Last's Temptation (9 page)

“Really?”

She leaned closer to him, and Last felt soft breasts brush his face. The absolute next thing he was going to do, if he ever got the chance to be alone and fully conscious with Esme again, was make certain he enjoyed every single centimeter of her body.

“Do you want me to call Mason?” Esme asked.

“Absolutely not!” The thought was horrifying.
Mason would make the “circus girl” go away—or drive her away, the horrid beast. “I am happy to enjoy the moon with you.”

Esme stroked his hair. “Eventually I must go to bed.”

“I could lose consciousness in your bed just as easily as out here on the lawn,” Last offered.

“I don’t think so,” Esme said with a laugh. “I think the only bed you should be in may be a hospital bed.”

“But then you won’t be there,” he said, “and I’d probably feel worse than ever.” He took a deep breath, ignoring all the various aches and pains in his body. “I had something I wanted to tell you and now I can’t remember.”

“It had to be important for you to climb a tree,” Esme said. “I’m curious. Please remember.”

Last sighed. “I can’t. But I think it went something like,
Please take me with you in your life.
”

Esme laughed. “That was not what you were going to say. You’re trying to get attention. Can you sit up?”

Slowly he eased himself to a sitting position.

“Can you stand?”

Anything to have an excuse to touch her. “You’re slippery. But I like the gown.”

She put her head under his arm for support. “You seem to be moving well.”

“And may I return the compliment,” he said chivalrously. “What color is the gown, by the way? It appears to be sort of a muted rose, which is one of my favorite colors.”

“Quiet, you,” she said. “It’s fuchsia.”

“Ah, the hot mama of the pinks,” he said. “And I feel a deep back on it.
Très
elegant.”

“Last!” Esme stopped to look up into his face. “Let me guess—Jefferson men are never too hurt to feel up a woman.”

“Not if she’s under his arm,” Last said happily. “Being hurt and dead are two different things, you know.”

Esme gently helped him up the steps. “You could have died if you’d landed on your head. Or been paralyzed.”

“Tree climbing is a dangerous art. Discourage your children from learning it.”

“If you don’t teach it to them, they won’t.”

“However, I’m not the one who has them trussed and carried to the top of a circus roof,” he said, comforting himself that he was nearly inside her front door.

“True,” she said, “but they are wearing harnesses.
You had no safety gear. And I don’t think you had anything important to say, either.” She helped him to the sofa. “Last Jefferson, were you spying?”

“I swear I didn’t see a thing. I wasn’t even sure if you were in your room,” Last said. “I was hoping, of course, but not certain.” He relaxed as she covered him with a blanket.

“I’m calling Mason,” she said. “You should be examined by someone who knows you.”

Last opened both eyes, staring at Esme in the beautiful nightgown. “Esme, I swear you know me far better than my brother ever would. And I really was going to suggest you take me with you wherever you go.”

“Like an overly large, overly stuffed bear?”

He shook his head. “Like an overly large, overly big and capable bachelor.”

She perched on the coffee table, looking at him. “You wouldn’t be happy.”

“I swear I would. I have a yen for your magical skills. In fact, you’ve made the pain disappear,” he said, pulling her toward him. “The doctor recommends two kisses and call her in the morning if I don’t feel better.”

“Her?” Esme said with a smile, though he noticed she didn’t pull away.

“She is a superhot doc in Lonely Hearts Station. You’ll meet her since you’ll be doing circus duty there.” He sat back, releasing her. “I suppose you will continue performing?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Mason doesn’t like it.”

“Why? He rides in rodeos—or did. That’s performing.”

“But not in fishnets and bikini things that show your luscious curves.” Now that Last was thinking it over, he decided only he should be seeing the secret parts of Esme. “It’s not exactly beachwear, you know,” he grumbled. “Your costume has sequins on it, which draw the eye. Lots of eyes, in fact.”

She laughed. “You are such a baby.”

“I’m developing an inappropriately possessive streak where you’re concerned,” Last said. “And Curtis and Amelia, too.” He laid his head back on the sofa, thinking about taking a nap. It was all too tiring to sort out at once. A giant yawn escaped him. “Excuse me,” he said. “You can just leave me here. Despite that hot nightie, I think I’m too addled to be my usually horny self.”

She peered at him. “Maybe you should see a doctor.”

