Читать книгу: «One Husband Needed», страница 2

CHAPTER TWO

“C’MON, Jimbo, open wide. The early bird’s supposed to eat all his worms.”

“What are you doing with my son?”

Jamie squealed and pounded the tray of the high chair.

Worth turned to face the owner of the furious voice. Sparks practically flew from her red hair. A man would be crazy to want all that heat and voltage centered on him. “I’d say I’m feeding him breakfast, but since the majority of the food is everywhere but in his stomach, you’d probably call me a liar.”

“You had no right to come into my bedroom and take Jamie.”

So much for gratitude. Worth shoved food in Jamie’s mouth and debated apologizing. He didn’t debate long. Widow or not, Elizabeth Randall’s abrasive attitude was beginning to rile him. Besides, she had no business standing there with sleep-tousled hair, doing bad things to his body. “I knocked, but you were snoring so loud, you didn’t hear me.”

“I do not snore.”

When she stuck her nose in the air and jerked her spine straight, the top of her shiny green pajamas poked out in interesting places. Worth gave her a deliberately obnoxious grin. “You made more racket than a freight train, sleeping with your mouth hanging wide open.”

“You watched me sleeping?” She practically shrieked the question.

Turning his back to her, Worth gave Jamie a wink and another spoonful of cereal. “Only for a minute, Red.” Revolving to face her, he added in a guileless voice, “I was admiring your green pajamas.”

She pokered up indignantly. He could almost feel the electricity as she searched for a response to his compliment which would put him in his place. Worth smiled in anticipation.

“Don’t call me Red.” His wolfish smile rattled her. His smile and his comment on her pajamas.

She should have taken time to put on a robe instead of panicking when she’d found Jamie missing from his bed. Being in nothing but pajamas and bare feet made a woman feel vulnerable. Elizabeth wanted to run, but instinct told her the dumbest thing she could do was let this man know he unnerved her.

Making her way across the kitchen, she took a mug from the rack and filled it with coffee. She desperately needed caffeine to recharge her brain cells and took a deep gulp of coffee. “Yuk.” She spit the mouthful of liquid back into the mug and poured it down the sink. “If I licked tar off the street, it would taste better.”

“Does anything around here suit you?” he asked mildly.

“Jamie suits me.” She looked at her son and did a double take. “What in the world is he wearing?”

“Since Jimbo and I didn’t want to disturb his lazybones of a mom, we had to improvise a little. He was sopping wet.”

Jamie gave her a toothy grin and smeared banana on the man’s undershirt he wore. “I don’t suppose you bothered to change his diapers.” Grudgingly, Elizabeth admitted to herself her son didn’t seem to be suffering.

“He’s wearing a dish-towel diaper with a plastic bag over it, aren’t you, Jimbo?”

That made the third time he’d said it. “His name is Jamie,” she said tersely.

“Well now, Red,” Worth drawled, “Jimbo and I had a little discussion about that, and we decided Jamie is a sissy name. A cowboy needs to have a name like Jimbo.”

“He’s not a cowboy and he’s not going to be a cowboy.”

“That’s not what his Grandpa Russ says.”

“Russ has nothing to say about how I raise my son.”

Worth slowly rose. Sticking his hands in his back pockets he silently contemplated her with narrowed eyes. The food splashed down the front of his T-shirt did nothing to subtract from his masculinity. He should have looked ridiculous. He didn’t. He looked sexy.

Elizabeth shivered. Only because the house was cool.

Jamie banged on the tray of his chair with his drinking cup.

She moved to step around the obstacle in her path. The obstacle blocked the move with his large body. “I need to take care of my son,” Elizabeth said.

“He’s fine.” Worth studied her face with such intensity the hairs on the back of her neck rose in uneasy protest.

She dropped her eyes to stare at a hunk of banana stuck to his T-shirt. Elizabeth’s secrets were her own. She didn’t want him, didn’t want anyone, gaining access to them. “Please move.”

