For Love and Family by Victoria Pade

she’d jumped to about the woman and her relationship with Hunter.
    What had gotten into her? she asked herself.
    But she decided it was some kind of fluke that would never happen again and that it was best to put it behind her.
    â€œI’ve never had friends like that,” she admitted then. “I couldn’t even say any of that about Eve.”
    â€œI don’t think many people are lucky enough to have friends like Will and Carla.”
    Johnny came running into the kitchen then, putting an end to the conversation as he climbed onto the chair between Terese and his father.
    â€œEggs?” he complained.
    â€œEggs,” Hunter confirmed.
    Johnny made a face, but his father was prepared and drowned the scrambled eggs in ketchup before the little boy could say more.
    Johnny’s hair was, indeed, standing straight up in front the way it had been the night before, but he’d foregone the necktie today in favor of a flannel shirt, jeans and miniature suede work boots.
    And as he settled in to eat his breakfast and outline once again for Terese what he had in store for her today, everything suddenly seemed right to her again.
    Which, on some level, she knew was a feeling she should probably resist.
    Instead she merely sat there and enjoyed it.
    Â 
    Johnny had no problem occupying Terese’s day. While Hunter and Willy repaired a tractor engine, the little boy devoted himself to teaching her about the workings of the ranch and demonstrating how to do his own chores.
    Terese was astonished by how much the four-year-old knew about the animals and their care, and by what chores he could actually do himself.
    He was responsible for feeding the chickens and collecting their eggs, for giving oats to the horses and making sure there was water in their troughs. Hehad a pony of his own, that he fed, watered, brushed and exercised with great pride. And he did a lot of fetching and carrying for his father and Willy.
    Coming from a privileged upbringing in which she’d been shamelessly pampered by nannies and servants, at first she found it somewhat harsh that Johnny wasn’t left to four-year-old entertainments. But as the day went on, she saw that he liked helping out, that it gave him a strong sense of himself and his own abilities, and Terese learned that there were merits to it.
    Plus, it wasn’t as if Johnny didn’t have a lot of playtime mixed into the day. He did. There was time for him to show her sword fighting with one of the rails on the paddock fence. Time for him to set up his army men in the barn. Time for him to fashion a number of dirt hills for his toy off-road vehicles to climb and crash.
    There was also time for him to introduce Terese to the barn cat and her kittens, time to play with the kittens that liked him better than Terese and crawled all over him, making him roll on the ground in giggles as they did.
    There was also time for him to show her the nest of mice he’d found under a shed behind the barn, where he relished lying on his belly watching them—something Terese refused to do, recoiling at the sight when she realized what creatures he’d surprised her with.
    Unfortunately there was the sight of something else that she didn’t recoil from as the day passed. Asight that she couldn’t be distracted from even by her interest in everything Johnny did and said. A sight she was drawn to again and again against her will.
    And that was the sight of Hunter at work.
    Of Hunter leaning over the tractor engine with that taut derriere jutting out into view.
    Of Hunter hoisting a bale of hay and making the muscles of those bare forearms bulge.
    Of Hunter tossing a pair of leather straps over a broad, straight shoulder.
    Of Hunter stretching his back with an arch that jabbed his chiseled chin toward the sky.
    Of Hunter combing his fingers through his sun-streaked hair.
    Of Hunter walking across the paddock with the long-legged, confident saunter that was