Outlaw Marriage

by Laurie Paige

  “Good,” he said. “Perfect. When do you go?”

  Her jaw nearly sagged at his elation. “I turned him down. Why would I fall in with his plans?”

  “Why? To see what’s going on. You can check on the reservation doings at the same time since the land adjoins the Kincaid place.” He gave her a derisive glare. “Where’s your head, girl? You might be able to come up with something we’ve overlooked or know nothing about. We need to know any weakness in their case or if they have any surprises up their sleeves.”

  “We’ve already gone into disclosure,” she reminded him.

  “I’m not talking about legal stuff,” he interrupted, silencing her in his usual impatient manner. “We need to look for chinks in the family armor. Or among the ranch hands. Not everyone out there thinks the Kincaids are God’s gift to Montana. Someone working on the ranch might have information we can use.”

  She remained silent, every instinct within her advising that this was the wrong thing to do.

  “Call the grandson and tell him you accept.”

  She stood. Her manner cool and at odds with the way she felt inside, she said, “I’ll consider it.”

  His eyebrows shot up. She’d never used that particular tone with him. She didn’t know why she felt so defensive.

  For once he seemed at a loss for words. “Well, then, good.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to go to a meeting on the new mall in five minutes. Blasted construction boss is a crook, if you ask me. I’ll see you Monday when I get back from New York. No, Tuesday here at the office.”

  “All right.”

  She remained standing behind her desk after he’d gone. She doubted he heard her agreement. It would never occur to him that she wouldn’t be there or that she might have other things to do. For the briefest second, resentment stormed through her, causing a lump to form in her throat.

  The telephone rang, diverting her from the strange tempest of emotion. She cleared her throat and answered. For the rest of the afternoon, she was too busy to think. At six, she went to her apartment in one of the elite Baxter Development complexes. A common-interest development or C.I.D., as it was called in the industry, it was inhabited by professional couples or those wealthy enough to afford a second home.

  The mountains around Whitehorn were scenic and the fact that the town was close to Yellowstone was an added attraction for those with children. The county was becoming increasingly popular with families from metropolitan areas.

  Her father had seen the opportunities long ago. The fact that the local people hadn’t certainly wasn’t his fault. Pulling on her bathing suit, she wondered why she sometimes felt a twinge of guilt as the company bought up mismanaged ranches and turned them into thriving strip malls, condos, golf courses and nature trails for the aging baby boomers. The mismanagement wasn’t her father’s fault.

  Swimming one hundred laps of the Olympic-size indoor pool, she dreaded the thought of calling Collin and accepting his offer. It felt like a concession on her part, which could be interpreted as a sign of weakness from their side. Neither did she like the idea of being a spy sent into the enemy camp by her father.

  She sighed shakily. She felt she no longer knew the man she’d adored as a child. They were becoming more and more estranged. It bothered her.

  From what she had seen of Collin and his grandfather, they were very close-knit. For a second, something like envy washed through her. She discarded the notion and put her efforts into propelling herself through the water that was almost as warm as a bathtub.

  At the end of an hour, feeling neither refreshed nor any happier, she returned to her place. The silence seemed to mock her as she showered and dressed in silk pajamas, then ate a salad for dinner.

  She wondered how many of the grandsons and their various families were at the Kincaid spread and imagined them crowded around a long table, laughing while Collin told them about the meeting.

  Collin returned to the dining room and the lunch he’d left to answer a summons to the phone. “Will wonders never cease?” he said to his grandfather, the seventy-three-year-old patriarch of the Elk Springs branch of the Kincaids. “Yesterday Hope Baxter refused to accept an invitation to come out and look the ranch over. Today she calls and says she will.”

  Garrett beamed. “I knew the Kincaid charm wouldn’t fail,” he said cheerfully.

  Collin had his doubts about that. It wasn’t charm that had changed Hope’s mind about coming out for the weekend. Whatever it was, he figured he could find out before the weekend was over. He would make a point of it.

