The compliment brought tears to her eyes, for despite his ability to pinpoint their location, she could see that he was almost blind. This man saw Hira, not just the face and the body that were her trappings.
"You've done well, my son. I suppose you want to show her off to the boys. Off you go, daughter. I expect to see a lot more of you."
Hira smiled, feeling more warmth from this frail old man than she ever had from her own father. "You will" She turned and let Marc lead her away, leaving the elder to his ruminations.
The second they were out of earshot, he said in a cutting whisper, "Good performance, babe, but the boys won't be fooled so easily." Suddenly he paused. "Damn it, what the hell was I thinking? I shouldn't have brought you here-they've suffered enough." The bitterness in his tone startled her. "It's too late now. Don't hurt them."
Before she could ask him to explain the deep and uncompromising care she heard in his tone, they walked into a large kitchen. Ten boys of different ages, from a skinny five-year-old to a gangly youth of about fourteen, appeared to be trying to cook. Flour had turned the floor white but it was the childish laughter and the joy on their faces that held her attention. Then they saw her.
And the laughter died.
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.