“She’s at work, I imagine.”
“No. I mean she hasn’t been around the barn in a few days, and come to think of it, I haven’t seen her car, either.”
Cole clipped the bale open with a pair of wire cutters and tossed some in a hayrack in one of the stalls. “She’s staying with a friend for a little while.”
Murphy took a threatening step forward. “What did you do to her?”
Cole spun around. “What did I do to her? What do you mean, what did I do to her? She’s staying with a friend. What’s so hard to understand about that?”
He turned away and took a deep, silent breath, knowing he’d spoken too loudly and too angrily. But the old man shouldn’t be sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.
“There’s obviously more to it than that,” Murphy said.
“Even if there is, it’s none of your business.”
“Yeah, I think it is my business. I know how you’ve been using Ginny, and why. She’s so young, and naive—”
“She knew the score going in.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m sure you made a rock-solid argument with her. You bought yourself a wife for twenty-five thousand dollars. I don’t know all the details, but I’m betting the deal was pretty cold. You even got her to sign a contract, didn’t you?”
Cole looked away.
“That’s what I thought.”
“I’ve never lied to Ginny. Never.”
“Not in so many words, you haven’t. But I’ve seen the two of you together down at the barn lately. I can tell—”
“Stop it, Murphy.”
“—that there’s something between you. And the fact that you’re acting as if there isn’t—”
“There’s nothing between Ginny and me! I don’t want anything to do with her!”
“Good God!” Murphy shouted. “Some men wait their whole lives for a woman to look at them the way she looks at you! Are you blind?”
Cole recoiled, Murphy’s words striking him like a hammer blow. All the sudden images of Ginny’s face floated through his mind, that sweet, sweet face that looked at him as no other woman ever had before. With kindness. With compassion.
With love, if there was such a thing.
“I can’t settle down,” Cole said, suddenly a little shaky. “I don’t even want to try. I’ve got business in Dallas—”
“Oh, yeah. It’s always the next deal, isn’t it? That’s the most important thing to you.” Murphy spat into the dust. “You’re just like your father. And sooner or later—”
Cole took a double fistful of Murphy’s shirt and shoved him against a stall door. “Don’t you ever say that to me again. I’m nothing like my father!”
Murphy glared at him. “He always had a temper, too. Couldn’t control it any better than you can.”
Cole slowly released his hold on Murphy’s shirt and backed away, trembling with anger.
Murphy stared at Cole long and hard. “The only reason I’ve played along with this charade so far is because Edna wanted me to, no matter what, as long as you technically fulfilled the terms of the will. But Ginny’s gone now. That means you’re not living together anymore. By all rights I can shut this deal down anytime I want to. Now, you could take me to court, but once it comes out how you manipulated the situation—”
“Then why don’t you do it? Just do it! Pull the plug on this whole deal. Keep the ranch yourself, sell it, burn it. I just don’t give a damn. But don’t you dare bring up Ginny’s name to me again!”
Murphy met his angry gaze head-on. “I don’t know exactly what you did to that girl, but I’m glad she had the smarts to leave. She deserves somebody a whole lot better than you. And I hope to hell she finds him.”
Murphy turned and stalked out of the barn, leaving Cole standing there breathing hay dust and hating him more with every breath he took.
Because the old man was right.
LATE THAT NIGHT, Cole sat at the kitchen table, opening the envelope that contained his and Ginny’s marriage license. He looked at the stamp on it from the Clark County Courthouse, and the signatures of the proprietors of Cupid’s Little Chapel of Love. Then there was Ginny’s signature—tiny, feminine and reserved. A signature that mirrored her personality exactly.
He tossed it aside and picked up their contract. Pages and pages of legalese he’d paid an attorney to draw up that even he didn’t completely understand. It had been intended as intimidation as much as anything else. He’d wanted to insure that whatever woman he married wouldn’t step out of line and that he had complete control of the situation.
Suddenly he had no control of the situation at all.
Pregnancy. Ginny might be pregnant. Which meant he would be a father.
That scared him. Scared him more than anything in his life ever had. Just the word conjured up images he’d spent his whole life trying to forget.
How in the hell could she have forgotten those pills?
If she’d been as afraid of getting pregnant as she said she was, she couldn’t have. Which meant she’d forgotten on purpose.
But had she really?
Stop it. She’s the one who betrayed you, not the other way around. No way could she have just forgotten.
But no matter how many times he repeated that to himself, no matter how many times he tried to make himself believe it, he couldn’t. A slow, nagging feeling ate away at him until he couldn’t stand it any longer.
Ginny had never meant to forget those pills.
Suddenly he felt nauseated, as if he truly was going to be sick, and he had the oddest burning sensation behind his eyes.
Tears.
