That Man Matthews

Cody grinned. “I got it from you, didn’t I?” He headed for the door. “I’ve got to go, or I’ll never make the plane. We’ll talk when I get back.”

“Son?” His father’s serious tone brought him up short. “Here’s something else you need to consider. How will you explain Sarah’s behavior to her other Grandpa, if he decides he wants to become part of her life?”

Cody felt his heart drop. He couldn’t admit it to his father, but that worry had been nibbling at him ever since Edward Ross had reentered their lives. So far, the Connecticut millionaire had kept a low profile, but if the old man ever decided to investigate the circumstances of his granddaughter’s birth…Cody shuddered at the thought.

“He won’t interfere in our lives, Pa,” Cody said in a determined voice, more to convince himself than his father. “He’s too busy hobnobbing with senators and movie stars. He doesn’t have time for twelve-year-old girls who only want to talk about horses and how soon they’ll get to wear makeup.”

“Don’t you believe it, son. What’s Edward Ross been doing with his time since he’s retired? His only child killed in a plane crash years ago. His wife dead, too. Then he finds out he has a grandchild—a girl who looks a heck of a lot like Daphne. You think he’s not gonna want to be a part of her life? A big part?”

The older man slipped one arm out of his metal crutch support and rubbed his hip absently. “You’re foolin’ yourself, son. Believe me, at that age, a man looks back on his life and starts thinking maybe he should have done things differently.”

Cody frowned, a little surprised by the remorseful tone in Walt’s voice. His father had few regrets about the way he’d lived his life. The accident that had robbed him of the full use of his legs was about the only thing he might want to change. How different everything might have been if he’d never climbed up on that bull.

“Pa?”

His father seemed to snap out of his reverie. He straightened, fixing Cody with a hard stare. “So maybe you’re right, and Edward Ross leaves us alone. That still takes me back to the point I’ve been trying to make. You know everything there is to know about raising cattle, Cody. Making land deals. Playing the stocks. But what do you really know about what goes on in a little girl’s head?”

“I know she doesn’t have attention deficit disorder, damn it.”

“Let’s be sure. I have the number for the private school where this gal teaches in Virginia. Alexandria’s not that far from D.C., is it? You could stay over. I’ll set it up for you.”

Cody glanced at his watch. Only way he’d make the plane now was if he ran into no traffic at all and sprinted through the airport like a long-distance runner. Conceding defeat, he sighed heavily and nodded. “All right. Make the call to her. And set up all the appointments for nannies you want. Call me tonight at the hotel and tell me where and when to show up.”

His father grinned. “You won’t be sorry.”

“I already am.”

“This woman’s sophisticated, intelligent. Did I mention her father was Alistair Paxton, the diplomat?”

“Ah, jeez, a blue blood. You know how I feel about that kind of woman.”

“You’re not fixing to make her your wife.”

“You know what I mean. Just the thought of being around another Daphne-type, even briefly, makes my gut ache.”

“All right,” Walt said hurriedly, apparently eager to shore up any damage his words might have done. “You don’t like her, you cut the conversation short and come on home. I’ll have a dozen nannies waiting for you, ready to be interviewed. One of them is bound to please you.”

“I can hardly wait,” Cody said without enthusiasm and rushed to his car.

PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE mentioned her resemblance to Daphne, Walter thought, as he waved the Rover away from Luna D’Oro’s front drive. But Cody was already riled up enough about being strong-armed into agreement, and he’d turn as prickly as a desert cactus if he thought he was being manipulated, as well.

Of course, everything else aside, meeting Joan Paxton would still be a good thing for Sarah. The woman was razor sharp when it came to kids. If Cody didn’t let his ego get in the way, she might be able to help him cope with Sarah. God knows, reprimands, incentives and being sent to her room hadn’t done any good with the girl lately.

Walt made his way slowly back to the rear of the house, where the hacienda’s courtyard portal offered peace and quiet and a great view of the setting Texas sun.

He was worrying for nothing. When Cody met Joan, he’d see reason. He just had to listen to her for a few minutes, give her half a chance. And he would, because she was a looker, and Cody had always had an eye for pretty blondes. The fact that she bore a passing resemblance to Daphne, Sarah’s mother, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, was it?

Walter frowned as he settled down on a chaise longue with a weary groan. Oh, well. Too late now.

Gently he lifted his legs onto the lounger. If he got his right hip to stop giving him fits in a few minutes, he’d call her, set up a time when she and his son could get together. It was short notice, but Walt still had a little of the old Matthews charm in him. He could make it happen. Could be that by this time the day after tomorrow, Cody would either have hated her on sight and come home, or he’d be convinced she’d hung the moon.

Even with that damned resemblance to Daphne, Walter was betting on the latter.

AW, HELL, I SHOULD HAVE known.

Cody picked Joan Paxton out the moment she walked through the crowded lobby of the Alexandria Hotel, and he knew right off she wasn’t going to have anything to say that he’d want to hear.

