“WE’RE HO-OME,” MARK sang out as Cara pulled up to the ranch house.
Home. Something she no longer had. As she unbuckled Mark’s seat belt, she made a mental note to add apartment hunting online to tomorrow’s to-do list.
“Yes, we’re home,” she confirmed for his benefit, then quickly changed it to “You and Tracey are home.”
“And Daddy.” He pointed to Wes’s pickup truck.
“Yes, and Daddy.”
“And Miss Cara.”
Before she could explain this wasn’t Miss Cara’s home, he had taken off at a run toward the house. She shook her head. Such a smart little boy. And he had an answer for everything.
Between watching the road and keeping up with his conversation, she’d had no time to worry about being with Wes’s kids. No time even to think about her own baby.
And she still had Tracey to take care of. Unlike her big brother, the little girl slept the entire time. She had rested her head against the side of her infant seat and tucked one hand between the seat and her cheek. The sight of that little hand made Cara envision those small fingers tangling her hair...that tiny fist clamped around her finger... Wes’s hand brushing hers as he attempted to help...
She pushed all those memories away.
Trying not to startle the baby, Cara slowly unbuckled the seat belt. At Rhea’s, she had managed to put a wide-awake, wriggling little girl into this car seat. She didn’t expect to have any trouble taking a still-sleeping one out.
The danger came when she lifted Tracey into her arms. The little girl snuggled closer, nestling her head in the hollow of Cara’s throat. Cara froze, holding the small but solid weight securely, feeling the warmth of that weight against her, inhaling the scents of baby shampoo, clean baby clothes and just plain baby.
Of all the things she had dreaded happening in Cowboy Creek, this was the worst of them. And the best.
“Is she sleeping?”
Wes’s voice made her jump. Luckily, her instincts also made her tighten her hold on the baby, who squirmed and began to stretch. “She was asleep.”
“She usually does nod off when she’s riding in a vehicle, especially at this time of day. Here, let me have her.” He took Tracey from her arms.
Immediately, she felt the loss of the baby’s weight and warmth.
“Hey there, sleepyhead. We’ll get you upstairs to finish your nap.” He looked back at Cara. “Mark brought in his backpack. Did Rhea send Tracey’s diaper bag home?”
“Yes. And another handful of Mark’s drawings.” Cara grabbed them along with the bag. “I’ll carry these into the house since you have your hands full. And speaking of full—” she waved the drawings “—I think you may have to buy a second refrigerator.”
Wes laughed. A genuine laugh. She nearly lost her grip on the papers. Not that long ago, he’d refused even to smile at her.
“I’ll come back to get the car seats. Rhea told me she offered you a couple of loaners. Did either of the kids give you any trouble on the ride?”
“No. Tracey drifted off almost right away. Mark talked to Missy nonstop from the time we left Rhea’s. Once we dropped off Andi and Missy at the Hitching Post, he didn’t miss a beat, just kept the conversation going with me.”
“That’s my boy. You’d think being at the sitter’s all day, he’d talk himself out with his friends. But somehow that only revs him up for coming home.”
They bypassed the front of the house and went to the kitchen entrance off the back porch. The room was less neat and tidy than the last time she’d seen it, thanks mostly to Mark, who had already covered the table with his supplies.
The countertop near the sink was cluttered with bowls and spoons and a cardboard carton. A large pot and a saucepan sat on the stove.
“Miss Cara come for supper?” Mark asked. “I help clean.” He began gathering up his crayons.
“No,” she blurted. Wasn’t his cute conversation and Tracey’s snuggle enough? She couldn’t face dinner with them, too. Judging by Wes’s blank expression, he disliked the idea as much as she did. “I’m not here for supper,” she explained to Mark.
He stared at her, his eyes wide. “But we have bacroni!”
Bacroni? She looked at Wes.
“Baked macaroni. Known by most people as baked ziti. Bacroni is Mark’s word. And his favorite food.”
He didn’t sound at all upset. Maybe her own tension had her imagining his. “Sounds great. It’s starting to smell great, too, if that’s what you have cooking in the oven. But I should get going.”
“Daddy makes lots,” Mark said.
Wes ruffled his hair. “What my son is diplomatically trying to tell you is, we have bacroni nearly every week. Even then, it doesn’t always turn out right. I’m not much of a cook.”
“I’m a big fan of simple recipes.” It didn’t matter what Wes had on the menu. She needed to leave.
As if he’d read her mind, Mark said pleadingly, “Stay for bacroni, Miss Cara? Please?”
Over his head, she exchanged a glance with Wes, who gave her a small shrug. “Once he gets an idea in his head...”
