Instant Husband
Judith McWilliams
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#ud5c86298-39db-56ef-a703-391969dd9e6f)
Excerpt (#u32232a7c-318f-539a-ac7a-0e09e7413494)
Dear Reader (#u3f4e3005-9edb-588f-a3f2-1977c89f481f)
Title Page (#ue0e18c4e-a22c-5590-a884-d9bd82cd126c)
About the Author (#u23631867-c20f-5954-93b2-123b5fdfa68d)
Dear Reader (#uf2c67d70-939b-50b6-a370-df850e1c9df1)
One (#u87e4f678-03cd-5ac4-8294-6f539e904ef7)
Two (#uaba10661-6629-5eba-8ade-b8e2f10c04ad)
Three (#u143acdd5-de87-5df4-8fa4-385ee847e469)
Four (#litres_trial_promo)
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Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“It Isn’t That I Don’t Want To…”
Ann refused to say “have sex” because it sounded so impersonal. But equally she didn’t want to say “make love” for fear that he might think she expected more from him than he had to give. “It’s just that I don’t know you very well,” she continued. “And…that’s so personal.”
“Not necessarily.” Nick’s bitter tone shocked her. “How about if we leave it for the time being, and when you feel you know me well enough, you can tell me and we’ll take it from there.”
“Okay,” Ann said weakly, trying to imagine herself walking up to Nick and telling him that she wanted to go to bed with him…
Dear Reader,
It’s the CELEBRATION 1000 moment you’ve all been waiting for, the publication of Silhouette Desire #1000! As promised, it’s a very special MAN OF THE MONTH by Diana Palmer called Man of Ice. Diana was one of the very first Silhouette Desire writers, and her many wonderful contributions to the line have made her one of our most beloved authors. This story is sure to make its way to your shelf of “keepers.”
But that’s not all! Don’t miss Baby Dreams, the first book in a wonderful new series, THE BABY SHOWER, by Raye Morgan. Award-winning author Jennifer Greene also starts a new miniseries, THE STANFORD SISTERS, with the delightful The Unwilling Bride. For something a little different, take a peek at Joan Elliott Pickart’s Apache Dream Bride. And the fun keeps on coming with Judith McWilliams’s Instant Husband, the latest in THE WEDDING NIGHT series. Our Debut Author promotion introduces you to Amanda Kramer, author of the charmingly sexy Baby Bonus.
And you’ll be excited to know that there’s more CELEBRATION 1000 next month, as the party continues with six more scintillating love stories, including The Accidental Bodyguard, a MAN OF THE MONTH from Ann Major.
Silhouette Desire—the passion continues! Enjoy!
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
Instant Husband
Judith McWilliams
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
JUDITH McWILLIAMS
began to enjoy romances while in search of the proverbial “happily ever afters.” But she always found herself rewriting the endings, and eventually the beginnings, of the books she read. Then her husband finally suggested that she write novels of her own, and she’s been doing so ever since. An ex-teacher with four children, Judith has traveled the country extensively with her husband and has been greatly influenced by those experiences. But when not tending the garden or caring for family, Judith does what she enjoys most—writing. She has also written under the name Charlotte Hines.
Dear Reader,
My love affair with Silhouette Desire started with the very first one I picked up at the bookstore. Three pages and I was hooked. The characters were real people with real problems. Even better, they were basically nice people. People who cared about something other than satisfying their own libido. I hurried back to the bookstore and bought the rest of the month’s offering.
Adding the role of writer of Desire novels to that of reader was a natural progression. And one that has brought me a great deal of personal satisfaction, as well as pleasure, because I deeply believe in the concepts that Desire has come to represent. Concepts such as love, family, loyalty, self-reliance, initiative and optimism about the future.
Thus, when I discovered that I was to be part of Celebration 1000 I was extremely pleased.
The idea for Nick and Ann’s story came as the result of a conversation I had with an elderly gentleman in a small museum in rural Wyoming, which was dedicated to the early settlement of the area. After viewing an exhibit on mail-order brides of a century ago, I commented on the scarcity of women in frontier times. He snorted and replied that marriageable women weren’t any too plentiful these days, either. That he knew several ranchers who would love to have a wife but couldn’t find one who was willing to put up with the isolation.
Like most writers, I immediately began to think in terms of what if, and the answers led to Instant Husband. A story I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing it.
One (#ulink_866829a4-cb1b-5a38-8d06-d7c89147abb1)
What if he didn’t come? Ann Lennon’s nervous gaze swept over the fast-emptying waiting area for the tenth time in as many minutes. Her flight had been on time. What could have kept him? Surely Cheyenne, Wyoming, wasn’t big enough to have traffic jams. Not at eight o’clock at night. Suppose he’d changed his mind? Suppose…
Stop it! Ann made a valiant attempt to stem her rising sense of panic. This was not the time to begin second-guessing her painful decision. Not two thousand miles from home. No, from her former home, she grimly reminded herself. The stately old brownstone where she’d grown up was gone. Gone along with everything else. Ann swallowed against the bitter taste of defeat that had dogged her for months.
Taking a deep breath, she focused on a dark stain on the gray tile near her left foot and slowly exhaled to the count of ten. New York City and Bill are the past. Wyoming and Nick St. Hilarion are the future.
At least he would be if he ever arrived. Ann watched with a growing sense of numbness as the last passenger off her flight was met, leaving her sitting alone. So alone. She shivered as the silence reached oppressive proportions. Everyone seemed to be elsewhere.
Which was where she wished she was. Elsewhere. Anywhere else than sitting on a hard, gray plastic chair waiting to see if the man she’d flown across the country to marry had decided to reject his mail-order bride sight unseen.
Or maybe he had seen her? The appalling thought suddenly occurred to her. Maybe he’d been waiting in the crowd when she’d arrived Maybe he’d taken one look at her and decided she’d never make a good ranch wife. Ann tucked a wayward strand of her golden-brown hair behind her right ear with fingers that shook. Maybe he’d instantly realized that she was a sham as a woman. Something it had taken her exhusband over a year to figure out. An icy chill feathered over her, tightening her skin and blurring her vision.
Ann hastily swallowed the hysterical giggle that bubbled up in her throat as visions of herself growing old and decrepit as she sat waiting for a groom who never came filled her mind.
Think. Don’t react, think. She repeated the word like a mantra. She had the phone number of his ranch. She latched onto that solid fact. She would wait another fifteen minutes, then call and leave a message that she’d checked into a motel. Just fifteen minutes more. Her slight body sagged against the hard chair.
Nick St. Hilarion shot into the closest parking space to the airport terminal he could find, cut the engine of his pickup truck and jumped out. He shoved his fingers through his short blond hair in frustration as he headed toward the nearest entrance at a brisk walk. Of all the times to be held up by an accident on the interstate!
He hurriedly located a flight-arrival screen to find the gate for her flight, then headed toward Gate F, his long legs quickly covering the distance. She was probably furious at not having been met. Bitter experience had taught him that women expected to have their every whim catered to. And being left stranded in an airport in a strange city would undoubtedly infuriate her. Suppose she hadn’t waited for him? Suppose she’d caught the first flight out?
Nick felt a curious blend of fear and hope surge through him. He wasn’t sure if that was what he wanted or not. But he was positive about one thing—that his cousin Maggie was right. He definitely needed a wife to help him deal with the unexpected arrival of his thirteen-year-old daughter into his life. But was Maggie also right when she claimed that her friend, Ann Lennon, was just the wife he needed?
Nick grimaced. He didn’t know, but if he turned down Maggie’s choice of bride for him, he held very little hope of finding a substitute on his own. He didn’t even know where to start looking. The area around his ranch wasn’t exactly teeming with matrimonial prospects.
