Читать книгу White Dove's Promise - Stella Bagwell - Страница 10

The next few hours were some of the hardest Jared had ever endured. For the sake of the little dove trapped beneath the ground, he was trying to focus all his mental ability on the rescue operation. Yet there was a small part of his thoughts that continually strayed to Kerry.

To learn that she was a single mother had knocked him for a loop. The Kerry WindWalker he remembered was the quiet, reserved waitress who’d worked seven or eight years ago at Woody’s Café. At that time he’d tried to get to know her personally, but she’d stubbornly kept the conversation between them to the same light exchange she used for all the customers in the homey little eating place. She’d had a reputation for being prim and proper and, in spite of Jared’s best efforts, she’d left Black Arrow with that same squeaky-clean standing.

Jared could only suppose that the years away from Black Arrow had changed her. Although there was one thing that remained the same, he thought ruefully. She had no man in her life. The fact that she’d been raising her daughter alone saddened him. Yet he had to confess there was a selfish part of him that was glad she wasn’t attached to some other man.

“Okay, Jared, that’s ten feet. Want me to go any deeper?”

Shaking away his thoughts, Jared looked up at Newt, a burly oilfield worker who was operating a large auger. This was the second hole that had been drilled into the ground near to the spot where Peggy was trapped. The first had failed to give Jared an entrance to reach her. After a long, careful study from inside the ground, coupled with the engineering blueprints he had of the original layout of the drainage pipes, he’d finally decided to try another, at a closer angle.

“No. That’s good. Hop out, Newt, and I’ll go down. Maybe this one will get me all the way back to her.”

Someone caught him by the arm and Jared glanced around to find Bram at his side. Having his brother here for support, even in the capacity of sheriff, helped him forget that he’d been at this for hours and that his body was now running on sheer adrenaline.

“Newt has reached the right depth,” he quickly explained to Bram. “I’m going down again.”

“What if you can’t get through this time, Jared?”

“I’ve got to,” Jared said grimly. “I’m afraid to drill any closer. From what I know about this network of pipes, Peggy probably has some space to crawl back and forth. I can’t risk drilling into an area where she might be.”

Bram let out a weary breath. “I know you’re right. But she’s been down there for hours now. The tunnel you’ve just now bored may not be any better than the last one.”

The desperation in Bram’s voice matched the feelings that Jared had been dealing with from the moment he’d spotted Peggy’s little footprints. He wouldn’t rest until that child was placed safely in her mother’s arms.

Jared lifted the hard hat from his sweaty head and shoved a weary hand through his damp hair. “Believe me, brother, I want to get her out just as badly as you do. So have a little confidence in me, will you? This time I’ll get in. I have to,” he said with steely determination. Glancing back over his shoulder, he scanned the crowd that had continued to grow throughout the evening. “Have you seen Kerry?”

“I talked to her about ten minutes ago. I explained that you were drilling again at another angle.”

“How was she doing?”

Bram’s tight grimace spoke volumes. “She’s holding herself together, but it’s pretty obvious she’s not far from collapsing. Her mother tells me that no one has been able to make her eat or drink anything since we’ve been out here.”

Just the thought of what she must be going through was enough to make Jared sick. “See what you and Gray can do with her,” Jared told him. “I’m going down. And I’m not coming up until I have Peggy with me. Even if it means I have to dig her out by hand!”

By now Newt had removed the steel auger from the newly drilled hole. Jared hurried toward the open cavity. Bram followed to snatch a hold on Jared’s shoulder before he could lower himself into the newly bored hole.

“Jared, you’re exhausted,” he pointed out. “You’ve already worked for hours. Let someone else go down. Let me. Or Gray.”

Shaking his head at his older brother’s plea, Jared said, “You’re the sheriff. You need to be out here where you can make sure everyone is safe and doing what they’re supposed to be doing. This town would be in chaos if it lost you.”

Jared’s offhand compliment put a twisted smile on Bram’s face. “This town survived a long time before I became sheriff and it’ll go on surviving once I’m no longer in office. But that’s not the issue. You’re about to fall over and Gray—”

“Doesn’t like to get his hands dirty,” Jared joked and winked. Then before Bram could try to dissuade him any further, he lowered himself into the ground.

