The Law and Ginny Marlow

by Marie Ferrarella

  “No, I mean that you made her work off her debt. You had her come to work for Mr. Taylor and that seems to be making a difference.” It took effort to force out every word when all she could do was look at his mouth, his firm, sensual mouth and ache to have him kiss her again.

  Boy, this was a change. She was never like this.

  “We do what we can.”

  “Yes,” she said, sighing, “we do.”

  He’d held out as long as a man possibly could, he thought. “Geneva?”

  If he didn’t kiss her soon, she was afraid that she was going to make a fool of herself and kiss him. “Hmm?”

  “Would you mind very much if I kissed you again?”

  Finally! She could feel her heart slam against her rib cage like a basketball being slam-dunked. Her lips felt dry as she said, “On one condition.”

  Quint crooked his index finger beneath the point of her chin and tilted it back until their eyes met. “And that being—?”

  Her tongue slid along her paper-dry lips. “That you stop calling me Geneva. I’ve always hated the name. It’s old-fashioned and awful.”

  “No, it’s not,” he said softly, his words skimming along her skin. “There’s nothing awful about you.” His arms closed around her.

  There was no place for this in her life, Ginny thought. Absolutely no place, no room. Her life was filled to the brim with responsibilities. This had no future, practically no present.

  But all the logic in the world didn’t seem to work. She was completely focused on his mouth, on the anticipation of feeling it against her own.

  Maybe this was a mistake, she thought, but it was a mistake she was willing to make. At least for now. “Your mother was right.”

  His mouth curved in amusement. “Oh?”

  “You are a silver-tongued devil.”

  That didn’t seem to bother her, he noticed. “Mothers generally know what they’re talking about when it comes to their kids.”

  His words struck a nerve, but she refused to let it get to her. “Mine didn’t.”

  He’d forgotten about that. Looking into her eyes tended to make him forget a great many things. “I don’t feel like arguing tonight, Counselor.”

  Without being fully aware of what she was doing, she snuggled against him. It amazed her how well her body fit against his. As if they were meant to stand like this, bodies touching, adrenaline pumping. “What do you feel like doing?”

  Quint laughed, framing her face with his hands. “Guess.”

  She didn’t have to, because the next moment, he showed her.

  8

  The sensation coursing through her body was hot, demanding and all-consuming.

  It made her afraid, really afraid.

  She was afraid to feel this exhilarated, this completely, blindingly overwhelmed.

  For one shining minute, there was nothing else, no earth, no sky, no world. No beings except for Quint, except for her. And no other thoughts except those that centered on this man and what he was doing to her simply by kissing her.

  There was nothing “simply” about it.

  It was the most overpowering sensation Ginny had ever encountered, even more overpowering than her own iron determination to dig herself and her sister out of the poverty-laced, dead-end world they had been born to. That had galvanized her, strengthened her in a world that was out to undermine her.

  This, this was completely different.

  This weakened her, took her breath away, dissolved her mind and had her clinging to his arms like some fragile blossom tossed about in a gale.

  She had no control over it, no control at all. And that frightened her more than anything.

  She was the one, Quint realized, his body quickening. The one who knocked his hat off his head, who slid his boots off his feet. She was the one who could and would make him jump through any hoop she held up for him.

  He had enjoyed, completely and without reservation, the opposite sex ever since Janet Walsh had kissed him during recess. He’d been thirteen at the time and had been hooked on ladies ever since.

  But there had never been this feeling of coming together, of something more than pleasure happening beneath the surface. There was a stirring in his system that was generated by something more than friendship and attraction. There was something extra here, something he couldn’t name or quite understand beyond the fact that this lady lawyer with her whip-sharp temper and her flashing eyes was the one.

  He’d bet his life on it.

  Quint drew his head back, wanting just to look at her face, to see if there was a sign that indicated she even remotely felt the same thing he was experiencing so vividly.

