A cuckoo bird popped from behind the door on his clock to crow five times. Because she moved so often, Caroline didn’t have much personal furniture, opting to rent most of what she needed during the terms of her contracts. However, the old-fashioned cuckoo clock from her Grandpa Richter had a place of honor in every temporary residence.
She glanced toward the Swiss clock to make sure she’d heard the bird correctly. Five o’clock. Time for her daily chat with her grandmother. She reached for the cell phone on her coffee table just as it began to vibrate. She leaned back on her sofa, checked the incoming call name and answered. “Hi, Mamie. How are you feeling today?”
“Bah,” her grandmother said. “This hospital is gonna kill me before I can die on my own.”
The shaky and feeble tone of her grandmother’s voice settled deep in Caroline’s gut. She wrapped one arm around her abdomen and shut her eyes, rocking slightly in despair. Both of them knew the end was not far off. Jokes were the way Mamie was handling the realization that the end of her life was close, but Caroline couldn’t find humor in something so painful.
“Now, Mamie—”
Mamie exhaled a long sigh. “This hospital isn’t gonna kill me before God does. I don’t have long. You and Dr. Stewart can continue trying to find some good news in all those lab tests he does, but there ain’t nothing gonna heal an eighty-two-year-old heart when it’s decided it’s done.”
Caroline’s chin dropped to her chest and she fought the tears filling her eyes. It wasn’t Mamie’s age that was killing her. It was a lifetime of cigarette smoking taking its toll on her organs. “Oh, Mamie. Do you know how much I love you? How much I’m going to miss you?”
“No more than I adore you, my precious child. Raising you and your brother was a gift from God, right there with your mother and Pat.”
Large wet tears rolled down Caroline’s cheeks as she glanced at the picture sitting on the nearby bookshelf of her and Mamie at her medical-school graduation. “I was a burden. It was so unfair of my parents to dump me on you to raise, not to mention taking on Noah too.”
“You’re wrong, my dear. So very wrong. You and your brother filled a hole in my life I didn’t even know was there until it was gone. But I’m worried, Caro.”
“About?”
“You. I’m worried about what will happen with you when I’m gone.”
“Me? Mamie, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m thirty-two. I’m a doctor. I can fully take care of myself. We need to be talking about Noah.”
A violent cough rattled through the phone. Mamie cleared her throat before she continued speaking. “Noah’s been taken care of. Pat and Leslie have moved into my house. We thought it best to keep him living at home. He’s going to be fine.”
Caroline closed her eyes again. Her jaws tightened. At the moment, guilt chewed at her soul. She knew she should offer to take Noah, give her little brother a place to grow up. But seriously, what kind of life could she offer him? Moving every few months to a new job? A new location? Wouldn’t it be much better for him to have the stability of staying where he’d lived for the past nine years rather than uprooting him again and sending him to live with a sister he barely knew?
Even if she settled in one spot, her long hours of work would be a deal-breaker. He’d be alone too much and too often, and that could spell disaster for a fourteen-year-old boy who already had a propensity for attracting trouble.
No, he needed to be in a home where there were two adults—adults who would make sure he got to school, did his homework and ate a good dinner. She wasn’t the right person for that. What did she know about teenage boys?
“Yes, I’m sure that’s the right place for him. Aunt Leslie is a little strict, but he’ll be fine there,” Caroline said, hoping her voice didn’t sound as guilty as she felt.
Fine. What a glowing endorsement she’d just given the home she was allowing her little brother to be raised in. Poor Noah. Dumped first on Mamie and then on Uncle Patrick and Aunt Leslie.
Shouldn’t she be doing more for him? Could she do more for him?
No, she couldn’t. She wasn’t the best solution for her little brother. Pat and Leslie were.
Truth be told, she didn’t really know Noah very well. She’d been off to college when he’d been born and in graduate school when their parents left him with Mamie while they returned to whatever country they were doing their missionary work in at the time.
