The Cowboy's Bride

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  As if he had been invited to sleep with her, Callie fumed. “Oh, I know that,” she replied with a saccharine smile, then stared at him, still waiting for an answer to the question.

  He shifted his weight so it was braced equally on both legs. “In the master bedroom,” he said finally.

  “Which is where?” Callie asked.

  He sighed grudgingly. “At the other end of the hall.”

  Callie lifted her eyes to his. “You said you’d lend me a shirt?”

  Cody nodded. Turning on his heel, he disappeared for a few minutes, then returned, a crumpled flannel shirt in hand. Wordlessly, he handed it to her. “This is the cleanest one I’ve got. It’s been a few days since I’ve had time to do any laundry.”

  The soft cloth was redolent with the scent of his cologne and the headier, more masculine scent of his skin.

  “But you’re welcome to use the washing machine downstairs,” Cody continued.

  Callie swallowed. “Thanks.” It wasn’t hot in here but she was suddenly perspiring.

  “And while you’re at it...” He left and returned with a huge pile of filthy laundry and dumped it at her feet. “You can do mine, too.”

  “I’m not your slave, Cody.”

  His smug glance was enough to try her patience completely. “No, but you are my wife, at least for the next couple days, so you might as well get used to the long list of chores that come with the job.”

  Callie humphed and kicked at the huge pile of laundry with the toe of her red cowgirl boot. “I suppose I should be glad you gave me a bedroom to sleep in this time.” It was bound to be more comfortable than the sofa she’d slept on a few hours ago.

  Cody gave a gusty laugh. “Don’t read too much into it. I haven’t changed my mind about your character, or shall I say lack of it, one whit.” His opinion thusly stated, Cody sauntered off.

  “Is THAT A MOUNTAIN of laundry or what?” Pearl asked from the mudroom door.

  “Pearl!” Callie dropped the towels in her hand and rushed to greet the woman who had given her her first legitimate job, and through that, the return of her self-respect.

  “I hope you don’t mind me tracking you down,” the fifty-something Pearl said as she let herself in. “I heard you were back and I had to see for myself how you were doing, especially since you’d been hooked up with that rascally Cody McKendrick again.”

  “Don’t even joke about it.”

  “Things are that bad?”

  Callie shook her head sadly. “He’s changed, Pearl.”

  Unlike the tall, thin Pearl, who still wore her bright red hair swept up into a French twist, just as Callie recalled. In a short pink waitress outfit and white western boots, the bighearted but plainspoken Pearl looked much as she had the day Callie had left her job at Pearl’s diner to run off with Cody.

  “And not for the better, as we all know and worry over,” Pearl said.

  Callie sighed and leaned against the washer. Suddenly, she felt so much older than her years again. “Then you know what I’m talking about.”

  Pearl put an arm around Callie and hugged her. “He never would admit it to anyone, not even Max, but Cody ain’t been the same since you left him.” Pearl stepped back to give Callie the once-over. “You, on the other hand, are looking mighty fine, gal. You’ve not only grown up, you’ve prettied up. And that’s saying a lot, ‘cause you were no ugly pony when you left here.”

  “Thanks.” Callie blushed.

  “It’s nothing but the truth.”

  “You heard about the will...and the conditions in it?”

  “Shoot. Now that it’s been read, everyone in Montana knows about it, I expect. Max always was a wild one.”

  And, Callie thought, Pearl had always had a crush on Max. She was just surprised the two had never married, as Max had seemed equally devoted to Pearl. But whatever Pearl and Max’s relationship had been, the two had kept it very quiet. And very private, at least when Callie had been around.

  Callie misted up. “You must be missing Max, too.”

  She leaned forward to give Pearl another hug.

  Tears shimmered in Pearl’s eyes. “You’re right. I do. But let’s not talk about that right now. Let’s talk about this crazy situation you and Cody find yourselves in. I admit it’s got me a little worried, Max pushing the two of you together this way. Not that the others seem to be faring much better.”

  Callie set the dials on the washer and turned it on.

  She slammed the lid and turned back to Pearl. “Why? What’s going on with Trace and Patience and their respective mates?”

