carefully made no mention to her father of the utterly gorgeous Orren Ellis. She said nothing about his well-muscled six-foot frame and carefully kept her thoughts to herself concerning his finely honed, square-jawed face with its sculpted lips and gold-tipped brows. She made no comparisons with bronze and gold and platinum and his slightly curly, sun-streaked hair, which, in her opinion, could use a good cutting. Most of all, she kept secret how shocking were the electric depths of his light blue eyes, fringed lavishly with gold and bronze lashes.
She spoke instead about his four adorable children, about Chaz, the little man, and the challenging Jean Marie of the wild red hair, and golden Yancy who adored her big brother, and the picture-perfect little doll baby Candy Sue, whom everyone called Sweetums. They were bright children. They were beautiful children. They were sweet and fun and exciting and just a little needy, and she couldn’t wait to get started with them. She just didn’t expect to get started with them two hours early the next morning.
Orren was extremely apologetic and even more frantic than the day before when he called at seven in the morning to ask, to beg, her to come over early. “The mechanic on the early shift has called in sick,” he explained, “and I took yesterday off to stay with the kids and interview sitters. I have to go in to cover him. Please say you’ll come. I don’t dare leave these children here alone.”
“I’ll be there,” she said sleepily. “Give me half an hour.”
“Thank you, Mattie. Oh, thank you.”
Her father was waiting for her when she stepped out of the bathroom. “That call for you?”
“Umm-hmm, Mr. Ellis has been called in early.”
“So have you, I take it.”
“Right-o.”
“Off and running, I guess.”
“So it seems. If you don’t mind, Dad, I really need to get dressed.”
Evans nodded and moved toward the door, but he stopped, pulling the belt of his bathrobe tighter. “I’ll make some coffee.”
“That’d be great, Dad. Thanks. Uh, you wouldn’t mind filling the thermos, would you?”
“Sure. No problem.”
She smiled at him as he went out the door, wondering what he’d say if she told him that the thermos of coffee was for Orren, not herself. She pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and got out her sneakers and a pair of thick socks. Something told her she was going to be on her feet a lot today. She yawned and reached for the heavy comb with which to detangle her wet hair.
Her wet hair was hanging down her back when Chaz let her in the door. Orren saw that at a glance, which was all he had time for unless he was going to work without socks. “Mattie, thank God! I’m really sorry about this.”
“I brought you something,” she said, placing the thermos on the corner of the table while he dug through the mountain of laundry he’d dumped on the couch, Sweetums clinging to his side, her grasping little hands twisting wrinkles in his pale blue uniform shirt. “It isn’t a pair of clean socks, is it?”
“Just coffee.”
He looked up at that. “Oh, you’re good. You’re very good.”
“Thanks. Need some help?”
“Could you take the baby?” he said, going back to his search. “I know I washed socks. Where are the darned socks?”
She reached for Candy Sue, but the baby was always clingy when she first woke up, and it didn’t help that the telephone had jangled her awake hours earlier than usual. She clamped on to him like a leech and shrieked in his ear when Mattie laid hands on her. A crash in the kitchen announced that Mattie’s attention was more urgently needed elsewhere.
“Uh-oh.” She turned and hurried away in that direction.
“Son,” Orren called anxiously, still pawing through the laundry. “Everything okay in there?”
Mattie stuck her head around the short partition wall and said, “A hot waffle iron is melting a hole in the floor vinyl.”
“Well, unplug it!”
“I did!”
“Blast!” Orren groaned and staggered as Jean Marie bumped into him, feeling her way along sleepily from behind a curtain of hair.
“I want doughnuts,” she said, yawning.
“Not this morning, Red,” Orren answered, giving up the search for socks. “See if you can get Sweetums to come to you.”
“Let Chaz,” Jean Marie grumbled, stumbling toward the kitchen. Yancy screamed from the back bedroom just then, offended at waking up alone, and Candy Sue promptly threw up on his shoulder.
“Aw, baby!” Orren jumped away from the mound of clean laundry and held Candy out at arm’s length. She immediately started to wail. Lord help him! “It’s okay, Sweetums. Chaz, bring the antacid! Candy Sue’s nervous stomach is acting up again.”
He placed Candy Sue in the chair and spread a towel over her in case she threw up again, then ripped his shirt off and threw it on the floor, muttering, “Only clean shirt I had!” He felt like sitting right down and bawling, but that’d make three of them, and he didn’t think he could stand it.
Mattie appeared, Chaz on one side, Jean Marie on the other. She was holding the bottle of antacid and a spoon. “Set the water glass down on the end table, Chaz,” she directed smoothly, “then take Jean Marie and go quiet Yancy.”
Chaz obediently complied. Jean Marie stuck her chin out and opened her mouth. Mattie bent down to her face level, parted the hair curtain with a fingertip and said, “Unless you don’t want me to cook breakfast.” Jean Marie whirled and stomped after her brother. Mattie straightened and thrust the bottle and spoon at Orren. “You dose the baby,” she said, “I’ll take care of the shirt. Where’s the iron and ironing board?”
He took the medicine, watching as she bent and picked up the soiled shirt, and said, “I don’t know. My bedroom, I think.”
“I’ll find it,” she said airily, carrying the shirt away from her.
Orren gratefully sat down next to the baby, spread the towel over the two of them and began the chancy process of coaxing the medication down her. Ten minutes and three attempts later, he judged that he’d gotten enough of the stuff in her to calm her stomach and began rocking her into a better mood. Shortly thereafter she dropped off in his arms. He stood, towel and all, to carry her to his own room, where she might be able to sleep undisturbed by the other children. He was surprised—and oddly disturbed—to find Matilda Kincaid bent over his bed, straightening out his sheets. She certainly looked adult from the back. She glanced over her shoulder, something very like censure on her face, but then her expression softened and she stood, turning, to smile down at the frothy-haired angel in his arms. He smiled, too, proud of the little beauty cuddled so trustingly against him.
“She’ll never be able to stay asleep in the kids’ room,” he whispered. “She sleeps most often in here.”
Mattie nodded and moved away to retrieve the clean and pressed shirt from the
