The Wilde Bunch

Kara gulped. “I suppose not.” Perhaps he was just having a bad day and was venting steam? She decided that that must be the case and tried to come up with some diplomatic comment to offer. “The children’s names are interesting. Rather different.”

“Yeah, rather different,” Mac agreed grimly. “Like they are. Their parents—my brother Reid and his wife, Linda—wanted their names to be something besides a name. They wanted their names to be attached to the earth and be part of nature and the planet or something like that.”

“I think I understand,” Kara murmured. They’re not his children?

Mac was pleased. She hadn’t condemned the kids nor scoffed at Reid and Linda’s hug-a-tree philosophy of life. Kara seemed nonjudgmental and tolerant, exactly what they needed. Relief surged through him. He had made the right decision, bringing her out here. The sooner she moved in, the better for all of them.

“And the children are staying with you now?” Kara tried to put the pieces together.

“They’re living with me permanently. Their parents were killed in a car accident in a chain-collision pileup on one of the L.A. freeways nearly two years ago.”

“How tragic!” Kara was horrified. “Those poor children.”

Mac nodded. “It’s been rough. At first, Linda’s mom moved in with the kids but she barely lasted three months. She couldn’t handle them and was only too glad to escape to her retirement village condo, where kids under twenty-one are banned—even as visitors.”

“Oh, dear,” Kara murmured.

“Next, my brother James and his wife, Eve, decided it was their duty to take the kids. That arrangement lasted one miserable year.”

“The chemistry wasn’t right between the children and their aunt and uncle?” Kara surmised, her voice warm with sympathy.

“You could say that.” Everybody else, himself included, had said a lot more about the kids’ incorrigibility and James and Eve’s repressive rigidity. Not the right chemistry. Now that was putting a benign spin on an impossible situation! Mac liked her lack of negativity. She was going to need it, living with those four young terrorists.

“And after things didn’t work out, you took the children?” Kara prompted.

“They’ve been with me since June. I’m the first to admit that I don’t know much about raising kids. Aside from being one myself a long time ago, I haven’t had any experience with children.” Mac cast a sidelong glance at her. “It’s become clear to me that I’m not cut out to be a bachelor father.”

He was not a married man. Kara felt a peculiar heat suffuse her. She was dealing with the ramifications of having ogled a bachelor when Mac reached for the car phone.

“I’m going to call the kids and tell them we’re on our way.”

Ten rings later, he debated whether or not to hang up. “Why doesn’t someone answer? Where are they?” He glanced at his watch as the phone rang on and on. “It’s five o’clock, they should all be home from school by now.”

“Perhaps they—uh—were detained after school,” Kara suggested. Assigned to detention. Given Mac’s description of the kids, the possibility of punishment could not be ruled out.

Finally a small scared voice came over the line. “Hello?”

“Autumn, it’s Uncle Mac.” Mac breathed a sigh of relief. “What took you so long to answer the phone?”

“I was in my room and I pushed the dresser in front of the door, so it took me a while to move it,” Autumn whispered.

“What were you doing barricaded in your room, Autumn?” Mac braced himself for the answer. “And where are the other kids?”

“I was watching TV, Uncle Mac.”

“In your room? You don’t have a television set in there.”

“I do now,” Autumn said rather proudly. “I dragged the TV from the living room into my room. Uncle Mac, do you know that bad guys in jail try to get pen pals? And if you write to killers in jail, when they get out they’ll come and find you and try to steal your money or kill you.”

“Autumn, I told you that you weren’t allowed to watch any more of those tabloid news shows or talk shows, either,” Mac said sternly.

“Everything else is a rerun,” whined Autumn.

“And you are not to move the TV from the living room. I want you to put it back,” Mac ordered, then paused. “You never did say where the other kids are, Autumn.”

“They’re gone,” Autumn said gloomily. “I don’t know where, they just left. Uncle Mac, what if one of those killers who got out of jail is on his way to kill his pen pal and sees Lily or Brick or Clay and—”

“That’s enough, Autumn,” Mac cut off her morbid speculations. “Don’t you have any idea where the kids are?”

“Not Lily or Brick, but Clay said he was going to ride that big black horse.”

“Blackjack?” Mac choked. “The stallion? God almighty, Autumn, you have to—”

“Uncle Mac, someone’s knocking at the door!” Autumn shrieked into the phone. “Knocking real loud and hard like a murderer!” She let out a bloodcurdling scream audible to everyone in the Jeep.

Tai dug his claws into Kara’s thighs and growled a warning.

“Is she all right?” Kara asked with concern.

“Autumn!” Mac shouted her name a few times before finally reclaiming his niece’s attention. The screaming ceased.

“He says he’s Webb Asher, Uncle Mac. He says he has Clay,” Autumn reported. “He says to open up the door. I’m not going to, though. I think it’s someone pretending to be him. A killer from jail who’s pretending to be Webb,” she concluded dramatically.

“Autumn Wilde, you open that door and put Webb on the line, right now!” Mac commanded.

A few terse moments later, Mac hung up the phone. “My ranch manager caught Clay in the stallion’s pen tossing cookies at Blackjack, trying to make friends so he could get a ride. This is a wild-tempered stallion who could’ve killed him with just one kick. If Webb hadn’t gone down there when he did...” Mac’s stomach lurched. “I’ve got to get back there immediately. Lily and Brick are God-knows-where, and I can’t leave the two little ones home alone. I told Webb to stay with them till I got back, but his tolerance for children doesn’t go far.”

Kara glanced at her watch. “How much longer till we’re in Bear Creek?”

“We’re not going into town. I’ll take another road that will bypass Bear Creek and get us to the ranch faster.”

Kara swallowed her disappointment. Under the circumstances, she could hardly demand that Mac Wilde take her to the Franklin’s house in town before going to his ranch to check on his recalcitrant nieces and nephews.

“I’ll call Uncle Will as soon as we get to the ranch and ask him to pick me up. Then you won’t have to leave the children again to drive me into town.”

Mac frowned. “Can’t you wait until tomorrow to see him? You’ve had a long trip, and there’s no need for the reverend to come out to the ranch after dark.”

“Wait till tomorrow?” Kara echoed. “That’s impossible. I—”

“Let me put this another way. Nobody is going anywhere tonight. We’ll talk about getting you into town to visit the Rev tomorrow.”

“I can’t stay at your ranch overnight!” Kara felt a bolt of panic flash through her.

“Honey, you can and you are. Okay, you’re having an attack of nerves, thinking about meeting the kids. Who wouldn’t? I understand completely. I didn’t spare you the truth, and they are an intimidating bunch. But let’s not forget the reason why you’re here in Montana—”

“Yes, let’s not!” Kara cut in. Paradoxically, the fear she was feeling instilled her with an uncharacteristic boldness. “I’m here to visit Reverend Will Franklin.”

“It’s time to drop the charade, Kara. Let’s be honest with each other and cut the game playing. You know you’re here to marry me and help me raise those kids.”