Her son nodded emphatically. “Seen ’em on television. D’you shoot Indians?”

“No, I work with them.”

“Can you yodel and play the guitar?” Emma asked.

Gabe laughed. “I can see I got here in the nick of time,” he said to Freddie. “The Gazette is only half my job. I have to stay-to correct your children’s misconceptions about cowboys.”

The dower house beat the abbey by a mile. The rooms were warm, the meals were good, the bed was soft.

And even if he hadn’t managed to share it with Freddie Crossman-yet-he still enjoyed the pleasure of her company.

Sort of. Actually he didn’t get to spend much time with Freddie.

She was always busy when he was around-cooking, serving, cleaning, washing up. She barely sat still.

Good thing he liked to watch her move. He liked listening to her soft accent, too. It reminded him oddly-or maybe not so oddly-of home. His mother, after all, was British. Her accent was not that unlike Freddie’s.

But that was the only way she reminded him of his mother. And the feelings she evoked in him had nothing to do with her maternal qualities at all.

She was, though, clearly a good mother. Charlie and Emma were polite and well-behaved, but not at all like little robots. They were eager and inquisitive, and they followed him around like young pups.

He liked Charlie and Emma enormously. He enjoyed listening to Charlie try to explain cricket to him, and was always eager to be “taste tester” when Emma helped her mother make scones or a cake. He loved telling them stories of cowboying and rodeoing. It was a kick to watch their eyes get big and their jaws hang open. He gloried in wrestling on the parlor floor with Charlie and delighted in getting down on his hands and knees and letting Emma have horse rides on his back while Charlie pretended he was much too old to want to do anything like that.