One Bride Delivered

by Jeanne Allan

  “Oh.” Davy scuffed his toe in the dirt. “I thought you was gonna fish with me. I guess you don’t want to.”

  Thomas Steele gripped his shirt so tightly, his knuckles turned white “It has nothing to do with you There are things which need to be done”

  “Let someone else do them,” Cheyenne said. If Thomas Steele wanted to return to St. Chris’s, he’d have to get there on his own. “I booked you for the whole day We’re going to Ruedi Reservoir so you can teach Davy how to fish.”

  Disappointment switched to hopefulness on Davy’s face. “We are? Cool.” He gave his uncle a sideways glance. “I’ll prolly catch a fish”

  Thomas Steele raised an eyebrow at his nephew. “Are you casting aspersions on my fishing ability, young man?”

  Davy stood his ground. “I don’t know,” he said cautiously. “What does that mean?”

  “You think I’m not a very good fisherman.”

  “You didn’t catch any fish.”

  Cheyenne laughed.

  Thomas Steele swung his gaze toward her. “I see there are two of you who think I don’t know anything about fishing. All right, we’ll have a little contest. Biggest fish wins.”

  “What will I win?” Davy asked excitedly.

  “You’re awfully confident, young man.”

  “Pearl told me Steeles always think big,” he said seriously. “I’m a Steele.”

  His uncle’s face stilled. “More’s the pity,” he said tonelessly.

  Cheyenne jumped in before Davy worked out the meaning of his uncle’s cryptic words. “I’m not a Steele, and I intend to win this contest.” She eyed Thomas Steele thoughtfully. “I think the winner should select her prize.”

  “If I win,” Davy asked, “can I wear the wading boots?”

  “If you win.” Thomas Steele’s gaze went to Cheyenne’s lips. “I plan to win and I have something else entirely in mind. Something I intend to enjoy to the fullest.”

  Cheyenne forgot to breathe. There was no misinterpreting his words and look. He planned to kiss her. If he won. She inhaled deeply. “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.”

  He gave her a lazy smile. “I love barnyard clichés. There’s something so—” he lifted his brow in an exaggerated leer “—earthy about them.”

  Cheyenne would have laughed. If she could have. If he hadn’t reached back at that exact second to slide an arm into the sleeve of his shirt. If his bare chest hadn’t stretched and flexed. If his words hadn’t conjured up a sudden vision of the two of them on the ground wrapped in an embrace. Not a single thought or word came to her rescue. Turning on her heel, she went around her car and jumped in the driver’s seat. Her breathing had almost returned to normal by the time everyone had strapped in.

  Thomas Steele had provided her with a double incentive to win. If she won, she intended to make him participate in Davy’s birthday party. Even more important, if she won, she wouldn’t have to kiss Thomas Steele. She didn’t have the least bit of curiosity about his kisses.

  Cheyenne knew exactly what Thomas Steele was doing. Punishing her for forcing him to spend the day with his nephew. Punishing her for daring to condemn his care of his nephew. Punishing her for not accepting his own highly-elevated opinion of himself. For all she knew he was even punishing her for the pizza he’d eaten. Not that his supper was any more her fault than him spending the day with his nephew. He was the one who decided to go fishing with them. She’d told him he didn’t have to eat with them. That she’d deliver Davy back to the hotel after supper. But no, he couldn’t do that. Not when he knew darned good and well every second in his company further irritated the heck out of her.

  He’d been lucky.

  That big, stupid trout had by-passed her salmon egg and Davy’s marshmallow and gone for Thomas Steele’s artificial fly. The dumb fish was all brawn and no brain. No wonder Thomas Steele had tossed it back in the water. She wished she could toss Thomas Steele back.

  She knew he planned to kiss her. He knew she knew. He could have kissed her as soon as he’d caught the monster fish. They’d all known the trout was a winner.

  He could have kissed her before they’d started back to Aspen. He could have kissed her when they’d pulled up to St. Chris’s or before they’d gone into the hotel.

  Thomas Steele preferred to torment her. To prolong her dread. To keep her dangling, wondering when he’d kiss her.

  If he’d kiss her.

  Cheyenne screeched to a halt in the middle of St. Chris’s lobby. He didn’t want to kiss her. She had peanut butter breath. He’d never intended to kiss her. A man like Thomas Steele didn’t kiss an insignificant nobody like Cheyenne Lassiter.

