by Jillian Hart
"Real fine!" Austin answered.
"Were you boys perfect gentleman?" their grandmother asked.
"Most of the time." Aiden shrugged.
"We're improving," Austin explained.
"We have Jada to impress," Aiden added.
"And that ain't easy." Austin blew out an exasperated sigh.
The older woman ambled forward through the glare of light. "That isn't Frisco holding the reins. Jada, is that you?"
"Yes. Hello, Mrs. Hayden. It's very nice to finally meet you." Jada felt far too aware of the woman's gaze on her, curious and questioning and wondering just what kind of girl she was, if she was good enough for her son.
Once, in a town far away, she would have been considered not to be. Thankful that Indiana and that heartbreak was behind her, that relationship that she'd mistaken for a good one at first, was over and done with and ancient history now. Glad her heart had healed enough to take this risk, she met Deena Hayden's eyes directly. "Frisco was conscripted by the sheriff, so I'm bringing his sons home to you for a bit."
"Is that so? I'm hardly surprised that he's busy with the sheriff. Don't think I didn't hear that explosion. Was it dynamite, boys?"
"And lots of it!" they chorused together, bounding down from the front seat and landing with heavy thuds, boots drumming up a loud rhythm on the hard-packed dirt.
Deena gave a delicate sniff. "What's that I smell? And is that some kind of a baby bird? Heavens to Betsy! I cannot believe my eyes. How many times did I ask you boys not to bring wildlife indoors?"
"You said a frog, Grandmama," Aiden reminded her, hopping to a stop on the top porch step in front of her. "This was entirely accidental."
"An honest accident."
"Hmm, I'm not sure I believe you boys at all." Deena arched one questioning eyebrow, full of suspicion. "What do you think, Jada?"
"I am breathless to hear the story, or they should be soundly punished." She gave a soft roll of laughter, and Deena saw her mettle at once.
She firmed her chin, refusing to be taken in by a beauty and her keen observation and obvious like of the boys. But, then, a woman with gold-digging on her mind might want to feign liking the twins. There have been others who had tried and never caught her son's eye. She didn't want a woman hurting Frisco, not ever again. She narrowed her gaze at the shy, slender woman, nothing but a shadow sitting straight and pretty and proper on Frisco's buckboard seat, reins in hand, light but competently.
Don't like her, Deena, she told herself. Be tough, be firm, don't let her in. She schooled her face not to show a single friendly or welcoming expression, but she couldn't help feeling gentle toward the other woman. Maybe that was a sign of things to come. "Let me see the little creature. Is he wounded?"
"No, he seems to be okay." Austin held out the bundle for his grandmother to inspect.
"He fell out of the nest," Aiden explained.
"Again," Austin added.
"Right before Pa had us get into the buckboard. What were we gonna do? We'd already climbed up to put him back. We didn't have time!"
"So I put him under my hat for safekeeping."
"Yeah, pockets never work."
Deena's eyes sparkled with amusement. "So, the hat worked best, did it?"
"Yep! We hardly got into any trouble at all," Aiden confessed excitedly.
"Not until the very end," Austin added.
Jada set down the reins, aware of the older woman's gaze on her from the porch, despite the dark and distance. As she hopped down to the ground, Deena's forehead furrowed, her eyes squinting even more narrower while she watched. "What did you think of all this?"
"Great fun. The best time I've had since my sisters and I were young and we accidentally let a raccoon in the house and couldn't begin to tell Ma that it wasn't Pa let lose in the pantry again. Ma tried to chase him out with a broom, but Pa's solution was better. He put a tumbler of whisky on the doorstep and the raccoon waddled out, two-handed the glass and drank it. With a burp, he wandered off intoxicated. After that, we couldn't get rid of him. He had penchant for glass tumblers."
"I know of your father, and I'm not surprised." Deena lifted her nose in the air, as if far too fine to accept such a funny story from the likes of her.
