Читать книгу Baby's First Christmas: The Christmas Twins / Santa Baby - Tina Leonard - Страница 11

“Zach decided to accompany Jessie at her convention,” Pansy told Helen. “And Pepper just called to tell me that she abandoned him—left him high and dry in Los Rios.”

Helen cocked her head. They sat inside the Tulips Saloon, the spot of many a cozy meeting and many a scheme. It was a wonderful second home for the women of the town. They were proud of the tea shop they’d created. Once a lackluster cafeteria with few customers, they’d overridden Duke’s objections to calling it a saloon and decided to make a gamble for the tourist trade. “I knew that girl had spunk. I knew she was right for our town the minute I laid eyes on her.”

Pansy dusted off the chairs with a tea towel. “She’s a bit fancy.”

“Zach needs fancy. It will be good for him.” Helen smiled. “Those Forrester kids always liked whatever was completely opposite from their own personal experience.”

That had been true in Liberty and Duke’s case. Duke was stubborn, and Liberty was…stubborn…Helen pursed her lips. “Or maybe they like their own mirror image.”

“Then that would make Jessie all wrong.” Pansy got a fresh tea towel and began polishing silver sleigh-shaped vases. She’d bought pretty red flowers to go in the vases for color and to spiff up the ambiance of the Saloon. “There’s definitely something going on between those two that is different from Zach’s usual pattern, and I suspect he’s interested in her or he wouldn’t have gone with her.”

“Yes,” Helen said thoughtfully. “But if she left him in Los Rios, what’s he going to do now?”

“He’s on his way home, according to Pepper. And not happy about it, either. She said he was all set to learn about the life of a princess.”

“It sounds like there’s an edge to those words,” Helen said. “I found Jessie very down-to-earth.”

“Yes,” Pansy agreed. “But still, she’s definitely not the type to settle in Tulips, Helen.”

Helen frowned, unwilling to concede that point and yet wondering if her good friend was right. She’d taken a shine to Jessie, she had to admit.

“Remember the goal is to grow Tulips,” Pansy said gently. “Duke says it has to be done organically. No bachelor cattle drives.”

“Oh, what does Duke know?” Helen had given up on the idea of the bachelor balls when Duke had decided to go along with Zach’s idea of building a new elementary school. Zach had wanted to bulldoze the Tulips Saloon, and Duke had saved her precious tearoom from that fate. Zach had gotten his way about the elementary school—a very good idea but Helen only admitted that secretly—and in return, Helen had to give up her schemes for bringing men to Tulips.

But with so many single women in the town, it was hard to grow Tulips without males, and doing it organically might not be possible. Certainly not quick. Zach had dated most of the appropriate females around these parts and none of them had gotten him as far as Houston, much less Los Rios. “We have to work with what we have sometimes, Pansy.” She considered her words for a moment. “Do you remember the first rush of being in love?”

Pansy put down her tea towel in surprise. “I remember madness and delight and anticipation.”

Helen’s cheeks pinked. “So do I. I also remember that the wonder of love was that it didn’t have any rhyme or reason to it.”

“Yes,” Pansy said, “the emotions were simply there. They existed no matter how much I couldn’t believe them or understand them.”

“Which would perhaps point to why a woman would leave a handsome man stranded in a strange town.”

“Not stranded,” Pansy said. “She left him his truck, after all.”

“True. We may not have gotten the whole story.”

“I’m worried about her car,” Pansy admitted. “Something seems fishy about Zach sending Jessie’s car to Holt, our lovable hairdresser.”

“Holt is wonderful with mechanics. He loves cars! Particularly vintage and special cars. He’ll do a wonderful job for Jessie.”

“Yes,” Pansy said, sinking slowly into a Queen Anne antique chair with cherry blossom design. “Except that Holt never got the car.”

Helen blinked. “Holt doesn’t have Jessie’s T-bird?”

“No.” Pansy raised her chin. “I asked him what was wrong with Jessie’s car, and he said he didn’t have a pink T-bird, nor had he ever met a Jessie. Nor had Zach called him about fixing any kind of vehicle.”

“Oh, my,” Helen said. “This is not good.”

“I only gently suggest that we mind whom we claim is leaving whom high and dry.”

“Point taken. This is a tasty dilemma,” Helen said. “Poor Jessie.”

Pansy sighed. “I do believe so.”

“We’re going to need the boys for this one,” Helen said, and Pansy nodded.

“As inept as they are, they are the perfect ones to ferret out the male dynamic for us.”

“And Jessie’s car, to be sure,” Helen said. “We must always fortify the position of the female.” She reached for the phone. “I will call in the spies, such as they deem themselves.”

Pansy smiled. “I love living in Tulips.”

BUG CARMINE, self-annointed parade master of Tulips—if they could ever talk Duke into letting them have a parade—and Hiram, who lived in the cell Sheriff Duke presided over by choice, stared at the fancy pink car hidden in one of the Forrester’s barns.

“That’s some set of wheels,” Bug commented. “Mrs. Carmine would like to take a spin in that.”

“Looks like a sin-mobile to me,” Hiram said. “In my day, girls that drove something like that would have been the ones you wouldn’t take home to Mother.”

