by Tina Leonard
No wonder the judge was having a bit of trouble seeing Poppy as a role model and a good guardian. Last grinned. The elderly gentleman next to him looked as though he’d never seen a showgirl of any kind and might have a coronary.
Esme was adorable, with black strands of cloth hanging from the bikini bottom and a feathery black sequined headdress pluming from her long ebony hair. Something jumped in his jeans, and Last realized he was more attracted to her than he’d been to anyone in his life—well worth the ticket price he’d paid to get in.
He realized the flip-flopping children in the act were Amelia and Curtis. They flipped onto the small stage where Esme dismounted, and as music filtered through the arena she put Curtis into a box, concealing him.
A moment later she was sawing through him. Last’s heart thundered. The judge was right! The children were young and impressionable and probably easily scared! Last leaned forward, knowing in his heart that Esme wouldn’t hurt them. They’d probably done this act a hundred times—but still, he was relieved when Curtis reappeared with no blood spurting from his “halved” body.
Then Last’s heart went completely still as Amelia was raised on a pulley, seemingly as if by magic wings, to the ceiling. Esme approached the center of the stage, instructing Amelia to fly. And fly she did, nearly to Last’s seat. Maybe she’d seen him! It seemed as if they’d made eye contact. Last wasn’t certain. As she swung back, to the gasps of the audience, Esme yelled, “Disappear!” and she did! Last craned his neck looking for Amelia, but she was gone. Poof!
He was very angry with Poppy Peabody.
She had certainly made a believer out of him. His entire collar was soaked with perspiration.
A second later the vein in his temple went back to normal when Curtis and Amelia stood beside their aunt, to the delighted applause of the audience. Annoyed at himself for falling for grandiose tricks and a woman in a spectacularly pleasing costume, he stomped down the stairs, preparing to exit and hit the road.
But he was stopped by a man in a very tall hat.
“You are the cowboy?” the man asked.
“I suppose,” Last replied. “Some days more than others.”
“Come with me.”
“I don’t think so,” Last said. “I paid my ticket, and that means I leave when I want.”
“Poppy wants you,” the man in the ringmaster’s costume insisted.
“Poppy?” The hottest magician on the planet—or in California or whatever—wanted him? Last blinked. “All right, stranger. Move along. I’m right behind you.”
He walked into a makeup room where Esme stood surrounded by her charges, a lion tamer, a man in a gorilla costume and the ringmaster.
“Mr. Jefferson!” Curtis and Amelia cried.
“I told you he was here, Aunt Poppy,” Amelia said.
Last crossed his arms. “Nice show,” he said, meaning costume, though now was not the time to say it. The atmosphere in the room was distinctly testosterone-charged.
“Thanks.” Poppy turned to her friends. “I thank you for your offers of marriage, all of you. However, this is the man who would like to take me to his ranch and this is the man I have chosen.”
Last stood still, not even allowing himself to blink. What was she saying? He couldn’t marry her. He couldn’t marry anyone, but especially not someone who was as unstable as he was. Together they’d be combustible!
The ringmaster nodded. “Come,” he told Last.
“I prefer to stay here,” Last said.
The gentleman seemed to take exception to that, so Last shrugged and followed the guy in the too-tall hat. “Great duds,” he said.
“You can do better?” the man asked in his heavily accented voice.
Last figured by the pleading look in Curtis’s and Amelia’s eyes that he’d better follow along. “Welcome to the family,” the ringmaster said, opening a curtain to reveal the innermost workings of the circus.
It was far busier and more colorful than anything he’d ever seen at a rodeo. “Wow. Crazy.”
The ringmaster nodded. “You are sure you want to take our Poppy to Texas with you?”
“Uh—”
Amelia and Curtis nodded emphatically. Last recognized desperation when he saw it.
“The judge was sitting right next to you, Mr. Last,” Curtis said. “We think he wasn’t very happy.”