Kerry was trying her best not to keep glancing at the small watch on her wrist, but each minute seemed to be crawling by as she and the rest of the hundred or more people around the excavation site waited for Jared to reappear and prayed that Peggy would be in his arms.

“Kerry, is there anything I can get for you? A sandwich? Or cold drink?”

Kerry looked around to see Christa, a co-worker at Liberty Bank, who’d also become a good friend. The tall, curvaceous blonde was two years younger than Kerry and had already gone through a traumatic divorce. Over the past months Kerry had been trying to help her young friend get through the trying ordeal. Now the tables were turned and Christa was here to lend Kerry what support she could.

Trying to smile, Kerry passed trembling fingers across her forehead. “No thanks, Christa. I tried to eat earlier, but everything just stuck in my throat.”

With a worried frown, Christa grabbed a folding portable stool that one of the local churches had distributed for the crowd. Once she was sitting next to her friend, she said, “Clarence told me that you worked through lunch. It’s nearly eight o’clock now. You have to be starving.”

Kerry placed a reassuring hand over Christa’s. “I’m fine. Or at least I will be once they get Peggy out of there.” Closing her eyes, she swallowed at the knot of fear that had lodged in her throat and refused to go away.

“I noticed the sheriff was talking to you a few minutes ago,” Christa remarked. “What was he saying? Does he know anything yet?”

“He said that the phone Jared had taken with him had apparently quit working. They haven’t been able to make any contact with him in the past twenty minutes.”

Christa shook her head. “Well, that doesn’t necessarily mean that something has gone wrong. The battery could have gone dead on the phone or the signal may not be getting out.”

Opening her eyes, Kerry focused a desperate look on her friend. “I hope you’re right, Christa. I can’t—I have to think that things are going to be okay. Otherwise—” She couldn’t go on as tears trickled onto her cheeks. Moments later, she felt Christa’s hand gently patting her back. Sniffing, she wiped at her tears and tried again, “Oh Christa—I don’t know what I’d do if I lost my daughter.”

“You’re not going to lose her,” Christa said with firm resolution. “The Coltons will see to that. They’re a smart, diligent family. And they care about people. If Jared can’t get her out, he and his brother will call in some expert who can.”

Kerry glanced around her to make sure her mother wasn’t within earshot. “I’m glad to hear you say that,” she said in a voice only Christa could hear. “Mom keeps preaching that they’re making a mess out of things and just wanting to big-shot around and take over the situation.”

A puzzled expression came over Christa’s face. “I can’t understand that. Let’s face it, the fire and rescue people in this town mean well and they do a good job most of the time, but they’re not that highly trained. They have no idea what’s under this ground or how to get into it without tearing everything apart and endangering Peggy even more. Jared’s an engineer. He knows what he’s dealing with.”

Kerry let out a long, shaky breath. “That’s what I was thinking, but Mom seems to have something against Jared in particular.”

Christa shrugged. “Well, from what I’ve heard, he used to have quite a reputation with the ladies. Your mom probably holds that against him.”

Shaking her head with weary disbelief, Kerry said, “That has nothing to do with him getting my daughter out of the ground! I don’t understand her—”

“Kerry! Look!”

Christa’s abrupt cry was coupled with a ripple of excitement passing through the people gathered around the site. And then Kerry saw the reason for all the commotion. It was Jared! He was climbing out of the deep ditch and Peggy was nestled safely in his arms!

Choking back a sob of sheer relief, Kerry jumped to her feet and stumbled across the rough ground to meet them.

“Peggy! Oh baby!” she cried, not bothering to hide the tears of joy that were beginning to stream down her face.

Jared grinned down at her. “Your daughter is a little muddy and dirty, but other than that she seems to be okay,” he said.

From the moment he’d reached Peggy back in the narrow cavern of pipe, she’d had a death grip on his neck. Even now, with her mother near, she was reluctant to loosen her hold and allow him to place her in Kerry’s arms.

Gently, Jared patted the child’s back, then carefully pushed the long tangle of black hair from the side of her face. “It’s all right, Chenoa,” he murmured to the frightened little girl. “Your mommy is right here. She’s been waiting for you. Just like I promised.”

