by Kate Little
Carey sat down in a kitchen chair and began tugging off her boots. Tyler came over and, without Carey asking, helped her.
“Stuck on the road? In this weather? Lucky Carey came along and found you.” Ophelia bustled over to Tyler and took his small hands into her own. “Your hands are like ice, child. We’ve got to get you warmed up before you catch a chill.”
She led him to the table and sat him down. Having raised five children and now the proud grandmother of eleven, Ophelia had a way with kids, Carey knew. And with adults, too, come to think about it. And if Tyler had mistaken Carey for some kind of storybook princess, he was now gazing up at Ophelia as if he’d finally met his long-lost fairy godmother, Carey noticed.
“Now let me get you boys something to eat.” Ophelia turned back to the stove. “I’ve got some roast beef sandwiches and some nice vegetable soup. How’s that sound?”
“Sounds great. If it’s not too much trouble,” Luke replied.
“No trouble at all.” Ophelia took soup bowls and plates from the cabinets, and Luke carried them to the table.
“How about you, Carey? Will you have something?” she asked.
“No, thanks.” Carey sat staring down at the kitchen floor, wiggling her near-frozen toes as she contemplated the truth of her situation.
Kyle was not coming.
The airport in Denver had been closed, all flights going in or out, canceled. His plane had been diverted, turned around, forced to land in Wyoming.
There would be no wedding by midnight.
No marriage and no inheritance.
The ranch and all her father’s savings and investments, except for a very small gift, would go to her cousin, Roger Burkett. A spiteful bully as a boy, who had grown into an even more malicious adult, Roger had been sniffing around ever since her father’s passing, counting down the hours until the ranch would be his if Carey failed to marry.
Well, maybe that’s the way her father had wanted it anyway. The marriage deadline codicil had merely been another way to reprimand her. Her father had always wanted a son to carry on the family name and run the ranch. And for years Roger had tried his insufferable, phony best to fit himself into Jonah’s lost dream.
Tears burned her eyes, and she wiped them away with the back of her hand. Carey knew she was not a materialistic person. If so, she would have succumbed to the many bribes her father had waggled under nose over the years, trying to tempt her to give up acting and return to the ranch. But she had held on to her independence, living a meager existence most of the time without complaint.
Her heartbreak at losing the ranch, though, was not about money, she’d come to realize over the past few months. It was about her father, who had given her so little love and approval as a child. And now Carey felt entitled to the one thing he could give her, a sign that she was indeed loved by him—the gift of Whispering Oaks.
“Carey? Are you okay, hon?” Carey felt Ophelia’s hand on her shoulder. A steaming bowl of soup appeared on the table before her. “Here, have something to eat. Can’t think clear on an empty stomach. You’ve got some time to figure this out. Why, you’ve got hours yet to skin this cat,” Ophelia added optimistically.
Carey lifted her head and sniffed. Luke was politely gazing down at his soup, while at the far end of the table Tyler sat staring at her with wide-open brown eyes.
“Why is Carey crying?” Carey heard the boy whisper to Luke. “Did something bad happen?”
“I guess so. I guess she’s sad about something,” Luke answered him. “But that’s none of our business. Now be quiet and eat your lunch,” Luke instructed as he took his own advice. “This soup is delicious,” Luke said to Ophelia.
“Thanks. There’s chocolate cake for dessert. If the judge didn’t eat the whole thing by himself,” she added in a softer tone.
The judge. Holy Hannah. Carey had forgotten all about him. It was time to send him back to town, she supposed, but she felt utterly deflated. Her lethargic body wouldn’t budge.
Carey sighed. “Guess I’d better tell the judge that the wedding’s been rained out.”
“I suppose,” Ophelia agreed with a reluctant sigh.
Carey looked up at Ophelia’s sympathetic expression. Then she saw a flash in the familiar, blue eyes. A flash that sent off warning bells within. She watched as Ophelia’s thoughtful gaze traveled to Luke and a mischievous smile softened the older woman’s careworn features. Carey could suddenly read Ophelia’s mind. And she didn’t like it one bit.
