Heartstrings (30 page)

Roman decided he would keep her out well past midnight. He’d order a twenty-course meal, then relax for hours over coffee. After that, he’d walk her around the town and show her… Show her what?

Damn Red Wolf for being such a boring place!

“This is it,” he said, stopping her in front of Victoria’s Caf6 and escorting her inside.

The small restaurant charmed Theodosia. Clean, well-starched tablecloths of yellow-and-white gingham and small terra-cotta vases filled with red poppies covered every table. Shiny copper pots and pans, baskets, and paintings of flower gardens hung on the bright yellow walls, and someone had swept the polished wooden floor clean of all debris.

“Judging by this restaurant, I would venture to guess that there dwell civil people in Red Wolf, Roman. That, of course, raises the odds that a few intelligent men will be calling on me.”

Roman scanned the gathering of people in the cafe, his gaze meeting that of every man who looked at Theodosia. Some turned back to their meals, but others defied his silent warnings and ogled the woman at his side. “They all look pretty damned stupid to me.”

“Roman!” a woman called from across the room. Theodosia watched as the well-endowed woman sashayed toward Roman. When the lady reached him, she circled her arms around his waist and kissed him full on the mouth.

A totally unfamiliar emotion sizzled through Theodosia, melting the smile from her lips. She tried to step away.

Roman wouldn’t let her. “Theodosia, this is Victoria Langley. Victoria owns the cafe.”

Theodosia decided the woman thought she owned Roman as well. “How do you do, Miss Langley. I am Theodosia Worth.”

Victoria’s painted eyebrows rose. “The same Miz Worth who’s willin’ to pay gold for stud services?”

Theodosia’s own brow rose higher. “The words
stud services
are not accurate descriptions of—”

Victoria’s throaty laughter filled the cafe. “I ain’t above takin’ a little thank-you money from my own lovers, but I’ll be damned if I’ll ever pay any of them!”

Theodosia bristled. “Miss Langley—”

“You from England, Miz Worth?”

“Boston.” Goodness, Theodosia thought. Why did everyone in Texas assume England was her home?

Victoria waved to a young girl across the room. “Meg, show Roman and the lady to a table!”

Once the waitress had seated and left them to study the menus, Theodosia gave rein to her irritation. “Am I wrong in thinking that
you
are one of the men who has given that woman a little
thank-you
money, Roman?”

“Wrong as wrong can be.”

Mollified, she glanced back down at the menu.

“Why should I pay Victoria for what she gives to me for free?”

She had no chance to release her stinging rejoinder. The waitress arrived to take their orders. “I would like a small portion of chicken and a plate of fresh fruit,” Theodosia said. “Oh, and would you mind removing the skin from the chicken, please?”

The girl’s freckled nose wrinkled. “It’s fried chicken, ma’am.”

“Still, I prefer that the skin be removed.”

Roman leaned over the table. “Why have fried chicken if you aren’t going to eat the skin? That’s the best part.”

“I don’t care for the skin.”

“Ordering fried chicken when you don’t like the fried skin doesn’t make any sense!”

“Why don’t you concentrate on your own order?”

Shaking his head, he looked at the menu again. “I’ll have fried chicken
with
the skin, roast beef, catfish, and baked ham. Creamed potatoes, corn on the cob, turnip greens, cowpeas, butter beans, stewed okra, and baked squash. Biscuits and cornbread, too. And for dessert, I want peach cobbler, blueberry pie, and apple cake. And coffee.
Lots
of coffee.”

He handed his menu back to the waitress, saw Theodosia staring at him, and began to drum his fingers on the table. “I’m hungry.”

“But you are not a bottomless pit. You cannot possibly eat—”

“I’ll eat it.”

“It will take you hours.”

He certainly hoped so.

“You Miz Worth?” a man asked as he arrived at the table.

In his haste to stand Roman knocked over a glass of water.

It spilled into Theodosia’s lap. “Roman!”

“What do you want?” Roman demanded of the man.

“I come in answer to her ad.”

“Here?” Roman blasted. “In a restaurant? The ad says to go to room nine in the hotel. Can’t you read?” He stuffed his hand into the pocket of his trousers, thus revealing one gleaming Colt.

The man looked at the gun, then laid his hand over his own. He lowered his eyes down to Theodosia. “I’m tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed, and smart.”

“Yeah?” Roman challenged. “What’s nine hundred and fifty-seven times three hundred and twenty-six?”

The man scowled. “I need paper to figure that out.”

“Then you fail the interview,” Roman announced.

“You ain’t the one who posted the ad.”

In answer, Roman drew his gun and cocked it. “No, but I’m the one pointing this Colt at you.”

“Roman, please,” Theodosia said, then turned her face up to the man. “Sir, I’m afraid you are not qualified. Thank you for your interest, though.”

Roman didn’t sit back down until the man had left the table.

“What’s the answer, Roman?”

“Answer to what?”

“What does nine hundred and fifty-seven times three hundred and twenty-six equal?”

“Damned if I know, damned if I care, and dammit, here comes another one!”

“Good evening,” a short, stocky man said as he arrived at the table.

“For the love of God,” Roman muttered. Once again, he stood, his Colt steady in his hand. “Get the hell away from the lady. Can’t you see she’s trying to get some supper? Besides that, you’re short!”

“I beg your pardon?” the man asked.

Roman stared at the man’s clothing. It was all black, except for the stiff white collar of his shirt. Gritting his teeth, he replaced his revolver in his belt and sat back down.

“I am Reverend Sommers,” the man said. “You, sir, look a bit familiar to me, but I don’t believe I have ever seen
you
here in Red Wolf, miss. I assume you are visiting, and I wanted to invite you to Sunday services.”

