now this? Every time she thought things were as hard as they could be, they got a little harder. She bit down on her lip and finished wrapping the sandwiches, while Petra pulled at her pants leg and whined.
Once she’d seen Tim and his dudes on their way up through the home pasture, she prepped for the evening barbecue—got the steaks marinating, the baked beans simmering, the potato salad made. While Petra dragged out the contents of her special kitchen cabinet—the only one without a baby-proof latch—and sat fitting lids onto aluminum pots with scowling concentration, then lifting them off again with shrieks of glee, Dana made bread. Enough dough for this week’s evening meals, plus enough to freeze for the next. Kneading it, she leaned into each stroke, her head drooping tiredly.
Sean still had not returned. Hanging out in the barn, or perhaps gone hiking up into the mountains? He rarely rode, though Peter had given him a surefooted, spunky little paint named Guapo when they’d first arrived. They’d all ridden that first fall, the three of them, laughing and awed by the beauty of their new home. Sean had liked her back then. They’d been able to talk about anything and everything. But now…
We’ll have to. This couldn’t be shoved under the rug, as Sean preferred to do. This had to be faced. Responsibility acknowledged.
And then?
That depended on what Zoe decided to do, she supposed. What Rafe Montana decides, she corrected herself, grimacing. The bully. But there was no way to deny that he was the dominant personality here, the one who would call the shots. He would shape his daughter’s future, and therefore Sean’s. Should I find a lawyer? Someone to advise her stepson on his paternal rights and responsibilities? The money made her hesitate. She’d decided this morning that she’d wait to see what Montana did next, but she wasn’t certain this was the wise approach.
Petra dropped a pot lid with a clang that made Dana jump. “Petra, what a noisy girl! You’re going to be a drummer someday?” Please, anything but!
“Ga,” the baby chortled, then smile gave way to frown. She rolled over onto all fours and crawled purposefully toward her mother.
“About that time, is it?” Dana wiped a forearm over her brow, brushing back her hair. “Can you wait a minute, sweetheart?” She patted the dough into balls, placed them in greased ceramic bowls. “Yes, sweetie, I know. Just a minute more. Be patient.” After covering each bowl with a clean cloth, she set the dough to rise on the warming shelf above the stove. “There.” She scooped up her tearful daughter and blew into her neck till Petra giggled. “See, silly girl? I didn’t forget you.”
She checked her diaper, then carried her out to the back deck and their favorite spot: a porch swing that hung under an arbor of climbing pink roses and honeysuckle. Sinking into one cushioned corner, she kicked off her shoes, dragged a pillow onto her lap, propped one arm and her baby against one bent knee while she left the other foot on the ground to rock them. “Lunchtime,” she agreed, as Petra patted her blouse. And no one around for miles, she assured herself, looking uphill as she unbuttoned. Just bird-song, the fragrance of sun-warmed roses, a precious moment of peace…the delicious tingle as the milk let down in her breasts…the rhythmic suck of warm lips drawing her down into sleepy pleasure.
Sometime later, a ripple of consciousness disturbed her waking dream. Dana’s eyes drifted half open, focused drowsily on a long pair of jeans-clad legs. Idly she rode them upward, up past lean hips, a flat stomach, a wide chest in a snap-front western shirt that flared to wider shoulders…up a strong brown throat to the startled face of Rafe Montana. His lips had parted in surprise; his eyes were narrowed slits of sapphire in his suntanned face. She felt her own face turning a color to rival the roses.
“Pardon me, ma’am!” He wheeled and walked back down the steps to the ground, then stopped there, facing away. “Didn’t meant to intrude like that. I…”
The liquid pleasure of the moment seemed to flow over his form like honey, taking him in, making him a part of the mountains, the sunshine, the fragrance, her love for her daughter. He had all the power and grace of a bull elk who had suddenly walked into her world. It took an effort to remember that she disliked him—that he’d hit Sean last night, something she’d never forgive. “Of course.” She supposed he’d tried the front door, and receiving no answer to his knock, this time hadn’t barged through, but had walked around to the back.
“If you could wait a minute?” Gently she detached Petra and moved her to her other breast.
“Sure.” He glanced awkwardly down at his boots, then he stepped backward and sat on the top step of the deck, careful not to look behind.
She felt oddly powerful and more than a little smug at being able to abash a man like this with a simple, earthy act. Women’s magic.
Sleepy, swirling magic, which bound all it touched, enchantress as well as enchanted. Petra’s lips suckled at her nipple and the enchantment spread—a golden wire drawn from her breasts to her womb, then drawn tighter in soft, rhythmic tugs that her hips yearned to answer. The sensation spooled out to include the man, as if he were the cause, the one who held the gilded wire, the one who tugged, instead of an unknowing bystander. Dana closed her eyes and shuddered. She’d been dead to her own body for so long—just a mother, a widow. How odd for it to awaken just now.
Means nothing, she told herself. I don’t even like him. He hurt Sean.
He was overwhelmingly male and perhaps “like” had nothing to do with instinct. Simply by being, he reminded her she was female. A woman without a mate—not a reminder for which she was grateful.
Montana spoke without turning. “I asked Zoe about Sean’s father.”
As if he could read her mind! Dana tipped back her head to stare at a pendant blossom. Blown, its vibrant rosiness fading to drab violet, the first petals fallen. “Yes?”
“I…meant to talk with him. But Zoe tells me I can’t.”
I talk to him all the time. But he never answers, not in words. “That’s right,” she said bleakly. She reached to pluck a petal, rubbed it across her lips.
“I’m…sorry. If you’d told me…”
“Mmm,” she hummed wordlessly. Who owed you an explanation?
“I reckon I scared you, stomping in like that. And I wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“Oh.” It was handsomely done, no self-justifications, no excuses. But Dana wasn’t in a forgiving mood. Not because of the intrusion, but because of Sean. “Thank you,” she said coldly.
“Hmmph.” He pulled his Stetson off, inspected it, whacked a denim-clad calf with it.
Clearly he had more to say. She waited, and when it didn’t come, she asked, “How’s Zoe?”
“She threw up this morning.” He whacked his leg again. “Not the first time, she tells me.”
“She needs to see a doctor. Forget that test kit. Let a gynecologist examine her. She should be on vitamins, eating right—”
He let out a huff of bitter amusement. “I’m known around these parts, Dana, for being a devil on nutrition. Pound for pound, my cattle are the best fed in the state. You think I’d neglect my daughter? But she’ll be eating for one, not two.”
A rancher. She should have known it, with his boots and his outdoor tan. A man used
