Frisco Joe's Fiancee (9 page)

“So run this thing about the big-haired beauty queens across the street by me one more time. The…what’d you call them? The Snip-n-Snarls? Brush-n-Babes?”

Frisco’s voice in the dark startled Annabelle. She’d come in to sneak Emmie out of Frisco’s room. “I’m skipping storytime right now, Frisco. Go back to sleep.”

“I just want to know what makes your customers desert Ms. Delilah.”

Annabelle reached inside the bathroom and flipped on the light before closing the door. Just a crack of illumination shone into the dark bedroom. “We’ve long wondered ourselves. Delilah and her stylists are very good with hair, and the customers seem satisfied—until they find out about the shop across the street. One try over there, and the men never come back to us.” Including Tom, but that fact was redundant, no need to mention it again.
“They attend church with nicks out of their hair, though, and it’s easy to tell where they were Saturday night. It’s almost like a visual roll call.” She lowered her voice. “To be honest, I’m not certain all those Cut-n-Gurls have beauty-school training. Delilah says she doesn’t know when Marvella would have gone to school.” She shrugged. “Of course, there’s not so much to cutting a man’s hair, I suppose. Their tool of choice appears to be clippers. You’ll notice the men who frequent their salon tend to sport short, uneven silhouettes, which has always reminded me of a golf course with divots missing here and there.”

“There has to be something you’re not telling me. And since I can’t sleep, I’m in the mood for a story.”

She was pretty tired. The men and women had all returned from sandbagging, sweeping out water, and whatever other duties they’d been assigned. She’d cooked dinner, had it hot and ready—a recipe from an old file she’d found in the kitchen—and fed what seemed like an army of people. Chicken soup, a monster-sized bowl of green salad, and King Ranch casserole. She’d given herself an A for Edibility, but it had meant a lot of clean-up time in the kitchen. Everyone was gone now, except for Laredo and Tex, who’d showered and gone to bed in their own rooms. Right now, she could fall asleep on the floor.

“I can’t tell you a story because I have to get
some sleep. But I’ll give you a bit of gossip I’ve mulled many times since I heard it. Supposedly—and this is just gossip, I certainly don’t know for sure—on the wall of their salon is written in big, sparkly gold letters: Save a horse, ride a cowboy.”

“I can see where that might be appealing.”

“Frisco!”

He chuckled. “I’ve been needing a haircut for a while now—”

“Frisco, I think I’d consider that desertion at the minimum and disregarding my confidences at the maximum. Now I’m going to bed.” He wasn’t supposed to have been amused, and he darn sure wasn’t supposed to be interested!

“Come on. I was only playing.”

“Playing dumb?” How could he joke after what she’d told him about Tom?

“Trying to keep you in here a while longer.”

“Not like that, you aren’t. Friends understand where the line shouldn’t be crossed.”

“I guess I didn’t realize we were friends, Annabelle. I’m happy to hear you say that.”

“I have to help you to the bathroom, don’t I? Surely assisting you makes us more than acquaintances.”

“You’re real antsy about that salon, aren’t you?”

She rolled her eyes in the dark. “To say the least, especially for Delilah’s sake. Anyway, how do you
think you’d feel, if someone made a joke about someone you’d once cared about?”

He thought about Laredo teasing him about Annabelle. “I’d probably want to squish his head.”

“Lie real still so I can use your brand of revenge on you.”

“I wouldn’t really be interested in a woman who compared riding me to riding a horse.”

Her brows shot up; she could feel her face pink. She and Tom had made love once. It had been nothing like riding a horse. In fact, it had been more like…riding her first bike. One second she’d been on; the next second she’d tumbled to the ground.

“Annabelle, have you noticed how much this baby’s been sleeping?”

His soft voice shifted her away from her disheartening thoughts. “She’s obviously joining you in your lazy habits.”

“Hmm. Maybe she’s decided to give me a second chance.”

“To do what?” Ever since Frisco had held Emmie, she’d been charmed into sleeping better.

“To get to know her.”

“Frisco, my daughter is innocent. I no longer am. And I really don’t want to get to know you, if that’s what you’re implying. You’re a big, ornery male. I want peace and quiet in my life. I will never get that with you.”

“No, you won’t. I readily admit that.”

