“You yanked the rug out from under me, Jewel, and I didn’t take it well.”

“I—I know. And I’m sorry—”

“Not your problem. And I mean that.”

“Oh.” She bit off another chunk of her burger, although her insides were shaking so much—and not only from the cold, despite the fire—she doubted she could get it down.

“So,” Silas said, sitting again. “You find someplace to stay yet?”

He would bring that up. “‘Fraid not.”

“When you’re ready to move in, then, let me know.”

Jewel stared at his profile for what seemed like forever before saying, very quietly, “You sure?”

“Not a bit.”

She understood completely.

Dear Reader,

“I guess I’m ready now.”

That’s how, more than thirty years ago, my husband proposed to me. Because, y’know, “Will you marry me?” would have been such a cliché. Of course, I’d been ready practically from the moment we met more than five years before, when I was (gulp!) twenty … but, bless him, he knew I needed more time to ripen before taking that big step. Considering the challenges that came with raising the five sons who showed up over the next fifteen years … he was right!

Although sometimes, as Jewel Jasper and Silas Garrett (Eli’s brother from A Marriage-Minded Man) discover in Adding Up to Marriage, not being “ready” is another way of saying, “I’m scared … of being hurt, of being abandoned, of making a mistake. Of not being who I need you to be.” Especially in Jewel’s case, whose life hasn’t exactly given her a lot of examples of how to keep a relationship going. Girlfriend’s convinced she’ll never be “ready” … until Silas rocks her preconceived notions all to heck and makes her reassess a thing or three. Because the right person will do that.

Enjoy.

Karen Templeton

About the Author

Since 1998, RITA® Award winner and Waldenbooks bestseller KAREN TEMPLETON has written more than thirty books. A transplanted Easterner, she now lives in New Mexico with two hideously spoiled cats and whichever of her five sons happens to be in residence.

Adding Up to Marriage

Karen Templeton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dedication

To Vista Care Hospice in Albuquerque without whose

above-and-beyond support during the most stressful

months of my life this book would not have happened.

To Mama

1912–2010

Here’s hoping there’s ham, chocolate

and dogs in Heaven!

And

to my beloved husband Jack

1942–2010

whose above-and-beyond support

for everything I did

and everything I was

is sorely missed.

Love you.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To Jules Johnstun CPM, LM, LDEM, PES who

enthusiastically answered my questions about being a

home-birth midwife in northern New Mexico.

The plastic pelvis? Totally her idea.

Chapter One

Seated behind the computer in the woodworking shop’s cramped, cluttered office, Silas Garrett caught the blur of color zip past the open door. Then back. Then finally light in the doorway.

“Oh! Hi!” a breathless, bubbly Jewel Jasper called over the whine of saws ripping lumber, a booming “… mañana en Santa Fe y Taos …” from the Spanish talk radio station. “Noah around?”

Silas couldn’t help it—every time he saw her the image of a cute little bunny popped into his head. And not, alas, the sort clad in skimpy satin, bow ties and high heels.

Even more unfortunately, if Jewel—with her shiny brown ponytail and her big, blue-gray eyes behind her delicate oval glasses and her skimpy, ruffly sweater buttoned over her even skimpier breasts—was a bunny, his brother, Noah, was definitely the Big Bad Wolf. Fine, so Silas was mixing his fairy tales, but he doubted it was much of a stretch to suppose the Big Bad Wolf occasionally dined on bunny.

Especially if the bunny kept hopping across the wolf’s path.

This had to make the third or fourth time in as many weeks the midwife-in-training, temporarily living in the house another Garrett brother had vacated after his marriage, had popped in—or hopped in, in this case—on the pretext of “needing” Noah to fix something or other in the quasi-adobe.

“Sorry.” Jabbing his own glasses back into place, Silas returned his gaze to the bookkeeping program on the screen. Numbers, he got. Women, not so much. Especially women who fell for his brother’s chicanery. “Not here. Won’t be until later.” He entered a figure, then forced himself to be polite, despite all that ingenuousness taking a toll on his good humor. “Care to leave a message?”

“It’s the roof again,” Jewel said, inviting herself in and plunking her baggy-pantsed bottom on the cracked plastic chair across from Silas. Why, God only knew. “Over the living room, this time. I’m really sorry to be such a pain—especially since I’m not even paying rent!—but I can’t exactly get up there and fix it myself.”

She giggled. Silas’s least favorite sound in the world. From anyone over ten, at least. Then her pale little forehead bunched.

“If Eli’s fixing to sell it, I don’t imagine he wants to keep repairing water damage. Oh—and I tried to make a fire the other night and ohmigosh, there was smoke everywhere!” Her hands fluttered. Visual aids. “So I’m guessing the chimney’s blocked—oh! Noah!” She bounced up when his younger, bigger, buffer brother appeared. Damn. “Silas said you wouldn’t be back until later!”

Slapping his denim jacket on a rack by the door, Noah barely spared Jewel a glance before tossing a crumpled stack of receipts on the desk. “From the Manning project,” he said, swiping his muscled forearm across his sweaty forehead. “Figured I’d better get ‘em to you before I lost track—”

“Noah?” Jewel tapped his shoulder. “Sorry to bug you, but the roof needs attention. Again. And the chimney’s clogged, too.”

Noah shot Silas the same “why me?” look he did every time Jewel made an appearance. Since even wolves, apparently, could be picky. And Jewel was not, apparently, on Noah’s menu. Although for how long, Silas surmised, was anybody’s guess. Since not having a hankering for myopic bunnies this week didn’t mean he wouldn’t at some point.

However, it still being this week, Noah cut his eyes to Jewel, nodded, mumbled, “I’ll send someone over,” and walked away.

Jewel collapsed in a deflated heap on the chair again, clutching the seat edges on either side of nonexistent hips. “Honestly. You’d think I had cooties or something.”

Wondering Why are you still here? Silas muttered, “Did it ever occur to you he’s not interested?”

She straightened, her rosy little mouth pursed. “There is that, I suppose. But …” Standing, she yanked down the hem of the short sweater. Despite at least two other layers—a T-shirt and a tank top, neither of which matched the sweater or each other—it was quite evident, in the early fall chill permeating the small room, that she wasn’t wearing a bra. “I thought Noah was more equal opportunity than that. And did you know you’re staring at my boobs?”

Silas jerked his gaze back to the screen. “Sorry.”

“No, actually it’s kinda flattering, since most men don’t take notice.”

Oh, for cripes’ sake …

Giving up, Silas leaned back in his father’s chair, his hands laced over his stomach. In a small town like Tierra Rosa you knew everybody, by reputation at least if not personally. So between what he’d heard and what he’d seen, he’d concluded Jewel was the strangest mixture of naive and world-weary he’d ever met. And God knows he’d met his fair share of women. Even if not solely by choice, his mother having sworn to end his single-father days if it killed her. In fact, how Jewel had thus far slipped Donna Garrett’s radar was a mystery.

Especially as Silas had no doubt his mother would think Jewel was perfect for him. Being female and breathing and all.

“I don’t get it—why are you so determined to hook up with my brother?”

“And what earthly difference does it make to you? Or do you discuss Noah with all his girlfriends?”

Whoa. Bunny had a bite. Who knew?

“First, to call them ‘girlfriends’ might be pushing it,” Silas said, having no idea how to answer the first part of her question. “Second … no. Hell, half the time I have no idea who he’s … seeing.”

Arms folded over the nipples. “They why single me out?”

He didn’t figure she’d appreciate the bunny analogy. “Because I seriously doubt you know what you’re getting into. Noah isn’t, uh, exactly looking for forever.”

Her gaze sharpened. “First,” she said, mimicking him, “you’re a lot safer staring at my breasts than patronizing me. Second, I’m well aware of your brother’s reputation—”

“But you just know you’re the one who can make him change, right?”

“Change?” She burst out laughing. “Boy, have you got the wrong end of the stick. I’m no more interested in settling down right now than I am in growing horns. Which is why Noah would be perfect. All I’m looking for is … a little fun. Somebody who isn’t interested in ‘serious’ any more than I am.” Now her eyes narrowed. “So if you could, you know, kinda drop that hint …?”

After several seconds’ of Silas’s silent glare, she shrugged, then stood, sighing out, “It was worth a shot,” before hiking to the door … only to swivel back in her black-and-white checked rubber-soled flats. With red daisies over the toes. “But you really need to lighten up, Silas. You are way too tense.”

Then she was gone, leaving Silas staring blankly at the computer screen, his shoulders knotted.

“She gone?” he heard a minute later.

“Not nearly far enough, I don’t imagine.”

Palming his short brown hair, Noah exhaled. Loudly. “She’s a sweet kid and all, but … not my type.”

“Seriously?”

“Dude. She’s like, twelve.”

“Actually, she’s somewhere in her mid-twenties. Well past legal but nowhere near desperate. Your perfect woman, in other words,” he said, through inexplicably gritted teeth.

