With a last longing look at the dark house, he turned the wheel and drove away.
“The tailor’s here.”
Forrest glanced up from his computer screen to look at his housekeeper who stood in the doorway of his office. “I didn’t make an appointment with the tailor.”
“No, but your mother did.”
Forrest fell back against his chair with a groan. “Dammit, Marie. Why didn’t you tell me before now, so I could cancel the dang thing?”
She lifted a shoulder, trying her best not to smile. “I didn’t know about it either, till I answered the door and found him standing on the porch.”
Wearily Forrest heaved himself from the chair. He was going to take care of this quickly, because he had another appointment to keep. This one with Becky. By noon, he’d have this whole fiancé mess straightened out and a ring on her finger. “Where is he?”
“In your bedroom.” She stepped to the side to let him pass, then followed close on his heels. “He’s already hauled in about a dozen bolts of fabric. There’s one pink silk that looks really pretty.”
Forrest shot her a dark look over his shoulder. Marie always seemed to get some perverted sense of enjoyment out of watching he and his mother go head-to-head, and had for as long as he could remember.
She chuckled and continued to follow him. “Are you going to send him packing?”
“I would,” he muttered irritably, “but it wouldn’t do any good. Mom would just reschedule.” He approached the wing that housed the master bedroom, his steps slowing with dread. “Might as well let him stick me full of pins and get it over with.” Heaving a disgusted breath, he pushed open the bedroom’s paneled double doors. Bolts of fabric in every shade of the rainbow draped his king-size bed. Beside it stood Chin-Liang, the tailor, his arms spread wide in welcome.
“Mr. Cunningham! So good to see you again.”
Forrest crossed the spacious room in three long strides, unbuttoning his shirt. “Make it quick, Chin-Liang. I’m pressed for time.”
Chin-Liang wagged a finger at Forrest. “You businessmen. Rush, rush, rush. All the time rushing. Not good for your health.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my health.” Forrest ripped the shirt off and tossed it aside, then lifted his arms out to his sides, assuming the position, his expression that of a man facing a firing squad. “Just take your measurements, Chin-Liang. And I don’t care what my mother told you, I only want white shirts.”
Chin-Liang made a tsking sound with his tongue as he pulled a tape measure from around his neck. “White,” he grumbled under his breath. “Always just white. How is Chin-Liang to make you look handsome, if you only choose white?”
The doorbell rang and Forrest glanced over his shoulder, frowning at Marie. “Get that, will you? And if it’s somebody else my mother has sent out, tell ‘em to get lost.”
Cackling gleefully, Marie scurried from the room.
Forrest turned back to meet his reflection in the cheval mirror Chin-Liang had dragged across the room and placed in front of him. He watched as the man moved around him, taking measurements, then hurriedly jotting them down.
“A new tux, your momma says,” Chin-Liang said, and glanced up, grinning at Forrest. “For your wedding, nght?”
Forrest looked down at the wiry man, his brow furrowing. “My mother told you I was getting married?”
Chin-Liang bobbed his head, grinning from ear to ear, as he wrapped the tape around Forrest’s waist. “Yes. Yes. She say Chin-Liang must sew quick, quick, because wedding is soon.”
Forrest lifted his gaze to frown at his reflection. How the hell did his mother know he and Becky were planning on getting married? Had Becky told her?
He felt his belt loosen, and glanced down as Chin-Liang began to unbutton the fly of his jeans. “What the hell are you doing?” he cried, batting the man’s hands away.
“Must have good measurements,” Chin-Liang replied and gave the denim a tug.
Forrest grabbed for the waist of his jeans, but Chin-Liang was quicker. Before Forrest could stop him, Chin-Liang had the jeans bunched around the tops of his boots and had a width of black fabric wrapped around his leg from thigh to ankle.
His cheeks flaming, Forrest set his jaw and glared at his reflection in the mirror. “I’m gonna kill you, Mom,” he mumbled under his breath. “I swear I’m gonna kill you.” He jumped as a sharp pain lanced his upper thigh. “Dammit, Chin- Liang! What are you trying to do? Castrate me?”