“My darling, Caroline. It’s you I’m worried about. You work too hard. And you haven’t ever brought this man you’re seeing to meet me. After all, he is a Montgomery. I need to see for myself if he’s good enough for you.”
She smiled at the mental picture of Mamie putting on her judicial robes, swearing Travis in on a Bible and having him take the stand where Judge Mamie Bridges could interrogate him. “I told you, Mamie. Travis’s ranch keeps him going day and night. It’s just too hard for him to get away for any length of time.” Chewing guilt took a big bite of her gut, and the smile dropped from her lips. She hated the lying, even if she believed it best for her grandmother’s peace of mind.
“Even for a honeymoon?”
Caroline licked her lips and dug deep into her soul to perjure herself to her grandmother. She forced a lighthearted chuckle. “Of course he’ll take off for the honeymoon. Why, we were just talking about that last night.” She clinched her eyes shut with the falsehood.
“Oh, that’s wonderful. So you’ve set a date then?”
Caroline was the world’s worst liar. Her blotchy face and shifty eyes betrayed her, but on the phone? She was getting to be an expert. Now if only she could keep up the deception. If a little white lie could make Mamie’s passing easier, then so be it. Caroline would take that issue up with the Lord when she was standing at the pearly gates. Until then, let Mamie have her peace.
“Well, not a firm date. We’re still looking at schedules, visiting available chapels and such.”
“You want to make this old woman happy? Get married here…while I can still see you marry the man you love.” Her raspy breathing made her words hard to understand, but Caroline suspected where her grandmother was headed. “We both know I don’t have long. I’ve dreamed of signing your marriage license all my life. After all the ones I signed as an officiating judge, to sign my own granddaughter’s would be like leaving a part of me behind with you.”
Mamie coughed and Caroline could hear the chest congestion rattle over the phone. The last time she’d talked to Mamie’s doctor, he’d confirmed that pneumonia was setting up house in Mamie’s already weakened lungs.
“I love you, Mamie. You need to get your rest. We can talk tomorrow.”
She disconnected the call knowing Mamie was right. She probably didn’t have long to live. Whether it was weeks or months, no one could say with confidence. What seemed certain was that Caroline’s beloved grandmother would not be around to see the Labor Day fireworks. At the rate her body was failing, she might be lucky to see next week.
Her grandmother was nobody’s fool and nothing about her illness had dulled that smart mind. She might have been raised in the back hills of Arkansas, but she’d been a lawyer and a circuit judge before retiring. If she wanted to sign Caroline’s marriage license, she was suspicious of Caroline’s tale of love at first sight.
There was nothing Caroline wouldn’t do for her grandmother. Nothing. If Mamie wanted to see a wedding, then Caroline would find some way to make that happen.
The next step was to convince Travis to do her a huge favor…marry her.
Since she’d talked to Travis this morning, she’d run a million different scenarios on how to ask him to stage a fake wedding. Good God Almighty. It sounded crazy even to her.
The trick would be to keep him from running out the door and calling the guys with the white coats to come lock her up. She had to make him understand she needed this for Mamie and not for herself.
Caroline did not need—and frankly, did not want—a husband. Her life was as
she wanted it…uncomplicated. Sure, she was lonely sometimes, but she could handle that. She never wanted to be a burden on anyone ever again.
She curled on her side on the couch and studied the African fertility masks on the wall, a gift from her parents last December when they couldn’t make it back from Uganda for Christmas. Would she store them when she left Whispering Springs for her next job or sell them? As if anyone would want them. She lowered her eyelids for a minute to fight the exhaustion headache building behind her eyes.
A car door slammed outside. Her eyes flew open in time to catch a shadow as it passed the front window. Dressed in her favorite pair of jean cut-offs, a T-shirt with an anatomically correct drawing of the male reproductive system and no shoes, she wasn’t dressed for company, and her appointment with Travis wasn’t for another ninety minutes.
If this was the people from the church down the street trying to convince her that their brand of religion was the only one that would get her into heaven, she was going to give them a huge piece of her mind. She did not need that kind of grief right now. The last thing she wanted was somebody telling her every Sunday what a sinner she was and how she was going to hell if she didn’t change her ways. Those people had no idea who she was and what she did. They certainly didn’t know if she was going to hell.
