A Bride For Jackson Powers. Dixie Browning
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guess we’d better introduce ourselves. Jax Powers,” he said, extending a square, masculine hand. His dark-blue eyes still had that guarded look, as if he weren’t sure he was doing the right thing, encouraging a chance-met stranger.
Hetty shifted the baby and clasped his dry, hard palm with her own. “Hetty Reynolds. I notice you call your daughter—she is your daughter, I believe you said? And you call her…Sonny?”
“She is my daughter, and that’s Sunny with a U, not an O. Miss Marilyn Carolyn Powers.”
Her mouth formed a silent O.
He shrugged. “Yeah, I know. I was told she answers to Sunny. It’ll do for now.” Before Hetty could think of a response, he said, “Look, I don’t know about you, but I’m getting hungry. Could I leave you two here while I go find us some supper or lunch or whatever’s available?”
“Food. Mercy, I didn’t realize it, but I haven’t eaten since I left home, if you don’t count pretzels.”
“Stay right here.”
As if she would dare do anything else. Behind the impromptu barrier there was no place to sit except the floor. She sat, settling Sunny on her lap and plopping purse and diaper bag in the carrier. She’d located a crushed box of teething biscuits under the diapers, as well as two jars of pears and one of squash, four cans of formula and two nursing bottles.
“At least you won’t starve, sugar-bun.” Secure in her tiny fortress, she hummed snatches of several lullabies as she watched the parade of fellow travelers. Despite the unexpected delay, it was all still new enough to be exciting.
Occasionally she glanced at her watch, forcing out any encroaching doubts by concentrating on the future.
For years she’d been far too busy to waste time on daydreams. Oddly enough she’d discovered quite recently that when it came to dreaming, she was a natural. For instance, she’d had no trouble at all picturing herself dancing under a tropical moon. Dining on food she hadn’t had to cook or serve, from dishes she wouldn’t have to wash, surrounded by beautiful, well-dressed people who neither complained nor demanded.
Heaven. It was going to be sheer heaven for seven whole days.
Nearly an hour dragged past before Jax returned with two foam cups and a paper sack. “The situation’s not quite desperate yet, but it’s not likely to improve until the weather lets up. Latest word is that in another six hours, tops, we’ll be on our way.”
A wide smile spread over Hetty’s face. Not for one moment had she let herself think she wouldn’t reach Miami in time. Still, being a novice traveler, she hadn’t quite been able to relax.
“Hope you take cream in your coffee and don’t mind chili and onions on your dogs. I got us two apiece since this might have to last awhile.”
Hetty reached behind her for her purse, but at the look on his face, she murmured her thanks and shifted Sunny to the carrier seat so that she could take the proffered food.
There was something oddly companionable about sitting shoulder to shoulder on a hard, carpeted floor, eating cold hotdogs and drinking weak, lukewarm coffee. Sunny alternately dozed and waked to gum her biscuit, scattering sticky crumbs on Hetty’s lap and smearing a few on the sleeve of Jax’s tan suede jacket.
They didn’t talk much. That suited Hetty just fine. If she’d ever possessed any social skills they had long since withered from lack of practice.
“Do you suppose I could find my way back here if I go wash up?” she asked, neatly tucking her napkin and cup into the grease-stained paper sack.
“Leave a trail of bread crumbs.”
“Does a wet teething biscuit qualify as bread crumbs?”
He grinned, and she was struck all over again by what a remarkably attractive man he was. And to think that she, plain old Hetty Reynolds, was sharing time, space and conversation with him. You might even say she was having dinner with him.
He told her to shift the wheelchair, slip through and then roll it back in place. “Take a right, go about fifty feet, cross to the other side and you’re there. Reverse the procedure on the way back.”
“Easy for you to say,” Hetty retorted. She retrieved her purse and set out, dismissing the fear that she wouldn’t be able to find her way back through the mob. Or if she did, that the man and his baby would have moved on.
Jax watched her go, weaving gracefully past outstretched limbs and heaps of luggage, stepping over a couple of teenagers sleeping on the floor. She even walked like a model, that subtle sway that hinted at feminine secrets under the loose, formless clothes.
Not that he was any expert on fashion models. For the most part, the women in his life, at least since his days in the marine corps, were either lawyers or businesswomen. Even those who weren’t were no more interested in long-term involvement than he was.
And he definitely wasn’t.
Hetty. He couldn’t quite figure her out. One corner of one of her incisors was chipped. He found the small flaw strangely intriguing. She might act as if all this was new to her, but he could easily picture her with her head in the air, striding down a runway, her long, limp outfit flapping loosely in a way that subtly emphasized the feminine form underneath.
Don’t even think about it, Powers. You’ve got trouble enough without looking for more.
Two
Hetty yawned. She’d fallen asleep, only to wake up with her head on Jax’s shoulder. “I’m really sorry,” she murmured. “Your arm must be aching. You should have wakened me.”
“No problem.”
She smoothed her skirt, pretending a nonchalance she was far from feeling. She’d been married for eleven years, for heaven’s sake. When it came to men, she wasn’t entirely without experience.
Jax went back to the business section of yesterday’s New York Times. Sunny was making sucking noises in her sleep. Hetty, needing to do something to counteract her embarrassment, tucked the blanket around the small, chubby body, her hands lingering on the dimpled knees.
“She’s awfully good-natured.”
“Hmm?”
“Sunny. Her diaper rash is better. As long as her bottom’s dry and her stomach’s full, she seems content just to watch the world go by.”
“Let’s hope things get moving around here before we run out of food and diapers.”
Rather pointedly, he went back to his newspaper, and Hetty frowned at her watch, then squinted at it to be sure the hands were still moving.
They were. Nothing else was, at least not so far as travel was concerned. The same old mob, moving sluggishly now, if at all. Other than a few snores and a minor fracas now and then, they were quieter. Three rows away, an elderly man was demanding to see someone from security. His wife kept shushing him, telling him everything was going to be all right, that she’d checked their horoscope before they’d left home that morning.
Hetty wondered what her own horoscope had said. Had it mentioned anything about meeting a tall, dark and handsome stranger? If it weren’t for Jax she might have been concerned by now, but outright panic was a luxury she’d never been able to afford.
She hadn’t panicked back in those miserable days after her mother had died, when her father’s drinking had gone from bad to worse. Nor a few years later, when she could no longer convince herself that he was still grieving, that he truly loved her and that he regretted the outbursts, which had grown more and more violent.
Instead she had quietly made plans to move to Oklahoma City as soon as she graduated, to find a job and a place to stay.
She certainly hadn’t panicked the day she had stood before the justice of peace and placed her life in the hands of a man more than