  “What’s happening?” Trent, one of Larry Kincaid’s other illegitimate sons, wanted to know.

  “Collin talked Baxter’s daughter into coming out to the ranch. She’ll be here for the weekend,” Garrett told him.

  Trent glanced first at his wife Gina and then back at Collin with interest. “She’s the attorney on the case, isn’t she?”

  Collin nodded and didn’t add anything more.

  “It’s strange how the Kincaid family seems to be so totally enmeshed with the Baxters, isn’t it?” Trent continued. “Lexine, Emma’s birth mother, was married to Dugin Kincaid, Jeremiah’s younger son. Now Emma is married to Brandon, a Kincaid from the illegitimate branch of the family.”

  “And has a twin, although Emma’s mother isn’t admitting to having another child,” Gina, the private investigator instrumental in locating Garrett’s grandsons, reminded them.

  The DNA tests that had nearly convicted Emma in the death of the mayor’s daughter, Christina Montgomery, had proven she was one of a set of identical twins. Only the fact that Emma’d been inoculated against rubella and her mysterious twin hadn’t, had saved her.

  Collin thought of Hope and her embarrassment at the mention of her relative, the notorious Lexine Baxter.

  The unknown twin, who had apparently been with Christine Montgomery shortly before her death, wasn’t making herself accessible to the local authorities as requested through the news media. From what he’d seen of Brandon’s wife, Emma wasn’t anything like her mother. Was the twin?

  Gina laughed ruefully. “So. Does this mean there’s going to be one more for dinner this weekend?”

  “I’ll help with the cooking,” Trent volunteered.

  Hattie, their previous housekeeper, had recently quit. The ranch had trouble keeping help because of the supposed curse on the Kincaid land. Gina had assumed most of the planning and served as executor of household chores. Everyone had been assigned a task that contributed to the running of the homestead.

  There were moans all around and graphic reminders of charred hamburgers resembling charcoal briquettes at Trent’s last attempt at supper. He was unrepentant. “Practice makes perfect.”

  “Only if you do it right,” Collin told him. “You have to keep an eye on the grill and squirt water on the flames before they incinerate the burgers.”

  “Hey, I can do it,” Trent assured everyone.

  “Uh-oh,” Gina said, “the impatient one awakes.” She hurried from the table to answer her son’s summons.

  Collin’s grandfather chuckled. “I believe women could hear the cry of their own baby if they were at a ball game with fifty-thousand cheering fans and the child was in a nursery a mile away.” He turned his gaze on Collin. “It’s about time you were thinking of starting your family. You aren’t getting any younger.”

  “I’m only thirty-one,” Collin protested good-naturedly. He’d been hearing about marriage and children from the old man since he could remember. “Besides, I’m too busy rushing back and forth between here and Elk Springs to think about finding a bride.”

  Across the table, his half brother watched with the assured grin of one who had done his part and won their grandfather’s approbation by acquiring a wife and providing a son to carry on the Kincaid tradition in Whitehorn.

  Assuming they ever got title to the ranch.

  Collin frowned as he recalled his brief telephone conversation with Hope. He wa
nted to know what had happened to change her mind between their meeting yesterday, which hadn’t gone well in his opinion, and this morning.

  She had been positively horrified at the idea when he had mentioned it yesterday at lunch at the Hip Hop Café. Today she’d admitted he was probably right—she needed to see the land to know exactly what parcels had been sold off the original Baxter holdings. She was a mystery, this woman who’d had the nerve to walk out on him in the busy diner one day, then call him the next, pretty as you please, to admit she’d possibly been wrong.

  A thrum of anticipation vibrated through him. It had nothing to do with settling the case and everything to do with being alone with her as they explored the range.

  Alarms went off in his head, but he knew he wasn’t going to heed them. Ruefully he wondered what had happened to his instinct for survival.

  “So what’s the plan?” Trent wanted to know.

  Collin shook his head. “No particular plan. I thought she should come out and explore the place while we try to hammer down the details of an offer that her father, we hope, can’t refuse.”

