Love's Haven (6 page)

“There’s a lounge?”

“Sure. It’s right down the hall there.”

Mara gave Abby a last check, content that her daughter would be secure without her for a few minutes. As she stepped into her bedroom, she tried to envision this lounge Rosa Maria was talking about. It made the house sound like a hotel.

“You haven’t seen it?” The older woman followed Mara into the room and began turning down the bed. “It’s a big area with tables and chairs, bar, movie screen, pool tables, everything. Mr. Barnett has parties there, you know?”

“No, I didn’t know.”

“Sure! He has a big crowd of friends from Las Cruces. They come up to visit. Sometimes they stay all night.”

I’ll bet they do, Mara thought. Just when she was trying to accommodate the image of an art-loving Brock, the old party boy stepped back in. Maybe he simply liked to play with his money, spending it on expensive historical artifacts to impress his friends.

She unzipped her suitcase and wondered how long she could endure living right down the hall from Brock Barnett’s Bar and Grill. How long before the Las Cruces crowd decided it was time to party? Would there be strange men sleeping in the empty rooms up and down the corridor? Women lolling around the pool? Going into Brock’s bedroom? Her husband…

The whole idea made her nauseous—especially the fact that she had actually married such a man. So different from Todd. So opposite to her ideal.

Mara felt lonely enough without family to help her celebrate Abby’s birth, without a mother to help her tend the newborn and with her few friends miles down the highway. To have Brock’s pack of revelers around would be too much. Jerking a pair of jeans from the top of her suitcase, Mara frowned at the picture her mind had conjured.

“I don’t think a lounge is the right place to bring up a baby,” she said firmly.

“Oh, everyone will love Abby. Mr. B.’s friends are…well, they’re…” Rosa Maria’s voice trailed off, and Mara glanced at her.

“They’re what?”

“I was just thinking about some of those who come. I don’t know if he has told anyone.”

“About me?”

“About the wedding.”

“I would doubt if he had, Rosa Maria. This marriage is
on paper only. Brock and I have been very honest with each other about that, and everyone else should be aware of it, too. The only purpose of the marriage is to provide for Abby.”

“Mr. B told us—the ones who work here—that he doesn’t know you very well.” The housekeeper plumped Mara’s pillows. “You’re his best friend’s wife?”

“Todd Rosemond was my husband.”

“I’m very sorry about what happened.”

Mara tried to think of a response as she placed her jeans, shirts and socks in the drawers of the large oak bureau near her bed. “I’m sorry, too.”

“None of us could believe it when we heard the news. Mr. Rosemond was a good man.”

Mara turned quickly. “You knew my husband?”

“Sure. He always stopped by the house when he and Mr. B. were going on trips. I remember he came by once when they were hot-air ballooning, and another time when they had explored a cave near Carlsbad. He was here a lot before he got married. But after that, we didn’t see him as much. We all liked your husband. Mr. B. came back happier when they had been out on trips together. He seemed…lighter, you know?”

Mara shrugged. “Todd was like that. He made life fun.”

Uncomfortable at the turn of the conversation, she realized she didn’t like to be reminded of Todd’s friendship with Brock. If the two had never known each other, Todd would be alive today. He would hold his newborn daughter and kiss his wife. The world would be normal, instead of a mess. It was hard enough to lose a husband without the reminder that his presence had been valued by someone else. Valued by the man who ultimately failed him.

“Mr. B. is lonely these days,” Rosa Maria said. “Even though you would never hear him say it, he misses his friend a lot. Mr. B. is hard and tough on the outside, you
know? He’s closed off like a
torreón
with thick walls built high for protection. He doesn’t open up for people.”

“What about all those Las Cruces party friends?” Mara asked under her breath.

“Them?” Rosa Maria chuckled as she set a crystal water carafe and glass on the bedside table. “Oh, no. They don’t talk together, those people. They dance, drink, swim, have fun. Nothing serious.”

“Sounds like Brock is pretty lighthearted to me.”

“Maybe for a while. Then he goes back to the same way. Quiet, working too hard, a little bit angry, you know? But after spending time with Mr. Rosemond on one of their adventures, he always relaxed. He whistled at his work. He made jokes and teased Pierre…like this morning. I’ll tell you, when Mr. B. came back from a trip with your husband, we could always know. Can you guess how we knew?”

