Читать книгу The Marriage Maker - Christie Ridgway - Страница 10

It was past 6:00 p.m. and Cleo was still sitting at her desk. The last Beansprouts’s child had been picked up and the last staffer had gone home. She told herself she was taking advantage of the unfamiliar quiet to catch up on her bottomless stack of paperwork, but the only paper she’d put pencil to was a leaf from one of her “list pads”—stacks of tear-off sheets preprinted with lines.

Cleo had more list pads than most women had shoes. Yellow ones edged with flowers, white ones with a teacher’s apple bulleting each line item; list pads printed on graph paper with thick, no-nonsense lines of military blue.

A sheet of that pad lay in front of her now, and she would have sworn she was just doodling as she stared out her window at the May twilight, but then she looked down. Her “doodles” were words, and what she’d really created was a list of the many practical, sensible things she’d done with her life.

Line one listed “Accounting 303.” That was the class she’d taken the summer between her junior and senior years at college. A group of her friends had invited her to join them traveling through Europe for three months, but she’d needed the accounting class to graduate and it was hard to get into during the regular school year. So she’d taken the wise, practical route and given up Paris for profit-and-loss statements and the Alps for accounts receivable and payable.

Part of that same group of friends had urged her to join them in an Internet startup business after they graduated. That was why she’d written “Refused Internet Startup” on the second line. It hadn’t seemed a safe choice, not when it meant moving to Las Vegas, of all places, and not when it meant they’d all be dirt-poor at the beginning. In the end—two years later—of course, that group of friends spent half the year vacationing in Europe. They’d struck it rich.

Next she’d written “Lives At Home.” Cleo sighed. As much as she loved her family, it did seem as though a twenty-seven-year-old might want to have her own place. But it was so practical to live at home. Sensible.

Lastly were the words “Yearly Lease.” She sighed again. When she’d opened Bean sprouts two years ago she’d been relieved to sign up for a mere twelve-month lease. That way, if the business didn’t fly, she wouldn’t be chained to a monthly payment for too long. She’d done the same the following year, even though by then the day care center had a foot-long waiting list.

Irritated at herself, Cleo tapped her pencil against the desktop. The building’s owner, Gene, would have let her sign for something longer, but she’d wanted to be practical. Sensible. Just look where that had led her—to Gene suddenly wanting to sell and Cleo suddenly facing disaster.

She jumped up from her chair, depressed by the turn of her thoughts. Thanks to that annoying man, Ethan Redford, she was viewing her best traits as her worst faults! No thank you.

Anyway, it was time to go home and consume a crate of brownies or something else decadently chocolate. Maybe on her way back to the Big Sky B and B, she’d think of a suitable bribe to get her sister in the kitchen, and baking.

Cleo drove down the winding country road, appreciating late spring in Montana and watching eagerly for her first soothing glimpse of Blue Mirror Lake. Yes, the B and B was a sensible, practical place for her to live, but it was a choice she didn’t regret. She’d like to travel, sure, but this piece of Montana and the lake would always be home. She was glad her mother had convinced her father to leave Louisiana and open the business all those years ago.

Thinking of Louisiana reminded Cleo of her mother’s nightmares. There. Another reason that living at the bed-and-break fast was a good choice. She wanted to be near Celeste while these terrible dreams continued to plague her.

What the heck were they all about? Cleo pursed her lips and vowed to sit her mother down for a little heart-to-heart this evening. She could picture Celeste already, her eyes shadowed and her manner subdued, as it always was the day after the dream.

Cleo parked her Volvo sedan in its usual spot and let herself inside the back door. The kitchen was immaculate, but Cleo sniffed hopefully, wondering if Jasmine had done any particularly delectable culinary experimenting that day.

A soft, delighted laugh froze her midsniff.

It was followed by another. Her mother’s laugh. And then came a giggle. A baby’s giggle.

Cleo gritted her teeth, a terrible premonition overcoming her. With quick steps she passed through the kitchen and dining room to the living room.

Her mother sat on one of the long couches, cradling an adorable blond, blue-eyed baby. A man, golden-haired and devastating in a dark suit, watched them from a spot by the windows.

Cleo frowned at him. For all her sniffing, it was quite a surprise she hadn’t smelled a rat.

She tapped her toe against the honey-pine floor. “You’re not staying here are you?” she asked, her voice cool, she hoped, and not crabby.

Ethan’s head came up and so did his eyebrows.

Her mother smiled at the baby but addressed Cleo. “Ethan and Jonah have rented the Atchinson house.”

The Atchinson house. Oh, great. Another lakeside property not more than half a mile away. She crossed her arms over her chest. “So if you have your own place, what are you doing here?”

