Still, at least he made an effort to appear to be...kind of sweet. Maybe even a little shy. The way he'd stuttered and stammered when she'd walked out of the bathroom in a towel. It was far from the wolf whistles she'd come to expect from men when they saw her in various states of undress.
He'd seemed dumbstruck. Stood there with his soft brown hair and his baby-blue eyes and just stared at her.
So he was at least making an effort. It was a good job, too. She almost believed it was real.
She tugged a brush through her hair, wincing with every pull. And the whole time, her stomach was growling at the smell of the food Baxter was wolfing down in the bedroom.
Lifting her gaze to the bathroom mirror, she gave up on the hair, pulling it back into a ponytail. She did not have hair that was conducive to ponytails, she decided, as strand after curling strand escaped the confines of the pink hair tie she'd found in her purse.
Okay, fine. There was no hope for the hair, but at least she could do something about her face. She picked up Rosebud's big bag. She'd already taken her own smaller purse from inside it. Now she dumped the rest of the contents out onto the big countertop beside the bathroom sink...and stopped dead as the black revolver clunked heavily onto the tiny blue ceramic tiles.
Her throat went dry. She glanced toward the bedroom. Baxter was still engrossed in the TV program and the meal, so she pushed the door closed just a little more and carefully picked up the handgun. She wasn't familiar with guns or the way they worked, so it took her a moment to find the catch that released the round cylinder, allowing it to flip outward. There were bullets in each of the six small holes.
"Loaded," she whispered. "Damn you, Rosebud, how could you have kept a loaded gun so close to my baby?" She quickly pulled the bullets out, one by one, holding the bunch of them in her palm. She didn't like guns. She was against them, thought they should be banned, for heaven's sake. But she wasn't about to give this one up. Not while Leo and his sleazy murdering friend, the dirty cop, might still be hunting her. Maybe if it were her alone they wanted—but it wasn't. They wanted Baxter. And she would fight to the death and burn every last principle she had for her little boy. Still, she would have to be very careful with this.
She found a small bottle of pain reliever among the articles that had spilled out of the bag and snatched it up, pouring the tablets into the toilet. Then she put the bullets into the bottle and capped it. Childproof cover. Good. She zipped the bottle into a small compartment in the big bag. Then she put the revolver into her own smaller purse.
"Mommy, can't we go downstairs yet?"
She glanced at the makeup scattered all over the counter and sighed in defeat. It just wasn't going to happen this morning. And it didn't matter, anyway. Hell, no one would recognize her looking the way she looked today. Like some fresh-faced farm girl in desperate need of her first trip to the salon. Maybe it was for the best. Holding Rosebud's bag at the edge, she scooped everything back into it and hung it on a peg in the wall. "I'm coming, baby."
She took her son's hand and led him out into the hallway, then down the stairs. It was a nice house. It was a crying shame Rosebud hadn't lived to inherit it the way her mother had obviously intended. She would have loved it here. The staircase was old, too steep and too narrow, but the banister was heavy gleaming hardwood that had to be worth a fortune. She ran her hand over it slowly all the way to the bottom.
"It's all one piece," Luke Brand said.
Jasmine looked up, not expecting to see him standing just beyond the bottom step, staring up at her. "What?"
"The banister. It's cut from one continuous piece of hard maple, all the way up and along the landing."
"Oh."
He shrugged, shifted his feet. "It seemed really important to the assessors when they were out here last month. I guess they don't make them like that anymore. Just thought you'd be interested."
"It's...interesting all right."
"Well, anyway. Food's out here." Turning, he walked beneath the wide brick archway into the dining room. It was different now, with the morning sun slanting through the place. The big French doors on the far side of the room looked like a giant wall painting of lush green meadows that rolled endlessly. For a moment she just blinked at it.
"The...uh...drapes were closed last night, so you maybe didn't notice the doors then. I put them in myself."
Turning, she looked at him with brows raised. "Did you?"