“Yeah.” Bug placed the cover carefully over it again. “Now that we’ve found it, we have to make a decision. Either we tell the ladies it’s here and they bust Zach, or we say we didn’t find it, and let matters really get hot in Tulips.”

“Can’t put ‘Here Lives A Car Thief’ on a town billboard.” Hiram shook his head. “Still, I like the idea of putting one over on the TSG. What crime has Zach committed anyway? It’s good that he likes a girl enough to steal her car.”

Bug sniffed. “In my day, we sent flowers as a token of our affection.”

“These are different times,” Hiram said, “as you should know from what the Tulips Saloon Gang regularly put us through.”

“There is that,” Bug agreed. “We can’t tell on Zach. Bringing the TSG down on his head—well, I couldn’t stand to see that happen to him.”

“Yeah, they’re still mad at him for his idea to bulldoze the saloon and make an elementary school out of it.” They walked out of the barn and closed the door. “As far as I’m concerned, I never saw a thing,” Hiram said.

“Nor me.” Bug shook his friend’s hand.

“My conscience is clear,” Hiram said with satisfaction as they walked away. “I do love keeping secrets from the gals, and tonight, I’ll sleep like a baby with my conscience for a blanket.”

TO ZACH’S SURPRISE, days passed without any word from Jessie. When the weeks slipped into December and he still hadn’t heard a word from her about her beloved car, he knew he had a big problem on his hands.

A tulip-pink convertible land yacht wasn’t easy to hide. It was only a matter of time before Duke or Pepper went into that outlying barn for something. Duke was busy with Liberty and the new baby, and Pepper was busy doing whatever she was doing, but time wouldn’t be on Zach’s side forever.

He couldn’t believe Jessie hadn’t returned for her car. He’d thought he was being so smart, so in control of the situation.

Of course, he should have known better when Jessie asked the convention security to have him blocked from the site under the guise of it being for women only, a trick she had eerily in common with Pansy and Helen and the other TSG members. He’d hung around until the convention was over but he’d never caught another glimpse of Jessie. The people at the checkout desk had been supremely unhelpful, but he’d finally bribed a young clerk into telling him that the entire mascara-and-lipstick crowd was long gone. The president, the clerk had told him in a whisper, had left by helicopter.

No wonder he hadn’t seen Jessie escape. He’d only been patrolling the glass-and-brass hotel doors, not the rooftop.

Maybe she’d never return and he’d have a lifetime souvenir of the one golden afternoon they’d shared. He’d forever remember how he’d worried that she’d give him a child, and she’d given him a vehicle instead. Not to mention that it was a completely inappropriate ride for him to be seen driving, so she’d cornered him in a lose-lose situation that would do nothing except color his reputation pink or get him in deep brown with Duke.

“Okay, you win,” he muttered under his breath. “Just come get your damn car before Duke finds it.”

JESSIE LOVED spending the weeks leading up to the holidays on the road. Her job was glamorous and fun. She loved to travel. Meeting people and helping women to look their best was her favorite part of the job, especially at this time of the year. This was her moment to help ladies shine, like ornaments that stayed in storage all year and came out radiant for the holiday season.

Hopefully, what she taught them stayed with them the rest of the year, too. That hope of helping women was what she’d built her position on at her company, and was the driving factor behind its success today.

Hot pink was the color of her life.

Her parents had known that when they’d chosen her car, her promotion gift. No mere heiress’s job, her father had said that her vision held the direction the company needed.

She looked at her best friend as they sat in the living room of her suite at the world-class hotel her parents owned. Fran Carter was also her secretary and together the two of them had cooked up this year’s special holiday look. It had almost been glittering and fabulous enough to keep her mind off a certain cowboy, but Jessie hadn’t forgotten him despite the miles she’d put between them.

It would be impossible to forget Zach.

“So, Jessie T.,” Fran said, curling up on a coffee-colored suede sofa, “we know all about how to cry so your mascara won’t run and your fakies won’t fall off, and how to make things look a helluva lot prettier than they really are. But I don’t know a makeup trick for what you need.”

Jessie shook her head. “The thing is,” Jessie said slowly, “I think I would have fallen for Zach no matter what. He was pretty smooth for a man who grew up far away from sophisticated surroundings.”

Fran nodded. “You could call him.”

“I really can’t,” Jessie said. “If I do, he’ll think I’m just looking for my car.”

“It was a helluva calling card you left him,” Fran said. “Eventually, he’d understand that your call wasn’t completely about your vehicle.”

“I’d never met anyone as stubborn as Zach. I’m afraid I didn’t exercise good judgment in leaving him behind. My feet seemed to take flight of their own accord.” No man had ever made her feel that nervous before, and escape had seemed the logical and only action.

“You’ve always put your job first,” Fran said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. So you had a fling. It’s completely understandable.” She giggled. “Although out of character, I’ll admit.”

Jessie looked out the window at the skyline of the city. It was beautiful in Dallas, and she loved living here. But…“This is not where I want to raise a child,” she said quietly.

“I know,” Fran said. “Which is the real reason he’ll know you calling is not about the car.”

“His worst nightmare,” Jessie murmured. “He told me so more than once.”

Fran nodded. “We all have nightmares eventually.”

Jessie touched her stomach. His nightmare was actually her dream come true.

At least part of her dream.