Noah seemed to consider this for a moment, then shook his head, and Silas’s teeth unclenched. “Nah. Cute hasn’t been my thing for a couple of years now.”

“Then perhaps you should tell her that. Although maybe not in those exact words.”

“I have. Several times. All she does is get this goofy—and yet, eerily knowing—look on her face.” He paused. “Not that she doesn’t have a certain weird appeal—”

“Hence the eerily knowing look.”

Another moment of consideration, another head shake. “Nope, not caving. Not this time. Shoot, it would be like taking candy from a baby. Besides—” his younger brother grinned “—I met this gal in Española last weekend …”

“Don’t want to know,” Silas said as the phone rang. Chuckling, Noah waved and was gone before Silas answered. “Garrett Woodworks—”

“The boys are fine,” his mother said, well aware of Silas’s tendency to freak whenever she called while watching his two young sons. “Me, however …” She sighed. “I was bringing in some firewood and somebody left a toy truck on the porch step, and I tripped over it and fell—would’ve made a great America’s Funniest Home Video—and now my ankle’s all big and purple. Ollie says it looks like Barney—”

Phone still in hand, Silas hit three wrong keys before finally logging out of the program, then rocketed from the chair. “On my way—”

“Why don’t you see if Jewel’s around, let her have a look at it?”

So much for the not-on-his-mother’s-radar theory. “She delivers babies, Mom. I’m guessing you’re done with all that.”

“She’s also a nurse, smarty pants.”

True. Unfortunately. “Fine. If she’s home, I’ll bring her.”

“Good. Oh, and—” Donna lowered her voice “—you might want to hurry before the boys realize they could set the house on fire and there wouldn’t be a darn thing I could do about it.”

Plugged into her MP3 player, Jewel flinched when she opened her door to find Silas punching his arms into his corduroy jacket sleeves and looking extremely annoyed. But then—as he indicated she needed to ditch the earbuds—when was he ever not?

“My mother messed up her ankle. She asked if you wouldn’t mind coming over.”

Yep, caught that emphasis, all righty. Then his words sank in. “Ohmigosh—” she shoved her bare feet back into her shoes, yanked her sweatercoat off the hook by the door and pushed past him and down the stairs “—does she think it’s broken?”

“No idea.” She heard the door shut, Silas catch up with her. “But she said it was real swollen. And purple.”

“Might only be a sprain,” Jewel said, tucking her chin into her chest against the suddenly frigid breeze—September in northern New Mexico tended to be fickle—as she hotfooted it down the flagstone walk. At the end she made a sharp left, only to practically get whiplash when Silas grabbed her elbow and lugged her toward his Explorer, parked in front of the house.

“Quicker this way,” he said, hauling open her door, then zipping around the hood, the wind wreaking havoc on his normally neat, dark brown hair and probably irritating the very life out of him. Oh, yeah, Jewel had him pegged, all right—a man who prefers his universe precise and orderly, thank you very much, and woe betide anything or anybody who disturbs it. Or him.

Silas climbed in, rammed his key into the ignition. Glanced over, all Heathcliffian glower. “Seat belt.”

“For heaven’s sake, it’s two blocks—”

“Seat. Belt. Now.”

Sighing, Jewel secured the lap belt, only to release it less than thirty seconds later. Without, it should be noted, passing a single other vehicle. But considering the don’t-mess slant to Silas’s mouth, she opted to let it go.

The moment they were out of the car, the Garretts’ white front door swung open to expel a pair of wide-eyed, agitated little boys. The younger one, a curly blond cherub of maybe four or so, made a beeline for his father and grabbed his hand.

“Gramma fell and hurt her foot!” he said, tugging him inside. “It’s huge! I gave her the phone so she could call you!”

“Did not!” the older boy said, his straight, wheat-colored bangs blowing every which way in the breeze as he smacked his younger brother’s shoulder.

“Did too—”

“Boys. Not now,” Silas said with the sort of quiet authority that makes a person go, Whoa. The little one now clinging to him like a koala, he shut the door and crossed to his mother, seated on the old blue sofa with her foot propped up, her graying red hair a distressed tangle around her very pale face. Jewel took one look and shook her head.

“Silas, go put a whole bunch of ice in a plastic bag and wrap it in a towel, bring it here. But no sense in me even examining it. The ice might take down the swelling some, but if that’s not a candidate for the x-ray machine, I don’t know what is.”

Donna simultaneously winced and sighed. “I don’t suppose it helps that I heard a cracking sound when I went down.”

“Not a good sign, no. Still …” Jewel carefully sat by the offending foot, nodding her thanks to Silas when he returned with the ice pack. “It might not be that bad,” she said, carefully cushioning Donna’s ankle in the ice pack before looking up at Silas, “but you should probably get her to the ER.”

“Yes, of course, absolutely. Okay, boys, go get in the car—”

“For goodness’ sake, Si,” Donna said. “They can’t go with us! Who knows how long it’ll take? Besides, an ER waiting room’s no place for children.”

“Like they’re both not on first-name basis with the staff already,” Silas said. Donna gave him a look. “Fine. But who’s gonna watch ‘em? Noah’s clear across town at the Mannings, Eli and Dad are in Santa Fe. We could drop them off at Jess’s, but that’s a good half hour out of our way—”

“Um, hello?” Jewel raised her hand. “I’d be happy to keep an eye on them.” She aimed a smile in the boys’ direction, only to be met with a pair of dubious frowns.

“See?” Donna said, her face contorting as she shifted her ample form to put her good foot on the floor. “The Good Lord provides.”

Silas’s gaze shot to Jewel’s. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea—”

“Nonsense. Oliver?” This in a strained voice to the straight-haired one. “Get my poncho from the closet, honey. And Tad, grab my purse off the table by the door. That’s right, sugars—bring ‘em to me—”

“I don’t want to stay with her!” The little one inched closer to Silas, his worried eyes nearly the same muddy green as his father’s. “What if she’s mean?”

Jewel gasped. “I’m not—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Donna said as Oliver dumped the well-worn, Peruvian-patterned poncho on the couch beside her, “Jewel helps deliver babies! She obviously loves children! Don’t you, honey?”

“You bet! And really, Silas, it’s no problem. I don’t have any appointments today or anything.” Although despite the generous amount of cheer she’d injected into the words—what with her lack of pressing obligation being momentarily convenient—overall this was not a good thing. As in, she had far too much free time on her hands and not nearly enough cash in them—

“So it’s settled,” Donna said. “You all can stay right here. Si, give me a hand—”

“But we can’t stay here!” Oliver put in, his dark brown eyes all watery. “It’s almost time to feed Doughboy!”

Oh, for pity’s sake …

Crouching in front of the child, Jewel smiled. “Tell you what—if it’s okay with your daddy, we can go to your house, and you can feed Doughboy—” who or whatever that was “—and if it gets late you can go right to sleep in your own beds. But before that,” she then said to Tad, tapping him on his nose, “we’re gonna have so much fun your daddy’s gonna be sorry he wasn’t with us!”

The boys shared a glance … then a shrug. Jewel couldn’t decide if that was good or not. Then her mouth fell open as Silas scooped his mother—who was by no means a frail little thing—into his arms, before, with no outward evidence of strain, carting her across the room and out the still open front door.

“My daddy’s strong, huh?” little curly-head said, grinning at Jewel with one of those sweet, baby-toothed grins designed to make a woman want to rush right out and fill her womb.

Especially when said womb had just been nicely primed by the sight of a good-looking man acting all manly and such. Silently cursing biological imperatives and what-not, Jewel took her little charges by the hand, deciding it was best all around if she not answer that question.

“You know,” Silas said to his mother many hours later on their way home from the hospital, “you seem awfully mellow for somebody with a broken ankle.”

Beside him, Donna released a half laugh. “That’s the pain meds.” She looked down at her foot, splinted to within an inch of its life. “Might be tricky to cook with this thing on. Your father will be beside himself.”

“I imagine he’ll live. Besides, that’s what the church ladies are for. After the thousands of casseroles you’ve made for everybody else over the years, they owe you.”

She laughed again, then sighed. “Shame I won’t be able to take care of the boys, though—”

“And don’t even think about that. Hey, if I have to, I’ll keep ‘em with me. It could work,” he said to his mother’s hoot of laughter.

“These are Ollie and Tad we’re talking about. Otherwise known as Thing One and Thing Two?”

“Thought you said they’d calmed down.”

“I lied.”

He glanced at his mother. “And you didn’t think to warn Jewel?”

“Gal has youth on her side. And resilience. She’ll be fine. But wasn’t it providential, how she was available to babysit? She’s a real sweetheart, that one. A real sweetheart.”

Oh, hell. “You know, you could at least try to be subtle. Next I’m gonna find out you deliberately broke your ankle just to further your matchmaking mission—hey. Everything okay?”

Donna nodded tightly. “Joy juice is wearing off, I suspect.”

“So take more.”

“Forget it. A flower child I may have been, but a druggie? Never. Damned if I’m about to start now. I’ll be fine,” she said, her chin lifting. “At least until we get home.”

