Fannin's Flame

by Tina Leonard

  Anything to get close to Kelly.

  KELLY TRIED TO IGNORE the big cowboy propped in the corner, but it was hard. For one thing, he was snoring slightly, asleep the moment he’d hit the chair. She reminded herself that they’d been up late the night before, and no doubt he found their current dilemma painstakingly slow. He was a man of action and it seemed that, for now, they were in a holding pattern.

  “I’m sending you home, Mimi,” Doc Gonzalez said. “You need to be in bed until this baby comes. Mostly, you need help. I want you to put a call in to your regular physician and tell him that you’re worn out.”

  “It’s a her,” Mimi said tiredly. “I went to the doctor who presided at the rodeo, the one all the Jefferson boys thought was so pretty. She’s very smart, and she agreed to help me find a midwife so I could have the baby at home.”

  “What?” Mason had come in to hear what Doc had to say, and his whole body went rigid. “You can’t do that, Mimi! It’s dumb!”

  She’d been pale, Kelly noticed, until Mason’s pigheaded statement. And then it seemed life was breathed into Mimi through stubborn, determined, prideful will. “It’s not dumb, Mason. You just shut up.”

  Everyone was silent for a moment.

  Then Fannin said, “Well, just like old times around here now, isn’t it?” which broke the ice and made everyone laugh, except Kelly, who wondered if it really was like old times or if everybody was just doing an amazing job of hiding their true feelings.

  “I’ll go over and stay with Mimi,” she said suddenly.

  “No,” Helga said, “I go with Mimi.” And she patted Mimi’s hand telling Kelly what she planned to do.

  “Mama has decided to move over to Mimi’s,” Kelly told Fannin. “She says the sheriff and Mimi need her.” There, she thought, that ought to make everybody happy.

  And for some reason that made her mad—at Fannin. She couldn’t help remembering the conversation she’d overheard. And the order he’d e-mailed in to the Honey-Do Agency, as if he expected the world to be so easy for him that he could ask for the perfect woman. He’d tried to camouflage it as a work request, but she knew better.

  He’d been shopping. The man did like to shop. She knew that firsthand from their stroll in town, where the ladies had hung out from shop doors to call hello. She’d seen one girl give him a hug that was far from just-bein’-friendly.

  She knew just what Mr. Hard Case needed.

  “I’m going to stay here, Mason,” she announced.

  “Oh, sure, of course. Whatever you need.”

  “Oh, no. It’s a matter of what you need,” she said sweetly, her gaze deliberately on Fannin. “You’ll need housekeeping help. Mama needs me close by. And the Honey-Do Agency must keep their clients happy. This is a wonderful solution for everyone.”

  Fannin stared at her.

  “Now, you don’t need to do housekeeping here,” Mason said uncomfortably. “You’re a guest at our ranch.”

  “I’d rather earn my keep, if you don’t mind. I’ll take Mama’s job, and she can do what she feels called to do.” She smiled at Fannin. “I know how happy that will make everyone.”

  She didn’t miss the concerned glances the men threw each other. Boy, she had a surprise for them. They were going to wish they’d been nice to her mother—especially Mr. Cocky.

  And she went upstairs to unpack.

  The brothers watched as Fannin headed up the stairs, purpose in his step. “You were supposed to keep them separated,” Calhoun said to Last. “Another harebrained idea.”

  “Now she’s living here,” Archer said. “And by the look on Fannin’s face, nothing could have made him happier.”

  Last sat mutinously on the couch, staring at his brothers. “I didn’t know Mimi was going to have a stress attack of epic proportions.”

  “I didn’t know Mimi was so lonely,” Navarro said. “I feel pretty bad about that.”

  “Yeah.” Last mulled that one for a moment. Alone most of the time, pregnant and with a sick father, Mimi was overtired, the doctor had said. He’d put her on total bed rest until the baby arrived. Which had Mason totally gonzo. He was turning into a protective bull right before their eyes—sending his precious Helga next door was the least he intended to do for Mimi.

