“Yes, you are.” That was his voice, all right. His horse breakin’ voice. Calm. Steady. Sure. A voice that did not brook defiance, from animal, nor man. Nor child.

  “Make me.”

  “All right.”

  The boy’s aunt finally spoke. Evan hazarded a look at her and saw, to his relief, her bottom lip had stopped quivering. Hopefully she wasn’t going to cry. Her voice was soft, like velvet, the kind of voice that could bring a weak man to his knees.

  Something he had learned his lesson from already, thank God, being weakened by feminine wiles.

  “Moving manure?” she said uncertainly. “But we don’t even know you.”

  He stuck out his hand. “Evan Atkins,” he said.

  “Kathleen Miles,” she returned, accepting his hand with some reluctance.

  Her hand in his was about the softest thing he’d ever felt, and he snatched his out of her grasp after one brief pump.

  “Now we know each other,” he said. He heard the cold note in his voice, turning it to ice, and recognized it was a defense against the sudden racing of his heart. Wouldn’t do for her to know about that, no sir. She looked as if she was going to protest, but he cut her off. “Where’s the boy’s folks?”

  “I’m his folks,” she said stiffly.

  “And you’ll be working at the Outpost, for the Watsons?”

  “Yes.”

  “You can ask them if it’s safe for your boy to come work for me. They’ll tell you.”

  “Oh.”

  He turned again to the boy. “And your name?”

  “None of your business!”

  “Okay, none-of-your-business, I’ll pick you up right here at five-thirty tomorrow morning. If you make me come looking, you’ll be sorry, you hear?”

  He noted the boy’s aunt looked astounded when he offered a sullen “I hear.” Apparently thinking he’d given in too easily, the boy then added the word he had nearly succeeded in printing on the side of the truck.

  She gasped again, but Evan just smiled and leaned close to the little delinquent. “If I ever hear you say that word again, I’ll wash out your mouth with Ma Watson’s homemade lye soap. You can’t believe how bad it tastes.”

  Ma Watson, five foot one, in a man’s shirt, with her gray hair neatly braided down her back, had appeared on the sidewalk. She chortled now, and said, “And if anyone would know it would be you, Evan Atkins. Seems to me we went through a little stage where I felt it was my personal obligation to this town to have you spitting suds every ten minutes or so.”

  Her comment broke the tension, and a ripple of laughter went through the assembled crowd, or as close as Hopkins Gulch ever came to a “crowd.” They began to disperse.

  “Evan,” Ma said, sweetly, “can you show Kathleen over to her house? I just had a customer come in.”

  Evan glanced at the store, pretty sure the door had not swung inward in the last ten minutes or so. Still, he couldn’t very well call Ma a liar in front of her new employee, and besides, for all she sounded sweet, she had just given an order, drill sergeant to buck private.

  The old gal had really done more than anyone else in this town to try to show a boy going wild the difference between right and wrong, and enough of her tough caring had penetrated his thick skull to keep him out of jail over the years.

  Once, when he was sixteen, she had said to him, “Evan, each man has two knights within him, a knight of lightness and a knight of darkness. The one you feed the most will become the strongest.”

  At sixteen, he had found the words laughable, thought they had gone in one ear and out the other. But in actual fact, those words had stopped somewhere between those two ears, and for some reason now, ten years later, he found himself contemplating them, embarrassed almost by his longing to choose the right one.

  “Evan?” Ma said.

  Besides, Medicine Hat was a long haul for groceries. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, “I’ll show her the house.” He assumed that meant have a quick look around inside and make sure a rattlesnake hadn’t cozied up in some dark corner for the winter. He also assumed Ma wouldn’t want him to share that little fact of life in Hopkins Gulch with her new employee just yet.

  “Kathleen, dear, you take your time getting settled. Let Evan and the boy bring the heavy stuff in. I’ll see you here at the store tomorrow.”

  Evan took a deep breath, intending to point out that showing Miss Miles the little empty house Ma owned, three blocks from here, and moving her into it were really two separate tasks. One look at Ma and he bit his tongue.