  One look into her dazed eyes when Ginny opened them again told Quint all he wanted to know.

  Very slowly, feeling his way around this newly discovered terrain, he ran his hands up her arms. His eyes on hers, he brushed his thumbs along the sides of her neck. He saw the pulse in her throat jump in response, heard the small, almost imperceptible intake of breath as she tried to appear unaffected.

  Yup, he wasn’t wrong about her. They belonged together.

  It was a little startling for a thirty-one-year-old man to look his destiny in the face like this, but he’d always prided himself on adjusting quickly to any situation. He adjusted now.

  The very next moment, the face of his destiny clouded over.

  Ginny pushed him back. Force and bravado were her only line of defense. She had nothing else to grasp. “You’ve got to stop doing that.”

  Cocking his head, Quint studied her, trying to understand why she felt it necessary to hold him at arm’s length after the fact. There was no need for pretenses between them. He hadn’t been alone in that kiss.

  “Why? If I don’t miss my guess, you like it as much as I do.”

  “I don’t, I mean I d—” Indignant, it took her a moment longer to process his words than it should have. “You like it?”

  “Darlin’—” grin curving his mouth, he slid his hands along her arms again “—if you can’t tell that then I’m definitely doing something wrong.”

  “Hey, save the dessert for later, you two. Ma said to tell you dinner’s on the table and to get yourselves in now.”

  She hadn’t realized that they had an audience. A flush raced up her neck and cheeks marking its path in heat as she swung around. The next moment she was looking up at a man who looked like a slightly thinner, ever so slightly younger version of the man who had just now rendered her entire world a disaster area by the power in his lips.

  Draping his arm easily over her shoulders, Quint figured that introductions were in order. “Geneva Marlow, this uncouth oaf is my brother Kent, the one who thinks he runs the Shady Lady for my folks.”

  Kent inclined his head, his blue eyes unabashedly taking measure of her. They had the same smile, Ginny thought. How was it that one smile left her feeling practically disembodied and the other had no effect on her at all?

  “Pleased to meet you, Geneva.” He took her hand and shook it. Ginny felt the calluses that came from hard manual work. “And for the record,” he confided, “I have plenty of couth. Quint just doesn’t know how to recognize it, that’s all.” Dropping her hand, he held open the door for her. “But he certainly knows how to recognize a lovely lady.”

  Quint hooted. When Kent raised a questioning brow, Quint explained his amusement. “Well, Brianne did the impossible, I see.”

  Kent shook his head, obviously missing something. “How’s that?”

  Quint followed Ginny in, keeping a proprietary hand on her shoulder, just in case there was any question in his brother’s mind just what the situation was here. “She turned a sow’s ear into a silk purse.”

  Happier these days because of his approaching marriage than he could ever recall being, Kent pretended to take offense. “Who’re you calling a sow’s ear?”

  Peering out of the high-ceilinged dining room, Zoe called to her sons. “Mind your manners, you two. Remember, we have guests.�
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  Zoe smiled to herself as her sons filed by her. It had been a long time since she’d uttered words to that effect in earnest. Then, like as not flying fists would have accompanied the raised voices. Now the words were said in jest.

  She saw them far too infrequently to please her mother’s heart. It was a real treat whenever any of her brood turned up at the table. Two just made it that much more so.

  And soon, she knew, there were going to be a lot more faces at her table, turning up with regular frequency. With three weddings in the offing and all three couples setting up housekeeping in the area, her house was destined to ring of familiar voices forever on.

  Just the way she’d always dreamed it would be when she had first exchanged vows with Jake.

  She looked at her husband now as they all sat down at the long table he’d made her for their very first wedding anniversary. No chairs, just a long table and the promise to fill it with chairs and children to sit in them. The table was her most prized possession.

  Zoe’s eyes swept thoughtfully over Jake. He’d been unusually quiet today, ever since noon when he’d returned from town. She knew him inside out. Something was wrong, and he wasn’t telling her.