  Pearl held up a palm. “I don’t carry tales from person to person,” she declared as if taking a solemn oath. Her voice dropped a conspiratorial notch. “Let’s just say they have their hands as full as their little brother, Cody, does.”

  “Hmm,” Callie said as she walked back into the adjacent kitchen.

  Pearl nodded at the pot on the stove. “This your doing?”

  Callie nodded.

  Pearl lifted the lid. “Vegetable soup, straight from the can?”

  Callie wrinkled her nose. “I was hungry. I didn’t feel like going to a whole lot of trouble.”

  Pearl rolled her eyes in silent indignation. “Sugar, you will never win Cody’s heart this way.”

  “But—” Callie wasn’t sure she wanted to win Cody’s heart, not if it meant she had to play tricks and games, even the feminine kind. On the other hand, what was wrong with seeing that the rogue got a little of the tender loving care everyone deserved, especially if said TLC helped Cody return to his former loving self?

  “Let’s see what we can do to fix it up a little.” At home in any kitchen, Pearl quickly found her way around Cody’s. In no time, she brought out a potato, some leftover roast beef, a little beef gravy. While Callie diced, Pearl searched the spice rack. “By the time we’re done with it, he’s going to think it was homemade.”

  Which was another problem, Callie thought, lest he think she was going to let him get away with his rude, incorrigible behavior. The way Cody was acting, she was not sure she wanted him to think she had gone to any trouble. On the other hand, a great lunch would be nice. And she could always save any leftover soup for later....

  “Things must be going okay between you and Cody if you’re cooking him lunch,” Cisco Kidd observed as he came through the back door into the ranch-house kitchen.

  Callie looked at the western-garbed lawyer, who, like her, had been one of Max’s unofficial adoptees. The only difference between them was that Cisco Kidd had stayed around to become part of Max’s business and personal affairs in an official capacity. “Don’t read too much into it,” Callie warned sagely.

  Immediately interested, Cisco Kidd lifted a brow. “Oh?”

  Callie stopped a self-conscious blush dead in its tracks. She held up both hands to ward off further questions. “I’m only fixing Cody lunch because he fixed me breakfast. I don’t want to be any more beholden to him than I have to be.” She also wanted to be fair, even if Cody wasn’t.

  Cisco Kidd and Pearl exchanged glances. It was clear, Callie thought, the two were jumping to all kinds of conclusions. “Nevertheless, that is his shirt you’re wearing, isn’t it?” Cisco Kidd prodded.

  Callie sighed and related tiredly, “Zeus—Cody’s prize bull—trampled the few other clothes I had with me. I’m going to have to wash and sew before I can wear any of them again.”

  “You ought to have Cody take you into town to buy some new ones,” Pearl said, adding a pinch of thyme to the soup.

  Callie ducked her head, loath to admit how little she had in her savings. Working the kind of entry-level jobs she had, she had never seemed to get very far ahead. “I’m a little low on funds,” she admitted evasively.

  “So?” Cisco Kidd said, as if that were no big deal. “Charge it to his account.”

  Pearl nodded agreeably. “You are his wife.”

  Thinking how little that fact meant to Cody, Callie rolled her eyes. �
�So he said when he handed me that pile of dirty laundry,” she muttered dryly.

  Cisco Kidd did a double take. He knew her well enough from years past to realize how much she hated taking orders in the domestic realm. “You’re washing it?”

  Callie tried but couldn’t quite hide her amusement as she told her two visitors with mock gravity, “I started right away, with the whites. Of course, they require lots of hot water. I hope that doesn’t mean that Cody won’t have enough for his shower.” As the washer in the mudroom switched from the wash to the rinse cycle, there was a corresponding yelp from upstairs.

  “Sounds like he’s getting the message you wanted to send,” Cisco said, slanting a look at the second floor.

  Callie’s mood turned stormy as she reflected on the past nineteen hours. “I hope so,” she said emotionally. “Serves him right for passing off the outpost as his home.”