He’d been regretting the decision to meet the woman almost from the moment he’d agreed to it. When Walt had called him in his D.C. hotel room, the resentful, trapped feeling in his chest had gotten worse.

The Paxton woman would meet him at four in the afternoon in the hotel lobby, Walt had told him. Then—when he got home—there would be three interviews with prospective nannies waiting for him. From some ridiculous agency called Cultivated Kids, whose logo in the phone book, Pa had said, was a garden row of child-flowers, their faces beaming up toward the sun. As if Sarah was a crabgrass-clogged daisy who just needed a healthy dose of weed killer.

Damn Sam Houston’s whiskers! He didn’t need a gardener for Sarah. He didn’t need outside help with Sarah at all.

Truth be told, he liked her fine just the way she was. Bright. Imaginative. Sure, she was a handful. Had been from the moment she’d come wailing into his life without a single instruction manual. With Daphne horrified at the thought of being a mother, Cody had raised her almost single-handedly. He’d followed gut instinct and horse sense, and hell, she hadn’t turned out so bad.

A little rough around the edges, maybe. A little wild and unpredictable at times. But he liked those traits in her. They made her an individual. They made her funny and interesting and someone he could be proud to call his daughter. Sarah was going to turn out to be one hell of a woman, not some watered-down, homogenized prima donna who only cared about the latest fashions from Paris and how hard she’d have to work to find a rich man to marry.

From behind a planter he watched the Paxton woman make her way to the hotel front desk. Oh, yes, he knew her type well enough. Tall. Blond. Prissy. Spoiled rotten, no doubt, by that diplomat father of hers.

He didn’t know what it was about cool ice princesses that always got to him. But since Sarah’s birth he’d had two serious relationships with women, and both of them had been carbon copies of Daphne.

The last one had ended six months ago. All right, so maybe he was willing to consider dating again—it got lonely at the ranch, damn it—but he’d never give another tall, uppity blonde a second look. They were just too much trouble, he’d told Pa, and he’d meant it. Which was probably why Walt had deliberately neglected to mention that Joan Paxton was a Daphne look-alike.

The severe, dark suit she wore said she was all business and it accentuated her height. She wouldn’t have to lift her chin too high to meet his six-foot-three frame. She moved with stiff authority, like a general inspecting his troops, and her shoulders were thrown back as though she’d forgotten to take the coat hanger out of her jacket before she’d slipped it on. She looked like she’d forgotten how to smile, too, but he had to admit she had a nice, tight rear end that shifted prettily without being provocative.

Cody frowned as his insides twisted unpleasantly. Yep, she reminded him so much of Daphne that he had to resist the urge to check for his wallet.

Wearily he rubbed his hand over his face. It had been a long, tiring day. The boardroom fight with Williston’s lawyers had reduced his brain to mush. If he really was going to be faced with a bunch of Mary Poppins wannabes tomorrow, he needed to relax. Not try to make nice with an aristocratic intellectual who’d take one look at him and decide he’d done everything wrong the past twelve years.

He watched Joan Paxton ask directions. She’d punished her hair by twisting it up into one of those silly French things that all but destroyed any pretense of femininity, but she couldn’t hide the truth that her hair was one of her best features. The color of sunshine, tendrils that looked as fine and soft as a kitten’s ear surrounded a pretty, heart-shaped face.

She turned her head to follow the concierge’s pointing finger, and a few wisps of golden hair had the audacity to escape their French prison. Impatiently she lifted a manicured hand to smooth the disobedient curls back into place.

Glancing at her watch, she made a beeline for the hotel atrium where they were to meet in five minutes. He’d bet she’d never been late for an appointment in her life.

In another moment she had disappeared behind the jungle of plants and fake waterfalls that all fancy hotels insisted on cluttering up their lobbies with these days. But he could imagine her sitting there, glancing at her watch. Maybe tapping her foot.

Cody frowned again, then exhaled in disgust. What had Pa been thinking?

“No way in hell,” he muttered under his breath.

There were other people he could consult about Sarah’s behavior problems. Authorities of his own choosing. Not someone who would blame attention deficit disorder or him. Not someone who would probably suggest drugs that would turn his baby girl into a complacent little zombie with the personality of navel lint. No! No overbred blue blood was going to tell him how to raise his kid. And Cody was definitely not going to give said blue blood the opportunity to figure out that the Matthews household wasn’t exactly what it seemed to be.

Instead, he’d send a bellman to her with a message. Apologize for the inconvenience, cancel the meeting. Perhaps sometime in the future, he’d suggest. A vague-enough promise he never intended to keep.

There was still Pa to deal with. He was a stubborn old cuss. Once he’d wrung that promise out of Cody, he wouldn’t let up. There would be at least two more trips back here to D.C. to complete the Williston deal. Cody could hear Walt’s argument now. Surely one of those trips would allow him time to reschedule a meeting with Joan Paxton?

Of course, if he and the schoolmarm didn’t hit it off, he could say he’d given it his best shot.