Читать книгу Texas Lullaby - Tina Leonard - Страница 11

Gabriel’s buyout of Laura’s time in the kissing booth won him lots of winks from the guys and smiles from the ladies as he walked toward his truck. He hadn’t said anything to a shocked Laura—just figured he’d introduced himself to the town in the most obvious way he could have for a man who preferred being a loner.

He didn’t even know why he’d done it.

Maybe it was Pop, egging him on to be a gentleman, which was a real stinker of a reason. Mason met him at his truck.

“Have a good time?”

Gabriel checked Mason’s eyes for laughter but the question seemed sincere. “Seems like everyone is enjoying themselves.”

“Good to see you around. We’ve been wondering what you’re going to do with yourself out there if you stay holed up at the ranch.”

“I imagine I’ll figure out something.”

Mason handed him an envelope. “Mimi said to give you this.”

“Mimi?” Gabriel scanned the envelope. It had his name written in his father’s handwriting, and no postmark.

“Mimi’s the law around here.” Mason winked at him.

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Your father left that with her. She asked me to deliver it to you. I’ve been meaning to get out to your place, but here you are, getting to know the good folks of Union Junction.”

Again Gabriel studied him for sarcasm. There appeared to be nothing more to the man’s intentions than good old friendliness.

“Why didn’t Pop just mail this to me? Or courier it like he did before?”

Mason shrugged. “He said something to Mimi along the lines of when and if any of his sons ever got here, they were to have that. Josiah figured you’d be the first, though. In fact, we wagered on it. I owe your father a twenty.” He handed Gabriel a twenty-dollar bill.

Gabriel shook his head. “Put it toward the school fund.” He looked at the envelope, wondering why his father would have wagered he’d be the first brother to the ranch. “Who’d you bet on?”

Mason laughed. “Jack. He’s the unpredictable one. I always go with the dark horse.”

“Cost you this time, buddy.”

Mason slapped him on the back. “Sure did. Come on out to the Double M when you have time. We’ll introduce you to the kids.”

“Maybe I will,” Gabriel said, knowing he probably wouldn’t.

“Congratulations, by the way,” Mason said as he walked away.

“For what?”

“For spending that much money for a kiss and then not getting it. Nerves of steel.” Mason waved goodbye. Gabriel glanced back down at the envelope, aware that Mason was now giving him a gentle ribbing. “Jackass,” he muttered under his breath and got into his truck.

But it was kind of funny coming from Mason, and even Gabriel had to wonder why he’d passed up the chance to kiss Laura after he’d so obviously put his mark on her.

Not that he was going to think about it too hard.

“NOTHING,” LAURA TOLD the girls at the Union Junction Beauty Salon. “I’m telling you, there’s nothing between us. He didn’t kiss me. Gabriel’s barely civil to me.”

The girls oohed and then giggled. Laura had received a fair bit of teasing and she expected the kissing booth incident had been thoroughly dissected. Privately, Laura wondered what it would have been like to have Gabriel’s lips on hers. It had been so long since she’d kissed a man—well, kissed a man as she had Dave. She didn’t count those chaste, predictable pecks in the kissing booth. Even the old ladies and the elderly librarian got their turn in the kissing booth, and the men lined up for them just as quickly. The older ladies—particularly teachers—received grandmotherly busses on the cheek from favorite students.

Everyone was anxious to see the elementary school succeed. There was so much goodwill in this town. Laura was never going to regret moving here with Dave those five years ago. He’d said Union Junction was a growing town, he’d have lots of work, they’d make a family and be happy out away from the big city….

It had worked out just that way for just over five years. Five perfect years.

So she shouldn’t really be thinking about what it would have felt like to kiss Gabriel. She was twenty-six, too old for dreamy longings; she was a mom and a widow.

“I bet he kisses great,” one of the stylists said to another, and Laura blushed.

“Aren’t you curious?” someone asked her.

