Wyatt's Most Wanted Wife. Sandra Steffen

do you mean you wanna see the coin?”

      “What do you mean what do I mean?”

      Wyatt glanced from Cletus to Clayt and back again. His grandfather’s brown eyes were spitting daggers at Clayt, but his right hand remained firmly over the coin.

      Clayt wasn’t budging, either. “It just so happens that I’d trust you with my life, but everyone knows you’re not above bending the rules to suit your purposes, and Wyatt is your grandson.”

      “You callin’ me a cheater?”

      “I’m not calling you anything. Just show us the coin. If Wyatt won fair and square, fine. If not, he can ask Lisa to dance the normal way. She’s made it clear she’ll give everyone a fair chance. She even went out with Grover Andrews, for cripe’s sakes.”

      Cletus’s chin came up a notch, and Wyatt found himself saying a silent prayer that he’d get lucky and a bolt of lightning would strike nearby, or maybe his sainted mother would swoop down from heaven and put her hand over Cletus’s mouth.

      “That ain’t quite true, boy.”

      Wyatt practically groaned out loud. So much for luck.

      “Are you saying Lisa didn’t go out with Grover Andrews?” Clayt asked.

      “Oh, she went out with Grover, all right. But she ain’t gone out with every man who’s asked her.”

      “Who’d she turn down?” Luke asked.

      “Yeah, who?” Clayt echoed.

      “Didn’t Wyatt tell you?”

      Clayt and Luke turned like the guards at Buckingham Palace.

      “You asked her out?” Luke asked.

      “She said no?” Clayt sputtered.

      Wyatt heaved a huge sigh. “She didn’t say no. Exactly.”

      “What did she say?” Luke asked.

      “She said she didn’t think having dinner with me would be a good idea.”

      “That’s odd,” Luke said.

      “Yeah,” Clayt agreed. “Why would a woman who’s made it clear that she’s looking for the right man say that?”

      “Maybe she doesn’t think I’m the right man for her.”

      “How could she possibly know that without going out with you?”

      “That’s what I’ve been asking myself all morning.”

      “I’m tellin’ you, boy, you have to stop bein’ so nice and take the bull by the horns. Sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

      Three pairs of eyes turned to Cletus, three gazes fell to the gnarled hand clutching his arm, and three voices rose at the same time. “That does it.”

      “Show us that coin.”

      “Now.”

      Wyatt had never heard his grandfather utter a more indignant oath, but after looking each younger man straight in the eyes, he finally raised his hand. Wyatt, Clayt and Luke all stared at the shiny quarter resting on Cletus’s forearm, but Wyatt was the only one who released a low whistle. “There’s no doubt about it, boys. It’s heads. I won the toss, fair and square.”

      Thunder rumbled as Cletus dropped the coin into his pocket. Turning on the heels of his worn cowboy boots, he strode to the door with all the dignity and speed his skinny, bowed legs could muster.

      “Come on, Cletus,” Clayt called. “Don’t go away mad.”

      At the door, Cletus mumbled something Wyatt couldn’t make out, but he recognized the low, sultry voice that answered. His grandfather stepped to one side and the last woman Wyatt expected to set foot in his office walked through the door.

      Anything he might have said froze in his brain. All he could do was stare as Lisa Markman strolled toward him. Looking neither right nor left, she didn’t stop until she reached the edge of the railing that divided the office. Wyatt was vaguely aware that Cletus had closed the door behind him, but he didn’t take his eyes off the woman wearing the shiny, red raincoat and the churlish expression.

      “Sheriff.”

      “Lisa.”

      With a haughty lift of her chin, she said, “It’s a good thing I don’t believe in suing people, or I’d have to file a suit against the town of Jasper Gulch for false advertising.”

      Wyatt rose to his feet slowly. “Why is that?”

      “Your ad said this was a quiet, peaceful town where the biggest crimes are jaywalking and gossip and the ugly color of orange Bonnie Trumble painted the front of her beauty shop.”

      “And that isn’t true?”

      She shook her head. “I’m afraid I have to report a theft.”

      “What’s been taken?” Wyatt asked, his voice getting deeper with every word.

      Lisa lowered her dripping umbrella then met his wide-eyed stare. “It seems that one of the fine citizens of Jasper Gulch stole my car.”

       Chapter Two

      “Somebody stole your car?” Wyatt asked.

      “Thank God.”

      Wyatt, Luke and Lisa all swung around and looked at Clayt.

      “Are you happy about this?” Lisa asked.

      Clayt Carson had the grace to look sheepish. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, ma’am. I’m just relieved because my little girl couldn’t have been responsible for stealing a car.”

      Swiping his faded brown cowboy hat off his head, he glanced at Wyatt and said, “You don’t think Haley took it, do you?”

      Wyatt settled his hands to his hips and gave Clayt’s question careful consideration. The man had every reason to be worried. During the past two months since she’d come to live with her father, nine-year-old Haley Carson had been a handful. She had been caught stealing food off Lisa and Jillian’s front porch last month, but Wyatt didn’t think a little kid was responsible for stealing a car. Even if the child in question was Haley Carson. Shifting his gaze to Lisa, he asked, “Did you leave your keys in the ignition?”

      She shook her head. “I know most people out here do, but I haven’t gotten out of the habit of stashing my keys in my purse every time I get out of my car.”

      “There you have it,” Wyatt told Clayt. “Unless Haley knows how to hot-wire an automobile, she’s off the hook.”

      Clayt crammed his hat back on his head and visibly relaxed. Wyatt slanted his two best friends an arched look. They both looked at Lisa, then at him and then at each other. With half smiles the Carsons were famous for, they tugged at the brims of their hats and muttered something about other places they had to be.

      It was all Lisa could do not to shake her head and roll her eyes at the way those two men swaggered out of the office. They couldn’t possibly think she’d actually bought their little show of innocence, could they? Oh, she didn’t doubt that they had someplace they had to go. After all, there probably were cattle for Luke to inoculate, and Clayt probably did have to get home to his daughter. But those boys were ranchers, not actors, and they left because Wyatt had given them the signal to go.

      In the wake of creaking floorboards and the resounding clatter of the door, the room seemed inordinately silent. That silence wrapped around Lisa, as thick as the air before a thunderstorm and just as invigorating.

      She wasn’t sure why she chose