Molly Darling Read online

  Molly Darling

  Laurie Paige

  To Mary-Theresa Hussey

  LAURIE PAIGE

  was recently presented with the Affaire de Coeur Readers’ Choice Silver Pen Award for Favorite Contemporary Author. In addition, she was a 1994 Romance Writers of America RITA finalist for Best Traditional Romance for her book Sally’s Beau. She reports romance is blooming in her part of Northern California. With the birth of a second grandson, she finds herself madly in love with three wonderful males—”all hero material.” So far, her husband hasn’t complained about the other men in her life.

  Dear Reader,

  Picture one spinsterish heroine, a nursery-school teacher with her own successful business, an impeccable reputation and the esteem of the whole community. Why would she up and marry one growly hero with an attitude, a reputation as a “black sheep” and a six-month-old daughter to raise?

  I don’t know about you, but it does something to me to see a man with a baby, his touch gentle, maybe a bit unsure, as he holds the infant in his arms. I go all melty inside. Recently, flying home from Chicago, I listened to the man behind me on the plane playing cards with his very young daughter. He was funny and charming, his heart obviously wrapped around her little finger. It was a delightful trip. I smiled all the way home….

  Sincerely,

  Chapter One

  Molly Clelland flicked the curtain aside and frowned at the empty driveway. Sam Frazier was late. Again.

  She studied the clouds. Thunderheads clashed like medieval knights decked out in gray plumes as they raced over Roswell, twelve miles west of her, and charged across the winter sky.

  The huge cloud masses had hovered over the landscape all day, ominous and dreary, threatening anyone who ventured out. She sighed. She really wanted to get home before it rained for the third day in a row.

  Turning from the window, she put the dust cloth away and finished straightening the basement room of the church, then stretched and yawned. It had been a long day.

  She’d opened the nursery school at seven that morning and had hardly sat down a moment since then.

  By now—six-thirty at night—she should have been safe at home, snug in the adobe cottage across the street from the church, sipping a cup of hot tea and catching up on the world news on television. The cats were probably howling for their supper.

  Where the heck was Sam Frazier?

  He knew the rules. He should. She’d had to remind him of them often enough during the past four months. Worry wound its way through the irritation as thunder pealed overhead.

  Torrential rains had fallen all that week. Here in the southeastern corner of New Mexico, they occasionally got the edge of a fierce storm blowing in from the Gulf of Mexico.

  Llano Estacado. The Staked Plain. A plateau of desert hues and formations with mountain peaks thrusting upward as if the land sought the caress of the sky. However, this land, beautiful as it was, could be treacherous. A dry wash could become a raging river without warning.

  She’d fallen in love with New Mexico ten years ago when she’d arrived as a summer teaching volunteer in a federal program—the proverbial do-gooder—and had vowed to stay.

  So here she was at thirty-two, spinning out her modest dreams in this land of enchantment with her own nursery school and a cozy little house where she. lived with two cats.

  The proverbial spinster.

  Her parents called her their “changeling.” She was unlike the rest of her family. Where they were laughing and witty, she was serious, given to lectures on nutrition, the value of hard work and the cultivation of sober habits. She found them fascinating but exhausting. They found her prim but amusing.

  A gurgle interrupted her thoughts. She crossed to the crib in the corner and peered down at the six-month-old baby.

  Lass Frazier let go of the bright booties covering her feet and grinned up at Molly, waving her arms in the air and making her little sounds of welcome.

  “Hello, darling,” Molly murmured. “Do you need a change?”

  Lecturing about the weather, the lateness of the hour and the thoughtlessness of men, she put a fresh diaper on the tiny girl and lifted the child into her arms.

  Lass touched Molly’s lips, then her nose, then clutched a handful of hair and tried to taste it.

  Molly gently tugged the lock from the child’s hold and gave her a rabbit teething ring to chew on.

  “Where is your father?” she asked.

  Lass gave her a big grin, then clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth several times, evidently liking the sound, while Molly walked to the window and peered outside again.

  The church was built on the side of a hill, its front door opening on a circular driveway. The nursery was accessible from a winding lane that led down the hill and behind the building. A stand of junipers interrupted the rocky ground that sloped off toward a dry wash, now running in muddy torrents.

  Headlights appeared on the lane. A truck slowed and stopped at the end of the sidewalk leading to the basement door. The driver jumped out and strode up the walkway with his usual long-legged stride and preoccupied air.

  He fascinated her, this silent, unsmiling man with a forebidding presence. Like the land, he had an aura of vastness, of limitless distances and a toughness that had to do with survival and determination and other facets of being that she couldn’t define.

  The local gossip painted him black. While still a teenager, he’d been caught rustling cattle from his own family’s ranch. The charges had been dropped, but where there was smoke…

  After a significant look, the storyteller would continue. The Frazier boy had fought constantly with his stepfather…had left home as soon as he got out of high school…had been a trial to his poor mother, bless her soul. Yes, he was a bad one, that Sam Frazier. As wild as a mustang, you know.

