by Lori Wilde
“What if Rhett were married? Do you think the judge would have recommended he quit his job if he were married?”
“But he’s not married.”
“What if he were?”
“Does Rhett have a girlfriend?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Wait . . .” Lamar’s eyes widened, and he let out a little hoot-hoot sound. “Are you offering to marry him?”
“I didn’t say that. I was just wondering, since I’m legally Julie’s temporary guardian, if Rhett and I were to get married—”
“I knew it!” Lamar slapped his thigh. “I could feel sparks shooting around the courtroom whenever you two looked at each other.”
“No.” Tara shook her head. “No sparks.” But it came out sounding as if she were trying to convince herself as much as the lawyer. “But if we were to marry, I would be there to take care of Julie when he’s on the road or if something happened to him. I would be her stepmother.”
He blew out his breath, Big-Bad-Wolf style. “Whew, girl, that’s a big step. I know you love that baby, but c’mon. A marriage of convenience?”
“There’s another solid reason for us getting married,” Tara said, thinking about the gnawing question that had been eating at the back of her mind from the very beginning.
“What’s that?”
“In case Rhona comes back. Wouldn’t she have a harder time getting custody if Rhett and I were married?”
“The courts do tend to favor the biological mom, but you’re right. If the two of you were married and providing Julie with a stable home environment, as a single parent who abandoned her baby, Rhona would have a harder time against you.”
“That’s what I thought,” Tara said. “Thanks, Lamar.”
“Listen, I gotta get to that deposition, and I know you’re just taking the idea for a test drive, but marriage isn’t easy. It’s hard enough when people are madly in love, but a marriage of convenience?” He shook his head. “That’s a tall order.”
Chapter 16
Fouled: If a rider is fouled, it means something happened during the eight-second ride that gave the bull an unfair advantage over the rider.
After the hearing, Rhett searched the courthouse for Tara, but she’d disappeared. Disappointed, he’d texted her to see if she wanted to grab lunch, but she hadn’t answered him back.
Feeling raw and wrung out, he’d headed home.
If he wanted his daughter, he needed to give up the PBR in the middle of a red-hot year that could lead him to the one thing he’d spent his entire life working for. It was a punch in the belly for sure.
He paced his living room, gut tightening, heart lurching. He felt mighty claustrophobic in the house. Empty now without his daughter or Tara in it.
Needing to clear his head and move his body, he jammed his feet into his worn riding boots. Went to the stables, filled with tack—bits, bridles, blankets, braided ropes—pulled a saddle down off the wall and strapped it onto Golden Boy.
The palomino was over twenty years old, but he still had a lot of spunk left in him. Golden Boy preferred male riders. Tara had been the only woman who’d ever been able to ride him with any consistency. Which had irritated her sister Kaia to no end, since she was the biggest animal lover in the family. Rhett supposed Golden Boy’s affinity for Tara came from her calm, sensible approach. Horses could sense when people were anxious or stressed, and Tara had a natural, soothing way about her.
Loosening the reins on the stallion, Rhett tried not to think of Tara.
He and Golden Boy jetted across the pasture, flying over tumbleweeds, tarbush, cacti, and yucca. Sand kicked up beneath the horse’s hooves, and the sun was halfway down the afternoon sky. The air was arid and warm, but not uncomfortable. At this altitude, even in the desert terrain, the temperatures rarely shot out of the eighties. Riding salved him, particularly at the Silver Feather. Wide expanse of open land, no one around, no distractions, just Rhett and his horse and nature.
Lightly, he nudged Golden Boy with his heels, sending the palomino into a full gallop. No plan to where he was headed. Simply riding, wild and free. Letting his mind wander to find an answer to his problem.
He should have seen something like this coming. Life rarely went as planned. He should have been on guard. Tara would have been on guard. He should be more like Tara. Less go with the flow, more circumspect.
Dammit.
Could a fella change his entire personality?