Mara shook her head, but she figured she was going to get an answer anyway.

“He put his feet on the dining-room table, that’s how.”

“What?” she said with a sudden laugh. “His feet?”

“Boots and all. You see, usually Mr. B. sits there in the morning very stiff and brooding with his laptop and cell phone and all his pencils and pens. While he eats breakfast, he plans out everything he wants to do that day. He talks into his little phone, taps messages on his machines, scowls at everybody. He makes us nervous.”

“I can see why.”

“But for a few days after he got back from spending time with his friend, he would be happy. Relaxed. He would leave the laptop in his car or his study. And he would lean back in his chair and put his feet on the table.”

Mara couldn’t hold in her smile. It wasn’t only the image of Brock with his boots on the table that warmed her. It was Todd. Her husband had touched everyone he knew with his special brand of affection.

“Mr. B., he hasn’t been the same since your husband died,” Rosa Maria went on. “For months now, he doesn’t talk to anyone. He’s very difficult. Like he’s on edge. Everything has to be done the right way.”

“I know about that. When I was in labor with the baby, he told me I hadn’t done things logically.”

Rosa Maria laughed out loud. “Yes, logic. That’s Mr. B. Always in control of everything. Logic, order, organization, perfection—that’s what matters to him. ‘Do it right, Rosa Maria,’ he tells me. Everything must meet his standards.”

Mara shook her head. “I don’t know how you put up with him.”

“Oh, Mr. B. has a big heart, great tenderness. But his heart is buried deep inside. Locked away. I don’t know anybody who ever got in there but his best friend.”

“Y’all, Pierre’s pitching a fit!” Ermaline Criddle called from the door. “He’s banging pots and flinging flour everywhere. He says he sent Rosa Maria down here half an hour ago to find out where the madame wants to eat her dinner.”

Rosa Maria set her hands on her hips. “Ermaline, you tell that cook I said—”

“Hey, now!” Ermaline cut in. “He needs to know. Mrs. B., where would you like your supper?”

“It’s Mara, and I’ll…” She debated for a moment. The lounge would be closer to the baby, but she didn’t like the idea of eating in a pool hall. On the other hand, she didn’t want to encounter Brock more often than necessary. At the same time, she couldn’t deny she was curious about this man with the hidden heart.

“Oh, eat in the dining room,” Rosa Maria said. “You can hear the baby on the intercom. Look, I’ll turn it on for you.”

“Intercom?” Mara asked.

“Go on, Ermaline. Tell the old buzzard to set his precious supper in the main dining room.”

“But I’m not sure I—”

It was too late. Ermaline had fled, and Rosa Maria was right behind her.

“Just pray Pierre hasn’t cooked those snails,” she sang out as she vanished down the hall.

Mara stared at the empty doorway. All of a sudden she felt tired. Todd was gone, and she was married to a man who had built himself a house with a bar. A man who rarely smiled, who constantly drove himself toward perfection, and who made even his closest companions nervous. She could hardly wait for dinner.

Brock was checking his watch when Mara walked into the dining-room, her doughnut cushion in hand.

“Supper’s at seven,” he informed her. “Unless we have an emergency, that’s when we eat.”

He liked to keep things running like clockwork on the ranch. That way he knew what to expect, and when. After arriving from the hospital, he had spent time with his foreman and household staff making sure all was well. As expected, the place was shipshape.

Brock had sent Rosa Maria down to the west wing to explain the dining routine to Mara. Neither woman had returned in time for dinner. Finally—with Pierre getting distraught—Brock had sent Ermaline to check on them.

“Newborn babies don’t have schedules,” Mara reminded him as she set the cushion in the chair and eased onto it as if every part of her had been in pain. “I was feeding Abby.”

“You nurse her whenever she cries?”

“It’s called feeding on demand.” As she picked up her napkin, Mara’s face revealed such discomfort and exhaustion that Brock’s irritation faded immediately. But hers seemed to be in full swing.

“You might recall I don’t have Todd or a mother of my own to help out,” she said in a flinty voice. “Babies aren’t into efficiency, Brock. They follow their instincts.”

Brock studied his bowl as Ermaline poured a ladleful of soup into it. He hadn’t thought about Mara being lonely or needing help. Nor had he considered how often a baby might need to eat. In the hospital, the nurses had brought Abby into Mara’s room, but he had tried not to pay too much attention to the details. In fact, the process usually made him so uncomfortable he left.