“Maybe,” he said tiredly, closing his eyes and
wondering if he was going to faint. Then again, if he did, the only place he really wanted to be was there, with Esme and the children. “There are lots of maybes in life,” he said philosophically. “Like maybe I should just propose and get it over with.”

For just an instant Esme stared at the cowboy, his head sprawled back against the sofa. Then she turned him so that he could lie more comfortably. “Propose and get what over with?” she said. “You sound as if you’re going to a gunslinger’s grave.”

He caught her hand, kissing it as if she were a royal princess, before pulling her down to lie against him, spoon-style, on the sofa. “You’re just not used to our ways. We Jeffersons like to do things when we’ve had sense knocked into us.”

“Do not try to blame this one on me,” she said. “You are accident-prone. I and that curse had nothing to do with it. So keep your proposal to yourself,” she said. “And
that,
too.”

He shifted so that his erection wasn’t prodding her back. “Sorry. Fuchsia’s my favorite color.”

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t see with that part of your body.”

“Esme, I think I’m falling for you,” Last said, easing up so that he could look into her eyes.

“You fell out of a tree,” she said, not wanting to trust him while he was injured and possibly concussed. “You’ll be better in the morning.”

“But around you I see stars my father never taught me about.” Last touched her hair, moving it gently away from her face. “You make me happy. And crazy. Sometimes astonished. Mostly happy.”

She smiled at him. “What about Mason?”

“He’s a gargoyle,” Last said, “though he means well.”

“Maybe he knows you better than you know yourself.”

“I highly doubt Mason knows any of us as much as he wants to,” Last said. “There is a great possibility he has a daughter sitting right underneath his nose and he doesn’t even know it.”

Esme gasped. “Nanette?”

Last shrugged. “Maybe. Though I used to think he was far too lordly to ever succumb to an affair of the heart. Too busy keeping us all in line to step out of line himself.”

“So?” Esme’s heart was racing as she thought
about what Mimi was enduring for her love of a Jefferson male.

“So tonight, when we were all at the table, Mimi had seated herself close to Mason, with Nanette at her side. It was the three of them, and then me at the other end, like a saddle sore on a horse’s butt. And as I saw them sitting there, a comfortable threesome by candlelight, it came to me that little Nanette looks an awful lot like her uncle Mason.”

Esme’s eyes widened. “I’ve never seen the resemblance.”

“You wouldn’t have been looking, and neither would I. It was only when Nanette tossed her sippie cup that my mind started working. I thought,
Gosh, that child acts like Mason. Stubborn! Hope she’s not learning bad habits from her uncle.
And then I realized they had the same nose. That didn’t really sound an alarm for me, because noses change as people age. Mine, for example, used to be somewhat smaller and now it’s aristocratic.”

“Is that what you call the bump in the center?” she asked with a smile. “And perhaps the scar over your left eye is a mark of royalty?”

“All from the bull-riding House of Glory,” he said proudly.

“So back to baby makes three,” Esme prodded.

Last ran a playful hand along her bare back, so Esme caught that hand in her own. “I like you,” he said, and Esme closed her eyes. “We could take a shower together,” he suggested, “and you could check me for injuries.”

She bit his finger lightly. “No. The story.”

He sighed. “It was something Bandera said one day. You know he lives in Mimi’s old house with his wife Holly. And one day he was watching Mason carry Nanette across the lawn and he said he wondered why Mason was such a dunce. Now, we’ve all wondered that many times, so I didn’t really pay attention, although Bandera said something about not being able to see that which was under his nose. As I do most of my brothers when they’re cryptic, I ignored him.” Tentatively he looked at Esme. “I don’t know. It was just a strange thought that crossed my mind. I realize the possibility is one in a billion. It would require a certain set of unusual phenomena to line up.”

Esme allowed Last to hold her close, his arm around her waist. She had never known this much intimacy with a man. He wasn’t really trying to make love to her. It seemed that he was more enjoying talking with her, being with her—while
checking out her erogenous zones occasionally—in a sort of “we’re friends” way.

She liked it very much. “Phenomena such as?”

“Mason pulling his head out of his butt, for starters. You have to understand, my brother has made a lifestyle out of keeping us on the path of respectability. It takes extreme suspension of belief to think that he might have gone in the very same direction he preached to us to avoid.”

