was completely unlike that uncomfortable grimace that passed for a smile in the photograph. This smile was genuine, lighting her face and transforming it. Mac was intrigued. That sudden flash of animation revealed a very pretty woman. For the first time he took note of her skin, luminous and smooth as ivory, quite unlike the weather-tanned skin of the locals. Would her cheek be as soft to touch as it looked? And what about her skin elsewhere? He felt a stirring in his midsection which slowly twisted lower.
Kara quickly composed her face into the placid, guarded mask she’d been wearing since they’d met. Mac’s eyes narrowed. Suddenly that mask she wore interested him, too, because he knew there was another woman behind it. One whose hazel eyes sparkled with warmth when she smiled, whose mouth was wide and full and sensuous.
He allowed himself to contemplate kissing that sweet mouth. The heat in his loins flared pleasantly. Yes, he liked the idea of kissing her. This past week, he’d finally come to terms with the necessity of having a wife. After all, a woman had to know more about kids than he did; women possessed the acclaimed maternal instinct to guide them. And the availability of a wife would certainly be sexually convenient for him. Having a woman living under his roof and sharing his bed meant he would not have to go elsewhere for feminine companionship. He had discovered that the concept of dating was logistically impossible with four children around. Especially those four!
As for having sex...well, he wasn’t. An ache spread through his body, reminding him that there had been no woman in his bed since the children had come into his life. The long period of enforced celibacy was taking its toll on his nerves and his temper. He couldn’t wait to rectify the situation with his brand-new wife!
Kara cast a covert glance at him, feeling uncomfortable by the intense, almost predatory, glint in his eye. Her experience with men was woefully at odds with her chronological age. She was suddenly tense and on edge. “Is—is it a long drive to Reverend Will’s house in Bear Creek?”
“About three hours to Bear Creek and another twenty-five minutes to the ranch.”
“What ranch?”
“My ranch.”
“You have a ranch?” Interest replaced her vague unease. “A real Western working ranch?”
“Didn’t the Rev tell you about the Double R?” Mac was confused. He’d assumed the pastor would have provided her with at least the basic facts about her new home.
Kara shook her head no. “He talked a little about his own house,” she added, wondering why Mac appeared to be so perplexed. Was his ranch such a showpiece that he assumed it was the natural topic of conversation between any Bear Creek resident and visitor?
Tai chose that moment to utter an earsplitting meow which seemed to echo throughout the Helena airport.
“I can see that Autumn is going to have some competition in the screaming department,” Mac murmured. Just what the household needed, a cat whose meow could shatter glass.
Kara gulped, not quite sure what he was referring to, but had no doubts that he did not appreciate Tai’s no-holds-barred, executive meow. “Tai isn’t a good traveler,” she apologized. “This was his first flight and he’s very unhappy.”
Mac kept staring at her. She found his silence unnerving. “I—I’m glad that I insisted on bringing Tai in the cabin with me, though.” Mac Wilde’s eyes were a deep, dark brown, piercing and intent. When she felt his gaze sweep over her once again, a warm blush stained her cheeks.
“I know he wasn’t too popular with the crew and the other passengers, but I just couldn’t consign him to the freight area of the plane,” she continued, averting her eyes from Mac. “Tai’s never traveled before—it might’ve left lifelong emotional scars.”
“A cat with emotional scars,” Mac repeated. He decided her concern boded well for the kids. After all, if she had empathy for a cat, she would undoubtedly have it for four young orphans who had been uprooted for a second time after their parents’ demise.
“Come on, we’ll pick up your luggage. It should be in the baggage area by now. Then we’ll head out to the ranch.”
“I—I’d rather go to Reverend Franklin’s house.” Kara stood stock-still, clutching Tai’s carrier. “It’s been so long, I just can’t wait to see Uncle Will. Oh, and—and Ginny and the girls, too,” she added quickly.
Mac was not pleased, but he decided her request was not unreasonable. The pastor used to be her stepfather, and it had been five years since they’d seen each other. “Okay,” he agreed. “But I can’t leave the kids for too long.” The prospect of them on the loose made him shudder, considering the havoc they managed to wreak when under supervision. “We’ve really got to get going!”
He headed toward the baggage area, leaving Kara to follow him. She watched his tall muscular frame stride away from her. He had children. It was inevitable that an attractive, virile man such as he would be married with children. She wondered where his wife was and why, if he didn’t like leaving the children for long stretches of time, he had agreed to drive all the way to the airport to pick her up.
She thought about the way he had been looking at her. It didn’t seem right for a married man to stare in that particular way. Unless she was overreacting and misinterpreting? Was she turning into a suspicious spinster who spied a slavering sex fiend in every male who glanced her way?
The notion depressed her. She’d always despised that dreadful old card game Old Maid; now it appeared she was turning into the personification of the losing card. Kara flinched at the thought.
Her shoulders drooping, she trailed after Mac to retrieve her luggage, with the yowling Tai announcing his arrival and issuing complaints to everyone in the airport.
* * *
“How many children do you have?” Kara asked politely as they left the outskirts of Helena in Mac’s sturdy Jeep Cherokee. She’d taken Tai out of his carrier and held him on her lap, which had finally quieted him. But the cat was still tense and on guard, his blue eyes darting around the roomy interior of the vehicle.
“Four,” Mac replied. Surely the reverend had mentioned the children, the sole reason for her journey out here! He glanced across the seat at Kara and saw her stealing a quick glance at him. She flushed a little, embarrassed to be caught looking at him.
“How nice.” Kara continued in those same courteous, impersonal tones.
Mac noted that she was able to say “how nice” with a straight face. Exactly what had the pastor told her, anyway?
The radio was on, and an intensely romantic song pulsed over the airwaves. Kara stroked Tai’s fur and tried to calm her own increasingly taut nerves. She and Mac were alone, enclosed inside, and suddenly the atmosphere seemed disturbingly intimate.
She was acutely aware of his strong masculine presence. She couldn’t keep her eyes from straying to him. His big hands on the wheel, his broad shoulders, the wide powerful chest—Kara took inventory of them all. As if of its own volition, her gaze abruptly dropped lower to glide over his long, muscled legs, though she was careful to avoid the button fly of his jeans.
She was ogling him! Kara was shocked by her own blatant—and completely inappropriate—behavior. She had never actively ogled a man in her entire life and her first chosen target was a married man, a father of four!
It must be jet lag. Kara quickly strove to remedy her appalling lapse.
“How old are the children?” she asked, toying with Tai’s orange-and-black collar. Tai owned twelve different ones and Kara changed them monthly, the color and motif of each coordinating with whatever holiday or activity was associated with that particular month. Orange and black were for October and Halloween.
Mac frowned. This was not going as planned. In the scenario he’d envisioned, Kara arrived in Montana knowing all about her future family, as told to her by her former stepfather. Or was Kara Kirby simply playing dumb, trying to break