Best of Virgins Bundle

by Cathy Williams

  Cole gave her a lazy smile. “I haven’t had my body examined this closely since my last doctor’s visit.”

  Virginia jerked her gaze away, feeling a hot blush rising on her cheeks. She’d just been surprised, that’s all. That’s why she’d stared. The man was clearly some kind of exhibitionist. Why else would he enjoy parading around nearly naked in front of a total stranger?

  “I—I’d appreciate it if you’d put some clothes on.”

  He backed away a step or two, then turned and walked casually to a chair in the corner where his clothes lay.

  “Better turn your back, sweetheart. I’ve been known to send a woman or two into shock.”

  Virginia turned away and focused on the ceramic butterfly music box on her nightstand, trying to keep her thoughts north of Cole’s waist and south of his knees. Behind her she heard the faint thud of a damp bath towel hitting the hardwood floor. She told her heart to settle down, but it clearly intended to ignore her brain and beat her chest to death. She imagined him pulling his long, lean legs into those tight, faded jeans he’d worn last night, easing them up over his thighs and…and other things. Finally she heard a zipper, and she took a breath for the first time since she’d averted her eyes.

  “All clear,” he said a moment later, and she turned to see him shrugging into his shirt.

  She peered at him tentatively. “Have you been here all night?”

  That smile again. “I guess you don’t remember, do you?”

  Slowly the memories came together, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle scattered about. Moving to music. Cole’s arms wrapped around her. Her head on his shoulder. A long, incredible kiss…then another. And then…

  And then the getting sick part. No wonder she felt so awful.

  Then she remembered him saying something about key possession and drunk tanks and strip searches that was all a little fuzzy but retrievable, but as she played out the rest of the evening in her mind, panic set in. The last thing she remembered was being in Cole’s car, driving home. Past that, she drew a blank. She glanced to the bed beside her and saw rumpled sheets and blankets.

  She wasn’t the only one who’d occupied it.

  As she put two and two together and it started to look an awful lot like four, her heart shifted into overdrive. “Where did you sleep?”

  He glanced at the bed beside her, then smiled. “You really don’t remember, do you?”

  She ducked her head, feeling that long-lost color returning to her cheeks. Could she actually have become a fallen woman and remembered nothing on the way down?

  “Cole?” she said, barely able to croak out the words. “Did you…last night…?”

  He buttoned one cuff, then started on the other. “Did I what?”

  “You know…” She gestured toward the mussed blankets.

  “Ah. You want to know if we made love.” He shrugged. “Would it be a problem if we had?”

  Oh, God. Virginia’s hand flew to her mouth, and she squeezed her eyes closed. Every warning her mother had ever issued her came back in a huge rush of condemnation, and she thought she was going to be sick all over again.

  A little music, a little fun and a lousy beer or two. That’s all she’d wanted. Then, like some kind of naive fool, she’d allowed herself to fall into the hands of a man who practically made it a profession to rip the reputation out from under any girl he came in contact with. Embarrassment welled up inside her, then took a sharp turn toward anger.

  “You—you had no right to do this!”

  “No right to do what? As I recall, you were the one flashing cash around last night, looking for a good time.”

  “A kiss! That’s all!”

  “Now, didn’t I tell you that sometimes you get a whole lot more than you bargained for?” He lifted an eyebrow and dropped his voice. “I’m one of those guys you don’t mess with around closing time.”

  “But I wasn’t of…of sound mind,” she argued. “I’d had far too much to drink—”

  “Whose fault was that?”

  “And then…and then you dragged me home—”

  “Saving you from driving drunk, if you’ll remember.”

  “And then you did…did this,” she went on, waving her hand wildly over the scrambled sheets and blankets. “And I didn’t even know it!” She buried her head in her hands. She’d done it now. What had probably been heaven last night had bought her a one-way ticket for the other direction.

  When she glanced up, his teasing smile had faded. “Is that what you really think, Virginia? That you passed out and I took advantage of you?”

  “You were standing in my bedroom half-naked! What else am I to think?”

  “Use some common sense, will you? You’re wearing the same clothes you were wearing last night. I’ve undressed a lot of women in my life, but I can’t say I’ve ever put any of their clothes back on.”

  She looked at herself and for the first time she realized that her blue jeans, horseshoe blouse and push-up bra were still intact. A little wrinkled here and there, but intact. Only her boots were missing.

  “And where I come from,” he went on, “we always undress when we take showers.”

  “You could have dressed in the bathroom!”

  He gave her a cocky grin. “But that wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.”

  She glared at him, starting to get a little fed up with his attitude. He thought this was funny. She didn’t see anything funny about it.

  “Don’t worry. Your virtue was safe last night. See, I’ve got this weird sexual preference. I prefer my women conscious.”

  She had to admit he was probably telling her the truth. If he’d made love to her, chances are she’d have remembered. Thinking about the way he kissed, she was pretty sure he could drag a woman out of a coma if he set his mind to it.

