Beckett's Convenient Bride by Dixie Browning Page A

First I need to make the sheriff believe me, and then I’ve got to figure out how to stay alive, and then there’s my grandparents.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. With a stricken look, she whispered, “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, the anniversary party!”
    â€œLucent as ever,” he said. “Good to know you haven’t lost your chain of thought.”
    â€œOh—bull!”
    â€œThat about sums it up,” he said, the grin fading.
    That two-day growth of beard had to be a fashion statement, Kit thought despairingly. On him, it was lethal.“All right, so now you know my story. Now it’s your turn. Why did you come looking for me?”
    â€œTo give you ten thousand dollars.”
    Her mouth fell open. She snapped it shut, glaring at him. “Right. And your name is Ed Thingamabob—you know who I mean. And you’re going to tell me I just won the sweepstakes, right?”
    He sighed as if he was running short of patience. “Look, it’s easy if you’ll just listen and not make any judgment until I’m finished. In case you hadn’t heard, your cousin Liza jumped to the wrong conclusion and Lance had one hell of a time trying to persuade her he was on the level.”
    The cousin thing again—she’d almost forgotten. There was obviously some connection between them, but cousinhood was not the relationship she’d have preferred, given a choice.
    Oh, and what would you prefer?
    Don’t ask, she thought, quelling a rush of something that felt dangerously like arousal.
    Lips clamped tightly together, she waited for him to continue.
    Sprawling in the chair, with one elbow propped on her table, he did. “Listen, at the moment I’ve got a lot on my mind. I don’t have time to hold you down and convince you.” Her imagination flared at the thought. “Just take my word for it, I owe you the money—maybe a lot more, but ten K is all I can scrape up without liquidating a few investments, and with the market on a downward spiral—”
    She hopped down off the stool and grabbed her head with both hands. “Stop! Just stop right there, I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but you don’t owe me anything! Cousin or not, I never even saw you before yesterday, so if you don’t mind, how about just moving on. My life at the moment is complicated enough without any—any slow-walking, smooth-talking stranger offering me candy. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.”
    He arched a dark brow at that, and she could have bitten her tongue. Speak first, think later—if ever. You’d think she would learn after awhile.
    The errant eyebrow settled back into place and he looked so discouraged she nearly gave in. That was the last thing she could afford to do. In less than twenty-four hours she had discovered a weakness she’d never even known she had.
    A weakness for blue-eyed men with square, grizzled jaws and twisty grins—with hard, lean bodies and a soft-spoken take-command attitude that rubbed her the wrong way and the right way, at the same time. It didn’t even make sense. She wasn’t about to allow anyone to take control of her life, no matter how appealing he was. She had good reason to know what happened when a woman gave up control, and it wasn’t going to happen to her, no way, no how.
    She opened her mouth to speak, but he beat her to it. “Listen, Kit, it’s not what you think. Just give me another minute, all right? Go back with me a few generations.”
    Gladly, a romantic, irresponsible element whispered.
    â€œYour great-great-grandfather—I think—lent some money to my great-great-grandfather. You with me so far?”
    Ignoring the whisper, she crossed her arms over her breasts and stared him down, daring him to convince her of anything.
    â€œMy grandfather—his name, in case it matters, was Lancelot Beckett—the first of