“What you want is a family sitter. Someone that will allow you the freedom to be with your children?”
Her cheeks flamed. “I want a family, father included.”
“How is the father included?”
She turned her head away, her eyes bright with the suspicion of tears. She didn't answer.
“Bonnie.” He waited, testing the feel of her name on his tongue. “Bonnie, this has to be discussed. It's not as if we met one day and wanted to share our lives with each other. I've never wanted to settle down with a woman. I do want the land. Why was the husband part included? ”
“I⦔ She drew a deep breath. “I want a husband. Someone to sit beside me in church. Someone to talk to over the supper table. Someone to share life with. I cannot leave the state of Florida unless I can show a stable life elsewhere for my children. This is a chance for a new life. My lawyer advised me long ago, unless I'm married with a secure future, the courts won't allow it. I don't want someone who doesn't care for my kids. I thought someone committed to the land would be willing to work toward a partnership with the children and me. I want a family.”
She continued, her words touched with anger and a little confusion, “Someone who thinks I'm worth something. As you've brought to light, I didn't take everything into account.”
Reaching across the table he caught her hand, halting her effort to leave. “I think there's another question here.” Although he tried to still his mouth from smiling, the mustache couldn't quite hide his twitching lips. He released the trembling warmth of her hand gently. “Do you want me?”
After a stunned moment, she slipped out of the booth to glare haughtily down at him. “I came up with the idea. I'm willing to strive and sacrifice to make it work.” She walked out without giving him the answer he wanted.
It wasn't as if he had come here not knowing that she wanted marriage and nothing else. He had initially agreed to talk to her the day Dick took him to see the land. The thought of living on the ranch had his mind constantly planning how to run the place.
The owner of that majestic rugged land was one beautiful, strong-minded woman to match. She would be a partner to walk beside a man. If her ex-husband stayed out of the picture, they could probably make a life. The kids were another matter.
He had plenty of practice being the rodeo hero, but he had never dealt with kids as a father. A picture of the valley flashed before him. Heck, how hard could it be?
~*~
Bonnie sat in the car behind the diner and leaned her head against the steering wheel. No matter how many deep breaths she took, she couldn't stop her heart from its panicked flight. Fear wrapped around her, and she shook as she gripped the smooth finger grooves. How could she have ever thought this was right? When had she taken leave of her senses? Why did she think someone would want to be married to her? Ed hadn't. Shying away from the memory of her ex-husband's belittlement, she raised a tortured gaze to the air-conditioning ducts running up the green exterior wall of the diner.
She was so alone! She needed her mother. In agony, she cried into her hands as she felt the loss of her family wash over her in a tidal wave of despair. The void was so consuming. Her kids were so confused, and she couldn't rally enough to help them. Utter black loneliness filled her until she wept with broken pain.
“Oh, God! I'm so alone. So alone. What am I going to do? I'm losing my children. I've lost my family. I can't keep going to court. God, you know Ed doesn't want the children. He just doesn't want to pay child support. I don't think I can take any more. Please, God, guide me. What was I thinking?
She thought about the meeting with the soft-spoken cowboy. She had been careful not to arrive with any expectations to this meeting.
Weeks before, Dick had let her check out other prospects from a distance, without letting them know about the land.
This one was different; he knew the situation because Dick said that was the only way the guy would consider meeting her. Dick said he was a stubborn mule of a man but good to the core.
She breathed slowly through her nose and turned on the engine. It was sweltering inside the car. She hadn't expected him to be so tall. Her mouth tightened wryly.
Or so beat up. He had dark green bruises in places that weren't bandaged. He had bandages or casts on every limb.
As the air inside the car cooled, she settled back in the seat.
He had smiled at one point, but with the thick mustache it was difficult to judge emotions from his lips. He'd said he believed in God.
Even so, she was drawn to him, beard roughened cheeks and all, and that made her need for objectivity greater.
