Fannin's Flame

Chapter One

If music tames the savage beast, then your mother was a full orchestra accompanied by a choir of angels.

—Maverick Jefferson to his sons one winter night when the loneliness became too much

“What I’m saying is feel the romance, Princess,” Fannin said. “Smell the breeze. Hear the sigh of the grass. Rejoice in the call of the wild. Entice that bull, Princess, please,” he pleaded with his cow to the delight of his three brothers.

“Could you turn it up, Romeo?” Archer asked. “I don’t think the people of Union Junction have heard you spout such poetry in all the years you’ve lived here.”

“Do you have to do it this way?” Calhoun complained. “Can’t you be normal and use a syringe to get a calf in her?”

“Hey!” Fannin said with a frown. “I know it’s not logical. But I want Princess to conceive the natural way.”

“Or no way at all,” Navarro said. “I see no interest on the part of her suitor.”

Indeed, the bull, Bloodthirsty Black, usually such a firebringer of hell and mortification upon hapless cowboys, appeared uninterested in his bride.

“Why don’t you tell Bloodthirsty how it’s done, Fannin?” Archer asked, gasping with smothered laughter. “After all, you are the expert with women.”

Fannin grimaced as his brothers slapped each other on the backs. “I sort of have a date Saturday night,” he said, not totally lying.

“A date!” They all leaned forward from their posts on the fence. “Who’s the lucky girl?”

Fannin turned away so they couldn’t see his face. “I’m taking Helga to the movies. She wants to see a movie in Dallas. And I think it’s time our housekeeper got off the ranch for a few hours. You dopes haven’t noticed, but Helga’s homesick for Germany. She’s lonely. So I’m taking her out.”

“Helga!” They roared with laughter.

Navarro grinned. “Yeah, I’d like to go out with a battle-ax. That’d be my choice of female companionship.”

“That’s not very nice,” Fannin said with a frown. “She’s been working hard to take care of us. You know, you ought to think about taking her out yourselves. Helga doesn’t work at our ranch just to put up with your majestic egos.”

They stared at him.

“All I ever go out with is twins,” Fannin mimicked in a high voice. “Did you see that pair of twins on Rosie Mayflower?” That was exactly how his brothers would talk—and did talk—about women.

“Now, those are some twins,” Archer agreed. “Navarro, does Rosie have any cousins with the same genetic traits? There has to be some family relations she could introduce us to.”

“Breasts aren’t everything,” Fannin pointed out.

“But they are something,” Navarro said, “and they count big-time in my book.”

“Anyway,” Archer said, “you’re not even talking to Princess right, Fannin. A woman doesn’t want to be begged or pleaded with for sex. She wants to be told how it’s going to be. She wants to be ravaged. Stormed and conquered. If she knows what the game is up-front, then she’s happy to play. No wonder you don’t have any real dates.”

“Well, it is true that the early caveman didn’t have any trouble getting a woman,” Fannin said. “He just dragged her off by the hair.”

“No point in getting rough,” Calhoun said. “All we’re suggesting is that your way is too subtle to get a woman’s attention. Notice we get the women, while you tend to get the sister with the good personality and the insurmountable chastity.”

“Because I don’t storm the gates,” Fannin finished.

“Afraid he’s right,” Navarro said. “Never let a woman have the upper hand, especially in the sack, or you’ll wind up with a Helga running your world. In other words, you’ll end up whipped when you should be putting your feet up after a long day, with a very attractive female ready to bring you a beer, serve you your supper in a comfy armchair and then put you to bed with a smile on her face.”

“That’s what I mean,” Fannin said sadly to Princess. “My brothers are all so artificial. They only think of one thing. Don’t worry about that stupid bull not wanting you,” he told his favorite cow. “He’s probably lost all his good genes throwing cowboys around.”

“Princess is not a pet,” Calhoun said sternly.

“She is to me. And I want a good calf out of her. I’m giving a calf to Mimi’s baby when it’s born, so her little girl will have money in the bank when she grows up.”

“And the calf can’t come from a syringe,” Navarro said, shaking his head.

“The best things take time,” Fannin said briskly. “And the right moment. Magic.”

“And I say you’re going to be waiting a helluva long time, you and your Princess.” Archer slapped his hat against his leg and hopped off the rail. “I got work to do.”

