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“Thanks, Hayley.”
She straightened, smiling.
“I would have spent half the night trying to get that bath done, with twice as much mess and a bucket of tears. I’m grateful.”
Warmth spread through her. “No problem.”
“I’ve been going through girl-panic like that for a week now.”
“Just respect their privacy. Believe me, this is just the start of it.” He groaned, reaching to help clean up, but she stayed his hand. “I have it. Go to your daughters.”
He nodded, then walked into the bedroom and settled the girls into bed. He was at a disadvantage, just being male, and he realized how much his daughters enjoyed a younger more sympathetic female than Mrs. Winslow in the house. Mrs. Winslow was always ready to go home about this time of night, he recalled, and now he wondered if she was really ill or just tired.
Hayley stepped into the bedroom half an hour later and found Nash asleep in the chair between the twin beds, a storybook on his chest and his hands clasped around each of his daughters’. The tender scene stabbed through her with a longing so keen her breath snagged in her chest. Oh, to be loved and needed like this, she thought. To have a home and family. Nash was trying hard to be both father and mother and make a living at the same time, and she thought of how hard it must have been for her own father, raising her alone. She glanced around the room, just now noticing that, while there were several framed photos of Nash and the girls and other relatives, there were none of Michelle. None anywhere else in the house, either. Nor had the girls mentioned her. Not once. But then, Hayley thought, she rarely spoke of her own mother, her memories too faint to recall. Kim and Kate probably had no recollection of their mother. Since Michelle had died when they were infants, they’d never known her and really had no concept of her. Was that why there were no pictures?
Hayley moved to Nash, tapping him lightly on the shoulder. He stirred.
“You’re going to regret it in the morning if you sleep in that chair all night,” she whispered close to his ear.
His lips curved softly, his eyes still closed. “You still have the sweetest voice, Hayley.”
“Say that when I get hopping mad.”
His forehead wrinkled for a second. He’d never seen her mad. Not even hurt, really. He’d never given her the chance. He opened his eyes. Hayley was covering up his children, tucking their stuffed toys close. Her hand lingered over Kim’s hair, and his throat tightened at the sight. Her expression was incredibly tender, and Nash thought of how easily Hayley gave, as if she’d known his girls for years.
He looked at his babies. How could their mother have walked away without a backward glance? The memory tormented him at times like this, when he knew his girls were missing a mother. He reminded himself that Hayley was temporary. And he didn’t want his daughters to get so attached to her they’d be hurt when she left. But with Hayley, he thought, as she whispered good-night and swept past him, well, it was just plain hard to keep “temporary” in his mind.
Nash stayed in his office most of the next day, working on bids for the coming auction. The house was surprisingly quiet, and though he made progress in his work, the lack of activity and his curiosity forced him out. The house was immaculate, and something heavenly simmered on the stove. He sampled a taste of the stew, nearly burning his tongue. He called out. No answer. And he realized just how big this house was when he was alone. A rare occurrence, he knew. Grabbing his hat and striding to the front door, he flung it open and stepped onto the porch. He spied Hayley out by her car, then trotted down the steps and crossed the driveway.
With his daughters playing close by, she was bent under the open hood of her car, grease on one bare thigh.
Nash peered under the hood. “Good Lord, is that a pair of panty hose for a fan belt?”
She jerked upright, knocking her head into his chin.
“Ow, yes, it is.” She rubbed her head. “A girl has to make do when she’s alone on a dark country road.”
“All the more reason to get a better car. This thing is falling apart.”
“Not quite yet.” She leaned back under the hood to adjust the panty-hose belt. “Besides, Lurlene just needs a rest, dontcha, baby?” She patted the fender. “Can you hand me the torque wrench?” She waved at the toolbox behind her. He pushed the wrench into her hand.
“Why are you fixing this now?” he asked when she straightened.
“The girls and I are going to the market to pick up some household stuff.”
His features tightened. “You’re not taking my children anywhere in that pile of junk!”
“Shh.” She covered up a headlight as if covering ears. “Insults won’t make Lurlene your friend, Nash.”
His lips twitched. Hayley always did have a great sense of humor.
“So what do you propose I do?” she asked.
He folded his arms over his chest and called for Jimmy Lee. The ranch hand came around the corner of the barn, hopped the fence and strode toward them.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Bring the sedan around for Miss Albright, will you?”