In fact, other than a few giggly teenagers who made him feel ninety years old, the only unmarried woman that he personally knew was the sixty-year-old widowed sister-in-law of Clem who ran the feed store. He either accepted Maggie’s mail-order bride or he coped with his daughter on his own.
A shudder coursed through him at the thought of all the pitfalls lying in wait for the parents of adolescents these days. According to what he’d read, he was going to have to deal with sexual promiscuity, drug experimentation, rebellion against authority and a host of other problems. And while he hoped that it wouldn’t be that bad, in the back of his mind was the corroding fear that his daughter had taken after his ex-wife. If that were true…
Unconsciously Nick squared his shoulders. It didn’t matter what Ginny’s problems were. She was his daughter, too, and now that Mona had so suddenly decided that she didn’t want a living reminder of a former marriage cluttering up her new marriage, he wasn’t about to abandon the child to a boarding school the way his own mother had done to him. He’d do whatever it took to provide a home for Ginny, and common sense told him that the first step was to acquire a wife to help him.
His pace instinctively quickened as he saw the gate he was looking for halfway down the corridor.
Ann leaned forward slightly as she caught sight of someone moving toward her. She squinted, trying to get a better look. It was a man! Could this be her intended groom at last? She frowned uncertainly. Maggie hadn’t been able to find a current picture of her cousin, but she had mentioned that his father was Greek. Which probably meant that Nick was short and dark.
Which this man most definitely wasn’t, Ann realized as he got close enough for her to get a good look at him. He was at least three inches over six feet and built to match. Her eyes measured the breadth of his shoulders encased in his brown leather flight jacket. Impressive. Very impressive. He looked like a Hollywood representation of a cowboy hero. Emphatically masculine, sexy as the devil and totally outside her league, she instinctively rejected the brief flair of interest she’d felt.
Ann froze as his gaze swept the deserted area and came to rest on her. His brilliant blue eyes narrowed as he studied her. Unconsciously, she smoothed the jacket of her impeccably tailored brown tweed suit. To her surprise, he walked over to her.
“Ann Lennon?” The sound of his deep voice rolled through her mind and landed in the pit of her churning stomach.
Doubtfully, Ann stared at him. How did this stranger know her name? He couldn’t be Maggie’s cousin. He didn’t look like any Greek she’d ever seen. Nor could she see any family resemblance to Maggie. Maybe he worked for Nick. Maybe Nick had been unable to get away and had sent someone to pick her up—like a stray package.
Ann firmly squelched her irritation and got to her feet. This wasn’t the time to be hypersensitive, she told herself. If she were going to make a success of this unconventional marriage, she would have to develop a thick skin.
“Yes. I’m Ann Lennon.” She held out her hand, using the social amenities as a shield in this unreal situation. “And you are?”
Ann watched in fascination as the corners of his firm mouth lifted in what was either a pained smile or a grimace.
“I’m your intended, Nick St. Hilarion.”
Ann’s hazel eyes widened incredulously as his unexpected words echoed through her disbelieving mind. This was Maggie’s cousin! He couldn’t be. This had to be some kind of weird joke. Men who looked like this man didn’t have to resort to having their cousins find them wives. They’d be beating prospective candidates off with a stick.
But…Maggie had gone into great detail about his disastrous first marriage. Maybe Nick didn’t trust his own judgment anymore, either. It was possible. She noticed the rigid cast of his features for the first time. Maybe he felt as embarrassed and uncertain as she did.
She glanced down at her hand, which she was still holding out. Nick followed her gaze and muttered something that she didn’t quite catch before he grabbed it.
Ann’s breath caught in her lungs as she felt his warm fingers close around hers. Heat seemed to pour off him, seeping into her chilled flesh, making it tingle. She swallowed uneasily at her reaction. It was the weirdness of the situation, she assured herself. After all, it wasn’t every day that she flew across the country to marry a stranger. She was certainly allowed a few aberrations from her normal behavior.
“I…” Ann winced at the uncertain note in her voice. Firming it, she forged ahead, trying desperately to sound more assured than she felt. “I’m glad to meet you,” she muttered, feeling like a gauche fool. “Very glad,” she amended, and her words were sucked up into the oppressive silence that seemed to enclose them in their own little world.
Now what? Ann scrambled for something to say. Should she suggest that they leave for the ranch or would that sound pushy? Could his silence mean that he was having second thoughts about marrying her now that he’d met her? The devastating thought shook her fragile self-confidence. Maybe his taste in women ran along the lines of her exhusband. And Bill had most definitely found her lacking in feminine charms.
But Nick wasn’t marrying her for love, she told herself to stem her escalating fears. Nick was marrying her to obtain a mother for his daughter and to keep house for him.
Ann turned to pick up her brown leather purse from the seat beside her. Unfortunately, she forgot she’d set her suitcase at her feet. She tripped over it and pitched forward.
Straight into Nick’s arms. It was like landing against a warm rock wall, she thought in confusion. There was no give to him anywhere. Ann shivered as the faint tang of his cologne drifted into her nostrils, further muddling her thoughts. Instinctively, she jerked back, hit the backs of her legs on the hard edge of the chair and plopped into the seat.
What a time for her to turn klutzy, she thought in despair. If he had been harboring doubts about her as a wife, her behavior certainly wasn’t going to reassure him.
To her relief, Nick ignored her clumsiness. Reaching down, he picked up her heavy suitcase with an ease that she could only envy.
“Do you have any other luggage?”
Ann shook her head. “I expressed the rest of it out last week.”
“I know. It arrived yesterday. We’ve got a two-hour drive to the ranch. We’d better get started.”
Ann trotted along beside him, telling herself that the relief she felt at not being sent home was because she was too tired to face another plane trip so soon. Furtively, she studied him out of the corner of her eye as they made their way out of the terminal and into the icy spring air, wondering what he was thinking.
She hadn’t really thought of him as a distinct personality before. Not really. She’d been so busy trying to pick up the pieces of her own shattered life after her acrimonious divorce that she’d only seen Nick St. Hilarion as a means to an end. As a solution to her problem of how to parlay her love of homemaking into a viable career that could support her in her near-penniless state.
But now that she’d actually met him, the fact was suddenly driven home to her that Nick had thoughts and hopes and fears just like she did. But what were they? Her eyes lingered on the bunched muscles of his jaw. And did she have the right to try to find out? A sudden doubt shook her. They had a deal, she and this totally unexpected man. And it didn’t include delving into each other’s secrets.
She shivered as a particularly nasty gust of wind slithered down her neck as if in warning. She most assuredly didn’t want Nick poking into the ruins of her first marriage.
But there was a lot of ground between prying into his past and getting to know him in the here and now, she rationalized, feeling the first real spark of anticipation she’d felt in almost six months. The future that had seemed so dreary just hours before suddenly held a glimmer of hope. Who knew what might come of this unorthodox marriage of theirs? Mail-order brides were a part of Western tradition and most of the marriages had turned out just fine. There was no reason to assume that hers wouldn’t fare as well.
Holding on to that encouraging thought, Ann climbed into the cab of the pickup Nick unlocked and looked around curiously. Utilitarian, she categorized its barren interior. Nick certainly didn’t believe in pampering himself with luxury. Or couldn’t afford to, it occurred to her as she pulled her seat belt out of the crack in the seat.
Ann absently fastened it as Nick backed the truck out of the parking space. Maggie had said that his first wife had married him for his money and then proceeded to spend it like water. Could her extravagances have left him broke? Or at best, land rich but cash poor? It was certainly possible. She of all people knew what could happen when an unscrupulous spouse was given uncontrolled access to funds.