"It was just a back wall. Dark as a dungeon in here." He pulled out her chair. "And I figured the place was as good as my own, so I didn't mind investing a little time and money in it."
She looked at him, standing there, behind her chair. No one had ever pulled a chair out for her in her life that she could recall. She sat down and glimpsed the French doors again. Brass handled and hinged, the trim around them fit perfectly even at the corners. He'd done a good job. And there was a small, octagon-shaped deck beyond them. She would bet that hadn't been part of the original house, either.
Luke Brand was fetching plates from the oven now, setting one in front of her, heaped with enough food for three women, at least. Then he sat down across from her with his own.
"You didn't need to wait for me."
He shrugged. "I eat alone all the time. Decided company for breakfast might be nice for a change."
She pressed her lips together, then turned to catch sight of Baxter. He was wandering the house, pausing at every window to look outside. He wanted to go out. She knew he did. It was killing her to keep him so cooped up.
"He can go outside and play, you know. The road's a hundred feet from the house, and even if it weren't, there's no such thing as traffic out here."
She averted her eyes. "I'll take him out later on.
"Don't let him out of your sight much, do you?"
She looked at him quickly. "You have an opinion on my parenting skills, Mr. Brand?"
He shrugged. "Guess you'd know more about that than I would. I've never had a kid. Don't know much about ‘em. Except that they need room to grow."
She shook her head. "You're right, you don't know much about kids."
He nodded at her plate. "You're not eating."
She shoveled a bite into her mouth without looking first. It turned out to be a portion of omelet that just about melted in her mouth. It was all she could do to keep from closing her eyes in ecstasy. And though she tried to keep her expression static, he saw right through it and smiled that charming smile of his. "Good, isn't it?"
She nodded, swallowing, and reached for the coffee. It was as heavenly as the omelet had been. "You're a chef or something, aren't you?"
"No. I'm a trucker. Or...was. I sold my rig to buy this place."
She lifted her brows, surprised by his answer. So he'd given up his livelihood to be here—and then she'd come along to claim the place. No wonder he'd been less than friendly last night. At least, until he'd met Baxter. "What are you going to do for a living now?"
He shrugged. "I've got time to figure it out. There seem to be enough odd jobs in town to keep me in demand until I decide."
"Odd jobs?"
He nodded. "Yeah, mostly courtesy of my cousins. Let's see, between them they have a cattle ranch, a horse ranch, a dude ranch, a veterinary clinic, a martial arts school—"
She held up a hand. "I get it. You've got a lot of family in town."
"You didn't even let me get to the P.I., the sheriff, the archaeologist and the shrink."
She tried to keep her face expressionless when he mentioned the sheriff. But she couldn't help but flash back to that cop, Petronella, standing over Rosebud's body, looking up at her. The same man she'd seen commit a murder—the man who'd taken a shot at her son.
"Actually, now that I think about it, you could probably find work with any of them, if you're looking."
She shook herself out of the disturbing memory and glanced into the next room to see that Baxter had settled down in front of the TV again. It wasn't good for him, all that
television. "I would mink you'd be pushing me to leave here, not giving me job tips that might keep me around even longer."
He shrugged. "This thing with the property will get settled one way or another no matter what I do," he said. "Frankly, I'm more concerned about your son right now than I am about who wins a fight over a house."
She tipped her head to one side. He was trying to get to her by feigning concern for Baxter. It was low. She'd seen it before. Never done quite this well or convincingly, though.
"So what do you do for a living, Jasmine?" She looked him dead in the eye. "I'm a dancer."
His brows rose. "Really? What, ballet?"
Still watching him, she said, "Exotic." His face stilled, mouth frozen into a thin line as he slowly digested that bit of information.
"You're a—'' Glancing toward Baxter, he lowered his voice to a whisper. "You're a stripper?"
"That's right. So about that job you're going to help me find..."
"Mommy, Mommy, look! Horses! Real live horses! Just like on TV!"
