The State of Parenthood

“Some would say there never was a tougher nut to crack than Mason Jefferson.”

“Really?” Laura found that hard to believe. Mason loved his wife, loved his kids. Was always looking at Mimi, or holding her hand.

“Suffice it to say he was really difficult to get to the altar. Sometimes I even wondered why I wanted him there.” Mimi laughed. “Talk about stubborn and hard to get along with.”

“Dave was easy,” Laura murmured. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking to replace Dave in my life at all. But I was hoping for a connection with Gabriel, something like the one I’d had with his father. I miss the old gentleman.” She smiled sadly at Mimi. “I can’t understand why his boys don’t want to be close with him.”

“Mr. Morgan was a different person with us than he was with his sons. They say people show themselves differently to everyone, and we probably saw his best side. He was a good man.”

“Obviously his sons believe they understand him better, and they probably do.” She and Mimi moved to the kitchen table. Penny came into the kitchen and crawled into her mother’s lap. Laura handed her a vanilla wafer from a box left out on the table since yesterday. “I swear I do keep house. We don’t always have food left out from the day before.” She glanced at the sink where the pots were piled up from making the welcome meal for Gabriel.

“Try living in a house where grown men come and go all the time. They make a bigger mess than the kids.” Mimi sipped her tea. “I’ll help you clean it up in a bit.”

Laura shook her head, appreciating the offer but not wanting the help. She didn’t mind washing dishes. It was soothing to have her hands in warm dishwater, and somehow comforting to submerge dirty dishes in suds and then pull them gleaming from the water. “I didn’t want him to misunderstand my relationship with his father.”

Mimi nodded. “Men don’t always temper their thoughts before they speak. Anyway, nobody tells Josiah Morgan what to do. Gabriel knows that.”

Gabriel, too, struck Laura as the kind of man willing to fight any battle life threw at him.

“Besides, it’s really none of Gabriel’s business.”

That was also true. She’d only told him about his father’s gift to her children because she wanted him to know up front. “Okay, I give up on being mad. It’s a waste of time.”

Mimi got up from the table. “Let’s wash these dishes.”

“No, you go on home to your family. You’ve done enough for me, Mimi. I really appreciate you watching Perrin so he could nap.”

“Did the doctor say how long it would take for the medicine to do some good?”

Perrin had colic, long bouts at night that worried Laura. Someone had suggested that the colic was stress-induced, and that Perrin was sensing his mother’s sadness. It had been a shock when Dave had died, and she certainly had grieved—was still grieving—but it was an additional guilt that she was causing her son’s pain. “The doctor said babies sometimes go through colic. The medicine might help, and putting him on a different formula. Or he could grow out of it.”

Mimi patted her hand. “I’ll come by to see you later at the school.”

Laura nodded. “I’d like that.”

She closed the door behind Mimi. Penny handed her a vanilla wafer, and for the first time that day, Laura felt content.

ON FRIDAY NIGHT, THREE days later, Gabriel finally drove into the small town of Union Junction. He could see what had drawn his father to this place. For one thing, it looked like a melding of the old West and a Norman Rockwell card. There was a main street where families were enjoying a warm June stroll, ice-cream cones or sodas in hand. A kissing booth sat in front of a bakery. Other booths lined the street in front of various shops.

He glanced at the kissing booth again, caught by a glimpse of blond hair and the long line outside the booth. All the booths had lines, but none as long as the kissing booth, which Gabriel figured was probably appropriate. If he was offered the choice of getting a kiss or throwing rings over a bottle, he’d definitely take the kiss.

“What’s going on?” he asked a young cowboy at the back of the line.

“Town fair.” The young man grinned at him. “You’re Morgan, aren’t you?”

He looked at him. “Aren’t you too young to be buying kisses?”

He got a laugh for that. “Get in line and spend a buck, Mr. Morgan.”

“Why?” He wasn’t inclined to participate in the fun of a town fair. He’d just been looking around, trying to figure out why Pop had settled near here, trying to stave off some boredom.

“We’re raising money for the elementary school. Need more desks. The town is certainly growing.”

“Shouldn’t the town be paying for that from taxes or something?”

“We like to do some recreational fund-raising, too.”

