One Bride Delivered

CHAPTER ONE

Need wife to take kare of a little kid. Has to bake cookys, read storys and smile a lot. No hitting. Room 301, the St. Christopher Hotel, Aspen, Colorado.

THE advertisement leaped out at Cheyenne Lassiter as she sat at the breakfast table, and her spoon clattered down. Grabbing the newspaper with both hands, she reread the ad. The cantaloupe in her mouth lost all flavor. Cheyenne pushed the newspaper across the table to her younger sister. Read this.

Allie scanned the ad. A unique way to meet women.

You think that’s what it is? Cheyenne hesitated. It doesn’t read to you as if a child had written it?

Allie read the ad again. Maybe. You’re worried about the ‘no hitting’ part, aren’t you?

Yes. Cheyenne took back the paper. I know you all think I see a child-abusing parent on every corner, but... Her voice died away.

Michael is safe now, Allie reminded her. Safe and happy living with his aunt and uncle.

How could I have blindly ignored the way he’d never look me in the eye when he’d mumble he’d fallen down stairs or run into a door? But his mother volunteered in my classroom, and Mr. Karper showed such interest in his stepson’s progress. Cheyenne stared at the ad with unseeing eyes. I’ll always wonder if I would have guessed the truth earlier if Michael had been poor and dirty.

No one suspected Michael’s stepdad knocked the poor kid around. Quit beating yourself over the head with it. The minute you suspected what was going on, you went to the authorities. If it weren’t for you, Michael might still be living with his mother and her husband. Or dead.

Michael must have despaired of being helped. Cheyenne rolled up the newspaper section. I promised myself I’d never again shut my eyes to something right in front of me. Her gaze slid past her sister. I don’t meet the Brownings until ten.

Which means you think you have time to check out what’s going on in Room 301 at St. Chris’s. Allie tore a hunk from her bagel and handed it to the greyhound standing expectantly beside the table. No one appointed you to save the world.

You’re not supposed to feed the dogs at the table. Cheyenne pushed back her chair, carefully avoiding Allie’s three-legged cat.

Allie tore off another hunk of bagel. One of these days you’re going to stick your nose into someone else’s business and get it bit off.

All I’m doing is dropping by the hotel to say hi. If there’s a problem, I’ll notify the proper authorities. I have no intention of getting personally involved.

If I’m disturbed by one more female pounding on my door, I’m going to fire the entire staff. Thomas Steele slammed down the telephone receiver in the middle of the hotel manager’s stammered apology.

The first woman had banged on the door of his hotel suite shortly after 6:00 a.m. Groggy with sleep, Thomas had snarled at her and the plastic bag of cookies he assumed she was selling. Before he could summon the manager for an explanation on exactly why solicitation was allowed to take place in a Steele-owned hotel, another woman had knocked on the door, followed by a procession of women, all shapes, sizes and ages, most bearing cookies, and all grinning like Cheshire cats.

Thomas rubbed a hand over his unshaven chin and considered the possibility that getting into his suite was part of a twisted game of scavenger hunt. McCall, the hotel’s manager, claimed he knew nothing. One woman had garbled something about a newspaper. Thomas should have demanded an explanation before shutting the door in her face, but he wasn’t at his best before coffee in the morning.

Slight stirrings came from an adjoining room. The boy was awake, but he wouldn’t get out of bed until Thomas told him to. His nephew tiptoed around, obviously fearing the sky would fall if he even looked at his uncle. Thomas ran his fingers through his hair, knowing he’d brought this on himself. For a second, back in New York, he’d looked at the boy and seen someone else, and before he knew it, he heard himself saying he’d take the boy to Aspen. Now he was damned if he knew what to do with him. Thomas Steele, CEO of a chain of exclusive hotels, buffaloed by a six-year-old boy.

Picking up the phone, he ordered their breakfasts. He wasn’t sure the boy actually liked oatmeal. When asked, the boy had shrugged, but oatmeal was the only breakfast food he’d eaten. Thomas made a mental note of the need for more child-friendly items on the menu.

Knuckles beat a tattoo on the suite’s door bringing a mocking smile to his face. Breakfast had arrived in record time. People jumped when the boss was annoyed. He snugged the belt to his bathrobe and jerked open the door.

By the time Thomas realized the tall blond female standing in the hallway held no breakfast tray, she’d barged into the suite. About to escort her bodily back into the hall, he reconsidered. The time had come to stop this nonsense. When he finished with this woman, he’d make damned sure no one else disturbed him. Thomas slammed the door behind him and glared menacingly at her. No one could do menace the way he could.

