“Seth. Any possible gossip about you and me is not a problem for me, I promise you.”
“Do you want me to pay rent, then?” Muscles bulged and knotted as he lifted an arm to rub the back of his big neck. “Because I’m happy to pay rent. In fact, I’ve been thinking I really should contribute. How about six hundred a month? Would that be enough?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you’re not paying me rent. You buy most of the food. You take care of the baby. You cook. You clean.” She flopped back in her chair and folded her arms across her stomach. “Oh, Seth. Rent? Excuse me? Uh-uh. No way.”
He got up, got the coffeepot and poured himself another cup. She watched him and tried not to think about how much she would miss him when he was gone, miss these ordinary moments—having breakfast together, watching him get up for more coffee, admiring the way he filled out his uniform both going and coming.
Yeah, okay. So what if she was perving on him? She might have sworn off sex and men, but there was no law against enjoying the view.
He sat back down. “All right. You like having me here. I make things easier for you, and you and I get along. You’ve refused my offer of rent and you say you’re not worried about what people might say. So then, if none of those things are a problem for you, why do you want me to go back to the ranch?”
She gave up and admitted the truth. “I don’t.”
He got that look men too often get when confronted with the workings of a woman’s mind. “Then, Jody, why are we talking about this?”
“Because... I don’t know. I feel that I’m taking advantage of you.”
“You’re not. Can we consider this subject closed? Please.”
“But...don’t you want, you know, your freedom? Your independence? You’re a single guy, and you ought to be enjoying yourself.”
“Enjoying myself doing what, exactly?”
“I don’t know. Playing poker with the guys? Going out with superhot women? Staying up all night?”
The corner of his stern mouth twitched. For Seth, the slight shift in expression was almost a grin. “I can stay up all night here. And I do. Whenever Marybeth won’t go to sleep.”
“Oh, you are just hilarious,” she said with a sneer.
He knocked back a big slug of coffee and set the cup down harder than he needed to. “Look. Poker, sex with strange women and staying up all night have never been things that held much appeal for me. I’m a family guy, but my chance for getting married and having kids...well, that didn’t work out for me.”
“Hold on. Didn’t work out? What does that mean?”
He rubbed the back of his neck again. “There was someone, once. Her name was Irene Vargas. She died.”
When had that happened? She’d never heard a thing about it. “Here in Justice Creek?”
“No. Before. Years ago. In Chicago. I went to college there, and then I went to work for Chicago PD.”
“Wait. You fell in love in Chicago and she died?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, Seth.” What was it about him? He was so straight-up, so serious, so emotionally guarded. He wouldn’t give his heart easily. That he’d loved someone and lost her—that would have cut him so deep. “I don’t know what to say.”
He made a gruff, throat-clearing sound. “There’s nothing to say.”
Oh, yes, there was. She wanted to know about it—about Irene, his lost love. All the details. Everything. But he was wearing his blank-eyed, watchful, lawman stare, and she knew he’d already revealed more than he wanted to. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from suggesting, “I just meant, how are you going to find someone else if you’re hanging around here all the time?”
“I’m not looking for anyone else.”
“But—”
“Look, Jody. You’re on your own and so am I. We get along and we both love Marybeth. I would rather be here than anywhere else. If you don’t mind me being here, would you please not tell me that I should go?”
Okay, she got the message. He really wanted to be here. And she liked having him here. Win/win. Right?
Too bad warning bells had started ringing in the back of her brain. Because she liked having him here a little too much, now, didn’t she? He was kind and smart—and funny in his dry, serious way. He took really good care of her daughter and of her. Add to all that the undeniable fact that he looked way too good in his uniform...
If she let him keep staying here, who knew what unacceptable emotions might creep up on her? He could be dangerous to her, to her heart that had already been broken and broken again, thank you very much.
And yet...
He loved her daughter, and he was a rock, right there when she needed him. She owed him for all the ways he’d come through for her since the night Marybeth was born.
At this point, she just couldn’t bring herself to insist that he go. “All right, then, Seth. You’re welcome to stay. We’ll just take it day by day. If one of us starts to feel differently about this arrangement, we’ll reevaluate. How’s that?”
His hint of a smile went full out, and her silly heart did a somersault in the cage of her chest. “Thanks, Jody. You’ve made me a happy man.”
Chapter Six
All that day and into the evening Jody couldn’t stop asking herself, Am I falling for Seth?
Uh-uh. No way.
It was only that he’d turned out to somehow be the perfect man for her at this point in her life. All hot and hunky—and his idea of a great time was changing diapers and sleeping on her blow-up bed.
Was that even normal?
The guy really needed to get out more.
And seriously. Given the circumstances, of course he would start to seem like the guy for her. He adored her child, treated Jody like a queen and lived in her house with her, ensuring that she got an eyeful of his broad chest and fine butt day in and day out.
No, she decided late that night as she sat in her nursing chair with Marybeth in her arms. She wasn’t falling for Seth. She was just grateful to him. Grateful and appreciative of his many wonderful qualities.
As any woman in her position would be.
