Gritting her teeth, she finally managed to shove in the bag and settled in the aisle seat with Jamie.
“Excuse me.” Worth Lassiter eased past her to the window seat after easily tossing his small bag overhead.
“There are other vacant seats.”
He lifted an eyebrow in mocking response to her sharp comment, tipped his hat over his face and leaned back against his seat.
Elizabeth didn’t want him sitting beside her. She didn’t want him invading her space.
She didn’t want to be edgily aware of him.
Jamie let himself be coaxed into taking a bottle, then fell asleep. Elizabeth combed her son’s soft, downy hair with her fingers and told herself all she smelled was baby powder.
The subtle scent of masculine, woodsy soap could have come from any of the passengers.
She should have stayed in Nebraska.
She hated ranches. She hated horses.
The forty-minute flight took forever.
Her father was not at the airport to meet her.
Worth watched Elizabeth Randall from across the airport terminal at Aspen’s Sardy Field while passengers waited for their luggage. Russ claimed his daughter was completely self-reliant. Never asked for help. Wouldn’t need help. But Mary Lassiter had insisted any woman traveling with a baby could use it.
He should have listened to Russ.
Elizabeth Randall wasn’t self-reliant; she was bad-tempered, bullheaded, and obnoxiously independent.
Any rational woman traveling with a baby would welcome assistance.
However good his intentions, Elizabeth had obviously interpreted his unfortunate words in Denver as criticism and was determined to prove she could manage on her own. When they’d landed in Aspen, she’d been ready to start a tug-of-war over her carry-on luggage. As if a puny little thing like her could stop him from helping her.
Inside the terminal she’d stuck her pretty little nose in the air, making it clear she objected to his presence so he’d wandered off to greet a few acquaintances.
Darned stubborn woman. Nothing but skin and bones. The smallest breeze would blow her away. She’d refused anything to eat or drink on the plane. The kid was a handful, and her shoulders sagged under the combined weight of him and two bags. The only things holding her up were orneriness and a stubborn, excessive pride.
The afternoon sun shining into the terminal set the disordered strands of her red hair aflame. Hair like hers shouldn’t be ruthlessly pinned to the back of her head. It should be free and unrestrained, flying in the wind like the tail of a running horse.
Or spread over a man’s pillow.
Which was a heck of a thought to have about Russ’s daughter. And a widow to boot.
Compassion replaced his irritation. When a woman’s husband had been killed in a car accident the day they’d brought their newborn baby home from the hospital, she was entitled to a little bad temper. Anger was better than the pain and bewilderment he’d caught fleeting glimpses of in the depths of her eyes. Worth sensed that beneath her stubborn independence, Elizabeth Randall was a woman who’d been blindsided by fate and couldn’t understand why something so horrible had happened to her.
From across the terminal she glanced at him and hastily looked away when she saw him watching her. Worth leaned against the wall, folded his arms in front of his chest and waited for her luggage to be unloaded. He was in no hurry. Elizabeth Randall wasn’t going anywhere without him.
Where had he seen eyes that particular shade of olive green before? Worth swallowed a smile when the answer came to him. Emma Jean, his mother’s cat. When something set Emma Jean off, her eyes literally spit anger. A person could tame Emma Jean’s bristling fur. He doubted anything would tame Elizabeth Randall’s bristles.
A man could lose a limb trying.
She had haunted eyes. Set deep in soot-smudged sockets. She didn’t get enough sleep. Didn’t eat enough.
The baby wanted down, fussing and kicking. Every part of her body drooped with weariness, but she smiled at her son, cajoling the little boy into better spirits.
She had a beautiful, glowing smile.
A man could forgive a woman almost anything when she smiled like that.
The luggage appeared, but she made no move toward it. Worth straightened and walked toward her, relieved they weren’t going to fight yet another battle over her bags.
Elizabeth was watching the terminal doors, her face all lumpy as if she were trying not to cry.
Worth immediately berated his stupidity. She expected her father to meet her. Worth should have made the situation clear. Russ wasn’t coming, because Worth was driving her to the ranch.
Elizabeth concentrated on the countryside. She’d never been to Aspen. Hills, green with new grass, climbed from the highway to meet impossibly blue skies.
As blue as Worth Lassiter’s eyes.
He slouched lazily behind the wheel of the sport utility vehicle, but he wasn’t a careless driver.
Her husband had been an impatient driver, speeding between stoplights, weaving in and out of traffic, jamming on his brakes at the last second, swearing and honking at slower drivers. She’d worried his driving would be the death of them all, but it had been another driver’s carelessness which had ended Lawrence’s life.
Beside the road a picture-postcard river rushed around rocks and fishermen, tossing glittery spume into the air. They crossed a bridge where a large blue-and-white crested bird sat motionless on a wire over the river. If she opened her mouth to ask what the bird was, who knew what demons she’d set loose? Her entire body ached with tension. A tension heightened with the intolerable discovery that now, of all the stupid, inconvenient times, she was conscious of being a woman. And all too aware of the man across the car.
“Kingfisher.” Worth Lassiter had seen the direction of her gaze. “He’s been there almost every time I’ve driven by lately.”
Elizabeth knew she ought to respond. Ought to make polite conversation. She groped for something to say.
He spoke first. “Everyone’s looking forward to meeting you. They wanted to be at the ranch when you arrived, but Mom said they should let you recover from your flight before they mobbed you. We didn’t know you could handle them all with one hand and round up the horses with the other.”
Hearing sarcasm in the low, drawling voice, she immediately defended herself. “And I didn’t know you were one of those men who feels threatened by a woman who doesn’t swoon over your muscles.”
After a moment, he asked, “Did I mention I have three sisters?”
“Yes.”
“It’s like living with three stubborn, wrongheaded mules, but they couldn’t provoke me into a fight, and neither can you.”
“Why couldn’t they?”
He gave her a killer smile. “It was a whole lot more fun making them so darned mad because they couldn’t rile me. Cheyenne was the easiest. She’d practically chew the carpet.”
“Sibling rivalry. How charming.”
“No rivalry. Lassiters stick together,” he said in the voice of one stating an obvious, undisputed truth.
Jealousy stabbed at Elizabeth. Maybe if she’d had sisters, a brother, things would have been different.
What would it be like having a brother like Worth Lassiter? She studied