Sweet Dreamin' Baby Read online

  "I got things to do in the mornin', so ... if you're done stickin' your nose where it don't belong . . ." she said, feeling awkward.

  He grinned and laughed. "Are ya askin’ me to leave?"

  “Yes."

  "I thought so," he said, still grinning, his eyes sparkling with humor. With his fingers on the door handle he turned back to her, saying, "I don't suppose you'd take money from me for a room. No strings. You could take your time payin' it back."

  "What's this? Charity?" She drew back and stiffened as if he'd spit on her.

  He held up both hands. "Sorry. It was just a thought. I knew better than to offer it."

  "I don't need charity."

  "I know. I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head. He'd made a stupid move and he knew it. She had too much pride to take even the smallest kindness from him, but he couldn't reconcile himself to leaving her cold, alone, and unprotected.

  "That thing with the gun was good. Had me shakin' in my boots," he said, stalling.

  "Really?" She thought of Granny Yeager and was flattered by his compliment. Praise wasn't something she was used to, but she thought she could learn to like it.

  "Really. But the knife couldn't split a biscuit and butter it." She thought it best not to comment.

  After one long final inspection of her, he said, "Good night, Ellis."

  Ellis leaned her head against the rear window of the truck and listened to the fading crunch, crunch, crunch of Bryce's footsteps in the frozen snow outside. She smiled. She fancied Bryce LaSalle more than any man she'd ever met before. He was big and strong and handsome, but what she especially admired was that he laughed and listened and didn't fly off the handle when he was angry or frustrated.

  She favored the way he made her feel too—safe and worth worrying about. New feelings that she wanted to embrace but approached with caution.

  "Steady, Ellis," she said aloud, reestablishing her priorities and putting Bryce on the bottom of the pile. She didn't have time to fill her head with sparkling cobwebs and fairy tales. She had responsibilities. She had promises to keep. She had plans for her life, and none of them included Bryce LaSalle.

  She scooted back behind the steering wheel and performed the little song and dance that started the engine to warm the cab again. She opened the window a smidgen and smiled as she relaxed to await the heat.

  He surely made her feel funny, she thought, her mind slipping back to Bryce involuntarily. She stroked her abdomen mindlessly as she recalled the airy flutters and pulsating sensations that his presence stirred. The breathlessness. The erratic beating of her heart. She wondered if these queer spells were the feelings she'd heard other women speak of from time to time.

  Effie Watson had once told her that sometimes there was a commotion in a woman's body that told her to mate with a certain man, and that once felt, the urge could build to be so great that it would drive a woman plum insane. More than once, Effie had laid the blame for Ellis's birth on that very urge. Was what she felt with Bryce the commotion Effie had told her about? The thought concerned her deeply. She knew what came from mating with a man—babies. And at the moment, a baby wasn't what she'd call a better alternative to going insane.

  "Ellis?"

  "Ayah!" she cried, startled by a loud thump on the window beside her. Again she saw the blacker than black silhouette of a man outside the truck.

  "It's just me," Bryce bellowed over the clamor of the engine.

  "You're wearin' on my nerves," she said sharply, rolling the window down a little more.

  "Scared?" She couldn't see his face but she heard the teasing grin in his voice.

  "No. I was . . . thinkin'. What do you want now?"

  "I waited to see if you were gonna need that jump-start on your motor, but then I got to thinkin' . . ." She groaned and her head fell against the window with a thud. "Listen now. I think I can help you." She groaned again. "Okay. Forget it."

  Over the unsteady roar of the engine she could hear him walking away. Her curiosity got the better of her.

  "Wait," she called, opening the door but not getting out. "I got the awfullest feelin' I shouldn't ask, but what were ya thinkin' about?"

  Crunch, crunch, crunch.

  “You," he said, closer to her than she'd realized. Her hand pressed against the riot in her belly. "I was thinkin' about you."

  "Well, don't." Lord, that was all she needed. She'd go insane for sure. "Forget ya ever met me, will ya? I don't want ya thinkin' about me."

  "Can't help it. You're on my mind."