With an exaggerated sweep of his hand, he stepped aside.

Ignoring him, she concentrated on feeding Jamie the last of his cereal, then wet a paper towel and bending down, scrubbed her son’s face.

“I surely do love those green pajamas.” The soft drawl flowed from the kitchen doorway.

Elizabeth straightened up and spun around so fast she made herself dizzy. Worth Lassiter slouched against the doorjamb, masculine approval filling his eyes with a drowsy, sensual heat. Her stomach zoomed to her toes. She wanted to run and hide. She couldn’t move. Her traitorous body reacted as if he were physically touching her. And he knew it.

Elizabeth took a deep breath. “What do you want from me?”

A lazy smile crept across his face. “You know what I want, Red. And I intend to make sure I get it.”

What kind of man tried to seduce a woman he barely knew who was a guest in his home? She picked up Jamie, as much to hide behind him as to give herself time to regain her composure. “When you live in a university town, and your husband dies, someone’s bound to bring you a book on being a widow. As if it’s like learning how to sew or raise puppies. I had nothing better to do, so I read it. The book talked about this.”

“This?”

“How some men will tell a widow they know she must miss sex and offer to, well, comfort her.” Her voice rose nervously, which both annoyed and mortified her. She forced herself to look him directly in the eye. “Let’s get one thing straight, Mr. Lassiter. I am not a lonely widow looking for a man to share my bed.”

Surprise flashed deep in his eyes, then he lowered his eyelids to half-mast, concealing any expression. “You know, Red, it’s always enlightening to watch a woman’s mind at work. I compliment your pajamas, and you immediately conclude I want you out of them.”

“If I was wrong, I apologize,” she said stiffly.

“A man would be crazy to have sex with you without a fire truck standing by. I don’t want sex. I want you to forget the reason you came here, because I intend to make sure you don’t get what you want.”

“What could you possibly know about what I want?”

“I know you hope to stop the wedding, and I know I’m not going to let you do anything which makes my mother unhappy.”

He was so far wrong, she would have laughed. If his exasperating, irrational fixation uttered in a patient, long-suffering voice didn’t make her back teeth ache. “I’m not going to stop the wedding,” she shouted.

Jamie started crying and clutched at her.

“Good. You don’t start any trouble, and we’ll all get along just fine.” His eyes darkened and a lopsided smile slowly curved one side of his mouth. “Jimbo, you little devil, you.” He strolled out of the room.

“Don’t cry, sweet pea. It’s okay. The mean ol’ man has gone.” Elizabeth quit grinding her teeth and looked down at her son. And realized Jamie’s frantic clutching had unbuttoned half the buttons on her pajamas leaving the top gaping wide open. The cool morning air had hardened the tip of her bared breast to a tight nub.

He was having so much fun watching the color wash across Elizabeth’s face each time he managed to catch her eye, they were halfway through dinner before Worth realized the tension at the dinner table could be cut with his dinner knife. Russ and Elizabeth were excruciatingly polite to each other. His mother was trying valiantly to bridge the conversational gap between them. With very little success.

Worth couldn’t believe it. He thought they’d reached an agreement this morning that Elizabeth wouldn’t cause trouble. Obviously she’d had no intention of honoring that agreement.

Her mistake. He didn’t care if her anger at Russ was justified. Nobody messed with his family.

“Elizabeth,” Mary said, “your father has told us how much you love to ride. The two of you should check out some of the trails around here.”

Elizabeth’s head shot up. “I didn’t bring clothes for riding.”

Worth’s senses sharpened. There was nothing about his mom’s proposal to cause the hint of panic he picked up in Elizabeth’s voice. He didn’t like one bit that the panic suggested Elizabeth feared her father.

“It seems a shame not to get in all the riding you can while you’re here,” Mary said. “If you’re worried about Jamie, I’m happy to watch him while you ride.”

“That’s very kind of you, but Jamie’s a little overwhelmed by all the changes in his routine right now. Having me disappear for hours would be too distressing for him.”

