The Cowboy's Christmas Lullaby. Stella Bagwell

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СКАЧАТЬ when Denver was thinking how polite the boys were, Peter spoke up, “Gee, this is messy. Don’t you like to wash dishes?”

      “Peter!” Marcella gasped, then turned a red face to Denver. “I apologize for my son. He—uh—we don’t get out that much. I mean, visit folks in their homes.”

      Denver chuckled. “Don’t apologize. The boy is simply stating the obvious. The kitchen is worse than messy. It’s a busy time right now on the ranch. I don’t have a chance to do much housework.”

      “Don’t you have a wife?”

      This question came from the elder boy, and as Denver looked at him, he didn’t miss how much the child resembled his mother, right down to his carrot-topped hair.

      Marcella groaned. “I hope you can bear this until the mechanic gets here with the battery,” she said to Denver.

      “Forget it. I’m used to kids,” he told her, then to Harry, he said, “No. I don’t have a wife. Or a maid.”

      “What about kids?” Peter asked.

      Even though Denver had been asked that very question many times before, for some reason, having it come from Marcella’s towheaded son cut straight through him. “No. None of those, either.”

      “Sit down at the table, boys,” Marcella told the two youngsters. “And be quiet. Mr. Yates doesn’t want to be peppered with questions.”

      “They don’t have to sit at the kitchen table,” he told her. “They’re welcome to sit in the living room. I’ll turn on the television and they can watch it while you wait for the car to be repaired.”

      Mother and kids followed him out of the kitchen and into a long living room furnished with a burgundy leather couch and love seat, and an oversize recliner. In one corner, a television sat atop a wooden console, while a stack of DVDs shared a lower shelf with a remote control.

      Marcella took a seat at the end of the couch and instructed the boys to join her. While they settled themselves, Denver turned on the television, then passed the remote to her.

      “You’d better choose the channel,” he told her. “You’ll know what’s suitable for them to watch.”

      Accepting the remote, she gave him a grateful smile. “Thanks. And please don’t let us interrupt whatever you need to do. We can entertain ourselves.”

      “You’re not interrupting.” Not much, he thought wryly. Having a single mother with a pair of kids in his house was disturbing more than his privacy; it was rattling his normally calm nerves. “So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go wash up and see about getting us something to drink. Do you like coffee? What about the boys? Is it okay for them to have soda?”

      Harry looked to his mother. “Yeah! Please, Mom.”

      “Oh boy! Soda! Can we, Mom?” Peter pleaded.

      Marcella thoughtfully studied the both of them, then with a resigned shake of her head said, “They’ve already had so much sugar tonight I guess a bit more won’t hurt. I’ll help you.”

      Before Denver could tell her to stay put, she rose to her feet and, after punching a number on the remote, ordered the boys not to move from the couch.

      As she followed Denver back to the kitchen, he said, “There really isn’t any need for you to help. I’d be making coffee even if you weren’t here.”

      “I’d like to join you anyway. With me out of the room, the boys will hopefully settle down and get engrossed in the program. They’re not usually so wound up, but the party was exciting for them,” she explained.

      Inside the kitchen, Denver went straight to the double sink and began to scrub his hands. His jeans and denim shirt were coated with dust and splotches of dried blood, and manure stained the legs of his jeans. Normally he went straight to the shower when he arrived home from work, but he could hardly take that luxury with Marcella and her children here.

      “So do you come out to the ranch very often?” he asked as she came to stand a few steps on down the cabinet counter.

      “Not as much as I’d like to. I love visiting Lilly and Ava, but with my shifts at the hospital I don’t have many chances to make the drive out here.”

      “So you work at the hospital?”

      “Tahoe General. I’m an RN. I was working third floor for a while, but I’m back in the ER now.”

      “I see. So you’re a nurse like Lilly and Ava.”

      “Yes. From time to time the three of us worked together. But since they’ve gotten married and started having children of their own, those days are pretty much gone.”

      He dried his hands on a paper towel, and though he would’ve liked to simply stand there looking at her, he forced himself to open the cabinets and pull out the coffee makings. During the long years he’d worked for the Calhouns, he’d met many of their friends. But not this one. He would’ve definitely remembered Marcella Grayson.

      “You been a nurse for a long time?” he asked.

      “Twelve years.”

      So she’d become a nurse about the same time he’d come to work here on the Silver Horn, he thought. At that time he’d been twenty-four and desperate to start his life over. Since then, she’d acquired two sons. And he’d lost—well, he’d lost too much.

      Glancing over at her, he said, “You don’t look old enough to have been a nurse for that long.”

      A wide smile spread her lips, and Denver’s gaze was drawn to her straight white teeth and the faint dimples in her cheeks. When she smiled, there was an impish tilt to her lips and crinkle to the corner of her eyes that pulled at him and urged him to smile back at her.

      Imagine that. Denver Yates smiling at a woman. A Halloween witch must have put some sort of spell on him tonight, he thought drily.

      “That’s kind of you to say. But I’m thirty-three. I got my nursing degree before Harry was born. And he’s eleven now.”

      Had she been married at that time? he wondered. A few minutes ago on the road, she’d told him she didn’t have a husband, and he’d simply assumed she was divorced. But there was always the possibility that she’d had the children out of wedlock. That wasn’t unusual nowadays. Still, Marcella Grayson didn’t seem the sort. Not that he knew that much about women. For the past twelve years he’d pretty much avoided having any kind of relationship with a woman.

      Annoyed that his thoughts had meandered off on a path he had no business taking, he forced himself to focus on scooping coffee grounds into the filter.

      “You must like it—uh, working as a nurse, I mean.”

      “It’s exhausting and the hours are crazy. Especially trying to work them around the boys’ needs. But I manage. Most of all, it’s rewarding.”

      He shoved the basket of grounds into place, then stepped in front of the sink to fill the glass carafe with water. By now, she’d moved closer and Denver could only think how odd it seemed to have a СКАЧАТЬ