“It was hell when the girls figured it out.”
Cocking her head, she offered a spoonful to Brad. He tasted it, nodding his approval. “They tarred and feathered you,” she remembered.
“With lipstick and perfume.” Brad shuddered in disgust and made her laugh. “I can still remember that awful smell, all those fragrances mixed together. Anyway, I learned my lesson and I never dated more than one woman at a time after that.”
Lainey plucked the hot, soft tortillas from the skillet, put them into the warmer and closed the lid. She turned off that burner and leaned against the counter, mirroring his stance and half smile. “How many of those were a one-night-only type of thing?”
Brad looked her up and down, too. “I have no idea.”
Aware the meat filling had another ten minutes to simmer, and that the rest of dinner was ready, she bided her time. “How many serious relationships have you had?”
He lifted a brow. “Define ‘serious’.”
Aware he didn’t want to go down this path, but determined nevertheless, Lainey specified, “Where you dated someone more than a couple of times.”
Regret crossed his face. “I, uh, haven’t.”
Just as she had feared. “Which then raises the question, why in the world did you ever go on Bachelor Bliss?”
GOOD QUESTION, BRAD THOUGHT.
“You knew the show was designed to get you engaged and married in six weeks. If you weren’t the settling-down type…” Lainey continued.
If he didn’t know better, he’d say he was being interviewed. But that was ridiculous. Lainey wasn’t a reporter. She was, however, interested in him—her kisses and the way she responded to him demonstrated that. And, as such, maybe there were things she needed to know if this whatever-it-was they were starting was to go any further.
He could deal with that.
Even respected it.
“I am interested in marriage,” he told Lainey honestly.
Her green eyes widened. “You really expect me—or any other woman in this country—to believe that?” she asked in astonishment.
“I don’t care what the others do or don’t believe.” I care about you. The thought shocked him, even as he realized it was true. “I’m tired of dating. Tired of not having someone to come home to at night, someone who cares about me—not where we are going or what we might be doing or who we might be seeing that evening.” To his surprise, she was listening. Wanting to be near her, he crossed to her side. “I see what other men my age have who are married and have kids of their own. They’re happy, Lainey. Content. So, yeah, maybe it was stupid and naive of me, but when I signed up for Bachelor Bliss and they told me they would use my answers to the show questionnaire and the information gleaned from the psychologist interview to handpick women who would be just perfect for me, I thought maybe it would work. The old-fashioned way of trying to hook up with a woman by chance certainly hadn’t been successful. I figured, statistically, why not give this a try.” He paused, aware he had just told her more than he had told any woman. “What about you?” he asked.
Lainey blinked. “What do you mean, me?”
Brad brushed a strand of blond hair from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “Are you looking to get married again?” Reluctantly, he dropped his hand.
He wanted to kiss her again. Make his move. Stake his claim. But the thought of Petey or Lewis walking in…
Lainey bit her lip. She looked as vulnerable as she did beautiful, standing there, an embroidered blue denim chef’s apron over her clothing, her cheeks flushed from the heat of the stove. “I hadn’t thought about it.”
Knowing he had to touch her or go crazy, Brad slipped his fingers into the curve of hers and rubbed a thumb over the back of her hand. He studied her until she looked back. “Does that mean you have now?” he asked.
Lainey hesitated. Obviously not sure how much of herself to give away. “Petey wants a father again,” she said finally. “That’s pretty clear.”
Not exactly what he had been fishing for! “You’d marry just to give him a father?” he asked her incredulously, dropping his hand.
“No. Of course not.” She stiffened.
“Then why would you marry?” he asked.
That apparently was easy. “One reason and one reason only,” Lainey said softly. “For love.”
Chapter Nine
“Mommy, there’s a man outside with a great big tow truck. Come and see!”
Lainey went to the window of the guest house. She saw a man in a garage uniform with a clipboard in his hand, studying the license plate number on the bumper of her SUV. “What in the world?” Lainey stepped outside at the same time as Brad came out of the barn and Lewis stepped out the back door of the ranch house.
