Free Mason's Marriage by Tina Leonard Page B

Mason Jefferson, father of Nanette Cannady Jefferson, owner of a ranch, brother to many misfits, and best friend to a little blonde who always gets me into trouble. I call her Mimi-jinx, but not to her face.”
    With a squeal of outrage, she tried to pull away again. Laughing, he held her more tightly.
    “Mason, let me go,” Mimi said, giving him the slip as she swam away. He let her go, watching her as she hauled herself up on the pier. Tempted to pull her back in, he decided to give her a little rope to run with.
    Glaring down at him, she said, “Don’t expect me to help you haul that canoe back in. Nor find the paddles. Though if I did, I’d bean you with one.”
    Grinning, he swam to shore, then sat on the dock to empty out his boots. “Come sit by me.”
    “No!”
    “We need to talk. Being contrary is all fine and good, but we need to get some things straight.”
    “I prefer to keep my distance. I can hear you just fine.”
    He shrugged. “No more custody talk. That’s silly.”
    “Silly? I’m not going to live in your house anymore. And you’re not taking my child away from me. That means we’re going to need legal advice and agreements to keep us both happy.” She wrung out her shirt and her hair. “To be honest, I thought it was generous of me to offer joint custody. I could ask for sole custody.”
    “Nah,” Mason said, deciding to strip off his socks, roll up his jeans and go barefoot. “The court wouldn’t grant you sole custody. You concealed my child from me all these years. Plus, I am the sheriff now, which would impress a judge,” he said, polishing his badge with a careless sleeve. “You insisted, you know, on the sheriff bit.”
    She digested that in silence. Mason could feel her worrying about the custody issue, and that wasn’t what he wanted. He could still taste her lips on his, and could remember the softness of her body as he’d held her. A hunger for her began to grow inside him, from a place he had long suppressed.
    “Mimi, we don’t need Brian. Not that I’m opposed to calling our favorite family legal beagle, but it’s best if we work this out ourselves.”
    “Mason, you took Nanette and moved her over here. You specifically said she belonged at the ranch.”
    “Yes, and you do, too. I’ve done the right thing and proposed in order to make an honorable woman of you—”
    She gasped. “Mason, I don’t need you to make me honorable. I am honorable.”
    “Then let’s make me honorable.”
    A sound like a sigh escaped her. “I’m moving back to my town house tonight. Decide what days you would like to have Nanette, be reasonable, and I’ll tell Brian to hold off on the paperwork.”
    A chill settled over Mason that had nothing to do with the swim and his wet jeans. Mimi wasn’t acting like the Mimi he knew. She had been a lot of things over the years, but he couldn’t remember her being cool to him. Mason stood. “I still think Nanette belongs on her family ranch.”
    “Well, I don’t, and I’m her mother.”
    “Proposal unaccepted.”
    “Of course!” Mimi stopped wringing things and put her hands on her hips. “I hate to tell you this, Mason Jefferson, but I’m not going to marry you justbecause I’ve had your child. I can think of no other circumstances under which I would want you less. ”
    He frowned. “Well, how the hell am I supposed to fix things, then?”
    “That’s the point, Mason,” Mimi said. “You can’t. ” Then she walked away.
     
    I T WAS HARD , OF COURSE . The hardest thing she’d probably ever do in her life was say no to Mason—about anything!—and then put a final wall of silence between them. But she’d loved him all her life, as a friend, as a man, and sometimes both. But he’d proved stubbornly resistant to loving her, and his proposal was not what her heart wanted to have him offer her because of Nanette.
    That was pretty much like saying, “I think I’ll eat because I’m hungry.” Not, “I think I’ll eat