  Molly thought of what she knew of Sam Frazier. One, he was a man, not a boy. His boyhood had disappeared long ago. Two, he took better care of his daughter than many mothers she’d known.

  She fixed a smile on her face when the door opened, then closed behind him. He filled the room, bringing the fresh scent of the outdoors with him. Sam Frazier wasn’t a brawny man, nor unusually tall, but he dominated the space around him. When he removed his hat, drops of water fell to the floor.

  “Good evening. Looks like it’s raining out your way,” she said, determined to be pleasant. Ill manners didn’t win friends or solve problems. “Were the roads bad?”

  He answered her greeting with a nod. “Yes, it’s raining. The roads aren’t bad yet. I had a cow that was down with a calf,” he explained his tardiness.

  It was as close to an apology as she was going to get from him. She instinctively knew he was a man who didn’t like having to explain himself to others, nor was he given to small talk. In four months of twice daily meetings, five days a week, they hadn’t exchanged more than the most cursory of comments, and not one of them personal.

  For a second, she tried to think of something personal he might say to her, then gave up when nothing came to mind except a dash of poetry—come be my love. She frowned at her musing.

  He raked a hand through his black, curly hair while his eyes, the color of dark, clear molasses, fastened on his daughter as if to make certain she’d made it through the day without mishap.

  Molly sometimes felt insulted by his manner. However, she was sure it was an unconscious gesture on his part. And there was the look in his eyes when he gazed at Lass.

  Sometimes in those intense depths, in a flash before he hid his feelings, she saw the love he had for his daughter—a fierce, protective love that was utterly sweet and filled with such tenderness, it brought a lump to her throat.

  The way it did now.

  For t
hat look, she could forgive him anything. At times, she even dreamed he’d look at her that way someday.

  Mentally shaking her head at her extravagant fantasies, she nodded toward the clock. “Lass just woke up. I think she’s hungry. Perhaps we should feed her before you make the trip back to your place?”

  He paused after picking up the bag of Lass’s belongings and considered the suggestion as if it were of world importance.

  Molly had to smile. Here was a person who evidently took life even more seriously than she did. Her parents would marvel over that.

  “Would you like to go out to dinner?” he asked.

  She tried to figure out what he’d said. It sounded as if he’d invited her out to dinner. She must have misunderstood.

  “I beg your pardon?” She removed a tendril of her hair from Lass’s fist and substituted a rattle.

  Lass shook the rattle, then settled happily to chewing on the bright red handle.

  “It’s late. I’ve kept you from your supper. I thought we could go somewhere and eat.”

  “Oh.” Her heart kicked up a bit before common sense reasserted itself. “That’s all right. You don’t have to do that. Lass was a perfect angel. I didn’t mind keeping her.”

  He gave her an impatient frown. “I’m as hungry as a bear. I’ve been working since before dawn, and I’d like to sit down and relax a bit.”

  “Oh.” She cleared her throat. “Well, of course. That would be nice.” She peered down at her slacks and blouse, which were wrinkled from a day of tending children under four years of age. “I’d better stop by the house and change.”

  “You’ll do,” he said, giving her an impersonal onceover with his quick, restless gaze.

  After shifting Lass to one side, Molly picked her purse and coat up from the desk, slung them over her shoulder and turned to him. “Then I’m ready.”

  She bestowed a sweet smile on him. It was one of her tactics for handling obstreperous people. They didn’t know what to do in the face of such gentle forgiveness for their churlish ways. It was very effective.

  He gave a sort of surprised snort under his breath and followed her out, turning off the lights and making sure the lock clicked into place behind them at her request. Outside, he held the door to the pickup open, took the baby while she climbed inside, then strapped the baby into her seat.

  Molly tucked a light blanket around the child. It wasn’t until Sam climbed in that she realized there might be a problem.

  The front seat was distressingly intimate with her stuck between him and the baby’s car seat. She could feel his body heat all the way down her left side. Once in a while his shoulder brushed hers as they rounded a curve.

  Keeping her feet to one side so he wouldn’t touch her leg when he shifted gears, she asked, “How is the cow?”

  “What?” He roused out of his deep, dark thoughts long enough to glare at her, making her wonder why he’d bothered to invite her out. He certainly wasn’t in the mood for company.

  “The cow that had trouble calving. Is she all right?”

  “Yes.” He dropped back into the brooding silence.

  She forebode to give him a lecture on manners. If he hadn’t wanted her to come, why had he invited her?

  Well, that was easy to answer. Guilt.

  He’d kept her waiting four times in the past ten days. She’d let him know the last time that she expected him to be on time to pick Lass up. After all, she had a life, too.

  Right. She’d been late for the monthly meeting of her literary club. Big deal.

  However, the sharing of thoughts and ideas and conversation with friends was important, she reminded herself. Reading gave one entry into another mind, sometimes into a life so different from one’s own a person was startled by it.

  “I beg your pardon?” She realized she’d missed some mumbled message from him.

  “The truck stop. Is it all right?”

  The dining room at the truck stop was a popular place. Most of the people in the surrounding ranching community ate there at least once a week. It would be crowded on Friday night. Everyone would see them together.

