by Tina Leonard
But it was now or never. The tie that bound them had to be cut on both ends, or she’d always be little Mimi Cannady, almost-sis, tomboy-next-door, for-a-good-gag-call Mimi. Toilet-papering houses, tying cans on goat tails, painting rural mailboxes with smiley faces—they’d done it all.
Together.
“Not this time, Frisco,” she said. “I have a lot going on in my own life right now. Thanks for calling.”
She hung up the phone and went to check on her father.
“SHE’S NOT COMING,” Frisco said, hanging up the phone.
“Mimi is abandoning us in our hour of need?” Last asked, his tone surprised.
“See if we ever go fix her sinks when they back up again,” Laredo grumbled.
“She’d be over here in a snap if it were Mason calling for help,” Ranger grumbled. “That woman’s a jill-in-the-box when it comes to him, popping up like crazy whenever he decides to wind her crank.”
“I’ve never known exactly which one of them was winding whose crank,” Navarro commented.
Calhoun laughed. “She’s been real prickly ever since you drank too much champagne at the Christmas party two months ago and sang that stupid Mimi-and-Mason, sitting-in-a-Christmas-tree—”
“Shut up,” Archer said loudly, the author of the musical ditty.
“Yeah, she has been different since then,” Last said. “Maybe if you’d act your age and not your hat size, we wouldn’t be struggling with this right now. She’d be over here—”
“No.” Frisco shook his head. “No, this is our problem. We can take care of it ourselves.”
The brothers glanced at each other, then huddled around the window. It looked like a garden party on the lawn. There were more women than the ranch had ever seen on the property at one time, and considering there were twelve brothers in the family, that was saying a lot.
Frisco cleared his throat and drew himself up tall, realizing that the mantle of family was clearly on his shoulders. He was determined to bear it well. “I’ll explain that this is a simple miscommunication problem.”
Laredo looked at him. “Do you want us for backup?”
“I think I can handle this. The ladies might be intimidated by all of us.” He was somewhat intimidated by all of them—he hadn’t expected twenty anxious women to show up today. No doubt there would be some initial disappointment that there was no position available, but he could get money out of the Malfunction Junction Ranch’s petty cash to give them for the return bus trip.
“You go, bro,” Bandera encouraged. “We’ll be cheering you on from in here.”
“That’s right,” Tex agreed.
“Couldn’t we keep just one?” Last asked. “Maybe the little blonde over there, holding the baby?”
Frisco peered out, immediately seeing what made Last pick her out of the crowd. “She’s not a puppy. We can’t just ‘keep’ her. Anyway, she’d get lonely out here. Even Mimi gets lonely, and she was born in Union Junction.” He frowned for a second, thinking that the petite blonde would be more tempting as a date than a housekeeper. In fact, he wasn’t certain he’d get any work done at all if he knew she was in his house, cooking his meals, making a home for him.
His mouth began to water at the thought of home-cooked food, prepared by caring hands. A strange humming buzzed in his ears as he watched her press the baby’s head against her lips in a sweet kiss. The baby was crying, probably cold from being outside in February’s brisk chill, despite the bunting encasing the small body. “What would we do with a baby out here, anyway?” he murmured.
They all looked dumbfounded at that.
Fannin shook his head. “Definite drawback. I guess.”
“Maybe we could have them in for a cup of cocoa before we take them to the station,” Last suggested, his tone hopeful.
“No!” Frisco knew exactly where his youngest brother was heading with that idea. Once the ladies were in the house, maybe Frisco would soften his stance…. Last had a sensitive heart where other people were concerned. He had reason to be a bit delicate—too young to really remember when their mother, Mercy, had died; too old not to question why their father, Maverick, had left them for parts unknown. He would sympathize with a single mother and her child.
But this was no place for a woman, a baby or soft hearts. “We can’t, Last,” he said firmly, meeting his brother’s eyes. “I’ll go tell them.”