“God, I have to rely on Your wisdom. I know it is not Your will that my kids be treated so callously by their father and to be torn apart like this. They should have a chance to grow up happy. I don't want this decision to be about me. If it is not Your will that I provide them a home away from the bickering, then, please, help me guide them through this. I am going to put a fleece before You. If Baya McKnight is interested, give me a sign that this is Your will. Give me the means to get to know him.”
She prayed that she had actually seen and heard honesty and strength in him. She wanted him to be the one.
He hadn't tried to laugh his way through the meeting. He hadn't propositioned her. He had asked questions and waited for answers, answers he actually listened to. He treated her as an equal.
God knew she needed a partner if Ed continued to harass her. With a husband who knew how to run the ranch, she could tell Ed to keep his child support and maybe he'd leave her alone, finally.
As she put the car in gear she glanced in the rearview mirror and caught sight of the cowboy leaving the diner.
He swung awkwardly on the crutches and propped himself against the truck before opening the door.
She quit breathing. Closing her eyes she told herself it was self-preservation that didn't want him to see her. It was not because he was beautiful to look at. She shook her head. He was much too thin. She wouldn't get excited over someone as bony as her ex-husband.
He pulled himself into the truck with bulging muscles of his arms and something warmed inside her. Focusing on his beautiful profile, she sighed. Just what she had ordered, but was it something she really wanted? As the truck pulled away from the curb, she wondered if her offer was something he wanted. Suddenly, it mattered whether he wanted her or not.
As the truck drove away she felt peace swell over her. “Lord, it is in Your hands. I will wait for You to guide me.”
2
It had taken two months of phone calls and letters to come to a decision. During that time, Bonnie faced yet another court hearing in Florida because Ed had refused to pay child support, claiming the liquidation of the Pennsylvania house should happen first.
Bonnie had told him this as they worked out details.
Baya had begun work on the house in Wyoming while waiting for his injuries to heal. He now stood, without crutches, beside Bonnie on the church lawn beneath a Spanish moss draped oak tree under a sunny Florida sky.
The pastor spoke the simple words and Baya turned to push a plain gold band onto her finger. Staring down at the slender hand resting in his, he felt a tremor of the commitment they had made run through him like an electric current.
The soft pink dress enhanced the warm gold of her tan. Around them the world cocooned the little family in tropical green.
“You may kiss the bride.” The preacher's voice intoned.
Her head jerked a little as she looked up. He smiled as he placed a chaste kiss on her lips.
The children standing behind them swept forward and clustered around her.
The boy was making noise and stumbling over his feet.
The oldest girl pushed her heavy hair over her shoulder. It fell almost to her waist in a pale blonde swath. Her coloring was much like her mother's, but her eyes were an almost crystal gray.
The youngest girl stood clutching her mother's leg. She peeked shyly at him with her thumb stuck in her mouth. Her unruly curls were as blonde as the older sibling's.
The boy had brown curls as unrestrained as his little sister. Like her, his eyes were a startlingly deep royal blue that promised cheerful character and devilish grins.
Faith, Daniel, and Hope. They were his kids, now.
Bonnie spoke to each one, adding a touch on a cheek or a hand scuffed over curls. She crouched enough to lift the four-year-old to her hip.
The thumb came out of the pouty red mouth as the blonde head rested against the silk clad shoulder.
A movement at the side of the mother had him glancing at the oldest girl. Her unsmiling stare proclaimed deep distrust. The distance from Wyoming to Florida had made it impossible to meet the children.
How was he supposed to get acquainted now?
“Hey, are you a real cowboy?” The boy had none of the girls' inhibitions as he broke through Baya's thoughts. “Do cowboys fish? Mom says we're gonna live in Wyoming. Is there a swimming pool there? We have a swimming pool.”
He looked down at the inquisitive bundle of energy. Under the unruly hair, the eager face studied him with open friendliness. He glanced at the older girl again. Caution and concern shone from her gaze. He shifted his weight carefully onto his good leg to hunker next to the boy.