  She’d give him a little longer.

  Turning toward Quint, she said, “Ceely Watts’s mother said Ceely was going to have a big party this weekend to celebrate her twenty-first birthday. She asked to borrow our wagon because they want to have an old-fashioned hayride for the kids.” She disregarded Kent’s audible groan. “We’re all invited.” Zoe slanted a look at Ginny. “I thought that perhaps you might take Jenny and Geneva to the party, Quint.”

  Leaning over to help himself to some of the fresh-baked loaf on the side of the table, Kent laughed as he shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t know if the sheriff of Serendipity’s up to handling two lovely ladies.”

  Her attention momentarily drawn away from both her husband and the proposed party, Zoe took another, longer look at Kent. Of all of them, he was the one who had frequented their table most, the one who had opted to make ranching his life rather than trying to get as far away from it as possible.

  Lovely ladies, was it? “What’s gotten into you, Kent?” Zoe asked.

  The remark was one she would have never expected from her middle son. It was more in keeping with something that Jake might say. Instead, he sat quietly at his place, hardly touching the food on his plate.

  Quint smiled, helping himself to a serving of sliced pork. “He’s in love, Ma. Makes all the difference in the world, doesn’t it, Kent?”

  Quint prided himself on helping his brother over the last hump. Knocking some sense into his head to get him to go to New York and finally propose to Brianne Gainsborough before Kent allowed the best thing that ever happened to him to fade out of his life after her photograph assignment was over.

  The old Kent would have bristled at the observation, said a few choice words and left the table. Or merely stormed off in silence. Instead, rather than become annoyed that his private affairs had been aired before strangers, Kent could only nod.

  “Yeah, it does.”

  Zoe couldn’t stand it any longer. She’d given her husband enough time to either share his problem with her or come to terms with it. But instead, he’d just sat there, looking as if he’d lost his best friend in the world. Enough was enough. With a clatter, Zoe retired her silverware.

  “All right, old man, what’s going on? What’s the matter with you?”

  Jake looked up, his mind a long way from the conversation at the table, a conversation which normally would have warmed his heart. The life refused to return to his eyes. He sighed without realizing that he did so. “Nothing.”

  Zoe saw her sons exchange uneasy glances. “Nothing, my foot. You’ve been acting like someone I don’t know all afternoon.” Concern softened her voice. Having lived through seeing her husband have one heart attack, she existed under the constant specter of his having another despite all her pains to keep him healthy. “You’re not feeling sick again, are you?”

  Disgusted with himself, with everything, Jake gained his feet, throwing his napkin down. “No. Can’t a man have a little, peace and quiet when he wants it?” He turned from the table.

  “Not in this family.” Determined, Zoe followed him out. “Now, what is it?” Her voice was low, coaxing, masking frustrated exasperation. “I’m your life’s partner, Jake, you’re not supposed to have any problems without sharing them with me.”

  Emotionally cornered, aware that he was the focal point of everyone’s attention, he sighed, scrubbing his hands over his face. “We might lose the ranch.”

  The barely whispered statement had Quint and Kent on their feet in an instant. In the next, they were at their father’s side, disbelief and shock mingling in their faces.

  The fact that this was none of her business didn’t shackle Ginny’s movements. She was directly behind them.

  Agitation feathered all through Kent’s system, but he managed to keep it under control.

  “Why?” Kent demanded.

  The story was so confused, it swam like cloudy chicken soup through his mind. Jake plucked at the chunks of information, but even talking about it was painful.

  “It seems that when this property was originally purchased from the Macabees, the right papers weren’t signed, or notarized, or—” He dragged an impatient hand through his full head of hair. “Hell, I don’t understand it, but now Jeb Macabee’s son is serving notice that the property legally still belongs to them, and we’ve got thirty days to pay up or leave. There’s no way we can pay the true value of this property in today’s terms.”

