Page 24 of Fairy Tale Husband

Laura took a deep breath and slowly released it. “All right, Wynne. We’ll do it your way. The boys and I will go back to the room on one condition.”

“Which is?”

“I want you to take a good, long look at Mr. Texan over there. You told me you were going to marry a Prince Charming.” She stabbed a finger in Jake’s direction. “Well, that’s not him. And if you give him half a chance, I’m sure he’ll prove it to you.” With that she grasped each boy by the hand and hustled them through the door, slamming it behindher.

A tense silence descended, and Wynne took the opportunity to do as Laura had requested. She studied Jake curiously, wondering what qualities her friend had seen that had escaped her own discerninggaze.

True, at first glance he was an intimidating man. His height and breadth alone might give some people pause, especially when combined with his strange golden eyes—eyes that could change from arctic cold to broiling heat in the space of an instant. She also supposed his shadowed jaw and rumpled hair gave him the appearance of a man more comfortable living outside the boundaries of convention. Despite that, where Laura saw a hard, ruthless Texan, Wynne saw a strong, determined protector.

In fact, the only difference she noticed since last night was the distrustful expression glittering in his eyes. Adeep-seated wariness mixed with jaded cynicism. She recognized that look. Jake had close and personal experience with bitter disappointment and expected to again in the near future.

Fromher?

He stood off to one side of the room, his jaw set at a combative angle, his body tensed in anticipation of a blow. It struck her as a customary stance for him, one he’d probably assumed with distressing frequency. He was demon-ridden, she sensed, battling both outer and inner conflicts. It saddened her. Had he always been a loner, at odds with the world, forced to fight his way through life? Somehow she suspected hehad.

“Why would you be a bad influence on the boys?” she asked abruptly.

“What?”

She crossed to the bed and perched on the end of it. “Laura said you’d be a bad influence on Buster and Chick and you agreed with her. Why?”

“Because I don’t know anything about kids or how to raise them.”

“You were once a boy. Why can’t you—”

“Take a page from what passed as my childhood?” Darkness descended on him. “You wouldn’t want that. Not when it comes to my fathering someone you cared about.”

She regarded him curiously. “Would you hurt the boys?”

“Not on purpose.”

“Then—”

“That’s not the point.” He ran a hand through his hair, impatience edging his voice. “I attended that asinine party because I needed a temporary wife in order to gain control of my inheritance. To be brutally frank, Ididn’t give a damn who I married so long as she’d stick with me until the terms of the will were fulfilled.”

“No problem.”

“Big problem,” he corrected. “You need a real husband. Afull-time, forever type to give those kids a stable home. Well, I’m not it.”

“You could be.”

He shook his head in disgust. “Boy, are you barking up the wrong tree,” he muttered. Taking a deep breath, he fixed her with a stern, no-nonsense stare. “This isn’t some sort of fairy tale wedding, you know. There aren’t any happy endings waiting around the next bend in the road. If you’d been straight with me from the beginning, told me what your inheritance was, you’d have saved us both a lot of trouble.”

“This may not be what you initially anticipated, but—”

“It’s nothing like I anticipated,” he cut in. “I require a wife in my house and my bed for a brief stint. Period. End of relationship.”

“And I’ve agreed to that,” she insisted doggedly.

“Have you?” In two swift strides, he ate up the distance separating them. Clasping her shoulders, he hauled her to her feet, looking every inch the menacing outlaw Laura had accused him of being. “I want a woman in my life for as long as necessary and then I want her gone. No complications. No regrets. And no future. When our time is through, I’m walking away and I won’t be looking back.”

She nodded, her wide gaze glued to his. “You told me that already.”

His mouth thinned. “But you weren’t listening, were you? You’ve had your head in the clouds for so long, you couldn’t find the ground if you landed on it face-first. And now I’m saddled with a wife who believes in fairy tales and a couple of kids in desperate need of a father.”

“That’s what I’d have preferred,” she admitted, “but I’m willing to—”

“To what?” he demanded. “Continue playing your little games after I take you home with me? What’s the plan now, to try to get me to agree to something more permanent over the next few months?”

---