“Over my dead body.”
“That could be arranged.” His wink took the sting out of his words, just barely.
“I…I never…”
“Apparently you did once. You did have a son.”
As she smoothed his shirt back down, Tessa sucked in a sharp breath at that one, waiting for her granny’s reaction. She didn’t wait long.
“Out, you no-good troublemaker. You’re just as shameless as your grandfather. He didn’t have any manners either.”
At that, all the humor drained from Chance’s face. A dark, dangerous quality shadowed his features. Ice chips formed in his gray gaze. Tessa shivered, and then backed up a few paces until she stood behind her granny’s chair, clutching the back of it. The decorative wood dug into her hands, but she didn’t care about the sharp sting of pain. If he tried anything she’d swing the chair out of his way and save her granny. Slowly, Chance dropped his clasped hands and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs.
“Never speak of my grandfather to me again, do you understand? You never took the time to know him for who he really was.”
Granny gave an indelicate snort at that.
If possible, his features hardened even more. “I don’t know how this feud got started or why it’s lasted this long. I only know that it’s going to stop with Tessa and me.”
Fearful he might give away her wish to her granny, Tessa shook her head vehemently, gaining his attention. She crossed her index fingers in front of her, and then made a half circle motion in front of her belly. Don’t tell her about the baby I want.
He frowned slightly, and then shook his head. “It will end with our baby—”
A horrified gasp escaped from granny. Shaking, Tessa leaned over the back of the velvet chair and clasped her granny’s bony shoulder, hoping to give some comfort. “No, not that…” Soft sobs racked the older woman’s body and Tessa ached inside. With each mention of a newborn, her granny reacted with heart-wrenching tears.
Going around to her, Tessa gingerly sat on the arm of the chair and hugged her grandmother to her. The small frame shook uncontrollably. Her frail hands clutched at Tessa. Glancing down at the blue-veined, paper-thin skin, Tessa nearly choked. Hour after hour of her granny lovingly knitting the multi-colored pastel baby blanket, cheery yellow outfit, and tiny matching booties rushed back to her. The same ones Tessa kept carefully wrapped in tissue paper and hidden in the back of her closet.
“Shhh, now, it’s all right,” Tessa choked out, feeling the sting of tears in her own eyes. The hole in her heart seemed to open even more. Gulping hard, she looked over at Chance. Shock was too mild a word to describe his expression. Thunderstruck was more like it.
After he seemed to have collected himself, he reached into his back pocket and extracted his handkerchief. Gruffly, he said, “Here, yours is already soaked through.”
Gratefully, Tessa accepted the gift. “Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely, and then helped granny mop up her eyes. “He didn’t mean to bring it up, Granny. How could he? He didn’t—” She stopped herself short, swallowing the words. He didn’t know. And God help me, he never will.
Taking a shuddering breath, Granny composed herself as she pulled back from Tessa’s embrace, taking Chance’s handkerchief with her. She dabbed her eyes with the snowy-white cotton fabric. Softly, she said, “Please go and get my medicine for me, child. I want to talk to this young man while you’re gone.”
Stunned, Tessa could only stare for a few moments. The color in the once paper-white face returned, allowing Tessa to see for herself that her granny really didn’t need her heart medicine at all anymore. Her request had more to do with Tessa leaving the room than anything more pressing like her health.
Reluctantly she rose, first eyeing her granny, and then Chance. He shot her a grin to ease her worry, and then he winked. Her insides fluttered at the sexy look, but her mind still screamed, Warning! Warning!
“Are you sure you don’t need me here?”
Granny waved her hand, saying, “Off with you now. I’ll be fine.” She wiped her eyes and nose, gazing straight at Chance. Her whole body looked poised for battle.
With trepidation, Tessa slowly exited only to go as far as the dining room. Once there, she lurked in the shadows, intently listening to every word spoken.
Chance followed Tessa’s lithe graceful movements until she was out of sight, and then he focused fully on the older woman before him. The tears of a moment ago, having left him speechless and stunned at the time, had vanished. The mutinous expression that greeted him didn’t surprise him in the least. He dug in his heels, relying on every weapon in his arsenal.
