Daughter on His Doorstep Read online

  So much for earning enough to be able to afford a place to live until her house was available. She would barely be able to afford day care for the girls on fast-food wages.

  The phone rang, interrupting her downwardly spiraling thoughts.

  It was Donna. “How serious were you the last time we talked when you said you were ready to run away from home?”

  “Serious enough that I’m sitting here reading the want ads as we speak.”

  “Looking for a job?” Donna asked.

  “Looking,” Laurie admitted. “But not finding.”

  “Good. We need you up here.”

  “Pardon?”

  “We’ve got the chicken pox.”

  Laurie frowned. “Chicken pox?”

  “Yeah, you know, little red bumps that itch like crazy and jump from one kid to the next in the blink of an eye.”

  “Very funny,” Laurie said. “Aren’t you a little old to be catching them?”

  “Now who’s funny?” Donna said. “I don’t have the chicken pox, Clay does.”

  “Clay’s the middle boy, right?”

  “That’s right. He’s six. And he’s miserable, and it’s only a matter of time before Jason and Grant both come down with chicken pox. And that’s why we need you.”

  “You need help taking care of them?” Laurie said carefully. If Donna needed her, Laurie would go, certainly. Carrie and Amy had been vaccinated against chicken pox, so it wasn’t likely they would get sick.

  “Not the boys,” Donna said. “Belinda and I can handle them. But Trey won’t bring the baby here as long as the boys have something contagious, and Lisa can’t keep her during the day because she broke her leg two days ago and it’s all she can do to keep up with her own baby.”

  “It sounds as if you’ve really got your hands full. Just what is it you want me to do?”

  “Trey wants to hire you as his temporary live-in nanny/housekeeper while he searches for someone permanent.”

  “Oh, Donna, I don’t know…”

  “I’m sure you’ve got a few reservations about moving into a house with a man you’ve never met.”

  “It’s not—”

  “I don’t blame you,” Donna said. “But I’ll tell you that Trey Wilder is a good man, Laurie. He’s fair and honest and is totally devoted to little Katy. He said your girls are welcome in his home, so don’t think there’s any problem there. And did I mention that the pay is excellent?”

  Laurie felt the phone slip; her palm had grown damp. Heavens, her pulse was racing at the mere thought of spending a few weeks on a job in Wyoming. Whether it was nerves, excitement or fear, she didn’t know. It was probably doubt. Laurie had never been a spur-of-the-moment type of person. She didn’t just jump up and do something, not without giving it sufficient thought. She would need to mull over this job offer, test it out in her mind. Sleep on it a day or two. But she needed all the information she could get—such as the salary.

  “How excellent?” she asked her aunt.

  The amount Donna quoted made Laurie’s eyes bulge. It wasn’t a fortune, to be sure, but it was a darn sight more than she would make at a fast-food job and even more than she could make teaching for the same length of time.

  The most amazing words came out of her mouth. “When does he want me to start?”

  With his six-week-old daughter strapped to his chest in a blue canvas sling, Trey Wilder took another look around his kitchen.

  “What do you think, sweet pea?” He gently patted Katy’s back. “Think it’ll do? We don’t want her to think we’re a couple of slobs.”

  It was probably ridiculous to be so nervous about finally hiring a live-in housekeeper/nanny. Okay, definitely ridiculous. But he would be trusting Katy to this stranger, even if it was only temporary, until he could find someone permanent.

  Sure, he wanted the woman to like him, to adore Katy. But he ought to be worrying about whether or not he was going to like her.

  Of course, she was Donna’s niece, so she had to be likable. And she had two young daughters, so that meant she knew how to take care of a baby. Having two little girls around would give Trey good experience for when Katy was older, too.

  Katy squirmed against his chest and let out a whimper.

  Trey smoothed a hand along her back. “It’ll be fine, sweet pea. We trust Donna.” And he did trust Donna, implicitly. He figured he was just anxious for the woman to get here so he could meet her and decide for himself if he would be able to tolerate sharing his home with her. And her daughters.