  Wait a minute. She was too good for an insufferable egotist like Thomas Steele, even if he was one of the hotel Steeles. She was one of the ranching Lassiters, wasn’t she?

  “So you told me,” Thomas Steele said dryly. “What about it?”

  Heat stained her cheeks. She hadn’t intended to say the words out loud. “Nothing about it.” She looked around the three-story atrium lobby. Davy was regaling two of the bellmen with the story of his day’s adventures. From the way he held his hands, she guessed he was telling them about his uncle’s fish. “It wasn’t that big,” she muttered.

  “Bigger.” Thomas Steele had followed her gaze.

  “You were in such a hurry to throw it back, I didn’t get a good look at how big it was.” She knew the sooner a fish was released back into water, the better its chance of survival. “My fish might have been bigger.”

  He grinned. “Your fish wasn’t half the size of mine. Even Davy’s fish dwarfed yours.”

  She hated it when he grinned. Standing there in Worth’s ragged jeans, bare feet shoved in athletic shoes, he ought to look ridiculous. The hotel staff was too well-trained to laugh out loud, but they must be snickering behind their hands. She wanted to laugh at him, mock him. He played so unfair. Catching the biggest fish. Grinning at her. Messing with her insides. “I’m not going to kiss you.”

  His grin widened. “Who asked you to?”

  She didn’t care how sexy-looking he was, he was a conceited pain in the neck. “If you won, you expected me to kiss you.”

  “I said that?”

  “Maybe you didn’t say it.” She felt like twisting off his ears. “You know very well you implied it.”

  Stepping closer, he captured the ringlets pulled through the back of her baseball cap. “How did I imply it?”

  She didn’t like the way his eyes laughed at her. Or the way he brushed her neck with the ends of her hair. “You looked at me.” Even to her, the words sounded stupid.

  Thomas Steele laughed out loud.

  Every head in the hotel turned in their direction. Cheyenne’s face flamed. “Let go of my hair. I have to go talk to Olivia about tomorrow.”

  “I thought you wanted to kiss me.”

  “I do not want to kiss you.” She pulled at his hand. He hung on to her hair. “Everyone’s staring at us. Let go. I live in Aspen. People know me.”

  “Do they know you welsh on a bet?” He shook his head in mock reproach. “And you a Lassiter of the ranching Lassiters.”

  “I’m not welshing, but I’m not going to kiss you in the lobby of St. Chris’s.”

  “You’re right. If you want to kiss me, there are better places than a hotel lobby.”

  “I don’t want to kiss you.” Cheyenne took a deep, exasperated breath. “All right, what did you want for a prize if you caught the biggest fish?”

  His hand tightened on her hair. “My mother brought me up to be a gentleman. Forget what I wanted. A lady’s wish is my command. Since you want me to kiss you...”

  He’d quit smiling. The voices around them faded away. His eyes held hers in a manner which was less seductive than challenging. As if daring her to kiss him in the middle of the lobby. Her breathing grew shallow and tension prickled in her breasts. She wasn’t going to kiss him. Not here. Maybe upstairs. In his suite. After Davy went to
bed.

  Bed. The word acted as a brake, and Cheyenne drew back her head. Thomas Steele smiled. Whatever kind of contest they’d been engaged in, he knew he’d won. She wanted to kick him right in the middle of his bony knees. He may have caught the biggest fish, but he darned well wasn’t going to win this battle, whatever it was about. “I won’t force a kiss on you,” she said. “Tell me what you planned to ask for if you won.”

  “I forget. Give me a kiss, and we’ll call ourselves even.”

  She’d never be even with this man. He was too accustomed to having the upper hand. As he thought he did now. She had to beat him at his own game. “All right. One kiss. And no more talk of welshing. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.” He slid the bill of her cap sideways and lowered his head.

  Cheyenne rose to her tiptoes and brushed a quick kiss against his cheek. The feel of his warm skin, rough with stubble, shook her to the soles of her walking shoes. “There,” she managed to say.

  He rubbed his cheek. “That wasn’t in the spirit of the bet.”

  She forced herself to meet his gaze. “You insisted on a kiss. You got a kiss. If you had a particular type of kiss in mind, you should have specified.”

  “Next time I won’t leave you any loopholes.”