“...he doesn’t let go. I remember.” Wes had said that the first night she had come here. She didn’t want to stay tonight, but how could she say no with Mark’s hopeful face turned up to hers. “Well...” She looked at Wes. “I did lose an entire day in town. I could eat and then do some work upstairs.” He nodded, and she smiled at Mark. “Thank you. I will stay for supper.”
“Yay!” Mark grinned and began shoving his papers into a pile.
“Yay!” Tracey raised both hands high, then patted her daddy’s cheeks.
Wes’s smile looked strained. She hadn’t imagined his tension, after all.
Why hadn’t she gone with her instincts and left while she’d had the chance?
AS WES CHECKED on the pan of ziti in the oven, Cara asked what she could do to help. He shook his head. “Nothing. You’re a guest.”
Thanks to him. And maybe he’d made one colossal mistake.
He hadn’t wanted her to stay. Hadn’t wanted Mark to get comfortable with someone who would soon walk out of his life again.
Yet, something had kept him from giving Cara the out when she’d so obviously asked for it. His son’s plea? The indecision he’d seen in her eyes at first? His gut telling him she wouldn’t mind staying? All of the above?
Or maybe he’d just felt it only right to repay her favor—a strictly business favor—with a meal.
And maybe he was just making too much of this whole situation. A simple supper in the kitchen couldn’t be that big a deal to anyone.
“I don’t like standing around doing nothing,” she insisted. “So what can I do to help?”
Giving in, he gestured to the cutting board and knife on the counter beside the salad fixings. He thought again of the work she was doing upstairs. “What makes you so willing to give up your free time to help me out, when you could be relaxing at the Hitching Post?”
She hesitated a while, then finally said, “Just being a good neighbor.”
They weren’t neighbors. She didn’t live in Cowboy Creek. She’d thought up that answer just to get by. He could see the tension in her all-too-readable posture as she stood at the sink rinsing the vegetables.
The obvious answer hit him right between the eyes. She had no job, no income. Andi was probably going to pay her for helping with the inventory.
Everyone had their reasons for needing extra cash.
He glanced over at Mark, busy with his coloring, and then at Tracey, now settled in her high chair after refusing to be tucked in for a nap.
Who was he to question Cara’s financial situation, especially when he could relate to it? He wouldn’t give up the opportunity to live on this ranch—or to raise his kids here—for anything in the world. Still, along with everything else, the past couple of years, before and after Patty died, had taken their toll. He’d skated as near as he’d ever come to not breaking even.
Time to change the subject. He stirred the extra pasta sauce simmering on a back burner. “This is a first, all right—first time I’ve had help with making supper.”
Instantly, Mark said, “I help, Daddy.”
Just as quickly, he regretted his mistake. Of course his son, who paid attention to everything, would overhear. “You’re always a big help, pardner. I’m getting everything ready for you to set the table.”
Cara shot him a look of surprise.
“Don’t worry,” he said in a lower voice. “He gets napkins, spoons and plastic cups. All nonbreakable and without a blade. And considering my son’s normal speed is fixed at a run, I set all that out on the table for him to arrange.”
She kept her focus on the vegetables, but her lips curved in a smile.
Wes grabbed a few hot pads from the lower cabinet and set them on the counter beside the stove.
“Spoons go on the napkins,” Mark announced.
“That’s right,” Wes confirmed. As he made a mental note to add extra utensils and dishes for Cara, he tried to remember the last time they’d had company over for supper. Before they’d lost Patty, he calculated.
Had it really been that long?
“It sounds like you’ve trained him well,” Cara said. “Or his mother did. But you said you didn’t have help—besides Mark, of course. You and your wife didn’t get dinner ready together?”
“No. By the time I’d come in at night, she’d have everything waiting to go on the table. Usually, she would head out soon after we ate. She spent a lot of time in town with her friends.”
Another mistake he immediately regretted. Why blurt out all these details to Cara? No doubt about it, he would be better once she went on her way. “Anyhow,” he finished in a rush, “lack of experience doesn’t improve my skills in the kitchen.”
“You and Garrett didn’t learn from your mom when you were growing up? Oh.” She frowned. “Sorry.”
“For what?”
“For asking that. I’m guessing you were too young for her to teach you to cook. I...I heard she passed away a long time ago.”
She had probably learned that from the town crier, otherwise known as Jed Garland. The thought irritated him, but he couldn’t blame her for Jed’s habit of running off at the mouth. “Yeah, I was still just a kid.”
“That must have been tough for you to handle.”
She didn’t look his way. Maybe that made it easier for him to answer. “I won’t lie. It was tough. But it’s worse for my kids. They’ve lost their mother much earlier on than I did.”
“As hard as that must be for them, they seem happy and content. Which means you’re doing a great job.”
“Thanks. I try.” He opened the dish cupboard to collect what they would need for supper. Right now, he needed another change of topic. “How about you? Any kids of your own?”
