Frisco Joe's Fiancee (12 page)

“You’re hired,” she said.

“Tank you,” Helga replied, her eyes gleaming as she looked down at Frisco. Mimi pinched his toe again, enjoying his smothered curse.

That
would teach him to call her a showgirl.

“I’m home!”

A man’s voice from downstairs brought a gasp from Mimi. “Mason!”

She tore downstairs, fluffing her hair one last time before bursting from the stairwell. He was looking through the mail.

“Hi, Mason,” she said.

He glanced up, did a double take.

Mimi’s heart soared.

“What happened to you?” he asked.

Her heart crash-landed. “What?”

He stared at her, his gaze taking in the oh-so-short skirt, the high, strappy heels and then the curls. Scratching his head, he said, “Let me guess. Costume party?”

Drawing herself up tall, she forced herself to act as if she didn’t want to kick him in the shin. “Not tonight. Maybe in October, though. Mason, the housekeeper is upstairs with Frisco.”

“Great.” His head swivelled as he glanced around the den and kitchen, his gaze much more interested and approving than he’d been to her. “New curtains. Flowers. Mm, and something’s in the oven.”

Delilah and her crew must have put something in for the guys before they left. Mimi stood statue-still as Mason looked at his feet. “And vacuumed, even.” He looked up at her, his eyes full of…surprise. “You were right,” he said, not bothered at all to have to make the admission. “We did need a housekeeper around here. She’s awesome, Mimi.”

Her heart crumbled, she wasn’t about to tell him that Helga wasn’t the cause of his newfound contentment. He looked too happy, and it was so great to have one of her plans go right instead of backfiring like a bad firework.

“I’m glad you…think she’ll work out for you.”

“Well, if she did all this, then yeah, it’s going to be great!”

His enthusiasm was heartening, yet it was killing her. Why not that glow in his eyes for her?

“I’ve got to go,” she said. “I’ll see you later.”

“What’s the hurry? Stay and have dinner with us. It smells great.”

Stay and have dinner with me and the boys, she wanted to mimic. She looked down at her sparkly
nails and her gleaming red toenails. “I can’t. Thanks, though, Mason. Good night.”

She went to the front door, turning at the last moment. He was looking through the mail again.

“By the way, her name is Helga.”

“What? Oh, okay.”

He nodded, as if it mattered. But now she knew it didn’t. Mason didn’t care who took care of his hearth and home. She was his friend, and she always would be.

She left, her heart broken.

M
ASON COULD HARDLY WAIT
until the front door closed behind Mimi. He’d nearly dropped his teeth when he looked up and saw her! His heart thundered and his blood felt as if it was going to pound out of his ears.

It had been totally obvious that she had a date, and he wasn’t about to let on how much that bugged him. She’d never bothered to get all babed up for him, though. Whoever it was, he had to be someone she was set on impressing. He’d never seen her in high heels. Not even at the prom, damn it. She’d worn a long dress and her boots underneath.

His brow furrowed. In fact, if they hadn’t swum in the swimming hole over the years, he’d never even have seen her toenails. And there she was, with some red glittery paint peeping out of shoes that looked as if they belonged on one of Laredo’s dates.

He didn’t want Mimi giving another man glittery toes and heart-shaped cleavage.

Damn and blast. More had changed around here than the curtains.

“Mason? Is that you?” Frisco called.

He sounded edgy. “Be right up,” Mason answered.

Needing it bad, he grabbed a beer to keep him company. He’d swallowed half of it before he crested the stairwell, and it was a good thing, too, otherwise he would have spewed it.

Frisco had what looked like a busted leg—surely there was a costume party Mimi and Frisco weren’t telling him about—and an elderly female warden was frisking his brother.

“What’s…going on?” Mason asked weakly.

“She—Ms. Helga—wants me to change the channel. She doesn’t think watching
Sex Slaves from Outer Space
is good for a man with a broken leg.”

“Why not?”

“Hell if I know!” Frisco finally gave up and surrendered the remote. The channel was changed to a cooking show.

“Do something,” Frisco pleaded.

“What the hell happened to you?” Mason demanded, frowning at the leg cast.