* * *
The fourth Tuesday in May, Jody packed up Marybeth and all her baby gear and drove to Bloom at nine thirty in the morning. Marybeth behaved like an angel that day, so Jody stayed on past her usual few hours. Customer traffic was high for a Tuesday, with steady sales all morning and into the afternoon.
At four, Marybeth cooed from her carrier on the design counter as Jody filled a large Murano glass vase with purple irises and red tulips for a regular customer.
Marlie, at the register ringing up a sale, looked up when the entry bell chimed. “I’ll be right with you...”
“No hurry,” said the customer. She was probably around Jody’s age, slim and attractive, with gorgeous, long ash-blond hair. She spotted Jody right away. They shared a smile, and the woman wandered over to the design counter.
“What a darling baby,” she said. As if on cue, Marybeth cooed and waved her tiny hands.
Jody chuckled. “She can be an angel, absolutely. You have kids?”
“No.” The blonde looked kind of wistful. “Still single, no babies.” And then she asked much too casually, “Are you Jody?”
Jody clipped the stem of a tulip at a slant and tucked it into the arrangement. “That’s me.”
“I’m Adriana Welch. I moved to town from Colorado Springs a couple of years ago.”
“Welcome to Bloom, Adriana. What can I help you with?”
“Well, I’m just...having a look around—and this little beauty is Marybeth, right?”
By then Jody had zero doubt that Adriana was after more than a bouquet of flowers. She stuck another tulip in the vase. “How did you know my baby’s name?”
Spots of color flamed on Adriana’s smooth cheeks. “Well, I know Seth. I met him a few months ago, right after they opened the justice center here in town. I went into the sheriff’s office to take care of an overdue speeding ticket, and there he was. He’s such a great guy. So steady and kindhearted, with that dry sense of humor...”
So. A card-carrying member of the Seth Yancy fan club. Jody should have guessed. “Did you make the key lime pie? Amazing. Or the double-chocolate cake? Unbelievable. Or wait. How about those deep-dish oatmeal chocolate bars? I have to tell you, at this rate I’ll never lose the baby weight.”
“I made the cake,” Adriana confessed.
Jody groaned just thinking about that cake. “So good. I’ll have you know you caused an orgasm in my mouth.”
Adriana laughed. “Well, that is the goal.” And then she raised a hand and wiggled her fingers. “Sheriff Yancy fangirl—I’ll just go ahead and admit it.”
Jody felt a little stab of annoyance at this pretty woman who baked a killer chocolate cake and also appeared to be a very nice person. Was it jealousy?
Absolutely not. Jody refused to be jealous of someone just because that someone had a crush on Seth. That would make no sense at all.
Well, not unless Jody wanted Seth for herself.
And she’d already come to the firm conclusion that she did not. The entry bell chimed again. A customer left with the arrangement Marlie had just rung up. Three women came in. Marlie went to help them. Adriana leaned closer and pitched her voice lower. “I know I’m being kind of pushy, but I really have to ask...”
Jody added another iris to the vase. “Go ahead.”
“Well, Seth makes no secret of how much your baby means to him. He has pictures of her on his phone, and he’s been showing them off.” Jody wasn’t surprised. He’d been snapping photos all weekend: Marybeth on her play mat, Marybeth in her bouncy chair, Marybeth in her newborn-size purple plastic bathtub. In the bathtub shot, he’d sworn she was smiling. Jody hadn’t had the heart to tell him it was probably just gas.
“Yeah.” Jody cut a generous length of cobalt blue grosgrain ribbon. “He loves his girl, no doubt about that.”
“But is he...?” Adriana paused, apparently in search of just the right words. “I heard he’s been staying at your house to help out since the birth?”
Jody nodded as she wrapped the ribbon around the neck of the vase. “He’s been terrific. I don’t know how I would have managed without him.”
“But, um, are you two a couple—and, God, I hope it’s not too tacky of me to ask?”
Jody tied the bow and fluffed it. “No. It is not the least tacky.” Did she sound sincere? She hoped so. Because it wasn’t tacky. It was up-front and honest. Not to mention brave. “And Seth and I are not a couple. He’s just doing what he can for Nick’s daughter.”
“He’s such a good man.” Adriana said it with feeling.
“Oh, yeah.” Not jealous. Uh-uh. No way. “The best.”
“And I ask because, well, you know, Library Celebration Day is Saturday.”
“That’s right.” Between having a baby and running her business at the same time, Jody had forgotten all about the event. “It’s an all-day thing in Library Park, right?”
“Right. And in the afternoon, the library association is running a bachelor auction. Several local single guys have volunteered to go on the block, including Seth.”
No way did that sound like something Seth would agree to. “If you win, what do you get?”
“A date with the bachelor you outbid everyone else for—and I think I heard your brother Garrett got roped into being auctioned off, too.” Garrett was second-oldest of Jody’s three full brothers and the only one currently unattached.
And Seth’s involvement in such a non-Seth-like activity was starting to make sense now. “Roped into it, huh?”
