She looked like her picture. Ben had had family pictures in his dorm during their training years and later in his duplex in the years that followed. All of Ben’s sisters were pretty. Rachel’s picture had always given him the impression of a demure and introverted young woman, an innocent and a wallflower. Not someone who bossed moose around or had a sparkle to her soul that made him keep looking.
“Uncle Jake?” a small, candy-sweet voice asked from the back seat of the Jeep. “I wanna pet the deer.”
“It’s a moose, Sally baby,” he answered without taking his gaze off of Rachel McKaslin as she held her broom like an M-4. “It’s a wild animal. We’d be smart to stay back and give it room.”
“Oh. All right.” Her sigh was a wistful sound of disappointment.
He’d been hearing that sound a lot over the past few days since he’d come to take charge of Sally. He’d been pulled off active duty in Iraq, and he was still in shock.
One day he’d been rescuing a pair of captured marines and the next day he’d been on a cargo plane to the States with the news his sister had been in an accident, had died and been buried. And he was not only the executor of her estate, but the sole remaining family that his little niece had.
The trouble was, he’d been stateside four days, and it hadn’t been time enough to settle his sister’s estate, and already his colonel wanted to know when he could get back to active duty.
And Sally…how did he comfort a grieving child? He was a rough-and-tumble Special Forces soldier. As a para-rescue jumper, or PJ, he knew how to jump out of an airplane from twenty-five thousand feet, parachute in and set up a perimeter, execute a mission without a single mishap.
He had Sally, but what was he going to do? It had him stumped.
As if he didn’t have enough on his mind, the moose was still glaring angrily at the Jeep from his field. Maybe it was the color that was making him so angry. While the animal had backed away, he hadn’t backed down. He still swung his head from side to side and pawed the ground. The Jeep was definitely in danger.
But was Rachel?
“You stay belted in, Sally.” He shut the door, leaving her safe and considered Rachel McKaslin, his best buddy’s little sister. She was out in the open and unconcerned. Did she know the threat? He stalked the good five yards separating them, keeping a close watch on that moose.
Rachel lowered her broom. “I’m sorry. I should have anticipated this. Bullwinkle does this every evening.”
“Bullwinkle?”
“It’s just what I call him. I should have fed him and the horse earlier, and you wouldn’t have been so rudely welcomed.”
“I thought you said he wasn’t your pet.”
“Not a pet, no, more like a sometimes friendly, sometimes not, wild animal who’s decided to take up residence around here and chase the horses away from his grain trough. He’s a pushy moose.”
“Pushy, huh?” Jake paced closer to protect Rachel, watching as the moose lowered his head and started to charge. Great. On a mission, Jake was prepared for every contingency. He just hadn’t thought he’d have to be on alert on a simple trip down a gravel driveway. “Want to give me that broom? It looks like he’s coming in for round two.”
“I can take care of him.”
Jake’s hand shot out and he had the broom before she could blink.
“Hey! You took my broom.”
“I did.”
“But it’s my moose. I can handle him.”
“I’m trained to serve and protect, so I might as well make myself useful.” The handle was solid hardwood. He’d excelled at hand-to-hand combat. “Rachel, stay behind me.”
“You’re a little bossy, too. It’s a moose, not war.”
“Everything’s war, pretty lady.” He timed the moose’s gait, waited until the huge ungainly creature was coming head-on and then shot out and rapped him on the nose.
Big nostrils flared, the moose skidded to a stop and shook his head.
“That smarted, didn’t it?” Jake kept the broom at the ready. “Do you need another smack?”
The moose’s eyes rolled in anger.
Uh-oh. “Maybe that wasn’t the best course of action. It works with sharks who get a little too aggressive.”
“Smacking them in the nose?”
“Yep. It works every time.”
“He’s pushy, but mostly harmless. All I need to do is get him some grain. Wait here. With you at my back to cover me with a broom, I feel perfectly safe.” She sauntered away, as if without a care in the world.
He was a soldier with fifteen years of experience spent in parts of this world few Americans saw. He’d seen evil, touched evil and battled it. Real evil. And he had the scars to prove it. Even remembering made his heart ache.
He was glad that Rachel McKaslin’s biggest problem at the moment was her semi-pet moose. There was peace and goodness in this world. It didn’t hurt that he got to see a rare glimpse of it before he headed back to guard this country’s freedom.
It didn’t hurt to see what he was fighting for.
Chapter Two
Could she see Jake from here? Rachel absently unsnapped the grain barrel’s lid and stood on tiptoe. Her attention was elsewhere, straining to see across the aisle, through Nugget’s box stall and past the open top of the half door.
Nope. No such luck. She saw plenty of sky and maple trees and the lawn in front of the house. But no Jake.
Pity, since he was such a sight. She had the right to look because he hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring. He was pleasing to the eye, pleasing in the way God intended a man to be. But there was more to him, and that was the attractive part—Mr. Jake Hathaway, Special Forces hero, defending and protecting.
He sure had seemed to be in control. He had to be to participate in all kinds of secret missions in the military. Handling a moose was no challenge for him. He’d tossed that rock as easily as if he’d been skimming stones on a pond and expertly enough so that he’d winged the animal on his antler and hadn’t caused any real harm.
And just what did he think of her? Please, don’t let him think I’m a nut bar. She rolled her eyes as she removed the lid and reached for the scoop. She was still wearing her fuzzy bunny slippers!
She hadn’t had a chance to run a brush through her hair or change out of her comfy after-work clothes. So she wasn’t exactly looking her best; she was more like looking her worst.
Great way to make a first impression.
This was the reason she didn’t have a boyfriend. She kept scaring them off. That was why she made sure, when she prayed for the right man to come along, that he have a sense of humor.
He would definitely need it.
She grabbed a pail from the shelf, dumped in three scoops of sweet-smelling grain and sealed the bin. Nugget was leaning over the side doorway, nickering in hopes of an early supper, poor guy. After leaving him with promises of grain to come, she hurried with the small bucket down the aisle and crawled through the paddock fence that faced the driveway.
Jake was still wielding the broom defensively, but the moose was a little farther off with his head down and snorting. Obviously there had been some action while she’d been in the barn. Before the big creature could charge again, she held the pail high and shook it.
The