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  Mara couldn’t hold in her smile. It wasn’t only the image of Brock with his boots on the table that warmed her. It was Todd. Her husband had touched everyone he knew with his special brand of affection.

  “Mr. B., he hasn’t been the same since your husband died,” Rosa Maria went on. “For months now, he doesn’t talk to anyone. He’s very difficult. Like he’s on edge. Everything has to be done the right way.”

  “I know about that. When I was in labor with the baby, he told me I hadn’t done things logically.”

  Rosa Maria laughed out loud. “Yes, logic. That’s Mr. B. Always in control of everything. Logic, order, organization, perfection—that’s what matters to him. ‘Do it right, Rosa Maria,’ he tells me. Everything must meet his standards.”

  Mara shook her head. “I don’t know how you put up with him.”

  “Oh, Mr. B. has a big heart, great tenderness. But his heart is buried deep inside. Locked away. I don’t know anybody who ever got in there but his best friend.”

  “Y’all, Pierre’s pitching a fit!” Ermaline Criddle called from the door. “He’s banging pots and flinging flour everywhere. He says he sent Rosa Maria down here half an hour ago to find out where the madame wants to eat her dinner.”

  Rosa Maria set her hands on her hips. “Ermaline, you tell that cook I said—”

  “Hey, now!” Ermaline cut in. “He needs to know. Mrs. B., where would you like your supper?”

  “It’s Mara, and I’ll…” She debated for a moment. The lounge would be closer to the baby, but she didn’t like the idea of eating in a pool hall. On the other hand, she didn’t want to encounter Brock more often than necessary. At the same time, she couldn’t deny she was curious about this man with the hidden heart.

  “Oh, eat in the dining room,” Rosa Maria said. “You can hear the baby on the intercom. Look, I’ll turn it on for you.”

  “Intercom?” Mara asked.

  “Go on, Ermaline. Tell the old buzzard to set his precious supper in the main dining room.”

  “But I’m not sure I—”

  It was too late. Ermaline had fled, and Rosa Maria was right behind her.

  “Just pray Pierre hasn’t cooked those snails,” she sang out as she vanished down the hall.

  Mara stared at the empty doorway. All of a sudden she felt tired. Todd was gone, and she was married to a man who had built himself a house with a bar. A man who rarely smiled, who constantly drove himself toward perfection, and who made even his closest companions nervous. She could hardly wait for dinner.

  Brock was checking his watch when Mara walked into the dining-room, her doughnut cushion in hand.

  “Supper’s at seven,” he informed her. “Unless we have an emergency, that’s when we eat.”

  He liked to keep things running like clockwork on the ranch. That way he knew what to expect, and when. After arriving from the hospital, he had spent time with his foreman and household staff making sure all was well. As expected, the place was shipshape.

  Brock had sent Rosa Maria down to the west wing to explain the dining routine to Mara. Neither woman had returned in time for dinner. Finally—with Pierre getting distraught—Brock had sent Ermaline to check on them.

  “Newborn babies don’t have schedules,” Mara reminded him as she set the cushion in the chair and eased onto it as if every part of her had been in pain. “I was feeding Abby.”

  “You nurse her whenever she cries?”

  “It’s called feeding on demand.” As she picked up her napkin, Mara’s face revealed such discomfort and exhaustion that Brock’s irritation faded immediately. But hers seemed to be in full swing.

  “You might recall I don’t have Todd or a mother of my own to help out,” she said in a flinty voice. “Babies aren’t into efficiency, Brock. They follow their instincts.”

  Brock studied his bowl as Ermaline poured a ladleful of soup into it. He hadn’t thought about Mara being lonely or needing help. Nor had he considered how often a baby might need to eat. In the hospital, the nurses had brought Abby into Mara’s room, but he had tried not to pay too much attention to the details. In fact, the process usually made him so uncomfortable he left.

  “Suppose she gets hungry in the middle of the night?” he asked.

  “I hear they usually do.” Mara unfolded her napkin into her lap as Ermaline approached with the soup. “Let me do that, Ermaline. You don’t need to wait on me.”