The familiar sense of defeat pressed down on her, but she made a valiant effort to shake it. It didn’t matter what kind of fool she’d been in the past, she told herself. She’d learned her lesson. She was no longer a young, impressionable woman who was expecting hearts, flowers and wild flights of passion from marriage. Now she was a mature thirty-three-year-old who had learned that it took a whole lot more to make a success of marriage than being in love. In fact, from what she’d seen, being in love was a distinct disadvantage. She’d been madly in love with Bill, and what had happened? She’d viewed him through rose-colored glasses, seeing him as she wanted him to be and not as he was. While she’d been dreaming about the future, he’d been busily running through her inheritance.
Ann shifted restlessly. In retrospect, she couldn’t believe that she had been so stupidly trusting. But never again. She’d paid a high price, but at least she’d learned. This time she was using her head. This time she intended to build a comfortable relationship with Nick based on mutual need and shared interests. And if there were no soaring heights of passion in this marriage, at least there wouldn’t be any depths of despair, either.
She glanced at Nick, who was little more than a shadow in the dim light reflected off the dashboard. Far more than the distance of a few feet seemed to separate them. Nervously, Ann chewed on her lip. He seemed so remote. So unreachable. But she didn’t need to reach him, she reminded herself. Nick was marrying her to get a mother for his daughter and a housekeeper for himself. Nothing had been said about his wanting a sexual partner. Surely if that aspect of marriage had been important to him, he would have at least alluded to it before this. But he hadn’t. Sex obviously wasn’t that important to Nick. So it wouldn’t matter to him that she was a total flop in that area.
“Is your daughter at the ranch?” Ann asked, using words to try to bridge the gulf between them.
“No, Ginny won’t be arriving for another six weeks. She’s going to finish the semester at her old school first.”
“Oh,” Ann muttered, hoping her sense of relief wasn’t obvious. This way she’d have a chance to work out some kind of relationship with Nick before she had to deal with his daughter.
“What’s your ranch like?” Ann persisted when he made no attempt to introduce a subject for discussion.
“Big. And isolated.”
His words echoed through the cab like a challenge, but Ann didn’t know why. Maybe she was imagining things. She could be projecting her own doubts and fears onto him. He could simply be a taciturn man. She leaned her head back against the seat, trying to think of a conversational gambit that would fill a few miles, but instead promptly fell asleep.
Two hours later Nick looked over at her as he turned off the highway and onto the dirt road leading to his ranch. She was still sound asleep. Or pretending to be for reasons of her own, he thought cynically. Women were masters at deception.
He stopped in front of the rickety front porch of his house and cut the engine. Getting out, he walked around the cab and opened the door, giving Ann a tentative shake. She muttered something unintelligible but didn’t wake up.
“What’s the matter with her?”
Nick jumped as his hired hand suddenly rose up out of one of the chairs at the end of the porch.
“What are you doing sitting out here at this time of night, Snake?”
“Waitin’ ta see if’n ya really went through with it. It’s a sorry day when ya bring a female onto the place.” Snake shook his head mournfully. “Wimmin’s bad luck. Always has been, always will be.”
“But good cooks,” Nick said. “Look on the bright side. Maybe I’ll get a decent meal out of it.”
“Tain’t worth it. And if’n she ain’t damaged, why don’t she move?”
“She’s probably tired. And she’s not the only one. It’s been a long day. Open the front door, will you?”
Nick reached into the cab and picked Ann up in his arms. The sooner he got her into bed, the sooner he could seek his own.
Frowning, he adjusted her slight weight in his arms as he crossed the yard. She was too light. Far too light. And far too disconcerting, he admitted as a faint whiff of the perfume she was wearing drifted into his lungs. His frown deepened as he felt his body harden in response. He wanted to tighten his hold and pull her closer. To press his lips to hers. To…
“The sheriff called while ya was gone. Said fer ya ta call him when ya got back. Says it’s important. Says a couple calves has gone missin’ from Hector Menendez’s ranch.”
Nick paused in the open door and forced himself to concentrate on what Snake was saying, instead of on how Ann felt. “Wolves?”
Snake spit tobacco juice over the edge of the porch and said, “Two legged kind, more like.”
Damn! Nick thought. Just what he needed on top of everything else. Cattle rustlers. “Thanks, Snake. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Snake didn’t bother to answer. He merely stomped off to his own trailer behind the stables, muttering audibly about the cupidity of women and the gullibility of men.
He wasn’t gullible, Nick reflected, mentally refuting Snake’s words as he climbed the narrow stairway to the second floor. Not anymore. Now he knew all the pitfalls waiting to entrap an unwary man in a relationship. And knowing them, he could avoid them, he assured himself. Ann would not find him the easy mark Mona had. This time he would be the one calling the shots, and he would be able to do it because he wasn’t blinded by love.
He carefully shouldered open the door to the bedroom where he’d decided to put Ann. Gently lowering her onto the narrow bed, he stared down at her sleep-flushed face. For a moment he was filled with a desire to carry her downstairs to his own bed. To assert his masculinity in the most basic of ways. But he ruthlessly squelched the urge. He’d already decided that his best hope for remaining undamaged by this marriage would be to maintain an emotional and physical distance from her. But what he hadn’t counted on when he’d made his plans was that Ann Lennon would be quite so tempting a physical package. Although, maybe her appeal would fade upon closer acquaintance, he encouraged himself as he pulled a blanket around her and then hastily retreated to the safety of his own room.
* * *
“Ann? Ann!”
The irritating sound nibbled at the edge of her consciousness, and Ann rolled over, wincing slightly at the unyielding hardness of the lumpy mattress.
“Ann!” The voice demanded with all the persistence of a dentist’s drill.
She burrowed beneath her thin pillow in a vain attempt to shut out the hectoring sound.
“Are you awake?” the deep voice sounded closer.
Ann forced open her eyes and stared blankly at the door. Its dark green paint had peeled away in places to reveal the dingy brown color beneath. She frowned, trying to place it and failed. Where was she? Her gaze swung around the barren room, which was dimly lit by the sunlight filtering in through the ripped shade partially covering the window.
“Ann, wake up!”
Nick! Ann jackknifed up as memory suddenly poured through her.
“I’m awake,” she yelled, not wanting Nick to come in and see her all rumpled from having spent the night in her clothes. To her dismay, Nick pushed open the door, although he didn’t come inside. Instead, he gestured toward the other side of the room.
“Those are the boxes you sent,” he said.
“Thank you.” Uncertainly, Ann stared at him. If anything, he looked even more intensely masculine in broad daylight than he had last night. Well-worn jeans lovingly molded his muscular thighs, and a long-sleeve, dark green cotton shirt covered his broad chest. Her eyes met his, and her breath caught at the seething emotion she could see there. Probably not excitement at seeing her, she thought ruefully. Far more likely, it was impatience.
She swallowed an enormous yawn and pushed her tumbled hair out of her face.
“What time is it?” Her voice was husky with sleep.
“Six o’clock. I let you sleep late because you seemed so tired last night.”
“Late!” she repeated incredulously. As far as she was concerned, the day started at seven. Any time before that was merely an unsubstantiated rumor.
“We normally get up at five-thirty. There’s a lot of chores to do on a working ranch.”
Ann opened her mouth to tell him what she thought of working ranches and then promptly closed it, reminding herself that she’d agreed to this. Just because she’d never gotten up in the middle of the night before, it didn’t mean that she couldn’t become accustomed to it in time. Of course, in time she’d die of old age and it wouldn’t matter, she thought gloomily.
“Farm wives fix their husbands’ breakfast,” Nick added with what Ann thought was an appalling smugness.
“Lovely,” she mumbled.
“Although, because this is your first day, I’ll fix breakfast while you get ready. The judge said he’d be at home all morning, so after I take care of the stock, we’ll drive into town and get married.”
