doing. Her stomach churned. And now she had one of the infamous Jefferson brothers alone in the room with her and her broken bed.
He had been deceiving her by not telling her immediately that he was a Jefferson. For a minute she had nearly been taken in by that not-so-suave, good-ol-cowboy facade.
Whew. Close call.
“Hey,” Navarro said. “I am sorry about your sister. We’ll get to the bottom of matters. I promise.”
Still not facing him, and blinking away tears, Nina shook her head. It didn’t matter now. Not really. All her sister’s dreams for the new life she’d hoped to find in Texas were as shattered as the bed. By a Jefferson cowboy. Now, Nina’s goal was to put the bed back together and to recapture the charm.
One day she was going to need that charm for herself.
Chapter Two
So much for the peach being a possibility. Navarro glanced over at Nina, who was studiously ignoring him. That was his invitation to leave, but perversely, he wanted to stay.
It was her roundness, he decided, that he found so delicious. He wanted to take a bite of her—bad. “So, maybe we’ll have to agree to work together.”
She turned to face him. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “You’re not happy. We’re not happy. No one’s exactly thrilled about the situation. Valentine’s suing us, you know.”
“She has a right to financial assistance from the father of her child.”
“Maybe. If Last is the father.”
Nina gasped. “How dare you?”
“Hold on there, sparky. We have a right to wonder. Last only saw her one night.”
“Okay.” Nina crossed her arms. “How is saying something like that helping us to work together?”
He scratched his head for a minute, thinking hard. Crockett would handle this moment so much better; he’d just sweep Nina into bed and somehow the problem would solve itself.
No, that thought didn’t make Navarro feel better.
Well, if he was their oldest brother, he’d find some anal-retentive solution to talking Nina down out of her tree.
Or maybe not. Mason had never figured out their next-door neighbor and family friend, Mimi, so it was no use looking to his brother’s example for inspiration.
Nor Last’s. The brother with the lollipop-colored memories of the way their family used to be had kept the brothers hewn to hearth and home to make him happy. Until this latest escapade.
Crockett maybe? Archer? Bandera?
No, no and no.
It was up to him to sort out this huge problem. He could wind up a hero, if he figured out a way to fix it. The family could get back to its version of normal, if he played his cards right.
“Hey,” he said, his voice calm, the way it would sound if he was soothing a skittish mare. “Let’s get back to fixing this bed. Then we’ll talk about the other.”
That would give him time to think.
“Actually, I feel very awkward having you help me,” Nina said. “It feels wrong.”
“You don’t owe me anything—”
“I’m not suggesting that I do,” she snapped. “More like you owe us.”
Navarro cautioned himself to keep his cool. He upgraded her from snippy little peach to fiery. Gently he began sawing at a piece of lumber, keeping straight to the line he’d marked with his knife. “So, this bed means a lot to you.”
“Yes. I’m going to get pregnant in it one day.”
He miscued the saw and went into the hardwood floor. “Damn!” Checking the damage, he said, “We’ll pull the rug over that when I’m finished.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, sitting on the floor. “We’re already being charged damages for the room.”
“Really? By whom?”
“Marvella. When the bed broke, it scratched up the floor.”
He glanced under what remained of the frame. “Does seem as if she has a point. So, are…you planning on getting pregnant soon?”
“First, I’d have to find the man, wouldn’t I?” She gave him a pointed look. “And I haven’t met the right one yet.”
“Every day brings a new opportunity,” he said cheerfully.
“Thank you for your opinion, which was unsolicited, I believe.”
He grinned, relieved that there was no boyfriend hanging around her. “So, what if your husband of choice doesn’t want kids? I, myself, for example, do not want children. Nor marriage, but that sort of goes with the territory.”
“Then he wouldn’t be the right man, would he?”
“Now that was a very sensible, librarian-style answer,” Navarro said approvingly. “No messing about. No worrying about broken hearts. Just, when I meet the right man, it will all happen the way I imagine it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you making fun of me?”
“No.” He returned to sawing, waiting for her to comment further, since he’d obviously given her something to yammer back at him about.
But she sat quietly, watching him.
He kind of liked her watching him. To be honest, he liked having her full attention. “I would have thought a cute librarian like you would have already been dragged down to the secret labyrinth of the book stacks by now.”
“I would slap anybody who tried,” she said, her tone even.
“Oh.” He made a mental note not to get slapped.
“No man with he-man tendencies would be the man for me,” she told him. “I like gentlemen.”
Uh-oh. No one was ever going to accuse any of the Jeffersons of being gentle. “So, how did you say this bed ended up in this pitiful condition?”
“Best as I can tell, it happened the night your brother was here.”
He stopped what he was doing and gave her his full attention. “Last would not break a lady’s bed and then leave her to deal with the consequences of having no place to sleep.”
“Please.”
“You don’t know my brother.”
“I don’t have to. I’ve seen all I need to.”
Navarro had to admit his patience was starting to slide