  “There won’t be a next time. It’s going to be just Davy and me.” A circumstance she regretted. Not for her. She certainly didn’t want to kiss him again. She didn’t care two beans if she ever saw Thomas Steele again.

  She regretted for Davy’s sake. Davy desperately needed someone to love him, to parent him. From what he’d told her about his grandparents, they weren’t giving him what he needed.

  Cheyenne had hoped if Thomas Steele spent a day with Davy away from the hotel, he’d see how much his nephew needed him. And realize how much he needed Davy. Neither had happened.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Steele.” Cheyenne extended her hand. “If you need to contact me, or have any questions or instructions about Davy, call my answering machine or leave a message here with the front desk. Don’t worry about Davy. He’ll have a great time, and I’ll take good care of him.”

  He held her hand instead of shaking it. “It’s better this way, Ms. Lassiter. You’d want more than I’m capable of giving.”

  Cheyenne looked down at her hand enclosed in his. “Davy doesn’t want so much. He’d be easy to love.”

  “The only way Davy enters in to what I’m talking about is if he weren’t here, things would be different with you and me.”

  “You wouldn’t be luring me to entertain him.”

  “No, I’d be seriously considering whether I wanted you to entertain me while I’m here.”

  There was no misinterpreting his words. She yanked her hand free. “I’m sure you can find plenty of women interested in entertaining you, Mr. Steele. You’re not my type.”

  “Precisely my point. You’re the wholesome, down home, small town type of woman who believes in love and commitment. I prefer women from the fast lane.”

  “I’m not the least bit interested in your likes and dislikes. Or in you.”

  He half smiled. “You’re as curious as I am about what would happen if we really kissed.”

  She wasn’t curious. She knew. His kiss would be cataclysmic. Obviously Thomas Steele had not received the same jolt of electricity. Not that it mattered.

  “No point in speculating about something that’s never going to happen, Mr. Steele.” Assuming her business face, she said briskly, “I’ll shop for tomorrow. I think the best way to handle the bills is for me to pay for everything and at the end of Davy’s stay, I’ll present the receipts along with my bill.”

  “Handle it however you wish,” he said in a bored voice.

  Disappointment flooded Cheyenne. He’d switched back to the unreachable Thomas Steele he’d been this morning. There ought to be something she could say. Something to magically turn Thomas Steele into a human being. To make him understand how much Davy needed him. How much he needed Davy. To make him see how rich his life could be. He didn’t want to see. A sensible woman would forget about turning Thomas Steele and his nephew into a real family.

  “Tommy.”

  The elegantly-modulated voice pulled Cheyenne from her frustrated thoughts, and she turned to see a tall, thin woman with sleek, dark auburn hair glide across the lobby’s marble parquet floor Enough gold jewelry to pay off the national debt hung around the woman’s swanlike neck. She had perfectly arched eyebrows, perfect skin, and perfect makeup. The latest perfect shade of lipstick had been perfectly applied to perfect lips. Only a shallow man would find such artificial perfection appealing. Cheyenne started to walk away.

  “Wait.” Thomas Steele wrapped his long, elegant fingers around her wrist. “A change of plans may be called for.”

  If Thomas Steel thought he would be doing her a favor by throwing this woman’s business her way, he could think again. Cheyenne had been in the tour industry long enough to know she wanted nothing to do with Ms. Perpetually on a Diet. Nobody could satisfy this type, and Cheyenne had no intention of trying.

  The woman’s numerous rings included no wedding ring. Divorced. Which explained the look, half sultry and half predatory, on her face. The woman was on the hunt, and Thomas Steele, Tommy, was her target.

  Tommy. He looked as much like a Tommy as Cheyenne looked like a wealthy socialite. No wonder his acknowledging smile failed to get as far as his eyes.

  The woman took her time reaching them. One couldn’t rush and glide at the same time. She halted in front of Thomas Steele. Cheyenne had never seen a woman smile without creasing any part of her face.

  “Surprise, Tommy.”

  “Stephanie.”

  “I was bored to tears with you out of town.” The woman pushed out a reddish-brown bottom lip. “When Bobby and Cynthia Jones told me they were flying to Aspen... You remember Robert Pennelton Jones, don’t you, Tommy? Of the Manhattan Penneltons. He does something with money on Wall Street.”