Ann gulped as his news hit her with the force of a blow. They were going to get married today? This morning? Blind panic churned through her. Panic that she tried hard to quell, knowing that it was irrational. She’d come out here to marry him, so what was the point of waiting?
“Is that going to be a problem?” Nick’s voice hardened.
Ann stared up into his narrowed eyes, wondering what he wanted her to say. His tone of voice was almost…hostile. Could he want her to say no? Say she’d changed her mind and didn’t want to marry him after all? Or could he be afraid that she had changed her mind and he wouldn’t have anyone to help him with his daughter? She didn’t know him well enough to even hazard a reasonable guess. And that being so, she’d be wise to respond to what he was saying and not what she thought he might mean, she told herself.
Ann took a deep breath and, feeling as if she were taking an irrevocable step into the unknown, said, “No, it’s not a problem. I’m just not awake yet. If you could tell me where the bathroom is?”
“First door to the right at the foot of the stairs. Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes.” He abruptly turned and left.
Ann listened to the sound of his footsteps receding on the bare wooden steps before she flung back the covers and climbed out of bed. She gasped as the room’s icy air pounced on her unsuspecting body and began to freeze her top layer of skin.
If it was this cold in April, what was it like in January? she wondered uneasily. Briskly rubbing her hands over her arms, she looked around for a furnace register to warm herself. She didn’t find one. In fact, she didn’t find much of anything. The only furniture the small room contained was the narrow bed she’d slept on and a huge, battered mahogany chest of drawers that was so ugly it was almost avant-garde. Almost.
The single narrow window was covered with a flyspecked green blind that was ripped along the bottom, while a truly hideous pink cabbage-rose-print wallpaper desecrated the walls. From the look of the water stains beneath the window, the paper had probably been there since the Depression. But the decorating coup de grace, as far as Ann was concerned, was the oversize picture hanging above the bed. It depicted a soul writhing in torment in the fires of Hell.
It had probably been painted by a farm wife who had gotten up at five-thirty one too many times, Ann thought tartly. Whoever had decorated this room had obviously been heavily into self-denial, if not outright masochism.
Although…Ann frowned. Why hadn’t Nick’s first wife redecorated? Because she hadn’t slept here? For that matter, where had Nick slept? Certainly not here. She felt a momentary frisson of regret that she quickly stifled. Where Nick slept was his own business. All she needed to know was that her original supposition about his lack of interest in sex was correct. He obviously didn’t intend to share his bed with her or he would have taken her there in the first place.
Which was one less thing to have to worry about, she told herself as she rummaged through her suitcase to find clean clothes.
Fifteen minutes later Ann emerged from the bathroom with a whole new appreciation for the wonders of modern plumbing. The only positive thing she could find to say about the facilities was that everything worked. At least, they worked as long as one wasn’t too fussy about things like hot water, adequate pressure and much heat.
She followed the smell of coffee down a dark, narrow hallway filled with an underlying odor of mildew. Emerging into the bright, sunshiny kitchen, she instinctively headed toward the coffeepot.
She filled one of the thick mugs sitting on the counter, added sugar with a liberal hand and took a long, reviving swallow.
“The coffee is very good,” she complimented Nick’s back, which was the only part of him that was visible. He was standing over an old stove stirring something in a frying pan.
“Thank you,” he tossed over his shoulder, then lapsed into silence.
Ann took another drink of coffee and looked around the kitchen, barely suppressing a shudder at what she saw. The ceiling was painted a brilliant Chinese red, while the walls were a malevolent shade of acid yellow. The ancient metal cupboard leaning drunkenly against the wall was dented, scratched and rusted around the bottom. The chipped white enamel sink was discolored by dark brown stains, and the cloth skirt someone had hung beneath it to hide the pipes had long since faded to a nondescript gray. The linoleum had not only lost its pattern but it was completely worn away in front of the sink and back door.
In fact, the only thing in the whole room she approved of was the round oak table underneath the window. It was gorgeous. Worthy of a serious collector. She sat down at it and ran her hand over its worn surface. Maybe she could try her hand at refinishing it.
“What’s the matter?” Nick set a heaping plate in front of her and sat down across from her with his own.
“Nothing. I was just—” She broke off as she noticed what was on her plate.
“Did I give you too much?” Nick asked.
“It isn’t how much you gave me, it’s what you gave me.”
“Just what I’m eating.”
“Every morning?”
Nick frowned uncomprehendingly at her “Breakfast is not a one-time affair. Most people indulge every morning.”
“Well, if you continue to indulge like this, you aren’t going to have all that many more breakfasts. You’ll drop dead of a heart attack. Look at this.” She gestured toward the thick white plate.
Nick looked. “Scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon and toast fried in the pan drippings. Lots of protein.”
“Lots of cholesterol,” Ann said firmly. She might not know much about how to make a success of marriage, but she did know about nutrition—a subject about which Nick seemed woefully and dangerously ignorant. “You’ve probably got a whole week’s allowance of fat here. It—”
She turned as the back door suddenly opened and a whipcord thin man of indeterminate age stalked in. He was wearing worn jeans, a faded denim jacket and boots heavily encrusted with a suspicious brown substance.
“One of them fancy purebreds of yours done dropped her calf early. They’s out in the far west pasture and the little critter don’t look none too good neither.”
“Dammit!” Nick got to his feet. “Ann, this is Snake, my right-hand man.”
“I’m glad to meet you,” Ann politely held out her hand. To her surprise, Snake merely stared at her as if she’d just made an indecent gesture.
Finally he shifted a large wad of what Ann feared was tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other and said, “Ya might as well know, I don’t hold with wimmin. They’s trouble. Every man jack of ’em.”
Ann swallowed a grin at his choice of metaphors. “I take it you’re a misogynist?” she said for lack of anything else to say.
“Ain’t neither!” he snapped. “Baptized a Methodist fifty-seven years ago and ain’t never seen no reason ta change.”
Snake turned to Nick. “Ya comin’? This ain’t no time ta be daudlin’.”
“I’m coming.” Nick grabbed a piece of toast and followed Snake out. He paused at the door and turned back to Ann. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, and we’ll go get married.”
“This is my world and welcome to it,” Ann muttered, watching through the window as Nick crossed the bare ground between the house and the barn.
Pushing the offending plate of food away from her, she reached for her coffee. At least her life here wasn’t going to be dull. She grinned as she remembered Snake’s outraged face when she’d called him a misogynist.
In fact, there was a great deal of scope for her here, she thought, bolstering her sagging resolve. The whole house was in desperate need of renovation and so was Nick’s diet. Those were things she could do. Maybe if she focused on what she could do, Nick wouldn’t notice what she couldn’t do.
Two (#ulink_5fe02494-7331-57c8-8f41-de44d84b8d66)
Ann jumped as the pencil she held clenched in her fingers suddenly snapped with a loud crack that echoed through the silent kitchen. Blankly, she stared down at the pieces for a startled moment and then impatiently shoved them aside.
Relax, she ordered her tense muscles, but her muscles didn’t respond. She felt as if she’d been wound too tightly. As if she might shatter into pieces like the pencil at any second. Her disconnected thoughts seemed to scurry around her mind like mice on a treadmill, going nowhere and solving nothing.
What was she doing here? She looked around the dilapidated kitchen with a sense of unreality. This wasn’t her environment. She’d spent her whole life in New York City. She didn’t know anything about the West or ranching. Or men like Nick St. Hilarion. She must have been crazy to have thought that she could make this work. Mail-order brides were a thing of the past. They had no place in modern society.
Ann shot to her feet, propelled by her fears, which had been steadily growing ever since Nick had left. She had to get out of here before it was too late. Before she made a terrible mistake. She had to—
“Nick said ta tell ya he’s almost done within the stock.”
