Buch lesen: «Married To A Stranger»

Chapter One

Eight days earlier.

“I think that’s plenty, darlin’. If you don’t mind.” Hope Leoni blinked, dragged her eyes from the deep blue gaze of the man sitting at the counter across from her. And realized she was pouring coffee all across the counter.

Well, not precisely across the counter. But it was overflowing the thick white coffee cup, the utilitarian saucer beneath it, quickly pooling around the base. Worse, it flowed into a rich brown river that ran straight to the edge of the counter and into the smoky gray sweater the man wore, creating a large spot where he’d been leaning against the counter edge. Now he sat back with a muffled comment.

Her cheeks burned and she hastily set down the glass coffee carafe and grabbed a cloth from behind the counter, mopping up her mess. “I’m so sorry.” She mopped, sopped, wiped and tried not to stare when, with a spare movement, he yanked the sweater over his head and tossed it onto the stool beside him. She dragged her attention from the plain white T-shirt that remained, hugging his broad shoulders, only to realize she was equally distracted by the thick gold hair that tumbled over his forehead. “I don’t know what I was thinking—”

He, the man…the blond god with a face that could make angels weep…put one hand over hers, stopping her motions. “No sweat, darlin’.”

She didn’t know which made her blood flow faster until it zipped along her veins with a fevered frenzy—the touch of his hand atop hers, or the casual endearment murmured in his low voice. The schoolgirl fantasies in which he’d been the star seemed as recent as yesterday. “I, uh, I’m not usually so clumsy. I can’t believe I—”

“Hey.” His long, long fingers encircled hers. Slid around her hand, beneath it; square, warm palm meeting hers. Warm. Dry. Hard.

Every sound faded—the dog that had been barking half the morning from where it was tied up outside the sheriff’s office a few doors down, the tractor mower that somebody was running over at the high school, the music from the radio on the shelf in the corner.

All of that faded. She could hear her pulse, thundering in her ears. Could hear her breath, slowly easing past her lips. She could hear the soft chink of his gold wristwatch as it bumped the counter beneath their hands.

“Relax,” he said in that voice that hypnotized. “Nobody’s going to fire you over a little spilled coffee. Certainly not Ruby, who’s got a heart bigger than Wyoming.”

At the mention of Ruby, owner of Ruby’s Café and, more importantly, Hope’s grandmother, some of Hope’s scattered senses returned. She tugged her hand, relieved and disappointed all at once when their hands separated. She picked up the damp cloth, rubbing her palm against the wet, rough, terry cloth. “I’m well aware of Gram’s generosity.”

“Gram?”

Hope pulled her gaze from his mouth. From the way it tilted at the corner when he spoke as if he were perpetually amused. “Ah…Ruby. You know…she’s my grandmother. I’m Hope. Hope…Leoni.”

He nodded, giving her the impression that he was absorbing every nonsensical syllable she uttered. Which was, of course, ridiculous.

Men who looked like this man didn’t hang on every syllable of the very ordinary Hope Leoni. Only he was nodding, his eyes thoughtful. “That’s right,” he said. “Ruby did have a little granddaughter she was raising.”

“I didn’t think you’d remember that.” Again, she forced herself to look beyond the mesmerizing way his lips shaped his words—to take in the thick, burnished blond hair, the sapphire-colored eyes that even dark circles beneath couldn’t dim, the sharply angled jaw. The astounding width of his shoulders. “You, um, don’t visit Weaver very often.” Hope felt her cheeks heat all over again.

When he’d moved away from Wyoming, she truly had been Ruby’s “little” granddaughter. But that hadn’t kept her or any other girl growing up in Weaver from developing a crush on the Wyoming boy who’d made good.

“Well, I’m here now and it’s nice to meet you, officially, Hope Leoni. Tristan Clay.” He shifted and stuck out his hand, obviously waiting.

Hope swallowed, placing her hand in his. She was almost prepared for the jolt, but still her breath audibly caught and her cheeks burned. “You, too, Mr—ah, Clay.”

His smile widened gently but there was something daunting about his impossibly steady gaze, so intensely blue among thick lashes that were surprisingly dark for someone so blond and golden. “Tristan’ll do.”

She swallowed, far too aware that he still held her hand engulfed in his much larger one. “I suppose you’re here for your father’s wedding. The whole town is buzzing with excitement.”

