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“I could, but I think you’ve marked this wrong,” he said, kneeling to look at the pencil markings on the slat. “What happened to this bed, anyway? You got splinters in the drapes.”
She didn’t want to think about what had happened to her charmed bed, especially since she suspected its shattered slats might have been Last Jefferson’s doing. Her stomach churned. And now she had one of the infamous Jefferson brothers alone in the room with her and her broken bed.
He had been deceiving her by not telling her immediately that he was a Jefferson. For a minute she had nearly been taken in by that not-so-suave, good-ol-cowboy facade.
Whew. Close call.
“Hey,” Navarro said. “I am sorry about your sister. We’ll get to the bottom of matters. I promise.”
Still not facing him, and blinking away tears, Nina shook her head. It didn’t matter now. Not really. All her sister’s dreams for the new life she’d hoped to find in Texas were as shattered as the bed. By a Jefferson cowboy. Now, Nina’s goal was to put the bed back together and to recapture the charm.
One day she was going to need that charm for herself.
Chapter Two
So much for the peach being a possibility. Navarro glanced over at Nina, who was studiously ignoring him. That was his invitation to leave, but perversely, he wanted to stay.
It was her roundness, he decided, that he found so delicious. He wanted to take a bite of her—bad. “So, maybe we’ll have to agree to work together.”
She turned to face him. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “You’re not happy. We’re not happy. No one’s exactly thrilled about the situation. Valentine’s suing us, you know.”
“She has a right to financial assistance from the father of her child.”
“Maybe. If Last is the father.”
Nina gasped. “How dare you?”
“Hold on there, sparky. We have a right to wonder. Last only saw her one night.”
“Okay.” Nina crossed her arms. “How is saying something like that helping us to work together?”
He scratched his head for a minute, thinking hard. Crockett would handle this moment so much better; he’d just sweep Nina into bed and somehow the problem would solve itself.
No, that thought didn’t make Navarro feel better.
Well, if he was their oldest brother, he’d find some anal-retentive solution to talking Nina down out of her tree.
Or maybe not. Mason had never figured out their next-door neighbor and family friend, Mimi, so it was no use looking to his brother’s example for inspiration.
Nor Last’s. The brother with the lollipop-colored memories of the way their family used to be had kept the brothers hewn to hearth and home to make him happy. Until this latest escapade.
Crockett maybe? Archer? Bandera?
No, no and no.
It was up to him to sort out this huge problem. He could wind up a hero, if he figured out a way to fix it. The family could get back to its version of normal, if he played his cards right.
“Hey,” he said, his voice calm, the way it would sound if he was soothing a skittish mare. “Let’s get back to fixing this bed. Then we’ll talk about the other.”
That would give him time to think.
“Actually, I feel very awkward having you help me,” Nina said. “It feels wrong.”
“You don’t owe me anything—”
“I’m not suggesting that I do,” she snapped. “More like you owe us.”
Navarro cautioned himself to keep his cool. He upgraded her from snippy little peach to fiery. Gently he began sawing at a piece of lumber, keeping straight to the line he’d marked with his knife. “So, this bed means a lot to you.”
“Yes. I’m going to get pregnant in it one day.”
He miscued the saw and went into the hardwood floor. “Damn!” Checking the damage, he said, “We’ll pull the rug over that when I’m finished.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, sitting on the floor. “We’re already being charged damages for the room.”
“Really? By whom?”
“Marvella. When the bed broke, it scratched up the floor.”
He glanced under what remained of the frame. “Does seem as if she has a point. So, are…you planning on getting pregnant soon?”
“First, I’d have to find the man, wouldn’t I?” She gave him a pointed look. “And I haven’t met the right one yet.”
“Every day brings a new opportunity,” he said cheerfully.
“Thank you for your opinion, which was unsolicited, I believe.”
He grinned, relieved that there was no boyfriend hanging around her. “So, what if your husband of choice doesn’t want kids? I, myself, for example, do not want children. Nor marriage, but that sort of goes with the territory.”
“Then he wouldn’t be the right man, would he?”
“Now that was a very sensible, librarian-style answer,” Navarro said approvingly. “No messing about. No worrying about broken hearts. Just, when I meet the right man, it will all happen the way I imagine it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you making fun of me?”
“No.” He returned to sawing, waiting for her to comment further, since he’d obviously given her something to yammer back at him about.
But she sat quietly, watching him.
He kind of liked her watching him. To be honest, he liked having her full attention. “I would have thought a cute librarian like you would have already been dragged down to the secret labyrinth of the book stacks by now.”
“I would slap anybody who tried,” she said, her tone even.
“Oh.” He made a mental note not to get slapped.
“No man with he-man tendencies would be the man for me,” she told him. “I like gentlemen.”
Uh-oh. No one was ever going to accuse any of the Jeffersons of being gentle. “So, how did you say this bed ended up in this pitiful condition?”
“Best as I can tell, it happened the night your brother was here.”
He stopped what he was doing and gave her his full attention. “Last would not break a lady’s bed and then leave her to deal with the consequences of having no place to sleep.”