What was the matter with him? He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes, desperate to rub them away.
The phone rang.
He yanked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Hey, McCallum. Have I got some news for you.”
Cole took a deep, silent breath. Dave Fletcher. Not now. He didn’t want to talk to this guy right now.
“You’re not going to believe this. The neighborhood that apartment complex is sitting in has just been declared a historical preservation area. I’d say the value just shot up by twenty percent, and we’re holding an option to buy at fifty percent of the old market value. So what do you think about that, partner?”
Cole sat there, Fletcher’s words passing right through him as if he hadn’t even heard them. There had been a time when words like that would have set him on fire. Now they were nothing but white noise.
“McCallum? Are you there?”
“Yeah. I’m here.”
“We’re going to make a killing on this deal. A killing.”
Cole’s mind felt dark and blurry. He played back the terrible words he’d spoken to Ginny like some kind of surreal nightmare.
How could he have accused her of such a thing? She was the one person on this earth who loved him, the one person who understood him as nobody else did. They were the same, he and Ginny. They’d lived with the same kind of pain coming from the same kind of place—the feeling of being alone in the world with nobody to give a damn if you lived or died. Of trying to meet the expectations of the rest of the world and not quite measuring up. Ginny had cowered because of it, while he’d stood up and shouted at the top of his lungs that he just didn’t give a damn. Either way, though, the result was the same, and when he looked at her, he saw himself reflected back, and in her eyes was an understanding he’d never expected to see in another human being.
How could he have known that she was the one person on this earth who could unlock his heart and crawl right inside it?
It’s all I’ve wanted for the longest time, Cole. Just you.
He cradled the phone against his shoulder and rubbed his temples with his fingertips, staring at the divorce papers. Right now, she was his wife. In a few days, when he filed the forms, all that would be over with.
Fletcher was rattling on about painting contractors and landscape architects, but Cole let his words go in one ear
and out the other. All he could think about was how much he loved Ginny, a love that seemed to grow with every breath he took. Why hadn’t he seen it before?
For the past six months he’d been so consumed with making that next buck he’d ignored the one thing that would make him happy for the rest of his life, money or not. But how would he ever convince her nothing in this world mattered to him more than she did?
He glanced at the divorce papers. He froze for a moment, then picked them up, staring at the dates. All at once he knew what he had to do. It might take him a few days, but surely he could get it done in time, and then—
“McCallum! Hey! Are you there?”
“Yeah. I’m here.”
“So how’s it looking?”
“How’s what looking?”
“Your cash flow! Man, aren’t you listening? We’ve got a one-year option, so you have some time. But give me a projected date on the windfall you’re expecting.”
“Sorry, Fletcher. I’ve decided against this one.”
“What?”
“I’m backing out.”
“Are you nuts? This one is going to be a gold mine!”
“With those kinds of numbers on the project, you won’t have any trouble finding another partner.”
“Yeah, but you’re the guy I want.”
“Sorry. You’ll have to do without me on this one.”
He heard Fletcher sigh with disgust. “McCallum, I don’t think you know what you’re doing.”
Cole folded the divorce papers and put them into the envelope. “Actually, for the first time in my life, I think I do.”
17
SEVERAL DAYS later, Ginny sat with Rhonda at her kitchen table, fingering the piece of paper she held. On it was the phone number of the clinic where she’d had her pregnancy test done earlier that day.
It was after four o’clock. They would have the results. In only a few minutes, she would know if she was pregnant. If she wasn’t, she would never see Cole again. If she was, she would see his checks for years to come. Either prospect was enough to make tears come to her eyes.
“It’s now or never, sweetie,” Rhonda said.
Ginny picked up the telephone.
Suddenly she heard a knock on Rhonda’s front door. Rhonda got up to open it. Ginny heard a commotion in the living room, then turned in time to see Cole stride into the kitchen.
“Hey!” Rhonda said, following close on his heels. “Don’t you mess with her! You do, and I’ll be all over you! Do you hear me?”
Ginny stared at him, and her heart nearly stopped. He was even more gorgeous than she remembered, tall and imposing in a leather jacket, jeans and boots.
“I’m not going to mess with her, Rhonda,” Cole said evenly.
“Then why are you here? Tell me this minute, ’cause I can dial the sheriff quicker than you can spit.”
“Rhonda?” Cole said. “Do you mind leaving us alone for a minute?”
Rhonda glared at him, then shot Ginny a quick look to see if that was okay. Ginny nodded.
“If you need anything, sweetie, you just holler, okay?”
Ginny nodded again, and Rhonda slunk out of the room, giving Cole the evil eye the whole way out. Once she was gone, the room was so quiet Ginny swore she could hear her own heartbeat.
Cole pulled out a chair. “I need to talk to you.”
