Kitabı oku: «Four-Karat Fiancee», sayfa 2
Feldon mumbled what might have been a curse, then got to his feet and beat a swift retreat.
After watching him disappear around a corner, Dev looked at Amanda. “Are you all right?”
Vaguely aware of other voices echoing that question, she dipped her head in a nod and kept her gaze on the man walking toward her. The truth was that after everything that had happened that day and all she had on her mind, she found herself close to tears. Nevertheless, her pride had her determined not to shed any before an audience.
“Thank you,” she said, gazing into the deep blue eyes of the Heartbreaker Saloon’s owner. For coming to my rescue, she could have added, and didn’t. It was startling to realize that the person she’d been at odds with for so long had done exactly that.
He studied her, taking in what she hoped was at least a somewhat calm expression. She knew he wasn’t fooled by the way he frowned. “If you’re on your way home, I’ll walk you there.”
“That’s not necessary,” she assured him.
“Whether it is or not, I’m doing it,” he countered.
Too tired to mount a real protest, Amanda surrendered with another nod. The irony of it wasn’t lost on her. Who would have ever thought she’d give in to this man on anything? she asked herself. And did this mark a change in their relationship?
Something told her that just might be the case as she issued an absent goodbye to the people gathered around and fell into step beside him.
Dev’s blood gradually cooled as he concentrated on shortening his stride to match his companion’s. Their footsteps tapped out a slow rhythm as they walked down a darkening street. There was no point in wondering whether he should have kicked Feldon’s butt for good measure, he told himself. Hopefully, the jerk would take the advice he’d been given and leave town. If not, Dev vowed to personally see to it.
He might be a successful businessman—he might be a millionaire—but he could still get a dirty job done if necessary. This evening’s brawl had proved that. He hadn’t lost the knack of putting his fists to good use. Except these days he knew when to back off. Seeing Amanda Bradley safely home had been more important than continuing to pound on the man who’d been forcing himself on her.
A man who’d had more to drink than he should have at the Heartbreaker, Dev’s conscience reminded him.
He frowned in response, thinking that if someone was known to be driving, he and the two bartenders working for him didn’t hesitate to shut them off or take car keys away. But how the hell was anyone supposed to know that a man—a customer—would practically assault a woman steps from the saloon’s doorstep?
Sure, the Heartbreaker’s male regulars could get rowdy at times. But assault a female? No way. Most of them would have liked nothing better than to pound on Feldon themselves, given the chance. So instead of letting guilt nag at him over what had happened, Dev figured everyone would be better off if he just tried to do his damnedest to make sure it never happened again.
“Nice night for a stroll down Mega Bucks Boulevard,” he said in a bid to make conversation.
Amanda glanced up at him and spoke for the first time since they’d started their walk. “Do you find our mayor’s habit of renaming streets since the lottery win to be as bizarre as I do?”
The question, while straightforward enough, was issued in a softer tone than Dev was accustomed to hearing from the Ex-Libris’s owner—who, he remembered, had informed him somewhat haughtily during one of their go-rounds that the store’s name came from a Latin phrase that loosely translated meant “from the books.” And it was just as well she had told him, because he knew he’d have never figured that one out.
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Can’t see how renaming a few streets hurts anything.”
Jester’s mayor, Bobby Larson, had also been touting the idea of building a hotel on land now dedicated to the community park, and Dev was less sure how he felt about that plan. The one thing he was dead certain of was a definite desire to avoid town politics. He had plenty of other things to occupy him.
Such as his house, he thought as they crossed Maple Street, where the new Devlin residence would soon reach the move-in stage. He’d been headed there for the daily check he made on it when he’d found himself trading blows with Guy Feldon instead.
“Were you hurt in that fight?” Amanda asked, as though she’d caught the direction his thoughts had taken.
“No.” He had no intention of whining about a few aches and pains. “What have you got there?” he asked, changing the subject as he glanced down at the book she held tightly to her. All he could make out were the edges of a dusky rose cover.
“Oh.” She hesitated a moment. “It’s, ah, a novel, just something I thought I’d try.”
