The Fairest of Them All (2 page)

Feeling his gaze on her, she looked into his caramel eyes. He stared at her for a long moment.

Her throat grew tight. Could he possibly know what she was thinking? How humiliating, she thought. Forcing her mind back to business, she cleared her throat. “Let me get some cards. Is the living room okay? The kitchen’s busy right now.”

“The living room’s fine.” He rested his hand on her shoulder and rubbed the nape of her neck with a callused thumb. “Lead on.”

He walked close enough for her to feel the heat from his body, and that small movement of his thumb had her breath coming too quickly. Russ didn’t usually touch her this much, or maybe she’d never noticed before.

“Watch that croquet bracket,” Russ said in a low voice that rumbled along her nerve endings. He wrapped a steadying hand around her rib cage, brushing the underside of her breast. Carly nearly fell flat on her face. A gasp locked in her throat. A couple of inches higher, she thought, and he'd be palming her breast, rubbing her nipple.

Carly clenched her jaw, fighting his effect on her. She’d always been able to shake off her awareness of Russ. Why couldn’t she now?

By the time she sat across from Russ in the living room, she felt rattled. She thrust the cards at him. “You deal.”

He nodded. “Same as usual. Whiskey poker. One hand.” He shuffled and dealt the cards one at a time to her, to the “widow” in the middle, and then to him.

Carly noticed his hands, the broad square fingers and rough calluses. With his shirtsleeves rolled up, her attention was drawn to his forearms, brown and muscled, dusted with light sun-bleached hair. She’d felt those arms around her and never realized how . . .

“Carly,” Russ prompted. “Don’t you want to pick up your cards?”

Carly blinked, then quickly gathered the cards from the table. The hand wasn’t great, but she’d beat him with worse. He was terrible at poker. Carly always won. She kept the two fours and traded the other three cards.

She tried not to grimace at what she got.

Russ traded two of his cards and thoughtfully rubbed his chin.

She traded two cards. The result brought her another four. Not bad, but she didn’t trust him. He wasn’t joking or talking as he usually did when they played.

It was Russ’s turn, and he knocked on the cherry table.

Carly raised her eyebrows. Knocking meant she had one more chance to trade before they showed their hands. After trading, she drew one more four. A rush of adrenaline shot through her. She would beat him again.

“I hope you’re keeping brushed up on anniversary songs,” Carly said confidently and laid down her cards with a flourish. “Four of a kind.”

The barest hint of a smile played around Russ’s eyes. He didn’t look at his cards as he turned them over. He watched Carly’s face instead.

Carly gasped in shock as she stared at his winning hand. “A straight flush! How did you do that? You’ve never had a straight flush before.” She looked at his face. “You won!” she said in an accusing voice.

Russ laughed. “I guess I finally got lucky. It’s about time, isn’t it?”

She was still shaking her head over the outcome when the consequence came to mind. “I guess I’ll have to pay you now.”

His smile fell. She noticed his jaw tighten before he picked up the cards and shuffled them. “I’ve never taken money for playing the piano. It wouldn’t feel right. But I’d be willing to negotiate.”

Negotiate. That word again. Carly grew suspicious. She opened her mouth to refuse until she remembered her goals for the summer. She needed Russ for these parties. He was part of the draw. The people probably wanted him as much as they wanted
Matilda’s Dream
.

It wasn’t that his piano playing was so superb. It was more the easy and relaxed mood he set for a party. He talked with the guests and took requests, occasionally led everyone in a sing-along.

She sighed. “Okay. What do you want? A private moonlight cruise with your latest favorite lady?” The idea pinched her insides but she said it anyway. “Do you want me to go over your books for free? Or,” she finished tongue in cheek, “do you need some help harvesting those ugly fish of yours?”

“None of the above.” He rose from the armchair and made his way over to her. “I’ve got a problem,” he said thoughtfully. “And I think you can help me with it.”

“Problem?” He sounded serious. Concern washed over her as she stared at him. He didn’t appear ill. “You’re not sick, are you?”

He wiped a broad hand across his mouth to hide a smile and sat beside her. “Not sick. More like harassed. You know how the Ladies Auxiliary at church—” He broke off, spying the Band-Aid on her thigh.

