by Tina Leonard
She was a woman with a man maybe not too far out of the picture and a colicky baby. Not to mention that she and Frisco hadn’t exactly taken to each other like lint on Sunday clothes.
Annabelle looked up at him, her expression kind. “The problem that you’re running into, Laredo, is that I didn’t come out to Union Junction Ranch to apply for the position of housekeeper with all my heart. Keep my secret?”
Frisco opened one eye to stare at Annabelle balefully. “Then can I have my money for your bus fare refunded?”
Chapter Five
“Frisco!” Laredo and Tex exclaimed sternly, but Frisco only had eyes for the little blonde as she flounced away.
“Well, heck, if she wasn’t a sincere job applicant, she shouldn’t waste my time. She shouldn’t waste the ranch’s money,” he grumbled, fully aware that he was being churlish. He’d made her mad, and he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. He was going to hear about this from his family for days—and the worst part of it was, he’d sort of been teasing. But with his voice rough from snoozing, it had come out as a complaint.
Annabelle had good reason to be annoyed with him. He was pretty annoyed with himself.
His brothers eyed him belligerently. “Aw, heck,” he began, just about the time Annabelle flounced back down the stairs, snapping a crisp hundred-dollar bill at him.
“Bill repaid.”
He stared up at her. “Now, there’s no reason to be all huffy about it—”
“I’m not huffy.”
She tried to give him the money again, but he dodged it, pretending his hands were too full of sleeping Emmie.
“Look, I shouldn’t have said it—”
“True, but the fact is, you’re right, and I should have already offered to pay my own freight.”
Well, he had to admit she was darn appealing when she was in a snit. That was something admirable in a woman, because very few looked appealing when they were fussing. Mimi managed to look somewhere between spitting-cat-outraged and Heather-Locklear-saucy, and he suspected that’s what kept Mason on his toes: His brother probably wasn’t certain if he was dealing with a hellcat or an erotic dream.
At this moment, Frisco wasn’t certain what he was dealing with, either. “Tell you what, you pour juice in the morning, and we’ll discuss all this then. I really want to go back to sleep,” he lied, because he actually wanted to mull over the way Annabelle looked in the long, silky white robe. Like a madonna, for one thing, and maybe a pinup for another. He liked a woman a little rounder than was fashionable, a bit lush, and she was just right, no doubt thanks to the bundle of joy snuggled on his chest—
“Can you cook anything?” he demanded.
“Only popcorn. Occasionally toast, but it’s risky.”
He tried to school his face not to show dismay, but it hardly worked. “What good is a housekeeper who doesn’t cook?”
Annabelle laid the money on the coffee table in front of him. “I shouldn’t think she’d be much good at all.” She smiled at him and then the brothers. “Well, since you’ve got everything under control, I guess I’ll go back upstairs. I never knew my baby could sleep so hard. It must be this good country air—”
Frisco held up his hand to halt Annabelle from leaving. “I know this is a rhetorical question, probably, but if you weren’t applying for the job, what are you doing here?”
“Is there a rule against bonding with your sisters?” She looked at him with wide eyes.
“Those women are your sisters?” Frisco asked, dismayed.
She sighed. “Really, for a grown man, you are very naive. Sisters, as in emotional sisters. Good friends.”
“Sounds like an Oprah-thing to me.”
“It is not an Oprah-thing. It’s the same thing you and your brothers have, I would assume, a brotherhood. A family,” she said stiffly. “Well, that’s what those women represent to me.”
“They’re your family.”
“Exactly.” Her gaze went to Emmie, lingering with a loving touch. “They may not be blood relatives, but I prefer their company.”
“Prefer? As in, rather than your own family?”
She gave him a bland look, indicating that she was through being interrogated. “Unless you want me to take Emmie, I’m going to try to get two hours of sleep.”
“No!” Tex said.
“Sleeping babies need their sleep,” Laredo added.
