He turned away from her. "I don't have time to stand around daydreaming," he snapped. "I have work to do."

He pounded down the stairs, taking them two at a time. He was surprised that she didn't come tearing after him, but he didn't mind. It gave him time to find some equilibrium and pull some old tack out of storage to keep him busy. He was preparing to rub oil into the old, cracked learner when she finally switched off the light and slowly descended the stairs. He felt her standing at his back for so long that he began to wonder if he was imagining it, but when he turned, there she stood, hugging herself through her shabby coat. "What?" he barked at her.

She lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye, saying softly, "We haven't decided whose names to put on the membership card."

"What?"

She took a deep breath and let it out again silently. "I told you. The warehouse shopping center requires that you buy a membership every year. It's only a few dollars, but without it you can't get inside to shop unless you're accompanied by a cardholder. You can put two names on the card. We haven't decided whose."

He waved a hand irritably. "Put yours and Mom's on it."

"I don't think that's a good idea," she said quietly.

He frowned in exasperation. "Why not?"

"We're talking about shopping for a whole quarter of the year, Jesse. I can't manage that by myself, and your mom won't always be able to go. Besides it's your membership. Yours and your mother's names should be on it. I can always go in with one of He tried to think of a way out of it, but at the moment he just couldn't quite manage to wrap his mind around the problem. In the end, he simply shrugged. "Fine. Whatever."

"All right."

He tried to keep his gaze on what he was doing and not on her sad angel's face. "So we're done here, right?"

"If you say so," she whispered.

It cut across his nerve endings, as elementally heartbreaking as a newborn' s first frightened wail, but he managed to keep his head down and his hands busy until she whispered a farewell and left him. It was only afterward that he began to feel petty and ashamed and small. How much of a man was he, after all, if he couldn't let himself speak respectfully and kindly to a youngster with a crush? Because that's all it was, a young girl with a foolish little crush on an older, worldlier man. He ought to be handling this better, instead of running scared. It didn't work, anyway. She was always around, always needing to talk to him.

Actually, for a while there, they'd carried on a pretty normal conversation. He'd enjoyed seeing her pleasure in the loft, hearing her thoughts. She'd missed all the things he so often took for granted, home, family, a special place to play. She should have children. Someday. With the right man. He caught a flash once again of that little blond-haired girl flitting past his mind's eye, and his gut clenched. Not his. Never his.

Disgusted once more with the train of his thoughts, he tossed away the leather tack and capped the oil. This was absurd. The whole thing was just absurd. What the h.e.l.l was he afraid of anyway? She wasn't likely to seduce him; She was exercising her flirting skills, nothing more. She hadn't asked him to marry her, for pity's sake, just to pay her a little attention. That couldn't hurt

88.

anything. Could it? He wasn't sure, but he knew for a fact that 1 he wasn't handling this well.

He cleaned his hands, turned off the lights and struck out for the house. He couldn't help the little shimmer of relief that he -I felt when he heard her old car clanking and rattling away, but she would be there again tomorrow, and he had to find some rational way to deal with it.

He promised himself that he was going to find a better way to deal with Caroline Moncton. He had to.

For both their sakes.

Chapter Six.

W ednesday. She did the bathrooms on Wednesdays, starting with the small bath downstairs and finishing with his. Since it was after lunch, Jesse figured he'd given her enough time to get upstairs before he went in to talk to his mother. Sarah was in the office trying to make sense of his father's ledger entries. She looked up when he quietly entered the room and closed the door.

"Oh, good," she said, "just the man I should be talking to."

"Hey, that's Dad's end of the business," he said, only half teasing as he pointed at the ledger, "and I never could read his writing."

"Well, if you think this is a nightmare," she declared, "wait until you hear what he's up to now."

Jesse chuckled and dropped down onto the only other empty chair in the room. "Do tell."

She leaned forward, elbows braced on the desktop. "He wants to buy a computer."

This was not news to Jesse, and he was surprised that it seemed to be news to her. "Mom, everybody's computerizing. They have lots of programs for fanning and ranching these days. We've been

90.

talking about it for months, if not longer, and we're agreed that we ought to make the investment before the end of the year in order to get the greatest tax break from it"

"But we don't know anything about computers," she protested.

"We can learn."

"Speak for yourself. This old brain isn't as trainable as it used to be, you know. Your father's isn't, either."

"That's not true," he countered laughingly. "You're as sharp as you ever were. Dad, too. All we need is someone to teach us the basics."

Sarah sighed. "Frankly, that's not what concerns me." She stared at her hands, which were knotted and slightly twisted. ' 'I doubt I can even use a keyboard now."

Jesse reached across the desk and covered her hands with his own much larger one. "You don't have to type to help out," he told her gently.

She smiled wanly. "That's what Caroline said."

"Caroline?" Slightly stung, he withdrew his hand.

Sarah nodded. "She says that there are all kinds of modems and devices to use, but that kind of thing costs money."

"We can afford it," he told her carelessly. "We're not broke, you know."

"Actually, I don't," Sarah said in an oddly pointed tone. "Not really."

