All four faces reddened, but no one denied her claim.

“Can we go, Mom?” Nathan asked.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” she said. “I’ll even treat.”

“You will?” Cody said, clearly surprised. He suddenly frowned. “You’re not coming with us, are you?”

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to cramp your style.”

“You’ll really trust us with your kids?” Rick asked.

“Of course. As long as you have them home by nine.”

Four sets of young, masculine shoulders straightened.

“It’s the bus!” Nora cried, darting toward the road.

Gunter barely caught her by the coat. “You don’t leave the driveway until the bus has stopped and you see the driver nod to you,” he instructed, squatting down and smiling to soften his lesson.

“I forgot,” Nora whispered.

“Here’s your bag,” Rick said, sliding it onto her shoulders and patting her head. “And sit in the back of the bus,” he added, turning to Nathan. “The frost heaves are more fun in the back.”

“What’s a frost heave?” Nathan asked.

“It’s a huge bump in the road made by culverts when the ground thaws,” Rick explained, taking hold of Nathan’s hand and walking him past the front of the bus as Cody and Peter followed.

“ ’Bye, Mommy,” Nora said with a wave as Gunter led her by the hand to the bus.

Catherine waved wildly. “Good-bye! Be good, you two!”

But only three boys were left standing on the side of the road when the bus pulled away.

“Where’s Gunter?”

Rick jangled a set of keys. “He asked the driver if he could ride in with them, since it’s their first day,” he explained as they walked back into the driveway. “It’s only a short hike from their school to the high school.”

“That was really sweet of him,” Catherine whispered, amazed but not really surprised.

Cody snorted. “Sweet? Gunter? What have you been drinking this morning? Gunter is about as sweet as pine pitch.”

“You’re all sweet,” she said with a laugh. “Thank you for being so kind to my kids.”

Their faces turning red again, the boys quickened their pace to the four-door pickup they used to get to and from school.

“We’re only being nice so you’ll keep cooking,” Cody said, running now. “But one burnt meal, lady,” he called over the bed of the truck as he opened the back door, “and the squirts are toast.”

“He’s teasing, Catherine,” Rick assured her as he slid behind the wheel.

Catherine gave him a smile and waved good-bye as they headed out of the driveway, then stood quietly and admired the beautiful view, in no hurry to face the mess in the kitchen.

Holes, some of them several acres in size, had opened up in the ice of Pine Lake. But in the cove near the tiny town of Pine Creek, she could see one remaining ice shanty and expected that if it didn’t soon get pulled off the lake, it would be swimming with the fishes.

A gentle sense of permanency suddenly swept through her. Catherine could almost imagine that her life was normal; she was an everyday woman sending her kids off to school, looking forward to a full day of motherly chores, in a beautiful old house in a wonderful corner of the country.

It was a rather seductive illusion.

Catherine finally turned away from the view and headed to the house and the messy kitchen. But she stopped, her foot on the bottom step of the porch, when she heard a noise coming from the woods.

Robbie emerged out of the forest and rode his horse straight to the barn. Catherine changed direction and followed him, stepping through the barn door just as he pulled the bridle off his horse.

She didn’t even try to stifle her gasp. He looked like hell. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair matted and knotted with twigs, and he had a new bruise on his jaw. There was a bloody cloth wrapped around his right hand, and he had a definite limp when he walked over to hang the bridle on a peg.

“What happened?” she asked, rushing to him. “You’re hurt. Is it your side again? Did you pull out the stitches?”

“Nay,” he said, limping back to his horse. “Only my hand is bleeding.” He lifted the stirrup and started tugging on the cinch buckle with his good hand.

Catherine crowded him out of the way. “Let me do that. You go get in your truck. I’ll take care of your horse and then drive you to the doctor.”

He stepped out of her way but didn’t leave. “Can ya handle a horse?” he asked, his voice gruff and his brogue unusually thick.

“I grew up on a ranch in Idaho,” she told him, freeing the cinch and pulling the saddle off. She carried it to the side of the aisle and set it down with a thud. “Go on,” she repeated, waving him out. “I’ll put him in a stall and give him some hay.”

“Has everyone left the house?”

“Yes. About five minutes ago.”

He slowly turned and limped out, and Catherine led the horse to the first empty stall she found. She grabbed several flakes of hay, tossed them in behind the animal, checked to see that he had water, and ran out of the barn.

Robbie was just climbing the porch stairs.

“Get in the truck!” she shouted.

He continued into the house.

“Stubborn man,” she muttered, jogging to the house. She came through the door and found him standing in the middle of the kitchen, already stripped down to just his pants and boots.

“What are you doing? You don’t need to clean up to go see the doctor.”

“I’m not going anywhere but in the shower,” he said, sitting down in a chair. He leaned over to unlace his boots but groaned instead, set his elbows on his knees, hung his head, and stared at the floor. “I just want a hot shower, for you to sew up my hand and find me some aspirin, and then help me upstairs,” he told the floor. He looked up. “Can ya do that, Catherine?”

She was gaping at his chest and shoulders. The man was filthy. Scratched. And he had several new bruises. “You didn’t babysit the priest last night, did you?” she whispered.

“No.”

“And you hadn’t just fallen down the day I found you.”

“No.”

“How did you get hurt?”

He stared at her, his sunken, bloodshot eyes unreadable, then slowly shook his head. “I’

d rather not say.” He canted his head. “How are ya at telling fibs, Catherine?”

“Fibs? What sort of fibs? And to whom?”

“Everyone. My father and Libby. The boys. And whoever else asks.” He gave her a weak smile. “I don’t want anyone to know I’m banged up. Especially my father and Libby.”

“You’re more than banged up,” she said, stepping forward and taking hold of one of his boots. “You look like hell.”

“Thank ya. But I’m more exhausted than hurt,” he said with a sigh, leaning back in the chair as she unlaced and pulled off his boot. “A shower, aspirin, and twenty-four hours of sleep, and I’ll be back in fighting form.”

“So you can go out and get in another fight?” she asked, pulling off his other boot.

“Ah, Cat,” he groaned, scratching his naked chest. “I had them outnumbered.”

“Them? You hadthem outnumbered?”

He reached out and lightly tapped the tip of her nose. “I’ll be fine, Catherine,” he said, slowly standing up.

She scrambled out of his way, scrubbing her nose with the palm of her hand.

“I’ll use the shower downstairs, if that’s okay with you,” he said, limping into the bathroom before she could answer.

Catherine was left standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the scattered clothes and drops of blood on her clean floor.

What had happened to him last night? And why didn’t he want his family to know? And them? Who in heck wasthem?

Her boss expected her to sew him up again and tell fibs. But what could he possibly be doing on that mountain at night, dressed the way he had been the first time she’d found him, and carrying a sword?

The only answer Catherine could come up with that made even a little bit of sense was that he was crazy. Either that or she was, because she was going to sew him up and then fib to everyone, because… because… darn it, because he had asked her to.