Annabelle smiled at them. “You two are sweet. What’s wrong with you?” she demanded of Frisco.
“Hey, I’ve got your baby asleep, don’t I?” he asked, wounded.
“Yes, but you’re just so…lordly about everything.”
“Oh, Frisco’s definitely lordly,” Laredo agreed. “There are days when we just pray the Lord will get him out of our hair. Not that we want anything to happen to him, you know, just maybe a runaway calf or two for him to chase for a couple of hours, days—”
“C’mon,” Tex said, shoving his twin back toward the kitchen. “You must be hungry, ’cause you’re gnawing on your foot again.”
After his brothers left the room—which was a good thing, because they were getting on Frisco’s nerves—he looked at Annabelle. “Of course, you never gave me a straight answer about what you’re doing here. And since I’m soothing your baby, I deserve at least a stab at something resembling an answer.”
She reached to turn the ceiling fan lights down a bit, dimming the room. Then she went to sit in front of the fireplace, where a couple of logs were in the process of burning down to shimmering coals.
He sure did admire the way she moved. Graceful, quiet. Feminine.
“It’s a long story, Frisco, and I’m not sure which chapter of it you want.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that there’s my reason for being here, and then there’s the Lonely Hearts Beauty Salon’s reason for being here en masse.”
“Start with whichever you want to. I’ve got until your darling wakes up.” He grinned at her, to show he didn’t mind Annabelle, nor Emmeline.
“Well,” Annabelle said slowly, “I’m the receptionist at the Lonely Hearts Beauty Salon.”
“And all these women came from that salon?”
“Yes.”
“I imagine the exodus closed down the shop, didn’t it?”
She nodded. “We’ve had some…tough times in the salon, so Delilah, who owns and runs it, decided she was due a one-week vacation. None of the women with us are married. They may have been married at one time, or had significant others, but there was nothing in their way of enjoying a trip out to the country.”
“This had everything to do with Mason’s e-mail.”
“Yes. And his photo was attached. He looked reasonably trustworthy, and some of us are going to need new jobs soon. Delilah decided we could start here on our vacation-slash-opportunity hunt. We’re taking buses through all of west Texas checking out small towns.”
“Once you leave here, you mean.”
“Hopefully tomorrow.”
“This is just a fun hiatus, a lark, to see if we’d hire one of you?”
She shrugged. “No. As I said, the shop isn’t doing all that well lately. Delilah’s going to have to cut back staff. We thought you were looking for help. Your ranch seemed as good a place to start as any.”
Scratching his chin, Frisco said, “I didn’t realize there were employment issues. All I knew was that we’d been descended upon by a herd of females.”
“And your standard reaction is to run females off?”
Her brow was quirked at him, kind of sassy. He knew she was teasing him, and he wanted to put her in her place, but he couldn’t think how. “Generally we don’t respond too well to women coming our way without warning,” he said dryly. “We prefer to have our visiting hours elsewhere.”
“Mm. Leaving you free to hit and run.” She looked down at her fingers, which were free of rings. “Well, that seems sensible.”
“We were talking about you,” Frisco reminded her a bit tersel
y, since he didn’t like her reference at all. He was pretty certain he saw pain on her face, and he didn’t want her lumping him in with a possible woman-snaking weasel who “hit and ran.” “So, you’re on vacation…”
“Oh, yes. Well, I didn’t really want to come. Delilah and everyone talked me into it. They didn’t want me to stay there and…be alone.”
Okay. There was a weasel—he was still close to the poultry, near enough to bite, and Delilah was guarding the chicken house.
He looked at Annabelle’s smooth blond hair, the way it fell over her shoulders as she stared down at her fingers. It was like gazing at an angel. Even if the angel had a fast tongue on her, she was still a nice girl. His heart shifted as he thought about someone bruising her heart.
This is why I don’t get involved with girls like her. They get their feelings hurt so easily when they want promises instead of a good time.
