Craving Beauty

Six

"Boys, this is my wife, Hira." Marc's tone held no hint of anger but she could almost feel his tension.

Immediately Hira was aware of the wariness in the boys' eyes. "I'm pleased to meet you." She smiled, but there was no response, not even from the youngest of them all.

She didn't panic, conscious that they had no reason to trust her, but even so, she was at peace. She adored children and they'd always been her friends when older women had rejected her. Children didn't judge a person on anything but their heart.

Ignoring the flour that dusted the floor, she knelt down in front of the youngest. "What is your name, laeha?"

His eyes widened at being singled out, but he didn't look away. "Brian." It was a whisper.

"And what are you cooking, Brian?" He was so thin, she wanted to put him in her lap and feed him.

"Apple pie...for dessert."

"I have never eaten apple pie," she admitted.

Someone gasped. "Never?"

She rose to her full height. "I'm not from America. Your apple pie is not made in my homeland."

"Where are you from, then?" another boy asked.

She looked across at the dark-haired child. "Zulheil. It is a desert land. I find your, uh, Cajun Country too green. There are growing things everywhere." It still dis­concerted her that flowers bloomed in the grass. She kept trying to avoid stepping on them, for flowers were precious in the desert.

A bespectacled boy gave her a tiny smile. "I read about Zulheil on the Internet. You look like the pictures of the people, but you're dressed different."

"I am trying to... Husband, what is the word?" She glanced over her shoulder, wondering who'd hurt her Marc so very much that he couldn't find it in his heart to trust her with his secrets. Secrets like why these or­phans meant so much to him.

"What?" He looked like an immovable wall, arms crossed over his chest and eyes narrowed watchfully.

She smiled at him, treating him with the same gen­tleness as the children—she was beginning to see that he carried scars on the inside just like these wary babes. "For trying to fit in here?"

His eyes narrowed farther. "Blend."

"Yes." A smile broke out in her heart at his warning glare. Teasing her arrogant husband could be fun. "I've been trying to blend in. Do you think I will succeed?" she asked the children, once more turning her back on Marc.

Yet she could feel his presence like a physical touch, the tiny hairs on her nape standing to attention at his nearness. Her husband had branded her with his mark and her body knew it. She just had to keep him from finding out. The minute he discovered just how vulner­able she was to him, he'd stalk in and take full ad­vantage. She wasn't ready to allow that, not while he refused to share the most important pieces of his self with her.

The bespectacled boy shook his head. "You're too pretty and you talk different."

She made a face at him, at ease with his honesty about her looks whereas adult comments made her bris­tle. "I do not wish to be the same as everyone else, any­way. Do you?"

He thought that over. As he did, she saw that though he was small, he appeared to be the leader of this troop.

"No," he finally said. "Only pod people are all the same."

Confused, she looked to Marc for help. "Pod people?"

But it was the tall boy who answered, "Have you got a lot to learn! We're watching that movie again tonight because Damian can't get enough. You can watch, too."

"I have no idea what you are talking about, but I agree to watch this with you." Hira laughed at the grin that crossed the tall one's shy face. "So how do you make this apple pie? There must be flour on the floor, yes?"

At that, everyone but her stubborn-male of a husband laughed. When little Brian's hand slipped into hers, she picked him up and set him on her hip, uncaring of the flour and little-boy dirt on him.

Unable to stifle her concern and unwilling to do so, she asked, "Do you not eat, laeha?"

He wrapped skinny arms around her neck and laid his head down on her shoulder. "I'm sick. What is a laeha?"

Stroking his back, she said, "It means darling child." The literal translation was darling baby but she had a feeling that none of these boys would appreciate know­ing that. Walking over to the bench, she saw the some­what abused-looking dough. "I will make this apple pie with you. I saw it once on a television show. They had ice cream with it."

A groan from behind her. "Don't you go putting ideas in their heads."

Delighted to have provoked a reaction from Marc, she opened her mouth to respond. The boys beat her to it.

"Too late. Ice cream sounds good," a voice piped up.

"Yeah, yeah. Who wants to go with me to the store?"

There were two volunteers.

"Husband, can you also bring back almonds?" She thought and then added cinnamon and cardamom to the list. "And also vermicelli."

