dressed.”
“Please, Mommy.” Lily looked up at Kate with a slight pout on her pretty pink lips.
“I’ll take her,” Ben offered. “We can discuss the key later.” He handed it back to her, setting the disk on an end table.
Kate curled her fingers around the key. “I’ll be ready in a minute. I need to finish unloading the rental van and get it back to town.”
Ben smiled and raised his hands palms upward. “I’m here to help.”
Kate’s heart skipped several beats as the man’s smile transformed his face from frowning, brooding darkness to sunshine. “You should smile more often,” she said without thinking.
Immediately, his face changed back into the brooding cowboy, his forehead creasing. “I find little to smile about these days.”
Kate wondered what made him so sullen and sad but didn’t want to push the issue, not when he’d thrown up a no-trespassing sign in the way his body stiffened and he turned away. He took Lily’s hand in his. “Ready?”
The two left through the front door.
Yes, sir, the cowboy had issues. Hell, didn’t everyone?
Kate climbed the stairs, her footsteps slow at first and speeding up as she neared the top. For the first time in months, she wanted to get outside and enjoy the sunshine and fresh air. She refused to believe the hired hand had anything to do with her sudden surge of energy.
A pair of jeans, a snug-fitting ribbed T-shirt and tennis shoes completed her outfit. After she pulled her hair up into a ponytail and settled a baseball cap over her head, she hurried out to join Lily and Ben, her steps light, eager to finish unloading and settle into her new life.
Ben and Lily squatted beside the moving van, pointing at something on the ground.
“That’s a scorpion, Lily,” Ben was explaining. “Don’t try to touch or pick one up, they have a really bad sting.”
Lily hunched over, staring at the insect crawling across the ground. She looked up and spied Kate. “Mommy, come see the scorpion.”
Kate smiled and squatted beside her. With the three of them all gathered in a circle so close, her stomach knotted. This must be what it would feel like to be a family unit. Mommy, daughter and…daddy. Troy would have been a good father to Lily. He’d been so excited about the arrival of his firstborn, only to be robbed of ever seeing her.
Lily was a beautiful baby and an even prettier little girl with a grown-up sense of responsibility and a child’s joy of exploring.
“The day’s not getting any longer. I guess we better get this van unloaded so that I can return it to the rental center in town.” Kate stood, pulled the padlock key from her pocket and unlocked the back of the van.
For the next twenty minutes, Kate and Ben worked in silence, carrying boxes and furniture into the house. Lily helped a little, then lost interest and wandered around the yard, picking flowers and investigating her new home.
Kate kept a close eye on her. After last night’s break-in, she wasn’t feeling exactly trusting of her new environment.
Lily had strayed to the corner of the house when Kate and Ben hauled out the sofa with the repaired cushions she’d brought with her from her apartment.
Getting the sofa through the door took them several tries, tipping it in multiple directions, before they finally shoved the item through. When the sofa cleared the door frame, Kate tripped over a throw rug and landed on her bottom, the edge of the sofa coming down hard on her ankle. “Ouch!”
“Are you all right in there?” Ben called out over the top of the sofa.
“Yes, just not very graceful.” Kate stood and put pressure on her ankle and felt pain shooting up her leg. She swallowed a yelp and lifted her end again. There was no time for injuries. The van needed to be back before three o’clock or she’d have to pay for another day’s rental.
Once they got the sofa settled into the living room, Kate headed toward the door, trying to hide her limp.
Ben shook his head and pointed to the sofa they’d just placed. “Sit.”
“I’m fine, just a little sore. It’ll work itself out.” When she tried to walk past him, he grabbed her arms and made her stop.
“Let me see.” His grip was firm but gentle and his tone the same.
The warmth of his hands on her arms sent shivers of awareness throughout her body. “Really, it’s fine,” she said, even as she let him maneuver her to sit on the arm of the couch.
Ben squatted, pulled the tennis shoe off her foot and removed her sock. “I had training as a first responder on the Austin police force. Let me be the judge.”
Kate held her breath as he lifted her foot and turned it to inspect the ankle, his fingers slipping over her skin.
“See? Just bumped it. It’ll be fine in a minute.” She cursed inwardly at her breathlessness. A man’s hands on her ankle shouldn’t send her into a tailspin.
Ben Harding was a trained professional. Touching a woman’s ankle meant nothing other than a concern for health and safety. Nothing more.
Then why was she having a hard time breathing, like a teenager on her first date? Kate bent to slip her foot back into her shoe, biting hard on her lip to keep from crying out at the pain. Her head came very close to Ben’s. When she turned toward him she could feel the warmth of his breath fan across her cheek.
“You should put a little ice on that,” he said, his tone as smooth as warm syrup sliding over her.
Ice was exactly what she needed. To chill her natural reaction to a handsome man paid to help and protect her, not touch, hold or kiss her.
Whoa, there, girl. Kate jumped up and moved away from Ben and his gentle fingers, warm breath and shoulders so broad they could turn a girl’s head. “I should get back outside. No telling what Lily is up to.”
Ben caught her arm as she passed him. “You felt it, too, didn’t you?”
Kate fought the urge to lean into him and sniff the musky scent of male. Four years was a long time to go without a man. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ben held her arm a moment longer, then let go. “You’re right. We should check on Lily.”
Kate hurried, no, ran for the open door, her heart racing, her breathing ragged. Just as she crossed the threshold into the open breezy, South Texas sunshine, a frightened scream made her racing heart stop.
“Lily!” Kate burst out onto the porch.
The sound of engines racing up the gravel driveway greeted her. A man wearing a do-rag over his head with a bandanna pulled up over his mouth and nose straddled a huge motorcycle in the middle of the yard, holding a doll by its hair. He laughed, the sound so evil it made Kate’s skin crawl.
“That’s Lily’s doll.” Kate flew off the porch and would have scratched the
