“A good night’s sleep will do wonders.” Tyler followed her, looking refreshed and sexy and too damned wide-awake in a red plaid shirt and faded jeans, his damp hair looking deliciously messy.
“Actually, I do feel better.” Lucky ignored the urge to touch one damp tendril near his freshly shaven jaw. Instead, she slid into the seat next to Bennie.
“I thought,” Tyler said to Helen as he poured syrup onto his pancakes, “we’d take a little look around the ranch after breakfast. Jed is covering for me this morning, so I’ve got a few hours. How does that sound?”
“Stimulating, dear, but I’m afraid I have other plans.” Her gaze locked with Lucky’s. “Miss Myers and I have a date to get to know each other better. Did you know that Bernadette will be the fifth-generation Bell to attend Smithston?”
“That little filly isn’t a Bell, she’s a Grant,” Tyler’s father said as he felt his way, with Mabel’s assistance, to his seat. “And she’s staying right here. This is her home.”
“Your home.” Helen turned to Bennie who was busy slathering her pancakes in butter-pecan syrup. “Dear, that’s terrible for your heart and your hips.”
“I don’t have any hips.”
“Keep eating this figure-poisoning food and you’ll have more than one pair, I guarantee it. Isn’t that right, Miss Myers?”
“Not necessarily,” Lucky replied. “It’s all a matter of metabolism.”
“Nonsense.” Helen placed the syrup out of Bennie’s reach.
“It’s a proven scientific fact. I picked up this doctor once—er, met this doctor once, a friend of Mr. Stinson’s...a Scottish friend. Anyhow, he’d done a huge amount of research on the subject. Metabolism is everything.”
“Perhaps that’s true,” Helen said, “but there’s no way for Bernadette to know what sort of metabolism she has without eating like a horse and seeing Where the pounds do or do not accumulate. And if they do accumulate somewhere, primarily the hips, darling, because Merle’s family is definitely a hip family, then it’s virtually too late to do anything about it.” She patted Bennie’s hand. “You don’t want to be a fat debutante, dear.”
“If Grandfather comes from a big-hip family, what do you come from?” Bennie asked around a syrup-drenched pancake.
“A big-mouth family,” Ulysses piped in. Tyler nearly choked on his pancakes. Bernadette giggled and Lucky fought to keep from smiling.
“I see you’re feeling better, too,” Helen told Ulysses.
“Never felt better in my life...er, that is, if my dadburned eyes weren’t giving me so much trouble.” He blinked the dadburned eyes in question, still red and swollen to little more than slits. “It’s a good thing Tyler came home. I’d be lost without the boy.”
“I’m sure you could make do just fine with a hired hand.”
Ulysses poured syrup over his pancakes. “I could make do just fine if you minded your own business.”
“Well, I never...”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Ulysses grumbled.
“Why, you... you insulting old goat! You make it impossible to carry on a civil conversation.”
“Ain’t nothin’ civil about a stuck-up city gal buttin’ into my business.”
“Neanderthal,” Helen huffed.
“Fund-raisin’ fruitcake.”
“Stubborn peasant.”
“Rich bi—”
“Enough!” Tyler took a deep breath and glared at Ulysses. “Dad, you promised to be nice and this isn’t the sort of conversation Bernadette needs to hear.” He turned to his mother-in-law. “This...petty name-calling is beneath you, Helen.”
Helen, as graceful as ever, sniffed and adjusted her napkin. “Of course, dear, it’s just that he...he’s so infuriating.”
“And she sticks in my craw, boy.”
“I don’t stick anywhere on your person, least of all your craw. Whatever that is.”
“What’s a craw, Granddaddy?” Bennie stared hopefully at Ulysses.
“Well, darlin’, you see, it’s—”
“Not a fit topic for a young lady to be discussing at Sunday morning breakfast,” Tyler cut in. “Can we eat, please?”
Ulysses shrugged. “Ask her. She’s the one from the big-mouth family.”
“That’s big hip, Granddaddy,” Bennie corrected.
“That’s Merle’s family.” Helen frowned. “And for everyone’s information, there are absolutely no ill traits in my family. The Bells are a result of good, pure breeding for over six generations, clear back to English royalty.”