“Sedan?” Hayley said, looking for one in the yard. There were half a dozen trucks, flatbeds, and five horse trailers neatly lined up behind the breeding barn, but no sedan.
“Want me to drive her?” Jimmy asked.
Nash glared. The man was eyeballing Hayley’s bare legs and cropped T-shirt as if she were spicy barbecue on a summer night. “No, I do not. She’s capable of driving herself and the twins.”
“You trust me with the girls?” Hayley asked.
He met her gaze. “Of course,” he said as if she was foolish to ask.
She smiled, a bright burst of light in dimples and dark-brown eyes. It hit him like a punch to the gut and rocked him to his boot heels. He could get used to seeing that every day, he thought as she took off like a shot, as usual, to the house to change her clothes. Someone ought to tie her down. But he was afraid if someone did, her impatient energy would drill a hole straight to China.
Two hours later Hayley drove back up the long gravel lane in his sedan. A Mercedes sedan, she thought, running her hand over the leather-covered steering wheel. The corporate car, he’d called it. It looked as if it had never been used. Even smelled new—and expensive. But then, he could afford to be extravagant. Before she and the twins had left, he’d told her to charge all she needed on his credit line, and anyone else might have been tempted to go hog-wild. But Hayley had pinched pennies for too long to go loose now.
She frowned when she pulled into the spot nearest the house and realized her car was missing. Climbing out, she shooed the girls inside and went to the trunk for the groceries. She had two sacks in her arms when Nash, on a beautiful chestnut stallion, rode down from the hill. He stopped on the edge of the driveway, and she tried not to notice how sexy he looked.
“Where’s my car?” she asked.
“I had it towed.”
Her gaze narrowed and she cocked her head. “Excuse me?”
“It’s a piece of junk and dangerous, Hayley.”
“And it’s my piece of junk, not yours.”
“If you’re worried about your things, I had them delivered to your room.”
How good of His Lordship, she thought. “It’s my car, Nash.”
His brow knitted. “Lurlene is held together with tape, panty hose and gum, darlin’. Give her a decent burial and get another.”
“If I could afford one, don’t you think I would be driving it?”
“I’ll buy you one, then.”
Instantly she dumped the bags back in the trunk. “Get down off that horse so I can yell at you right proper.” She pointed to the ground in case he misunderstood.
Smothering a smile, he swung down, tugging the fingers of his gloves as he walked closer.
She was in his face. “I don’t need your charity, Nash Rayburn. And I resent the hell out of you taking charge of my car.”
“If you want it back, I’ll just make a call.”
Her anger withered a bit. “Yes, I do. You do that. Right now.”
He nudged his hat back. “I was only trying to help.”
“You were manipulating. Doing what you damn well please because you have the money. Here’s a novel approach,” she said, wide-eyed and sarcastic. “How about asking me how I feel?”
“You would have said no.”
“But you went ahead, pretty as you please.”
“I can’t have you driving that thing.”
His superior look made her want to kick him. “Why? An embarrassment to you?”
“No, dammit, you could get hurt.”
She held his gaze steadily, yet her voice wavered. “Any more than I already have been shouldn’t matter to you, Nash.”
She turned away and grabbed the grocery bags, sidestepping out of his reach when he tried to help.
“Hayley!”
“Don’t talk to me till Lurlene is sitting next your stuck-up sedan!”
She didn’t talk to him. She wouldn’t even acknowledge him at dinner until the tow truck pulled away. And then she just gave him a “Don’t try that again or you’ll be sorry” glare and headed into the house, his five-year-old traitors tucked by her side.
He looked at the rusted blue two-door coupe. Then he kicked it. The bumper fell off the back.
“I saw that!” came a voice from the house, and Nash had to smile. Having Hayley Albright around certainly made life interesting. Again.
Three
He’d been fine.
Just damn fine, controlling his desire for her, avoiding her when he wanted to touch her so badly. Until he’d walked around the back of the house, purely by chance to look for his misplaced pocket knife, and saw her naked.
Well, almost naked.
Bare-chested, Nash slammed the ax into the wood, its splintering crack vibrating over the hillside.
She might as well have been naked for all the skin that bathing suit hid.
He kept his back to the house and put another log on the stump, bringing the ax down again. Then another and another, until the waistband of his jeans was drenched with sweat. It didn’t do a damn thing for the unsatisfied desire running heavily through his blood.
