Big Sky Mountain Part 21

"Scared?" he asked, leaning in, almost breathing the word. His mouth rested lightly, briefly, against hers, setting her ablaze all over again.

"Yes," she said in a burst of honesty.

"Of me?"

Kendra swallowed hard, shook her head from side to side. He'd been right before-she was afraid of herself, not him-but she wasn't going to admit that out loud.

"It's probably inevitable," Hutch said, sounding gleefully resigned. "Our making love, I mean."

"Think what you like," Kendra bluffed, her tone deliberately tart. "But I've been down that road before, Hutch, and I'm not going back. I'm not a gullible young girl anymore. I'm a responsible woman with a daughter."

"And that means you can't have a s.e.x life?"

"I will not discuss this with you," she bit out, turning Coco around and heading back toward the house and the barn and Madison. Back toward sanity and good sense.

Of course Hutch had no difficulty catching up. He looked c.o.c.ky, riding beside her, all cowboy, all man.

She was in big trouble here.

Big, big trouble.

SHE AND MADISON had to stay for supper-Opal wouldn't hear of anything else, and besides, Kendra knew that leaving in a huff would reveal too much.

So she stayed.

She left Hutch to put the horses away by himself, except for his devoted shadow, Leviticus, then went into the house and washed her hands at the kitchen sink while Madison, swaddled in an oversize ap.r.o.n and elbow-deep in floury dough, regaled her with her new knowledge of cooking.

"She's ready for her own show on the Food Channel," Opal put in proudly, standing next to Madison at the center island and supervising every move.

"I don't doubt that for a moment," Kendra agreed, hoping her coloring had returned to normal by now.

"I'm making biscuits," Madison said.

"Impressive," Kendra replied. "Will you teach me how to make them, too?"

Madison giggled at that. "Silly Mommy," she said. "You just need to look in a cookbook and you'll know how."

Kendra kissed her daughter's flour-smudged cheek. "You've got me there," she said, with a little sigh.

"Coffee's fresh," Opal said with a nod in the direction of the machine. "Mugs are in the cupboard above it."

"Thanks." Kendra needed something to do with her hands, so she got out a cup, poured herself some coffee and took a slow sip, hoping it wouldn't keep her awake half the night, thinking about the most recent go-round with Hutch. She was jangly enough as it was.

"How was the ride?" Opal asked, and her attempt to put the question casually was a total flop.

"Fine," Kendra replied noncommittally.

"Where's Mr. Hutch?" Madison wanted to know.

So, Kendra thought. He'd graduated from cowboy man to Mr. Hutch. What was next-Daddy?

"He's looking after the horses," Kendra answered, leaning against the counter and taking another sip of coffee. Oddly the caffeine seemed to be settling her down rather than riling her already frayed nerves, and she was grateful for this small, counterintuitive blessing.

"When can we get my boots?" Madison chimed in.

Kendra laughed. "Does that mean you want to go riding again?" she hedged.

Madison nodded eagerly, still working away at the dough she'd been kneading in the big crockery bowl in front of her. "I want to ride far," she said. "Not just around and around in the yard, like a little kid."

"You are a little kid," Kendra teased.

"I reckon that biscuit dough is about ready to be rolled out and cut," Opal put in. Without missing a beat, she gently removed Madison's hands from the bowl, wiped them clean with a damp dish towel and lifted the child down off the chair she'd been standing on.

"I can help," Madison offered.

"Sure you can," Opal agreed.

The woman was the soul of patience. Kendra smiled at her, mouthing the words "Thank you."

"But first I need to say good-night to Ruffles," Madison said.

"After supper," Kendra answered.

Hutch came in then, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt as he stepped over the threshold in stocking feet, having left his dirty boots outside on the step. His hair was rumpled, and there were bits of hay on his clothes. Kendra was struck by how impossibly good he looked, even coming straight from the barn.

He nodded a greeting to Opal and Kendra in turn, then spared a wink for Madison as he used an elbow to turn on the hot water in the sink. He lathered his hands and forearms with a bar of pungently scented orange soap, rinsed and lathered up again.

To look at him, n.o.body would have guessed that less than an hour before he'd kissed Kendra as she'd never been kissed before-even by him-and thrown her entire being into sweet turmoil in the s.p.a.ce of a few heartbeats. He'd plundered her mouth with his tongue and she'd not only allowed it, she'd responded, no question about it.

He'd said it was inevitable that they'd make love. Dared her to ride up the mountain with him, to that cursed, enchanted meadow where heaven and earth seemed to converge as their bodies converged.

Stop it, she told herself sternly.

"I made the biscuits," Madison was saying to Hutch as he turned away from the sink, drying his hands on a towel. "Well, I helped, anyway."

Opal chuckled. She'd gotten out a rolling pin and a biscuit cutter. "Get back up on this chair, young lady, and I'll show you what to do next."

Madison scrambled to obey.

Opal gave the child's hands another going over with a damp cloth.

Together they rolled the dough out flat, used the cutter to make circles, placed these on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Hutch crossed to the oven and reached for the handle on the door.

"Don't you open that oven," Opal immediately commanded. "You'll let out all that good steam."

For a moment Hutch looked more like a curious little boy than a man. "Whatever it is, it sure smells good," he said.

"It's my special tamale pie, like I said I'd make," Opal replied briskly, "and I'll thank you not to go messing with it before we've even sat down to say grace."

Hutch grinned, spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Yes, ma'am," he said. "Far be it from me to mess with supper."

