Real Marriage Material

Jeb frowned, wondering the reason for such speculation by Mariah. He couldn’t imagine she was serious about learning to fish, and he was positive his niece was having the same trouble as him in envisioning Mariah, with her refined demeanor and pearl necklace, hauling back on a fishing rig and whooping it up as she pulled a twenty-pound striped bass out of the water. Still, he saw the girl considering Mariah’s remark.

Then Mariah added, “And just like any person finding themselves needing to learn how to do something outside their normal abilities, wouldn’t it be shrewd to explore as many avenues of assistance as possible?”

Puzzlement suffused Robin’s features, but even if she didn’t, Jeb definitely caught Mariah’s drift—and her implicit criticism of him. Which made his irritation bristle up again. Where did she get off judging him? She didn’t know a blamed thing about the situation!

Yet before he could voice his vexation, Robin said shyly, “I guess I might could show you a few things I learned from Uncle Jeb, if that’s what you’re gettin’ at. But he’s the expert on fishin’. And he can teach anybody. He’s real patient and would never make you feel backward just ‘cause a certain skill didn’t come natural to you.”

Jeb felt his chest swell at Robin’s praise. Then when he saw Mariah smile approvingly and so very warmly at his niece, an even greater swell pulsed through him, nearly making him forget his annoyance with this woman.

Damn again.

And damn, too, if he’d let her make dewy-eyed fools out of any of them.

“It’s true that when it comes to Texoma striper fishing, I’m your man.” He met Mariah’s gaze squarely. “But I doubt you really ‘need’ to learn to fish.”

“Call it professional curiosity, then,” she said. “Even if we eventually decide that I can’t…do business with you, I’d like to hear the facts. As your uncle pointed out, the situation merits a deeper look, doesn’t it?”

Jeb was on the verge of putting an end to the pretense that they were actually discussing fishing with a blunt disagreement when Mariah’s eyes made him pause. He’d previously noted that they were golden brown and almond shaped, like a doe’s. But what struck him now was the true interest in their depths.

Don’t be a fool, he warned himself. There was no way this society silk stocking could even begin to comprehend their world—which hadn’t even existed for her fifteen minutes ago—or a way of life so different from hers. How on earth could she help them?

“Go on inside, Rob. You too, Wiley.” Jeb gave his niece’s shoulder a squeeze, a silent reassurance to counter his sternness, which attempted to circumvent any protest Wiley might be inclined to make. He furnished his uncle with a glance, anyway, that brooked no argument. “I’ll be along as soon as I’ve seen Miss Duncan to her car.”

Yet his uncle seemed content enough—or disgusted enough—to depart without offering more of his opinions, thank God. No, it was Robin who hesitated, her large blue eyes darting from Mariah to him and back.

“I like your hair, Mariah,” she blurted, as if she’d had to force the statement out. Or perhaps couldn’t prevent herself from expressing it. “Maybe…may be if you do decide to take fishin’ lessons from Uncle Jeb, you could teach me how to braid my hair like that.”

“I’d like nothing more, Robin,” Mariah answered gently. “But that’s up to your uncle.”

His niece nodded, then did something he’d never seen her do before: she gave her hair a girlish flip off her shoulder with the back of one hand before running off in her tomboy clothes. And it became clear to him that she hadn’t been debating earlier what threat this woman might pose. No, his niece had been wondering how she could get her hair to look like Mariah’s did!

Was Robin so starved for a feminine touch in her life that a practical stranger could bring that longing surging to the surface?

Wiley was right Jeb needed to do something, more than just take care of the situation looming on the horizon, in order to do his best for his niece. And he knew it’d have to be something definite—and drastic.

He wanted nothing to do with Mariah Duncan, though. For all her highfalutin notions of believing she could, by dint of her Southern gentility, make people’s lives civilized, he was certain there wasn’t a single thing she could do for him.

But if there was a chance for Robin’s happiness…

Chapter Three (#ulink_139c74c4-e3d6-5e26-95aa-1cfd3a3f81a6)

I must be out of my ever-loving mind, Jeb thought.

After Robin left, he stood for a few moments, fingers of one hand tucked in the back pocket of his jeans as he rubbed the palm of his other hand across his forehead, painfully aware that he was about to step way out of his comfort zone. Mariah was silent

He squinted at the sky, the waning light making it a pale robin’s-egg blue at its apex, the wispy clouds with their flamed undersides kicking up from the horizon like waves left in the wake of a boat.

“Let’s take a walk,” he announced, then in after-thought glanced down. “Or maybe not. Where I’m thinkin’ of. going is kind of uneven in places, and those shoes of yours don’t exactly look to be made for a hike along the lake.”

“Lead on,” Mariah said gamely. “These flats will hold up.”

“Fine.” He wasn’t about to talk her out of it. If she wanted the opportunity to put her two cents in, then she needed to know what she would be getting into.