Emmeline shifted, then sighed. Frisco glanced down at the baby. He wanted to know why Annabelle had fallen for someone who’d broken her heart, a loser who didn’t care enough to take care of his own child, but he didn’t dare. It was none of his business. “And now that you’re here? Still wish you hadn’t come on vacation?”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “I feel like I’m working.”
He looked at her. “What does that mean?”
“That talking to you is kind of hard. You want answers but you don’t offer any of your own.”
A shrug would have been nice, but he was afraid to joggle Emmie. “Ask anything you want to.”
“I don’t have any questions. I just thought you might want to offer some conversation. Some minor details about yourself. Like why you say you don’t want to have women around, but then pick up a baby the first chance you get.”
“She was crying—” he began defensively.
“And I would have gotten her.”
“You were in the shower. I wanted you to be able to finish.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I didn’t know Emmie would fall asleep for me. But once she did, she kind of put a warm spot on my chest and it relaxed me and I dozed off. And now I don’t want her awakened because she’ll start crying again. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. I just wonder why you’re working so hard to be a tough guy when you’ve got a soft heart.”
Frisco snorted. “No one says I’ve got a soft heart.”
“I do.”
She gave him that don’t-argue-with-me look, and Frisco rolled his eyes.
“Would you hire me for the job?” Annabelle asked.
“No. Well, not for my house. If I was hiring, maybe for Fannin’s crew.”
“Why?”
“If you needed a job, why not?”
“You said you weren’t hiring.”
“That’s when I was annoyed.”
“I think you’re annoyed now, and yet you’d still hire me for Fannin’s house.”
“I didn’t say that. I said if. And that’s a big if.”
“You’re letting me sleep in your room.”
“You made yourself at home!”
“I think you’re more softhearted than you care for anyone to know.”
“Well, I’m not an evil weasel. I wouldn’t abandon a woman—” He stopped, catching himself. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
She drew a deep breath. “You couldn’t mean it in a bad way, Frisco, because there’s no way you could guess the truth. Tom left me for a Never Lonely Cut-n-Gurl.”
“A what?”
“A rival beauty salon employee. Across the street from our shop, Delilah’s own sister set up shop, determined, I guess, to put her out of business. There’s some feud between them that I don’t know everything about, but it’s pretty all-consuming. For the last three years, everything Delilah has done Marvella somehow manages to do one better.”
His jaw dropped. “You’re painting an awful picture. Two bossy beauty queen sisters at each other’s throats.”
She gazed at him steadfastly. “It’s really hurt Delilah, both emotionally and financially. She’s devastated. And then when Tom walked out on me for Dina, I think it was all Delilah could bear. She treats me like a daughter, and to Delilah, Tom was the one thing Marvella should have kept her mitts off.”
“Tom left you for Dina. How did Marvella have anything to do with that?”
“Oh. The Never Lonely girls are pretty good at stealing our customers. We get all the ladies who won’t suffer to step foot in a place where they suspect their men are getting more than a close shave. And we get the old men whose wives don’t want them getting their bald heads shined by a—”
“Whoa. Stop. Back up.” Frisco shook his head. “You’re scaring me.”
“Don’t like haircuts?”
While his hair did hover pretty much along the back of his neck, straggling inside and outside of his shirt collar depending on the wind and working conditions, Frisco couldn’t say he was scared of a pair of scissors. “I’m a little surprised that a man who was having a pretty baby like Emmie would do business elsewhere, if you’ll excuse the bad choice of words.” He eyed Annabelle and decided for the tenth time that she was lacking just about nothing to make a man happy—at least outwardly. “And you’re not exactly hard on the eyes,” he said gruffly.
