Читать книгу Courtship, Montana Style - Charlotte Maclay - Страница 11

Looking down at his shirtfront, Walker winced. “I trust I shouldn’t take Susie-Q’s comments personally.”

“I’m really sorry, Mr. Oakes.” Lizzie offered him a cloth diaper in exchange for the baby. “I’m afraid she’s having some trouble digesting the formula.”

“You might want to consider changing brands.”

“I’m sure she’ll adjust soon.”

Not soon enough for the sake of his shirt, Walker thought as he wiped away the spit up. Despite the mess, he noticed the kid’s smile carried a wallop. Just before she hurled her lunch on him, he’d had the fleeting thought that having a baby around the house wouldn’t be all that bad. Having a good-looking housekeeper around wouldn’t be awful, either.

Susie-Q’s milky projectile had brought him back to reality. He hadn’t advertised for a housekeeper. Hiring one who had a baby to care for didn’t make any sense, even if it didn’t cost him a dime. Given that the would-be housekeeper was the sexiest woman he’d seen in a long while would only complicate matters further.

With the boys outside arguing about who would put up the playpen and Speed upstairs doing whatever he was doing, Walker found himself alone with Lizzie. Not a good situation when she was fussing with the baby, looking maternal and feminine. The sounds she made and the gentle way she rocked Susie-Q made him think of lullabies and loving mothers. Not that he’d had much experience with any maternal females except his heifers and their calves.

His own mother hadn’t thought enough of Walker to keep him around after she found a new husband.

“Miss Thomas—”

“Why don’t you call me Lizzie? It would be so much easier, don’t you think?”

No matter what name he called her, it wasn’t going to be easy to throw her out, not when his boys were already stuck on her.

“It seems to me—” he began.

“I’m sorry. Is there somewhere I could change Suzanne? She’s soaked through.”

Now that was a really good reason to be nervous about having a baby around the house. They did stuff he didn’t know anything about—and didn’t want to.

He shrugged helplessly. “Sure. Wherever you want.”

Holding the baby on her shoulder, she glanced around the room for a spot that suited her. By now she had a streak of milky stain on her cotton blouse, which had been neatly tucked in at her waist and had tugged free. Her hair was beginning to come loose from its twist. Still there was something glamorous about her, a dose of sophistication Walker wasn’t used to. A certain grace that couldn’t be learned mucking out stalls.

Walker would lay down a sizable bet in any Nevada gambling casino Lizzie Thomas could name that she was not a housekeeper by trade.

But who the hell was she?

With a flick of her free hand, she tugged a light blanket from the diaper bag the boys had left in the living room and spread it out on the rug. With the ease of a dancer, she settled next to it and lay the baby down.

“There you are, sweetie,” she crooned. “I know those old wet diapers are yucky so we’ll get you some nice dry ones. How would you like that, huh?”

Susie-Q pumped her chubby little legs, gurgled and blew out a bubble.

In spite of himself, Walker felt his lips tilt into a smile. “Speed’s right. She is cute.”

As Lizzie lifted her head to bestow one of her smiles on Walker, he felt a punch in the gut that erased everything else in the room except this woman and her baby. He had the eerie sensation she belonged there.

But that wasn’t possible.

Oliver Oakes had drilled into his head to keep away from fancy women and city slickers. They couldn’t make it on a Montana ranch. The winters were too tough; they found the isolation oppressive. They didn’t have what it took to be a rancher’s wife. Oliver knew. He’d married one. Within five years he’d lost her and the sons she’d borne him.

In all the years he’d lived with Oliver—since he’d arrived at the Double O as a rebellious fourteen-year-old foster kid—Walker had found the foster father who had eventually adopted him was dead right about most everything he said.

Blinking and shaking his head, Walker knew whatever he’d imagined as he looked down at Lizzie had been caused by months of celibacy and the same isolation that drove women away.

He really needed to get into town more often.

