A Hasty Wedding. Cara Colter

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      “What’s his story?” Joe asked quietly, as he and Blake sat on comfortable cushions on the bent willow chairs in the deep shade of the porch.

      “I don’t know yet,” Blake said, taking a sip of his iced tea. Just the way he liked it. Tea and lemon, no sugar. Trust Meredith to be watching the sugar intake of all these kids. “I just found out from him he pulled a knife on my secretary.”

      “Really?” Joe said mildly. “Surprised he has any teeth left.”

      “I don’t hit kids.”

      “Well, none of them ever pulled a knife on Holly before. Meredith and I are very taken with that girl.”

      Holly was making several trips a week between Hacienda de Alegria and the Hopechest Ranch with paperwork. But Blake suspected many of her trips were just because she missed the kids so much.

      He did, too.

      He noticed a twinkle in Joe Colton’s eye that seemed to encourage a confession that Blake, too, was quite taken with his new secretary.

      Blake had a desperate need to deny it. “I would have been ticked if it happened to anybody, and not enough to be smashing heads, either.”

      “Well, maybe you wouldn’t have been that ticked if it had happened to Mrs. Bartholomew,” Joe guessed.

      Blake had to chuckle. “Okay, maybe not her. Joe, I don’t have any kind of interest in Holly Lamb, aside from the fact she’s the most wonderful secretary I’ve ever had.”

      Joe looked skeptical.

      “For God’s sake, it would be totally unprofessional.”

      “I don’t recall saying a word about your relationship with Holly, professional or otherwise. But let an old man share some wisdom with you.”

      “Do you have to?”

      “Yes. She’s the kind of girl men pass up. She doesn’t catch the eye, like a piece of tinfoil in the gutter. She’s more like gold. Gold doesn’t shine much when you first find it. You have to look hard for it.”

      “I’m not involved with my secretary. And I don’t plan to be. Joe, I have an example to set. My behavior has to be exemplary in every way.”

      “Who are you trying to convince you’re perfect—the rest of the world or yourself? You’ve got to quit lining up those paper clips in neat rows and live a little.”

      An annoying statement, uncomfortably close to the one Rory had made recently. Something insulting about him polishing his stapler.

      Of course, Rory was all buoyance and light and unpolished staplers now that Cupid’s arrow had found him.

      Joe could still make Blake feel like an awkward kid, still ask all the right questions.

      He also knew precisely when to drop something.

      “Look, Meredith and I have set our party for a week from Saturday. We think its about time to have some fun.”

      Blake looked at the three-ring circus happening around him and wondered glumly how much more fun it could get.

      “This whole thing has been terrible on the morale of the whole town. We’re going to have a good old-fashioned barn dance. Get people laughing again, give these kids a chance to see there are wholesome ways to have fun. Can I count on you to come?”

      “Oh, yeah, like you need me to have fun.” Blake had an independent nature that did not lend itself well to social functions, which he detested. His job required him to attend some, but he rarely attended any voluntarily.

      “I don’t need you, but I sure like it when you’re around, Blake. You know Meredith and I consider you as much our son as Rand and Drake. Meredith wants you to come, too. Plus, of course, it would be setting a good example to your staff, showing them it’s time for a change in mood, time to move forward.”

      “I’d feel better about doing that when whoever is behind the contamination of the water system is found.”

      “Maybe he’ll never be found,” Joe said. “It’s important to move forward now, past the fear and tensions of the last couple of months. You can poison kids like these without ever touching their water.”

      “He’ll be found,” Blake said. “I won’t rest until he’s found. Sinclair from the FBI, and Rafe feel the same way.”

      Joe nodded. “Well, since we’ve got the three of you on it, the rest of us might as well start relaxing, hmm?”

      Blake grinned. “Okay, I get your point.”

      “Good. Are you going to come?”

      “Okay. I’ll come,” he agreed reluctantly.

      “Feel free to bring somebody with you.”

      Blake squinted at Joe suspiciously, but there was not a flicker in the older man’s face to suggest he thought that someone should be Holly Lamb. As if.

      “Can Tomas stay here for a day or two? Until I find out where he’s supposed to be, and if he needs to go back?”

      “Oh, sure,” Joe said easily as if one more kid was a joy.

      That was what Blake had felt here, for the very first time in his life. That his presence in this universe was a joy to someone, instead of a burden.

      “Well, don’t forget he pulled the knife.”

      “Blake, look at him. He hasn’t let go of his little sister’s hand since he arrived. He’s been helping snotty-nosed kids on and off that pony for the better part of half an hour. I like the cut of his jib.”

      “Well, you always see it first, Joe.”

      “Don’t I?” Joe said happily. “Go home and make sure that secretary of yours is okay. Though she looks to me like the kind of girl who would know just how to handle a scrawny, scared kid with a knife.”

      Blake thought of coming into the office, Tomas weeping against Holly’s slender shoulder, and he sighed heavily.

      “I suppose you like the cut of her jib, too.”

      “You said it first, not me.”

      Three

       H olly knew, as soon as she heard the crunch of the Pathfinder’s tires on the gravel outside the office door that, in some part of her that she would much rather not acknowledge, she had been listening for it to return, waiting for the moment Blake would stride back through the door, smile at her, maybe stop to talk for a few minutes about his day and the developments in the water contamination case.

      The vehicle door closed quietly, not like their old vehicle that had required a good hard slam. The Pathfinder itself still troubled her. The gesture seemed so unlike her father. It was not that he wasn’t generous—she’d received dozens of expensive gifts from him. Or at least the cards were signed by him.

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