Buch lesen: «The 15 Lb. Matchmaker»

Chapter One

Today might qualify as the worst day of Jolie Carleton’s life. If you didn’t count last Saturday, when she’d been left standing at the altar in front of three hundred people.

Being jilted had left her more embarrassed than hurt. She’d had second thoughts about her intended for weeks. If she’d had the backbone to speak up it wouldn’t have happened at all. It hadn’t taken her long to recognize the incident as a major wake-up call.

Jolie sighed and stabbed at the remains of a piece of cheesecake. Saturday night she’d made a vow to live with courage, to do something outrageous every day and get a life, but so far fate seemed to be testing her. Getting a life was proving to be harder than she imagined.

Glumly she watched the sunset paint the sky with streaks of orange and purple behind Winslow’s Garage across the street and tried to ignore the diner’s other customers, who watched her with open curiosity.

The smell of fried onions hung in the warm air, and the waitresses wore pink nylon uniforms with their name tags pinned over a fan of starched hankie. Ever since her car had been towed into Billings, Montana, Jolie had the strangest feeling she had entered a time warp.

She heard the door to the diner slap closed and looked up to see a blond version of the Marlboro Man talking to her waitress. Her breath caught in her chest as she fumbled her fork.

Over six feet tall, he had the wardrobe and the build of the icon plastered all over magazines. His broad shoulders filled out a worn sheepskin jacket, and his long legs were covered by blue jeans. He took off his cowboy hat and ran a broad hand through sun-bleached blond hair.

She exhaled a sigh of pleasure. He was eye candy at its finest.

He nodded at the cashier and smiled, displaying a set of even white teeth. Tanned skin crinkled at the corners of his deep-blue eyes, and a dimple dented one cheek. Drop-dead gorgeous, the man looked like a Hollywood version of the perfect cowboy.

The words hunk and babe drifted through her mind as she openly stared at the man, unable to look away.

He needed a shave. The stubble on his chin made him look even more masculine. She could imagine the rasp a beard like that would make against her skin.

Now she liked Montana even more than she had a moment ago. Feeling warm all over, she had to remind herself she’d sworn off men.

He glanced over and caught her gawking, open-mouthed. Jolie bent her head over her newspaper so her hair would hide her face.

Embarrassed to be caught gaping at a stranger, Jolie stared down at the want ads she had already read twice, then turned her head and dared a peek through a curtain of hair.

The cowboy walked past her with enough of a swagger to convince her he had just gotten off a horse, and took a seat at a booth in the rear of the diner.

Jolie dared one more glance in his direction, then turned her attention back to her problems. She needed a job, she told herself firmly, not a man who had the potential to star in a woman’s fantasies.

She tried to ignore the man and think about her situation. Just outside of Billings, a deer had bounded across the highway. Swerving to avoid the animal, Jolie had skidded across the shoulder of the road and run into a telephone pole.

She could almost hear her father scolding her. Jolie, he would say, as if she were still sixteen years old, never swerve to avoid an animal.

Easy enough to say when you didn’t have Bambi looking at you with those big startled eyes.

An hour ago, as she’d brushed the fine white dust that had exploded out of her car’s air bag off her silk shirt, the mechanic at Winslow’s had told her it might take three weeks to get the parts he needed for the repairs to her car.

His exact words had been, “Don’t stock parts for these foreign jobs” in a tone implying she’d broken some kind of law in Montana by driving a car made in Germany.

Now what was she supposed to do? Her car was wrecked, her father had cancelled her credit cards, and her Aunt Rosie was off backpacking somewhere in New York state.

Jolie struggled to think positively and come up with a solution to her problem. Collision coverage would take care of the car, but the deductible she’d had to pay the mechanic to order parts and start work had left her with a measly fifteen dollars.

She refused to call her father in Seattle for help. He’d predicted this trip would be a disaster and forbidden her to go. She’d left anyway, disobeying him for the first time in her life.

Most children rebelled against their parents when they were in their midteens. Jolie had waited until she was almost twenty-five years old.

She should’ve stood up to her father a lot sooner. Because she always went along with whatever he wanted just to keep the peace, she’d almost ended up married to a man she didn’t love.

