she said, “Five, three, and a baby.” Jolie hoped this was leading somewhere.
Helen stared for another disconcerting moment, nodded as if she’d come to some kind of decision, then turned abruptly and walked away. Jolie watched her cross the café to the gorgeous cowboy.
Helen and the cowboy held a whispered conversation, glancing frequently back at Jolie. Now, what was that all about?
Knowing she was the subject of their conversation, Jolie didn’t know where to look. She stared down at the newspaper want ads, folded up on the edge of the table.
The toes of two hand-tooled leather cowboy boots appeared in her line of vision. The faint scent of horse and hay curled up to her.
She looked up, pinned in place by the cowboy’s incredible blue eyes. He was no longer smiling, and she could see lines of fatigue on his face. He looked older than she had first thought.
“Ms. Carleton?” His deep voice rolled over her like a fog across Puget Sound.
Startled, Jolie nodded and swallowed. “Yes?”
Griff took a minute to take in the whole package. What the heck was a beautiful woman dressed like her doing in Harry’s Diner? he wondered.
“My name’s Griff Price. I have a proposition for you.”
He didn’t miss the way her big brown eyes widened at his choice of words, and in spite of his foul mood he suppressed a smile.
“How do you do, Mr. Price?” Her speech was careful and polite, her expression wary.
Sleek and sophisticated, she reminded him of a Thoroughbred horse. Generations of carefully chosen bloodlines came together to produce a woman this magnificent. Good bone structure, sleek hair, clear eyes, fine skin and good muscle tone didn’t happen by accident.
He was pretty good at sizing up women. He’d learned the hard way. She didn’t look like a baby-sitter.
She looked like trouble.
But Griff was desperate. He had just acquired a nephew he hadn’t even known existed, and his housekeeper, Margie, was leaving to take care of her sick sister for at least two weeks.
“Helen tells me you’ve had experience taking care of children.” She nodded and continued to stare at him with those big chocolate-brown eyes.
It was hard to believe, looking at her. She had city and society written all over her, and he wanted no part of either. She had the look of his ex-wife. Expensive. Deirdre would never willingly take a job as a caregiver. She had been a taker, not a giver.
Women like Ms. Carleton didn’t belong in Montana. This country was harsh, and it would chew you up and spit you out if you weren’t as tough as old saddle leather.
Glancing nervously at Helen, who hovered two booths away, she cleared her throat and said, “Yes.”
Griff barely remembered his question and realized he’d been staring at her. He also noticed Helen had hung around to listen, wiping up an already immaculate tabletop. Gossip was first on the menu at Harry’s.
Griff turned his attention back to Ms. Carleton. “Helen also mentioned you’re looking for work.”
He rubbed at his temple, trying to dispel the headache that had blindsided him on the way to town.
Looking uneasy, she glanced at Helen again, then back to him. Finally she nodded, looking as jumpy as a cat in a roomful of rocking chairs.
He’d bet a week’s wages she was running away from something. Women like her always left when things got tough. He knew that from experience. First his mother had run, then his wife.
But, he reminded himself grimly as he watched the way her small smooth hand toyed nervously with a gold chain necklace, he didn’t have much choice. And Helen had said she had cared for her cousin’s children. Unlike his wife, she must have a sense of family, and to Griff that meant something.
“I need a live-in baby-sitter for a few weeks.” He watched her absorb that information.
Deirdre had run off two years ago with his brother. Until three weeks ago when Social Services had called about his nephew, Riley, he’d known nothing about the baby, or Deirdre and his brother’s deaths.
She brightened a little. “Live in?”
“Yes, ma’am. I live a ways out of town.” He knew her car had been wrecked and there was no way he could take the time to drive her back and forth to town every day.
“I see.” She continued to twist up the gold necklace that hung down over her full breasts. Little lines of concentration furrowed her brow.
“I’ve got a ranch to run.” He tapped the toe of his boot against the linoleum, anxious to be on his way. He still had hours of work to do before his day would end.
Griff couldn’t stay home with Riley. The ranch took up all his time, even when things were going smoothly. And things had not been smooth for quite a while.
Right now he had fence down in two spots. God knew how many head had wandered into the coulees. It could take days to find them all. His main stock tank had sprung a leak sometime in the past few days, and he had to get it fixed or spend hours hauling water. And just to round things out, the weatherman was predicting a hard, early winter.
Worst of all, he missed his dad with a fierce ache in the belly. He wanted the old man beside him, quietly reassuring him that everything would work out.
Griff yanked his wandering thoughts back to the problem at hand. He stared at Miss Carleton, squirming on the red vinyl seat. No one had answered his advertisement, and Margie was leaving this afternoon.
He was desperate, but he wasn’t a fool. She was all wrong for the job, but he needed time to find a permanent baby-sitter. Margie had made it very clear from the day the baby arrived she was a housekeeper and hadn’t hired on to raise kids. This woman could do the job for the short term, to buy himself some time.
“We need someone for a couple of weeks.” He watched her as she considered his offer, and wondered if she would last even a week.
She nodded hesitantly. “Okay.”
He felt a spurt of relief. He’d be damned if he’d explain more to her here. Everyone in the diner had an ear turned toward their conversation. Any conversation he had with her here would be all over town in minutes. He’d been the topic of their gossip enough to last him the rest of his life.
If she had questions, they could talk in the truck. He didn’t want Billings chewing on his personal business again.
On the way back to the ranch he would tell her only what she would need to know to do the job. She was a stranger who would be in and out of his life. She didn’t need to know why Riley was living with him. His brother’s betrayal and death cut deeply into his soul, and he didn’t plan on sharing it.
Griff pushed his dark thoughts away. It wasn’t something he liked to dwell on. Every time he saw his nephew he was reminded of the fact his wife had run off with his brother. She had refused to have Griff’s
