Once in a Lifetime. Gwynne Forster

man had the grace to show embarrassment, and to Alexis’s mind that was a good thing. He liked her daughter.

      “You just tell old Henry what you like. I’ll fix it.”

      “I like black-cherry ice cream,” she told him, smiled and clasped her hands in front of her.

      “First thing you know, I won’t recognize the place,” Telford said before heading upstairs.

      For the nth time, she read Puss ’n Boots, and for as many times, Tara applauded constantly. When at last Tara was asleep, Alexis walked down the stairs and into the family room or den, where Telford waited for her.

      Telford stood beside the gray-stone fireplace with a snifter of cognac in his right hand. How was he going to turn his life around to fit what he considered an appropriate environment for a little girl? No woman had lived among those four men since his mother died fifteen years earlier. Flowers, open windows in the spring and the breeze wafting through, a properly set dining table and a beautiful woman at its head. It reminded him of his mother, whom he had loved and, on many occasions, hadn’t loved at all. He downed the Hennessy VSOP cognac and walked to the window that overlooked the garden, where he saw Drake dismount his horse and tether him.

      “I wanted to be here when you started chewing out Alexis for bringing Tara,” Drake said as he entered the den. “And don’t say you hadn’t planned to do it. I have a feeling she’s just what we need.”

      “Who? Alexis or a four-year-old?”

      Drake pulled off his riding boots, kicked them under a chair and poured himself a snifter of cognac. “Both of ’em.”

      “Sure. Alexis Stevenson and ten more would suit you perfectly, but don’t make a move on her. She’s the housekeeper.”

      Drake crossed his unshod right foot over his knee, and a grin burst out on his face. “Wake up, man, I saw what was going on.”

      Telford stuffed his hands into his trousers pockets and kicked at the brass andiron that graced the fireplace. “What do you mean by that?”

      “Figure it out. Suffice it to say, she’s not one bit interested in me, nor I in her.”

      “Glad to hear it. When you start after something you go like a bat out of hell.”

      Drake grinned. “By the time you know I’m going after it, I’ve done some thinking about it and made up my mind. Ready to move. And when I take off, I make time.”

      “Yeah, tell me about it. Say what you please, though, she can’t stay.”

      His gaze caught Drake’s foot swinging at a slow, even rhythm. “She stays, Telford, because you know you aren’t going to ask her to leave. If you do, I’ll oppose you.”

      Telford expelled a long breath. “Yeah, but she can’t make the rules in this house.”

      “Let’s wait and see. I wouldn’t mind having a little order around here.”

      “I suppose you’re planning to walk around fully clothed, remember to close the bathroom when you’re taking a shower and watch your mouth when you talk. Et cetera, et cetera.”

      “Oh, hell. Yeah, I guess I’ll have to.”

      “I was wondering where you were,” Alexis sang as she glided into the room.

      The simplest dress a woman could put on, and she looked like a goddess, soft, feminine and…and…for Pete’s sake, what was he thinking? She refused the cognac he offered.

      “Wine at dinner and a glass of champagne, occasionally, are my limit. You wanted to talk with me, Telford?”

      Champagne, eh? “Yeah. Look,” he began, rubbing the back of his neck, “have a seat. This is no place for a small child.”

      She sat forward, alert and anxious, and he had the feeling she’d spring out of the chair in a second. “Are you saying you want me to leave?”

      Hearing her voice shake brought out his protective streak, and try as he would, he couldn’t forget that by her own account, she was vulnerable. “Can you imagine what it’s like for three men and a male cook living in a house this size together? On summer weekends, we hardly ever put on clothes, and I don’t ever remember wearing bathing trunks in that pool out back.”

      Alexis stood. “Maybe you should have advertised for a homemaker with greatly impaired vision. You’ll have to be just as circumspect around me as around Tara.”

      The howls of laughter from Drake accentuated Telford’s embarrassment. He hadn’t thought of that. He folded his arms against his chest, leaned against the wall and asked her, “Will I have to refrain from saying damn?”

      “Yes, you will.” He realized he’d raised her temperature level when she walked to within a foot of where he stood. “And there are a few other things we have to straighten out. My contract says two years, and I intend to stay for at least that long. If you’re three blood brothers, you’re a family. Families eat their meals together, so you shouldn’t straggle in whenever it suits you. Say dinner’s at seven, all of you sit down to the table at seven. Or six, or whatever time you decide.”

      “Anything else?” Telford asked her, and Drake eyed them the way a sleuth watches a suspected criminal.

      “No hats on in the house or at the table, no boots beneath chairs and no swearing. I don’t want my daughter conditioned to accept such behavior from men.”

      She had hutzpah, all right, he had to hand it to her.

      “Of course not,” he said, sarcasm lacing his words. “She might one day go to college and live in a coed dormitory, and she’d be prepared for just what she found there—a bunch of naked men in the showers. Alexis, I would treat Tara with no less respect than I would my own daughter.”

      Drake got up, took off the Stetson he wore when riding, pulled his boots from beneath the chair and winked at Alexis. “You won’t get any flack from me; unlike Robinson Crusoe over there, who enjoys his own company—” he pointed to Telford “—I love women. The more around me, the merrier. And Tara can stay here as long as she likes. She’s just what this tomb needs.” He left them and walked up the stairs, whistling “Knock About Sweetheart” as he went.

      “Oh, yes,” Alexis said. “I forgot to add that you shouldn’t raise your voices in disagreement or anger.”

      His glare had to suffice, since he couldn’t grab her and shake her till…till she was soft and…and warm and perfumed with the tantalizing odor of woman, till she… He brought himself up short and regrouped. “Alexis, don’t push me too far. Don’t ever do that. Never. You got that?”

      She didn’t give quarter, and in spite of his annoyance, he admired her. “I know this all sounds like a bad pill you have to swallow, and I’m sorry, but I figured you’d want us to settle everything now, and it’s best to get these things straight in advance.”

      He’d had enough. “Do you think you’ve happened upon a houseful of barbaric, uncivilized men? If so, you’d better make a run for it.”

      She appeared thoughtful. “Barbaric? Uncivilized? Hmmm. I’m not sure I’d go quite that far. A little rough around the edges, maybe.”

      His glare broadened to a thunderous glower. “You trying to test my restraint?”

      She lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. “Wouldn’t think of it. Anybody can see you’re a paragon of willpower and self-control. Cool. Real laid-back.”

      “All right, all right. You and I both know what’s going on here. If these verbal whacks are helping to relieve your frustration, by all means don’t spare me.”

      Apparently less assured now, she avoided looking him in the eye for the first time. “You’re assuming a lot, Mr. Harrington.”

      “Don’t fool yourself.”