  Why was it that woman could turn him into a twelve-year-old with his hand caught in her candy jar in a single glance? Why was it she made him want to be the white knight? A joke, really. He was just a farmer, and part-time cowboy, in muddy boots and torn jeans. He turned on the heel of one of those boots, got in his truck and watched in the rearview mirror as the beautiful Miss Miles herded the boy into her car and pulled in behind him.

  She had a beautiful figure, full and lush, a figure that could make a man like himself, sworn off women, reconsider, start to think thoughts of soft curves and warm places.

  Evan, he told himself, it only leads one place. It starts with an innocent thought: I wonder what it would be like to kiss her. The next thing you know, Potty-Training for the Hopelessly Confused. He realized he left his damned book in the café, and hoped that Millie possessed enough mercy to hide it for him until he had a chance to get back in there and pick it up.

  He was angry, Kathleen thought, as she pulled to a stop behind him, and watched him hop out of his truck.

  Well, who could blame him? The most noticeable thing about his vehicle now was the two-foot high S H I printed on the side of it.

  Still, she didn’t have much experience dealing with angry men. And certainly not ones who looked like this. Even with that menacing scowl on his face as he waited on the sidewalk outside the gate of a yard, Evan Atkins was gorgeous.

  He looked like a young Redford, with his corn silk and wheat colored hair, though his grayish-blue eyes held none of Redford’s boyish charm, only a hard and intimidating hint of ice and iron. His features were chiseled masculine perfection—high cheekbones, straight nose, wide mouth, firm lips, a strong chin.

  He was average height, maybe five-eleven, but the breadth of his chest and shoulders had left her with the impression of strength and leashed power. He was narrow at his stomach and hip, and his long, blue jean-encased legs looked as if they’d wrapped themselves around a lot of horses. And probably quite a few other things, too.

  Kathleen decided Evan Atkins was not a safe man for her to be around. Lately she had noticed that her mind wandered off in distinctly naughty directions with barely the slightest provocation. Part of being old, she was sure. Not just old, but an old spinster.

  She was kidding herself. It was because of Howard announcing his intention to marry someone else. Hope quashed.

  “Thank you,” she called to him, half in and half out of her car. “Is that the house? I can manage now.”

  He didn’t budge.

  The house was hidden behind a tall hedge. Throughout the long drive here she had been so eager to see the accommodations that came with her new job. Now she had to get past the guard at the gate. Now she wasn’t nearly as interested in that house as she had been a thousand miles ago. He had a kind of energy about him that made everything else seem to fade into the distance, uninteresting and unimportant.

  “Three days is too long to drive,” she muttered to herself.

  “Auntie Kathy, you’re getting old,” Mac informed her, an unfortunate confirmation of her own thoughts. “You’re talking to yourself.” He glanced at the man standing at the gate, wriggled deeper into his seat in the car and turned a page of his comic book.

  She made herself get all the way out of the car, and walk toward Evan.

  “Really,” she said, “Thank you. You don’t have to—”

  He held open the gate for her. The opening was far too narrow to get by him. She practically touched him. She caught a whiff of something headier than the lilacs blooming in wild profusion around the yard.

  “I’m sorry about your truck,” she said, nervously. “Mac decided he was going to hate it here the minute I told him we were moving. I think he can get himself run out of town on a rail.”

  “I guess if this town could survive me as a twelve-year-old, it’ll survive him.”

  She realized she liked his voice, deep and faintly drawling, and something else.

  “How did you know? Twelve?”

  “Just a guess. Where are you coming from, ma’am?”

  She realized what the “something else” was in his voice. It was just plain sexy. The way he said ma’am, soft and dragged out at the end, made her tingle down to her toes. She snuck a glance at him. It occurred to her he was younger than she. That should have made his raw masculine potency less threatening, somehow, but it didn’t.

  “Vancouver,” she said. “We’re relocating from Vancouver.”

  “That’s one hell of a relocate.”

