“What am I going to do?” she murmured in an anguished voice. “Where can I go?”
Billy swallowed over the knot in his throat. “You’re going to think I’m crazy,” he said. “But I’ve got an idea if you’d like to hear it.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“You could come and live with me.”
CHAPTER TWO
CHERRY HAD FELT SAFE and secure in Billy Stonecreek’s arms, that is, until he made his insane suggestion. She lifted her head from Billy’s shoulder and stared at him wide-eyed. “What did you say?”
“Don’t reject the idea before you hear me out.”
“I’m listening.” In fact, Cherry was fascinated.
He focused his dark-eyed gaze on her, pinning her in place. “The older lady who’s been taking care of my kids is quitting on Monday. How would you like to work for me? The job comes with room and board.” He smiled. “In fact, I’m including room and board because I can’t afford to pay much.”
“You’re offering me a job?”
“And a place to live. I could be at home evenings to watch the girls while you go to night school over the summer and earn your high school diploma. What do you say?”
Cherry edged herself off Billy’s lap, wondering how he had coaxed her into remaining there so long. Perversely, she missed the warmth of his embrace once it was gone. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around the yards of pale green chiffon.
“Cherry?”
Her first reaction was to say yes. His offer was the simple solution to all her problems. She wouldn’t have to go home. She wouldn’t have to face her parents with the truth.
But she hadn’t lived with Zach and Rebecca Whitelaw for four years and not learned how they felt about certain subjects. “My dad would never allow it.”
“A minute ago you were going to run away from home. How is this different?”
“You obviously don’t know Zach Whitelaw very well,” she said with a rueful twist of her lips. “If he knew I was working so close, he’d expect me to live at home.”
“Not if you were indispensible to me.”
“Would I be?” she asked, intrigued.
“I can’t manage the ranch and my six-year-old twin daughters all by myself. I’m up and working before dawn. Somebody has to make sure Annie and Raejean get dressed for school and feed them breakfast and be there when they get off the school bus in the afternoon.” Billy shrugged. “You need a place to stay. I need help in a hurry. It’s a match made in heaven.”
Cherry shook her head. “It wouldn’t work.”
“Why not?”
“Can I be blunt?”
Billy smiled, and her stomach did a queer flip-flop. “By all means,” he said.
“It’s bad enough that you’re single—”
“I wouldn’t need the help if I had a wife,” Billy interrupted.
Cherry frowned him into silence. “You’re a widower. I’m only eighteen. It’s a toss-up which of us has the worse reputation for getting into trouble. Can you imagine what people would say—about us—if I moved in with you?” Cherry’s lips curled in an impish grin. “Eyebrows would hit hairlines all over the county.”
Billy shook his head and laughed. “I hadn’t thought about what people would think. We’re two of a kind, all right.” His features sobered. “Just not the right kind.”
Cherry laid her hand on his arm in comfort. “I know what you’re feeling, Billy.”
“I doubt it.”
Cherry felt bereft as he pulled free. He was wrong. She understood exactly what he was feeling. The words spilled out before she could stop them.
“Nobody wants anything to do with you, because you’re different,” she said in a quiet voice that carried in the dark. “To prove it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, you break their rules. When they look down their noses at you, you spit in their eyes. And all the time, your heart is aching. Because you want them to like you. And respect you. But they don’t.”
Billy eyed her speculatively. “I guess you do understand.”
For a moment Cherry thought he was going to put his arm around her. But he didn’t.
She turned to stare at the pond, so he wouldn’t see how much she regretted his decision to keep his distance. “I’ve always hated being different,” she said. “I was always taller than everyone else, thanks to my giant of a father, Big Mike Murphy.” When she was a child, her father’s size had always made her feel safe. But he hadn’t kept her safe. He had let her be stolen away from him.
“And I don’t know another person with hair as godawful fire-engine red as mine. I have Big Mike to thank for that, too.” Cherry noticed Billy didn’t contradict her evaluation of her hair.
“And your mother?” Billy asked. “What did you get from her?”
“Nothing, so far as I can tell,” Cherry said curtly. “She walked out on Big Mike when I was five. That’s when he started drinking. Eventually someone reported to social services that he was leaving me alone at night. They took me away from him when I was eight. He fell from a high scaffolding at work the next week and was killed. I think he wanted to die. I was in and out of the system for six years before the Whitelaws took me in.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“Doesn’t it?” Billy asked.
Cherry shrugged. “It’s in the past. You learn to protect yourself.”
“Yeah,” Billy said. “You do.”
Billy had inherited his six-foot-four height and dark brown eyes from his Scots father. His straight black hair and burnished skin came from his Comanche mother. They had been killed in a car wreck when he was ten. He had developed his rebellious streak in a series of foster homes that treated him like he was less than human because he wasn’t all white.
He opened his mouth to share his common experiences with Cherry and closed it again. It was really none of her business.
“Too bad you aren’t looking for a wife,” Cherry mused. “That would solve your problem. But I guess after what happened, you don’t want to get married again.”
“No, I don’t,” Billy said flatly.
“I certainly wasn’t volunteering for the job,” Cherry retorted. Everyone knew Billy Stonecreek had made his first wife so unhappy she had killed herself. At least,
