Читать книгу Seduction Of The Reluctant Bride - Barbara McCauley - Страница 10

Three

“You intend to do what?”

“He’s out there somewhere.” She pulled off her glasses, dropped them back in her purse. “I intend to find him.”

Based on the serious tone in her voice and that stubborn little tilt of her chin he’d already come to recognize, Sam thought it best not to laugh. “A search team already combed the area. Twice. The force of a flash flood in a canyon is without mercy. It takes everything in its path. Digger’s camp was directly in that path, almost entirely washed away. There was no sign of him or his horse. His body could be miles away, under dirt and rocks.”

Faith’s face went pale. He hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but under the absurdity of what she was suggesting, there seemed to be no other way.

“Could be miles away,” she repeated his words with a catch in her voice. “But you don’t know for sure, do you?”

“Of course we don’t know for sure. We’ll never know anything about what happened for sure. Life’s like that sometimes. You just accept it and go on.”

She shook her head. “I can’t accept it.”

“Darlin’, you don’t have any choice.”

“There are always choices,” she said firmly. “Some people are simply more active in their decisions.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I was down in that canyon for six days straight with two different search-and-rescue teams. Nobody knows the Lonesome Rock area better than me.”

“Then you take me in.”

Startled at her suggestion, all he could do was stare She was serious. She wanted to go into Lonesome Rock Canyon, and she wanted him to take her.

“I’ve been riding since I was five,” she went on. “I know how to handle a horse. Please, Sam, take me into the canyon.”

His name on her lips was a quiet plea. When she leaned in close to him, her eyes imploring, he felt his insides twist. It would be absolutely ridiculous, foolish even, to waste his time, or hers. But then—he thought of those long legs and curvy hips—he realized there could certainly be worse ways to spend a few days.

“I’ll pay you anything you want.”

She might as well have poured ice water down his pants. Money. Everything with Faith Courtland seemed to be about money or business. He mentally kicked himself to think he had nearly lost his sanity to those blue eyes.

“Sorry, Ms. Courtland.” He almost felt a touch of regret. Almost. “Not interested. You’re just going to have to learn how to deal with your business problems some other way.”

Her shoulders went as rigid as her voice. “If you won’t take me, I’ll just hire someone else.”

He shrugged. “It’s your money. Waste it any way you choose. I suggest you don’t try to hire anyone from these parts, though. You tell anyone that you’re going into the mountains to look for Digger’s body because his twohundred-million-dollar business is in trouble and they’ll put you in a padded cell.”

“You can’t stop me from looking for him,” she said coolly.

“Who said anything about stopping you?” He felt unreasonably angry. “That’s your unofficial fiancé’s job. And speaking of him, I’d like to know what kind of a man would let his wife-to-be go traipsing off into the mountains with a strange guy?”

Imperceptibly, her chin rose higher. “Harold is extremely understanding. He would never presume to tell me what to do. Our relationship is based on mutual trust and respect.”

“Mutual stupidity, is more like it.” He grabbed both arms of the chair she sat in, effectively caging her in. “That would be the day I’d let the woman I loved go off with another man.”

She held her calm gaze level with his, but Sam could have sworn the pulse at the base of her neck was trembling. He felt strangely torn between wringing that gorgeous neck and kissing it.

“I’m not ‘going off with anyone.” Icicles hung from her words. “And fortunately, your antiquated attitude toward the modern woman has nothing to do with me. I don’t like loose ends, Mr. McCants. Especially where Elijah Jane is concerned. Once this matter can be put to rest, the company can proceed smoothly and effectively. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a great deal of paperwork I’ve brought with me and several phone calls to make.”

He knew when he’d been dismissed. Damn if this foolish woman didn’t know how to test a man’s patience. His hands tightened around the arms of the chair, and he leaned closer to her. The flicker of fear in her eyes gave him tremendous satisfaction. “What will you do, Faith,” he murmured, “if you do go off into those mountains with the wrong man?”