But couldn’t stop her in time.
“Say, I’ve got a brainstorm,” Ophelia said, happily waving her hands in the air as she practically skipped across the kitchen toward Carey. “Maybe Mr. Redstone here will marry you!”
“Ophelia, please—” Carey shook her head and rubbed her forehead with her hand.
“Well, you don’t know unless you ask him,” Ophelia insisted. “You ought to just tell Luke what the deal is. See if he’s interested. You were going to give that no-show Kyle a wagonload of money, and a lot men wouldn’t mind—”
“Ophelia!” Carey interrupted her..
“All right. Whatever.” Ophelia stepped back, raising her hands in a sign of surrender. “Sorry for butting in. Fry your own bacon, missy, if you want. But I can smell something burning,” Ophelia mumbled under her breath and shook her head. “I’d better check on the judge.”
As Ophelia retreated, Carey dared to cast a slow glance in Luke’s direction. She watched as he carefully wiped his mouth with a napkin, pushed his empty bowl to one side and sat back from the table. She didn’t know what it was about this man—why even his simplest motion fascinated her. Made her lose her train of thought. Completely….
He stared straight back at her, and she felt her cheeks grow warm.
“So…what is the deal here?” he asked point-blank.
Three
“Well…umm…” Carey wasn’t sure where to begin.
Wasn’t sure if she should begin. His dark gaze froze her, fixed her, like a butterfly stuck on a pin. Damn it all. Why did he have to be so darn good-looking? she silently lamented.
“Sleeping like a baby,” Ophelia announced as she returned from peeking into the dining room. “Listen…” She paused theatrically and cupped her ear. “He’s snoring to beat the band. Must be his afternoon siesta.”
Carey heard the judge’s resonant snores and thanked her lucky stars.
“Hey, Tyler, want to help me feed a bunch of puppies?” Ophelia’s enticing invitation suddenly cut through the silence.
“Puppies? Where?” The little boy leapt up out of his chair and eagerly took Ophelia’s hand. Then, turning to Luke, he added, “Can I?”
“Sure thing,” Luke said, waving his hand in approval.
“Tyler and I have some chores to do,” Ophelia said over her shoulder as she led the boy from the room. “You two just sit and get acquainted. There’s more coffee on the stove.”
Before Carey could protest, the incorrigible matchmaker was out the door with Tyler in tow. Luke cleared his throat with a low rumbling sound, drawing Carey’s attention from her swirling thoughts.
“You were saying?” he prompted.
“Actually, I was not saying,” she replied firmly, then added, “Listen, you don’t have to get involved in this. I— It was a ridiculous idea to begin with.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” He stood up from his chair and walked over to the stove with his coffee cup.
Until now, Carey hadn’t taken a really good, long look at Luke with his denim jacket off, and she suddenly couldn’t take her eyes off him. A clean but worn tan work shirt strained over powerful shoulders, and the muscles of his impressive physique were the type developed from long hours of outdoor work, not brief workouts in an air-conditioned gym. The faded jeans that covered his long legs hung from his slim hips like a magazine ad for masculine allure.
She watched as he poured his coffee, then added a splash of milk from the creamer on the coun
ter. His movements were smooth, economical, unhurried. And somehow deeply disturbing to her peace of mind.
“I just want to get it all straight. You need someone to marry you,” he said, returning to the table and sitting down directly across from her. “You’re willing to pay that person money.” His tone was objective and nonjudgmental. “Do I have it right so far?”
“Um—well, yes.” Carey nodded nervously, then tucked a straggling curl behind her ear. She could feel her cheeks growing redder by the second. It all sounded so pathetic. So downright desperate and humiliating when he said it. He must think she had something wrong with her.
“Well, there’s this will. My father’s will,” she explained. “You see, my father had very traditional ideas about women. He hated the idea that I was out in the world, working, having a career….”
