Navarro Or Not

by Tina Leonard

  Crockett shrugged. “I didn’t tell her our last names. Besides, she won’t know who we are. You carry the boards up—”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you’re the one sitting over there twitching for some action. You’re the man with the call of the wild going on. Besides, you’re more cautious than me. We both know I’d do something wrong.”

  “Impulsive.”

  “And rightfully so,” Crockett said. “Come on, we haven’t busted up a joint in months. We’ve had to mind our p’s and q’s with Mason taking off. Fannin running the joint. Mimi in the family way. The housekeeper taking over our house.” Crockett blew out a breath. “Last going insane. I mean, I’m about tired of my p’s and q’s being so minded. I want our old life back. Before it got so reputation-conscious.”

  Navarro shook his head. “Valentine’s sitting at the desk. She’s going to recognize that we look an awful lot like the rest of the family.”

  Crockett shrugged. “Keep your hat low. Dump the lumber and go. But see if Valentine’s really got a belly on her, or if that’s just a bunch of bull to rope Last. I bet she’s not even pregnant. And how do we know Last is the father? I mean, this blows.” Crockett pulled his hat down over his face. “When this is all over, I’m going to go find Mason and tell him he’s never gonna learn what happened to our father, and that he needs to deal with the fact that his true-love Mimi got married on him because he dragged his own dang boots, and that he needs to get his butt home.”

  “Good luck,” Navarro said. “But first things first.”

  WHEN THE COWBOY WALKED into her room, Nina’s blood started moving around in her body the way it never had before. A crazy tickle and then a full-blown rush filled her veins.

  No, she told herself. Not this one. Completely inappropriate choice! And there have been enough of those lately. “Thanks for coming up,” she said.

  “There was no one at the desk,” Navarro said. “I just made my way upstairs and—” His dark eyes swept her as she sat on the floor, a pencil and metal measuring tape in her hands. “What are you doing?”

  “Measuring off,” Nina said. “Highly advisable if I want to cut these slats properly.”

  He eyed the collapsed bed, which made Nina’s face blush a bit. Of course, it was hot in her room. A small fan blew nearby, but it was spring and Marvella hadn’t turned the air-conditioning on yet because the nights were still cool. All the measuring and sawing was making her hot, Nina decided.

  “Now that I’ve found your room, I’m going to go get the rest of the wood.” Navarro backed away from her and Nina realized she probably looked sweaty and dirty.

  “Thank you, Crockett.”

  He hesitated, then left. Nina took a deep breath, then jumped to her feet to cross to the mirror. Yes, sweaty and messy. “How did they make it in the good ol’ days without air-conditioning? I’m going to fry my Delaware skin.” Taking a damp rag, she swept it over her, then reached for some peach gloss to touch to her lips.

  She was taking a few swipes at her hair in an effort to tame it when the cowboy strode in, carrying the lumber. Her gaze met his and she dropped the brush, embarrassed to be caught primping.

  He grinned at her. “Nice.”

  That evil blooming of her skin she’d felt moments before now blushed over her body in a heat wave no air conditioner would cool. She raised her chin. “You can set the wood down there.”

  His grin widened to wolfish. “You are a snappy little peach, I’ll grant you that.”

  She couldn’t take her eyes off him as he smoothly bent to rest the wood on the floor. His jeans fit so tightly, his butt looked so—

  Glancing up, he caught her staring—and laughed.

  “I’ve never seen a cowboy up this close,” she said.

  “Really? I’ve never seen a…what are you, anyway?”

  “Librarian,” Nina said, her chin rising, knowing already what he was going to say. “And I should warn you, I’ve heard every bad line about librarians you could possibly dream—”

  “Now, I’ve heard that there are two kinds of librarians,” the cowboy said, leaning up against the wall, his boots crossed, his arms tucked over his chest. His grin was too wide and too playful, and she longed to smack it off his face.

  “Well, there is really only one kind of librarian,” she said. “Serious.”

  “I heard there was also the skank variety.”

  She dropped the measuring tape she’d picked up. “‘Skank variety’?”

  “Yeah.” He grinned. “She hovers in her book stacks, waiting for the right victim to come along so she can read him the Kama Sutra—well, ‘read’ would be the incorrect verb, I guess. And then—” he lowered his voice “—and then she seduces him in the basement, where he is never heard from again. Skank librarian.” He shrugged. “That’s where the haunted library story comes from. Haunted, you see, because it was the librarian who, like a black widow spider, kills her lover after they—”

  “That is ridiculous! And so…chauvinistic!”

  He laughed. “Bet you thought I was gonna repeat the stereotype about the dowdy librarian who gets set free sexually by the mystery male who somehow knows he’s latched on to the one hottie card-catalogette in town who’s wearing a thong and bustier under her gray, frumpy suit. Personally, I always thought the skank librarian was more likely. Scary, but likely.”

  She ground her teeth. “Actually, I fall under the only heading of librarian I know. Hard-working, sincere, interested, capable—”

  His wink stopped her. “I’m just playing around with you.”

  Skank librarian, indeed. She thought about her sister and her sister’s reputation, which was nonexistent now. It was up to her to set a good example and to be the most upright Cakes she could be.