“Well, Mr. McCants—” her breathing had deepened, but she didn’t budge or look away “—I guess I’ll just have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“Jake Stone,” Savannah softly chided her husband, “our guest has been here at least two full minutes and she hasn’t a drink in her hand. Shame on you.”

Faith, still recovering from Jake’s bear hug greeting and Savannah’s warm welcome, barely had time to open her mouth and decline before Jessica, Jake’s younger sister, pressed a glass of white wine into her hand.

“The boy’s slow, but harmless,” Jessica said, referring to her brother. Then she handed her husband Dylan a bottle of beer. The baby boy in his arms leaned close, mouth open and ready to clamp onto the bottle. “You give our son a taste of that beer, Dylan Grant, and you’ll spend the next week sleeping in that shed you’re building behind the jail in Makeshift.”

Dylan and the baby both looked disappointed, until Jared walked in carrying a blond-curled toddler wearing a darling denim dress. Annie, who looked even more pregnant than the day before, waved off Jake and Jessica’s offer of assistance.

There were more greetings, more hugs, more kisses. No kiss-the-air, stiff-backed hellos that Faith was used to, but rib-crunching hugs and loud smacks on the cheeks that made her head spin.

She nearly had the names straight when a beautiful young girl around thirteen years old came into the living room with a pink-cheeked, dark-haired toddler perched on one slender hip. The teenager, with her dark hair and deep blue eyes, looked like Jessica’s clone.

“This is our sister Emma.” Jake kissed the youngest Stone sibling on the top of her head, then scooped up the toddler, who shrieked with delight as she was tossed up in the air. “And this is Madeline.”

Without warning, Jake pushed the laughing child into Faith’s free arm.

“Swift work, brother-in-law.” Annie fell into the couch with a sigh. “Throw your daughter up in the air, then hand her over to your guest whose gorgeous pantsuit is not only white, but also happens to be a Peter Nygard.”

From the blank expression on Jake’s face, Annie might as well have been speaking a foreign language. Faith suddenly felt out of place here again, wishing she’d worn something more casual. Which would have been impossible, since she hadn’t brought anything casual.

But her wardrobe seemed to be the least of her worries right now. Afraid to move, afraid to breathe, she stared at the baby in her arms. She’d never been around babies before. She’d never even held one. The cherub grinned at her and bounced up and down, wanting to be tossed in the air again. She smelled wonderful, Faith thought. Like baby shampoo and soap. Madeline pushed the end of Faith’s nose with one chubby finger.

“You’re supposed to honk,” Jared offered.

Honk? Self-conscious, she uttered a tiny squeak that sounded more like a pig. Madeline didn’t seem to mind, though. She giggled with delight and pushed Faith’s nose again. Warming to the toddler, Faith gave it another go, then laughed herself when Madeline squealed in pleasure.

That’s how Sam found Faith when he walked in. Standing in the middle of Jake’s living room, dressed like a goddess in white, holding a giggling baby in one arm, a glass of wine in the other, honking like a goose.

Damn, but the woman was beautiful.

“Don’t look now, Ms. Courtland.” Sam grinned and touched the brim of his black Stetson as Faith’s head snapped in his direction. “Jared’s got the video camera.”

Eyes wide, Faith glanced across the room. Her playful expression turned to one of alarm as she realized that Jared, indeed, was recording her ridiculous—but adorable, Sam thought—honking.

That’s when Madeline decided to throw up.

Everyone—everyone except Faith—moved quickly. Body rigid, she stood frozen while Jake gently removed his daughter—who seemed no worse for wear, just a little confused over what all the fuss was about—and Emma ran to get towels. Savannah, frowning at her husband, led Faith, who appeared to be in shock, into the other room, with Jessica clucking her tongue behind. Annie gave Jake an I-told-you-so look, and he hightailed it out of the room with his daughter. Laughing, Dylan followed, his own son in his arms.

Jared kept filming.

“You get that on tape?” Sam asked Jared, who nodded over his camera but, in light of his wife’s glare, knew better than to smile. “I’ll pay you a roundup’s take on my cattle for a copy of that.”

