by Vicki Tharp
“We’re both fully aware of our responsibilities, Gramps. You and this ranch are the most important things in my life. Clementine is the most important in Levi’s. Nothing is going to change that.”
“Besides,” Levi said, “No one said anything about marriage. Hell, she only now agreed to be my girlfriend.”
Joe glanced between the two of them as if he were weighing the truth in their declarations. “Okay then. Glad we got that cleared up. Who wants pancakes?”
11
Levi groaned as Olivia drove them into town for their meeting with the lawyer. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Olivia glanced over, one hand draped across the top of her steering wheel. “Nervous?”
“It’s the pancakes. They’re sitting like stones in my stomach.”
She laughed. “Maybe you shouldn’t have had so many.”
“Clementine kept putting them on my plate telling me to eat them. I couldn’t tell her no.”
“Sure, you could have.”
He held his arm over his stomach as the cramping went to critical mass. “You need to pull over.”
“What?”
“Pull over now.” He reached for the door handle. He’d puke out of an open door while they were moving if he had to, but he wasn’t going to throw up on his only suit before going in to see the lawyer.
She stomped on the brakes and skidded to a stop on the graveled shoulder. He tumbled out of his seat and barely made it to the grass before breakfast came back up. He held his tie to his chest to keep it from getting goop-ed up.
He stood there on the side of the road, hands on his bent knees until his stomach stopped heaving. Olivia brought him a rag from the truck and a warm can of soda. “Thanks.”
She rubbed his back as he wiped his mouth and took a sip of the drink, swishing and spitting the vile taste from his mouth.
“Better?”
He blew out a deep breath. “Maybe.”
With a glance at her watch, she said, “I don’t want to rush you, but if you’re done here, we need to hit the road. We don’t want to be late.”
“Yeah, I’m good,” Levi lied, his arm still held protectively over his stomach as he crawled back into her truck. He poured the soda out before he closed the door. He had no hope of drinking it and keeping it down.
When she turned into the parking lot of the lawyer’s office, his stomach took another violent roll. Okay. So maybe the stomach thing had nothing to do with the pancakes.
Olivia must have picked up on his nervousness because she squeezed his hand. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. You’re a fantastic father, and Clementine is lucky to have you.”
“Yeah, tell that to the judge.”
“I will, if it comes to that, but it won’t. No way the law would ever let June and Clive get their hands on your daughter.”
“Man, I hope to hell you’re right.”
“I am. Let’s go. Mr. Reynolds can tell you the same thing.”
They were led into an office by a brisk and efficient receptionist. The room was so small, Levi had to let Olivia slide into the chair nearest the wall first, so he could turn sideways in his chair and have room to stretch his legs out past the side of the desk.
When a man walked in, Levi stood to let him squeeze by and stuck out his hand. “Levi Banks. Thanks for seeing us on such short notice.”
“Byron Reynolds,” the elderly gentleman said. “Joe and I go way back. I’m happy I could get you in.”
Then Reynolds turned his attention to Olivia. She stood and gave him a brief hug over the top of the desk. Reynolds said, “Good to see you again, dear.”
“Good to see you, too, Mr. Reynolds.”
Reynolds sat and folded his hands together on the top of his desk. “What can I do for the two of you?”
Levi dropped the manila envelope on top of the desk and gave the man a brief history about him, Mae, and Clementine, and Clementine’s craptastic grandparents.
Reynolds did a lot of nodding and said a lot of ‘uh, huhs,’ but generally, Levi had no idea how his predicament was playing out. “Well,” Levi said when he’d finished. “What do you think?”
Reynolds pulled out the papers and read through them page by page. Levi’s knee bobbed up and down while he waited, and Olivia reached for his hand again. Levi held on tight.
Finally, Reynolds set the papers down and took the glasses off the tip of his nose. “I’m not going to lie, this doesn’t look good for you.”
Bile bubbled up his throat as his stomach did a somersault. Olivia’s grip got tighter, and it took him a few seconds to catch his breath. “Why not?”
Reynolds held up his hand and started listing his concerns off one by one. “First, you’re a man.”
Levi laughed, but it came out biting. “Not much I can do about that.”
“Unfortunately, the laws don’t favor the father. Especially a single one.”
“She’s my daughter. I’m the only one she has.”
Reynolds held up the papers. “Not according to this. According to this, she has two maternal grandparents who already have an established relationship with your daughter. Two grandparents who have money and can provide the best things for Clementine. The best schools. The best of everything.”
“They can’t take her away because I don’t have the kind of money that they have.”
“The money isn’t everything. Though having a job where your income can fluctuate on a whim—”
“Not a whim,” Olivia cut in. “It’s a hard-won skill.”
“That may be, but the suit also lists concerns about your itinerant lifestyle, about the danger to your life inherent to your occupation, about insufficient child care while you’re working, about access to schools and education.”
