Four-Karat Fiancee Read online

  That came as no surprise, since he’d started tasting it when they were halfway to her place. “It’s nothing,” he said.

  “It’s something,” she replied with a trace of the brisk tone he more often associated with her. “Come in and let me have a look at it.”

  He thought about declining. But it could be he’d get another opportunity to bring up the subject of buying her out. Deciding to take his chances, he said, “Okay,” and let her lead him into the house.

  The inside seemed as homey as the outside, Dev concluded with a glance around the living room. Again everything looked far from new, but it also looked comfortable, even cozy—a lot cozier, certainly, than anywhere he’d ever lived.

  Amanda laid the book she’d been carrying on a small end table and propped her leather shoulder bag on top of it. “Take off your jacket and have a seat,” she told him as she switched on a short brass lamp. “I’ll be right back with a washcloth and the first aid kit.”

  He obeyed orders, tossed both his jacket and hat on an overstuffed moss-green chair and sat down on a plump flowered sofa. His gaze was drawn to a photo standing on a narrow wood wall shelf, one he recognized as a shot of a younger Amanda with her mother, who he recalled had passed away about ten years earlier after a short illness. By then, Amanda’s father had long since left town, and under circumstances no one living in Jester at the time had probably forgotten.

  Dev leaned his head against the back on the sofa and waited for his hostess to return, then waited some more before he finally began to wonder if something was wrong. Could she be the one who was really injured? After all, she’d been putting up a considerable struggle when he’d yanked Feldon away from her.

  She might not appreciate his roaming around her place, but he was going to check on her anyway, he decided. If she got teed off, well she’d been teed off at him plenty already.

  Dev got up and started down a narrow hallway toward the rear of the house. Off to one side, he saw light spilling through an open doorway. Not about to stop now, he kept going and soon poked his head in what turned out to be a small bathroom. There, he found Amanda standing at the sink with thin tears running down her cheeks.

  She jumped when she spotted him. “I was coming back in a minute,” she said, brushing the tears away. Her face had gone nearly as pale as the high-necked white blouse she wore with pleated wool trousers.

  “If that jerk hurt you, I’ll see he pays for it.” It was as firm a promise as Dev could make it. God, he hated to see a woman cry. He’d rather take a solid punch in the chest.

  Amanda shook her head. “No, he didn’t hurt me. I’m fine, really.” She sighed. “It’s just…been a long day.”

  Which it may have been, Dev allowed, but he didn’t think that was all of it. If Amanda Bradley could hold her own with him—and she had on many occasions—it was hard to believe she’d wind up teary-eyed unless there was a damn good reason for it. Not, he reminded himself, that it was any of his business.

  He leaned against the doorjamb and folded his arms across the twin front pockets of his denim shirt. “Want to patch me up now?”

  Sighing again, this time in what might have been relief that he hadn’t pressed the subject, she nodded and reached up to open the mirrored medicine cabinet. “As long as you’re here, why don’t you wash the blood off first?”

  He did, making quick work of cleaning the cut at a corner of his lower lip. Then he propped a hip against the sink and let her fuss over him. As close as they were, he couldn’t help but catch a whiff of the subtle floral scent coming from the person whose pink-tinged mouth, currently pursed in concentration, continued to fascinate him. As to why it fascinated him, he still hadn’t figured that one out.

  Right now he did his best to ignore the fact that they were standing a scant inch from each other, telling himself that he’d been without a woman for too long if certain parts of him could even threaten to get stirred up at a time like this. Then the sting of the antiseptic regained his full attention in a hurry.

  “Sorry,” she said at his brief flinch.

  “No problem.”

  The job was done and they were back in the living room in a matter of moments. It was time to take off, Dev knew. Trouble was, the remembered sight of those tears was still eating at him.

  “Look,” he said as he reached down for his jacket, “I know it’s flat-out none of my concern, but probably no one knows better than I do that for a small person, you can also be a pretty tough one when your back’s up. To get as upset as you obviously were a few minutes ago, something more than a long day has to be behind it.”

  Her gaze met his. “As you said, it’s none of your…” Her voice trailed off as the starch suddenly seemed to go right out of her. She walked over to the sofa and sank onto a plump cushion. “I just need some sleep,” she murmured—more to herself than to him, it seemed, as though she were talking out loud. “I can’t keep tossing and turning night after night.”

  He set his jacket down again. “Sounds like you’ve got things on your mind.”

  She glanced at him and exhaled a short breath. “You could say so.”

  Maybe her store was doing even worse than he’d figured. That was all he could come up with. And if that was the problem, he knew he could offer her a quick solution. “If it’s business—” he started to say before she halted him with a slight wave of one hand.

  “I wish it were as straightforward as something to do with business,” she told him.

  “Then what is it?” he asked, deciding to be blunt about it. Maybe it was none of his concern, but now that his curiosity was roused, he couldn’t let it go, either. Not unless she kicked him out.

  But for once, Amanda Bradley didn’t seem capable of doing that, and as if recognizing she was stuck with him, she said, “What I’ve got on my mind involves four young children.” She paused for a beat. “Relatives, actually.”