  But Kelly living at the ranch was far worse.

  “What was that?” Last said, sitting up straight. “I heard a door slam.”

  “I heard it, too,” Navarro said. “It came from up stairs.”

  They all listened.

  And then they heard it, plain as paint on a fence.

  Squeak, squeak, squeak!

  Last sighed. “Bedsprings locked into the rhythm of love. I didn’t even know Frisco’s old bed had bed springs in it. I think you can call that a very bad sign indeed.”

  “I don’t think much housekeeping’s gonna get done around here,” Calhoun said.

  “I’m hungry,” Navarro stated.

  “Think the kitchen’s closed,” Archer pointed out.

  “Yep, I think the only one of us around here that’s going to be happy for a while is Fannin.”

  “Well, we did criticize his form with women,” Last said.

  “You’re not making me feel better.” Navarro got up and peered into the kitchen. “Anybody for toast?”

  “Hell, no. I’m not staying here listening to that.”

  Archer put his hat on. “I’m going into town to get a burger at Lampy’s.”

  His three brothers beat him to the door.

  “I WAS MAD,” Kelly admitted, lying breathlessly on a bed in some room she’d never imagined she’d first view from her back. Something had happened between her and Fannin as she went upstairs—all the anger she was holding inside somehow uncorked when he grabbed her hand and kissed her. “I think I didn’t plan on having mad sex, though.”

  “Neither did I,” Fannin said. “I hope your mood swings are always so productive.”

  She tossed a pillow at him, which he ducked. “I like you,” he said. “You’re playful.”

  He was so confident, it was annoying. “You know, you don’t always get everything you want, Fannin Jefferson, just because you want it.”

  “I got you, didn’t I?” he said smugly.

  She tossed the last pillow at him, but he dodged it, laughing as he left the room. “Okay, now I’m really mad,” she said to herself. “Now I see that there are shades to anger that I never imagined.”

  Still, she had to admit that Fannin was an awesome lover. She’d liked being ambushed by him! No man had ever pursued her with Fannin’s focus, and therein lay his charm.

  However, he’d be more charming if he wasn’t such an ass, she thought, pulling her skirt down and fixing her hair. It had been so much fun to let herself go….

  But he was an ass, and there was nothing in him that could become marriage material. Maybe she really was a good girl having a fling before settling down.

  “It was fun, but that’s it,” she told Joy, who was napping in the window ledge, totally unconcerned with anything except her own sleep. “That’s the last time the cowboy ambushes me.” She wasn’t putting a lot of time into a man who had no heart, fired old ladies and was overcocky. He would always make her mad, and after her parents’ fiery relationship, she wanted something settled. Something secure.

  Something she’d never have with Fannin.

  She was not going to be his flame.

  FANNIN FELT better than he ever had. He was going to get to keep Kelly for the next three days! And he wouldn’t even have to admit that he didn’t want her to go. That was in line with his brothers’ modus operandi—say little and make ’em wonder.

  He was happy Mimi felt better, but everybody was more comfortable with the new arrangements, he was certain. Mason had already carried Helga’s stuff over to Mimi’s, and Mimi was happily laid up in bed, lapping up Helga’s attention like a lazy cat.

  And he planned on having Kelly for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

  Three days. Then
it was Christmas, and Kelly would return home. With Helga. Kelly had made it clear that this year her mother and she were spending Christmas together in their home. One last time, as Kelly told him, because after Christmas she planned to tell her mother that she was going to Ireland for a very extended stay. It was time to live in her father’s house and experience life through the things he’d left her.

  Mason had been very understanding. By that time, Julia could have someone suitable sent over from the Honey-Do Agency to stay with Mimi until Helga returned. It was all going to work out so well.

  “You see,” Fannin told Bloodthirsty Black, “my brothers were obviously right. Storming. Conquering. That’s the way to a woman’s heart. It’s all about handling a woman right.”

  “YOU SEE,” Kelly told Julia on the phone, “it’s all about handling a man right. Why didn’t I realize it was so easy?”