Squatting down on his haunches next to her, he said, “You want to tell me what’s going on here?”

“I’m changing Suzanne’s diaper.”

“I know what you’re doing with Susie-Q, what I want to know is—”

“Do you give everyone a nickname?”

He frowned. “I suppose.”

“What’s yours?”

She was the most distracting woman. Or at least her perfume was. Nothing like the scents he smelled all day, barn smells and prairie sage. Better than both. A scent he could go on inhaling every day and still look forward to taking his first breath the next morning.

He swallowed hard. “Speed and the boys call me boss.”

“The boys don’t call you Dad?”

“Most of the youngsters who come here have issues about their fathers. No sense to push their buttons. And giving them a nickname gives them a chance to be someone else, someone whose old man hasn’t beaten the tar out of them or whose mother didn’t abandon him. Someone who can start over without any strikes against them.”

She bent over the baby again, snapping her overalls back together. When she lifted her head, Walker could have sworn there were tears in her eyes, but maybe it was just the light that made the blue glisten like a high-mountain lake on a bright summer day.

“I think that’s a wonderful concept,” she said, her voice huskier than usual. “And so does Susie-Q, don’t you, sweetie?”

She hugged the baby, and something in her eyes brought a lump to Walker’s throat. He’d seen that same haunted look in the eyes of the boys who’d come to him over the years. Wary desperation. A need for sanctuary. Fear that he’d turn them out just as their families had.

He didn’t doubt for a minute that same look had been in his eyes the day he showed up at the Double O.

Damn it all! How could he send this woman and the baby away? Whatever her real story was, he didn’t have the heart to do that.

Not as long as she didn’t pose a threat to the Double O Ranch.

“Come on, Slick.” Standing, he picked up the diaper bag. “I’ll show you to your room.”

Her nicely arched brows rose. “Slick?”

“Yeah. As in city slicker.”

“What makes you so sure I’m a city slicker?”

“Must be something about that BMW you’re driving and the fancy designer label on your rear end.” Not to mention her sexy perfume or how nicely her rear end fit into those blue jeans.

As she started to stand, holding the baby to her shoulder with both hands, he took her arm to help her up. His fingers closed around smooth skin, pampered by expensive creams, and warm to the touch. In contrast, his hands were callused and rough enough to abrade her tender skin.

Pulling his hand away, he tried not to let the velvety feel of her flesh imprint itself into his memory. That was as hopeless as trying to erase a brand from the rump of a calf. No matter how long the animal lived, the evidence of the mark would still be there.

Elizabeth grasped Suzanne more tightly as an unnerving surge of feminine awareness shot through her. During the few seconds Walker touched and then released her, her body had responded in an elemental way to his sheer masculinity, the rugged texture of his palm against her skin in what was little more than a quick caress. Even after he’d let her go, her heartbeat kept up its rapid cadence.

Oddly she’d never reacted in quite that way to a man—not even Steve, whom she had loved with all of her heart, she thought with a stab of guilt. Certainly Vernon hadn’t caused her pulse to speed up by simply touching her. She wasn’t one to swoon or be dazzled by a handsome face.

Indeed Walker’s features were too solid, too sharply honed, to make him a candidate for a GQ cover model. He set his jaw too sharply, pale squint lines fanned out from golden-brown eyes set deeply in his tanned face, and a slight bend in his nose suggested it had once been broken.

No, not a beautiful face but one that was altogether too potently masculine for her taste. Or so she’d thought until he touched her.

“Do you, uh, want me to carry the baby?” he asked, as he walked beside her toward the wide staircase to the second floor. The dark walnut banister looked smoothed by age and, if she knew anything about boys, a thousand youthful slides down it.

“I think for the sake of your shirt, I’d better keep her.”

His lips slid into a wry smile. “My shirt’s already a loss.”

That wasn’t quite true. From her perspective, a man with a little baby dribble down his shirt held a certain appeal. It meant he wasn’t afraid to be gentle.