  “Oh, Mrs. B—”

  “It’s Mara.”

  “But we always serve—”

  “No, let me—”

  “It’s okay, Ermaline,” Brock said. “Set the tureen on the table.”

  With an anxious glance at Mara, the maid placed the soup dish beside the arrangement of fresh flowers. As Ermaline hurried toward the kitchen, Mara let out a breath.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to Brock. “I shouldn’t have snapped at her. I’m just not used to this.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “It’s all so grand. So formal.” She said the words as though they were distasteful to her.

  “It is?” Brock glanced around, trying to see the house through her eyes. To him, the large dining room looked pretty good. He had placed a few expensive pueblo pots here and there. A bright fire burned in the huge hearth. He and Mara sat facing each other at one end of a long, sleek table rimmed with twelve chairs. Candlelight from a pair of white tapers in silver holders gave Mara’s face a soft glow. He had bought the white china in Paris.

  Brock tried to think how it might be different, but his mind was a blank slate. Grand? Formal? What did Mara even mean by that?

  “It’s all so fancy.” She filled the ladle with vegetable soup and poured it into her bowl. “Rosa Maria even turned down my sheets.”

  “What’s wrong with that? She’s turned down the sheets every night of my life practically.”

  “I can turn down my own sheets, Brock.” Mara lifted her head and met his eyes. “I want my life to go the way I say.”

  “All right.” He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. So far, life on the ranch had always gone the way he’d said.

  “I don’t want to be called Mrs. Barnett,” she told him.

  “It’s your name.”

  “I’m Mara. I don’t want people fawning over me or waiting on me hand and foot. And I don’t want parties in my part of the house.”

  “Parties?” He tried without success to read the message in her tired green eyes.

  “The lounge,” she said. “That bar down the hall from Abby’s room. No wild parties in there.”

  “Wild parties in the den?” He dunked his spoon in the soup. “Mara, what are you talking about?”

  “Rosa Maria called it a lounge. She said you have parties with your friends from Las Cruces. And don’t you say grace at the dinner table?”

  Brock stared at her. Tears perched just on the edge of her lower eyelashes, threatening to spill over. If those tears slid down her cheeks, he’d be lost. He was already lost. What was she upset about? Was it this business about wild parties? Or eating before saying grace? Or what?

  “I pray before I eat,” she enunciated, as if speaking to someone a little slow on the uptake. “To thank God for the food, you know?”

  “Sure.” Brock set his spoon back in the bowl. “Go ahead.”

  Mara let out a breath. “Todd and I,” she said softly, “we held hands.”

  Brock looked at the wedding band still on her finger, then lifted his eyes to hers, finally understanding. “I guess you miss him a lot.”

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  “Mara…you can hold my hands.” He reached across the table, his palms spread open. Slowly she placed her hands in his. As his fingers closed around hers, he wondered what she thought of his sun-toughened skin and the hard ridges of calluses on his palms.

  He bowed his head. “Go ahead.”

  “You,” she whispered. “I don’t think I can.”

  Brock swallowed and glanced up to
find himself staring at the top of Mara’s blond head. He had been to church in Las Cruces a few times as a boy, but he didn’t have the first clue about praying out loud. Any other time, he’d have refused to try. Then he thought about those tears on her eyelashes.

  “Dear God,” he began, “here we are at the table. Well…I guess You already knew that. Anyway, we’re thinking about Todd, and we both miss him a lot.”

  Brock cleared his throat and peered at Mara. Had he messed up the prayer? She sat in silence, head low and eyes closed.

  “We wish Todd was here with us,” he continued. “Wish he could see Abby. We thank You for the baby, for giving her to us…to Mara. And for the food, too. Thanks for that. Uh…in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”

  When he opened his eyes, he realized he had blown it. Mara was crying into her napkin. He ducked his head and went for the soup. Blast it all anyhow! He didn’t know what to do with her. Didn’t know what to say or how to act. Mara was his wife, but he had no idea how to be a husband to her.

