Marked for Marriage

by Jackie Merritt

  It felt like pure heaven to her aching body, and she went out like a light.

  Sometime in the night she began dreaming about her childhood, about her brother, Mark, the parents she remembered to this day with an ache in her heart and Aunt June. Dear, sweet Aunt June, who had really been a great-aunt and had been the person who had insisted that thirteen-year-old Maddie come and live with her when her parents had been killed in a car crash. Mark had been twenty, and he’d stayed in his parents’ home to sell it, along with other things they’d left their children. When everything had been accomplished about a year later, he had half of all proceeds put into the Whitehorn bank in Maddie’s name.

  Aunt June had been on Maddie’s mother’s side of the family, and some of the Kincaids, her father’s family, had offered their homes to Maddie at the time of the tragic accident. But Aunt June Howard hadn’t merely offered. She’d talked long and hard to Mark about letting Maddie come and live with her because the child would be alone far too much if she remained in the family home with Mark, who, after all, was a man with a job and a life of his own. When he finally agreed—albeit reluctantly—that it would be best for Maddie to live with Aunt June, she had packed Maddie’s things and taken her home with her.

  Aunt June had been a plump, short lady, with graying hair and green eyes, the same color eyes that both Mark and Maddie had been blessed with, and she had loved her niece and nephew as though they’d been her own offspring. Widowed young, June Howard had not had kids of her own. She had never remarried and had explained to Maddie when she’d asked why not one time that there just wasn’t another man on the planet who could replace the one true love of her life.

  “And remember this, my sweet girl, if you truly fall in love, and I’m speaking of the real thing here, the kind of love that brings two people so closely together that they start thinking as one, don’t let go of it. You’ll know if and when it happens. You’ll feel it in here.” Aunt June had gently tapped Maddie’s chest. “In your heart, darlin’, in your heart,” she’d added when Maddie had looked rather perplexed.

  Mark had visited his baby sister—and Aunt June, of course—often, and one evening when he dropped by he had quietly and a little sadly told Maddie that he was leaving Whitehorn. “I’m not making enough money to even buy a decent car, Maddie. Someday you’ll understand why I have to go.”

  She had answered, “I understand now, Mark.”

  He’d studied her gamine face with its smattering of freckles and her big solemn green eyes, and then pulled her into a big bear hug. “You really do, don’t you?” he’d said emotionally.

  It was true. She had always adored her big brother. Mark was handsome and bright and deserved better than he had in Whitehorn. And when she grew up, she was going to do something else, too. That feeling was in her bones, a deeply embedded part of herself, and it surfaced in all of its glory when, at age fifteen, she won that first rodeo contest using a borrowed horse.

  Once she bought Fanny and dedicated herself to training her very own horse, Maddie couldn’t be stopped. Aunt June didn’t quite approve of a young woman being so involved with rodeo, but Maddie’s happiness came first for June Howard, and besides, she hadn’t been feeling well for some time and had become quite involved with doctors and medical tests. Her diagnosis, finally, had been congenital heart failure with severe complications, which, she’d been told, would gradually take its toll.

  She deteriorated more rapidly after age sixty-three, and Maddie had taken over more and more of the household duties as time passed. To Maddie’s intense sorrow, dear Aunt June passed away at age sixty-five. Maddie was eighteen and had just recently graduated from high school. Mark came for the funeral, stayed with Maddie for a few days and then returned to New York City and his job as a detective with the NYC police department. He’d wanted Maddie to go with him, but she hadn’t even been able to imagine herself living in the East. She was Western through and through, a country girl at heart, and while she would greatly miss her beloved aunt, Maddie wasn’t even slightly afraid to face the future by herself.

  That had been the real beginning of her rodeo career, which through the years had only grown more and more exciting. Of course, she’d never been injured before.

  Trying almost desperately to keep the sweetly soothing dream from escaping her awakening mind, Maddie finally opened her eyes. In amazement, she realized that she felt wonderful. Obviously she’d slept through the night—a fabulous night of sound sleep and lovely, heartwarming dreams—because bright morning sunshine was streaming through the tiny openings of her window blinds.