How could she prove to herself she could be independent if she ran to her father for help at the first sign of trouble? Besides, she was still furious with him for cancelling her credit cards to try to keep her from leaving.

She had called New York and left a message for Aunt Rosie that she’d been delayed, but Rosie wasn’t due back from her trip until Sunday.

Rosie’s newest man must be the outdoorsy type. She tried to picture her chic aunt in a pair of boots and a backpack, but couldn’t come up with the image.

Jolie propped the heels of her Ferragamo flats on her suitcase and traced the outline of the state on the plastic place mat. She had no option but to stay right here in Billings and wait for the car.

She needed a job.

Jolie had planned to look for employment when she returned from her visit with her aunt, but it looked like her first work experience would be right here.

Watching the waitress stop at the next table to pour coffee, Jolie figured she could manage to wait tables. That would pay enough to cover her expenses until her car was ready. True, she had never served food, but she had planned parties and supervised caterers for her father often enough.

“More coffee, hon?” The waitress’s name tag identified her as Helen.

“No, thanks. But I do need a job. Are there any openings here?”

Helen laughed, then her eyes narrowed and slid over Jolie’s designer clothes, lingering on her gold jewelry. “Harry hasn’t hired anybody in over fifteen years. The only reason I got the job is ’cause I’m his sister-in-law.”

So much for the idea of waiting tables, Jolie thought.

Helen still hovered over her, staring. “What’s your name?”

“Jolie Carleton.”

Helen nodded. “Howdy, Jolie. Might be we could find something for you close by. You ever wait tables?”

“No.” She’d never had a job.

Helen raised one thinly plucked eyebrow. “Been a short-order cook?”

“No.” Jolie felt her spirits drop another notch.

“Any cashier experience?”

Only from the customer’s side. “No.”

“Well, honey, what have you done?”

By now Jolie figured Helen wouldn’t be impressed with a list of her Junior League projects. “I have a degree in child development. Maybe I could work at a preschool.”

Helen gave her a speculating look. “You ever actually take care of kids, Jolie?”

Finally she could say yes to something. “I’ve taken care of my cousin’s children.”

“How many?” she asked, her voice skeptical.

“Three.”

“How old?”

Why would Helen care how old her cousin’s children were? Jolie felt protective of the children, probably because her cousin was like a barn cat. She had her babies and after a month or two paid no attention to them, resuming her ski trips and visits to friends in Europe.

Reluctantly she said, “Five, three, and a baby.” Jolie hoped this was leading somewhere.

Helen stared for another disconcerting moment, nodded as if she’d come to some kind of decision, then turned abruptly and walked away. Jolie watched her cross the café to the gorgeous cowboy.

Helen and the cowboy held a whispered conversation, glancing frequently back at Jolie. Now, what was that all about?

Knowing she was the subject of their conversation, Jolie didn’t know where to look. She stared down at the newspaper want ads, folded up on the edge of the table.

The toes of two hand-tooled leather cowboy boots appeared in her line of vision. The faint scent of horse and hay curled up to her.

She looked up, pinned in place by the cowboy’s incredible blue eyes. He was no longer smiling, and she could see lines of fatigue on his face. He looked older than she had first thought.

“Ms. Carleton?” His deep voice rolled over her like a fog across Puget Sound.

Startled, Jolie nodded and swallowed. “Yes?”

Griff took a minute to take in the whole package. What the heck was a beautiful woman dressed like her doing in Harry’s Diner? he wondered.

“My name’s Griff Price. I have a proposition for you.”

He didn’t miss the way her big brown eyes widened at his choice of words, and in spite of his foul mood he suppressed a smile.

“How do you do, Mr. Price?” Her speech was careful and polite, her expression wary.

Sleek and sophisticated, she reminded him of a Thoroughbred horse. Generations of carefully chosen bloodlines came together to produce a woman this magnificent. Good bone structure, sleek hair, clear eyes, fine skin and good muscle tone didn’t happen by accident.

He was pretty good at sizing up women. He’d learned the hard way. She didn’t look like a baby-sitter.

She looked like trouble.

