other passengers from takeoff until landing. The flight attendants hadn’t been too thrilled with him, either—or with her for bringing him aboard.

“Excuse me. Are you Kara Kirby?”

Kara started at the sound of the deep voice. “Yes.” She looked up—way up, for she was just five foot three, and the man standing in front of her was at least ten inches taller. He looked like the quintessential cowboy, wearing jeans, a chambray shirt and a pair of well-worn Western boots, one of those macho sorts featured in a beer or a Jeep commercial.

“I’m Mac Wilde.” He surveyed her intently. She looked the same as she had in that five-year-old picture. Her hair was exactly the same shade and style and her big wide eyes really were hazel, not vampire red. She was slender, small-boned with a slight frame, although the parts of her figure which interested him the most were not revealed. Her breasts were concealed beneath her thick, tunic-style beige sweater, her legs well-hidden in the slightly baggy pleated gray slacks.

Her clothes were certainly tasteful if not a tad dull—and a lot shapeless. Mac found himself wondering how she would look in brighter colors, more revealing styles. He frowned at the direction his thoughts had taken. Certainly he did not expect her to dress like teenage Lily, whose flamboyant sexy outfits frequently caused him bouts of avuncular shock.

His frown deepened. He’d caught Lily in the act of sneaking back into the house yesterday shortly before 3:00 a.m. and the little conniver had refused to tell him where she’d been. Or with whom.

Kara shifted uneasily, registering the man’s frown of disapproval. She guessed he’d been sent by the reverend to meet her plane—and that he was not pleased with his assigned chore. Probably not with her, either. Men who looked like Mac Wilde—who was tall and dark, but whose sharp blade of a nose and hard mouth saved him from classical masculine perfection, thereby making him even more interesting and attractive to her—men like that never noticed plain, uninteresting women like her.

Uncle Will had informed her that the distance from Helena to his home in the small town of Bear Creek was about one-hundred-seventy-five miles. That meant several hours in the company of this man, who would undoubtedly be heartily bored with her at journey’s end.

Kara searched her brain for something to say, wishing that some devastatingly clever bon mot would spring to mind, but of course, one did not. She’d never tossed off a clever bon mot in her entire life.

“I guess Reverend Franklin couldn’t make it to the airport and asked you to give me a ride,” she said, and immediately scorned herself for stating the obvious. When it came to the dull and the bland, she always delivered!

“I wanted to come,” Mac replied. Having paid for her ticket—he’d even sprung for first class—having braced himself for matrimony, he was champing at the bit to see his bride-to-be.

Kara smiled. “That’s kind of you to say.” She knew he didn’t mean it, and she appreciated his politeness.

Mac stared at her. Her smile was completely unlike that uncomfortable grimace that passed for a smile in the photograph. This smile was genuine, lighting her face and transforming it. Mac was intrigued. That sudden flash of animation revealed a very pretty woman. For the first time he took note of her skin, luminous and smooth as ivory, quite unlike the weather-tanned skin of the locals. Would her cheek be as soft to touch as it looked? And what about her skin elsewhere? He felt a stirring in his midsection which slowly twisted lower.

Kara quickly composed her face into the placid, guarded mask she’d been wearing since they’d met. Mac’s eyes narrowed. Suddenly that mask she wore interested him, too, because he knew there was another woman behind it. One whose hazel eyes sparkled with warmth when she smiled, whose mouth was wide and full and sensuous.

He allowed himself to contemplate kissing that sweet mouth. The heat in his loins flared pleasantly. Yes, he liked the idea of kissing her. This past week, he’d finally come to terms with the necessity of having a wife. After all, a woman had to know more about kids than he did; women possessed the acclaimed maternal instinct to guide them. And the availability of a wife would certainly be sexually convenient for him. Having a woman living under his roof and sharing his bed meant he would not have to go elsewhere for feminine companionship. He had discovered that the concept of dating was logistically impossible with four children around. Especially those four!

As for having sex...well, he wasn’t. An ache spread through his body, reminding him that there had been no woman in his bed since the children had come into his life. The long period of enforced celibacy was taking its toll on his nerves and his temper. He couldn’t wait to rectify the situation with his brand-new wife!

Kara cast a covert glance at him, feeling uncomfortable by the intense, almost predatory, glint in his eye. Her experience with men was woefully at odds with her chronological age. She was suddenly tense and on edge. “Is—is it a long drive to Reverend Will’s house in Bear Creek?”

