by Tina Leonard
“I’m not picky.”
“I know.” Her voice was a trifle more ironic than he liked. “But I’ve had my fling.”
“I hate past tense. Did I ever tell you, I live totally in the present?”
She got down off the ladder and pulled a list from her pocket, ignoring him.
His method wasn’t working. He scrambled for what his brothers would do now.
Leave her.
He didn’t want to.
“Kelly, maybe we got off on the wrong foot.”
She gave him an arched brow. “No, I’m perfectly coordinated. Thank you for your opinion, though.”
Checking off her list, she left the room.
Fannin was left holding the ladder. “You are going to be mine,” he said. “You just don’t know it yet.”
KELLY WORKED ALL DAY, going down the list carefully as her mother had requested. She even made dinner, though knowing now what she knew about the men not liking her mother’s cooking, she overcame her stubbornness and went all out.
“Whoa, pot roast,” Mason said as he sat down to his plate. Steaming potatoes, carrots and mushrooms surrounded the big chunk of gravy-covered meat.
Rolls and butter were passed around. Hot tea was in steaming mugs, which the men seemed to appreciate as they warmed their cold hands.
Fannin sat eyeing his plate. There was a bowl of Frosted Flakes in cold milk.
If he’s smart, Kelly thought, he’ll eat the breakfast he so dearly wanted without a word.
He ate it.
There wasn’t even a hint of a comment from the Jefferson peanut gallery.
Kelly kept her eyes down as she refilled mugs with hot tea. More hot rolls were placed in a napkin-covered basket and passed around.
Fannin ate every bite of his cereal.
He looked so sad Kelly finally took pity on him. She’d made her point.
She fixed a heaping plate of meat, potatoes, and an extra roll. Silently, she placed a tea mug beside his plate, removing the cereal bowl.
She could feel his brothers taking in every move she made.
Fannin’s hand shot out, grabbing her wrist.
Startled, she looked at him.
“This is the best meal I’ve had in years,” he said, and Kelly’s heart woke up, beating extra hard. Their eyes met, and she wished she could forget what had happened between them sexually. But she couldn’t.
All she knew was that this man made her feel the way no one else in her life could.
“You’re welcome,” she murmured.
Nodding, he returned to eating.
The brothers hurriedly tucked in to their own dinners.
Kelly hesitated, her body on fire.
“You know what,” she said suddenly, “I just remembered I’m spending the night with Mama at Mimi’s. Do you gentlemen mind cleaning—”
“No, no,” they all chorused. “You go on. We want to sit here and enjoy this dinner,” Mason said.
Fannin looked up at her but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. Untying her apron with swift fingers, she said, “Are you sure you don’t mind? Because I—”
“Go on,” Mason said, rising to walk her out.
“Sit down. Please.” Kelly hurried to the door. “Everyone stay seated and enjoy your dinner. I’ll be back in the morning.”
She left, escaping into the cold without her coat. It was a fast jaunt over to Mimi’s, and she couldn’t have stayed another moment in that house with Fannin. He was making her feel things she didn’t want to feel! Now was not the time to get obsessive over a man—she wanted to find her dream man in Ireland.
Not here in Texas, where she’d lived forever.
Suddenly, fast-walking boots overtook her, and she was swept off her feet.
“Fannin!” she said with a gasp. “You scared me!”
“Not as much as you should be scared,” he said with a growl, burying his face in her hair as he walked. He found her neck and kissed it. Then she slid out of his arms, turning so that his kisses landed on her mouth instead. She moaned, trying not to lose her sanity, but he was so warm and wanting that she needed to stay near his fire.
“Oh my,” she said as his hands roamed up her body. “Fannin—”
“I don’t like it when you walk away,” he said into her mouth. “I don’t like it when you leave a room I’m in.”
“Are you proposing I sit like a statue in one place?” she asked, wondering why his possessiveness didn’t rankle her.
“A nude statue, if I have my way.”
