Be Mine at Christmas(58)
Author: Brenda Novak

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

This time she couldn’t meet his eyes. She’d flagrantly disobeyed his orders, and now he was angry.

“Cierra?”

Jumping to her feet, she grabbed her rag and the polish and tried to squeeze past him to go to her room, as he’d requested, but he stepped in front of her, blocking the way.

Assuming he expected an apology or an explanation, she scrambled to offer one. “I—I am sorry. I just want…perfect.” She gave him a hopeful smile. “You comprende?”

He stared at her until her smile wilted and her cheeks began to burn. She’d used a pencil to put up her hair so she could keep it out of her way while she worked. Maybe he thought she’d been presumptuous in taking it from his kitchen drawer without asking.

Pulling it from her hair, she held it out to him. “Is this it? Is this why you are angry?”

“I’m not angry. And why would I care about a pencil?”

When she had no answer, he shook his head and his gaze lowered to her clothes.

Painfully aware that they didn’t fit her very well, especially since she’d lost weight, Cierra bent to dust the dirt off her knees. “I will wash up,” she promised.

Taking her hand, he put back the pencil and closed her fingers around it. “You deserve better,” he said gruffly, and walked to the living room.

THE CABIN SMELLED FANTASTIC, so fantastic Ken couldn’t concentrate on the game. Tony Romo was launching a pretty convincing attack against his former teammates, and yet he cared more about what was going on in the kitchen. And Brent seemed just as restless.

“Hey, can you quit it?” Ken asked. “I’m trying to watch the game.”

Looking at the football he’d been tossing back and forth as if he hadn’t even realized he was doing it, Brent threw it aside and Ken tried once again to focus on the drive the Cowboys were putting together. They’d already marched down the field to the thirty-yard line; a field goal could win the game. But it was no use. Inevitably, his thoughts wandered back to Cierra.

“Do you think she’s okay in there?” Clearly Brent was preoccupied with the same thing. It’d taken Cierra all of twenty-four hours to win his undying loyalty. But Brent was an easy sell. He always had been. He was Russ’s biggest champion, wasn’t he? The only person Russ hadn’t chased away over the years.

“She’s fine,” Ken said. And it was true—at least while she was here. But how long could he look out for her? She wasn’t like a stray dog. He couldn’t keep her forever. What would happen when he ran out of work for her to do? And how come she was wandering around the mountains of Idaho, penniless and homeless, in the first place?

She was proud, beautiful, capable. It didn’t make sense that a woman like that couldn’t provide for herself…somehow, even if she was an illegal alien. Heck, she could find a man to take care of her if she wanted. What had brought her to America on her own? Had she gotten involved in drugs and wound up homeless? Been tossed out on the street by an abusive husband or father who’d enticed her here? Been kidnapped in Mexico, smuggled into the States and sold into sexual slavery, from which she’d recently escaped?

He recalled her bold assertion that she was no prostitute. He couldn’t imagine a former sex slave coming up with that. But she didn’t seem the type to do drugs—or smuggle them, either.

The wind whistled through the eaves. Brent must’ve heard it, too, because he gazed toward the picture window, which looked out onto the front porch. “Another storm’s coming in.”

“I can hear it.” The impatience in his tone surprised him. But he didn’t want to talk about the weather. He didn’t want to talk at all. “Are you watching this game with me or what?”

Obviously offended by the sharpness of his words, Brent glared at him. “I’m sitting here with you, aren’t I?”

That hardly answered his question, but he had no right to take his bad mood out on his little brother. He wasn’t even sure what had made him so irritable.

Blowing out a sigh, Ken got to his feet. “Right. Yeah. Forget it. I’m just pissed that the Jets are losing. Want a beer?”

Reluctant to forgive him that easily, Brent shrugged. “I guess.”

“I’ll grab one,” he said, and escaped to the kitchen.

Cierra had stopped cleaning, but she was cooking. She’d nearly died from hypothermia yesterday, yet he couldn’t get her to rest. She insisted that she “owed” him so many hours, as if it’d cost him a huge amount to give her a few meals and a place to stay.

She had her back to him when he entered the room. Apparently, she hadn’t heard his approach, which gave him a second to watch her. She was tired, as he’d guessed. She’d dragged a chair over to the stove so she could sit in between stirring whatever she’d put on the burner, and she kept rubbing her temples as if she had a headache.

The floor creaked beneath his weight and she tried to hide her fatigue by jumping to her feet and shoving the chair back under the table. “You are hungry, yes? It is almost finish.” She spoke with more cheer than she could possibly feel, considering her fatigue and the headache.

He walked over to peek into the frying pan, which contained ground beef mixed with onions, eggs and other things he didn’t immediately recognize. “Smells good.”

“Empanadas. You have tried?”

“No.”

“You will like. Soon you will eat.”

Going to the cabinet, where he’d lined up his vitamins, supplements and protein powder only a few hours earlier, he found the Tylenol and shook a couple of tablets into his hand. Following a particularly rough football game, he took four to help with the aches and pains. But she weighed half of what he did.

Together with a glass of water, he handed them to her. “Swallow these. They’ll stop your headache.”

“Oh. Sí. Ouch.” She tapped her skull with one finger and smiled to let him know she understood and appreciated the kindness. “Gracias.”

He’d come in to ask her to level with him, to tell him exactly where she was from and what had brought her to Dundee. But knowing her situation would create a commitment of sorts, which was why he hadn’t insisted on the truth so far. Why get any more involved than he already was? If she was an illegal alien, as he suspected, he’d have a duty to report her. But he didn’t want to do that. It was Christmastime, for crying out loud. And maybe there was a good reason she’d left her own country. He didn’t want to judge.