The Rancher's Surprise Marriage

by Susan Crosby

  Innocent? Not by a long shot, but Maggie was touched by Pete’s loyalty. She politely declined, more guilt pressing on her.

  Once action was called, everyone got down to business, and the morning flew by. They were filming inside the old homestead. She tried to picture Tony there, wondered how much had been changed for the movie. Necessary people and equipment filled the space, not as small as it looked from the outside. Which bedroom had Tony slept in? Where was his new house? He must own a lot of acres not to have another house visible on the horizon, although other ranch structures were in sight.

  And where were the cattle? It was a cattle ranch, after all, and she hadn’t spotted one, not even on the long, beautiful drive in and out each day.

  Between takes she looked to Leesa for a signal that she’d reached Tony, but she shook her head each time. At the end of the day, Maggie was tempted to get directions to his new house and go there personally, except that she’d probably have to battle paparazzi, unless Tony had figured out a way to get rid of them.

  At least the set was closed, and the passenger windows on her car were tinted, so Dino should be able to get her back to the hotel without being followed. Maybe. Mac had already upped the number of security people. Dino was talking about bringing in extra security of his own. She left the decision to him.

  Why hadn’t Tony returned Leesa’s call? How furious was he? Or maybe embarrassed was a better word. If he wouldn’t come to her, how could she get to him? She didn’t think she could handle this…situation over the phone, but a personal plea via telephone to come see her might be the only way to get him. She didn’t want to make assumptions about why he hadn’t called. He may not even be at home, and she didn’t have his cell phone number—and didn’t want to ask Mac for it. His residence number, amazingly, was listed in the directory.

  On top of that, she and Scott had played phone tag all day, but with both of them actively filming, they hadn’t caught each other during downtimes. She preferred to wait to talk to him until she’d met with Tony, anyway, so that’d been okay.

  Maggie managed to keep working all day, presenting a happy face until she stepped into her hotel shower at the end of the day. In the privacy of that space she broke down, giving in to the overwhelming emotions of the past twenty-four hours, first Scott breaking up with her, then sleeping with a man she barely knew, then her reputation taking a major hit of her own making, along with the reputation of a man innocent of such treatment, when all he’d done was rescue her.

  No one’s reputation had ever suffered because of her actions. Until now.

  “Maggie?” Leesa called through the bathroom door. “Mr. Young is here.”

  So. He’d shown up at seven o’clock, just as she’d asked. He just hadn’t bothered to let her know he was coming. “Okay. I’ll be out in a few minutes. Offer him something to drink, please.”

  Maggie turned off the shower, made quick work of drying off then slipped into cropped pants and a sleeveless top. She towel-dried her hair, put on a little lip gloss, screwed up her courage, and went to greet him.

  Well, damn, she’d wanted him here at seven, he got here at seven, and she was in the shower? Some consideration. Movie stars. Who needs ’em?

  Tony stood at the living-room window, his hands shoved into his pockets, and looked out at the view. The sunset colors were brilliant but fading fast.

  He’d had a helluva day, had been badgered by his sister, both brothers and just about everyone else who knew his phone number. He’d stopped answering around 10:00 a.m. There were eighteen messages he hadn’t returned, didn’t plan on returning. Of his family, only his father hadn’t weighed in, but Tony figured he’d hear something before too long. Hoyt Young always had an opinion on how his youngest son was living his life, and the fact it looked like Tony had been entertaining someone else’s fiancée wouldn’t sit well with his highly moral father.

  Hell, it didn’t sit well with Tony, either, high morals or otherwise.

  “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting,” came Maggie’s voice from behind him. “I didn’t know you were coming or I would’ve been ready.”

  He angled toward her, was surprised to see her dressed so casually. Her hair was wet, leaving damp spots where it touched her blouse. She was barefoot. She looked ready to bolt, too—nervous and fidgety.

  “I was ordered to be here at seven,” he said.