  Ellis wanted to scream. If she threw him in a river, the man would float upstream!

  “Tell me what ya gotta say. I'm lettin' all my heat out here."

  "I was wonderin' if you'd consider takin' a second job? It ain't permanent work, only part-time for a couple months. It doesn't pay much, but it comes with a room and meals," he said.

  'What is it? What do I have to do?" she asked, a master of distrust.

  "Cooking. Cleaning. Nothing much, really. My sister-in-law is expectin' her baby soon. She works at the mill all day, and she gets real tired. Her and my brother have been talkin' about gettin' someone to come in to help out for a while," he said casually, though he was far from feeling it. He felt a tremendous need to get the little angel in out of the cold and protect her, as if it were a religious crusade. He wasn't sure why, only that he did.

  "They was plannin' to get live-in help?" she asked. Were they rich?

  "Well, no," he admitted, readily adding, "But if you were willin' to take a small cut in pay to help with the food, they could put ya up. The house is big and ya met my brother—he's a good ol' boy—and Anne, his wife, is the best." He paused. "She'd be grateful for the help," he said in a soft, persuasive voice when she continued to hold back her enthusiasm.

  Pregnant, huh? No woman that Ellis had ever known got help before the baby was born.

  "If she's poorly, how come she's still workin' at the mill?" she asked, sensing there was something cockeyed in Bryce's offer.

  “Who? Anne? She's as healthy as a horse, 'cept she's tired all the time."

  "Well, if she's on her feet, there's no call for—"

  "Buck's nuts about her," he said, breaking in as he tucked his hands in his armpits to keep them warm. She could hear him flapping his arms like a chicken to keep his blood moving in the cold. "And he's a little . . . excited about this baby. I think he'd stay home and wait on her hand and foot himself, if he didn't have to pay the doctor bills."

  What a strange notion. Ellis thought she might take the job, just to watch Buck. However, as amused as she was, she was also thinking with the practical side of her brain. Winter was only beginning, and the weather held no promise of getting any warmer for several months to come. Living in a house would be safer, she knew. She couldn't fulfill her promise or get back what belonged to her if she were sick or hurt or worse. Besides, how much trouble could it be to clean up after two people who weren't home most of the day?

  “I’ll do what I can to help this sister-in-law of yours, but I can't see that it'd be all that much," she said.

  "You can work that out with her in the m-morning," he said, wondering when he'd get a chance to discuss his plan with Buck and Anne. His teeth chattered while the truck's heater blew hot air up inside Ellis's blanket. "Follow me. It ain't far."

  "I'm not goin' with ya tonight," she said, appalled at the suggestion.

  "Why not?" Ah, jeez. Couldn't she be beautiful and magnificently independent and proud without being stubborn?

  "Don't ya know what time it is? They'll be fast asleep."

  "Th-that's okay. I can sh-show ya your room and you c-can meet them in the m-m-mornin'."

  "What if they don't like me? What if she's got someone else in mind for the job?"

  "They don't, and they'll 1-like ya fine." Damn, it was cold. He couldn't feel his toes anymore.

  'You don't know that. And ya don't sleep in somebody's house without their permission and then ask 'em for a job in
the mornin'. Even hillbillies know things ain't done like that."

  "They won't mind ya s-sleepin' there. They know how c-cold it is out here, even if you d-don't. Fact is, it's still part my house t-too, so I can invite ya to st-stay."

  “You live there too?" Uh-oh. She hadn't thought about being under the same roof with him. Panic and delight wrestled in her midsection. Would goin' insane be as painful as birthin' a baby? she wondered.

  "I don't have to live there," he said, picking up on her hesitation. Hell, he'd move to another state if he could only get the two of them in out of the cold before they both froze to death.

  "What?"

  "There's another house. I c-can move in there. I only moved back into the b-big house for the winter anyway."

  "I don't know . . ." she hedged, not wanting to put him out of his own house and not wanting to be in constant battle with her emotions at the same time.

  "You’ve made up your m-mind about not comin' tonight, haven't ya?"

  “Yes."