Kerry swallowed down her tears in an effort to make her voice sound as calm and normal as possible to her daughter. “Peggy, it’s all right, honey. You can come to mama now and we’ll go get Fred.”

Lifting her face from Jared’s wide shoulder, Peggy looked warily around her, then down at Kerry’s outstretched arms.

“Mama,” she said through sniffles and hiccups, then reached for her mother.

Jared had accomplished a few difficult jobs down through the years, jobs that had left him feeling proud, maybe even a little smug. But he could truthfully say nothing he’d ever done felt as wonderful or satisfying as being able to place Peggy into her mother’s arms. And the elated smile that was now spreading across Kerry’s face was worth every minute he’d spent crawling through that muddy underground maze.

Hugging her daughter fiercely to her breast, Kerry looked up at Jared. She was unaware of the crowd surging around them, nor did she hear their cheers of joy. There was only him and her and the precious feeling of her daughter’s arms clinging tightly to her neck.

“Thank you, Jared. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

The raw emotion in her trembling words humbled him, touched him in a spot he hadn’t known he possessed.

“There’s no need for you to thank me, Kerry. I wanted to get Peggy out of there as much as you wanted to have her back.”

Shifting Peggy’s weight to one arm, Kerry extended her hand to Jared. He folded his fingers around hers with a firm reassuring grip. As their hands warmed together, he realized the past horrific hours had connected him to this woman in an oddly intimate way. Even now he could feel her relief and joy in the same way he’d felt her earlier desperation and fear.

“I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me,” she said to him. “And when Peggy gets old enough to understand, I’ll explain to her that a very brave man saved her life.”

Jared was like most any red-blooded male from eighteen months old to eighty. He liked to show off for any appreciative female, maybe even preen a little bit if the occasion warranted. But tonight was a different situation. And he didn’t want this woman to get the impression that he was hero material. He wasn’t. He was just a man who wouldn’t give up until the job was done.

“Not brave, Kerry. Just stubborn,” he corrected.

Her eyes still wet with grateful tears, she raised up on tiptoe and kissed his dirty cheek. “Then thank you for being a stubborn man, Jared Colton.”

“Kerry! Is Peggy all right? Is there anything broken?”

Stunned by the brief, intimate contact, Jared watched Kerry turn away to answer Enola’s frantic question. Moments later, he felt a nudge in his rib cage and looked around to see that he was now bracketed by a grinning brother and cousin.

Gray, who was only a year younger than Jared, said, “Well old cousin, looks like you’re certainly the hero at this little gathering.”

His description of the crowd around them as “a little gathering” was quite an understatement. It seemed like half the townsfolk were swarming around them like bees.

Jared slipped off his hard hat. The night breeze felt cool against his sweating head. Pushing his fingers through his wet hair, he said to Gray, “Hell, I didn’t do anything but crawl into a hole.”

Bram punched him affectionately in the shoulder and chuckled. “Looks to me like Kerry WindWalker thought you did more than that.”

Jared glanced back around to see that she and her young daughter had been swallowed up by the crowd. It was just as well, he thought.

“The only thing you saw was a woman grateful to get her daughter back,” Jared said, aiming the statement at both his brother and cousin.

Bram was about to make another comment on the subject when one of his deputies approached with a question for his boss. The moment Bram turned his attention to the deputy, Jared used the opportunity to make his own escape.

“I’m going home,” he told Gray. “Tell Bram I’ll deal with getting some of this heavy equipment back to its rightful owners.”

Gray slung his arm around Jared’s shoulders. “Will do,” he assured him. “You go get some rest.”

“Yeah. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Jared told him.

As Jared slipped through the crowd, several people called out to him, a few even stopped him to shake his hand, pat his back and offer him congratulations on a job well done.

Normally, Jared would have hung around and lapped up all the attention and praise. It wasn’t often a man was handed the chance to do something as meaningful and worthwhile as saving a child’s life. And it warmed him that people appreciated his efforts. Yet he didn’t linger in the crowd. Instead he continued toward the quiet, dark spot where his truck was parked.

By the time Jared climbed into the vehicle, bone-weary exhaustion had overtaken him. He drew in a string of long breaths, then rested his forehead against the steering wheel for several moments before he finally started the motor.

