Adrienne deWolfe (9 page)

"I take it you're Rawlins?" she said.

He tipped his hat. "Yes, ma'am. Pleased to meet you, ma'am."

"Humph. More likely you're pleased to meet my pie. Was that you I heard out there caterwauling about men's drawers?"

He chuckled. "Aw, I didn't sound as bad as all that, did I?"

"Like a burro with a head cold."

His grin turned lopsided. Aunt Lally used to tell him the same thing.

"Well, you know what they say, ma'am. Practice makes perfect. Want me to sing another verse to get it right?"

"You trying to scare me, son?"

"Naw. But I sure would be pleased to have you call me Wes, ma'am."

"Wes, huh?" Amusement began to twinkle in her cagey eyes. "And where did a scapegrace like you learn good manners?"

"From my Aunt Lally, I reckon. She always taught me to treat ladies real fine, 'cause she said each and every one was a heaven-sent angel."

"An angel, eh?"

"Yes, ma'am. Don't you agree?"

A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. "This Aunt Lally of yours sounds like a wise woman."

"Oh yes, ma'am. One of the wisest." He felt his heart warm with fleeting memories. "I reckon you'd like her."

"I reckon I would." She locked her frank, discerning gaze with his once more, only this time, he saw the glimmer of acceptance there.

"So it's a piece of my pie you're wanting."

"Well, ma'am," he said, donning his best martyr's look, "I wouldn't want to impose or anything. But it sure would help to keep my mind off singing...."

"Now that
would
be a blessing." A dimple flirted in her cheek. "I reckon I could cut you a slice to keep the peace around here."

"Much obliged, ma'am."

She chuckled, at last giving full rein to her amusement. "The name's Ginevee. I'm Shae's Maw-Maw."

A quarter of a pie, and a full conquest later, Wes was smacking his lips and heading back for the barn, when he nearly collided knee-first with a copper-skinned child of about seven years. The girl craned her head back, her Indian-style braids brushing her skirt, and regarded him with the biggest, most honest eyes he had ever seen in his life.

"You are very tall," she said, her hands clasped behind her back.

His mouth quirked. "Reckon I am."

"I'm Merrilee," she said in that same grave, wiser-than-her-years voice.

He squatted down before her, but even then, her gleaming black head only came up to his chin. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Merrilee. My name's Wes."

She nodded, considering him for a moment. "Can you climb trees?"

He heard a titter. Seeking the sound, he spied three other children half-hidden behind the magnolia tree, all listening eagerly. There was a Mexican girl, also in pigtails, of about thirteen years, who tittered again and blushed profusely, dropping her eyes from his gaze. Her hand was gripping the collar of a muddy, shoeless, eager-to-run Po. Beside them, with his arms folded across his chest, stood a tow-headed boy, maybe nine years old. His jaw jutted in a manner reminiscent of Shae's.

"Well..." Wes gazed once more into Merrilee's enormous brown eyes—everything about the child was pint-sized except those eyes—and he felt a tug on his heartstrings. "Sure, I can climb trees."

"Ask him, Merrilee!" the boy whispered loudly, pronouncing "ask" with a noticeable lisp. "Hurry up before Miss Aurora comes back."

"Miss Ror-wah! Miss Ror-wah!" Po shouted gaily, jumping up and down.

Wes nearly laughed at the toddler, but the nine-year-old's speech—and his freckles—sobered him. He hoped the boy would outgrow both afflictions soon.

"Is there something I can do for you, Miss Merrilee?" he asked the girl.

She nodded gravely, then produced what she'd been hiding behind her back, a cup-shaped nest of thorny twigs and dry leaves. Inside it were a few gray feathers, two speckled blue eggs, and the unfortunate remains of at least one more.

"The mama mockingbird lost her babies. And Topher can't climb the tree."

"I can too!" the boy called defensively. "Only Miss Aurora won't let me."

"She won't, eh?" Wes said. "Well..." He took the nest carefully and straightened, giving Topher a friendly smile as he approached the tree. "You can't go blaming Miss Aurora."