“Wyoming is wonderful. We have our own creek. It's dammed up and forms a pond to swim in. I thought we could hang a rope swing on a tree limb and have a great time.”
“Neat. I can climb trees. I'm the captain of my swim team at the Y. Can Faith and Hope swim, too? Is it just for guys?”
“Do they swim?”
“Faith can. Hope has swimmies still. I swim best. I can do back flips off the diving board.”
“We don't have a diving board. The swing will have to do.”
With a tilt of his head, the boy thought about it a moment. “OK. Mom, you hear that?” He turned away to put grubby hands around the middle of the pink dress. A hand reached out to brush through the tousled hair.
Something like fear gripped his heart. So this was a family. The four strangers he had married. He looked up from the kids to catch Bonnie biting her lip again. The questions he saw in her face made him straighten his shoulders as he stood.
“They are beautiful, Bonnie.” A smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. He liked using her name. He liked the way it rolled off his tongue. It bonded them together as surely as the rings on their fingers. Strange how he had never wanted to be bonded before, yet here before him stood three anxious females and one energetic boy whose futures depended on him, a banged-up rodeo bum. His smile deepened. “I think a good meal is called for before we set our sights toward the west.”
~*~
By four o'clock they were on the way home to Wyoming, the interstate stretching endlessly before them. Baya drove his truck, and Bonnie drove the station wagon.
Baya pondered that word. Home. He was going home.
Daniel had asked to ride with him and now the boy sat, bouncy and talkative in the boxy truck as they traveled farther into the creeping dusk.
Completely out of his depth with the child, Baya fielded as many questions as he could and learned that a seven-year-old was quick to master the art of map reading with plenty of help from him. He sighed with relief when a bucket of army men was opened and dumped on the seat between them.
The pint-sized boy scrambled among them as he began building a war.
Bonnie was in the station wagon behind him.
They'd agreed that he would take the boy and she would take the girls for the first part of the trip.
She joked one boy was equal to the problems of two girls, and that suited him just fine.
He reminded himself to refer to the children by their names. For all intents and purposes, they were his now as well.
The girls made him a lot more uncomfortable than the boy did. What did one do with little girls? Baby Hope was four, but he had no experience with babies, infant or any other size. Each time he tried to talk to her, she hid behind her mother.
The oldest girl, Faith made him feel ill at ease. She looked disapproving, as though she was waiting for him to do something wrong.
When he tried to communicate with her, she flipped her waist length hair over her shoulder with raised eyebrows and there was a distinctive narrowing of her nostrils while turning her back to him.
He didn't even try to talk to Daniel.
The boy chattered constantly without waiting for rebuttal, but at least he was cheerful and friendly.
Baya pulled out a map from the sun visor and folded it, dividing his attention between the highway and map. If he had charted everything correctly, they would make it through Alabama tonight. From there they would head northwest. In the side view mirrors, the gray station wagon followed down the interminable stretch of highway.
The boy settled into maneuvers, quietly advancing with whispered stealth. Sounds of explosions and shots popped out of his mouth, startling Baya out of his lassitude. By seven o'clock, the brown head was laying on the seat as the little tanned hands pushed the soldiers around listlessly.
“Do you want to lay down on the seat?” Baya asked, after watching the head bob crazily as it nodded toward sleep.
“Nah.” The tired blue eyes propped themselves open, and he moved the army men with forced vigor.
Baya turned his attention back to the road. A half hour later, his head swiveled again toward the boy when he heard the sounds of small plastic toys falling on the floorboards of the truck.
Daniel snuggled against the back of the seat, his seatbelt only hampering him a little. Within moments, the kid's mouth was hanging open as he fell into instantaneous deep sleep.
Night closed around them with its encroaching stillness. Only the light stretch of road, opening as a path before him, guided Baya on. Around eleven he noticed the lights behind him blinking on and off. He pulled over, and after slowly stretching his cramped legs, got down from the truck to limp back to the station wagon.