He didn't ask her why she wanted the odd ingredients. "Sure. We'll be back soon." His eyes turned flinty and focused on the boys around her. "Don't eat my wife."

The drawling warning made Hira scowl. "These lovely children won't hurt me. You must not say such things."

He just raised his brow. After the door closed behind him, she turned to the remaining boys. "My husband believes you will behave like wild camels while he is gone. I wish to make him..."

"Eat his words?" said Damian.

"What does that mean?"

"Prove him wrong."

"Yes." She nodded. "Yes. He's always right. It's most annoying. Let us prove him wrong."

They grinned at her. And she knew the little devils were well aware she liked them. In her arms, Brian wriggled and settled in more firmly. She saw a few of the boys' eyes go to the littlest boy in hunger. So, she thought, they were not cuddled much.

Her husband likely gave them his strength but wasn't much of a cuddler. Even in bed he rarely gave the com­fort of simply being held. Starved for it herself, she knew how much it meant to be touched in simple affec­tion.

Reaching out to the boy closest to her, she ruffled his hair. He didn't move away as most children his age would have.

His eyes looked into hers, too old in that young face. "You must be okay if Marc married you."

Ah, she thought, understanding their willingness to trust her. "Or I could be as the dragon in the tale of the 'Secret Princess.'" Her big, brooding husband might be a most unaccommodating male, but he'd done. some­thing good here, given these boys a sense of safety in what was undoubtedly a shifting world.

For that she could forgive him his secrets, give him the time he needed to learn to trust her. Like these chil­dren, his guard would only drop when he was certain of her, when he was convinced that she was his...body and soul. Where that certainty came from, she didn't know.

"Huh?"

She dragged her mind away from Marc. "It is a story of my homeland, of a princess who was also a dragon. I will tell you this if you show me how to make apple pie."

It took a few more minutes of tantalizing bits from the story, but she soon had them hooked. One boy swept the floor clean, and then they showed her how to make apple pie. Brian fell asleep in her arms sometime dur­ing the story. Damian offered to take him from her.

"No, I wish to hold him." She smiled at him, thank­ing him for his concern. "He's so very light, I worry."

"He's sick a lot. I think he misses Becky."

"Becky?"

"His twin. When their ma and pa died, they put Brian here and Becky in some girls orphanage," Da­mian explained.

"But that is wrong! In Zulheil, it's said that two who are born together are each other's heart. They are not to be torn apart." No wonder the boy was so frail,

"Marc's doing something to help him."

Hira thought to ask her husband about this later. For the moment she'd enjoy the children's honest company, and try not to think about the depths of tenderness this place revealed about the dark and moody man she'd married and was only now beginning to know.

Marc returned with Larry and Jake, carrying six con­tainers of ice cream. What the boys didn't eat today would be savored later. He expected to find the kitchen in chaos, his princess overwhelmed by these tough kids who'd known more hurt than humanly bearable and yet had survived.

When he'd realized that she was following him, he'd let his temper drive him into a situation that could mean terrible pain for those who least deserved it. Furious at her lack of trust in him, he'd reacted without thought, a strange experience for a man known in business circles as having a will of iron and a heart of ice.

He hoped he hadn't damaged the boys' trust in him by leaving them with a woman who could destroy with one scathing comment. To her credit, she'd never dis­paraged either his scars or his background as a dirt-grubbing child, but even after he'd loved her this morning, her eyes had looked at him with such distance that he'd felt taunted into trying to tame her.

He'd wanted to rub off some of that aloof sophisti­cation and find out if there really was a living, breath­ing woman beneath the ice. He didn't want her to be only a beautiful shell who could shut off her emotions as easily as she'd shut him out of her bedroom last night. But, a part of him whispered, she hadn't locked the door. And he'd taken full advantage of that lapse.

"Let's hope for the best," he muttered to himself, shouldering through the swinging door.

He walked into a kitchen filled with laughter. Little Brian was fast asleep in his wife's arms, and tall and shy Beau was blushing but trying to tease her about some­thing. The other children were gathered around her.

