Free Heather Graham by Maverickand the Lady Page A

seemed that everyone was tired. Kane excused himself early, and Martie heard the door to the office close. Right after coffee and dessert the others filed out. They all looked tired but happy.
    Sonia gave her a big kiss before leaving again. “Honey, I think we’re really going to make it this time!”
    Martie smiled. When they were gone, she cleaned up the kitchen and pulled bacon out of the freezer for the morning. A few moments later she heard hoof beats outside. Frowning, she hurried into the living room and looked out the bay window.
    Kane was riding away on the big bay called Thor.
    She stared out the window for a while, annoyed that she was wondering where he was going. It was none of her business.
    Or was it? There still seemed to be some secret about him, and she wasn’t sure just how it involved her, only that it did.
    Determined to get a decent night’s sleep, she went to bed. But she didn’t fall asleep, she just tossed and turned until she heard the hoof beats again at midnight, and she knew Kane had returned.
    By the time he appeared in the kitchen in the morning, she had a huge breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and bacon ready. He came in and helped himself at the coffeepot with a brief “good morning,” then stared at the single plate on the table.
    “You’re not eating?”
    “I already did,” she said, lying. Smiling sweetly, she handed him his plate and pulled her shoulder bag off the peg by the door. “I’m going to Holliman’s for the hay. See you later,” she said cheerfully, then left.
    She made a point of spending the day out. While Ted Holliman’s sons loaded her truck with hay, she took a walk with Ted to admire his yearling Arabian foal. She had coffee with his wife, then drove into town to visit a notary with the note Kane had typed out—in triplicate, she discovered when she and the young woman at the bank went through the papers. Martine had been expecting the young woman to say something about Kane, but she didn’t. Apparently his funds weren’t coming from anywhere in town.
    She went grocery shopping next, determined to thrill them all with her prowess at an Italian meal. She bought the ingredients for chicken marsala and linguine with clam sauce, and she even decided to splurge on oysters Rockefeller.
    But when everyone else came into the kitchen that night, Kane was not with them.
    Martie listened to Jim’s enthusiastic oohs and aahs and Sonia’s assertion that meals had never looked so good. She smiled vaguely, thanked them both, and asked, “What happened to our foreman?”
    “Kane?” Bill said, helping himself to a soda. “He said something about having dinner plans tonight.”
    “Now that’s not what he said at all!” Sonia affectionately chastised her husband. “He said to apologize to Martie for such late notice, but that he had some business to take care of at dinnertime!”
    “Thanks, Sonia,” Martine said, trying to keep smiling. Her whole dinner and all the effort seemed such a waste. It was a horrible attitude, she knew, because the others really did enjoy everything. Jim said it was the best meal he’d ever had.
    “I swear, Martie, I don’t remember your being this fine a cook before!” Bill proclaimed.
    They all stayed around late that night, chatting over the Italian ices she had bought. Martie tried to keep up with the conversation, but she just felt lethargic.
    “I’ll do the dishes, Martie,” Sonia told her. That woke her up.
    “Don’t be crazy, Sonia, you’ve been out working all day!”
    “Martie, I’ll tell you, in all these years of doing a bit of everything, I’ve learned that raising kids and keeping house is the hardest job in the world.”
    “I haven’t got any kids.” Martie reminded her with a smile.
    “Yes, but you went out and bought the hay and did the shopping and the cooking, the setting up, and all the cleaning that went with it. You—” She broke off at Martie’s look of dismay. “What’s the matter.”
    “The