Finally, finally, his lashes lowered. His thumb brushed across the back of her hand. “This town buzzes with excitement when the lone traffic signal turns red. Do you work here all the time, Hope?”

She knew she should pull away her hand. But his thumb made that gentle little swirl again and she couldn’t bring herself to move. “Yes,” she breathed. “No. I mean, I work here during the summer. When school starts, I’ll—”

His expression didn’t change. “School?”

“I teach at the elementary school. Kindergarten through third.”

“Lucky kids. Married? Engaged? Going steady?”

She swallowed, nearly choking. “No.”

Again that smooth, gentle swirl against her hand, the faint tilt at the corner of his mouth. “Why not?”

Her fingers curved. She tugged again and had the impression that he wanted to smile when she pushed her hands into the front pockets of her pink waitress uniform. “No particular reason,” she answered, hoping that her trembling nerves didn’t show in her voice as badly as she suspected. Except she’d have to be asked on a date again before she could worry about marriage proposals. “You?” His smile widened a bit, and he shook his head. Her cheeks flamed hotly. Of course, in a town as small as Weaver, news would have spread like wildfire if he had settled down with one woman.

He was Tristan Clay, the youngest of the Clay brothers of the enormous Double-C cattle ranch located some twenty miles away from town. He was rich, golden-beautiful and successful even without his family’s holdings, which were reportedly the largest in the state. He’d developed some type of software when he’d been younger than she was now that had revolutionized the industry. Had dated famous women, danced in Europe with princesses and slept in the White House.

When Hope had been in school, every girl in town had dreamed of capturing the interest of Tristan Clay on his rare visits to his family’s ranch. It didn’t matter that he was grown and gone and the schoolgirls were just that—girls. The articles about him in the newspapers or magazines years ago had been clipped, savored in scrapbooks or tacked up on bedroom walls.

Hope had so envied her friend, Jolie, who had been allowed to pin up her favorite articles about her latest heartthrob. Gram had refused to let Hope attach anything to her bedroom walls other than a landscape or a print of the Last Supper. As if by doing so she’d be able to prevent Hope from turning into the wild child her sister Justine had been.

But Gram hadn’t known about the clipping Hope had had inside her geometry book. The one of Tristan, when he’d made the papers about some high-tech espionage he’d foiled. His appearances in the news had dwindled to nothing over the last six or seven years—a fact that had roused its own share of curiosity—but Hope knew, to her everlasting embarrassment, that her private hoard of clippings were still packed away somewhere in her closet.

And now, here he sat, across the counter from where she stood, with his intense blue gaze steady on her face as if there was no place else in the world he wanted to be.

Ridiculous, of course. Tristan Clay was just killing time until he headed out to his family’s place.

Yet, he was here in her grandmother’s café, wearing blue jeans that were washed soft and nearly white. The dark gray crew-neck sweater he’d worn had looked like cashmere. But he’d dumped it on the stool with no regard for the coffee soaking it. And if she wasn’t mistaken, there’d even been a small hole in one of the cuffs that had been pushed halfway up his golden-brown, sinewy forearms.

For a self-professed computer geek, his body looked both lean and hard. Her cheeks heated once again at her wayward thoughts. Since when did she speculate on the hardness of a man’s body? Not since you were a silly teenager, mooning over an article clipping about a man completely out of your league.

Now her ears were burning, too. She swiped a loose strand of hair away from her cheek, nudged up the nose piece of her glasses and made a production of looking at the round clock high on the wall at the end of the counter.

It was three-thirty and the café was supposed to close at two every day until it reopened at six. But Hope had left the front and back doors propped open to take advantage of the lovely June afternoon while she prepared for the supper crowd.

It wasn’t the first summer she’d spent working in her grandmother’s café. It wasn’t likely to be the last. But come the fall, Hope would begin her second year of teaching at Weaver Elementary and her mind had been filled with plans of that. And the relief of it, because she’d known the vote of the three-person school board to keep the school open at all had been terribly close.

She’d come out of the kitchen, her head filled with school projects and ideas, only to find Tristan sitting at one of the counter stools. His arms had been folded across the shining surface, his wide shoulders hunched tiredly. She’d begun telling him they were closed, but he’d looked up and Hope had been lost in the intensity of his eyes.