“With how much success?” Esme asked doubtfully.

He gave her a light spanking, which went right through her flimsy gown with a delicious
smack!
“As much success as any overly rigid, overbearing brother should have had. Have I ever told you how much I love the feel of your posterior? It’s just the right size for my hand.”

“Last!” Esme giggled. “I’m more worried about Valentine, to be honest.”

“Why?” He bit her neck in the slightest manner, just enough to send chills along her skin.

“I wanted her to like me. You brought me here, and she’s the mother of your child.”

“Mason really whaled me over getting Valentine pregnant. It didn’t matter who she was, it was that it had happened after all his lectures on the use of
condoms. If he and Mimi had a child, you can imagine the consequences.”

“All the brothers ragging on him forever?”

“That,” Last said, positioning himself against her before settling into the cushions with a contented sigh, “and the fact that he could no longer run from himself and his own damnably annoying Code of Behavior.”

Esme smiled. “I would think he’d have really needed a rigorous set of rules for eleven wily boys. You obviously got out from underneath his eye enough to learn to climb trees.”

“And other things. However, he was not Saint Mason. We knew it, and he didn’t want us to.” He sighed. “Though I always felt some pity for him, me more than the other brothers. I couldn’t imagine being a boy one day and then waking up to find that you were no longer one of the pack but the head of the pack.”

“It sort of makes me sad for Mason the boy,” Esme said.

“He had Mimi to keep him going, and did she ever.” Last smiled, and Esme felt his genuine amusement. “It would be Mimi’s best gag if Mason didn’t recognize his own daughter.”

“I don’t think so,” Esme said. “I think he’d be heartbroken. Your theory can’t be right, Last. Why would she keep it from him?”

“Dunno.” Last ran a lingering hand along her bare back. “Did I ever tell you that you’re beautiful, like a marble statue only tanner?”

Esme blinked. “For love.”

“Yes, my love,” he said, snuggling close to her, his erection at her back again.

She flipped over to look at him. “Mimi would keep it from him for love. She would want Mason to love her for herself, not because she had a child by him.”

“Oh.” Last investigated the ties at the center of her slinky bodice. “Valentine and I didn’t get married because we didn’t love each other. So I suppose you could be right. Love is very important. Critical, even.”

Esme looked up at him, searching for the real Last, the one who didn’t like to express his true feelings.

He had a tie undone that revealed some of her skin, which seemed to effectively blow his concentration away from the conversation.

She took the ties, pulling them back together. “You said something about love.”

“Did I?” He looked confused. “I think I said that Mimi wants to be loved by Mason.”

Esme sighed, realizing she wasn’t going to get the answer she wanted to hear. “I think you may have a Mason-revenge thing going on. You’re mad at Mason, so you’re imagining this whole improbable thing.”

“Probably,” he said, “but it kept you still for a while.” He kissed her neck and ran a hand up under her gown. “You’re soft.”

“Aunt Esme?” Amelia said, and Esme gasped as Last flung the blanket over her. Fortunately the lights were dim enough that her niece hadn’t seen anything, but it had been too close. How quickly Last could make her bend to his sexy will!

“Yes, honey?” Esme said.

“Hi, Mr. Last,” Amelia said. “I heard you fall on the ground. I was wondering if you were all right.”

“You heard me?”

She nodded. “Curtis and I have a bedroom right beside Aunt Esme’s. But we would have heard you howl if we’d been at the back of the house. You were kinda loud.”

Esme stood, wrapping a blanket over her shoulders like a shawl. “Last is feeling much better.”

He sat up. “Hey, how did you know it was me?”

“Aunt Esme has never had any other man outside her window,” Amelia said simply. “And Curtis heard you climbing up. It scared him ’cause he thought you were a bear, so he peeked.”

“Oh.” Last shook his head. “There are no bears here. At least, none that I’ve ever seen.”

Amelia nodded. “Aunt Esme won’t mind if you use the front door.”

“Thank you, Amelia,” he said, nodding at Curtis, who came to stand beside her, his eyes huge behind his glasses.

Esme looked at Last. “I’m going to put them back to bed. Make yourself comfortable, and we’ll see you in the morning.”

“No.” Last stood, and Esme could see it was an effort. “I woke them up and scared them. I’ll put them back to bed.”