“You can’t have her,” Mrs. Warfield stated matter-of-factly, crossing her arms over her chest.
Shrugging, he said, “Suit yourself.”
Her silvery brows arched and her mouth opened slightly. Obviously caught off guard, she frowned at him. Narrowing her eyes, she asked, “What kind of game are you playing here? First you want her, then you don’t.”
Outwardly he made himself relax as he leaned back in the tiny chair and crossed his left booted foot over his right knee. With keen interest, he went on, “Well, she does have some shortcomings, you know…”
“Hah! Why she’d make any man a wonderful wife and don’t you forget it.” A pink flush entered her cheeks, causing him to breathe a sigh of relief. He’d prefer fire and brimstone any day to being responsible for putting her in a sick bed.Scratching the back of his head and scrunching up his face, he said, "She’s a little too tall for my taste. Only a couple inches shorter than me.”
“She’s statuesque, that’s all.” She easily dismissed it with a tilt of her head.
“And skinny.”
“Trim,” she snapped, automatically correcting him. Looking at him haughtily, she asked, “You wouldn’t want a fat wife, now would you?”
Inwardly, Chance beamed at the way things were falling into his lap. He had all he could do not to rub his hands together in glee. Instead, he ran a hand over his jaw, feeling the beginnings of the stubble there. “What about her hair? It’s all curly and wild and red!” He said the last as if it were the plague. Secretly, he had a thing for redheads, but he wasn’t going to tell the old lady that or he’d lose his ground here.
Sitting across from him, she opened and closed her mouth without a word escaping. She answered on her second effort, “Why…why it’s strawberry blonde, not red, for land’s sake. Can’t you tell the difference? And women all over the world pay good money to get their hair that color.”
“You don’t.”
Flustered even more, she stammered, “I…my coloring isn’t right. I’d never be able to get away with it.”
Easily, stringing her in, he said, “Of course, there’s her overreacting. She always did that as a kid.”
“Over…Why, she’s just…just theatrical. It runs in the family. Her mother came from a long line of gypsies. In fact, the girl was a gypsy Princess.” She patted her tidy bun.
Although he’d never heard that one, that didn’t surprise him in the least. Tessa had grown up to be exotic and sexy as hell to him. Shooting her a mock horrified gaze, he exclaimed, “A gypsy! She’s going to be more than a handful for any man.”
A sly smile cracked through the softly wrinkled long face of the woman. “Are you saying you wouldn’t be able to control her? Is she too much of a woman for you to handle?”
Careful here, if I play my cards right I can have it all.
“Well now…”
“I bet you you can’t.” Triumph shone in her dark eyes. Her smile widened. “No Deveraux in the world could ever possibly rein in a Warfield. We’re too much for the likes of you.”
“Oh, really?” He arched a brow at her. His middle tighten in a knot at hearing the unspoken words, Warfields are better than Deverauxs.
“Yes, really.” She chuckled now.
Slowly, he dropped his foot back to the floor, and then shifted in the seat so now there w
as less than three feet separating them. “Okay, you’re on.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Whatever do you mean?”
“I’m taking you up on your bet.”
“Bet? What bet?”
Grinning, he said, “A second ago you said you’d bet me I can’t handle Tessa. Now I’m taking you up on it. Marriage. Six months.”
Stomping her foot, she said, “No, absolutely not.”
“Oh, so you just want us to live together. All right.”
Her gasp tore through the room. “There is no way I will ever allow Tessa to live with a man.”
“Okay, have it your way, marriage it is then.”
Chapter 6
In the dark, lonely dining room, Tessa clamped her eyes shut. A trickle of tears leaked out and she held back the sobs. Her chest ached with the effort. The heated exchange between her relative and enemy was branded in her soul. He pointed out her flaws with lethal precision, wounding her heart beyond repair. And her grandmother had been hard-pressed to defend all his accurate allegations.
