Read the book: «Blame It On Babies»

1

JESS SHERIDAN HAD NO USE for weddings. He was only attending this one out of respect for the man standing next to the bride, an impressively beautiful woman he’d seen shopping in town a few times. She’d looked pleasant enough…but didn’t they all?

Until the ring went on their finger, that is.

He watched Jake Johnson kiss his bride and applauded with the rest of the Beauville residents as the justice of the peace pronounced them married. Then he acknowledged Jake’s grin as the groom walked Mrs. Johnson back up the makeshift aisle toward the blue-and-white striped tent set up in the corner of the park. There’d be a makeshift bar in that tent, considering the amount of ice he’d seen being unloaded in that direction. No one would go thirsty this afternoon, not if the rumors were true about Jake sparing no expense to celebrate his sudden wedding to someone he’d known only a few weeks. The man was taking a chance, Jess figured, but no one had asked his opinion so he kept it to himself.

A cold beer would go down real good right now, considering a July afternoon in Texas had to be what hell felt like. Lucky he was used to it, like most folks around here, or else they’d expire before the barbecue ribs and corn bread were served over in the Grange Hall across the street. Jess looked around and saw some of the hands from the Dead Horse looking as if they were as thirsty as he was. Young Calhoun looked pale, probably hungover, if the rumors were right about him being dumped before getting married himself and drowning his sorrows in Jack Daniels ever since.

The kid spotted him, which made Jess wish he’d hurried to the beer tent a little faster.

“Sheridan!”

“Calhoun.” Jess braced himself for an onslaught of questions, but the group of men from the Dead Horse seemed uncharacteristically silent. “Nice wedding,” was all he could think of to say. Inwardly he wondered if Jake would be able to keep his ranch after the divorce or would his wife carry a bag of money back to wherever it was in New England she came from.

“What a shindig!” The young man wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve. “I’m glad that’s over. Jake made us wear these neckties.”

“And iron our shirts,” Old Shorty griped. “But Miz Elizabeth sure looked pretty, didn’t she?”

“Yeah. Most brides do.”

Dusty Jones, the cowhand closer to his own age than the others, gave him a sharp look. And then he smiled, as if he knew darn well what other things Jess had been thinking.

“She’s a nice lady. And they’ll do just fine,” the man declared. “Jake’s a happy man today.”

Bobby sighed. “I should’ve been a married man last week. Amy Lou and I were gonna get married on the Fourth of July.”

Shorty rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, your heart’s been broken a few hundred times before this one, so you’ll get over it.”

“I saw the Wynette twins heading toward the beer tent,” Dusty said. “You might drown your sorrows in that direction.”

Calhoun brightened, his broken heart obviously forgotten with the news that the blond barrel racers were starting to drink. Billy Martin, his ever-present cohort, looked more cheerful, too. “Well, I guess we’d all better get us a cold beer.”

Shorty shook his head. “We’re supposed to go into the line,” he told them. “Shake Jake’s hand and kiss the bride and all that.”

“The receiving line,” Jess felt compelled to point out, “starts over there by the bar.”

He would have laughed at the expression of relief on the men’s faces, but he didn’t think anything was funny today. In a few short hours he was leaving Beauville, and he didn’t care if he never returned. “Where’s Roy?”

“He elected to stay at the ranch,” Bobby said. “He’s not much for crowds.”

“I’d better go get that dog,” Shorty said. “I promised Miz Elizabeth I’d keep him out of the sun.”

“And away from the ladies,” Bobby added. “The little critter likes to pee on just about anything.”

“Better keep Billy away from the ladies too, with his luck,” Shorty joked, earning an elbow in the ribs from Marty.

“He’s right. I have the worst damn luck with women,” the young cowboy grumbled, but his gaze was on the beer tent. The receiving line was moving right along.

“I think I win that prize,” Jess said, tipping his hat lower on his forehead. The four men stared at him, then looked at the ground, the beer tent, the sky and the two matronly ladies who walked past them.

“Well,” Shorty drawled, after swallowing hard, “not every man gets as lucky as Jake.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Bobby offered, and broke into his usual grin. Jess had to hand it to him. The boy was sure good-natured, like his father and grandfather, if the stories were right.