  His distress was tangible, Ginny thought. He looked like a man who’d failed his family somehow.

  “We need a lawyer,” Kent interjected.

  “There’s Eli Jackson over in Carnes,” Zoe reminded him. “He did our wills right after you came home from the hospital.”

  “You’ll have to go see him first thing tomorrow,” Kent agreed. But Quint was looking at Ginny.

  Ginny knew what he was asking. She placed a hand on Jake’s arm. “Where do you have your papers?”

  Zoe turned to look at her, as if forgetting in the heat of the moment that she was, after all, a lawyer and might be able to help.

  His mind unfocused, misery in his eyes, it took Jake a second to realize that the question was coming from Ginny. “What?”

  “Your papers,” she repeated. She saw quiet pleasure entering Quint’s eyes but forced herself to focus on Jake. “Everything you have pertaining to the purchase and running of this property, do you still have them?” She imagined that it would be a simple enough matter to straighten out for someone who knew what they were doing. Legal terms tended to intimidate a lot of people.

  Jake shook his head. “There was a fire, took half the house.”

  “And the papers?” She knew what was coming before he answered.

  “Were in that part of the house,” Zoe concluded.

  “I always meant to get them replaced, but one thing after another kept getting in the way.…” Jake’s voice trailed off. And now it looked as if it was too late.

  Not about to be put off by inconvenience, Ginny took another approach. “All right. Deeds have to be recorded, titles transferred. Records have to be kept somewhere.” She turned toward Quint. Serendipity looked too small to have its own bureau of records, although she might be mistaken. “Where would the nearest bureau of records be?”

  “It’s in Billings,” Quint told her. “I can run you up there tomorrow.”

  “Good, run me,” she agreed. She looked at the older couple. “Do you have anything at all I can look at in the meantime? Anything,” she emphasized. “Any shred, any scrap you have pertaining to the ranch, I don’t care how small. I want to see everything.”

  Jake was beginning to feel better. The girl looked like a scrapper. He liked her style a lot better than Eli’s.

  “That’s a mountain of paper,” he warned, thinki
ng of the mortgage receipts, the tax forms and insurance stubs he’d retained. He had no idea if that was what she meant, but it was something.

  She dismissed his concern. “I’ve scaled mountains before.”

  The thing Ginny hated most in the world were people who took advantage of other people. Her thoughts returned to Dewey as she glanced toward Jenny. The sheriff from Smoke Tree had tried to take advantage of the dire circumstances she’d found herself in. There’d been no way to make him pay for what he’d attempted to trade on. He’d wanted her to sleep with him in exchange for certain comforts and favors. Things had threatened to get very ugly. She’d counted herself lucky that she and Jenny had managed to get away before anything had happened to them. But at the very least, she could try to help here.

  “All right.” The cloud that had hung over him ever since Jake had spoken to Macabee’s lawyer began to break up. “When do you want them?”

  “Now.”

  “It can wait until after dinner,” Zoe informed her. “You’ll work better on a full stomach.”

  “I work better,” Ginny corrected her, “on adrenaline.” And Zoe’s son, she added silently, had already supplied that—in spades.

  Ginny turned on her heel, following Jake out of the room. She missed the look of admiration on Quint’s face.

  “Make up a tray, Ma,” he told her. “I’ll bring it in to her in a little while.”

  Zoe nodded, her eyes nervously following Jake and Ginny as they left.

  “So, how’s it going?”

  Quint poked his head into his parents’ small den that Ginny had completely commandeered. She’d been at this over two days.

  You would have thought, he mused, that she was putting together evidence to plead before the Supreme Court. Taking her to Billings, he’d been forced to leave her for the day. When he’d returned to pick her up, he’d found that she’d traced the ranch’s title not just back to Macabee, but to the family of the man who had sold it to him. She’d stood at the curb before the closed bureau of records office, waiting for him, a stack of papers under her arm and a very satisfied look on her face.