His other brothers murmured something similar, leaving Fannin alone with Princess and her lackluster lover.

“Hey,” he said to the bull, “you’re supposed to be the hottest thing on hooves. What’s your problem? I had to haul you out here in a special trailer so you wouldn’t do damage to yourself. Half the county said I was crazed to even let you near Princess. They said, do it the right way, but I said no, natural was better. And look at you over there. You couldn’t care less. I believe you’re only good for the ring, you old show pony.”

Fannin sighed, his brothers’ words eating at him. It was true he didn’t date much. He didn’t have the ruthlessness in him to love and leave a woman. He had to admit, his brothers’ techniques did seem to drive the women wild. Truthfully, Fannin thought, he had some things in common with Bloodthirsty Black.

Last year had seen enough settling down to suit all the Jefferson brothers—four brothers down but eight determined not to make a trip to the altar. Fannin was in no hurry to get into a relationship.

“But I would like a date,” Fannin told Princess. “Not counting the one with Helga. Actually, I want a night of rowdy sex. Lusty fornication. With the right woman, though.” He looked at Princess. “Unfortunately, to get the right woman I’d have to order up. Made-to-order, like Bloodthirsty is for you. All the best genes. I could say, okay, this is what I want, and I want her to do this and not to do that, and I don’t want any flak about it. Then my brothers would have to shut up. But how do I get that?”

Princess ignored him.

“My brothers say their blue-ribbon goal is sex in the morning, every morning, and it’d be a best-case scenario if they could relieve themselves without having to worry about the woman. Who cares if she climaxes? And please get out of the bed quickly and quietly. Vamoose!” He sighed with frustration. “They’re such syringe types.”

The only time a woman had come to the ranch without designs on any of the brothers it had been an accident. Actually, it had been women who’d arrived, courtesy of an e-mail that his eldest brother, Mason, and their next-door neighbor, Mimi, had missent. All hell had broken loose when the females from Lonely Hearts Station had arrived.

But so many good things had come out of that stray e-mail, from weddings to babies.

And even Helga. Mimi had called her friend, Julia Finehurst, of the Honey-Do Agency and asked for a female housekeeper, one that Mason couldn’t fall in love with, even though Mimi knew she’d never have Mason. Mimi was just that way about keeping Mason pinned in a corner.

Helga had arrived, and Fannin could honestly say the square, stout German housekeeper kept all the brothers in line. Like a female military sergeant. Mimi had played the prank of all pranks on Mason.

Fannin wouldn’t want to date anyone as fiery as Mimi. A woman like that would probably blow the flame out of him eventually. He wanted a woman, but he wanted the right woman—for now. For a night or two. Maybe even a month. No tricks. No drama. Plenty of sex. Was it so much to ask?

Fannin’s mother had been calm, loving and content to live on a faraway ranch with twelve boys and a loud rascal husband who was popular among the townspeople—the ladies. They’d all known who ruled the Jefferson roost with quiet, admirable control. Maverick Jefferson was never happier than when his wife had him wrapped securely around her little finger.

Fannin groaned. They just didn’t make women like that anymore. And maybe his brothers were right. His technique had to go or he was going to end up alone, living at the ranch with Mason and his other fathead brothers. Today’s women seemed to require more machismo out of a man, and he’d call himself a John Wayne type rather than a jerk in cowboy gear. But if that’s what today’s woman needed, he supposed he could force a little more chauvinism into his approach.

“Good night,” he said to the bounty bull. “I doubt you’ll get matters figured out, but I’ll leave you here awhile just in case. And you, Miss Princess, you just try to be a docile lass if your man comes a-courting.”

Fannin headed up to the house and went into Mason’s office. Reaching into the haphazard Rolodex, he pulled out a card for the Honey-Do Agency. He sat down at the computer and typed in the e-mail address. He’d heard the agency was branching out into matchmaking services. They probably didn’t have dream women in their database, and he was feeling a little nervous about telling them exactly what he wanted in a one-night companion. He read over the card again. “I’ll say I want to interview a personal assistant for one night to accompany me on a possible business trip.”

He began to state his needs. “Attractive, understanding, somewhat petite female,” he typed happily. “For a big-hearted cowboy who needs a special companion. She needs to have a good sense of humor, too.”

It sounded like a personals ad. They weren’t going to be fooled. It also sounded like he was looking for an artificial female.