“Something different than you usually read?”
Again she paused. “Well, let’s just say it’s a change from what I’ve been reading lately.”
Her reply was just vague enough to have him wishing he could get a better look at that book. Maybe it would tell him more about the woman he’d come to think of as a thorn in his side. He still believed the best thing he could do was buy her part of the building they shared. He could even knock down the wall separating their properties, make a few changes to spruce up the bar area and expand his business—which was thriving, if he did say so himself.
Her business was another story, he more than suspected. If it weren’t for the pastries usually on hand in a sitting area at the back of the bookstore, along with tea served in fancy cups to wash down a helping of the local news of the day, how many customers would regularly visit the place? Probably not enough to turn a healthy profit. If only he could convince her to sell out to him.
They arrived at Amanda’s one-story white frame house in a matter of minutes. Dev took note of the fact that although it was a long way from new, it appeared well cared for. It was a far cry from the rundown house he’d grown up in on the outskirts of town, that was for sure. This place looked…homey, he guessed was the word, with its front yard enclosed by a short picket fence and what seemed to be, judging by what he could make out in the light coming from a nearby streetlamp, a circle of dried lavender decorating the plain wood door.
“I’ll wait until you get in before I take off,” he told her when they reached the covered front porch.
“All right.” She retrieved a key ring from her shoulder bag and opened the door, then switched on an inside light and turned back to him. “Thank you again for…” Stopping in midsentence, she stared up at him, her gaze narrowing. “You are hurt. There’s blood on your lip.”
That came as no surprise, since he’d started tasting it when they were halfway to her place. “It’s nothing,” he said.
“It’s something,” she replied with a trace of the brisk tone he more often associated with her. “Come in and let me have a look at it.”
He thought about declining. But it could be he’d get another opportunity to bring up the subject of buying her out. Deciding to take his chances, he said, “Okay,” and let her lead him into the house.
The inside seemed as homey as the outside, Dev concluded with a glance around the living room. Again everything looked far from new, but it also looked comfortable, even cozy—a lot cozier, certainly, than anywhere he’d ever lived.
Amanda laid the book she’d been carrying on a small end table and propped her leather shoulder bag on top of it. “Take off your jacket and have a seat,” she told him as she switched on a short brass lamp. “I’ll be right back with a washcloth and the first aid kit.”
He obeyed orders, tossed both his jacket and hat on an overstuffed moss-green chair and sat down on a plump flowered sofa. His gaze was drawn to a photo standing on a narrow wood wall shelf, one he recognized as a shot of a younger Amanda with her mother, who he recalled had passed away about ten years earlier after a short illness. By then, Amanda’s father had long since left town, and under circumstances no one living in Jester at the time had probably forgotten.
Dev leaned his head against the back on the sofa and waited for his hostess to return, then waited some more before he finally began to wonder if something was wrong. Could she be the one who was really injured? After all, she’d been putting up a considerable struggle when he’d yanked Feldon away from her.
She might not appreciate his roaming around her place, but he was going to check on her anyway, he decided. If she got teed off, well she’d been teed off at him plenty already.
Dev got up and started down a narrow hallway toward the rear of the house. Off to one side, he saw light spilling through an open doorway. Not about to stop now, he kept going and soon poked his head in what turned out to be a small bathroom. There, he found Amanda standing at the sink with thin tears running down her cheeks.
She jumped when she spotted him. “I was coming back in a minute,” she said, brushing the tears away. Her face had gone nearly as pale as the high-necked white blouse she wore with pleated wool trousers.
“If that jerk hurt you, I’ll see he pays for it.” It was as firm a promise as Dev could make it. God, he hated to see a woman cry. He’d rather take a solid punch in the chest.
Amanda shook her head. “No, he didn’t hurt me. I’m fine, really.” She sighed. “It’s just…been a long day.”
Which it may have been, Dev allowed, but he didn’t think that was all of it. If Amanda Bradley could hold her own with him—and she had on many occasions—it was hard to believe she’d wind up teary-eyed unless there was a damn good reason for it. Not, he reminded himself, that it was any of his business.
