Fannin's Flame (3 page)

“How does a bus slip into a pond?” This man was telling her whoppers just to get her to calm down, and it was working better than wine.

“That’s a story for another time. Come on. I need to get you warm. Easy up the hill,” he said, more carrying her than letting her walk.

“I’m fine, Fannin. I can walk. Really.”

“Yeah, but it feels good to push on your behind. Unprofessional, but we’re outside of working hours. Right?”

She giggled. “I guess so.” The feel of his hands all over her was too good to complain about, anyway. He made her feel dainty.

“In fact, I’m grateful to that evil deer. Without him, I wouldn’t be having this much fun.”

He helped her into the truck, tucking a blanket around her legs. As promised, Joy was nestled into his jacket, completely undisturbed by the excitement her mother had just suffered. “Thank you,” Kelly said. “I’m perfect now.”

Nodding, he said, “You were perfect from the start.”

And then he leaned in to kiss her, just a soft kiss, but it started fireworks in her heart. Kelly groaned, wishing she didn’t feel her self-control slipping, but she did and she wanted more. Suddenly, the redhead inside of her took over as she turned her legs to the edge of the seat and locked them around his waist.

“Kiss me, cowboy,” she said. “Kiss me like you’re on fire for me.”

“I think I burst into flames when I had my hand on your butt,” he said before kissing her hard. “I know parts of me were definitely not feeling the wind chill.”

She moaned, a sigh of pleasure, but he pulled away to look into her eyes. “Are you sure you’re not hurting anywhere?”

Only my heart, she thought, and then she pulled him back to her mouth. “I want you,” she said against his lips.

He stiffened with surprise, but only for a second. Then he shoved her skirt up her legs, rubbing her thighs above her knee-high boots. “Are you sure? You’re okay with this?”

I’m as okay with this as any thirty-year-old redheaded, six-foot woman could ever be. She had hot, horny cowboy between her legs—he was such a strong man—she’d never be in this fantasy again in her whole life. “I know I’m not what you ordered, but—”

“Forget what I ordered. I’d say you more than meet the requirements,” he said gruffly, unbuttoning
her ladylike sweater. “You’re too beautiful for words. You should always wear sweaters.”

She giggled, slightly nervous about her size. He unsnapped her red bra from the back and then buried his face in her breasts as if he hadn’t had a decent meal in weeks, and Kelly relaxed, throwing her head back, gasping as he feasted. She ran her fingers over his shoulders, burying them in his hair and knocking his hat to the ground.

“I’m sorry,” she said, but he stopped her apology and awkwardness by kissing her until she was breathless. A storm rose inside her, and she squeezed her eyes shut until she felt his fingers stroking inside her thighs, creeping inside her red thong. She was slick, and that was embarrassing, so she shifted, trying to pull her legs together so he wouldn’t find out. But he did. And he groaned, loud, deep, and Kelly stiffened, wondering if he was disappointed. Turned off.

But he slipped his fingers inside her, his mouth all over hers, his tongue licking inside her, and all Kelly could do was hang on to him as he pushed her to some edge she’d never been to before. Wave after wave of pleasure hit her, freezing her unexpectedly, making her cry out against his mouth.

He moved his hands to shove his jeans down, but he didn’t remove his mouth from hers. In fact, he seemed to kiss her harder, as if he needed her for his very breath. She heard something like paper tearing, and Fannin muttered, “It’s old, but please, let it still have staying power,” and the next thing she knew,
he’d moved his hands to her hips and was slowly pulling her thong down her thighs. She didn’t make him do any more of the work after the thong left his hands. Moving to the very edge of the seat, she took hold of him, guiding him to her opening. He groaned again, that deep sound she loved, and then he entered her, his own passion making him thrust eagerly.

Stars of pain blinded her, but she didn’t cry out. She clutched his shoulders tighter, wrapping her strong legs tightly around him, loving the feel of his passion for her. Tears came to her eyes and fell down her cheeks, but they were soaked up by the flannel of his shirt.

And then he cried out, a sound unlike anything she’d ever heard. When he slumped against her, she cradled his head to her. “Fannin?” she whispered after a moment.

“Mmm?”

“Are you all right?”

He kissed her lips tenderly. “Yeah. You?”

She was sore but happy. “Fine.”

“You’re pretty resilient for a woman who drove down an embankment.”

She smiled into his eyes. “I come from sturdy stock.”

“I’ll say.”

Her gaze lowered as she remembered her mother. What would she think if she saw her daughter throwing herself at a Jefferson male like this—any man, for that matter? Slowly, she reclasped her bra and but
toned her sweater while he pulled his own clothes together.