  “Makes it, no doubt,” Cheyenne couldn’t resist saying.

  One thin arched eyebrow arched higher. “You know the Joneses?” Her voice expressed doubt as she took in Cheyenne’s clothes, but left room for the possibility Cheyenne might be someone worth knowing.

  “I never bother to keep up with the Joneses.” Her wrist burned where Thomas Steele held it. Cheyenne had the crazy impression he held on to her the way a drowning man clings to a life preserver.

  “How amusing your little friend is.” The temperature in the lobby dropped ten degrees as the skinny redhead dismissed Cheyenne. Focusing on Thomas Steele, she re-upped the voltage. “What fun to run into you, Tommy. Of course, you’ll join us for dinner and night-clubbing tonight, and then—” she lowered her voice seductively “—who knows?”

  “Thank you, Stephanie, but I’ve dined.”

  “You can’t possibly have. It’s only seven.”

  “As I told you in New York, my nephew is with me. Cheyenne insists we let Davy set our schedule. Cheyenne, this is Stephanie Winston. Stephanie, Cheyenne Lassiter.” His mouth barely twitched. “One of the ranching Lassiters.”

  The woman acknowledged the introduction in a voice as insincere as Cheyenne’s. A quick sweeping look took in Thomas Steele’s hand wrapped around Cheyenne’s wrist before she said in a flirtatious manner, “Tommy, you’re too good to the child. He can spare you while he sleeps. It would be too bad if you missed Bobby and Cynthia and missed hearing all the latest news from our crowd.” Stephanie Winston turned a saccharine smile Cheyenne’s way. “You’ll be a darling and stay with the child while Tommy joins us for a few drinks, won’t you?”

  “She can’t,” Thomas Steele spoke first. “Cheyenne and Davy and I have big plans for tomorrow, so we need to call it an early night.” He dropped Cheyenne’s wrist to slide his arm around her waist. “Isn’t that right, Cheyenne?”

  “Isn’t Cheyenne a cowboy town in Wyoming?”

  Cheyenne disliked the disdainful tone of Ms. Winston’s voice almo
st as much as she disliked Thomas Steele’s arm around her waist. “Yup,” she drawled, “my daddy named all us buckaroos after rodeos. I’m named after Cheyenne Frontier Days.”

  “How quaint.”

  “More like convenient, what with Daddy not around much, except when he got stove-up by some no-account, notional bull. Then he’d come sniffing around Ma’s skirts, and bingo, there’d be one more of us. Daddy was better at remembering winning than kids’ names, so Ma thought us kids should be like silver belt buckles. We all stand for Daddy’s best rides. Daddy thought she ought to name us for the bulls, but Ma put her foot down. Good thing, or I’d be Blizzard Babe.”

  Thomas Steele lightly slapped her bottom. “Behave yourself.” His hand stayed on her hip. “Cheyenne takes a perverse sort of pride in keeping secret the fact that she graduated from Princeton.”

  Cheyenne managed to conceal her surprise. Frank McCall, St. Chris’s manager, must have detailed her entire life history. He should have added that being used to deflect predatory women didn’t come under a tour agent’s job description. Thomas Steele would pay for using her.

  Leaning her hip against his, Cheyenne smiled at the woman glaring at her. “Thomas is so much fun to tease. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that.” She transferred her smile to Thomas. “I think tomorrow our bet ought to be double or nothing.” Her gaze returned to Stephanie Winston. “Don’t you hate it when Thomas wins? He gloats. Would you believe he made me kiss him right here in the middle of St. Chris’s lobby?”

  Ms. Winston lifted her eyebrows. “The way you’re dressed, Tommy, I’d have guessed you lost a bet.”

  Cheyenne giggled. She hadn’t giggled since junior high school “We were messing around by the river and he fell in. He had to remove every single stitch of clothing.”

  “How unfortunate.”

  “Thomas is tough. The only thing he complained about is eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Which Davy and I agree is better than eating fish eggs...oh...I hope you’re not the woman who likes caviar.”

  “Cheyenne, we’d better collect Davy and go up to our suite. Enjoy your stay, Stephanie. Since I won’t be able to join you and your friends this evening, I hope you’ll accept a bottle of champagne, courtesy of the hotel. Nice to see you. Davy!” He swept Cheyenne around an ornate metal column and across the lobby.