  She closed her eyes, and for a brief moment she was back at that bar last night, standing under that neon beer sign with the music pulsing through her, and Cole was kissing her. She had no idea a simple kiss could feel like that, except that there was nothing simple about it. Sensations had bombarded her from all directions, turning her insides to mush and making her feel all dizzy and disoriented. She remembered the way Cole had smelled, that warm, musky, man smell she’d never experienced before because she’d never gotten close enough to a member of the opposite sex. She remembered that boneless, melting feeling that had taken over her body as he crushed her breathlessly against him, and the way he tasted when he slipped his tongue into her mouth and she found out firsthand what all the fuss was about French-kissing. Just thinking about it made her cheeks burn, and she turned away from him, knowing she was blushing. Just once in her life she wished she could keep her circulatory system from betraying every embarrassing thought she had, particularly where Cole was concerned.

  She’d asked for a kiss, and he’d delivered. Boy, had he delivered. Thankfully, it appeared that was all he’d delivered. She sighed with relief, feeling as if her one-way trip to hell had just been canceled. When she finally got around to doing that, she swore it would be with a man she loved and a man who loved her, too, even if it took forever to find him. A man she was married to, for heaven’s sake. She’d never make the same mistake her mother had. Never.

  She inched her gaze around. “But if we didn’t…I mean, if all we did is sleep, then what are you doing here?”

  Cole sat on the chair and pulled his boots on, then stood. He sauntered to the bed where Virginia sat. He towered over her, and she had to tilt her head to meet his gaze.

  “I have a proposition for you.”

  Virginia closed her eyes. “Oh, God.”

  “Take it easy, sweetheart. Not that kind of proposition.” He sat on the bed next to her. She instinctively shrank away from him, and he slumped with frustration. “Are you always this uptight?”

  “Yes! When I find a naked man in my bedroom who won’t go away, yes! I get a little uptight!”

  “Is that what you really want? For me to go away?”
>
  “Yes!”

  “Sorry. That’s not an option.” He checked his watch. “Look, Virginia, I’m a little short on time here, so I’m going to get right to the point. Listen up and try to follow, because I don’t want to have to explain it twice. My grandmother died six months ago. She had a ranch about fifteen miles south of Coldwater that she willed to me, but she attached a few conditions. Part of the deal is that I have to be married and live on the ranch for six months before I get the deed, because she had this crazy idea that I needed to get married and settle down. Are you following me?”

  Virginia’s brain still felt fuzzy. “Yeah. I think so.”

  “Living on the ranch for six months is no problem. It’s the other thing. The marriage thing.”

  She stared at him blankly.

  “If I’m going to inherit that property, I need a wife, and I need one now.”

  He took a deep breath, then rubbed his hand across his mouth as if he’d give anything to hold back the words that were getting ready to come out.

  “What I’m trying to say is…will you marry me?”

  4

  THE MOMENT Cole said the word marry, whatever fuzziness Virginia still felt from her encounter with three bottles of beer last night was knocked right out of her. She sat up suddenly, staring at him with utter disbelief.

  “What did you say?”

  “It’ll be a business arrangement. That’s all. None of this till death do us part stuff. We stay on the ranch six months, I get the deed, then we get a divorce. That’s it.”

  It was as if Cole were speaking a foreign language. The words themselves came through clearly, but she was having a really hard time comprehending them.

  “And there’s something in this deal for you, too,” Cole went on. “Good thing, considering how broke you are.”

  Virginia’s brain went on red alert. How did he know that? “Broke?” she said, trying to sound nonchalant. “I’m not broke.”

  “Your bank balance is approximately sixty-seven dollars. You’ve got bills up to your eyeballs and a landlord breathing down your neck. And I don’t see you getting out anytime soon on that lousy salary they pay you at the bank.”

  “How do you know—?”

  He gave her a knowing look, and all at once she thought about the stuff on her kitchen table, the bills, her check stubs. And then there was her purse. He’d already helped himself to that at the bar. Apparently he didn’t think twice about rummaging through it again, and the thought of it infuriated her.

  “You went through my things? While I was in here passed out, you looked through my whole house?”

  “Not the whole house. I’m still not sure whether you wear briefs or bikinis.”

  Virginia gasped even as her face reddened with embarrassment. “Get out!”

  Cole didn’t budge.

  “Get out of my house! Now!”

  He regarded her for a long time, his dark eyes grim and calculating. Finally he held up his palms in resignation.

  “Sure, sweetheart. Whatever you say.”

  He got up from the bed and headed for the door. “But it might be a long time before someone else offers you a way you can pay off all your bills and have enough money left over for college.” He gave her a shrewd little smile. “See you around, Virginia.”

  He left the room, closing the door behind him with a gentle click.

  Bills paid? College tuition?

  She scrambled out of bed, yanked the bedroom door open and raced to the living room. “Cole. Wait.”

  He stopped and turned around. Very slowly.

  “Tell me the part about the college tuition again.”

  Ten minutes later, she thought she’d absorbed it all. They would live on the ranch as man and wife for six months. After Cole took title to the ranch, they would get a divorce, and he would pay her twenty-five thousand dollars for her trouble. And during that time, since they’d be living on the ranch, she could bank most of her salary and pay off her bills, then at the end of six months she could be on the road to Austin. It was June right now. By December it would all be over with.

