Allison Leigh - Married To A Stranger

“Nearly two in the afternoon and he better be in town visiting the barber. Jaimie says you came in late last night, crashed out here and haven’t risen since. Hung over?”

“Listen runt, I haven’t had a hangover in a month of Sundays.” Hell, he rarely drank more than an occasional beer anymore. His days of excess had long passed.

“Then what? You sick?”

“No,” he said tolerantly. Em had been his best friend since they were bitty, so he made allowances for her that he ordinarily wouldn’t have. “Sleepy. It’s not a crime, last I checked.”

Her pansy-brown eyes narrowed. “I also heard you’ve been circling Hope Leoni. She’s a little—”

His “allowances” only went so far. “I don’t go around jumping the town virgins,” he said abruptly. “You know, if my love life was as active as everyone seems to think, I’d never get any work done.”

“And that work is…?” Her expression softened and she smiled peaceably. “Never mind. I learned just how close-mouthed you Hollins-Winword dudes are from my darling husband. Now, about these bows.”

Tris shook his head. “No wonder Jefferson finally succumbed to you. You’re worse than water torture.”

Her eyes danced. “That’s right. And only because I love you will I warn you that the dove-decorated shower is set to begin in less than an hour. There’ll be about twenty-five women trooping through this house, and I really don’t want to explain your presence on the floor. Might ruin your classy image.”

Tris made a face, but rolled to his feet. He rubbed Emily’s head, deliberately messing up her hair the way he’d done when they were kids, and headed upstairs, grabbing his duffel from where it still sat inside the dining room doorway.

He’d take a shower, then dive into a gallon of coffee. Then he’d consider hanging damned bows from the banister for his sister-in-law. Maybe.

Only, when he came out of the shower, considerably more alert and marginally more presentable in clean jeans and shirt, he could hear a horde of women chattering and laughing as they arrived. If he wanted coffee, he had to go down there among all of them to get it.

Not that he was ever averse to being among women. As far as Tris was concerned, it was one of the more pleasurable places to be. But this was a wedding shower.

Frankly, the whole notion made his skin itch.

He waited an interminable twenty caffeine-deprived minutes before he went downstairs to the now-empty kitchen, and the coffee pot that he prayed would be hot and full, as usual.

It was, and he stood there at the counter, singeing his tongue as he downed two fast cups, frowning at the playpen that sat on the floor on the other side of the table next to the wall. For now, it was empty of babies even though the family was full of them these days. Emily, Jaimie and Maggie had all had a baby within the last six months.

He shuddered, poured a third cup of coffee and carried it with him through the mudroom and outside.

The sun was bright. Warm. The air filled with the rich scent of mown grass. Across the gravel road separating the big house from the outbuildings and corrals, horses grazed and Matthew’s retriever chased a butterfly.

He squinted and poured more coffee down his throat. He was glad his brothers were busy with the hundred chores required every day to keep the place running. It meant that they were thoroughly busy, and Tris could find another place to grab a few more z’s, undisturbed.

He slowly wandered around the side of the house, past lilac bushes heavy with blossoms and immediately thought of Hope’s striking eyes. He stifled an oath. He’d learned a lot about Miss Hope Leoni while he’d been hanging out at Sawyer’s place the evening before. She was a paragon of virtue; an apparent candidate for sainthood.

Which meant the vivid dream he’d had about her that had awakened him around two in the morning was even more ill-advised.

He went up the front steps of the wide porch. Sighing with anticipation, he lowered himself onto the swing, propped his feet on the railing across from him, and dropped his head onto the wooden swing back.

Oh yeah. This was it. He yawned, scratched his jaw, and closed his eyes. This was the kind of break he needed. No noise, no tourists, no unexpected disasters at work. No wedding nonsense.

No damned dreams about innocent school teachers with violet eyes.

“Shhh.”

“Is he sleeping or is he dead?”

“His feet are big. They’re even bigger than Daddy’s, and I can put both my feet in his boot!”

“Girls, quiet down. You’ll wake him.”

“Do we have to share our juice with him? I don’t think we have enough for him. My mommy says Unca Twistin has a ’normous appa…appa—”

“Appetite.”

“Yeah. That.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t want any juice. Come on now, we’re going to have our picnic over there by those three trees. Remember?”

“But what if he does want some?”

“If he does, we’ll share with him. It would be impolite not to.”

“But—”

“Sshh. Over to the trees before we wake him.”

Tris gritted his teeth, staring at the group of little girls, and one big girl through slitted eyes. “Too late.”

The little girls, his nieces, jumped and scattered as if he’d grown three heads. The big girl, however, nudged up her gold-rimmed glasses and blinked with dismay. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect you to be out here sleeping, or I’d have talked the girls into having our picnic elsewhere.”

His coffee was cold. He finished it off, anyway, then pulled his feet off the rail and sat forward. “I didn’t expect to see you here, either.”

Hope moistened her lips. “Well. Sorry to have wakened you.” She hefted her caramel-colored wicker basket more firmly between her arms.

He was wakened all right. “What are you doing here?”

“Having a picnic with the girls.”