“Whereabouts in the world were you?”
“California. Los Angeles, mostly. I was an actress.”
“Was? Meaning you’ve given that up to stay out here?”
“I’ve given up on acting. But not to stay out here,” she replied with a light, incredulous laugh. “Eventually I guess I’ll return to California and take some courses. Figure out something useful to do with my life.”
The line of his generous lips tightened almost imperceptibly at the news, Carey noticed. Clearly, he wasn’t pleased to learn she didn’t care for the rugged ranching life. Well, it was best that he knew from the start this was only a temporary arrangement.
“Go on,” he coaxed her. “You were telling me about your father?”
“My father firmly believed that I should be married. He believed it so much that his will states I cannot inherit this ranch and other assets, unless I’m married by time I’m thirty years old.”
She then explained how she had arranged for her friend Kyle to marry her for the period of time it would take to fix up the ranch and sell it. In exchange for Kyle’s help, she told Luke, she had agreed to give him a substantial sum, a down payment at the time of the marriage and the remainder to be collected when the ranch was sold.
When she named the actual figure, Luke’s eyebrows rose, and he emitted a soft whistle.
“But now Kyle is stuck in an airport in Wyoming, or maybe even on his way back to California,” she added, “and the whole scheme has been ruined.”
She’d noticed that his brow had been creased in concentration as he’d listened.
“Well, how old are you now, if I may ask?”
“Twenty-nine,” she replied, anticipating the question that would come next.
“And when’s your birthday?”
She took a deep breath and sat very tall in her seat before answering. “Tomorrow.”
A dazzling white smile flashed across his face. A deep dimple creased one cheek. She hadn’t noticed that before. “You’re kidding, right?”
She shook her head in reply. Curly strands of her golden-brown hair fell across her face, and she carelessly swiped them back with her hand.
“And what happens if you don’t get married by tomorrow?”
She shrugged with a nonchalance she didn’t feel.
“I lose it all. Everything goes to my cousin, Roger Burkett.”
“Oh.” The seriousness of her situation seemed to overtake Luke again. “You are stuck between a rock and a hard place, aren’t you, then?”
Carey started to answer, but her throat felt thick. His sympathetic tone and soft gaze were her undoing.
She nodded, feeling tears well up in her eyes again as she felt Luke watching her. She stared down at her hands, clasped together on the table so tightly that her knuckles were white, and willed herself not to cry.
Suddenly Luke’s large, tanned hands reached out and covered hers.
“Hey, now.” His whisper was deep and rough, like the rustle of velvet. “Don’t cry, Carey. You seem like a hell of a sharp lady. I think you can figure this out.”
Carey did not answer. But neither did she remove her hands from his grasp. Though his touch was featherlight, she felt the work-toughened skin of his palms and the calluses on his fingers. Some errant part of her mind wandered, imagining what it would be like to feel that strong hand making slow contact with her bare skin….
“Carey…listen,” he said softly. He cleared his throat and she stared up into his dark eyes. “Maybe I can help you…” he suggested, his words trailing off. “Maybe I can marry you.”
“No,” she said, pulling her hands away and shaking her head. She didn’t mean to snap at him, but the word just burst out. “I don’t think so. Thanks…but…” She dared to glance at him. He sat with his arms folded over his chest, looking a bit insulted, but as if he was trying to take the blow to his pride in stride.
“Listen, thanks for the offer,” she added in a more conciliatory tone. “I know you’re just trying to help, but…”
“But what? You have—” he glanced at his watch “—about ten hours to tie the knot, and you’re stuck out on this ranch in a mother of a storm, short one groom.”
She had to agree with the logic of his argument yet tried to ignore it. “But we’re strangers. I don’t know anything about you. And you don’t know anything about me.”
He shrugged. “I’ve got news for you. Most people who get married the so-called normal way don’t know all that much about each other, either. Though they might think they do.” His tone was tinged with a bitter note, Carey noticed, which she strongly suspected arose from experience. But she didn’t have time to question him about it.