With Lucy shadowing them, they tramped down to the lake, then south along its rocky edge to a cove with a beach of sorts. There, Jeb dropped to a crouch and picked up a stone, rubbing its flat, smooth surface with his thumb. Perfect for skipping.

Lifting his arm to the side, he flicked his wrist, sending the rock flying. It leapfrogged across the water—one, two…five skips in all.

“I’m impressed,” said Mariah, watching from her spot a few yards away.

He cut her a skeptical, sidelong glance, wondering if she was thinking such tactics would work on him—again. He couldn’t tell; dusk was falling more quickly than he’d gauged, and Jeb became singularly aware he was alone with this woman in the burgeoning twilight.

“My personal best is nine skips,” he said obligingly enough. “It’s something I’ve always had a knack for. It used to irk Cody something terrible….” He peered into the darkness. The explanation wasn’t going to be easy any way he did it.

“Who’s Cody?” Mariah asked in that cultured drawl of hers he found almost mesmerizing.

Not looking at her, he answered, “My older brother— Robin’s dad. He never was the outdoors buff I am. Or Wiley is. I didn’t realize until years later that he must have felt like a fish out of water around us.” Gesturing toward the lake, he gave an ironic snort at his comparison before sobering and going on.

“But Cody found his calling, eventually. Got a scholarship and went to A&M to become an engineer. So now the ugly truth comes out.” Jeb paused dramatically. “Yes, I am the brother of an Aggie.”

She gave a soft chuckle but wasn’t going to let him off the hook. “What happened to him, Jeb?”

It was the first time she’d said his name, and it sent a shaft of that yearning he’d experienced previously shooting through his very vitals, making him believe more than ever that nothing good would come out of this interview.

He must remember, he was doing this for Robin. But he didn’t have to tell Mariah everything, he reminded himself.

“Cody and his wife, Lisa, died in a car crash a little more’n four months ago,” he said, forcing the words out “I got custody of Robin. Right now I’m what the lawyers call Robin’s temporary managing conservator.” He pronounced it distinctly, carefully. “But I’m hoping to adopt her. That was to be decided once she’d lived with me six months.”

He picked up another stone, tested its feel in his palm and discarded it. “Anyway, I knew if she got to live permanently with us two bachelors that there’d come a time when she’d need a feminine influence. A girl should have a mother, y’know.”

“Of course, if it’s at all possible. But do you think the court would take Robin away from you merely for lack of such influence on her?”

“Up to a few weeks ago, I didn’t think so. Now there’s more to the situation, you see,” he went on with reluctance. “We were served with papers saying Lisa’s half sister was coming forward to intervene for custody and adoption of Robin.”

The thought of that action—and the implied impetus behind it—still had the power to upend Jeb’s better judgment and raise panic in him, which he beat back with the aid of the indignation the situation unfailingly roused in him. With superhuman effort, he made himself go on, to tell Mariah the story.

But it would not be the whole story.

“Anita Babcock,” he said flatly, “is Lisa’s half sister. Her husband—he’s an engineer, too, like Cody was, I guess—does some kind of work for an oil company that took them out of the country up until recently, but now they’re back in the States to stay, or so I’ve been told. The judge kept the adoption hearing for June, even with the Babcocks intervening.”

With sudden intensity, he jabbed a twig into the ground, almost to poke it into the heart of his dilemma. “From what the lawyer I hired tells me, as things stand right now, it could go either way. I could get Robbie—or Lisa’s half sister could. I’ve definitely got the biggest advantage, with her livin’ here with me and Wiley since Cody and Lisa died. But it’s not like they named me Robin’s guardian, which would have sealed the deal for sure. And Anita and her husband are already raisin’ a couple of kids of their own, have the ability to give her all sorts of advantages— private school, lessons in just about anything Robbie might take a fancy to, travel, exposure to all sorts of experiences. Put that kind of home life up against the one I’m providing, and what would you decide if you were a judge?”

“I see…” Mariah frowned, her gaze distant, searching.

She still clutched her black leather organizer in her arms. He wondered if she ever went anywhere without it, and couldn’t imagine being so tied to a schedule. Perhaps that was part of his problem, as she’d indirectly suggested, this reluctance to adapt to changing circumstances.

“And I gather from what you said earlier,” she continued, “about your not being interested in getting married, that there’s no one you’re even seeing whom you might eventually consider…that is, for the judge to acquire some confidence you’d ultimately…” Her voice trailed off awkwardly.

“I take your meanin’, and you’re right,” he said with a calm he didn’t entirely feel. “I’ve known some women I’ve liked real well, and it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that I’d find one some day that I’d want to settle down with, even given that my occupation doesn’t afford much opportunity for socializing. After all, you can’t tell what’s bitin’ till you test the waters. But things are different now—”