  Trent’s face darkened. “Revenge. The man is obsessed with it. That’s the only reason for this whole lawsuit.”

  “It’s hard to let go of a dream,” Garrett said sadly. “He was promised the place as a teenager. He poured his heart into it, then it was lost to him through no fault of his own. That’s a deep hurt.”

  Collin studied his grandfather. The old man had a temper, which had exploded in the last meeting with Jordan Baxter and his sharp-minded daughter, but he also understood the underlying emotion of his enemy. Collin hoped when he was his grandfather’s age he had half the understanding of human nature that Garrett had. And the compassion.

  Collin had at first been resentful of the brood of bastard brothers, but that was before he’d realized he’d had life a lot easier than any of them. He’d known his roots. And he’d had Garrett’s unwavering love to help him on the right path. That had been the greatest influence in his life.

  Realizing his advantages and that the Elk Springs ranch would still be his—and his sister’s, of course—he’d pitched in to help the new brothers gain their own part of the Kincaid inheritance. He’d even learned to like them for the most part, especially Trent, who was becoming a close friend.

  Both Trent and Gina liked staying at the ranch and did so often. Cade and Leanne had built a fine house in a wooded meadow nearby. Brandon and Emma were thinking of doing the same. Emma and Hope, newly discovered cousins, could get to know each other…

  Shocked at the direction of his thoughts, Collin broke off the odd musing. Rising, he told his grandfather, “I have work to do. I need to talk to Cade on the Appaloosa breeding program. I saw a stallion on the res the other day that he might be interested in.”

  Garrett nodded, his smile serene.

  Although the lawsuit wasn’t over, Collin knew his grandfather thought things were progressing smoothly and according to plan—which was to have all his grandsons married and settled within the year.

  That left him as the last Kincaid bachelor. Plus the unknown seventh bastard son of Larry Kincaid.

  Gina had traced his philandering father’s whereabouts at the time and was sure the last son had been conceived and still existed in Whitehorn. It was only a matter of time before she found the woman who’d been involved, Gina’d said. She was checking birth records in Whitehorn, plus Blue River County and all connecting counties.

  The seventh son would still be a child, though. Garrett would have to wait a number of years before he could be married off.

  Smiling, Collin headed across the compound to the horse arena where Cade was sure to be working with his prize Appaloosas. He wondered if his weekend guest liked to ride. That was how he intended to show her around the place.

  At the thought of being alone with Hope for hours out on the trail, his body stirred hungrily. She was a beautiful woman. A man would have to be deaf, dumb and blind to not respond to her.

  She was also an enigma. There was something soft and alluring, totally feminine, about her that came across in spite of her cool professionalism.

  The picture of Hope holding the toddler in her lap came to him. In spite of her lawyerly ways, she couldn’t hide the other facets to her personality. With the child, she’d been warm and exuberant and open, not minding at all if her hair was mussed or her dress wrinkled. There was no doubt in his mind that she would make an excellent mother.

  Together they would produce beautiful children—

  Again he was dumbfounded at the direction his mind had taken. He scoffed at his own wild imagination. There was no way in hell Hope Baxter would ever have anything to do with a Kincaid other than in court, fighting over some rocks and valleys that weren’t much good for anything anyway.

  He wasn’t going to fall for her, either. No way.

  But the attraction was there.

  Yeah, sex. So what? An attraction didn’t mean lasting commitment or anything serious. He’d made his share of mistakes in his life, but he certainly wasn’t going to do anything as stupid as fall in love with her.

  Three

  Hope zipped Gabe into his one-piece pajama outfit, then lifted him into her arms and sat in the handy rocker. “Ready for a story?”

  “Store,” he said in his usual way of shortening all words to their most basic of syllables.

  She opened the book and read the bedtime tale. The toddler was almost asleep when she finished. She rocked him for a few minutes more, reluctant to give up this sweet bundle of humanity just yet.

