An Arranged Marriage

by Peggy Moreland

  “We could tell everyone that you grew weary with all the danger and intrigue and wanted only to be with me, so you tossed aside a promising career in the military and rushed home to profess your love and propose.”

  He hooted a laugh at the ceiling. “You missed your calling, Fiona. You should have been a romance writer.”

  She ignored the interruption. “But I refused to marry you then, of course, because I didn’t want to steal the spotlight from Cara.”

  “Steal the spotlight from Cara?”

  “Well, yes,” she said, surprised that he’d question her sensitivity to her twin sister’s feelings. “It wouldn’t have been fair if I’d announced my engagement with Cara having just announced her own. Everyone’s attention would naturally have shifted to me.”

  “I see,” Clay said, again trying his best not to laugh.

  She set down her sandwich, doubt clouding her eyes. “They’ll believe me, won’t they?”

  Realizing how important it was for her to save face, Clay reached across the table to cover her hand with his. “They’ll believe whatever you want them to believe.”

  She closed her fingers around his, her grip almost desperate. “You really think so?”

  He gave her hand a quick squeeze, then released it to pick up his glass of milk. “Fiona, if you told everyone that I’d kidnapped you and held a gun to your head, forcing you to repeat your vows, not a one of ’em would dare question the truth in your story.”

  “Kidnapped,” she repeated, as if the idea of her being forced to marry held a certain appeal. Then she frowned and shook her head. “Although I like your version more, I think we’d better stick with mine. I wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt.”

  Though Clay was sure he’d regret asking, curiosity got the better of him. “Guilt? For what?”

  “You losing your job,” she said, as if stating the obvious. “If it got around that you’d kidnapped me, the governor would jerk your badge for sure. No,” she said, shaking her head again. “We’d better stick with my story.”

  Later that evening Clay backed his truck up to the barn and began unloading the fencing supplies he’d purchased in town earlier that day. With the money he’d received from Carson, he knew he could well afford to hire someone else to do the work, but he’d elected to do it himself. Granted, he’d save the cost of labor, but he’d based his decision on more than just money. He wanted to do the work, needed to. Sweat equity, his dad had always called it. For every ounce of sweat he put into making the improvements, he was investing that much more of himself into the place. He owed a debt to both the ranch and his parents, one he was determined to pay back.

  He dragged a spool of barbed wire to the edge of the tailgate, then hefted it to his shoulder and turned for the barn. As he did, he chuckled, remembering the romantic tale Fiona had concocted to explain away whatever questions the unexpectedness of their marriage might spawn.

  “Tossed aside a promising military career to be with her,” he said, then laughed heartily as he heaved the spool of wire onto the worktable. The woman had an ego the size of Texas, but damn, if she wasn’t entertaining to be around.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so hard, especially with a woman.

  He turned again for the truck, but stopped, his gaze snagged by the house in the distance. His smile melted as he stared at the window of Fiona’s room. The light was on and he could just make out her form between the blind’s open slats. As he stared, he saw her cross her arms in front of her and pull her shirt up over her head. As she dropped her arms, she shook her hair back, the dark tresses cascading past her shoulders. A knot twisted low in his groin as he stared, mesmerized by the swell of her breasts beneath a lace bra. A vision of her the night he’d caught her skinny-dipping at the country club pushed into his brain. Water sluicing down her nude body, droplets glittering like diamonds at the tips of her breasts. The black lace thong that had clung wetly to her body, the thin strip of silk that had disappeared between the cheeks of her butt. The provocative sway of her hips as she’d walked away from him. The seductive gleam in her green eyes, the moist warmth of her breath as she’d turned in his arms and looked up at him.

  As she reached for the waist of her shorts, he turned away, squeezing his eyes shut against the sight, the memory…the temptation. He wouldn’t let her get to him, he told himself. Couldn’t. He’d made the mistake of getting involved with one spoiled rich girl—and she’d ripped out his heart when she’d grown bored with him and moved on to another man, another challenge.

