A Match Made in Texas- By Arlene James Page 0,4

cursory scrubbing. Nurse Chatam folded the towel and laid it atop the upholstered bench at the foot of the bed. The pillows she moved to one of a pair of window seats with gold-on-gold-striped upholstery, both of which overlooked the front of the house. Stephen followed her every movement with his wary gaze.

Petite and gentle, with big, dark brown eyes and thick, straight hair a shade somewhere between sandy brown and red, she was pretty in a painfully wholesome way. That put her a far cry from his usual type, beautiful and somewhat flamboyant. After all, if a guy was going to put up with all that female nonsense, Stephen figured that he ought to get something flashy out of it, something noticeable.

This Kaylie Chatam didn’t even appear to be wearing makeup, except perhaps mascara, as her lashes were much darker than her delicate brows, and a touch of rose-pink lipstick. He couldn’t help noticing, however, that the creamy skin of her slender oval face seemed almost luminous with good health. He noted that she shared with her aunts a high forehead and faintly cleft chin. That little dip in her almost pointy chin somehow called attention to the plump, rosy lips above, not to mention those enormous eyes. They were so dark they were almost black, startlingly so with her light hair. He wondered just how long her hair was and what she’d do if he managed to pluck the pins from that loose, heavy knot at the nape of her slender neck. More to distract himself from that line of thought than for any other reason, he broke the silence.

“Aaron explain about the press?”

“He said you’re hiding from them.”

“I’m not hiding!” Stephen frowned at the notion. “I’m keeping a low profile.”

“Ah.”

“It’s necessary,” he grumbled defensively, rubbing his right hand over his prickly jaw and chin and wishing he could shave. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“No, I guess not.”

Something about those softly spoken words irritated him, and he barked at her. “Your aunts swore they would protect my privacy, and I made a hefty contribution to some single parents’ charity to guarantee it.”

She gave him a look, the kind she might give a little boy who stretched the truth. It made his cheeks and throat heat. He mentally winced at the thought of the curse words that he’d spewed earlier.

“My aunts never swear,” she told him with the absolute authority of one who would know. “But if they said they would protect your privacy, then they will. And any donation you may have made to one of their charities has nothing to do with it. Trust me. They may have promised, but they didn’t swear.”

“What’s the difference?” he wanted to know, sounding grumpy even to his own ears.

“‘But I tell you,’” she quoted softly, “‘Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is His footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King.’”

Stephen gaped at her. Had she just quoted the Bible to him?

“It’s from Matthew, chapter five, verses thirty-four and thirty-five.”

She had quoted the Bible to him!

“So what are you,” he demanded, scowling, “some kind of religious nut?”

Folding her small, delicate hands, she regarded him serenely. “Yes, I suppose you could say that, if ‘religious nut’ is code for Christian.”

Realizing that he’d insulted her, he deepened his frown, muttering, “No offense.”

“None taken,” she replied lightly, smiling that smile again.

He had the distinct impression that she felt sorry for him and that it had nothing to do with his physical condition.

“Guess your aunts are religious, too?”

“Yes, of course.”

Disconcerted, he said nothing more on the subject, just lay there frowning at her. What on earth, he wondered sourly, had he gotten himself into now?

Aaron had touted Chatam House as a bona fide mansion, a posh throwback to an age of bygone opulence, owned and maintained by three dotty old maids with more money than sense, a trio of do-gooders so far out of the loop that they wouldn’t know a juicy news item if it bit them. He had seemed right on the money, going by yesterday’s brief impressions. In truth, Stephen had been so exhausted and in such pain from the nearly fifty-mile trip from the Dallas hospital down to the smaller city of Buffalo Creek in Aaron’s luxury sedan that he’d barely registered the old ladies’ names or faces. Before making the laborious climb up the curving staircase behind Chester, their balding butler, they had