Free The Reluctant Lark by Iris Johansen

governess. When I realized that I might need help when you became ill, I sent out an SOS, and she left her teaching job in Houston and came running.”
    Sheena smiled shyly. “I’m sorry to be such a nuisance. Rand said you hated to cook sickroom meals.”
    Laura Bradford grimaced. “I hate to cook, period,” she said. “I eat most of my meals out when I’m in Houston. But you were no trouble. In fact, I was glad for something to do. Rand wouldn’t let anyone else near you.” She shot him a cross look. “For a high-powered tycoon, you don’t know much about delegating responsibilities.” She turned away and dished up a bowl of scrambled eggs and thrust the bowl at Challon. “You go sit down and get out of my way while I finish up,” she ordered briskly, as she turned back to the stove.
    “May I help you?” Sheena asked politely. “I’m afraid I haven’t had much practice in cooking, but I could do the donkey work.”
    The older woman shook her curly brown head firmly. “All we need is two inexperienced cooks in the kitchen. Tomorrow you’d probably be back in bed with a stomach ache, and I’d have
him
storming all over the place again.” She turned the bacon carefully. “Knowleton may bow out as his personal physician as it is. He wasn’t at all pleased with all that shouting and ranting.”
    To her surprise Sheena noted a guilty flush on Challon’s face. “I was worried,” he said belligerently, then took Sheena’s arm again. “We’d better do as she says, or the shrew will probably poison us.”
    It wasn’t until they were seated at the table before the fire and Challon had poured each of them a cup of coffee from the carafe on the sideboard, that he spoke again. “Laura isn’t as tough as she pretends. Though, at times she comes pretty close. She’s the most loyalindividual I’ve ever known, but you’ve got to take the tart with the sweet where Laura’s concerned.”
    Sheena stirred her coffee slowly, her eyes on the tall woman bustling briskly about the kitchen. “She doesn’t look like my idea of a nanny. She’s not exactly cozy, is she?”
    Challon shook his head. “No, she’s certainly not cozy. I wouldn’t have known what to do with your standard model nanny when I was a kid. She would have been as out of place at Crescent Creek as Mary Poppins.”
    “Crescent Creek?” Sheena asked. She vaguely remembered that Barbara O’Daniels had mentioned that as one of Challon’s assets.
    “It’s a ranch in the Rio Grande valley,” he explained casually, leaning back in his chair. “I was born and raised there. My father made Crescent Creek his headquarters until my mother died when I was three. After that, he spent most of his time in Houston and only came home periodically.”
    “He didn’t take you with him?” she asked, surprised.
    Challon shook his head, “My father was definitely not the paternal type,” he said dryly. “Not that I can blame him for not wanting to be saddled with me. I was a wild young hellion even then, and I didn’t improve much as I got older. I nearly drove Laura crazy until I went away to college. She said that going back to teaching was a rest cure after raising me.”
    Sheena could well imagine the challenge that the young Rand Challon had offered.
    “I’m surprised you didn’t try to persuade her to stay on in some other capacity,” Sheena said thoughtfully. It was clear that there existed a deep bond of affection between the two, and judging by her own experience with Challon’s autocratic possessiveness, it was inconceivable that he would let her go easily.
    He scowled. “I offered her everything from the position of housekeeper to a vice-presidency at Challon Oil, but she wouldn’t stay. She said she wouldn’t have a job created for her once she’d outlived her usefulness.”Evidently his failure to get his own way still rankled, for his lips tightened grimly. “Lord save me from an independent woman!”
    Sheena smothered a tiny