Silas’s eyes again slid to his mother, the stress lines bracketing her mouth attesting to her no longer being the bottomless well of energy she’d once been. “Why didn’t you say something before? About the kids, I mean.”

A moment ticked by before she quietly said, “Because after what happened … those babies needed mothering. And since I was the only candidate … Oh, don’t get that look on your face, I’m only stating the facts. At least I was there to fill the gap.”

“Since I haven’t done anything to fill it myself.”

She shrugged. Woman could say more with a shrug than most women say in a thirty-minute conversation. Then she blew out a long breath.

“I adore those little monkeys, you know that. But even before this happened, I’d begun to realize I’m not as up to chasing them as I’d thought. As I want to be. Occasionally is fine—well, once this blasted ankle is better—but full time?” She shook her head. “I’m so tired by the time evening rolls around I can barely have a conversation with your father.” That was followed by a weary chuckle. “Let alone anything else.”

“Mom, geez.”

His mother laughed again, then briefly squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry, Silas. The spirit’s willing, but—”

“And there’s nothing to be sorry for.” He flashed a smile at her, even as panic began to simmer in his gut. Nobody knew better than he that both his sons had gotten double doses of snips and snails and puppy dog tails. Not to mention enough energy to fuel a hydrogen bomb. Finding another day-care option for them wasn’t going to be easy. But taking out his mother—who’d already earned her medal for surviving her own four boys—hadn’t been part of the game plan. “You could’ve backed out anytime, you know.”

In the dim light from the dash, he saw tears glisten in his mother’s warm brown eyes. “Couldn’t. Would’ve meant giving them up.”

“It’s okay, we’ll figure something out,” he said softly as they pulled into his parents’ driveway, his father shooting through the front door before Silas switched off the engine.

Nearly thirty-four years his parents had been married, and yet Gene Garrett’s solicitous concern for his wife when he jerked open her door was every bit as tender as Silas remembered from his childhood. Oh, they fussed at each other as much as the next couple, but what they had—it was magic and rare and defied explanation. Or definition.

And there were times when Silas envied them so much it hurt.

“For heaven’s sake, Gene,” Donna said after Silas’s dad gingerly maneuvered her out of the truck. No mean feat. “I’m completely capable of managing on my own. Thank you, honey,” she said to Silas after he handed her the crutches. She squinted at the things for a moment, shaking her head, then fitted them under her arms, her grip firm on the braces. “But you better go on—I imagine Jewel’s more than ready to be rescued by now.”

“It’s nearly ten—the boys are bound to be asleep.” His mother rolled her eyes, and he smiled. “You sure you don’t need me?”

“Honestly, between you and Gene … It’s a broken ankle, for goodness’ sake, not bubonic plague! Here, hold this,” she said to Gene, shoving a crutch at him, then reached up to give Silas a strong, one-armed hug around his neck. “Thanks for everything, honey. And we’ll talk tomorrow.”

Still, after Silas climbed back into the truck to watch his father hover over his mother as she unsteadily navigated the short sidewalk between the driveway and house, envy pinched again. And regret, that his own marriage had been a dismal failure.

But at twenty-four, even with his parents’ example, he hadn’t been nearly as ready for it as he’d thought. Especially to a gal who’d apparently tuned out when the minister, during their prenuptial classes, had done his best to drive home that married life wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, that it took more than love—and sex—to get through the rough patches. That without determination to make it work, a willingness to put each other’s feelings and needs ahead of your own from time to time, you didn’t have a chance in hell.

Not that he had used those exact words, but close enough.

And God knew Silas had tried his best. He’d hated seeing Amy so miserable, especially after Bundle of Joy Two arrived. But as her demands became increasingly impossible to meet—she constantly complained about not having enough money, yet pitched a fit if he worked late because he wasn’t around to help her with the babies—Silas began to see the writing on the wall.

Oh, he’d dug in his heels the first time she’d said she wanted out, not about to give up that easily on something he still believed in. But eventually Silas had had to admit he couldn’t prop up the marriage on his own. Or raise his wife as well as his sons.

His folks inside, Silas backed out of the drive, thinking that at least the resulting implosion, as horrendous as it had been, hadn’t left him where it had found him. In fact, his shrugging off his mother’s relentless matchmaking attempts notwithstanding, he was beginning to heal, even if only in terms of … maybe. If the right woman—not girl, woman—crossed his path, he might, might, consider trying again.

But this time, he had a checklist as long as his arm, with Putting the boys first at the top. Followed closely by maturity. Serenity. Stability.

Sanity.

In other words, not someone who made him feel like the ground was constantly shifting under his feet.

Moments later he pulled up into his driveway and cut the engine, his forehead crunched. Why were the lights still on?

The cottonwood’s first crackly, fallen leaves scampered across his feet as he walked to the door, the rustle barely audible over the raucous goings-on inside. The instant he opened the heavy carved door to the hundred-year-old adobe, Doughboy speed-waddled over and plastered himself against Silas’s calf, the English bulldog’s underbite trembling underneath bulging, terror-stricken eyes.

Why? Why you send crazy lady here?

Then, his spawn’s shrieks of unbridled glee assaulting his ears, Silas got the first glimpse of what had once been his living room.

Which now looked like Tokyo, post-Godzilla-rampage.

Chapter Two

“Daddy! Daddy! You’re home—!”

“You shoulda been here, we had sooooo much fun!”

“So I see,” Silas said in a low, controlled voice as he swept Tad up onto his hip while leveling a What the hell? look past the destruction at the flushed, heavily breathing, messy-haired female responsible for the mayhem.

Who gave him a whatchagonnado? shrug.

Woman destroys his house and she gives him a shrug? God help him.

And her.

Sofa and chair cushions teetered in unstable towers all over the room. Sheets, tablecloths, bedspreads—was that his good comforter?—shrouded every flat surface. No lamp was where he’d left it that morning, not a single picture on the wall was straight. And so many toys littered the floor—what he could see of it—it looked like Santa’s sleigh had upchucked.

Leaning against his ankle, the dog moaned. See? Told ya.

Jewel giggled. “Guess we kinda got carried away.”

Silas forced himself to breathe. “Ya think?”

Apparently, she got the message. “O-kay, guys, Daddy’s home, so off to bed—no, no arguments, we had a deal, remember?”

He could only imagine. “Thought I said bedtime was eight?” “You did, but—”

“Jewel said if we took our baths and got our jammies on,” Ollie said, “we could stay up for a bit.”

“A bit?” Silas said. Calmly. Over the seething rage. “It’s after ten.”

“What? You’re kidding!” Shoving loose pieces of hair behind her ears, Jewel picked her way through the wreckage to peer at the cable box clock. “Ohmigosh—I’m so sorry! The clock got covered and we were having so much fun we lost track of time—”

“Yeah,” Tad said, curls bobbing. “We made cookies, an’ then Jewel said we could bring our toys out here, an’ then we decided to make tunnels an’ stuff—”

“Jewel’s like the funnest person ever,” Ollie put in. “She’s not like a grownup at all!”

There’s an understatement, Silas thought as he lowered the four-year-old to his feet, then lightly swatted both pajama-covered bottoms. “Go get your teeth brushed, I’ll be there in a sec—”

“But we already brushed our teeth!” Ollie said, then stretched his lips back to show. “Shee?”

“Fine. Let’s go, then. And you,” he said, pointing at Jewel, “stay right where you are.”

She shrugged again, then plucked the boys’ quilts off two chairs. “Here! Take these back to your room!” The kids ran over, grabbed the quilts, gave Jewel hugs and kisses, and took off down the hall. Where, naturally, somebody tripped over his quilt, taking his brother down in the process, resulting in a tangle of Thomas the Tank Engines and hysterically giggling little boys. Silas sighed, sorted out his spawn and steered them to their room as Doughboy trudged dutifully behind, leaving a trail of slobber in his wake.

The boys flew into their beds on opposite sides of the room hard enough to bang both headboards into the walls, while poor Doughboy collapsed on the multicolored carpet in the center of the floor with a noisy, relieved sigh. His little masters, however, were still high as kites from overexertion and God only knew how much sugar. In fact, no sooner had Silas tucked Tad’s quilt around him than he yanked back the covers, yelled “Gotta pee!” and flew to the bathroom, leaping over the already snoring dog.

Silas looked at his older son. “What about you?”

“No, I’m good,” Ollie said, pawing through two dozen stuffed animals for his ratty, shredded baby blanket which at this rate would accompany the kid to college. His bankie found, the kid pushed out a satisfied sigh and wriggled into the middle of the critters, giggling when Silas momentarily buried him in the comforter. Then his head popped out, his straight hair all staticky and his expression suddenly serious.

“Is Gramma okay?”

Silas sat on the bed beside him, rearranging the covers. “She’ll be fine, but her ankle really is broken. Which means she’s not gonna be able to take care of you guys.”

Worry instantly flooded big, brown eyes. “So who’s gonna watch us?”

