Jeanne Allan - One Bride Delivered

The boy hung his head and drew circles on the carpet with his big toe.

“Maybe his silk robe is in the dirty clothes hamper,” the woman said in a cool, disapproving voice.

The early-morning parade of women had thrown Thomas’s meticulous habits into total disarray. He’d completely forgotten he still wore his bathrobe. Glaring at her, he curtly ordered the boy to the table. In passing, his nephew shyly smiled up at Cheyenne Lassiter. She tousled his hair.

Thomas shoved one of the straight-backed chairs out from the table. “Sit,” he snarled at his uninvited guest.

Her attitude that of one indulging a temperamental child, she complied.

“I want you to tell me—” Thomas slowly hammered out the words “—what the hell is going on.”

The swearword won a reproving look from her, then she bounced a glance off the boy. For the first time since he’d opened the door to her, Thomas sensed uncertainty. He opened his mouth to attack.

Cheyenne Lassiter spoke first. “What’s your name, kiddo?”

“The boy’s name doesn’t concern you.”

His nephew gave Thomas a wounded glance before staring down at his bowl and muttering, “Davy.”

“Nice to meet you, Davy. I’m Cheyenne. As for you, Mr. Steele, you’d be surprised at what concerns me.”

He narrowed his eyes at the thinly-veiled animosity in her drawling voice. “Nothing about you would surprise me.”

She painstakingly smeared copious amounts of butter on the remains of her muffin. “I’m not sure if that says more about your capacity for surprise or your lack of imagination. Worth claims I give him gray hair.” Of course, her brother said that about all three of his sisters.

“Worth? Is he your lov...” Remembering the boy whose head flipped back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match, Thomas smoothly substituted, “Your companion?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call Worth companionable”

The crazy notion struck him that Cheyenne Lassiter wanted to goad him into losing his temper. Thomas Steele never lost his temper. The woman took a bite of muffin and chewed deliberately. He ought to kiss that damned smirk right off those damned kissable lips. She was telling the boy she’d read the morning newspaper. As if the boy cared what she read.

“Did you see my ad?”

Belatedly Thomas recalled the newspaper the woman had carried in. “Give me the paper.” He assumed she gave dead bugs the same repulsed look. “Please,” he ground out.

She handed him the newspaper. Red ink encircled an advertisement.

The boy left his place at the table and edged around to peer over Thomas’s arm. “It’s in there,” he said in an awed voice.

Thomas read the ad. Then read it again. Blood pounded at his temples. “I hope you can explain this, young man.”

The boy backed away. “Sandy said.”

Thomas recalled the elderly widow who’d seemed so sane and sensible. “Go on,” he said grimly. Too grimly. The boy shrugged. Thomas rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. Served him right for impulsively bringing the boy to Aspen. Thomas wasn’t in the habit of giving in to impulse.

Cheyenne Lassiter butted in. “What did Sandy say?”

“We was watching this TV program and she said it was too bad I couldn’t put a ad in the paper for a mom. I asked her how and she laughed and said Uncle Thomas oughta put one in for a wife and I could live with him. So I asked Tiffany and she said you had to write something and give it to a newspaper. Grandmother gave me money to buy stuff and I asked Paula to take me to the newspaper place.”

Thomas couldn’t believe the flow of information. He’d been lucky to pull more than two words at a time from the boy.

“He’s-not your father?”

“No.” The boy looked down at his plate and muttered, “He’s Uncle Thomas.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t his father?”

Trying to recall who, of the horde of females he’d hired to take the boy off his hands, Tiffany was, Thomas merely scowled at her. Paula was the sweet, if not too bright, sister of one of the women at the front desk. Tiffany must be the college student home for the summer.

He eyed his nephew. “I can’t believe the newspaper took it without checking with me.”

“I said it was a surprise.” The boy slid back into his chair. “For your birthday,” he added in a barely audible voice.

“My birthday is in April.”

The boy dragged his spoon through his oatmeal. “My birthday is in August. Yours coulda been.”

Suspicion clawed at Thomas’s midsection. “When in August?”

Cheyenne Lassiter glared at him in outrage. “You don’t know when your own nephew’s birthday is?”

He ignored her, 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?