Her mother spoke again. “Ethan came to introduce me to Jonah. And I’m thrilled to meet this very handsome young man.” Celeste nuzzled the baby’s cheek and the little boy giggled again, his hands patting her hair.

Cleo softened a little. Her mother looked happier than she had in a long time, and obviously distracted from the terror of the night before.

Then Ethan spoke for the first time. “And I came to see if I could persuade you to go to dinner with me at the country club.”

Cleo took a step back. Oh, no. That wouldn’t be sensible or practical. Not when he was looking like the Golden God of Business in that Italian suit. Not when the last time they’d had dinner at the country club the evening had ended with her half dressed and nearly begging him for more.

“No,” she said firmly, and then smiled to herself. Some times sensible and practical felt darn good.

“Please, Cleo,” Ethan said quietly. “It might be the last time we ever meet.”

Cleo’s heart jumped. The last time. But then she narrowed her eyes, staring at him suspiciously. He didn’t look like a man who thought they would never meet again.

“Go ahead, sweetie,” her mother added. “I told Ethan I’d watch Jonah, and I can’t think of anything that would make me happier than watching this little angel.”

Cleo softened again. Her mother did look so darn happy holding that baby. To be honest, she itched to hold him herself. Without even thinking about it, she walked forward and sat beside her mother on the couch, then reached out toward Jonah. He immediately grabbed her hand and gave her a grin that made mush of everything inside her.

“Please come with me, Cleo,” Ethan said.

Looking at the motherless baby and sharing the joy her own mother had in just touching him, Cleo discovered her backbone had dissolved completely. She sighed and stroked Jonah’s cheek with her free hand.

“All right,” she said grudgingly. “This last time.” Because, anyway, could she really resist just one last time with Ethan? “I need a few minutes to change.”

He nodded. “Take all the time you need.”

In her room, Cleo whipped through a refreshing shower and then stood in her under wear, staring into her closet. What did a woman wear for a last dinner with the man she’d refused to marry? The man who considered her so practical and sensible?

The answer was obvious, of course. A woman should wear something completely impractical and as far from sensible as possible. Something that would make him sweat and make him drool.

But Cleo being Cleo, she had nothing remotely close to that in her closet.

She went wild, double-checking, flinging hangers aside with abandon until she had to admit the closest thing to “vamp” in her closet was the black witch’s costume she wore at Bean sprouts on Halloween. And even that was something that had been Jasmine’s first.

“Jasmine,” Cleo whispered. Her mother had said her sister was out for the evening, but Cleo dashed through their adjoining bathroom into her room, anyway. Without a moment’s compunction, she went double-fast through her sister’s double-stuffed closet and emerged clutching a long-sleeved black knit dress that was deeply veed in the front and back.

Not allowing herself to give in to doubt, she ran back to her own room and slipped into black stockings, black heels, and the dynamite black dress that had been bought by her less-curvy sister. Sitting at her dressing table, she twisted her wavy hair behind her head and held it back with a jeweled comb. Then she applied her makeup heavier than usual, not daring to look past her chin.

Once she’d blotted her lipstick, a shade named Derring Do, Cleo stood. With a deep breath, she turned around and looked at herself in the full-length mirror.

“Eek,” she said breathlessly. Where the dress had displayed a lot of Jasmine’s fragile clavicle and just a hint of her bust, on Cleo, the dress displayed a lot of bust and nothing, but nothing was hinted at. “Oh, boy,” she whispered.

Could she do it? With fingers that trembled just a little, she pulled a couple of wavy tendrils free from the twist of her hair, letting them drift softly around her face. Could she walk out there and face Ethan in something so…well, sophisticated instead of sensible?

Taking a deep breath—and then swearing to herself to not take another after what she noticed it did to her cleavage—Cleo gave herself one more objective, assessing look in the mirror.

And liked what she saw.

She strutted a couple of steps in her high heels, then made an about-face and walked past the mirror again. Yes, she thought. I’m going through with it.

Because she’d be darned if she was going to send Ethan out of her life with him remembering a boringly sensible, practical, capable Cleo. And if this dress didn’t make him look at her just a teensy bit differently, then her name wasn’t Cleo Kincaid Monroe.

By the time they’d left the B and B, settled into his Range Rover and driven to the White horn Country Club, Cleo was pretty sure that Ethan didn’t know what to think when he looked at her. While her mother had smiled and told Cleo how nice she looked, Ethan appeared to have swallowed his tongue. The miles to the country club had been covered in virtual silence and Cleo got the distinct feeling that Ethan was glad to have something to focus on besides her and the dress she was wearing.