Jasmine had to pull hard to yank her gaze away from Luke Brand's probing one, but she did, getting to her feet and going to the living room just as Baxter pulled the door open and ran outside.
There were people out there. Strangers on horseback, riding up to the house like something out of an old western. Jasmine sprinted after her son, her heart in her throat, and caught him just as he reached the dangerous hooves. She scooped him up, held him hard, her heart pounding as she turned and carried him back toward the house.
Luke stood there on the top step, looking at her, a deep frown etched between his brows. Then he looked past her, and his expression changed. He smiled, waved. "Garrett, Chelsea, good to see you. Hey, Bubba! How's my best cowboy?"
"I rode all the way all by myself," a child's voice shouted.
Jasmine lifted her head, turning slowly to look more closely at the strangers from whom she'd just rescued her son. The man was so big he would have been frightening, except for the warm, easy smile he wore. He touched the brim of his hat and gave her a nod before dismounting and reaching up to help the woman down.
She was an attractive woman, probably in her thirties, with brown hair in a long ponytail. She put her hands on the man's shoulders as he helped her down. Then they both turned to look at the little boy, with his dark hair and striking blue eyes, sitting atop a pony, wearing a cowboy hat that was too big for him.
"These are some of my cousins, Garrett and Chelsea Brand, and their son, Bubba," Luke said to Jasmine. "Folks, this is Jasmine, and her son, Baxter."
Baxter had locked eyes on the little boy, riding that pony all by himself, and Jasmine knew she would never hear the end of this one. Even as she looked on, the boy called Bubba swung one leg over his saddle and leaped to the ground. It was all Jasmine could do not to shout a warning, certain he would hurt himself. But he didn't. He marched right up to Baxter instead.
"Hi."
"Hi," Baxter said, pushing his glasses up on his nose.
"You want to pet my pony?"
"Could I?"
"I don't think..." Jasmine began.
The woman spoke then. "The pony's gentle as a kitten," she said. "I wouldn't let Bubba anywhere near it if it were dangerous at all."
Bubba looked sturdy and strong compared to Baxter, though, Jasmine thought. He must be at least a couple of years older. And what might not be dangerous at all to him might very well be a threat to her own delicate little boy.
"Please, Mom?" Baxter asked.
"Oh, all right. But no riding on that thing."
"Okay!" Baxter and Bubba headed over to the pony. Meanwhile Garrett was tying the other two horses up to a rail that seemed to have been made for that very purpose.
"Shall we go inside to talk?" Garrett asked.
Talk...about what? Jasmine wondered.
"Oh, let's sit on the porch, so we can keep an eye on the boys, hmm?" Chelsea said with a glance at Jasmine.
"You probably think I'm an overprotective lunatic."
Chelsea shook her head. "Why should I think that? Luke says you're from Chicago. I'm from New York. I know full well that in cities like those, letting your child out of your sight is practically courting disaster."
Oddly enough, it seemed the woman understood.
"It's different out here, but it takes time for a mom to get comfortable with that. So it's perfectly natural for you to want to keep a close watch on little Baxter. Heck, I'd be worried if you didn't!"
She seemed very kind...and genuine. That didn't mean she was. In Jasmine's experience, most people were not what they seemed. Still, she walked up onto the porch and sat in one of the white wicker chairs. Luke took the other one, while Chelsea and Garrett settled into the matching love seat. "So, um, I guess Luke has already told you about me."
"I called them this morning," Luke explained. "I thought they could help us get this mess straightened out."
She lifted her brows. "I don't understand how."
"Well, for one thing," Garrett said, "I knew your mother."
Jasmine's throat went dry as she stared at him. For just an instant she thought of her own drunken tramp of a mother who'd died young and left Jasmine on her own at fifteen. But then she realized these people all thought she was Rosebud. Jenny Lee Walker. So the mother he was referring to was Rosebud's mother—the woman who'd left her this house.
"Oh," she said finally. "How well did you know her?"
"Almost as well as I knew my own," Garrett said with a friendly smile, leaning back in his chair.