“No, I mean why are you with the kids and not at Gloria’s shower?”

“I’m watching the children. Well, these guys, anyway. The babies are with their moms.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I was asked to.” She shook her head as if the answer was obvious.

“How old are you, Hope?”

She looked over her shoulder at the children who were crossing the gravel drive toward the grass on the other side. “Nearly twenty-three. Sarah, honey, wait until you get to the grass before you take off your shoes,” she called.

Nearly twenty-three. Hell. How many women did he know who claimed to be nearly any age but one at least a decade younger than was true? And now he had the hots for the babysitter. Had he ever had a babysitter? He tried to remember. Couldn’t. Not enough coffee in him yet.

“I’ll watch the girls,” he said abruptly. They were sweet little things, and he liked playing the uncle. It was as close a relationship to kids as he intended to get. “You go join the women,” he finished telling Hope.

“I’m hardly dressed for a wedding shower.”

Which only brought his attention to the golden length of calf she displayed below the fringe of her knee-length, cut-off blue jeans. He’d have remembered if he’d ever had a babysitter with legs like that.

“Go on back and go to sleep,” she was saying, and he dragged his attention upward, over denim worn thin and…did she have to wear such a baggy T-shirt? The obnoxious lime-green cotton hung around her hips, frustratingly loose and boxy. The babysitter, for cryin’ out loud!

“But, um, thank you for the offer anyway.” She smiled shyly and turned to follow the children.

He gave himself a mental shake. Sleep. That’s what he needed. Then he wouldn’t feel so…hell, what did he feel? Off balance?

He yawned again, watching the graceful sway of her long braid as she walked away, joining the children.

J.D. and Angeline belonged to Daniel and Maggie. Leandra was Jefferson and Emily’s. And Sarah, the youngest, was Matthew and Jaimie’s. They all circled around Hope as she joined them and set them to work, spreading a bright yellow sheet.

He smiled faintly, though, when the girls didn’t dig into the feast—they were too far away for him to see exactly what it was. But he recognized what the little girls preferred over the food when dozens and dozens of small, opalescent bubbles started floating over their heads, bobbing, swaying, popping.

Even Hope was blowing bubbles. He rested his arms on the rail and watched her purse her lips, blow and set a wiggling, wobbling train of soap bubbles into the afternoon breeze. She certainly wasn’t shy when she dealt with the children.

He narrowed his eyes and pictured her face should he follow them. She’d probably stare at his feet or his left ear, and she’d turn white, then red. And all the while he’d be thinking he’d like to see her when she wasn’t wearing that baggy T-shirt that hid her curves from prying eyes like his.

God. He sat back in his chair and pressed the heels of his palms against his eye sockets. He was every bit the lech that his family seemed to think he was.

But even that knowledge didn’t take him back inside the house. No, he propped his feet back on the rail and continued watching Hope. If the way she kept sneaking looks back toward the house now and again was any indication, she was doing some of her own watching, too.

“I thought I saw you driving a green car yesterday.”

Hope whirled around at the voice behind her. She was waiting in the kitchen of the ranch house for her ride back to Weaver. By the time she’d shepherded the girls back to the big house, the shower guests had departed. That’s what she got for letting the little ones talk her into walking all over creation—and the Double-C had plenty of interesting places to explore.

Now, Tristan was looking at her with his incredible eyes, waiting for an answer and she wished, cowardly, that the children were still with her instead of their parents.

“Yes, I have a car,” she admitted. “But I rode out here with Dr. Rebecca.”

“And where is Dr. Rebecca now?”

Hope curled her fingers over the back of one of the chairs at the enormous oval table that sat in the center of the big kitchen. “She was called away on a house call.”

“So you need a ride home, then.”

“Jaimie is going to drive me.”

“Jaimie drives like a bat out of hell. I’ll take you.”

Hope’s stomach jolted. He was far more harmless when he was sleeping. When he was wide awake and watching her from beneath heavy lids, he was totally devastating. Totally daunting. Why would he offer to drive her? It wasn’t as if she was “of interest” to him. “Jaimie has already offered.”

“You really prefer to ride with the speed demon?”

Hope swallowed. “I—”

“Stop tormenting our guest,” Jaimie chided sailing into the kitchen and poking her brother-in-law in the back. “And I haven’t gotten a speeding ticket in months.”

“That’s ’cause your daughter calls the sheriff uncle,” Tris countered dryly. “I want to go by and see Drew Taggart anyway. There’s no point in all of us driving into town.”

Hope folded her hands together and wished she’d driven herself. But Jaimie looked her way, eyebrows lifting. And Hope forced herself to shrug as if it didn’t matter in the least how she got back home.

So she found herself sitting beside him in the close confines of his rental car as he drove along the gravel drive toward the main gate of his family’s ranch. With each vibrating turn of the tires, Hope felt herself growing more uncomfortable. She was wrinkled and sweaty and her unmanageable hair was working loose from its ordinarily tidy braid. He, on the other hand, made his faded jeans seem like a sinful sight; and she swore she could still smell the freshness of his shower on that golden skin.