The blows kept coming. Levi leaned back in his chair. He hadn’t taken this kind of beating in any of the lopsided bar brawls he’d ever been in.
“But that’s not the worst of it.”
Kapow. The hit came like a kick to the ribs when he was already down and out of the fight. How could the situation get worse than that?
“It says here that you’re unfit. That your decisions directly put your daughter’s life at risk.”
“What the hell are you talking about? My daughter has a roof over her head. Food in her belly. She’s happy. She’s healthy. Ask the pediatricians I took her to. They’ll tell you that’s true.”
“That’s not the concern. The document clearly describes a time when Clementine was in the care of a person, no more than a child herself. A child that—”
“The babysitter was the daughter of a friend and mature for fourteen,” Olivia said.
“If that’s true, how did Clementine get lost?”
“Shit.” Levi rubbed his fingers across his forehead trying to beat back the oncoming migraine. Olivia placed a hand on his shoulder, and he tried to draw strength from her touch. He sat up straighter. “Tell me how we fight this.”
Reynolds leaned back and linked his hands across his protruding belly. “You have to do everything you can to make sure the home life you provide your daughter is as stable as you can make it. You need a steady source of income and a suitable living arrangement which doesn’t include a camper on a truck.”
“No problems there,” Olivia said. “He’s been hired on at No Bull as our ranch manager and breeding director. Room and board for him and Clementine are included.”
“I have?” Levi caught the look Olivia shot him. The one that said don’t-be-an-idiot. “I mean, yes, I have.”
“That’s good,” Reynolds said. “You also need a stable relationship. Clementine needs a mother and—”
Olivia grinned. “That’s not a problem either, right, honey?”
Honey?
Then Olivia giggled like a school girl, and her eyes got dreamy. He wanted to reach up and put his hand to her forehead to check for a fever. Maybe the pancakes had gotten to her, too. “Levi proposed to me. We’re getting married.”
She squeezed his hand.
He cleared his throat. “Married. Yes. Us. Married. Together. Me and her... Yep.”
Reynolds stared at him a moment. Levi mentally clapped himself upside his head. Olivia looked like she wanted to do it for real.
“That might help, though our judges are quite conservative. If we could somehow avoid court altogether, that would be our best option.”
“Okay.” At this point, Levi would agree to about anything, as long as he got to keep his daughter.
“In the meantime, I’ll order home visits for you and your fiancé as well as the Jordans. The evaluation can have a lot of sway with the court if it comes to that.”
Levi stood and shook his hand. “Thank you. We appreciate your help. We’ll look forward to your call for the home evaluation.”
* * *
“All I’m saying is that the nurse didn’t have to jam the javelin in my finger and try to hit the bone,” Levi said as he and Olivia trudged down the steps of the doctor’s office after receiving their marriage license at the courthouse and getting a blood test to get married.
“It was a little bitty needle. Don’t be such a baby.”
“Oh, I’m being a baby?”
Olivia laughed. It was the first laugh and the first genuine smile since they’d left the lawyer’s office. She may not want to tell him what had upset her—besides the fact she’d agreed to marry him in the hopes that his daughter wouldn’t be taken away from him—but he’d get the truth out of her eventually.
“Yes. You’re the one who had to look away,” he said. “How do you treat your injured animals if you can’t stand the sight of blood?”
“That’s different.”
“If you say so.” Instead of turning left to head back to Olivia’s truck, he took Olivia’s hand and went right.
“Now where are we going?”
“There’s a store on the square I wanted to stop by. It won’t take long.”
They turned the corner and were back at the town square surrounding the courthouse. It was getting close to lunchtime, and the traffic on the square had picked up. People walked the sidewalks, window shopping or getting their errands done.
“We’re here.” Levi stopped and opened the shop door.
Olivia glanced at the name above the door. “Barrett’s Jewelry?”
“Gotta have rings. If we’re going to do this thing, we’re going to do it right. At least as right as we can.”
“We shouldn’t waste our money on—”
He laid a quieting finger against her lips. “We’re doing this. Period.”
With a hand to her lower back, he ushered her into the store. She was the only woman he’d ever met that balked at getting jewelry.
A saleswoman who Levi pegged to be in her forties came out from the back room when she heard the tinkle of the store bell. She’d dressed much younger. Her skirt was short and tight. Her blouse was low-cut and revealing. Maybe the extra cleavage helped with sales.
“Can I help you two?”
“We’ve come to look at wedding bands.”
“Something simple,” Olivia added.
The woman’s nose scrunched as if Olivia had said a four-letter word, but she recovered quickly enough. “Follow me.” She led them to the far corner of the store. “I’m sure we have something you’ll love. Sometimes simple can be elegant in its understatement.”
He appreciated the way she tried to put a good spin on ‘cheap.’
The saleswoman went behind the counter and unlocked one of the glass doors and brought out trays of rings, everything from simple his-and-hers matching gold bands to engagement ring and wedding band sets with undersized solitaire diamonds.