He leaned against the doorjamb and folded his arms across the twin front pockets of his denim shirt. “Want to patch me up now?”
Sighing again, this time in what might have been relief that he hadn’t pressed the subject, she nodded and reached up to open the mirrored medicine cabinet. “As long as you’re here, why don’t you wash the blood off first?”
He did, making quick work of cleaning the cut at a corner of his lower lip. Then he propped a hip against the sink and let her fuss over him. As close as they were, he couldn’t help but catch a whiff of the subtle floral scent coming from the person whose pink-tinged mouth, currently pursed in concentration, continued to fascinate him. As to why it fascinated him, he still hadn’t figured that one out.
Right now he did his best to ignore the fact that they were standing a scant inch from each other, telling himself that he’d been without a woman for too long if certain parts of him could even threaten to get stirred up at a time like this. Then the sting of the antiseptic regained his full attention in a hurry.
“Sorry,” she said at his brief flinch.
“No problem.”
The job was done and they were back in the living room in a matter of moments. It was time to take off, Dev knew. Trouble was, the remembered sight of those tears was still eating at him.
“Look,” he said as he reached down for his jacket, “I know it’s flat-out none of my concern, but probably no one knows better than I do that for a small person, you can also be a pretty tough one when your back’s up. To get as upset as you obviously were a few minutes ago, something more than a long day has to be behind it.”
Her gaze met his. “As you said, it’s none of your…” Her voice trailed off as the starch suddenly seemed to go right out of her. She walked over to the sofa and sank onto a plump cushion. “I just need some sleep,” she murmured—more to herself than to him, it seemed, as though she were talking out loud. “I can’t keep tossing and turning night after night.”
He set his jacket down again. “Sounds like you’ve got things on your mind.”
She glanced at him and exhaled a short breath. “You could say so.”
Maybe her store was doing even worse than he’d figured. That was all he could come up with. And if that was the problem, he knew he could offer her a quick solution. “If it’s business—” he started to say before she halted him with a slight wave of one hand.
“I wish it were as straightforward as something to do with business,” she told him.
“Then what is it?” he asked, deciding to be blunt about it. Maybe it was none of his concern, but now that his curiosity was roused, he couldn’t let it go, either. Not unless she kicked him out.
But for once, Amanda Bradley didn’t seem capable of doing that, and as if recognizing she was stuck with him, she said, “What I’ve got on my mind involves four young children.” She paused for a beat. “Relatives, actually.”
That caught Dev off guard. “Relatives?” he repeated after a moment.
“Yes,” she said, again meeting his gaze. “These particular children happen to be my sisters and brothers.”
What? He realized his mouth was in danger of falling open. She was an only child who’d moved to Jester with her parents when she was just a slip of a girl. He knew that as well as he knew his own name. Hell, everyone who’d been in town for a while knew it.
“How in the world,” he had to ask her, “can you have sisters and brothers?”
“I can if my father had more children after he left Jester. Which, I just recently learned, he did.”
Chapter Two
There, it was out, what she’d kept to herself for days.
And having shared it with someone, Amanda had to concede that she felt better. True, she’d never expected to share it with the man who continued to stare down at her. Not any more than she’d expected to find him in her living room. In fact, if anyone had told her that morning that she’d be tending to Dev Devlin’s wounds before the day was over, she would have questioned their sanity. Just as he’d looked ready to question hers moments ago.
“Technically,” he said as his expression settled into more thoughtful lines, “that means you have some half sisters and brothers.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “but, to me, it’s one and the same. My father also fathered them, and even if I never saw them face-to-face, I’d still feel there’s nothing ‘half’ about our relationship.”
“Hmm. I suppose you’ve got a point.” He walked over and eased himself down on the other end of the sofa. “Do you plan on seeing them?”
The answer to that one, Amanda recognized, was far more complicated than a simple “yes,” even assuming he’d be satisfied with a single-word reply. She hadn’t missed the probing look accompanying his question. Still, she only had to tell him what she wanted to, and logic prompted her to consider the benefits of discussing as much as she felt comfortable doing. After all, she’d already discovered how a small weight could be lifted from her shoulders by sharing some information.