So reassurance of stability was in order. Surprisingly, he was eager to do the reassuring. “Yes. Absolutely. I’ll take Esme—I mean Poppy and company to Texas.”
Everyone stopped when the ringmaster gestured. “This is Poppy’s husband-to-be,” he announced, and everyone applauded. Sweat broke out on Last’s forehead under his hat.
He’d offered the ranch, not a ring! Mason had nearly blown a gasket when a pregnant Valentine had shown up a while back. But Mason was going to kill him if Last brought home a ready-made family.
“THAT WAS AWKWARD,” Poppy said once the three of them were packed into his truck. “I apologize.”
Last seemed too stunned to reply. She could tell he was feeling a mixture of anger and annoyance. “Last?”
“You look better without the stage makeup,” he said. “Though I really dug the costume.”
She blinked. “I always thought the plumes were a bit over-the-top.”
“No way. Made you look like a fan dancer.”
Then he went back to staring at the road.
“You can drop us off at the ranch you’d mentioned,” Poppy said, feeling sick at how she’d used him. The judge had been adamant tonight about taking the children and…she’d had no choice. “I don’t really expect you to marry me.”
“I should hope not,” Last said. “I can’t marry anyone. Ever. It’s a conscience thing.”
“I understand. And I don’t want to get married. It just got very heated back there. The lion tamer said the judge was a bit upset, and the ringmaster said I needed to make a magical disappearance but in a way in which they could responsibly cover my leaving. You provided the perfect cover.”
Last sighed. “How?”
“They told him we were leaving on a honeymoon. And then you were taking us to your Texas ranch to see how we liked living life in one place, in the country, far from all the glitter.”
“I see. Did he buy it?”
She shrugged. “Enough to give us some time. We have to be back in a month, of course, so he can check on the children’s well-being before he’ll give me final custody.”
Last felt sorry for Esme and her kids. It was tough being in the middle of a custody battle—he knew that too well—and there was no reason for him to say that everything would work out. It might not.
“Well, you’ll like the ranch,” he said. “Everyone around there is certifiable but nice. You’ll fit in just fine. The kids can go to school—”
Clapping erupted from the backseat. Esme turned around. “I’m surprised at you two!”
“It sounds like fun!” Amelia said.
“Yeah,” Curtis said. “I’m going to be just like Mr. Last. A cowboy!”
Last sighed. “You’re going to get me in big trouble with your aunt.” Frowning, he said, “Hey, since you’re not in the circus anymore, can I call you Esme instead of your stage name?”
She blinked. “I’ve never gotten used to Esmerelda. I was teased in school over it, and when the ringmaster named me Poppy Peabody, I was so relieved.”
“I know exactly how that feels,” Last said. “Imagine your name being Last. And being last in a long line of brothers. Never mind the name games. Fast Last, Lasting Gas and so on. I pounded on some kids in my youth.”
“I didn’t,” Esme said. “I pretended I didn’t hear them. Esmerelda Smells was the main nickname.”
“Oh. Bummer.” He brightened. “You smell wonderful to me.”
She looked at him askance. “Thank you. When were you close enough to tell?”
“I can tell.” He nodded. “Women come in all flavors under the sun, and I love them every
one.”
She stared at him.
“Sorry.” Last looked only a tiny bit ashamed. “Well, I do.”
She narrowed her eyes at this too-playful cowboy. “I have the strangest feeling you didn’t bear the heaviest load at the ranch,” Poppy said. “You’re far too relaxed.”
“Mason bore most of the burden,” Last admitted cheerfully. “And I was ever the baby wearing rose-colored glasses. My brothers all had problems. Tex, for example, had budus interruptus.”
“Sounds painful.”
“It was. For all of us. He was a madman when things didn’t go his way with his plants. No different than the rest of us, of course. Everybody’s got hang-ups. Probably even you.”
She looked out the opposite window.
“You can share if you like,” he said. “I’m listening.”
She checked over her shoulder. Amelia and Curtis had fallen asleep, their heads resting against each other’s.
