An Irresistible Temptation (36 page)

“It’s Malloy. Reed Malloy.” He said it slowly
as if speaking to a child, but his voice registered a tone of
definite annoyance.

“You needn’t get in a pucker, sir. I didn’t
realize you meant that you were . . .,” but Charlotte broke off,
deciding to ignore his tone. “Let me take a look in my study. It’s
possible that something came and got overlooked. Editors forward a
lot of mail from people who read my work. I don’t always get a
chance to look through it right away,” she added
apologetically.

She turned and entered her study, stepping
delicately over the unsightly hole. The good Lord knew she often
let the papers and envelopes just pile up. It was an unfortunate
habit, and she would have to allow that it looked as if it had her
in some deep trouble now.

She heard them follow her, all three of them,
trailing behind, as she went to her desk and began to sift through
the papers on the edge of it. When these finally slid to the floor,
she bent to try another pile that already had collapsed off of a
small oval Pembroke table, with its leaves always in the up
position to accommodate more stray papers and books.

“It’s amazing that your work, which seems to
come from such an orderly mind, can be created here, in this
chaos,” observed the man behind her.

At his tone, she looked up. He seemed
genuinely displeased, and she felt a little like a naughty school
girl in front of the teacher. His sapphire eyes bore into hers for
a second and she felt the same jolt as when he’d taken her
hand.

She was the first to look away, continuing to
rummage through the papers and then moving to a stack of Scientific
American mixed with Yale Literary Magazine, ignoring his
remark.

Charlotte wanted to tell him how she used to
be organized, how she used to have food in the pantry, and wood
ready for the fires, and not a speck of dust anywhere . . . she
wanted to, but it would be a bald-faced lie. It had ever been this
way—chaotic, at best. Her mind, however, was sharp and orderly and
with it, she created works that were concise, easily understood,
and a step ahead of her peers.

“Some of us have time to do housework,” she
commented lightly, “while others of us put our minds to more
important things, such as . . . aha!”

“Did you salvage something, Miss
Sanborn?”

She stood up and faced them, triumphantly
waggling the cream-colored envelope with Malloy and Associates
embossed in blue lettering on one side. “Here it is.”

Charlotte recalled now having received it,
even remarking over the blue ink and placing it on her desk to read
after dinner, and then . . .

She looked guiltily up at the dark-haired
stranger with his flashing eyes. The seal had not even been
broken.

“Well, perhaps you should open it and see why
we’re here,” he continued evenly, crossing his arms over his broad
chest, “though perhaps you could do that somewhere where we can all
sit down. The children are growing tired.”

“Oh, of course.” She had been caught out
again without manners. Her mother would be appalled. Though, for
the sake of her husband, Regina Sanborn had grown tolerant of the
relative cultural vacuum in the west, she had, nevertheless, tried
to instill in her bookish daughter a sense of propriety and manners
and social graces. Charlotte failing miserably, and knew in her
heart that this was why she welcomed her own isolation.

“Please, come this way.” She went between the
boy and girl who still stared at her as if she were the latest
exhibit at the fair, and headed off down the hallway to the parlor.
She tossed open the door and froze; how long had it been since
she’d use this room. It was dark and musty, and, frankly, it
smelled like a horse blanket.

“Excuse the a . . . well, I don’t entertain
much. Let me just air it out a bit, but come in, come in and find a
seat.”

In the dark gloom, she could barely make out
the furniture, all relics from her mother’s day. She went directly
over to the windows, pulling aside the heavy curtains, and opening
the shutters, letting the fresh spring air flood the room, bringing
with it the scent of the purple-flowered fireweed that grew all
around the house.

Unfortunately, when she got to the third
window, she opened the curtains and saw cracked panes of glass and
a board nailed onto the sashes from outside. She hastily drew the
curtain closed, hoping the elegant man in her parlor had not
noticed.