“I have no idea. That’s tomorrow’s project. In the meantime, you get to hang out with me. Guess I’ll have to work from home for a while.”

“We tried that before, remember? You nearly lost it.”

As tired as he was, Silas laughed. “That was a year ago. You’re older now. It’ll be fine.”

The toilet flushed; Tad zoomed back into the room and flew into his bed again. Unlike his brother, Tad didn’t need to sleep with a menagerie. But God help them all if Moothy—a smelly, one-eyed moose with sagging antlers—went AWOL.

“Okay, you two,” Silas said, bending over to kiss Tad. “Lights out—”

“Book?” Tad flopped around to grab a Dr. Seuss from the skyscraper-high pile on the floor beside the bed.

“Not tonight, buddy. I’d pass out if I tried to read right now.”

“Besides, doofus,” Ollie said, “Jewel read like ten books to us already, remember?”

Curling himself around Moothy, Tad sulked. “S’not the same if Daddy doesn’t do it.”

Just reach in there and squeeze my heart, why not? “I’m flattered, squirt, but reading is not happening tonight. So lights out. Now.”

Grumbling, Tad reached over to turn off his light. Much to Silas’s relief, the kid nearly passed out before Silas finished with the nightly hugs and kisses routine, but Ollie still had enough oomph to whisper, “You know what?”

“What?”

“I think Jewel should be our babysitter.”

“She’s already got a job,” Silas said as he smoothed back his son’s soft, straight hair. “She was just filling in because it was an emergency.” And I would hang myself if she was the only option. “But … I’m glad you had fun with her.”

“Are you kidding? She’s like the coolest girl ever!”

Yeah, let’s hear it for the cool girls, Silas thought, returning to the living room. Like a hummingbird, Jewel madly darted from spot to spot, folding, straightening, picking up. At Silas’s entrance, she glanced over only to disappear behind a tablecloth as she stretched her arms to fold it in half.

“Nothing’s broken,” she said from behind the cloth, then reappeared, the cloth neatly folded into eighths in three swift, graceful moves. “In case you were wondering.”

Glued to the spot, Silas watched her zip, zap, zing around the room as he got grumpier by the second. “But where do you get off going into my room and getting my comforter off of my bed?” Silas said. Okay, whined. “I sleep under that! Naked! And now it’s dirty!”

In the midst of hauling a cushion larger than she was back onto the sofa, Jewel shot him a look. “Geez, it might be a little dusty in places, but it’s not dirty. And the boys brought it out, I didn’t go into your room and disturb your things. Trust me, I’m not that desperate.”

For what? floated through Silas’s brain, only to get shoved aside by Jewel’s “You sleep naked?” as she scooted across the room to smack at several large smudges on the comforter.

It took a second. “I sleep what?”

That got another look. A puzzled one, this time. “Naked. You know, without any clothes?”

“I know what it means! But isn’t that kind of a personal question?”

She frowned at him. “Um … okay … it wasn’t me who introduced the word into the conversation. You did.” “I did not!”

“Yes, you did,” she said patiently. “Because my imagination’s not that vivid. Not that it matters to me one way or the other.” Huffing a little, she dragged the king-size comforter off the dining table, only to have it swallow her whole as she tried to fold it, like she was wrestling a monster marshmallow. Finally she gave up and dumped it on the sofa. “But you don’t strike me as the sleeping-naked type.”

“Could we please move on?”

“You’re really cute when you blush. And it’s okay, really. Since I do, too.” “Do what?”

“Sleep naked. You hungry?”

Lord above, being in the same room with her was like riding the Tilt-A-Whirl at the fair. Over the dizziness, Silas watched her zip to the kitchen, ignoring—more or less—the way her butt twitched as she walked. Then he opened his mouth to say “no,” that all he wanted was for this night to be over, but then he realized, one, that his stomach felt like it was going to eat itself and, two, that the house smelled like an Italian restaurant.

Against his better judgment, he let his gaze sweep what he could see of his kitchen from where he stood. As he feared, it made Armageddon look like a minor dustup. The sooner he got this chick out of his house, the better. Except—

“Damn. I should’ve run you home before I put the boys to bed.”

“Oh! That’s okay, I figured you’d get back late. So I called Patrice, asked her to come get me in a little while. We’ve got a couple clients to see early tomorrow out at Jemez, so I’ll probably crash at her house, since it’s halfway to the pueblo already.”

The idea of this woman being responsible for bringing someone’s baby into the world made him shudder. But then, childbirth was a messy business, too, so he supposed she felt right at home. He looked at his kitchen again.

“There’s actual food in there somewhere?”

“Just something I tossed together out of whatever you had on hand,” she said, shoving aside … stuff to plunk a casserole dish onto the counter. “Go on, you sit—” she pointed at the formal dining table behind him “—I’ll warm some of this up and bring it right over. I see you’ve got beer—you want one?”

He sat, becoming one with the chair. “Please.”

A minute later she set a heaping dish of her concoction in front of him—pasta and tomato sauce and sausage and peppers and cheese and heaven knew what else. And you’ll eat it and love it, he thought, almost too hungry to care.

“Huh,” he said, taking a second bite over the clatter of pans, water rushing into the sink. “This is really good.”

“Thanks. Tell me if you want more, there’s plenty. You eat while I clean.”

But once he’d taken the edge off his hunger, he felt weird sitting here while she was in there cleaning. So he got up and moved his plate and beer to the breakfast bar, climbing up on the stool.

“Aw … didja get lonely?” she said with a little smile as she wiped down the island. A throwaway question, hardly meant to cause the pang it did. When he didn’t answer she tossed him another glance, then sashayed to the sink to rinse out the sponge. “So how’s your mom?”

“Looks like she’ll be out of commission for a while,” Silas said around another mouthful of food. “She’s in a splint until the swelling goes down enough to put on a cast. It’ll definitely put a cramp in her style, that’s for sure. And mine. I’ll have to make other day-care arrangements.”

“Well …” Jewel’s entire face scrunched in thought. “I’ve heard lots of good things about the Baptist preschool. And there’s that place out on the highway, in the old convenience store Thea Griego used to live in?”

“With the big jungle mural across the front?”

“Yep. I know the gal who runs it, she’s the real deal. Although they might be full up at the moment—”

“It’s okay,” Silas said, almost irritably. “I’ll check around in the morning. So … what all went on in here while I was gone?”

Jewel laughed. “What didn’t go on, is more like it. And I apologize for keeping them up so late, but they were having so much fun—well, me, too, but that’s something else again—I didn’t have the heart to play mean old babysitter and make them go to bed. Especially since I doubted they would’ve gone to sleep on time, anyway. They missed you,” she said with a little smile. “And they were so worried about their grandma. And no way was I gonna let them sit in front of the TV all night, no, sir.”

Dinner dishes scraped and rinsed, she pushed down the dishwasher door and pulled out the bottom rack. “So we made cookies—they’re on that dish over there if you want some—” she nodded toward a foil-covered plate at the end of the bar “—and read a bunch of books—I made Ollie read a couple to me, he sounds like he could use the practice—and then we played about a million games of Snakes and Ladders, and then we played Secret City.”

“Which called for wholesale destruction of my living room.”

She straightened, shoving a piece of hair off her forehead with her wrist. Even with her glasses, he could see the knot between her brows. “Kids learn by playing, Silas. By using their imaginations. Okay, so maybe we sorta went overboard—I’m sorry about your living room. But I put it all back together, didn’t I? And the boys had fun. Isn’t that kinda the whole point of being a kid?”

Life’s not all about having fun, he wanted to say, except even he knew how stuffy and ridiculous it would have sounded. And of course he wanted the kids to have fun, but …

But, what? Yeah, that’s right—no answer, huh?

His dinner finished, Silas reached for the foil-covered plate. Catching a whiff of the peanut butter cookies lurking underneath, he smiled. Despite himself.

“You might want to put peanut butter on your list,” Jewel said, her back to him as she continued cleaning. “I got carried away with that, too.”

Silas bit into one, sighing at the taste of childhood, of innocence against his tongue, and felt like a heel. “Where’d you get the flour?”

“One of your neighbors. Which reminds me, you owe Mrs. Maple two cups of flour. And an egg.”

Silas hesitated, hoping she’d turn around. She didn’t. “These are delicious, too.”

She shrugged. Silas sighed.

“Jewel, it’s been a long day and I’m ready to drop, but that’s still no excuse for me acting like I did when I came home. Especially considering you basically saved my butt. You not only survived my kids for—” he squinted at the microwave clock “—nearly six hours, you obviously took excellent care of them. Not to mention going above and beyond with dinner and the cookies. So I apologize for acting like a bozo.”

Finally she looked at him. “You didn’t—”

“I did.”

A smile teased her mouth. “Okay, maybe a little.”

Silas smiled, then ground the heel of his hand into his slightly aching temple. “This single fatherhood business,” he said, dropping his hand, “it’s not for sissies. I remember what my brothers and I were like when we were kids and it gives me the willies, to think those two carry my genes.”