“I don’t know, Helen.” Ulysses wiped a dribble of syrup at the corner of his mouth. “Last I remember, you had a little extra baggage hangin’ around them hips of yours.”
“Where’s my butter knife?” Helen growled. “I’ll show you extra baggage, you —”
Ulysses threw down his napkin and staggered to his feet. “Get my shotgun, boy, and let’s put the old girl out of her misery!”
“Old girl?” Helen was on her feet, hands on hips, glaring.
“Call ’em like I see ’em.”
“And you can’t see an inch in front of your face.”
“This round’s over,” Tyler announced. “Everyone back to their corners.” Helen sat down, and Ulysses excused himself and let Mabel help him back to his room.
Lucky couldn’t help staring. Angry and frustrated, Tyler still looked good. So tall and muscular and delicious she was ready to chuck the pancakes and have him for breakfast, or lunch, or dinner.
He was every bit the cowboy this morning, with faded jeans that had been washed so many times they looked nearly white. They molded to the lean length of his legs. Scuffed brown boots peeked from the frayed hem. His shirt hugged his shoulders, the sleeves rolled up to reveal tanned forearms sprinkled with dark hair. He wasn’t wearing his faded cowboy hat, but Lucky could picture it on his head, shielding his blue eyes and shadowed jaw.
She sighed, her lips still tingling from last night’s kiss.
“Are you feeling okay?” Tyler’s voice penetrated her thoughts and she sat up straighter. “I know all this carrying on so early is upsetting.”
“I’m fine.”
“Because you look a little...peaked,” he finally said, his eyes assessing her flaming cheeks.
“I feel great.” She ate another forkful of pancakes and Tyler turned to Helen.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to see the rest of Reata?”
“And miss my talk with Miss Myers? Not on your life, Tyler. You run along and do whatever it is you do around here.”
“Math right after breakfast,” Tyler told Bennie.
“But it’s Sunday —”
“And you still haven’t finished your lesson from Friday.”
“But I want Grandmother to teach me how to fight like she did with Granddaddy.”
“Bennie, honey, fighting’s not very ladylike,” Tyler said.
“That’s right.” Helen patted her granddaughter’s hand. “Ladies disagree, they don’t fight.”
“Then can I learn how to disagree?” She cast hopeful eyes at Tyler.
“Math,” he said, but despite his I-ain’t-taking-no-bull expression, there was a softness in his eyes. “Then practice your piano.” Bennie made a face and Tyler winked before striding out of the dining room. A few minutes later, Bennie ate the last of her pancakes, and Lucky was left to face the Big Bad Mother-in-law on her own.
“So,” Helen declared. “What do you say we find someplace more comfortable and have our little talk?”
“I —”
“Excuse me,” Mabel said, appearing in the doorway. She gestured toward Helen. “You’ve got a phone call. They said something about the Ritz-Carlton withdrawing their offer for your fund-raiser or something like that.”
“Oh no.” Helen jumped up and rushed out before Lucky could swallow the last of her food.
Mabel moved forward and started clearing away the breakfast dishes. “My advice is to get while the getting is good.”
“
I’m out of here.” Lucky got to her feet, hightailed it through the kitchen and out the back door. Outside was better. Plenty of places to hide from Helen if the need arose.
“You’re still in one piece. I guess Helen didn’t get much of a chance to talk.” Tyler’s voice drew her around the side of the house. He stood in front of the barn, saddling the beautiful black horse she’d seen him riding down by the river. “Let me guess, she’s on the phone about her gala.”
“Good guess.”
He gave her a slow smile and Lucky knew there was no guessing involved. Somehow he was behind the sudden fund-raiser upset. Good-looking and clever. She was in deep trouble.
“It could take a while,” he went on. “Once she starts in with her high-society friends, she can talk for hours, and this latest setback should keep her busy for a long time.” He fastened a strap, gripped the saddle horn and swung himself onto the horse.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ve got work to do.”
“But you can’t just leave me here to twiddle my thumbs. What am I supposed to do for the next few hours?”
“Sneak back into your room and read the books I gave you.”
“Are we having a pop quiz tonight?”
He grinned. “Maybe.”
