a voice behind her said, “What are you doing?”
She whirled, then expelled a relieved breath. “You scared me half to death!”
Faron grinned. “I usually have a somewhat different effect on women. So what are you doing?” he asked again.
She held out the oil can so he could see it. “I’m doing just what you ordered me to do this morning.”
“Ordered?”
“All right, what you suggested I do.”
He took the can out of her hand and set it on the corner of one of the stalls. “Madelyn sent me to get you. She said she needs you in the house.”
If Belinda thought that keeping distance between them had diffused the sexual tension one whit, she was finding out now that she had been wrong. She was aware of Faron from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. “Did she say why she wants me?”
“No. But I noticed there’s a lot of cleaning going on in the house. I asked Rue what was going on, and she said we’re expecting company.”
“My sisters and their families always come to King’s Castle to visit during the Fourth of July holiday.”
“Now I remember. You said something about that the first day—” He cut himself off. He didn’t want to think back to the day he had met Belinda, when they had shared a special moment in time together. He had been trying desperately over the past couple of weeks to treat her like the stepmother she was.
It wasn’t working. All he had to do was take a breath around her, and his body surged to life. He had given her things to do that would keep them apart, but once her family arrived they would be forced into social situations together. It would be hell pretending in front of her family that he didn’t want her.
“When does your family start arriving?”
“Tomorrow.”
Faron took off his hat, forked his fingers through his hair and tugged the hat back on again. “You could have given me a little more warning.”
“Why? There’s nothing you need to do. Madelyn and Rue and I will take care of everything.”
If he’d had more warning maybe he could have figured out a reason to be gone from the ranch during their visit. If he left now it would look like he was running. Faron wasn’t the kind of man to run from trouble. Not that he necessarily sought it out, either. But he could see trouble coming.
Still, some good might come of this visit. He would have a chance to ask Belinda’s family some of the questions she had refused to answer. “I’m looking forward to meeting your sisters.”
Belinda smiled. “It’ll be hard not to trip over them, since they’ll all be staying at the house.”
By sundown the next day Faron realized that Belinda hadn’t been exaggerating. Her three sisters, Dori, Tillie and Fiona, had all arrived. Dori had come with her husband, Bill, and three daughters under seven years of age. Tillie was also married. She and her husband, Sam, had two boys, five and nine. Fiona was still single, but she had brought her Abyssinian cat, Tutankhamen, Tut for short.
There were trucks on the floor, dolls on the chairs and screaming children chasing each other and the cat up and down the stairs. When they all sat down to dinner it was chaos.
It reminded Faron of home. Of the days when his mother had still been alive, and he and his brothers had argued at the table while their parents refereed. He felt his stomach twist when he realized that the picture he remembered hadn’t been exactly as it had seemed.
Had his father’s eyes been sad as they met his mother’s across the table? Had there been any hesitancy in the way his father had lifted him up into his arms and held him in his lap? He couldn’t remember.
Whatever his father had felt about raising another man’s child hadn’t been evident in the way Faron had been treated. He had felt loved, had known he was loved. By a woman who had been faithless to his father in conceiving him. By a man who had overlooked the foreign blood that ran in his veins.
He sat back and listened to the children around him and searched for the warm memories he knew he would find.
“Mom, Travis threw a pea at me!”
“Travis, stop throwing food at Peter.”
“Dad, make Jennifer stop kicking the table.”
“Jennifer, that’s enough. Eat.”
“Daddy, Trisha spilled her milk.”
“I did not!”
“It’s all over your dress.”
“Is not!”
“Is, too!”
“Is not!”
“Penny! Trisha! That’s enough from both of you. Can’t we have a little peace and quiet here?”
No, Faron thought. There would be no peace and quiet until the kids had been put to bed. But he didn’t mind. And he could see that Belinda didn’t mind, either. In fact, the look in her eyes was decidedly soft—and yearning.
He remembered what Belinda had said about wanting children. He wondered why she and his father hadn’t given him stepbrothers and stepsisters. Suddenly he was fiercely, selfishly glad that Belinda hadn’t borne his father’s children. Even if it meant she had no child to hold to her breast during this family reunion. Because he wanted to be the one to give her those children.
Until that moment Faron hadn’t realized how deep his feelings for Belinda ran. He had known, of course, that he desired her physically. When he looked at her now it was with the knowledge that she was the one woman he was meant to spend his life with. With a sense of awful frustration he conceded that the unique relationship that had brought them together was equally likely to be what kept them apart.
Faron turned his gaze on Belinda. She had settled Jennifer, the youngest of Dori’s daughters, in her lap and was playing patty-cake with the child. The smile on Belinda’s face was easily as broad as the little girl’s. When Jennifer threw her hands wide, Belinda tossed her head back to keep from getting hit. And met Faron’s eyes.
He made no effort to hide what he was feeling. At first her expression softened. She shared with him the joy of holding the baby in her arms. As he continued staring, she lowered her lids and hid those expressive violet eyes from him. But it was too late. He had already seen the need, the desire, the yearning for a child of her own.
“Time for baths,” Tillie announced.
“Aw, Mom!”
“Jeez, Mom!”
“I want to play some more.”
Faron listened to all the complaints knowing that they were being made in vain. The children’s parents slowly but surely herded their offspring up the stairs. He wasn’t surprised when Belinda took advantage of the opportunity to escape with them. Madelyn excused herself to check on Rue, who had apparently found another bottle this afternoon.
That left Faron sitting at the table with Belinda’s youngest sister, Fiona. Fiona had a pixie face, and from what Faron had seen, a puckish sense of humor. She was blond and blue-eyed, but considerably shorter than her eldest sister. She had a figure that curved in all the right places. If Faron had met her before Belinda, he might even have been interested in getting to know her better.
Fiona picked up her wineglass and walked down the length of the table to take a chair across from Faron. “I guess you and I are the only ones without someone to bathe.” She paused and added with a come-hither smile, “Unless you’d like me to scrub your back?”
“No thanks,” Faron said, returning the smile.
“Thank goodness.”
“Pardon?”
Fiona’s smile