He went outside, his shoulders squared. “Ladies,” he said loudly, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we’re not looking for a housekeeper at this time. We’ll be happy to pay your return bus fare to wherever you came from.”
A middle-aged, not-unattractive woman stepped forward to be the spokeswoman. “How come you placed an ad, then?”
“It was a mistake. We’re terribly sorry.”
“You’re not the man who placed the ad. We saw his picture.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “We came all the way to apply with him. Where is he?”
“He’s gone for the next two weeks,” Frisco said, determined to be patient, not meeting the blonde’s gaze, though he realized she was staring up at him as he stood on the wide porch. Trying not to look back at her made his scalp tighten and prickle as if he were sweating all over his head. “We’ve contacted our brother, and he said the e-mail was sent in error. As I said, we are happy to take you to the bus station in town. Now, if you all will load into the trucks my brothers will be bringing around in a moment, we’ll get you started on your way back home.”
They didn’t like it; grumbling rose among them, but there was nothing he could do about that. A mistake was a mistake, an honest one.
But he’d handled it, and handling twenty women was easier than he thought it’d be, he decided, opening truck doors and helping them into various seats. He didn’t see the little blonde and the baby; they weren’t among the passengers who jumped into his cab, but he’d be willing to bet Last had eagerly escorted the two of them to his vehicle.
Better him than me.
It was a motley, somewhat sad procession as the brothers drove six trucks to the bus stop, but it was the right thing to do.
They left them in the station, having paid for tickets and making sure they had enough money for snacks. He handed the clump of tickets to the woman he dubbed the spokeswoman, tipped his hat to their silent faces, and feeling guilty as hell, slunk out with his brothers.
“I’m gonna kill Mimi and Mason for this stupid stunt,” he muttered to Fannin. “Reckon they planned this?”
“What for?” Fannin glanced at him as they walked through the parking lot.
“I don’t know. I just know that when those two get together, there’s always hell to pay.”
“I know. That’s why they can’t stay together in one room very long. It’s spontaneous combustion.”
“I’m going home to have a beer,” Frisco said. “And then I’m going to bed.”
“No poker tonight?”
“Heck no. I’m all played out.” That baby wasn’t going to enjoy a long bus ride back to Lonely Hearts Station, he knew. And the little mother had looked so tired.
Damn Mason and Mimi anyway. “See ya,” he said to Fannin, surly again. Then he got in his truck and drove home, deciding to skip the beer and go right upstairs.
He’d been up since 4:00 a.m., and a lot had happened. If he went to sleep now, maybe he could forget all the events of the day.
Stripping to his boxers, he left jeans, boots and his shirt on the floor, crawling quickly between the sheets to escape the slight chill in the room.
His bare skin made instant contact with something small and soft in the bed. “What the hell?” he murmured, flipping on the bedside lamp in a hurry.
It was the baby, no longer wearing her white bunting and sound asleep in the middle of his bed, peacefully sucking her tiny fist.
Chapter Two
“Holy smokes, Frisco,” Navarro said as Frisco came barreling down the stairs. All ten of his brothers glanced at him. “Your drawer
s on fire?” Navarro asked.
“There’s a baby in my bed!” Frisco shouted. Remembering that a baby could be loud when it was awake, he lowered his voice to an unnerved whisper. “That little blonde put her baby in my bed!”
“Are you sure?” Fannin asked.
Frisco looked at him as if he’d gone mad. “I think I know a baby when I see one!”
“How do you know it’s hers?” Fannin said patiently.
“Because she was the only one who had a child that young with her.” And the picture of her kissing the baby’s head was still fresh in his mind. “I know it’s hers.”
“Dang.” Bandera threw his cards onto the round den table. “I’m certain she didn’t know it was your bed, Frisco. No woman would give your surly butt her sweet, fragile angel.”
His brothers laughed heartily. The instant fear, which had sent Frisco running down the stairs, began to turn to bad humor. “Where is she?” he demanded of Last.
“How would I know?” the youngest Jefferson shot back. “I thought she was getting in your truck.”