“About three hours to Bear Creek and another twenty-five minutes to the ranch.”

“What ranch?”

“My ranch.”

“You have a ranch?” Interest replaced her vague unease. “A real Western working ranch?”

“Didn’t the Rev tell you about the Double R?” Mac was confused. He’d assumed the pastor would have provided her with at least the basic facts about her new home.

Kara shook her head no. “He talked a little about his own house,” she added, wondering why Mac appeared to be so perplexed. Was his ranch such a showpiece that he assumed it was the natural topic of conversation between any Bear Creek resident and visitor?

Tai chose that moment to utter an earsplitting meow which seemed to echo throughout the Helena airport.

“I can see that Autumn is going to have some competition in the screaming department,” Mac murmured. Just what the household needed, a cat whose meow could shatter glass.

Kara gulped, not quite sure what he was referring to, but had no doubts that he did not appreciate Tai’s no-holds-barred, executive meow. “Tai isn’t a good traveler,” she apologized. “This was his first flight and he’s very unhappy.”

Mac kept staring at her. She found his silence unnerving. “I—I’m glad that I insisted on bringing Tai in the cabin with me, though.” Mac Wilde’s eyes were a deep, dark brown, piercing and intent. When she felt his gaze sweep over her once again, a warm blush stained her cheeks.

“I know he wasn’t too popular with the crew and the other passengers, but I just couldn’t consign him to the freight area of the plane,” she continued, averting her eyes from Mac. “Tai’s never traveled before—it might’ve left lifelong emotional scars.”

“A cat with emotional scars,” Mac repeated. He decided her concern boded well for the kids. After all, if she had empathy for a cat, she would undoubtedly have it for four young orphans who had been uprooted for a second time after their parents’ demise.

“Come on, we’ll pick up your luggage. It should be in the baggage area by now. Then we’ll head out to the ranch.”

“I—I’d rather go to Reverend Franklin’s house.” Kara stood stock-still, clutching Tai’s carrier. “It’s been so long, I just can’t wait to see Uncle Will. Oh, and—and Ginny and the girls, too,” she added quickly.

Mac was not pleased, but he decided her request was not unreasonable. The pastor used to be her stepfather, and it had been five years since they’d seen each other. “Okay,” he agreed. “But I can’t leave the kids for too long.” The prospect of them on the loose made him shudder, considering the havoc they managed to wreak when under supervision. “We’ve really got to get going!”

He headed toward the baggage area, leaving Kara to follow him. She watched his tall muscular frame stride away from her. He had children. It was inevitable that an attractive, virile man such as he would be married with children. She wondered where his wife was and why, if he didn’t like leaving the children for long stretches of time, he had agreed to drive all the way to the airport to pick her up.

She thought about the way he had been looking at her. It didn’t seem right for a married man to stare in that particular way. Unless she was overreacting and misinterpreting? Was she turning into a suspicious spinster who spied a slavering sex fiend in every male who glanced her way?

The notion depressed her. She’d always despised that dreadful old card game Old Maid; now it appeared she was turning into the personification of the losing card. Kara flinched at the thought.

Her shoulders drooping, she trailed after Mac to retrieve her luggage, with the yowling Tai announcing his arrival and issuing complaints to everyone in the airport.

* * *

“How many children do you have?” Kara asked politely as they left the outskirts of Helena in Mac’s sturdy Jeep Cherokee. She’d taken Tai out of his carrier and held him on her lap, which had finally quieted him. But the cat was still tense and on guard, his blue eyes darting around the roomy interior of the vehicle.

“Four,” Mac replied. Surely the reverend had mentioned the children, the sole reason for her journey out here! He glanced across the seat at Kara and saw her stealing a quick glance at him. She flushed a little, embarrassed to be caught looking at him.

“How nice.” Kara continued in those same courteous, impersonal tones.

Mac noted that she was able to say “how nice” with a straight face. Exactly what had the pastor told her, anyway?

The radio was on, and an intensely romantic song pulsed over the airwaves. Kara stroked Tai’s fur and tried to calm her own increasingly taut nerves. She and Mac were alone, enclosed inside, and suddenly the atmosphere seemed disturbingly intimate.

She was acutely aware of his strong masculine presence. She couldn’t keep her eyes from straying to him. His big hands on the wheel, his broad shoulders, the wide powerful chest—Kara took inventory of them all. As if of its own volition, her gaze abruptly dropped lower to glide over his long, muscled legs, though she was careful to avoid the button fly of his jeans.