The knife skidded across the cutting board. A piece of cucumber flew off the edge of the counter.
He caught it in midair. “Hey, we don’t throw food around in this kitchen.”
Her laugh sounded rattled. “Sorry. You have good reflexes. And I guess I’m not much of a cook, either.”
“Somebody else does the cooking in your house, too?”
“No, I live alone. Though lately, I’ve been staying at a friend’s house and eating all my meals out.”
“That must get old.”
“It does.”
She hadn’t answered his question about kids, but her response about living alone covered that. “You must appreciate the homemade meals at the Hitching Post.”
“Oh, I do. Everyone there appreciates them. Paz is a fantastic cook.”
“Yeah, no matter what she makes, starting with burritos and moving on from there.”
“I love b’ritos!” Mark shouted.
“B’itos!” echoed Tracey.
“Me, too,” she said. “I hear they’re on the menu for this week’s cookout.”
Wes laughed. “No surprise. They’re on the menu every week. Paz is famous for hers. It wouldn’t be a cookout without them.”
Turning back to the cutting board, Cara said quietly, “You could bring the kids over to join us this Saturday.”
She must have taken note of his son’s excellent hearing. Wes appreciated that she’d lowered her voice. Even better, she’d spoken at the same time he’d rattled a handful of cutlery, giving him a reason to pretend he hadn’t heard her. He didn’t need any suggestions from outsiders. He got enough from folks around here.
No matter what Garrett insisted, he didn’t need to go running to the Hitching Post for any of Jed’s charity. He still had to talk to the man about his interference, though, and about sending Cara to his doorstep in the first place.
He didn’t much like this arrangement he’d agreed to with her. The sooner she left, the better. “I was thinking—”
“Great! I know everyone will be glad to see you all.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Her happy smile disappeared. “I was thinking about the office. You’re close to finishing in there.”
“Right. I should be done in another few days. Just a reminder, Andi and I will be here tomorrow, in the morning only. In the afternoon, she’s got appointments in town, and we’ll be doing more cleaning at the store. Plus I need to set up some interviews for when I get back to Phoenix.”
“You excited about that?”
“Very. A new job, a new home, a whole new life. Anyone would get excited about that, wouldn’t they?”
“Yeah.” Another good reminder. She planned to move on again. “Sounds like the right idea to line up those interviews. Since you’re apartment hunting, you’ll need a job to pay the rent.”
Her dimples flashed as she laughed. “Having a paycheck would definitely help with that.”
He didn’t realize he’d kept staring until she set the knife down and turned to him again.
On the back burner, the pot of spaghetti sauce bubbled and spit. He dropped the handful of silverware onto the counter. Half the utensils clattered to the floor. Stepping over them, he grabbed the pot, managing to burn his hand and spill sauce onto the stove.
Good thing he’d already made it clear he couldn’t cook.
MARK CHATTERED ALL through dinner. Cara gave thanks for his energy and Tracey’s babbling. Without them, the kitchen would have seemed like the staff break room at the department store after a weeklong summer clearance sale. In other words, deadly silent.
Mark chased the last ziti in his bowl. “You like bacroni?” he asked her.
“I love it,” she told him truthfully.
She glanced at Wes. Why he’d kept so quiet, she didn’t know. That didn’t mean she needed to act like a tongue-tied teenager. “My compliments to the cook. You’re pretty good around the kitchen, after all.”
“Until I burn things all over the stove.” He reached for the serving spoon. “Want more?”
“No, thanks. I can’t eat another bite.”
“What’s for dessert?” Mark asked.
“Pudding.”
Mark cheered and, naturally, Tracey did the same.
“That’s another one of his favorites,” Wes told Cara. “And as my mother used to say, nobody says no to pudding.” He frowned. “Funny, I hadn’t thought about that in a long while.”
“Memories are funny that way. Sometimes they hit out of nowhere.” And all too often, they came when you couldn’t handle them.
“About that dessert,” he said.
“I guess that’s true about not saying no to pudding. After we’re done, I’ll help with the dishes to work off all these calories.”
“Would it do me any good to argue with you?” Not a hint of a smile now. As if to make up for that, he gestured to the bowl in the center of the table. “The salad was good. Guess that makes you handy around the kitchen, too.”
“Not really. Anyone can shred lettuce and cut up a few vegetables.”
“Yeah, but not everyone can make a cucumber fly.”
“I didn’t do it intentionally.” If he hadn’t asked her about having kids of her own, she probably wouldn’t have done it at all. And though she had managed to change the subject without answering, now she suddenly longed to tell him about her baby.
She’d sworn off men—maybe forever, as she’d told Andi. This urge to confide in Wes made no sense at all.