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Ethan captured her hand and stood. “I’ve been thinking about another kind of merger altogether.”
She swallowed again, but didn’t say a word.
“I need something from you, Cleo.”
“Me?” Her voice sounded breathless and her hand tried to slip from his. “What could I possibly do for you?”
Ethan held her fingers firmly. “You could marry me, Cleo.”
Marry him. Marry Ethan.
Cleo’s heart lurched, as if it were trying to find a way out of her chest. “Are you kidding?” she said, her voice sounding very far away.
Ethan’s blue eyes were scarily solemn. “Not kidding.”
Cleo’s heart pitched again, like a boat ready to capsize. Marry Ethan? This whole episode was like something out of a fantasy, a too familiar fantasy born the first moment she’d seen Ethan last winter. A fantasy that had only grown in detail and proportion every time she’d encountered him after that.
But the reality of Ethan was right in front of her, too close, really. She could smell his delicious, sophisticated scent and see new lines of tiredness, or grief maybe, etched around his serious mouth. His sister had died. He had a baby now.
Little Jonah was real, too. Cleo looked down at the sweet baby, snoozing in his carrier. With his blond hair and the blue eyes she’d glimpsed, he could really be Ethan’s.
A husband. A child. Ethan and Jonah.
“Cleo?” Ethan rubbed his thumb across the backs of her knuckles, and she suppressed a shiver. A fantasy couldn’t come to life this easily. “What are you thinking?” he asked.
She swallowed. “Ethan, I need to know—”
A light knock on the office door interrupted her.
They both started and with the distraction Cleo was able to reclaim her hand. She moved away from Ethan and hoped she appeared calm.
“Come in,” she called.
The door opened and Lynn, one of the caregivers on her staff, peeked in. “I’m sorry, Cleo, but Bessie had a fall and needs your expert touch in the bandage department.” Lynn’s gaze slid toward Ethan and her eyes widened. “That is, if you have the time.”
“I always have time for Bessie,” Cleo said, almost glad for the temporary reprieve. She smiled as Lynn escorted the four-year-old into the office.
Bessie had platinum-blond hair in pigtails and her eyelashes were spiked wet with recent tears. A painful-looking scrape slashed across one knee.
Cleo knelt by her side. “What happened, sweetie?” she said softly. Though Ethan had stepped out of the way, she continued to feel his gaze on her.
Bessie frowned fiercely. “Kenny G.,” she said, her gravelly voice always a shocking contrast to her angelic features.
Lynn, who stood behind Bessie, must have seen the puzzlement on Ethan’s face because she suddenly grinned his way and explained Bessie’s statement. “Not the famous musician, mind you, but an infamous three-year-old. We have four Kennys at Bean sprouts.” Her fingers ticked them off. “Kenny E., Kenny K., Kenny T., and—” she paused, “—Kenny G.”
Bessie’s truck driver voice took over. “Kenny G. pushed me down.”
Lynn smiled in Ethan’s direction again. “Kenny G. is currently having a time-out.”
Cleo tamped down a little spurt of irritation at the other woman. There was no need for Lynn to explain things to Ethan, or to even be looking at him with such appreciation. But she focused on Bessie instead, brushing back a stray strand of the little girl’s hair. “You’re okay now, though?”
Bessie nodded and held out a bandage. “But I want you to put this on for me.”
“Sure, hon.” Cleo swung the little girl into her arms and sat her on the edge of her desk. With gentle hands she lifted Bessie’s right leg and propped her sneakered foot against her own thigh. “Did Lynn clean this for you?”
Bessie looked as though she wanted to say “yes,” but Lynn produced a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a soft cloth. “She wanted you to do that, too.”
“No problem, kiddo,” Cleo said. “We’ll get it taken care of pronto.” She hadn’t met a child yet who didn’t detest getting his or her scrapes and cuts cleaned, but she also knew that handling it with confidence and without cringing was best for everyone.