  “I hope that’s not true. I hope Leesa extended an invitation for you to come, not ordered you.”

  “It may have been politely stated, but it wasn’t a question.”

  “Then I apologize. Leesa was pretty frazzled this morning, fielding the frenzy to our photograph, which I assume you saw?”

  “My mother let me know this morning around four-thirty.”

  “Your—I’m so sorry. Please, would you have a seat? Did Leesa get you something to drink?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.” He sat in a leather chair. She perched on the edge of the sofa, as if incapable of settling back or relaxing. Her fingers were interlocked. He remembered how she’d cried last night….

  “Were the paparazzi hounding you?” she asked.

  “They tried. I made sure they didn’t follow me here.” It had actually been fun ducking them, but he wouldn’t want it on a regular basis.

  “I owe you an explanation,” she said.

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Please understand that I’m going to tell you things I haven’t told anyone else. Even though I’ve turned your world upside down, I’m asking for your discretion. I know I have no right to ask but—”

  “I know how to keep my mouth shut.”

  She closed her eyes a moment. Her vulnerability hit him hard. Like last night, he wanted to protect her, even though he didn’t know from what. He could easily be a fool for this woman.

  “I assume by now you know I was engaged to Scott Gibson,” she said.

  “Hard to miss that bit of information.”

  “What no one else knows is that he broke it off yesterday. He was here waiting for me after shooting. He said he’d fallen in love with someone else.”

  Which answered a lot of Tony’s questions about why she’d slept with him last night—and why she’d been crying. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks.” She looked at her lap. “Okay. Biggest confidence now. I’m not sorry. Scott even said as he was leaving that someday I would be happy about it. That someday came a lot faster than I would’ve thought. It came today.”

  “How can you get over it that fast?”

  “I know it sounds heartless, and the rest of what I’m going to tell you won’t put me in a good light, either, but you deserve the truth, after all the trouble I’ve caused you.” She pushed herself up, moved to stand at the window.

  He found he couldn’t sit still, either, so he joined her.

  “It’s an incredible landscape, isn’t it?” she asked, apparently stalling. “Not lush but starkly beautiful, especially here, surrounded by the enormous red rocks.”

  “Most beautiful in the whole country.”

  “You’ve traveled a lot?”

  “I did the rodeo circuit for about twelve years. It’s a nomadic kind of life. When it was time to settle down, there was no place for me but here.”

  She nodded. “I’m looking to settle down myself.”

  He waited, knowing she was working up to what she needed to say.

  “It’s why I was marrying Scott. I wanted a home. Some stability.”

  “You didn’t love him?”

  “It’s…complicated.”

  “I’ve got nothin’ but time, Margaret.”

  “So, you’ve decided to call me Margaret? Trying to be different?”

  “I’m thinking Margaret suits you.” Maggie was who the world saw—strong and feisty. Margaret was vulnerable…and passionate.

  She met his gaze and smiled a little. He ignored the tug inside his chest.

  “Scott and I met when we were set up to attend a premiere together by ou
r mutual agent and our publicists. It wasn’t the first time I’d done such a thing. It’s part of the job, good publicity for both parties, yada, yada. But things clicked between Scott and me. We liked each other right away and started dating, as much as our situations allowed. We discovered one of the biggest things we had in common was that we’d both lost our parents at a young age. My grandparents had taken me in, raised me with a very strict upbringing, one I didn’t rebel from. He’d grown up in the foster system. We were both searching for a fantasy life, I think.”

  “I think we all do that,” he said, glad to see she’d calmed some.

  “You, too?”

  “Of course. I was even married once. One big fantasy, that’s for sure. Ended with a hard dose of reality.” He hardly ever thought about her anymore, it had been so long. A man who didn’t put the past behind him couldn’t move forward. He’d been bitter for a while, but time had cured that, too.