She lowered her gaze. “Thank you. We’ve never been quite certain what they’re doing over there to steal our clientele, but my ex-fiancé must have liked whatever it was enough to…”
“Desert. Like a petty coward.”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to be too rough on Tom, because I did fall in love with him. But fatherhood must have spooked him, and I guess he needed a trim and instead of facing me, he went to the Never Lonely—”
“Have you talked to him since Emmie was born?” he asked, his heart hammering roughly in his chest. What a loser, what a pathetic sidewinder she’d picked to fall in love with! Poor Emmie. Frisco settled into the chair more comfortably, reclining as if he were relaxed, determined to conceal his disgust.
“No. I left a message on his answering machine that we’d had a daughter. Six pounds, seven ounces, blue eyes, heart-shaped lips, perfect set of lungs.” Slowly, she shook her head. “Of course, I never heard from him.”
He’d heard some lowdown things, but that took the cake. “Don’t think about it,” he said roughly. “I shouldn’t have asked so many nosy questions. It’s not like me.”
She cocked her head at him. “I believe you’re the caring type. But you play a good game of emotional hide-and-seek. I probably recognize it because I do the same thing.”
“What?” He didn’t like her thinking she could see inside his head.
“I’m very careful of my feelings, too.” She smiled at him, sweet and knowing as if they shared a secret. “I learned that from Tom.”
“To hide your feelings?”
“No. He sprayed feelings everywhere like they were pennies easily spent, and then when it came to something meaningful, he had empty pockets.” She winked at him. “I think you’re just the opposite. Deep, hidden pockets.”
He didn’t like this little lady looking at him so directly. Her big eyes were taking him in as though she knew him, as if he were some kind of bighearted man, and her gaze was making a part of his body swell to the point where he was going to need deep pockets to hide what was going on. “Go to bed,” he said sternly. “You’re getting on my nerves.”
“Call me when Emmie wakes.”
“I’m sure you’ll hear her. She’s showing early signs of growing into her mother’s big mouth.” He closed his eyes to indicate that he wanted to be left alone.
He heard feet on the stairs and breathed a sigh of relief.
Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough. These Lonely Hearts ladies were more trouble than he needed.
Lonely Hearts ladies and Never Lonely girls having catfights in the center of a small-town street. What nonsense.
And yet, Delilah had s
truck him as a no-nonsense woman. What kind of woman tried to run her own sister out of business? And encouraged her employees to steal customers—and fiancés? Surely Annabelle had been yanking his chain. Family didn’t act that way.
Or at least they shouldn’t. It had been mighty restless around Union Junction for a while—these ladies with their sad stories just might be the fuse on top of the powder keg the Jefferson brothers had become.
But they would still love each other. They’d never act like Delilah’s sister supposedly had. Family stuck together through thick and thin.
He’d brain all his younger brothers if they ever tried any tricks like Marvella’s.
And then he chuckled to himself. Delilah. Marvella.
Annabelle had just blown so much smoke into his eyes with a sob-story fairy tale. And like a big dumb slob, he’d fallen for every word. She’d sized him up as a caring guy, and gone for his heart with her baby and her jerk ex-fiancé story. After all, hadn’t she gone straight to make herself at home in his bed?
Maybe she knew more about what the Never Lonely girls were peddling than she was letting on.
And he’d just about bitten the bait, hook and all. She’d left the hundred-dollar bill on the table at his feet. It was a lot of money for a woman who supposedly had very little; he didn’t know many single mothers who carried around unbroken Ben Franklins. Shoot, he rarely had an unbroken Ben in his own wallet because they were difficult for small stores to change.
The money wasn’t necessarily a giveaway, but he wouldn’t be the first man in history to fall for a pretty face and good storytelling ability; kings and mortal men alike were known to have feet of clay when it came to such a fatal combination.
He’d been seventeen when Maverick had abandoned the ranch, leaving Mason to care for all of them. As a boy, he’d dreamed of his family being whole.
He was thirty-six now, too old for fairy tales. And too damn old to be deceived by a fiction-spinning female. He shifted the area between his jeans pockets uncomfortably.