“I…can’t find your, um—”

“It’s okay,” she said quickly, not wanting him to mention her thong. Rearranging her skirt, she pulled her knees forward into the cab.

He shut the door.

Kelly closed her eyes. Oh, Lord. Fannin was everything she’d ever wanted in a dream-come-true sexual fantasy. Of course. That’s what her mother had said: the Jefferson men had that effect on women. She remembered the stories. Desperate women. All wanting exactly what she’d wanted. The brothers acted like horses’ patoots, and the women chased them down anyway, so they never had to change their ways. An occasional brother got caught, but not often.

Fannin was going to be very unhappy when he discovered who she was.

And now, with her car in the ditch, she couldn’t back out and go on her merry, anonymous way.

“Fannin,” Kelly said, her voice tight. But Fannin held up a hand, then started the truck.

“Hang on,” he said.

They sat and listened. He could feel Kelly staring at him like he’d lost his mind. “I thought I heard something.”

“Maybe it was my conscience ticking,” she said. “Fannin, I should have told you this sooner—”

“That’s what I thought.” He grinned at her.

“What’s what you thought?”

“Hear that sound?”

“No…”

The low, roaring sound backed up behind them. He whipped around to peer out the back window. “That would be your rescue party.”

“My rescue party?”

“Yeah. While we were driving, I called my brothers to check to make certain they were taking good care of my date.”

“Your date.”

“Helga.” He waved a hand. “It’s not important. Anyway, they were already on their way back. About that time, you slid into the ditch. I mentioned they might swing through here on their way home and see if they could pull your car out.” He turned to grin at her. “Of course, I thought we’d be long gone by now.”

She looked a bit pale in the darkness of the truck interior. Whoops filled the background as the brothers stared down into the ditch. The sound of the two truck motors behind them was loud enough to unsettle owls. He could see why this fragile girl would be unnerved by all of it. “Don’t worry. My brothers won’t eat you. C’mon and meet the family.”

Fannin hopped out of the truck. Kelly went out her door, coming around to the truckbed. Most of his brothers were staring down into the ditch, except for Last. And Helga, of course, probably because she was too smart to get that close to a slick edge.

“Kelly!” Helga cried out.

Kelly went flying into his housekeeper’s arms. Last glanced at Fannin in surprise. Fannin shrugged, mystified. The two women embraced as if they’d known each other forever.

Finally, Kelly turned. “Fannin, this is my mother, Helga.”

“My baby,” Helga said.

Only Kelly was no baby. At least
he
sure didn’t think so. Fannin felt his jaw sagging. “Baby?” he repeated dumbly. “Mother?”

Last turned to him. “I think that tall redhead who was in your truck said that Helga was her mother.”

Fannin’s heart caved. “That can’t be possible. That would not be a good thing at all.”

Last shook his head. “I wouldn’t want those genes, either.”

“No, you don’t understand. I—” Fannin halted. “I mean, that would put me in a very bad spot.”

“Did you know who she was? How did you meet Helga’s daughter?” Last asked.

Fannin shook his head, thinking through their conversations on the phone and in person. Had Kelly ever mentioned it? He was positive he’d remember something like
Helga is my mother.

“Dude. How are you going to fire her now?” Last asked.

“Fire who?” Fannin’s thoughts were so tangled, he couldn’t keep anything straight.

“Helga. Remember? We took her out tonight for the last supper, so to speak, so that you could meet your dream date—great choice, by the way, Helga’s daughter and all. Makes for weird drama, doesn’t it, bro?” Last slapped him on the back. “And in return for us giving up our time, you were going to speak to Mason about punting Helga over to Mimi’s house.”

Fannin felt ill. “I don’t think I can exactly do that now.”

“You have to! It was…dude, you don’t understand what it was like taking Helga into Dallas. She wanted
to stop and look at every point of interest, every history marker between here and there. We gave up on the movie and took her to a German restaurant instead. She had a blast, by the way.”

“I’m going to have to renege.” He felt fairly certain that one didn’t sleep with a daughter and then turn around and fire the mother. That would not be cricket. It would definitely put him in bad with Kelly, a place he did not want to be. That redhead had given him a wicked treat—and he definitely had plans for winning more of the same.

“You can’t renege.” They looked on as Kelly took her mother carefully to the side of the road to peer over, watching the brothers swarm her little car to assess the damage and develop retrieval scenarios.

“I have to. Last, I can’t do it.”

“Why? You don’t…you don’t
like
her, do you?”