Besides, she was a doctor. That would probably get her a get-out-of-jail-free card when she got to heaven, right?
She pushed up from the couch, ready to run off whoever was there. She was tired and cranky and wishing she hadn’t made an appointment to meet Travis tonight. Plus, she was having second thoughts about this whole fake-wedding idea. What other excuse could she dream up for inviting Travis over before he got here?
Chimes rang from somewhere down the hall. Flinging open the door, she drew in a breath and got her prepared speech ready to run off the religious zealots. Her breath left in a gasp when she stared at Travis’s tanned, chiseled face.
He held a straw cowboy hat in front of his body like a gladiator’s shield. A blue polo shirt stretched across wide shoulders, the color drawing attention to his incredible azure eyes. The stiff crease in his jean legs was laid flat by his thick muscular thighs. Brown cowboy boots—cleaned and polished to a high shine—peeked out from the hem of his jeans.
She let her gaze make the pass up and down his body once more. Holy moly. He did pack a punch to a gal’s midsection.
He gave her a dangerously sexy smile. “Hey, Caroline.”
Her stomach gave a nauseating quiver as it did a back flip. She gulped back in the breath she’d lost and tried to steady her now quivering knees.
“Travis?” She looked at her watch. Where had she lost an hour? “I’m sorry. I guess I lost track of the time.”
She struggled to keep her fingers from running through her hair in an effort to arrange it into some type of coiffure. Then she remembered she’d washed off her makeup when she’d showered, meaning to reapply a light coat before he arrived. That meant she was getting ready to request the biggest favor of her life while sporting ratty hair, no makeup, old clothes and barefoot.
She was pretty sure that if she dropped dead right now, God would feel so sorry for her that she’d sweep right through those pearly gates.
“Can I come in?” Travis asked, the corner of his mouth continuing to twitch in a smile, as though he knew something she didn’t.
She knew he’d spoken. She’d seen his lips move, but apparently mortification made a person become immediately deaf.
“Caroline? You asked me to come over about seven. It’s…” he checked his wristwatch, “…almost seven. Sorry. I’m a little early. Are you going to let me in? Unless you want to have a conversation with me on your porch and you standing in the door.”
“What? Sure. Sorry.” This time, she couldn’t stop her hand from trying to fluff her flat hair. “I wasn’t expecting you for another half-hour.”
He chuckled. The deep-throated sound rattled out of him and into her, igniting a warm glow that started in her middle and radiated out like concentric circles from a rock dropped into water. Her blood began to boil from all the heat emanating from the sexiest cowboy in a tri-county area. Caroline felt beads of sweat pop out on her upper lip as a flash fire burned from head to toe.
“Sorry to catch you off-guard, but you look great. Educational shirt you’ve got on.” He grinned then tapped his hat on the end of her nose. “No reason to dress up on my account.”
Crap. Not a good sign when the guy you want to impress enough to talk into the huge favor doesn’t care if you look like a street person.
She sighed. “Uh-huh. Right. C’mon in.”
He stepped into the living room and glanced around. “Nice place. Love those African masks.” He walked over to study them closer. “There must be a great story behind those.”
Caroline shrugged. “Not really. Just a present from my parents. You want something to drink? I have diet soda, water, iced tea, fruit juice.”
“Water would be great. Thanks.”
She headed for her kitchen, trying to figure out if she could do anything about her appearance before she returned to the living room. Unless there was magic in that can of Crisco, she was doomed to her homeless hobo look for tonight’s appointment. She vowed to stock emergency makeup and a change of clothes in the kitchen from now on.
Straightening after pulling a bottle of water from the back of the refrigerator, she backed into a solid wall of hot male muscle. Strong hands grabbed her arms to keep her from falling at the same time the scent of raw male teased her senses. Sexual tension tightened every muscle. The area between her thighs throbbed with carnal lust.
