The Marriage Bargain

by Victoria Pade

  And she knew that in spite of the fact that he’d left her frustrated and unfulfilled and craving a completion of what he’d begun, this hadn’t been any kind of cruel game on his part.

  He’d wanted her every bit as much as she’d wanted him.

  She just didn’t know why he hadn’t followed through with it.

  Seven

  There couldn’t have been a more beautiful late-October day for a trip into Whitehorn. When Victoria and Adam set off after lunch the next afternoon, the sun was high in a perfectly clear blue sky.

  Victoria also couldn’t have asked for better company than Adam, who was showing her yet another side of himself today. A side that was pure, winning charisma.

  Neither of them had brought up what had happened the night before since encountering each other again this morning. In fact they both acted as if nothing at all had happened.

  It left Victoria still confused about why Adam had put a premature end to what she’d thought was headed for lovemaking. But she’d decided there was no sense rocking the boat by pursuing explanations.

  Some things were better just left alone.

  As Adam drove, he played tour guide, bringing Victoria up to date on which pieces of property had changed hands and why, pointing out what had been improved upon, reminding her of long-ago mischief enacted here and there when they and their friends were teenagers and had time on their hands.

  It was fun for Victoria and it made the trip into town go fast.

  The Stop-n-Swap was where they went first once they reached Whitehorn. Adam had decided Victoria needed a warmer coat.

  It struck her as strange that he still opted for the Stop-n-Swap as the place to buy that coat—in keeping with his original aim of humiliating her—when he was being so charming and considerate and entertaining that he was making their outing seem like a really great Saturday afternoon date.

  But she was having too good a time to point out the discrepancy and besides, she was looking forward to seeing Crystal Cobbs again.

  There were only two other people at the Stop-n-Swap when Victoria and Adam arrived—Crystal, who was arranging pairs of shoes on a table, and Sloan Ravencrest, who was browsing not far away.

  Although what the deputy was browsing for seemed questionable to Victoria because despite the fact that his hands were moving hangers of shirts around a rack, his dark eyes were only on Crystal.

  And in those dark eyes was an unmistakable interest.

  An interest that Victoria thought might be returned when she saw Crystal cast a glance of her own over her shoulder at Sloan while she seemed oblivious to Victoria and Adam.

  It was actually Sloan who noticed them before Crystal did, snapping to attention as if he’d been caught at something he wasn’t supposed to be doing.

  “Hey. Hi,” he said to them somewhat anxiously.

  They both returned his hello and then Adam bent to speak into Victoria’s ear, “Why don’t you look around and I’ll let Sloan know we didn’t come across any sign of Christina Montgomery when we were out rounding up the horses.”

  “Okay,” Victoria agreed, trying not to like the feel of having him that close to her, the feel of his warm breath against her skin, as much as she did.

  As Adam went off to talk to the deputy, Crystal finally seemed to become aware that she had customers and headed for Victoria with a welcoming smile.

  Crystal really was pretty, Victoria thought, with her raven-black hair and porcelain skin and sparkling green eyes. It was no wonder Sloan was attracted to her.

  But then it was also no wonder Crystal was attracted to the deputy, whose longish dark hair, dark eyes and lean, well-muscled body could turn any woman’s head.

  Well, maybe any woman except Victoria, who still thought Adam was more handsome as she looked at the two men clasping hands.

  “Is the honeymoon over?” Crystal asked by way of greeting when she reached Victoria.

  Victoria didn’t want to tell her it hadn’t ever begun so she just said, “Mmm,” and hoped the other woman would take that as an answer. Then she told Crystal what she’d come looking for and Crystal showed her what coats were available.

  But as Victoria tried on a few, she couldn’t resist nodding in the direction of the men. “I think our deputy is a little sweet on you. Is something going on between you guys?”

  “Between Sloan Ravencrest and me?” Crystal asked as if the very idea shocked her. “No. Of course not.”

  Crystal had said that pretty convincingly. But she gave herself away when, a moment later, she said, “Why would you think he’s sweet on me?”

  “He couldn’t take his eyes off you until he realized he had an audience in Adam and me. It certainly didn’t seem as if it was a shirt he was really looking for over there.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it was.”

  “And he keeps sneaking glimpses of you even now,” Victoria informed her with another subtle glance at the men.

  “Maybe he just needs help with something. Or maybe I have something stuck in my teeth…”

  Victoria laughed. “You don’t.”

  The choice of coats was slim so Victoria settled on a heavy wool pea coat, seeing that more of Crystal’s attention was still on Sloan than on the sale she was about to make.

  “Looks like maybe you’re a little sweet on the deputy, too,” Victoria said when she’d asked Crystal the price of the coat three times without an answer.

  “No…I don’t…I mean, I’m not… We hardly know each other,” Crystal finally responded.

  “Maybe it’s time you got to know each other.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so…”

  Adam’s chat with Sloan seemed to end just then and he came over to Victoria and Crystal, putting an end to their conversation.

  After the coat had been paid for and Adam was headed away from the cash register, Victoria leaned over it and whispered to Crystal, “At least go over and ask if you can help him.”