Of course, Susie-Q had done more than just dribble. Spitting up hadn’t been much of a problem when she was nursing, the baby digesting breast milk far better than she did formula. Not for the first time, she regretted Vernon’s demand that she wean Suzanne before the wedding—and her foolish agreement.

She should have stood up for the best interests of her baby. From now on, that’s exactly what she was going to do. She’d learn to be strong for Suzanne’s sake.

A half-dozen doors led off the upstairs hallway and the carpet was worn thin leading to each room.

“The boys sleep in the bunkhouse?” she asked.

“During the summer. They think of it as one long sleepover. Winter time it’s too cold out there and I make ’em sleep inside. Besides, they’ve gotta get up early to catch the school bus.”

“How far is it to their school?”

“About an hour, maybe more, assuming the bus can get through.”

“Get through?”

“We get a little snow here now and then.”

Elizabeth suspected that was a serious understatement. This close to the Canadian border, winter blizzards had to be as common as wildfires in California.

He gestured toward an open door at the front of the house, and she stepped into the room where Speed was fluffing up a pillow. A light breeze fluttered lace curtains at the windows and brought with it the warm, dry scent of sage.

“Here you go, ma’am.” Speed propped the big pillow at the head of the bed. “I gotcha some clean sheets. The blanket might smell a bit musty—”

“This is awfully nice for servants’ quarters. Don’t you have—”

“Unless you want to bunk with the boys,” Walker said, “this is what you get.”

Somehow as housekeeper she’d pictured a private room off the kitchen where she and Suzanne would stay, not a guest bedroom opposite her employer’s room. She shrugged. “In that case, I’m sure everything will be fine.”

The room really was lovely, the view a hundred and eighty degrees of prairie and rolling, tree-covered hills. In an unpretentious way, the room and view were both more elegant than her parents’ home where her mother had spared no expense on furnishings.

Smiling, she imagined Steve would have liked it here. An adventure, he would have said.

A sharp blade of regret slid through her that this adventure was one she and her baby would have to experience without him. Almost a year had passed since she’d laid her beloved Steve to rest and she still felt the raw edge of grief whenever she thought of him. Somehow—for her baby—she had to find a way to go on.

“Miss?”

Blinking back her tears, she turned to the foreman. “Yes?”

“I’ll get the boys to bring up your suitcases,” Speed said.

Right on cue, the sound of booted feet came thundering down the hallway. Fridge arrived first with the playpen in hand. “Ya want this in here?” he asked Speed.

Complaining at the top of his voice, Scotty arrived lugging Elizabeth’s much heavier suitcase, which he’d hauled up from downstairs. “Just ’cuz you’re the biggest doesn’t mean you’re the boss of everybody else!” He dropped the bag by the bed with a thud.

“Put the playpen next door,” Walker ordered.

Speed tried to take the folded playpen from Fridge but it popped open, one of the corners catching Speed in the chest and driving him backward.

Bean Pole ambled in with the smaller bag of Suzanne’s things and stumbled over the bigger suitcase, barely catching himself before he fell flat on the freshly made bed.

Walker snared the back of the boy’s shirt, steadying the youngster as if he’d anticipated a pratfall.

In spite of herself, Elizabeth stifled a grin, not because of the boy’s awkwardness but rather the dynamics of the entire Laurel-and-Hardy scene. That Walker was taking the whole situation so calmly spoke volumes about his patience and how well he related to adolescent boys.

Finally wrestling the playpen under control, Speed carried it to a sunny room adjacent to the bedroom.

“I know how to set it up,” Fridge insisted, following him.

Scotty dashed in after them. “Don’t, either! I had to show you!”

Bean Pole followed. “I can help.”

Elizabeth glanced at Walker and he met her gaze, an amused twinkle in his eyes.

“The boys seem very helpful,” she commented.

“Normally they avoid every chore I give them until I threaten them with mayhem or no TV for a week. The no TV part works the best.”