“You mean you weren’t always this … this …”

“Uptight?”

She lifted her hands. Whatever.

“No,” he said on a soft laugh. “But I’ve gotten so used to who I am now, I guess I’ve forgotten what it’s like to drape cloths over the dining room table and pretend it’s a fort. Used to make my mother batty. Especially the time we used her best lace tablecloth.”

“I bet,” Jewel said, giving the now-bare kitchen table one final swipe. “Speaking of mothers … do the boys ever see theirs?”

The unexpected question made his breath hitch in his chest. “She died in a car crash when the boys were very little,” he said quietly. “Not long after our divorce.”

“Ohmigosh …” Spinning around, Jewel pressed her hand to her mouth, then lowered it. “How awful,” she whispered. “Do they even remember her?”

“Ollie does, a little. At least he thinks he does. But Tad was still a baby.”

“Oh. That accounts for …”

Silas tensed. “For what?”

“Why you’re so protective of them,” she said gently. “And no, that’s not a criticism, anybody in your position would be.” She leaned across the counter and touched his wrist, only to remove it almost before it registered. “You’re obviously a really good dad, Silas. But man—” her eyes twinkled “—you’d be a pain in the butt to live with. There,” she said, surveying the much cleaner kitchen, a big smile on her face. “All fixed. Although I have to say my own place—well, Eli’s, I suppose—never looks half this good. Suzy Homemaker, I’m not.”

Somehow, he wasn’t surprised. “I never could understand how people could live in clutter. Noah and Eli shared a room when we were teenagers—I think my mother was ready to call the HazMat team at one point.”

“Sounds like Noah and me would get along great, then,” she said, and he glared at her, which got another shrug. “Driving myself nuts trying to keep a place clean when it’ll only get messy again simply isn’t a big priority. And it’s not like I’ve got the kind of wardrobe that needs padded hangers. Or any hangers, for that matter. I’m not dirty,” she said to his appalled expression, “but I’m the only one living there. Nobody comes to visit much, so if the mess doesn’t bother me, who cares?”

Silas’s eyes narrowed slightly. Did she even hear the loneliness weighing down her words? A loneliness he might not have even noticed if his own hadn’t been all up in his face that night, whispering insane ideas in his ear, like … like maybe they could use their respective loneliness to their mutual advantage—

The idea caught him so short he actually had to grab the edge of the counter. Fortunately, Jewel had bopped back into the living room to continue straightening, so she missed it. Whew.

Silas swiveled unsteadily on the stool to watch her righting pictures, putting lamps back, as it struck him how little he actually knew about her. Except for whatever floated in Tierra Rosa’s ether, like a free-for-all wireless signal. “You have any family nearby?”

“My mother’s in Albuquerque, but we don’t see each other much. Haven’t seen my dad in years. Or my stepdads, for that matter.”

“Stepdads?”

“Dos,” she said holding up two fingers. “One’s in Denver, the other’s in Montana. Or Wyoming. I forget which. Both remarried. No, wait, the one in Denver is divorced again. I think. Can’t keep track, don’t really care.”

Although she still periodically flashed smiles in his direction as she talked, her “chipper” was definitely fading fast. So when she bent over to gather the boys’ cars—affording Silas a nice, long look at a rather appealing backside, actually—he said, “Forget it, if the boys dragged all that stuff out here, they can clean it up tomorrow before school. Besides, you’re obviously exhausted.”

She straightened, stretching out the muscles in her back. “And it won’t drive you insane in the meantime?”

“Yes. But that’s my problem, not yours.”

Laughing, Jewel dumped the cars she’d already picked up, a moment before headlight beams streaked through the frosted glass insets alongside the front door. She went to gather her jacket and purse—both somewhat long in the tooth, Silas noticed—and it occurred to him she probably wasn’t exactly raking it in, doing what she did. Not that he was, either, but the ends tended to overlap more than not. He pulled his wallet from his back pocket, digging out several bills.

“Here,” he said, laying the cash on the counter. “This is for you.”

She turned, frowning at the money as if it was foreign currency, before aiming the frown at Silas. “Excuse me?”

“For watching the kids. Cooking my dinner.” When she stood there, gawking at him, he added, “If nothing else, consider it hazard pay.”

Her face went bright red. “Ohmigosh! I was just helping out! Being a good neighbor! I c-can’t.”

She said, eying the money like it was a candy bar and she’d given up chocolate for Lent.

“And I’m sure you don’t want to make me feel bad, like I took advantage of you. Please, Jewel. Take the money.”

Her gaze flicked from the money to him, then back to the money. “You sure? I mean … maybe we could come to some sort of other arrangement.” When his brows lifted, she said, “Like you helping me with my taxes or something.”

Which, since he doubted she had pension plans and investments and the like to sort through, would probably take him ten minutes. Tops. He got up, scooped the bills off the counter and walked over to her, pressing the money into her palm, and her hand was warm and soft and strong all at once and he liked the feel of it in his way too much. Sad. “Doing your taxes is a given. Now get out of here before Patrice wakes the entire town with her horn honking.”

For a long moment, their gazes tangled. Damned if he didn’t like that way too much, too. Which was even sadder. “You’re nuts, you know that?” she said with a little smile, stuffing the cash in her pocket. Then she yanked open his front door and fled.

No kidding, he thought, locking the door behind her, closing his eyes for a moment to embrace the peace left in her wake before yielding to the temptation to eat another cookie.

Or two.

Why Jewel’d resisted letting Silas pay her, she had no idea. Wasn’t like she couldn’t use it. In fact, she could squeeze two weeks’ worth of groceries out of forty bucks. If she was careful. Especially since a lot of Patrice’s clients paid in produce and homemade canned goods, and Patrice shared.

Although, she mused when her mentor dropped her off back at Eli’s after their appointment the next morning, and she picked up the mail and there was the utilities bill sneering at her, unfortunately the gas company wasn’t keen on being paid in put-by peaches, no matter how tasty they were. And she’d’ve still been okay if she hadn’t broken her tooth last month and had had to get it capped.

She wasn’t a total lamebrain, she’d socked away as much of her nurse’s salary as she could, knowing she wouldn’t make squat while she was doing her midwife apprenticeship. She’d had a cushion. Only the cushion turned out to be a lot thinner than she’d thought.

At least Eli was letting her stay rent-free in his house until he was ready to sell it. Otherwise she honestly didn’t know what she’d do, she thought as she dug her checkbook out of her vintage Coach bag—a thrift shop score from five years ago—and flipped open the register. But alas, the Money Fairy hadn’t made a stealth deposit in the middle of the night.

Shutting her eyes against the bright fall sun, Jewel stuffed the checkbook back in her purse, so distracted and disgusted and discombobulated she didn’t even notice Noah standing on her roof until he called her name. She looked up, shielding her eyes, deciding she’d really be in a bad mood if the sight of all those muscles in a black T-shirt wasn’t cheering her up. “Thought you said you’d send somebody over?”

“Lost the coin toss. So where’s this leak again?”

“Right in the middle of the living room. And it only happens when the rain comes from the south.”

Noah vanished and Jewel went inside, moping, listening to Noah’s work boots stomp-stomp-stomping overhead. Then back. Then the sound of the metal extension ladder creaking as he climbed back down. A minute later, he knocked at the open door. Sitting at the small dining table in the kitchen, her head in her hands, Jewel looked up from the electric bill and its cousins, trying not to feel like a Grade A loser.

“Found the problem,” Noah said. “It’s not supposed to rain for the rest of the week, so I’ll get back to patch it up in the next day or so. Although …” He dug his fingers into the back of his neck, shaking his head.

“Problem?”

“Yeah. Every time I come over to fix something, I find another issue.” He crossed his arms. “I doubt even Eli realizes how much work the place needs. If he wants to sell it for more than two bucks, at least.”

Jewel frowned. “I’m not in any danger of the roof caving in while I sleep or anything, am I?”

“You might want to make sure your bed’s under the support beam … just kidding,” he said as she sagged back in the chair. “Um … you okay?”

This said in the manner of someone facing a potential bomb. Jewel almost smiled. “Other than feeling like this house? I’m fine.” She wriggled her mouth back and forth a moment, then said, “Y’all wouldn’t need some secretarial work done or anything, would you?” At his silence, she looked over. “What?”

“Jewel? I don’t want to be mean or anything … but you really need to give this up.”

“Give what up?”

“You’re sweet and all, but I’m not … interested.”

A laugh popped out of her mouth, only to almost immediately turn to tears. Much to her profound annoyance.

“Ah, hell, honey … I tried to let you down as easy as I knew how—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Noah,” she said, grabbing a napkin off the table and honking into it, “I got that message loud and clear some time ago, okay? I’m not asking if you’ve got work to get closer to you, I’m asking because I’m broke.”

Cautiously, Noah came farther into the house.

“Really?”

