LITMIR.BIZ

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intruder.

      “Who the hell are you?” he asked, his voice rougher than it needed to be in defense against those legs.

      

      Lacey McCade stared up at the cowboy with awe. He was at least three inches taller than her own five feet nine inches. There was pure power in the strong lines of his face, in the high cut of his cheekbones, in the faint cleft of his chin, the straight line of his nose. His hair was thick and black as night and cut very short. His lips were full and faintly parted, and his eyelashes were long and sooty. His skin glowed with faint copper tones, and she knew he must be at least partly Native American.

      His build was lean and hard. He had his shirtsleeves rolled up, and she could see the sinewy muscle of his lower arms, the strength in his large wrists. He flexed a hand impatiently, and her eyes were drawn momentarily to a thick scar that snaked around the base of his thumb.

      He was wearing a denim shirt, and his shoulders and chest were broad beneath it.

      Two ax handles wide, Lacey remembered her secretary saying once, giggling at a carpenter’s shoulders, as they passed a construction site on their way to an office luncheon.

      Lacey remembered thinking at the time, Who in Los Angeles would know the first thing about ax handles? But she was a long way from Los Angeles now, and looking at those enormously broad shoulders, it fit.

      His legs were very long, encased in old denim that looked as soft as felt, and clung to the large muscles of his thighs.

      His eyes were astonishing, even in anger. They were gray and clear as cold mountain water. Not that anybody in Los Angeles would know anything about that, either.

      “Hi,” she said nervously.

      “Who the hell are you?” he repeated.

      He had every right to be angry. Lacey shot a look at her rescuer, Gumpy. Or was she rescuing him? It had all seemed so simple at the airport.

      She had just gotten off the phone to Keith who had not taken the news she was canceling the wedding very well. In fact, he had said he would get on the next flight and they would “talk.”

      She hadn’t been in the mood for talking, and had decided to hide out in a hotel room. But after thirty-two phone calls, it was apparent to her that every hotel room in the whole city of Calgary was being used for an international convention of plumbers. Who would have known plumbers had conventions?

      And then this wonderful old man had been standing in front of her, in faded jeans and a denim jacket. He was Native American, his skin warm and wrinkled copper, his eyes black as coal, his hair long and free and wispy as white smoke.

      She had liked his eyes, because despite the nervous twisting of his hat in his hands, his eyes had been utterly calm, peaceful. In his eyes had been a deep knowing.

      About everything. The secrets of life and the universe. Her secrets.

      “Are you the nanny?” he’d asked shyly, revealing a gap where his two front teeth should have been.

      She’d contemplated that for a moment. What she was, was a lawyer, one who had never had an impulsive moment before today. Today when, instead of driving to her law firm’s office in downtown Los Angeles after a particularly brutal session with a difficult client, she had taken the off-ramp to the airport, surveyed the flights out and chosen Calgary.

      For no reason at all, really.

      Unless you counted the fact that once, as a little girl, she had wanted very badly to go there for their world-famous rodeo, the Calgary Stampede.

      And then some complete stranger with lovable eyes had asked her if she was a nanny, and some deep warmth had spread within her. Of course, she would have said no if he hadn’t spoken again.

      “If you’re not the nanny, I guess I’m in a heap of trouble,” the old man had said sadly.

      But his eyes had said no such thing. They twinkled at her as if they were about to share a wonderful joke. They invited her to say yes to the adventure. He knew she was not a nanny.

      It felt as though Lacey was in a “heap of trouble” herself. Still, her utterly responsible voice ordered her indignantly not to do anything crazy. Anything else crazy. She shushed it.

      The truth was she wanted, for once in her very ordinary life, to be crazy. She wanted to be impetuous and spontaneous. She wanted life to at least have the possibility of something wonderful and unpredictable happening.

      And after she’d had that, her small taste of life on the wild side, a breath or two of pure freedom, she would probably be perfectly content to go home and marry Keith. Perfectly.

      “I am a nanny,” she told her unlikely angel, holding out her hand to him.

      He took it, and any doubt she had was gone instantly. His grip was strong and warm and reassuring. “I lost the paper with your name on it, miss.”

      She hesitated, knowing when she said her name he was going to realize his error. And the adventure would be over just like that. She’d get on the next plane and go home.

      She had been aware of holding her breath as she said, “Lacey. My name’s Lacey McCade.”

      But his smile had nearly swallowed his face. “Nelson,” he’d told her, “Nelson Go-Up-the-Mountain.” When she told him she had never heard such a beautiful name, he had ducked his head with endearing shyness. “Shucks, just call me Gumpy.”

      Lacey had never heard anyone say “Shucks” before. She wanted to ask him all about the children, but remembered she was likely supposed to know.

      “Your luggage?” he’d asked her.

      “Lost.” She felt guilty lying to him, but really that one word could mean just about anything. And it suddenly occurred to her that the turnoff to the airport earlier had been very much about things lost. Some part of herself was lost.

      “We’ll find it,” he’d said reassuringly.

      And looking at him, she’d believed it. And knew he was not talking about luggage any more than she was.

      Now, facing the man in front of her, her choice seemed silly rather than adventurous.

      Even sleeping, with those two adorable children nestled trustingly into him, there had been nothing vulnerable about this man. He had looked rugged and 100 percent pure male.

      “Mind your manners, Ethan,” Gumpy told him mildly, which earned the older man a look that might have sent a lesser man scuttling for cover. “This is our new nanny.”

      “The hell she is.”

      Certainly she was glancing around for a place to hide.

      But with one more dismissive look to her, Ethan turned to Gumpy. “What have you gone and done?”

      “Just what you told me,” Gumpy said, “gone to the airport and picked up the nanny.”

      “Fifty-seven. I told you Betty-Anne was fifty-seven years old. Nobody fifty-seven looks like this. This girl isn’t a day over—” cool gray eyes scanned her “—twenty-five.”

      “Woman,” she corrected him. “Thirty.”

      He glared at her briefly, then shifted his attention away from her again.

      “Gumpy, start talking.” The cowboy’s voice was low and lethal. Just like the rest of him, there was barely leashed power in that voice. “Where’s Mrs. Bishop?”

      Behind him the children stirred on the couch. She watched them, in their sleep, reach out for and find each other. She felt a stab of tenderness for them.

      “This is the only nanny I could find at the airport,” Gumpy said, not intimidated. “And believe you me, I looked.”

      “Anybody looking at her can see she’s not a nanny. We need somebody who can cook and clean and look after kids,

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