clothes were certainly tasteful if not a tad dull—and a lot shapeless. Mac found himself wondering how she would look in brighter colors, more revealing styles. He frowned at the direction his thoughts had taken. Certainly he did not expect her to dress like teenage Lily, whose flamboyant sexy outfits frequently caused him bouts of avuncular shock.
His frown deepened. He’d caught Lily in the act of sneaking back into the house yesterday shortly before 3:00 a.m. and the little conniver had refused to tell him where she’d been. Or with whom.
Kara shifted uneasily, registering the man’s frown of disapproval. She guessed he’d been sent by the reverend to meet her plane—and that he was not pleased with his assigned chore. Probably not with her, either. Men who looked like Mac Wilde—who was tall and dark, but whose sharp blade of a nose and hard mouth saved him from classical masculine perfection, thereby making him even more interesting and attractive to her—men like that never noticed plain, uninteresting women like her.
Uncle Will had informed her that the distance from Helena to his home in the small town of Bear Creek was about one-hundred-seventy-five miles. That meant several hours in the company of this man, who would undoubtedly be heartily bored with her at journey’s end.
Kara searched her brain for something to say, wishing that some devastatingly clever bon mot would spring to mind, but of course, one did not. She’d never tossed off a clever bon mot in her entire life.
“I guess Reverend Franklin couldn’t make it to the airport and asked you to give me a ride,” she said, and immediately scorned herself for stating the obvious. When it came to the dull and the bland, she always delivered!
“I wanted to come,” Mac replied. Having paid for her ticket—he’d even sprung for first class—having braced himself for matrimony, he was champing at the bit to see his bride-to-be.
Kara smiled. “That’s kind of you to say.” She knew he didn’t mean it, and she appreciated his politeness.
Mac stared at her. Her smile was completely unlike that uncomfortable grimace that passed for a smile in the photograph. This smile was genuine, lighting her face and transforming it. Mac was intrigued. That sudden flash of animation revealed a very pretty woman. For the first time he took note of her skin, luminous and smooth as ivory, quite unlike the weather-tanned skin of the locals. Would her cheek be as soft to touch as it looked? And what about her skin elsewhere? He felt a stirring in his midsection which slowly twisted lower.
Kara quickly composed her face into the placid, guarded mask she’d been wearing since they’d met. Mac’s eyes narrowed. Suddenly that mask she wore interested him, too, because he knew there was another woman behind it. One whose hazel eyes sparkled with warmth when she smiled, whose mouth was wide and full and sensuous.
He allowed himself to contemplate kissing that sweet mouth. The heat in his loins flared pleasantly. Yes, he liked the idea of kissing her. This past week, he’d finally come to terms with the necessity of having a wife. After all, a woman had to know more about kids than he did; women possessed the acclaimed maternal instinct to guide them. And the availability of a wife would certainly be sexually convenient for him. Having a woman living under his roof and sharing his bed meant he would not have to go elsewhere for feminine companionship. He had discovered that the concept of dating was logistically impossible with four children around. Especially those four!
As for having sex...well, he wasn’t. An ache spread through his body, reminding him that there had been no woman in his bed since the children had come into his life. The long period of enforced celibacy was taking its toll on his nerves and his temper. He couldn’t wait to rectify the situation with his brand-new wife!
Kara cast a covert glance at him, feeling uncomfortable by the intense, almost predatory, glint in his eye. Her experience with men was woefully at odds with her chronological age. She was suddenly tense and on edge. “Is—is it a long drive to Reverend Will’s house in Bear Creek?”
“About three hours to Bear Creek and another twenty-five minutes to the ranch.”
“What ranch?”
“My ranch.”
“You have a ranch?” Interest replaced her vague unease. “A real Western working ranch?”
“Didn’t the Rev tell you about the Double R?” Mac was confused. He’d assumed the pastor would have provided her with at least the basic facts about her new home.
Kara shook her head no. “He talked a little about his own house,” she added, wondering why Mac appeared to be so perplexed. Was his ranch such a showpiece that he assumed it was the natural topic of conversation between any Bear Creek resident and visitor?
Tai chose that moment to utter an earsplitting meow which seemed to echo throughout the Helena airport.
“I can see that Autumn is going to have some competition in the screaming department,” Mac murmured. Just what the household needed, a cat whose meow could shatter glass.
Kara gulped, not quite sure what he was referring to, but had no doubts that he did not appreciate Tai’s no-holds-barred, executive meow. “Tai isn’t a good traveler,” she apologized. “This was his first flight and he’s very unhappy.”
Mac kept staring at her. She found his silence unnerving. “I—I’m glad that I insisted on bringing Tai in the cabin with me, though.” Mac Wilde’s eyes were a deep, dark brown, piercing and intent. When she felt his gaze sweep over her once again, a warm blush stained her cheeks.
“I know he wasn’t too popular with the crew and the other passengers, but I just couldn’t consign him to the freight area of the plane,” she continued, averting her eyes from Mac. “Tai’s never traveled before—it might’ve left lifelong emotional scars.”
“A cat with emotional scars,” Mac repeated. He decided her concern boded well for the kids. After all, if she had empathy for a cat, she would undoubtedly have it for four young orphans who had been uprooted for a second time after their parents’ demise.
“Come on, we’ll pick up your luggage. It should be in the baggage area by now. Then we’ll head out to the ranch.”
“I—I’d rather go to Reverend Franklin’s house.” Kara stood stock-still, clutching Tai’s carrier. “It’s been so long, I just can’t wait to see Uncle Will. Oh, and—and Ginny and the girls, too,” she added quickly.
Mac was not pleased, but he decided her request was not unreasonable. The pastor used to be her stepfather, and it had been five years since they’d seen each other. “Okay,” he agreed. “But I can’t leave the kids for too long.” The prospect of them on the loose made him shudder, considering the havoc they managed to wreak when under supervision. “We’ve really got to get going!”
He headed toward the baggage area, leaving Kara to follow him. She watched his tall muscular frame stride away from her. He had children. It was inevitable that an attractive, virile man such as he would be married with children. She wondered where his wife was and why, if he didn’t like leaving the children for long stretches of time, he had agreed to drive all the way to the airport to pick her up.
She thought about the way he had been looking at her. It didn’t seem right for a married man to stare in that particular way. Unless she was overreacting and misinterpreting? Was she turning into a suspicious spinster who spied a slavering sex fiend in every male who glanced her way?
The