Something about that disturbed Jesse, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was just then. He shrugged and said, "Well, we can certainly afford a computer and someone to teach us how to use it"

"Oh, Caroline can do that," Sarah said dismissively, and Jesse felt a flare of something very close to jealousy-.

"Oh, come on. What does Caroline know about computers?"

"Quite a lot, actually," Sarah informed him. "And you needn't take that tone. She agrees with Haney-and you-about the computer."

"Well, that ought to cinch it," he said drily.

"But how do we know what to buy?" Sarah argued, either ignoring or missing his sarcasm. "Computers are expensive, and

91.

they don't come complete. How do you ever decide what components you need? If you let the salesman decide for you, you'll wind up with a lot of pricey stuff you'll never use."

Jesse chuckled in exasperation. "Mom, we have an appointment with a consultant. He doesn't sell anything, he just makes recommendations. Didn't Dad tell you any of this?"

Sarah's mouth turned down at the corners, and she dropped her gaze to the ledger once again. "Your father never tells me anything," she grumbled, "and he never listens to anything I say, either."

Jesse usually brushed off such remarks, but his mother's voice had a bitter edge to it this time that he hadn't heard before. "Oh, you know Dad," he said, hoping to lighten the mood. "He never has much to say. And I know that sometimes he tunes out everyone, but I don't think-"

To his shock, she interrupted and abruptly changed the subject. "Did you have a specific reason for coming in just now, son? You're not usually in the office at this time of day."

He sat back in his chair, aware of a creeping unease. "Mom, is something wrong?"

She flashed him a look. He was stunned to see her eyes gleaming with tears, but then she was flipping through the ledger as if engrossed by the columns of cramped handwriting. "Don't you have something on your mind?''

"In other words, it's none of my business," he said wryly.

She didn't reply with so much as a flicker of an eyelash. Jesse had seen this maneuver before and knew from long experience that she wasn't going to answer, and the truth was that he felt a certain relief. He had never been comfortable discussing his parents' relationship, perhaps because they were not comfortable discussing it He waited several moments, allowing the former subject to fully close, then sat forward again.

"I've, uh, been meaning to speak to you about something, and we sort of touched on it just now."

When she lifted her head, her eyes were dry and her expression was pleasant "What would mat be, dear?" i '"Caroline." * . . *-. v:;is

93.

92.

Sarah relaxed back in her chair, her expression at counterpoint with the gesture. "What about Caroline?"

He already regretted the way he'd put it. "Well, it's not Caroline, really. It's me."

"Oh?"

"The thing is, I've been meaning to take on more of the office work myself. This computer stuff kind of intrigues me, and, well, that means that we're sort of renegotiating our positions around here, you and 1.1 mean, once we get the computer-if I'm going to be taking over more of the office work, and you are doing less of the actual work around the house-I thought maybe it was time that you took over, like, the financial decision-making part, uh, where it comes to the house, that is."

She sat and listened patiently, nodding as he stumbled through what he wanted to say, and then she thought about it, nodding some more and narrowing her eyes, mouth compressed. And then she sat up straight, looked him right in the eye and said, "I don't think so. Seems to me that one person has to make all the financial decisions that fall outside the established budget. That's your job, and it seems to me that you do it well."

He couldn't believe it. For a moment he was absolutely dumbfounded. She'd told him no! "But, Mom, who appointed me boss?"

"No one appointed you. You took over, and your father and I were happy to let you."

"But not of the house! I have my hands full with the ranch and the livestock."

"Don't be silly," his mother said in her best no-nonsense voice. "The house and the ranch aren't separate ent.i.ties, not financially. We run everything out of one account, one master budget."

"Well, that needs to change!" he countered sharply.

"I don't see why. The arrangement works quite welL"

He couldn't think what to say next, then suddenly he was twelve years old again, his mouth running off with him. "But it's not fair!" he all but wailed. "I make all the decisions."

"Will you listen to yourself?" Sarah chided. "You've been making all the decisions for years. You're good at decisions, especially when it comes to finances."

"But-"

"Besides," she went on firmly. "Caroline wouldn't be happy dealing only with me."

Caroline! It always came back to Caroline! It wasn't like him to lose his temper with his parents, but then he'd never felt quite so betrayed by one of them before. He came completely out of his seat.

"Caroline! Is she all you think about anymore? She's not even family. She's an employee, d.a.m.n it! She'll do what she's told or she'll go elsewhere! What is it with her, anyway? Why does she have to talk to me all the time? Why can't she just talk to you?"

It had been years since his mother had pulled rank on him, but she hadn't forgotten how. Her tone was every bit as authoritative as it had been in the past, if not more so. She stood, rising regally from the battered old chair behind the small desk, and pulled herself up tall, as tall as she could, anyway. Her chin came up so high that the thick bun that usually sat on the back of her head lay against the back of her neck, as well.

"What on earth is wrong with you, Jesse Dean Wagner?" she said. "What have you got against that girl? Caroline has brought more care and concern into this house than anyone I can think of. She's fresh. She's bright. She's hardworking."

"She w.a.n.gles her way into everything mat goes on around here!"

"That's not true, Jesse!"