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More wolf than sheep, for certain.
She’d bet these two were probably a lot like the man who’d gotten her sister into trouble. Valentine was in the family way by a nefarious, no-good, irresponsible cowboy. If he was anything like these men, no wonder Valentine had been lured astray. Poor Valentine!
But first things first—the heirloom bed was the matter at hand. Now that Nina had come to Lonely Hearts Station to help her sister, she needed a place to sleep. More importantly, Nina would never be at ease until the heirloom bed that had been in their family for generations was repaired.
The bed was charmed. Nina stared at the hat-covered face next to her, thinking about the importance of the charm. What would this man know about a woman’s secret desires? Every single member of their female family had been conceived or born in that bed. The antique was simply magical in some way no one could really understand. Perhaps it was the delicate latticework headboard. Maybe the fine linens, which were more than a hundred years old, and the hand-crocheted lace edgings worked by Great-grandmother Eugenia from England.
Or the charm could simply rest in the bed’s beauty and simple elegance. It invited a couple to share their dreams and joys while on its frame.
More than anything, Nina wanted that charm to work for her. One day, in the future. Certainly not in the way poor Valentine had chosen. Clearly the charm was still in serious good form because Valentine was due in about six months, give or take a week or two.
She sighed. “This is really important. I can’t trust my bed to just anyone.”
It seemed the cowboy under the hat got very still, his muscles bunching under his T-shirt. That man was no more resting than she was, Nina realized. He was awake and listening to every word she said.
The word “bed” really seemed to get his attention, she noticed.
Cowboys! Apparently they were only interested in boots, babes and beds.
Well, life just wasn’t as carefree for her. “I’m going inside now,” Nina said. “My room is upstairs. Number five. The wood for the slats is by the front door where the delivery company left it. I am in a desperate position, I will admit, so…” She looked at Crockett uncertainly. “Can you lift heavy things?”
“Of course,” he said, sitting straight up. “Wood is my specialty. Lift, saw, nail, glue, hammer—”
“All right,” Nina said. “Tell the woman at the desk that it’s all right for you to go upstairs. Her name is Valentine.”
“Valentine?” Crockett repeated, his tone surprised.
“I admit it’s an unusual name, but then, one might say Crockett and Navarro are unusual, as well,” Nina said. “My name is Nina Cakes. Nina is short for Eugenia. I’m named after my great-grandmother whose heirloom bed I am trying to repair. Valentine is my sister.”
She noticed Navarro’s posture became even more rigid. The stillest she’d ever seen in a human body. His fingers were clamped around the steering wheel bottom, just over his lap and right next to a large belt buckle. All cowboy. He smelled wonderful, she noticed on the sudden breeze that blew through the open windows of the truck. She stopped herself from giving an automatic “mmm” reaction and backed away. “Tell Valentine. I’ll be upstairs,” she said. “And please observe the house rules.”
“Which would be?” Crockett called after her as she walked toward the salon.
“No talking to the women without an appointment,” Nina said, and went inside, wondering what the man behind the hat had been hiding.
Elusive devil.
Poor Valentine. “You should have stayed up north,” she told her sister grumpily as she walked past the reception area. “Clearly cowboys are just out for one thing.”
“That’s what we like about them,” another hair-stylist called. “Didn’t you read the motto?”
Nina glanced at the glittery sign for the hundredth time, high on the wall, with big letters. “‘Save a horse, ride a cowboy,”’ she muttered. “I can read, thanks.”
She could also heed a warning.
“DUDE! THIS IS TOO EASY!” Crockett said, poking Navarro in the arm. “Drag those boards upstairs!”
“Slow down,” Navarro said, the voice of caution. “We need to think this through.”
“Think! Whatever happened to the man of action?”
Navarro pulled his hat off his face to look at his twin. “The man of action was the one not wearing a condom, drinking suspicious firewater and having a real good time. Which is why we’re sitting here, instead of back in Union Junction at the ranch, where we belong. So, let’s take a deep breath and consider the angles.”
Crockett thumped his head back against the headrest. “Angle on.”