She turned to face her guests who had spread
themselves gingerly around the room. By the look on his face, it
was undeniable that Mr. Malloy had seen the poor repair job. The
little boy sat directly next to the man on the high-backed sofa in
front of the rough stone fireplace with its faded, embroidered
screen, and rifle hanging above; the little girl had taken one of
the petit-point cushioned chairs.

Charlotte was well aware of the dust still
settling after they’d seated themselves. As she crossed the room,
she noticed Reed Malloy’s stare of disapproval. She sat in the only
seat left, a small mauve-colored chair with bits of horsehair
sticking out where it shouldn’t be, and took the letter out of her
skirt waistband.

She opened it and skimmed the salutation and
the niceties and then suddenly caught her breath.

“I take it you’ve reached the part where . .
.,” he began.

“Blazes!” Charlotte jumped out of her seat.
“She gave the children to me? Is she mad? Does she
understand—?”

“She is deceased, Miss Sanborn.”

Charlotte sat down again quickly, her gaze
going to the children who didn’t seem to understand that the adults
were speaking about their mother, Ann Connors. She turned her
attention again to Reed Malloy, looking decidedly grave, his
eyebrows once more in a fierce, straight line.

“Yes, I’m sorry. I had heard. My aunt, Alicia
Randall, the children’s grandmother, wrote to me about the
tragedy.”

Charlotte didn’t bother to add that it was
the only time she’d heard from her aunt since her own parents died
nearly a decade earlier.

“You must understand, Mr. Malloy, I have
never met my cousin, Ann, and we had only exchanged a few letters
during the years. To say we were not close would be to put it
mildly. My parents moved here from Boston before I was born.” She
paused, remembering what her aunt’s letter described.

“It was a collision between my cousin’s
carriage and a horse car, as I recall. I know it is doubly hard
with their father having died two years ago—”

“Three,” Reed Malloy corrected, his
glittering gaze never wavering.

“Three,” she agreed, nodding. “In the light
of this, I ask, why me as a guardian? Why not their
grandmother?”

He stretched his arm out along the back of
the sofa. “For one thing, their grandmother, your aunt, is nearly
seventy years old. I don’t believe your cousin thought that Alicia
Randall would be an ideal mother.”

Seventy, thought Charlotte. She hadn’t known
her mother’s older sister was so much older.

“Secondly,” he continued, “while you might
not have given much thought to the eastern branch of your family,
Miss Sanborn, your cousin obviously gave a great deal of thought to
you. Ann Connors had read all your work; in fact, it was she who
first introduced me to your literary endeavors. She was one of your
greatest admirers.”

Charlotte felt as if she’d been hit in the
stomach, and a lump came into her throat at the thought of Ann, a
cousin who knew so much about her when she, herself, hadn’t even
felt much grief at the announcement of her death . . . until
now.

However, her life was set and she liked it
this way. She had no close friends, only acquaintances with whom
she corresponded; she had her various editors who checked in with
her to assign an article or push her on a deadline, and one younger
brother who popped up from time to time only to make her miss him
all the more when he went away again.

It was no life for children and she was not
the woman to raise them. How could she ever have imagined that her
cousin would do such a crazy thing?

“It is simply out of the question, Mr.
Malloy. I am profoundly sorry that you and the children wasted a
trip. And I do apologize for not having opened your letter. I
didn’t recognize the seal and assumed it was a letter from a
reader, which I would have looked at eventually, but . . . well, I
do apologize again, but undoubtedly, you can see that there is
nothing I can do.” As she finished, she spread her hands, giving a
slight shrug.

Reed Malloy said nothing for a moment. His
blue eyes merely narrowed at her. Then he stood up, dominating the
room. Charlotte held her breath a moment while he seemed to come to
some decision. She waited for him to yell at her, grab the
children, and burst from her house.

Instead, perfectly under control, he said,
“It is I who am sorry, Miss Sanborn, but there is no choice
here.”

About to protest, she let out her breath in a
rush, but he continued.

“You have ample space, which was my main
concern for a woman living alone, even if the house is in need of
some repairs. As for your objections, you have made no valid ones,
nor can make any as far as I can see.”