  That caught Dev off guard. “Relatives?” he repeated after a moment.

  “Yes,” she said, again meeting his gaze. “These particular children happen to be my sisters and brothers.”

  What? He realized his mouth was in danger of falling open. She was an only child who’d moved to Jester with her parents when she was just a slip of a girl. He knew that as well as he knew his own name. Hell, everyone who’d been in town for a while knew it.

  “How in the world,” he had to ask her, “can you have sisters and brothers?”

  “I can if my father had more children after he left Jester. Which, I just recently learned, he did.”

  Chapter Two

  There, it was out, what she’d kept to herself for days.

  And having shared it with someone, Amanda had to concede that she felt better. True, she’d never expected to share it with the man who continued to stare down at her. Not any more than she’d expected to find him in her living room. In fact, if anyone had told her that morning that she’d be tending to Dev Devlin’s wounds before the day was over, she would have questioned their sanity. Just as he’d looked ready to question hers moments ago.

  “Technically,” he said as his expression settled into more thoughtful lines, “that means you have some half sisters and brothers.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, “but, to me, it’s one and the same. My father also fathered them, and even if I never saw them face-to-face, I’d still feel there’s nothing ‘half’ about our relationship.”

  “Hmm. I suppose you’ve got a point.” He walked over and eased himself down on the other end of the sofa. “Do you plan on seeing them?”

  The answer to that one, Amanda recognized, was far more complicated than a simple “yes,” even assuming he’d be satisfied with a single-word reply. She hadn’t missed the probing look accompanying his question. Still, she only had to tell him what she wanted to, and logic prompted her to consider the benefits of discussing as much as she felt comfortable doing. After all, she’d already discovered how a small weight could be lifted from her shoulders by sharing some
information.

  “I do plan on seeing them,” she replied at last. “In fact, ever since I learned about them days ago, I’ve been determined to at least do that much.”

  “I take it,” he said, “that up until then you didn’t know about them at all.”

  “Not until I received a phone call from an attorney who not only told me they existed, but that they were orphans and wards of the state.”

  It took him less than a minute to absorb that information. “Which means your father is…” His voice trailed off as his expression sobered.

  Although Amanda’s throat tightened, she was determined not to shed any more tears. “Yes, I was told that he passed away a year ago in Minnesota.”

  “I’m sorry.” The words were simply spoken but seemed completely genuine.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  And that was all she would say on the subject of her father’s death, the details of which she had no intention of discussing with him, or anyone else in Jester. The town’s longtime residents already had memories of Sherman Bradley, and one of them was hardly flattering. They didn’t need to know everything.

  As if he had no trouble recalling that less-than-flattering episode in her family’s history, Dev said, “So after your father, ah, left Jester, he went to Minnesota?”

  “You mean after he ran off with Rita Winslow, his attractive young co-worker at the savings and loan,” she corrected, deciding to be candid about what they both knew was the blunt truth of the matter. “Yes, they apparently chose to put some distance between themselves and this town.” In the process, they’d left her and probably most everyone in Jester in a state of shock, Amanda remembered. Up until a few days after her fifteenth birthday, her always dapperly dressed father had been a well-respected accountant, one many considered the image of the ideal family man. Then, just like that, he was gone.

  In the months that followed, her mother had filed for a divorce on the grounds of desertion, and five years later Mary Bradley had quietly passed away after a short illness with only her daughter, who’d made a hasty trip back from college, at her side.

  “Eventually,” Amanda said, forging on with her story, “my father and Rita Winslow were married, and years later when she found herself a widow, Rita returned to Pine Run, where she was born and raised, even though she had no family left in the area.” Just twenty miles away, Amanda reflected, but she’d had no idea that the larger town southwest of Jester had once again become home to her father’s second wife.

  “With Rita,” she continued, “came the children she and my father had brought into the world. A girl who’s now seven years old, two boys now five and four, and another girl, only a baby really, who’s eighteen months old.”

  Dev stretched out his long legs and stacked one booted foot over the other. “Sounds as though they waited a while to have kids.”

  Amanda nodded, acknowledging the truth of that. After all, fifteen years had passed since Sherman Bradley had disappeared in the middle of the night with his suitcases packed and a brief note left behind to say he wasn’t coming back.

  “And then,” she said, “they had four children in fairly rapid succession.”

  “Children you referred to earlier as orphans,” he reminded her, “which has to mean that their mother is gone, too.”

  “I’m afraid so.” She released a quiet breath. “After Rita returned to Pine Run, she took a job in a local lawyer’s office. When that same lawyer phoned to tell me about my father and the children, he also said that Rita had been killed in an automobile accident over a month ago. As her employer, he’d volunteered to go through her papers to help settle her estate, and that was when he discovered a copy of my parents’ final divorce decree, which my father must have obtained at some point from the district court. Along with it were some small school photos of me he’d apparently taken with him. They were bound together with an old newspaper article in the Pine Run Plain Talker mentioning that Amanda Bradley, a Jester resident, had been one of the winners in a spelling contest.”

