Читать книгу A Nuisance - Lass Small, Lass Small - Страница 7

The brunette cameraperson’s name was Minnie Tombs, but a couple of the guys called her Many Times and snickered a lot.

There are just males who are slow to mature.

Minnie was enduring. Since Szyszko didn’t harass her, she looked at him with some interest, until she saw how he looked at Carrie.

Minnie and Carrie hit it off from the first glance. Carrie was that way. She fitted in with other women very easily.

Watching the two, Stefan thought he’d just made a very formidable mistake, allowing that cameraperson into Carrie’s house and into Carrie’s control. He considered them and frowned.

The men bached it at Stefan’s. The eighty-two-year-old Mac fit into the male household with ex-military ease. He was the only one who had a room alone. He’d been a master sergeant in World War II. Everybody knows a master sergeant has things the way he wants them, and he didn’t cotton to sharing a room with any other male.

Stefan had to share his room with Pat and one of the other men, and those who were left took over the third bedroom. At night, the snoring was really something.

As usual with new people, the guests were fascinated with Stefan’s last name. That started when one of them said, “You have a good TEXAS name...Cisco.”

Just the pronunciation showed the name was wrong. Stefan replied, “I’m Polish. My last name’s spelled different.”

“Yeah?”

So Stefan spelled his name and that threw them all for a loop. “What!”

The owner of the Polish name was practiced in his patience with the uninitiated.

* * *

Stefan and the crew, plus Minnie, would be out for days looking over backgrounds for filming, but they spent suppertime and the evenings at the Szyszkos’.

Besides helping with setting the table and the clearing away and dishwashing, the photo crew was primarily learning how to spell the Szyszko name, and complaining because the Szyszko parents hadn’t had daughters.

That brought up Mr. Szyszko’s telling his wife about him finally knowing how to make girls just after his fifth son was born. The guys loved the story; Stefan’s mother was patient.

About that time, Carrie brought Minnie and some other women along, and the guys got polite and careful.

Mrs. Szyszko mentioned the quietness to her husband, and he explained, “Women terrify men.”

She scoffed.

He was surprised, “Haven’t you ever noticed how careful and quiet I am around you?”

She gasped, too quickly.

Then the guests wanted to know why Mrs. Szyszko was choking. “What’s the matter?”

Patting her back, Mr. Szyszko replied, “I shocked her.”

“What did you say?” They were concerned.

“Something obviously too adult for you kids.”

They objected their youth, and they all made suggestions on how to stop Mrs. Szyszko’s coughing. “Pat her back.”

“Raise her arm up.”

“No, the left one. Higher.”

They sought to distract her. They played like apes and made strange noises and tried to scare her—the mother of five sons—but she only coughed harder.

Mr. Szyszko instructed, “You scare hiccups!” But he took his wife out of the room.

It was only then that Stefan realized Carrie had cut off just about all of her magical hair! He was stunned. She’d done that?

He stared at her. And in all that bedlam, she slid her eyes over and returned his stare. Then she turned away from him and rejoined the chattering laughter.

With Mrs. Szyszko gone from the room, Pat Vernon suggested to Minnie, “Hiccup. We’ll figure out a way to scare you.”

She was used to them and declined the entertainment.

Pat chided, “You’re selfish.”

Stefan thought that exactly identified Carrie. She’d selfishly kept her body to herself and now she’d cut off her hair. How come he hadn’t noticed that right away? He hadn’t because she was magical. A man was so stunned by her aura that he didn’t immediately notice detail. She’d cut off her hair!

No man should get involved with a woman like her. And he watched her through slitted eyes as she laughed and hushed and chided the teasing men.

They were after her. They had no chance at all. Then...why was she laughing thataway?

Stefan strolled casually over and positioned himself beside Carrie. He would protect her. She was not alone. He was there. He proceeded to give various males his deadly, narrow-eyed cut it out right now look.

They ignored him.

Stefan sighed. He’d obviously never appeared to be the formidable threat he knew he was.

When Carrie tried to leave his side, Stefan took her arm in his hand and asked through clenched teeth, “Why’d you cut off your hair?”

She carelessly rumpled what was left. It was thick and ducktailed charmingly under her hands, but her mouth said...she actually said, “You told me to.”

He gasped in indignation! But at the same time, he clearly remembered goading her with the false statement that the guys had all said she ought to cut her hair.

So she had!

Women were excruciatingly stupid.

She smiled at him and said, “See? Is this better?” And she had the gall to wait for his reply.

Stefan was stilled by appalled shock! The other men heard her question and got to crowd around her and touch her head and ruffle her hair, what was left of it. But Stefan was unable to move or comment because he was still in the speechless, staring stage.

With Carrie’s hair cut off that way, attention was drawn to her luscious body. The men had always stared at her body, but then they could alibi, “Her hair is really something.” And they discussed and touched her hair, but they looked at the rest of her.

Under the jocular byplay of the mob, Stefan could quietly ask the wicked woman, “You drawing attention to yourself?”

“Not that I’m aware.”

“You cut your hair so’s men would notice your body?”

She looked down at her gorgeously refined shape and had the sass to question, “This old thing?” But she glanced up at him and her eyes were serious and rather cold.

He shivered.

So she asked, “What’s the matter with you?”

“You’re freezing me out.”

She tilted back her head and said through her teeth, right there in his parents’ living room, “You discarded me.”

“When?”

She stopped her tongue, which was about to give the exact day count, before she replied, “Some time ago.”

Stefan frowned and squinted as he tried to recall doing any such thing. “I don’t recall doing anything like that.”

“You did. You walked out on me and you shut the door.”

She turned and left him in the silent room where people were laughing and gesturing and enjoying each other’s humor. Stefan was alone in a vacuum.

How was he to recapture her attention? She didn’t answer her phone. She wouldn’t talk to him. She was snippy and aloof. How could he reach her?

Women were a pushover for any injury. He needed to bleed. His parents’ house had been an injury-proof haven since their first son was born. Now, how could Stefan get a wound there? He signaled Jeff with a backward move of his head. His friend came over.