Well, Frisco would have liked it, Jada thought. She gave the horse to her a light pat on the neck, thankful for his cooperation in seeing the boys home, lifted her skirts and took a careful step in the grass too bright to see. "I am very charmed by your grandsons. They were perfect gentleman tonight, and it was a pleasure to be in their esteemed company. I'd like to wish you good night and see myself home."
"No!" Aiden spun around, eyes wide with concern. "It's a man's duty to escort a lady home."
"We'll drive," Austin nodded decisively.
"No, you won't!" Deena grabbed both boys by the backs of their coat collars. "You are far too young to drive. You boys are outrageous. In the house with you, and take the pelican with you."
"Falcon," the twins corrected. Aiden turned around. "What about Jada?"
"Yeah, what about her?"
"I'm fine seeing myself home, but thank you for your concern and please thank your father for a wonderful evening. Mrs Hayden, very nice to have met you." Jada, relieved to be retreating in the long low rays of bright, blinking in the glare, startled when a man's shadow emerged from the house next door, the wrong height for it to be Frisco, too heavy-set to be the cowboy who'd charmed her so completely, and cleared his throat.
"I can see you safely to your shop, Miss Shepherd." Tristan Haywood sounding wealthy and pure Manhattan, New York State, led his horse and buggy along the road into the reach of the sunlight. He offered her a valiant but distant grin. "I know your sister must be worried about you and would not want to let you walk through these streets alone. We have outlaws in this town, as you probably heard. That explosion rattled my cousin's windowpanes."
"It was amazing," Aiden announced with wide-eyed wonder.
"I wish we could have seen it blow," Austin added with equal awe.
"Heaven forbid!" Deena chuckled, tugging the boys by their collars toward the open door, where her husband now stood, nodded in greeting to the Pratt's grown and quite impressive relative and then at Jada, well, not quite at Jada, but more like over her right shoulder. Relief softened the tough, distinguished older man's expression, and with another nod held the door for his wife and sons and closed it without another word or gesture.
She felt his nearness like a hot wind against her back, blowing straight through her, affecting every inch of her. If she closed her eyes she could feel him moving closer, drawing the oxygen out of the air and the scars right out of her heart.
Frisco.
22
"Tristan." Frisco frowned, his face dark, and padded into sight like a powerful hunter. Or predator. Hands fisted at his sides, gun strapped to his right thigh, emanating power even in the blinding light. Sun rays brushed him, painting the hard, perfect lines of him in pewter and shadow. "Good to see you, and I appreciate your offer, but I'll see her home if that's all right with you."
"As you wish, my friend." Tristan tipped his hat. "Guess I'll be moseying back to my place in town, and good night to you all."
Jada watched Frisco's frown deepen as the wealthy East Coast man climbed into his buggy and nosed his horse into the road. The long shadows engulfed him and he disappeared from their sight, the faint rattle and roll of the buggy wheels growing quieter with distance until the rugged cowboy, so fine, turned to her.
"Tristan." A muscle jumped along his jaw and he shifted his weight from his left foot to his right, hands still fisted. "I heard he has been to your shop before. I heard he might stay longer in town."
"I wouldn't know, but I'm not surprised," Jada confirmed. "Tristan has been helpful in softening Miss Pratt's hard stance and opinion of us, just like you. He's good at his family business, I suspect."
"True. It's a nice night, and warmer. Not too cool for a ride back to your shop."
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br /> "I would rather walk, if you don't mind. We can take the short cut."
"All right. Sounds fine to me. Walk with me." Affection rang in the low tones of his voice and shone in his eyes when they fastened on hers.
The deepest part of her heart sighed. Then smiled. Why, it was as if the deepest part of his smiled too as he fell in stride alongside her, taking her breath away.
"Well, tonight didn't go according to my plan." Frisco cut his gaze sideways and as he took another step, glanced over his shoulder to check on the horse he'd left in his parent's yard, he saw his father petting the gelding on the nose and his heart squeezed tight. He fought down an impending fear of disaster. He could almost sense it. His boys had been extra well-behaved tonight, unprecedented for them, eager to help him with Jada.
