LITMIR.BIZ

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Dark haired and olive skinned like the rest, slim, not much taller than the look-alike children, with brown eyes that took up her whole face, she moved to the front of the too-silent group. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. She took on a dignity that belied the dented old car and the tired lines around those magnificent eyes.

      “I am Maria Soldata,” she announced.

      “Benjamin Calder,” he replied, nodding his head in what amounted to almost a bow, unconsciously reacting to the measured formality of her tone.

      “This is my family.” Another formal, grand statement as if the exhausted group surrounding her were being presented at court. “My mother, Juanita Romero.” The old lady graciously inclined her head. “My sister, Veronica, and her baby, Ashley.” The girl smiled, a beautiful young woman, but pale and tired looking. “This is my nephew, David, and my daughters, Tina and Trisha.” The children just stared up at him and he stared back, not bothering to remember their names. After all, they couldn’t be staying here long enough for it to matter—not all of them, anyway.

      “Is that the guest house?” She looked inquiringly in the direction of the small, white-stuccoed building beside the main house.

      “Yes, it is. But-”

      But Maria Soldata had already turned, and the group turned with her. They dived back into the station wagon, all but the pretty girl whose arms were already full. They emerged simultaneously, hauling brown paper sacks that overflowed with food, dragging battered suitcases and boxes. The little boy, arms thin as matchsticks, struggled to lift a cardboard box with a sagging bottom. Ben was forced to hurry down the steps to help him before the bottom gave way completely and spilled what appeared to be an assortment of baby paraphernalia all over the gravel driveway.

      He found himself, box in hand, with no choice but to follow Maria into the guest house while scurrying children flowed around him. Back and forth between the car and the house they went, each time their little arms straining with a load. And through it all, Maria’s voice, making it impossible for him to get a word in edgewise.

      “David, you take that bed. Girls, you take that one.” She pointed through the open door to the two single beds in the small bedroom. “Mama and Veronica, you share the big bed.” She gestured to the double bed visible in the main bedroom. She handed a child the folding cot she had tucked under one arm. “Set this up for me against that wall over there, please, Trisha.” She rescued a portable bassinet the other girl was dragging over the threshold. “Thank you, sweetheart. Let me take that for you. We’ll put the baby in with Aunt Veronica and abuela, okay? Such a good helper!” She disappeared into the room only to reappear in an instant.

      “Bedding?”

      Ben was surprised to find himself addressed. He stood in the middle of the kitchen, still holding the box of baby things. He glanced toward the pantry closet door and started to speak, but she was already there. She pulled the door open and took down a stack of linens. Grimly, he closed his mouth.

      “Girls, help your abuela make up the beds, please, and then I want all you kids in the bath.” She divided the stack between two waiting sets of arms, pausing only long enough to give each sweaty forehead a quick push-aside of bangs in a maternal caress.

      “Veronica, can you—” But a loud squall from the bundle in the girl’s arms stopped her. “Never mind. Why don’t you hop in the tub with the baby now. You’ll both feel better once you’re cooled off and she’s fed. Maybe after you’ve gotten her to sleep you can help Mama get supper? There’s hot dogs and pork ‘n’ beans.” Quick kisses all the way around and Maria was heading out the door. “I’ve got to get Mr. Calder’s supper now and then I’ll be back to put you kids to bed. Love you.” She paused at the open door, a shadow outlined by the setting sun behind her.

      “Mr. Calder? Coming?”

      Ben sat the box on the kitchen table, feeling uncharacteristically overwhelmed. Damn that Vergie, anyway, he cursed his recently departed housekeeper. This was all her fault.

      He’d begged her, pleaded with her. He remembered the conversation they’d had in this very room.

      “You aren’t really going to do this to me, are you?” Ben had watched his housekeeper calmly pack the suitcase on her bed. “I mean, Pakistan? Can’t you save children around Wyberg or somewhere closer to home?” Vergie McPhearson had simply added another pair of new, khakicolored pants to the suitcase. “How about over on the reservation? Can’t you vaccinate kids there? Do you even know how to give shots?”

      “They’ll teach me,” Vergie told him, her voice firm. “Mildred went to Bangladesh last year through this same relief agency and she said they’ll teach us everything we need to know.” Ben tried to imagine her and Mildred Swanson, both fiftyish and almost-fat, in a barren desert tent with rows of veiled mothers and naked babies—but he couldn’t do it. She’d been his housekeeper for three years and he’d never even seen her in a pair of pants!

      She closed the suitcase with a click of finality. “Now, I’ll be back the last week of August.” She pushed around his frowning bulk to gather things from the dresser top and pile them into a blue nylon carryon. “A summer on your own won’t be so bad.”

      “But it’s not on my own. You’re forgetting Connor will be here in less than two weeks.”

      “The freezers are jammed and TV dinners aren’t so bad these days. You can manage those. And there won’t be much laundry with just the two of you. Try to remember to separate the whites and use bleach on them or your underwear will all be gray by the time I get back.”

      The long, zipping sound of the closing carryall made Ben’s stomach sink. “What about the garden? The canning?” “Mr. Calder, you’ve known about my .trip for two months now.” Vergie sounded exasperated. “Maybe you can get somebody from Wyberg to come out a few times a week.”

      “I’ve tried. Nobody wants to drive sixty miles one way just to can my tomatoes.”

      “I told you to try Phoenix, then,” Vergie reminded him. “You could let somebody stay here.” She indicated the guest house with a sweep of her hand, setting the loose skin on the pale underside of her arm jiggling. “I wouldn’t mind somebody using my stuff for a while.”

      “Who would want to move up here for a job that’ll only last for three months? I don’t want some college kid on summer vacation.”

      “You never know. Phoenix gets mighty hot in the summer. Here—” Vergie handed him a notepad and pen from beside the telephone “—you write up an ad and I’ll phone it in to the newspapers down there before I go. If you said ‘Family OK’ you might get some nice single mother. That’d do the trick.”

      Ben had stared at the blank paper in his hand. He envisioned a summer of TV dinners, vacuuming, ripening tomatoes…and Connor. A father shouldn’t feel such dread at the thought of seeing his son, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. Six weeks alone with a sullen seventeen-year-old and a boom box? He’d grasped the pen, lips tight with determination, and began to write.

      And this is where it’d landed him, he thought with consternation as he followed the back of his new housekeeper across the driveway, up the wide stairs, across the porch and into his house. She hesitated only a moment in the doorway before heading unerringly in the direction of the kitchen.

      “Well, Mr. Calder, what would you like for supper tonight? Do you have something already planned?” She stuck her hands under running water at the sink and soaped them with the bar next to the faucet. “Will it be just you tonight or do you have hired hands who eat with you? Do you—”

      “Stop!” Ben slammed down the faucet lever. Maria jumped and then froze, hands still covered with soap. She looked up at him, dark eyes huge. Damn, he hadn’t meant to bellow like that! And here he was, towering over her, her head no higher than his shoulder. No wonder she’d jumped out of her skin. But Benjamin Calder, fourth generation owner of Calder Ranch, was used to being in charge of a situation, and so far his new housekeeper had treated

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