  Three ladies were moving in with him this afternoon—with him, Trey Wilder, who hadn’t shared a home with anyone since he’d built this house for himself nearly ten years ago. Now it was going to be overrun with females.

  He couldn’t believe how much his life had changed in the three weeks since Katy came to live with him. Couldn’t believe how much he had changed. His outlook, his priorities. His heart. The latter had been stolen, no doubt about it.

  He looked down at the child strapped to his chest. “What do you think, sweet pea, are you worth it?”

  Katy’s tiny face scrunched up in a frown.

  “Hey there, girl.” Trey placed a small kiss on the top of her head. “You know I was only kidding. I wouldn’t trade you for anything.” He closed his eyes and brushed his cheek over her fine, dark hair. “Not anything. And if we don’t like this lady, we’ll just send her packing. Deal?”

  Katy gave a tiny little baby sigh against his chest.

  Trey smiled. “Good. Now that we’ve got that settled, we’ve got time for a walk before they get here. What say we go be out standing in our field?”

  At the entrance to the Flying Ace Ranch Laurie pulled her car to the side of the road and stopped. They’d been on the road for four hours, two hundred miles, one mediocre lunch and six bathroom stops. And their trip was almost over.

  It was crazy, taking a job from a man she’d never even spoken with. It had to be crazy. But there had been no time. Trey Wilder had asked Donna to handle the hiring, as he was out on some emergency until late last night.

  Good heavens, Donna had offered her the job only yesterday, and here she was, hauling her daughters to a stranger’s house, where they would live for the next several weeks.

  She had to be out of her mind, because she was actually excited about the whole idea. Not the stranger part, but she looked forward to taking care of a baby again, and a house. All Laurie had ever wanted to be was a good mother and homemaker. It had been her dream for years.

  But she was a practical person, so she’d gone to college and gotten her teaching degree. That had saved her after the divorce when she’d become the sole supporter of herself and her daughters. She knew she would always need to work for wages now, but this one last shot at her dream, at making a home, caring for another baby…

  “Are we there?”

  Laurie gave herself a mental shake. That was the fifth time in the past two hours that one of the girls had asked that question. At least this time Laurie didn’t have to say no. Not exactly, anyway.

  “Almost,” she told them, unfastening her seat belt so she could turn toward the back seat. “We’re on the ranch. It’s a few more miles to Mr. Wilder’s house, so we need to comb our hair and straighten our clothes.”

  “So we’ll look nice for our new boss,” Amy stated.

  Carrie rolled her eyes. “He’s not our boss, silly, he’s Mama’s boss.”

  Because all mothers are contortionists, of necessity, Laurie twisted and leaned and reached, and within a few minutes had her daughters’ hair and clothing as neat as possible under the circumstances. Then with another check of Donna’s directions, which had her bypassing the ranch headquarters and going straight to Trey’s house on the other side of the ranch to avoid the chicken pox, they were on their way, the final leg of their journey to what Laurie had told the girls was a grand adventure—living on a ranch.

  Carrie and Amy, and Laurie, too, for that matter, were city girls. Th
ey knew nothing of living in the country, and country was all they’d seen for the past four hours. Signs of civilization, such as towns, had been few and far between.

  Now, here, on the Wilders’ Flying Ace, the only signs of civilization Laurie could see were the gravel road, the electric line strung between poles beside the road, and mile after mile of barb wire fence. Aside from those signs of man’s presence, there was nothing but flat land extending forever. Or at least to the mountains in the west.

  Of course, living in Salt Lake City, Laurie and her girls were no strangers to flat, empty land. There was no flatter nor emptier land on earth than the Great Salt Desert that stretched westward from the city.

  “When will we get there, Mama?” Amy whined.

  Poor little girl, Laurie thought, pulling her mind back to the business at hand. Girls, she amended. Both of them had been strapped into the back seat for hours. They needed to get out and play.

  “Mama?” The whine now bordered on a demand.

  “We only have a few more miles,” Laurie said, putting the car in gear and pulling back onto the gravel road. “It won’t be long.”

