look at the stuff, he could get it down at least. With an audible gulp, he swallowed. Fire hit his throat, and he grabbed his water, which Blossom had served in his mother’s wedding crystal. Logan emptied the glass, certain steam was coming from his ears.
“What’s in here?” he managed, eyes watering.
“Curry powder, of course. The hot kind, too.”
Logan glanced around the table but didn’t see the same reaction from Tobias or Willy. Both men were shoveling in food as if they’d skipped breakfast and lunch, which Logan knew they hadn’t. Wait a minute. Had Blossom given him an extra dose of curry powder?
“What makes it so yellow?” It looked almost orange.
“The turmeric—it’s one of the spices—and some saffron, too.”
“I thought that was a color.”
“It’s also a spice, from which the color got its name. It comes from the stigmas of crocuses.”
He grunted, not wanting to be impressed by her knowledge. Stigmas? He didn’t want to be eating flowers.
“Where’d you learn to make curry? In fact, where’d you find any curry powder? I doubt it was in the pantry here.”
“My father was in the service. We moved around a lot. I brought this curry powder with me,” she said. “It was a special order from overseas.”
“I bet.”
He leaned on his forearms, eyes fixed on a point just north of his plate so he wouldn’t have to look at what passed for his meal tonight, or at Blossom. Those frozen TV dinners had been the best part of his week after all. Miss World Traveler was different, all right. Maybe that explained her weird, shapeless clothes.
After his throat stopped burning, Logan managed to finish the curry. He imagined a woman like Blossom Kennedy must love tofu.
Her red curls had grown even springier from the humidity in the kitchen, but he didn’t want to think about her hair right now. Or anytime. He needed to make it clear that he was the boss here. “Next time—if it wouldn’t be too much to ask—I’d like a nice thick steak, some home fries and a pile of green beans.” He sent her a thin smile. “I’m partial to green. Never cared much for yellow.”
All she said was “You’ll learn to love it.”
Logan tried to shut out the choked-off laughter from the two cowhands. A couple of comedians. He’d deal with Tobias and Willy later. But he wondered what had put that haunted look in Blossom’s eyes and, never mind her other travels, why she was clearly on the run.
LATER THAT NIGHT Blossom surveyed her temporary bedroom. She’d made it through dinner, even held her own with Logan Hunter, although it would be an understatement to say her new boss wasn’t impressed by her cooking. She’d tried to make the meal special with lacy place mats and the few flowers she’d found in the neglected garden, but it had been Willy and Tobias who kept up the conversation.
At least she’d managed to wash the dishes without breaking any of Logan’s best family china.
By the half-open window she plopped down in an old rocking chair. Its wooden arms were worn to a smooth patina that soon warmed under her hands, and the nighttime breeze smelled of grass and animals. Blossom breathed deep. The aroma was better than perfume to her. She’d never had a home like this, but oh, more than anything she wanted one. Her bedroom. The chintz curtains weren’t her style, nor was the fading forget-me-not wallpaper, but tonight she had a job—if only she could do it to Logan’s satisfaction. Something she’d never been able to do with Ken.
Blossom put a hand over her heart, making sure the treasure she’d put there was still safely tucked away. She should feel peaceful tonight, but of course she didn’t. As clear and sharp as broken glass, she recalled how quickly Ken had changed from the attentive boyfriend who said he loved her into the coldhearted fiancé who seemed to hate her.
Not all men, she kept telling herself, had his mercurial temper. Just the ones she’d known. She hadn’t seen that in Logan—yet—but then men like Ken and her father never showed their true colors until it was too late.
Blossom slipped a hand under her oversize shirt to touch the small picture she’d hidden in her bra. Carefully, she withdrew it then held it near the light to study the creased, blurred sonogram image in black-and-white, trying to make out a tiny hand here, a foot there.
She saw no need to tell Logan about her baby. If she could keep from getting fired for even one week, she would take her pay and hit the road again.
Every week, every mile down the road from Pennsylvania to Kansas, every awful job she’d taken to stay alive and protect her unborn baby, took her that much farther from Ken. She had to keep going.
She held the picture to her chest and began to hum, as if the baby she carried was already here in this safer place, his or her sweet, warm body against hers.
Blossom shut her eyes. Tonight she was in a nice, if a bit old-fashioned, room in a wide-windowed, airy house in the middle of nowhere. A house that only needed a woman’s touch—even hers—to feel homey again. Once she got the hang of it, this job wouldn’t be half-bad. And while she was here, Blossom meant to do it well. As well as she could anyway.
Comforting herself, she rocked and sang.
About a little baby...and a mother who’d buy her a mockingbird.
* * *
IN THE DARK Logan listened to the soft melody that drifted from the upstairs window. He pushed the front porch glider with one sock-covered foot. For years it had had the same creak, even before his parents had died, and even when his grandmother was still alive, but he wouldn’t oil it. Neither would Sam. Everything in this house had its own special sound by now, and he didn’t see any reason to paint the metal swing while he was here either. A few rust spots sure wouldn’t ruin his faded work jeans. No problem.
But Blossom? She had trouble—big trouble—written all over her. And that was a problem he didn’t need.
Hours after he’d choked down that too-hot curry, he was still seeing her at his grandmother’s table tonight using his mother’s things. She’d looked more at home there on her first night than any of Mother Comfort’s other candidates would have in a dozen years. No, she’d looked relieved.
Sure, she was pretty enough—although he’d never been drawn to redheads before—but what really got to him was that lost look about her. And if he kept seeing her as an appealing woman, a woman in need, rather than an employee...
Logan wasn’t looking for love. Blossom, on the other hand, looked as if she’d found it then lost it somehow and wouldn’t be the same until it was in her grasp again.
He had enough to worry about. One day he’d been in Wichita about to flight-test a sweet new jet, vying for the promotion he badly needed—the one with better pay that would allow him to fight his ex-wife for joint custody of their now six-year-old son. The next morning he’d been back on the Kansas plains, a temporary cowboy again.
The