  Besides, he knew that no matter how hard he tried, he would never live up to Todd’s example. Todd had been a real Christian—one who knew the rules and regulations of religion. More than that, Todd had been a man of faith. Todd had surrendered his life to Jesus Christ, and he didn’t have any trouble regularly reminding his best friend about the positive changes that decision had brought.

  Brock, on the other hand, kept a tight rein on his existence. Though he was a believer, he wasn’t about to give up any of his hard-won control. He knew his stubborn self-reliance somehow made him a lesser man in Mara’s eyes, but to him there was no other way to get through life.

  “Thank you,” Mara whispered, dabbing the corner of her eye. “For praying about Abby.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I don’t want anything to happen to her.”

  “It won’t, Mara. She’s safe here.” He downed another spoonful of soup, but it was tasteless. So much for all his self-reliance and confidence. Mara didn’t trust him with her baby, and why should she? Look what had happened when he’d gone off with her husband.

  “Could you have your parties in the east wing?” she asked.

  “What is all this about parties?”

  “Rosa Maria told me you have a bunch of friends from Las Cruces who come out to the ranch for parties in your lounge. You have a bar and a pool table, and they spend the night. Brock, I won’t have drunk strangers around Abby.”

  “Drunk strangers?” He set his spoon beside his bowl. “My friends come out here a couple of times a year, and they don’t get drunk.”

  Her voice went hostile again. “Well, I don’t want them near my daughter.”

  “Mara, they are good people. They’re old college friends, business associates, ranchers. All we’re doing is having a little fun.”

  “I know about what you call fun! Todd told me the things you do.” Her green eyes blazed as the tears vanished. “You just keep your friends away from my baby.”

  “What are you going to do—hide for the rest of your life?”

  “Hide?”

  “Lick your wounds?”

  “Oh, what do you know about pain?” Mara stood and grabbed her doughnut pillow. “Abby’s mine, and I’ll raise her the way I want to. You have no say in it whatsoever. Abby’s the one I’m protecting, and if that means hiding her from bad influences, that’s what I’ll do. The wounds that need to be tended are Abby’s—and the man who wounded her is you.”

  Tucking the pillow against her stomach, Mara stalked across the dining room and headed down the hall.

  Brock clenched his jaw as her words reverberated through him. She was the one who was hurting, he thought bitterly. Mara was the one who had been wounded, and he wondered if anything could ever heal her.

  Chapter Seven

  “Rosa Maria, where’s my laptop?” Brock hollered the next morning as he strode into the dining room and tossed his Stetson onto the table. “I left it in the study next to the fax machine, and it’s not there now.”

  He thunked his briefcase on the floor and dropped a handful of pencils beside his plate. Where could that laptop be? He stored all his records for the ranch in the small computer, and his backup files were in the safe.

  “Leave things in someone else’s hands for a week,” he muttered as he dropped into his chair. “Chaos.”

  “Eggs Benedict,” Ermaline announced. Breezing into the dining room, she balanced a silver tray on her upturned palm. “Hey, where’s Mrs. B.?”

  “Where’s Rosa Maria?” Brock demanded to know. “I’ve called her three times.”

  “Isn’t she in the living room? That’s where she always starts dusting in the morning.”

  “She’s not there now.” Pushing back from the table, Brock grimaced. He’d let everything get out of control. For most of the night he had sat on his porch or wandered the courtyard and tried to figure a way to put a stamp of order back on his life. Now he was dead-tired, he’d misplaced his computer, his housekeeper had vanished and he was supposed to be in the north section in fifteen minutes checking the cattle.

  He walked to the intercom and flipped the master control switch. “Rosa Maria,” he barked. “If you’re anywhere in this house, get yourself to the dining room.”

  He waited a moment, then opened the intercom to every room in the house. A baby’s loud wail blasted through the mesh screen and filled the dining room.

  “Oh, no,” Mara’s voice groaned from her bedroom in the west wing. “Thanks a lot, Brock. It’s okay, Abby. Mommy’s coming.”