“May I help you?” Lainey asked.
“I’m Henry Cross from Dallas Motors.” He held out his hand. Lainey shook it. “You Mrs. Carrington?”
Lainey nodded, aware the man seemed nice enough. “That’s right.”
Henry announced pleasantly, “I’m here to pick up your vehicle for its thirty-thousand-mile servicing.”
“There must be some mistake. I didn’t schedule anything with the dealership.” But her SUV had been purchased there.
Henry took off his cap and set it back on his head. “The other Mrs. Carrington said you might say that,” he said uncomfortably.
Lots of thoughts came to Lainey’s mind—none of them nice. “Bunny asked you to do this?” she asked, as Brad came to stand on one side of Lainey, Lewis on the other.
“Yes, ma’am.” Henry lifted his hat again. “She set it up with the service desk yesterday.”
Well then, Lainey thought furiously, Bunny was just going to have to undo it. “I’m sorry you came all the way out here, but you can’t pick up my SUV. I won’t have anything to drive.”
Henry shifted from foot to foot. “Ma’am, you should take that up with your sister-in-law.”
Believe me, I plan to. Mindful that Petey was standing right beside her, looking every bit as stressed-out as she felt, Lainey put a comforting hand on her son’s shoulder. “We’ll just have to reschedule,” she repeated as cordially as she could.
“I have to take this SUV back to Dallas,” Henry repeated.
Brad stepped forward. “Did you not hear the lady?”
Henry looked at Brad, man-to-man. “If I don’t do my job, I’ll lose it.”
And no one wanted that, Lainey thought. “You know what, fellas? It’s fine. Go ahead and do the servicing. When will I get my vehicle back?”
Henry looked back down at his clipboard. “Next week.”
“Next week!” Lainey, Lewis and Brad repeated all at once. Petey looked up at Lainey.
Henry shrugged. “Vehicle pickups of this distance aren’t easy to arrange,” he explained.
“So why don’t you just reschedule?” Brad asked again.
“I’d really like to do that,” Lainey asserted. “I’ll be back in Dallas in another week or two.”
Petey’s face fell. Lainey had an instinctive feeling that his disappointment had more to do with having to leave the ranch than the missed opportunity of seeing the SUV put up on the flatbed tow truck that would haul it back to Dallas Motors.
Henry paused, really looking like he did not want to be here now. “You’ll have to take that up with Bart and Bunny Carrington, since their names are on the purchase papers for this vehicle.”
Silence fell.
Lainey felt humiliated. And Petey tensed even more. The boy might not understand the complicated nature of the trust Chip had set up to take care of Lainey and Petey in the event of Chip’s death, but Petey knew when his mother was unnecessarily embarrassed.
Seeing no reason to prolong the agony, Lainey forced a smile and swept a hand through her hair. “I guess I knew about this,” she murmured awkwardly after a moment, in an effort to comfort her son, who, like everyone else present, was looking more and more upset about the situation.
�
�I’ve just been so busy and so interested in everything going on around here I had just forgotten about this,” she fibbed, picking up steam as she went. “In fact, now that I think about it, I’m sure Bunny and Bart mentioned it to me last time we spoke.”
Lainey felt her son beginning to relax. Hence, Lainey relaxed, too.
They all watched as Lainey’s SUV was loaded onto the tow truck. When both had disappeared down the drive and had turned onto the farm-market road that ran past the ranch, Lewis turned to Petey. “Ready to spend another day at the testing facility, playing computer games?” He looked as eager to get out of there as Petey.
Her son’s face broke into a broad grin. “You bet!” He high-fived Lewis.
“Then we better get a move on.”
IT WAS CLEAR LAINEY DID NOT want to talk about what had just happened, so Brad went back to work, as did Lainey. But when Brad walked into the ranch house an hour later and found her in the family room tearfully organizing boxes of videotapes and DVDs, he knew the time for being circumspect was at an end.
“If this is going to upset you so much, maybe you should have a third party deal with Bart and Bunny for you,” he said.