Laura ran her hand through Penny’s hair as she often did. The feel of the corn-silk softness comforted her, as did the powdery smell of Perrin. “No,” she murmured, easy with the lie. “Gabriel is not my kind of man.”

They all fell quiet, silenced by the uncomfortable position they had put her in.

“She doesn’t need to tiptoe around Dave forever,” someone finally spoke up bravely. “Honey, we know you loved him, but you’re alive and he wouldn’t want you being sad forever.”

Tears jumped into Laura’s eyes. Several ladies came over to hug her. She felt Penny press closer to her leg. “I know.”

“All right, then.” They all patted her, then went back to their places. “So next time you get a chance to kiss a hunk like Gabriel Morgan, you just grin and bear it if you want to, okay?”

“Maybe,” Laura said, smiling as she wiped away the unwanted tears.

“Wish he’d buy out my booth,” someone said, and everyone laughed, even Laura, although she really didn’t think it was funny. What they didn’t realize is that Gabriel hadn’t wanted to kiss her, hadn’t even looked tempted. He’d sort of picked up his father’s responsibility—and then he’d headed off.

A woman knew when a man was interested in her. All fairy tales included a kiss—a man knew how to get what he wanted, even in books. Dave had been a gentle pursuer, slow and careful as if she were a fine porcelain doll.

Gabriel owned no such gentle genes. If he wanted a woman, she figured the indication of his desire would be swift, like a roiling wave breaking over a boat at sea, claiming it with powerful intent.

Gabriel pretty much turned to stone every time he laid eyes on her.

Dear Gabriel,

By now you are at the house and are beginning a year of time you no doubt resent like hell. But money talks and though it might not talk very loud to you, I know you’ll stick out the year just to prove yourself. This need of yours to be a tough guy living on the edge is exactly what I now need to lean on.

Remember when I bought that extra acreage and added on to my own hacienda out here? I bought it from a man who was down on his luck, and partly down on his luck thanks to me, which he has discovered. Now don’t go getting all high and mighty like I cheated this man out of his birthright, because the man is a scoundrel. And anyway, he needed the money.

The problem is, I bought the land suspecting there was an underground oil source. I had it surveyed without his knowledge. He has since found out I paid for a geological survey of his property and feels cheated.

Fact is, maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t. He could have paid for his own damn survey.

The trouble in this is that the man is Laura Adams’s father, with whom she has no contact due to the fact that he didn’t approve of her marrying a carpenter. Didn’t like her husband, felt he wasn’t good enough for his only child, which didn’t set well with Laura. He needed her to marry big to save his sorry ass.

You see my predicament. I could sell the man back his land but the price would include a terrific profit which he cannot afford. I gave Laura’s children a tiny portion of what is rightfully theirs, since it would have been anyhow, I suppose, though I believe her father would have drunk up the estate. You might say I just hijacked Penny’s and Perrin’s inheritance, robbing from the poor to give to the poorer.

Unfortunately, the jackanapes took to threatening me. He really feels cheated by life, and I suppose he has been, but the big dog runs off the little dog and that’s life, isn’t it? But for the grace of God go I.

Anyway, you’ll be seeing him as he lives to create trouble. But I have faith that you’ll smooth everything over in due time, as you were always the responsible one in the family, even though it really chaps your ass that I say that. It just happens to be true.

Pop

“IT DOES CHAP MY ASS.” Gabriel forced himself not to shred his father’s letter. “It does indeed chap me like you can’t even imagine, Pop.”

He did not appreciate being appointed the protector of the family fortunes, but even less so the knight of Laura Adams’s little brood. He couldn’t even make himself kiss her; how the hell was he going to start thinking of her as part and parcel of the Morgan family?

And yet, according to Pop, they owed her something.

What exactly that was, Gabriel wasn’t certain.

