With a Stetson and a Smile & The Bridesmaid’s Bet

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  Carlo waved a hand in front of Brett’s face. “The Rearden case? Yesterday you said you had some questions for me?”

  Yesterday. Before Francesca’s mouth had melted beneath his.

  Brett stacked the papers he’d been looking over. “Right.”

  Carlo slouched in the chair across from Brett’s desk. “You okay, bud? You look like you’ve been flattened by a steamroller.”

  Brett grimaced. “A steamroller.” Yeah, she’d rolled right over his good intentions.

  Shaking his head, Carlo narrowed his eyes. “A female steamroller. I recognize the look.”

  Brett wasn’t going there with Francesca’s brother. “Huh.” He grunted noncommittally.

  “You can tell me,” Carlo said.

  “Huh.” Brett grunted again.

  “Okay, okay.” Carlo put up his hands. “I won’t ask anymore. But after Patricia…” He cleared his throat. “Didn’t you tell me you’d, uh, withdrawn from the fray?”

  The fray. Relationships. Love. After Patricia’s death Brett had mourned the girl he’d cared about since high school. And though his grieving had ended, he’d decided that he didn’t want to involve himself like that again. Too much potential for pain.

  “Brett?” Carlo grimaced. “Hey, hope I didn’t say the wrong thing.”

  Brett waved away his friend’s concern. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Then bear with me for another moment here. From what I see on your face I think you need to hear the same advice I’ve been giving myself.”

  Brett cocked an eyebrow.

  “Lighten up.”

  “Lighten up?” Brett repeated, wondering what was weighing so heavily on Carlo’s mind.

  “Yeah. Two words to live by,” he said, without adding any more.

  “Lighten up.” Rubbing his stiff neck, Brett took a moment to try out the concept. Lighten up.

  Lighten up. Relief sluiced through him. Hell, he had been worried about nothing.

  They’d exchanged a kiss. A hot kiss, but still just a kiss. There was no reason to attach any more importance to it. It needn’t even change things between him and Francesca. If he kept his mind off her mouth and on winning that bet of hers, he could still help her.

  Without anyone getting hurt.

  BY THE TIME Brett made his way through the apartment’s parking lot that evening, he’d completely expunged the kiss from his mind and was ready to proceed with his bet-winning plan. Busy tucking his cell phone in his pocket and juggling his briefcase, he tripped over Francesca. Literally tripped over her feet, sticking out from beneath her small red-and-white clunker of a pickup truck.

  Her “Hey, watch it!” came out slightly muffled and characteristically direct.

  He grinned. This Francesca was the same one who had trounced him in air hockey. Tomboy Francesca, who apparently could change oil like a pro, if the stacked quarts of oil beside the truck were any indication. This was the Francesca he could completely control his reaction to.

  With the toe of his leather shoe he nudged one of her rubber-thonged feet. “Good evening to you, too.”

  Her legs stiffened. Not much, but just enough for him to guess she might be thinking about how the night before ended. Which, damn it, started him thinking about how the night before ended, too.

  “Oh, hi,” she called out.

  She was wearing a paint-stained and holey pair of cutoff shorts. Below the fraying hem was the length of her legs. Curved, feminine, slightly tanned. Brett slid his gaze off the sweet line of her calf to focus on the scar on her knee. Ah, now that reminded him of the Francesca of the past. Relief again. He smiled.

  “Good day?” he asked.

  “Fine. Yours?” Her voice still sounded strained. Either she was having trouble unscrewing the oil drain plug or she was uncomfortable around him.

  Because of the kiss.

  He ignored the thought and shifted his briefcase to the other hand. “Listen. About last night—”

  Beneath the car, something clattered to the ground.

  “You okay?” he asked hastily.

  “Fine! Completely fine!”

  He’d planned on saying he’d had fun the night before and then asking her out again. But her voice sounded so odd. If he made her that uneasy, if they couldn’t get past that wild burst of passion…

  He stared at the bottom half of her, his back teeth grinding in frustration. What was the right thing to do? Retreat? Pursue? Damn, he hated making blind decisions, but he didn’t have a clue what she was thinking when all he could see of her was thighs to toes.