She had flour on her nose and elbows. There was a streak of dirt on her designer yellow dress from Brian's shoe, and handprints on her skirts from other little hands. She'd begun the afternoon with her hair pinned on top of her head, but Brian had pulled strands loose. She looked disheveled and messy, and her face was full of such joy that his heart stopped for a minute. Lord, she was beautiful when she was all prettied up; messy and with a child in her arms, she was devastating.

Painful tenderness cramped his heart. His hands froze around the bags he held. This was no ice princess. Despite all the times her facade had cracked, how had he failed to spot the truth about his wife?

"What's so funny?" One of his ice cream helpers asked.

Damian looked over. "Hira's been telling us stories."

"Oh, man! We missed it," Larry grumbled.

"Don't worry, I'll tell more."

Marc couldn't believe the way she had them all in the palm of her hand. As the late afternoon progressed into evening, he expected her to wilt under the emotional de­mands of the attention-starved boys, but she seemed to glow. Much later, after dinner and the supervised com­pletion of various pieces of homework, they sat down to watch the first hour of a video, a midweek treat the boys only got for good behavior.

However, it quickly became clear that they weren't enjoying it. Despite the nonchalance they tried to por­tray, they were very worried about Brian. Once again he'd barely eaten anything. After settling the boys down, Hira went into the kitchen and made something with milk, sugar and the other ingredients she'd asked him to buy. Cuddling Brian into her lap on her return, she lifted a spoonful of the mixture to his mouth, her other arm holding him carefully.

"Come, laeha, you must eat this. I have made it just for you," she coaxed, her voice holding the exotic music of a faraway land of desert and sunshine.

The sad-faced little boy opened his mouth and let her feed him a spoonful. His eyes widened. When a second spoonful was raised, he made no protest. Carefully, while the other boys ostensibly watched their movie, she man­aged to get a whole bowl of the rich mixture into Brian. Drowsy after eating, he snuggled into her body and fell asleep again, his thumb in his mouth. The habit had developed after the traumatic separation from his twin.

Marc took the bowl and spoon from his wife, his chest tight with pride. "Thank you."

Worried eyes met his. "He is too small."

"I know, cher," he whispered. "I'm trying to find his sister." He touched her hair once and then walked into the kitchen, finding that she'd made more of the sweet treat than had been needed for Brian. Deciding the rest of the boys would like a taste, he took out small serv­ings. "Here, extra dessert thanks to my wife."

Soon, sighs of repletion sounded around the room. When he looked to see how Hira was taking this, he found her fast asleep, Brian's head cushioned on her breasts. In sleep, his princess looked as guileless as the child lying trustingly against her body. If he only knew which face—the sophisticate or the innocent—was her true self, he might have a way to understand the woman he'd married.

Hira woke when Marc took Brian from her. "We are leaving?" she asked, rubbing at her eyes.

He nodded. "The others have gone to bed. They said good-night and come back soon." His eyes looked at her with a gentleness she couldn't understand.

While he carried the sleeping boy upstairs, she went to the kitchen to tidy up, only to find it sparkling clean. Smiling, she located the shoes she'd kicked off, and stepped into them. When she went to say goodbye to the elder, it was to find the study disappointingly empty.

A big hand came to rest on her hip. "Father Thomas didn't want to disturb you when he went to bed."

She turned to look up at her husband, feeling drowsy and happily tired. "He is a nice man."

Marc pressed a kiss to her forehead. It was so far from his usual passion, so tender that she just stared.

He chuckled at her dazed expression. "You are not driving home. I've moved your car to the parking lot be­hind the orphanage. We'll get it later."

Nodding, she let him lead her out to his truck.

The drive home went quickly because she was ex­hausted. The next time she woke, it was to find Marc carrying her up the stairs to their bedroom. When she blinked and pushed at his shoulders, amused gray eyes looked down at her.

"Did I sleep?"

His grin was bright in the warm light of the small lamps he'd apparently switched on, on his way up. "You dozed off against my shoulder, just like Brian did on you."

She yawned and then, without thinking about it, snuggled her face against his neck and went back to sleep. She was vaguely aware of him undressing her and laying her down on their bed. He didn't put her night­gown on her, but she'd expected that. But, though he slipped in naked beside her, he didn't do more than hold her tight.