Jada. She was about perfect in absolutely every way.
"Nothing really ever goes according to plan." Her words were warm, full of held-back laughter. "And I'm glad it didn't. The boys behaved so well, but I was not surprised. All your dire warnings were for nothing but the slightest problem with the bird, and the high point for me was when you looked at me and I forgot anyone else was in the room. You're more captivating than you might think."
"I'm glad that's your opinion. If you knew me better, you'd never say such a thing."
"Not true, I don't think I would change my mind one bit," Jada assured him.
"The truth is, I'm out of my depth. If Janice and I had had daughters, I would be a more respected man today. With little girls, they would have had quiet. I would have had twins who loved to sit and sew, or perhaps to learn to read books. I would have had females who did well in school and did not bring amphibians and winged creatures with them wherever we went."
"Or to the dining room."
"And folks would compliment me on the children instead of criticize, offer advise or, in the case of one neighbor, beat me with her purse."
"Ouch. No worries about me. I had a great time tonight and I was very entertained and amused by your sons. And any child who takes care to look after a fallen and lonely animal, who cares for creatures great and small, has a good heart and is tops in my opinion."
"I'm glad to hear that. You see what matters."
"I try. I believe that if you look for the extraordinary in the ordinary, you find what matters everywhere, precious life, precious love and time to spend with them."
That only made him care more.
"That's what I believe, too. That's the best happiness there is," he said.
The townscape and countryside stretched out all around them as the last light of the sun set, leaving dark mystery and platinum brush-strokes and shadows. Starlight sheened across the darkening stretch of sky and night, twinkling jewels of hope, but to him nothing could out sparkle her smile.
"I know another kind of happiness." His voice held a note of mystery.
"What other kind of happiness could there be?" she asked, and her heart started pounding wildly as he set down the food package he carried, leaned in closer and closer still.
When he kissed her, it was pure feeling, pure heart-felt desire. Her eyelids drifted shut at the tender, heated, intoxicating brush of his lips to hers. Drowning, she was breathless and going under, completely gone, at the fiery hot, lava-thick zing of need and physical want she felt for him, wrapped up in sweet affection.
Oh, yes, she was falling for this man and had no way to stop it. So she kissed him back, savoring the heated steel-velvet of his lips, the dizzying drunkenness of his mouth stroking hers and, just for a moment, playfully and gently sucking on her bottom lip. Ah, such sensation. Her thighs trembled, and fire fisted low in her belly, and she recognized the rhythm, the beat of desire, of want and need and hunger. Wisely, she gently pulled back before she wanted to go farther, go too far, and they were both smiling.
Dreams seemed to fill the air, glittering like the mysterious stars, but what a forward, bold and brazen man! She arched an eyebrow at him. "What if someone was watching?"
"Watching what?"
"What you just did to me."
"I didn't do nothing, not a thing." His words came warm, wrapped up in good humor and caring, and his baritone rumbled deep, as if from one soulmate to another.
I'm not falling for that. Her chin went up, she squared her shoulders and steeled her spine and took the first step that would make him follow her into the brush of moonlight tumbling between buildings. "Don't think that I like you more now."
"I don't. It never occurred to me."
"Good, because I am no loose woman."
"It never crossed my mind." Humor and something more like mischief drew her like whiskey, made her blood beat with a rhythm and want she'd be wise to turn away from and ignore.
"You're trouble, you know that, right?" She cut her gaze to him, and when their eyes met, suddenly, unstoppably, her heart opened up. An intense, emotional closeness to him burst to life within her. That closeness, that connection, hooked hard and deep, tying her heart to his.
And there was no escape.
It was frightening and exhilarating all at once. The best things in life always are.
I'm not falling for you, she thought. Not after tonight, because if I do, then there's no way out. What if only heartache was the outcome?
And how on earth do I stop this building sexual attraction to the man? She didn't want to admit it, even to herself, but she missed the marriage bed. Very much. If only Roland had been faithful. Then again, she hadn't been picky, she'd simply been an easy target.