  Simple as that.

  Virginia slumped on the sofa, feeling overwhelmed. There was nothing simple about it.

  “There are a dozen women in this town who would marry you. Why me?”

  “To tell you the truth, I’m a little short on time, and you kind of fell into my lap.”

  That stung a little, but then again, he was asking for a business arrangement, not a real relationship. If Cole McCallum was looking for love, he’d be looking in another place. That made her heart sink a little, until she thought about the money she’d have after six months if she saved all her salary, then tossed twenty-five thousand dollars on top of it. Plenty of money to move to Austin, to go to college, to start a new life.

  “What will happen to the ranch if you don’t inherit it?” she asked.

  “It’ll go to Ben Murphy, my grandmother’s second husband. But he’s got more money than Midas. He doesn’t need the ranch. He doesn’t even want it. But he’ll sure keep me from inheriting it if I don’t meet the terms of the will.”

  “Why doesn’t he want you to have it?”

  “Let’s just say that we’ve never seen eye to eye about anything.”

  “Why didn’t your grandmother just will it to you without all the conditions?”

  “It’s like I said. She thinks I ought to get married and settle down. This is her way of trying to make that happen.”

  “But you don’t want to settle down.”

  “Nope.”

  “So what will you do with the ranch once you have it?”

  “Sell it.”

  “Sell it? Even though your grandmother wanted you to—”

  “My motives are my own business, and I don’t want you questioning them. All you have to do is decide whether or not you want that twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  Of course she wanted it. Right about now, there wasn’t much she wouldn’t do to get money for college so she could leave Coldwater behind for good.

  “Of course, I’ll want you to sign a prenuptial agreement,” Cole said, “which basically states that you get nothing but the twenty-five thousand dollars when we divorce. I’ve already had a lawyer draw up divorce papers, which we’ll both sign, and when the six months is up, I’ll execute them and we’ll go our separate ways.”

  Virginia felt her head spinning as she tried to absorb it all. Ultimately, though, the part she understood the best was the part about the twenty-five thousand dollars.

  She looked around the house, at the four walls she’d stared at since she was old enough to remember. Life with her mother had been one sermon after another, which she put on hold only long enough to complain about her various aches and pains. Virginia could still hear her mother calling to her from her bedroom, tugging on that invisible cord of neediness she’d wound around her daughter to keep her drowning in guilt. She’d forced responsibility on her that no person her age should ever have had to deal with, and it wasn’t until her mother’s sudden heart attack and subsequent death that Virginia had truly understood the prison she’d been in—a prison she was now desperate to break out of.

  But could she actually go through with it? Could she marry a man she didn’t even know? And above all, could she spend six months in the same house as Cole McCallum?

  “So do we have a deal?” Cole said.

  “No! I mean, I have to think about it. I can’t just jump right into something like this.”

  “Sorry. There’s no time for you to think about it. It’s now or never.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Really. This is crazy. I just don’t think—”

  “Come on, Ginny. Lighten up, will you? This arrangement will be good for both of us.”

  Virginia’s heart skipped. “What did you say?”

  “I said the arrangement will be—”

  “No. What did you call me?”

  “Ginny?”

  She
stared at him.

  “That is your nickname, isn’t it? Short for Virginia?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  Not once in her life had anyone called her anything but Virginia. Her mother certainly never had, or her teachers, or even the people she worked with. She was Virginia—uptight, boring Virginia who didn’t even warrant a casual nickname. Hearing Ginny come out of Cole’s mouth right now gave her a feeling she’d never had before, as if there was another flesh-and-blood person hiding inside her, dying to get out. One named Ginny who said yes far more than she said no, who took chances, who looked adventure and excitement right in the face and never blinked.

  “I’ll do it,” she said.

  “You will?”

  “Yes. I will.”

  She stiffened for a moment, not completely sure those words had come out of her mouth. Had she actually said she’d marry Cole McCallum? Suddenly she felt a little woozy, as if she were going to keel right over.

  She took a deep, calming breath. It was going to be okay. She could do this. After all, she had a little time to get used to the idea, to reconcile herself to the fact that while she’d be married to Cole, it was really just a business deal, and business deals were nothing to get in a tizzy about. It would take a few days at least to get a blood test and a marriage license, and by that time—

  “Ginny,” Cole said. “One more thing. About the wedding.”

  “Yes?”

  “I have to be a married man by tonight.”

  Ginny gaped at him. “Tonight?”

  “Pack your bags, sweetheart. We’re going to Vegas.”

  THE LAS VEGAS strip after dark was a sight Ginny had never expected to see—a whirlpool of multicolored lights so bright that it looked as if the sun hadn’t bothered to set. Everything seemed fluid and full of motion, cars gliding down the street and people moving along the sidewalk in a never-ending swirl of activity, so bright and glitzy that it made the Lone Wolf Saloon look like a church parish hall.