She imagined so. Despite Walker’s rugged appearance, she didn’t think his physical threats would be credible. Beneath his rough exterior, he had a gentle spirit. That’s what she had sensed in the article and why she’d sought refuge here.

“I’ll get the boys out of your hair so you can get settled. It’s about time they started fixing supper anyway.”

“I imagine cooking will be part of my job duties?” she asked with more than a little trepidation. No matter what, she was determined to not sit back and let others wait on her. She’d lived that way long enough.

He waved her off. “They’ve got the routine down pretty good but don’t expect five-star restaurant grub. It’s more likely to be sloppy Joes.”

Given her limited cooking experience, the adolescents would probably do a better job than she could. Which didn’t mean she couldn’t learn. “I’ll take over tomorrow, then.”

He frowned. “Whatever.” He looked down at his shirtfront and started to unbutton it. “Meanwhile, I’m going to get out of this shirt before it starts to reek any more than it already does.”

“If you show me where things are, I can do the laundry.” Not that she had any more experience at that chore than she did at cooking. Growing up in a house full of servants plus attending a string of boarding schools, she hadn’t been highly motivated to develop her own domestic talents. But from necessity she had become acquainted with Laundromats during her college years.

“Not necessary. We’ve got it covered.”

And he didn’t need her around mucking things up, she could almost hear him say.

She watched with curious fascination as he tugged his shirttail from his jeans, letting the shirt hang open. A white V-neck T-shirt pulled tautly across his chest and she chided herself for the shimmer of regret that he wore an undershirt at all.

With a final, “We’ll call you when supper’s ready,” he followed the rest of his cowhands into the sewing room to sort out the continuing bickering about the playpen—an easy-opening playpen she had managed with little effort the two nights she’d stayed in motels en route to Montana.

Smiling to herself, she walked around to the far side of the room and placed Suzanne on the bed. “We’re going to be fine here, Susie-Q. You’ll see. And it will only be for a short while, just long enough for me to decide what to do next.”

When she looked up she saw Walker across the hall in his bedroom, the door standing open. He’d shed both his shirt and T-shirt, revealing a smooth back with well-defined muscles that rippled as he moved. His physique hadn’t been built in the airless confines of an upscale gym somewhere in the middle of a big city, she realized, but by years of hard work on his ranch. He’d earned every sculpted inch of his lean body.

Elizabeth had never earned a damned thing, including her own keep. The best she’d done was work as an unpaid gofer for the charitable foundation her family supported. They’d offered her a small salary but she hadn’t wanted to take money away from people who truly needed it.

With a raging sense of self disgust, she turned away from the tempting view across the hall. Why on earth hadn’t she noticed how stunted her life had become?

WALKER COULDN’T BELIEVE his eyes.

Every one of the boys was scrubbed clean and had their hair slicked back like a bunch of cowboys ready to whoop it up in town on Saturday night. Even Speed looked like he’d spiffed up for the evening. In this case, however, he suspected the sudden interest in cleanliness had more to do with their houseguest than the day of the week.

“You boys have supper ready?”

“Yes, boss,” they chorused.

Lined up in front of the kitchen counter, they looked like soldiers standing at attention ready for inspection. They’d even hung their hats on the mudroom pegs, an event that only happened under the threat of dire punishment if they wore them while at the table.

“I made baked pork chops,” Fridge announced.

“I did the mashed potatoes,” Scotty added. “And the baked apples are in the oven now.”

“I figured she might like some veggies.” Bean Pole dipped his head. “My mom used to—when she was sober.”

Walker glanced at Speed, who lifted his shoulders in an easy shrug. “Biscuits.”

Apparently Walker was the only one who hadn’t contributed to the meal preparations. He’d been searching out the current price of beef, a project that had been interrupted earlier. The news wasn’t good. Evidently a lot of ranches were selling off their stock due to the drought, and the prices reflected a downward spiral.