“And so will I,” Jess agreed, starting toward the line of people waiting to congratulate the newly married couple. A beer was sounding better by the minute in this heat. He wasn’t going to stay for the food or the dancing; he wasn’t going to give the town biddies a chance to look at him and gossip about his marriage and all the things that Susan had done behind his back.

Jess and the boys from the Dead Horse got in line behind a tall brunette with legs up to her chin and a plump redhead with a chest that could make a man weep for mercy. After the obligatory congratulations to the bride and groom, Jess stepped aside and left the flirting to Calhoun and Marty, two young men who had yet to discover that women were trouble and should be avoided at all costs.

THE BRIDE WORE GREEN. A cool, minty silver shade of the palest green that showed off her golden tan and chestnut hair. Lorna Walters would bet a million dollars the woman’s eyes were a similar mossy shade. It would be stunning, she thought, wishing she was closer to see what was going on, but she’d signed on to serve barbecue ribs and she didn’t think the bride would be beckoning her over any time soon.

The bride was carrying a dog. Or at least, Lorna thought it was a dog. It was hairy and wore a tuxedo, so it could have been a monkey. But she’d heard Martha McIntosh, the town clerk, whisper to a younger redheaded woman that the bride thought her little dog should be at the wedding, at least for a while. A dog in a tuxedo would certainly keep the towns-people talking for a while. That and the green bridal gown that didn’t look like a bridal gown. The new Mrs. Jake Johnson must be an original thinker.

Beauville wasn’t used to original thinkers, Lorna didn’t suppose.

Lorna basted ribs with Texas Tom’s Secret Barbecue Sauce and thought about weddings and men and one man in particular. He was here. She’d spotted him standing off to one side, staring at the bride and groom as if he’d never seen anything more horrifying than a man and a woman getting married.

She guessed she couldn’t blame him. Everyone in town had known what Sue was doing behind her husband’s back—except her husband. Even Lorna had heard about it and she’d been living in Dallas at the time.

That’s when she’d been employed, with a roof over her head and enough money to pay for gasoline and food and a closet full of clothes and shoes. She still had the car, the clothes and an impressive collection of shoes, but the job? Basting ribs and wearing a spattered canvas apron over her waitress uniform certainly proved what her mother had always warned, “Pride goeth before a fall, Lorna, so you’d better not get too big for your britches.”

Well, her britches would be spattered with barbecue sauce too if she wasn’t careful.

“Lorna!” Texas Tom waved his spatula at her. “Quit daydreaming and turn that batch over.”

“Okay,” she hollered back, and obligingly picked up the tongs. What was a little smoke? The crunchy edges only made the ribs taste better, Lorna knew, but she did as she was told before glancing toward the crowd across the grass at the beer tent. They’d be looking for platters of ribs soon, and Lorna hoped she’d be the one carrying the food next door to the Grange. Texas Tom had set up his barbecue grills in the park, as close to the Grange as he could get without interfering with the crowd of wedding guests. The smoke puffed away from the people and the ovens were placed so that inquisitive onlookers could look at the sizzling beef but not get close enough to burn themselves.

Jess Sheridan was somewhere in the crowd. If she could see through the smoke she might spot him. If she was lucky he might even take a rib or two from her tray. He would say, “I could never resist a woman who smells like smoked hickory,” and then he would sweep her into his arms and—

“Get those ribs in back out of the flames, dammit!” Texas Tom didn’t have a lot of patience for novices, not when his reputation was at stake. He did glance once again at Lorna’s breasts, as if he was trying to see them through the thick fabric of the apron.

“No problem,” Lorna said, trying not to burn herself despite the thick oven mitts she’d found in a box of spices and paper towels.

“Never mind,” the fat little cook sputtered. Texas Tom wasn’t known for his wonderful personality. He took the tongs out of her hand and pointed to the platters piled with smoking pork. “Take those into the Grange and put them on the long tables set up across from the desserts. And try not to drop anything.”

“I won’t,” she promised, catching the wink of the other worker, a teenaged boy who was in the unfortunate situation of having the “Texas BBQ King” for an uncle. She smiled at him and, dropping her gloves on the makeshift table, wiped her perspiring face with a clean paper towel. There were advantages to seeing Jess Sheridan at a distance, especially since she had never looked worse. Not that he would recognize her anyway.