Lainey straightened and swung toward him. Despite the tumultuous events of the morning, she was as lovely as ever. Her honey-blond hair was disheveled, her pretty cheeks glistening wetly. The tip of her elegant nose was red from crying, her green eyes still misty with tears. “It’s not Bart, it’s Bunny.”
Brad crossed the distance between them; he had never been more aware of the differences between them. He was clad in the usual jeans, boots and work shirt. Lainey was wearing a slim black cotton skirt and matching black shoes that had the toe and heel cut out, exposing her cute painted toenails. Her blue summer turtleneck sweater had cutaway sleeves that left her shoulders, and a great deal of her skin toward her collarbone, bare. It was made out of some sort of stretchy lightweight cotton that molded to her figure smoothly and hinted at voluptuous breasts and a slender waist, yet still managed to look classy and refined in that city-sophisticate way. Missing were the pearls and earrings she had worn to the ranch the first day.
“And I can handle Bunny,” Lainey insisted, stubborn as ever.
Could she now. Brad sauntered closer, drinking in the floral scent of her perfume. He wished he could just take her to bed and make love to her until all the sadness and uncertainty in her eyes went away. He slid a hand beneath her chin and lifted her face to his. “I don’t see how,” he told her gruffly, “with Bunny pulling stuff like this.”
Lainey’s shoulders stiffened. Her back ramrod straight, she moved away from him and went back to sorting DVDs. “She’s never done anything like this before. Well, anything this insufferable,” she said as she put a stack of them in the bookcase.
Brad glanced at her curiously, trying hard not to notice how seductively her hips moved beneath the trim black skirt as she knelt, stood, sorted, reached. He moved closer to lend a hand. “So what prompted this latest shot across the bow?”
Lainey’s pouty lower lip curled ruefully as she sorted movies into categories of science fiction, Westerns and action-adventure. “Me being out here with Petey, instead of in Dallas.” She paused, sighing deeply. “Bunny asked us to move in with her and Bart, and I refused. Obviously, she is still angry with me over that.”
No joke. Brad studied the unhappiness in her eyes. “Is there anything in your finances you control?”
Embarrassed, she shook her head.
“I still don’t understand how your husband could have left you in such an untenable situation,” he said, not bothering to hide his frustration.
Lainey ran a hand through her hair and continued to regard Brad warily. “Like I mentioned the last time we discussed this, Chip thought he was doing what was best for Petey and me.”
It rankled to hear her continue to make excuses for her late husband. Another silence fell between them, this one fraught with tension. “Now who’s kidding themselves?” he demanded. “You’re always talking about being truthful and letting the chips fall where they may.” He paused, then decided the heck with it—in for a penny, in for a pound. “Your marriage must have had some serious chinks in it if Chip could do something like this to you.”
LEAVE IT TO THE BLUNT-SPOKEN BRAD to hit the nail on the head, Lainey thought. She swallowed hard around the knot of emotion in her throat. “You want the truth?”
He lifted a skeptical brow. “Are you ready to tell it?”
Knowing it was past time she talked honestly about this with someone she could trust, and that that person was Brad, she plunged on ruthlessly. “I am angry at Chip for this—and I have been for months now—but I’m angrier at myself for letting it happen because, the truth is, I could have fought the various stipulations and the way everything was set up at the time the trust was established.”
Brad took her into the curve of his arm and held her against him. “Why didn’t you?” he asked quietly.
Relishing the warmth and comfort of him, so tall and strong beside her, she tipped her face up to his and searched his eyes. “Because I didn’t want to face the possibility that anything might ever happen to my husband.” She paused and drew in a bolstering breath. “I never imagined he would die in an accident. So, like it or not…this is my fault as much as Chip’s.”
Brad sat down on the edge of the sofa and pulled her onto his lap. “You could still do something about the way things are set up if you want to.” He stroked her hair gently.
Lainey shook her head. “It isn’t going to be necessary.”
