What a Bride Wants (4 page)

“
I like her,” Sawyer murmured.

Reese
gave him a flat stare.

“
What? She did exactly what you asked her to do and she did it with style. Tell me you didn’t admire that.”

“
She’d have impressed me more if she’d never started it.”

‘
Well, yeah, but where’s the fun in that?”

“
I’m surrounded by children,” Reece said, but he gave Ella a nod when she returned to the barstool. Ella’s girlfriend joined her moments later, grinning hard.

“
There we go,” Ella said briskly, with the air of someone dusting her hands. “No one wants to marry me, no one wants to take me home and showcase their sexual prowess, and Sawyer here thinks I’m a lunatic. My work here is done.”

“
I love your life,” said her friend. “It’s big. It’s got balls. What are we doing for an encore?”

“
I don’t know about you but I’m spent. Possibly broke. And for some strange reason I’m also cut off from the alcoholic beverages. Want to go to your place, watch bad action movies and eat s’mores? I can put the round I just offered people on my account.” Ella shot Reese an enquiring glance. “Do I have an account here?”

“
You do now.”

“
My father will be so pleased.”

She was such an autocrat
, decided Sawyer. It helped that she also had a fine sense of the ridiculous. And, y’know, bright blue eyes.

She looked at him curiously, as if she couldn
’t quite figure out what to make of him. He quirked a brow and she seemed to come to some sort of decision. “Would you like to have lunch with me tomorrow?”

“
Are you still on about the pretend lover thing?”

“
Yes.” Ella ran a hand though her tousled dark tresses. “No.”

“
Which is it?”

“
Okay, maybe I
do
want my father to realize that he can’t control my love life the way he controls the breeding habits of our cows, but I don’t necessarily plan to use you to make him see the light. That would be unfair of me. I just figured, okay, maybe he’s right and I do need to get out more and expand my social circle. It wouldn’t hurt to do
that
. Besides, it’s only lunch. It’s no big deal. A little company. And forget what I just said about cows – you don’t need to know their breeding habits, or mine. I’m just…”

“
Babbling?” he offered helpfully.

“
I know.” She sighed. “I never babble.”

He
’d been here three weeks and two days, he’d been hit on half-a-dozen times a night and never once had he taken anyone up on their offer. He didn’t share his bed with strangers. Didn’t start things he wouldn’t be around to finish. But this woman… Ella… he could stand to know a little more. “What time for lunch?”

“
Noon.”

Ella
’s girlfriend nudged Ella hard. “Ella, play nice and preserve his ego. Try and make it sound like a question.”

“
Oh. Right.” Ella nodded and tried again. “Noon?”

I
t was no less a command than the first time she’d said it.

Reese coughed – probably to hide his amusement
.

Sawyer smiled, sweet and slow, not bothering to hide his.
He liked this woman. His body thought she was hotter than the sun and his brain wanted to know just how long she could keep a man on his toes. “All right, princess. I’ll see you tomorrow at noon. Look for me by the frozen fountain in Bramble Park.”

Sawyer woke to the knowledge that he
had a lunch date with a woman with cornflower blue eyes and a way about her that had engaged every bone in his body. How long had it been since a woman had caught and held his attention like that? Not since Zoey, and he’d been barely twenty-four back then. Too young to know the trouble he was bringing down on her in the shape of his family, and too powerless to stop it from happening.

Zoe
y had been the only child of a wealthy father too. A Spanish princess rather than a Montana born one.

Apparently he had a type.

Loud thumping on the door interrupted his not-so-pleasant reverie. That. That was the sound that had woken him.

He could sleep through the sound of trucks coming and going
, and the shouts that went with linking up the rigs, because those noises didn’t concern him. This noise, on the other hand, did. He muttered a response that might have sounded like “Coming”, or it might have had a suggestion as to where the noisy thumping person could go. He hauled up, wrenched open the door and stood there blinking into the sun, belatedly grateful that his low-slung PJ bottoms were on his body rather than on the floor.

Ray
the truck yard foreman stood there, fidgeting. Ray knew the hours he kept, knew he’d be asleep. Ray wouldn’t have woken him for nothing.

“
Ray.”

“
Boss wants to see you.”

“
Whose boss?”

“
Mine. His daughter didn’t come home last night. Seems Samuel T. heard you might have something to do with that.”

“
She’s not here.”

“
Good.”

“
Good gossip grapevine though. Speedy. I think she went to her girlfriend’s place for cookies and pillow fights.”

“
He’ll see you in five minutes.”

Ra
y backed away, message delivered. Sawyer didn’t bother shutting the door, he just rifled through his carryall for jeans and a clean T-shirt, dressed fast, splashed his face with water, and ran wet hands through his hair. He brushed his teeth. He had a couple of day’s growth on his face but he didn’t have time to shave. He reached for his coat and an apple on the way out the door.

He did have time to eat.

Samuel T. Emerson was a good looking man, with eyes almost as blue as his daughter’s. He wore the same sort of well-worn work clothes as his employees, something that lifted him a notch in Sawyer’s estimation. Sawyer’s own father wouldn’t be caught dead wearing anything but a hand-tailored suit.

“
So you’re Sawyer,” the older man said, and Sawyer nodded and examined the skin on his apple. It had been a long time since he’d offered up a yessir. “And you met my daughter last night.”

Another nod
as Sawyer bit into the apple and chewed thoughtfully, and then swallowed before answering. Manners and all that. “I’m meeting her again for lunch today.”

