by Tina Leonard
“Excuse me,” Crockett said. “Navarro, dude, Marvella’s on the phone for you.”
Chapter Seven
“The witch will pay,” Navarro muttered. “She messed up an entirely wonderful kiss.” He looked at Nina sorrowfully. “Just when I had you right where I wanted you.”
“Where was that?”
“Convinced.” He went to grab the phone from his brother. “Marvella asked for me, specifically?”
“Yeah. Something to do with the bed.”
Navarro grimaced. “Hello?”
“Navarro Jefferson?”
“Speaking.” He looked at Nina, who had turned pale. He couldn’t blame her. As he well knew, the bed had her dreams and her memories represented in its delicate wood frame.
“This is Marvella, owner of—”
“I know who you are,” he interrupted. “How can I be of service?” Cut to the chase, he thought. We’re all ready to quit hanging off the cliff.
“Service is exactly why I called. I’ve run an ad for a rodeo game called Cowboy Bed Check. Very inventive, I believe. Possibly very profitable.”
Rodeo crowds loved amusements and diversions. He’d have to bet Marvella was right—the witch. “I saw the ad.”
“Excellent. Then I’m reaching some of my target market,” she said. “Cowboys. So, I think it would behoove all of us if you entered. I’ll bet you could win Valentine’s bed back for her.”
He raised his brows. “What’s the catch?”
“Catch?” Marvella repeated. “Why would there be a catch?”
“I’m just assuming there is one, or you’d just give Nina and Valentine their bed back.”
She clicked her tongue into the phone. “No employer lets an employee leave owing wages, sir. I’m sure you would not have a profitable ranch if everyone knew that working for the Jeffersons meant they could run off with advance monies owing.”
“How much do you want for the bed?” he demanded, his gaze on Nina’s round eyes.
“No, I don’t want money. The event itself is an attraction, which will bring customers who will pay for food and drink…and other things. What I need now are participants,” she said silkily. “That’s why I called.”
“How many participants?” Maybe if he loaded the bed with his brothers, they could somehow save the bed and return it to its rightful owner. “We have a large family.”
“Just you,” Marvella cooed. “After all, if I have too many Jeffersons in one event, it becomes a circus, with the ladies and all.”
“Exactly what you’re looking for.”
“Well, yes, but the drama is so much more intense if you were inspired to stay on the bed the longest. To be a hero, of course. For Nina’s sake.” She laughed. “I saw you two kissing on the street yesterday. My, it makes a woman wish for younger days.”
“You’re weird,” Navarro said. “And you make my skin crawl.”
She hung up in his ear.
“Crap,” Navarro said. “Honesty is not always the best policy.”
Nina stared at him. Navarro took a deep breath. “Maybe I’m not good at negotiating with crazy women. I probably should have studied more in Abnormal Psych class. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t. And he knew it. His gut turned inside out. “I should have kept my mouth shut and played her line a little longer. Good fishermen know how to do that.”
“She’ll call back,” Crockett said. He stood by the wall, picking his fingernails with a huge knife.
“Why do you think so?” Navarro asked.
“She’s addicted to power. She thinks she’s holding all the cards.”
Nina looked from one twin to the other. “She’d be happy if I entered. Don’t you think?”
“Absolutely not,” both twins said at once.
“Totally wouldn’t interest her,” Navarro said.
“Not a bit,” Crockett seconded. “She’s looking for muscles to display to the ladies.”
“Muscles,” Nina echoed. “I guess so.”
“Don’t worry,” Navarro said. “Between all the heads in this family, we’ll figure it out.”
Crockett grinned. “You’re scaring Nina.”
Navarro held his ground, staring at the woman in front of him. All he wanted to do was to kiss her. He wanted to tell her he’d buy her a thousand beds, even though he really didn’t care if they ever had a bed. All this talk about beds was driving him insane.
She blinked at him, looking like a little librarian lost in the book stacks, and his heart melted. Darn her Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle heart. She was no more wearing white granny panties that stretched to the third rib than he was mining gold in Alaska.