  “Actually, that’s not so far from the truth,” Cisco replied, pulling up a chair at Callie’s waved invitation. Cisco exchanged worried glances with Pearl. “I don’t know what he’s told you, but he’s spent a heck of a lot of time out there the past seven years. Isn’t that right, Pcarl?”

  “So much time that I worried about him,” Pearl agreed.

  Callie was not going to let Max’s old friends and trusted confidantes coax her into feeling sorry for Cody. “Why would he do that when he had this house, which is so much nicer?”

  Cisco Kidd propped his alligator boots on the bottom rung of another chair. “Max said it was because Cody had never recovered from your botched elopement.”

  Callie thought of Cody in the firelight, hunkered down in front of the bedroom fire. She thought of him rousing her before it was even light outside, smiling as he cooked her a campfire breakfast as the sun slowly rose in the east. “He looks like he came through in one piece.”

  “On the outside, maybe,” allowed Pearl, who had always been Max’s sole female confidante. “On the inside it was a different matter. He swore to his Uncle Max that he’d never give his heart to a woman again, and he hasn’t.”

  Callie paused in the act of stirring the soup, which now looked and smelled homemade. “You’re sure about that?”

  Cisco Kidd nodded. “The truth is that Cody has been so darn ungallant and unsociable that no woman would go near him, to the point where his Uncle Max had begun to wonder if Cody would ever let himself love again.”

  Callie wished there was a chance for that to happen. Because if she thought Cody might actually be open to loving her again—loving anyone—it would be so much easier for her to stay and fight.

  Aware both Pearl and Cisco Kidd were watching her carefully, Callie shook herself out of her reverie. “About Uncle Max’s will. You wrote it for him, didn’t you?” When Cisco indicated that was so, she continued warily, “Can it be broken, so that Cody can inherit anyway, even if I don’t marry him?”

  Cisco Kidd frowned. He put his foot back on the floor and sat forward earnestly. “Listen, Callie, Max really wanted you and Cody to be together.”

  Callie knew that, but people didn’t always get what they wanted. “He also loved Cody,” she pointed out. “Max wouldn’t want him to be penniless if things between Cody and me didn’t work out.” Callie looked out the kitchen window and released a troubled sigh.

  Cisco Kidd gave Callie a stern look. “What are you saying, Callie, that you don’t think things are going to work out between the two of you?” As Max’s lawyer and executor of his will, Cisco seemed to think maybe Callie wasn’t trying hard enough.

  Callie bristled in irritation. Arms folded in front of her, she paced back to the stove. Deciding the soup wasn’t cooking fast enough, she upped the burner from low to medium heat. When she was finished, she turned back to face her visitors. “He’s changed from when I knew him before.”

  “So have you, Callie,” Pearl said gently. “You’re wiser in the ways of the world now, stronger. More independent. If I can see it, so can Cody.”

  Callie lifted her head. Cisco Kidd was six years her senior, which put him roughly the same age as Cody. She wondered how he saw her. “For the better?” she asked Cisco.

  Cisco grinned. “You bet.” The way he and Pearl both looked at her, Callie knew she had two allies if she needed them. And she might before this was all over.

  “Back to the will.” Callie sat at the kitchen table with Cisco and Pearl and got back down to business. “If Cody and I don’t marry, according to the will, what happens to the cattle operation?”

  “It will revert to a corporation and be managed by that corporation, until which time that corporation is sold.”

  “What about the profits?”

  “Damn, Callie. Ever thought of being an attorney yourself? How do you think of these things?”

  Because I have a brother and father who constantly analyze things from every angle. She regarded him impatiently. “Answer my question, Cisco.”

  “Cody gets the profits.”

  Callie smoothed a design on the tabletop with her fingertips. “Can he buy the ranch from the corporation?”

  Again, Cisco nodded. “If he bad the money.”

  “Does he?”

  Cisco didn’t answer right away. And from the look on his face, it was clear to Callie that Cisco did not see that as an option. “It would mean getting a mortgage on the land instead of owning it from the outset, free and clear, Callie. It would mean Cody being in considerable debt for the rest of his life.”

  “But he would still have this place he loves,” Callie insisted as her mind raced on ahead to other possible outcomes.