They were both quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Might as well lie down on the opposite side of the bed, Annabelle. There’s plenty of room. I promise not to even breathe on you.”

She was so tired. The alternative was finding another bed somewhere in the house, and frankly, she didn’t want to root through bedrooms in case she opened a door where one of the other brothers was sleeping. She wasn’t even certain there was another bedroom.

“I snore,” she told him.

“That will be annoying. I’ll toss this blanket over your head. The one you used on me.”

She giggled and edged cautiously to the side of the bed. “You should have seen your face.”

“You should have seen yours. You looked like you’d never seen a man in that condition before.”

Her smile melted away. She hadn’t—at least not like Frisco. But she wasn’t going to tell this irritating cowboy that. He was cocky and conceited, and she’d be embarrassed. Besides, that was all more private than she cared to share. “Shut up, Frisco,” she said, instead. “If I’m sleeping in here with you for the sake of convenience, you have to be quiet. You’re going to wake Emmie.”

“She’s used to my voice by now. She doesn’t even stir until she wants a bottle or a diaper change.”

Annabelle sighed to herself and slid into bed with
her dress on, but decided that was uncomfortable. The little bit of light was necessary, but it left her having to sleep with her eyelet dress on. Dare she slip it off and doze in her underthings?

No.
“Is the light bothering you?” she asked.

“I’d rather it be dark, but I didn’t want to suggest it. You’re awfully tense about us sharing a bed.”

“I’m tense about you in general,” she said, getting up to flip off the light. “Goodness knows, I can’t imagine why I feel that way.”

“I can’t, either,” he agreed, way too cheerfully for her liking.

“Good
night,
Frisco,” she stressed so he’d cease his teasing.

“Good night, Annabelle.”

She sighed as she hit the pillow. For a moment, she wondered if she would really be able to sleep in the same bed with Frisco, but in a way, she felt oddly comforted with him in the same room.

Even in the same bed.

“Dinner was good, Annabelle,” he said, sounding sleepy.

“Thank you.” She felt warmed by his praise. Okay, maybe he wasn’t all that bad. Cranky, sure. The truth was, she didn’t know what kind of man she could trust anymore. Tom had been all blond hair and blue eyes come-on, and she’d desperately needed that at the time. Her world had turned dark after her father died, and there was Tom, light and
airy and interested. She had fallen like a sack of potatoes from a truck.

It would be textbook cliché now to turn around and fall for Tom’s total opposite. If she’d figured nothing else out about herself, it was that she was still grieving, still running—and sooner or later, a girl had to slow down.

“Annabelle?” Frisco said.

“Yes?”

“You sure are the prettiest housekeeper we’ve ever had.”

“I wasn’t aware you’d had any before.”

“I want you to focus on the compliment and not the comment.”

Her eyes snapped open in the dark. A shiver ran over her. Was he making a pass at her? Surely not. Certainly he seemed to like Emmie, but more often than not, he seemed out of sorts around Annabelle. “Um, thank you,” she murmured uncertainly.

“Annabelle?”

“Yes?”

“I’ve been wanting to kiss you ever since I first laid eyes on you. I wouldn’t, of course. But I did think about it.”

Her breath caught for an instant. And then she dove in wearing only courage. “I’ve thought about kissing you, too,” she whispered. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

To her surprise, Frisco rolled over to face her. She
couldn’t see him, but she knew he was close to her face. He smelled good, and his nearness touched her skin with warmth. Instantly, she wanted to get closer to him, pull him to her.

When he brushed her hair away from her face, she sighed with longing.

“I shouldn’t, Annabelle,” he murmured. “It would be ungentlemanly to take advantage of you.”

She thought she’d already had a man take advantage of her—and it hadn’t felt like this. Just Frisco’s voice made her shiver inside. She wanted him to touch her.

And then he did, with his lips. First, brushing against her forehead, and then along her cheeks. Then her eyelids. Annabelle’s insides seemed to contract, as if her inner soul knew exactly what it wanted from him. In spite of his size and his gruff exterior, Frisco was soft and gentle and not scary at all.

His lips touched hers suddenly, and Annabelle realized he’d been going slowly with her, gentling her. His patience made her relax so that she melted against him.

Frisco felt Annabelle give into him. It was a surrender.

He hadn’t expected it. She was so delicate and ethereal, like mythical magical moonflies beating their wings at night. He wanted desperately to catch her, to hold her, to rub her magic all over him.