“God’s honest truth,” she said on a harsh breath that released a flood of words. “The thing is, it’s not like I didn’t know going in how tight things were gonna be for a while until I got my license. And even then delivering babies is never gonna make me rich. And basically I’m okay with that—as long as there are thrift shops and beans and corn-bread, I’m good. Only I didn’t count on breaking a tooth on a piece of hard candy, and the dentist is threatening to send the bill to collections even though I’m paying him what I can, and if I don’t find a way to make some extra cash I might have to give up on being a midwife altogether. Bad enough my mother thinks it’s a cockamamie idea. Oh, Noah—I can’t fail, I just can’t!”

She blew her nose again, then took off her glasses to wipe the lenses. “Sorry. Sometimes my emotions kinda get the best of me. What?” she said when Noah kept looking at her funny.

“Actually, I meant …” He pointed between the two of them. “You’re really, um, over me?”

Wondering if the man had heard a single word she’d said, Jewel did a mental eye roll. “No offense, but worrying about starving to death kinda knocked you to the bottom of my things-to-think-about list.”

“Oh. Okay. Just checking. Because I don’t do—” he made air quotes “—relationships. Not in the way that most gals mean the word, at least. I have …” His forehead puckered. “Dalliances.”

A soggy, oh-geez, laugh burbled from Jewel’s mouth. “And you think I don’t … dally?”

The puckering intensified. “Do you?”

“Guess you’ll never find out now. I mean, you had your chance, but …” Her shoulders bumped. “That particular window of opportunity is now closed. But I really do need a job. So could you use some extra help? I’ll do anything—scrub toilets, haul trash—I’m not proud.”

Finally, he seemed to relax. “Damn, Jewel … we just hired on Luis’s wife part-time. Sorry. Wish you’d said something sooner.”

“No problem,” she said, sighing. “Not your fault. Anyway. Thanks.”

He gave her a last, lost look—men were good at that—then nodded and left, the door clicking shut behind him. With a groan Jewel let her head drop onto her folded arms, hearing her mother’s voice as clear as if she’d been standing right there, going on about how silly Jewel’d been to have let Justin go, that if she’d married him she wouldn’t be in this mess right now.

Maybe so, Jewel thought, lifting her head. Except for the small issue of her not wanting to get married. To Justin or anybody else. Not then, not now. Maybe not ever. But at twenty-five? No way. Not when she had all these things she wanted to do. To be.

If she sometimes yearned so much for what had kept eluding her as a child she thought she’d lose her mind, she supposed that was the trade-off for the peace that came with knowing that whatever choices she made, the only person she could hurt was herself.

And that nobody could hurt her, either.

She bet, if she had the nerve to ask him, Silas Garrett would understand where she was coming from. Shoot, ask anybody, they’d talk your ear off about his resistance to his mother’s attempts to fix him up. And the look on his face when Jewel’d asked him about the boys’ mother? Yeah, there was somebody who was more than happy with things the way they were, she was guessing. So if it was okay for Silas—who could probably use another set of hands and eyes to help him with those two rascals of his—to stay single, why wasn’t it for her?

Never mind the bizarre ping of attraction to the man, with his soulful green eyes and killer mouth and the ten kinds of take-no-prisoners, sexy authority he exuded. A thought that, okay, got her hormones just the teensiest bit hot and bothered. So sue her, it’d been a while. But please—the last thing she needed in her life was an uptight, over-protective numbers geek with borderline OCD issues.

Put like that, she probably didn’t even like him. No, she was sure she didn’t. The killer mouth/soulful eyes thing notwithstanding. And she seriously doubted he liked her. She also seriously doubted Silas Garrett had ever been the victim of a rogue hormone in his life. Heck, he probably rationed the suckers, only letting them out for a half hour on Tuesdays, Thursdays and every other Saturday.

So it was all good, right?

Blowing out a breath—and putting her rowdy hormones in the corner—Jewel got to her feet to grab her purse and keys to her ten-year-old Toyota Highlander with its dings and scratches and 180,000 miles, figuring getting out of this house would improve her mood greatly. Not to mention if she wanted work, in all likelihood it wasn’t going to come knocking on her door, was it?

Arms folded, Silas sat on the beige corduroy couch in his brother Eli’s perpetually messy, eclectically furnished living room, glowering at the fire in the kiva fireplace while all around him brothers and sisters-in-law yakked, kids raced and toddlers toddled. Every other week, at least, they all got together for family dinner. Up until tonight that had always been at his folks’ house, but since Mom was out of commission Eli’s wife Tess had volunteered to host the melee.

Brave woman, Silas mused as Tess shoved two action figures and a rag doll off the overstuffed, floral chair at a right angle to the sofa and plopped into it, her seven-months-pregnant belly like a ripe melon underneath her lightweight sweater. Her three-year-old daughter Julia, all sassy dark curls and attitude, crawled up to wriggle her butt into the space between her mother and the arm of the chair while Ollie and Julia’s brother Miguel—step-cousins, classmates and cohorts in crime—chased Silas’s shrieking, twenty-month-old niece Caitlin around the room. Pretending to be monsters. Or something.

“One good thing about the noise,” Tess yelled over the insanity as she combed her fingers through Julia’s curls, “it feels so good when it stops.”

Silas smirked. “Does it ever?”

Humor crinkled the corners of thick-lashed dark eyes. “When the last one leaves for college?”

Silas laughed, but his heart really wasn’t in it. Those eyes narrowing, Tess kissed Julia on the head and gently prodded her off the chair. “Go, torment boys,” she said, then heaved herself out of the chair to drop beside Silas. The fattest, furriest cat in the world promptly jumped up in what was left of her lap, making her grunt out, “Okay, so what’s up?”

Silas crossed his arms high on his chest, his forehead knotted. “You ever work when the kids are at home?”

“Hah. Not if I want to get any actual work done. Besides, I’m out showing properties more than I’m in, anyway. I owe my babysitter my life.”

His eyes cut to hers. Purring madly, the cat stretched out one paw to rest it on Silas’s arm. “She wouldn’t have any openings, would she?”

Tess’s brow creased in reply. “No luck with the day care?”

Tad bellowed behind him, making him flinch. “One place has a possible opening in October. Mid-October. Possible being the key word here.”

“Donna should be okay by then—”

“After raising the four of us, she wants her life back.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh. Can’t say as I blame her.”

Tess’s gaze shifted to her mother-in-law, holding court on the loveseat across the room, clearly enjoying the hell out of playing Queen Bee. “No,” Tess sighed out. “I wouldn’t blame her, either. I thought my two were energy suckers, but yours have mine beat by a mile.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey … maybe Rachel could fill in? She could probably use the extra bucks—”

“Did somebody say extra bucks?” his youngest sister-in-law said, her long, dark hair streaked with burgundy, her long, legginged legs ending in a pair of those dumb, fat suede boots. Pink ones, no less.

“I need a babysitter—”

Lime green fingernails flashed as Rach’s hand shot up. “Sorry, Si, but I’m doing well to handle this one,” she said, bouncing pudgy Caiti on her hip, “and school as it is. I’d really like to help, but I’m majorly slammed this semester.” She wrinkled her pierced nose. “We still good?”

“Of course, I understand completely.” Silas slumped forward, holding his head, as she strode off. “I’m doomed.”

“Why are you doomed?” Noah said, commandeering the chair Tess had just vacated and simultaneously digging into a plate of leftovers. Because clearly the first two helpings weren’t enough.

Tess gave Silas’s back a sympathetic pat. “Sweetie can’t find anybody to watch the boys.”

“Yeah,” Noah said, chewing, “that’s the problem with kids, the way somebody always has to watch ‘em.” He swallowed, pointing his fork at Silas. “A problem, you will note, I do not have.”

“Jerk,” Silas muttered without heat, since it was no secret the dude would kill for his nieces and nephews, even if the idea of having his own kids gave him hives.

A piece of chicken vanished into his brother’s mouth. “What about Jewel?”

Silas’s head snapped up. “Jewel?”

“Yeah. She said she’s got some medical bills or something—she was kind of rambling, I didn’t quite get all of it—and she’s pretty desperate for some part-time work. Even asked me if we could use her over at the shop. Hey,” he said to Silas’s frown, “you said yourself she was great with the boys. And they like her, right? So why not? You need a sitter, she needs a job …” He shrugged those big shoulders of his. “Sounds like a win-win to me—”

“What it sounds like, is a disaster in the making.”

Noah and Tess exchanged a glance before Noah met Silas’s gaze again. “Be-cause …?”

Where would they like him to start? “What if she has to go on a call while she’s got the kids? What then?”

“Oh, between all of us,” Tess said, far too enthusiastically, “I’m sure we could fill in any gaps. I’m with Noah—it sounds like a perfect plan to me.”

Yeah. The perfect plan from hell.

“Uh-oh,” Noah said. “He’s got that look on his face.”

Silas glared at him. “What look?”