  “I don’t know. You never met anyone you liked before. So the Jefferson men aren’t as bad as I imagined?”

  “Nothing a little sweetness can’t cure.”

  Julia laughed. “Maybe I’ll take the job at Mimi’s. I haven’t spent time with my friend in ages.”

  Kelly gasped. “Why don’t you do that? Mimi would be so thrilled!”

  “And I might catch me a man, too,” Julia teased. “Like you did.”

  “I don’t know.” Kelly scrunched up her nose. “I think the Jefferson men think women are for entertainment and amusement if nothing’s on TV.”

  “You’re pretty happy with the arrangement.”

  “Yes,” Kelly said, “but it’s not marriage. It would never be marriage with Fannin. I’m planning to meet my dream man in Ireland. That would be a fairy tale come true, wouldn’t it?”

  “Maybe you’re already in love,” Julia said.

  “If you meet Fannin, you’ll understand that he’s capable of making me many things, but a wife is not one of them.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Run that part past me again about the midwife,” Mason said to Fannin the morning after the Mimi episode. “Because I’m not sure I understood.”

  “There’s a lot going on we don’t understand,” Fannin said. “Some mysteries are too deep to be probed by the masculine mind.”

  The two brothers sat in the kitchen, waiting for Kelly to come down and fix their breakfast.

  Only, she hadn’t.

  What they found instead was a note that said, “Gone to Mimi’s. Help yourselves to the fridge.”

  Everyone else had lit out for town on a doughnut run.

  Mason flicked the note disdainfully. “I do not like my routine messed with.”

  “It does kind of stink like roadkill.” Fannin sighed. “I was hoping to have a pretty face pouring me coffee for a change.”

  He was fairly certain Kelly had deserted them to a meager breakfast out of spite. She seemed to know he was the one selected to get rid of her mother—and he was pretty certain she was going to hold it against him.

  Or she was mad that he’d swept her off her feet last night. But that couldn’t be it. She’d been way too enthusiastic.

  Dang, he liked his women strong.

  He also liked his breakfast hot and served. He traded frowns with Mason. “Maybe somebody should mention to Kelly what we like.”

  Mason shrugged. “To what purpose? She seems to have a pretty hot temper on her. We could end up with no dinner, too.”

  Mason was the only one of his brothers who didn’t believe in storming the gates. Which was why he’d ended up without his true love, Fannin thought sourly. He wasn’t going to end up like Mason.

  “Now, look. Kelly is a Honey-Do employee, and we’re paying for her service, and if we want breakfast, we should just say we want a hot breakfast every morning before we go outside and work our butts off in the cold!” Fannin stated.

  The front door opened and Kelly entered, bright and cheery with wind-reddened cheeks. “Good morning,” she said, looking into the kitchen. “It’s cold outside.”

  Fannin slammed his mug down. “Damn right it’s cold outside, woman! Do you think we should have to go out and work in twenty-degree weather with empty stomachs?”

  She blinked. “Why, no, Fannin, I don’t think you should at all.” And then she smiled. “I’ll be upstairs if you need me. Just bellow. As is your custom, apparently.”

  Kelly left, and Fannin stared at Mason. “What just happened?”

  “You nicely got told to shut the hell up and fix your own breakfast, mice brains,” Mason said. “Didn’t you read her body language? Her widened eyes? The smirk she could barely contain? Those were all negative signals. Don’t-mess-with-me-or-there’ll-be-no-dinner signs.”

  “If you read women’s bodies so well, then why—”

  “Ah-ah-ah,” Mason said, wagging his finger. “Let’s not go there. You’re already in trouble with the help. Don’t add me to the list.”

  Fannin sighed, getting up to pour them both some lukewarm coffee. “All right. Back to the midwife question. Mimi wants a midwife because she doesn’t want to go to a hospital. She found one she liked, only then that woman went to stay with her sister in Iowa. Mimi’s spent so much time in a hospital with her father that she’s spooked. And she says her mother had her at home, and our mother had all of us here, and we all lived to tell the tale. So she’s going to have a midwife.”