Somehow, her dress was going up and her hands were undoing his belt. It was pitch-dark outside, courtesy of wintertime, but still she worried. “Fannin, if my mother saw me kissing you, she’d—”
“Come on.” He dragged her into a barn, fifty feet too far for her raging desire.
“Thank heavens for barns,” she said, gasping as he pulled her inside the warmth.
“That’s what we build ’em for.”
She giggled as her dress hit the hay. “Not true.”
“Totally true. Why do you think silos are shaped the way they are? It’s male advertising. The bigger your silo, the bigger your—”
“Fannin!” She followed her dress to the hay, because he gave her a slight push, giggling as she went down.
“I have a really big silo.”
“Stop. Let me take off my panties.” But she was laughing, and she didn’t want him to stop what he was doing to her. He kissed her mouth hard, then pushed aside her thong to get inside her. His tongue was sweeping the breath from her mouth, and all her giggles exploded into a screaming climax that had tears pouring from her eyes. Grabbing his shoulders, she pulled him to her with all her strength, burying him deep inside her.
“Did you say stop?” he asked, staring down at her, his eyes lit with mischief.
“No,” she lied.
“I could have sworn—”
Squealing at his torture, she rocked against him instead, doing what she wanted to get what she needed. The pleasure hit her again, twice as wonderfully because he collapsed, gasping, at the same time.
“Now you can stop,” she said smugly.
“You think?”
“I think.”
He didn’t move for a moment. Then he withdrew and flipped her onto her stomach. She felt hot man cover her nudeness as he snapped the back of her thong.
“You fibbed about the tidy whities,” he said in her ear, “you bad girl.”
She laughed, unable to help herself. “You didn’t believe me in the first place.”
“Yes, I did. I’m very gullible. And now you’ll have to make up for your fibbing.”
She took his hands and snuggled her face into them. “Gullible? I don’t think so.”
“Yeah. I am.”
He popped her rear with the flat of his hand.
“Fannin!” she gasped.
“Yes?”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Something I wanted to do from the moment I met you.”
And then he slid inside her again. She screamed into his hand, loving every moment of the sweet torture.
“I like my breakfast hot and my dinner hot, but as long as you’re as hot as you are for me, I’ll eat every meal cold if that makes you happy,” he said huskily into her ear. “If you’re cooking it, it’s going to be delicious, anyway.”
She closed her eyes, passion and wonder flaring inside her at the spell of his words.
“I’m so glad you came to town,” he told her, rocking against her so that she felt every thrust. “You’re just right for me.”
Then he lay still against her, though his cheek was against her back, and she could feel his heart beating against her shoulder. Gently he stroked her hair.
She loved every second of his attention.
“I’m in big trouble,” Kelly murmured.
“What?” Fannin said, his words a sleepy grunt.
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all.” She tried squirming out from und
erneath him, to no avail. “This has got to stop.”
“Hang on,” he said, suddenly sounding very awake. “Don’t move.”
That definitely had to cease. He could not go on being macho man. “Listen, buster, I’ll move when I want to—”
He held her tightly still, his muscles tensed.
“What’s wrong?” Oh, heavens, what if her mother was nearby? What would Helga say about her rolling around in a barn with a Jefferson brother?
“I think something just gave out,” he said.
Chapter Eight
Kelly sat up as soon as Fannin released his strangle-hold on her. It wasn’t doing any good anyway, because she’d struggled like a wary kitten in his arms.
“What do you mean something just gave out?” she demanded, sitting up to push tousled hair out of her eyes.
He took care of matters the best he could, grabbing his own clothes and handing her dress to her. “I mean the condom malfunctioned. It’s all that body heat you give off. You melted it.”
She gasped with outrage. “I melted it? You melted it, with your…your—” Her blue eyes were wide open. “Oh, no. I mean, you don’t think—”
“I don’t think so.” He buckled his belt. “They were the best brand the pharmacy had. None of them advertise their record as far as not breaking.”