“Done with the stock?” Ann parroted, taken off guard by Snake’s sudden appearance at the back door.
“That’s what I said. Nick said ta be ready ta go get hitched,” Snake said belligerently.
“But…” Ann began, only to find herself talking to empty air.
“And that’s another thing,” she muttered as honest indignation began to nudge aside her corroding fears. “That refugee from a bad spaghetti Western treats me like I had a highly contagious disease.” She grimaced as she heard the peevish note in her voice. What did it matter if she couldn’t get along with Snake? What mattered was whether or not she could get along with Snake’s boss.
Ann walked over to the window and stared outside into the blinding sunlight as she tried to think. Her reasons for accepting Nick hadn’t changed. She would be getting a career that appealed to her and one that she had a definite talent for—homemaking—and, hopefully, she would find companionship with Nick. A sense of belonging.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, she willed her racing heart to slow down. If her reasons for marrying Nick hadn’t changed, then why was she indulging in hysterical doubts? She tried to follow her chaotic emotions through to their inception. It wasn’t the state of his house, appalling as it was. Nor was it his surly hired hand. The cause of her uncertainty was Nick himself. She squarely faced this fact. He was not at all what she had expected.
Instead of a quiet, retiring specimen of manhood, she had found someone who looked like the embodiment of an adolescent romantic fantasy. What was worse, it was a romantic fantasy that touched something deep inside her. Something she hadn’t even been aware had existed. And that was on their first meeting. What would she feel like after a few weeks?
She didn’t know. Possibly her initial attraction would fade beneath the demands of daily living. Or it might mellow out into something more comfortable.
And Nick had no idea how he’d impacted on her emotions, she mused, soothing her frayed nerves. Nor was she some overeager adolescent who couldn’t control her own reactions. If she didn’t act on her impulses, they’d remain just thoughts, known only to her.
Ann pressed her lips together in unconscious determination. There were no guarantees, but she had a decent shot at making this marriage work. Mainly because Nick was as committed to its success as she was. She took a deep, calming breath. She’d marry Nick and she’d build a solid relationship that would be a comfort to both of them, she vowed as she headed upstairs to change into the cream wool suit she’d bought because it had looked vaguely bridal without being fussy.
To her surprise and slight hurt, when she came back downstairs she found that Nick hadn’t bothered to change. Telling herself that their marriage wouldn’t be any more valid if he were wearing a suit, Ann climbed into the cab of the truck.
Her sense of purpose held through the trip to town despite Nick’s monosyllabic answers to her few tentative stabs at conversation. Knowing that he was probably worried about the cow who had had the calf early, she refused to allow her sense of unease to grow. If Nick had changed his mind about marrying her, all he had to do was say so-much as Snake was doing in the jump seat of the truck, Ann thought wryly as she listened to his mutters about one more good man biting the dust.
“If you feel that way, why are you coming to the wedding?” Ann finally asked.
“I’s hopin’ he’ll change his mind,” Snake shot back.
“I’m not going to change my mind, Snake.” Nick’s voice sounded loud and overly emphatic in the close confines of the truck. Who was he trying so hard to convince? Ann wondered. Her? Snake? Or maybe himself?
“Jake’s Market is down that street.” Nick pointed to his left as they entered the tiny town. “He delivers. Just call and tell him what you want.”
A large dose of self-confidence would be nice, Ann thought ruefully.
“Aren’t we going to the courthouse?” she asked as they passed the red brick building with its identifying sign in front.
“Should be,” Snake muttered. “Marriage should be a crime.”
“No.” Nick ignored Snake, and Ann gamely followed his lead, although her growing impulse was to say something rude. Very rude. “Judge Adams is recovering from a heart attack, and he’s at home so his wife can keep an eye on him.”
Nick pulled up in front of a neat, two-story white clapboard house and cut the engine.
“This is it,” Nick said baldly.
“The end of the line,” Snake agreed somberly.
“Change is the essence of the human condition,” Ann offered, as much to encourage herself as to rebuke Snake. Scrambling out of the car, she nervously brushed the front of her suit, checking to make sure it was still spotless. She took a deep breath, clutched her best Italian leather purse in her icy fingers and fell into step beside Nick as he mounted the porch steps.
Nick paused at the top and turned to look for Snake. He was standing by the car, drinking from a flask he’d pulled out of his back pocket.
“Need a snootful of whiskey ta face up ta this,” Snake muttered at Nick’s raised eyebrows.
Ann squashed an impulse to ask for a swallow herself and turned to Nick. “Doesn’t it take two witnesses?”
“Mabel, the judge’s wife, offered to be our second witness,” Nick said as he rung the doorbell.
The door opened before the sound of the chimes had died away to reveal a short, plump, elderly woman who took one look at them and burst into noisy tears.
Nick instinctively stepped back and glanced over his shoulder as if checking his escape route.
“Have we come at a bad time?” Ann asked uncertainly.
“No, no.” The woman beamed at them through her tears. “I always cry at weddings. I just love romance. By the way, I’m Mabel. The judge’s better half.”
“Glad to meet you,” Ann murmured, leaving the woman to her illusions. There wasn’t much romance to be found in this particular wedding.
“Come in, come in.” Mabel made a shooing motion into the house. “You, too,” she called to Snake, who was still standing by the car. “And wipe the barnyard off your boots and keep your stupid ideas to yourself,” Mabel ordered as Snake slowly climbed the porch steps. “This is my house, and I’ll not be listening to your antifeminism.
“You want to put him in his place from the start,” Mabel whispered in an audible aside to Ann. “Snake’s like most men, only worse. Come on now. The judge is waiting in the study, although I should warn you that there’s been a slight hitch.”
“Oh?” Ann asked when Nick didn’t respond.
“The poor man set his glasses down when he was through reading the paper this morning, and he’s blind as a bat without them,” Mabel explained.
“And now he can’t find them?” Ann hazarded a guess.
“Oh, no. He knows right where they are. Not that it’ll do him any good. You see, the puppy carried them off and chewed them. He scratched the lenses something awful. Now the judge can’t see to read the marriage lines. But don’t you worry none. We’ve thought of a way around the problem.” Mabel nodded emphatically. “I’m going to read the words to him, and he’ll repeat it to you.
“Come along.” Mabel hurried down the hallway and flung open the door at the end. “Here they are, dear,” she announced.
“Ah, good morning, Nick. And this must be the happy bride?” The judge squinted in Ann’s direction.
“Yes.” Nick performed the introductions with a shortness that increased Ann’s nervousness.
Think of this as the roller-coaster ride at the amusement park, she told herself. Just blank what’s happening out of your mind and hang on until it’s over.
“You got the license, Nick?” the judge asked, and Nick dug into his pocket and passed over a well-creased piece of paper.
“Good, good. Now if you and your little bride will stand here—” the judge gestured to a spot in front of him “—we’ll have this over before you know it. Dear, if you’ll begin…” He nodded to his wife.
Mabel sniffed happily, blew her nose and picked up a book from the cluttered desk.
“Dearly beloved,” she began, and her husband parroted the words. “We are—” She broke off as a loud snore suddenly sounded from the corner.
“Drat.” The judge looked exasperated. “I forgot about Pa. He always takes his morning nap there.”
“Don’t wake him on my account,” Ann said weakly, feeling as if she’d stumbled into a badly written farce. This wedding was about as different from her first one as it was possible to be. That one had taken place in a huge church with hundreds of guests, six bridesmaids and three flower girls. A soloist had sung “The Wind That Breathed O’er Eden” while she’d floated down the aisle in a cloud of white satin and antique lace.
But for all its grandeur, that wedding had been a disastrous flop, she reminded herself. This one might be stripped down to the bare essentials, but perhaps it would be all the more real for that.