“I do plan on seeing them,” she replied at last. “In fact, ever since I learned about them days ago, I’ve been determined to at least do that much.”
“I take it,” he said, “that up until then you didn’t know about them at all.”
“Not until I received a phone call from an attorney who not only told me they existed, but that they were orphans and wards of the state.”
It took him less than a minute to absorb that information. “Which means your father is…” His voice trailed off as his expression sobered.
Although Amanda’s throat tightened, she was determined not to shed any more tears. “Yes, I was told that he passed away a year ago in Minnesota.”
“I’m sorry.” The words were simply spoken but seemed completely genuine.
“Thank you,” she said.
And that was all she would say on the subject of her father’s death, the details of which she had no intention of discussing with him, or anyone else in Jester. The town’s longtime residents already had memories of Sherman Bradley, and one of them was hardly flattering. They didn’t need to know everything.
As if he had no trouble recalling that less-than-flattering episode in her family’s history, Dev said, “So after your father, ah, left Jester, he went to Minnesota?”
“You mean after he ran off with Rita Winslow, his attractive young co-worker at the savings and loan,” she corrected, deciding to be candid about what they both knew was the blunt truth of the matter. “Yes, they apparently chose to put some distance between themselves and this town.” In the process, they’d left her and probably most everyone in Jester in a state of shock, Amanda remembered. Up until a few days after her fifteenth birthday, her always dapperly dressed father had been a well-respected accountant, one many considered the image of the ideal family man. Then, just like that, he was gone.
In the months that followed, her mother had filed for a divorce on the grounds of desertion, and five years later Mary Bradley had quietly passed away after a short illness with only her daughter, who’d made a hasty trip back from college, at her side.
“Eventually,” Amanda said, forging on with her story, “my father and Rita Winslow were married, and years later when she found herself a widow, Rita returned to Pine Run, where she was born and raised, even though she had no family left in the area.” Just twenty miles away, Amanda reflected, but she’d had no idea that the larger town southwest of Jester had once again become home to her father’s second wife.
“With Rita,” she continued, “came the children she and my father had brought into the world. A girl who’s now seven years old, two boys now five and four, and another girl, only a baby really, who’s eighteen months old.”
Dev stretched out his long legs and stacked one booted foot over the other. “Sounds as though they waited a while to have kids.”
Amanda nodded, acknowledging the truth of that. After all, fifteen years had passed since Sherman Bradley had disappeared in the middle of the night with his suitcases packed and a brief note left behind to say he wasn’t coming back.
“And then,” she said, “they had four children in fairly rapid succession.”
“Children you referred to earlier as orphans,” he reminded her, “which has to mean that their mother is gone, too.”
“I’m afraid so.” She released a quiet breath. “After Rita returned to Pine Run, she took a job in a local lawyer’s office. When that same lawyer phoned to tell me about my father and the children, he also said that Rita had been killed in an automobile accident over a month ago. As her employer, he’d volunteered to go through her papers to help settle her estate, and that was when he discovered a copy of my parents’ final divorce decree, which my father must have obtained at some point from the district court. Along with it were some small school photos of me he’d apparently taken with him. They were bound together with an old newspaper article in the Pine Run Plain Talker mentioning that Amanda Bradley, a Jester resident, had been one of the winners in a spelling contest.”
“And that’s how the lawyer found you.” He shook his head. “He’d never have found me if he’d had to rely on my winning any spelling contests.”
Which, Dev thought as Amanda only met that rueful remark with silence, had a lot less to do with intelligence than the fact that there had been a time when he’d seldom applied the brains he had. He’d been too busy raising hell on a regular basis. But that had all changed.
“I take it,” he said, “that you’re going to Pine Run to see the kids.”
Her gaze didn’t waver. “Yes, but beyond just seeing them, there’s a hearing scheduled at the offices of Child and Family Services next Tuesday, and I plan on doing my best to convince the authorities to place the children in my care.”
Well, she had guts to even consider taking on that kind of responsibility. He couldn’t deny that. “Think you’ll be successful?”
