The Best Bride. Susan Mallery

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      Elizabeth glanced at him. He’d taken a sip of coffee just as Mandy spoke and now he started to choke. Louise came over and pounded him on the back several times while he coughed.

      Louise gave her a quick wink. “He probably said I was trying to find myself.”

      The next thud on his back sounded a little harder. He turned to her and held up his hand. “That’s enough,” he said, his voice raspy and faint. “I’m fine.”

      Elizabeth wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw a flush of color on Travis’s cheeks. She bit back her laughter and concentrated on Mandy’s hair. When the braid was secured with the length of blue ribbon, Mandy pulled out a chair and climbed onto the seat. As Louise fixed breakfast, Many chatted with Travis and Louise about what Mr. Bear had told her in the night. Louise slid a plate in front of the girl, containing a waffle shaped like a popular cartoon mouse. Cut strawberries formed a bright collar at the bottom of the waffle. A glass of milk completed the meal.

      Elizabeth looked up at the older woman. “Thank you for making that.”

      Louise shrugged. “It’s nothing. The first day of school should be special for a little girl. And Alfred was never impressed with my waffles.”

      Elizabeth wanted to ask if Louise really did feed her dog waffles, but she didn’t dare. As the smells of eggs, bacon and coffee mingled in the kitchen, she leaned back in her chair and savored her feeling of relief. She and Mandy were going to make it. In three weeks she would start her new job and move into her own place. In the meantime, they were safe here.

      She glanced at Travis and found him staring at her. His gaze dropped briefly to her mouth. The sensation of being touched was so real, she wanted to touch him back. The attraction flickering just below the surface fanned to life.

      He was her salvation and her greatest problem. This, this mindless reaction to him, had to stop. She knew better than to get involved with a man, any man. But he was even worse than most. She knew what his easy ways and quick, tempting smile meant. She’d already been seduced by one charmer and those results had been more awful than she could ever have imagined. The only decent thing to come out of her relationship with Sam Proctor had been Mandy—and that had been an accident.

      Louise served them breakfast, then poured more coffee. Elizabeth hesitated before picking up her fork.

      “Dig in,” Travis said. “Louise is a great cook.”

      “I don’t doubt that, it’s just…”

      He leaned across the bleached oak table and laid his hand on top of hers. Heat flooded her fingers, warming her blood and making its way up her arm. She told herself to ignore it, and him, but she couldn’t seem to look away from his dark gaze.

      “It’s just nothing,” he said. “Everything is going to be all right. I’ll make it all right. I’m the sheriff. I can do anything.”

      “I believe you,” she said and was rewarded with a smile. She did believe him. That was the problem.

      She picked up her fork. It was only for a few weeks, she reminded herself. She just had to stay strong and resist the powerful charm of Travis Haynes. She could do it, she had to. Her life depended on it.

      * * *

      Elizabeth sat in the family room and stared at the television. The screen was blank. She picked up the remote control, then tossed it down. She didn’t want to watch television; she wanted to be with her daughter on her first day of school.

      She swallowed against the lump in her throat, but the pressure didn’t go away. Her eyes burned and she wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. Little Mandy had gone off with Travis an hour ago. She’d waved and smiled, and promised to make her mom something pretty in class.

      “I should have been with her,” Elizabeth said softly, fighting the frustration. She touched her side, feeling the bandage under her shorts and panties. There was no way she could have made it from here to the school and back. It took all her strength to walk from the kitchen to the family room. But she’d so wanted to see Mandy’s classroom and meet her teacher. Her daughter would only enter the first grade once and she’d missed it. What kind of mother did that make her? It wasn’t enough she’d taken Mandy away from everything she knew in the world, but now the girl was going to a strange school, escorted by a strange man. It wasn’t fair.

      “Television is generally more interesting when you turn it on,” Louise said.

      Elizabeth looked up at her. The other woman stood in the doorway to the family room. She had a mug of coffee in each hand. “I wasn’t really planning on watching,” she said.

      “Would you like some company?”

      Elizabeth nodded. “That would be nice, if you have the time.”

      Louise handed her one of the mugs and plopped down at the opposite end of the butter-soft leather sofa. “I’ve got plenty of time. That boy hasn’t even furnished most of the rooms in this monstrosity. There’s not that much cleaning to do. I suspect he hires me so that he can have a taste of someone else’s cooking and a friendly face to come home to a couple of days a week.”

      “Are you saying Travis is lonely?”

      “Could be.”

      Louise fluffed up her bangs with her fingers. Elizabeth noticed she painted her long nails a bright red and had thin stripes of gold dotted on the tips.

      “So what do you think of him?” Louise asked.

      That was certainly subtle, Elizabeth thought, fighting a grin. “He seems very nice.”

      Louise’s eyes narrowed. “Now I don’t think any of the Haynes boys would appreciate being called ‘nice.’ Ladies’ men, maybe. Irresistible, certainly. But nice?” She shook her head and smiled. “You’d better keep that opinion to yourself.”

      “I guess I’ll have to.” She took a sip from her mug. “Travis mentioned he has three brothers.”

      “That’s right, and his daddy is one of five.” She leaned her head back against the leather sofa. Her expression got soft and dreamy. “That means there are nine Haynes men walking around on this earth tempting women with their wicked ways. When I was in high school, Earl—that’s Travis’s father—came to speak to my class about drinking and driving. I don’t remember a word he said, but I do remember how handsome he looked in his uniform. When he smiled, I about melted in my seat.” She straightened and shrugged. “I was barely seventeen, and my boyfriend and I had just broken up. Earl Haynes looked mighty good. Of course he was a much older man.”

      “Of course,” Elizabeth murmured. Louise was certainly a little left of center, but Elizabeth found herself liking the other woman.

      “And his uncles. Hell-raisers all of them. I don’t think they were ever faithful longer than a minute. Heaven help the women who tried to tame ’em. Of course the Haynes men did give this town something to talk about. Then when Earl went ahead and had four more boys of his own, there was even more talk. Do you know there hasn’t been a girl born to the Haynes family in four generations?”

      “Travis mentioned that.”

      Louise laughed. СКАЧАТЬ