The judge turned to his wife. “If you’ll continue, dear…?”
Five minutes later he pronounced them man and wife and told Nick he could kiss the bride. Neither Snake’s snort of disgust nor Mabel’s increased sobs could entirely suppress the tingle of awareness Ann felt as Nick’s lips brushed her cheek. What would it feel like if he were to really kiss her? she wondered.
“I like your wedding ring, Ann.” Mabel studied the plain gold band Nick had slipped on her finger. “But I notice you aren’t wearing your engagement ring. What does it look like? It must be a beauty. Why, I remember the monstrous diamond Nick gave Mona—” Mabel’s reminiscences came to an embarrassed stop as she suddenly seemed to realize that enumerating Nick’s gifts to his first wife might not be in the best of taste.
“How about some coffee?” Mabel asked, hurriedly changing the subject.
“Thank you, but we need to get back to the ranch,” Nick answered, while Ann considered what Mabel had said. So Nick had bought Mona a huge diamond. Why? Because he had loved her to distraction or because she’d asked for one?
It didn’t really matter, Ann told herself, because she didn’t want a diamond—big or otherwise. She’d had one once. Bill had picked it out and she’d paid for it. And it hadn’t insured a happy marriage. The simple gold band Nick had given her somehow seemed more enduring than any ostentatious diamond.
“Stop by when you’re in town, Ann, and we’ll get acquainted,” Mabel called after her as Nick hurried her out to the truck and bundled her inside.
“I will,” Ann responded. Then Nick started the truck, almost as if he were escaping the scene of a crime, Ann thought, not sure whether she should laugh or cry. His hasty retreat added the final farcical touch to the event.
Surreptitiously, she studied Nick from beneath her lashes as he maneuvered through the sparse traffic. She was his wife. Mrs. Nick St. Hilarion. She tried the name out and found it curiously satisfying. What she had to do now was to turn this taciturn stranger into a friend.
For a moment, self-doubt at her ability to accomplish it shook her but she fought it. She could do it, she encouraged herself. She might have no talent as a lover, but she did for friendship. She had scores of friends. Good friends. People whose company she enjoyed and who enjoyed hers. There was no reason she couldn’t make a friend out of Nick just because she was married to him. But how did she go about it? Ann stared blankly out the window at the passing landscape as she tried to remember how her friendships had started.
Shared interests, she finally decided. People with shared interests were drawn together because they had something in common to discuss. So what interests did she share with Nick? They were both survivors of a disastrous first marriage They both were lonely—at least Maggie claimed her cousin was lonely, and from what she’d seen so far, Maggie was probably right. They both wanted a secure relationship, to be part of a family group. But two of those things were more negative than positive. She needed an interest to talk about that didn’t bring bad memories to the surface. But what? She chewed on her lip uncertainly. She wasn’t sure. Maybe her best bet would be to get Nick talking about himself and his life and maybe she could find something there to share with him. Something to use as a foundation to build a friendship on.
But first she had to get rid of Snake. Snake was absolute death to any kind of conversation. In fact, his very presence was akin to the proverbial wet blanket.
Obviously Snake had no more desire for her company than she had for his, because the minute the truck stopped, he scrambled out and headed toward the barn. “I’m going ta check the fencing on the north pasture,” he said as he hurried toward the barn.
Get Nick talking, Ann told herself as she slowly climbed out of the truck. But talking about what? The ranch! She suddenly realized that she was standing in the middle of his greatest interest. Surely there was something on the ranch that she could find interesting without having to fake it. At the very least, questions about the ranch would serve as an opening for conversation.
“Is this a slack time for the ranch?” she asked, breaking the silence.
“Spring?” Nick looked shocked at her question. “The calves are born in the spring.”
“Oh?” Ann looked around. From the porch steps there wasn’t a bit of stock to be seen. “Where do you keep them?” she continued, hoping she didn’t sound as idiotic as she felt.
“Most of them stay in the fields with their mothers. If they have a problem, we keep them there.” Nick gestured toward the far barn. “Perhaps I ought to show you around the place before I get back to work.”
Success, Ann thought, feeling a sense of accomplishment lift her spirits.
“I’d very much like to see things.” Ann was careful to keep her voice matter-of-fact. She didn’t want him to think that she was trying to coerce him into anything. Or—a flush warmed her thin cheeks—that she was trying to come on to him.
“We can…” Nick paused as he caught sight of a cloud of dust moving down the dirt road from the highway to the house. He squinted, trying to get a better look, and was rewarded by a red gleam from the sun reflecting off the lights on top.
The sheriff’s car, he realized with a quick glance at Ann, who was also watching the car approach. Damn! Why did Sherrie have to come in person. A call would have sufficed to fill him in on the latest developments in the cattle disappearances. Ann was bound to already have a list of things wrong with ranch life. If she were to discover that there were cattle thieves running loose…
“Why don’t you go change into something more suitable,” he blurted out, using the first excuse he could think of to get rid of her.
Something more suitable! The words hit Ann with the force of a blow, dislodging bitter memories of her first husband’s caustic comments about her lack of fashion flair. Her feeling of pleasure at Nick’s willingness to show her the ranch was buried beneath the humiliating flood of memories, and she felt her skin tighten painfully, as if it were bracing for an additional blow.
“Yes, of course,” she muttered, escaping into the house. She closed the door behind her and leaned back against it. She took a deep breath to try to steady her racing heart.
Finally she straightened up and headed toward the stairs. You’re mixing up the past with the present, she told herself. Nick isn’t Bill. Nor is he responsible for anything Bill did. Judge Nick by what Nick does.
All Nick actually said was that you should change into something more suitable. She glanced down at her cream wool jacket. It really wasn’t a very practical outfit for exploring a ranch. It was too easy to soil and too hard to clean.
But even if his request was logical, why make it when someone was coming? Why not introduce her first? Was he ashamed of her? Don’t worry about it, she ordered herself as she pushed open the door to her bedroom. You can’t second-guess everything.
She hurriedly slipped out of her suit, carefully hanging it in the narrow closet. She knew she was right about not allowing her imagination to run riot. What she didn’t know was how to stop the past from coloring the present.
She sighed as she began to scramble into jeans. She could only try. Maybe when she knew Nick better, she’d find it easier to keep him separated in her mind from Bill. Because if she couldn’t…Ann shivered violently. If she couldn’t, then she would have allowed Bill to not only destroy her first marriage but her second.
A spark of anger flickered to life. She refused to give Bill that much power over her. She wasn’t that weak. She drew on the pair of jeans and jammed her feet into her new sneakers. She had more pride than that. She pressed her lips together in determination. She could make of this marriage anything she wanted.
Well, almost anything. She yanked a thick, green cableknit sweater over her head. She did have to take into account what Nick was willing to invest in the marriage. And at the moment what he was investing was a tour of the ranch—an opening she intended to take full advantage of.
Ann emerged from the house and paused in surprise when she realized that the car sitting in front of the house was a sheriff’s car. And the uniformed officer leaning against its hood talking to Nick was unlike any officer she’d ever seen. The woman was a petite, curvaceous blonde who couldn’t have been more than four-ten.
The woman looked up and, catching sight of Ann, gave her a wide smile that appeared genuine even to Ann’s critical eyes.
“Welcome to Wyoming, Ann. I’m Sherrie Bellington, the sheriff’s one and only deputy. I couldn’t believe it when Mabel said that Nick was going to get married again.” Sherrie chuckled, displaying perfect white teeth. “Truth to tell, I didn’t think old Snake’d let him do it.”
Ann shook the hand Sherrie held out. “He wasn’t any too happy about it.”