But Griff was desperate. He had just acquired a nephew he hadn’t even known existed, and his housekeeper, Margie, was leaving to take care of her sick sister for at least two weeks.

“Helen tells me you’ve had experience taking care of children.” She nodded and continued to stare at him with those big chocolate-brown eyes.

It was hard to believe, looking at her. She had city and society written all over her, and he wanted no part of either. She had the look of his ex-wife. Expensive. Deirdre would never willingly take a job as a caregiver. She had been a taker, not a giver.

Women like Ms. Carleton didn’t belong in Montana. This country was harsh, and it would chew you up and spit you out if you weren’t as tough as old saddle leather.

Glancing nervously at Helen, who hovered two booths away, she cleared her throat and said, “Yes.”

Griff barely remembered his question and realized he’d been staring at her. He also noticed Helen had hung around to listen, wiping up an already immaculate tabletop. Gossip was first on the menu at Harry’s.

Griff turned his attention back to Ms. Carleton. “Helen also mentioned you’re looking for work.”

He rubbed at his temple, trying to dispel the headache that had blindsided him on the way to town.

Looking uneasy, she glanced at Helen again, then back to him. Finally she nodded, looking as jumpy as a cat in a roomful of rocking chairs.

He’d bet a week’s wages she was running away from something. Women like her always left when things got tough. He knew that from experience. First his mother had run, then his wife.

But, he reminded himself grimly as he watched the way her small smooth hand toyed nervously with a gold chain necklace, he didn’t have much choice. And Helen had said she had cared for her cousin’s children. Unlike his wife, she must have a sense of family, and to Griff that meant something.

“I need a live-in baby-sitter for a few weeks.” He watched her absorb that information.

Deirdre had run off two years ago with his brother. Until three weeks ago when Social Services had called about his nephew, Riley, he’d known nothing about the baby, or Deirdre and his brother’s deaths.

She brightened a little. “Live in?”

“Yes, ma’am. I live a ways out of town.” He knew her car had been wrecked and there was no way he could take the time to drive her back and forth to town every day.

“I see.” She continued to twist up the gold necklace that hung down over her full breasts. Little lines of concentration furrowed her brow.

“I’ve got a ranch to run.” He tapped the toe of his boot against the linoleum, anxious to be on his way. He still had hours of work to do before his day would end.

Griff couldn’t stay home with Riley. The ranch took up all his time, even when things were going smoothly. And things had not been smooth for quite a while.

Right now he had fence down in two spots. God knew how many head had wandered into the coulees. It could take days to find them all. His main stock tank had sprung a leak sometime in the past few days, and he had to get it fixed or spend hours hauling water. And just to round things out, the weatherman was predicting a hard, early winter.

Worst of all, he missed his dad with a fierce ache in the belly. He wanted the old man beside him, quietly reassuring him that everything would work out.

Griff yanked his wandering thoughts back to the problem at hand. He stared at Miss Carleton, squirming on the red vinyl seat. No one had answered his advertisement, and Margie was leaving this afternoon.

He was desperate, but he wasn’t a fool. She was all wrong for the job, but he needed time to find a permanent baby-sitter. Margie had made it very clear from the day the baby arrived she was a housekeeper and hadn’t hired on to raise kids. This woman could do the job for the short term, to buy himself some time.

“We need someone for a couple of weeks.” He watched her as she considered his offer, and wondered if she would last even a week.

She nodded hesitantly. “Okay.”

He felt a spurt of relief. He’d be damned if he’d explain more to her here. Everyone in the diner had an ear turned toward their conversation. Any conversation he had with her here would be all over town in minutes. He’d been the topic of their gossip enough to last him the rest of his life.

If she had questions, they could talk in the truck. He didn’t want Billings chewing on his personal business again.

On the way back to the ranch he would tell her only what she would need to know to do the job. She was a stranger who would be in and out of his life. She didn’t need to know why Riley was living with him. His brother’s betrayal and death cut deeply into his soul, and he didn’t plan on sharing it.

Griff pushed his dark thoughts away. It wasn’t something he liked to dwell on. Every time he saw his nephew he was reminded of the fact his wife had run off with his brother. She had refused to have Griff’s child, but obviously hadn’t felt that way about his brother.