The children stared at him hopefully.

“I have been told stories by one of the greatest storytellers on Earth,” Last told the children proudly. “You may have seen the greatest show on Earth, but your childhoods are not complete until you’ve heard Maverick the Great’s Impressive Lies, Chicanery, Hoodwinks and Outright Untruths.”

“Wow,” Curtis and Amelia said.

“Can he put us to bed, Aunt Esme?” Amelia asked, her gaze fascinated. “I’ve never heard a story by Maverick the Great.”

“I’ve never heard Impressive Lies,” Curtis said. “I want to hear that one first!”

“Wait until the children share those with the judge,” Esme said with a wry smile for her kids. “Yes, you can let Mr. Jefferson put you to bed.”

“You sit in the rocker in the room and listen, too,” Last told her. “You could learn a thing or two from Maverick the Great. He was quite the magician in his own right.”

“Yes, Aunt Esme, sit with us,” Amelia said. She looked at Last. “Who was Maverick the Great?”

“My father,” Last said proudly. “He believed in education, whether by chicanery or other means—anything to get his twelve boys to pay attention. That makes him great.”

“Ah,” Curtis said. “We never knew our father.”

“Well,” Last said thoughtfully, with a glance toward Esme, “I have not seen mine in many years.”

“What happened to him?” Amelia asked.

Last shrugged. “That story doesn’t end with any more of a conclusion than yours does, unfortunately. I don’t know what happened to him. But
I know that wherever he went, he thought about us.” He ruffled their hair and pulled off his boots. “Not every story has a satisfactory conclusion, you know, or a happily ever after.”

Amelia was silent for a moment. “If you did know, would you be happy?”

“I don’t know. I hope so. What I think is that you and me, we’re probably a lot alike. We understand that life is not always a fairy tale. But sometimes we get Mary Poppins instead. You have your Aunt Esme to teach you about flying and mixing reality with dreams.”

“Who did you have, Mr. Last?” Curtis asked, his voice quavering.

Last wrinkled his lips for a moment. “I was lucky. I had my father, then I had Mason. Sheriff Cannady rode shotgun on me, and old Doc Gonzalez made sure we had all our shots and vitamins and so forth. Nothing can replace the love of a father, I guess,” Last said, “but sometimes we have to be happy with what we’ve got.”

“We’ve got you,” Amelia said. “Even if you are telling a whopper about Maverick the Great.”

Last grinned. “Oh, no, I’m not. Hang on to your stuffed animals and blankets, kids. I’ve got a treasure trove of stories just waiting to be told.”

E
SME FELL ASLEEP
in the rocker, and Last fell asleep between the kids, his hat still on his head. In the morning, when Esme awakened, she couldn’t help but smile at the family picture they made.

She thought her sister would approve of Last and of him spending time with her children, in spite of the hoodwinks and chicanery issues. She understood he liked to remember his father and that telling stories to her children helped.

Her parents would be moving here very soon, and that would give the children even more adults to look up to. As little stability as they’d had in their lives so far, their new situation was a blessing.

She was very grateful to Last. More than grateful, even. For just an instant, she’d thought he was going to tell her that he loved her.

He hadn’t, and her heart felt compressed from disappointment. But as he’d said, not every story ended perfectly and sometimes one simply had to be satisfied with the conclusion.

She didn’t want to be like Mimi, never getting her man. The very thought put an ache in her chest. It would be better never to allow herself to fall for the cowboy at all, if she was only going to finish her life’s story with a broken heart. She knew there
were lots of men on the planet, but that cowboy was special.

She went downstairs to the kitchen, putting a kettle on to boil. His brother wasn’t keen on her; she had two children to raise. Last didn’t seem to mind the children. In fact, he appeared to want to be around them.

But would he want to do more than spin yarns for her little family?

“Hey,” Last said, coming up behind her to pull her against him. “What are you doing up so early?”

“Letting you sleep,” she said, her heart beating more quickly. “I imagine you’re very sore from your fall.”

“Yes. It’s not every day I get beat with a broom.”

She smiled. “It’s not every day a man chooses my window as a means of communication. Telephones are more modern.”

“Besides climbing trees,” Last said silkily, “I came here last night to ask you some questions.”

“Really?” She turned to face him. “You’re not just a voyeur?”