“Helga? No more than you do, but—”

“That girl.” Last stared at him. “You don’t have the hots for Helga’s daughter, do you?”

Fannin wanted to crawl under a rock to get away from Last’s piercing gaze. “She’s a really nice girl.”

Last gasped. “You realize you’re putting yourself on the road to ruin, brother. Intervention may be required. You haven’t thought this through.”

“Hell, I haven’t thought about anything! I just now found out myself!”

“Whatever you do,” Last said, drawing close enough so that no one could hear him, “do not sleep with her. Understand? If you’re not capable of think
ing this through, then let me explain it to you in simple turns. H-e-double-hockey-sticks-ga would be your
mother-in-law.
”

Fannin felt Last’s sincerity blazing from his eyes.

“And if you don’t know what they say about nosey, interfering mothers-in-law, you can dial up Frisco Joe and ask him what he had to do to get away from her when he was laid up with a busted leg.”

“I remember,” Fannin muttered.

“And mothers-in-law.” Last shuddered, waving his hands for emphasis. “They are the fount of the future. You can see everything in that fount. Look closely, bro. That’s what your bride would look like someday.”

Fannin blinked at Last’s intensity.

“And you know what they say about getting along with the in-laws and the out-laws. If you did such a thing, Fannin, that would put Helga in our family forever. Forever. She’d be ours.” Last hung his head dramatically. “I could not endure it.”

Fannin felt bad for his brother, even though he was a maestro of soap opera effects—until Last kicked at something on the ground.

“What’s this?” Last asked, turning over a piece of red, lacy stuff on the ground with his boot.

“Nothing,” Fannin said, bending to scoop Kelly’s errant thong into his pocket.

“Looked like a…thong to me,” Last said, his voice amazed. “Wouldn’t that be strange? You see shoes all the time sitting in the middle of the road,
sometimes one, sometimes two, and I always wonder who they belong to. Who so carelessly abandoned them?”

Kelly came walking back over to the truck with Helga, and Fannin growled, “Last, shut up.”

“Seriously. Someone needs to do a study on how shoes get into roads, particularly at intersections in big cities. They’re almost a tourist attraction in themselves. Sometimes they’re hanging from telephone wires like they just got up there by themselves. I know the world is changing now that it’s
undergarments
in the road….”

Kelly’s eyes went wide, and Fannin was relieved that Helga didn’t speak enough English to understand. “Shut
up,
Last,” he reiterated, this time his voice steely.

And then Last did shut up, his eyes first on Fannin because of the tone and then sliding to Kelly’s mortified expression. “Oh, brother,” Last said. “Aha. I have once again allowed my philosophical side to get the best of me. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go attach myself to the towing hitch.”

He left. Fannin felt Kelly looking at him, but he couldn’t look at her—not with her mother standing next to her and Kelly’s red lace burning in his pocket like the world’s worst-kept secret.

S
LEEPING ARRANGEMENTS
were easily solved once they got back to the house. Helga slept in quarters in the main house and Kelly would sleep with her
mother. Only Mason remained at the big house, with Laredo, Tex and Frisco Joe having vacated the premises upon their marriages.

“You are staying awhile?” Helga asked her daughter, comfortable with chatting now that they were in her room and could speak German.

“Only one day,” Kelly replied. “I don’t have time off, and Julia’s been out sick.” She started to say that Fannin had ordered a personal assistant, and she’d chosen to fill the job since it was a Friday and wouldn’t hurt for her to be gone, but as far as Helga was concerned, Kelly was here to see her.

“Oh, I miss you,” her mother said.

“For Christmas, I have three days to spend with you. You’re going to come to my house,” Kelly promised.

“Three days?”

“Julia’s sick and has been taking extra days off to get her Christmas shopping done. The office hasn’t been that busy. So she said I could take three days over the holidays.”

“How will I get to Diamond?”

“I’ll come and get you. Don’t worry, Mother. You just tell Mason you need to come home for Christmas. We’re going to do lots of baking.”

“Baking.” Helga smiled. “It will be nice for a change to cook for someone who likes what I make.”

Kelly frowned. “I know you’ve been homesick.”

Her mother nodded. “Yes. I’m getting used to it
here. But the boys are wild.” She gestured with her hands. “They are too long without good women.”

Kelly winced. “Is Fannin wild?”

Helga shrugged. “They’re all bad boys. Except Mason. He’s good. Sometimes.” She laughed.

“Sometimes?”

“I think so. He’s so quiet, his heart is all bottled up inside him.”