  “I shouldn’t be playing around with you, probably,” he said. “You broke your bed. You might be dangerous.” He pulled a huge jackknife from his pocket and began marking off sections on the wood.

  “Oh, yeah.” Nina sank onto a chair. “You’re in big danger from me.”

  “Well, there’s danger. And then there’s danger. That’s what I always say.”

  “Profound.”

  He glanced up at her. “Yeah. Maybe not by a librarian’s standards. But it works for me.”

  She sighed. “So, I guess you wouldn’t be brandishing a knife that big if you didn’t want it commented on.”

  He gave her a devilish wink. “I’m not packing small anything, peachy.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course not.”

  “So, tell me about your sister.”

  “No.”

  He marked some notches. “Okay.”

  “Tell me about your brother who wears the hat on his face.”

  “Why? You dig him?”

  She laughed. “Dig? How can I dig a guy whose face I haven’t seen?”

  He looked at her, his eyes full of mischief. She wondered about that face and those eyes. What would she read in those eyes if she and he were alone together on a moonlit night—

  “Maybe a face isn’t what’s important about a man.”

  She raised her brows. “Then what is?”

  He stuck his knife in the floor and lifted a handsaw to the wood. “The size of his…knife.” The look on her face made him laugh. “Fooled ya. You thought I was going to say something else.”

  “I did not!”

  “Whatever.”

  “I won’t bother to return fire. But I could, with everything I’ve heard about cowboys since I’ve been here.”

  “Hardworking, sincere, interested, capable—”

  “That’s not what my sister would say,” Nina said. “She would probably say loose, loser, dishonest and wish-I’d-never-met-him.”

  “Hey, that’s my bro—”

  She stared at him. “Yes? Your what?”

  He shook his head. “This is all wrong.”

  “Why?”

  “Because.” He stood, looking at her thoughtfully. “My name is
Navarro Jefferson.”

  Her heart started a slow thud. “Jefferson?”

  “Jefferson. I’m Last’s older brother.”

  “I see.” She backed away from him, turning her face. “Thank you for carrying up the lumber,” she said pointedly. “You can go now.”

  “I could, but I think you’ve marked this wrong,” he said, kneeling to look at the pencil markings on the slat. “What happened to this bed, anyway? You got splinters in the drapes.”

  She didn’t want to think about what had happened to her charmed bed, especially since she suspected its shattered slats might have been Last Jefferson’s doing. Her stomach churned. And now she had one of the infamous Jefferson brothers alone in the room with her and her broken bed.

  He had been deceiving her by not telling her immediately that he was a Jefferson. For a minute she had nearly been taken in by that not-so-suave, good-ol-cowboy facade.

  Whew. Close call.

  “Hey,” Navarro said. “I am sorry about your sister. We’ll get to the bottom of matters. I promise.”

  Still not facing him, and blinking away tears, Nina shook her head. It didn’t matter now. Not really. All her sister’s dreams for the new life she’d hoped to find in Texas were as shattered as the bed. By a Jefferson cowboy. Now, Nina’s goal was to put the bed back together and to recapture the charm.

  One day she was going to need that charm for herself.

  Chapter Two

  So much for the peach being a possibility. Navarro glanced over at Nina, who was studiously ignoring him. That was his invitation to leave, but perversely, he wanted to stay.

  It was her roundness, he decided, that he found so delicious. He wanted to take a bite of her—bad. “So, maybe we’ll have to agree to work together.”

  She turned to face him. “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “You’re not happy. We’re not happy. No one’s exactly thrilled about the situation. Valentine’s suing us, you know.”

  “She has a right to financial assistance from the father of her child.”

  “Maybe. If Last is the father.”

  Nina gasped. “How dare you?”

  “Hold on there, sparky. We have a right to wonder. Last only saw her one night.”

  “Okay.” Nina crossed her arms. “How is saying something like that helping us to work together?”

  He scratched his head for a minute, thinking hard. Crockett would handle this moment so much better; he’d just sweep Nina into bed and somehow the problem would solve itself.

  No, that thought didn’t make Navarro feel better.

  Well, if he was their oldest brother, he’d find some anal-retentive solution to talking Nina down out of her tree.

  Or maybe not. Mason had never figured out their next-door neighbor and family friend, Mimi, so it was no use looking to his brother’s example for inspiration.

  Nor Last’s. The brother with the lollipop-colored memories of the way their family used to be had kept the brothers hewn to hearth and home to make him happy. Until this latest escapade.

  Crockett maybe? Archer? Bandera?

  No, no and no.

  It was up to him to sort out this huge problem. He could wind up a hero, if he figured out a way to fix it. The family could get back to its version of normal, if he played his cards right.

  “Hey,” he said, his voice calm, the way it would sound if he was soothing a skittish mare. “Let’s get back to fixing this bed. Then we’ll talk about the other.”

  That would give him time to think.

  “Actually, I feel very awkward having you help me,” Nina said. “It feels wrong.”

  “You don’t owe me anything—”

  “I’m not suggesting that I do,” she snapped. “More like you owe us.”