  “Well, Scott understood the pressures of the business, as well as the media, of course. One night he asked me to marry him and I said yes, figuring we had a better-than-average chance for success, since we had similar backgrounds.”

  “You didn’t love him? He didn’t love you?”

  “We each said so, but looking back, I don’t know. I think we got caught up in the romance of it all. And then before we had time to sit back and reconsider, our publicity machines went into overdrive and the whole world was involved.”

  “You could’ve backed out. Better that than make a bigger mistake.”

  She turned around, leaned against the window frame and finally looked at him. “Of course you’re right. But by then an old friend of mine, Jenny Warren, had called and asked a big favor. Her family is about to open two luxury hotels, The Taka San Francisco and The Taka Kyoto. The San Francisco opening is scheduled for around the end of September. Jenny asked if I’d hold the wedding there, have a huge, lavish event. They’d assumed all costs. I could just tell them what I want, and it would be done. Publicity for everyone. Win-win, right? Scott wanted the big splash, too, so I said yes. And regretted it right away. ‘Big’ isn’t my style.”

  “So you felt stuck?”

  “I never put that word to it. I felt…rushed. But then I had this movie to film, and Scott had his, so there wasn’t time to hash it out.”

  “In all the headlines I read today, I didn’t see anything about your engagement being over, only that you were caught kissing a cowboy. In fact, nothing from your…Scott at all.”

  “That’s because I told him I needed a couple of days to figure out how to handle it. Then instead of staying home and working it out alone, I handled it by taking myself to a cowboy bar and dancing with a tall, dark and handsome cattleman. And then kissing him so that a photographer could film it.” She put a hand on his chest, lightly, briefly, and smiled.

  “At least no one knows about us sharing a motel room,” he said. “I’m sure my foreman, who came to get me, put two and two together, but he won’t say a word.” He finally gave in to the need to touch her and brushed her hair back from her face with his fingertips. He wouldn’t mind hauling her off to her bedroom. Wouldn’t mind it at all.

  “I’m so sorry for all the trouble this has caused you, Tony.”

  Hell, his family’s admiration of him had gone up a notch or two. It was a shame that’s what it took for them to see how successful he was. He’d built his ranch from almost nothing, making it what it was today. He was damn proud of it. He still had a ways to go, but he’d done it himself—mostly, anyway. He had something to prove, especially to his father, but sleeping with a movie star wasn’t how he’d envisioned proving himself.

  “Well, now, Margaret,” Tony said, putting on the cowboy act thick for her, “seems to me I got somethin’ special to keep in my memory out of it. I can live with people teasin’ me.” He leaned in to kiss her.

  “Could you live with it for a few more months?” she asked before their lips touched.

  He pulled back, met her gaze, saw that her jitters were back. “Meaning?”

  “Last night when I said I knew who you were, that you owned the ranch, you said your ranch owns you. Am I remembering that right?”

  “You are.”

  She drew a deep breath. “Okay. So, then, I have a proposition for you.”

  The last one had resulted in their being naked together. If this one involved that again, he’d be saying yes faster than a bronc bursts out of a chute.

  “I’m listenin’, darlin’.”

  “Marry me.”

  Chapter Four

  Maggie watched him let the words sink in. She made herself remember to breathe.

  His astonishment came through in his voice. “Marry you? Why in hell would I do that? I’ve known you for about the lifespan of a mayfly.”

  “It wouldn’t be for forever. A few months, maybe.”

  “I repeat—why in hell would I do that?”

  “Because I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “Darlin’, all the sex in the world isn’t worth being leg-shackled to a Hollywood star. Even sex as good as last night’s.”

  She smiled. “It was good, wasn’t it?”

  “Hell, yes, it was good. You know that. You sure don’t need me puffin’ up your ego about it. But it wasn’t ‘I-do’ good.”

  “As much as I appreciate the compliments, Tony, I wasn’t offering sex as a way of making it worth your while. I’m offering money.”