THE STORM THAT SWEPT Union Junction and the outlying countryside that night kept Gabriel inside and feeling caged. He paced the house, watching lightning crack through the windows of the two-story house. The TV had gone out; the phone lines were dead. He could hear water dripping frenzied and fast into the overgrown gardens.

There wasn’t a lot to do in a house one didn’t call home. So far he’d mainly confined himself to his room on the second floor, and the den. He passed through the kitchen occasionally to forage from the goodies the ladies had left for him. The house, he estimated, was around six thousand square feet. Eventually, he’d have to investigate the rest of Pop’s place.

Actually, there was no better time than the present, he decided. The sound of something not quite right caught his ear; instantly he listened intently, all the old survival skills surging into action. Someone was at the front door; someone with a key that wouldn’t fit easily. Gabriel considered flinging the door open and confronting whoever was out there, some idiot so dumb they didn’t know it was storming like hell outside, then relented. Let the water drown them. If they made it inside, then he’d deal with them.

He thought about Laura’s father’s threats against Pop and figured he couldn’t kill the man in cold blood. So he selected one of his father’s many travel guides he had in the den—the heaviest one, something about the South Seas—and waited behind the door.

It suddenly blew open with a gust of wind and rain and vituperative cursing. Gabriel raised the eight-hundred-page tourist guide high over his head, preparing to crack it over his visitor’s skull.

“Damn it, I hate Texas with a passion!” he heard, and lowered his arms.

“Dane?”

His brother swung to look at him. “What the hell are you hiding back there for? And with a book on the South Seas?”

“Preparing to coldcock you.” Gabriel closed the door.

“I’m supposed to be here.” Dane glared at him, his coat dripping water all over the floor.

“Your e-mail said you were coming in January.”

“And I’ve since changed my mind. You got a problem with that?” Dane asked as he threw his bags in a corner.

Gabriel sighed. “Calm down, Sam Houston. Food’s in the fridge.”

“Don’t call me that. I detest Texas.”

In the kitchen, Gabriel settled into a chair. “Are you starting your year of duty early?”

“Figured I might as well get it over with.” Dane stuck his head inside the refrigerator door, ending the conversation for the moment. “Fried chicken! Watermelon!”

Gabriel shook his head and began to read the travel guide to the South Seas, which was starting to sound appealing.

“You get your letter from Pop?” Dane asked while he emptied the contents of the fridge on to the kitchen counter.

“What letter?”

“The one with the sob story about watching over this woman and her twins who have no man in the house.”

“Twins?” Gabriel sat up. Laura only had a toddler and a baby—didn’t she?

“I despise kids almost as much as I hate Texas,” Dane said.

Gabriel couldn’t think for the shock of adding more kids to Laura’s equation. “You’re a Texas Ranger. Get over it.”

“I’m done. I retired from active duty.”

“Congratulations. So back to the family of four—”

“Yeah. I’m supposed to look out for this little mom because of some mess Pop made.”

Gabriel frowned. He was supposed to be the reluctant knight in shining armor. Possessive emotions and a sense of I saw her first crowded his skull.

Dane shuddered. “Her name is Suzy something.”

“Suzy? Not Laura?”

Dane sat down across from him with a beer and a plate of fried chicken. “How do you get Laura from Suzy?”

Gabriel shook his head. “This doesn’t sound good.”

“Tell me about it. I nearly took off for New York, never to be seen or heard from again. But in the end, I knew I had to do this, or I’d really never be free of Pop. He’ll try to rule us from the grave if we don’t prove to him that nothing he does can screw up our lives anymore.”

“And then there’s the million bucks.”

“A small price for putting up with Pop,” Dane said glumly. “You know it’s going to get ugly. Suzy.” He shuddered.

At least it wasn’t Laura Pop had sent Dane to rescue. It didn’t really matter, Gabriel reminded himself. One year and he was gone. Outta here.

But now apparently there was a family of four in the mix, and an additional problem to be solved. Gabriel stared out the window at the pelting rain.

It was indeed beginning to get ugly.