As he pulled away from the scene, he glanced toward the activity still going on around the excavation site. Rescue workers were already starting to move away the fire trucks and other recovery vehicles which had been needed during the long hours. Some yards away from the commotion, he spotted Kerry at the back of an ambulance with Peggy in her arms and talking happily to Jenna Elliot.

Thirty minutes later as Jared fell into bed, he was still holding that happy image in his mind.

Kerry waited patiently at the back of an ambulance while a petite, blond-haired, blue-eyed nurse named Jenna Elliot checked Peggy over for any sign of injuries.

Kerry had never met Jenna before, but she knew of her family. Her father was a powerful businessman and politician in Black Arrow, and though corruption had been linked to his name, he was still an influential man. However, from the moment Kerry had walked up to the ambulance with Peggy, Jenna had seemed sincerely compassionate and caring. She also seemed to be casting more than a few furtive glances at Sheriff Bram Colton, too.

“Your daughter seems to be perfectly fine,” Jenna said to Kerry as she handed Peggy back to her. “However, if it would make you feel at ease you could have her pediatrician check her over, too. But I’m sure you don’t have any worries. She seems like a very healthy little girl.”

“And very adventurous,” Kerry added jokingly. And she could joke now, thanks to Jared Colton, she thought as she turned to go home, clutching a sleepy Peggy in her arms.

Jared Colton. Of all the men in Black Arrow, Kerry wouldn’t have thought of him as a hero. Eight years ago, before she’d left for Virginia, he’d been a frequent diner at Woody’s Café where she’d worked as a waitress on the evening shift. For a man that was part Comanche, he’d done a lot of talking. Most of it directed at the adoring females who’d always seemed to flock around him. But Kerry hadn’t forgotten the small part of his glib tongue that had been aimed at her.

For the most part, Kerry had tried to keep the conversation between them cool and impersonal, but there had been times she’d felt him looking at her in the same way a red-tailed hawk would look at a juicy little field mouse. On those occasions she’d always scurried back to the kitchen, her head down so that no one might see the scarlet color stinging her cheeks. No man had ever made her feel so naked and vulnerable. And eight years later she could safely say that hadn’t changed. He still left her breathless and rattled.

“Kerry? Are you listening?”

At the sound of Enola’s voice, Kerry pulled her eyes away from a nearby open window and looked up to see her mother standing at the entryway to the small living room of the WindWalker home.

“Sorry, Mom. I was—lost in thought. Were you asking me something?”

Her forehead furrowed with a frown, Enola stepped into the room. A dishtowel was twisted between her hardworking hands.

“I was wondering if we should wake Peggy for supper. She hasn’t eaten hardly anything today. With everything that happened yesterday, she should get something in her tummy.”

“I know. But I think she needs to rest more.”

Enola moved closer to her daughter. “She’s been like a different little girl today. I doubt she’s said twenty words altogether. I couldn’t even get her to help me dig in the garden.”

Kerry didn’t need to be reminded that Peggy was still suffering emotionally from the horrible experience she’d gone through. Her daughter had hardly left her side all day. And though the paramedics had found her physically unharmed, Kerry realized her daughter had been traumatized.

“She just needs time to get over this, Mom. We all do.”

Enola briefly closed her eyes and Kerry realized her mother was still trying to deal with the guilt she felt over allowing Peggy to slip away unnoticed.

Rising from her chair, Kerry patted her mother’s shoulder. “I wish you would quit blaming yourself, Mom. None of this is your fault. Peggy has pulled disappearing acts on me before. It just so happened that this time she wandered farther off than she’d intended.”

Enola sighed. “She’s only three, Kerry. She doesn’t understand the dangers. She wants to see everything. Learn about everything. I should have known not to turn my back. Even for a second.”

Kerry shook her head. “Mom, that’s ridiculous. No child can be watched that closely. And maybe in the long run, this horrible experience has taught her not to stray from the house or yard.”

“I hope you’re right. But it’s heartbreaking to see my granddaughter so quiet and withdrawn.”

Looping her arm through her mother’s, she urged her toward the kitchen. “Peggy is brave. Like her grandmother and great-grandmother Crow. She’ll get through this. Now come on and let’s eat.”