“It should have been fine,” Kelly said. “When did you buy them? A year ago?”
“Yesterday. Latex shouldn’t give out in a day. I think it was a defect.”
She went totally still. “Yesterday?”
“Yeah. You would have thought we’d be safe. I mean, the expiration date was still wet on the box.” He winked at her. “I’m kidding. But they should put an expiration date on the box. They’re like rubber bands and you know how those lose their snap.”
She ignored his theory. “You bought condoms yesterday.”
He hesitated at the change in her tone. “Yes.”
“So this was premeditated.”
“I don’t meditate around you, Kelly. That’s one thing I definitely don’t do. I do not feel like going ahhmmmmm—”
She bounced out of the barn.
“Hey! I hate it when you do that!” He went after her, standing in front of her so she had to look at him. “Could we just finish one conversation to both our satisfactions?”
“I should have listened to my mother,” she said. “You are all as wild as March hares.”
“I don’t understand why you’re mad.” He really didn’t. But he wanted to understand so he could fix it. There was a major communication gap going on, and after sex he liked his women cooing and soft rather than howling mad. “Is it because the condom tore?”
Kelly stared at him. “I do not want to hear that verb in conjunction with condom again.”
“Kelly, I’m sorry. Next time—”
“There isn’t going to be a next time, Fannin,” she said. “This has got to stop now. Before you derail all my plans, all my dreams. Listen, you might think I’m made-to-order for you, but you’re the absolute worst thing that could happen to me.”
“That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”
“I do not. And I cannot believe you bought condoms yesterday.”
“Biggest box they had.” He was genuinely confused. “Kelly, spell it out for me. What are you so angry about?”
“You presumed.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Presumed we’d want safe sex?”
“Presumed we’d have sex!”
“Well, we already had, it was a given that we would again. I mean, I want to, and you seem happy.”
Silence met that.
“You are, aren’t you? Happy with me? I mean, you’re not exactly putting up a fight. I didn’t have to drag you in here like a caveman. My brothers are all about the caveman thing, but I go for subtlety.” Fannin was proud of that.
Kelly shook her head and left the barn.
Fannin waited.
“Just for the record,” she said, coming back inside, “I’m not ever doing that again. I’d be in big trouble if I got pregnant.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re all wrong for each other. We have different life goals. We have nothing in common. My mother doesn’t like you. You don’t like her.”
“I don’t have anything against Helga. Not exactly. Not personally, anyway.”
“It doesn’t matter now, Fannin.”
She left again.
He grinned. She was wrong. Great sex was the common denominator that leveled the playing field.
And the field was definitely level.
KELLY WENT STRAIGHT to Mimi’s house, with only a glance back toward the barn. Fannin stood in the doorway, his silhouette clear from the light overhead. He was watching her, making sure she made it in safely.
A shiver rolled over her skin. He was so possessive, he made her nervous. She wasn’t sure why she liked being the object of his sole attention. His focus unnerved her, scared her and yet made her feel very sexy.
She had never imagined trying not to fall in love could be such torture.
Mimi lay on a sofa in the sheriff’s huge television room. Kelly entered the room quietly, thinking Mimi was asleep, but then Kelly realized Mimi was sobbing.
“Mimi!” Kelly said. “What’s wrong? Are you hurting?”
Mimi wiped at her eyes with a tissue. “No. I feel much better.”
“Are you having another panic attack? Isn’t that what you called it yesterday?”
Mimi nodded. “I think maybe I am.” She tossed the wet tissue into the trash and got another. “I do not understand why I’m constantly teary. This should be the happiest time of my life.”
Kelly wasn’t sure about that. Mimi was huge for such a petite woman. She looked like she was one minute from liftoff. “It’s going to be okay, Mimi,” Kelly said, reaching to comfort her. “Mama’s here, and I’m going to be here at night when I get done working at the Jeffersons.”
“Don’t let them suck you in,” Mimi said, blowing her nose so hard that the tissue flew around her fingers.