Within moments she ensured the scrape was free of dirt and then she applied the bandage, the whole time chattering with Bessie about what was scheduled for the afternoon’s snack and the new kitten in the little girl’s household. Aware the entire time of Ethan’s focus on her, Cleo was proud that her hands didn’t shake once. She ended the first aid with her usual healing kiss on Bessie’s forehead and then she took the little girl’s light weight in her arms to lift her off the desk.
Bessie looked over Cleo’s shoulder. “Who’s that?” she asked in her improbably rough voice, pointing at Ethan.
“Um…” Cleo froze, and noticed that Lynn’s expression was as curious as Bessie’s. “That’s Mr. Redford. He’s my, uh, friend.” She set the little girl on her feet.
“He’s cute,” Bessie said, and she gave a little wave then skipped out of the room.
Lynn backed out more slowly, her gaze flicking between Cleo and Ethan. “Well, I’ll just, um…” She seemed to have forgotten who and what generated her paycheck. “I’ll just…”
“Go watch the kids?” Cleo prompted.
Lynn sighed. “Yeah.” But then, as if she couldn’t help herself, she sent Cleo a thumbs-up sign before shutting the door behind her.
Cleo hoped her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt when she turned to face Ethan. “I’m, uh, sorry about that.”
An echo of that old, confident Ethan grin flashed over his face. “Why? One female says I’m cute and another appears to have given me her stamp of approval. I’m thinking that’s good for my case.”
Apparently his proposal wasn’t just a daydream, after all. Cleo leaned against her desk, gripping the edges with tight fingers. Marriage to Ethan! But as appealing as the idea was…
She inhaled a long, deep breath. “Why me?”
His eyes widened. “Uh.” He shoved his hands in his pockets as he retreated to the far side of the small room, where he leaned his shoulders against the wall. “’Why you’?” he echoed.
Cleo tightened her grip on the edge of her old oak desk. “It’s a hard question?”
“No. Yes.” He groaned and pushed his hands impatiently through his hair.
Cleo had never seen the golden locks so disordered, not even the night she’d touched them herself as they’d kissed. She ignored the little hot rush of her blood at the memory. “Talk to me, Ethan,” she said quietly.
His fingers raked through his hair once again. “My attorney in Houston—the one handling Della’s estate and all the legalities regarding Jonah—he’s very experienced in custody issues.”
Cleo nodded. Ethan was no fool and money was no object. He’d hire the best.
“The Coving tons—Jonah’s grandparents—have a lot of influence in Houston. If it comes to a court battle, they have the time and the money. To ensure I keep Jonah the attorney thought I needed something better than fat bank accounts, a trust fund for Jonah, and a top-ranked nanny. He thought I needed—”
“A wife.” Cleo wasn’t a fool, either.
“A mother for Jonah,” Ethan corrected quickly.
Cleo’s blood was running cooler now, but there was still hope in her heart. “That still doesn’t explain why you came to see me, Ethan. Certainly you know plenty of women in other places. Someone from Houston, for example.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “Cleo…”
“I never thought you were a man who didn’t appreciate your share of women, Ethan.”
He shifted again. “Sure, I have ‘appreciated’ women, but it’s not like I have a harem of them all dying to wear my ring.”
Cleo wanted to disagree, certain there were several—if not dozens—of women who wouldn’t say no to Ethan. Women who’d be thrilled to wear his ring.
Such as herself.
Without warning, she remembered again that night on the love seat in the little den. She remembered how needy she’d been for him, how her pulse leaped when he’d touched her with his big hands. How she’d craved to have all of him against all of her.
No man had ever made her so excited and so hungry. And now she could have it all if she agreed to wear his ring. But still…
“You’re in Montana, Ethan. Looking for a wife in my office. Please, just say it. Why me?”
“Because you’re perfect, Cleo.”
Her heart went crazy again, hopping around like a high school cheerleader. She released her grip on the desk, just about to launch herself into his arms.
“Because you’re so…capable.”
Capable? Cleo’s heart tripped, and then fell with a long whoosh. Going cold, hot, cold, she sagged back against the desk, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Instead Ethan smiled at her and continued. “You see, you’re a child care provider. How ideal is that? You have the education and the experience to be an unbeatable mother. My attorney couldn’t be happier.”