“She scares me, for starters.”
Crockett glanced over at him. “Scares you?”
“Yeah.” Navarro shifted uncomfortably. “She’s cute. She’s got a sexy voice. It’s kind of prim-and-proper don’t-mess-with-me. I think my call of the wild found that to be an invitation.”
Crockett laughed. “She had the hots for me, in case you didn’t notice.”
“I did not notice that.” Navarro stared down the old road that was the center of Lonely Hearts Station. It separated one side of town from the other—and effectively separated the two battling beauty salons: Lonely Hearts Salon and the Never Lonely Cut-n-Gurls.
The Jefferson brothers owed a lot to Delilah, the owner of the Lonely Hearts Salon. She and her employees had chipped in to save Union Junction during the last big freeze. Delilah’s sister, Marvella, was her arch nemesis, and was trying to put her out of business by selling, if rumor was to believed, something more than garden-variety mow-n-go haircuts at the Never Lonely Cut-n-Gurls salon. “Why did you tell her our real names?”
Crockett shrugged. “I didn’t tell her our last names. Besides, she won’t know who we are. You carry the boards up—”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re the one sitting over there twitching for some action. You’re the man with the call of the wild going on. Besides, you’re more cautious than me. We both know I’d do something wrong.”
“Impulsive.”
“And rightfully so,” Crockett said. “Come on, we haven’t busted up a joint in months. We’ve had to mind our p’s and q’s with Mason taking off. Fannin running the joint. Mimi in the family way. The housekeeper taking over our house.” Crockett blew out a breath. “Last going insane. I mean, I’m about tired of my p’s and q’s being so minded. I want our old life back. Before it got so reputation-conscious.”
Navarro shook his head. “Valentine’s sitting at the desk. She’s going to recognize that we look an awful lot like the rest of the family.”
Crockett shrugged. “Keep your hat low. Dump the lumber and go. But see if Valentine’s really got a belly on her, or if that’s just a bunch of bull to rope Last. I bet she’s not even pregnant. And how do we know Last is the father? I mean, this blows.” Crockett pulled his hat down over his face. “When this is all over, I’m going to go find Mason and tell him he’s never gonna learn what happened to our father, and that he needs to deal with the fact that his true-love Mimi got married on him because he dragged his own dang boots, and that he needs to get his butt home.”
“Good luck,” Navarro said. “But first things first.”
WHEN THE COWBOY WALKED into her room, Nina’s blood started moving around in her body the way it never had before. A crazy tickle and then a full-blown rush filled her veins.
No, she told herself. Not this one. Completely inappropriate choice! And there have been enough of those lately. “Thanks for coming up,” she said.
“There was no one at the desk,” Navarro said. “I just made my way upstairs and—” His dark eyes swept her as she sat on the floor, a pencil and metal measuring tape in her hands. “What are you doing?”
“Measuring off,” Nina said. “Highly advisable if I want to cut these slats properly.”
He eyed the collapsed bed, which made Nina’s face blush a bit. Of course, it was hot in her room. A small fan blew nearby, but it was spring and Marvella hadn’t turned the air-conditioning on yet because the nights were still cool. All the measuring and sawing was making her hot, Nina decided.
“Now that I’ve found your room, I’m going to go get the rest of the wood.” Navarro backed away from her and Nina realized she probably looked sweaty and dirty.
“Thank you, Crockett.”
He hesitated, then left. Nina took a deep breath, then jumped to her feet to cross to the mirror. Yes, sweaty and messy. “How did they make it in the good ol’ days without air-conditioning? I’m going to fry my Delaware skin.” Taking a damp rag, she swept it over her, then reached for some peach gloss to touch to her lips.
She was taking a few swipes at her hair in an effort to tame it when the cowboy strode in, carrying the lumber. Her gaze met his and she dropped the brush, embarrassed to be caught primping.
He grinned at her. “Nice.”
That evil blooming of her skin she’d felt moments before now blushed over her body in a heat wave no air conditioner would cool. She raised her chin. “You can set the wood down there.”
