It was one of the last photos she had of her husband. It took her moment but her mind clicked over and she remembered one of the photos of Paris Bonneville and her parents. The wall in their lounge room was a shrine to their missing daughter. One picture stuck most in Ryder’s mind. Lacey Bonneville had her eyes closed, her head resting against her husband as he cradled his arm around her. Their little girl lay asleep against her breast, her black hair stark against the pale ivory of her skin, her rosebud lips puckered.
A shiver went over Ryder’s skin. The picture was almost identical to the one Ryder looked at now. The resemblance of their baby girl to hers wasn’t lost on her. A lump rose in her throat and a surge of emotional hit her right in the gut, bringing up tears.
Unsettled, she threw back the blankets and padded barefoot down the hallway to check on Ebony. Her arm was flung over her head, the glossy black hair spread out on the pillow, her lips parted in sleep. Ryder tried to plait her hair at night so it wouldn’t be such a mess to brush in the morning but Eb wanted to let it be free, to spill around her face when she slept just like a princess would. Ryder had understood and listened to the reasoning figuring it was good enough and left it at that.
Ryder watched her for a moment, letting her heartbeat settle before heading into the kitchen to switch on the coffee pot. Looking out the kitchen window, she noticed the rooster walking around the yard outside the barn while his girls watched, patiently waiting for Ryder to let them out.
A flash of grey and white across the driveway caught her interest. Mother cat sat at the food bowl Ebony had left out for her. She seemed quite relaxed and at ease, and Ryder wondered if it was worth waking up her little girl to send her down to the barn when a small hand crept into hers.
“Morning, honey.” She reached down and picked Eb up, resting her on her hip and pointed out the window. “Look out there. Mummy cat is eating her food. Perhaps if you go down quietly, she might not run away. Want to give it a go?”
“Oh yes!” Eb wriggled down and hurried out the back door.
“Slow down.” Ryder picked up a mug of coffee and wandered leisurely out to follow her, keeping her distance to see what happened. She wandered behind Ebony and then stopped short of the barn, taking a perch on the wooden rails of the fence close by the hen house to watch.
Ebony crouched down beside a bale of hay chattering away to the cat a few feet away from her. The cat watched as she ate, listening to the little girl. When she licked the bowl clean, she sat up and washed her face, forever on the alert for danger. Ryder could see the swollen teats filled with milk and wondered how many kittens she had in hiding.
Her coffee forgotten, she saw the cat walk over to Ebony, taking its time. Her daughter sat frozen, her voice still filling the large barn as she tried to put the animal at ease. It’s obviously working. My little chatterbox won again. The cat rubbed against Eb’s legs and wound around her body to nudge her hand. She sat and enjoyed the scratch around the ears and Ryder could hear the purring from where she sat across the drive.
“Seems like you’ve got yourself a friend, honey.”
Eb grinned and that grin turned down when the cat bolted and ran away, high up into the bales of hay.
“Don’t worry, honey. She’ll be back. You have to give her time to get to know you and I think you’ve made a great start.” Ryder slid down from the fence and sauntered over to rest her hand on her girl’s shoulder. Just as Eb breathed another huge sigh of disappointment, a small meow reached them.
Up on the top bales, the mother cat sat with two kittens beside her. “Oh, Mummy, look at that.” One of the kittens, a black and white peered over the edge of the bale while the other, a tabby like its mother, sat closer to the adult cat watching. “So pretty.”
Chapter 7
Jake watched Ryder walk into Amy and Jim’s back yard with Ebony’s hand clutched tight in hers. He understood her nervousness when faced with a crowd such as this. From what he learned of her, she was fearless most of the time. Determined, honest, and hardworking. The perfect employee or the perfect partner? Where the heck had that come from? He’d blame his mother. When he’d arrived she’d been right onto him, chatting about his new employee, passing on information she’d gleaned from the towns folk. All snippets of information that led him to believe she wanted to play cupid.
He wasn’t buying. Not yet at any rate. He hardly knew the woman. Yes, she was pretty when she didn’t scowl. Her ragged blue-black hair, pale skin, and icy blue eyes intrigued him more than they should have. A sprinkle of dark freckles over her nose only added to the pixie look that stirred something in him. The fact she had a daughter didn’t faze him either. But he liked the life he had or so he told himself. His last relationship had been a long one although they never made it to the alter. Probably longer than it should have been if he was honest and the missing wedding