  “No, no, I—” Crystal’s cheeks pinkened just enough to let Victoria know her hunch about the two of them was right. “That’s not necessary.”

  “Are you matchmaking?” Adam asked in an aside as they left.

  It did seem kind of silly, when she thought about it, because she’d been acting like some old married lady fostering young love. Some old married lady who was so happy in her own life that she wanted others to be just as happy.

  But for some reason that was sort of how she felt.

  “I was just pointing out that the deputy seemed to have an eye for Crystal.”

  “That’s matchmaking,” Adam concluded, but the sly smile he cast her gave a stamp of approval that almost made it seem as if he was all for other people feeling the way he did at that moment, too.

  And Victoria couldn’t help thinking, Oh what a difference a week can make….

  After leaving the Stop-n-Swap, Adam took Victoria to the high school football field where the local team was playing and a fair portion of Whitehorn’s citizens were gathered to watch, whether they knew anyone in particular on the team or not. Supporting youth sporting events was a big pastime of townsfolk and it brought back fond memories for Victoria of her own days as a cheerleader.

  Together she and Adam were drawn into the excitement just like everyone else, cheering on the home team with as much enthusiasm as the parents in the stands all around them.

  When it was over—with Whitehorn the winner—Victoria and Adam did some grocery shopping and then Adam took her to the Hip Hop for dinner.

  Only, unlike the meal they’d eaten at the café the previous Sunday before leaving town, this time they talked and laughed and were so interested in each other that they barely noticed anyone else in the restaurant.

  Dusk was falling when they headed back to the ranch and as Victoria sat on the passenger end of the truck’s bench seat, she had to fight the oddest inclination to slide across so she could be closer to Adam.

  Okay, so they’d had a great day and they’d flirted and teased
and talked as if they really had been out on a date. But that didn’t mean what naturally followed was for her to snuggle up next to him on the way home.

  Even if Adam had taken her hand to climb down from the bleachers at the football game and had laid his palm along the small of her back as he’d ushered her in or out of doors.

  Even if she couldn’t keep her eyes off his chiseled profile, or the way he filled out the dove gray Western shirt he wore, or the way his massive, jeans-clad thighs were spread against the seat, or how his hands mastered the steering wheel without effort—much like they’d mastered her flesh, her breasts, the night before.

  No, there was not a reason for her to snuggle up against his side for the drive home like some lovesick teenager, she reiterated to herself.

  In fact, those were all reasons for her not to. They were reasons for some decorum to be reestablished.

  Which meant that she stayed hugging the passenger door and just thinking about how good it would feel to have those few feet that separated them closed.

  “So,” Adam said into her thoughts as they hit the open road, “I’m betting that marrying me wasn’t in the game plan for your future. But what was?”

  It took Victoria a moment to concentrate on the words rather than just letting the whiskey of his voice intoxicate her in the dim interior of the vehicle; a moment to remind herself that the intimacy they were sharing now that they were alone had to be kept in perspective.

  “What did I have planned for my future?” she repeated as she organized her thoughts.

  “That was the question, yeah.”

  “Let’s see, I’m halfway to earning my Ph.D. I had plans to finish that and hopefully get a full professorship under my belt. I also thought I’d get married, have kids, a dog, a house with a white picket fence—the usual stuff.”

  “But you said last night that there wasn’t anybody you were serious about,” he reminded.

  “That doesn’t mean I didn’t think someone would come along eventually.”

  He nodded solemnly and she couldn’t be sure why he appeared to dislike that answer.

  “What about you?” she asked. “What were your plans for the future? Or was retribution all you had on your agenda?”

  She’d said that half jokingly, but he still frowned over at her, as if he didn’t want that brought into the discussion. Then he said, “I guess I thought I’d probably get married someday, too. Have kids. In an abstract way, you know? It wasn’t on my to-do list, just something I assumed would happen down the road. I mean, I didn’t imagine myself a lonely old codger without a family at the end of my life. But mainly my focus was all on work.”

  “All work and no play…”

  He took his eyes off the road to glance at her again, this time with a one-sided smile. “Are you telling me I’m dull?”

  She just shrugged as if to say maybe.

  He laughed at the silent jab.

  “How exciting would Mr. Right have to be?”

  “Oh, pretty exciting,” she said with exaggeration that bordered on bluster.

  “In what way?”

  “He’d have to be intelligent and funny and ambitious and energetic and witty and sensitive and kind and generous and—”

  “Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound—”

  “And he’d have to love to dance,” Victoria added as the cherry on top.

  “No wonder you were still single,” he teased wryly, as if her list were impossible to satisfy. “Good thing I swooped in and forced some reality on you.”

  Victoria rolled her eyes at him. “This is reality?” she joked back.

  He held out one arm. “Want to pinch me and see?”

  She wanted to do a whole lot more than pinch him. She wanted to caress those bulging biceps and slip underneath his shirt to lie her cheek against his chest….

  But she put her efforts into yanking her wandering thoughts back into line instead.

  “How about Ms. Right?” she asked. “What did you have in mind?”