Thoughts swirling, he leaned in tighter, lowering his head over Golden Boy, urging the stallion into his top speed. The ground blurred beneath pounding hooves.
Even though Judge Brando said she couldn’t force him to quit, did he really have a choice if he wanted to be the best father he could be? He had to quit the PBR. For Julie’s sake.
He eased up on the reins, sat up higher in the saddle. Golden Boy slowed, breath heaving from the full-out run. He wheeled the stallion around, headed in the opposite direction, toward the stock tank.
Within a few minutes he arrived at the tank, located beneath an old wooden windmill he and his brothers and the Alzate kids had climbed a thousand times. Remembered that time he’d come across Tara when she’d been out for a run. While the horse drank from the pond, he pulled his canteen from the saddlebag, and gulped back several long swallows of lukewarm water.
And there, in the middle of the desert, two piercing dark eyes met his, and cut straight to his soul.
Tara.
Standing a few yards away from his old farm truck. He’d been so lost in thought he hadn’t even heard her drive up. What was she doing here? And why? She sank her hands on her hips, her lush silhouette startling against the barren landscape. It was as if he’d conjured her with his thoughts. What an eerie notion. Unless she was a mirage.
He stopped breathing, didn’t dare blink in case she vanished.
“Afternoon, Rhett. How are you doing?” Her voice was smooth and even like always. She’d changed from the dress she’d worn in court, trading it in for tight-fitting jeans, a white peasant blouse, and red Old Gringo boots.
He much preferred this outfit. How it molded and complemented every sensuous curve. The woman was flat-out killing him.
He skirted the stallion around a clump of prickly pear cactus, struggling to keep his mind centered as he maneuvered the craggy terrain. Stopped beside her.
She straightened her back, and the movement lifted her glorious breasts, widened her stance.
Sweat broke out on his forehead.
All he could think about was how her jeans clung to her gas-flame-hot body and the fact she had no panty line, and did that mean she went commando, or was she wearing a thong?
Cripes, Lockhart. Tara was strictly hands-off. Forbidden. Banned. Taboo. That was clear enough. He would never know what lurked beneath those skin-tight jeans.
“How did you find me?” Perplexed, he lifted his Stetson, scratched his head.
“I came home from the hearing just in time to see you galloping away. You’d left me the keys to your truck, so I just followed you.”
“So . . .” He jammed his hands in his front pockets, feeling more than a little unsettled by her unexpected appearance in the desert. Did they share some kooky telepathy? “Why were you following me?”
Her inky brown eyes were starlight bright. “I’ve been thinking.”
“About what?”
“How to save your career and get you custody of your daughter,” she said, her voice thick with conviction.
They went back to his house. Her driving the truck, him riding beside her on Golden Boy.
“Where’s Julie?” Rhett asked after Tara parked in the driveway and came over while he led the stallion into the stables.
“Aria’s still got her. I’ll go pick her up after we talk.”
He unsaddled the horse and turned to Tara. “Even if I quit the PBR, there’s a possibility I could still lose her. Judge Brando is not a fan of mine.”
“You won’t.” Her
steely resolve bolstered his spirits. “The courts favor biological parents. The judge is just making you jump through hoops to prove your commitment. She wants you to think about the magnitude of fatherhood. That’s the downside of having the trial in Jeff Davis County—Judge Brando knows you and your family. Your reputation preceded, but she can’t withhold your child based on your reputation.”
“I wish I shared your confidence.”
“Let’s go into the house,” she said. “Sit down with a cold drink. We need to talk.”
“All right.” He texted one of his father’s ranch hands to come curry out Golden Boy, led the way inside. They went in through the back door. A pink Strawberry Shortcake pacifier he’d bought for Julie lay on the table. Tara picked it up, traced a finger over the ring, her eyes filled with wistful longing.
“Ice tea?” he asked.
“Coffee.”