Apparently, Jolie thought as she watched him press his fingers to his forehead, even though he’d offered her a job, she hadn’t made a very good first impression.

She hadn’t missed how he had emphasized the fact that the position came with a time limit. That was fine with her; all she needed was a temporary position.

Jolie was not going to react to the annoyed expression on Mr. Price’s face as he stared at her. How often had she caved in to her overbearing father when he had scowled at her like that?

Courage, Jolie, she told herself.

Helen knew Griff Price, and she must think it was okay for Jolie to work for him or she wouldn’t have suggested it. She cleared her throat and was about to suggest he sit down and have a cup of coffee.

“Well, are you coming?” The sole of his boot slapped impatiently against the worn flooring.

She did want the job, but found it easier to say she was going to live with courage, harder to actually do it. “Yes, let’s—”

“Come on, it’s late,” he said gruffly, cutting her off.

He jammed his hat back on his head. Then in one fluid movement he picked up her jacket, tossed it to her, lifted her suitcase, turned and strode out of the diner.

Dumbfounded, she watched him disappear into the twilight with her bag.

He might be one of the best-looking men she had ever met, but he had the manners of a boor.

Hurriedly she slid out of her seat, pulled four dollars out of her precious hoard, then slapped the bills down on the table. Exasperated by his rude behavior, Jolie approached Helen, who was setting a nearby table.

“Excuse me, but do you know Mr. Price very well?”

Helen smiled and nodded. “Sure do. I went to high school with his daddy. He comes from a fine family. Prices been running the Circle P spread for almost a hundred years.”

Jolie looked uncertainly at the door. “He didn’t give me a chance to ask any questions,” she said, more to herself than Helen.

Helen smiled. “Oh, don’t worry—”

“You coming or not?” Everyone in the diner turned as Griff Price stuck his head in the door and hollered at her, cutting off what Helen was about to say. Then he left without waiting for her to answer.

Jolie felt the blood rise in her cheeks. She’d made him angry.

Helen gave Jolie a gentle push toward the door. “That boy’s always in a hurry. Margie will fill you in when you get to his place. She’s going to visit her sick sister, but you can talk to her before she leaves.”

So that was why he needed a baby-sitter, Jolie thought as she followed him out the door, her stomach tied in knots at the thought she’d annoyed him. His wife was leaving.

On her way out she hurriedly summed up what she knew about the man, still trying to decide if going with him was a reasonable plan.

He was married, from a good family and offering a job she knew she could do. She had decided to live with courage and do something outrageous every day. Now it seemed as though she was going to be put to the test.

Besides, Jolie thought, her other choice was to bed down in her car in Winslow’s garage.

She assured herself if she didn’t feel comfortable with the situation when she got to their home, she’d ask Margie Price to bring her back to the diner.

By the time Jolie got to the parking lot, he was at the passenger door hefting her bag into the back seat of the biggest pickup truck Jolie had ever seen. She stopped about five feet from the cowboy.

He pointed at the open door. “Get in. I’ve got stock to tend to.”

Taken aback by his abrupt behavior, Jolie inched toward the truck. “Don’t you want references?” she asked.

Not that she could give him any work references, but it seemed like a good question to ask before they got too far out of town.

He stared at her for a moment. “No. Is there some good reason you’re stalling?”

“No, I—”

“You told Helen you’d taken care of your family’s kids,” he said cutting her off and frowning at her as if he thought she might have lied to him.

“Yes, I did,” she said, not quite knowing how she should respond to his lack of courtesy. She shivered as the cold evening air penetrated her thin blouse.

“Good,” he answered, with such a tone of relief in his voice she relaxed a little. “You do want the job, don’t you?” he asked, still staring, his tone back to edgy.

Jolie paused for another moment to shrug into her jacket, then decided she was being foolish to hesitate. “Yes, I do.”

Her other choices sucked.

“Okay.” He took two strides to get to her, grabbed her around the waist, lifted her up and set her on the seat.

Breathless at the suddenness of his bold action and the feel of his hands on her, she scrambled to get her feet in before he closed the door on them.