Chin-Liang held up a straight pin, smiling sheepishly. “Sorry, Mr. Cunningham. Chin-Liang miss his aim.”
“Becky’s here, Forrest. Do you—Oh, my!”
Forrest jerked his gaze to the mirror to find Marie standing in the doorway behind him, her fingers pressed over her mouth, her eyes riveted on the backside of his boxer shorts. She sputtered a laugh and turned, ducking around Becky, who stood behind her, and disappeared down the hall. He could hear her wild gales of laughter until the kitchen door closed, cutting it off.
Frowning, he shifted his gaze on the glass to meet Becky’s and his stomach clenched in dread when he saw her red-rimmed eyes. He twisted his head around to look at her. “Becky?” he asked in concern. “What’s wrong?”
She drew in a deep breath, then took a step inside his room. “I came to give you my two-week notice.” She pulled an envelope from her back pocket, and laid it on his dresser.
“Notice?” he said. “What notice?”
“I won’t be able to work for the Golden Steer anymore.” She drew in another deep breath, then added, “I’m leaving.”
The knots in his stomach wound tighter. “Leaving? But last night—”
“Was a mistake,” she said, before he could finish. “I’m sorry, Woody. Listen, I gotta go. I’ve got some packing to do.” She spun on her heel and headed for the door. “You can pick up your stock whenever you want.”
“Becky! Wait!” Forrest started after, swore when he nearly fell, hobbled by the jeans around his ankles. “Dammit, Becky, wait!” he yelled. He bent over and grabbed his jeans, jerking them back up over his hips as he shoved his way past the sputtering Chin-Liang.
He ran after Becky and caught up with her just as she was opening the front door. He slapped a palm against the thick wood, slamming the door shut before she could escape. “You’re not going anywhere,” he growled, “until you tell me what the hell is going on.”
She stuffed her hands into her back pockets and backed up a step, her face pale. “I told you, already. I’m leaving.”
“But we’re getting married! Last night you said—”
“No, you said,” she interrupted, cutting him off.
“So you’re going to marry John Smythe—” he waved a frustrated hand “—or whatever the hell his name is?”
“Yeah,” she said, lifting her chin. “I’m getting married.”
He spun away, digging his fingers through his hair, his mind reeling. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. He wouldn’t allow it to be true. She’d made love with him last night. Him! Not this fantasy fiancé of hers. And Becky wasn’t the kind of woman who would make love with one man, if her heart belonged to another.
He forced himself to take three long breaths before he turned back to face her. “You don’t love him,” he said, his voice rough with accusation. “I know you don’t, otherwise you never would have made love with me.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, but she lifted her chin higher, forcing them back. “You can think whatever you like, but the fact is, I’m leaving.” She grabbed for the door and jerked it open, then darted through the opening, slamming it behind her.
Stunned, Forrest stared at the polished wood, then fell forward with a groan, planting both hands against the thick wood and burying his face in the crook of his arm.
She couldn’t marry the guy. She just couldn’t He wouldn’t let her. He brought a hand to his chest and fisted it over the ache where his heart used to be.
Dammit he loved her too much to just
let her go.
Becky downshifted into second and took the turn onto the highway on two wheels. She dragged a wrist beneath her eye, and blinked hard, trying to see through the ocean of tears that blinded her.
It’s better this way, she told herself as she fisted her hands tighter around the steering wheel. If Woody thought she was leaving Royal and the Rusty Corral because she was getting married, then he would never suspect the real reason behind her quick exodus.
She couldn’t tell him the truth. She couldn’t tell him that her father had gambled away their home. Her pride just couldn’t take another beating.
She’d lived next door to Woody and his family most of her life, and though it embarrassed her to even think about it, she knew they were privy to every low point in her life. Those lean winters when she’d lived off beans and rice, and whatever wild game she could hunt. The overdrafts at the bank when Shorty had drained the ranch account. The patches on her jeans when there wasn’t money enough to buy new ones.