Slinky as a mountain lion, she slid into a kitchen chair. Her peasant blouse rose up as she settled, revealing a brief flash of her taut, flat, tanned belly.
He focused on leveling out the right amount of coffee, and slowly exhaled. “I bought a box of animal crackers for Jules while I was on the road if you’d like some.”
“She’s too young for cookies—” Tara broke off. “Sorry, there I go again, trying to tell you how to raise your child.”
“You’re right. She is too young for them. I know that. They just looked so cute on the shelf I bought them anyway.” He opened the crackers, pushed the box toward her.
Tara fished out an elephant and nibbled on its ear.
At the sight of her pink tongue, his body hardened, and he wondered what it would feel like to have those straight white teeth nibbling on his ear.
Oh, that he were that elephant. Thrown by the heat rushing through his body, he grabbed two cups from the cabinet. Poured the coffee, carried the drinks to the kitchen table. Sat across from her.
Their eyes met, and they watched each other in the space of a long minute, neither speaking. She looped the white string attached to the cookie box around her slender wrist like a bracelet.
“When we were kids, my sisters and I used to pretend the animal cracker boxes were our purses,” she mused.
“I remember,” he said. “I was there. I kept checking your ‘purses’ for leftover cookies.”
“You were a little scoundrel, even back then.” Her laughter was rich and full, and the sound aroused him.
He lifted one shoulder, trying for casual nonchalance, despite the sudden sweat ringing his collar. “What can I say? I like animal crackers.”
She took a giraffe from the box, slid it across the table to him.
“Stingy.”
She removed two more cookies, a camel and a lion, pushed those at him as well, slanted a glance at him from beneath lowered lashes. Did she have any idea how sexy she looked right at that moment?
He bit the giraffe’s head off. It made a satisfying crunch.
Tara munched her own cookie, her eyes never leaving his face. “I’m sorry Judge Brando is urging you to quit the PBR.”
“That’s big of you,” he said. “Considering I’m the one taking Julie away from you.”
“She’s your biological daughter.” Tara dusted cookie crumbs from her hands. “I’m just the foster mother.”
“Who wants to adopt her.”
Tara nodded. “But I knew when I got into this what the risks were. Until all parental rights had been terminated, I knew I could lose her. Then they found you and you wanted her . . .” Tara’s eyes misted, and she gazed over his head. Gulped. “It was my fault. I got too attached.”
“You love her.”
She met his gaze boldly. “I couldn’t love her more if I’d given birth to her.”
“Little wonder. You were there fighting for her life when her own mother walked out.” Rhett felt a hard yank on his heartstrings, and his admiration for Tara bloomed.
“I’m glad you turned out to be her father.” Tara ran a thumb along her bottom lip. Her fingernails were clipped short, clear polished, professional. Strangely, it was more erotic than if she’d had long, glossy red nails.
“You are?” He was barely breathing, his lungs so full of her healthy, fresh Tara scent.
“If it had turned out to be one of the other men Rhona had been with and they wanted her . . . well . . . I’d never get to see Julie again.”
He deflated a little. Had he been expecting that she was happy about him and not just because she was related to him by marriage?
“But you . . .” She swept her hand broadly, a wide, expansive gesture that indicated the whole of the Silver Feather. “You’re family. I’ll still get to watch Julie grow up. Maybe I can still take care of her sometimes.”
“Unless Judge Brando doesn’t give me custody after all. Then you get to keep Julie.”
“I can’t adopt her if you don’t terminate your parental rights. You’d have to do something heinous not to get custody.”
“That’s not the way the judge made it sound.”
“Like I said, she’s just testing your resolve. The only way I get Julie is if you voluntarily give her up.”
Her words were a hard slap, knocking him back to reality. “Is that what you came here to ask?” He hardened his chin. No matter how much he liked and admired Tara, he was not giving up his parental rights. In a short amount of time, that baby had become his world, and if it meant quitting the PBR on the hottest hot streak of his life, then so be it.