  For a briefest instant, she wondered what the local citizens would think—the local nursery schoolteacher with the local black sheep. “The truck stop is fine.”

  He pulled into the driveway and parked. “Wait,” he said in a commanding tone and slid out.

  He came around and removed the infant car seat from its straps, keeping Lass in it. The baby made noises to her father and smiled widely at him, eliciting another of those brief, but fiercely loving glances.

  Molly slipped past the car seat base and jumped to the ground. To her surprise, Sam took her arm and escorted her inside. Several heads turned when they entered the dining room.

  Nearly every table was full, and two of them were occupied by parents whose children came to her nursery school. She gave them a smile that said she had everything under control and this was a perfectly normal outing of the schootmarm with the rancher and his baby. It was a good thing they couldn’t see the flutters taking place inside her.

  The waitress, a young woman in tight jeans, led them to a booth. Sam and Lass took one side. Molly took the other. She laid her coat beside her. He looked around for a place to put his hat. She indicated the seat beside her. He handed it over and she placed it on her coat, feeling the Stetson had been given into her guardianship just as Lass was each morning.

  They studied the menus in silence, then ordered when the waitress indicated she was ready. When the girl walked away, a vacuum surrounded the table. It filled with uneasy silence. Molly waited for her companion to speak.

  “I’d better feed her before she realizes she’s starving,” he said, indicating Lass. He reached into the side pocket of the diaper bag and fished out a spoon and a jar of cereal with fruit.

  Molly watched in perfect fascination as Sam Fra-zier, tough, rarely smiling rancher, fed his baby with the utmost gentleness and care. When he wanted Lass to open her mouth, he opened his and said, “Ahh.”

  Lass imitated him.

  He used the opportunity to stick another spoonful of food into her mouth. Then he smiled at the trick he’d played on her. She smiled back, nearly losing the bite. He caught it on the spoon and scooped it back into her mouth with the touch of an expert.

  Molly’s heart melted. “The doctor’s office called today. It’s time for Lass’s six-month checkup.”

  He flicked her a glance, then nodded.

  “You could come in and have lunch with us the day of the appointment,” she suggested. She liked for parents to take part in their child’s life as much as possible. “It would be good for Lass,” she added at his unreadable glance.

  “We’ll see.”

  Not exactly a promise, but she knew he would. He’d do anything for his daughter. The baby had him wrapped right around her finger. Molly had known that the moment he brought the infant to the nursery school.

  Normally she didn’t take children under six months, but Lass’s mother had died in childbirth. Sam had taken sole care of his tiny daughter for two months, then asked if Molly would take her during the day. She wasn’t sure why she’d broken her own rule and agreed.

  “Why don’t you hire someone to stay at the house with Lass while you do your work?” she’d asked.

  “I don’t have anyone I’d trust with her,” he’d answered in his blunt, but honest way. “Everyone knows you run the best nursery school around and that your reputation is spotless.”

  She’d preened a bit at the time. And from such moments, fantasies were born. For the first month, she’d gotten shaky whenever he came for Lass, knowing he’d never give her a glance.

  Time and lack of nourishment had starved those dreams into thin, pale images barely remembered now. She wondered if he was still mourning the loss of his wife.

  Their food came. He finished with Lass and gave her the rabbit to chew on while they ate.

  “This is very good.” Molly was determined to m
ake pleasant conversation. A relaxed atmosphere aided the digestion.

  He glanced at the cashew chicken dish she’d ordered and nodded. He continued with his steak.

  A half a pound of red meat. She hoped he didn’t eat that way all the time. Ranchers worked very hard and burned a lot of calories, but all that fat and cholesterol wasn’t good. However, she wasn’t going to expound on that. Dinner should be enjoyable.

  “I wonder if the weather pattern is going to hold another week.” Ranchers were always concerned about the weather so she knew it was a topic Sam would be interested in.

  He gave a noncommittal grunt.

  She felt her hackles begin to rise. She really hated to lose her temper. It was so uncivilized.

  “Someone said the Pecos was near the top of its banks in several places south of us,” she continued.

  He paused and frowned. A shrug of his shoulders indicated there was nothing he could do about the river if it flooded.

  Molly chewed, swallowed and patted her mouth with the napkin before she spoke. “Mr. Frazier, it is considered polite to respond when someone is talking to you.” She gave him a sterling smile that, combined with the reprimand, usually brought about the desired change in behavior.

  He gave her a long perusal, studying her as thoroughly as a horse buyer looking over stock that was being touted as prime and suspecting it wasn’t. He had a way of gazing at a person from under those dark, imposing eyebrows that was intimidating.

  She hadn’t studied motivational psychology for nothing. “It is also considered correct to engage in conversation during a meal. We are not primitives, are we?”

  A flash of emotion went through his eyes. She thought perhaps she’d gone too far, that he was furious. Then he smiled.

  His teeth were startling white. against the duskiness of his skin. His father had had some Mexican and Indian blood, she’d heard. Certainly he didn’t look as Anglo as his name implied.