A picnic with his sister-and Miss McGuire-suddenly sounded very good. “Thank you,” he said simply, humbled suddenly by her attempt.
He glanced at a basket that was sitting on a table just inside.
“Where’s your father?”
“He and Howie are looking for strays. We’ve been losing cattle.”
“Does he know I’m back?”
“Why should he care?” The lie was in her eyes. She had not told him. She had probably even encouraged him to leave today. She had guessed far more than he’d realized. He had been in the mood to confront McGuire if he had tried to keep him from his sister.
Her gaze met his. Damn but her eyes were pretty. Appealing in their uncertainty. He had learned she was not an uncertain woman. Something intense flared through him. A combination of desire and attraction.
Hell, she was the last woman in the world that should arouse such a reaction.
“I’ll hitch the buggy,” he said, tearing his gaze away from her.
Moments later, Elizabeth McGuire emerged from the house, one hand holding Marilee’s, the other holding the basket and a blanket.
He took the basket and blanket from her, placed them in the buggy, and went to swing Marilee into the buggy.
Instead, she shied away. At least, he comforted himself, she didn’t run from him in terror.
He steeled himself against the hurt and moved away. He’d already decided to ride Chance. Now he knew it was a good decision.
Elizabeth helped Marilee into the buggy. Then Elizabeth accepted his hand in stepping up. A pair of very shapely legs showed as her dress hitched up. Her hand felt warm in his.
Warm, hell! It was burning.
He stepped away as if burned. She looked just as startled.
He mounted Chance and followed her as she drove to a spot along the river. The water was down now, barely more than a stream, but it was shaded by cottonwoods and spotted by wildflowers.
He knew every foot of this bank. He and his brothers used to swim here when it was swollen, and fished when it carried only a trickle of water. For a moment, those scenes flashed back. He saw Dillon teasing the twins, daring them to swim across. They tried, and he had to jump in and keep them from being carried downstream. He had given them only a few more years.
He dismounted and hobbled Chance. This time he didn’t try to help either Marilee or Elizabeth McGuire down. He’d realized he couldn’t force himself on Marilee. He might lose her forever if he tried.
Instead, he stood aside until they were both down, then he reached in the buggy and picked up the picnic basket and blanket. He found a spot under a cottonwood and spread the blanket on the ground.
Still, Marilee looked at him suspiciously.
He knelt in front of her, so his eyes could meet hers. He did not want to be a giant. “I’m Dillon’s brother, you know,” he said.
Marilee looked at him with wide eyes. “Dillon went away.”
He wanted to say he had seen Dillon, but he couldn’t. Not in front of the woman.
“I know,” he said softly. “But I’m here. I used to hold you when you were a baby. I used to sing you songs.”
Marilee backed into Elizabeth McGuire but her gaze didn’t leave his.
Progress.
“What songs?” she finally asked.
He hummed a lullaby he used to sing to her, then voiced the words, feeling them strangling in his throat. He had loved music. His entire family had. How many nights had they sat together, he and his father playing their guitars, his brother a harmonica. He hadn’t seen that guitar in almost five years. It was something else still at the home which had been his family’s.
He finished the song, a French lullaby his mother had taught him.
“Dillon used to sing that to me,” Marilee said slowly. Though her body still leaned into Elizabeth’s, some of the reserve had left her expression.
He looked up at Elizabeth and saw tears hovering in her eyes.
Those eyes were so clear, so damnably honest.
The tears weren’t there for herself. Certainly not for him. They were there for his sister.
He sat down on the blanket. “Your mother used to sing it to Dillon and me,” he said. “She died not long after you were born.”
“Where are my other brothers? Papa said there were four.”
“Two died. They are in…heaven.” He didn’t really believe in heaven. Not after visiting hell on earth. “But they loved you. And they are looking after you.”
“Why didn’t they look after Papa?”
“I don’t know, sweetpea. Maybe it happened before they could do anything.”
She looked at him with skepticism, even as she kept as close to Elizabeth as a shadow. “Dillon called me sweetpea,” she said.
“We all did,” he said gently. “We all loved you.”
A rustling sound came from the trees beyond. He spun around, rising to his feet in one fast movement, his hand going automatically to the gun in its holster.
He heard a child’s scream behind him.
But he couldn’t holster the gun. Dillon had warned him. Delaney’s men were not above an ambush. They had not been above frightening-perhaps killing-a woman by making her horse bolt.
No one was going to harm one of his again. No one!
“Mr. Sinclair?”
Elizabeth’s soft voice was full of questions. He hadn’t realized how soft it was.
“I heard a noise,” he said as his gaze moved around the brush and trees. He heard another sound, this time more of a whimper.
He moved forward slowly, keeping the gun in his hand. Another sound. Something moving through the underbrush. He didn’t think it was a man now. An animal of some kind. Perhaps a wounded one.
He moved silently ahead.
The whimpering became louder.
And then he saw it.
A small bundle of wet fur huddled and shivering near a tree.
A puppy.
He holstered his gun and leaned down and picked it up.
He wondered what had happened to its mother. Or maybe someone wanted to get rid of extra pups by throwing them in the river. He couldn’t leave it here to die. It was too young to care for itself.
When he returned to the picnic site, Elizabeth McGuire was standing, her arms protectively on Marilee’s shoulders. His sister’s eyes went immediately to the puppy.
“Something must have happened to her mother,” he said. “I think she’s hungry.” Seeing the sudden light in his sister’s eyes, he hoped like hell the pup lived.
“Can I hold her?” Marilee asked.
He hesitated. The puppy could be sick. But the longing in his sister’s eyes made it impossible to refuse. He handed the ball of wet fluff to her.
The puppy immediately settled in her lap.
Yet he noticed that though she took the puppy, she still regarded him warily.
Because of the way he’d drawn the gun? Her cry echoed in his mind.
Violence was second nature to him, his gun an extended part of him. Could his sister accept that?
He watched as Marilee cuddled the pup. His eyes met Elizabeth’s, and he saw understanding there, and… something else.
His chest ached almost unbearably as he saw her gaze return to his sister and the puppy. Tenderness radiated in that one glance. He felt his heart explode. He had seen too much pain and death and defeat. He had stopped believing in hope and justice. But in that moment he knew those things were still alive. Had to be alive.
She looked back up at him, and his breath caught. Her eyes glowed with an admiration that made him feel ten feet tall, like a hero.
It was just a puppy.
She seemed to feel that it was much more. But, for God’s sake, what had she expected him to do? Drown the animal?
“She’s going to need milk,” he said.
But the puppy seemed to have wanted safety more than anything else. She huddled in Marilee’s lap, the dog’s small face burrowing into her arms.
“Can I keep her?” Marilee said, nuzzling the wet fur.
Elizabeth threw a questioning look his way.