“I have a better plan.” Tara pressed her palms. “An answer to both our prayers.”
“What’s that?”
She took a deep breath. Held it. Crashed her gaze into his.
A moment passed between them, charged and full of meaning. He could see she was all in. “Tara?”
Her gaze locked him to his seat. Serious. No nonsense. “Let’s get married.”
Tara couldn’t believe what she was saying. Marry Rhett Lockhart? Had she lost her ever-loving mind?
But then she looked at the animal crackers and the sweet Strawberry Shortcake pacifier and thought of Julie, and her heart melted away any fears.
There was nothing wrong with a marriage of convenience. Lots of people did it. Had done it for millennia. Not people she knew personally, but some people, somewhere. It happened. No, it wasn’t romantic. No, it wasn’t how she’d envisioned her life unfolding.
But Julie was worth it.
And let’s face it, Rhett Lockhart was pretty darn easy on the eyes.
“You . . . you really want to do this?” Excitement filled Rhett’s face and he looked the way he did when he was on the back of a bull in the chute, waiting for the gate to open and the adventure to begin.
“Being married, especially to a neonatal nurse, is an optimal scenario at gaining custody. I talked to Lamar. He’s on board.”
“When did you talk to him?”
“After you left the courthouse.”
“So that’s where you went.”
She nodded, bit her bottom lip. “Are you upset that I interfered?”
“Hell, no.” His laugh was jovial. “But we have a lot to discuss.”
She shifted to the edge of her chair, jiggled her leg, exhilarated. One marriage license and Julie would be hers. But so would Rhett, and that thought was scary.
Rhett Lockhart, her husband? Talk about complicated.
“Like what?” she asked.
“Compensation.”
“You’re offering me money to marry you?”
“If we get married, you’ll have to give up your job in El Paso for good. You can’t live here and work there.”
“Oh,” Tara said, realizing she’d gotten so caught up in the idea of becoming Julie’s mother she hadn’t thought this through. “Or you could move to El Paso.”
He shook his head. “I want Julie to grow up on the Silver Feather. The same way we did.”
Tara folded her hands in her lap. It had been an idyllic way to grow up. He was right. She would
have to quit her job.
“We’ll need a prenup that builds in money based on how long we stay married.”
Prenup.
It sounded so clinical. So cold. But what did she expect? This wasn’t romance. This wasn’t love.
“I’ll have Lamar draw up a contract.” He looked at her with those impossible eyes.
Her hormones did a swirly little jig, all tingly and breathless. Her attraction to him worried her. Rhett wasn’t her type. He was younger than her by four years. He was too charming, too expressive, just too darn much. Truth be told, Rhett scared the hell out of her.
She needed to know that she and Julie were protected from the drama that followed him around. Buckle bunnies and fistfights. Partying hearty and busted bones. The highs and lows of rodeo life.
No wonder Judge Brando urged him to quit the PBR.
She could fall for him if she wasn’t careful. She could feel it in her bones. Living with him as man and wife. Day in and day out. Taking their meals together. Caring for Julie.
And at night—
Dear God, he was right. There were so many details they needed to iron out before they took the plunge.
And yet, despite all her fears and concerns, on a gut-deep level, she trusted him. He was tender with Julie, so kind and gentle. His love for his little girl was written all over his face. He would move heaven and earth for the child, and Tara found that utterly irresistible.
His eyes were on her face. Her cheeks heated. She cleared her throat. “There’s something else we need to get straight right off the bat.”
“What’s that?”
“This will be a marriage in name only.”
One eyebrow went up. “Meaning?”
“Are you going to make me spell it out?”
“Yes, for the prenup.”
“You’re not putting this in the contract.”
“It’s your condition, it goes in.”
“This is not something Lamar needs to know about.” She crossed her arms and petted herself on the elbows.
“What’s not?” He lowered his tone and his eyes to a sultry half-mast that undid her in ninety different ways.
“A no-sex clause.”