Honey and the Hired Hand. Joan Johnston

you have that hired hand, it ought to make things easier on you.”

      They had arrived at the two-story wood frame ranch house built by Cale’s grandfather. Adam stopped his car outside the glow of the front porch light. He came around and opened the door and pulled her out of the car and into his arms.

      Honey was caught off guard. Even so, as Adam’s lips sought her mouth she quickly turned aside so he kissed her cheek instead.

      Adam lifted his head and looked down at her, searching her features in the shadows. Something had changed between them tonight. He thought of the stranger he had found with Honey on the Mastersons’ back porch and felt a knot form in his stomach. He had always known that his relationship with Honey was precarious. He had hoped that once they were married she would come to love him as much as he loved her. He hadn’t counted on another man coming into the picture.

      Honey kept her face averted for a moment longer but knew that was the coward’s way out. She had to face Adam and tell him what she was feeling.

      “Adam, I—”

      He put his fingertips on her lips. “Don’t say anything. Just kiss me good night, and I’ll go.”

      Honey looked up into his eyes and saw a tenderness that made her ache. Why didn’t she love this man? She allowed his lips to touch hers and it was as pleasant as she remembered. But when he tried to deepen the kiss, she backed away.

      “Honey?”

      “I’m sorry, Adam. It’s been a long day.”

      He looked confused and even a little hurt. But she had tried twice to refuse his proposal and he hadn’t let her do it. Maybe her response to his kiss had told him what she hadn’t said in words. Then he smiled, and she could have cried because his words were thoughtful, his voice tender. “Good night, Honey. Get some rest. I’ll call you next week.”

      He would, too. Good old reliable Adam. She was a fool not to leap at the chance to marry such a man.

      Honey stood in the shadows until he was gone. When she turned toward the house she saw the living room curtain drop. That would be her older son, Jack. He kept an eagle eye on her, which hadn’t helped Adam’s courtship. She called out to him as she unlocked the door and stepped inside.

      “Come on down, Jack. I know you’re still awake.”

      The lanky thirteen-year-old ambled back down the stairs he had just raced up. “He didn’t stay long,” Jack said. “You tell him no?”

      “I haven’t given him an answer.”

      “But you’re going to say no, right?”

      She heard the anxiety in Jack’s voice. He wasn’t ready to let anyone in their closed circle and most certainly not a man to take his father’s place. She didn’t dare tell him how she really felt before she told Adam, because her son was likely to blurt it out at an inopportune moment. She simply said, “I haven’t made a decision.”

      Honey put an arm around her son’s shoulder and realized he was nearly as tall as she was. Oh, Cale. I wish you could see how your sons have grown! “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go make some hot chocolate.”

      “I’d rather have coffee,” Jack said.

      She arched a brow at him. “Coffee will keep me awake, and I need all the rest I can get.”

      Jack eyed her and announced somberly, “School will be out in about three weeks, Mom. I don’t think I can do any more around here until then.”

      “You don’t have to,” she said. “I’ve hired a man to help out.”

      “I thought we couldn’t afford hired help.”

      “He’ll be working for room and board.”

      “Oh. What’s he like?”

      Honey wasn’t about to answer that question. She couldn’t have explained how she felt about the drifter right now. “He’ll be here in the morning and you can ask him all the questions you want.”

      From the look her son gave her, she suspected Jack would grill the drifter like a hamburger. She smiled. That, she couldn’t wait to see.

      Jesse Whitelaw had another big surprise coming if he harbored any notions of pursuing Honey on her home ground. Her teenage son was a better chaperon than a Spanish duenna.

      Two

      Honey yawned and stretched, forcing the covers off and exposing bare skin to the predawn chill. She scooted back underneath the blanket and pulled it up over her shoulders. She was more tired than she ought to be first thing in the morning, but she hadn’t slept well. For the first time in over a year, however, it wasn’t memories of Cale that had kept her awake.

      The drifter!

      Honey bolted upright in her bed. He was supposed to show up bright and early this morning. She glanced out the lace curtains in her upstairs bedroom and realized it was later than she’d thought. Her sons would already be up and getting ready for school. She tossed the covers away, shivering again as the cold air hit flesh exposed by her baby doll pajamas. She grabbed Cale’s white terry cloth robe and scuffed her feet into tattered slippers before hurriedly heading downstairs.

      Halfway down, she heard Jonathan’s excited voice. At eight he still sounded a bit squeaky. Jack’s adolescent response was lower-pitched, but his voice occasionally broke when he least expected it. She was already in the kitchen by the time she realized they weren’t talking to each other.

      The drifter was sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee before him. Honey clutched the robe to her throat, her mouth agape.

      “Catch a lot of flies that way,” the drifter said with a lazy grin.

      Her jaws snapped closed.

      “Good morning,” he said, touching a finger to the brim of his Stetson.

      “Is it?” she retorted.

      His skin looked golden in the sunlight. There were fine lines around his eyes and deep brackets around his mouth that had been washed out by the artificial light the previous evening. He was older than she’d thought, maybe middle thirties. But his dark eyes were as piercing as she remembered, and he pinned her with his stare. Honey felt naked.

      She gripped the front of the masculine robe tighter, conscious of how she was dressed—or rather, not dressed. She thrust a hand into her shoulder-length hair, which tumbled in riotous natural curls around her face. She wondered how her mascara had survived the night. Usually it ended up clumped on the ends of her eyelashes or smudged underneath them. She reached up to wipe at her eyes, then stuck her hand in the pocket of the robe. It wasn’t her fault he’d found her looking like something the cat dragged in.

      Honey didn’t want to admit that the real reason she resented this unsettling man’s presence in her kitchen so early in the morning was that she hadn’t wanted him to see her looking so…so mussed.

      “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

      He raised a brow as though the answer was obvious. And it was.

      “I let him in,” Jack said, his hazel eyes anxious. “You said the hired hand was coming this morning. I thought it would be okay.”

      Honey took several steps into the room and laid a hand on her older son’s shoulder. “You did fine. I’m just a little surprised at how early Mr. Whitelaw got here.”

      “He said we can call him Jesse,” Jonathan volunteered.

      Honey bristled. The man had certainly made himself at home.

      “Jesse helped me make my sandwich,” Jonathan added, holding up a brown paper bag.

      Honey’s left hand curled into a fist in the pocket of the robe. “That was nice.” Her voice belied the words.

      “Jesse