Free Fannin's Flame by Tina Leonard Page B

know Frisco’s old bed had bed springs in it. I think you can call that a very bad sign indeed.”
    “I don’t think much housekeeping’s gonna get done around here,” Calhoun said.
    “I’m hungry,” Navarro stated.
    “Think the kitchen’s closed,” Archer pointed out.
    “Yep, I think the only one of us around here that’s going to be happy for a while is Fannin.”
    “Well, we did criticize his form with women,” Last said.
    “You’re not making me feel better.” Navarro got up and peered into the kitchen. “Anybody for toast?”
    “Hell, no. I’m not staying here listening to that.”
    Archer put his hat on. “I’m going into town to get a burger at Lampy’s.”
    His three brothers beat him to the door.
     
    “I WAS MAD ,” Kelly admitted, lying breathlessly on a bed in some room she’d never imagined she’d first view from her back. Something had happened between her and Fannin as she went upstairs—all the anger she was holding inside somehow uncorked when he grabbed her hand and kissed her. “I think I didn’t plan on having mad sex, though.”
    “Neither did I,” Fannin said. “I hope your mood swings are always so productive.”
    She tossed a pillow at him, which he ducked. “I like you,” he said. “You’re playful.”
    He was so confident, it was annoying. “You know, you don’t always get everything you want, Fannin Jefferson, just because you want it.”
    “I got you, didn’t I?” he said smugly.
    She tossed the last pillow at him, but he dodged it, laughing as he left the room. “Okay, now I’m really mad,” she said to herself. “Now I see that there are shades to anger that I never imagined.”
    Still, she had to admit that Fannin was an awesome lover. She’d liked being ambushed by him! No man had ever pursued her with Fannin’s focus, and therein lay his charm.
    However, he’d be more charming if he wasn’t such an ass, she thought, pulling her skirt down and fixing her hair. It had been so much fun to let herself go….
    But he was an ass, and there was nothing in him that could become marriage material. Maybe she really was a good girl having a fling before settling down.
    “It was fun, but that’s it,” she told Joy, who was napping in the window ledge, totally unconcerned with anything except her own sleep. “That’s the last time the cowboy ambushes me.” She wasn’t putting a lot of time into a man who had no heart, fired old ladies and was overcocky. He would always make her mad, and after her parents’ fiery relationship, she wanted something settled. Something secure.
    Something she’d never have with Fannin.
    She was not going to be his flame.
     
    F ANNIN FELT better than he ever had. He was going to get to keep Kelly for the next three days! And he wouldn’t even have to admit that he didn’t want her to go. That was in line with his brothers’ modus operandi—say little and make ’em wonder.
    He was happy Mimi felt better, but everybody was more comfortable with the new arrangements, he was certain. Mason had already carried Helga’s stuff over to Mimi’s, and Mimi was happily laid up in bed, lapping up Helga’s attention like a lazy cat.
    And he planned on having Kelly for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
    Three days. Then it was Christmas, and Kelly would return home. With Helga. Kelly had made it clear that this year her mother and she were spending Christmas together in their home. One last time, as Kelly told him, because after Christmas she plannedto tell her mother that she was going to Ireland for a very extended stay. It was time to live in her father’s house and experience life through the things he’d left her.
    Mason had been very understanding. By that time, Julia could have someone suitable sent over from the Honey-Do Agency to stay with Mimi until Helga returned. It was all going to work out so well.
    “You see,” Fannin told Bloodthirsty Black, “my brothers were obviously right. Storming. Conquering. That’s the