"Sleep, princess." A kiss on the pulse in her neck.

He was cuddling her, she thought, smiling into dreams that were soft and pleasant. It was nice to be cud­dled by an American hunter who was pleased with you.

The next day Hira went in search of her husband, feeling confident enough to ask him for something that was important to her. Unless she'd imagined his tender­ness of the night before, Marc had changed his mind about her. Her heart bloomed with joy. Perhaps, after seeing her with the children, he no longer thought of her as a spoiled "princess" but a woman with a heart.

Once more she found him the backyard, chopping wood. But this time a slow, seductive smile eased her passage to him. "Good morning." His eyes ran down her demure mint-green top and skirt, made in the way of her homeland. There was definite male approval in his gaze.

"Good morning." She felt herself blush with sudden shyness. "Why do you chop wood when a fire does not appear to be required in this area?" she asked, trying to ground herself with mundane matters.

His eyes seemed to brighten. "I prefer it to lifting weights. I give the wood away to the people who need it." His eyes flicked toward the bayou.

"Oh. I understand." Her husband was a man with a big heart, she thought, trying to stop twisting her hands in front of her. "I wish to ask you for something."

He slammed the ax into the tree stump and faced her, hands to hips. The ridged musculature of his abdomen held her spellbound for an instant. She knew exactly what those muscles felt like under her hands. "Shoot."

Alarm rocketed through her. Did he think she was a violent woman? "Why would I want to?"

She could tell he was biting back a smile. "I didn't mean literally, princess. It's a figure of speech. It means, go ahead, speak what's on your mind."

"You Americans are very strange." She looked down at the ground rather than the magnificent expanse of her husband's chest. "I wish to pursue some studies."

"You want to take some classes? Pottery or some­thing to occupy your time? That's fine with me."

She told herself she'd imagined the patronizing tone of his voice. Surely, after everything, he didn't still see her as a pretty toy? "I wish to study management theory and economics. There are classes in those sub­jects taught at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette.

"And since this is my new home, I thought I would also take advantage of the Center for Louisiana Studies and learn about Acadian culture."

Her husband's bark of laughter had her jerking her head up. "Sure, princess."

"Why are you laughing?" She couldn't bear to be laughed at, especially by this man who was so smart and loyal to the people whom he'd taken under his wing.

His smile faded. "You expect me to take that request seriously?" He shoved a hand through his hair. "Honey, I know you're intelligent. I said I'd never stop you learn­ing and I won't, but to be honest, I don't think you're up to the rigors of intensive study. You were raised to be a pampered wife, not an academic."

She should have been glad that he wouldn't stand in the way of her dreams. Instead she found she wanted not only his permission but also his support. "I'm more than just smart. I'm determined," she insisted. "These things come to me naturally. I helped my older brother many times when he was stuck, but we didn't tell our father for he would've punished Fariz for asking my help."

"Look, I said it's fine. Send the bills to me."

He was already turning away from her, dismissing her. Rage choked her throat, blinded her vision, as years and years of being ground under a male's boot took its toll.

A small hand pushed at Marc's chest, forcing his at­tention back to the woman in front of him. He expected to find her in a feminine sulk because he hadn't imme­diately supported her sudden desire to study seriously. If she'd wanted it that much, she could've pursued it in Zulheil, which had a world-class university and no re­strictions on the entry of female students. There were also any number of scholarships she could've applied for if her family hadn't wanted to finance her.

He didn't see what he'd expected. Hira was standing there, her hands clenched at her sides. Fury vibrated through her entire body. She was like a high-tension wire strung as taut as it could possibly be and not snap.

"You are a. . .horrible man! You hurt me and do not even care to say sorry!" Pure anger sparked in those stunning eyes. "You don't care to get to know me. I'm just some toy to you, like o-one of those windup things that children play with.

"Look," she said, imitating the voice of an infomercial presenter, her face strained white, "push this but­ton and pretty little Hira will shatter from the pleasure of your touch, then touch this lever and she'll return to her place as a stupid, polished toy with no more brains than a vegetable!"

He was frozen. This wasn't the calm, composed prin­cess he was used to seeing. This woman looked as if her heart had broken, and she spoke to him with bluntness that sent him reeling.