“Please.”
“You don’t know my brother.”
“I don’t have to. I’ve seen all I need to.”
Navarro had to admit his patience was starting to slide out the window. It was a cursed thing, Jefferson patience. Very rare, very mercurial and, sometimes, very hard to keep under one’s hat. “Did your sister say that Last was responsible?”
“I think she felt that accusing him of the baby matter was sufficient. I, however, feel that he should be held accountable for everything he’s done.”
Okay. Navarro realized that facts had to be faced. He was in a room, developing hots for the only woman on the planet who seemed to be secretly designed as his nemesis. There was no happy meeting point between them; there would be no sweet build up to the happy climax. “Moving on,” he said. “This should be fairly easy to finish.”
“Good.”
He ground his teeth at the “And well it should!” tone. It so reminded him of being in the library with old Mrs. Farklewell. Every time the Jefferson boys were in the school library, they heard a constant litany of “Shh! Shh!” in the tone that only a first-chair violinist and a librarian could muster.
“Well, look who we have here!”
Navarro glanced up at the woman in the doorway. She wore a lot of makeup and seemed very pleased to see him. Marvella.
“A Jefferson.” She fairly crowed. “Cleaning up the mess baby brother left behind.”
The hair under Navarro’s hat started itching. “I’m cleaning up a mess. That’s all I have to say.”
She stroked the black kitten she held in her hands. “And getting acquainted with your future sister-in-law. How nice!”
Navarro and Nina glanced at each other.
“Family time is so important. You feel free to stay as long as you like. Which Jefferson are you, by the way?”
“Navarro, ma’am,” he said automatically, the polite habit coming hard after many years of Mason knocking manners into their heads.
“Well, Navarro, there is a rodeo coming up.” She smiled at him. “You know how I love those Jefferson brothers riding for my salon.”
“I—”
“Someone’s got to pay for this damage,” she said, the expression on her face full of faux concern. “Such a shame to scar up a nice hardwood floor this way. I believe one of the screws even embedded itself in that wall,” she said, pointing. “You know, Last is the first Jefferson brother who’s come in here and treated my home like a shabby saloon. The rest of your brothers seem to prefer the heart-shaped spa.” She shook her head. “But maybe he prefers dry land. Oh, well, no matter. I’ll leave a note at the desk saying you’re to have run of the house while you’re here. Think about my offer.”
She glided from the doorway.
Navarro turned to face Nina. The peach had gone truly pale. Putting the saw down, he sat on the floor. “Holy smokes, she’s evil.”
“On that, we can agree.” Nina nodded at him.
“So we need to play on the same team, against her. Don’t you think?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s what she’s expecting. She wants you and I to band together.”
“To what purpose?”
“I don’t know. Maybe so you’ll pay for the room damages. She can charge you more than me, obviously. Librarians don’t make that much.”
“So I’ll pay the damages.”
She looked at him, her blue eyes hopeful. “It’s nice of you to offer without me having to ask you to pay for your brother’s mess.”
“You know,” Navarro said, “it takes two people in a bed to make something happen.”
“That would be the premise,” she agreed. “And something happened.”
“But I think your theory is too obvious,” Navarro said thoughtfully, trying not to stare at her ankles as she crossed them delicately in front of her. “I think Marvella would rather see us at each other’s throats. Divide and conquer.”
“Elaborate, but possible,” Nina said, nodding. “What would she gain?”
“Two pawns. If there are bad feelings between us, Marvella is free to work her witchery without us being the wiser.”
“You may have a point,” Nina said reluctantly. “In fact, it has always been the enemy’s way to weaken by division, according to many of the great moments in history.”
“Exactly.” Navarro held out his hand. “Let’s shake on working together.”
“I don’t know,” Nina said. “We’re related now, by Valentine’s baby. Shaking seems quite weird.”
But she put her hand in his and, later, after Navarro had time to review his actions, he would often wonder if this was the moment that changed his destiny.
He pulled Nina toward him and kissed her square on the lips.
He waited for the smacking he so righteously deserved and which she’d all but promised any man who tried to drag her into the metaphorical book stacks—but, to his amazement, Nina put her little hand behind his head and held him as she kissed him with a heated peachiness a man could only pray he experienced once in his life.
One shot. That was usually all a man ever got at something like this. Navarro was not known for wasting time or energy. Pulling Nina into his lap, he kissed her deeply, enjoying her passion and her surrender. Maybe all the more sweet because it was wrong, Navarro kissed her hard, fast, wanting as much of her as he could get.
“Ahem!”
Nina jumped out of his lap like a timed-release spring, fleeing a good yard away from him. “Damn it, Crockett!” Navarro said. “What the hell?”
“I might say the same. You were supposed to be carrying some lumber up here, bro. I thought maybe Marvella had you in her clutches.”
“Not quite.” Navarro cursed his empty lap, wanting Nina back immediately. He turned to look at Nina—who was staring at Crockett.
“Twins?” she said. “Twins?”