He couldn’t stop thinking about what she was wearing. A silly grin stretched across his face as he looked at her, all soft and round and peachy and kind of nervous as she stared at him.
“Don’t you worry about a thing,” Navarro told her.
She smiled, her lips quivering. His heart dropped somewhere below his belt.
Here we go. I’ve totally lost my mind over this woman—and it’s the worst thing I could have let happen.
AN HOUR LATER, Crockett and Navarro and Last sat in the barn, debating their strategy.
“I say we steal it,” Last said.
“No one’s listening to you,” Crockett said. “You have scary hair and an earring. We can’t trust you to have a sane suggestion.”
“I was drunk,” Last said. “It’s not like I did it in a moment of rational thought.”
“Precisely,” Navarro said, “and it’s got to stop. The drinking ends now. You were soaked the night you got Valentine pregnant—”
“I don’t think I did it,” Last said. “Remember, I already told you that.”
Crockett rolled his eyes.
“And,” Navarro continued, “I found you in the bushes the other night, loaded off your feet. Today, you come in looking like a freak-show attraction. Bro, the insanity circus is folding up its tent today. Out of biz. Comprendes?”
Last looked at his two brothers sorrowfully. “I don’t have a drinking problem.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no. What you have is a major pity party problem, and I vote you snap out of it,” Navarro said.
“Before we snap you out of it,” Crockett said agreeably. “Lotta work needs to be done around here. You don’t want to be here, you go next door and help Mimi look after the sheriff. Or you go fix fence. But this family pulls together. We’re inviting you to do your share—or you’ll have to check out of the hotel.”
Last went pale. “You’d kick me out?”
Navarro nodded. “We love you, Last. You’ve always been the weight that kept us balanced. God knows we’ve relied on you. Sometimes, it was your rose-colored glasses that kept us trying to live right, for your sake. We wanted to live up to what you remembered about the family and what you dreamed of for a family.” He took a deep breath. “But now it’s time for us to take back the reins. You’re in trouble. We all need to face it. Whether or not Valentine is bearing your child is incidental. All that will be settled later. The important fact is that you got involved in a situation that could have bankrupted the ranch.”
A tear spilled from one of Last’s eyes. “I know.”
“And you harmed someone else’s life by being careless. If Valentine is having your baby, you bear half responsibility for the way it happened. No one goes out in the rain without a raincoat, dude,” Crockett said. “As you’ve preached to us many times over the years.”
“I’m so ashamed,” Last said. “The last thing I ever wanted to do was let y’all down.”
“Don’t let us down more by mistreating Valentine,” Navarro said. “She doesn’t deserve it. And you should have more respect for yourself.”
“No more drinking,” Crockett said sternly. “We love you, but from this day forward, you face your problems head-on.”
“Okay,” Last said. “Okay.”
“Good,” Nava
rro said. “Now, go get that mess of hair buzzed off your head.”
“Earring comes out, too,” Crockett said. “Today. If Mason saw you—”
“I know, I know,” Last said hurriedly. He jumped up from his chair and left the barn.
Crockett looked at Navarro. “What do you think?”
Navarro shook his head. “My mind can no longer absorb the shock where Last is concerned.”
Crockett sighed. “So, what about Cowboy Bed Check?”
Navarro closed his eyes for a second. “I suppose Marvella wants me to call her back and plead for an entry form.”
“Sure she does. Feeds her power.”
“Do we have an alternative idea?” Navarro asked. “I swear, I’m not keen on this plan. It feels disastrous.”
Crockett drummed on the wooden barrel they sat around. “We steal it.”
Navarro focused his attention on his twin. “You know, I could hear you thinking about agreeing with Last’s nefarious thought.”
“It’s a twin thing. That uber-connection you and I are supposed to have.”
“Like when we burned down Shoeshine Johnson’s barn by accident. My mind was telling me that an old barn goes up fast, but your mind was telling me that I could put the fire out.”
