Love's Haven (14 page)

“Why?”

“Because I need room to breathe, to grieve. I need to heal and grow past everything that has happened to me. I need to be Abby’s mother. I need to be Todd’s widow.”

He took a deep breath, then released it slowly. “Maybe that is what you need. What you want is another thing. I think you know what you want, and it doesn’t have a thing to do with being a mother or a widow.” Giving her a last glance, he turned his back. “I’ll take you and Abby to the ranch house when you’re ready.”

Mara watched him walk away, his broad shoulders outlined in morning sunlight.

Brock did give Mara room. He decided if she needed time to think things over, she could have it. He hadn’t learned to bury himself in work for nothing.

It took him two weeks to put up new barbed-wire fencing on the north side of the ranch. Nights, he slept in the bunkhouse with the men he had rounded up to crew the project. They ate beans and steaks, played their guitars and sang ballads, and he told himself he wasn’t thinking about Mara at all. Hardly at all, anyway.

The week before Christmas, Brock drove to Santa Fe to buy gifts for his staff. It was a tradition. He stayed at the La Fonda Hotel near the plaza and looked through the galleries for Indian paintings, pottery and jewelry. He bought Rosa Maria a turquoise-and-silver squash blossom necklace with rows of blue stones. He found a coral-encrusted silver hair clip for Ermaline and some games for her kids. At a gourmet boutique, he located the new grill attachment Pierre had been wanting for his stove. The chef would be in seventh heaven over that.

For his men, Brock bought heavy, waterproof canvas duster coats. Good protection against the howling winds and driving rains of New Mexico’s vast plains. He picked up a few new lariats, a good saddle and a bundle of wool blankets woven by a Hispanic family who lived near Chimayo. He ate blue corn enchiladas at The Shed one afternoon and a big bowl of
posole
at The Pink Adobe another night.

Trying to push Mara out of his mind, he went down to the hotel bar and introduced himself to a pretty woman, an attorney for the state. She was smart, confident, aware of her good looks. When she asked him to dance, he considered it…for about two seconds. He begged off and spent the rest of the evening walking the cold, empty streets of Santa Fe.

He didn’t want another woman. Couldn’t imagine ever wanting anyone but Mara. He wasn’t sure how such a thing had happened to him. Maybe it came about the day he watched her give birth, or maybe in those long hours
at the hospital while she learned to be a mother. Maybe he had lost himself to her only that morning in the old adobe ruin when she had looked into his eyes and welcomed his kiss.

But he thought it had probably started a long time before. Images of Mara had floated through his life for years, beginning with the evening Todd had introduced them at an art gallery. She had talked about the Anasazi tribe and some research paper she was working on. They had all been in college then—he was tightly strung, wild and brazen; she was serious, high-minded and religious to a fault. They had nothing in common. But the moment he met her he saw something in her gray-green eyes…something that connected with him deep inside…and he’d never quite gotten over it. Not even during all the years when she was his best friend’s wife.

Now Mara was his own wife. In spite of another man’s ring on her finger, she wanted Brock as deeply as he wanted her. Their kiss had proved that. But she was scared and confused. She had built herself a wall of protection—nearly as insurmountable as his own. Out of respect for her, and for Todd, he knew he ought to let that barrier stand.

Maybe it had something to do with religion, too. Mara held a deep faith in God that Brock found hard to understand. Despite all she had been through—maybe because of it—she trusted God more than she would ever trust any human being. She and Todd had shared that. Todd called it their “faith foundation.”

Brock had no foundation but himself. Until Todd’s death, he had held up the walls of the fortress he had built around himself pretty well. But with his best friend’s slip on a cliff face, Brock finally understood his frailty. He couldn’t save Todd. He couldn’t save himself.

Could Mara’s God? Was God the answer to the empty
hole inside him? The foundation was missing…the fortress was weak…and the walls were crumbling into a giant cave that had been there the whole time. Brock had tried to convince himself that Todd’s death had carved out that gaping maw. But he knew it had been there long before that tragic evening at Hueco Tanks.

After checking out of the hotel, he drove back to his ranch, arriving at midafternoon on Christmas Eve. Every year his friends threw a party in Las Cruces, and he’d never missed it. This would be his first time to go alone. He dreaded the thought of unwinding Sandy’s tentacles all evening. As he pulled his Jaguar into the garage, he again mulled over the option of asking Mara to go with him.