“You don’t want to make a mama’s boy of him,” Russ said. “He’ll be fine with Mary for a couple of hours.”

“I haven’t ridden for years,” Elizabeth said tightly. “I’d get all stiff and sore, which would be no fun with your wedding coming up.”

“We don’t have to ride that long,” her father said. “You gotta be tough to be a cowboy,” he added in a hearty, teasing voice.

“So you’ve told me.”

As Elizabeth turned to her son, Worth had the oddest impression that every muscle in her body quivered. The way a horse quivered when terrified. It was clear Elizabeth was adamantly opposed to riding with Russ. Why? What did she fear?

Old family friends had introduced Russ to his mother, but Worth had still checked into Russ’s background. He wondered if he’d checked deep enough. Russ’s first wife had left him, and Elizabeth and Russ obviously had an uneasy relationship. Russ’s surprise at Elizabeth coming to the wedding took on new, ominous overtones.

If Worth had misread Russ’s true character in a desire to see his mother happy, now, before the wedding, was the time to find out. Leaning back in his chair, Worth set out to probe into Elizabeth’s fear. “Russ, you’ll have to drive Elizabeth around and show her the ranch while she’s here. You can take your grandson along.”

“Jamie likes to ride in cars,” Elizabeth said quickly.

“You can see more on horseback,” Russ said.

A more perceptive man than Russ would have felt his hair singe at the look Elizabeth gave him. An unbelievably absurd notion began snaking its way into Worth’s head. Elizabeth didn’t object to going with Russ; she objected to going with Russ on horses.

Russ had boasted of his daughter’s riding skills until the entire Lassiter family had grown sick of listening. Worth tried to talk himself out of it, but a gut feeling that Elizabeth was afraid of horses wouldn’t go away.

Watching her closely, he tested his hunch. “We raise quarterhorses here on the Double Nickel. Although we’ve bred our share of reining and cutting champions, most of our horses are good stock animals, trained to work cattle. Too many of them are just standing around right now, eating their heads off and getting frisky. We could bring a couple up to the house for Elizabeth to try out.”

“Everyone is busy with wedding preparations,” she said immediately. “Please don’t bother doing anything special for me.”

If she hadn’t come out here to sabotage the wedding, he might have admired the way she throttled down her emotions. Emotional women grated on his nerves. With that red hair of hers, he had a feeling those pent-up emotions periodically exploded. When it happened, the fallout must be considerable.

Worth reminded himself Elizabeth’s emotions weren’t his concern. His mother’s happiness was. “It’s no trouble at all. I could bring in two or three horses first thing in the morning.”

“Put her on Wall Street,” Russ said. “That stallion’s a lot of horse, but Elizabeth can ride anything with four legs.”

For a split second her face turned so pale Worth could almost count the freckles.

“No, I can’t,” she said sharply. “Ride in the mornings, that is. I spend my mornings with Jamie.”

Worth weighed Elizabeth’s fear of horses against his mother’s future happiness. It was no contest. Life had delivered hard knocks to both women, but Mary Lassiter had never given in to self-pity. His mother had never blamed others for what fate had dealt her, and most assuredly, she’d never coldly planned to sabotage someone else’s happiness for her own revengeful purposes.

Elizabeth Randall was not going to interfere in his mother’s wedding. Or steal his chance for freedom.

Not if Worth had anything to say about it.

After dinner, Elizabeth went upstairs to put Jamie to bed. In the living room, Worth watched Russ and his mom over the top of the newspaper as they pretended to watch TV.

Russ abruptly stood. “I’m going to bed.” He strode out of the room.

Worth waited until he heard the front door shut before quietly asking, “Problems?”

Mary sighed and switched off the TV. “I’m fifty-four years old. I have wonderful children and beautiful grandchildren. Why am I thinking about taking on a husband? Maybe this wedding business isn’t such a good idea.”