“Suck…me in?”
“Yeah. Don’t fall for them. It’ll happen before you realize it. One minute you’re sitting on a log, and the next minute you’re drowning in the swamp.”
“I see,” Kelly said, not really understanding but recognizing the words as a warning. Her skin went chilly.
“I shouldn’t talk about them like that. I’ve known those boys all my life. We’ve been through everything together. But they’re such boys. It’s like they drank from Peter Pan’s Elixir of Boyhood. And for some reason, women are attracted to that like bees to sugar water.”
“Women like boys?”
“Yes.” Mimi lowered her voice. “I haven’t quite decided if it’s the mothering factor or the insipid desire to change them. It can’t be done, you know. They can’t be changed.” Mimi sniffled.
“Um, do you think you could sleep now?” Kelly asked, desperately wanting the subject changed. She wondered if she’d fallen into the Jefferson swamp. And if she had, which scenario was she subconsciously reacting to?
“I know four of them got caught,” Mimi said. “But that was weird science. I mean, you wouldn’t believe what the men put those girls through before they got to the altar. Frisco Joe, Laredo, Ranger and, ugh, I don’t even want to talk about Tex. There’s no simple romance with them.”
“Mimi, are you warning me about something specific?”
Mimi turned bright eyes on her. “I think I’m a little jealous that you’re over there all day, alone in the house with Mason.”
“Mason?” Kelly stared at her. “Oh…no, Mimi, you’re not in love with Mason, are you? I mean—” Her gaze swept Mimi’s huge belly. And then she fell silent.
“He doesn’t know,” Mimi said. “And he never will. You mustn’t tell a soul. It’s so wrong of me to feel this way! I thought once I married Brian, somehow I wouldn’t care as much. I’d get busy with the baby and some mom clubs
…but it hasn’t worked.”
Kelly’s heart stung for Mimi. “I am so sorry. I had no idea.”
“Julia never told you?”
“Of course not. Julia would never gossip. When she sent my mother out there, she just said Helga was perfect for what the Jeffersons needed.”
“It was perfect for what I needed. Which was keeping Mason mine. Is that not the most horrid thing you ever heard? I’m a horrid, horrid woman! And my child is going to have a horrid mother!”
“Oh, Mimi.” Kelly didn’t know what to say. She’d hate to be in love with a man she couldn’t have. Instantly she thought of Fannin. Never again, she told herself. I’m staying out of that swamp! “Mimi, where’s your husband?”
“In Austin. Or Houston. Depends on the case.”
“Oh.” That didn’t help matters.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
Kelly nodded, not really wanting to hear it but realizing that talking was keeping Mimi from crying.
“We got married because of my father.”
Kelly blinked.
“Because Dad was so sick and I was scared he wasn’t going to last forever, and I wanted him to hold his first grandchild. And Brian agreed to…be the father.”
Kelly’s eyes widened. “Brian agreed?”
Mimi nodded.
“So you have a marriage of convenience?”
“We have a marriage,” Mimi said with finality. “And I have a grandchild for my father.”
Kelly leaned back against the sofa. No wonder Mimi was so miserable.
“My mother left when I was very young. She’s alive somewhere, probably moving from man to man.” Mimi tossed the final tissue away, seeming stronger now. “It’s always been just me and Dad.”
Helga had never said anything to Kelly about wanting her to get married and start a family. Kelly had never had that urge—until now.
Thankfully, Fannin had pointed out the path she was on. Now that she knew she was having a safe fling—had been having a safe fling—she could move on to finding Mr. Right. “I understand completely,” Kelly said.
“Well, I knew you would. You’ve been raised with a single parent. You understand how it feels to want to make them happy. Helga would adore a grandchild.”
“Do you think so?”
“Absolutely. Why do you think she’s over here all the time mothering me?” Mimi looked at her wryly. “She couldn’t mother you, because you were busy working. So she mothered me.”