“Your attorney is happy?”
Ethan smiled wider and nodded. “’Unbeatable mother material.’ Those were his exact words.”
“What about a wife?” she said quietly, her words tinged with just a bit of sharpness. “What kind of wife material do you suppose I am?”
Ethan looked suddenly wary and he tried to step back, but his heel hit the wall with a soft thump. “Cleo, I—”
“What kind of wife material do you suppose I am, Ethan?” she asked again, her voice steelier this time.
He looked down at his hands for a moment, as if the answer might be written on them. Then he looked back up, his blue eyes guarded. “You’re a practical, capable, sensible woman, Cleo. I think you make fine wife material or I wouldn’t be here.”
Capable. Practical. Sensible.
Maybe it was because she hadn’t slept well the night before—she hadn’t slept well in three months—that the words sounded more like insults instead of flattery.
Ethan needed a mother for Jonah and she had the right credentials. Ethan was willing to take a wife to get that mother, and she fit the bill because she was practical, capable, sensible.
Was that really the best thing anyone could say about her? It certainly echoed the sentiments her mother, sister and cousin had expressed this morning. Everyone was so darn certain that Cleo was sensible and practical.
Or maybe she was really just boring.
She crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly mad at the world, but especially mad at Ethan, her family, herself. What kind of woman gave a man the impression she’d be swayed by “practical” and “capable” and “sensible”?
She took a fast breath through her nose. “No,” she said.
He blinked. “No, what?”
Cleo stared at him. What an idiot. “No, I won’t marry you.”
He blinked again. “Cleo—”
“Go find someone else, Ethan.” She cast a look at Jonah and found herself softening when she saw the baby’s sweet round cheeks and silky eyebrows. So she looked back at the rotten, gorgeous, and unpleasantly surprised Ethan.
Practical. Sensible. Ugh. “Goodbye,” she said briskly.
“Goodbye?” he echoed stupidly.
“Goodbye.”
He swallowed. “We can’t talk about this some more?” He came toward her and she backed around her desk. “If not now, sometime later?”
So what that he was so darn good-looking he made her heart flutter? “No. I’m too busy. I have Bean sprouts to run. Children, the staff.” She looked out the window and remembered the most pressing problem. “I have to find a new building. My lease is running out and this one is up for sale.”
Without waiting for him to answer, she sat in her chair and pulled a list of phone numbers from her desk drawer. “If you’ll excuse me, Ethan.” She put her hand on the phone.
He could be as belligerent as she. “What if I won’t?”
She refused to look at him, even for one last time. “Please,” she said.
A long, tense pause and then there was a flurry of movement and firm footsteps. Her office door opened, closed.
The room was without Ethan.
Cleo instantly folded, bending over to rest her flushed cheek on the cool desktop. Hot tears stung her eyes and she was unsure whether she was elated or disappointed that Ethan had given up.
Three
It was past 6:00 p.m. and Cleo was still sitting at her desk. The last Beansprouts’s child had been picked up and the last staffer had gone home. She told herself she was taking advantage of the unfamiliar quiet to catch up on her bottomless stack of paperwork, but the only paper she’d put pencil to was a leaf from one of her “list pads”—stacks of tear-off sheets preprinted with lines.
Cleo had more list pads than most women had shoes. Yellow ones edged with flowers, white ones with a teacher’s apple bulleting each line item; list pads printed on graph paper with thick, no-nonsense lines of military blue.
A sheet of that pad lay in front of her now, and she would have sworn she was just doodling as she stared out her window at the May twilight, but then she looked down. Her “doodles” were words, and what she’d really created was a list of the many practical, sensible things she’d done with her life.
Line one listed “Accounting 303.” That was the class she’d taken the summer between her junior and senior years at college. A group of her friends had invited her to join them traveling through Europe for three months, but she’d needed the accounting class to graduate and it was hard to get into during the regular school year. So she’d taken the wise, practical route and given up Paris for profit-and-loss statements and the Alps for accounts receivable and payable.
