A Bride for Jackson Powers (Desire, 1273) Read Free Page B

you suppose I could find my way back here if I go wash up?” she asked, neatly tucking her napkin and cup into the grease-stained paper sack.
    “Leave a trail of bread crumbs.”
    “Does a wet teething biscuit qualify as bread crumbs?”
    He grinned, and she was struck all over again by what a remarkably attractive man he was. And to think that she, plain old Hetty Reynolds, was sharing time, space and conversation with him. You might even say she was having dinner with him.
    He told her to shift the wheelchair, slip through and then roll it back in place. “Take a right, go about fifty feet, cross to the other side and you’re there. Reverse the procedure on the way back.”
    “Easy for you to say,” Hetty retorted. She retrieved her purse and set out, dismissing the fear that she wouldn’t be able to find her way back through the mob. Or if she did, that the man and his baby would have moved on.
    Jax watched her go, weaving gracefully past outstretched limbs and heaps of luggage, stepping over a couple of teenagers sleeping on the floor. She even walked like a model, that subtle sway that hinted at feminine secrets under the loose, formless clothes.
    Not that he was any expert on fashion models. Forthe most part, the women in his life, at least since his days in the marine corps, were either lawyers or businesswomen. Even those who weren’t were no more interested in long-term involvement than he was.
    And he definitely wasn’t.
    Hetty. He couldn’t quite figure her out. One corner of one of her incisors was chipped. He found the small flaw strangely intriguing. She might act as if all this was new to her, but he could easily picture her with her head in the air, striding down a runway, her long, limp outfit flapping loosely in a way that subtly emphasized the feminine form underneath.
    Don’t even think about it, Powers. You’ve got trouble enough without looking for more.

Two
    H etty yawned. She’d fallen asleep, only to wake up with her head on Jax’s shoulder. “I’m really sorry,” she murmured. “Your arm must be aching. You should have wakened me.”
    “No problem.”
    She smoothed her skirt, pretending a nonchalance she was far from feeling. She’d been married for eleven years, for heaven’s sake. When it came to men, she wasn’t entirely without experience.
    Jax went back to the business section of yesterday’s New York Times. Sunny was making sucking noises in her sleep. Hetty, needing to do something to counteract her embarrassment, tucked the blanket around the small, chubby body, her hands lingering on the dimpled knees.
    “She’s awfully good-natured.”
    “Hmm?”
    “Sunny. Her diaper rash is better. As long as her bottom’s dry and her stomach’s full, she seems content just to watch the world go by.”
    “Let’s hope things get moving around here before we run out of food and diapers.”
    Rather pointedly, he went back to his newspaper, and Hetty frowned at her watch, then squinted at it to be sure the hands were still moving.
    They were. Nothing else was, at least not so far as travel was concerned. The same old mob, moving sluggishly now, if at all. Other than a few snores and a minor fracas now and then, they were quieter. Three rows away, an elderly man was demanding to see someone from security. His wife kept shushing him, telling him everything was going to be all right, that she’d checked their horoscope before they’d left home that morning.
    Hetty wondered what her own horoscope had said. Had it mentioned anything about meeting a tall, dark and handsome stranger? If it weren’t for Jax she might have been concerned by now, but outright panic was a luxury she’d never been able to afford.
    She hadn’t panicked back in those miserable days after her mother had died, when her father’s drinking had gone from bad to worse. Nor a few years later, when she could no longer convince herself that he was still grieving, that he truly loved her and that he regretted the