  That “wonderful” feeling, however, lasted only until Maddie tried to get up. Falling back to her pillow, Maddie groaned. Every ache and pain was firmly in place; no way was she going to recover this quickly.

  But even while feeling despondent over her present physical limitations, something important occurred to her. The pain medication must have completely worn off during the night because her mind was clear and rational. She would be able to drive now!

  And so a plan to transport herself and Fanny from Texas to Montana took shape. She would use over-the-counter pain medication during the day, which would certainly help enough to enable her to get around. She would drive until she grew tired—maybe only a few hours a day, maybe much more—then when she went to bed at night she would take a prescription pain pill.

  Satisfied with her idea, which seemed sane and sensible, Maddie cautiously got out of bed and began the day.

  The trip was long and hard and at times seemed never ending. Maddie phoned Mark twice in the first few days of the journey and, to her relief, got his voice mail each time. She left brief messages about seeing him soon, but never mentioned that she was driving instead of flying. She had flown to Montana only recently to attend Mark and Darcy’s wedding, so it wasn’t as though Fanny hadn’t ever been left behind. But this was a completely different situation. Maddie felt pretty certain that she would be in Montana for a month, and she knew that she wouldn’t relax for a second if Fanny was so far away from her for so long a time.

  So each morning she got out of her warm and comfortable bed, bathed, tended her wounds as instructed, ate breakfast, took her antibiotic pill along with an over-the-counter pain medication, and then limped outside to feed and water Fanny before leading her back into the trailer for that day’s drive.

  Maddie’s trailer was a marvelous unit for people like her. The back one-third was your basic horse trailer, but the front two-thirds was like a tiny apartment, cozy and convenient. It was long and heavy and required a powerful truck to pull it, which accounted for the big costly truck Maddie drove—and loved.

  At any rate, she had all the comforts of home wherever she went. And so did Fanny.

  Since she was heading north in February, though, Maddie ran into some really foul weather. There was no way to avoid it and still end up in Montana, and so she took the shortest route, which at least cut down on her mileage. Every day seemed a little colder than the one before, and Maddie had a hard time finding things in her closet that were both warm and loosely fitted. Finally she stopped in a town in Colorado and bought some lined pants and jackets in a large size. Since she wore a size six, her new suits hung on her. But they were warm and didn’t cling to her sore right side.

  The biggest inconvenience was her useless right hand, even though she was getting better at using her left. Also, she had started noticing something that struck her as strange. Her left knee had developed a throbbing ache, which made no sense to Maddie when all of her injuries had been to the right side of her body. She would, of course, see a doctor in Whitehorn as soon as was feasible after arriving there.

  She felt like weeping with relief when she finally crossed the Wyoming-Montana border and knew that tomorrow she would make it to Whitehorn. The trip had been a terrible ordeal, far worse than she’d thought it would be. She looked and felt like hell, and if Mark got mad when he realized that she’d driven all those miles in her condition
, she wouldn’t dare get sassy. If the shoe were on the other foot and it was he nearly killing himself as she was doing, she’d be mad, too.

  As it turned out, Maddie overslept the next morning from sheer exhaustion and didn’t arrive in Whitehorn until after dark that evening, the very first time she’d driven after nightfall on this trip. But she had to get there today, even if it was late in the day. She honestly didn’t think that she could go on past today, not when she hurt so badly that she could hardly sit behind the wheel. Mark would take care of her, and God knew that she needed someone’s care.

  Traversing the familiar streets of Whitehorn, Maddie felt tears in her eyes. She had made it; she was home.

  She pulled her truck and trailer to a stop in front of Mark’s house, turned off the ignition and opened her door. She slowly—the same way she did everything these days—got out and then limped to the front door and rang the bell. From inside came the sound of her brother’s voice calling out, “I’ll get it, honey,” and Darcy responding, “Okay.”