“Really, Mr. Malloy—”

“Miss Sanborn, the children will be no
financial burden to you as their upbringing has been well-provided
for. All you need offer them is shelter, basic human kindness, and
a moral and intellectual example, which I believe you are capable
of, if I have read your works correctly. Can you not offer all of
these?”

Well, of course she could. That was hardly
the point. It was that no one had asked and had someone done so,
she would have said emphatically that she had never had the desire
to be a mother nor had she any such desire now, not even when faced
with the two little urchins seated in her parlor. She refused to be
bullied by his tactics.

“Mr. Malloy, neither my character nor my
house is at issue here.” He inclined his head slightly,
acknowledging the way she had maneuvered out of that trap.

“Rather the question is my inclination, which
is strongly to the negative. I live a solitary life, here.” She
gestured around her, taking in the house and the stretch of land
outside her window.

Her father had set up his homestead just a
fifteen-minute walk outside of town, not too far from mining camp
in the foothills but far enough away from the bustle of Spring City
that wagons weren’t going by their window.

In recent years, the city bustled
infrequently, only when miners came through discussing gold strikes
or travelers mistook the area for one of the healing hot mineral
springs. And even that was happening less and less. Spring City was
down to one theater, for both opera and plays, and it was
threatening to close any day now.

“There are no other children close by . . .
though there is a school in town,” she added thoughtfully, then bit
her tongue before continuing. “Look, Mr. Malloy, I am not a
heartless individual. I wish the children no ill will.”

She looked toward the children now. Having
comprehended that the adults were discussing where they were to
live, they knew instinctively that they were not wanted here. They
stood up and once more anchored themselves to Reed Malloy, who
absently stroked the top of the boy’s head.

“Honestly,” Charlotte rushed on, feeling like
the hard-hearted cad she was professing not to be, “I just want
what’s best for them, and it is not living here in a remote
environment with a peace-and-quiet loving author, who has
absolutely no idea about raising children. Can you understand
that?”

“Well, Miss Sanborn, at least we are agreed
that we both want what’s best for the children,” he said as if he
hadn’t heard anything else she’d said. He looked down at each
child, and Charlotte could see that he cared for them. Then he
looked up sharply.

“And your suitability is a question in my
mind. That’s why I didn’t just blindly follow Ann Connors’s last
wishes, but accompanied them out here myself.” He thought a moment.
“Yes, if we’re both worried about the same thing, then the answer
seems obvious, wouldn’t you agree?”

Charlotte began nodding even before she
asked, “And what would that be?”

“Why, for me to stay here with you and the
children, of course, to assess the situation. If I find that you
are unacceptable after all, then I’ll wire their grandmother and
we’ll see if other arrangements can be made.”

Seemingly satisfied with his pronouncement,
he began to usher the children out of the room. “Okay, little ones,
upstairs to your room. Auntie Charlotte will show you the way.
Won’t you?” He turned to her, the look on his face daring her to
contradict his words in front of his tired wards.

Charlotte was still reeling from his
highhanded manner, the way he seemed to treat her as if she were
auditioning for a stage role. Unacceptable, indeed! Not to mention
the address of “Auntie,” and the utterly improper and impossible
suggestion that he should stay under the same roof with her.

Despite all that, after taking another look
at the children’s faces, she nodded again. She brushed past them
and headed for the stairs. She was sure she had said no, very
firmly. Yet somehow, all three of them seemed to be staying.

“Meanwhile,” Reed Malloy continued behind
her, “I’ll ride to town and wire my office that I’ll be delayed
indefinitely. Do you need me to pick up something for supper, Miss
Sanborn?”

“Oh, yes,” Charlotte said gratefully,
forgetting for a moment that, if it weren’t for him, she wouldn’t
need to be providing supper for anyone but herself. He was the
source of all this confusion, but she thought only of the empty
cupboards and bare shelves in her pantry. Even her root cellar was
rootless! “Yes, whatever you and the children are accustomed to,
Mr. Malloy.”