  “That’s what you said last time,” Amy muttered.

  But this time it truly wasn’t long, although the word long was a relative term. To a five-year-old long could be three minutes. The last twenty minutes of their drive probably rated eternity to Amy.

  Finally, Laurie spotted the mailbox Donna had described and, next to it, Trey Wilder’s driveway. Beside the driveway sat a white pickup with a red-and-black Flying Ace Ranch logo on the driver’s door.

  A long, wide porch stretched the length of a neat, single-story white frame house. The shutters and trim were a deep, forest green, giving it a clean, tidy appearance.

  Off to the west about fifty yards stood a huge barn and several other smaller buildings and, beyond them, long, wide fields of some type of grass or hay. What Laurie knew about crops was so little as to be laughable.

  She drove slowly up the driveway and parked beside the pickup. She was reaching for the key to turn off the engine when a tall, black-haired man with a baby strapped to his chest stepped around the corner of the garage.

  This, she thought, must be Trey Wilder.

  My, oh, my. Laurie couldn’t remember the last time the mere sight of a man had tripped her pulse—couldn’t remember the last time anything had tripped her pulse, if she was honest. Something about the way he moved—slowly, as though he had all the time in the world, yet with a deliberate purpose—gave her the impression that he knew exactly where he was going and would get there sooner rather than later.

  Laurie wondered if he moved that slowly, that deliberately, in bed.

  Good grief! She couldn’t believe such a thought had popped into her head. Down, girl. Men were definitely not on her menu these days. She didn’t have the time or the inclination. She had two daughters to raise, a new job to deal with, both now and at the end of summer when her teaching job started, and a life to rebuild.

  For an instant, through the windshield of her car, Trey Wilder’s eyes met hers, and she feared he could read every thought in her head. Never had she seen such piercingly brilliant blue eyes in her life.

  Irritated with herself and her reaction to the man who was about to become her boss, she forced a smile and said over her shoulder, “We’re here, girls.”

  Laurie was a bit slower and a great deal more sedate getting out of the car than were her daughters. By the time she removed the key from the ignition, retrieved her purse from the passenger seat, unhooked her seat belt and climbed out of the car, both girls were waiting for her. To their credit they did not approach the man and baby. Laurie was pleased that her lessons about strangers had, at least in this case, taken root.

  The man approached, but stopped several feet away from her daughters. “Hello,” he said to them. Then he looked up at Laurie again. “You’d be Laurie Oliver. I’m Trey Wilder. Welcome to the Flying Ace.”

  His voice was dark and smooth, like chocolate. Like black velvet. Like sin.

  And I’m in trouble, Laurie thought. Then amusement—at herself—took over, and her smile was genuine as she stepped forward and held out her hand. “Thank you. We’re glad to be here.”

  The unexpected jolt of electricity that shot up her arm when they shook hands made Laurie jerk.

  Trey felt it, too, and narrowed his eyes to hide his reaction. Must be static electricity in the air, he decided. He’d never gotten a jolt from a woman merely by shaking her hand. And while this woman was particularly appealing—he’d always been a sucker for delicate blondes with big green eyes—she was here as his employee, to keep his house and care for his daughter. Not for him to pounce on.

  He squatted down before her daughters and, as surreptitiously as possible, rubbed his hand along the thigh of his jeans to rid himself of the residual tingling sensation.

  In his mind he quickly ran through the information Donna had given him. “You must be Miss Carrie Oliver,” he said to the older of the two. He held out his hand to her. “How do you do?”

  Her smile was tentative and fleeting. She gave him a small nod and barely touched his hand. “Very well, thank you.”

  A shy one, that. Not so her sister, if the gleam in the younger one’s bright-green eyes—a slightly darker shade than her mother’s—was anything to go on.

  “And you,” he said to her, “must be Miss Amy Oliver. Am I correct?”

  The little one giggled and held out her hand for a shake. “That’s me. Is that your baby?”

  “Yes, ma’am, this is Miss Katy Wilder.”

  “She’s a girl?” Amy asked.