“Ch-ch,” Ms. Helga said.

“Uh, sorry.” Mason looked at his brother, who looked imprisoned. Maybe Ms. Helga was only efficient like this because Frisco was laid up. All the other changes he’d seen in the house so far were
positive ones. If they had to tone down the swearing, that would probably be best for all of them.

“Do something,” Frisco implored.

“I think…I’ll go get another beer.” He headed downstairs, his brain too twisted by Mimi’s get-up to deal with Frisco’s moaning right now. Ms. Helga was obviously very conscientious about her work. Conscientious wouldn’t kill Frisco.

Besides, dinner smelled
heavenly.

A
N HOUR LATER
, M
ASON
thought he was going to heave his dinner; he was outside counting calves and a red Ferrari pulled into Mimi’s driveway.

He ducked behind some big-bodied heifers to spy unashamedly. Ten minutes later, out she came in her red dress, with a big lunkhead opening the car door for her. “Dressing to match the car. I’ll have to remember that,” he muttered to himself.

Since he had a white truck, she’d have to wear something white to go out with him. Very white. With white shoes. And white pantyhose, he told himself in a very smart-alecky, discontented inner voice. No, make that white stockings, garter belt, and thong. Gotta have the thong. Waited a long time to have the thong.

He heard Mimi’s delighted giggle float on the wind as the Ferrari roared past.

Would like the thong between my teeth, he told himself. What am I thinking?

This was practically his little sister he was thinking pornographic thoughts about. This was his best
gal pal, his comrade-in-pranks. She could date if she wanted. It shouldn’t throw him. That was it. She’d just thrown him with the new look and the Ferrari.

Then he sighed. He’d known for a long time that Mimi was restless. She was only staying in Union Junction because of her father. If her mother hadn’t deserted them for the bright lights of Hollywood—an act for which Mimi despised her mother—Mimi herself would have been a disappearing act only rivaled by the great Houdini.

“Damn, damn, damn.” He kicked at a fence post that had a lean to it, righted it and worked it farther into the ground.

Then he stopped, horrified.

He had no idea what she was wearing under that dress.

It could be the white thong of his fantasies.

The skirt was undeniably short. A woman wouldn’t wear granny panties under something that delicate.

Or…or…

It could be not a damn thing at all.

“Mason!” his brother yelled out an upstairs window. “Mason, help!”

He saw Frisco wrestling with his jailer, back-lit by the light in the room. But he had much bigger problems than Frisco’s sense of injured independence. “Shut up, Frisco! Do you want the whole damn countryside to hear you?”

“Yes!”

The window closed with a crack. Mason shook his head and went inside the house.

Surely Mimi wouldn’t fall for a man who drove a wimpy car like the one she’d gone off in. “City dude,” he muttered. “Mimi’ll never fall for that scarecrow-dressing.”

And if she did—which she wouldn’t—he’d be the first one to throw rice at her wedding.

Wedding dresses were white.
That
would match my truck, he thought, mulling over the startling complexity of his undiscovered feelings for Mimi.

But knowing Mimi, she’d probably wear black just to be different—or annoying, depending on how one saw it—so he could sit in the front row and smile at the sad sack who eventually got duped into marrying her.

F
RISCO WAS READY TO KILL
Mimi Cannady. Helga had made him her special project, and though she meant well, he was sleep-deprived and hallucinating. He didn’t trust the woman. No, that was too strong a word. He wasn’t comfortable with the woman manning his room. Oh, occasionally she left to clean or cook or do whatever. And Mason seemed as happy as Mason could seem. Tex and Laredo said they preferred to stay out of it and remained unmoved by his complaints.

But he missed Emmie, and all the spoiling he’d got from Annabelle. Now that was how a man should recover. Little Emmie relaxed him, and An
nabelle had made him believe there was life with a broken leg.

Helga made him wish for the kind of conscience that would allow him to slip his pain medication into her water glass. She could sleep peacefully until his leg healed—and he could tell Mason that Mimi had hired a cadaver for a housekeeper.

It was all Mimi’s fault. They didn’t need a damn housekeeper.