“The I-don’t-wanna look. Never mind there’s not one good reason why this isn’t a good idea. For cripe’s sake, she’s a nurse, she knows CPR and stuff. And she cooks—”

“Ow!” Silas said when Tess cuffed the back of his head.

“What the—?”

“Hell, if you don’t hire her, I will. So call her. Before somebody else snatches her up.”

His mouth open to protest, Silas shut it again. Because Tess was right—maybe the thought of having Jewel in his house every day gave him the heebie-jeebies, but she could probably find a temporary nanny position in a heartbeat, if not here, in Santa Fe or Taos. And he was desperate.

Not so desperate, however, that he couldn’t wait to call until he got home, since for damn sure he didn’t need an audience to add to his humiliation.

So, an hour later, the boys bellowing and sloshing blissfully in the tub, Silas ducked back into their room to make the call, so focused on them through the door he almost forgot who he was calling until she said, “Silas?” in a voice far raspier than he remembered, or expected, or wanted, or needed, and for a moment he was torn between praying she’d say yes and fervently hoping somebody else would snatch her up.

Thereby saving him from a fate worse than death.

Chapter Three

It took Jewel so long to process Silas’s number on the display that her voice mail nearly clicked in before she answered. “Uh … hello—?”

“Noah says you’re looking for work?”

Three thoughts zipped through simultaneously. One, that warp-speed Internet connection had nothing on Tierra Rosa’s gossip mill, especially when major chunks of the mill were related to each other; two, that he sounded about as thrilled about making this call as he would have making an appointment for one of those exams; and three, Wow. Deep voice.

“Um … yeah? You know of something?”

He sighed. The kind of sigh that precedes bad news. “Turns out there are no day-care openings, anywhere. At least not for several weeks. Meaning I need a part-time nanny. And the boys like you. So. You want the job?”

Oh, no. Nononononono. Because that little ping of awareness she’d thought a onetime thing? Yeah, well … apparently not. She tried—oh, how she tried—to send her hormones back into time-out, but since there was only one of her and five quadrillion of them …

“Gee, Silas, I don’t know. Um … what if I get called out on a birth?”

“But how often does that happen? Couple times a month?”

Her mouth twisted. “Maybe. But there’s prenatal appointments, and follow-up visits …”

“Even three days a week would work. Or just in the afternoons. Or mornings, whatever works for you.” Silence. “I’m really, really in a bind.”

“You must be to ask me.”

More silence. “The good news is, we’d rarely be around each other.”

“So you don’t like me.” “Whatever gave you that idea—?”

“Silas. Please.”

Somehow, she imagined him removing his glasses, rubbing his eyes. The hormones moaned. Shut. Up.

“I think it’s safe to say—” he exhaled into the phone “—that we have … different ways of approaching life. But that’s neither here nor there. Look, I’ll pay you whatever … whatever you think is fair. Name your price.”

Visions of paid bills and maybe a new pair of hiking boots danced in her head. Cautiously she tossed out a figure, Silas said, “Done,” and Jewel sucked in a breath. “And like I said,” he added, “it’s only temporary. Until October. So what kind of schedule would work for you?”

“Um … if you don’t mind being flexible, why don’t we take it day by day—?”

“Works for me. Can you start tomorrow?”

“Uh, yeah … sure—”

“Then how about I swing by your place about eight-thirty to give you a set of keys to the house? And instructions?” “I guess. We don’t have any appointments tomorrow, so—”

“Great. See you then.”

Instructions, right, Jewel thought through the mild dizziness as she set her phone back on the counter. No doubt annotated and color coded. Like those scary Supernanny charts.

Her hormones scrambled for cover.

“Dad-dy! Where are you?”

Kids. Right.

Still clutching his phone, Silas walked back into the bathroom where his children—irrefutable evidence of his life having once included sex—had apparently decided why use a tiny squirt of shampoo when half the bottle was so much better? Or—he picked up the weightless plastic shell from the middle of the bathmat—the entire bottle. However, given the condition Silas and his brothers used to leave the bathroom in after their baths when they were kids, he was grateful most of the water was actually still in the tub.

“Look at Tad’s hair!” Ollie said, giggling and pointing to the Marge Simpson ‘do atop his youngest son’s head. Ollie, however, had gone more Marie Antoinette. All he needed was one of his plastic boats on top to complete the look.

Giving Silas a big, dimpled grin, Tad scooped up a mountain of froth. “We made bubbles!”

“So I see,” Silas said, sinking onto the covered toilet lid and thinking, God, I love these kids, his heart seizing up with a random attack of the what-might-have-beens. At least they didn’t happen as often as they did in the beginning. But they still came, sneaking up on him like ninjas in the middle of the night. Or like now, when the thought of entrusting them to some ponytailed, raspy-voiced, braless weirdo was making his brain hurt.

Figuring the suds made soaping them up redundant, Silas rolled up his shirt sleeves and turned on the handheld shower, a move that got a pair of “Awwww … not yets!”

“You want me to read?” he said as Marge, then Marie, dissolved into foamy streaks slithering down the boys’ chests. “Then you have to get out of the tub now.” Doughboy appeared at the open doorway, took one look at the Torture Weapon in Silas’s hand and backed out again. “And anyway,” he said, wrapping up each boy in turn like little mummies in their bath sheets, “I’ve got news.” He grabbed Tad to rub his curls mostly dry with a hand towel. “Jewel’s agreed to be your nanny.”

“Re-re-really?” Ollie said as Silas attacked his wet head, his grin enormous when he resurfaced, a blond porcupine pumping his fist. “Yes!”

“Yes!” Tad echoed, his still-damp curls bobbing as he, too, pumped his fist so hard he lost his towel. Then naturally both boys dissolved into giggles because, you know, life was go-ood.

Smiling, grateful, Silas hauled them both into his arms—was there anything better in the whole wide world than freshly bathed little boys?—and down the hall to their room, where he read three books and tucked them in with hugs and kisses and tried very, very hard not to think about Jewel Jasper’s voice.

Which he’d be hearing again in … less than twelve hours.

Hell.

The doorbell rang precisely at eight-thirty the next morning.

Waking Jewel up.

Muttering not-nice words, she fought her way out of the tangled covers—she’d always been a thrasher, had been told sharing a bed with her was like trying to sleep in a blender—yanking on her shorty robe as she lurched toward the front door.

The bell rang again. As did her cell phone.

She glanced at the display. Oh, joy.

“‘Lo,” she croaked as she tugged open the front door, assuming it’d be Silas on the other side and not an escaped convict. Or worse, somebody trying to save her soul. Got it in one, she thought as, nodding to Silas to come in, she pointed to the phone and mouthed, “My mother.”

“Oh, sugar, I’m so glad I got you.….” Hearing the tears in her mother’s voice, Jewel squeezed shut her eyes, only to realize when she opened them again that Silas was staring at the life-size pelvis complete with embryo and placenta sitting on the banged-up coffee table she’d picked up for next-to-nothing at a yard sale when she’d moved into the house. She shoved the front door closed with her bare foot, her mother’s “Monty broke up with me!” knifing through her morning groggies as she padded into the living room.

“Oh … I’m so sorry,” she said, thinking, Who the heck is Monty? On her way to the kitchen she poked Silas in the arm, distracting him from the pelvis. “Coffee?”

“Uh … sure,” he said, distracting Mama from Monty. For the moment.

“Honey? Who are you talking to?”

“A friend,” Jewel said, shrugging at Silas’s lifted eyebrows before yanking open the fridge for the Folgers, briefly considering snorting it instead of waiting for it to brew.

“Don’t you try to fool me, young lady, that was a man’s voice!”

“Nothin’ gets past you, huh?” Jewel said, carting the coffee over to the coffee maker, remembering too late when she reached up into the cupboard for the filters that she wasn’t wearing anything under the robe. Oops. “I can have men friends, Mama.” Although having them ogle her butt wasn’t on the list this morning. “Listen, I have to go, but how’s about I come down and go to lunch with you or something on Saturday? Cheer you up?”

“Oh … not today?”

Jewel sighed. Much as she truly loved her mother, all she wanted was for the woman to grow up. To be her mother and not that clingy chick in high school who tells everybody she’s your BFF when she’s not.

To give Jewel a chance to do some growing up of her own.

“I’d love to, Mama, really, but my day’s already full. But hey—why don’t you go shopping? You know that always makes you feel better.” For at least twenty minutes.

“Well … I suppose I could.” A delicate sniff sounded in Jewel’s ear. “But it’d be so much more fun with you along.”

At one point, that had been true enough. For Jewel, anyway. Nobody knew her way around a mall better than her mother, even if Mama was always trying to buy Jewel prissy, girly-girl things she’d never wear. “I know, but I can’t today. I’ll call you later, how’s that?”

After promising her mother she’d call as soon as she could, Jewel pocketed her cell and shut her eyes again, willing the coffee aroma into her veins. As usual the conversation was ripping her in two: she could be what her mother wanted her to be, or what Jewel needed to be, but not both. And the endless tug-of-war was making her bonkers.