Gabriel reluctantly fell into line. “So who are we kissing?”

“Laura Adams.”

“We can’t kiss her!” He had to admit the idea was inviting, but he also wanted to jerk the young man out of line—and every other man, too.

The line kept growing behind him.

“Why not?” His companion appeared puzzled.

Gabriel frowned. “She’s married. And she’s a mom.”

The young man laughed. “Mimi Jefferson was working the booth an hour ago. It’s the only time any of us can get near Mimi without getting our tails kicked by Mason, so most of us went through twice.”

Gabriel’s frown deepened.

“It’s for a good cause,” his new friend said. “Besides which, Laura’s not married anymore.”

Gabriel’s mood lifted slightly. He felt his boots shuffling closer to the booth behind his talkative friend. “She’s not?”

“Nah. Her husband died shortly after she gave birth to Perrin.” His friend looked at him with surprise. “You should know all this. Your dad loved Laura’s kids. Said they were probably the only—”

“I know. I know. Jeez.” Gabriel rubbed at his chin, trying to decide if he liked how quickly the line was moving. And the young man was right. The gentlemen were leaving the line to catcalls and whistles and hurrying to the back of the line for another kiss. It was a never-ending kiss line of rascals. “I’m pretty sure I don’t belong here.”

“No better way to get to know people,” his friend said cheerfully. “My name’s Buck, by the way.”

“Hi, Buck.” He absently shook his hand. “I guess kissing’s as good a way as any to get to know someone.” He supposed he should get to know Laura better since they sort of had a connection.

Buck stared at him. “Hanging out at the town fair being sociable is the way to get to know people.”

“That’s what I meant.” Gabriel noticed there were only five people in front of him now. His heart rate sped up. Should he kiss a woman his father had such a close relationship with? Clearly Pop had depended upon Laura for the sense of family he was lacking. It almost felt like Laura could be a sister.

He heard cheers as Buck laid a smooch on Laura. To Gabriel’s relief, it was mercifully short and definitely respectful. Just good clean fun.

He found himself standing in front of her booth, staring down at her like a nervous schoolboy. Her blue eyes lit on him with curiosity and nothing else, no lingering resentment over their initial meeting. He noted a distressing jump in his jeans, a problem he hadn’t anticipated. But he’d always been a sucker for full lips and fine cheekbones. He could smell a sweet perfume, something like flowers in summer.

Laura was nothing like a sister to him.

He laid a twenty-dollar bill on the booth ledge and walked away.

GABRIEL FOUND A BETTER way to support the local elementary school: drinking keg beer some thoughtful and enterprising young man had set up far away from the kissing booth. Here he was safe. No one bothered him while he sat on a hay bale and people-watched, which was good because he really needed to think. He hadn’t expected his father to have a family connection in Union Junction.

He sat up. Surely his father hadn’t been trying to build his own family here? With a ready-made mom and grandchildren? All it would take was one out of the four brothers to meet the lady and her children, to whom some of the Morgan money had been put in trust, and maybe, just maybe, Pop might get that family he’d been itching for?

He wouldn’t put it past Pop. Throw in a scheme that required all four brothers to be on the premises for a year, and Pop had a one in four chance of seeing that dream come true.

Gabriel resolved not to fall for it. In fact, he congratulated himself for staying one step ahead of the wily old man. He didn’t know for sure that was what Pop had been up to, but with Pop there was always an angle.

He’d be very cautious.

“Hi.” Someone soft and warm slid onto the hay bale beside him. Laura didn’t smile at him, but her lips were full and plump from being kissed. “Guess you changed your mind about kissing me.”

He hung between fear and self-loathing for being a coward. “Seems we should keep our relationship professional.”

“Awkward.”

“That, too.”

“Fine by me.”

He slid her a glance. She had nice breasts under her blue-flowered dress—very feminine. A breast man by nature, he was shocked he hadn’t taken note of her physical charms before. He’d been completely preoccupied by the swarm of women descending upon him. Although he had to admit that after just thirty minutes of being in his house, it looked and smelled more welcoming than it was ever going to be under his watch. But now he was checking out Laura’s attributes, a subconscious flick of his gaze that dismayed him. God, they really were gorgeous. And he hadn’t noticed her small, graceful hands before, either.

