Free Frisco Joe's Fiancee by Tina Leonard Page A

shake.
    “Chopping logs?” Frisco asked.
    “Yep.” He took the towel that Delilah handed him with a wink and a smile of thanks for her thoughtfulness. “Delilah said it looked like that pile of wood out by the fence needed splitting and so I did it.”
    “You’ll be ready for a hearty breakfast,” Delilah said with approval. “I’m sure you’re starved.”
    “Starved for whatever you’re cooking.” He sent a nod Annabelle’s way. “No better way to get your blood moving in the morning than chopping logs in twenty-degree weather.”
    Frisco shot her a funny look. Annabelle wondered why he’d looked so odd. But then, he looked uncomfortable around her a lot. She stroked Emmie’s cheek and decided there was nothing she could do about a man who was kind one moment, and burr-tempered the next.
    “You didn’t have to split those logs,” Frisco said, his tone conveying his surprise.
    “Gotta earn my keep,” Jerry said. “At least that’s what Delilah said, and goodness knows, I’m trying hard to impress her.”
    Delilah blushed clear up her neck, Annabelle noted with a smile. She’d suspected that the beefy truck driver might have had his eye caught by Delilah, but she hadn’t imagined the interest might be two-sided. Delilah wouldn’t fall for a man who would always be on the road.
    Then again, opposites sometimes attracted, as she knew too well from falling for Tom. She’d been thinking hearth and home, and he’d clearly been thinking bed and back door.
    “What’s the sigh for?” Frisco asked, coming to sit across from her.
    “Did I sigh? I didn’t mean to.” She could barely meet his gaze when he looked at her like that, intense and focused as if her every emotion was of great importance to him.
    “You sighed. I know what a sigh sounds like. I just don’t know what it means. Are you feeling okay? Delilah mentioned you hadn’t been—”
    “I’m fine,” Annabelle insisted gently. “You have no need to worry about me.”
    He rubbed the back of his neck as he considered her words. Her stop sign clearly threw him, and he wasn’t certain how to proceed. But that was the problem: she wasn’t sure how to proceed around him, either. One minute, gentle, the next, prickly—she’d go crazy around a man like that.
    She didn’t want to think that his concern meant anything more than his sharper moments did.
    “You’re my guest. I do have to worry about you.”
    She shook her head at him. “Not much longer. I’ve called a taxi.”
    “A taxi!”
    “Sh!” She indicated that she didn’t want Delilah and Jerry involved in their conversation. Laredo and Tex had left the moment Jerry went over to talk with Delilah by the stove and deftly chop peppers for her.
    “Why did you call a taxi?” he demanded in a hushed but urgent tone.
    “Because I want to go home, of course.”
    “I’m not letting you go home in a taxi. I can drive you back myself.”
    “No need, thanks. They’ll have the outgoing roads sanded by now, I’m sure.” She shook her head at him, not wanting to feel her heart tremble at his concern for her. “Frisco, you held my baby all night, and I got the best night of sleep I’ve had in well over three months. I feel rested enough to go home and face my life.”
    “You mean the chicken-hearted weasel.”
    “What?”
    “Never mind.” He looked away, ran a hand through his hair, turned back to gaze at Emmie, then looked Annabelle in the eyes. “What about the vacation with the other women? The hunt for jobs?”
    She shrugged. “I’m being selfish. I’m being inconsiderate of Emmie. I thought that going with Delilah and all my friends would be a nice change, but I realized several things during the night.” Shynesscrept over her, but Frisco was listening intently, so she continued. “I can’t run away from my problems. It’s not fair to Emmie, when she could be home in her comfy crib.”
    “She slept on my comfy chest just fine, thank you. Didn’t you say that was