Coming from such a strange mixed-up pair as her parents she’d always known she was different. Granny had called her unique, one of a kind. But she’d known deep down inside it would take a miracle for a man to love her. Now, she stopped denying that one particular nugget of unvarnished truth. Her only hope lie in having a baby to love.
She caught the tail end of Chance’s next words. “I’ll make you a deal, Mrs. W. You go along with this marriage and after six months you can have this town all to yourself.”
“What do you mean?” The hope in granny’s voice rose with each word.
“My grandmother’s talking of selling the house and moving near her friends in some retirement community. So, she’ll be gone before you know it. As for me, well, I can be persuaded never to come back here. That is unless you welsh on me. Then that’s a whole other story plus it will be spread all over that a Warfield didn’t keep her promise.”
Tessa’s middle clenched at the news. He’d barter for her using any means possible. No matter how it affected her or their as yet unborn child.
The older woman’s chortle said it all. The prize was too big to ignore. She’d be his wife. Her obstinate granny would rather give in for the short term than lose face to a Deveraux.
The ache in Tessa burrowed clear to her soul. And with the pain came the knowledge that this would be the first of many skirmishes between granny and Chance. She realized that she’d be pitted against each of them and in the end she’d suffer the most at their cunning games.
***
Tessa bent down, offering her customer the requested coffee. Over the noise of the hairdryer, she said loudly, “Here you go, Mrs. Cohen, with lots of sugar, just like you asked for.”
The square-faced, older woman in blue and green rollers, lifted up the front of the plastic bubble. Reaching out, she gingerly took the Styrofoam cup. “Thank you, dear. Before you go can you check the temperature? It’s cold in here.” She gave a little shiver for emphasis.
Craning her neck, Tessa read the dial, and then cringed. “Oops! Sorry about that.” She cranked the disc to high. “It’ll be much warmer in a jiffy, Mrs. C.”
Silently, Tessa berated herself for her goof. All morning long she’d either forgotten something or did it wrong. She was surprised no one had complained too much. But in the mirrored reflection off to her right she noticed her two best friends and business partners were eyeing her strangely once again as they styled their patrons’ hair.
She shrugged, thinking no one could be expected to be sane after spending half the night explaining the terms of the will to her grandmother and the other half tossing and turning.
“Never mind this morning,” she muttered, recalling how granny how shoved a slip of paper with a doctor’s name on it at her, saying there would absolutely not be a child born of this marriage. “Birth control. Geez!”
A war raged on deep inside her. She could do as told or follow her heart and do everything possible to conceive a child while she had the opportunity with Chance. And deep down she knew granny really wanted the promise of another baby in her life. Both granny and she needed one to love and heal their broken hearts.
At the jangle of the bell over the beauty salon door, she twisted around. The instant she saw him filling the door her breath stayed trapped in the back of her throat. Her heart thundered in her chest and the blood roared in her ears.
The murmur of voices all around her faded to an annoying buzz. Swallowing hard, she drank in the sight of him, studying Chance Deveraux from head to toe. In his black suit, pristine white shirt, black tie, and polished matching boots he looked as if he’d stepped out of GQ magazine. Never in her life had she seen him look so sophisticated.
His lazy-lidded stare and cocky smile sent shafts of awareness dancing in her blood, making her warm and tingly all over. She willed herself to breathe slowly and steadily instead of the short, quick pants she adopted since reuniting with him.
Dragging one foot in front of the other, she crossed the space of the blue and white four-chair salon. In the back of her mind she likened it to a magnet inexplicably drawing her to him. All the while he swept his gaze over her like a light caress. Her middle fluttered wildly.
Coming to a halt before him, his fresh outdoorsy after-shave tickled her nostrils. Something low and deep throbbed to life. She swallowed hard, and then asked, “What are you doing here?” It came out as a breathy accusation.
He chuckled. “It’s good to see you, too, sunshine.”
From behind her she heard movement, and then felt the warm supportive presence of her friends flanking her. “Tessa, what’s going on here?” Jewel asked in a stilted tone.