He felt his temperature rise uncomfortably. “Where are the kids?” Not that he was really interested, but it was best to remind himself that this woman was a mother, not someone to be ogled as if she were single and available for some casual fun.

Which was all he was interested in, for now and for always. Damn Pop for throwing temptation my way.

“Penny and Perrin are being held by some ladies from the church. They’re spoiled rotten by them.” She pointed to an outdoor play area that had been set up. Lots of older ladies were inside, holding infants and playing games with toddlers.

He could see Penny’s light hair, just like her mother’s, as she sat in a woman’s lap and colored in a book. It wasn’t difficult to see what had drawn Pop to this gentle fatherless trio.

Who would have thought Pop would have had a protective bone in his body?

“You know, we’re not swindlers. Nor did we lure your father into feeling like we were his family.”

He turned to Laura. “I shouldn’t have implied that there was anything unusual about my father leaving someone outside the family money. I apologize for that.”

“Thank you.” She raised her chin. “I knew you could be a difficult person. I choose to ignore that for your father’s sake.”

He frowned. “I don’t want anything for my father’s sake.”

She shrugged. “He was a nice old man.”

“You didn’t know him.”

“Maybe not as well as you. But maybe better in some ways.”

He couldn’t argue that. Didn’t even want to. “Why?”

“When my husband got sick with cancer, and then died, your father said the least he could do was make certain my kids had college educations. There was a fundraiser here in town to help us…because Dave had no insurance. He was a self-employed carpenter, a dreamer, really.” Her voice got soft remembering. “He loved to build homes. The bigger, the better, the more intricate, the better. He did lots of work on your father’s place.”

This was all beginning to make sense. “Listen, none of this is my business. What my father wants to do with his time and his life is his concern.”

She nodded. “I’ve got to go back to the booth. I’ve got one more half-hour shift.”

He could see the line queuing from here; could count at least twenty men waiting their turn. It looked as if Union Junction had no lack of horny males. “Do you have to kiss all of them?”

“Most of them just kiss my cheek.” She smiled. “Only the younger ones try for something more, and a few of the bachelors.”

That’s what he was afraid of. He thought about his father, and what a jackass he was. He looked at the line, and the men grinning back toward Laura, obviously impatient for her break to be over.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Penny, who’d spotted her mother. Mom and daughter waved at each other, and he could see the longing in Laura’s eyes to be with her daughter.

What the hell. He lived to be a jackass. He was just keeping the family name alive.

“All right,” he announced loudly, ambling to the front of the line, “I’m buying out Ms. Adams’s thirty minutes of time.” He placed five one hundred-dollar bills—all he had on him at the moment besides some stray ones and a couple of twenties—on the booth ledge where everyone could see his money. Grumbling erupted, but also some applause for the donation. He grunted. “Move along, fellows. The booth is closed for this lady.”

Chapter Three

Gabriel’s buyout of Laura’s time in the kissing booth won him lots of winks from the guys and smiles from the ladies as he walked toward his truck. He hadn’t said anything to a shocked Laura—just figured he’d introduced himself to the town in the most obvious way he could have for a man who preferred being a loner.

He didn’t even know why he’d done it.

Maybe it was Pop, egging him on to be a gentleman, which was a real stinker of a reason. Mason met him at his truck.

“Have a good time?”

Gabriel checked Mason’s eyes for laughter but the question seemed sincere. “Seems like everyone is enjoying themselves.”

“Good to see you around. We’ve been wondering what you’re going to do with yourself out there if you stay holed up at the ranch.”

“I imagine I’ll figure out something.”

Mason handed him an envelope. “Mimi said to give you this.”

“Mimi?” Gabriel scanned the envelope. It had his name written in his father’s handwriting, and no postmark.

“Mimi’s the law around here.” Mason winked at him.

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Your father left that with her. She asked me to deliver it to you. I’ve been meaning to get out to your place, but here you are, getting to know the good folks of Union Junction.”

Again Gabriel studied him for sarcasm. There appeared to be nothing more to the man’s intentions than good old friendliness.