  Navarro cautioned himself to keep his cool. He upgraded her from snippy little peach to fiery. Gently he began sawing at a piece of lumber, keeping straight to the line he’d marked with his knife. “So, this bed means a lot to you.”

  “Yes. I’m going to get pregnant in it one day.”

  He miscued the saw and went into the hardwood floor. “Damn!” Checking the damage, he said, “We’ll pull the rug over that when I’m finished.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said, sitting on the floor. “We’re already being charged damages for the room.”

  “Really? By whom?”

  “Marvella. When the bed broke, it scratched up the floor.”

  He glanced under what remained of the frame. “Does seem as if she has a point. So, are…you planning on getting pregnant soon?”

  “First, I’d have to find the man, wouldn’t I?” She gave him a pointed look. “And I haven’t met the right one yet.”

  “Every day brings a new opportunity,” he said cheerfully.

  “Thank you for your opinion, which was unsolicited, I believe.”

  He grinned, relieved that there was no boyfriend hanging around her. “So, what if your husband of choice doesn’t want kids? I, myself, for example, do not want children. Nor marriage, but that sort of goes with the territory.”

  “Then he wouldn’t be the right man, would he?”

  “Now that was a very sensible, librarian-style answer,” Navarro said approvingly. “No messing about. No worrying about broken hearts. Just, when I meet the right man, it will all happen the way I imagine it.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Are you making fun of me?”

  “No.” He returned to sawing, waiting for her to comment further, since he’d obviously given her something to yammer back at him about.

  But she sat quietly, watching him.

  He kind of liked her watching him. To be honest, he liked having her full attention. “I would have thought a cute librarian like you would have already been dragged down to the secret labyrinth of the book stacks by now.”

  “I would slap anybody who tried,” she said, her tone even.

  “Oh.” He made a mental note not to get slapped.

  “No man with he-man tendencies would be the man for me,” she told him. “I like gentlemen.”

  Uh-oh. No one was ever going to accuse any of the Jeffersons of being gentle. “So, how did you say this bed ended up in this pitiful condition?”

  “Best as I can tell, it happened the night your brother was here.”

  He stopped what he was doing and gave her his full attention. “Last would not break a lady’s bed and then leave her to deal with the consequences of having no place to sleep.”

  “Please.”

  “You don’t know my brother.”

  “I don’t have to. I’ve seen all I need to.”

  Navarro had to admit his patience was starting to slide out the window. It was a cursed thing, Jefferson patience. Very rare, very mercurial and, sometimes, very hard to keep under one’s hat. “Did your sister say that Last was responsible?”

  “I think she felt that accusing him of the baby matter was sufficient. I, however, feel that he should be held accountable for everything he’s done.”

  Okay. Navarro realized that facts had to be faced. He was in a room, developing hots for the only woman on the planet who seemed to be secretly designed as his nemesis. There was no happy meeting point between them; there would be no sweet build up to the happy climax. “Moving on,” he said. “This should be fairly easy to finish.”

  “Good.”

  He ground his teeth at the “And well it should!” tone. It so reminded him of being in the library with old Mrs. Farklewell. Every time the Jefferson boys were in the school library, they heard a constant litany of “Shh! Shh!” in the tone that only a first-chair violinist and a librarian could muster.

  “Well, look who we have here!”

  Navarro glanced up at the woman in the doorway. She wore a lot of makeup and seemed very pleased to see him. Marvella.

  “A Jefferson.” She fairly crowed. “Cleaning up the mess baby brother left behind.”

  The hair under Navarro’s hat started itching. “I’m cleaning up a
mess. That’s all I have to say.”

  She stroked the black kitten she held in her hands. “And getting acquainted with your future sister-in-law. How nice!”

  Navarro and Nina glanced at each other.

  “Family time is so important. You feel free to stay as long as you like. Which Jefferson are you, by the way?”

  “Navarro, ma’am,” he said automatically, the polite habit coming hard after many years of Mason knocking manners into their heads.

  “Well, Navarro, there is a rodeo coming up.” She smiled at him. “You know how I love those Jefferson brothers riding for my salon.”

  “I—”

  “Someone’s got to pay for this damage,” she said, the expression on her face full of faux concern. “Such a shame to scar up a nice hardwood floor this way. I believe one of the screws even embedded itself in that wall,” she said, pointing. “You know, Last is the first Jefferson brother who’s come in here and treated my home like a shabby saloon. The rest of your brothers seem to prefer the heart-shaped spa.” She shook her head. “But maybe he prefers dry land. Oh, well, no matter. I’ll leave a note at the desk saying you’re to have run of the house while you’re here. Think about my offer.”

  She glided from the doorway.

  Navarro turned to face Nina. The peach had gone truly pale. Putting the saw down, he sat on the floor. “Holy smokes, she’s evil.”

  “On that, we can agree.” Nina nodded at him.

  “So we need to play on the same team, against her. Don’t you think?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s what she’s expecting. She wants you and I to band together.”

  “To what purpose?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe so you’ll pay for the room damages. She can charge you more than me, obviously. Librarians don’t make that much.”