The two women made their way back to the small kitchen where Enola had prepared pinto beans, corn bread and wilted salad. Inside the room, they were greeted with the aroma of cooked food joined by the scents of cut grass and sweet lilac wafting through the open screen door.

While her mother took a seat at the dining table, Kerry went to the cabinet to fill two tall glasses with iced tea. When a knock sounded at the front of the house, the two women exchanged glances.

“I’ll go see who it is,” Kerry said to Enola. “You go ahead and eat. It’s probably just another neighbor wanting to make sure Peggy is okay.”

Not bothering to hunt for her shoes, Kerry padded barefoot over the cool linoleum until she reached the front screen door. Since no one was standing directly in view, she pushed it open and stepped onto the porch.

“Hello Kerry.”

The deep voice hit her before she spotted him standing at the south end of the porch. Slowly she turned to see the man who had continued to linger in her thoughts today.

“Hello,” she said quietly as he walked toward her.

Although he was dressed casually in jeans and boots and a pale blue polo shirt, she felt sloppy in comparison. Her white shorts were stained with tiny splotches of blue paint and the red T-shirt topping them had been washed so many times it had turned the color of a half-ripe watermelon. Greeting her neighbors in such a getup was one thing, but letting Jared Colton catch her like this was quite another.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” he said as his eyes roamed appreciatively over her face, then lowered to her bare brown legs. “I just happened to be in the neighborhood this evening and I thought I’d check to see how Peggy is doing.”

There it was again, Kerry thought, that strange feeling of being exposed in front of this man. What was it about him, she wondered. She’d been around nice-looking men before. But none of them had affected her like this one. Not even Peggy’s father.

His dark bronze features were rough-hewn, but classic male. The strong, hawkish nose, carved cheekbones and black hair edging over the back of his collar were distinctly Native American. Only his gray eyes and the faint shadow of a beard hinted that there might be white blood flowing through his veins.

She tried not to stare at his striking face or the long, strong body attached to it as she replied, “We were about to eat supper. Peggy is asleep right now. But you’re welcome to join us.”

Kerry was trying to be polite, but Jared could see that the last thing she wanted him to do was join her and her mother for supper. The fact left him feeling vaguely hollow. Though he didn’t understand why. There were plenty of women in town that would be thrilled to find him on their front steps. Once he left here all he had to do was pick up his cell phone and make a call to one of them. And maybe he’d do that, he promised himself. It was foolish to let this single mother change his normal behavior.

Giving her his best smile, he shook his head. “Thank you, Kerry, but I wouldn’t want to impose.”

Disappointment flashed through her, catching her completely off guard. She didn’t want to entertain this man, she silently argued with herself. It would be like inviting a stick of dynamite into the house. And she’d already had too many explosions in her life to risk another one.

Feeling incredibly awkward, she tucked her bobbed hair behind her ears and darted a glance toward his face. “I hope you’ve had a chance to get rested up from yesterday’s ordeal,” she said.

He shrugged as though the part he’d played in Peggy’s rescue had been superfluous. Kerry could only wonder if the gesture was an attempt to appear humble or if these past years had honestly changed him into a more modest man than the Jared Colton she remembered.

“I’m fine,” he said with a quick grin. “What about you? How are you holding up?”

It was a beautiful spring evening. The sun had dipped below the bare hills that skirted the edge of town and a warm breeze was blowing the scent of honeysuckle across the porch. If this man had been anyone except Jared Colton she might have enjoyed having male company for a change. She might have invited him to take a seat and drink a glass of tea with her. Instead, she was afraid to trust him and afraid to trust herself.

“I’m okay. It’s Peggy and Mom that worry me. Peggy is—well, she’s hardly spoken to anyone today. And she’s eaten even less than she’s talked. Mother blames herself, of course. I’m not sure how to help either one of them.”

“I hate to hear that. I was hoping Peggy would be the sort of child that would bounce right back.” A rueful grin suddenly twisted his lips. “I mean, there’s not many little girls her age that would have enough courage to go exploring a deep dark place like she went into. Especially without another child with her.”

His remarks surprised Kerry. She’d not expected him to understand anything about the way a child’s mind worked. Especially a little female mind. But then females were his specialty; he ought to know how their minds worked, she quickly reminded herself.