She was ogling him! Kara was shocked by her own blatant—and completely inappropriate—behavior. She had never actively ogled a man in her entire life and her first chosen target was a married man, a father of four!

It must be jet lag. Kara quickly strove to remedy her appalling lapse.

“How old are the children?” she asked, toying with Tai’s orange-and-black collar. Tai owned twelve different ones and Kara changed them monthly, the color and motif of each coordinating with whatever holiday or activity was associated with that particular month. Orange and black were for October and Halloween.

Mac frowned. This was not going as planned. In the scenario he’d envisioned, Kara arrived in Montana knowing all about her future family, as told to her by her former stepfather. Or was Kara Kirby simply playing dumb, trying to break the ice by asking questions to which she already knew the answers?

The sexy, smoky sounds of a sax filled the car, conjuring up images of a couple moving in rhythm to its beat. His eyes traveled to the curve of Kara’s slender neck where the skin looked as silky soft as her slightly flushed cheeks. He found himself wondering about the taste and feel of her mouth.

“What are the children’s names?” Kara asked a little frantically, her voice rising. He didn’t seem inclined to talk to her, but he was definitely not ignoring her, not when he kept looking at her in that dark, disturbing way. How well did Uncle Will know this man he’d sent to fetch her? she wondered nervously. What if he were one of those seeming pillar-of-the-community types with a hidden Dr. Jekyll alter ego?

“You want to know about the kids.” Mac sighed. “Well, it wouldn’t be fair to sugarcoat it, so I’ll give it to you straight. Lily just turned seventeen. She’s manipulative, sneaky and rebellious, and those are her good points. Brick will be fourteen on New Year’s Day and when he doesn’t find the trouble he’s looking for, he creates it. Autumn is ten and a little ghoul who sees danger in everything and is obsessed with crime and disaster. And finally, Clay, the youngest, is a seven-year-old hellion who lives by his own rules and sees no reason to follow anyone else’s. Needless to say, living with that crew has not been easy.”

Kara gulped. “I suppose not.” Perhaps he was just having a bad day and was venting steam? She decided that that must be the case and tried to come up with some diplomatic comment to offer. “The children’s names are interesting. Rather different.”

“Yeah, rather different,” Mac agreed grimly. “Like they are. Their parents—my brother Reid and his wife, Linda—wanted their names to be something besides a name. They wanted their names to be attached to the earth and be part of nature and the planet or something like that.”

“I think I understand,” Kara murmured. They’re not his children?

Mac was pleased. She hadn’t condemned the kids nor scoffed at Reid and Linda’s hug-a-tree philosophy of life. Kara seemed nonjudgmental and tolerant, exactly what they needed. Relief surged through him. He had made the right decision, bringing her out here. The sooner she moved in, the better for all of them.

“And the children are staying with you now?” Kara tried to put the pieces together.

“They’re living with me permanently. Their parents were killed in a car accident in a chain-collision pileup on one of the L.A. freeways nearly two years ago.”

“How tragic!” Kara was horrified. “Those poor children.”

Mac nodded. “It’s been rough. At first, Linda’s mom moved in with the kids but she barely lasted three months. She couldn’t handle them and was only too glad to escape to her retirement village condo, where kids under twenty-one are banned—even as visitors.”

“Oh, dear,” Kara murmured.

“Next, my brother James and his wife, Eve, decided it was their duty to take the kids. That arrangement lasted one miserable year.”

“The chemistry wasn’t right between the children and their aunt and uncle?” Kara surmised, her voice warm with sympathy.

“You could say that.” Everybody else, himself included, had said a lot more about the kids’ incorrigibility and James and Eve’s repressive rigidity. Not the right chemistry. Now that was putting a benign spin on an impossible situation! Mac liked her lack of negativity. She was going to need it, living with those four young terrorists.

“And after things didn’t work out, you took the children?” Kara prompted.

“They’ve been with me since June. I’m the first to admit that I don’t know much about raising kids. Aside from being one myself a long time ago, I haven’t had any experience with children.” Mac cast a sidelong glance at her. “It’s become clear to me that I’m not cut out to be a bachelor father.”

He was not a married man. Kara felt a peculiar heat suffuse her. She was dealing with the ramifications of having ogled a bachelor when Mac reached for the car phone.

“I’m going to call the kids and tell them we’re on our way.”

Ten rings later, he debated whether or not to hang up. “Why doesn’t someone answer? Where are they?” He glanced at his watch as the phone rang on and on. “It’s five o’clock, they should all be home from school by now.”