What she couldn't be was easy for Frisco and that way she'd find out if he meant what he said, or if he thought she would be charmed by him breaking with propriety and good well-bred manners.
"A woman doesn't allow a man to kiss her until after he's proposed." She watched him wince.
"I know I should apologize, but that wouldn't be honest. There was nothing to be sorry about in that kiss. You are like sugarplums on Christmas morning."
"Heaps of flattery won't erase the kiss either."
"A man's gotta try."
"Try and fail?"
"Oh, I rather thought it a success." He winked. "You're a great kisser, Jada."
"You are quite a refined one, I must say. but I would hate to ply you with too much praise and flattery because the compliments, true though they may be, will only inflate your ego and the last thing you need is a big head."
"Too late. You're too attractive."
"What? I don't dare look down. I'm afraid to look anywhere."
"It's okay, my jacket hides it. Just pretend the bulge is another gun."
"I can't believe you said that. And right here in the open. Even if no one else is around, sound travels. Someone could have their window open somewhere nearby and hear the whole thing. And then they'll know my reputation is jaded and you're the reckless man who did it."
"And my reputation is bad enough as it is. I'll never get anyone to marry me now."
"Stop!" You're teasing. A man's reputation is different from a woman's. Let me tell you, I speak from experience, and a woman cannot dare let the tip of her little toe slip across the line of inappropriately even if she is doing everything right, all it takes is one bad word, one lie, one misunderstood word, and the world ends. A man can get some mileage out of being not perfect, but a little big and bad. Am I right?"
"I get some milage now and again, but then again, I'm do belong to the sheriff's posse. I'm a dead aim, but I don't think that's the kind of reputation you're talking about. I've never kissed a woman since the boys and I were on own own. Not one woman all that time, and once, I thought about it, but she didn't like my sons."
"Are you suggesting that this is my fault?"
"Absolutely. This whole kiss, this whole debacle was inspired by your beauty."
"Oh, so that's the way you're going to play this, huh?"
"I see that laughter in your eyes, I see that big, beautiful grin, and oh, I have a weakness for a woman with a dimple. Just one."
&
nbsp; "You're doing it again. Using compliments to change the subject. You don't want to get into trouble with me, huh?"
"Exactly. You can't tell me how unhappy you are with my kissing you, with my bold, brash behavior, if I keep you talking about something else."
"That's the worst strategy to stay out of getting into trouble that I've ever heard of."
"Well, my boys get it from somewhere." He waggled his brows. "And there is one other way to distract you from speaking with your mouth."
"What? What are you suggesting?"
"It's always best to keep a lady's mouth busy." His words were warm with humor and curled around her heart.
He grabbed her by the hand and tugged, bringing her in neatly against his chest where he wrapped his arms around her, so help him, he could not stop the inevitable, the push, thumping, thudding, the blinding need to feel her lips on his again.
More, he wanted much more, and so he did not be shy about the hard ridge in his trousers that she surely felt, for it was nestled just right against the soft, barely noticeable curve of her belly as he pressed the soft length of her feminine body against his. Hot need thumped and thudded in his pelvis, hard enough to rock him back on his heels. The soft V of her thighs, invitation enough, settled against him as did the soft round hot pillows of her breasts.
Excitement thrilled through her, heart hammering wildly. He leaned in, but this time she was ready, hands curling into the fabric of his jacket's shoulders, holding on because her knees were buckling like jelly. This was no tender kiss, and she read it in his eyes before he leaned in and let his eyelids drift shut. How hard her heart started pounding!
Oh, she could let this man undo her, let him satisfy her in the way a man did to his chosen mate in bed. When his mouth claimed hers, not shy this time, not pure feeling, but hungry. Bold. Breathing her in as if she were vital to his existence or he could not make it through the night without her, without melting and pressing and pushing into her, rocking until he made her come in hot, wet waves of pure bliss and sexual release.