  “Francesca,” he started.

  Toes. Suddenly they snagged his attention. He leaned closer. Francesca had painted her toenails. A light pink, but painted all the same. And obviously she was no expert. The color was swiped across the edge of one little toe and smudged on another.

  “What?” she said from beneath the truck.

  “I—I—” Damn. The innocent and mussed nail polish tugged him so hard and in so many places he could hardly speak.

  But he could hardly let her go so some guy could break her heart, either.

  “I wondered if you’re free for dinner this weekend,” he said.

  That got him a full look at her. She scooched from beneath the engine, grease on her T-shirt, the drain plug dripping oil from her fingers to catch on the utilitarian plastic band of her digital watch. Her brown eyes were wide and she had another black streak across one cheek.

  He could almost ignore the full rosiness of her mouth.

  Yeah. They could go out again. Nobody would get hurt that way.

  IN HER father’s kitchen, Francesca wiped her palms against the butcher-style apron she wore over her new dress. Carlo breezed in and greedily eyed the pile of croutons that sat ready to garnish the green salad she’d made as part of their Saturday-night dinner of lasagna and garlic bread.

  His fingers inched out, and she quickly slapped them back.

  “Ow!” He threw her a wounded look. “Can you blame me? Those gotta be homemade. What, does Pop have the bishop on the guest list tonight?”

  Francesca shook her head. “Just Pop and the five of us kids.” She paused. “And Brett.”

  “Mmm.” Carlo had turned to stick his head in the refrigerator and didn’t seem the least perturbed by the news.

  No, the “perturb” was all Francesca’s and all stemmed from their date…and their kiss.

  That kiss.

  It should be a constitutional right for a woman to receive at least one kiss like that. A sweet-then-hot kiss from the one man she’d fantasized about her entire life. Some women would pick a movie star or sports celebrity as their fantasy men, but Francesca would choose Brett Swenson every time.

  Anytime.

  Which was where the whole situation got sticky. She couldn’t go on expecting more kisses like that from Brett. Yes, he’d asked her out, then kissed her, then asked her out again. But was it because he was so attracted to her? More likely he’d done all of the above because he was lonely and still reeling from the shock of losing Patricia.

  He wanted companionship.

  And she’d always wanted him. But it was different now. No longer a twelve-year-old who lived for him to notice her, Francesca was a grown woman who had finally decided to start acting like one.

  But though she might be slipping on high heels every once in a while, that didn’t mean she’d reached Brett Swenson height. He was still beyond her reach. So when he’d asked her out that second time she’d closed her ears to every passionate impulse that urged her to scream “Yes!” and instead invited him to join the family tonight.

  Francesca narrowed her gaze at Carlo, who looked like he was about to take a swig straight from the milk carton. Catching her look, he rolled his eyes and grabbed for a glass instead.

  You had to be careful around men. Francesca knew that. And the way she figured it, she’d be safer looking at Brett as just another one of her brothers.

  Just another one of her brothe
rs.

  She did fine with the decision, all through the greeting him at Pop’s front door—his eyes looked laser blue, but she valiantly ignored it—the accepting of the bottle of red wine he’d brought—she made sure his fingers didn’t brush hers—and the sitting down to the meal—when to her brothers’ astonishment Brett held out a chair to place her at the head of the table opposite her father.

  Francesca even looked around with some satisfaction at her family of males—Brett included—as they sighed and grunted and moaned in appreciation over the hot dinner that she tried to provide for them once a week. On her right, Brett offered to serve her some salad, and she managed to see it as a brotherly gesture.

  Then Pop broke into the clattering of serving spoons. “Franny, you’ve still got your apron on.”

  Automatically Francesca felt behind her for the bow at the small of her back and loosened it. But then she froze as all eyes turned her way. Usually she hated being caught at the dining table still in her apron. But usually she was wearing something equally practical underneath.

