Married To A Stranger. Allison Leigh

late.”

      The little girls, his nieces, jumped and scattered as if he’d grown three heads. The big girl, however, nudged up her gold-rimmed glasses and blinked with dismay. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect you to be out here sleeping, or I’d have talked the girls into having our picnic elsewhere.”

      His coffee was cold. He finished it off, anyway, then pulled his feet off the rail and sat forward. “I didn’t expect to see you here, either.”

      Hope moistened her lips. “Well. Sorry to have wakened you.” She hefted her caramel-colored wicker basket more firmly between her arms.

      He was wakened all right. “What are you doing here?”

      “Having a picnic with the girls.”

      “No, I mean why are you with the kids and not at Gloria’s shower?”

      “I’m watching the children. Well, these guys, anyway. The babies are with their moms.”

      “Why are you doing this?”

      “Because I was asked to.” She shook her head as if the answer was obvious.

      “How old are you, Hope?”

      She looked over her shoulder at the children who were crossing the gravel drive toward the grass on the other side. “Nearly twenty-three. Sarah, honey, wait until you get to the grass before you take off your shoes,” she called.

      Nearly twenty-three. Hell. How many women did he know who claimed to be nearly any age but one at least a decade younger than was true? And now he had the hots for the babysitter. Had he ever had a babysitter? He tried to remember. Couldn’t. Not enough coffee in him yet.

      “I’ll watch the girls,” he said abruptly. They were sweet little things, and he liked playing the uncle. It was as close a relationship to kids as he intended to get. “You go join the women,” he finished telling Hope.

      “I’m hardly dressed for a wedding shower.”

      Which only brought his attention to the golden length of calf she displayed below the fringe of her knee-length, cut-off blue jeans. He’d have remembered if he’d ever had a babysitter with legs like that.

      “Go on back and go to sleep,” she was saying, and he dragged his attention upward, over denim worn thin and…did she have to wear such a baggy T-shirt? The obnoxious lime-green cotton hung around her hips, frustratingly loose and boxy. The babysitter, for cryin’ out loud!

      “But, um, thank you for the offer anyway.” She smiled shyly and turned to follow the children.

      He gave himself a mental shake. Sleep. That’s what he needed. Then he wouldn’t feel so…hell, what did he feel? Off balance?

      He yawned again, watching the graceful sway of her long braid as she walked away, joining the children.

      J.D. and Angeline belonged to Daniel and Maggie. Leandra was Jefferson and Emily’s. And Sarah, the youngest, was Matthew and Jaimie’s. They all circled around Hope as she joined them and set them to work, spreading a bright yellow sheet.

      He smiled faintly, though, when the girls didn’t dig into the feast—they were too far away for him to see exactly what it was. But he recognized what the little girls preferred over the food when dozens and dozens of small, opalescent bubbles started floating over their heads, bobbing, swaying, popping.

      Even Hope was blowing bubbles. He rested his arms on the rail and watched her purse her lips, blow and set a wiggling, wobbling train of soap bubbles into the afternoon breeze. She certainly wasn’t shy when she dealt with the children.

      He narrowed his eyes and pictured her face should he follow them. She’d probably stare at his feet or his left ear, and she’d turn white, then red. And all the while he’d be thinking he’d like to see her when she wasn’t wearing that baggy T-shirt that hid her curves from prying eyes like his.

      God. He sat back in his chair and pressed the heels of his palms against his eye sockets. He was every bit the lech that his family seemed to think he was.

      But even that knowledge didn’t take him back inside the house. No, he propped his feet back on the rail and continued watching Hope. If the way she kept sneaking looks back toward the house now and again was any indication, she was doing some of her own watching, too.

      “I thought I saw you driving a green car yesterday.”

      Hope whirled around at the voice behind her. She was waiting in the kitchen of the ranch house for her ride back to Weaver. By the time she’d shepherded the girls back to the big house, the shower guests had departed. That’s what she got for letting the little ones talk her into walking all over creation—and the Double-C had plenty of interesting places to explore.

      Now, Tristan was looking at her with his incredible eyes, waiting for an answer and she wished, cowardly, that the children were still with her instead of their parents.

      “Yes, I have a car,” she admitted. “But I rode out here with Dr. Rebecca.”

      “And where is Dr. Rebecca now?”

      Hope curled her fingers over the back of one of the chairs at the enormous oval table that sat in the center of the big kitchen. “She was called away on a house call.”

      “So you need a ride home, then.”

      “Jaimie is going to drive me.”

      “Jaimie drives like a bat out of hell. I’ll take you.”

      Hope’s stomach jolted. He was far more harmless when he was sleeping. When he was wide awake and watching her from beneath heavy lids, he was totally devastating. Totally daunting. Why would he offer to drive her? It wasn’t as if she was “of interest” to him. “Jaimie has already offered.”

      “You really prefer to ride with the speed demon?”

      Hope swallowed. “I—”

      “Stop tormenting our guest,” Jaimie chided sailing into the kitchen and poking her brother-in-law in the back. “And I haven’t gotten a speeding ticket in months.”

      “That’s ’cause your daughter calls the sheriff uncle,” Tris countered dryly. “I want to go by and see Drew Taggart anyway. There’s no point in all of us driving into town.”

      Hope folded her hands together and wished she’d driven herself. But Jaimie looked her way, eyebrows lifting. And Hope forced herself to shrug as if it didn’t matter in the least how she got back home.

      So she found herself sitting beside him in the close confines of his rental car as he drove along the gravel drive toward the main gate of his family’s ranch. With each vibrating turn of the tires, Hope felt herself growing more uncomfortable. She was wrinkled and sweaty and her unmanageable hair was working loose from its ordinarily tidy braid. He, on the other hand, made his faded jeans seem like a sinful sight; and she swore she could still smell the freshness of his shower on that golden skin.

      She stared out the window and banished thoughts of Tristan and showers.

      He hadn’t turned on the radio. It was just the two of them and the sound of the tires. And Hope felt more tongue-tied than she’d ever felt in her life.

      Considering she’d spent most of her life tongue-tied, that was quite a feat.

      “Would you like to grab some dinner?”

      She turned and looked at him, her lips parting soundlessly.

      “Is that a yes or a no?”

      He wasn’t asking her for dinner. He couldn’t be. Why would he? He was only driving her home because he’d been going by to see Drew anyway. “I don’t…ah, no. Thank you.”

      “Why?”

      She stared fixedly out at the passing landscape. “Excuse me?”

      “Why won’t you have dinner with me?