His Answered Prayer

Blair let out a breath of relief. That lingering winter cold that had rattled around in his chest since December scared her. Maybe it was finally gone. Blair heard him ask how long she’d be.

“The thing is, I’m not sure, Grandpa. Daniel will be at kindergarten till three. I should be back long before the bus gets there. Can you check on Aunt Willie for me, make sure she takes her medication on time?”

Mac’s ready answer sent a shaft of pleasure straight to her heart. Sometimes it was nice to be needed, to do things that really mattered to the ones you loved.

Blair snapped the radio into its holder seconds before she had to grab the wheel and force it right on the rutted, muddy road. Spring in the valley made it tough to negotiate the unpaved foothill roads that bordered Colorado’s famous Rocky Mountains. But when the valley sprouted this bright vibrant wash of color, she couldn’t wish herself anyplace else. This was home.

Ten minutes later Blair surveyed the first blush of green that tipped the branches surrounding her field. Below her feet, tiny plants forced their way through the soil and stretched to meet the sun. It was fresh, it was good. It was hers.

Or it would be one day.

Blair strode across the meadow where she’d set out her beehives, the same meadow she’d worked so hard to make a profit on. As she walked, her mind focused on Daniel’s upcoming field trip. The class kitty was still short of the requisite funds. His teacher needed her to organize one more fund-raiser before the end of May. Blair would have to come up with a plan. Just another little job to see to.

The hives seemed in good repair, once she removed the outer insulating wraps. A quick check inside proved the durability of this particular strain of bees, and she pushed away any lingering doubts she’d had about spending so much on them.

“With any luck at all, this will be a banner year for Mind Your Own Beeswax.” The words brought a satisfied smile to her lips.

The company had been her idea over six years ago, just after her life had fallen apart. She’d run home to Grandpa Mac and his sister Wilhelmina. Even though they were barely scraping by on the tumbledown ranch they’d chosen for retirement, they welcomed her, and Daniel when he’d arrived, with open arms. They needed her, and Blair had willingly pitched in. Her fledgling honey and beeswax candle business really took off after Daniel’s birth and now consumed most of Blair’s time.

With a practiced eye she studied the field. The Merrihews always planted early. That was one of the reasons she chose to rent to them. That and the fact that their clover crops provided exactly the environment her bees needed.

Blair mentally calculated how much her earnings and Mac’s pension brought in and then subtracted the costs of Willie’s special expenses and the costs involved in helping their friend Albert Hunter. He had a predilection for inventions that never quite took off.

“It’s going to be a stretch,” she muttered, unwilling to even consider what would happen if her grandfather were no longer there. She didn’t love him just for his pension, though he’d teased her about it often enough!

If I could just expand a bit, she thought, turning to survey the hilly terrain beyond. But where?

A movement to the left caught her attention, and she frowned. Someone was out there. Blair walked to the truck, trying to identify the lone figure perched atop a mound of dirt, studying the southern portion of her valley through a surveyor’s transom.

“Not another one! Why won’t these guys take no for an answer? We’re not going to sell. This is part of Daniel’s heritage.” The land wasn’t as good as a daddy, of course, but next to love, it was all she had to give her son.

She scrambled around the edge of the field, hiding herself in the bushes and trees that surrounded the area so she’d be able to sneak up behind the intruder. She needn’t have bothered. He didn’t seem to notice her or anything else around him, lost as he was in his scribbling on the small notebook he’d pulled out of his pants pocket after checking his sighting once more. He was so totally immersed in his own world that the snap of a twig beneath her feet didn’t break his concentration.

When she was about fifty feet away, Blair left her cover and moved into the open.

“You’re trespassing,” she called loudly, hoping to startle the interloper.

He jerked upright, his body tall and lean and still. Then, ever so slowly, he turned around. Blair gasped.

“You!” She clenched her fists against her thighs as all the hurt of the past welled up inside. “What are you doing here, Gabriel?”

Gabe Sloan stood there in his sand-washed silk shirt, designer jeans and Italian leather boots, a twisted smile rolling across his handsome face. His hair, jet-black and poker straight, lay in its familiar style, cut close to the head. Eyes, those piercing mossy green eyes, took in every detail of her appearance.