“I never wanted to be tied down,” she said quietly. “I was the girl who never dreamed of The Prince. The One. I was always hanging around my grandparents, learning card tricks. Sleight of hand. Even ventriloquism.”
“Great,” Last said. “A woman who’s more into freedom than me. It’s almost like meeting my mirror image, only more frightening because you’re hot as hell.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Definitely. That’s why once I drop you at the ranch I’ve got to go. I’ve already had one night of passion go wrong on me. I have no intention of repeating history.”
“Did you love her?”
“We don’t even remember the night very much,” Last admitted. “But the aftermath was a killer, never mind the hangover. My baby is an angel, though. She’s gonna be a man slayer when she grows up. Looks like her mom, thank heaven, except with a bit of darkness in her hair and eyes.” He glanced over at her. “Sort of like you.”
Poppy felt something tingle down her spine, something very much like a magic trick played perfectly.
“The problem is,” he said with a wicked gleam in his eyes, “I would love to make love to you. But I just can’t afford that mistake again.”
“That scared?”
“I told you, I’m living the cliché,” he said, grinning at her with a wink. “The ultimate untamable bad boy. All I can say is that you would like it. I would like it. And it would definitely be something we both remembered.”
That tingle turned into a warning shiver. She was not at a place in her life where she could be seduced. Even by such a master of seduction as this cowboy, who, no doubt, was not exaggerating his skills. “Maybe I should have accepted the lion tamer,” she murmured.
“They broke the mold for sure when they made him,” Last said. “Why didn’t you marry him?”
“I knew he was asking me as a friend. I didn’t want that, even for the sake of the children. It wasn’t fair to him.”
“And the ringmaster? I got the sense that he was rather fatherly.”
She nodded. “He was. He offered, but I saved him from his kindness. Staying with them, with the circus, wouldn’t have endeared me to the judge. It was time to go.”
“And along I came,” Last said, turning off the highway onto a side road. “I want one last drive along the beach before heading back toward the land of stability.” He gave a heavy sigh. “I must warn you, we have a strong dose of superstition in our family. And if I get the sense even for a second that you might be invoking The Curse in me, I might have to…to send you into town to live with the Union Junction stylists. You’d like them,” he said. “They’d mother your kids to death. And the children would be closer to school.”
“What curse?” Poppy asked. “I don’t usually believe in such things.”
“Good,” Last said, satisfied. “This one has to do with love, and it’s happened to every single one of my brothers. When they found their true loves, they got hurt.”
“That’s…silly,” Poppy said. “What have I gotten myself into?” She glanced into the backseat, where the children slept, comfortable in the double cab.
“I’m sure everything’s going to be just fine,” Last told her. He peered through the windshield. “What the hell is that beside the road?”
“A dog?” Poppy looked harder. “A sea lion!”
“No way,” Last said. “They’re too fat to get all the way over here.” They were close enough to the ocean to see the waves from the road, but the road was still too far for a sea lion, at least by Last’s standards. Stopping the truck, he said, “I’m going to go check on whatever it is.”
Poppy watched anxiously as he snuck up on the hapless creature. She turned on the truck’s hazard lights so drivers coming around the narrow, winding road would see them.
To her surprise, she saw Last struggling with the animal. It seemed as if he was trying to push it back toward the sea. And just when it appeared he might be winning, the animal turned on him. Flippers and arms battled. Gasping, Poppy hit the horn with all her might. Startled, the animal lumbered back toward the ocean. Last lay on the ground for a moment before picking himself up and dragging himself into the seat of his truck. “Just like the rodeo,” he said. “I’m always getting tossed.”
“Are you all right?” Poppy asked. “That was horrible!”
“I’m fine,” Last said. “By golly, it was harder to corral than a bull. It nearly got the best of me!”
“That’s because it was a bull, obviously,” Poppy said. “A junior sea lion bull, beached and confused.”
“Yes. And damned unappreciative.” Last checked his ripped shirt. “It took exception to me saving it.”