  “She sure is.”

  “Oh, good.” Amy smiled. “That means she won’t squirt you in the face when you change her diaper.”

  Trey mashed his lips together, fighting a hoot of laughter, and looked everywhere but at the girl’s mother.

  “She’s little,” Amy went on. “Our cousin Jeffrey used to be a little baby, but that was a long time ago. He’s a toppler now.”

  “No, silly.” Carrie rolled her eyes at her sister. “It’s toddler, not toppler.”

  “S’not.”

  “S’too.”

  “Girls,” their mother said darkly.

  “He’s a toppler,” Amy said fiercely. “That’s why he keeps toppling over all the time. And I am not silly.” She scrunched up her face but stopped when her mother spoke.

  “Amy Oliver, don’t you dare stick out your tongue. The two of you are going to have Mr. Wilder thinking I’ve raised a couple of ill-mannered hooligans.”

  Trey winked at the girls. To their mother he said, “I’m thinking you’re raising a couple of typical kids.”

  “That’s us.” Amy grinned and held her hands out to her sides, palms up. “Jus’ a couple of typical kids.”

  Trey decided it was time for a change of scene before he broke out laughing. “Come on inside,” he invited. “I’ll put Katy in her crib and bring in your things. I’m glad you could come on such short notice.”

  Trey ushered them into his home and showed them the bedrooms first. Laurie let the girls choose which of the two available rooms they wanted.

  Thank God it was a four-bedroom house, Laurie thought. She had been sharing a room—and a bed—with her daughters for weeks. She was more than ready for a little space and privacy, and she was sure the girls were, too.

  Laurie left her daughters exploring their room and followed the sound of Trey’s voice to the nursery.

  “Oh, how wonderful.” She turned in a circle to admire the teddy bears, balloons and butterflies painted in bold colors on the walls.

  “Thanks,” Trey said as he settled Katy in her crib. “The Wilder women did all this.”

  “Hmm.” Laurie fought a grin. “Is that a group of your former lady loves, or your female relatives?”

  Trey shook his head. “The family’s gonna love you. But for the record, the Wilder women consist of Belinda, my brother Ace’s wife…Lis
a, my brother Jack’s wife…my sister, Rachel, and your aunt Donna, whom we adopted years ago as a member of the tribe.”

  Laurie listened to him, but her gaze strayed to the baby in the crib. It had been a long time since she’d cared for a baby. “She’s absolutely beautiful,” she murmured.

  “She is.” Trey’s voice softened. “She’s perfect.”

  The two of them stood silently for a moment, watching as Katy stuck her fist in her mouth and drifted off to sleep.

  Trey picked up the baby monitor and motioned toward the door. Out in the hall he said, “I’ll go bring in your luggage then I’ll show you the rest of the house.”

  Laurie helped him carry in their luggage, and enlisted the girls to carry a few of their smaller belongings.

  While the girls started unpacking, Laurie left her things for later and went to find Trey for her tour of the house. She found him in the nursery, strapping Katy to his chest again.

  “She was awake,” he said.

  He gave Laurie the grand tour and showed her where he kept the baby supplies, linens, cleaning supplies and everything in the kitchen.

  Laurie had to admit, but only to herself, that she had a little trouble concentrating on anything beyond the sound of his deep, smooth voice. And that worried her. It wasn’t like her at all, so she told herself that she’d just better get over it. She’d known the man less than an hour and she was already fantasizing about hearing that voice deep in the night, whispering in her ear in the dark….

  Good grief, where had that thought come from?

  Wherever, it had just better get lost. There would be no hanky-panky between her and her new boss.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Laurie blinked. “I’m sorry. What were you saying? I’m afraid my mind wandered.”

  “That’s okay,” Trey said, wondering if perhaps he’d made a mistake. She was sure pretty to look at, but if she couldn’t wrap her mind around the simple things he was telling her, he wasn’t sure he wanted to leave her in charge of his daughter.

  And when she did give him her full attention, she looked at him oddly. As if she couldn’t quite make up her mind about something.