The saleswoman hovered, keeping a close eye on them and the hundreds of dollars’ worth of jewelry sitting on the counter as if she were afraid they’d take the lot and run out the door. If they were going to rob the store, they certainly would have gone for the more expensive rings, not the ones that were one step up from the something you’d get out of a bubblegum machine.
“See anything you like?” he asked Olivia.
She picked up the thinnest, plainest set of gold bands, and checked the minuscule price tag. They had to be the cheapest rings in the store. “These are nice, don’t you think?”
He appreciated her being thrifty but even though this wedding wasn’t real and their budget was modest, in good conscience, he couldn’t buy her the cheapest ring at the store. She deserved better than that for her generosity.
Taking the rings from her hand and returning them to the tray, he pointed to another set with wider bands and diamond chips in the engagement ring. “How about these?”
She checked the price.
“Would you stop checking the price?”
She leaned in and whispered in his ear. “I can’t afford this ring. I can barely afford the first one we looked at.”
What? “You’re not paying for your own wedding ring.”
“But—”
He saw the rest of the sentence in her eyes—this isn’t real. “Nuh, uh.” Had she really expected him to make her pay for her ring? “I’m paying for the rings. You’re the one doing me a favor.”
And yeah, maybe that came out louder than it should have.
She kicked him in the shin and gave a curt nod toward the saleswoman who was looking at them a little funny. He straightened and turned up the wattage on his charm. “I mean look at me,” he said to the woman. “Who’d want to marry me, right? I’m a lucky, lucky man.”
The woman leaned on the counter, her ample breasts one deep breath away from spilling over. “I’d marry you.” She reached out and patted his hand. “I’ve always had a thing for cowboys.”
“Excuse me?” Olivia said.
The saleswoman stood, having the decency to look a little chagrined. “I was just...”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I know what you were just.”
The way the heat rushed up Olivia’s neck as her anger flared made his heart kick against his sternum and his jeans get tight. She was jealous. Levi smiled.
“We’ll take these,” Olivia said as if she was suddenly in a hurry to get out of the store. She took the rings he’d chosen out of the tray. “Do you have them in our sizes?”
The saleswoman replaced the trays and locked the cabinet. After taking their ring sizes, she went to check the availability of the rings from the stock in the back.
While they waited, he backed her against the display cabinet, bracing his arms on either side of her. “You’re sexy as sin when you’re jealous.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“Says the woman who almost went over the top of the display cabinet to claw the poor lady’s eyes out.”
“I’m pretty sure if she’d had the opportunity, she’d have dragged you behind the counter and had her way with you.”
He leaned in and kissed her like he meant it. Like she was his, even though this whole marriage thing was a farce.
When he pulled away, she opened her eyes and said, “What was that for?”
“For protecting my virtue.”
She laughed and gave him a playful swat on the shoulder. “You have no virtue to protect.”
How did he get so fortunate to have this amazing woman in his life? One who was willing to marry him, to put her life on hold, to help him keep his kid? He wrapped her in a hug and kissed the crook of her neck. “You’re really something special, you know that?”
She shrugged and wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“You are. This marriage is a personal risk for you. Divorce is still frowned upon. For women more so than men. What if you fall in love with someone down the road and it’s a problem for him that you’re divorced?”
The slight smile slipped from her face again. He hated that he was responsible for that, but he wanted to be sure that she was sure.
“Then that man’s not the one for me.”
12
Three days later,
Olivia came in from the barn and found Levi on her front porch fixing the screen door she’d busted a few days before. The spring day had heated up fast. It tended to do that in Texas.
Levi had his shirt off and sweat poured down his back. Olivia chalked up her urge to lick every drop off him on the fact they hadn’t had sex since that first night when he’d come to the ranch. Even though she’d stood there on that porch and declared to Gramps that she’d damn well have pre-marital sex if she wanted, a small part of her felt weird having pre-marital sex while her grandfather was in the house. But tonight, that would change.
Their marriage wouldn’t be real, but it would be legal.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said. “I’m the one who broke it.”
“I don’t mind. Besides, I prefer working close to the house while Clementine’s napping and I want to keep busy. I’d hate to piss off the boss lady. I’ve heard rumors she can be a real ball buster.”
Olivia rolled her eyes and stepped closer to inspect his work. Not only had he repaired the splintered jamb, but he’d also replaced the rusty hinges and found the roll of new screening and stretched that into place.
“Not bad,” she said, “I’ll try to remember to put in a good word for you. Maybe you’ll get lucky tonight.”
Levi groaned. “Please tell me Joe has a date tonight. A very, very, very, late date, because I’ve got plans for my bride tonight.”
“I don’t know about a date, but he did say something about wanting the good truck this evening.”
“I’m sure if we told him we were getting married this afternoon that he’d be willing to take Clementine for the night. We could splurge on a motel room and everything.”