Turning to her left, she noticed the mutinous violet eyes snapping fire at Chance, her friend’s long, dark hair in disarray. “You remember Chance Deveraux, don’t you, Jewel? He grew up here and—” she stopped, not quite sure how to go on.
“And what?” Bree asked with a chill in her voice.
Whipping around to her right, Tessa faced the blonde and read the mistrust in her hazel eyes. Before she could answer, Chance broke in, nodding to her friends, and then talking to her, “I suppose these are the troops, right?”
Swiftly, she introduced the trio. “Jewel Marshall and Bree Carletti, this is…”
Again he rescued her. “Tessa’s fiancé.”
Their horrified gasps echoed in her ears. “Does your granny know about this?” Jewel demanded, her fingers gripping her arm tighter. “There’s no way she’d ever let you marry him, not a Deveraux.”
“I guess it’s pretty hard to keep a feud a secret.” Chance grinned cheekily, stealing what little breath Tessa had left in her lungs.
Suddenly, Bree and Jewel’s voices erupted around her. While linking arms with her in a protective manner, each fired a question at him.
“When in the world did this happen?” Bree asked.
“You can’t just waltz back into town and marry our Tessa. How do you intend to treat her? Support her?” Jewel demanded.
As they pelted him with more and more questions, Chance easily answered every one simply and confidently, leaving her to look on in bemusement.
While her friends engaged him in conversation Tessa took the opportunity to stare openly. Pain still clung to him, revealing itself in the depths of his eyes and the lines bracketing his mouth. The movement of his lips captured her attention. As if in a trance, she watched the way he uttered each word, how he’d easily break into a grin. An ache swept through her at the memory of kissing those lips.
When they’d exhausted their tirade, Tessa felt the quick withdrawal of both ladies. She bounced back down to reality. “That’s it, we’re calling your granny,” Jewel said, exasperation coloring her voice.
“Go right ahead,” Chance offered magnanimously. “She’s all for it…now.” Catching Tessa’s stare, he winked at her. “Isn’t that right, sunshine? Oh, she won’t be welcoming me with open arms any time soon, but s
he’s agreed to my terms.”
At that, a chill went down Tessa’s spine, recalling the barbed exchange from last night with her as the bone. He’d cleverly manipulated the situation to his advantage. Would he try the same sly maneuvers on her some day?
Bravely, she cleared her throat, straightened her spine, put her hands on her hips, and then faced him. “She may have, but I haven’t agreed to one darn thing, Chance Deveraux.”
Chapter 7
Chance stared at her as shock reverberated through his entire body. With her pretty peach-colored lips pressed together in a mutinous line, his heart sank. He threw his hands wide. “Tessa, you can’t be serious. I told you I’d give you a baby. What more do you want?”
“Is that what this is all about, Tessa, a baby?” Bree asked, clutching the black phone to her ear. With the other hand, she fingered the wisps of her short blonde hair.
The dark-haired one moved forward and confronted Tessa. Touching her arm lightly to gain her attention, Jewel asked, “Is it just because Bree and I told you we’re pregnant?”
It all made sense to Chance now, at least the part about the child. Envious of her friends, Tessa had gotten it into her head to follow their lead.
“For heaven’s sake, can’t I want my own baby without anyone giving me the idea to have one?” Turning back to him, she grabbed his hand and tugged him to follow her. “Come on, we need to talk. Alone,” she said the last in a loud, clear voice.
“I’m still calling your granny,” Bree warned as she began to punch in the numbers.
He went willingly out the door and into the frosty noontime air; he had to get this settled once and for all. The gray day matched his earlier mood at the funeral perfectly. His whole body seemed to be made up of one big ache. Granddad’s dead, Granddad’s dead.
He tried to banish the pain as he halted beside Tessa on the sidewalk. The wind blew just then, plastering her long flowing skirt to her legs. He caught his breath at the clearly defined shapely outline. Another ache, one of a different kind, swept through him.
Lies of the Heart (Heart Romance #3) Page 4