Tristan had been gone from the area for so long that he probably didn’t remember that Ruby’s Café closed after lunch. Yet telling him that was quite possibly the last thing on this earth that she’d wanted to do.

She now cast around for something intelligent to say. But could only think of the same topic she’d brought up earlier. “So, you’re here for your father’s wedding next Saturday?”

He nodded and shifted on the stool, finally blinking his eyes and glancing away. But only for a moment. One moment when she could breathe normally, and then he looked at her again, and she simply forgot how. She nudged at her slipping glasses, then pushed her hands into her pockets once more. “I’ve met Gloria Day.” She felt the tips of her ears go hot at the way the words seemed to blurt out of her. “She’s very nice. I, uh, hope your father and she are very happy.”

He nodded, not replying. His long fingers wrapped around the cup and he tilted it, as if to drink. Hope automatically reached for the coffee pot and refilled his cup. “Did you want to see a menu?” She ignored the fact that she was due at her friend’s house in less than ten minutes. She’d promised to watch Evan, Jolie’s son, while Jolie and Drew Taggart drove to Gillette.

“I remember when Ruby used to just write the specials on that chalkboard over there.” Tristan glanced at the square board that was propped on a high corner shelf.

“She still puts the specials on the board.” Hope pulled a menu from beneath the counter and slid it across to him. “But we offer more these days. I could fix you a sandwich or something.”

“Coffee, tea or me?” Tris wanted to retract the suggestive words as soon as he said them. But they were already out there and hectic color was staining the waitress-teacher’s cheeks. Personally, he found the blush charming. How many women did he know anymore who blushed?

But he’d obviously embarrassed her.

“No. I guess not.” He was oddly disappointed. She wasn’t at all his type of woman. Hell, she looked barely old enough to vote, much less be a teacher. Besides, the only energy he had right now was expended simply by lifting the coffee cup to drain it of its life-giving liquid. He set the empty cup down, closed the menu and pushed to his feet, dropping a few bills on the counter as he did so.

He wondered when he’d become so jaded that he couldn’t recognize a naive girl when he met one. Not that he expected to see her again. He had a week to catch up on his brothers’ lives, then there was the wedding to get through. After that, he was due to meet Dom to finish up the case that had kept them all occupied far longer than anyone had expected, thanks to the mess made by a love-sick fool on their very own team. He didn’t have time to dwell on Hope’s innocent appeal. “Thanks for the java.” He headed to the open door. “It was just what I needed.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

He looked back at her painfully polite words. Her ivory cheeks were nearly as pink as the uniform-dress thing she wore. Behind her gold-rimmed glasses, her eyes were wide and so violet they looked like crushed flowers from the lilac bushes that bloomed around the big house at the ranch. If it weren’t for the glasses, he’d have figured that she was wearing some colored contact lenses to achieve that vivid color. But they were obviously the genuine article.

He cupped his hand tightly around the metal edge of the glass door as his attention drifted from her eyes to the rosy fullness of her lips. To the gentle, rounded curve of her jaw and the smooth line of her throat where the delicate links of a fine gold chain disappeared beneath the ill-fitting uniform. Behind him, a dog barked and he reeled in thoughts that could get him arrested in some states. Apparently, he wasn’t as beat from the last week as he’d thought. “Give my regards to your grandmother.”

“I will.” Her tongue peeped out, leaving a distracting glisten on her lower lip. “It was nice meeting you.”

“You too. Hope.”

The color in her cheeks flared again, but she smiled. And he found himself smiling back.

Then he heard his name being called, and turned to see his oldest brother, Sawyer, standing on the street a few yards down. He absently waved at his brother, still looking back inside the café. Feeling disappointed that Hope had turned away, busy with something at the counter.

“Thought you were coming in next week.”

Realizing that he was wondering how far her toffee-brown hair would reach down her back if it weren’t twisted into that thick, roping braid, Tris deliberately stepped away from the doorway toward Sawyer. Okay, so he took one more look into the café before he did. What was the harm in looking? He was a man. She was a woman.

And his brother was the law now. Tris felt a smile growing on his face as his brother walked closer. The only indication of Sawyer’s new status as the sheriff was the star fastened unobtrusively to his leather belt. Except for the billed cap with a naval insignia that he wore, Sawyer looked much the same as the other men in the small rural town he now served. Well-worn blue jeans and a work shirt. “I was,” Tris finally answered with a grin. “You’re missing the Stetson and spurs.”