“Oops,” Travis said.
She whipped around and smashed the cold bottle of water against his chest. A dark wet spot spread on his shirt. “Here.” Her heart jumped into her throat. Heat flared on her face. She had to curb the impulse to press her flushed cheek to his shirt.
Crap. Tonight was going to be a disaster.
“Thanks.” He uncapped the bottle, drank about half in one long gulp then wiped his mouth with his hand. “Man, I needed that. The heat today was a killer, but then I guess you know that.”
Her lower back tingled as a sexual itch expanded throughout her heated body. She needed a little physical distance to regroup. “Let’s go back to the living room. I’ll try to explain why I asked you here.”
“Great. I’m hoping you’ve given some thought to selling the Fitzgerald property.”
Caught off-guard by his comment, she stumbled over her feet. Lucky to not fall, she decided no response would be the best response. She’d had Uncle Angus’s ranch appraised this week for tax purposes. Selling the ranch wasn’t even on her radar at the moment, although she didn’t have a clue what she would do with the place.
She returned to the living room with him following on her heels and retook her seat on the couch. He took the other end. She turned toward him, leaned against the armrest and crossed her legs in yoga style. They sat there for a couple of minutes. Caroline couldn’t take her eyes off the movement of his Adam’s apple sliding up and down in his throat as he drank the water. She found herself swallowing in concert with each of his swallows.
No doubt about it. Travis Montgomery was an excellent male specimen. Too bad she didn’t need a husband…at least not a real husband.
He leaned toward her. A clean soapy scent wafted down the sofa toward her.
“Look, I know how hard it must be to consider selling your great-uncle’s property, so I’ll make this easy for you.”
She frowned and braced herself for his reaction. She held up a hand. “Wait a minute, Travis. I didn’t ask you over here to talk about selling Angus’s property.”
He returned her frown. “You didn’t? Then why am I here?”
Caroline drew in a deep breath. “I need a husband and I need one fast.”
Chapter Four
Travis pushed back into the sofa’s overstuffed padding as the shock of her words rat
tled through him. Husband? Caroline Graham wanted to marry him?
“What?” His eyes opened so wide he could feel them drying in the cold air conditioning. “I mean…I’m flattered, of course, but…but…are you pregnant?” Oh good Lord. She was a doctor. Surely she knew how to avoid pregnancy? Besides, he couldn’t be the father. Hell, he’d never even kissed her. Where—
“Calm down, Travis,” she said with a shake of her dark hair. “I’m not pregnant.”
“But—”
“And,” she interrupted, “I’m not in love with you or anything like that.”
The air in his lungs left in a rush. “Then what the hell are you talking about?” Her calmness irritated him. Suspicion colored his view of the situation. “Is this some elaborate joke you and Jason dreamed up to jerk my chain?”
“What? No. No. Of course not.” Caroline stood and waved her hand for him to remain sitting.
He couldn’t say he minded remaining seated. His position put him on a perfect level to enjoy the left-right swish of her tight butt as she walked around in a pair of shorts that might get her arrested in downtown Whispering Springs for indecent exposure. He wished he were in a better mental state to enjoy the view. Or let her compare his male anatomy to the drawing on her shirt.
“Stay put. I’ll explain, but I have a tendency to pace when I’m nervous.” She glanced toward him, a pink tinge of embarrassment coloring her cheeks. “And trust me, I’m nervous.”
She’s having trouble speaking because she’s nervous? Of him?
Travis nodded then settled back and crossed a boot-covered ankle over a knee. He’d played enough poker to know when to stay quiet and study the competition, and now was that time. He put on his poker face. He may not know what to say, but he hoped whatever was going on ended with her selling him Fitzgerald’s place.
“Fine. Explain.”
She sighed and walked over to the cowboy hat he’d left upside down on a floral armchair. After stroking the chair’s fabric for a moment, she faced him. “I don’t want a husband. Not you. Not any man really.”
Texas Tango: Texas Montgomery Mavericks, Book 2 Page 4