“So she wanted to come out and meet you,” Nick inserted with a glance at Sherrie that Ann couldn’t quite read.
Sherrie looked blankly at Nick for a moment, then said, “Yes, of course. And now that I’ve met you, I’d better be getting back. Things are kind of hectic with the sheriff laid up with his broken leg. Bye, Ann.”
“Goodbye.” Ann watched as Nick walked Sherrie around to the driver’s side and closed the car door behind her, muttering something through the open window that Ann couldn’t quite catch. Why had Sherrie come out here? Ann wondered, not believing for a minute her story about wanting to meet her. There was more to it than that. But what?
Jealousy made no sense. If Nick had been interested in Sherrie, he would have hardly married Ann. Could Nick be in some kind of trouble with the law? The appalling thought surfaced only to be dismissed. That look Sherrie had given Nick hadn’t been adversarial. It had been…conspiratorial, Ann finally decided. She stifled a sigh. Yet another thing she didn’t understand and didn’t feel free to ask about.
“Where shall we start?” she asked when Sherrie drove away.
Nick looked around, as if trying to decide, then said, “The barns, I guess. Other than the original cabin, there isn’t much else to see. I mostly raise breeding stock, not beef cattle.”
“How old?” Ann asked, her interest caught.
Nick blinked. “What?”
“How old is the original cabin? For that matter, how old is the ranch?”
“They’re both about 150 years, although the ranch hasn’t been worked continuously. The first settlers were starved out. The original cabin is over there.” Nick gestured toward his left as they rounded the first barn, a relatively new, perfectly repaired building. Ann studied it curiously. Clearly Nick had spent what funds he had had on the barns, which made sense. If the ranch was to prosper, the stock’s needs had to be met first.
Ann turned to look, her nose wrinkling in shock as an appalling odor slapped her in the face.
“Snake likes to grow vegetables.” Nick noticed her expression.
“That’s not any rotting veggie I’ve ever smelled. It’s more like…”
“Fertilizer,” Nick supplied. “Aging horse manure, to be specific.”
“There are limits to this back-to-nature kick,” Ann muttered.
That manure pile had been there for as long as he’d owned the ranch, and getting rid of it simply because she objected to the smell would be bound to give Ann the idea that she could induce him to make other changes. He decided to ignore the comment, thinking it was best to go on.
“I want to show you Silas.” Nick moved toward a fenced area behind the barn. Ann followed him.
“Is Silas another hired hand?”
“No.” Nick put his fingers in his mouth and emitted an ear-piercing whistle. “Silas is my prize bull. He’s very temperamental and is not to be upset under any circumstances.”
Ann instinctively stepped back as a huge black animal emerged from the open barn door and trotted toward them. She gulped. As far as she was concerned, it would take a confirmed masochist to bother that thing.
“Don’t feed him,” Nick continued. “And don’t let him out of the fence. Despite what he thinks, he’s not a pet.”
“Turning him into a pet never crossed my mind,” Ann said earnestly. “I can guarantee you that I’ll give him a wide berth. Do you have any animals on the ranch that are more manageable? Like chickens or ducks or pigs?”
“Pigs!” Nick repeated in horror. “This is a ranch. We don’t do pigs.”
“Anyone brave enough to do that thing—” she nodded toward Silas, who was pushing against the fence in his eagerness to reach them “—should be brave enough to do pigs.”
“Pigs are for farmers. I’m a rancher.”
Ann opened her mouth and then closed it in the interest of harmony. It sounded like rank bigotry to her, but pointing out the fact would not be helpful to her goal of getting to know Nick.
“Right, no pigs,” she said. “So what else do you have on a ranch besides oversized cows and manure piles?”
“Horses,” Nick offered, wondering if she were regretting her decision to marry him already.
He walked through an open door into the dim interior of the larger of the two barns with Ann right behind him. She sniffed curiously. The barn smelled of hay and animals and other more elusive scents. But they weren’t unpleasant scents, just different.
“Most of the horses are out to pasture, but my mount is in the stall over here.”
Ann leaned over the end of the wooden stall. It contained a large brown horse who lifted his head to look at her. Bits of hay were sticking out of his velvety-looking lips, and he studied her with soft, brown eyes.
“What’s his name?”
“Joe.”
“He’s got kind eyes.” Ann tentatively petted him.
So does she, Nick thought as he watched the hazel hue of her eyes deepen when Joe nickered in pleasure at her caress. Nick’s eyes were drawn to the stroking movement of Ann’s fingers as they slowly moved over Joe’s neck. What would it be like to have her touch him like that? The unexpected thought popped into his mind. To have her hands stroking over his bare chest? He tensed as a wave of longing slammed through him.
“I always wanted to have a horse,” Ann confided. “Ever since I was about seven and read Black Beauty. ”
Nick used patting Joe as an excuse to move closer to her. A tantalizing whiff of the perfume she was wearing teased his nostrils, and he fought the impulse to put his arms around her. To pull her up against him. To bury his face against her smooth skin and deeply breathe in the heady fragrance.
“There’s no reason you can’t learn to ride.” His voice was husky with the longings coloring his thoughts. “Joe won’t mind.”
Nick opened the door of the stall, slipped inside and saddled Joe with fingers that felt clumsy. He just hoped that Ann didn’t notice. A quick glance at her both reassured and annoyed him. She was concentrating on the horse, not him.
When he finally got the saddle adjusted, he led Joe out into the open barnyard.
Ann hurried after him, pausing uncertainly when she reached his side. This close, Joe seemed to be much bigger than he had been in the barn. She shifted from one foot to the other. Didn’t they have anything on this ranch that came in a small size?
“Up you go,” Nick ordered.
Ann looked from the ground to the stirrup to the saddle, and then back down at her feet. “How?” she finally asked.
“Put your left foot in the stirrup, grab hold of the saddle and pull yourself up.”
Ann took a deep breath and followed his directions. It didn’t turn out to be that easy. She wound up half on and half off, hanging on to the pommel of the saddle for dear life.
“Pull yourself up,” Nick said.
Ann gritted her teeth in frustration, embarrassed at seeming so inept. “If I could do that, I wouldn’t be dangling here,” she said tightly.
To her shock, Nick put his hands on her hips and gave her a shove. Ann awkwardly scrambled up into the saddle. Her flesh seemed to burn where he’d touched her, and she could still feel the imprint of his hard fingers. She wiggled slightly, trying to dispel the sensation, and forced herself to focus on the riding lesson.
“Now what?” Her voice came out high and breathless sounding.
“Squeeze your legs together and Joe will move.”
Ann obediently tightened her legs, and Joe took off at a brisk walk. Ann jerked backward, yanking on the reins. Joe came to a sudden stop, and she pitched forward against his neck.
“This isn’t as easy as it looks on television,” she muttered.
“Perhaps I can help until you get your balance.” Before she realized what he intended to do, Nick swung up behind her with a lithe grace that she envied. Ann gulped as he reached around her and took the reins. She could feel the muscles of his forearms pushing into her rib cage, and he was pressed against her from hip to shoulder. His body felt hot, stiflingly hot, and the heat was beginning to affect her, loosening her muscles and making them soft and pliable. She licked her lips, trying to regain control. She felt as if she were getting a lesson in frustration, not riding.
“Try to relax and move with the horse’s gait.” Nick’s breath warmed the skin on her neck, sending a cascade of shivers over her.
Relax! Ann thought incredulously. She was wound tightly enough to break, and he wanted her to relax!
Nick purposefully took a deep breath, forcing his chest closer to her. His gut clenched in reaction, and he could feel his body hardening. He wanted to nuzzle the soft white skin beneath her ear. To nibble her lips. To press his own to them and force them apart.