“Blair,” he murmured, his lips barely moving. “The trusting, always truthful, disappearing Blair Delaney.” His mouth slashed a chilly grin. “To what do I owe the honor of your sudden return to my life?” He stared at her like a hawk sighting a mouse. But his voice exhibited total disinterest in her answer.

“I’m not in your life, Gabe,” she whispered, unable to believe what she was seeing, though the sinking in the pit of her stomach assured her he was there. “In fact, I never was. Not the way I wanted to be. You never needed me, remember? You don’t need anybody.”

His face tightened, and his eyes hardened. His wide mouth pinched in a stiff little smile. He avoided her glare.

“Part of that is true. Though why you had to take off, run away like a scared young rabbit is beyond me.” Gabe sighed, his whole body shifting. “It doesn’t matter anymore, does it? You were too young—for a lot of things. I should have known that.” He shook his head, eyes hard but with an underlying rueful glint that flashed to meet hers.

“I had a duty to protect my company, Blair. Whether you liked it or not.”

She tossed her head, angry that he was still using his company as an excuse to push her away. “Uh-uh. You wanted me to sign that prenuptial agreement to protect yourself. It was obvious you had no intention of putting everything into our marriage. You’d already provided a way out!”

He laughed, a short harsh bark that told her he hadn’t changed his view of her, or people in general. Gabe always believed someone was out to cheat him. She watched as he turned that suspicion her way.

“You don’t understand because you never had a head for business, Blair. You were too deep into your chemistry formulas and theories. So go ahead. Pile all the guilt you want on my head. I’ve been through it before. You won’t say anything somebody hasn’t already left at my door. Fortunately, you got away in time, before regrets got the better of you.”

A lot he knew! She regretted so many things. Blair shook her head. She wasn’t going back to that misery of self-doubt. She wasn’t ever going back. He wouldn’t do that to her again.

“The only thing I’m interested in chewing you out for is your presence on my land. I’d like you to leave, Gabe.”

“Your land?” The great Gabriel Sloan frowned, obviously confused by her protest. “This is my land. And I have the papers to prove it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Blair snapped, furious that now, at this stage of the game, he was still looking for an ulterior motive. “We hold the deed to all of this property.”

“We?” His body stiffened, eyes alert as he digested this bit of information. “Are you married?”

“It’s none of your business.” She returned his stare with a glare that usually made people look away. But Gabriel wasn’t like other people. “No,” she finally admitted.

“But you always said, uh—” he thought a moment “—that your parents were dead.” He peered at the ground, frowning, obviously sifting through what little he could remember as he kicked at a clump of dirt.

Blair could almost hear that computerlike brain of his clicking through the file of information he had about her, deleting this byte, updating that one. Finally he spoke.

“The only people you ever talked about were your grandfather and some aunt. I don’t remember anything about Colorado.”

“That’s hardly surprising.”

Blair swallowed the rest of her snappy comeback at the impaling glint of those now-emerald eyes. She remembered how those eyes changed color to suit his mood. That intense scrutiny, that ability to look right through her, they all combined to send twitching jitters skipping over her nerves.

“Should I have asked, Blair?”

Blair fumed at the spin he put on her words. She’d forgotten how good he was at twisting what she said. He made it sound as if she’d woven a web of deceit instead of opening her heart up to him, only to have it thrown back in her face!

“I never lied to you, Gabe.” At least, only by admission.

“Does that mean you and your family live around here now?” He studied her curiously, his eyes roving slowly over the top of her head to the tumble of lopsided curls she’d raked her hair into this morning on her way to the truck.

Slowly his gaze flowed past the big bulky sweater, ragged jeans and muddy cowboy boots. Then he glanced across the fields that would soon blossom with flowers.

“I never took you for the down-home, country type, Blair.”

“You never really knew me.” She let the sharp words pour out, angry that Gabe even imagined he’d known the person inside of her. “That much was obvious from the way you used me.”

“I didn’t use you!” His face washed in a red tide of anger. “It wasn’t my fault you expected too much.”

“I did, didn’t I?” she agreed quietly, turning to stare at the gorgeous blue sky that sparkled over the snowcapped mountains in the distance. She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing down the lump in her throat. “Way too much, as it turns out.”