His grin widened to wolfish. “You are a snappy little peach, I’ll grant you that.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off him as he smoothly bent to rest the wood on the floor. His jeans fit so tightly, his butt looked so—
Glancing up, he caught her staring—and laughed.
“I’ve never seen a cowboy up this close,” she said.
“Really? I’ve never seen a…what are you, anyway?”
“Librarian,” Nina said, her chin rising, knowing already what he was going to say. “And I should warn you, I’ve heard every bad line about librarians you could possibly dream—”
“Now, I’ve heard that there are two kinds of librarians,” the cowboy said, leaning up against the wall, his boots crossed, his arms tucked over his chest. His grin was too wide and too playful, and she longed to smack it off his face.
“Well, there is really only one kind of librarian,” she said. “Serious.”
“I heard there was also the skank variety.”
She dropped the measuring tape she’d picked up. “‘Skank variety’?”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “She hovers in her book stacks, waiting for the right victim to come along so she can read him the Kama Sutra—well, ‘read’ would be the incorrect verb, I guess. And then—” he lowered his voice “—and then she seduces him in the basement, where he is never heard from again. Skank librarian.” He shrugged. “That’s where the haunted library story comes from. Haunted, you see, because it was the librarian who, like a black widow spider, kills her lover after they—”
“That is ridiculous! And so…chauvinistic!”
He laughed. “Bet you thought I was gonna repeat the stereotype about the dowdy librarian who gets set free sexually by the mystery male who somehow knows he’s latched on to the one hottie card-catalogette in town who’s wearing a thong and bustier under her gray, frumpy suit. Personally, I always thought the skank librarian was more likely. Scary, but likely.”
She ground her teeth. “Actually, I fall under the only heading of librarian I know. Hard-working, sincere, interested, capable—”
His wink stopped her. “I’m just playing around with you.”
Skank librarian, indeed. She thought about her sister and her sister’s reputation, which was nonexistent now. It was up to her to set a good example and to be the most upright Cakes she could be.
“I shouldn’t be playing around with you, probably,” he said. “You broke your bed. You might be dangerous.” He pulled a huge jackknife from his pocket and began marking off sections on the wood.
“Oh, yeah.” Nina sank onto a chair. “You’re in big danger from me.”
“Well, there’s danger. And then there’s danger. That’s what I always say.”
“Profound.”
He glanced up at her. “Yeah. Maybe not by a librarian’s standards. But it works for me.”
She sighed. “So, I guess you wouldn’t be brandishing a knife that big if you didn’t want it commented on.”
He gave her a devilish wink. “I’m not packing small anything, peachy.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course not.”
“So, tell me about your sister.”
“No.”
He marked some notches. “Okay.”
“Tell me about your brother who wears the hat on his face.”
“Why? You dig him?”
She laughed. “Dig? How can I dig a guy whose face I haven’t seen?”
He looked at her, his eyes full of mischief. She wondered about that face and those eyes. What would she read in those eyes if she and he were alone together on a moonlit night—
“Maybe a face isn’t what’s important about a man.”
She raised her brows. “Then what is?”
He stuck his knife in the floor and lifted a handsaw to the wood. “The size of his…knife.” The look on her face made him laugh. “Fooled ya. You thought I was going to say something else.”
“I did not!”
“Whatever.”
“I won’t bother to return fire. But I could, with everything I’ve heard about cowboys since I’ve been here.”
“Hardworking, sincere, interested, capable—”
“That’s not what my sister would say,” Nina said. “She would probably say loose, loser, dishonest and wish-I’d-never-met-him.”
“Hey, that’s my bro—”
She stared at him. “Yes? Your what?”
He shook his head. “This is all wrong.”
“Why?”
“Because.” He stood, looking at her thoughtfully. “My name is Navarro Jefferson.”
Her heart started a slow thud. “Jefferson?”
“Jefferson. I’m Last’s older brother.”
“I see.” She backed away from him, turning her face. “Thank you for carrying up the lumber,” she said pointedly. “You can go now.”