“With a bonus like the one last night?”
He frowned. “About last night...”
“It was a mistake. I’m your employee. You’re my boss.”
“Exactly. It shouldn’t have happened.”
“You keep saying that, but then you keep kissing me.”
“Only twice.”
She grinned. “Third time’s a charm.”
“There won’t be a third time. Come on, Lucky. Have a heart. I don’t need this...you and me and this...thing between us. I’ve got responsibilities.”
Her grin turned to full-blown smile. “We have a thing between us?”
“Damn, you’re good.”
“At what?”
He shook his head. “You’re good, but I’m not falling for it, sweetheart. I can’t. If you’ve got any smarts in that pretty head of yours, you’ll leave well enough alone, stop trying to play me and concentrate on collecting your money.”
“I’m playing you? How?”
He growled. “Study.” Then he steered the horse around.
She watched him gallop away a few seconds later, her gaze straying from his broad shoulders to his tush sitting in the saddle, to the muscular thighs gripping the horse.
It wasn’t a sight for the faint of heart, or the sexually deprived, and she had to literally force her gaze away.
Strangely enough, it wasn’t the sight of him riding the horse that stayed in her mind. She kept picturing him by the breakfast table, that warm smile on his face as he stared down at his daughter.
The Texas heat, she told herself. She was getting punchy again, because who in their right mind would trade such a great image of buns for a scene out of “Father Knows Best”?
Not her, not with him. Tyler Grant wasn’t viable husband material. But playing him... Now there was an intriguing thought.
With a smile on her face, Lucky started toward the house. She came to a jarring halt when she spotted Ulysses. He’d taken up residence in a rocker on the back porch. His cane sat across his knees, his hands gripping the chair arms.
Relax, she told herself. The man is as blind as Tyler is gorgeous. Just put one foot in front of the other and sneak by him. Easy. She took a deep breath and forced her legs to move, slowly, cautiously. She stepped onto the porch and headed for the doorway. Ulysses rocked back and forth a few feet to the right, mindless of her presence. She smiled. Piece of cake. Like taking candy from a baby—
Ulysses smacked his cane down to block her path. Lucky stumbled. “Got you!” he declared.
“Hey, what’s the big idea?” Lucky grabbed at a porch post to regain her balance.
“Hush up and listen good.” He pointed his cane at her. “I know your type, girlie, and don’t you forget it.”
“You know the unsophisticated, grease-monkey, Chicago-born-and-bred taxi-driver type?”
“Gold digger,” Ulysses muttered. “Come runnin’ out here to my ranch, flauntin’ yourself to catch my boy and get your hands on his money, but I see right through them man-killer ways of yours, gal. A cab-driving nanny... Hah! A front, I tell you, and a damned poor one. But you mark my words, my boy sees right through you. He’s known a lot of women like you, all tried to catch him, but not a one of ’em ever did. Married himself a gal with her own money. Lots of it.” Ulysses poked at her with his cane. “That’s it, ain’t it? That’s what brought you out here, ain’t it? Now he’s got double the money, so’s you’re thinkin’ to really cash in. Admit it, gal!”
Ulysses shoved the cane at her again, and Lucky barely resisted the urge to crack the blasted wood over his head. He was old and blind and obviously clueless. She was fairly sure God wouldn’t let someone into heaven after she’d beat up on an old, helpless, blind man, no matter how provoking.
“Look, Mr. Grant. You’re wrong. I’m not after Tyler’s money. Well, okay, maybe a little of his money, but I’m earning that.”
“Yeah, I just bet you are.”
“I am. Oh no. I don’t mean that kind of earning. I’m talking honest-to-goodness earn, as in work.”
“You think you can work yourself right into his wallet, reel him in like some bigmouth bass and he won’t resist ’cause you know just how to ring his bells. Is that it, girlie? You huntin’ my boy?”
“I’m not hunting anyone, especially your boy. I don’t know the first thing about reeling in men or ringing their bells, though I was hoping to remedy that when I got back to Houston.”
“Sure you was, and I’m performin’ brain surgery at noon today.” He tapped his cane on the ground. “You mark my words. You let my boy alone and use those feminine wiles of yours on some other man.”