  “Yes, I know.” Though he didn’t ask, she felt, absurdly, that she had to defend herself. “The ad for the position at the Outpost said this was a great place to raise a family.”

  He snorted at that.

  “Isn’t it?” she asked, desperately.

  “Ma’am, I’m the wrong person to ask about families.”

  “Oh.” She snuck a glance over his broad shoulder at the house, and tried not to feel disappointed. It was very old, the whole thing covered in dreadful gray asphalt shingles. The porch looked droopy.

  Feeling as if she was trying to convince herself she had not made a horrible mistake, she said, “Vancouver is starting to have incidents with gangs. There are problems in the schools. Children as young as Mac are becoming involved in alcohol and drugs.”

  Of course she was not going to tell him the whole truth, her life story. That her boss, Howard, whom she’d once been engaged to, was going to marry someone else.

  A little smile twisted his lips. “You don’t say?”

  She bristled. “You’re not suggesting my nephew might be involved in such things just because of that incident with your truck, are you?”

  “No, ma’am. I don’t know the first thing about your nephew, except he seems to have a talent for spelling. But I know I wasn’t much older than that when I first sampled a little home brew, right here in Hopkins Gulch.”

  She stared at him, aghast.

  “Kids as wild as I was find trouble no matter where they are,” he said, apparently by way of reassurance.

  “And are you still wild, Mr. Atkins?” she asked. Too late, she realized she sounded as prissy as an old maid librarian.

  He seemed to contemplate that for a moment, his eyes intent on her. “Life has tamed me some.”

  There was something vaguely haunted in the way he said that, something that made him seem altogether too intriguing, as if the steel and ice in his eyes had been earned the hard way.

  She reminded herself, sternly, that she was completely unavailable to solve the puzzle of mysterious men, no matter how compelling they might be. She had a boy to raise. When her sister had died, Kathleen had vowed she would give that job her whole heart and soul. Howard had broken their engagement over her decision, and after that she had decided that Mac didn’t need the emotional upheaval that seemed to be part and parcel of relationships.

  It really wasn’t until Howard had announced his engagement a month ago at the office that she had realized she had held the hope that he would change his mind, or maybe even that he was waiting for Mac to grow up, that later would be their turn.

  What had she thought? That he would wait until she was really old? And probably saggy, too?

  Like this old house. She forced herself to look away from Atkins, to take note of the yard that was now hers. Behind it, through a hedge of more lilac, Kathleen could see the prairie, huge, undulating, without a tree or a shrub or a flower for as far as the eye could see. The yard itself was ringed with blooming lilac bushes. The flower beds had been long neglected and the grass was too high, but the yard was large and private and she could tell just a little bit of tender loving care could make it lovely. There was the garden space, at the side of the house. She took a deep breath of the lilac-scented air.

  “What is that smell?” Mac asked, catapulting through the gate.

  “Lilacs,” Kathleen told him.

  “I think I’m allergic.”

  “Mrs. Watkins told me there’s a pasture right on the other side of the hedge if you happen to decide you want a pony,” Kathleen said, hoping to find one thing he could like and look forward to.

  “A pony?” he said, giving her a slightly distressed look, as if she had landed on earth after being hatched on a distant planet. “Is that, like, a brand of skateboard?”

  She saw Evan duck his head, but not before she saw the quick grin. It changed his face, completely. Completely. He had beautiful teeth and deep dimples. He could look very boyishly attractive, after all.

  “A pony,” she snapped. “Like a horse.”

  “I’m allergic to horses, too,” Mac decided, and then added, sending Evan a sidelong look, “And also manure.”

  Evan ignored him. “I’ll just take a quick look inside the house for you.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s been empty a spell, I think. You never know what might have taken up residence.”

  She stared at him in horror. “Such as?”

  “You never know,” he repeated, deliberately unforthcoming.

  “Like a homeless tramp?” she asked unsteadily.

  “No,” he said, his mouth quirking reluctantly upward at one corner. “Hopkins Gulch doesn’t have any homeless tramp problems.”

  “Mice?” she pressed.