  The front porch light came on and the door opened. Maddie tried to smile, but the shocked expression on Mark’s face would not be erased by a sheepish, feeble smile from her.

  “Maddie! Good God, you look half-dead!” he cried.

  She felt three-quarters dead, to be honest, and now that she could quit gritting her teeth and forcing herself to keep going, her knees buckled. Mark grabbed her before she went all the way down, then swung her up into his arms and carried her inside.

  Darcy gaped wide-eyed at her sister-in-law. “Mark, my goodness, what happened?”

  “She drove that damn truck all the way from Texas, pulling her trailer no less,” Mark said grimly.

  Darcy ran ahead of him to the guest bedroom and yanked back the blankets on the bed. Mark laid Maddie down, and Darcy pulled off Maddie’s shoes. Then they covered her up, clothes and all, and Maddie said weakly, “I’m sorry, guys.”

  Mark glared at her. “Have you lost your ever-loving mind?”

  Darcy intervened. “Mark, please. Maddie, what can we do? Are you hungry? Do you want to get undressed?”

  “Fanny’s in the trailer,” she said in a shaky little voice. “It’s terribly cold here, and she needs shelter, food and water.”

  “You’re more worried about a horse than yourself,” Mark said disgustedly. “Do you know what you look like? Darcy, I think we should take her to the emergency room at the hospital.”

  “No…please…I’m just done in. Darcy, if I could have a bowl of hot soup and a few crackers, then I could take a pain pill.”

  “You’ve got it,” Darcy said, and took her husband’s arm to lead him from the bedroom to the hall. “Take care of her horse, darling, and I’ll make her comfortable. She’s totally exhausted, poor little thing.”

  “She should be turned over my knee,” Mark said.

  “You know you don’t mean that.”

  “I know. Darcy, she’s all beat to hell. She didn’t tell me how bad that fall really was.”

  “Because she loves you and didn’t want you worrying.” Darcy kissed her husband’s cheek. “I’m going to heat her some soup, then I’ll do whatever she wants done after that.”

  “You’re an angel.”

  Maddie had heard nearly every word said by Mark and Darcy; he was angry, which Maddie had expected, and Darcy truly was an angel, which was a wonderful thing to have discovered about her still very new sister-in-law. Mark was a lucky man to have fallen in love with the right woman, Maddie thought, recalling Aunt June’s sincerely well-meant words about the wonders of true love.

  Darcy came in with a tray bearing a large cup of soup, some soda crackers and a small pot of herbal tea. She helped Maddie sit up to eat, and when she was finished Darcy brought a glass of water so Maddie could take a pain pill from the bottle in the pocket of her jacket.

  “If I take one of these without eating something first, my stomach rebels,” Maddie told her.

  “I understand. Maddie, your pants and jacket are huge. You don’t want to sleep in them, do you?”

  Maddie lay back and explained everything, including her reasons for driving instead of flying and her oversize clothing. After a while she managed a genuine if small smile. “The pill is starting to work. Darcy, I packed a little overnight bag with things like my toothbrush and nightgown, because I was pretty sure that I’d be staying in the house. The bag is on the bed in my trailer. I should have asked Mark to bring it in before he went out in the cold, but I simply didn’t think of it.”

  “He’ll get it, Maddie.”

  “It’s so great finally being here,” Maddie murmured drowsily. “I really needed to come home, Darcy. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “You’re Mark’s only sister, and you will always be welcome, Maddie, under any circumstances. You’re going to fall asleep. Let’s get you undressed and into one of my flannel nightgowns. You can brush your teeth in the morning.”

  “Yes…okay,” Maddie mumbled thickly.

  It was later, after Darcy had helped her into a warm nightgown and then tucked her back into bed, and Maddie lay with her eyes closed, soaking up warmth and comfort that was really twofold, both physical and emotional, that she heard Mark ask, “How is she, honey?”