  Closing her eyes, she waited for the pain that squeezed her chest to subside. She finally admitted what her heart had known for ages—she wanted a family of her own. She wanted a child as darling and special as Gabe had become to her. Unlike Meg, who declared she was happy on her own, Hope envisioned another person—someone wonderful—who would share that home with her. That someone had never crossed her path, not in almost twenty-eight years. She thought he never would.

  Sighing, she rose carefully, put the sleeping baby into the crib and lifted the side into place. She returned to the living room where Meg sat on the sofa sipping a cup of tea. “Want one?” she asked.

  “I’ll get it.” Hope poured a cup of herb tea and settled in a chair, another rocker. She glanced around the pleasant room whose every corner was crowded with plants. White lace curtains framed a window lined with violets. She sighed, kicked her shoes off and curled into the chair.

  This was the one place she felt totally at ease. Meg was her best friend in Whitehorn. Her only friend, really, besides an old high school and college pal back in New York where she’d grown up.

  Her fault, she supposed. She didn’t readily open up to people. Maybe that was a result of growing up without a mother and trying to please a father who had wanted a son to carry on the family enterprises. She sighed again. Her heart felt so strangely heavy of late.

  “That’s the umpteenth heavy sigh I’ve heard from you tonight,” Meg commented. “What’s on your little mind?”

  “Not much,” Hope admitted.

  “The lawsuit? I assume that was the topic of conversation between you and Collin Kincaid when I saw you two at the Hip Hop on Tuesday.”

  “Yes.” Hope gazed pensively at her friend. Meg was thirty-five, older and, if not wiser, then at least with a better perspective on life than she had. Hope could use some perspective right now. “Collin invited me to the ranch for the weekend. I refused.”

  “And?”

  “My father wants me to go. He wants me to, well, see if I can gather anything of use for the trial.”

  “To be his spy in their midst,” Meg concluded.

  “Yes. It bothers me—” She broke off, then gave a little laugh. “It isn’t as if Collin doesn’t know I’m the enemy. He thinks we can persuade his grandfather and my father to come to a settlement if we join forces.”

  “That sounds like a good idea. What point does it serve for things to
drag on as they have this past year?”

  Put that way, Hope thought it sounded logical for her to go to the ranch. “Perhaps it is worth a try.”

  Meg nodded, then surprised Hope with a wicked grin. “The Kincaids are good-looking men. If Collin invited me for a romantic weekend at one of the most famous ranches in Montana, I’d go in a minute. You never can tell what might happen.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

  “Meg!”

  “Don’t look so shocked. I may be over thirty, but I still remember what a handsome man is good for.”

  Hope tried to look amused while the telltale blood rushed to her face, betraying the restless dreams she’d had Tuesday and Wednesday nights. She dreaded going to bed when she returned to her condo.

  “Ah,” Meg said, delight showing in her smile. “So that’s the problem. You’re interested in the grandson.”

  “No, I’m not,” Hope denied, “not at all. That is, not as a man…”

  Then what? some traitorous part of her demanded.

  She couldn’t meet her friend’s probing gaze as Meg studied her more closely.

  “So, are you going to the ranch?”

  Hope nodded. “I called Collin yesterday and told him I would. To look over the original Baxter holdings and the two parcels that were sold off,” she added quickly.

  “Go with a clear conscience,” Meg advised, her tone gentle. “You’re not deceiving anyone about your purpose.”

  Tears burned unexpectedly behind Hope’s eyes. “Then you think it’s okay? To go, I mean?”

  Meg considered a minute, then nodded.

  Hope couldn’t understand the relief that spread through her like warm honey. “Since I’ve committed to it, I suppose I have to. Do you think I should buy some cowgirl boots and a fringed skirt?”

  Laughing, she rose, gave Meg a warm smile and left the cozy cottage. The night wind swept down from the peaks to the west of them. The Crazies, as the locals called the rough, imposing range. Sometimes she thought her father had been crazy to return to this state. It seemed to cause him only grief and sad memories.