  Tonight, though, she’d put on a dress that silver-tongued Elise had talked her into. And why she’d chosen tonight of all nights to debut the pink tropical-print thing, she really couldn’t say. The men were all still looking at her. Five pairs of brown eyes. One pair of searing blue.

  She laughed stiffly. “Oh, maybe I’ll just keep—”

  Smiling kindly, Brett slipped the apron’s top loop over her head.

  Six sets of eyebrows rose skyward. Six pairs of eyes focused chest high.

  The apron slid from Brett’s suddenly slack hand to the floor.

  “Franny,” somebody said.

  Her brother Joe choked on his wine and grabbed desperately for a napkin.

  Francesca wished they were kids again and the stuff would spew from his nose, because then everyone would look at Joe instead of her chest.

  As it was, their stares compelled her to look down at herself. How bad could it be?

  Pretty bad.

  Elise had said the dress fit her like a glove. Well, yes. But the spaghetti-strapped, square-necked bodice fit like a glove because it pushed some essential body parts over the top. No more was exposed than any other twentysomething female showed on a regular basis, but it was tons more than Francesca had ever revealed.

  For years the men in her family had treated her like a pesky, weakling little brother. But from the expressions on their faces it looked like they’d finally figured out she was female.

  “Geez, Franny.” Apparently Joe had managed to catch his breath and find his voice.

  Tony looked incapable of saying anything.

  Carlo was wearing that suspicious, interrogation face of his, eyes narrowed and one brow winging upward.

  On her left, her brother Nicky took his cloth napkin and dropped it over her cleavage. The napkin held a moment then slid to her lap.

  Francesca threw it back at him before daring to look at her father.

  His expression unreadable, she tensed. Then she thought she saw his eyes water. He reached for the handkerchief in his back pocket and made a quick swipe across his face. Then he beamed.

  “Bella. Beautiful. A beautiful woman just like your mama.”

  “A woman? Franny?” Tony hooted, obviously working up to an unmerciful tease.

  Pop held up his hand. “You show your sister some respect.” He sent all of her brothers a stern look. “Enough. Now eat.”

  Not until she heard the obedient scrape of forks against plates did Francesca slide a glance at Brett.

  He hadn’t picked up a single utensil. In fact, she doubted he’d moved since he’d dropped her apron on the floor beside her chair. She leaned over to retrieve it and found his hand there first. Their gazes met over the apron’s striped denim.

  “Bella,” he said softly.

  Her mouth dried, and she licked her lips to wet them.

  He followed the movement with his eyes. “Bella there, too.”

  For lack of a better response, Francesca smiled.

  He smiled in return, then straightened.

  To recover from the dazzling whiteness and the whispered word, Francesca gave herself another moment below table level. Then with a fortifying breath, she sat up and applied her attention to her plate.

  Or tried to.

  But from the corner of her eye she was continually distracted by Brett’s tanned and capable hands. With her brothers, she never noticed how they held their knives, never noticed how often they took a sip of red wine, but she found herself fascinated by Brett’s every move.

  Gluing her gaze to her plate, she moved around lasagna and lettuce leaves, a giddiness in her stomach leaving no room for food. A gulp, then several more gulps of the full-bodied cabernet didn’t seem to help. Warmth radiated out from her belly, and the wine gave her the guts to slide another look Brett’s way.

  He was staring at her.

  The sounds at the table receded. Far in the background she heard the clatter of china. The bark of male laughter. A brother asking for more lasagna and another telling someone to pass the wine. It was the familiar music of her life and it faded to a mere buzz in comparison to the high-volume message coming out of Brett’s eyes: I like what I see.

  And though maybe she’d misinterpreted him, the exposed skin of her shoulders and chest tingled in response.

  She knew the instant he noticed the chills. His knuckles turned white where he gripped his fork. His nostrils flared just the tiniest, the movement so sexual that Francesca’s mouth went arid again and she blindly reached for her goblet to toss back the rest of her wine.

  Licking a last drop from her bottom lip, she madly tried resurrecting her initial intention. A brother, a brother, a brother!