Part of that same group of friends had urged her to join them in an Internet startup business after they graduated. That was why she’d written “Refused Internet Startup” on the second line. It hadn’t seemed a safe choice, not when it meant moving to Las Vegas, of all places, and not when it meant they’d all be dirt-poor at the beginning. In the end—two years later—of course, that group of friends spent half the year vacationing in Europe. They’d struck it rich.
Next she’d written “Lives At Home.” Cleo sighed. As much as she loved her family, it did seem as though a twenty-seven-year-old might want to have her own place. But it was so practical to live at home. Sensible.
Lastly were the words “Yearly Lease.” She sighed again. When she’d opened Bean sprouts two years ago she’d been relieved to sign up for a mere twelve-month lease. That way, if the business didn’t fly, she wouldn’t be chained to a monthly payment for too long. She’d done the same the following year, even though by then the day care center had a foot-long waiting list.
Irritated at herself, Cleo tapped her pencil against the desktop. The building’s owner, Gene, would have let her sign for something longer, but she’d wanted to be practical. Sensible. Just look where that had led her—to Gene suddenly wanting to sell and Cleo suddenly facing disaster.
She jumped up from her chair, depressed by the turn of her thoughts. Thanks to that annoying man, Ethan Redford, she was viewing her best traits as her worst faults! No thank you.
Anyway, it was time to go home and consume a crate of brownies or something else decadently chocolate. Maybe on her way back to the Big Sky B and B, she’d think of a suitable bribe to get her sister in the kitchen, and baking.
Cleo drove down the winding country road, appreciating late spring in Montana and watching eagerly for her first soothing glimpse of Blue Mirror Lake. Yes, the B and B was a sensible, practical place for her to live, but it was a choice she didn’t regret. She’d like to travel, sure, but this piece of Montana and the lake would always be home. She was glad her mother had convinced her father to leave Louisiana and open the business all those years ago.
Thinking of Louisiana reminded Cleo of her mother’s nightmares. There. Another reason that living at the bed-and-break fast was a good choice. She wanted to be near Celeste while these terrible dreams continued to plague her.
What the heck were they all about? Cleo pursed her lips and vowed to sit her mother down for a little heart-to-heart this evening. She could picture Celeste already, her eyes shadowed and her manner subdued, as it always was the day after the dream.
Cleo parked her Volvo sedan in its usual spot and let herself inside the back door. The kitchen was immaculate, but Cleo sniffed hopefully, wondering if Jasmine had done any particularly delectable culinary experimenting that day.
A soft, delighted laugh froze her midsniff.
It was followed by another. Her mother’s laugh. And then came a giggle. A baby’s giggle.
Cleo gritted her teeth, a terrible premonition overcoming her. With quick steps she passed through the kitchen and dining room to the living room.
Her mother sat on one of the long couches, cradling an adorable blond, blue-eyed baby. A man, golden-haired and devastating in a dark suit, watched them from a spot by the windows.
Cleo frowned at him. For all her sniffing, it was quite a surprise she hadn’t smelled a rat.
She tapped her toe against the honey-pine floor. “You’re not staying here are you?” she asked, her voice cool, she hoped, and not crabby.
Ethan’s head came up and so did his eyebrows.
Her mother smiled at the baby but addressed Cleo. “Ethan and Jonah have rented the Atchinson house.”
The Atchinson house. Oh, great. Another lakeside property not more than half a mile away. She crossed her arms over her chest. “So if you have your own place, what are you doing here?”
Her mother spoke again. “Ethan came to introduce me to Jonah. And I’m thrilled to meet this very handsome young man.” Celeste nuzzled the baby’s cheek and the little boy giggled again, his hands patting her hair.
Cleo softened a little. Her mother looked happier than she had in a long time, and obviously distracted from the terror of the night before.
Then Ethan spoke for the first time. “And I came to see if I could persuade you to go to dinner with me at the country club.”
Cleo took a step back. Oh, no. That wouldn’t be sensible or practical. Not when he was looking like the Golden God of Business in that Italian suit. Not when the last time they’d had dinner at the country club the evening had ended with her half dressed and nearly begging him for more.