“Pretty much. Have you met the president of the library association? Nobody says no to Caroline Carruthers.”
Jody knew Caroline. And Adriana was right about her. “So, bottom line, Seth is on the bachelor auction block Saturday, and you want to bid on him?”
Adriana blushed and beamed. “Oh, yes, I do. And I’m not the only one who’d like to win a night out with Seth—I mean, as long as he’s not taken.”
Jody had a totally contrary urge to put on her meanest face and order the blonde to back off. But that wouldn’t be right. Seth was not hers and never would be.
“Jody?” Adriana prompted hopefully.
And Jody made herself say it. “He’s not taken.”
“But are you sure?” Adriana didn’t look convinced.
“Seth Yancy is a free man,” Jody insisted with a firm nod. “Go for it. And good luck.”
* * *
That night at six thirty, Seth used the key Jody had given him to let himself in. The house smelled of something good for dinner. It was great to be home.
Not home. Jody’s house, he sternly corrected himself.
He was kind of having trouble lately remembering that he didn’t actually live here, that he was only staying temporarily, until Jody decided it was time for him to go.
He hoped she’d let him stay on indefinitely, but he knew that eventually she would want her privacy and the use of her spare room again. She would send him back to the ranch where the Califanos had everything under control and he had the main house all to himself.
Seth loved that old house. Yancys had been born and raised in it for four generations. But with only him living there, the place echoed with emptiness.
Unlike Jody’s house, which smelled like dinner and made a man feel welcome, made him feel as though he was part of a family, after all. And he was. Marybeth was his family. Jody, too, when you came right down to it. She and Marybeth were a package, and he was just fine with that.
“I’ve got stew ready in the Crock-Pot. Hungry?” she asked when he entered the kitchen and went straight to the sink to wash his hands.
“Yeah. Smells good.”
She’d already set the kitchen table. He got himself a beer, and they sat down.
“I talked to my dad today,” he said as he smoothed his napkin on his lap and reached for his fork. “He wants to fly out for a visit the first week of June. He can’t wait to see Marybeth.”
“First week of June would be great.”
“He would stay at the ranch. But he’s pretty excited about being a grandpa, so you’d better expect to have him underfoot a lot around here.”
“I’m looking forward to getting to know him.”
“Good, then. I’ll tell him.”
They both got to work on the stew. Seth was just getting that prickly feeling under his skin that she had something on her mind when she said, “Adriana Welch stopped by Bloom to see me today.”
He swallowed the hunk of meat he’d just stuck in his mouth. It went down hard. He had no idea why he felt suddenly on edge. Yes, Adriana was one of his supposed fan club, but what could she possibly say to Jody that could get him in trouble? “She’s a nice woman, Adriana.”
“Yes, I thought so, too...”
That. Right there. The way her voice trailed off at the end. What did that mean, exactly?
He asked with great caution, “And she came by to see you, why?”
Jody sipped her ice water and set the glass down just so. “She and several other women plan to bid on you at the bachelor auction Saturday.”
The bachelor auction. A raw litany of bad words scrolled through his brain. He’d been trying not even to think about Saturday. It was coming up way too fast.
Jody added, “Adriana wanted to check with me first, though, to make sure you’re not taken.”
“Taken,” he repeated blankly. And then he said it again, this time as a question. “Taken?”
“Well, Seth. You’ve been living in my house for weeks. It’s natural that your admirers would start to wonder if you and I are doing more together than looking after the baby.”
Seth drank some beer—a big gulp of it, as a matter of fact. “I hope you set her straight,” he said. And then as soon as the words were out, he wanted to snatch them back. Because he honestly wouldn’t mind in the least if people thought he and Jody were together.
If he and Jody were together, he would never have to go back to living alone. He could be with her and Marybeth, have a permanent place with them. Every day that passed, he wanted that more.
“I told her not to worry, that you definitely weren’t taken.”
“You encouraged her.” It came out sounding like an accusation—which he supposed it was.
“Yes, I did. It’s the truth. You’re not taken. And besides, you want women bidding on you, the higher the better.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, you should. It’s for a good cause.”
“I don’t like it, Jody. I never liked it. That Carruthers woman just wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“Seth. Come on. It’ll be fun.”
“No, it won’t.”
She made a low, teasing sound in her throat. “You know what you sound like?”
“Don’t tell me.”
But of course, she did. “An overgrown baby. Pull up your big-boy pants and stop with the tantrum.”
He gave her the kind of look he usually reserved for repeat offenders. “I am a grown man. Grown men do not have tantrums.” She just shook her head and ate more stew. And he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Will you be there?”
She frowned. “For the auction? I wasn’t planning to, no.”
He wanted that, he realized. He wanted her there. A lot. “It’s a whole-day thing. With booths, games, food, music. The auction is from two to four. You could bring Marybeth. You’ll have a great time.”
Her mouth was twitching. He failed to see what was so all-fired amusing. “Seth, the last thing I need is to bid on a bachelor—and you’d better not be working up to asking me to bid on you.”
The Lawman's Convenient Bride Page 8