  But how could a woman treat a man like a brother when he looked at her like she was a queen?

  WHEN THE MEAL was finally over, Francesca found enough good sense to get away from the men by trading Tony, Joe and Nicky dish duty in return for a detailed cleaning of her truck the next afternoon. Back in the kitchen, with her voluminous apron rewrapped and wearing oversize yellow rubber gloves to protect her new manicure, Francesca regained her perspective and a fingernail hold on her control.

  A dress didn’t change anything. Gauche inside a gorgeous package was still just…gauche. And gauche couldn’t sustain the interest of a man like Brett.

  Any minute now he would take his leave or, if he settled in around Pop’s TV like her brothers, then she could always slip back to her own apartment through the kitchen’s back door. Away from Brett she’d feel more like herself.

  She tried not to worry when Brett pushed through the swinging kitchen door, bearing the last stack of plates in his hands.

  Cautious, though, she kept her eyes on the water running into the kitchen sink. She pointed one yellow, floppy rubber fingertip in the direction of the counter. “Right there, please,” she said cheerfully, fully expecting him to follow her direction and then make an immediate about-face to the living room.

  Instead, he paused after depositing the dishes.

  She felt him there, hovering, but she steadfastly refused to turn his way and continued sliding the rinsed plates into the small dishwasher.

  Finally he spoke. “Where are the dish towels?”

  Unable to stifle her amazement, Francesca spun around. “A man requesting dish towels? I should faint with shock!”

  He grinned and sidled closer. “Goody. Then I’d have to catch you.” His comic leer made her giggle.

  And then it made her get nervous. “No, no, no,” she protested. “You’re the guest. No catching the cook or helping with the dishes.”

  He shook his head. “I’d deem it an honor.”

  Which one? Doing the dishes or putting his arms around her?

  Francesca decided not to ask. And then she couldn’t talk as he edged closer. She tried moving away, but the sink was at her back and the countertop pressed against her spine.

  She held up her hands to warn h
im off, but in the big yellow gloves they appeared clownlike instead of serious. With his thumb and forefinger he pinched one rubbery tip of each glove and drew them off her hands.

  “You’re done,” he said.

  Oh, she was. Done with the silly brother stuff. Done with thinking she could control her reaction to him. Done trying to stop her heart from pounding so darn hard that she couldn’t hear anything but its beat in her ears.

  She looked up into those blue, blue eyes of his. She saw her reflection there and thought, for the first time, she looked different. Really different. In Brett’s eyes, Francesca saw herself as a woman, a woman with a sexy curve to her hair and a sensuous smile on her lips.

  Her reflection boosted her confidence. Maybe this was what she looked like to him. Maybe this was who she was to him.

  The idea gave her the courage to follow her desire.

  As if he’d made her hands naked just for this, she slid both arms around his shoulders and touched her palms to the silky blond hair at the back of his head. She pulled him down for her kiss.

  Maybe it didn’t explode right away. She had to kind of slide her mouth over his hard cheek to locate his lips—but once she found his mouth the kiss ignited. She pressed against his lips harder. He pressed back.

  He wasn’t close enough to her. She tried dragging his solid body closer, but when that got her nowhere she moved forward to him. Her mouth opened against his, the woman she’d seen in his eyes giving him every bit of a woman’s kiss. It was every bit a woman’s instinct, too, that drove her to lean into him and entwine one leg around the back of his calf.

  But then, just as the heat between them started to boil, it was very much a man’s move—Carlo’s move—that suddenly wrenched Brett away from her and planted a big brother’s fist square against his jaw.

  5

  STUNNED, BRETT STOOD in Pop Milano’s kitchen, breathing hard, and as much staggered by Francesca’s kiss as he was by Carlo’s fist. God, he might have laughed at the tableau the three of them made if his jaw wasn’t throbbing like hell. Carlo, bellow-breathing like an enraged bull. Francesca, grown-up looking in her cut-to-there dress, but in wide-eyed innocence over what that dress—that bella dress—had wrought.