“Exactly. And your mind was saying run and mine was saying use the stall shower hose as a fire extinguisher.” Crockett grinned. “I told you that crazy old man stored illegal fireworks in his barn. You didn’t want to believe me.”
“Still, it wasn’t worth the hiding we got from the sheriff,” Navarro said. “Even if those were great fireworks for December.”
Crockett laughed. “We can do anything.”
“Yeah. They called us the Twin Lanterns for months after we knocked over his old kerosene lamp.” Navarro kicked his boots up on a wood rail, starting to feel better. “Twin Lanterns. I guess we can do anything. Just not anything right. I don’t know if I’m up for stealing.”
“You’d rather compete than steal the bed.” Crockett mused. “I could go in your place.”
“What’s her angle?” Navarro asked. “I thought she’d jump at all of us going to the rodeo.”
“’Cause then we’d win, and anyway, she can’t trust us when we all get together. We’re just as likely to run out of there with the bed, like little ants scurrying away with a cracker crumb on our backs.” Crockett flicked an ant off the rail. “Start over, little guy,” he told the ant.
Navarro stared at his brother. “That’s it,” he said, suddenly hit by inspiration. “I’m going to start this whole thing over.”
“Great,” Crockett said. “I always like to relive the past. Repeat my mistakes. Enjoy the agony of defeat.”
“Yes,” Navarro said. “Precisely.”
NINA HESITATED, listening to the sound of something rattling against the windowpane. Frowning, she realized someone was hitting the windowpane. She pulled back the curtain and shook her head at Navarro down below.
“It’s your house,” she said after opening the window. “Did you forget where the front door was? Need a rescue party?”
“We weren’t through talking,” Navarro told her, “when I had to take the call from the witch of Lonely Hearts Station. And I can talk to you from here, because I gave my house to you.” He grinned.
“You’re sneaky,” Nina told him. “Don’t waste it on me. I recognize a charm offensive when I see it.”
“Are you inviting me in?”
She shook her head at him. “Never.”
“Okay, then you’ll have to hear me out from here. First, I need to talk to you about the two plans I mentioned earlier, before we were interrupted. Second, I need—”
“Is this going to take long? Because I think my sister is trying to sleep.”
“Well, we have to talk. Talking is important,” Navarro said. “Women love to hash things out. I’m trying it your way, the female way. ‘Let’s talk,’ I said to myself tonight. But I had no one to talk to about our situation.”
“Our situation?” Nina tried not to let him sway her.
“Yes, our situation. Yours and mine. Our fortunes are woven together by a bed, one might say. And a baby. So we should talk.”
“I was going to sleep,” Nina said, not trusting his mood.
“In my bed?” Navarro asked.
Nina turned to glance around the room. “We didn’t debate whose room was whose. We just settled in. Is this your room?”
He grinned. “I believe it is. And it’s a very comfy bed, isn’t it?”
“A bit oversize, perhaps,” Nina said. “But just right for a big man, I guess. Can we get back to whatever you came for? The two plans?”
“Yes.” He took off his hat, staring up at her earnestly. “Nina, I don’t think you should return to Dannon. You need to stay here and fight for your bed personally.”
“O-kay,” Nina said, drawing the word out to illustrate her lack of enthusiasm. “And the other plan?”
“You and I should find the bed. And sleep in it,” he said grandly.
Nina’s mouth fell open. “To what end?”
“Marking our territory. We chain ourselves to the bed, and Marvella can’t move it to the arena to let the bull bash it to pieces.”
In some kooky way, Navarro’s plan might have merit. Nina stared down at him, thinking. “I don’t know if I can chain myself into a bed with a man,” she said slowly. “It sounds kind of kinky for me, since I’ve never been in bed with a man at all. And then what? Even if we’re chained to the bed and they can’t move it, how do I reestablish possession of it?”