  His eyes went hard, so did his jaw. Apparently she’d insulted him.

  “According to what I’ve heard,” she hurried on, “the cattle business is tenuous, always in need of more capital to keep it thriving. I’ll buy whatever you need for the ranch, in exchange for a short-term marriage.”

  “Whatever I need?”

  “A man like you wouldn’t ask for more than what’s fair.”

  He walked away from her, headed to the well-stocked bar. “I think I’d like that drink now.”

  She gave him space to think, waited as he poured himself something straight up. Whiskey? Scotch? She couldn’t see the label on the bottle. He downed two fingers of whatever he was having, poured another, then let it sit as he leaned on the bar.

  “And just how do you plan to spin such a thing for the media?” he asked.

  He hadn’t said no. Not outright. That was good, wasn’t it? “I figure if I just say we met and fell in love, that it just happened, catching us completely off guard, and that Scott has been wonderfully understanding, it’ll do.”

  “So, he comes out of it scot-free, pardon the pun? He falls for another woman while you’re engaged, breaks up with you and you’re going to take all the heat? I don’t get it.”

  “I would be saving face from being dumped.”

  “So, it’s better for you to look silly and frivolous than be dumped by some jerk? You’re not convincing me.”

  “I know the logic is flawed to you, but in my business, it’s about image. Everyone loves a love story. The public will forgive me, because it’s my first misstep. They wouldn’t have forgiven Scott so easily.”

  “You want to protect him after what he did?”

  “No. I just don’t want this to become the scandal of the year. It can be spun right. You and I met. We fell in love. It was a force bigger than us. People will eat it up. But besides that, I’d also be keeping my commitment to my friend to have the wedding at The Taka, which is very important, too. I keep my promises, Tony. And I know it seems like a ridiculous solution to you, but I’ve given it a lot of thought. It’s the best choice for me.” She came up to him at the bar. “You don’t owe me any favors. I know all I’ve done is mess up your life, and it will only get messier if you say yes. There will be a media uproar the likes of which you’ve never experienced. And all you get out of this is cold, hard cash.”

  “What about sex?” Tony didn’t know whether to smile or not at her expression, as if it hadn’t even occurred to her.

  “What about it?” she finally asked.


  “Is it part of the deal?” He figured the reason she’d slept with him the night before was that she was hurting and wanted to forget the pain.

  “Do you want it to be part of the deal?” she asked.

  He understood then that it hadn’t been him personally she’d wanted, but that fate had brought them together, and there was a certain amount of attraction, maybe more on his part than hers. “It would be tricky, don’t you think?” he said. “In order to make the marriage look real, we’re going to have to sleep in the same bed. We can’t trust anyone other than ourselves to keep the real reasons secret.”

  “I agree.”

  “Do you think we can sleep in the same bed and not make love?” he pressed.

  “We only have to get through a couple of months. People aren’t surprised when Hollywood marriages end quickly. It seems to me we’d be complicating things a lot if we were having sex along the way, too.”

  So, he really had been a means to an end last night. Still was, for that matter. “If such things are accepted as easily as you say, why are you asking me? You could have your choice of dozens of men, I imagine.”

  “We’re already linked or the idea wouldn’t even have occurred to me. I would’ve bitten the bullet and announced that Scott and I had broken up. Without you, that’s what’ll happen, even though the world has seen us kissing.”

  “There’s got to be more to it than that, Margaret. You wouldn’t put yourself in legal proximity with me—and in my bed every night—just because we’ve already been linked.”

  Maggie laid a hand on his, resting on the counter, and met his gaze. “I’ve already figured out you’re trustworthy. I need someone who can keep a secret, and I believe you’re that man. You didn’t boast about us sleeping together. A lot of men would’ve.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  She went still. “Really? You’re saying yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Like you, my answers wouldn’t be logical,” he said. “And so I’m keeping ’em to myself. Does it matter, anyway?”

  “I told you my secrets.”