Theodosia gifted the minister with a brilliant smile. “How do you do, Reverend? I am—”

“She’s Irma,” Roman blurted, and gave Theodosia a look of warning. “Irma Sue Montana. And I’m Roman Montana.”

“Well, Mr. and Mrs. Montana, I hope to see you on Sunday. Enjoy your meal.”

When the minister left, Roman glowered at Theodosia. “Are you crazy? You were about to tell him your name!”

“And how does that make me deranged?”

“For God’s sake, you’re
Theodosia Worth,
the woman who posted the fliers! You’d have shocked him right out of his collar!”

“Shocking him would have been better than killing him, which is what you almost did. Honestly, Roman, what is the matter with you tonight? You are as agitated as I have ever seen you.”

He was saved from having to answer when the waitress brought their meals. Roman had ordered so much food, a second table was necessary to hold it.

But before he could take the first bite, he saw two men standing in the corner across the room.

Both held Theodosia’s fliers, and both were watching her. In the next moment, both began ambling toward her.

Roman had had all he could take. He stood and quickly gathered all the fried chicken, bread, corn, fruit, and cake into napkins.

“Roman, what on earth are you—”

“We’re leaving.” He tossed a few bills onto the table and took her hand.

She yanked it from his grasp. “I am not leaving, and I do not comprehend your—” She stopped speaking abruptly as Victoria sidled up to the table.

“Mind if I join y’all?” Victoria asked.

“I’m sorry, Miss Langley, but we were just leaving,” Theodosia said. “Roman?” She took his hand and dragged him out of the restaurant. Once outside, she started for the hotel.

“Wrong way,” Roman said, pulling her in the opposite direction.

“But earlier you said you wanted to eat in the room.”

“Well, now I want to eat outside!” Clutching her hand, he escorted her into an open field that edged the town. There, he sat her down in a cool mound of bluebonnets and tossed the bulging napkins down beside her.

Theodosia looked up at him. “Would you care to divulge the reasons for your anger, Roman?”

“I am
not
angry!”

She leaned against the cluster of large rocks at her back and opened the napkins. “Then would you care to eat now?”

“I’m too mad to eat!” He gave her his back, stuffed his hands into his pockets, and stared at the dusky sky. “I told you what would happen, Theodosia. But did you listen? Hell, no. You didn’t listen!”

“What happened?”

“What happened?” He spun to face her. “Didn’t you see all those—” He paused, trying to remember the name Theodosia had called the man who had attacked her in Wild Winds. “Didn’t you see all those
lackivating meaflarants
back there, for God’s sake?”

“
Lackivating meaflarants?
What—oh.” She smiled a secret smile. “I believe the description you seek is
lascivious malfeasants.”

“Call them whatever you want! They were lined up wall-to-wall, just waiting—”

“Roman, they were doing no such thing. Granted, one man approached the table, but you dealt with him. The second man was Reverend—”

“Look, Theodosia,” he said, pointing his finger at her, “I’m your bodyguard. In order for me to do my job, you have to follow my rules. Rule number one is that you don’t wear what I tell you not to wear. Rule number two is that you never forget rule number one. Rule number three is—”

“I do not appreciate your domineering attitude.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t give a damn whether you like it or not!”

Calmly, Theodosia removed the skin from a piece of chicken and ate the meat. She then picked up a strawberry.

Still scowling, Roman watched her bite into the ripe fruit. The contrast of the crimson berry against her cloud-white skin fascinated him. She kept the berry between her soft full lips, and he could tell by the way her cheeks moved that she was sucking the juice.

Desire slammed into him with such force, he began to sweat.

“Roman, aren’t you going to eat?”

“What? Uh, yeah.” His loins aching fiercely, he sat down beside her, then noticed the vivid contrast of her peach skirts, the thick emerald grass, and the brilliant bluebonnets. God, she looked so pretty sitting there eating her strawberry.

“Here.” She handed him a slice of watermelon. He bit into it and felt juice dribble over his chin.

Smiling, Theodosia dabbed at it with a napkin.

Her caring gesture tempered his desire. In passion’s place rose that same tender something she often managed to rouse within him.

“Have you ever had a friend, Roman?”

The sound of her voice brought him out of the daze her beauty had led him into. Mentally shaking himself, he laid down the watermelon and bit into a chicken breast. “I’ve met some people here and there,” he slurred.

“Meeting people isn’t the same as having them for friends. I’ve met several people since my arrival to Texas, but I do not know enough about them to call them my friends. Therefore they are only acquaintances.”

He got the feeling she was leading up to something. Whatever it was, he probably wouldn’t like it.

He resolved to throw her off track. “I don’t know a lot about you, either. Reckon that makes you only an acquaintance.”

She flicked the green stem of her strawberry into the moonlit field. “You wound me, sir. You know more about me than anyone else in Texas.”

He ate more chicken and thought about what she had said. “I don’t know hardly anything about you.”

“Truly?” She tilted her head toward her shoulder. “Well, I really
haven’t
told you much, have I? It wasn’t my intention to keep anything from you, though. I can only assume that I’ve been so profoundly interested in knowing more about you, that it slipped my mind to talk about myself. Later this evening, I promise to answer any question you might ask. But for now I must return to the hotel.”

She began gathering the food back into the napkins.

“Where were you born?” he blurted, determined to ask her a couple hundred questions before allowing her to go back to the room.

“New York.”

Roman grabbed more chicken from the napkin she held and tore into it as if he hadn’t eaten in days. “I’m not done eating yet, Theodosia.”