The woman glared back.

At least she wasn’t grinning like an ape. He glanced at her hands. No cookies. Just a rolled-up newspaper she batted in irritation against a bare leg. He didn’t know why the hell she was irritated. He was the one being harassed.

Thomas allowed the silence to grow while he inspected his unwelcome visitor with insulting thoroughness. Lightly tanned legs extended forever below the bottom of ghastly khaki cuffed shorts before finally disappearing into thick white socks above sturdy walking shoes. Slowly he worked his gaze up past trim hips and a narrow waist.

And firm breasts. Undoubtedly held in check by a practical sports bra. Skin tanned to the exact shade of her legs showed in the open vee of her blue denim shirt. Thomas visualized white knit snugly cradling mounds of tanned flesh. A dull flush crawled up her neck. Apparently his visitor read minds. Giving a tiny smile of satisfaction, Thomas brought a heavy-lidded gaze to rest on her face.

Some men might consider her a beauty. If they liked tall, athletic, healthy-looking blondes. Thomas’s taste ran to sleek, exotic, dark-haired women who oozed sophistication and sex. This woman oozed indignation. Thomas raised a mocking eyebrow, a gesture he’d practiced as a teen which now came naturally to him. He’d reduced more than one errant employee to gibbering justification and contrition with that eyebrow. Her bottom lip was too full to actually thin with annoyance, but the woman did her level best.

No cookies? he asked smoothly. She looked perplexed for a split second before awareness deepened her gray eyes—no, not gray, but light blue with a grayish-brown run around the pupils.

I assume that means you know all about it.

Thomas had seen the woman before. In passing on Aspen’s pedestrian mall or—Of course. She must be an employee of the hotel. As of this second, close to being a former employee. I know, he said in answer to her implied question, you’re dangerously close to never working for a Steele hotel again.

She gave him a startled look.

He let her think about his threat while he answered the knock on the door. The room service waiter smiled at the woman Every person who worked at the St. Christopher Hotel would know to the second how long she’d been in Thomas’s suite. They’d think he’d gotten soft. They’d be wrong Once he found out what was going on, he’d deliver a tongue-lashing this particular interloper would never forget.

The door closed behind the waiter. The smell of coffee drew Thomas to the table, and pouring himself a cup, he drank deeply. The liquid scalded his mouth, but the caffeine jolted his brain into full power. Giving the woman a dark look over the rim of the cup, he sipped more deliberately.

The woman looked at the tray. Breakfast for two.

Warning bells clanged in Thomas’s head. As an extremely eligible bachelor, he knew the lengths to which marriage-minded women would go. Immediately he armored himself with a fictitious female companion. Did you think I’d allow her to leave before she had breakfast?

I should hope not. She needs a good breakfast to start the day off right. The woman inspected the tray. Milk, oatmeal. I don’t see any fruit or juice. For proper nutrition, she needs two to four servings of fruit a day. Plus vegetables.

She was nuts. I don’t give a damn about her nutrition. All I care about is a certain level of performance. How she achieves it is her problem

You’re her father. You ought to care.

Father, he said blankly. I’m talking about the woman in my bed.

You have a wife?

Her stunned surprise confirmed his suspicion she’d come husband-hunting. I’m unmarried and intend to stay that way.

You don’t have a wife, but you do have a woman in your bed, she said slowly. And you can stand there and brag that all you care about is how good she is in bed? What kind of example is that for a child?

That’s it. I’ve run out of patience. Tell me what the hell is going on.

Instead of answering, the woman moved quickly to his bedroom, knocked once, waited a couple of seconds, then opened the door. Next she’d be checking his pillow for stray hairs. Not that she’d find any. The boy had definitely cramped Thomas’s social life.

After a quick survey of the empty room she headed for the boy’s room and knocked again. In answer to a muted response, the woman opened the door and peered in. Hi, she said. Sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you. Closing the door, she turned. There’s no woman here. Just your son.

Thomas shrugged, not bothering to correct her. Maybe she went out the window.

In broad daylight?

Stranger things than that happen in Aspen.

Not nearly as strange as you trying to convince me you have a woman in your bed. I’ve heard of men bragging of their sexual prowess, but you take the cake, buddy.

As you are well aware, my name is Thomas Steele. When she didn’t react, he added smoothly, One of the hotel Steeles.

I suppose because your family owns this hotel you’re rich and you do have a woman in your bed every night. Last night’s candidate come down with the flu? Or a case of good taste?