Wiles? She smiled. She had wiles?
“I’m watchin’ you,” Ulysses warned. “You ain’t gettin’ your hands on my boy or his money. He’s stayin’ right here where he belongs.” He sat back in his chair. “Damn city slicker. A vamp, that’s what you are. Well, you ain’t vampin’ my boy. Not no, but hell no...”
Ulysses’s grumbling followed Lucky into the house and down the hallway. A vamp. She smiled wider. Vamp was good. Of course, sultry sexpot would have been better, but at least she’d moved up from flat-as-a-pancake Lucky.
She should have gone straight to her room the way Tyler had said. But the lure of the library and all those projector pieces distorted her rational thinking. All that machinery and nobody to put it back together.
Lucky went into the library and started sorting pieces. After fifteen minutes of careful scrutiny, she decided the thing was fixable. She begged a Phillips screwdriver, a flathead, and a wrench off of Mabel and went to work. Lucky was halfway into reconstructing the machine when a high-pitched scream shattered her concentration.
She bolted down the hall and followed Mabel and Bennie, who were already racing toward the living room. The three of them came to a staggering halt in the doorway, their gazes riveted on Helen, who sat in a mauve armchair, a cordless phone on her lap and a green lizard perched in her perfect silver coiffure.
“There’s a thing on my head!” she shrieked, waving her arms excitedly. “Get it off! Get it off!”
Bennie dashed into the room and snatched the lizard from her grandmother’s head.
“I—I was just sitting there on the phone and it just flew at me.” Her frantic gaze went to Bernadette. “Don’t panic, dear. Put it down slowly and Mabel can stomp it with her shoe—”
“Grandmother! That’s murder!” Bennie stared down at the lizard. “And as for you, I’ve been worried sick about you.”
“You...you...” Helen gasped and jumped to her feet, rubbing her arms as if a dozen creepy-crawlers swarmed over her. Her breaths came in short, ragged gasps. “You—you know this... this lizard?”
“Of course,” Bennie said and shock gripped Helen’s features. “And he didn’t fly at you. Marlon doesn’t fly, he crawls. He probably dropped from overhead.”
“Marlon?”
“Yeah, he’s my—”
“—nanny’s pet,” Lucky said, taking the lizard from Bennie. “Bad boy,” she scolded. “Didn’t Mommy Myers tell you to stay in your jar?” Mommy Myers? Okay, so she didn’t think fast on her feet. But hey, she was trying.
“So it’s your lizard.” A momentary flicker of relief passed Helen’s features as she realized Lucky was the happy owner and not her granddaughter. Then the relief gave way to outrage and more harsh gasps. “My Bernadette’s nanny is keeping a lizard!”
“Why, he’s been in the family for years,” Lucky exclaimed. “Used to belong to my granny, then my dad, and now me.” Great. She was the proud owner of a hand-me-down lizard. “Are you all right? Marlon didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“I think I’m...hyper...ventilating...need...to lie...down.” Helen staggered toward the hallway. “Mabel, please... if you have a...paper bag.”
“To put over your head?” Mabel beamed. “My pleasure, Helen. You just come with me.”
“Sorry Marlon surprised you,” Lucky called after Helen. “He just loves company.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Bennie said once she and Lucky were alone. “I owe you one.”
“Ugh.” Lucky handed the lizard over to Bennie. “How did he get out?”
“I sort of let him out.”
“Why?”
“I hate the thought of him being cooped up in the terrarium. He deserves freedom like everyone else.”
“Then let him loose in the backyard.”
“So Jed’s cat can have him? No way. Besides, Marlon’s one of my best friends. Isn’t that right, buddy?” Marlon blinked in answer and Bennie smiled. “Anyhow, I usually let him crawl around my room in the mornings. Marlon loves exercise.” The exercise-lover in question curled up in Bennie’s palm like a wet green noodle, his eyes closed.
“Yeah, I can see that,” Lucky said. “He’s a regular aerobics king.”
“Thanks again.” Bennie’s gaze dropped to the lizard. “Come on, Marlon. It’s back to the torture chamber for us. Too bad you’re not a math wizard instead of a lizard.”
Gettin' Lucky (Love and Laughter) Page 10