But to take her into that den of wildcats? She would never go. Besides, he hadn’t seen her since the incident at the cliffs three weeks before. He wasn’t even sure she still lived at his house. Maybe she had moved away and taken the whirlwind of emotion with her.

As he walked across the drive toward the kitchen door at the rear of the home, a light flurry of snowflakes sifted out of the gray sky. Loaded with packages, he elbowed the door open and backed into the room. At the sound of something hitting the countertop, he turned around.

“Brock,” Mara said, her voice almost a whisper. “You came back.”

“Hello, Mara.” Looking at her, he felt like a starving man set before an unexpected feast. “You’re still here.”

She was standing by an open cupboard door, a can of mixed nuts in one hand and a string of Christmas-tree lights in the other. She had pulled her blond hair up into a high ponytail fastened with a garland of silver tinsel. A red sweater skimmed over her curves and ended at the waist of a pair of black slacks. Her shoeless feet wore bright crimson socks decorated with little white snowmen.

He pushed the door shut behind him with his boot and
set his packages on the counter. She was beautiful. Too beautiful. He felt his control slipping. Make conversation.

“How’s Abby?” he asked.

“Big.”

“She’s a month old now?”

“Five weeks.”

He took off his hat and brushed the snowflakes from the brim. “You okay, Mara?”

“I’m fine. I’ve been busy. Calling builders, doing more fort research, talking to the BLM.” She closed the cupboard door. “How are you?”

“Good.” He held her eyes, unable to pull away. “You look great.”

A pink flush blossomed on her cheeks. “Pierre and I have been working on meals to help me trim down. He’s even cut back on the butter and cream sauces.”

“Whoa. You must have won his heart.”

She smiled. “We like to work together. I asked him how he made eclairs, so he invited me into the kitchen. Now I take lessons almost every day.”

Brock drank in the sight of her mouth, her white teeth, her almond eyes. Every wall he had worked to erect came tumbling down the moment she smiled. He shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from taking her in his arms.

“Sounds like you’re getting used to things around here,” he said.

“Everyone’s been wonderful. Rosa Maria’s daughter helps me look after Abby.”

“Ramona?”

“Yes, she’s fabulous. I’ve even been able to leave Abby with her a couple of times to go into Las Cruces for meetings. I found out about your trading post, too, by the way. It was built in 1887. I have copies of the deed in my room. And Ermaline’s teaching me how to quilt. We found
a pieced quilt top up in a cupboard in the lounge, so we’re finishing it. I really like her.”

“You haven’t been lonely.”

“Well…” She hesitated as though unwilling to answer. Then she brightened suddenly. “Oh, Sherry drove out for a visit. She brought Abby some Christmas presents. Which reminds me…I invited the staff and their families over this evening. Sort of a thank you and tree-decorating party rolled into one. I didn’t expect you…and I thought it might be fun to share Christmas with someone.”

He nodded. “Sounds nice.”

“I was getting the appetizers ready.”

“I won’t be in your way. I have to go to a party in Las Cruces tonight.”

“I see.” Her expression changed. “Sandy, Stephanie, Justine—that bunch?”

He shrugged. “Probably. Well, I have more stuff to bring in. Go ahead with your party fixings.”

“Sure.” She swung around and hurried out of the kitchen into the living room. He felt as though the light had just gone out of his whole life.

Abby lay tummy-down on a thick, pink blanket spread across the living-room floor, and Mara smiled to herself as the baby’s small round head bobbled up and down. Moonlight gleamed through the window onto a towering pine tree that Ermaline’s husband, Frank, had cut and brought in.

Bowls of popcorn and cranberries sat beside the fire. Boxes of old ornaments that had been in the Barnett family for generations were stacked against a wall. Rosa Maria had dug the decorations out of a storage closet while lamenting how rarely they had been used through the years. Christmas at the ranch had always been more of an off-again, on-again whim than a cherished tradition, the housekeeper told Mara.