He said as much to Mason when he came up to visit the next day. Helga was off getting him some lunch, so Frisco took the opportunity to make his case.

“There’s plenty of changes around here, all for the better, I might add. No one would call this Malfunction Junction anymore,” Mason said with pleasure.

Yeah, they could. It was. Likely it always would be. “Mason, I think Mimi pulled a fast one on you,” Frisco began.

“Like what?”

“Like…this Helga.”

“Favorably recommended by Mimi’s friend, Julia Finehurst from the Honey-Do Agency.”

“Yeah, well, remember the ad you posted on the Internet? It said over forty or something like that, right? Not forty times two?”

“Are you discriminating against the elderly?” Mason asked with surprise.

Mason’s shame-on-you tone grated on Frisco. “No. But, okay, what about the ‘must not be of
fended by swearing’ part? Every time one of us drops a minorly offensive word, even something so simple as
bird crap,
we get ‘Ch-ch.”’

“It’s just as well to say
bird doo
when Helga’s around.”

If Frisco’s leg wasn’t broken, he’d have slapped his elder brother with the sense he was badly lacking. “And the part about not minding big animals? She saw that bull get loose to try to jump up on the new red cow and nearly lost her dentures.”

“She thought that he was going to hurt the female. She was just trying to point out something she thought was going wrong. Wouldn’t you want to know if something bad was happening? Frankly, I find a pair of sharp eyes around here comforting. Besides, who’s going to look after you? We can’t lose a man to baby-sit you.”

“I was in
better
hands,” Frisco said, surly-toned.

“What?”

Frisco shook his head, unwilling to bring up Annabelle and Emmie.

“You know, Frisco, it’s past time you and I cleared the air between us.” Mason put a boot up on the foot of the bed, leaning forward. “You’ve been at me like a bad-tempered jackass for months. It’s worse than ever since I got back. What’s eating you?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“I can’t, either. But I’m about tired of putting up with it.”

“So shoot me and put me out of my misery.”

“Don’t think I wouldn’t if I had a tranquilizing gun. The next time I’m at the vet, I may borrow one. I’ll tell him we’ve got a big ornery jackass that won’t simmer down.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Mason cocked a brow at him. “Get off of Helga’s back. She’s done a lot around here.”

Then he left the room.

“Oh, brother.”

Frisco had two options open to him.

He could become a babbling idiot from sleep deprivation and hallucinations.

Or he could lock Ms. Helga into his bathroom and call a taxi. He could get the hell out of Dodge City and go somewhere where he could curse when he wanted to, watch
Suntanned Girls from Borneo
when he felt like it and eat all the candy he wanted.

Mostly, he could sleep.

He pulled the card from his cast that Delilah had left him. Lonely Hearts Salon.

Somehow, he had to arrange a jail break.

Flipping the card over, he saw a penciled phone number, and a name: Jerry Wallace, Independent Truck Driver.

Jerry must have meant to give Delilah his phone number, and she’d accidentally put this card inside Frisco’s cast.

“Hallelujah!” Frisco yelled. Jerry was the only person Frisco knew who was big enough to help him down the stairs. Plus, he had his own transportation.

And Jerry would understand that Helga, nice as
she might be in one of her previous decades, was no Annabelle. A man could die without the basics of life: Air. Food. Beer.

A beautiful woman.

A pretty baby that slept beside him.

Of course, Annabelle might not have him. She was at a crazy point in her life.

It didn’t matter. All he wanted was her bed—and that wasn’t too much to ask considering he’d shared his with her.

He dialed the phone.

“Jerry Wallace, independent trucker.”

“I need an independent trucker like nobody has ever needed you before. Jerry, it’s Frisco Jefferson, and if you come bust me outta here, I’ll pay your next month of fuel for that damn rig of yours. It’d have to be a reconnaissance mission of sorts….”

Deep breath, Annabelle told herself. She hugged Emmie to her a little tighter. The baby was dressed in her prettiest outfit, and she smelled like the sweetest baby soap. If Emmie couldn’t charm the socks off a man, they simply couldn’t be removed by any means.

Of course, this was Tom. A father wouldn’t have to be charmed, would he? It would be a spontaneous, natural bond between father and child?