  He wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

  The next morning Fiona was in the kitchen before Clay—her appearance there by design, not chance. His temper tantrum the afternoon before had sidetracked her from her plan to charm him into helping her. But today she intended to start fresh.

  Hearing his footsteps in the hallway, she quickly fluffed her hair, gave the neckline of her teddy one last tug lower over her breasts, then wet her lips and struck a seductive pose.

  “Good morning, Clay.”

  He glanced her way, frowned and made a fast detour for the refrigerator. “Mornin’.”

  She pursed her lips, irritated by his less-than-enthusiastic reaction to what she considered the sexiest lingerie in her wardrobe. Determined to have him eating out of her hand before he left the house, she pushed away from the counter and crossed to the refrigerator. She reached in front of him, purposely letting her breast brush his arm, and closed her fingers around a bottle of orange juice. Angling her face toward him, she smiled. “Sorry. I’ll just get this and be out of your way.”

  Drawing the bottle of juice from the refrigerator, she turned toward him, rather than away, so that she now stood between him and the refrigerator. Sniffing the air, she rested a hand against his chest. “Oh, my. What cologne is that you’re wearing?”

  “I’m not. It’s aftershave.”

  She rose on tiptoe and brushed her nose across his cheek. “Mmm,” she hummed, as she sank back down to her heels. Tipping her face up to his, she curved her lips in a sensual smile and walked her fingers up his chest. “Well, whatever it is, you smell positively yummy.”

  She could tell that her plan was working. His neck had turned red just above his collar, and there was the tiniest little twitch at the corner of his eye, a sure sign that she was getting under his skin. She lifted her face and closed her eyes, sure that he was about to kiss her.

  “I gotta go.”

  Her hand dropped from his chest, and she flipped open her eyes as he turned for the back door. She watched him grab his hat from the rack on the wall and pull it on.

  Then the door slammed behind him and he was gone.

  Fiona stood in front of the open refrigerator, the cold air wafting from it, making gooseflesh pop up on her bare arms.

  Or was it the chill of rejection?

  She narrowed her eyes at the sound of his truck engine revving. Okay, so maybe seduction wasn’t the way to get what she wanted from him. But there were other methods, she told herself. One way or another she’d make him do what she wanted.

  Fiona saw the service station just up ahead and glanced down at her fuel gauge. It registered below empty. She breathed a sigh of relief, sure that she’d made the last mile on fumes alone.

  She steered her Mercedes into the bay closest to the convenience store and climbed out. As she did, she spotted a patrol car parked near the front door. “Harley-the-Bear,” she murmured under her breath. “Oh, this is too perfect.”

  Assuming nonchalance, she strolled to the pump, pressed the button marked Pay Inside, then pulled out the nozzle. Smiling, she waved at the attendant who peered at her through the store’s plate-glass window, then proceeded to fill her tank. When it was full, she replaced the nozzle and climbed back behind the wheel.

  Laughing wildly, she stomped on the accelerator and shot out onto the highway, leaving a trail of rubber on the pavement behind her. With one eye on the rearview mirror, she sped tow
ard town.

  Two miles short of the city-limit sign, she heard the wail of a siren. She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the patrol car racing up behind her, red lights flashing. She drove a mile farther, just to make sure Harley was good and mad, then pulled to the shoulder, parked and waited. By the time he appeared at her window, his ears were red, his eyes bulging.

  She pressed the lever to lower the glass. “Is there a problem, Officer?” she asked innocently.

  “You know damn well and good there is, Fiona!” He waved a hand in the direction they’d come. “You drove off without paying for your gas, exceeded the speed limit by a good thirty miles an hour and ignored my signals for you to pull over.” Clamping his lips together, he whipped out his citation pad. “You’re getting a ticket this time, little lady. A big one. And after I write the ticket, I’m marching your butt right back down to that station and you’re going to pay for that gas.”