He circled the bandage with his index finger. Her skin was velvety soft. Her feminine scent wove around him, and he completely forgot her overpro- tective brothers were within shouting distance. The hem of her white shorts lay about an inch from his finger. Russ was so aware of just how close his hand was to her feminine secrets that his hand shook.

He brought his finger to his mouth and kissed it, then returned it to the bandage on her thigh. When her leg trembled beneath his touch, his dark gaze shot up to hers.

Carly struggled for breath. The innocent notion of kissing it to make it better took on a totally different meaning. Russ was so big, so male, sitting there in an ordinary cotton shirt and faded jeans that suddenly seemed to scream his virility.

There wasn’t anything different about him, she told herself. He’d always been both gentle and playful with her. He’d always sat that way, feet planted firmly on the ground, legs spread wide. Her gaze fell to the area that gloved his masculinity, and a staggering excitement raced through her.

Appalled at the direction of her thoughts, Carly jerked her leg away from his touch. She felt like a complete idiot. Inhaling sharply, she admonished herself to speak slowly.

“I was climbing over one of the fences, and I got scratched.” Was that pitiful, wobbly voice hers? Giving herself a hard mental shake, she continued more forcefully. “You were saying something about a problem.”

Russ cleared his throat and leaned back. “The Ladies Auxiliary has me targeted for this summer. You know how they find an eligible bachelor and shove every available female under his nose until he either marries one of them or moves away.”

Carly nodded, remembering how her oldest brother Daniel had actually left town for an entire summer. The older ladies of Beulah County took seriously their duty of making matches for the younger population.

“I just don’t have time for it this year,” Russ explained. “And there are several community activities I’m expected to attend.”

Carly frowned, wondering how he wanted her to assist him. “Russ, I wish I could help, but I don’t see how. I have no influence on those ladies. It’s not like I attend their meetings or anything.”

“Well, I wasn’t asking you to speak on my behalf.” He leaned forward. “I want you to be my escort for the summer. That would keep them off my back,” he told her in his most unromantic voice.

“Your escort?” Carly stood, trying to comprehend him. “For the entire summer! Then everyone would think we’re involved.” That was only her first objection.

Russ shrugged. “Yeah.”

She narrowed her eyes. “This could mess up your, uh, other romantic liaisons.”

He gave her a direct gaze. “I don’t have any other romantic liaisons. Besides, it’s a small price to pay. The Ladies Auxiliary is relentless.”

She rubbed her pounding forehead. Something about this just didn’t seem right. “Why didn’t you ask someone else? Someone who appeals to you.”

“Because,” he said patiently as he stood, “someone else would misunderstand my intentions. You won’t.”

That sensible explanation should have reassured her, but it didn’t. Her confusion suddenly cleared and in its place came anger. “What you want,” she began in a slow, quiet voice, “is for me to pretend I’m your”—she groped for an adequate term—”your adoring romantic interest for the summer. I would be at your disposal to attend activities, during which time the gossips would have a field day over our affair.”

Russ’s jaw tightened.

Carly ignored it. “Come September, we would stop seeing each other, and I’d have to deal with pity from every Tom, Dick, and Harry on the street. Have you—”

“That’s not necessarily true,” Russ interjected. “They might think you dumped me.”

“Oh sure,” she said with complete disbelief. “Exactly how many women have dumped you, Russ?”

Russ put his hands on his hips and sighed. “There was probably someone in high school. Hell, I don’t know, Carly. All I know is you need a piano player and I need a female escort. We’ve always been pals, so there’d be no harm in it.”

He shrugged his powerful shoulders once again.

“As far as your reputation is concerned, everybody knows your brothers practically keep you under lock and key and that you’re as innocent now as the day you were born. Seeing me won’t change that.”

With each placating word, she became more insulted. She’d never been particularly confident of her feminine allure. To know that Russ viewed her as a nonwoman hurt. There was no basis for her feelings and that only made her more upset.

She had only one thing to say to him.

“G-G-Go t-to hell!”