“Besides,” he continued. “What you’ve described isn’t a real marriage, anyway. It’s more of a business arrangement. I came here for a job interview, remember?” he reminded her. “Why don’t you just interview me, formal as you please, and see if I qualify?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I’ve rarely been more serious. Go ahead,” he encouraged. “Tell me all about…the position.”
She coughed into her hand. “For instance?”
“Well, what are the hours? What are the duties, responsibilities? Don’t you want to know if I have any experience?”
“Do you?” she replied, struggling to suppress a playful grin.
“Plenty, ma’am,” he assured her, his gaze narrowed seductively, and the small smile that tilted his full lips made Carey’s heart skip a beat. “I even have a few letters of reference handy.” He pulled some folded pages from his shirt pocket and handed them over to Carey.
For a brief moment she was almost afraid to read them. He didn’t look like a professional gigolo…but how could a person tell such things?
Then Carey brushed the ridiculous thought from her mind. She opened the letters and quickly skimmed them. All were glowing reports of Luke’s abilities as a ranch hand and foreman. Addresses and phone numbers were included, as well, so she could verify the information by phone, which Carey thought would be a wise idea, though she certainly didn’t have time for that right now.
Clearly, marrying Luke would solve two problems at once. And if these accounts held any truth, she had found a man who was everything he seemed.
“Honest, hardworking, responsible and fair-minded,” one former boss described him. “Quiet in his ways, neat and organized,” by another account. “A smart fellow, a good man and a loyal friend,” another former employer summed up.
“A man of good character,” another reference wrote.
The phrase struck a note like a clanging bell. The exact words of her father’s will, stipulating that she must marry “a man of good character.”
Would Jonah Winslow have approved of Luke Redstone, Carey wondered? Would he have found Luke an acceptable choice as a son-in-law? Carey peered at Luke over the top of the letters as he sat with his hands folded on the tabletop, his rugged profile revealing an expression that was relaxed but serious.
Yes, her father would have approved, Carey decided. He would even have liked him.
And with the same instinctive certainty, Carey knew that th
e words of praise in Luke’s letters were true. She’d been on her own from a tender age and had learned hard lessons about trusting strangers too easily.
But she had always trusted her instincts about people, and those instincts had rarely led her astray. Right now her instincts told her to trust Luke.
Besides, only some daring maneuver on her part would get her out of this jam. But did she dare marry a man she’d picked up on the highway barely an hour ago?
She put down the letters and met his glance. He smiled. A slow, sexy smile that caused a warm, tingling feeling to race through her limbs, and she fought it, determined to keep the tone of this interview businesslike.
“Well, do I get the job?”
“Not so fast,” she said curtly. “As for the hours, this is a twenty-four-hour job, you know.”
“I understand that.”
“We need to make it look good. Make it look real. You and Tyler will have to live in this house with me. But we don’t need to share a room, of course….”
“Of course,” Luke agreed. His low, rumbling tone set off alarm bells inside her. She challenged his dark glance with an icy stare. But he continued to regard her with a mock serious expression, his lips drawn tight. His sexy smirk was totally unnerving.
Carey felt suddenly out of her league. What in the world was she getting into here?
“Well, we’ll figure all that out later,” Carey rambled on nervously. “The main problem is my cousin, Roger Burkett. If he finds out this marriage is a sham, we’ll both be sitting out on the road, trying to flag down a ride,” she assured him. “I’m hoping that a convincing-enough show will make him give up and slither back under his favorite rock.”
Luke rubbed his chin, carefully considering her words of warning. “I know you’re a professional actress, Carey. But I believe I can keep up.”
His dark eyes held a teasing light and Carey felt a small lump lodge in her throat. She hoped he wasn’t getting too many ideas about how realistically she expected him to play his role. But she couldn’t worry about that now, she reminded herself. They had to strike a deal first and then figure out the fine print later.