He looked frustrated again, and tapped her tenderly on the nose. “Now who isn’t being realistic?”
Aware the tables had changed, and that she was the one running from a difficult situation, Lainey looked at him, her tears gone. “You saw how what happened this morning upset Petey.”
Brad nodded, looking unhappy about that, too.
She said frankly, “If he sees me fight with Bunny and Bart over this, he’ll be even more distressed.”
He didn’t argue with that. “So don’t let him see it. Have your showdown with your sister-in-law when Petey isn’t around.”
Lainey rolled her eyes. “A little hard to do now.”
“I’ll drive you into Dallas right now. We can go see your sister-in-law, tell her you want your car back, and we drive back. By the time Petey comes home tonight from the testing facility, everything will be as it should be. Then you can have your car serviced when you want it serviced.”
Silence fell between them. “You don’t think I’m going to take you up on your offer, do you?” Lainey challenged finally.
Brad shrugged. The look he gave her was more understanding than judgmental. “It’s a lot easier to pretend all the bad stuff will go away on its own. I know.” His lips twisted ruefully. “I’m an expert on that. At least, lately.”
“I’D BE HAPPY TO DISCUSS this with you, Lainey,” Bunny said, two hours later when Lainey met with her at Bunny’s Dallas home. “But not—” Bunny glared at Brad “—with him here.”
Lainey was braced for this and more. “Brad can hear anything we have to say to each other.”
Brad smiled casually as he sat down on the elegant sofa beside Lainey. “I promised to be referee or witness, whatever is needed.”
Bunny returned the warning with a condescending smile.
With effort, Lainey spoke in a calm, even tone. “These power plays have got to stop.”
“Believe me,” Bunny promised in a smooth, cultured tone, “I’d like nothing better than that.”
“So do it,” Brad advised, as Bunny handed out glasses of mint iced tea.
“I can’t,” she returned with a condescending smile. Her eyes narrowed. “As long as you continue to act so irresponsibly.”
Lainey was holding on to her composure—and her temper—by mere threads. “Getting a job is irresponsible?”
“Getting a job Chip would never have approved of certainly is,” Bunny shot
back disparagingly, her resentment obvious. “And the same goes for dragging Petey out to the country to live in intimate proximity to two young, single men.”
Brad gave Bunny a lethal look on Lainey’s behalf, saving her the trouble.
“What are you saying?” Lainey demanded coldly.
Bunny lifted her hands. “Simply that a family court judge might very well agree with me that such living arrangements are not appropriate for a widow with a child.”
“Unless I’m mistaken,” Brad drawled, “I think your sister-in-law just threatened to sue you for custody of Petey.”
“I wouldn’t want to do that,” Bunny continued sweetly.
“You would just have no choice,” Lainey guessed bitterly.
“I see we finally understand each other.” Her sister-in-law offered a chilly smile.
Lainey knew Bunny was never happy unless Bunny was calling the shots, and that her sister-in-law always felt she knew what was best for everyone else. But this was downright ridiculous. Lainey stood and picked up her shoulder bag. Her fingers tightened on the strap until they turned white. “You were right,” she said to Brad, never taking her eyes from Bunny’s face. Her blood ran hot and cold simultaneously. “This is pointless.”
“Now what?” Brad asked as the two of them got back in his pickup. He started the engine.
Doing her best not to appear as if she had been run over by a steamroller, Lainey said, “I need to drop by my house to pick up some more clothes for Petey.” Then she wanted to return to the Lazy M. To safe haven. She wanted to be with Brad and Petey and the rest of the McCabes and forget all this.
Brad shot her a concerned glance. “What about your SUV?”
“I’ll make do without it,” she said wearily, as she paused to direct Brad to her home, located just a few short blocks away. “Maybe when Bunny sees I am not going to be bullied or threatened into toeing her line, she’ll stop all this nonsense,” she hoped out loud.
But that was before Brad turned into the driveway of the imposing pink-brick Tudor with the gray shutters and white trim, and Lainey saw what else Bunny had done.
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