He split another log, then threw down the ax, and stacked the wood for curing till winter. He didn’t look toward the house or the pool deck. Because she was there. In a hot pink bikini. Tonga style. He closed his eyes and briefly shook his head. He was in real danger and hoped the ranch hands didn’t get a look at all that flesh.
She’d cause a stampede.
He added another split log to the seven-foot-high stack, then swept up the ax again. The blow sent two halves flying outward.
“Hi.”
Head bowed, Nash propped the ax head on the stump, his wrist on the handle top. He didn’t turn around. “Hi yourself.”
“Aren’t you even going to look at me?” Hayley asked.
“You still wearing that scrap of nothing you call a swimsuit?”
“Yes, I am.” He heard a light laugh. “Nash. This is silly.”
He flipped the ax up and placed another log on the stump. He split it and even without looking, he felt her flinch.
“What did I do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nash.” He could hear the hurt in her voice. “If this is about the car—”
“Go on back to the girls,” he interrupted.
“Gladly, boss. Enjoy your own company.”
Nash cursed under his breath. It wasn’t the stupid car. It was her! Seeing her, wanting her, even arguing with her slammed desire and regret through him. The guilt over what he’d done, what honor and duty had pushed him to do at her expense made him angry. With himself. He didn’t deserve her kindness. He didn’t deserve her thoughtful gestures or her concern. Or anything else for that matter. And that he couldn’t alleviate his guilt in telling the truth was a burden that wore on him the longer she was near. He wanted to, but his sins were just too ugly. She’d never forgive him, anyway, he thought, and wished the two weeks were over and she was gone. And at the same time he prayed they’d never end. Wish in one hand and spit in the other and see what you get, he thought.
He glanced over his shoulder. She was walking down the hillside toward the pool where his daughters were having a snack in the shade of the stone veranda. He absorbed everything about her as she moved, noticing not only that she wore a cover-up over that too-hot-tobe-legal bikini, but that her head was bowed and she hugged herself.
He felt like a first-class heel. Then his gaze fell on another splitting stump a few feet away. A pitcher of ice water sparkled in the hot sun, beside it a glass and wrapped sandwich, a little plastic horse on a toothpick stuck in the center.
Nash groaned.
Something had to be done. Soon.
Or he was going to go just plain nuts.
Nash rushed the horse, trying to get the animal to obey his commands, but it wasn’t going well. He attributed that to his wandering mind, and that irritated him to no end. He hadn’t seen Hayley since breakfast, and that had been a little strained, especially after his unfounded harshness the day before. Last night after the girls went to bed, she’d disappeared into her room, and he hadn’t bothered her, afraid that whatever he said would just stamp “You’re so hot, I can’t even think straight” across his forehead. She made him too aware of the fact that he was a man and she was a beautiful woman.
And how good it had once been between them.
And how he’d blown it.
He heard giggles and glanced up, catching a glimpse of Hayley and his daughters heading for the chicken coop. She was wearing jeans, boots and a lime-green T-shirt, like his girls, and he thought how cute the three of them looked. Hayley’s red hair gleamed in the sunlight.
“They sure do like her,” Seth said from a few feet away.
“Yeah,” Nash said, not taking his eyes off the trio.
“Want me to go see if they need help?”
“She’ll come for it if she needs it.” One thing he remembered about Hayley was that she could do just about anything she set her mind to.
Nash turned to the horse, swinging up onto the bare back. The wild thing bucked, sending his hat to the ground, yet he held on, riding out the mare’s temper. Slipping off, he led the horse around the ring, his daughters’ laughter breaking through his concentration. He glanced and waved before his gaze swung to Hayley. She looked worried. He scooped up his hat and turned back to the horse, trying to ignore her. But his gaze kept straying to her as the girls showed her how to spread a little grain on the ground, then fill the troughs for the chicken and pigs. They collected eggs and he could see Hayley’s sour expression from here. He smirked. Well, at least she’ll get a taste of real ranching, he thought, then remembered how Michelle had protested against going within twenty feet of the coop. He should have seen that coming, recognized her true distaste for ranching. Or was it just him? Irritated with his train of thought, especially when he could scarcely drag Michelle’s image from the waste of his mind, he led the horse into the barn. He’d just handed over the currying to Jimmy when he heard his daughters scream.
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