“Perhaps they—uh—were detained after school,” Kara suggested. Assigned to detention. Given Mac’s description of the kids, the possibility of punishment could not be ruled out.

Finally a small scared voice came over the line. “Hello?”

“Autumn, it’s Uncle Mac.” Mac breathed a sigh of relief. “What took you so long to answer the phone?”

“I was in my room and I pushed the dresser in front of the door, so it took me a while to move it,” Autumn whispered.

“What were you doing barricaded in your room, Autumn?” Mac braced himself for the answer. “And where are the other kids?”

“I was watching TV, Uncle Mac.”

“In your room? You don’t have a television set in there.”

“I do now,” Autumn said rather proudly. “I dragged the TV from the living room into my room. Uncle Mac, do you know that bad guys in jail try to get pen pals? And if you write to killers in jail, when they get out they’ll come and find you and try to steal your money or kill you.”

“Autumn, I told you that you weren’t allowed to watch any more of those tabloid news shows or talk shows, either,” Mac said sternly.

“Everything else is a rerun,” whined Autumn.

“And you are not to move the TV from the living room. I want you to put it back,” Mac ordered, then paused. “You never did say where the other kids are, Autumn.”

“They’re gone,” Autumn said gloomily. “I don’t know where, they just left. Uncle Mac, what if one of those killers who got out of jail is on his way to kill his pen pal and sees Lily or Brick or Clay and—”

“That’s enough, Autumn,” Mac cut off her morbid speculations. “Don’t you have any idea where the kids are?”

“Not Lily or Brick, but Clay said he was going to ride that big black horse.”

“Blackjack?” Mac choked. “The stallion? God almighty, Autumn, you have to—”

“Uncle Mac, someone’s knocking at the door!” Autumn shrieked into the phone. “Knocking real loud and hard like a murderer!” She let out a bloodcurdling scream audible to everyone in the Jeep.

Tai dug his claws into Kara’s thighs and growled a warning.

“Is she all right?” Kara asked with concern.

“Autumn!” Mac shouted her name a few times before finally reclaiming his niece’s attention. The screaming ceased.

“He says he’s Webb Asher, Uncle Mac. He says he has Clay,” Autumn reported. “He says to open up the door. I’m not going to, though. I think it’s someone pretending to be him. A killer from jail who’s pretending to be Webb,” she concluded dramatically.

“Autumn Wilde, you open that door and put Webb on the line, right now!” Mac commanded.

A few terse moments later, Mac hung up the phone. “My ranch manager caught Clay in the stallion’s pen tossing cookies at Blackjack, trying to make friends so he could get a ride. This is a wild-tempered stallion who could’ve killed him with just one kick. If Webb hadn’t gone down there when he did...” Mac’s stomach lurched. “I’ve got to get back there immediately. Lily and Brick are God-knows-where, and I can’t leave the two little ones home alone. I told Webb to stay with them till I got back, but his tolerance for children doesn’t go far.”

Kara glanced at her watch. “How much longer till we’re in Bear Creek?”

“We’re not going into town. I’ll take another road that will bypass Bear Creek and get us to the ranch faster.”

Kara swallowed her disappointment. Under the circumstances, she could hardly demand that Mac Wilde take her to the Franklin’s house in town before going to his ranch to check on his recalcitrant nieces and nephews.

“I’ll call Uncle Will as soon as we get to the ranch and ask him to pick me up. Then you won’t have to leave the children again to drive me into town.”

Mac frowned. “Can’t you wait until tomorrow to see him? You’ve had a long trip, and there’s no need for the reverend to come out to the ranch after dark.”

“Wait till tomorrow?” Kara echoed. “That’s impossible. I—”

“Let me put this another way. Nobody is going anywhere tonight. We’ll talk about getting you into town to visit the Rev tomorrow.”

“I can’t stay at your ranch overnight!” Kara felt a bolt of panic flash through her.

“Honey, you can and you are. Okay, you’re having an attack of nerves, thinking about meeting the kids. Who wouldn’t? I understand completely. I didn’t spare you the truth, and they are an intimidating bunch. But let’s not forget the reason why you’re here in Montana—”

“Yes, let’s not!” Kara cut in. Paradoxically, the fear she was feeling instilled her with an uncharacteristic boldness. “I’m here to visit Reverend Will Franklin.”

“It’s time to drop the charade, Kara. Let’s be honest with each other and cut the game playing. You know you’re here to marry me and help me raise those kids.”