“It didn’t look like you were saving it. It wanted to kill you! What made you try to move a wild creature?”
He groaned. “I move all kinds of wild creatures all the time, some that weigh a couple tons and have impressive horns and sharp hooves. Believe me, I didn’t think it would be any more difficult than throwing a cow to the ground or corralling a mad bull. It looked like a bunch of harmless blubber lying there all pathetic.”
“You smell like seal,” Poppy said. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
“I’m just badly hurt,” Last said with a groan. “I may need a doctor.”
“Scoot over. I’ll drive you to the hospital.” As she stared at him clutching his side, she shook her head. “I want you to know this one doesn’t count.”
He looked at her through pained eyes. “What one?”
“The Curse thing. The don’t-hurt-me thing.”
The pain left Last and he sat up, staring at her. “Oh, no,” he said, his tone angry. “Oh, no, no, no. You cannot be The One.”
Chapter Three
Last had known this woman and her children were trouble the moment he’d laid eyes on them. They were even more trouble now that they were going to cost him an airplane ticket out of California and into the land of ultimate bungee jumping. Most particularly, they were going to get him in a lot of trouble with Mason, who already thought Last hadn’t properly learned the Condom Song since he’d become an unwed father. Bringing home two more children would only make matters more awkward between him and his eldest brother.
Last stared at Poppy for a few moments, his whole body screaming with pain and his mind shouting horrific echoes of denial.
“This time, The Curse is wrong. Actually, I feel fine now.” He struggled to sit up in the driver’s seat. “I’m completely healthy, with not one pain an aspirin can’t fix. I just need you to drive.”
“What?” Esme asked.
He took a deep, shaken breath. If he was honest, he’d admit the sea lion had scared the hell out of him. What looked like harmless, soft flubber had really been equal to any mad thing he’d met on the ranch, including Mason. There was a possibility he had a cracked rib.
“You drive,” Last repeated, getting out of the truck to limp around to the passenger side. “I’m according you the honor of driving a man’s truck, which has never been driven by a female.”
<
br /> She shook her head. “No way. I want no part of you or your truck.” She sniffed in a hoity-toity way, but he didn’t have the strength to argue with her.
“Look. Get your foxy little ass out of my seat so I can sit down.”
“You’re hurt!”
“No, I’m not,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I think you are.”
“I think I’d know if I was!” A star passed before his vision that seemed as big as Halley’s Comet. He slumped into the seat she’d vacated. “Drive.”
She cleared her throat. “Last, can I say something?”
“Sure, magician.”
“I need to stop by and say goodbye to my parents. Plus the kids and I need to pack a suitcase. And I really would love to get out of my costume.”
The galaxy was threatening to take him over. “Do whatever you have to,” he said. “Just don’t ever tell a soul that a rubbery seal nearly got the best of me.”
“It’ll be our secret.” She pulled out onto the road, winding back toward the highway. “I could make a pit stop at the hospital—”
“I am not hurt,” he insisted. “I probably just caught a bit of wind shear when I was hang-gliding and didn’t realize I’d reorganized my internal organs at that time. Next breeze I’ll be fine.”
Her giggle was annoying. “Whatever.”
He kept his eyes tightly shut, enjoying Esme’s smooth driving. Okay, he would let her drive all the way to the ranch. There he could find some tape to bandage his rib. Shoot, he’d been hurt worse than this in rodeos and had still dragged himself back to the ranch. He could do it again.
Only…this time there was Mason to think about. Now that would be pain that would send him into the next galaxy. Cracking one eye open, he stared over at Esme as she concentrated on the road. Damn, she was pretty. So exotic. And good to her family. He liked that in a woman. And she had a little bit of attitude, which he thought spiced her up just fine.
His eye traveled from her top to the sequined band at her hips where the cloth strips hung. Her exposed waist was a smooth road, he decided poetically, one which he would certainly like to navigate. Such a shame she was totally wrong for him.