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The 15lb. Matchmaker "My name's Griff Price.
I have a proposition for you."When the best-looking man she'd ever set eyes on strode into the diner, Jolie Carleton nearly forgot she'd sworn off men after her fiance jilted her. Now this sexy cowboy was asking her to live at his family ranch and look after a ten-month-old infant! Jolie needed a job and Griff needed her--in more ways than one.
Sheer desperation made Griff hire the stranded city beauty on the spot. His nephew needed a woman's care. But the longer the pretty Miss Carleton stayed, the more Griff realized he needed some TLC, too. Was the nanny from nowhere the key to unlocking his hardened heart--and creating a family filled with love...?
Chapter One Silhouette Romance
ISBN: 0-373-19593-1Today might qualify as the worst day of Jolie Carleton's life. If you didn't count last Saturday, when she'd been left standing at the altar in front of three hundred people.
Being jilted had left her more embarrassed than hurt. She'd had second thoughts about her intended for weeks. If she'd had the backbone to speak up it wouldn't have happened at all. It hadn't taken her long to recognize the incident as a major wake-up call.
Jolie sighed and stabbed at the remains of a piece of cheesecake. Saturday night she'd made a vow to live with courage, to do something outrageous every day and get a life, but so far fate seemed to be testing her. Getting a life was proving to be harder than she imagined.
Glumly she watched the sunset paint the sky with streaks of orange and purple behind Winslow's Garage across the street and tried to ignore the diner's other customers, who watched her with open curiosity.
The smell of fried onions hung in the warm air, and the waitresses wore pink nylon uniforms with their name tag pinned over a fan of starched hankie. Ever since her car had been towed into Billings, Montana, Jolie had the strangest feeling she had entered a time warp.
She heard the door to the diner slap closed and looking up to see a blond version of the Marlboro Man taking to her waitress. Her breath caught in her chest as she fumbled her fork.
Over six feet tall, he had the wardrobe and the build of the icon plastered all over magazines. His broad shoulders filled out a worn sheepskin jacket, and his long legs were covered by blue jeans. He took off his cowboy hat and ran a broad hand through sun-bleached blond hair.
She exhaled a sigh of pleasure. He was eye candy at its finest.
He nodded at the cashier and smiled, displaying a set of even white teeth. Tanned skin crinkled at the corners of his deep-blue eyes, and a dimple dented one check. Drop-dead gorgeous, the man looked like a Hollywood version of the perfect cowboy.
The words hunk and babe drifted through her mind as she openly stared at the man, unable to look away.
He needed a shave. The stubbled on his chin made him look even more masculine. She could imagine the rasp a beard like that would make against her skin.
Now she liked Montana even more than she had a moment ago. Feeling warm all over, she had to reminder herself she'd sworn off men.
He glanced over and caught her gawking, open-mouthed. Jolie bent her head over her newspaper so her hair would hide her face.
Embarrassed to be caught gaping at a stranger, Jolie stared down at the want ads she had already read twice, then turned her head and dared to peek through a curtain of hair.
The cowboy walked past her with enough of a swagger to convince her he had just gotten off a horse, and took a seat at a booth in the rear of the diner.
Jolie dared one more glance in his direction, then turned her attention back to her problems. She needed a job, she told herself firmly, not a man who had the potential to star in a woman's fantasies.
She tried to ignore the man and think about her situation. Just outside of Billings, a deer had bounded across the highway. Swerving to avoid the animal, Jolie had skidded across the shoulder of the road and run into a telephone pole.
She could almost hear her father scolding her. Jolie, he would say, as if she were still sixteen years old, never swerve to avoid an animal.
Easy enough to say when you didn't have Bambi looking at you with those big startled eyes.
An hour ago, as she'd brushed the fine white dust that had exploded out of her car's air bag off her silk shirt, the mechanic at Winslow's had told her it might take three weeks to get the parts he needed for the repairs to her car.
His exact words had been, "Don't stock parts for these foreign jobs" in a tone implying she'd broken some kind of law in Montana by driving a car made in Germany.
Now what was she supposed to do? Her car was wrecked, her father had cancelled her credit cards, and her Aunt Rosie was off backpacking somewhere in New York state.
Jolie struggled to think positively and come up with a solution to her problem. Collision coverage would take care of the car, but the deductible she'd had to pay the mechanic to order parts and start work had left her with a measly fifteen dollars.
She refused to call her father in Seattle for help. He'd predicted this trip would be a disaster and forbidden her to go. She'd left anyway, disobeying him for the first time in her life.
Most children rebelled against their parents when they were in their midteens. Jolie had waited until she was almost twenty-five years old.
She should've stood up to her father a lot sooner. Because she always went along with whatever he wanted just to keep the peace, she'd almost ended up married to a man she didn't love.
How could she prove to herself she could be independent if she ran to her father for help at the first sign of trouble? Besides, she was still furious with him for cancelling her credit cards to try to keep her from leaving.
She had called New York and left a message for Aunt Rosie that she'd been delayed, but Rosie wasn't due back from her trip until Sunday.
Rosie's newest man must be the outdoorsy type. She tried to picture her chic aunt in a pair of boots and a backpack, but couldn't come up with the image.
Jolie propped the heels of her Ferragamo flats on her suitcase and traced the outline of the state on the plastic place mat. She had no option but to stay right here in Billings and wait for the car.
She needed a job.
Griff took a minute to take in the whole package. What the heck was a beautiful woman dressed like her doing in Harry's Diner? he wondered. "My name's Griff Price. I have a proposition for you."
He didn't miss the way her big brown eyes widened at his choice of words, and in spite of his foul mood he suppressed a smile.
"How do you do, Mr. Price?" Her speech was careful and polite, her expression wary.
Sleek and sophisticated, she reminded him of a Thoroughbred horse. Generations of carefully chosen bloodlines came together to produce a woman this magnificent. Good bone structure, sleek hair, clear eyes, fine skin and good muscle tone didn't happen by accident.
He was pretty good at sizing up women. He'd learned the hard way. She didn't look like a baby-sitter.
She looked like trouble.
Created by Shawler Web Design, 2002