  Standing half a house away, Brock winced. It hadn’t occurred to him that he might wake the baby. Well, that was the crux of the problem. With Mara and Abby in the house, nothing was functioning the way it should. Things didn’t feel normal.

  “Here she is, Mrs. B.,” Rosa Maria’s voice said softly through the intercom. “Here’s your baby girl. You stay in bed there. You’ve been up all night, haven’t you?”

  “Most of the night. Well, hello there, precious girl. Are you hungry? Oh, Rosa Maria, I’m so tired and sore. It’s really great to have your help. Thanks for bringing her to me.”

  “I’m glad to do it. I was here checking on Abby, anyway. Look at that, she doesn’t want to nurse. She was just scared by that crazy Mr. B. yelling over the intercom. Tsk. He doesn’t think sometimes, that man.”

  “I believe Brock wants you in the dining room, Rosa Maria.”

  “I heard him bellowing like one of his old bulls. He’s forgotten he put his precious laptop in his car when he went to the hospital to visit you. He can’t get through breakfast without his computer and all his pencils and papers.”

  Standing in the dining room, Brock scowled at the intercom. Half tempted to turn off the eavesdropping and half tempted to throw both women out of his house for their disrespect and ingratitude, he shoved his hands into his pockets.

  Come to think of it, he had left the laptop in his car.

  “Do you think Abby’s all right, Rosa Maria?” Mara asked in a low voice. “I’m worried she’s sick or something. Is it normal for her to be awake so much of the night?”

  “She doesn’t know it’s night. All she knows is she’s hungry or wet or lonely in that big new crib. Remember this was only the first night. She’ll start to sleep better after a while. In the meantime, you’re the one who needs some sleep.”

  “I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.”

  Rosa Maria chuckled. “I know, I know. I remember how it was with all of mine. But you’re doing good. It’s hard by yourself. If you had a nice man to look after you—” She caught herself, then tried again. “I’m sure Mr. Rosemond would have stayed by your side…Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t talk about your husband—”

  Brock snapped off the intercom. He was Mara’s husband, not Todd. As much as everybody missed him, Todd was gone. Never coming back. But Todd—who’d never actually been a father—was doing a better job of it than Brock.

  He studied t
he lumps of eggs Benedict in their cold white hollandaise sauce. Though he might be Mara’s husband, he wasn’t Abby’s father. Mara had made that clear enough last night. Even if he wanted to go to Mara…comfort her…support her…she didn’t want him. So, she could just cope with motherhood on her own.

  Mara and Abby were nothing more than another of Brock’s financial obligations. He had committed his resources to their care. He had offered a place to stay, food to eat, a car to get around in, money to spend. But he didn’t owe them anything else.

  Besides, he thought as he grabbed his hat from the table, he wouldn’t know the first thing about helping Mara with her baby. He had never learned how to be a husband or a father, and he wasn’t inclined in that direction anyway. Good enough.

  Brock settled his hat on his brow and headed for the back door. So, there were two extra people in the house? He would put them into a file in his computer like a couple of head of cattle he might have bought at the state fair. He’d factor them into the ranch budget, calculate the cost of food and clothing, add their projected medical expenses and figure the outlay for wintering them. They wouldn’t be economical, and there was no potential return on his money.

  But those were the breaks.

  Mara finished nursing Abby and adjusted her robe. For a moment she gazed down at the tiny face nestled in the crook of her elbow. Her daughter’s eyes had dropped shut, their long, curling lashes brushing the round apples of her cheeks. Her miniature nose bore a blush from being pressed against Mara’s soft skin. Like a pale pink rose, Abby’s mouth formed a delicate bud, barely open with lips so soft and sweet, Mara thought her heart might overflow.

  Four days had passed since Abby’s birth, and already Mara loved this child more than she had ever known she could love anyone or anything. Long nights awake didn’t matter. An aching body and a sore tailbone didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but this precious weight in her arms.

  Mara blinked back tears, wondering if she was ever going to be in control of her emotions again. Had she actually yelled at Brock last night? Had she really admonished the man for failing to pray before dinner? And what did she know about his Las Cruces friends anyway?