Caught off-guard, his whole body afire, Frisco forced himself to pull away.

“Good night, Annabelle,” he said hoarsely.

I
N THE NIGHT
, the sandbags held back the water. Though the temperature struggled up above the freezing mark, the ice stayed on the roads.

“I’m hauling the ladies into town. They’re going to do some mopping and other things,” Jerry told Annabelle. “Will you be all right here? Or do you and Emmie want to come with us?”

Emmie was behaving so much better that, as much as Annabelle would have loved to leave, she decided it was better for her baby to stay put. Frisco had a wonderfully comforting touch for Emmie’s colic. Helping out here was a small price for Emmie’s welfare. But just for tonight. “I’ll stay and cook. Jerry, when are you heading back?”

“Good Lord willing and the creek doesn’t rise, tomorrow, little lady. Why do you ask?”

She looked into his cheery blue eyes. “I need to get going myself.”

“Ah. Cabin fever?”

“Something like that.”

“Frisco fever?”

“Close enough to be right on the mark.” She sighed. “I’m just ready to move on.”

“Delilah says you’d been ‘moving on’ for a couple months before you came into her shop. That she
hired you right off the street because you looked tired and haunted. Something eating you, Annabelle?” He gave her a kindly smile, his cheeks rosy from cold. “I got real big shoulders to cry on.”

“No. No, thanks,” she said hurriedly. “I’m fine. I just need to get back.”

“To the salon? I don’t know yet that the ladies are going back tomorrow. They may head farther east. They’re still on vacation, you know.”

“I’m not going back to the salon. Don’t tell Delilah, Jerry. I want to tell her myself, please.”

“Fair enough. We roll at 8:00 a.m. Can you and Emmie be ready?”

“We’ll be ready, Jerry. Thanks.”

He touched his cap and walked across the yard toward his truck. She headed into the kitchen, hurrying upstairs to retrieve Emmie before the baby began a full-scale assault for her bottle.

Frisco lay on the bed, sound asleep, his leg awkwardly propped up, his body turned uncomfortably. He was beautiful when he slept, dark and masterful. Emmie, unaware that she was sleeping next to a giant, had scooched up under his arm, her diapered rump in the air, her fist in her mouth.

Annabelle wished she had a camera. She’d like to remember Emmie having this moment with a man, nearly a father-figure. Maybe the only man who would ever nap with her like that. Her eyes clouded. Maybe I’ve just made a total wreck of my life and
Emmie’s, she thought. The last thing I ever meant to do was hurt her.

The blanket she’d thrown at Frisco was on the floor. Picking it up, she folded it, then knelt to put it in the bottom drawer. What she couldn’t see last night caused her to hesitate now. A framed picture of a man, a woman and twelve ragamuffin-looking boys stared out at her. The picture was eight-by-eleven, black-and-white, taken by a real photographer on the grounds of the Union Junction ranch. Though the boys looked rag-tag, it was clear that they were loved and happy. Everyone wore jeans, except the lady, who wore a Jackie Kennedy-style dress and gloves. She reminded Annabelle of Audrey Hepburn, with her big eyes and delicate frame.

If this was the Jefferson brothers’ mother, she’d been quite a looker. She’d also been slightly built. Annabelle wrinkled her nose. She hadn’t lost ten of the pounds she’d gained with Emmie. Multiply ten pounds by twelve kids.

And all the boys had that wiry, lean frame. “It’s not fair. At least one of you could have been a mutant,” she muttered. If the man in the picture was the father of the clan, he was tall, lean and handsome. Like all his offspring.

You’d think the Union Junction women would be throwing panties at the ranch windows every night.

Still, why waste a good pair of panties when none of the brothers was inclined to settle down? It was
a little unsettling, because she knew Frisco had started knocking edges off her hard heart, softening it into a penetrable organ once again. If anything, this picture told her why she couldn’t fall for him, even if she wanted to. She couldn’t live up to the family frozen in time, captured in a perfect moment.

She put the frame away and stood up.

Frisco was leaning up on his elbows, watching her intently. “Find everything you need?”

“Not yet,” she said, her nose in the air. She hated getting caught snooping and he darn well knew it, so he could just temper his sarcasm with a little sweetness today. “Have
you
found everything you need?”