  "Then come in the mornin'. Meet Anne. Ch-check out the house and m-make up your mind then. Okay?" He was shivering and eager to have some sort of an affirmative answer from her. Just one yes from her, and he could die a happy man.

  "Okay."

  "Great." He muttered something under his breath and cursed the weather. "I'm freezin' my . . . I'm freezin' to death. Lock your doors. I'll come b-back for ya first thing in the mornin'," he said, and then he was gone.

  Three

  Ellis woke at first light, stiff and cold and just as bone weary as she had been the night before. There wasn't room enough in the cab of the truck to cuss a cat without getting fur in her teeth—let alone get a good night's rest. Yet parts of her were feeling enthusiastic, her mind lingering in a recurrent dream of being cared about and belonging, her senses anticipating Bryce's arrival.

  By the time the engine had produced enough heat to eliminate the chill in her bones, she had scurried out of the truck for a plastic bowl full of snow, waited for it to melt, and quickly washed herself. She changed into clean clothes and began to brush out the thick, straight, blond hair that hung to below her shoulders.

  Sleeping in a safe warm bed that was big enough to stretch out on had taken on a new importance during the night, and she wanted all the LaSalles to like her. . . . Well, at least that was her conscious reasoning for taking extra care with her hair and pinching roses into her pale cheeks.

  That she was lonely and starving for the smallest crumb of human fellowship she would deny with her dying breath. People were mean and hurtful, she reminded herself, and she didn't need them. She determined that she'd move out of the LaSalles' place the second she could afford to.

  Nope, she didn't need anybody, she told herself. Moments of insecurity, fear, and loneliness were simply regressions to another time in her life. Food and a bed were all she wanted from the LaSalles. And she would earn them fairly. The fidgets she felt in her abdomen came from the wanting, that's all.

  She laced her fingers in her lap and sat quietly watching the woods come to life as she pondered the events of the night before. Had they really happened? Or had they been another one of her silly dreams?

  Looking through the window at the large footprints in the snow was somehow reassuring, but they brought back memories of a little girl who was full of hope and love and faith in the people who made up her world. She called to mind how the faith had been strangled to death, the love neglected and ignored to wither and blow away in the harsh winds of life. Hope had remained many years longer, to be beaten and bruised at every opportunity until she came to know that the only hope she had was her own will to survive.

  The sun had barely cleared the mountaintops before she had convinced herself that Bryce wasn't coming for her, and to have put so much stock in the soft words of a stranger had been foolish.

  As reluctantly as one would throw away something dear but irreparably damaged, she set Bryce and his job offer firmly out of her mind. If she was going to try to get a job at Loory's diner, it would be best to get there early, before it opened for breakfast.

  With no room on the logging road to turn around, she backed the truck onto the main road and was heading toward town when a green and white four-wheel drive loomed up behind her, horn blaring.

  She recognized the driver seconds before he passed her on the road, slowing as he moved in front of her and eventually forcing her to a stop. She felt a nervous anticipation as she sat in her truck.

  In Ellis's opinion, Bryce had a unique way of reacting and responding to things. Amusement, however, was still the last thing she'd expected to see in his face when he got out of his truck and walked back to hers. He was a very strange man indeed.

  "Did ya change your mind about the job?" he asked after she rolled the window down. "Or did ya decide that I couldn't be trusted?" He already knew the answer.

  "Why should I trust ya?" she asked, honest whenever possible.

  "'Cuz I haven't done anything to make ya not trust me, have I?" he asked, his voice hoarse and raspy.

  Well . . . no, he hadn't, but she hadn't known him twenty-four hours yet. . . .

  He was going to have to step up his pace if he was going to keep up with and eventually catch this little gal, he decided, admiring her pluck once again. And catch her was exactly what he intended to do. He'd been awake all night thinking about her. She'd caused him to catch a cold, and frustrated and fascinated him more than any women he'd known before. She deserved to be caught.

  He chuckled and shook his head at her. "What about the job? I talked to Anne, and she's willing to look ya over."

