Wild West Christmas: A Family for the Rancher / Dance with a Cowboy / Christmas in Smoke River. Kathryn Albright
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Название: Wild West Christmas: A Family for the Rancher / Dance with a Cowboy / Christmas in Smoke River
Автор: Kathryn Albright
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Вестерны
isbn: 9781472044303
isbn:
“I just...” She lifted her chin. “Who else am I going to spend it on?”
That took him back. He cocked his head. “I don’t know.”
“You won’t let me help you. You made that very clear when I tried. But at least let me help the boys.”
“You are helping. You cleaned this house up and saw us all fed. Best meal I ever had. I’m just saying there’s other ways to help.” He rested a hand on her shoulder, his fingers caressing her neck.
It was so hard not to draw her in and kiss her. She’d let him. He saw it in her eyes.
“I know that. I just... I’m trying not to make mistakes. To do my best for them, and I don’t really know what I’m doing half the time.” She felt defeated and let her shoulders sag, a momentary lapse in her generally perfect posture.
His hand left her, and she almost whimpered at her grief at the loss of his touch. But then he used his knuckles to lift her chin, bringing her gaze up to meet his.
“You’ll never convince me of that.” He grinned. “You look like you know exactly.”
“I don’t,” she admitted, feeling the sudden need to get this off her chest. She motioned him down the hall, farther from the open door of the boys’ room, and lifted a finger to halt him before retreating a few steps into her own room. She returned with Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, offering it in two hands. “I’ve been using this.”
He accepted the well-worn volume and thumbed through the dog-eared pages.
“Didn’t figure you’d know your way around a kitchen. You learned all you been doing from this?” He held up the heavy book.
“Some. But not the food preparation or mothering. I’ve been cooking for years, and mothering is akin to nursing, I think.”
He extended the book and she returned the volume to the table just inside her room.
“Your mom wasn’t much of a—what’d that book call it—a household manager?”
“No. As you correctly surmised, she directs, plans menus and goes over the accounts with the housekeeper.”
“What about mothering? She do any of that?”
She couldn’t hold his searching gaze and for a moment considered changing the topic or outright lying. But she knew what her lie of omission had cost her before. So she buckled down and prepared to answer him. She hoped he wouldn’t show her any pity. It was too ridiculous. She’d had every advantage that money could buy and yet, she felt so uncertain.
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