“You should both be horsewhipped,” Annie said irritably, shifting her heavy weight on the couch. “I’d do it myself, if I could move.”

“She gets a little more cranky every day as her due date gets closer,” Jared said good-humoredly. “The last two weeks she was pregnant with Tonya I’d have to wave a white flag before I came in the house at night.”

“Stop talking about me as if I’m not here.” She fluffed a pillow behind her back. “So I’m a little moody. It comes with the territory.”

Foreign territory, Sam thought. All this marriage and baby stuff was alien to him. He was a man much more interested in taking trips where he knew how to speak the language.

Faith Courtland, on the other hand, he thought, watching her as she came back into the room several minutes later, was a woman that could make a man forget how to speak at all.

Savannah had loaned Faith a faded denim shirt that accentuated the blue of her eyes. The jeans she wore were loose on her long legs, but snug on her hips and behind. Even the old black cowboy boots she had on looked as if she’d been born to wear them. She’d gone from goddessin-white to cowgirl-in-blue in a matter of minutes. Sam couldn’t decide which he thought was sexier.

“There’s Texas in this girl’s blood,” Jessica said with a toss of her long dark hair. “All she needs now is a hat.”

Sam stepped up to her and slipped his Stetson on her head. It was way too big, of course, but the oversized black hat, set against her light blond hair stirred his blood. He took a step back, not sure if it was for her protection or his.

Cheeks flushed, she smiled as she ran her hands over the brim of the hat. He’d seen that kind of pleasure in a woman’s eyes over a dozen red roses, but never a hat. He felt a swift stab of possessiveness, as if her wearing his Stetson was a form of ownership on his part. After a long moment, she lifted the hat off her head and handed it back to him. Their eyes held briefly and her blush deepened.

“I’m sorry to be such a bother,” she said to Savannah, who was looking strangely at Sam. “You’ve all been so kind.”

“It was my daughter who messed your beautiful jacket and my husband who caused it.” She threw a scolding glance at Jake, who’d come back sheepishly into the room, his daughter clean and fresh in a new pink jumper. “We’ll have your jacket cleaned and sent to your hotel. And you can keep the jeans and shirt. I could squeeze into them if I really wanted to, but since my babies I’m not into torture.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” Faith said quickly, but Sam could see that she wanted to, very badly.

“I insist.” Savannah started for the kitchen, calling behind her, “Food’s on the table in five everyone. Round up the troops.”

Sunday dinner with the Stone family was an event to behold. Fried chicken piled high on a huge platter, bowls heaped with mashed potatoes, rich, thick gravy, biscuits so fluffy that Faith didn’t care if she broke every sense of propriety and asked for a second.

Food had always been her business. She’d eaten at restaurants in more than twenty states and four countries, tested recipes from the finest chefs in the world, but she couldn’t ever remember a better meal than the one she was having then. She was definitely going to have to finagle some recipes out of Savannah.

It was a bit overwhelming: the bowls coming round, plates getting passed, arms reaching over arms to grab for another piece of chicken or scoop of mashed potatoes. Dinner at her parents’ house had always been formal. The attire, the dishes and silverware, the proper wine. Conversation was polite, no one ever shouted or talked when someone else was speaking. Here, with two babies, two toddlers, one teenager and eight adults, there was so much chatter and laughing that Faith felt giddy.

But there was much more to her giddy feeling than the Stone family, Faith admitted to herself. The man sitting in the chair beside her, flirting outrageously with the women and arguing incessantly with the men, seemed to be the cause of her light-headedness.

She knew she should be angry at him. Not only because he’d refused to take her into the mountains, but because he didn’t take her seriously. He’d even called her stupid, which was truly unforgivable.

Still, when he’d put his hat on her earlier she’d been overcome by a strange sense of intimacy, as if he’d given her his high school pin, or his letterman’s jacket. She’d even felt a sense of loss when she’d handed it back to him. And since they’d sat down to dinner, every time he’d accidentally brushed up against her or their hands had touched while passing a bowl, she’d felt as if a spark of electricity were passing through her.