“Why didn’t Pop just mail this to me? Or courier it like he did before?”

Mason shrugged. “He said something to Mimi along the lines of when and if any of his sons ever got here, they were to have that. Josiah figured you’d be the first, though. In fact, we wagered on it. I owe your father a twenty.” He handed Gabriel a twenty-dollar bill.

Gabriel shook his head. “Put it toward the school fund.” He looked at the envelope, wondering why his father would have wagered he’d be the first brother to the ranch. “Who’d you bet on?”

Mason laughed. “Jack. He’s the unpredictable one. I always go with the dark horse.”

“Cost you this time, buddy.”

Mason slapped him on the back. “Sure did. Come on out to the Double M when you have time. We’ll introduce you to the kids.”

“Maybe I will,” Gabriel said, knowing he probably wouldn’t.

“Congratulations, by the way,” Mason said as he walked away.

“For what?”

“For spending that much money for a kiss and then not getting it. Nerves of steel.” Mason waved goodbye. Gabriel glanced back down at the envelope, aware that Mason was now giving him a gentle ribbing. “Jackass,” he muttered under his breath and got into his truck.

But it was kind of funny coming from Mason, and even Gabriel had to wonder why he’d passed up the chance to kiss Laura after he’d so obviously put his mark on her.

Not that he was going to think about it too hard.

“NOTHING,” LAURA TOLD the girls at the Union Junction Beauty Salon. “I’m telling you, there’s nothing between us. He didn’t kiss me. Gabriel’s barely civil to me.”

The girls oohed and then giggled. Laura had received a fair bit of teasing and she expected the kissing booth incident had been thoroughly dissected. Privately, Laura wondered what it would have been like to have Gabriel’s lips on hers. It had been so long since she’d kissed a man—well, kissed a man as she had Dave. She didn’t count those chaste, predictable pecks in the kissing booth. Even the old ladies and the elderly librarian got their turn in the kissing booth, and the men lined up for them just as quickly. The older ladies—particularly teachers—received grandmotherly busses on the cheek from favorite students.

Everyone was anxious to see the elementary school succeed. There was so much goodwill in this town. Laura was never going to regret moving here with Dave those five years ago. He’d said Union Junction was a growing town, he’d have lots of work, they’d make a family and be happy out away from the big city….

It had worked out just that way for just over five years. Five perfect years.

So she shouldn’t really be thinking about what it would have felt like to kiss Gabriel. She was twenty-six, too old for dreamy longings; she was a mom and a widow.

“I bet he kisses great,” one of the stylists said to another, and Laura blushed.

“Aren’t you curious?” someone asked her.

Laura ran her hand through Penny’s hair as she often did. The feel of the corn-silk softness comforted her, as did the powdery smell of Perrin. “No,” she murmured, easy with the lie. “Gabriel is not my kind of man.”

They all fell quiet, silenced by the uncomfortable position they had put her in.

“She doesn’t need to tiptoe around Dave forever,” someone finally spoke up bravely. “Honey, we know you loved him, but you’re alive and he wouldn’t want you being sad forever.”

Tears jumped into Laura’s eyes. Several ladies came over to hug her. She felt Penny press closer to her leg. “I know.”

“All right, then.” They all patted her, then went back to their places. “So next time you get a chance to kiss a hunk like Gabriel Morgan, you just grin and bear it if you want to, okay?”

“Maybe,” Laura said, smiling as she wiped away the unwanted tears.

“Wish he’d buy out my booth,” someone said, and everyone laughed, even Laura, although she really didn’t think it was funny. What they didn’t realize is that Gabriel hadn’t wanted to kiss her, hadn’t even looked tempted. He’d sort of picked up his father’s responsibility—and then he’d headed off.

A woman knew when a man was interested in her. All fairy tales included a kiss—a man knew how to get what he wanted, even in books. Dave had been a gentle pursuer, slow and careful as if she were a fine porcelain doll.

Gabriel owned no such gentle genes. If he wanted a woman, she figured the indication of his desire would be swift, like a roiling wave breaking over a boat at sea, claiming it with powerful intent.

Gabriel pretty much turned to stone every time he laid eyes on her.