Her sudden sigh was long and heartfelt. “I wish I could say so with any certainty, but it may turn out to be an uphill battle if I can’t convince the authorities that I have enough resources to make it the most appealing solution.”
Resources. At least a part of that, Dev figured, had to translate to money, which he now had the ability to supply with little trouble. Of course, that also applied to several other people who’d shared in the lottery. Then again, even though Amanda could count at least a few of those newly wealthy as her friends, she wouldn’t be asking anyone for anything, not unless her back was flat against the wall. He’d be willing to bet on that as a sure thing, because past experience had already gone a long way to show she could be as mule-headed as anybody he’d ever met. If he was right, the last thing she’d do was ask for financial help.
But that wouldn’t be necessary in his case. Given that she had something he wanted, they could make a fair trade.
It was so damn simple…if he could talk her into it.
“If finances are a problem,” he said, keeping his tone mild, “we can solve it here and now. I’m ready to make you a decent enough offer for the bookstore property that you could open another one somewhere else in town and probably still have a healthy profit left over.”
Her chin went up. An automatic response? Dev wondered. Either that or his reviving a sore subject had teed her off all over again. Noting that the color had returned to her face, he wouldn’t have been surprised to see her stalk over the door, wrench it open and firmly suggest he waste no time in leaving. But she didn’t.
All at once it seemed far too quiet as seconds ticked by. At last, Amanda broke the silence. “I’ll…think about letting you make me that offer.”
Dev resisted the urge to heave a gusty sigh. Maybe, just maybe, he told himself, he would finally be able to put an end, once and for all, to the continual friction between them. “All right,” he said in the most businesslike tone he could muster, “you can let me know what you decide.”
With that, he got up. “I’ll take off now.” He strode to the chair, retrieved his hat and settled it on his head.
Amanda stood as he pulled on his jacket. “I probably won’t have an answer for you until after the hearing on Tuesday. And I’m not,” she added candidly, “at all sure what it will be.”
If she was telling him not to get his hopes up, Dev knew it was too late. Not that he considered the whole thing anywhere near a done deal, but she’d agreed to think about it, and right now he was counting himself lucky for that much.
“I’ll drop by the bookstore after you get back from Pine Run,” he told her.
She arched a wry eyebrow. “Well, that will be a definite switch. You haven’t exactly been one of my best customers.”
“You haven’t been one of mine, either,” he reminded her with a wry look of his own as he started to turn toward the door. Then his denim-clad thigh brushed against an edge of the shoulder bag resting on the end table and toppled it over. He dropped down to grab it before it hit the floor.
“I’ll take it,” Amanda said, stepping forward.
He straightened and absently handed the bag over, his attention already captured by the book that had been exposed, one featuring a bold cover he now had no trouble making out. “Midnight Passions,” he murmured, reading the title. He glanced at Amanda. “I usually favor the newspaper when it comes to keeping up on things, but I’ve got to admit that your choice in reading material seems…interesting.”
Ignoring that dry comment, she tossed her purse on the chair and stepped past him to head for the door. Although she didn’t wrench it open, she didn’t linger over it, either.
“Good night,” she told him, oh-so-politely.
“Good night,” he replied, matching her tone. “Happy reading,” he added as he walked out, tossing that short statement over his shoulder. The only reply he got was the sound of the door snapping shut. Dev had to grin. Even if it made his cut lip burn like a son of a gun, it was worth it.
He’d finally had the last word with Amanda Bradley.
THE DRIVE TO Pine Run gave Amanda more than enough time to think about several things. Nevertheless, again and again, her thoughts drifted back to Dev Devlin. Could she really sell her share of the building to him? Could she give in at last?
A firm answer to that question continued to elude her as she followed a curve in the two-lane highway cutting a path through the rolling hills that flowed like gentle waves over the eastern part of Montana. She remembered her first sight of the area when she was eight years old and a new arrival from the far flatter plains of the central Midwest. To her, the hills had been mountains, and the town of Jester, with its long Western history, almost a small piece of another world.
