Lassiter, whose mother and sisters fawned over him. Whose nieces and nephews clearly adored him.
Hannah and Davy had glued themselves to him. Sitting at the dinner table on either side of him. Following him around. Playing with the baby who sat securely and happily on his lap.
Her baby.
Jamie had looked so content—so right—held in a man’s large hands. A boy needed a father. Jamie was totally blameless, yet he was the one who would suffer.
Sometimes Elizabeth felt the pain would crush her heart when she thought of her perfect, innocent baby who’d been born into a situation he didn’t deserve.
Sunlight reached the window and flooded the room. Opening one eye, she took in the red cowboy-patterned bedspread and a cowboy boot lamp beside the bed. The room had been decorated for her grandson Davy’s visits to the ranch, Mary had explained, giving Elizabeth the room for her stay so Jamie could enjoy the bright colors.
A cow clock beside the bed mooed the hour. Surprised the sound didn’t wake Jamie, Elizabeth sat up.
The baby bed was empty.
CHAPTER TWO
“C’MON, Jimbo, open wide. The early bird’s supposed to eat all his worms.”
“What are you doing with my son?”
Jamie squealed and pounded the tray of the high chair.
Worth turned to face the owner of the furious voice. Sparks practically flew from her red hair. A man would be crazy to want all that heat and voltage centered on him. “I’d say I’m feeding him breakfast, but since the majority of the food is everywhere but in his stomach, you’d probably call me a liar.”
“You had no right to come into my bedroom and take Jamie.”
So much for gratitude. Worth shoved food in Jamie’s mouth and debated apologizing. He didn’t debate long. Widow or not, Elizabeth Randall’s abrasive attitude was beginning to rile him. Besides, she had no business standing there with sleep-tousled hair, doing bad things to his body. “I knocked, but you were snoring so loud, you didn’t hear me.”
“I do not snore.”
When she stuck her nose in the air and jerked her spine straight, the top of her shiny green pajamas poked out in interesting places. Worth gave her a deliberately obnoxious grin. “You made more racket than a freight train, sleeping with your mouth hanging wide open.”
“You watched me sleeping?” She practically shrieked the question.
Turning his back to her, Worth gave Jamie a wink and another spoonful of cereal. “Only for a minute, Red.” Revolving to face her, he added in a guileless voice, “I was admiring your green pajamas.”
She pokered up indignantly. He could almost feel the electricity as she searched for a response to his compliment which would put him in his place. Worth smiled in anticipation.
“Don’t call me Red.” His wolfish smile rattled her. His smile and his comment on her pajamas.
She should have taken time to put on a robe instead of panicking when she’d found Jamie missing from his bed. Being in nothing but pajamas and bare feet made a woman feel vulnerable. Elizabeth wanted to run, but instinct told her the dumbest thing she could do was let this man know he unnerved her.
Making her way across the kitchen, she took a mug from the rack and filled it with coffee. She desperately needed caffeine to recharge her brain cells and took a deep gulp of coffee. “Yuk.” She spit the mouthful of liquid back into the mug and poured it down the sink. “If I licked tar off the street, it would taste better.”
“Does anything around here suit you?” he asked mildly.
“Jamie suits me.” She looked at her son and did a double take. “What in the world is he wearing?”
“Since Jimbo and I didn’t want to disturb his lazybones of a mom, we had to improvise a little. He was sopping wet.”
Jamie gave her a toothy grin and smeared banana on the man’s undershirt he wore. “I don’t suppose you bothered to change his diapers.” Grudgingly, Elizabeth admitted to herself her son didn’t seem to be suffering.
“He’s wearing a dish-towel diaper with a plastic bag over it, aren’t you, Jimbo?”
That made the third time he’d said it. “His name is Jamie,” she said tersely.
“Well now, Red,” Worth drawled, “Jimbo and I had a little discussion about that, and we decided Jamie is a sissy name. A cowboy needs to have a name like Jimbo.”
“He’s not a cowboy and he’s not going to be a cowboy.”
“That’s not what his Grandpa Russ says.”
“Russ has nothing to say about how I raise my son.”
Worth slowly rose. Sticking his hands in his back pockets he silently contemplated her with narrowed eyes. The food splashed down the front of his T-shirt did nothing to subtract from his masculinity. He should have looked ridiculous. He didn’t. He looked sexy.
Elizabeth shivered. Only because the house was cool.
Jamie banged on the tray of his chair with his drinking cup.
She moved to step around the obstacle in her path. The obstacle blocked the move with his large body. “I need to take care of my son,” Elizabeth said.
“He’s fine.” Worth studied her face with such intensity the hairs on the back of her neck rose in uneasy protest.
She dropped her eyes to stare at a hunk of banana stuck to his T-shirt. Elizabeth’s secrets were her own. She didn’t want him, didn’t want anyone, gaining access to them. “Please move.”
With an exaggerated sweep of his hand, he stepped aside.
Ignoring him, she concentrated on feeding Jamie the last of his cereal, then wet a paper towel and bending down, scrubbed her son’s face.
“I surely do love those green pajamas.” The soft drawl flowed from the kitchen doorway.
Elizabeth straightened up and spun around so fast she made herself dizzy. Worth Lassiter slouched against the doorjamb, masculine approval filling his eyes with a drowsy, sensual heat. Her stomach zoomed to her toes. She wanted to run and hide. She couldn’t move. Her traitorous body reacted as if he were physically touching her. And he knew it.
Elizabeth took a deep breath. “What do you want from me?”
A lazy smile crept across his face. “You know what I want, Red. And I intend to make sure I get it.”
What kind of man tried to seduce a woman he barely knew who was a guest in his home? She picked up Jamie, as much to hide behind him as to give herself time to regain her composure. “When you live in a university town, and your husband dies, someone’s bound to bring you a book on being a widow. As if it’s like learning how to sew or raise puppies. I had nothing better to do, so I read it. The book talked about this.”
“This?”
“How some men will tell a widow they know she must miss sex and offer to, well, comfort her.” Her voice rose nervously, which both annoyed and mortified her. She forced herself to look him directly in the eye. “Let’s get one thing straight, Mr. Lassiter. I am not a lonely widow looking for a man to share my bed.”
Surprise flashed deep in his eyes, then he lowered his eyelids to half-mast, concealing any expression. “You know, Red, it’s always enlightening to watch a woman’s mind at work. I compliment your pajamas, and you immediately conclude I want you out of them.”
“If I was wrong, I apologize,” she said stiffly.
“A man would be crazy to have sex with you without a fire truck standing by. I don’t