After tossing her dripping pink case onto his bed, she crossed her arms.
“Well? Is there something else I can help you with?”
“You’re in my way.”
“Of what?”
“That’s where I set up my ranch.” She pointed to the fieldstone stove surround. “My dolls camp by the fire.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little hot right now?”
Lips pursed, she rolled her eyes.
Flipping open the latch on her box, out came piles of doll clothes and hats and tiny shoes that’d be hell on his back if she inadvertently left one behind. “My dolls are Sooners. We learned in school that’s what the prairie people were who got their land first before the land rush started.”
“Wasn’t that cheating?” Gage couldn’t resist asking.
His question earned him a scowl. “If you’d’ve come here, even when the land rush officially started, they probably wouldn’t have let you stay.”
“Fair enough,” he said over his shoulder. “Seeing how I’m a Texan, I wouldn’t have wanted any smelly old Oklahoma land.”
“Hey,” she said, bristling, “our state’s not smelly.”
“Duh. I was making a joke. You’re a kid. I thought you knew how to laugh?”
“I do. But only with people I like.”
“Oh.” Well, she put him in his place. What would it take to get a brokenhearted tadpole like this girl to laugh again?
“It’s a good thing my dolls are prairie people, ’cause they don’t have a house or furniture.”
“Don’t you at least have a covered wagon for them to stay in when it rains?”
“Nah. But that’d be really cool.”
The bunkhouse door opened, ushering in a powerful cold wind and one more munchkin. “There you are,” the girl said to her sister. Gage knew their names, but had forgotten which one was which.
“Who’s Ashley and who’s Lexie?”
“I’m Lexie and I’m oldest,” said the tall one with hornet-mean eyes.
“I’m Ashley and I’m smarter,” said Shorty. The kid helped herself—sneakers and dinosaur-themed raincoat dripping—to bouncing on his bed. “Did you know the biggest dinosaur egg ever found was as big as a football?”
“You’re sooooooo dumb,” Lexie said.
“You’re dumb,” said Dino Girl.
“You’re dumber.”
“You’re dumbest!”
“You’re dumb to infinity!” Chin high, Lexie wore a victor’s snide smile. “I win.”
Gage stood. “I don’t mean to get in the way of this deep conversation, but would y’all mind taking this somewhere else? I could really use a nap, and, Ashley, you’re dripping all over my bed.”
“Thought you were leaving?” Lexie asked, her fury back on him. “I want to play with my dolls.”
Sighing, Gage squeezed his eyes closed for just a sec, praying that when he opened them, the munchkins would be gone.
No such luck.
“Look, kiddos,” he said, “I just think that—”
The bunkhouse door burst open.
This time, along with plenty of ice and cold wind, Jess stepped into his suddenly overcrowded space. The wind caught the door, slamming it behind her. Leaving an even bigger puddle than either of her girls, she settled gloved hands on her hips before scolding, “Just what in the world are you two doing?”
“I wanna play with my dolls,” Lexie whined, “but he’s in my way.” Three guesses as to who the kid pointed to, and the first two didn’t count.
“I wanted someone to play with,” Ashley said to her mom, “and you were sleeping, and Lexie’s too mean.”
“Am not!”
While Lexie stuck out her tongue at her sister, Gage fought the urge to cover his ears with his hands. How in the hell had his life come to this? Stuck out in the middle of nowhere with three bellyaching females and a sky that refused to quit falling.
“Both of you scoot your fannies back to the house.” In a stern, momlike pose, Jess waved a hand in the general direction of their home’s front porch.
“But I wanna stay and play dolls,” Lexie argued. “And he’s in my way.”
“Lex…” Jess warned, her tone no-nonsense.
Proving she was the smart one, Ashley scooted off the bed and hit the ground running.
Lexie aimed for the door, as well, but not without first shooting him a classic little-kid dirty look after scooping up her doll stuff and shoving it in the box.
“Lex,” Jess said, hands back on her hips, “apologize to our guest.”
“No.” The girl raised her chin.
Mmmph. Talk about sass…It took everything Gage had in him not to march the kid into the bathroom and wash her mouth out with soap.
“Lexie Margaret Cummings, get your rear to your room.”
Thankfully, the girl did as she’d been told.
Once Gage and Jess were on their own with nothing between them but the storm’s rooftop racket and the child’s lingering chill, he cleared his throat. “That was, um…”
“Infuriating?” Sitting hard on the edge of his bed, tugging off a green crocheted cap that matched her younger daughter’s, she sighed. “Ever since—well, since my…I mean, her father—”
“Jess…” Swallowing a knot that had formed right about the time he’d seen the pain Lexie’s defiant behavior had caused in her mother’s eyes, Gage cleared his throat. “It’s all right. I’ll be gone soon, so there’s no need to explain.” I’ve got enough of my own emotional baggage. I don’t need to be taking on anyone else’s. “What happens between you and your girls…It’s…Well, it’s really none of my business.”
“I know,” she said, staring into the fire merrily crackling behind the woodstove’s open doors, no doubt completely unaware of how beautiful she was. Vulnerable. Fragile. In another time, the Texas gentleman in him would have felt obligated to somehow help. Now? He had nothing left to give. She sighed. “I wouldn’t have even said anything, but you seem to be her latest target.”
Shifting his weight from one leg to the other, he raised an eyebrow. “Target?”
“She’s bitter about what happened. To her dad, I mean. Any man close to his age who steps foot on the property, she seems to systematically drive away.”
“Which is another reason you don’t need help with the ranch?”
He took her silence as an affirmation.
“You should take a firm hand with her. Show her who’s boss.”
She snorted. “Easier said than done. It’s not that simple.”
“I can imagine.” He was having a tough enough time dealing with Marnie’s death, and all he had to tackle was his own guilt-laced grief. He couldn’t fathom having to get a couple of kids through that particular brand of pain, as well.
But then Ashley and Lexie hadn’t played a pivotal role in their father’s passing, as he had with his sister’s. Sure, he’d been told by everyone he knew that what happened hadn’t been his fault, but inside—where it counted—he knew better.