  Fiona shoved open her door, cracking Harley in the knee with the door panel. “Now wait just a minute,” she said, ignoring Harley’s yelp of pain. “You can’t write me a ticket.”

  He looked up at her, his lips curled in a snarl, while he rubbed his knee. “I damn sure can. And your daddy’ll thank me for doing it, so don’t go pulling that do-you-know-who-I-am crap with me. Ford and me go all the way back to high school, and I happen to know he’s had a stomachful of your shenanigans, the same as me and everybody else in this town.”

  Her mouth dropped open, then closed with a click of teeth. “Well, we’ll just see about that now, won’t we?” She snatched the pad from his hand and ripped out the remaining forms and flung them in the air.

  Harley’s face turned purple with rage. With a low growl, he clamped a hand over her wrist and dragged her toward the patrol car.

  “What are you doing?” Fiona cried, digging in her heels. “Where are you taking me?”

  “To jail.” He yanked open the back door and pointed a cigar-shaped finger at the back seat. “Get in.”

  With a sniff, Fiona slid onto the seat. So far, things were going exactly as she’d planned. “I’m entitled to a phone call,” she reminded him as he climbed behind the wheel.

  He shot her a glare in the rearview mirror. “You can call the president of the United States of America, for all I care. But you’ll make the call at the station.” He shoved the car into gear. “You’re not wasting the taxpayers’ good money burnin’ up minutes on my cell phone. Nosiree,” he said, shaking his head. “You’ll make your call at the station, same as any other criminal.”

  Six

  Hunkered down by a dry creek bed, Clay studied the parched ground, trying to re-create the murderer’s movements in his mind. He knew the rancher had found the woman’s body facedown, her hands tied behind her back, approximately ten feet from where Clay knelt. During the initial investigation, the police hadn’t found tire marks of any kind within the area, so that meant that the murderer had arrived and left by foot. Clay rubbed his fingers over the dry ground, then sighed and drew his hand back to brush his fingers across his thigh. And they wouldn’t be finding any footprints, either, he thought, frowning. The ground was so hard, a herd of buffalo could stampede across it and not leave a trail.

  He closed his eyes and tried to force his mind to that of the murderer, think as he might have thought, get a feel for the path he might have taken. But the only image that came to mind was of Fiona, dressed in that scrap of nothing she’d had on that morning, her face tipped up to his, her lips full and moist, slightly parted, as if awaiting his kiss. He could almost feel the heat of her body surging against his, the imprint of each of her fingers on his chest.

  With a groan, he squeezed the bridge of his nose and tried to blank out the image. He wouldn’t let her get to him, he told himself. He couldn’t. She was toying with him. Why, he wasn’t sure, but she was definitely trying to mess with his mind.

  He’d known from the moment he stepped into the kitchen that she was up to something. She was never awake when he left for work, and he seriously doubted that the purpose behind all that bumping and grinding in front of the refrigerator was due to a thirst for orange juice. She’d had seduction on her mind.

  And she’d come damn close to achieving her goal.

  Even now, he could feel the silky brush of her skin across his cheek, see the expectancy and warmth in the eyes she’d lifted to his, smell her sensual fragrance wafting beneath his nose. He’d come within a hairs-breadth of kissing her. And he knew if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to stop with a kiss. He’d have wound up carrying her to his bed and making love to her.

  Fortunately sanity had returned before he succumbed to temptation.

  Swearing, he surged to his feet. He wouldn’t let her get to him, he told himself. She was trouble with a capital T.

  He turned in a slow circle, forcing his mind from thoughts of Fiona and back to the investigation, to the job at hand. He centered his attention on establishing the direction the murderer might’ve taken, either in coming or going. To the north lay a state highway. To the east, another larger ranch butted up against the boundaries of the one where the body had been found. To the west was the rancher’s home. South…

  He turned to face that direction and started walking. If he remembered correctly, the land to the south was used strictly for hunting. Thousands of acres of nothing but deep thickets of trees and overgrown vegetation, the perfect cover for wildlife…or a murderer. There were a couple of cabins there, too, as he recalled. Crude, one-room structures hunters used during deer season.