A cold chill went down Worth’s back. Elizabeth Randall had spread her poison well if his mother, who deeply loved Russ, was having second thoughts. “What happened?” Worth figured he knew everything but the details.

“It’s hard to explain. At lunch Elizabeth was feeding Jamie and she made a teasing remark to him about his daddy not liking beets either, and Russ said he hoped Jamie didn’t grow up to be anything like his sissy father. Elizabeth told him she didn’t want him to belittle Jamie’s father in front of Jamie.”

“That’s no reason to get wedding jitters.”

“Russ got defensive and wouldn’t stop,” Mary said bleakly. “He went on and on criticizing her deceased husband, but as far as I can tell, the only thing Russ had against him was he wasn’t a cowboy. Elizabeth grabbed Jamie and walked out of the room. Russ knew he’d gone too far and tried to apologize, but she refused to listen to him.”

Worth pictured the entire episode as clearly as if he’d been there. Elizabeth Randall had manipulated circumstances to make Russ look bad to Mary. The first step in her campaign to sabotage the wedding. “Let them sleep on it. They’ll make up.” He didn’t believe it for a second.

“Her husband’s been dead only a little over a year. You can tell by looking at her she’s still grieving. I’m wondering if I know Russ as well as I thought I did.”

Hearing the troubled doubts in Mary’s voice, Worth gave his mother a reassuring smile. “You’ve said yourself Russ is better with cows and horses than people. Maybe he’s trying to remind Elizabeth that a living son takes precedence over a deceased husband. Doing it badly doesn’t mean Russ isn’t trying to help Elizabeth through her grief.”

“You really think that’s it?” she asked hopefully.

“I think he’s sitting out in the guest cabin fretting about what kind of father he is and worrying that he’s blown the chance to marry the world’s most wonderful woman, and he doesn’t have a clue how to fix things.”

Mary smiled self-consciously. “Maybe I should go out and give him a few clues.”

“Maybe you should.”

Worth waited a few minutes, grabbed an afghan from the back of the sofa, and sauntered out to the front porch.

Elizabeth sat curled up in the old, double porch swing. Worth handed her the afghan. “It gets chilly here at night.” He sat beside her.

She scooted as far away from him as the swing permitted. “What do you want?”

“I saw you sneak past the living room while I was talking to my mother. You should have joined us, Red. You might have been able to stop me from repairing the damage you did today.”

“Damage I did?” she asked blankly.

“Setting Russ up to look like a jerk.”

“He does that all by himself.”

“I thought we’d agreed this morning that you aren’t going to try and stop the wedding.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? I did not come to Colorado to stop Russ from marrying your mother.”

“Why did you come?”

“I came because Russ asked me to. Why do you find that so difficult to believe?”

Her claim would be easier to believe if it hadn’t taken her so long to come up with it. “You came even though he didn’t go to your husband’s funeral?”

After a quick startled movement, Elizabeth asked thinly, “Russ told you?”

“He said you’re still mad at him.”

With slow, painstaking precision, Elizabeth adjusted the afghan, then pulled it tighter around her before saying in a less than credible voice, “I’m not mad at him.”

“I can see what a warm and loving relationship you two have.”

His sarcastic words hung in the air. Watching some bats swoop down to catch night-flying bugs around the porch light, Worth waited. Familiar night sounds filtered through the night. None loud enough to drown out the sound of Elizabeth breathing or the creaking of the swing chains as he propelled the swing back and forth.

When Elizabeth finally spoke, her voice was strained. “My relationship with Russ is none of your business.”

“It wouldn’t be, Red, if you hadn’t made it my business.”

She heaved a loud, long-suffering sigh. It didn’t come close to what his sisters could do when they wanted him to know how aggravating they thought him. “If you had half a brain in your head,” Elizabeth said, “you’d know I did not come to Aspen to stop Russ from getting married. Why shouldn’t he get married again? My mother is happily remarried. She has been for years. I didn’t try and stop her wedding.”

“Maybe you were too young.”