Still, self-preservation kept her heels dug in and her bleeding hands tight on that rope, boy … or risk toppling right over into the Aching Void of Need she’d had to haul Kathryn DuBois out of more times than she could count, when yet another relationship fizzled out on her. On them both, actually, since losing three “daddies” and any number of also-rans hadn’t done Jewel any favors, either.

But if nothing else she’d learned from her mother’s example, having seen first-hand the vicious cycle of hope and heartbreak that were part and parcel of letting “love” blind you to reality. Hence her resolve to never let anybody do to her what so many had done to her mother.

Besides, if she didn’t stay strong, who’d take care of Mama?

“Let me guess,” Silas said behind her, making her jump. Because somehow she’d forgotten he was there. “I woke you.”

Jewel made sure she was smiling before she turned. “Only because I slept through my alarm.” She peered behind him. “You lose somebody?”

“The kids? Like there was any way we could talk with them around. Anyway, Ollie’s in school already. I left Tad at the shop with Noah. And my dad. And everybody else. One kid, a half-dozen sets of eyes … should work out just about right.” Silas folded his arms over his chest. Doing the Stern Look thing. On him, it worked. As did the gray, geometric-patterned sweater and jeans. Geek chic. “You do that often? Sleep through your alarm?”

Jewel’s stomach growled, reminding her of the vast void within. “No, actually,” she said, opening another cupboard door for oatmeal. “But I got called out unexpectedly last night with a mother having false labor. She didn’t settle down—” she yawned “—until nearly five.” The oatmeal dumped into a bowl with milk, she set it in the microwave and edged toward the fridge. “Want some eggs with your coffee?”

“Already ate. Thanks.”

“Whatever. I’m starving.” She cracked three eggs into a bowl, dumped two pieces of what her mother called “bird seed” bread into the toaster. “But don’t you worry,” she said, banging a skillet onto the old gas stove, “that was a one-off. My sleeping in, I mean. Normally I’m up at like six, raring to go. I have a lot of energy, which you may have noticed.”

But she doubted he’d heard her, since when she turned he was frowning at the disaster of a living room with its re-re-recycled furniture, littered with DVDs and textbooks and clothing that had wandered out of her closet and hadn’t yet found its way back, not to mention the dozen bulging, partially ripped garbage bags of kids’ and baby clothes and toys the church ladies had left for her to pass along to some of her and Patrice’s needier clients. The pelvis. Then his gaze drifted back to her, those green eyes positively teeming with questions.

And something else, something that sent little flickers of heat hoppity-skipping through her blood. Good thing, then—really good thing—she didn’t have to worry about pesky things like him maybe coming on to her. Because, alas, she was only human. And kinda, um, lonely, truth be told. As was Silas, she’d bet the farm.

Which could present a problem. Because while Jewel was not into sharing her body with all and sundry, she did have to admit to a certain fondness for sex, dimly remembered though that might be. Hence the hormones, which even now were whispering how little stoking it would take to go from flickers to raging conflagration.

Little creeps.

“Maybe you should get dressed,” Silas said softly, taking the bowl of beaten eggs from her, and she thought, Don’t look at the mouth, even as she noticed how turned down that mouth was at the corners. Disapproving and whatnot. “Before somebody sees us through the window—” he nodded toward the curtainless kitchen window facing the street “—and gets the wrong idea.”

Oh.

Her cheeks flaming, Jewel fled, feeling like a scolded little girl.

Which went a long way toward damping those flickers, boy. Yes, indeedy.

Silas beat those eggs as if his salvation depended on it.

Since his reaction to Jewel was making him feel close enough to perv status to ratchet the discomfort level up to, oh, about a million-point-two.

Even though there was no reason it should. Okay fine, so a brief glimpse of her bare bottom—hell, if he’d blinked he would’ve missed it—when she’d lifted her arms had fired a jet or two. Perfectly natural. And inevitable, frankly, considering how long it’d been since those particular jets had fired.

It was who the jets were firing for that had him all shook up.

Why hadn’t he blinked? Why?

Silas set the bowl of eggs on the counter—no point scrambling them until she returned, they’d only get cold—and wandered back into the living room, which could only be called a wreck. Gal hadn’t been kidding about her housekeeping skills. Or lack thereof. Scrupulously avoiding the model of the female innards on the coffee table, he instead found himself checking out the dozen or so videos scattered beside it.

Big mistake.

Orgasmic Birth?

“Snooping?” Jewel said from the other side of the room, making him spin around to see she’d buried all jet-firing attributes beneath a too-big, zipped-to-the-neck hoodie and a pair of holey jeans. Hair back. Face bare.

Eyes wary.

Aaaand there went the protective mode again.

Better than perv mode. Right? Maybe. Maybe not. “Of course not—”

“Oh, that’s the one in the player now,” she said, nodding at the case. Still in his hand. Busted. He lifted it, coherent speech beyond him. She grinned, effectively disabling the protective mode. “It’s excellent, you should give it a looksee sometime. Eggs ready yet?”

“No, sorry …” Silas dropped the case—setting off a clattering DVD avalanche which he had to stop and clean up—before following her back to the kitchen. “Didn’t want ‘em to get cold,” he said, turning the flame on underneath the cheapo skillet.

“I can do that—”

“No, it’s okay, you sit.” So I don’t have to look at you.

She got her oatmeal out of the microwave, stirred in a generous pat of butter and like half a cup of syrup of some kind. Good Lord. “You sure—?”

“Yes,” Silas said.

So she sat, and he scrambled—the eggs, his brain, whatever—a minute later sliding the plate with eggs and toast in front of her at the chewed-up dining table. Her gaze met his for a nanosecond then skittered away, yanking her usual exuberance along with it. Huh.

“Thanks,” she said, pushing her glasses up on her nose, and it occurred to him she didn’t see herself as sexy. Which was not his problem. No, his problem was him seeing her as sexy.

“Can’t remember the last time anybody made me breakfast,” she said, not looking at him as she scraped the last bit of oatmeal from the bowl and dived into the toast and eggs.

Silas poured himself a cup of coffee, leaning up against her counter to drink it while she ate. And ate, and ate. Where on earth she put it all, he couldn’t begin to guess.

“Your mother okay?” he asked, more out of politeness than curiosity. Heaven knew he had enough issues with his own mother, he sure as heck didn’t want or need to hear about anyone else’s.

After staring at him a moment too long, Jewel shoved her cheerfulness back out front, like a pushy mama making little Johnny sing for the folks. “Oh, she’ll be fine,” she said with a wave of her hand and a let’s-not-go-there smile. “She’s real good at landing on her feet. In more ways than one. So …” Her eggs polished off, she crammed the last bite of toast into her mouth and brushed off her hands. “What all do I need to know about the boys?”

And would somebody explain to him, considering he was only being polite to begin with, why the brush-off stung? Not a lot, but enough to make him wonder.

He pulled a list of instructions and emergency phone numbers from his back pocket and unfolded it, setting it in front of her. Still chewing, she quickly read it, then glanced up at him, her eyes glittering with amusement behind her glasses. Like snow in shadow, he thought, then mentally slapped himself.

“Why don’t you just send ‘em to military school and be done with it?”

Silas bristled. “I love my kids, Jewel. And I take my fathering responsibilities very seriously.”

“Well, of course you do! I don’t mean …” After checking for a clean spot on her napkin, she yanked off her glasses to clean them. “Okay, I was only trying to make light of the moment, but …” The glasses shoved back on, she huffed out, “My mouth has this bad habit of spitting out random inappropriateness when I least expect it. I apologize.”

This said eye-to-eye. Earnestly. Sincerely.

“And anyway, this—” she lifted the list, thankfully oblivious to the sudden, random buzzing in Silas’s head “—isn’t near as bad as I expected. Considering the boys’, um, high energy level.”

The buzzing faded. For which Silas was even more thankful. “The phrase ‘holy terrors’ has been bandied about a time or six.”

Jewel’s eyes popped wide enough for him to see gold flecks in the dusky blue irises. “They are not terrors! By any stretch of the imagination! And whoever would say such a thing …” Her mouth pulled flat, she shook her head. “Honestly. Some people need their brains washed out. They’re just little boys, for crying out loud,” she said, her fervor pinking her cheeks and making her eyes bluer, and Damn, she’s beautiful smacked Silas right between the eyes. Hell.

“Sounds like you’ve had experience with little boys,” he said, and her indignation melted into a chuckle.

“You couldn’t tell?” Then she flicked her hand: Never mind. “Yeah, I do. When my mother married my stepfather—my second one, I mean—my stepbrother was a toddler. I was eleven, and ohmigosh, I thought Aaron was the cutest thing ever. I adored him, took him everywhere, played dress-up with him—you can wipe that look off your face, your boys are safe, I outgrew that phase years ago—even let him sleep in my bed with me. ‘Course,” she said with a crooked little grin, “the older he got the more I decided he was a pain in the posterior, but I still loved him. Still do,” she added softly. “God, I miss that kid.”

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