One Bride Delivered. Jeanne Allan

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СКАЧАТЬ waiting for the boy’s answer.

      The boy flicked him a look. “August 21. I’m seven.”

      Three days ago. Thomas clenched his back teeth. Leave it to his mother to neglect to mention the small matter of her only grandson’s upcoming birthday. “Finish your breakfast and get dressed.”

      Thomas stood. “As for you, Ms. Lassiter, despite that ridiculous ad which any halfway intelligent individual would reason was written by a child, I am not seeking a wife.” He couldn’t throw her bodily out. Not in front of the boy. “I expect you to be gone by the time I finish dressing.”

      “You didn’t eat your breakfast,” she pointed out.

      “You’ll be happy to know you have destroyed my appetite.” He stalked across the carpet to his bedroom.

      “Then you won’t mind if I eat this last muffin. Even Mom’s muffins don’t compare with St. Chris’s. Oh, and Thomas...”

      Her low voice invested his name with all kinds of sensual possibilities. He turned. And wished he hadn’t.

      She studied his legs, then in an exact duplication of his earlier insulting appraisal of her, slowly eyed her way up the length of his body. When at last her gaze reached his face, she gave him a smoldering look from under outrageously long, dark lashes. A muscle in his jaw twitched, and a satisfied smile crawled across her mouth. “I’m not looking for a husband, but if I were, you’d be perfectly safe. Knobby knees really turn me off.”

      Thomas slammed the bedroom door behind him, catching his bathrobe. A low gurgle of laughter came from the other side of the door. He wanted to rip free the silk garment and shred it into a million pieces. Instead he calmly shrugged out of the robe and let it drop to the floor.

      The impassive face on the naked man in the mirror across the room mocked him. His mother had no doubt deliberately neglected to mention the boy’s birthday. She’d deny it, of course, turning the blame for not knowing back on him. Damn her.

      And damn him for not knowing. Thomas felt like smashing the mirror with his bare fists. Damn. He’d thought he was beyond feeling. Had his family taught him nothing? Damn him for caring. He didn’t want to care. Not about the boy. Not about anyone.

      A murmur of voices came from the other room. He certainly didn’t care that his unwanted visitor despised him. He’d never see her again.

      

      Cheyenne drew open the gold and crimson brocade drapes and brushed aside sheer lace curtains. Through the window’s metal mullions, the sight of the gondolas parading up Aspen Mountain reminded her of Thomas Steele. An automated, unfeeling machine.

      A machine who’d brought his nephew with him to Aspen.

      In her experience, adults who disliked children tried to hide their dislike. Even Harold Karper had publicly pretended a fondness for his stepson.

      Thomas Steele demonstrated a total lack of affection for Davy, yet Cheyenne could have sworn he’d been perturbed to learn he’d missed his nephew’s birthday. A disconcerting thought crept into her mind, chilling her in spite of the warm, sunny morning. Had Thomas Steele been perturbed, or had she allowed a handsome face to influence her judgment?

      Her father had used good looks and a facile charm to sabotage her mother’s judgment. Mary Lassiter had paid the price, raising four children by herself while her husband lived a bachelor’s life on the rodeo circuit. Calling Beau Lassiter an absentee father overstated his role. Absent, yes. A father, no.

      Cheyenne had not been without a loving family. Her mother and grandfather more than made up for Beau’s negligence, and Worth and her two sisters would always be there for her.

      Davy’s parents had died, leaving the poor kid with no one who cared about him. Cheyenne had delicately probed as he ate his breakfast, and the child’s artless answers convinced her he wasn’t physically battered. The question settled, she should have left when Davy went to his room to dress but the sad lonely picture he painted of an unwanted child, relegated to the periphery of his relatives’ lives made her heart ache. She couldn’t leave. Not yet.

      Cheyenne rubbed the gleaming old oak windowsill. Davy needed a loving family. Someone ought to shake Thomas Steele until his head snapped. Someone ought to explain to him little boys were more important than hotels and women friends and making money. Her fingernails bit into the sill. She was the only someone around.

      “What does a person have to do to get nd of you, Ms. Lassiter? Call security?”

      Cheyenne hadn’t heard him return. To let him know she considered him quite insignificant, she waited a few seconds before turning to face him. And again felt the impact of his striking dark good looks. If it weren’t for the disdain in gray eyes and the cool self-assurance slightly curling the corners of his sensuous mouth, she might have found him attractive. She didn’t. Sneering, arrogant males didn’t interest her. No matter how tall they were.

      She refused to be intimidated by a voice colder than the top of the mountain in February. Even if his beautifully tailored charcoal suit and white-collared dark blue shirt and maroon silk tie made her feel like a slightly grubby adolescent. He looked like a walking advertisement for what the sophisticated businessman should wear if he wanted to radiate power and confidence. And sex appeal.

      Thomas Steele straightened a French cuff and lifted an eyebrow, a gesture clearly meant to make her feel like an errant schoolgirl. Cheyenne thrust from her mind any thoughts of his sex appeal. If ever the man existed who needed a few home truths, that man was Thomas Steele.

      “I’ll leave when I’ve had my say,” she said.

      “I’m not interested in anything you have to say.”

      “Or in Davy or anything he has to say.”

      “The boy is my business.”

      “Davy isn’t business. He’s a little boy. What kind of uncle are you? His parents are dead—yes, he told me. I sat with him while he finished breakfast. You should have. He said he has to stay with you until his grandparents return from a trip. He wanted to go to camp, but you wouldn’t let him.”

      “Six years old is too young for camp.”

      “He’s seven. He had a birthday three days ago, or have you already forgotten again?” If she hadn’t been watching closely, she wouldn’t have seen the infinitesimal stiffening of his body.

      “My family’s never put much stock in birthdays.”

      “Your family doesn’t put much stock in family. Davy thinks if he bothers you, you’ll lock him in a hotel room by himself.”

      The barest tightening of his mouth acknowledged her words. “He has too much imagination.”

      “Does he? I can see he’s afraid of you.”

      “He’s afraid of everything. His own shadow, for all I know.”

      “For all you know. Which isn’t very much, is it? He’s a little boy, in a strange place, with strange people, and an uncle who does nothing to reassure him. Would it hurt you to sit with him while he eats, talk to him, give him a hug, read him a bedtime story, hear his prayers?”

      “It’s СКАЧАТЬ