Redwing's Lady

Her head jerked up, and she stared at him in dazed wonder. “Never! That’s over—and it won’t happen again!”

She reached up and switched off the burner beneath the pan of soup. Daniel dropped his hand, but he didn’t move away.

“Never say never, Maggie Ketchum.”

Something like fear filled her blue eyes. “It’s time to eat,” she said hoarsely.

Picking up the soup, she carried the pot over to the table and began to fill the three bowls that Aaron had set out. The boy was obviously thrilled to have Daniel share the simple meal with them and he made a big issue of showing Daniel where to sit and fetching him a cold soda from the refrigerator.

Once they were eating, Aaron dominated the conversation and Maggie was relieved. She didn’t want Daniel to have a chance to turn his attention to her. It was hard enough on her nerves just having him sit across the table from her, much less having him talk to her. Especially when he’d already said more to her than he should have. And done more than he should have, she thought wretchedly.

Halfway through the meal, the telephone rang and Maggie went to answer the portable instrument sitting on the end of the cabinet. The caller was her sister-in-law, Victoria. While she assured Aaron’s aunt that her nephew was safe and sound except for a scratch and a bruise, she covertly watched her son and Daniel at the kitchen table. The two of them were talking with easy familiarity as though they were old buddies or even relatives. The notion was unsettling. It wouldn’t do for her son to get close to this man. Not when she planned on making a swift and permanent break with him after tonight.

“That was your aunt Victoria,” Maggie said to Aaron, once she returned to the table. “She was getting ready to come over here to check you out, but I told her you only had a scratch and a bruise.”

Aaron swallowed down a mouthful of potato chips before he said to Daniel, “Aunt Victoria is a doctor. She’s just had a baby. He’s a boy, but he’s too little to play with. He still drinks from a bottle and he wets his pants. Ugh!”

Daniel smiled fondly. “Yes, I’ve met little Samuel.”

Aaron looked at him with surprise, then dawning. “Oh, I forgot. You work with Uncle Jess.”

“That’s right.”

“See, Mom, Daniel has a badge just like Uncle Jess’s.” The boy reached over and nearly touched the shiny, oval emblem pinned to Daniel’s khaki uniform. “It says San Juan County, New Mexico, on it. That’s where we live. And Daniel is the law all over this land.”

“Daniel isn’t the law, he enforces the law,” Maggie corrected him.

Aaron scowled at his mother. “I know that. He can put handcuffs on people and take them to jail.”

And that ability was obviously impressive to a nine-year-old boy, Maggie realized.

“He has a Colt .45, too,” Aaron went on with enthusiasm. “That’s the kind of pistol he likes to carry—just like in the Old West—like Blackjack Ketchum toted. And he was our kin!”

Maggie stared at her son, unwilling to believe the stuff that was rolling out of his mouth. “Aaron! You have no idea what sort of gun Blackjack Ketchum used! And he certainly wasn’t our relative! Where did you hear such a thing?” she demanded.

“Well, Skinny told me about the gun. And the kids at school tell me all the time that Blackjack was my kinfolk. And he might be, Mom. You don’t know,” he argued.

Daniel chuckled, and Maggie lifted a helpless gaze toward the ceiling.

“Eat your sandwich,” she ordered Aaron, then seeing Daniel had finished the food on his plate, Maggie asked, “Would you care for coffee and a piece of pound cake?”

Daniel figured she was more than ready for him to leave, but he was going to deliberately ignore her wishes. After tonight he probably wouldn’t get the opportunity to share this sort of time with her or Aaron. He had to make the most of these moments.

“Sounds good.”

“What about me?” Aaron chimed in. “Can’t I have cake, too?”

“Cake, but no coffee,” Maggie told him as she rose from the table. “And then you’re going straight to bed.”

Aaron’s freckled nose wrinkled up with disappointment. “Aw, heck, I want to talk to Daniel some more.”

“I’m sure Daniel is all talked out by you.”

Daniel glanced over to where Maggie stood at the cabinet, but she had her gaze focused on the long loaf of cake she was slicing.

“Aaron hasn’t talked me out. But I do have to be leaving soon,” he announced.

“How come?” Aaron asked with frank innocence. “Don’t you want to stay and talk to Mom a little more?”

“Aaron!” Maggie sternly warned.

Daniel could hardly keep from flashing a grin at his new little buddy. “I can’t think of anything I’d like to do better. But I have work to finish tonight. Maybe I’ll get to talk to her another time,” he said just as she was placing the plate of cake in front of him.

Pausing at his shoulder, Maggie looked down at him. The warm suggestive signals in his brown eyes seemed to arc straight into her, flooding her limbs with heat and her cheeks with color.

Nervously she wiped her sweaty palms down the front of her thighs. “Uh…do you want cream with your coffee?”

“No. Black is fine.”

She served Aaron his dessert, then went back to her seat and tried to pour all of her attention into the piece of cake in front of her. But she could hardly choke down more than two bites. She wanted—no, she needed for the meal to be over and for Deputy Daniel Redwing to be gone. Otherwise, she would be unable to keep her eyes from straying to his lips and her senses from remembering every reckless second she’d spent in his arms.

Glancing down the table, she noticed Aaron’s eyelids were beginning to droop and the movement of his fork was growing slower and slower. The long, traumatic day was catching up to him, and now he was about to fall asleep right in his plate.

“Aaron, I really think you’re too sleepy to finish your cake. Why don’t you say good-night to Daniel and go to bed,” she gently suggested.

His mother’s voice stirred Aaron from his sleepy stupor and he lay down his fork and climbed out of his chair.