  “All of the above. And then some.” He let that last part come out full of innuendo as he turned his pewter-gray eyes on her again to give her a lascivious once-over.

  And then a question that had been taunting Victoria for the last week popped out of her mouth before she even knew she was going to ask it. “What about now, are your thoughts about marriage still only in the abstract?”

  “You mean now that you and I are actually married do I have a more solid image of my future? Of a future for this marriage?”

  “Yes, I guess that is what I mean,” she confirmed, wishing she hadn’t said the words because the subject was too sobering to have a place in what had only been inconsequential small talk up to then.

  But the question couldn’t be recalled now that it was out there and so there was nothing she could do but wait for him to say something.

  He wasn’t in any hurry to reply. They’d probably driven a quarter of a mile before he finally said, “I don’t know what the future holds for you and me and the marriage. Making you marry me is about as rash an act as I’ve done in my life. Well, maybe with the exception of kissing you in your father’s barn that night you got me into trouble. When I instigated this thing, I figured it would go on for however long it took to get the anger and resentment out of my blood. But now…”

  His voice dwindled off and the silence that was left said he didn’t know how to finish that thought.

  There wasn’t anything Victoria could think to say, either, so she left him to what looked like his own musings on the matter.

  But it didn’t take him long to work through whatever those musings were before he said, “I suppose it isn’t outside the realm of possibility for us to evolve into the real thing and end up growing old together. Is it?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. In truth, while she wondered frequently how much longer this marriage might go on, she’d never thought about what she actually wanted to happen.

  Adam didn’t let the more somber state they’d fallen into stay for long before he cast her a devilish glance that lightened things up again. “Mr. Right has to dance, huh?”

  Victoria didn’t know what Adam had up his sleeve—besides muscles enough to drive her crazy—but the glint of mischief in his eyes told her he was up to something.

  She didn’t mind. She was all too willing to shy away from the more serious thoughts of the future, too, and get back to just having a good time the way they had been before she asked that fatal question there didn’t seem to be an answer to. So she played along.

  “Mr. Right? He definitely has to dance,” she confirmed.

  “Square dance? Line dance? Ballroom?”

  “Nothing fancy.”

  Adam nodded and pulled the truck over to the side of the road, turning off the engine.

  Then he pointed an index finger at her and looked down the length of it straight into her eyes. “’Nothing fancy’ I can do.”

  He flipped on the truck’s radio, fiddled with the dial until he found some slow country-western music, then hopped out of the cab and came around to her side to open her door.

  “But I can do it under the stars,” he said as if he were upping the ante. He took her hand and pulled her out with him.

  Neither of them had on a coat and since dark had fallen and they were nearer to the mountains than Whitehorn, it was chilly.

  But Victoria barely noticed as Adam swung her into his arms there on the soft shoulder of the road.

  Spending the day in town had been a treat, so she was wearing a navy-blue knit dress for the occasion. It was no protection from the cold but it allowed her to feel the heat of his body radiating through it. And that heat and having him close enough to share it felt so terrific she wouldn’t have changed a thing.

  The stars he’d promised were just beginning to come out in a still cloudless sky. There were no streetlights to mar the white glow of the moon. Crickets seemed to chirp in harmony with the music from the radio. The
slightest breeze hummed through the open fields on either side of the country road. And Victoria finally got her wish to press her cheek against the rock-solid wall of Adam’s chest.

  How could the future matter when the present was so good? she asked herself, closing her eyes so she could just drift along on Adam’s smooth lead.

  There was definitely nothing fancy about his dancing, but that didn’t matter, either. She’d only been teasing about it being a requirement for Mr. Right because most men she knew balked at the very suggestion.

  It was bliss to be in Adam’s arms. To feel his strong hand on her back. To have his other hand holding hers in a cotton-soft embrace between his shoulder and hers. To have his head resting against her loose-falling hair and be bathed in the warmth of his breath. To have the scent of his after-shave wafting around her. To be warmed solely by the heat of his body. To hear his heartbeat while her own pulse kept the same rhythm.

  As she sank into the pure pleasure of it all, something strange happened.

  She relaxed more completely than she ever had in her life. Every care, every tension, every worry, seemed to drain away. Every doubt, every question, every fear, evaporated. Nothing had ever felt as right as being there in that niche of his body that seemed carved just for her.

  He raised his head from hers then and said in a quiet, husky voice, “Do I pass, Teach?”

  Victoria smiled and lifted her face from his chest to look up at him. “B-plus,” she decreed as her eyes feasted on his striking face etched in moonlight.

  He smiled down at her, a slow, sensual smile. “Good enough,” he said as if accepting an offer.

  Then the smile eased into a more solemn expression and he bent to kiss her even as they still swayed to the music on the radio.

  She knew his kiss by then, but familiarity took nothing away from it. There was no doubt about it—the man could kiss!

  His mouth took charge of hers, guiding, teasing, exploring, cherishing.

  His lips were parted and this time it required no urging for hers to do the same. When his tongue came to play, to entice, to seduce, hers was only too willing to oblige.