“I was watching TV, Uncle Mac.”
“In your room? You don’t have a television set in there.”
“I do now,” Autumn said rather proudly. “I dragged the TV from the living room into my room. Uncle Mac, do you know that bad guys in jail try to get pen pals? And if you write to killers in jail, when they get out they’ll come and find you and try to steal your money or kill you.”
“Autumn, I told you that you weren’t allowed to watch any more of those tabloid news shows or talk shows, either,” Mac said sternly.
“Everything else is a rerun,” whined Autumn.
“And you are not to move the TV from the living room. I want you to put it back,” Mac ordered, then paused. “You never did say where the other kids are, Autumn.”
“They’re gone,” Autumn said gloomily. “I don’t know where, they just left. Uncle Mac, what if one of those killers who got out of jail is on his way to kill his pen pal and sees Lily or Brick or Clay and—”
“That’s enough, Autumn,” Mac cut off her morbid speculations. “Don’t you have any idea where the kids are?”
“Not Lily or Brick, but Clay said he was going to ride that big black horse.”
“Blackjack?” Mac choked. “The stallion? God almighty, Autumn, you have to—”
“Uncle Mac, someone’s knocking at the door!” Autumn shrieked into the phone. “Knocking real loud and hard like a murderer!” She let out a bloodcurdling scream audible to everyone in the Jeep.
Tai dug his claws into Kara’s thighs and growled a warning.
“Is she all right?” Kara asked with concern.
“Autumn!” Mac shouted her name a few times before finally reclaiming his niece’s attention. The screaming ceased.
“He says he’s Webb Asher, Uncle Mac. He says he has Clay,” Autumn reported. “He says to open up the door. I’m not going to, though. I think it’s someone pretending to be him. A killer from jail who’s pretending to be Webb,” she concluded dramatically.
“Autumn Wilde, you open that door and put Webb on the line, right now!” Mac commanded.
A few terse moments later, Mac hung up the phone. “My ranch manager caught Clay in the stallion’s pen tossing cookies at Blackjack, trying to make friends so he could get a ride. This is a wild-tempered stallion who could’ve killed him with just one kick. If Webb hadn’t gone down there when he did...” Mac’s stomach lurched. “I’ve got to get back there immediately. Lily and Brick are God-knows-where, and I can’t leave the two little ones home alone. I told Webb to stay with them till I got back, but his tolerance for children doesn’t go far.”
Kara glanced at her watch. “How much longer till we’re in Bear Creek?”
“We’re not going into town. I’ll take another road that will bypass Bear Creek and get us to the ranch faster.”
Kara swallowed her disappointment. Under the circumstances, she could hardly demand that Mac Wilde take her to the Franklin’s house in town before going to his ranch to check on his recalcitrant nieces and nephews.
“I’ll call Uncle Will as soon as we get to the ranch and ask him to pick me up. Then you won’t have to leave the children again to drive me into town.”
Mac frowned. “Can’t you wait until tomorrow to see him? You’ve had a long trip, and there’s no need for the reverend to come out to the ranch after dark.”
“Wait till tomorrow?” Kara echoed. “That’s impossible. I—”
“Let me put this another way. Nobody is going anywhere tonight. We’ll talk about getting you into town to visit the Rev tomorrow.”
“I can’t stay at your ranch overnight!” Kara felt a bolt of panic flash through her.
“Honey, you can and you are. Okay, you’re having an attack of nerves, thinking about meeting the kids. Who wouldn’t? I understand completely. I didn’t spare you the truth, and they are an intimidating bunch. But let’s not forget the reason why you’re here in Montana—”
“Yes, let’s not!” Kara cut in. Paradoxically, the fear she was feeling instilled her with an uncharacteristic boldness. “I’m here to visit Reverend Will Franklin.”
“It’s time to drop the charade, Kara. Let’s be honest with each other and cut the game playing. You know you’re here to marry me and help me raise those kids.”
Two
Kara gaped at him, stunned into speechlessness. Mac’s words seemed to hover tangibly in the air between them. Once again, she felt the heat of intensified color turn her cheeks a scalding pink.
“If—if this is your idea of a joke, I don’t appreciate it.” Kara finally found her voice. She wished she sounded less anxious and more sternly forceful. She had never felt so off-balance in her careful quiet life. “Uncle Will bought my plane ticket and he—”
“No, he didn’t. I paid for that ticket. If the Rev told you otherwise, he was—well, lying.” Mac shrugged at her shocked look of outrage. “Hey, the man is only human, after all. ‘Let he who is without sin’ and all that...”
“Do you honestly expect me to believe that Uncle Will would invite me here, implying that he was paying for my ticket,” she emphasized the word, for Will hadn’t come right out and said that he’d bought it. “That he would be part of some plot to get me out here to m-marry you without ever mentioning you to me? That’s right, he never even mentioned your name, let alone this—this crazy notion you seem to have about—”
“It’s not the way I would’ve handled things myself,” Mac said, frowning his disapproval. “I thought the Rev would be up-front with you. After all, he was the one who came up with the idea in the first place.”
“He wouldn’t do such a thing!” Kara cried. “Not Uncle Will.”
“Listen, baby, Uncle Will dreamed up the whole thing. I didn’t even know you existed, until the Rev told me. He knew I was having trouble with the kids, and we both knew I needed a wife to help me with them. He suggested that you might be willing to come out here and marry me. When you accepted my ticket, I assumed you’d accepted the—uh—position.”
“Ohhh!” Kara covered her burning cheeks with her hands. “This can’t be true!”
“But you know it is.” Mac’s voice was firm.
“No!” Kara closed her eyes, fighting a crushing urge to burst into tears. “I came out here to visit my uncle—”
“He’s your stepfather,” Max said bluntly. “The Rev told me all about his marriage to your mother. I was surprised to hear it. I don’t think anybody in Bear Creek knows he was married before or has a grown stepdaughter.”
“Ex-stepdaughter,”