“And get that hair out of your face,” came another order from the old ogre. Lorna complied, managing to redo her curly ponytail in one practiced motion.

Lorna picked up one of the heavy platters and got a good grip on the handles before heading to the Grange. She also had to get a grip on her imagination. She had as much of a chance with Jess Sheridan as Texas Tom did with her: Absolutely zero.

HE NOTICED HER. And he was certain other men did, too, though Jess didn’t see any of them bothering her while she refilled the rib platters and replaced empty pots of barbecued beans with full ones. She worked hard, managing to carry salads and platters and all sorts of food back and forth between the catering trucks and the Grange.

This particular woman would be difficult to ignore. Tiny, curves in all the right places, from what he could tell. She moved like a woman who was aware of exactly what she was doing to every man there at the Johnson wedding. Golden, almost silver, curls tumbled around her face and down her neck, as the ponytail at the back of her head loosened. Blue eyes, he’d guess, though he hadn’t been close enough to see for himself. Her face was flushed, though the color looked good on her.

He shouldn’t watch her, and he didn’t. Not too much, anyway. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her before, so she must have come with the Texas Tom employees. No way was she related to the BBQ King, not with that complexion and that hair. He hoped she got paid well, hoped she’d find another job that didn’t require carrying other people’s garbage.

But mostly he just wished she’d go away. He didn’t particularly like that he was watching her like some pervert.

“Mr. Sheridan?” He looked to his right to see the bride looking up at him, her expression a little uncertain. He wondered if he’d been frowning, so he forced himself to look pleasant.

“Mrs. Johnson?”

“Please, call me Elizabeth.”

“If you call me Jess. My first name is really Jester, but only my mother ever got away with calling me that.”

“Thank you.” The bride’s smile widened, which was what Jess intended. He knew he was overly tall and overly large, but that came in handy in his profession. Smiling didn’t.

“What can I do for you, Elizabeth?”

“Jake and I wanted to thank you for coming today. We’re getting ready to leave for our honeymoon, but I realized there were still people I hadn’t had a chance to talk to.”

“Thanks for inviting me. I wouldn’t have missed it,” Jess lied, knowing damn well he would have used any excuse he could think up to avoid watching a wedding take place. “Jake’s a good friend.” That was the truth. Jess looked past the bride to see the groom heading their way. He looked like a man who was ready for his wedding night, especially when his arm went around his bride and he reached out to shake Jess’s hand. Jess didn’t think he’d ever seen his friend so happy. Lord, he hoped it would last. At least for a couple of years.

“Thanks for coming.”

Jess cleared his throat. “Yeah. Where’re you headed now?”

“To the airport,” Elizabeth said. “We leave for Boston tomorrow morning.”

“We’re spending a couple of weeks in New England. I always wanted to see the ocean.”

“The boys at the Dead Horse can survive without you?”

Jake shook his head. “Probably not, but we’re moving out to my place. Permanently. Bobby’s going to have to find another foreman.”

“Or do the work himself,” Jess added.

“Exactly.” The men shared a smile. The thought of that wild-ass cowboy actually running his own place seemed ludicrous. “I guess it has to happen sooner or later.”

“Bobby will do just fine,” the bride declared. “And so will the ranch.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jess said to Elizabeth, but his mind was on the yellow-haired waitress whom he could see out of the corner of his eye clearing the table near where they stood. That damn apron mostly hid her body, but he’d bet his last paycheck it was the kind of body a man would remember.

“Shorty’s moving out to my place to take care of things while we’re gone,” Jake said, and Jess struggled to turn his attention back to his friend. He’d thought for a moment he recognized the woman, but on second look he doubted it. He would have remembered.

“Sounds good,” he agreed, shaking Jake’s hand once again as the couple bid him goodbye. He turned his attention once again to the blond gal, but she was busy handing out wedding cake and he couldn’t see her face. So he decided to have another drink. It would be whiskey instead of beer. He would join the crowd gathered outside and drink to Jake’s good fortune.