Thomas slammed his cup on the table. Look, lady—

My name is Cheyenne Lassiter. One of the ranching Lassiters. She mocked his earlier self-introduction. And I’m the ‘C’ in C & A Enterprises.

For two cents he’d toss the impudent Ms. Cheyenne Lassiter out in the hall on her delectable bottom. Better yet, he’d toss her down on the carpet and turn the scorn in those muddy blue eyes to something else entirely. Hell, his brain had gone haywire. Served him right for trying to deal logically with a bunch of nutty women. I have no idea why you and your friends are harassing me, Ms. Lassiter, but it stops now. Thomas sat at the dining table. My breakfast is getting cold, so if you’ll excuse me...

She waved her hand regally, granting permission. I ate hours ago. Working women can’t lay around like the idle rich.

If her goal was to irritate the hell out of him, she’d succeeded. Ms. Lassiter, he said coldly, I was asking you politely to leave.

Go ahead and ask. She picked up a muffin from the tray and took a bite. I’m not here to see you. She nodded in the direction of the boy’s bedroom. I came to see him.

Me? Thomas’s nephew bolted from his room, his hair in spikes and his face glowing. I’m going with you? Cool.

Do you know this woman?

She’s the happy tour lady.

The woman laughed, a throaty, uninhibited laugh. When the women Thomas knew laughed, their high cheekbones didn’t press their eyes into thin slits. They avoided wrinkling the skin around their mouths, and they wouldn’t be caught dead showing all their teeth. Crunching down on cold, dry toast, he sent his gaze back to the boy and frowned. Young man, I thought the rule was you are to dress before coming to the breakfast table.

The boy hung his head and drew circles on the carpet with his big toe.

Maybe his silk robe is in the dirty clothes hamper, the woman said in a cool, disapproving voice.

The early-morning parade of women had thrown Thomas’s meticulous habits into total disarray. He’d completely forgotten he still wore his bathrobe. Glaring at her, he curtly ordered the boy to the table. In passing, his nephew shyly smiled up at Cheyenne Lassiter. She tousled his hair.

Thomas shoved one of the straight-backed chairs out from the table. Sit, he snarled at his uninvited guest.

Her attitude that of one indulging a temperamental child, she complied.

I want you to tell me— Thomas slowly hammered out the words —what the hell is going on.

The swearword won a reproving look from her, then she bounced a glance off the boy. For the first time since he’d opened the door to her, Thomas sensed uncertainty. He opened his mouth to attack.

Cheyenne Lassiter spoke first. What’s your name, kiddo?

The boy’s name doesn’t concern you.

His nephew gave Thomas a wounded glance before staring down at his bowl and muttering, Davy.

Nice to meet you, Davy. I’m Cheyenne. As for you, Mr. Steele, you’d be surprised at what concerns me.

He narrowed his eyes at the thinly-veiled animosity in her drawling voice. Nothing about you would surprise me.

She painstakingly smeared copious amounts of butter on the remains of her muffin. I’m not sure if that says more about your capacity for surprise or your lack of imagination. Worth claims I give him gray hair. Of course, her brother said that about all three of his sisters.

Worth? Is he your lov... Remembering the boy whose head flipped back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match, Thomas smoothly substituted, Your companion?

I wouldn’t exactly call Worth companionable

The crazy notion struck him that Cheyenne Lassiter wanted to goad him into losing his temper. Thomas Steele never lost his temper. The woman took a bite of muffin and chewed deliberately. He ought to kiss that damned smirk right off those damned kissable lips. She was telling the boy she’d read the morning newspaper. As if the boy cared what she read.

Did you see my ad?

Belatedly Thomas recalled the newspaper the woman had carried in. Give me the paper. He assumed she gave dead bugs the same repulsed look. Please, he ground out.

She handed him the newspaper. Red ink encircled an advertisement.

The boy left his place at the table and edged around to peer over Thomas’s arm. It’s in there, he said in an awed voice.

Thomas read the ad. Then read it again. Blood pounded at his temples. I hope you can explain this, young man.

The boy backed away. Sandy said.

Thomas recalled the elderly widow who’d seemed so sane and sensible. Go on, he said grimly. Too grimly. The boy shrugged. Thomas rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. Served him right for impulsively bringing the boy to Aspen. Thomas wasn’t in the habit of giving in to impulse.

Cheyenne Lassiter butted in. What did Sandy say?

"We was watching this TV program and she said it was too bad I couldn’t put a ad in the paper for a mom. I asked her how and she laughed and said Uncle Thomas oughta put one in for a wife and I could live with him. So I asked Tiffany and she