Jasmine braced herself. This was not a good sign.
Chapter 6
* * *
LUKE SAW JASMINE'S REACTION TO Garrett's revelation that he'd known her mother. Fear. It was plain and easily read, even though she covered it fast. There had been a slight widening of those already huge dark eyes and the tiniest flare of her nostrils.
Why?
"It was before you were born, of course," Garrett said, comfortable in the chair, one arm slung casually around his wife's shoulders. "Helena's husband had died young, left her widowed and alone, with this big house to care for and two hundred acres to farm. Of course, that's not a lot of land by Texas standards, but it's a lot to expect one woman to handle alone. She was lonely, I think."
"Well, sure she was," Chelsea put in. "Gosh, what did she do to make ends meet?"
"I was getting to that." Garrett smiled indulgently at his wife, tapped her nose with his forefinger.
The woman was way too relaxed, Jasmine thought vaguely. She sat there all calm and content watching the boys pet the pony, while Jasmine was nearly jumping out of her seat every time the beast moved. And the conversation had her nearly as jittery as the big hooves did.
"Helena needed some income to help keep the wolves at bay. Meanwhile, my own mother was struggling through with five young'uns and no help other than a husband who was raised to believe caring for the kids was women's work." He shrugged. "So it was a match made in heaven. Helena came by almost every day and helped out around the house, for, oh, about a year. Then all of the sudden she up and moved away."
"But she didn't sell the place," Luke said. "I wonder why?"
"She might have considered it the last part of her husband she had to cling to," Chelsea said. "Or maybe she intended to keep it for her daughter."
"Well, that's what she did," Jasmine said softly.
Garrett took a breath and sighed. "Luke, you've looked over this packet of paperwork Jasmine brought along?"
Luke nodded.
"And does it look to you like her claim is legit?"
Luke faced her squarely. She imagined he would try to bluff his way through, make her out to be a fraud and then have his cousin the sheriff boot her out of here. Instead he said, "Yeah. It looks perfectly legit." He sighed then. "But that isn't gonna stop this place from being auctioned for back taxes next week—unless she can come up with fifty grand by then."
"Fifty..." She blinked her eyes in sh
ock at the sheer size of the debt. Then she shook herself and sat up straighter. "Next week is next week. Right now, today, I am the rightful owner of this place, and I have every right to stay here."
Luke nodded slowly. "That's all well and good. But I've paid my rent to the lawyer your mother left in charge of things for the full month, in advance, and I have every right to stay here, too."
"Maybe you should go see the lawyer and let him decide," Chelsea suggested, her tone gentling, as if she were negotiating a truce between two squabbling children.
"That's a good start but it won't happen until Monday. Buzz Montana's out of town for the weekend. Some case up north. And no judge is going to be willing to hear this on short notice without all the information in front of him. So even if you two decide to fight this out in court you'd have to wait at least that long," Garrett said.
"I'm not leaving," Jasmine said.
"I'm not budging, either," Luke replied, crossing his arms over his chest. "Possession is nine-tenths of the law, isn't that right, Garrett? I mean, if I move out now, I might lose whatever meager claim I do have to this place." Garrett nodded, and Luke went on. "Look, I'm not trying to be a hard case here, Jasmine. And the last thing I want is to see you and Baxter without a place to stay. But this place—it means more to me than you can know. I gave up my life's work for this—I can't just hand it over without a word."
Jasmine frowned at him. God, he was good. He almost had her feeling sorry for him.
Chelsea got to her feet. "Look, forgive me for being dense here, but I really fail to see the problem."
All three of them looked at her as if she were insane.
She just waved a hand toward the house. "Will you look at the size of this place? You telling me there's not room here for one man, one woman and a tiny little fella like Baxter over there? For one lousy weekend? Come on, people, this one's a no-brainer."
Pursing his lips, rubbing his chin, Garrett nodded slowly. "She does have a point."
Texas Homecoming Page 6