He eyed the boys. “Well, are you gonna ask her to join us, or do you plan for us to eat it all ourselves?”

He’d seen a few stampedes in his life. But nothing like the boys jockeying for position as they raced out of the kitchen. For a moment, he thought Bean Pole was going to make it into the lead. No such luck, though. He bashed into a chair, spinning it around, allowing Scotty to squirt past him.

Shaking his head, Walker said, “It might be worth it to keep Lizzie around if it meant the boys would wash behind their ears more than once a year.”

“That it would,” Speed agreed. His weather-worn face shifted into a grin, and he looked far younger than his sixty-some years. “She is a pretty thing, ain’t she?”

Walker wouldn’t deny it. “She doesn’t belong here.” Not with her shiny long fingernails, her enticing scent or her designer jeans. Or the way she made him feel he’d been missing something.

“Cain’t hurt the boys to have a female around for a while.”

“I got along fine without a woman hanging over me all the time.”

“If you say so, boss.” Leaning back against the counter, Speed crossed his arms over his chest.

Walker’s foreman had the most irritating way of telling him he was full of beans without saying a single damn word. He’d been doing that since Walker was a rebellious, snot-nosed fourteen-year-old who’d showed up at the Double O with no prospects and nowhere else to go. Sometimes Walker wondered if it had been Oliver Oakes who’d adopted him—or Speed. The answer was probably some of both.

A hushed sound came over the room. Almost magical.

Walker shifted his attention to the entrance to the kitchen, a swinging door he always propped open.

She’d spruced up, too, as if that were possible. She didn’t look like any housekeeper he’d ever seen as she moved into the room as smoothly as a dancer arriving on stage. The summery dress she wore had a full skirt that floated at her knees, revealing calves that were both firm and smooth. The capped sleeves and scooped neck of her top showed off ivory skin that had rarely been blessed by the sun but looked just right for a man’s caress.

Walker’s hands ached to do just that, and he folded them into fists.

“Supper’s ready.” His throat had closed down so tightly, he was surprised he’d been able to speak.

“Yes, the boys told me.” She smiled demurely.

Walker’s reaction wasn’t demure at all.

Behind her, her youthful entourage brought in the baby and her portable car seat, which they placed on a chair beside her. They hovered, groveling, hoping for some small crumb of attention, which she scattered among them bit by bit.

“Fridge!” Yanking out his own chair, Walker sat down, angry at himself because he wanted some of that attention to come his way. “Think you could serve supper sometime before we all pass out from hunger?”

Elizabeth watched in amazement as the boys exploded into action. A huge plate of pork chops appeared in the center of the big table, surely enough to feed the entire population of Grass Valley. The bowls of mashed potatoes and vegetables confirmed her belief that a hungry army of neighbors would be showing up at the door any moment. When Scotty produced a pan full of a dozen baked apples, the scent of cinnamon filling the room, and Speed added a mountain of steaming biscuits, she knew it had to be true.

With much chair scraping and jockeying for position, the boys took their places at the table. All eyes landed on her.

“It all looks delicious,” she said, not quite sure what was expected of her. If she’d been at home, a servant would discreetly arrive, probably with a tureen of soup, and served her mother first then the rest of the guests. When that course was completed, her mother would ring a tiny bell and the servant would reappear to clear the bowls away.

Here she was supposed to be doing the cooking and serving, not sitting like a guest at the table.

“Why don’t you help yourself, Lizzie?” Walker suggested. “The boys will pass you what you need.”

She might be wrong but she still couldn’t quite believe… “Shouldn’t we wait for the rest of the guests?”

A puzzled look lowered his dark brows. “You’re it as far as I know.”

“You mean to tell me the six of us are going to eat all of that food?”

His grin softened the hard angles and planes of his rugged face, making him appear more approachable and more handsome. “Guess you haven’t been around teenage boys much.”

