LITMIR.BIZ

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but the woman was beautiful.

      “Don’t look now, Ms. Courtland.” Sam grinned and touched the brim of his black Stetson as Faith’s head snapped in his direction. “Jared’s got the video camera.”

      Eyes wide, Faith glanced across the room. Her playful expression turned to one of alarm as she realized that Jared, indeed, was recording her ridiculous—but adorable, Sam thought—honking.

      That’s when Madeline decided to throw up.

      Everyone—everyone except Faith—moved quickly. Body rigid, she stood frozen while Jake gently removed his daughter—who seemed no worse for wear, just a little confused over what all the fuss was about—and Emma ran to get towels. Savannah, frowning at her husband, led Faith, who appeared to be in shock, into the other room, with Jessica clucking her tongue behind. Annie gave Jake an I-told-you-so look, and he hightailed it out of the room with his daughter. Laughing, Dylan followed, his own son in his arms.

      Jared kept filming.

      “You get that on tape?” Sam asked Jared, who nodded over his camera but, in light of his wife’s glare, knew better than to smile. “I’ll pay you a roundup’s take on my cattle for a copy of that.”

      “You should both be horsewhipped,” Annie said irritably, shifting her heavy weight on the couch. “I’d do it myself, if I could move.”

      “She gets a little more cranky every day as her due date gets closer,” Jared said good-humoredly. “The last two weeks she was pregnant with Tonya I’d have to wave a white flag before I came in the house at night.”

      “Stop talking about me as if I’m not here.” She fluffed a pillow behind her back. “So I’m a little moody. It comes with the territory.”

      Foreign territory, Sam thought. All this marriage and baby stuff was alien to him. He was a man much more interested in taking trips where he knew how to speak the language.

      Faith Courtland, on the other hand, he thought, watching her as she came back into the room several minutes later, was a woman that could make a man forget how to speak at all.

      Savannah had loaned Faith a faded denim shirt that accentuated the blue of her eyes. The jeans she wore were loose on her long legs, but snug on her hips and behind. Even the old black cowboy boots she had on looked as if she’d been born to wear them. She’d gone from goddessin-white to cowgirl-in-blue in a matter of minutes. Sam couldn’t decide which he thought was sexier.

      “There’s Texas in this girl’s blood,” Jessica said with a toss of her long dark hair. “All she needs now is a hat.”

      Sam stepped up to her and slipped his Stetson on her head. It was way too big, of course, but the oversized black hat, set against her light blond hair stirred his blood. He took a step back, not sure if it was for her protection or his.

      Cheeks flushed, she smiled as she ran her hands over the brim of the hat. He’d seen that kind of pleasure in a woman’s eyes over a dozen red roses, but never a hat. He felt a swift stab of possessiveness, as if her wearing his Stetson was a form of ownership on his part. After a long moment, she lifted the hat off her head and handed it back to him. Their eyes held briefly and her blush deepened.

      “I’m sorry to be such a bother,” she said to Savannah, who was looking strangely at Sam. “You’ve all been so kind.”

      “It was my daughter who messed your beautiful jacket and my husband who caused it.” She threw a scolding glance at Jake, who’d come back sheepishly into the room, his daughter clean and fresh in a new pink jumper. “We’ll have your jacket cleaned and sent to your hotel. And you can keep the jeans and shirt. I could squeeze into them if I really wanted to, but since my babies I’m not into torture.”

      “Oh, I couldn’t,” Faith said quickly, but Sam could see that she wanted to, very badly.

      “I insist.” Savannah started for the kitchen, calling behind her, “Food’s on the table in five everyone. Round up the troops.”

      Sunday dinner with the Stone family was an event to behold. Fried chicken piled high on a huge platter, bowls heaped with mashed potatoes, rich, thick gravy, biscuits so fluffy that Faith didn’t care if she broke every sense of propriety and asked for a second.

      Food had always been her business. She’d eaten at restaurants in more than twenty states and four countries, tested recipes from the finest chefs in the world, but she couldn’t ever remember a better meal than the one she was having then. She was definitely going to have to finagle some recipes out of Savannah.

      It was a bit overwhelming: the bowls coming round, plates getting passed, arms reaching over arms to grab for another piece of chicken or scoop of mashed potatoes. Dinner at her parents’ house had always been formal. The attire, the dishes and silverware, the proper wine. Conversation was polite, no one ever shouted or talked when someone else was speaking. Here, with two babies, two toddlers, one teenager and eight adults, there was so much chatter and laughing that Faith felt giddy.

      But there was much more to her giddy feeling than the Stone family, Faith admitted to herself. The man sitting in the chair beside her, flirting outrageously with the women and arguing incessantly with the men, seemed to be the cause of her light-headedness.

      She knew she should be angry at him. Not only because he’d refused to take her into the mountains, but because he didn’t take her seriously. He’d even called her stupid, which was truly unforgivable.

      Still, when he’d put his hat on her earlier she’d been overcome by a strange sense of intimacy, as if he’d given her his high school pin, or his letterman’s jacket. She’d even felt a sense of loss when she’d handed it back to him. And since they’d sat down to dinner, every time he’d accidentally brushed up against her or their hands had touched while passing a bowl, she’d felt as if a spark of electricity were passing through her.

      She knew it was silly, of course. Even foolish. Which only deepened her annoyance. She was twenty-six years old, an almost engaged woman, not a school girl. And she was here in Cactus Flat for Elijah Jane, not for herself.

      “Faith, has Sam told you about the time Jake and him dumped Texas Tom’s HellFire Pepper Sauce in Digger’s ketchup bottles at the Hungry Bear?” Jared asked, grinning.

      Faith swiveled to look at Sam, who was frowning at Jared. Jake frowned, as well. “I don’t believe I’ve heard that story.”

      “They must have been about fourteen at the time,” Jared continued, enjoying himself at Jake and Sam’s expense. “They watched through Digger’s big glass window all day, expecting all the customers to breathe fire and blow smoke out their ears. But nothing happened. No fire, no smoke. No screams of agony. Later in the day they came back in, confused but hungry from watching all those people eat, and Digger fixed them two big burgers, on the house, dripping with his secret sauce. It took them both a couple of bites before it hit, but when it did—” Jared said, grinning “—it was like an explosion.”

      “A nuclear explosion.” Sam reached for his water glass as if he were reliving the horror. “Seems that Digger had seen us spike his ketchup, so he exchanged the bottles, then set us up. Wars could be ended with whatever it was he put in those burgers.”

      Jake nodded in agreement. “I thought I’d have a permanent hole in the top of my head. Which was only the beginning of our torture. We paid for that one...two days straight in the john.”

      “Jake!” Savannah’s tone was strict, but her eyes were laughing. “That’s no talk for the dinner table.”

      The stories continued: Digger’s famed baseball bat pursuit of the deputy shenff; his abduction of Moses Swain’s pig who’d repeatedly destroyed Digger’s tomato plants behind the café and Digger’s subsequent special on pork chops; his constant meddling in everyone’s business that he called “free advice.” Everyone laughed so hard Dylan spit water and Jessica got the hiccups.

      “Enough,” Annie said,

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