style="font-size:15px;"> She successfully changed the subject and Elliot didn’t bring it up again. They went upstairs a half hour later, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Since the autocratic Mr. Sutton hadn’t given her time to pack, she wound up sleeping in her clothes under the spotless white sheets. She only hoped that she wasn’t going to have the nightmares here. She couldn’t bear the thought of having Quinn Sutton ask her about them. He’d probably say that she’d gotten just what she deserved.
But the nightmares didn’t come. She slept with delicious abandon and didn’t dream at all. She woke up the next morning oddly refreshed just as the sun was coming up, even before Elliot knocked on her door to tell her that Harry had breakfast ready downstairs.
She combed out her hair and rebraided it, wrapping it around the crown of her head and pinning it there as she’d had it last night. She tidied herself after she’d washed up, and went downstairs with a lively step.
Quinn Sutton and Elliot were already making great inroads into huge, fluffy pancakes smothered in syrup when she joined them.
Harry brought in a fresh pot of coffee and grinned at her. “How about some hotcakes and sausage?” he asked.
“Just a hotcake and a sausage, please,” she said and grinned back. “I’m not much of a breakfast person.”
“You’ll learn if you stay in these mountains long,” Quinn said, sparing her a speaking glance. “You need more meat on those bones. Fix her three, Harry.”
“Now, listen…” she began.
“No, you listen,” Quinn said imperturbably, sipping black coffee. “My house, my rules.”
She sighed. It was just like old-times at the orphanage, during one of her father’s binges when she’d had to live with Mrs. Brim’s rules. “Yes, sir,” she said absently.
He glared at her. “I’m thirty-four, and you aren’t young enough to call me ‘sir.’”
She lifted startled dark eyes to his. “I’m twenty-four,” she said. “Are you really just thirty-four?” She flushed even as she said it. He did look so much older, but she hadn’t meant to say anything. “I’m sorry. That sounded terrible.”
“I look older than I am,” he said easily. “I’ve got a friend down in Texas who thought I was in my late thirties, and he’s known me for years. No need to apologize.” He didn’t add that he had a lot of mileage on him, thanks to his ex-wife. “You look younger than twenty-four,” he did add.
He pushed away his empty plate and sipped coffee, staring at her through the steam rising from it. He was wearing a blue-checked flannel shirt this morning, buttoned up to his throat, with jeans that were well fitting but not overly tight. He didn’t dress like the men in Amanda’s world, but then, the men she knew weren’t the same breed as this Teton man.
“Amanda taught me all about scales last night,” Elliot said excitedly. “She really knows music.”
“How did you manage to learn?” Quinn asked her, and she saw in his eyes that he was remembering what she’d told him about her alcoholic father.
She lifted her eyes from her plate. “During my dad’s binges, I stayed at the local orphanage. There was a lady there who played for her church. She taught me.”
“No sisters or brothers?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head. “Nobody in the world, except an aunt.” She lifted her coffee cup. “She’s an artist, and she’s been living with her latest lover—”
“You’d better get to school, son,” Quinn interrupted tersely, nodding at Elliot.
“I sure had, or I’ll be late. See you!”
He grabbed his books and his coat and was gone in a flash, and Harry gathered the plates with a smile and vanished into the kitchen.
“Don’t talk about things like that around Elliot,” Quinn said shortly. “He understands more than you think. I don’t want him corrupted.”
“Don’t you realize that most twelve-year-old boys know more about life than grown-ups these days?” she asked with a faint smile.
“In your world, maybe. Not in mine.”
She could have told him that she was discussing the way things were, not the way she preferred them, but she knew it would be useless. He was so certain that she was wildly liberated. She sighed. “Maybe so,” she murmured.
“I’m old-fashioned,” he added. His dark eyes narrowed on her face. “I don’t want Elliot exposed to the liberated outlook of the so-called modern world until he’s old enough to understand that he has a choice. I don’t like a society that ridicules honor and fidelity and innocence. So I fight back in the only way I can. I go to church on Sunday, Miss Corrie,” he mused, smiling at her curious expression. “Elliot goes, too. You might not know it from watching television or going to movies, but there are still a few people in America who also go to church on Sunday, who work hard all week and find their relaxation in ways that don’t involve drugs, booze or casual sex. How’s that for a shocking revelation?”
“Nobody ever accused Hollywood of portraying real life,” she replied with a smile. “But if you want my honest opinion, I’m pretty sick of gratuitous sex, filthy language and graphic violence in the newer movies. In fact, I’m so sick of it that I’ve gone back to watching the old-time movies from the 1940s.” She laughed at his expression. “Let me tell you, these old movies had real handicaps—the actors all had to keep their clothes on and they couldn’t swear. The writers were equally limited, so they created some of the most gripping dramas ever produced. I love them. And best of all, you can even watch them with kids.”
He pursed his lips, his dark eyes holding hers. “I like George Brent, George Sanders, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis and Cary Grant best,” he confessed. “Yes, I watch them, too.”
“I’m not really all that modern myself,” she confessed, toying with the tablecloth. “I live in the city, but not in the fast lane.” She put down her coffee cup. “I can understand why you feel the way you do, about taking Elliot to church and all. Elliot told me a little about his mother…”
He closed up like a plant. “I don’t talk to outsiders about my personal life,” he said without apology and got up, towering over her. “If you’d like to watch television or listen to music, you’re welcome. I’ve got work to do.”
“Can I help?” she asked.
His heavy eyebrows lifted. “This isn’t the city.”
“I know how to cut open a bale of hay,” she said. “The orphanage was on a big farm. I grew up doing chores. I can even milk a cow.”
“You won’t milk the kind of cows I keep,” he returned. His dark eyes narrowed. “You can feed those calves in the barn, if you like. Harry can show you where the bottle is.”
Which meant that he wasn’t going to waste his time on her. She nodded, trying not to feel like an unwanted guest. Just for a few minutes she’d managed to get under that hard reserve. Maybe that was good enough for a start. “Okay.”
His black eyes glanced
