“Why?”
Hank couldn’t come up with an answer.
“She cooks like an angel, she cleans like an army of people, and she’s easy on the eyes, too. What’s wrong with that?”
“She’s too young for you, Dad!” Hank replied, anger in his voice.
“Mercy, boy, I’m not looking for a woman, but having a good-looking one around isn’t a bad thing.”
“Dad, you don’t understand.”
“Explain it to me then,” the older man said. He sounded so reasonable, so much like the father Hank remembered…and had thought never to see or hear again.
“I want her to stay, son,” Carl said softly.
Hank dropped his head. “Okay, Dad,” Hank muttered. “You win.”
He turned around and went into the house. He could hear activity in the spare bedroom. He stepped to the door.
Timmy was the first to see him. The little boy gasped as though he’d seen the devil himself. That got his mother’s attention at once.
“Timmy?”
“It’s him, Mommy!” The little boy grabbed her leg and hid behind her.
She straightened and confronted Hank, stare-for-stare. “Is there something else, Mr. Brownlee? Do you want to search our luggage to be sure we’re not stealing something from our luxury accommodations?”
Hank hated to be put in the wrong. Her sarcasm struck home. He hadn’t even cleaned the room for her arrival. After all, she was the cleaning expert. But he knew he’d been a slacker there. “I apologize for not cleaning the room. I’ve been pretty busy with my dad.”
“And you’re here now because…”
She waited for him to fill in the blank.
With his cheeks red, Hank struggled to get the words out. “It’s—it’s not necessary for you to leave.”
“Yes, I’m afraid it is.” She returned to her packing, as if he were no longer there.
Hank drew a deep breath. “What I’m trying to say is I’m not firing you.”
She ignored him.
“Damn it! My dad wants you to stay.”
“We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ve scared Tim.”
Since she continued to pack, Hank realized he’d have to rectify his wrongs. He knelt down on one knee. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” Hank said, trying to soften the gruff note in his voice. His attempt to hide his irritation failed miserably.
Suddenly the little boy was crying, and his mother stopped packing to console him.
“What’s wrong? What did I say wrong?”
Hank wanted to withdraw, to let them leave, but his father had asked that they stay. What could he do? “Look, can you at least stay another week, see if we can all get along? Dad needs what you’ve been giving him. He needs Timmy. I think Timmy is helping Dad get well.”
The little boy raised his head from his mother’s shoulder and sniffed. “He has lots of boo-boos.”
“Yes, he does. But he’ll get better with your help, Timmy. Will you and your Mommy stay a little while?”
“I like it here…but you scare me.”
Hank ground his teeth. “I promise I won’t scare you any more.” He felt he’d reached his limit with the four-year-old. His gaze met Maggie’s, then looked away from the disapproval he saw in her blue eyes.
“What?” he asked, not specifying his question.
“We’ll try it for a week. But you’re on probation. I will not let my son live in constant terror!”
“I won’t be around that much. This is a working ranch.”
“I’ve only met Larry. You manage a ranch with one employee?”
“No, there are more hands, but right now my men are working on a neighbor’s round-up. They’ll be home tonight or tomorrow.”
“Oh, I see. Do I cook for them, too?”
“No, they already have a cook.”
“Uh, I think something is burning in here?” Larry called out.
Without a word, Maggie scooped up Tim and hurried to the kitchen, leaving Hank standing in her bedroom.
He followed her into the kitchen.
“It’s all right, Carl,” she said to his father. “It’s just the marshmallow topping. I can redo it and have the sweet potatoes ready in no time.”
“You actually made sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping?” Hank asked.
“Yes,” she said without looking up. “Your father requested it.”
“No wonder he doesn’t want you to go.”
“And what does that mean?”
“If you cater to his every whim, there’s no telling what he’ll ask for next.”
She glared at him. “Why don’t you join your father on the porch. I don’t appreciate someone watching over my shoulder when I’m trying to prepare a meal.”
“So you’re throwing me out of my own kitchen?”
“Silly me. I thought it was your father’s kitchen.” She challenged him to say she was wrong.
With a scowl, he went out on the porch. He hadn’t even realized Tim had already come out and was standing beside his father.
“What’s Tim doing out here?”
The little boy tried to back away toward the kitchen door, but Carl had an arm around him. “He keeps me company. Sometimes we read books or play with a couple of Timmy’s little cars. Other times, I tell him about you as a boy.”
“Me?”
“You remember that time you got stuck in the hay barn?” Carl asked, a grin on his face.
“And a snake almost bit you!” Tim added, obviously too excited by the story to remember his fear of Hank.
“That’s why Tim, here, shouldn’t go climb the hay in the barn,” Carl said. “Right, Timmy?”
“Right.” The boy nodded his head several times.
“I see.” When he’d left his dad last week, he would’ve sworn that his father couldn’t have remembered his name, much less anecdotes about his son’s childhood. Having the woman and the boy around had worked wonders for his father. “I’m glad you’re feeling so much better, Dad,” he said with a gusty sigh.
Carl narrowed his eyes. “You wonderin’ why I didn’t respond to all your attempts to make me change my ways?”
“I’m not the cook or housekeeper Maggie is, though I tried.”
“It’s not your fault son,” the older man said. “You were out working all day. You needed your meals prepared for you, not having to prepare them yourself. I didn’t blame you. Well, maybe occasionally when you burned everything to a crisp.” He smiled.
Hank stared at his father. He was actually smiling. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know that. No one would want that awful mess to eat.”
Larry decided to pitch in. “Remember when he tried to make a cake, only he didn’t follow the instructions?