“
Are you buying or is she?”

Sawyer smiled, slick and fast.
“How ‘bout I get back to you on that?”

The older man
eyed him coldly but Sawyer remained unperturbed. He’d grown up with colder stares than this one. Meaner ones. He took another bite of his apple. And chewed.

“
I know about the ad my daughter put up on the saloon bulletin board. I know how contrary she can be.”

Again, Sawyer took his time
chewing and swallowing before answering. “Something you might have considered when writing
your
ad.”

“
Perhaps.” Samuel T. smiled mirthlessly. “What brings you to Marietta, son?”

“
The road, mostly. Work I like. Real pretty little town.”

“
Are you looking for more work, Mr. Sawyer?”

He could have told the older man that he only had three more weeks left at the bar before Reese
’s regular bartender returned from his break, but in Sawyer’s experience handing over that kind of ammunition never ended well. “Why? You got any?”

“
What can you do?”

“
Jack of all trades.”

“
Do you have an education?”

“
Ivy League, can’t you tell?”

Ray snorted. Sawyer smiled and continued
to eat his breakfast. Happens he did have a Harvard education, courtesy of his mother’s American connections and his family’s abundance of money. His father had wanted him to have a business degree so that’s what he’d enrolled for. His father had once been of a mind to position Sawyer somewhere within the family’s extensive brewery holdings. Right up until his older brother had stopped that line of thinking dead. “I may know a little something about the liquor business,” he offered. “Running a bar and the like.”

“
Grey’s already has a manager. A good one.”

“
Noticed that.”

Samuel T. looked him over again, with eyes that missed nothing.
“Do you know cattle?”

“
I know what they look like.” Sawyer sighed. “Samuel, can we cut to the part where you tell me the bunk room is no longer available and you try to run me out of town?”

“
What makes you think I’m going to do that?”

“
You’re here.”

Samuel snorted.
“Son, I know my daughter. Last thing I’m going to do is run you out of town, even if I could. She can get real ornery if you take her toys away.”

“
That a warning that your daughter’s a spoiled princess?”

“
Well it should be. She has a good heart though, and there’s nothing I’d like more than to see her in love and happily settled.”

“
Hey, woah! I answered the
other
ad.”

“
So you did.” Samuel reached for his hat. “Pay for lunch, Sawyer. Get to know my daughter, if that’s what you both want. Court her if you’ve a mind to. I’ll give any man a chance to earn my respect and hers – even a casual worker living out of one of my bunkhouses.” He put his hat on and fixed Sawyer with a steady gaze. “Just don’t play my daughter for her money, because that won’t end well for anyone.”

“
I’m not that money driven.”

“
Maybe you’re after permanent residency.”

“
Australian father, American mother.” Sawyer studied his apple core, decided he’d had enough and tossed it in the freshly emptied office bin. “I’m already a citizen.”

Samu
el stared at him long and hard. Sawyer stared back.

“
Are we done?” Sawyer asked with the quiet menace he usually reserved for unruly bar patrons.

Finally the older man
nodded, as if he’d made some kind of decision. “There’s a new brewery opened up on the outskirts of town. It’s owned by a Texas oil man, name of Jasper Flint. Maybe you should talk to him about a job if you’ve a mind to stick around this real pretty little town.”

Samuel left
Sawyer and Ray standing in the little container-built office as he headed down the steps and off toward a huge livestock transport rig already loaded with cattle. Seemed like the old man was going to deliver some cattle himself. Moments later the engine rumbled to life and Samuel T. turned the truck toward the exit gates.

“
He give every man a chance to prove his worth?” he asked, and Ray nodded.

“
What happens if you fail him?”

“
It’s your loss.”

Ella didn
’t usually spend Saturday mornings at the park on the outskirts of Marietta’s town center. There was winter feeding to attend to, along with the unloading of stock and getting them drenched and immunized while they were still in the yards. Extra hands were always welcome. That was where Ella should be, where she wanted to be, because it was safe and familiar and she could be herself.

Ella
wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing here, or what had come over her last night when she’d asked Sawyer out to lunch. In the light of a cold winter morning it really didn’t seem like such a good idea.

But an Emerson didn
’t go back on her word or renege on her invitations, and Bramble Park did look lovely draped in winter white. The baby snowplows had been through the grounds already, clearing the paths and running a wide circle around the frozen water fountain. A bunch of kids pelted snowballs at one another over in the direction of the courthouse, using tree trunks for cover.

Sawyer wasn
’t anywhere to be seen. Ella was only a couple of minutes early, but still…

Maybe he wouldn
’t show.

She stamped her feet to ward off the cold and then figured that she should probably stop with the stomping in case Sawyer took it as a
sign of impatience. She wondered what time his bartending shift had finished. Maybe 1:30 am? Although if he stayed on through clean up… 2:00 am? Would he shower when he got home? What time would he have woken up this morning?

M
aybe he wouldn’t show.

Ella shoved her
mittened hands beneath her armpits and figured she’d give him another five minutes before leaving. Probably better if he didn’t show. That way he could remain a fantasy for years.

And then Ella turned around and there
he was, all rugged up against the cold and heading toward her along one of the snow-bitten pathways and lord but he was big – it was the shoulders that made him seem so, had to be, because his legs – currently encased in faded denim – were just normal. Okay, maybe the legs were somewhat lengthier than normal. Okay, nothing about him was normal and everything was superb – may as well admit that now and be done with it.