In Tom’s case, maybe not. All he’d been interested in was Dina.

Before Annabelle could muster her courage to step across the street, the door to the Lonely Hearts Salon opened. Her mouth fell open as Tom strolled in, all golden-haired and brightly smiling as always.

“Tom,” she said, going weak in the knees from surprise.

“Hello, Annabelle.” He approached the carrier
slowly, then said, with more determination than she’d ever seen in him. “Is this my daughter?”

“This is Emmie.” Unless he didn’t know the difference between a hand puppet and a baby, he knew this was his daughter.

“She doesn’t have any hair.”

It was probably not best to point out that his was thinning on top, and he was only the south side of forty. Possibly Dina was a bit too vigilant with the scissors. “It will grow one day, Tom.”

He looked closer, checking Emmie out. Possibly for defects he couldn’t possibly have chromosomed?

Done with his fatherly—or not, as the case certainly had been—perusal, he glanced up at Annabelle. “You’re looking well.”

She didn’t say anything because there was no need. A man who dumped the mother of his child for another woman wasn’t interested in what she looked like, before or after. And she certainly wasn’t returning the compliment, if that’s what he was fishing for.

“I think we should get married,” Tom said. “For Emmie’s sake.”

At that moment, Emmie returned to true form. She let out a bloodcurdling cry that had Tom reeling a good two feet away.

That’s one nay vote. “Uh, Tom, could you hand me that diaper bag, please? I need to get her a bottle.”

He did, quickly, though he didn’t reach in to get the bottle or reach to hold his wailing infant. Frisco would have already had the situation under control, she thought, but that was a useless memory.

A few seconds later, she had Emmie situated with the bottle in her mouth and a pretty bib under her chin. Normally, a burp diaper would have sufficed, but this was her first visit with her father.

“Glad that’s over,” Tom said. “She’s loud, isn’t she?”

“She’s healthy.”

“If she’d been a boy, would she have been as loud?”

Annabelle ground her teeth. “All babies cry,” she told him. “When they’re hungry, wet or cold.”

“So she does that often?”

“Yes, she most certainly does,” she affirmed, just so he could have a chance to change his mind about his ridiculous proposal. What had she ever seen in him?

“Back to what I was saying about getting—”

“How’s Dina?” she interrupted.

His gaze slid away, a crawling-under-a-rock impression. “We’re not seeing each other anymore.”

“Really?” She raised her brows. “May I ask why?”

“She just wasn’t my type.” He glanced down at the baby uncertainly, as she sucked on the bottle.

“It took you eleven months to figure that out? Quick study, huh?”

“I really don’t like sarcasm in my women,” Tom told her.

Annabelle held back a snort. “I’m not one of your women, Tom.”

“No, but you were. Before you got all clingy and marriage-hungry.”

She blinked, wondering if she dared bean him with Emmie’s bottle. Now that would be sarcasm, or maybe black-humored justice, but then Emmie would be upset and there was no reason to make her cry just because Tom was a louse. “Clingy and marriage-hungry. Well, now that is a reason to dump a woman you’ve made a baby with. Very valid.”

She nodded at him as if he made perfect sense, which he didn’t, but he seemed to think he did, and she was still in an incredulous humor-him moment. The mood probably only had a few more seconds before it hit expiration.

He narrowed his eyes. “About getting married, which I think is the right thing to do, considering—”

The door swung open, and the rest of his pompous diatribe was lost. To her amazement—and quite possibly delight, she acknowledged—Frisco limped in, with Jerry’s arm supporting him heavily.

The cavalry had arrived. Saved by the bell. And any other cliché she could throw.

She had never been so glad to see a man in all her life. And he looked really
good,
clean-shaven and not shaggy anymore and just overwhelmingly manly in general.

“Frisco!”

“Hey, Annabelle. Don’t get up. Emmie needs her bottle. Thanks, Jerry.” Obviously worn out and in pain, he propped himself against a rinse bowl. “Nice place.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I was going a little stir crazy. Decided to do some traveling. Jerry was coming this way, and I decided to hang a right with him.”

“I’m so glad.” She smiled at him.