Sawyer shrugged, tucking the bow of his dark sunglasses in the collar of his shirt. “Left the spurs at home. Rebecca likes ’em, you know,” he said blandly.

Tris chuckled. “You wish. How is my newest doctor-in-law?”

“My wife is beautiful and totally in love with me. You can save your charms for someone else.” Sawyer leaned his back against the hood of a pickup parked at the curb. “You’re early.”

“So you already mentioned.” Tris looked back toward the café when he heard the soft jingle of a bell. All he saw, though, was the door closing. The blinds had been drawn across all the windows. “Cafe still closed during the afternoons?”

“Regular as rain.”

“She didn’t tell me,” he murmured.

“Ruby?”

“Hope.” He felt his brother’s look. “What?”

Sawyer just shook his head. “What do you do? Some kind of chant that brings women running?”

“All I had was a cup of coffee.” Ordinarily, Tris would have shrugged off his brother’s taunt without feeling a shred of defensiveness.

“Yeah, well, I know you. Hope teaches at the elementary school. Everyone in this town looks on her as their daughter, or their sister. So keep your mitts off.”

The fact that his brother seemed to think he needed the warning burned. “Thanks for the enthusiastic welcome home, bro.”

Sawyer’s expression didn’t change. Because he was the oldest of his brothers? Because he was the sheriff? Because he was one of Squire Clay’s sons and had picked up an endless amount of Clay nosiness along the way?

“Hope Leoni is,” sweet, unbearably sexy and way too innocent, “of no interest to me,” Tris said dismissively. Maybe if he said it with enough conviction, he’d make it true.

Hope’s fingers crushed the paper bag holding the rolls she was taking out to the Taggarts, when she heard Tristan’s voice, easily carried around the side of the café on the warm summer breeze.

She yanked open the door of her little green car and tossed the sack onto the passenger seat. “Of course you’re of no interest to him,” she muttered under her breath. She tossed her braid over her shoulder and pushed the key into the ignition, starting the engine with a roar. She threw it into gear and zipped around the side of the café, jouncing out onto Main.

In her rearview mirror she could see Tristan and the sheriff standing on the sidewalk talking. “Men like Tristan Clay don’t have interest in women like you.” Men in general don’t have interest in you. Most of the town still considered her Ruby’s “little” granddaughter.

She was a fully qualified teacher. She’d moved into her own house and, despite the barely hidden reluctance of the school board, obtained the teaching position at Weaver Elementary. She didn’t know what was worse—still being thought of as a teenager, or knowing that every move she made was measured and compared against the actions of her mother who’d had the temerity to be an unwed mother, twice, or her sister, who’d had to leave high school because of her wild ways.

Maybe she should accept the next time Larry Pope asked her out. He wasn’t a bad guy, after all. In fact, as the math teacher at the high school, he was respected and well liked. Maybe if she dated him a time or two, the town would see that she wasn’t her mother or her sister.

But surely that wasn’t a good enough reason to go out with a man? To prove she could date without bringing shame to her grandmother the way people seemed to believe her mother and sister had? Larry was nice, yes. He just didn’t make her forget her own name when she looked into his…his…what color were Larry’s eyes? Whatever color they were, they weren’t the deep blue that Tristan Clay’s were.

She made an impatient sound. Yes. The next time Larry Pope asked her out, she’d accept. It wasn’t as if there was a line of men beating down her door. It wasn’t as if she was “of interest” to any male other than Larry Pope.

She hit the brakes abruptly, nearly passing the turn-off to the Taggarts’ place.

Several minutes later, she pulled up in front of the partially completed log home that her friends were building. As soon as she stopped the car, the door flew open and Evan tumbled out, racing toward her. “Auntie Hope,” he squealed, launching his five-year-old self with considerable enthusiasm at her legs. Hope laughed, swinging the boy in a circle, before settling him back on his feet.

He beamed, gap-toothed, back at her. There was another male who was interested in her after all, Hope thought wryly. Only he was seventeen years her junior and had a seven o’clock bedtime. “Come on, you,” she said cheerfully. “Let’s hustle your folks along so we can finish writing your surprise story for your mom’s birthday.”

And maybe, while they were at it, she could rid herself of foolish thoughts about Tristan Clay.