Mara had been determined to change that. Now bayberry-and cinnamon-scented candles burned on the mantel. Christmas music drifted through the room. An evergreen wreath hung on the front door. Everything was ready, just perfect…

Swallowing the unexpected lump in her throat, she opened a carton of eggnog and poured the creamy liquid into a huge punch bowl. The aroma of nutmeg swirled upward to mingle with the fragrance of newly cut pine and fresh popcorn. The scents said Christmas…hope, peace, joy. They spoke of past years with a loving husband. They whispered of precious memories, laughter around a spindly tree, a first turkey cooked in a too-small oven, gifts wrapped in newsprint and tied with twine, two voices lifted in carols at a small church. They spoke of Todd.

Why had Brock come back?

Mara blinked at the sting of hurt. She didn’t want Brock. It was his fault this Christmas had pain and aching loss at its core. She might paint a bright veneer of tradition and happiness, but beneath it all she had to face the truth. Her husband was dead.

Sherry had reminded Mara just what kind of man Brock was. Together the two friends had recalled the bullheaded, insensitive womanizer who had always annoyed Mara. Sherry had been right, of course. Brock was no different now.

So he had returned—the focus, the cause of her sorrow. He had been away so long, and she had prayed so hard to forget how he looked. She hadn’t. Her heart had thudded against her ribs as his eyes took her in that afternoon. And all she could think of was how giddily happy she felt to see him…how much she had missed him…how desperately she had longed for his touch, his voice, his kiss.

“Oh, Abby.” She knelt beside her baby and lifted the gurgling infant into her arms. “What am I going to do?”

But there was no time for reflection as the front door burst open. Rosa Maria and her husband, Fernando, brought in a swirl of snowflakes and laughter.

“Feliz navidad!”
Fernando exclaimed. The longtime ranch hand always wore a smile. “Merry Christmas, Mrs. B. How’s the little one?”

“Wonderful, Fernando.” Mara greeted the couple as their youngest daughter, Ramona, followed her parents into the house.

In her love for little Abby, Ramona reflected the contentment of a happy upbringing. Just nineteen, she had graduated from high school the past spring, and she was hoping to become a kindergarten teacher. She had confessed a desire for a family of her own one day, but first she wanted to get a college education. After putting an armload of presents under the tree, she hurried to Mara’s side and lifted Abby from her mother’s arms.

Ermaline’s cheerful clan was only moments behind the others. Frank carried in firewood, and the four children had each brought an empty stocking. Mara had promised to fill them to the brim. They swirled around the room, cooing over the baby, sampling the popcorn, chattering with excitement over the prospect of Christmas morning.

Into their midst stepped Pierre and his plump wife, Yvonne, who was as jolly and effusive as her husband was stiff. She hugged everyone in the room, her French accent bouncing off the vigas as she wished the gathering a
“Joyeux Noël!”
Pierre had brought boxes of pastries and a beautiful cake.

“And where is young Mr. Barnett?” he demanded loudly. “I have seen his car on the road this afternoon.”

“Mr. B. is back?” Rosa Maria turned to Mara. “Ah,
que bueno!
I thought he would miss this Christmas with the baby.”

“He won’t be here tonight,” Mara said. “He’s going to a—”

“A party in Las Cruces,” Brock finished as he walked into the room. He had changed into a black shirt and jeans, black leather coat and boots. In his somber colors and jet-black hat, he looked anything but merry. “You know the one I always go to. At Joe’s house.”

“Oh, that one.” Again, Rosa Maria looked at Mara. Her eyes softened. “Well, then you must go, too, Mrs. B. We’ll have our little fiesta here while you two go into town.”

“I think it is best,” Pierre intoned, nodding sagely. “The friends will expect it.”

“A husband and wife together—
mais oui!
” Yvonne clapped her hands. “And when the cats are away, the mice shall play. We will have a lovely time here. Go on with you both!”

Mara shook her head. “Oh, no, really. I don’t want—”

“I’d like for you to come.” Brock held out his hand to her. “We’ll be back before midnight.”

“But Abby—”

“She’ll be fine,” Ramona said, hugging the baby against her cheek. “Go on with him, Mrs. B. There’s enough milk in the freezer to feed the baby for one evening. I’ll take care of her.”

“But I’ve spent all day—”

“Come with me, Mara.” Brock took a step toward her. “Please.”

“Go on, go on!”

Mara stared at Brock’s outstretched hand. It would be a terrible mistake. She knew it even as she placed her palm on his. She was going away with him, leaving her baby, her home, her friends, her security. And she felt as happy as a child on Christmas morning.