“I love you, Mama,” Kelly said, her insides aching for her mother. Even though Helga was speaking in a scolding tone about the brothers, Kelly could see that her mother cared about them, like rowdy chicks she wanted to keep under her wing.

Of course, that’s probably not what they wanted.

“I feel bad that I sent you here, Mama, and that you’re not happy. We have other ladies at the agency we could send. Why don’t you come home and stay with me for a while? We’ll find you another job that you’ll like better. Maybe even one in Diamond?”

“I can’t.” Helga looked down at her fingers. “The lady next door is going to have a baby. She’s a real nice girl. Mimi.”

“I remember seeing Mimi’s name. She’s the one who called about a housekeeper.”

“Yes. She’s over here all the time. I take care of her father when Mimi needs help.”

Kelly frowned. “You’re not really supposed to be doing two jobs, Mama.”

“I don’t mind. I like Mimi.” Helga sighed. “I
think Mason is in love with Mimi. I think she’s in love with him, too.”

“But she’s married to someone else?” Kelly asked.

“Yes, and having a baby.” Helga’s eyes glowed. “A Christmas baby. I should be here to help her.”

“You should be home letting me take care of you,” Kelly said sternly, realizing for the first time just how much work her mother had to do at this ranch. “Mama, listen, I got a letter from Dad’s estate—”

Helga held up a hand. “I don’t want to talk about your father. He left me and you alone in Ireland. I made my way here. I learn English, I get some jobs, I raise my daughter. I do not want to talk about your father. He never tried to see you after we left Ireland. I do not care about him.”

“Mama, he left me his house,” Kelly said miserably. “I think I may go see it someday.”

Helga sniffed.

“You’ve seen Germany, Ireland, much of Europe,” Kelly said. “I’ve not been out of the country since I was a little girl. I want to see where my father lived. I’m sorry, Mama. I know that’s hard for you. But I just need to know who I am.”

“I know who you are. You are my baby,” Helga said sternly.

“I know, Mama. But I need to connect with my roots.” She clasped her mother’s hands.

“Your roots never came to you,” Helga said stub
bornly. “You are like a potato. You grow your own shoots.”

Kelly dropped her gaze. Her mother could have such a one-track mind. She loved her dearly, but she could definitely see how Helga and the Jefferson men might butt heads. “You go to sleep, Mama. I’m going to stay up and read for a while.”

Helga got into her bed. “Thank you for surprising me with a visit. It’s a long way for you to drive. Good thing Fannin came along to rescue you.”

Kelly sighed. “Good night, Mama.”

Joy, who Kelly had been holding, jumped up beside Grandma, recognizing where peace, comfort and warmth existed. Kelly went into the sitting room of their quarters and peered out the window. Outside, she could see men—she counted six—standing around a metal barrel with a fire blazing inside it. They were warming their hands over the fire and arguing. At least they looked as if they were arguing. She turned out the room lamp, made certain she was secured behind a drape and peered out again.

Fannin appeared to be the object of much of the conversation. Everybody was talking at him, and he just nodded or shook his head. He didn’t look too happy, either. Once, she thought he glanced up at the window where she was, but then he shook his head, and she realized there was no way he could see her spying on him.

She should never have done what she did with him.
She should just get up in the morning and make a graceful exit.

Her mother wouldn’t understand that at all.

One by one the brothers left the burning barrel. Only Fannin remained behind, the keeper of the flame. Kelly took a deep breath, then decided to put her conscience to rest by talking to him.

Hurrying downstairs, she slipped outside. Fannin hadn’t moved from his spot. Obviously he was deep in thought.

“Fannin?”

He raised his head. “Hey, Kelly.”

That didn’t sound promising. She stood beside him, her heart quivering inside her. “Fannin, I owe you an apology.”

He looked up. “Good. I owe you one, too.”

She didn’t think she could bear it if he said he was sorry for what happened between them. And yet, of course that’s what he was going to say. How humiliating! The trick, then, was to make her apology and get out before she could hear those words of rejection.

If there was anything she didn’t need in her life, it was for her one and only fantasy to go crashing to pieces.

“Fannin, I should have told you Helga was my mother. I should have been honest with you.”

“I would have liked to have known. Everything might have turned out differently.”

That was all the chance he was going to get at saying he was sorry for their interlude. “Fannin,” she
said briskly, “I came out here under false pretenses, so I’ll leave in the morning. I’ll send someone else in my place. Someone who better fits your request. We have plenty of perky, cheery blondes with great sense of humor.” She’d go through every application if necessary to find him a perfect woman.