In contrast, the Cunninghams lived up to the name of their ranch, the Golden Steer. She knew how wealthy they were. Heck! She could put ten houses the size of hers inside their home and still have room to spare.
It was bad enough to have next to nothing to offer a man in a marriage, but when a woman had nothing...
She choked on a sob, and pressed her hand against her lips to hold it inside. Nothing. She had nothing. No ranch. No home. Thanks to Shorty, in two weeks, she wouldn’t even have a bed to sleep in. All she had left in the world was this old truck she was driving.
Even as the realization came, the truck backfired, lurched. The engine sputtered twice then died. Fighting to keep the truck on the road, Becky watched in wide-eyed horror as steam began to billow from beneath the hood. She steered the truck to the side of the road, pulled on the emergency brake, then dropped her head onto the steering wheel and gave in to the tears.
“Oh, Lord,” she sobbed. “What am I going to do now?”
Forrest whistled to Rowdy, signaling the dog to turn the lead steer. Rowdy barked and snapped at the steer’s nose, heading him toward the Rusty Corral’s open gate, while Forrest pushed the rest of the herd on.
Forrest had originally planned for his wranglers to bring this small herd of steers over to the Rusty Corral and to the section of land he’d leased from Becky nearly a year ago. But after his conversation with Becky earlier that morning, he’d chosen to do it alone. Not that he needed an excuse to pay a visit to her, he assured himself. But he was going to have a talk with her, and she was going to listen.
She wasn’t getting married. And if she was, it was going to be to Forrest Cunningham and not John Smythe.
He slapped his coiled lariat against his leg. “Get up there,” he yelled, urging on a lagging steer. Reining his horse sharply, he cut off a brindle steer before he could break from the herd, then fell back to his position at drag. Once he was sure all the steers’ noses were headed in the right direction, he glanced toward Becky’s house in the distance. He frowned when he saw a car parked out front.
“Pick it up, Rowdy,” he called, and spurred his horse into a long trot, anxious to get the cattle settled in the pasture so that he could get back to the house and talk to Becky. Straining for a better look at the car, he saw a rental sticker on the rear bumper. With his heart pounding against his ribs, he cut his gaze to the house again just as Becky pushed open the front door.
She was juggling a pitcher and two glasses. She must have heard the cattle bawling, because she glanced up and her gaze met Forrest’s. He watched the smile slowly melt off her face before she quickly turned away. It was then that Forrest noticed the man sitting in the wicker chair at the small table snugged into a corner on the porch. He watched, his stomach bottoming out, as Becky handed the man a glass, then draped a hand along his shoulders while she leaned to fill his glass with iced tea. The man looked up at her, smiled and said something.
Whatever he said, it must have been funny, because Becky tossed back her head and laughed. She sat down beside him, then pulled her chair closer to his. With her elbow propped on the table, she leaned closer to him, smiling, seemingly hanging on his every word.
Forrest wanted to race his horse across the distance that separated them, grab the man by the collar and bury his fist so deep in his face the guy would be chewing knuckles for a month.
But he couldn’t. Not when there was only him and a dog herding sixty head of cattle down the lane. With a growl, he lifted the lariat again and slapped it hard against his leg. “Get up there,” he yelled, pushing the cattle to a faster pace.
But he was coming back, he promised himself, just as soon as he closed the gate on the last steer. And when he returned...well, there sure as hell wouldn’t be any laughing going on.
Becky watched the man drive away, a cloud of dust chasing his rental car down the lane. She shivered, and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. The guy was spooky. She couldn’t figure out just exactly what it was about him that frightened her. His eyes, maybe? They definitely had a mean look in them, like a predator stalking his prey.
She shook off the uncomfortable feeling and turned for the barn and her chores. Though she’d been grateful when the man had stopped and offered her a ride home after her truck had broken down, she was relieved that he was finally gone. She’d been afraid there for a minute that she’d pushed her luck too far and that she was going to have get the shotgun she kept propped just inside the front door to fend off a sexual advance.
