Protector. Diana Palmer

a genuine smile. “They’re great kids.”

      She was impressed. “Thanks.”

      “You’ve done very well with them,” he continued. “It must have been difficult.” He spoke as if the words were dragged out of him.

      Minette smiled faintly. “It wasn’t as if I had a choice. I couldn’t give them up for adoption or let them be placed in an orphanage. I promised my stepmother I’d take care of them.”

      “Your stepmother was a good woman,” Hayes remarked.

      She nodded. “She was one of the sweetest people I’ve ever known. Always doing good works, taking care of people who needed her. I admired her.” She hesitated. “I loved her.”

      “Your...father was kind, too.”

      She was hesitant. “He was. He was my stepfather, you know, not my real father. I don’t know who my real father is. Mama never told me.” She moved closer. “But Stan kept secrets.” She frowned. “He said that he knew something that he had to tell me, but he put it off until it was too late. When he was dying, and he lost his voice after the stroke, he even tried to write it down.” She drew in a long breath. “But what he wrote was just gibberish. I’ve wondered about what it could be.” She laughed after a minute. “We don’t have any dark family secrets. It was probably something about the kids that he wanted me to know.”

      “Yes.” But Hayes was oddly quiet when he said that.

      She stared at him. “Hayes, do you know something about me that you’re not telling?”

      His heart jumped. He stared at her intently. He wanted to say something. He really did. But at the last, he recalled his father’s words and the promise he’d been forced to make. When he gave his word, he kept it. Always.

      “No,” he lied with a straight face. “No, I do not know anything. Anything at all. Honest.”

      She cocked her head. “I read true crime books. I learn a lot from them. Usually when people don’t want to tell the truth, their speech pattern is an indication of that. They speak very formally, without contractions, and they repeat the protest over and above what’s called for.”

      Hayes’s high cheekbones actually flushed.

      “You do know something,” she guessed. “Is it something terrible? I can’t believe you wouldn’t want to tell me. I’m the enemy, after all, isn’t that right?”

      His sensuous lips compressed into a straight line. “If I’m the enemy why are you taking care of me?”

      Her heart jumped at the way he said it.

      He saw her reaction, and his antagonism took a nosedive. She was very pretty when she was upset. Her face became pink and radiant, her freckles stood out. Her black eyes glittered with true beauty.

      “People who keep dinosaurs arouse sympathy?” she asked after a minute.

      He burst out laughing. “Andy isn’t a dinosaur.”

      “See? When you denied that, you used a contraction.”

      “Minette, you can’t learn everything from books,” he pointed out.

      “Oh, it’s not just books, I’m all over the internet reading case files,” she replied.

      He frowned. “Why aren’t you out dating men?”

      “Oh, sure, that’s a great idea,” she mused. She glanced toward the door and hesitated, listening, to make sure the children couldn’t overhear. “So many men want to get serious about a woman with two small dependents. They line up at my door every day.”

      “I see.”

      “There was one guy, who was visiting his grandmother here. He asked me out in the newspaper office. I was at a loose end and he seemed very nice. He came to pick me up for the date. Julie and Shane were waiting with me at the door.” Her face was sad. “I couldn’t believe he was the same man when we went to dinner. He was stiff, polite, formal, and he rushed through the meal and took me straight home. Before he left, he blurted out that I was a nice woman and he liked me, but he wasn’t going to saddle himself with someone else’s kids. I pointed out that they were my stepfather and stepmother’s kids and he said it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to start out with a ready-made family. He made it quite clear.”

      Hayes stared at her intently. “You love those kids.”

      “Of course I do. I’ve taken care of them since they were born,” she reminded him, her voice soft and gentle with reminiscence. “My stepmother’s health was precarious at best, and after Shane and Julie were born, it grew quickly worse. I picked up the slack.” She felt tears threaten. “Dawn was one of the kindest people I ever knew. She was very much like what I remember of my mother. I nursed her, right up until the end. I promised her that I’d care for her children as if they were my very own, and I keep my promises.”

      “So do I,” Hayes admitted.

      “My stepfather had a stroke, and then a heart attack, not too long after Dawn died. He tried so hard to talk to me, to write to me, to make me understand what he wanted to tell me. But I never could. I looked through all their papers, searching for something they’d written down. There was nothing.” She smiled. “Probably it was about the kids.”

      Hayes managed to look innocent. “I imagine it was.”

      Her eyes narrowed. She was remembering another conversation. “You might tell me one day, huh?” she asked suddenly.

      “When pigs fly,” he blurted out.

      She moved closer to the bed. “Why won’t you tell me?”

      He drew in a ragged breath. “I keep my promises, too.”

      “What does that mean?”

      Mercifully there was a small riot downstairs, Julie yelling at Shane about a toy.

      “You’d better get down there before bloodshed ensues,” Hayes told her, relieved at the interruption.

      She threw up her hands and raced down the staircase.

      Chapter 3

      It was a new experience for Hayes to have children around, especially children who liked him and curled up with him in bed to watch cartoon movies.

      Minette was surprised and touched at how quickly the big, taciturn sheriff melted when the kids cuddled with him. Even Shane did it, although he was older and usually standoffish with people he didn’t know. Hayes knew most of the wrestlers by name, which made him Shane’s best friend almost at once. They were trying to talk about their favorites while the movie was on, and Julie kept shushing them. It was amusing to Minette.

      They watched the movies, but they were always asking questions. What was that place, who did that, could that happen in real life? It went on and on. He never seemed to mind trying to answer those questions, and he was incredibly patient. Patience was not a word that Minette had ever associated with Hayes Carson. In fact, he was well-known for the opposite.

      “Okay, you two, time for bed,” Minette said when the movie finished playing.

      “Awwwww,” Shane grumbled.

      “Do we have to go now?” Julie protested, clinging to Hayes. “What if Hayes gets sick in the night? Can’t we stay with him?”

      Hayes was touched beyond words. He swallowed, hard. “Thanks, Julie,” he said softly, and he smiled.

      She grinned at him. “Can you tell us a story?” she asked.

      “Yes,” Shane agreed. “We want a story!”

      Hayes glanced at Minette, who looked confused and faintly irritated. “I’m sorry, kids,” he said gently, “but most of the stories I know wouldn’t quite suit.”

      “Do