"I can't?"

"Naw. Seems to me there's a law about tree-climbing somewhere."

"There is?" the Mexican girl asked, instantly turning crimson when he glanced her way.

"Yep. You have to wait 'til you're as tall as me."

"Why's that?" Topher demanded suspiciously.

Wes thought fast, tickled by the challenge. "I guess it's 'cause trees consider us tall folks kind of like their next of kin."

Topher seemed to accept this explanation, albeit reluctantly.

Meanwhile, the irrepressible Po was beating on Wes's leg. "I wanna help!" he commanded in a voice at least three times his size. The boy's red-faced caretaker hastily dragged the child back, but not before, Wes noticed in amusement, baby handprints had decorated his thigh.

"Let's see," he said good-naturedly. "Do you think you could hold this for me?" He tugged off his neckerchief, surrendering it to Po's eager, grasping hands. Next, he slipped off his hat.

"And I'd be right honored if you'd hold this for me, miss," he told the Mexican girl. " 'Course, I'd be even more honored, if you'd tell me your name."

She giggled. Although she was plump in some places, Wes decided she would be a real beauty in a couple of years, when she finished sprouting into womanhood.

"Juanita," she answered shyly. "But everyone calls me Nita, mostly 'cause Po can't say the 'Juan' part "

"Nita, Nita, Nita!"

"Quiet, Po," Topher said in a low, cross voice. "Next thing you know, Miss Aurora will be over here asking why you're so dirty, and then I'm gonna be in for it, 'cause I went digging for worms instead of—" He broke off abruptly, seeming to recall that a member of the enemy camp—a grown-up—was listening.

"Well?" His chin jutting again, he eyed Wes in challenge. "Are you gonna climb that tree or not?"

"I'll give it a try." Chuckling to himself, Wes hung his gun belt well out of the children's reach and swung up onto the lowest bough.

Back in the dining room, which served as her schoolroom, Rorie got her first hint that mischief was afoot when the mantel clock chimed a quarter past the hour, and her students had still not scrambled madly for their seats.

Her second clue came when she heard Ginevee call out the kitchen window, her tone unmistakable in its disbelief. "Land sakes! That boy's up in the tree!"

Rorie quailed. Visions of Topher, his head gashed and bloody, flashed before her eyes. She dropped her slate and rushed outside, praying that God would keep the boy surefooted until she could coax him back to earth—and give him a piece of her mind.

But as Rorie raced across the yard, scattering chickens with the flurry of her skirts, she saw Topher's sun-bleached hair surrounded by a half-dozen gleaming black heads. Her four orphans and three of her students, all from neighboring farms, encircled the rain-thirsty magnolia tree. Giggling and pointing, they were shouting encouragements to the mischief-maker who was prowling the boughs.

She couldn't see the rascal clearly through the canopy, and she worried that the older boys had dared chubby Bernardo Garcia to scale the tree. A nightmarish image of Nardo falling quickly blanked out her earlier vision of Topher. She began framing a frantic apology to Nardo's mother as she reached the children's circle. She arrived in time to see a lean, male torso swoop through the leaves.

"Mister Wes! Mister Wes!" Po shouted, jumping up and down.

Rorie scowled. She should have known.

He was suspended upside down from a limb, grinning while he reached playfully for Po's straining fingers.

For a heartbeat, she didn't know which was worse: that her children were watching her new handyman break her ironclad rule against tree-climbing, or that she'd caught herself sneaking a peek beneath his gaping shirt, where his rock-ribbed planes melted into the valley of his waist.

"Mister
Rawlins."

"Uh-oh," Topher whispered, nudging Merrilee.

The children hastily made way for her as she swept forward, endeavoring not to huff like a locomotive after her run.

Wes noticed her then. "Why... hello, ma'am," he drawled in that provocative baritone of his. "You sure got pretty hair."

Her hand flew to her to coiffure. When she found the tumbled ruins of her once neatly coiled braid, she blushed so hotly that her face felt scalded. The children snickered, and Wes at last curled upward, displaying an abdominal strength that made such athletics look easy.