  Mason shook his head. “I really don’t want to be within twenty miles when she has the baby.”

  “Why?” Fannin stared at his brother, sensing more was going on than his usual thickheadedness.

  “Because she’ll be in pain and I don’t want to hear that. I want it all antiseptic and clean and wrapped up nice and neat by professional hands—”

  “Mason,” Fannin said slowly, “you’re a chicken liver.”

  Mason thumped his mug down, his eyes squinted dangerously. “How’s that, Fannin?”

  “You want Mimi to go to the hospital and have it all tidied up so you don’t have to deal with it. You can just mosey in to the hospital with a cheap flower basket when it’s all over.”

  “It’s healthier for Mimi and the baby, knucklehead. Quit trying to go scientific on me.”

  “Psychological.”

  “Same thing. Last runs the psych ward in our house, okay? Even he thinks Mimi should have her baby around trained professionals.”

  “Listen.” Fannin leaned in close. “I don’t think you’ve realized it yet, but we’re surrounded by the enemy. They’ve infiltrated our house, they’re in cahoots and they’re calling the shots with this baby thing. I wouldn’t make too many comments about trained professionals.”

  “This from the man who won’t fix his own breakfast.” Mason drank from his mug. “It’s just healthier in case there’s a problem.”

  Fannin tapped the table.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  The brothers stared up at the ceiling.

  “What…was that?” Mason asked.

  “It sounded like she was listening to our conversation through the ceiling and giving us grief.”

  Mason shook his head. “You know, you picked quite a firecracker for a girlfriend.”

  “Who says she’s my girlfriend?”

  “Last.”

  Fannin grimaced. “Don’t tell Kelly.”

  “Take my advice.” Mason glanced away for just a moment. “If you like this girl, do something about it. Don’t wait around.”

  Fannin waited.

  But that was all Mason had to say. He got up and left the room after pouring his coffee into the sink.

  Fannin sighed, going upstairs to find the cause of the banging. There were rustling sounds coming from inside Mason’s room, which was odd, because Mason had gone out the front door. No one was in the house except Fannin and Kelly.

  Quietly he approached the room.

  Kelly was on top of a ladder, cleaning out the light fixture. The ladder was off balance because she’d propped it with two legs on the carpet and two off, so Fannin moved forward to ste
ady it. “So you’re the boom, boom, boom.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Nothing. Be careful.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Just so.” Fannin held the ladder, his eyes level with Kelly’s thighs. No, he told himself, now is not the time to think about her that way. She’s cleaning a light fixture, and people don’t have fantasies during a fixture cleaning. “Hey, I can do that.”

  “No, you can’t,” Kelly replied, not even halting in what she was doing.

  “I can.”

  “No, you can’t, Fannin. First of all, you’re supposed to be outside working in the twenty-degree weather you mentioned. Secondly, Mama said not to let any of you boys do anything because you make twice as much work when you try to help.”

  “Ouch.”

  She looked down at him with those blue eyes, her cinnamon hair falling over one shoulder, and he wondered how he’d ever thought he wanted petite.

  “Fannin, did you make extra work for my mother?”

  “Well,” he said, “do I get points if I say no?”

  “You get nothing for lying.”

  “Oh. Well, I’m sure it wasn’t intentional, but most likely we all did.”

  She sniffed and went back to what she was doing.

  “That didn’t sound encouraging. Did I get a point?”

  “No. You totaled in the negative column by evading the answer and selling out your brothers in the same breath.”

  “Oh.” He returned to staring at her dress, which stretched nicely across her thighs and other areas. A fantasy of tossing her dress up and giving her something she’d never forget crossed his mind and set his jeans afire.

  He glanced up and she was looking down at him, her expression unsmiling and intent.

  “Don’t you even think about it,” she said.

  “What?” he asked innocently.

  “Storming my portal.”

  He blinked. “Would I do that?”

  “Yes. There’s nothing under there but tidy whities.”