Navarro raised a fist. “We let her know that we’re not to be trifled with. Possession is nine-tenths of the law—and we’re taking over possession with our nude bodies.”
“Nude? I don’t think so!”
“Can’t blame a man for trying.”
She rolled her eyes. “Look, I think you may be a little off center with your idea, but you may be getting close to something good. You should come inside so we can talk without making enough noise to wake Valentine. Goodness knows, she doesn’t get much sleep with the morning sick— What are you doing?”
He hand-over-handed up a rope and into the tree, then walked across a branch to vault into her window. “Coming to talk to you,” he said with a grin. “Much more dramatic than using my keys to open the front door.”
She backed up a few steps. “You looked like a monkey!”
“I learned a lot from Curious George.” He settled himself into the wing-backed chair in his room with a contented sigh. “I miss my chair. It’s my happy zone. Kind of like your bed, I guess.”
“Would you fight for your chair?” Nina asked.
“Depends on who wanted it. My brother, yes. You, no. If you wanted to sit in my chair, I’d polish it for you and then I’d always treasure the knowledge that your fanny had sat here. Have you sat in my chair?” he demanded hopefully.
“You’ll have to be happy with me sleeping in your bed,” Nina said, “And I’d like to do it soon.”
“That makes two of us, but,” he said hurriedly, seeing the look on her face, “I suppose tonight is for strategic planning only.”
“Yes,” she said firmly.
“Great gown, though.” He eyed her knee-length T-shirt with enthusiasm. It read Feed Your Mind A Book and Navarro’s glance caught on the letters that were, Nina realized uncomfortably, right above her bosom.
“I’m hungry,” he said.
“Can we move on with the plans?” Nina demanded. She grabbed a fluffy white robe from her suitcase.
“You haven’t unpacked yet?” he asked, his tone disappointed.
“I’m not staying long enough.”
“As I mentioned.” He stared at her. “I’ll miss you if you go. For a librarian, you have a totally crazy effect on me. I like it. Definitely worth giving up my favorite chair.”
Nina sighed. “Thanks. I guess.” He made her crazy, too, but in so many ways she wasn’t sure if the manic energy w
as positive or not.
“What did you mean, you’d never been in bed with a man before?” Navarro asked. “Not that I’m trying to get personal or anything.”
Nina felt herself blush. “I didn’t mean that quite the way it sounded,” she said.
“Feel free to expound.”
“No, thanks.” She glared at him.
He grinned. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“Yes, I can,” Nina said with heat. “That’s the problem with you boys. You all think you shouldn’t be blamed for being emotional escape artists.”
“Hey, I’m the one trying to chain myself to a bed with you,” Navarro said, sitting up. “No escape there.”
She stared at him. “I just don’t want you coming on to me anymore. I have serious things on my mind, and I don’t think you’re ever serious.”
“I do have a dry wit, overlooked by people who don’t know me well. Maybe serious is not my way, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel the same way you do,” Navarro said. “Some people laugh when they’re in pain.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” Her blood began a slow, hopeful pounding.
“Now who’s getting personal?” His gaze met hers.
She looked down and then forced herself to meet his gaze. “I am.”
“Why?”
“Maybe it doesn’t matter.” She gave him a defiant glare.
Navarro put on his hat. “Let me know when it does.”
And then he left her room the same way he’d entered—Curious George hanging in a tree.
“Or maybe George of the Jungle,” she muttered, spying out the window as he mounted his horse and galloped away.
“You all right in there?” Valentine called, knocking on her bedroom door.
“Come on in,” Nina said, closing the window.
“I thought I heard voices. I wouldn’t have bothered you, only the voices sounded kind of mad, so I thought you were watching TV. I can’t sleep,” Valentine said, settling herself into the wing-backed chair. “Mmm, warm seat. Were you sitting here?”
“No,” Nina said on a sigh. “Leather must stay warmer than man-made material.”
“Maybe.” Valentine tucked her feet under her. “Can’t you sleep?”