"And don't you forget it," Opal said, evidently determined to have the last word.

It was a mundane exchange, but Kendra enjoyed the hominess of good-natured banter between people who cared for each other as if they were family. When she was growing up, meals had been catch-as-catch-can affairs, and if her grandmother did bother to cook, she slammed the pots and pans around in the process, letting Kendra know it was an imposition. That she was an imposition.

Those days were long gone, she reminded herself. She'd come through okay, hadn't she? And she was a good mother to Madison, at least partly because she wanted things to be different for her.

"I'd sure like to know what's going on in that head of yours right about now," Hutch said, surprising her. When had he crossed the room, come to stand next to her, close enough to touch? And why did he have to be so darned observant?

"I was just thinking how lucky I am," she said.

He grinned, watching as Madison "helped" slide the biscuits into the extra oven built into the wall beside the stove. "You definitely are," he said, and there was something in his voice that took a lot of the sting out of things he'd said earlier.

That was the thing she had to watch when it came to Hutch.

He could be kind one moment and issuing a challenge the next.

Most of the time, he was impossible to read.

Soon enough, they all sat down to supper, Opal and Madison, Kendra and Hutch, and it felt a little too right for comfort. After struggling so hard to regain her emotional equilibrium, Kendra was back on shaky ground.

She was hungry, though, despite her jumpy nerves, and she put away two biscuits as well as an ample portion of Opal's delectable tamale pie.

Madison had had a big day, and by the time supper was over, she was fighting to stay awake. "Mommy said I could say good-night to Ruffles," she insisted, yawning, when the table had been cleared and the plates and silverware loaded into the dishwasher.

Hutch lifted the child into his arms, though he was looking at Kendra when he spoke. "And your mommy," he said, "is a woman of her word. Let's go."

What was that supposed to mean? Was there a barb hidden somewhere in that statement?

Kendra decided not to invest any more of her rapidly waning energy wondering. She thanked Opal for supper and for letting Madison help with the preparations, and followed Hutch, Madison and the ever-alert Daisy out the back door. They crossed the yard, headed for the barn, and Madison, half-asleep by then, rested her head on Hutch's shoulder.

Hutch flipped on the light as they entered, and carried Madison to Ruffles's stall.

Kendra watched, stricken with a tangle of bittersweet emotions, as Madison leaned over the stall door to pat the pony's head.

"Good night, Ruffles," she said, keeping her other arm firmly around Hutch's neck. Solemnly, she instructed the little horse to sleep well and have sweet dreams.

Kendra's heart turned over in her chest and her throat tightened.

Too late, she realized that Hutch was watching her and, as usual, seeing more than she wanted him to see.

"We'd better go now," she said, forcing the words out.

Hutch nodded. Still carrying Madison, he led the way back outside, setting the child in her car seat as deftly as if he'd done it a thousand times before, chuckling when the dog joined them in a single bound.

Kendra resisted the urge to double-check the fastenings on the car seat, just to make sure he'd gotten it right.

Of course he'd gotten it right. He was Hutch Carmody, and he got just about everything right-when he chose to, that is.

"Thanks," Kendra said, standing beside the car, hugging herself even though the night was warm. Since she didn't want him jumping to the conclusion that her thank-you included that soul-sundering kiss beside Whisper Creek, she added, too quickly, "For letting Madison ride Ruffles, I mean."

A slow grin spread across Hutch's face as he watched her. Overhead, a million gazillion silvery stars splashed across the black velvet sky and the moon glowed translucent, nearly full.

"Anytime," he said easily, Leviticus waiting quietly at his side.

"Right," Kendra said, at a loss.

Hutch opened the driver's door for her, waited politely for her to slip behind the wheel, fumble in her bag for the keys, fasten her seat belt and start the engine.

Madison was already asleep-if she hadn't been, Kendra knew, she would have been asking when she could come back and ride Ruffles again.

When Hutch remained where he was, Kendra rolled down her window. She had her issues with the man, but she didn't want to run over his feet backing out. "Was there something else?" she asked, hoping she sounded casual.

He leaned over to look in at her. "Yeah," he said. "You planning on coming to the rodeo? You and Madison?"

She nodded, smiled. "There's no way I could get out of it even if I wanted to," she said. "Madison's never been and she's looking forward to the whole weekend, rodeo, fireworks and all."

Speaking of fireworks, she thought, as the memory of that kiss coursed through her, hot and fierce, causing her heart to kick into overdrive.

"I'm entered in the bull-riding on Sat.u.r.day afternoon," Hutch said, "but I'd sure like to buy the two of you supper and maybe take Madison on a few of the carnival rides before taking in the fireworks."

All she had to do was say no, take time to step back and regain her perspective.

Instead she said, "Okay." Immediately.

Hutch grinned. "Great," he said. "I'll be in touch, and we'll work out the details."

She nodded, as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened that day.

Maybe for him nothing had.

Dismal thought.

Kendra murmured good-night, Hutch stepped away from the car and she put the Volvo in motion.

At home, she unbuckled Madison, awake but sleepy, and carried her into the house. She helped the child into her pajamas, oversaw the brushing of teeth and the saying of prayers, tucked her daughter in and kissed her forehead.

"Good night, Annie Oakley," she said.

Daisy, probably needing to go outside, fidgeted in the doorway.

"Who's that?" Madison asked, yawning big again, but she was asleep before Kendra had a chance to answer.

Leaving Madison's bedroom, she followed Daisy back to the kitchen and stood on the porch while the dog did what had to be done.