“Peggy is very adventurous. I used to be proud of the fact that she was so curious about the world around her. But now I’m wondering if that curiosity is a curse. When I asked her why she left the yard, she told me that she went hunting birds with Fred. I don’t even know if she understands what the term hunting means. No one that I know of has talked about hunting birds or anything else to her.”

She looked weary, Jared thought. The harrowing hours she’d gone through yesterday and last night would have been enough to break any young mother. Much less one without the support of a husband. And suddenly he wished he had the right to try to comfort her with touches and whispered words.

“She’s probably heard someone refer to Fred as a hunting dog,” Jared suggested. “Or it could have come from television.”

Kerry nodded. “You could be right. Either way, I’m wondering now how to keep this from happening again. I don’t want to get rid of the dog. Losing her buddy would only make matters worse.”

His black brows pulled together in a thoughtful frown. “I don’t have any kids, Kerry, so I’m the last person to give you advice. But I used to be a kid with a dog and I know losing him would have broken my heart.”

Hearing one of Black Arrow’s most prominent playboys discuss children and dogs and broken hearts was as unsettling to Kerry as the potent sensuality that swirled around him. Because it made him more of a man somehow. A man that she could care about.

Alarmed by the soft thoughts running through her head, she glanced away from him and breathed deeply. “I’m—uh—I’ve been thinking I’ll go by the animal shelter and adopt a kitty for her, too. That way if Fred decides to take off again, she might decide it’s more important for her to stay behind and take care of her new friend.”

A grin lifted the corner of his lips, giving her a glimpse of snow-white teeth. “That sounds like a great idea. As long as Fred doesn’t decide he wants to make a meal out of the cat.”

Kerry actually laughed and the unexpected sound darted through Jared like a ray of golden sunshine. Of all the times he’d been in her presence he’d never heard her laugh before. It made him wonder if the years had loosened her rigid personality or if she was just now allowing him to see the woman she’d always been.

“I’m not too worried about that,” she said. “He loves all of our neighboring felines.”

Enola’s voice suddenly carried through the screen door. “Kerry? Who is it?”

Both Kerry and Jared turned to see Enola stepping onto the porch with a sleepy-eyed Peggy in her arms.

“Jared has stopped by to check on Peggy,” Kerry quickly explained to her mother. “I asked him to join us for supper—but he has other plans.”

“Good evening, Mrs. WindWalker,” Jared greeted the older woman.

She inclined her head in his direction but didn’t grant him any sort of semblance of a smile. Jared couldn’t help notice the woman’s eagle-eyed gaze was encompassing both him and her daughter as though she was trying to gauge the sort of conversation that had been going on before she’d arrived. Her attitude was faintly insulting, but Jared tried his best to ignore it. From what he knew of Marvin WindWalker, it wouldn’t surprise him if Enola despised all men.

“Evening,” she stiffly replied.

Jared’s attention zeroed in on Peggy, who was chewing on one finger while studying him with guarded interest.

Stepping closer, he smiled at the little girl. “Hello Peggy. Do you remember me?”

Peggy squirmed in Enola’s arms and demanded to be put down. Then to her mother and grandmother’s total surprise, she scurried across the wooden porch straight to Jared.

“You’re Jared,” she said, then held up her arms to him in a totally trustful gesture.

A rush of tender emotions filled his chest as Jared bent down and scooped up the child. After carefully balancing her with one arm against his chest, he touched a forefinger to her cheek.

“That’s right, little dove. I’m Jared.”

Peggy’s tiny fingers reached out and played with his shirt collar, a signal, Jared realized, that she felt comfortable with him.

“You got me out of that hole,” she said to him.

Jared was surprised at her clearly pronounced words. Last night she’d refused to say anything to him except that she wanted her mama. And those words had been muffled with tears.

“That’s right, sweetheart. And I’m glad I did. You’re just about the prettiest little girl I’ve ever seen.”

For a moment her lips twitched as though she might give him a smile. Then all of a sudden she threw her arms around his neck and held on tight. Since fathering skills were something Jared knew precious little about, all he could do was follow his instincts and pat Peggy’s back with gentle reassurance.