Tom harrumphed.

“Oh, this is Tom. Tom, this is Frisco Joe Jefferson and Jerry Wallace.”

The men didn’t shake hands. The explosive glares in the room could have sent shrapnel thirty feet.

“I’ll feed Emmie,” Frisco said. “Come here, little angel,” he crooned, taking the baby into his arms.

Annabelle’s heart blossomed.

“Who is this, Annabelle?” Tom asked.

“My fiancé,” she lied gracefully, with a mental apology to Frisco. But he’d heard about Tom. He wouldn’t mind the little fib. She hoped. Frisco puffed up his chest, not looking exhausted anymore,
and Annabelle decided he hadn’t minded the lie at all.

Tom started laughing. “I don’t think so. You can’t make me jealous, Annabelle. You’d never fall in love with a broken-down rodeo has-been. Frisco Joe, indeed. Sounds like an old-time bank robber, and you’re far too blueblood for that.”

“Blueblood?” She turned to stare at him.

He shook his head. “Never mind. Listen, buddy—Frisco Joe—I was just in the middle of proposing to Annabelle. And as that is my daughter, I’d say you’re butting in at the wrong time.”

“Proposing?” Frisco cocked a brow in that smart-ass manner Annabelle fully recognized. “Where’s the candles? The flowers?” He gave Tom a thorough once-over that seemed to shout, What have you done to make her consider a loser like you? “Why aren’t you down on one knee?”

“Because I’d get my pants dirty, which isn’t sensible at all. And Annabelle’s a very sensible girl. If you knew her better, you’d understand that.” He looked back at Annabelle, gloating. “Aren’t you a sensible girl?”

“Well, hell,” Frisco said. “I really didn’t want to have to do this, but seeing as how you’re making a mess of the whole thing, I’m just going to have to go against my good breeding and cut in line.” He handed Emmie to Jerry. The baby made the transition easily, and the truck driver beamed.

Painfully, slowly, Frisco bent his bad leg to the side, gingerly making his way down on one awkward knee. He put his hand over his heart. “Annabelle, belle Anna, you would make me the happiest man on the earth if you’d take me up to your bedroom.”

She held back a giggle. Tom’s jaw dropped so fast it had rocket propulsion, and Jerry turned his whole body in order to keep from snickering. But she could see his shoulders shaking.

“Come on, Frisco,” she said gently. “You need to rest. My bed is perfect for resting.”

“Oh, yes, I’m totally exhausted. Just plumb worn out. Completely on my last legs and with one of them in pieces, that’s not saying too much,” he said dramatically. “See you around, Tom. Thanks, Jerry.”

Jerry tipped his cap, a big grin on his face. Annabelle said, “I’ll take good care of him, Jerry.” Then she helped Frisco from the floor up the stairs, one slow step at a time.

“Thanks for not ratting me out about the fiancé thing,” she whispered to him.

“Thanks for not ratting me out about the bedroom thing. I figured I was riding on slim rails with that one.”

Annabelle shook her head and tucked her body more firmly under his shoulder. Because he was so tall, she wasn’t as much support as she wanted to
be. He was gripping the wooden rail tightly as he basically pulled himself up the staircase. “You were perfect. Talk about arriving just in the nick of time.”

“I hate for you to leave Emmie in the same room with him.” Frisco tried to glance down the stairs but it was too much to twist and stay upright. “I don’t think she likes him.”

“How could you tell?”

“I don’t know. It just seems like she hesitated when you left the room, almost as if she were saying, ‘Oh, well, I gotta do what I gotta do, I guess. But I’ve got Uncle Jerry to protect me at least.’ Didn’t you notice?”

“Ah, no.”

Turning into her room, she helped Frisco to the side of the bed, where he promptly collapsed into it with all his considerable weight and length.

The springs of the bed screamed in protest, and Frisco managed to bounce himself up and down on his back just enough to keep the springs screaming.

“Sounds like we’re
really
glad to see each other, doesn’t it?” he asked above the squeaking.

Rolling her eyes, she said, “I’m going to get Emmie, so you’d better stop.”

He slowed down. “I need another five minutes to be convincing. At least.”