“Suppose she gets hungry in the middle of the night?” he asked.

“I hear they usually do.” Mara unfolded her napkin into her lap as Ermaline approached with the soup. “Let me do that, Ermaline. You don’t need to wait on me.”

“Oh, Mrs. B—”

“It’s Mara.”

“But we always serve—”

“No, let me—”

“It’s okay, Ermaline,” Brock said. “Set the tureen on the table.”

With an anxious glance at Mara, the maid placed the soup dish beside the arrangement of fresh flowers. As Ermaline hurried toward the kitchen, Mara let out a breath.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Brock. “I shouldn’t have snapped at her. I’m just not used to this.”

“Is something wrong?”

“It’s all so grand. So formal.” She said the words as though they were distasteful to her.

“It is?” Brock glanced around, trying to see the house through her eyes. To him, the large dining room looked pretty good. He had placed a few expensive pueblo pots here and there. A bright fire burned in the huge hearth. He and Mara sat facing each other at one end of a long, sleek table rimmed with twelve chairs. Candlelight from a pair
of white tapers in silver holders gave Mara’s face a soft glow. He had bought the white china in Paris.

Brock tried to think how it might be different, but his mind was a blank slate. Grand? Formal? What did Mara even mean by that?

“It’s all so fancy.” She filled the ladle with vegetable soup and poured it into her bowl. “Rosa Maria even turned down my sheets.”

“What’s wrong with that? She’s turned down the sheets every night of my life practically.”

“I can turn down my own sheets, Brock.” Mara lifted her head and met his eyes. “I want my life to go the way I say.”

“All right.” He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. So far, life on the ranch had always gone the way he’d said.

“I don’t want to be called Mrs. Barnett,” she told him.

“It’s your name.”

“I’m Mara. I don’t want people fawning over me or waiting on me hand and foot. And I don’t want parties in my part of the house.”

“Parties?” He tried without success to read the message in her tired green eyes.

“The lounge,” she said. “That bar down the hall from Abby’s room. No wild parties in there.”

“Wild parties in the den?” He dunked his spoon in the soup. “Mara, what are you talking about?”

“Rosa Maria called it a lounge. She said you have parties with your friends from Las Cruces. And don’t you say grace at the dinner table?”

Brock stared at her. Tears perched just on the edge of her lower eyelashes, threatening to spill over. If those tears slid down her cheeks, he’d be lost. He was already lost. What was she upset about? Was it this business about wild parties? Or eating before saying grace? Or what?

“I pray before I eat,” she enunciated, as if speaking to
someone a little slow on the uptake. “To thank God for the food, you know?”

“Sure.” Brock set his spoon back in the bowl. “Go ahead.”

Mara let out a breath. “Todd and I,” she said softly, “we held hands.”

Brock looked at the wedding band still on her finger, then lifted his eyes to hers, finally understanding. “I guess you miss him a lot.”

She nodded, unable to speak.

“Mara…you can hold my hands.” He reached across the table, his palms spread open. Slowly she placed her hands in his. As his fingers closed around hers, he wondered what she thought of his sun-toughened skin and the hard ridges of calluses on his palms.

He bowed his head. “Go ahead.”

“You,” she whispered. “I don’t think I can.”

Brock swallowed and glanced up to find himself staring at the top of Mara’s blond head. He had been to church in Las Cruces a few times as a boy, but he didn’t have the first clue about praying out loud. Any other time, he’d have refused to try. Then he thought about those tears on her eyelashes.

“Dear God,” he began, “here we are at the table. Well…I guess You already knew that. Anyway, we’re thinking about Todd, and we both miss him a lot.”

Brock cleared his throat and peered at Mara. Had he messed up the prayer? She sat in silence, head low and eyes closed.

“We wish Todd was here with us,” he continued. “Wish he could see Abby. We thank You for the baby, for giving her to us…to Mara. And for the food, too. Thanks for that. Uh…in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”

When he opened his eyes, he realized he had blown it. Mara was crying into her napkin. He ducked his head and went for the soup. Blast it all anyhow! He didn’t know
what to do with her. Didn’t know what to say or how to act. Mara was his wife, but he had no idea how to be a husband to her.