A few steps away, Kerry tried to swallow away the tightness in her throat as she watched her daughter’s reaction to Jared. Even though Peggy was usually a tiny tornado, she’d always been slow to warm up to the male gender. To see her clinging so trustingly to Jared, a man she’d only seen once, was somewhat of a phenomenon.

Across the porch, Enola cleared her throat loudly. “Peggy, it’s time for you to eat supper,” she said firmly. “Tell Mr. Colton goodbye.”

Peggy ignored her grandmother and continued to bury her face against Jared’s neck. At the same time, Kerry stared with an open mouth at her mother.

She gathered her wits and said, “Mom, I’ll handle this. Why don’t you go finish eating. We’ll join you in a few minutes.”

The surprise that registered on Enola’s face told Jared the older woman wasn’t accustomed to having Kerry intercede with her own wishes. Especially in such a blunt way. Enola opened her mouth to say something else. But instead, she threw Jared a withering look, then turned and headed into the house.

Once the woman was out of sight, Jared joked in an effort to lighten the moment, “I don’t think she likes me.”

Kerry sighed. “Her behavior embarrasses me. I don’t know what’s making her this way.”

Jared did. There weren’t many mothers in Black Arrow that welcomed the sight of him on the doorstep. He knew he had a reputation for dallying with women’s hearts, maybe even crushing a few. If that was true, he’d not done it intentionally. Of all the women he’d dated in the past, he’d never once led them to believe he was a serious suitor with marriage on his mind. They’d gone into a relationship with him knowing it would only be fun and games. But convincing Enola WindWalker of that would be as fruitless as talking to the wall.

“Forget it,” he told Kerry with a rueful grin. “I take no offense. Especially since I got such a nice greeting from my little dove here.” Placing his forefinger under Peggy’s chin, he lifted the angelic face up to his. “Are you going to be a good girl for your mother and stay in the yard from now on?”

Peggy nodded emphatically and Jared stroked the shiny black waves tumbling about her shoulders. He could see touches of Kerry in the girl’s proud thin nose, high cheekbones and faintly pointed chin. Yet her café au lait complexion made Jared suspect her father had been a white man. His own father had been half-white.

“That’s just what I wanted to hear,” he told her proudly.

“I have a dog,” Peggy said to him. “Do you have a dog?”

Jared chuckled as he found himself charmed by a set of big brown eyes and twin dimples. “No. But I met your Mr. Fred yesterday. And you know what, I think he’s almost as smart as you are.”

Peggy gave him another emphatic nod of agreement, then to Kerry and Jared’s amazement, she leaned forward and smacked a kiss on his cheek.

“I gotta go feed Fred,” she said suddenly, then squirmed, signaling that she wanted to be put back on her feet.

Jared complied, and smiled as he watched her scurry into the house.

“Looks like I need to be thanking you again,” Kerry said.

He turned his head in her direction and was instantly taken with the natural beauty of her face, the sensual curves, partially camouflaged by her loose clothing. She was not a glamour girl. So why did he wonder, as he had so many years ago, what she would look like in his arms with nothing on but a smile just for him?

“For what?” he asked, forcing his mind off the tempting thought.

“That’s the most Peggy has said to anyone today. She’s obviously taken with you.”

Jared was glad the child had warmed up to him. Yet it was her mother that he really wanted to charm.

Shrugging, he glanced down at the toe of his boot and wondered why this woman made him feel like a shy teenager wanting to steal a kiss. “Well, I’m kinda taken with her, too. That’s why I wanted to stop by and check on her.”

Kerry folded her hands primly in front of her. “Thank you. It was kind of you.”

No, it was selfish, Jared thought. Sure, he’d wanted to see little Peggy and make sure she was okay. But even more he’d wanted to see this woman. Yet he wasn’t going to confess such a thing to her. Right now she saw him as a gallant knight and he didn’t want to spoil it.

With a sudden grin, he lifted a hand in farewell. “You’d better go get your supper, Kerry. Before your mama comes after you.”

Kerry watched him walk to his truck. As he pulled away from the house, she wondered if this was the last time she would ever see him. Or if Jared Colton was going to try to make her one more notch on the foot of his bed.