  "I suppose ya told her all about me." It rankled what little vanity she had to think of him describing her as the poor hillbilly girl who worked at the Steel Wheel and slept in a beat-up truck.

  "How could I do that? I don't know all about ya." He paused, then added, “Yet," making it sound as if it were a temporary inconvenience. He regarded her with a steady gaze. His smile was that of an interrogator who knew ways of getting her to talk. Her heart lurched anxiously.

  She scowled at him. "Are ya taking me to see your sister-in-law or not?"

  “Yes, ma'am." He covered his mouth and coughed harshly several times, then added, "There's a turnaround down the road a piece."

  They wriggled and wrangled their way along the mountainside to a dirt road that led to a house as big as Mr. Johnson's back in Stony Hollow. A two-story house with a broad wraparound front porch, it was freshly painted and well kept. The pale yellow house with dark green trim was distinctively cheerful and bright. It was homey looking with the snow on the ground and the tall, drab trees of winter slumbering all about it.

  Ellis parked the truck beside Bryce's at the bottom of a low incline in front of the house. A brisk wind tore at her face and hair when she opened the door and jumped to the ground. She pulled her too-large wool coat close to her and battled the currents of air to join him on the stone path that led to the house. He was coughing again when she got to him.

  "No need to be nervous," he told her, inspecting her with a keen eye. "You'll like Anne."

  "I ain't nervous," she lied without flinching. "Worse they can say is no, then I can get to Looty's sooner than I thought to."

  “You got a date?" he asked, taken back.

  "A what?"

  "A date? You meetin' someone at Looty's for breakfast?" The thought that she might be interested in someone else hadn't entered his mind, but it would explain why he felt there was a ten-foot pole between them. "I mean . . . cuz if you are, we can do this later. . . ."

  "I ain't goin' for breakfast." She hadn't eaten a morning meal since she'd left Stony Hollow. "I'm goin' for a job."

  "Another job? Besides this one and the one at the Wheel?"

  "If I can puzzle 'em together."

  He studied her with a thoughtful frown.

  "Are you in trouble?" he asked.

  She sensed more of an offer to help than an accusation in his words and demeano
r, but it didn't stop the panic that rose up within her, or the defensive shield that automatically fell into place.

  "Course I ain't in trouble," she said, scowling indignantly to convince him. "Why would ya ask such a thing?"

  He coughed into his fist, shook his head, then gave her a sheepish grin. "I don't know. Just a feelin' I been gettin'."

  "Why?" What was she doing wrong? she wondered.

  "I don't know." He shrugged uneasily, searching for words to explain himself. With all the thinking he'd been doing about her, it seemed he'd skipped over a couple of heavy-duty issues, he noted. Such as a boy friend. And her strange behavior. It was amazin' what a pretty face could do to a man. "You don't talk much. Ya ain't friendly. You're lookin' to take every job in the county. I . . . ya got money but ya won't use it to keep yourself from freezin' to death. Seems to me that's all a might strange for a woman your age."

  “Well, if it ain't chickens, it's feathers," she muttered smartly as she turned and stomped up the path ahead of him. "I don't talk 'cuz I ain't got nothin' to say. I ain't friendly 'cuz I ain't got any friends here. I work 'cuz I need the money. And I need the money 'cuz I got plans for my life." She spun around to face him. "What is so almighty strange about that? For any woman any age?"

  Stunned, he stood and stared at her open-mouthed for a few seconds before his eyes began to twinkle with a private humor and he chuckled. "Buck'll probably move out, but Anne is gonna love you," he said, a certain admiration in his expression. "And I'm real sorry if I hurt your feelin's, Ellis. I didn't set out to."

  Well, if he wasn't the beatin'est man she'd ever met. She marveled. Imagine him apologizing to her!

  "Pay it no mind," she mumbled, looking away awkwardly, unsure of how to handle the new experience. He coughed again. “You comin' down with somethin'?"

  "Just a little cough. Tell me about these dreams you got for your life," he said affably, nudging her arm gently with his hand as he started toward the house once more.

  "They ain't dreams, they're plans. There's a difference."