For one endless second, she watched shock envelop his face. Then, completely mortified, she turned on her heel and left the room. She instinctively raced for the back door. So caught up in her humiliation, she barely noticed the astonished faces of her brothers in the hall.

Aunt Bitsy asked her to take a bowl of ice outside. Carly complied, but her final instruction to Russ rang through her mind like a chord played on a poorly tuned piano.

She winced. It had been six years since she’d stuttered.

Back in the parlor, Russ was trying to collect his thoughts when Carly’s brothers entered. He had a couple of seconds’ grace before they started in on him in descending order.

“What was that all about, Russ?” Daniel began.

“You’ve been playing poker again,” Garth said, pointing at the cards on the cherry table.

Jarod’s mouth was tight with disapproval. “Carly’s never told anybody to go to hell before.”

Then finally Troy offered the most telling piece of information. “She stuttered,” he said accusingly.

Four pairs of violet eyes stared at him, waiting for an explanation. If Ethan, Nathan, and Brick were here, they’d be staring him down too. Another man might have trembled in his boots, but Russ had known the Pendletons a long time. He’d played football with two of them, shared a college dorm room with Garth, and worked alongside all of them after a vicious tornado tore through their daddy’s farm.

They were the closest thing to brothers he had. They could also be a pain in the ass.

“We played whiskey poker, and she lost,” Russ said simply.

Garth’s mouth twisted ruefully. A chuckle escaped from him, then another. Soon, the room was filled with masculine laughter.

“Carly always did hate to lose,” Daniel said.

“She was madder than a hornet. You probably should have let her win, Russ,” Troy pointed out.

Russ shook his head. “No. Carly’s tired of being treated like a child. She’s ready to stand on her own two feet.”

“Yeah, but she’s a girl,” Troy said.

“Do you remember how you felt when people kept calling you a boy after you turned twenty?” Russ asked. “Do you remember what you did to prove you weren’t a boy?”

They all remembered. Russ could read it on their faces. He remembered the struggle for manhood himself, the taking of a woman not out of love, not even out of respect, but out of an empty search for proof.

The atmosphere in the room grew thoughtful.

Daniel cleared his throat. “You’re trying to tell us something.”

“Nothing you don’t already know,” Russ said gently. “Carly’s a woman. She still needs you, but not in the same way she used to.”

Troy shifted his stance. “But if we don’t look after her, who will?”

Russ wanted to say that he would, that they needn’t worry. But that wouldn’t solve the problem. She didn’t want to be taken care of. “I think Carly wants to look after herself. If she doesn’t get some space, she might decide she needs to prove herself. And you don’t want that.”

They all muttered their agreement.

The men grew uncomfortable with the serious discussion and found excuses to leave the room. Garth, however, hung back and when the others had left, he turned to Russ.

“You want her,” he said bluntly.

Russ’s lip curved grimly. “You know me well.” Garth shook his tousled dark head and sighed. “I don’t know if she’s ready for this, Russ.”

“I'm not waiting any longer. I’ve been planning this for two years.”

Garth’s eyes widened in surprise. “Two years? I guess this isn’t just one of your flings, then.”

Russ understood the question. After all, when they had roomed together in college, Garth had seen the number and variety of females that had paraded in and out of his life. “I mean business,” Russ assured him. “Cut me some slack. Between you and your brothers and Carly’s drive for independence, this summer is going to be pure hell.”

Garth chuckled and gave Russ a commiserating pat on the shoulder. Russ shoved his hands into his pockets and sighed. He was determined to remain clearheaded and objective. With painful accuracy, he recalled the one time he’d acted impulsively and the disastrous results. He’d made a complete fool of himself during his brief ill-fated marriage, and
it wouldn't happen again
. Russ prided himself on his ability to extricate himself from emotionally volatile situations. As a matter of fact, he’d given Carly’s brothers a tip or two on the subject.

Shaking his head, Russ thought back to Carly’s parting comment. He hadn’t counted on the full scope of her feminine pride. He’d tried to make his request as nonthreatening as possible. In trying to reassure her, he’d obviously botched his plan. Now he had to figure out how to get things back on track.