“Five…minutes?” She blinked at him.

“You know.” He stopped bouncing altogether
and stared at her. “To make it sound like real lovemaking.”

“Oh-h-h. Real lovemaking.” She nodded as if that made perfect sense.

His gaze narrowed. “Annabelle—”

Emmie’s wail hit a high note. “Oh, my goodness!” Annabelle tore down the stairs. “Let me have her,” she said to Tom, who was now holding the baby.

“I didn’t do anything!” Tom protested.

Jerry shrugged. “He said anyone could feed a baby and he wanted to give it a go. I thought surely he couldn’t mess that up. Unless he pinched her—”

“I did no such thing! She just started crying for no reason!” He glared at the baby as if she’d done it on purpose.

“It’s all right. Tom, listen. It’s been…interesting, but you’ll have to excuse me. I’m real busy right now.”

“Okay. I guess. But we need to talk later, Annabelle. That
is
my daughter.”

The glance he gave the shrieking baby illustrated his feelings for his daughter. Annabelle guessed those feelings were better expressed, That is my hemorrhoid.

“Jerry, can I do anything for you?”

“No. I’ve got some local runs to make between here and the panhandle. I’ll stop back in and check
on you two. Call me when you’re ready to get rid of Romeo Joe.”

“I thought his name was Frisco Joe,” Tom said.

“Not tonight,” Jerry told him kindly. “After you, son,” he said.

Annabelle sighed, swiftly locking the door. She hurried back up the stairs and walked in the room. Frisco instantly put out his arms. “Bring her here,” he commanded. “Plainly this is a woman who knows what’s good for her, and she’s missed me something fierce!”

“N
OW THEN, YOU JUST
fall asleep for your Uncle Frisco,” he said sweetly. “Watch how I do this,” he told Annabelle. “It’s like a massage, only at a real reduced level. See how she’s putty in my hands.”

He put the baby next to him, tucked up against his body. Then he proceeded to touch her neck with two fingers, slowly, down her shoulderblades. Each arm received a delicate caress. He was careful not to press too hard, because women didn’t like that. Slowly, gently, soothing. Emmie’d had a hard day—as far as he was concerned he’d gotten here in the nick of time—and nothing felt better to a woman than a foot massage.

But not yet. She had to have the full treatment, because that twerp of a father-come-lately had gotten her all worked up.

After he finished with Emmie, he was going to work Annabelle out of the lather the twerp had put her in, too.

Definitely a foot massage for Annabelle.

“There you go,” he whispered to Emmie. “You just let it all go. Breathe in the butterflies. Blow out the bees. I learned that from
Saturday Night Live,
which we may watch together if you’re of a mind to stay awake.” He kept his voice soft and hypnotic. “Now I’m going to massage these hammy little thighs of yours,” he told her, “and you’re going to let go of the stress. That’s right.”

The baby was just about prone now. Her thumb had gone into her mouth, her eyes were barely open. Now for the final phase of the seduction. The feet.

“Trick or treat, I’ve got your feet, now you go to sleep, good and sweet,” he murmured, rubbing her heel. It felt like a little ball between his fingers. Then he moved toward her arch, working it lightly, his fingers finally underneath her toes where he rolled them like early peas between his thumb and forefinger. “Good night, sweetheart,” he told her, laying his head down next to hers.

And before he realized it, he’d fallen asleep, too.

A
NNABELLE SMILED AT THE
big man slumbering next to her child. He’d put both of them to sleep, and nearly her, too, with his mesmerizing voice. Her
skin had prickled from imagining Frisco’s fingers soothing her the way he was doing Emmie.

The man simply knew his way around her child. Probably women in general, the rat. And he was proud of that fact.

As much as she wanted to join them for a quick nap, she couldn’t. She had a proposal to answer, which, caught off-guard, she hadn’t been able to think about. There was no time like the present to talk to Tom, while her baby was safe with Frisco. She’d leave him a note, even though she didn’t plan on being gone long.

And anyway, she didn’t figure she had far to go to find Tom. He’d looked awfully slimy about his Dina-wasn’t-my-type story.

She shouldn’t have any further to look for him than across the street.