“And maybe you’re an idiot.”

“I suppose that’s always a possibility.”

“But you doubt it.”

He gave her a slow once-over in the light shining through the living room window. Ordinarily he liked a woman who didn’t back down. But not when that woman was intent on revenge. “I doubt it.”

“It must be nice to be so smug and self-assured. Something you learned at your father’s knee?”

“Nope.” Because he knew it would annoy her, he laid his arm along the back of the swing and gave her a mocking grin.

“Of course not. I’m sure your father was perfect.”

“Beau was a lot of things, but he’d have been the first to admit perfect wasn’t one of them.”

“It’s hard to believe a man related to you could be humble.”

“Humility has nothing to do with it. Beau was honest. He knew his strengths and weaknesses.”

“Which were?”

“He was a rodeo cowboy with a talent for riding bulls and charming ladies.” Worth paused. “And a lousy father and husband. After I was born, Mom stayed here on the ranch and Beau dropped by whenever he needed a place to recuperate after an injury. Once he healed, it was off to the bright lights again, twice leaving Mom pregnant.”

“Don’t you mean three times?” Elizabeth asked,

Worth shook his head. “Beau picked up women like a dog picks up burrs. Greeley’s the result of a fling Beau had with a bartender in Greeley. After the woman gave birth, she drove here straight from the hospital and dumped Greeley off on Mom.”

“Just like that? What did Mary do?”

He heard the horror in her voice and guessed she was thinking of her son. “Mom raised Greeley,” he said. “Loved her. Greeley is one of us. A Lassiter. Lassiters take care of Lassiters.” Worth could almost see Elizabeth processing the information as she looked at him, her eyes wide.

“Now I understand. It’s called transference or something,” she said slowly. “You don’t want your mother to remarry, but you’re filled with guilt about feeling that way, so you’ve assigned your negative feelings to me.” His face must have looked as dumbfounded as he felt, because she continued, “I suppose you’ve considered yourself the man of the family for a long time. You don’t want another man moving into your territory and taking over from you.”

Worth laughed. “If you’re going to try and confuse the issue with psychobabble, you at least ought to come up with something halfway plausible.”

“I was trying to sympathize with you,” she snapped.

He gave a disgusted snort. “Good try, but I’m not so easily fooled. Or sidetracked. Your resentment of Russ sticks out a country mile.”

“I do not resent him,” she said, glaring at him. “And I’m not going to sit here and listen to any more of your paranoid accusations.”

He closed his fingers around the clump of hair at the back of her head before she could stand. “We haven’t finished our little chat.”

“I’ve finished.”

“Then you can listen, but first…I hate your hair skewered to the back of your head like that.”

“I don’t care if…What are you doing? Stop that.”

He imprisoned the hand swatting at his hand. “I’ve been wanting to do this from the minute I saw you. Here.” Opening the hand he held, he dropped the hairpins in her palm. “You don’t have to look as if you have one foot in the grave just because your husband died.”

A stark silence met his words before she said in a shaken voice, “That’s a cruel thing to say.”

“It’s honest.” He locked eyes with hers. “Your husband died, and I’m sorry for what you’re suffering, but you have a child to raise. It’s time for you to think about what’s in his best interests and quit being self-indulgent. How can you take care of your son if you don’t take care of yourself? Skipping meals and not getting enough sleep are stupid. They won’t bring your husband back to life any more than skinning back your hair will. The man gave you his son. Refusing to live yourself is no way to thank him.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I know I’m going to kiss you.” He hadn’t known it, but now he’d said it out loud, the idea intrigued him.

Elizabeth froze like a deer caught in the headlights.

Worth spread his fingers over her face, his palms cupping her cheeks. Her skin was warm and smooth, like a baby’s skin. Nothing about her mouth reminded him of a baby. A full bottom lip wobbled the tiniest bit. Worth hesitated. He didn’t force kisses on unwilling women. She didn’t back away. Her mouth opened slightly. Inviting him.