  “But he wouldn’t have you. Without you, Max was sure Cody could never really be happy,” Pearl said.

  “Which is why he had me set up his will the way he did,” Cisco added.

  If only I felt that way, Callie thought. But there were times in the last nineteen hours when she felt that Cody would be so much happier if only she wasn’t around. And that in turn made her feel unwanted. She did not like feeling unwanted. In the way.

  “Not to mention the fact that you, Callie, would be penniless if it goes down that way,” Cisco warned.

  But what she stood to gain or lose was the least of her worries, Callie thought.

  “Which brings me to my next point,” Callie told Cisco. “About the wedding ceremony we had in Mexico. Cody says he doesn’t have the marriage certificate. Neither do I.” Callie bit her lip worriedly. “Is that a problem?”

  Cisco frowned. “It could be, if you want to try and prove you’re already married.”

  “Then our marriage is still legal?” Callie asked. “It’s not a sham marriage?” As Cody had implied to her earlier.

  Cisco inclined his head thoughtfully. “It’s legal to the extent it could be consummated at this point or annulled. Whatever you and Cody want. And you’re right to worry about the certificate. You should have it so the situation can be wrapped up properly, either way, at the end of the forty-eight hours Max wanted you to have.”

  Callie frowned. “If our marriage is already a legal one—and binding—why do we have to show up at the ceremony thirty hours from now to collect on our inheritances? Why not just say we are already married and leave it at that?”

  “Because,” Cisco Kidd replied in gentle, lawyerly fashion, “Max wanted you and Cody to have a real wedding, with all your friends and family present this time. He felt, at the time he had me draw up the will, that perhaps if you all had stayed here and married instead of running off, as he encouraged you to do, that your marriage to Cody might have worked out the first time around.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Callie said, worrying her lower lip again as footsteps pounded in the hallway. As they all looked up in unison, a barefoot, bare-chested Cody strode into the kitchen. He was clad only in a pair of faded, button-fly Levi’s that fitted him snugly. Callie bit back a sigh. She had always felt a man clad in nothing but jeans was the sexiest thing.

  As for the rest of him, she could see he�
�d lost no time in getting downstairs to join them. Water still beaded in his beard. His shoulder-length hair was slicked back, away from his face, tied with a rawhide strip at the nape. “What kind of game are you playing now?” Cody demanded of Callie gruffly.

  Callie saw that the sporadic lack of hot water during his shower had driven home her message that he needed to treat her more kindly if he expected her to do the same. But right now it was time for a little fun....

  She splayed a hand across her chest and fixed him with her most innocent look. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Cody glanced at Cisco and Pearl dismissively.

  “You don’t suppose... the washer had anything to do with it?” Callie continued in Southern-belle fashion, pulling his leg.

  Cody scowled. He knew she had done that on purpose. From the looks of it, he also planned to pay her back. But not, it appeared, while they had company.

  Cody turned to Cisco. Apparently convinced he’d made his point to Callie, he now turned his attention to Uncle Max’s lawyer. “What’s up?” Cody asked Cisco, point-blank.

  Cisco shrugged and regarded Cody man to man. “I just dropped by to deliver a message from Shorty. He wants you to know that the ranch hand who was injured this morning was treated and released.”

  Cody frowned in concern. “Great. What about Zeus? Is he all right?”

  Cisco nodded reassuringly. “Yep. He’s back in the pen, with two guards and a video cam on him this time. Shorty figured you’d want to know that, too.”

  Cody’s shoulders softened with relief. “I do. Thanks.”

  “Well —” Cisco Kidd cleared his throat as he leaned over to shake hands with Cody. “Guess I better get a move on and check on Patience and Josh, and Trace and Susannah.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Pearl said, also getting to her feet.

  “Sure you don’t want to stay for lunch?” Callie said to both of their visitors, suddenly eager not to be alone with Cody. Especially after that deliberately-doing-laundry-during-his-shower trick. Suppose he tried to kiss her again and she responded just as wildly as she had last night, or even more so? “There’s plenty,” Callie continued cheerfully.