  “And that’s how the lawyer found you.” He shook his head. “He’d never have found me if he’d had to rely on my winning any spelling contests.”

  Which, Dev thought as Amanda only met that rueful remark with silence, had a lot less to do with intelligence than the fact that there had been a time when he’d seldom applied the brains he had. He’d been too busy raising hell on a regular basis. But that had all changed.

  “I take it,” he said, “that you’re going to Pine Run to see the kids.”

  Her gaze didn’t waver. “Yes, but beyond just seeing them, there’s a hearing scheduled at the offices of Child and Family Services next Tuesday, and I plan on doing my best to convince the authorities to place the children in my care.”

  Well, she had guts to even consider taking on that kind of responsibility. He couldn’t deny that. “Think you’ll be successful?”

  Her sudden sigh was long and heartfelt. “I wish I could say so with any certainty, but it may turn out to be an uphill battle if I can’t convince the authorities that I have enough resources to make it the most appealing solution.”

  Resources. At least a part of that, Dev figured, had to translate to money, which he now had the ability to supply with little trouble. Of course, that also applied to several other people who’d shared in the lottery. Then again, even though Amanda could count at least a few of those newly wealthy as her friends, she wouldn’t be asking anyone for anything, not unless her back was flat against the wall. He’d be willing to bet on that as a sure thing, because past experience had already gone a long way to show she could be as mule-headed as anybody he’d ever met. If he was right, the last thing she’d do was ask for financial help.

  But that wouldn’t be necessary in his case. Given that she had something he wanted, they could make a fair trade.

  It was so damn simple…if he could talk her into it.

  “If finances are a problem,” he said, keeping his tone mild, “we can solve it here and now. I’m ready to make you a decent enough offer for the bookstore property that you could open another one somewhere else in town and probably still have a healthy profit left over.”

  Her chin went up. An automatic response? Dev wondered. Either that or his reviving a sore subject had teed her off all over again. Noting that the color had returned to her face, he wouldn’t have been surprised to see her stalk over the door, wrench it open and firmly suggest he waste no time in leaving. But she didn’t.

  All at once it seemed far too quiet as seconds ticked by. At last, Amanda broke the silence. “I’ll…think about letting you make me that offer.”

  Dev resisted the urge to heave a gusty sigh. Maybe, just maybe, he told himself, he would finally be able to put an end, once and for all, to the continual friction between them. “All right,” he said in the most businesslike tone he could muster, “you can let me know what you decide.”

  With that, he got up. “I’ll take off now.” He strode to the chair, retrieved his hat and settled it on his head.

  Amanda stood as he pulled on his jacket. “I probably won’t have an answer for you until after the hearing on Tuesday. And I’m not,” she added candidly, “at all sure what it will be.”

  If she was telling him not to get his hopes up, Dev knew it was too late. Not that he considered the whole thing anywhere near a done deal, but she’d agreed to think about it, and right now he was counting himself lucky for that much.

  “I’ll drop by the bookstore after you get back from Pine Run,” he told her.

  She arched a wry eyebrow. “Well, that will be a definite switch. You haven’t exactly been one of my best customers.”

  “You haven’t been one of mine, either,” he reminded her with a wry look of his own as he started to turn toward the door. Then his denim-clad thigh brushed against an edge of the shoulder bag resting on the end table and toppled it over. He dropped down to grab it before it hit the floor.

  “I’ll take it,” Ama
nda said, stepping forward.

  He straightened and absently handed the bag over, his attention already captured by the book that had been exposed, one featuring a bold cover he now had no trouble making out. “Midnight Passions,” he murmured, reading the title. He glanced at Amanda. “I usually favor the newspaper when it comes to keeping up on things, but I’ve got to admit that your choice in reading material seems…interesting.”

  Ignoring that dry comment, she tossed her purse on the chair and stepped past him to head for the door. Although she didn’t wrench it open, she didn’t linger over it, either.

  “Good night,” she told him, oh-so-politely.

  “Good night,” he replied, matching her tone. “Happy reading,” he added as he walked out, tossing that short statement over his shoulder. The only reply he got was the sound of the door snapping shut. Dev had to grin. Even if it made his cut lip burn like a son of a gun, it was worth it.

  He’d finally had the last word with Amanda Bradley.

  THE DRIVE TO Pine Run gave Amanda more than enough time to think about several things. Nevertheless, again and again, her thoughts drifted back to Dev Devlin. Could she really sell her share of the building to him? Could she give in at last?

  A firm answer to that question continued to elude her as she followed a curve in the two-lane highway cutting a path through the rolling hills that flowed like gentle waves over the eastern part of Montana. She remembered her first sight of the area when she was eight years old and a new arrival from the far flatter plains of the central Midwest. To her, the hills had been mountains, and the town of Jester, with its long Western history, almost a small piece of another world.

  Soon after she and her parents had moved into the house Amanda now owned, they’d walked over to Main Street to see the place where her father would be starting his new job. Back then, she hadn’t so much as considered the possibility that she would one day open a bookstore only steps from the old brick building that was home to Jester Savings and Loan.