Dear Gabriel,

By now you are at the house and are beginning a year of time you no doubt resent like hell. But money talks and though it might not talk very loud to you, I know you’ll stick out the year just to prove yourself. This need of yours to be a tough guy living on the edge is exactly what I now need to lean on.

Remember when I bought that extra acreage and added on to my own hacienda out here? I bought it from a man who was down on his luck, and partly down on his luck thanks to me, which he has discovered. Now don’t go getting all high and mighty like I cheated this man out of his birthright, because the man is a scoundrel. And anyway, he needed the money.

The problem is, I bought the land suspecting there was an underground oil source. I had it surveyed without his knowledge. He has since found out I paid for a geological survey of his property and feels cheated.

Fact is, maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t. He could have paid for his own damn survey.

The trouble in this is that the man is Laura Adams’s father, with whom she has no contact due to the fact that he didn’t approve of her marrying a carpenter. Didn’t like her husband, felt he wasn’t good enough for his only child, which didn’t set well with Laura. He needed her to marry big to save his sorry ass.

You see my predicament. I could sell the man back his land but the price would include a terrific profit which he cannot afford. I gave Laura’s children a tiny portion of what is rightfully theirs, since it would have been anyhow, I suppose, though I believe her father would have drunk up the estate. You might say I just hijacked Penny’s and Perrin’s inheritance, robbing from the poor to give to the poorer.

Unfortunately, the jackanapes took to threatening me. He really feels cheated by life, and I suppose he has been, but the big dog runs off the little dog and that’s life, isn’t it? But for the grace of God go I.

Anyway, you’ll be seeing him as he lives to create trouble. But I have faith that you’ll smooth everything over in due time, as you were always the responsible one in the family, even though it really chaps your ass that I say that. It just happens to be true.

Pop

“IT DOES CHAP MY ASS.” Gabriel forced himself not to shred his father’s letter. “It does indeed chap me like you can’t even imagine, Pop.”

He did not appreciate being appointed the protector of the family fortunes, but even less so the knight of Laura Adams’s little brood. He couldn’t even make himself kiss her; how the hell was he going to start thinking of her as part and parcel of the Morgan family?

And yet, according to Pop, they owed her something.

What exactly that was, Gabriel wasn’t certain.

THE STORM THAT SWEPT Union Junction and the outlying countryside that night kept Gabriel inside and feeling caged. He paced the house, watching lightning crack through the windows of the two-story house. The TV had gone out; the phone lines were dead. He could hear water dripping frenzied and fast into the overgrown gardens.

There wasn’t a lot to do in a house one didn’t call home. So far he’d mainly confined himself to his room on the second floor, and the den. He passed through the kitchen occasionally to forage from the goodies the ladies had left for him. The house, he estimated, was around six thousand square feet. Eventually, he’d have to investigate the rest of Pop’s place.

Actually, there was no better time than the present, he decided. The sound of something not quite right caught his ear; instantly he listened intently, all the old survival skills surging into action. Someone was at the front door; someone with a key that wouldn’t fit easily. Gabriel considered flinging the door open and confronting whoever was out there, some idiot so dumb they didn’t know it was storming like hell outside, then relented. Let the water drown them. If they made it inside, then he’d deal with them.

He thought about Laura’s father’s threats against Pop and figured he couldn’t kill the man in cold blood. So he selected one of his father’s many travel guides he had in the den—the heaviest one, something about the South Seas—and waited behind the door.

It suddenly blew open with a gust of wind and rain and vituperative cursing. Gabriel raised the eight-hundred-page tourist guide high over his head, preparing to crack it over his visitor’s skull.

“Damn it, I hate Texas with a passion!” he heard, and lowered his arms.

“Dane?”

His brother swung to look at him. “What the hell are you hiding back there for? And with a book on the South Seas?”

“Preparing to coldcock you.” Gabriel closed the door.

“I’m supposed to be here.” Dane glared at him, his coat dripping water all over the floor.

“Your e-mail said you were coming in January.”

“And I’ve since changed my mind. You got a problem with that?” Dane asked as he threw his bags in a corner.

Gabriel sighed. “Calm down, Sam Houston. Food’s in the fridge.”