  Playing a hunch, Clay ducked between the strands of barbed wire fencing that separated one ranch from the other and continued on, keeping his eyes on the ground. He crossed the bed of the dry creek, climbed the opposite bank and looked back. He narrowed his eyes, searching for anything out of the ordinary, something that would offer a clue to the identity of the murderer, the woman murdered or the path that had led to her death. He shifted his gaze, then looked back quickly, sure that he’d caught a flicker of light in his peripheral vision. The sun striking a piece of metal or glass? he wondered. Maybe. He started down the bank, keeping his eyes fixed on the spot where he thought he’d seen the glancing light.

  In the bed of the dry creek, he stopped and knelt, running his hand over the dry, brittle stubs of grass that grew there. On the second sweep, he caught a glimpse of metal. Carefully he spread the blades of grass. A silver disk the size of a quarter caught the sunlight and reflected it back at his eyes. Holding the grass aside, he reached in his back pocket and pulled out his handkerchief. Spreading it over the disk, he gently lifted it, taking care not to contaminate the evidence, if that was what it proved to be.

  He stood and folded back the edges of his handkerchief to study the piece of metal more closely. “I’ll be damned,” he murmured, noting the engraved medical insignia that designated the wearer as a diabetic. “Looks as if our Jane Doe might finally have a name.”

  His cell phone rang, startling him. He quickly folded the handkerchief back over the medallion and slipped it into his shirt pocket, then reached for his phone.

  “Martin,” he said into the receiver.

  The only sound he heard was a woman’s hysterical crying.

  He tensed, holding the phone closer to his ear. “Fiona?”

  “Oh, Clay,” she sobbed. “You’ve got to come and get me.”

  He took off at a run, his heart pounding, the phone clutched to his ear. “Where are you? Are you hurt?”

  “No,” she wailed. “I’m in jail!”

  Clay couldn’t ever remember being angrier—or more embarrassed—in his entire life. His own wife, for God’s sake, thrown in jail.

  As he strode into the police station, Fiona rose from a chair beside a desk, stretching out her arms to him, her face streaked with tears. He ignored her and turned to the patrolman who stood nearby. “What happened, Harley?”

  As the patrolman recounted the events that had led to her arrest, Clay’s blood pump
ed hotter and hotter. Setting his jaw, he said, “I’ll be right back.”

  “But, Clay—”

  He shrugged off Fiona’s hand as she grabbed for him and strode for the detective’s office at the end of the long hall. He walked in without knocking and pulled the handkerchief from his pocket. “I think I have something you can use to trace down the identity of our Jane Doe.” He tossed the wadded handkerchief onto the desk.

  The detective glanced from it to Clay, then stood, using a pen to push aside the fabric. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he murmured, staring at the medallion.

  “My sentiments exactly,” Clay replied. “I found it lying in the creek bed on the hunting reserve south of the ranch where the body was found. You might want to check out some of the cabins there for more evidence. The murderer might have held her there for a while before he killed her.”

  The detective nodded. “Thanks, Clay. I owe you one.”

  “Find the murderer. That’ll be thanks enough.” He turned and headed back out the door.

  Once in the control center again, he caught Harley’s eye and jerked his head, indicating for Harley to join him at the counter.

  “How much are her fines?”

  Harley named the amount and Clay pulled out his wallet. After counting out the cash, he shoved his wallet back into his hip pocket and stuck out his hand. “Sorry for the trouble, Harley,” he said, and shook the patrolman’s hand.

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for, Clay,” Harley assured him, then turned to scowl at Fiona who had moved to stand behind Clay. “She, on the other hand, could spend the rest of her life apologizing for the trouble she’s caused and not get done.”

  Fiona made a face at the patrolman, then quickly smoothed her expression to a soulful one when Clay glanced over his shoulder at her.

  Frowning, he turned and caught her by the arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

  She had to run to keep up with his angry stride.