Returning his smile, she reached for the nearest serving dish, which was mounded high with mashed potatoes, a treat she hadn’t allowed herself in years in an effort to watch her weight. “Hollow legs, I gather.”

“Arms, legs, stomachs and sometimes their heads,” Speed added, nudging Fridge with his elbow. “Help yourself, boys.”

Passing Elizabeth each dish first before serving themselves, the boys demonstrated considerable self-restraint. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought she landed at an exclusive boarding school not a working ranch. Somehow she suspected they were all on their best behavior and that tickled her.

From the way Walker kept glancing around from his seat at the head of the table, she imagined he was surprised by the way the boys were acting, too—out of character for active adolescents.

“Are all of you boys from Montana?” she asked in the hope of getting them talking and therefore more at ease.

Fridge claimed Chicago and Scotty named Minnesota while Bean Pole remained shyly silent.

She tried a few more conversational gambits but the boys were either too busy eating or tongue-tied by her presence. It might take several days before they were entirely comfortable with her, she realized. Walker, too, unless he was always this quiet.

She’d only made it halfway through her gigantic meal when Suzanne started to fuss. Elizabeth picked her up.

“Looks like Susie-Q would like some dinner, too,” she said. She scooted back from the table. “I’ll get her bottle.”

“Can I feed her?” Scotty asked. He jumped to his feet. “I used to feed my mom’s baby, until they all moved away without me.”

Elizabeth swallowed a gasp. The boy’s mother had moved and left her child behind? What a dreadful—

“Feeding a baby’s not so hard,” Fridge said. “I could do it.”

“Why don’t we let Scotty do it this time?” Elizabeth suggested. She reached out and touched the boy with her hand. “And then later tonight you can have a turn, Fridge, if you’re still interested.”

Scotty looked pleased with himself and Fridge seemed grateful.

Softly, Bean Pole asked, “Could I feed her tomorrow?”

Feeling a band tighten around her chest, Elizabeth nodded. “Of course you may.” These young men were so emotionally needy, it nearly broke her heart. They made her own problems pale by comparison. “Susie-Q is going to be in seventh heaven with all you boys paying her so much attention.”

She glanced to the head of the table. An almost imperceptible nod from Walker told her she was doing the right thing by letting the boys help in the baby’s care.

WITH THE BOYS FULLY ENGAGED in feeding Susie-Q, Walker and Speed were stuck doing the supper dishes.

“That was some dinner, wasn’t it?” Walker commented as he rinsed a plate and slid it into the dishwasher.

“Yep. I thought there for a minute somebody had slipped us a whole bunch of new boys who knew how to use a fork right and kidnapped the old ones.”

Walker chuckled. “Guess we’ll have to have women out to the ranch more often so the boys can practice their manners.”

“Sounds like a plan to me, long as they’re as purdy as Miss Lizzie.”

“That might be a little more difficult to arrange.” He couldn’t think of a single female in Grass Valley, married or not, who would match up with Lizzie. There probably wouldn’t be all that many in Billings, for that matter.

After giving the table a final swipe with a damp cloth, Speed rinsed it out and laid it across the arm of the faucet.

“There’s something I think you ought to know, boss.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, now, I’m not quite sure what it means but when we was getting Miss Lizzie’s gear out of the trunk of her car, a box stuck in the back popped open.” Thoughtfully, Speed ran his palm across his evening whiskers.

“And?” Walker prodded.

“Looked to me like there was a fancy wedding dress stuffed into the box. You know, all white lace and stuff.”

Staring at his foreman, Walker tried to grasp the meaning of Speed’s discovery.

Why in hell would a Merry Maids housekeeper travel from Nevada to Montana with a baby in the first place? And why would she have a wedding gown in the back of her car?

Heck of a thing to pack for a long trip. Or for scrubbing floors.

“What do you think?” Speed asked.

“I think I’d better have a chat with our housekeeper.” And do it before some prospective groom showed up at his front door with a shotgun in his hand.