She knew it was silly, of course. Even foolish. Which only deepened her annoyance. She was twenty-six years old, an almost engaged woman, not a school girl. And she was here in Cactus Flat for Elijah Jane, not for herself.

“Faith, has Sam told you about the time Jake and him dumped Texas Tom’s HellFire Pepper Sauce in Digger’s ketchup bottles at the Hungry Bear?” Jared asked, grinning.

Faith swiveled to look at Sam, who was frowning at Jared. Jake frowned, as well. “I don’t believe I’ve heard that story.”

“They must have been about fourteen at the time,” Jared continued, enjoying himself at Jake and Sam’s expense. “They watched through Digger’s big glass window all day, expecting all the customers to breathe fire and blow smoke out their ears. But nothing happened. No fire, no smoke. No screams of agony. Later in the day they came back in, confused but hungry from watching all those people eat, and Digger fixed them two big burgers, on the house, dripping with his secret sauce. It took them both a couple of bites before it hit, but when it did—” Jared said, grinning “—it was like an explosion.”

“A nuclear explosion.” Sam reached for his water glass as if he were reliving the horror. “Seems that Digger had seen us spike his ketchup, so he exchanged the bottles, then set us up. Wars could be ended with whatever it was he put in those burgers.”

Jake nodded in agreement. “I thought I’d have a permanent hole in the top of my head. Which was only the beginning of our torture. We paid for that one...two days straight in the john.”

“Jake!” Savannah’s tone was strict, but her eyes were laughing. “That’s no talk for the dinner table.”

The stories continued: Digger’s famed baseball bat pursuit of the deputy shenff; his abduction of Moses Swain’s pig who’d repeatedly destroyed Digger’s tomato plants behind the café and Digger’s subsequent special on pork chops; his constant meddling in everyone’s business that he called “free advice.” Everyone laughed so hard Dylan spit water and Jessica got the hiccups.

“Enough,” Annie said, wiping at the tears in her eyes with one hand while she held her side with the other. “I swear, I’ll have this baby right here and damn if that wouldn’t be Digger’s fault.”

“There wasn’t a wedding that took place—” Jessica said, wiping mashed potatoes off her son’s chin “—a baby born, or business deal in Cactus Flat that Digger didn’t somehow take credit for. Even you, Faith. He’s probably looking down at us, taking credit for you being here right now.”

The sudden change in Faith’s demeanor was subtle, almost imperceptible, but Sam caught it nonetheless. The slight angling of her chin, her stiff smile. Why in the world would Jessica’s harmless comment bother the woman?

“Now, Sam here,” Jake said, pushing his plate away as he eyed a pecan pie sitting on the sideboard, “he was Digger’s greatest challenge. Sam’s marital status to Digger was like a red flag to a bull.”

“Not to mention every woman within a five-hundred mile radius,” Savannah added, making room on the table for pie and cookies.

“Once all you ladies were taken, I resigned myself to a life of celibacy.” Sam’s look was forlorn, his wink at Savannah wicked. There were groans around the table, with Jake nearly choking.

“Why, even Faith here is taken,” Sam said. “Practically engaged to Howard from Boston. Isn’t that right, Faith?”

She threw him a sharp glance. “Harold.”

“Right.” Pleased with himself and the mischief he was causing, Sam accepted the slice of pecan pie that Savannah handed him. “He’s extremely understanding, she tells me.”

Her glance turned to a glare. “As a matter of fact, he is.”

“A rare quality in a man,” Annie said.

Jared, who’d been nibbling on a cookie his daughter had offered him from her high chair, feigned hurt. “I’m understanding,” he complained. “Aren’t I, guys?”

The men all nodded and mumbled praise amongst themselves. Jessica rolled her eyes and smiled at Faith. “I’m not sure if I should offer congratulations or condolences. Have you set a date yet?”