  “Well, I was thinking of, uh, skunks, but sure, mice.”

  She scanned his face, suspecting he wasn’t telling her the full truth.

  “I’ll bet that place is full of mice,” Mac said, sensing a weakness. “I’ll bet they’ll be running over our faces at night when we try to sleep. I’ll bet we’ll find little paw prints in the butter. I’ll bet there are dinky round holes in the baseboards, just like in the cartoons. I’ll bet the only thing that keeps the mice under control are the skunks. I’ll bet—”

  “I’d say that’s enough bets,” Evan said quietly, glancing at her face.

  Mac looked mutinous. “It’s a very old house. Probably even older than you, Auntie Kathy.”

  She felt Evan’s gaze on her face, again, but he made no comment on her age in relation to the house.

  Mac flopped down on the grass, rolled his eyes, grabbed his throat and began gagging. Whether it was in reaction to the lilacs or the house she decided it would be wise not to ask. Following Evan’s lead, she ignored Mac who was now writhing dramatically, and went up the creaking steps.

  The door swung open, and her first impression was one of gloom. Fighting not to show her disappointment, she followed Evan through the empty house. He was wearing a chambray shirt and faded jeans. This back view showed off the broadness of his shoulders to breathtaking advantage. The jeans were soft with wear and hugged the taut line of his backside and the firm muscle of his leg. He made all the rooms seem too small. He’d brought that smell right in with him—clean skin, faint aftershave, man-smell.

  He opened the closets and looked through the cupboards. She didn’t follow him into the basement, but he came back up the stairs, and proclaimed her new home varmint free.

  Mac, obviously disappointed that his lilac-induced collapse on the front lawn had failed to convince anyone of his distress, came through the door, a sour expression on his face.

  “What a dump,” he proclaimed. “This whole town is like the dumpiest dump that I’ve ever seen and I hate it here.”

  Evan ignored him. “Ma’am, do you need a hand with your things?”

  This was offered only politely.

  “No, thanks,” she said proudly.

  She wanted the man out of her house. So she could concentrate. So that she could deal with Mac, figure out what had to be done to make the place livable, and then shut herself in the bathroom and cry.

  Chapter Two

  “Thank you for giving it a fair chance,” she said icily to Mac, after Evan had left. “I cannot believe you behaved like that. Broke Mr. Atkins’s antenna off his truck, wrote that word. What on earth has gotten into you?”

  Mac looked at his toe, clad in expensive sneakers that he had to have, and that seemed to have brought him joy and contentment for exactly ten seconds, and then shoved his hands deep into his pockets before he shot her a look loaded with defiance. “I hate it here, that’s why. I want to go home.”

  “This is going to be home,” Kathleen said with determination. Her eyes were adjusting to the gloom in the room, and she noticed the floors were old gray linoleum, peeling back in places, the walls needed paint desperately, there were spiderwebs in the corners. She went over and tugged at a blind. It rolled up with a snap, and the sunlight poured into the empty room, but did nothing to improve it. This was going to be home? She thought of her and Mac’s cozy little apartment in Vancouver and felt heartsick.

  “You won’t believe how rotten I can be,” Mac warned her.

  She let none of her own doubts show. She said calmly, “Then you will just have to get very good at shoveling manure. I’ll bet there is no shortage of that around here.”

  “Well, you got that right,” Mac said heatedly. “How could you do this to me? You’ve ruined my whole life. Me. Mac Miles in Poop Gulch, Saskatchewan.” Only he didn’t say poop.

  “The first thing I’m going to do at work tomorrow is find out about that soap,” Kathleen said.

  “And what am I supposed to do while you’re at work?”

  “You already sorted that out, Mac. You’ll be shoveling manure.” Only she didn’t say manure, either.

  He stared at her, obviously stunned that his aunt would use that word. He changed directions swiftly. “I suppose you thought that guy was good-looking.”

  And for the briefest moment, she saw the little boy in him, and saw how scared he was. He was sad and scared and he was too anxious to be a man to say so.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15