As the day wore on and drew closer to sundown, Jess freely sampled the whiskey and paid vague attention to the festivities. “Yeah,” he said in response to Calhoun’s words, lifting another glass to toast to…something. He hadn’t heard what Calhoun announced, but every other man standing at the edge of the tent looked damned impressed. The plump redhead was stuck to Bobby’s side like a tick, so the kid obviously wasn’t pining too hard for his lost fiancée. “Better watch out, Calhoun,” he muttered, lifting his empty glass. Someone filled it up again, which was exactly what he’d hoped would happen.

Teenage twins draped themselves over Billy Martin, Shorty sat in the shade with a flat-faced dog asleep on his lap, and a country-western band wailed from the bandstand in the center of the small park. Jake and his bride had spared no expense to keep the party going, even though they’d left town a while ago. He figured they must have invited everyone in the county to the wedding.

Thank God he didn’t have to work tonight. He had the next two days off, and Jess intended to make the most of his last hours in town. He was going to get good and drunk, drunk enough to forget that his wife had emptied their bank account and run off with a man from nearby Marysville. Drunk enough to forget that yesterday the divorce was final. And drunk enough to forget what she’d called him when she left.

Unfortunately, Jess didn’t think there was enough booze in Beauville to blot out the memory of his ex-wife.

SHE WOULD NEVER, EVER WORK for Texas Tom again, not if it meant having to load her possessions into a couple of stray grocery carts and live in the parking lot behind the hardware store. When he wasn’t leering at her chest, he was shouting orders. She didn’t know which one was worse; at least when he was leering she didn’t have to listen to the sound of his voice.

“Lorna!” She turned to see the fat toad gesturing toward another pile of garbage. Unfortunately the bags were made of clear plastic, meaning Texas Tom had seen something inside of them he didn’t like.

“What?”

“Those damn cowboys threw the silverware out with the paper plates. You’re gonna have to go through all this and make sure none of them forks get lost. I came here with four hundred forks and I’m damn well gonna leave with four hundred forks.”

She would give four hundred dollars—which would pretty much empty her bank account—to go back to Aunt Carol’s little house and soak in a bathtub filled with vanilla-scented water. Going through garbage was not her idea of a great way to end the day. “Look, Tom, don’t you think I should finish rinsing dishes?” She was standing there in wet tennis shoes, hose in hand, a stack of platters and various cooking utensils beside her that needed to be cleaned up before Tom’s nephew could finish loading everything in the truck.

“Yeah, but ’fore we leave we’re counting forks, or someone’s gonna pay,” he grumbled, his gaze dropping to her bare legs. He’d told her to wear a waitress uniform, so she’d gone to Marysville and spent thirty-seven dollars she could have used for the phone bill. She’d been so happy to find work she hadn’t questioned the expense.

“It takes money to make money,” her mother always said. And what would it take to paw through mounds of garbage? Rubber gloves and a decent vocabulary of cuss words, Lorna decided. She would curse quietly under her breath so no one would hear her. After all, some of those words might give Texas Tom ideas.

She tried to hurry through the cleaning of the cookware. The sun had set, though lanterns were placed around the tent and over the cleanup area next to the grills. Tom’s nephew was a decent enough kid, and the sooner she got the racks cleaned up, the sooner he and his uncle could head back to Marysville. With or without four hundred forks.

“Hey,” the nephew said, as she finished the last of the trays and turned off the hose. “How’s it goin’?”

“We can’t leave until we count the silverware,” she told him. “He thinks some of it ended up in the garbage.”

“Cripe.” The boy picked up all four racks of glassware as easily as if they were filled with paper cups. “He’s on that kick again?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I’ll help,” he offered, “as soon as I get the truck loaded up. I’m about halfway done.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Lorna picked up a lantern and swung it toward the piles of garbage bags. “With any luck it won’t take me long. The forks would sink to the bottom of the bags, right?”

He lowered his voice. “My uncle’s a real prick sometimes.”

“I just want to get paid,” Lorna said, setting the lantern on the bed of a truck. “He promised cash.”

“Yeah,” the boy said. “I know what you mean. Good luck.”

Good luck. Was there any such thing? Maybe, maybe not. “Luck” would be having the man of your dreams finally notice you. “Luck” would be landing a job with health benefits and a three-week vacation. Lorna untied the nearest garbage bag and put on a pair of yellow rubber gloves. “Luck” would be never having to work for Texas Tom again.