“No,” she said firmly, and then smiled to herself. Some times sensible and practical felt darn good.
“Please, Cleo,” Ethan said quietly. “It might be the last time we ever meet.”
Cleo’s heart jumped. The last time. But then she narrowed her eyes, staring at him suspiciously. He didn’t look like a man who thought they would never meet again.
“Go ahead, sweetie,” her mother added. “I told Ethan I’d watch Jonah, and I can’t think of anything that would make me happier than watching this little angel.”
Cleo softened again. Her mother did look so darn happy holding that baby. To be honest, she itched to hold him herself. Without even thinking about it, she walked forward and sat beside her mother on the couch, then reached out toward Jonah. He immediately grabbed her hand and gave her a grin that made mush of everything inside her.
“Please come with me, Cleo,” Ethan said.
Looking at the motherless baby and sharing the joy her own mother had in just touching him, Cleo discovered her backbone had dissolved completely. She sighed and stroked Jonah’s cheek with her free hand.
“All right,” she said grudgingly. “This last time.” Because, anyway, could she really resist just one last time with Ethan? “I need a few minutes to change.”
He nodded. “Take all the time you need.”
In her room, Cleo whipped through a refreshing shower and then stood in her under wear, staring into her closet. What did a woman wear for a last dinner with the man she’d refused to marry? The man who considered her so practical and sensible?
The answer was obvious, of course. A woman should wear something completely impractical and as far from sensible as possible. Something that would make him sweat and make him drool.
But Cleo being Cleo, she had nothing remotely close to that in her closet.
She went wild, double-checking, flinging hangers aside with abandon until she had to admit the closest thing to “vamp” in her closet was the black witch’s costume she wore at Bean sprouts on Halloween. And even that was something that had been Jasmine’s first.
“Jasmine,” Cleo whispered. Her mother had said her sister was out for the evening, but Cleo dashed through their adjoining bathroom into her room, anyway. Without a moment’s compunction, she went double-fast through her sister’s double-stuffed closet and emerged clutching a long-sleeved black knit dress that was deeply veed in the front and back.
Not allowing herself to give in to doubt, she ran back to her own room and slipped into black stockings, black heels, and the dynamite black dress that had been bought by her less-curvy sister. Sitting at her dressing table, she twisted her wavy hair behind her head and held it back with a jeweled comb. Then she applied her makeup heavier than usual, not daring to look past her chin.
Once she’d blotted her lipstick, a shade named Derring Do, Cleo stood. With a deep breath, she turned around and looked at herself in the full-length mirror.
“Eek,” she said breathlessly. Where the dress had displayed a lot of Jasmine’s fragile clavicle and just a hint of her bust, on Cleo, the dress displayed a lot of bust and nothing, but nothing was hinted at. “Oh, boy,” she whispered.
Could she do it? With fingers that trembled just a little, she pulled a couple of wavy tendrils free from the twist of her hair, letting them drift softly around her face. Could she walk out there and face Ethan in something so…well, sophisticated instead of sensible?
Taking a deep breath—and then swearing to herself to not take another after what she noticed it did to her cleavage—Cleo gave herself one more objective, assessing look in the mirror.
And liked what she saw.
She strutted a couple of steps in her high heels, then made an about-face and walked past the mirror again. Yes, she thought. I’m going through with it.
Because she’d be darned if she was going to send Ethan out of her life with him remembering a boringly sensible, practical, capable Cleo. And if this dress didn’t make him look at her just a teensy bit differently, then her name wasn’t Cleo Kincaid Monroe.
By the time they’d left the B and B, settled into his Range Rover and driven to the White horn Country Club, Cleo was pretty sure that Ethan didn’t know what to think when he looked at her. While her mother had smiled and told Cleo how nice she looked, Ethan appeared to have swallowed his tongue. The miles to the country club had been covered in virtual silence and Cleo got the distinct feeling that Ethan was glad to have something to focus on besides her and the dress she was wearing.
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