In retrospect, she could see how foolish it had been to use the stranger to put on a show for Woody, in hopes of leading Woody to believe that the man—Alfred, he’d said his name was—was her fiancé. But the setup had been too perfect to resist. She knew she didn’t have to worry about Alfred ever denying her claim. He’d told her on the drive to the Rusty Corral that this was his first trip to Texas, and he was just passing through. He’d asked questions about Royal and the people who lived there, which she’d thought odd for a man who claimed the only purpose of his trip was to see firsthand Texas’s varied topography.
She shrugged off the thoughts of the stranger and stepped inside the barn and to the chores that waited.
Ivan Striksky glanced in the rearview mirror of his rental car in time to see the young woman he’d rescued from the side of the road disappear inside a barn. For a moment, he considered turning back and giving the wench a nice long roll in the hay. Though a country bumpkin in his estimation and definitely beneath his royal status, the woman did have a certain charm. Her breasts for one, he thought, smiling lewdly.
His mouth curled into a sneer as he focused his attention on the road ahead. But he had more important matters to attend to. Anna von Overland. The princess had managed to escape...but not for long. He’d find her. And when he did...
Her chores complete, Becky slipped into the stall to check on the pregnant mare.
She moved along the horse’s side, smoothing a hand over her swollen belly. Her time was close. Real close, if Becky was any judge. There’d probably be a new foal on the Rusty Corral before the week was out.
She felt a kick against her palm and smiled. “Feisty little fellow,” she said to the mare, giving her a comforting pat. “I’ll bet you’ll be glad when this is over, huh, mama?” Taking a brush, she smoothed it down the mare’s neck. “Won’t be long now, though. And no need to worry. I’ll be here with you. Everything’ll be just fine.”
“Is she in labor?”
Becky jumped, then forced her hand to resume its brushing as Woody stepped into the stall and closed the gate behind him. “Not yet. But she’s close.”
He moved to stand beside her, rubbing a hand along the mare’s neck. “I put some steers on that section I leased from you last spring.”
She kept her shoulder turned toward him, her gaze on her hand as she continued her grooming. “Yeah. I saw you. Shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll let the new owners know about the lease. I’m sure they’ll honor it.”
&nb
sp; He whipped his head around to look at her. “New owners? You sold the Rusty Corral?”
She didn’t want to answer, didn’t want to have to admit to what Shorty had done. She didn’t want to have to tell him that she could now be listed among the homeless. So she dodged the question, by saying, “They’ll be taking over in about two weeks.”
His hand dropped from the mare’s neck, then he set his jaw and rammed his hands deeply into his pockets. “Who was that on the porch with you earlier? Your fiancé?”
“Yeah, that was him.” The lie came easily to Becky. After weeks of lying, she was beginning to consider herself somewhat of a pro.
“I didn’t see his car outside when I rode up. Where is he?”
“He left. Had some business to take care of in Pecos.”
Infuriated by her indifference, he spun, kicking at the shavings on the stall floor, sending a cloud of dust into the air, then whirled on her. “Why are you doing this, Becky? You don’t love him.”
It was difficult, but she managed to keep her expression impassive and her tone light when she replied, “Says who?”
“I do,” he growled. He grabbed her arm, jerked the brush from her hand and threw it down. Catching her by both arms, he spun her around to face him. “Admit it, you don’t love him.”
“I’ll do no such thing,” she cried, struggling to pull free. But he tightened his grip on her arms, his fingers digging into her skin.
“Then why did you make love with me, if you love another man?”
She lifted her chin defiantly. “For the experience. I told you that I wanted you to teach me how to please a man.” She lifted a shoulder. “Now I know.”
He dropped his hands from her so fast Becky stumbled forward a step. He backed away from her, his eyes filled with loathing, then he wheeled and stalked from the stall. Becky listened to the sound of his footsteps, the creak of leather as he swung up into his saddle, the click of hooves against rock as he loped away.
Billionaire Bridegroom Page 12