He squarely faced the fact that he wanted to go to bed with her. No, not wanted. That was a take-it-or-leave-it feeling. This was stronger than that. Much stronger. He craved sex with her.
Why shouldn’t he? He was married to her. Sex was part of marriage, he rationalized. So why not indulge his senses?
But what had happened the last time he’d lost his head over a woman? The chilling thought intruded. He’d been sucked into a disastrous situation that had ended in a very acrimonious divorce.
Ann wiggled slightly, and he lost his train of thought at the feel of her soft behind pressing into his groin. He couldn’t stand this! It had been so long since he’d had a woman. Over ten years—and until Ann had arrived, the lack had been no more than a minor inconvenience. But now…
This time would be different, he tried to convince himself. This time he wasn’t wallowing in overheated hormones and calling it love. This time he was in control of both his emotions and the situation and he would remain in control. All he had to do was make sure that he maintained an emotional distance from her. He swallowed as she lurched backward, hitting his chest. But not a physical distance. In fact, he wanted nothing so much as to eliminate all physical distance as soon as possible.
But how? It was a disquieting question. How did he bring up the subject of going to bed with her? He walked Joe around the barnyard in a wide circle while he pondered the problem, but he couldn’t think of a single graceful way of asking her to go to bed with him without first making a lot of emotional promises that he had no intention of keeping.
Joe stopped of his own accord as they approached the open barn door. Nick slowly swung out of the saddle and looked back up at Ann. Her eyes were gleaming with pleasure, and her soft lips were curved in a triumphant smile at her ride. An unexpected feeling of tenderness engulfed him, and he opened his mouth, intending to say something sophisticated and witty. To his horror, what emerged was neither.
“I have no objections to having sex with you,” he said, and then froze in stunned disbelief as he heard his bald words echo through the air.
Three (#ulink_5bd69f3d-35d3-5aac-901c-2c75f56e33fe)
No objections to having sex with her! The destructive words sliced through Ann’s mind, lacerating her already battered self-confidence. Not even the sop of telling her that he found her attractive and wouldn’t object to getting to know her better. Just a bald “I wouldn’t mind having sex with you.” As if she were a convenience to be used to alleviate his needs with no acknowledgment that she might have feelings and needs of her own.
Was that all she was ever to be to the men in her life? Ann felt chill fingers of despair wrap themselves around her heart. When they eased, hopelessness rushed in to fill the void. She clenched her teeth against an overwhelming urge to burst into tears, refusing to let Nick see just how damaging she had found his words.
Her frantic gaze swung around the barren barnyard. She had to escape. To find a hiding place where she could painfully piece together the tattered remnants of her composure. Acting on instinct, she swung her leg over the horse and half fell, half jumped out of the saddle, only to wind up sprawled on the ground underneath Joe.
Ann bit her lip against the hysterical laughter bubbling up in her throat. The final straw would be if Joe were to step on her.
“That’s not the way to get off a horse.” Nick grabbed her beneath her armpits and hauled her to her feet with effortless ease. “You’ll hurt yourself,” he warned.
He was worried she’d hurt herself? Ann thought incredulously. When he’d already delivered a knockout blow to her fragile sense of worth as a woman? At least broken bones and bruises healed. She wasn’t sure that her emotions would ever feel whole again.
“Um, about what I said…What I meant was that I wouldn’t…I mean…we are married and…”
Nick’s garbled words slowly filtered through the miasma of unhappiness that surrounded her, and Ann forced herself to look at him. The muscles along his jaw were corded and there was a dull red flush underlying his deep tan. As if…he were embarrassed?
The unexpected idea shook Ann free from her own feelings long enough to consider his. Could his offer be the result of embarrassment at the necessity of articulating his emotional needs, rather than a lack of respect or interest in her as a person? It was possible, she conceded. She didn’t know him well enough to be able to say.
All Maggie had told her about Nick were bare facts. Facts about his emotionally starved childhood, facts about his disastrous first marriage, facts about his problems in dealing with the unexpected arrival of his daughter. What Maggie hadn’t been able to tell her was how those facts had shaped him emotionally. How they had shaped his thought processes. She would have to figure that out for herself.
Which left her where? Ann tried to think. Her brand-new husband had suggested that he wouldn’t be averse to having sex with her. She didn’t like the fact that he was thinking in terms of sex while she thought in terms of making love, but maybe that was the way men thought.
A discouraged sigh escaped her. What she didn’t know about men in general and this man in particular would fill a book.
“But, of course, if you don’t…” Nick responded to what he thought was the reason for her sigh. “I mean I can understand that you might not…”
Ann found his disjointed words somehow comforting. He didn’t appear to be any more sure of himself than she was. In fact, if anything, he seemed to be virtually inarticulate when it came to expressing his emotions.
“It isn’t that I don’t want to…” Ann refused to say “have sex” because it sounded so impersonal and dehumanizing, but she didn’t want to say “make love” for fear that he might think that she expected more from him than he had to give. “It’s just that I don’t know you very well and…that’s so…personal,” she finally muttered.
“Not necessarily.” Nick’s bitter tone shocked her. “How about if we leave it for the time being, and when you feel you know me well enough, you tell me and we can take it from there.”
“Okay,” Ann said weakly, trying to envision a set of circumstances where she walked up to Nick and told him she wanted to go to bed with him. To pull off that kind of bluntness took more sophistication than she possessed— than she was ever likely to possess.
“Good.” Nick’s voice sounded overly hearty to Ann. “Now that we’ve settled that, I’d better go help Snake check out the fencing.”
“What about lunch?” she asked as he swung back up into the saddle.
“Snake always brings sandwiches for both of us. It saves us the time of coming back to the ranch. I’ll be back for dinner about five.” Turning Joe around, he headed toward the pasture behind the house at a brisk trot.
Ann watched him until he was out of sight, and then she turned back to the house.
She was fast coming to the conclusion that she hadn’t solved her problems by marrying Nick, she’d simply exchanged one set for another. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t eventually solve them, she assured herself, trying hard to believe it. She was a bright, educated woman of the nineties. Surely she could think of some way to turn their marriage into a viable one. Preferably before Nick’s daughter arrived on the scene. It was going to be hard enough trying to hammer out some kind of relationship with Nick on her own, but to try to do it under the watchful eye of a teenager who might well be hostile…
She needed to get organized, Ann told herself. To come up with a solid plan. To direct events along the lines she wanted them to go instead of simply reacting to what Nick did.
Ann shoved open the back door in determination. She knew it wasn’t going to be easy. She was hampered by both her own innate shyness and Nick’s bone-deep reserve. Her gut feeling was that Nick was never going to be comfortable expressing his feelings. But when she remembered how eloquent her first husband had been about how much she had meant to him—and how every word of it had been a lie—she wasn’t sure she minded Nick’s reticence.
And in the meantime, there was plenty she could do. She walked into the living room and looked around with a jaundiced eye. A combination of litter and dust covered every square inch of every available surface, and dust bunnies were colonizing the corners.
She shook her head in disgust. It would take days to correct what looked like years of neglect. But the nice thing about cleaning was that it would leave her mind free, she thought in satisfaction. Free to plan out the specifics of her campaign.
* * *
When Ann staggered out of bed at five-thirty the following morning in response to the alarm’s jarring summons, she was buoyed by a feeling of cautious optimism. Thanks to a great deal of hard thought, she now had a cohesive plan of action and its structure gave her a budding sense of security—of something to hold on to in the strange new world she found herself in.
Determined to get down to the kitchen before Nick, Ann scrambled into black jeans, a yellow T-shirt and a heavy green sweatshirt while she mentally reviewed the first plank in her campaign—communication. If she were ever going to get to know Nick, they were going to have to talk. She frowned as she picked up her hairbrush, remembering last night.
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