  “Sleeping. Oh, Mark, you should see her undressed. Well, you saw her face, and that’s enough for you to imagine the rest. But nearly every inch of her right side is discolored from being scraped and bruised. How in heaven’s name did she drive all the way from Texas and take care of her horse and even herself with her right hand in a cast and the inevitable distress from such extensive bruises?”

  “Darcy, when Maddie makes up her mind to something, she gets it done. She’s always been that way. You know, I think this is the first time she’s had to admit to needing someone’s help since Aunt June died.”

  “Mark, we can’t leave her here alone while we honeymoon. It just wouldn’t be right.”

  “I know,” Mark agreed, sounding deeply concerned. After a minute he added, “We won’t get a refund from the travel agent, you know. And all our plans are set, the flight and hotel reservations, everything.”

  “I realize that,” Darcy agreed softly. “But we just can’t go off as though Maddie wasn’t here, darling.”

  In the dreamlike twilight zone in which Maddie was floating, the voices seemed like soft warm breezes passing through the semidarkness of her room, sounding harmonious, lyrical and totally unattached to anything of substance. Nothing being said made much sense to her, and she finally fell into a benumbed sleep without pain, worry or discomfort of any kind.

  In the morning, however, she remembered it all, every word, and whispered, “They haven’t taken their honeymoon yet. They have plans, wonderful plans, and my coming here in this condition ruined everything.”

  Maddie pursed her lips. She was not going to be the cause of something so awful. She didn’t care if she herself ever had a honeymoon, but it was obviously very important to Mark and Darcy.

  Well, she’d done it once before—in the hospital—and she could pretend to be much better off than she really was one more time. Her good acting had convinced Dr. Upton to release her a day early, and it was going to convince Mark and Darcy that she could get along just fine on her own. They were going on their honeymoon, as planned, whatever she had to do to prove that she did not need a caretaker!

  Throwing back the blankets, Maddie got out of bed, pasted a bright, cheery smile on her face and left the bedroom to begin her charade.

  Chapter Three

  And thus, ten days after her accident Maddie found herself on her brother’s sofa in Whitehorn, Montana, hugging a comforter to herself and staring up at a man who didn’t look like a babysitter any more than he did a burglar. She tried to sensibly assimilate the situation. Had Mark really asked this…this weird stranger to keep an eye on her? And if so, had Mark told her that he’d arranged for someone to drop in on her from time to time and the information had slipped through the cracks of her le
ss-than-alert brain?

  She narrowed her eyes on Noah. “How did you get in?”

  “Through a door. Isn’t that how you enter someone’s home?”

  “An unlocked door?” she asked, concerned that Mark might have inadvertently missed locking one of the doors and she hadn’t been safe from intruders at all, which she, within the foggy reaches of her mind, had been counting on.

  “Nope.” Noah produced the key. “With this.”

  The sight of that key panicked her. “You have a key? You mean you can just walk into this house anytime you take the notion?”

  Noah stood there looking down at her. She was probably cute as a cuddly little doll when she wasn’t black-and-blue, but it was hard for him—with his medical training and experience—to get past the blotchy bruises on her face. Even so, he still felt remnants of that incredible fit of laughter he’d enjoyed—yes, enjoyed—only minutes ago. He couldn’t remember when he’d let go and laughed so uninhibitedly, and it certainly was the last thing he might have expected from today’s begrudged duty. In a way he couldn’t quite define but still knew to be true, those moments of uncontrollable laughter had created a bond between him and Maddie Kincaid; she might not feel it, but he did, and some rusty, rather tarnished part of him cherished the sensation.

  “I rang the front doorbell and knocked on the side door before using the key,” he said. “I promised Mark that I’d take care of you while he’s away, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” In his own mind Noah realized how he had just expanded his promise to keep an eye on Maddie into taking care of Maddie, which gave him a start.

  But someone should be caring for her. She certainly didn’t appear strong enough to be doing everything for herself. Her weakened condition explained the messy kitchen, of course. What Noah could not comprehend was how Mark could have gone off and left his frail little sister alone in the house. Didn’t he realize how badly off Maddie really was?