Soon after she and her parents had moved into the house Amanda now owned, they’d walked over to Main Street to see the place where her father would be starting his new job. Back then, she hadn’t so much as considered the possibility that she would one day open a bookstore only steps from the old brick building that was home to Jester Savings and Loan.
That was the same sunny summer day she’d seen Dev Devlin for the very first time, she couldn’t help but recall, and even to her pre-adolescent eyes, he’d been a memorable sight when she’d passed him on the sidewalk just doors down from the Heartbreaker Saloon. She’d never expected him, or any teenage boy, to notice her.
Yet he had, giving her a slow smile as their eyes met for a brief moment—a smile she’d done her best to return in her own shy fashion. Then he’d continued on his way, swaggering just a bit in his threadbare T-shirt and battered jeans, and she’d thought that maybe she’d made an acquaintance in town, if not a real friend.
But that was before her young ears had picked up on some pointed comments about the local “bad boy.”
“That Devlin kid,” a longtime Jester resident had contended within Amanda’s hearing, “is primed to go down the same road as the rest of his shiftless family.”
“Any girl who gets involved with him is just plain looking for trouble,” someone else had said.
Having spent most of her brief life being a “good girl” in an effort to please the father she adored, Amanda had taken those comments to heart and given the bad boy a wide berth. Only after she’d returned to Jester as a full-grown woman had she felt ready to take on the man Dev Devlin had become.
The undeniable truth that she’d done it, had taken on both him and his rowdy saloon, made it ever harder to consider selling out to him now. Could she really give in? Amanda wondered yet again.
Yes, she finally decided, releasing a long breath. She not only could do it, she would do it…if the fate of four children depended on it.
Which it just might, Amanda told herself as she swung her gray compact into the parking lot of the brown brick building housing the local division of Child and Family Services. She’d know soon enough what had to be done, she more than suspected. The fact that she still hadn’t shared the news about her sisters and brothers with anyone besides Dev Devlin by no means meant that she’d considered for even one minute backing off on her plan to do everything possible to further her chances of being allowed to provide a home for her newfound relatives.
With that goal still firmly in mind, she straightened the fitted jacket of her cream-colored wool suit and tried to look every inch the competent and responsible woman as she entered a small reception area. There, she met the Pine Run attorney who had stunned her down to her toes when he’d phoned her after being somewhat surprised himself to learn that she existed.
“Pleased to meet you, my dear,” Clarence Whipple told her in the courtly fashion of a silver-haired man probably close to seventy. Short of stature and built along thin lines, he wore a three-piece, pin-striped suit with comfortable ease, as though he’d been born into the legal profession. “I know this must be a very important day for you.”
“It is,” Amanda agreed as they shook hands.
Clarence pulled a small envelope from his well-worn briefcase. “I have the school photos and newspaper article that initially led me to you. I thought you would like to have them.” He gave the sealed envelope to Amanda. “I also took the liberty of including a recent snapshot of your half siblings, one of several I came across.”
She put the envelope in her shoulder bag. “That was very kind of you. I know I must have sounded astonished when you first called me.”
“Yes, you could say that,” he murmured with a trace of wry humor before his expression settled into more serious lines. “I was pleased to be able to tell you about the children, even though I also had the regrettable task of conveying the information that your father had passed away—and under somewhat, er, unfortunate circumstances.”
Yes, those circumstances had definitely been unfortunate, Amanda thought. She had to appreciate Clarence Whipple’s tact in giving the matter no more than a mere mention now. “How difficult do you think it will be for me to get custody?”
The lawyer met her gaze. “I can only say that, on one hand, your being the closest relative still living will work in your favor. On the other hand, a drawback is the fact that you’re single, and placement with a married couple is usually preferred. I believe the outcome will depend on whether we can convince the authorities that putting the children in your care is the most satisfactory solution for them.”
Amanda nodded. “Before things get started, can you tell me more about what their mother was like?” It was something she’d found herself wondering about more than once during the last several days, since she only had the barest memories of the woman who had become her father’s second wife. A tall, full-figured blonde with a ready smile for visitors to Jester Savings and Loan was how Amanda remembered Rita Winslow.