“My truck? Oh, no, she definitely was not getting into my truck,” Frisco insisted. He would have noticed that for certain. “I told you we couldn’t keep her, Last. You go find her, and take her and her baby back. Now.”
Last stood up, angry. “I don’t know where she is.”
Tex sighed. “Maybe she’s not here.”
“What?” Frisco stared at him. “Why do you say that?”
“I’m just saying maybe we’d better search the three houses and have a look for her,” Tex said evenly. “And hope she’s not far from her baby.”
“I’m not,” a woman said quietly, as she stepped into the den from the hallway.
The entire roomful of men rose, half for the sake of good manners and half because she’d startled them.
“I’m sorry to be the cause of so much trouble,” she said, her voice soft and gentle, almost shy. “I was changing Emmeline’s diaper when everyone left.”
Frisco’s mouth had dropped open when she walked into the room, holding a baby bottle. Up close, she was even more adorable. He loved worn blue jeans on a woman; he loved blond hair that hung straight to a woman’s chin. He loved sleepy eyes that stared right at him. There was some silent communication going on between them; there was something she was trying to tell him—
Her gaze averted from his, and Ranger coughed. “You might want to go throw on a pair of jeans, Frisco.”
ANNABELLE TURNBERRY knew what a man looked like without his clothes on, of course, or she wouldn’t have two-month-old Emmie. She’d just never seen a man like the one the other men called Frisco—the boxers only hid enough to keep her from being totally mortified.
And fascinated. She almost couldn’t stop staring until his brother reminded him he was sans jeans.
This was a household of men, and it seemed to be a normal routine to move about the house wearing whatever. She frowned. Her ex-fiancé had taken his clothes off in the dark the one time he took her to bed; she wasn’t sure she knew what he looked like. The fact that she’d just seen more of a stranger than she’d ever seen of her ex-fiancé wasn’t comforting.
Frisco shot up the stairs, muttering an apology. He looked just as good from the backside, she thought, taking a fast peek only because…because—
Well, there was no good justification for it. No excuse. It almost seemed wrong to look at another man, especially since she’d recently given birth, but it wasn’t as if she’d been looking out of lust, more out of admiration. After all, if a man who looked like Adonis took off running suddenly, wouldn’t any woman have to look?
She dropped her gaze, thinking that she was in a houseful of Adonises, and maybe therefore in a precarious position. They didn’t know her; she didn’t know them. Maybe she was guilty of breaking and entering or something else that concerned the law.
“It’s okay,” one of the men said, standing up to come over to her. “Next time you see Frisco, he’ll be fully dressed.”
“Oh. Well. I’m so sorry for the—”
“Don’t worry about it.”
The man smiled at her, his gaze full of compassion. Annabelle was relieved because she hadn’t known what to say first, or even what she was going to say. There were so many things to apologize for!
“You’re tired. Why don’t you go lie upstairs with your baby until we can get you back to…where was it, again?”
“The Lonely Hearts Salon in Lonely Hearts Station, Texas.” She swallowed. “My name is Annabelle Turnberry.”
The kind man slapped his forehead. “We have manners, we really do. I’m Last Jefferson.”
He put out his hand to her, and she took it, noticing that his grip was gentle.
“These are my brothers, going from the top to the bottom, not counting Mason, who isn’t here.” They stood when he pointed to each one, as he recited, “Frisco’s upstairs, Fannin, Laredo, Tex, Calhoun, Ranger, Archer, Crockett, Navarro, Bandera, and me.”
“Last,” she repeated.
“But never least.”
His smile was devilish, inviting her to join in the harmless repartee. She could easily see that he never allowed himself to be outdone by his older brothers. “I’ll remember that. Last but not least.”
He smiled. “Good girl. Go upstairs and get some rest.”
“No. I don’t think so,” Frisco said, his voice deep as he came down the stairs. He tucked a denim shirt into jeans, he was barefoot, and Annabelle thought he might be the most handsome man she’d ever seen. But he was obviously a bad-humored rascal, and falling for that kind of man was what had landed her in her current predicament.