She took a deep breath and watched him stride around to the driver’s door, hop in, then turn the key in the ignition. The truck’s engine started with a roar.

He muttered something under his breath and pulled out of the parking lot while she was still struggling to find her seat belt. Holding the shoulder strap, Jolie dug down behind the seat to locate the buckle.

Suddenly his big warm hand slid along her hip and fished the fastener out from behind the seat.

She felt a zing of sensation where he’d touched her, then immediately chided herself.

He was married.

And she had sworn off men.

She murmured a quick thank-you. Hoping he couldn’t see her face flush, she managed to connect the two ends of the belt.

The silence in the cab grew until Jolie couldn’t stand it anymore. “Is your home very far?”

He shifted on the seat and shrugged one shoulder. “Nope.”

Jolie waited for more of an explanation, but apparently that was his whole answer. She’d have to try another subject. “Mr. Price, how many children do you have?”

He cleared his throat. “Griff.”

Jolie turned to look at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“My name is Griff. There’s one child.”

Jolie nodded and waited for him to give her more information. He stared straight ahead at the road.

Her annoyance grew until after a few moments she decided one of them needed to show some manners, so she tried again. “Griff, is your child a boy or a girl?”

“Boy.”

Jolie struggled to hold on to her temper. He acted like she was charging him by the word. “How old is your son?”

He started to answer when a ringing phone interrupted them.

He reached inside his jacket and pulled a cellular phone out of his shirt pocket.

Turning her head just a little, Jolie studied him in the gathering gloom. His expression darkened as he listened intently to whoever was on the other end of the line.

Scowling, he glanced at the clock set in the dashboard. “When?” he barked into the phone, tightening his grip on the instrument.

His intensity made her uncomfortable. The man certainly didn’t believe in wasting time on conversation. Or manners. Jolie was accustomed to polite small talk, no matter how meaningless.

“Take care of that now.” He barked into the phone.

Jolie shifted her gaze to stare out the window at the empty country and the sapphire sky as she listened to his one-word questions and answers. The landscape that had seemed beautiful and wild a few hours ago now appeared barren. She fought down the urge to ask him to take her back to the diner.

Don’t be a fool, she thought. She was going to be courageous. Besides, she didn’t have any options. She was starting to realize how easy her life had been when she’d let others make her decisions for her.

She chanted her new mantra to herself. Courage, I live with courage. And because of that courage, she had her first job. She had wanted to work right after college, but her father had always had a reason she should wait. A trip, a charity ball to organize, overseeing the redecoration of the house.

Griff turned off the main road. She glanced at him and decided she wouldn’t let a little surliness get her down. She’d just have to work on those clever comebacks that always occurred to her an hour after she needed them.

She could see a house in the distance, sitting on a broad expanse of open plain. The huge building behind the house was probably a barn. Didn’t ranches have barns?

She thought of a dozen questions, but when she glanced at Griff, who stabbed at the power button on his phone as if he was killing a venomous insect, she decided not to waste her breath.

She’d talk to Mrs. Price.

As he parked behind a small, battered, blue compact car, Jolie stared at the enchanting yellow-and-white Victorian house, complete with wraparound porch and gabled roof, and hid a smile.

The big sour cowboy who had driven her in from Billings did not belong in such an enchanting home. It looked too feminine and had too much charm. His wife must be a lovely woman.

Without a word he opened the driver’s door and climbed out, then hauled her suitcase out of the back.

Jolie opened her door and slid out of the truck, following Griff up the front steps. She stepped through the open door and almost bumped into an old woman in the entry hall.

The woman jammed an ancient black pillbox hat with torn netting over her gray hair while she scolded Griff Price. “About time you got back. Now I got to drive in the dark.”

She thrust a lethal-looking hat pin through the battered crown of her hat and glared up at him.

She glanced at Jolie. “Baby’s asleep.” Without saying another word, she headed out the door.

Baby? For some reason Jolie had pictured an older child. She watched the woman march down the steps and get in the blue car.

By this time Jolie was not the least bit surprised not to get an introduction.

Just as the old woman was closing her car door, Griff hollered down to her. “Hey, Margie, did that feed supplier call?”

Jolie spun around to stare at Griff Price. That was Margie?