Rorie folded her arms. It would never do to let the children believe he could disturb her. For their sakes, she had worked hard to remain unruffled by Dukker's coercive courtship after Ethan Hawkins had ridden off on his cattle drive without making the marriage proposal she'd hoped for.

She had also staunchly hidden her hurt when faced with the townsfolks' speculations about Ethan's intentions—or lack thereof. Having managed these feats of diplomacy, she felt certain she could handle with aplomb one redheaded rogue with trouble on his mind.

"Mr. Rawlins," she began crisply, "kindly explain what you're doing in that tree."

He reached above him, retrieving the gun belt, which, thankfully, he must have taken pains to keep from the children.

"Helping a lady in distress," he said.

Before she could fully comprehend his answer, she felt a tug on her skirt.

"You aren't mad, are you, ma'am?" Merrilee asked, her innocent brow furrowed with habitual, well-meaning concern. "The mama mockingbird lost her nest last night, and I asked Mr. Wes to—"

Topher nudged Merrilee again, and she reddened, her confession stuttering to a halt.

"I see," Rorie said more gently. Merrilee was always trying to rescue some wounded creature or another, and it drove Rorie to distraction, worrying that the child might be bitten by some pain-crazed rabbit or squirrel.

Nevertheless, she always found herself torn between lecturing and praising Merrilee. After all the unkindness the Indian girl had been shown, it was a miracle she possessed so much compassion.

Rorie decided to save her ire for Wes. Gazing once more into the tree, she leveled her best no-nonsense glare at him. "If you have accomplished your mission, Mr. Rawlins, then please remove yourself from our tree."

To her amazement, he obliged, and her heart leaped when he plummeted past her, landing catlike at her side. His all-too-masculine warmth was as tangible as the heat that flooded her neck. She stumbled backward, but the children crowded around him, their faces upturned and eager.

"Do you think the mama mockingbird will come back?" eleven-year-old Abraham asked doubtfully.

"What about the daddy?" asked his twin sister, Sarah.

Nardo, who must have joined the group during Wes's acrobatics, reached around the two black children and tugged on Rorie's skirt.

"Miss Aurora," he began in his froggy voice, "where do baby mockingbirds come from?"

Wes made a strangled noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter. She shot him a dark look.

"From eggs, children," she said briskly. "Nita, please take everyone inside and start the spelling lesson."

Topher looked mutinous. "We did spelling yesterday."

"Yes, well... Mr. Rawlins has work to do, Topher, and so do you."

"Grannies," he muttered under his breath.

Rorie arched an eyebrow. She'd learned to squelch the boy's oaths, even the most innocuous ones. Otherwise, she'd have to listen to Po gaily parrot them a hundred times a day. "I beg your pardon, young man?"

"I didn't say nothing. Ma'am," he added sullenly, snatching up his fishing pole. He hurried after Nardo and the twins.

Meanwhile, Nita was having a hard time getting Po to surrender Wes's neckerchief. By the time she had scooped the screaming toddler into her arms and started for the house, only Merrilee was left.

"You were very nice to help the mama mockingbird," she said solemnly. "Thank you, Mr. Wes."

"You are very welcome, Miss Merrilee."

Wes winked, and a shy smile curved Merrilee's lips. It lingered on her face when she turned and began her slow, painstaking limp after the others.

Rorie blew out her breath. At last they were alone, and she could tell Wes Rawlins exactly what she thought of him.

She rounded on him, words like
scoundrel, reprobate,
and
ne'er-do-well
poised on her tongue.

When she thought to launch those invectives, though, the expression on his face made her stop. His teasing smile was gone, and he was frowning after Merrilee. The concern in his gaze was so intense that for a moment, Rorie imagined another Wes Rawlins had stepped from behind the tree.

"What happened to her?" he asked quietly.

Rorie hesitated. Merrilee's condition was none of his business, and yet, robbed of the momentum of her anger, she found herself moved, and not just a little surprised, by the empathy he seemed to feel for the child.