Or had given her a baby, anyway. Her predicament of being at the ranch with eleven men was her own fault, a direct result of deciding it was time to take charge of her life, stand on her own two feet. Move away from all things familiar and start over.
My life is more out of control than ever.
“She can’t make a bus now, Frisco,” Last said, his tone reasonable.
“And she can’t stay here.”
Annabelle stared at the tall cowboy, her misgivings growing. As far as he was concerned, she was an imposition, which, to be fair, she was, but it wasn’t all her fault. It was his brother who’d put the ad out over the Internet. She’d just thought to apply for a job where her baby would grow up safe. And in a real house, not a room over the beauty salon. Or at least that’s what Delilah had encouraged her to try for. Emmie would be very safe on a ranch with twelve men, the biggest danger probably being teaching her daughter that cows weren’t big doggies.
“Why not?” Last demanded, having appointed himself her champion. The other brothers began a protest that started out, “Come on, Frisco, lighten up,” but Frisco raised his hand to silence them.
“Because she’s a woman, and it wouldn’t be appropriate for her to stay with eleven bachelors,” he snapped. “Do I have to spell everything out for you lunkheads?”
“Yes. Sometimes,” Last said on a sigh. “So now what?”
“It’s late. The baby’s asleep. I hate to wake her now just to put her in a truck to get hauled off,” the blonde said. Frisco put his hands in his pockets and looked at her.
The dilemma was painful for all. Annabelle realized she was more of a problem than she’d thought. She couldn’t match his nearly-black-eyed stare and glanced at the baby bottle in her hand.
A knock at the front door made everybody turn.
“We expectin’ anybody?” Fannin asked, going to the door.
“Nope,” Frisco replied.
But the door burst open before Fannin could open it, a woman making herself at home as if she always did. “Girl in the house. Everybody decent? Or at least got clothes on?” she called out.
No one yelled back the standard We-got-clothes-on-but-we’re-not-decent line. The newcomer latched a curious gaze on Annabelle.
The room fell silent.
“Two girls in the house, maybe?” Annabelle said
. “Decent and fully clothed?” She’d wanted to be light and airy to make a situation that was turning increasingly uncomfortable more easy for all. But by the look on the woman’s face, maybe not.
“Mimi, this is Annabelle Turnberry. Annabelle, Mimi Cannady, our next-door neighbor,” he said.
“How do you do?” Mimi asked politely.
“Fine, thank you.”
“Annabelle’s applying to be our new housekeeper,” Last said cheerfully.
“Housekeeper?” Mimi’s gaze turned worried. “She can’t.”
“Why not?” Annabelle knew she wasn’t in the running for the job—if there was one, Frisco had made it clear she wasn’t under consideration. But maybe Mimi could explain it better, and then Annabelle wouldn’t feel as if she’d simply made another silly mistake in her life by taking off for parts unknown to become a housekeeper.
“You’re not forty-five,” Mimi said. “That was in the ad, if you recall.”
“Forty-five?” Last said. “Why so old?”
“You’d have to ask Mason,” Mimi replied, her tone bright. “He was adamant on the age requirement.”
Annabelle caught the glance that passed between Mimi and Frisco, Mimi’s chin up, Frisco’s gaze narrowed suspiciously.
“Well, Mimi, it seems we agree on one thing,” he said softly.
“Will wonders never cease?” she shot back, her tone too sweet. Yet somehow strong underneath.
Annabelle’s eyebrows raised.
“She’ll have to come home with me,” Mimi said, with a put-upon sigh. “One of you can drive Annabelle back into town tomorrow.”
“Thought you weren’t going to help us anymore,” Last said helpfully. “We sure don’t want to put you out any.”
“That’s okay,” Mimi said, in the voice of a Good Samaritan. “Annabelle will be more comfortable at my house, I feel certain.”
From upstairs, Emmie’s wail floated down, loud and miserable.