“You’ve said plenty already.”
He closed his eyes. “I know. But please, just listen to me one more time.”
She picked up the phone number of the clinic. “Actually, Cole, I was just getting ready to call the clinic. The results of my pregnancy test are in.” She took a deep breath, trying to calm her unsteady nerves. “I suppose you need to know, too, and now is as good a time as any.”
Cole pulled the piece of paper out of her hand, crumpled it up and tossed it aside.
“What are you doing? You can’t hide from this, Cole. We have to know the results!”
“First things first.”
He pulled a legal-size document from his coat pocket. “This is your copy of our divorce papers, signed and executed.”
He slid the papers in front of her. Tears immediately sprang to her eyes.
No. Stop it. Don’t you dare cry.
He’d already done it. He’d already filed the papers. And he was forcing her to wait to find out if she was pregnant until he was quite certain she knew for a fact that they were divorced and she had no hold on him anymore.
She picked up the papers, her hands shaking. Tears blurred her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to clear them. Finally the words came into focus.
She looked at the document, then looked again. The date. There was something wrong with the date.
“I don’t understand,” she said, staring at the papers dumbly. “You’re a day too early. You were supposed to wait until tomorrow to execute this.”
“I know.”
“The will was very clear.”
“I know that, too.”
“If Murphy sees this—”
“Murphy has seen it. I gave him a copy of it myself.”
“What did he say?”
“He said I didn’t fulfill the provisions of the will.”
Ginny stared at him, unable to believe that after all they’d been through so he could get his hands on the deed to the ranch, he’d messed things up so badly at the last minute. And he was acting as if none of it mattered to him in the least.
“Don’t you know what you’ve done?” she said.
“Yeah, Ginny. I know.”
He inched closer to her, placing his hand over hers. It was shaking. He started to speak, stopped, bowed his head for a moment and took in a deep, silent breath. When he raised his head again, his eyes were glistening.
“I sure hope you meant it when you said that all you want is me, because as of right now, that’s all I have left to give you.”
Ginny stared at him, stunned. Little by little, she started to understand, but it was several moments before the full impact of what Cole had done finally hit home. He’d thrown away the ranch in the final hour, stripping himself of everything he thought he ever wanted. And he was coming to her with the only thing he had left to give her.
Himself.
“I said some terrible things to you that day at the ranch,” he said. “Words I’d give anything to take back. I know you didn’t forget those pills on purpose. I was horrible to you, and you’ve got every right to tell me to go to hell. But I’m begging you, Ginny.” He grasped her hand tightly, then brought it to his lips and kissed it. “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.”
His dark eyes shone with tears, and he clenched his jaw to keep them from falling.
“You told me that day that you loved me,” he said, his voice a choked whisper. “Did you mean it?”
In his eyes she saw every bit of hurt he’d ever suffered, every moment in his life when he’d loved someone and that love hadn’t been returned. And the fact that he’d open his heart enough to ask her that question right now…
But still she was wary. “A lot has happened between us, Cole. I don’t know if I can forget that. I don’t know—”
“No. Don’t say it. Don’t say this won’t work. Damn it, Ginny, I’ll do anything—anything…”
He squeezed his eyes closed, taking a long, shaky breath. “I know that up to now I’ve acted like we’re just friends. That sex between us is just sex. It’s not. It hasn’t been for a long time now. When I make love to you, that’s just what it is. Love.”
Ginny put her hand over her mouth, tears filling her eyes. For a moment her throat felt so tight she couldn’t speak.
“I love you, Ginny. I’ve never said that to another human being, not since I was a kid, and I’m not sure I did even then. But I love you. And even if you tell me to go away now, I’ll never stop loving you. Never.”
He fixed his gaze on hers, a strong, unwavering gaze that told her every word he’d spoken was the truth. But he hadn’t just told her.
He’d shown her. He’d thrown away the one thing he thought he wanted above all else just to show her he loved her more, to prove to her she was the only thing that would make his life complete.
“I’ll never stop loving you, either,” she whispered.
He blinked. “Does that mean—”
She slid into his arms, tears cascading down her face. She wound her arms around his neck in a desperate hug. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close, whispering against her ear.
“Oh, God. I thought I’d lost you. I thought—” He kissed her temple, her forehead, her lips. “Forgive me, Ginny. I swear I’ll never hurt you again.”
He hugged her so tightly she could barely breathe, but she didn’t care. She wanted to stay in his arms forever.
“But this means we have a problem.”
“Problem?”
“We’re divorced.” He swept her hair from her cheeks and took her face in his hands. “Ginny, will you marry me?”
She remembered the day he’d first said those words to her, how hard they’d been for him to say even when the marriage was going to be nothing but a sham. But now the words flowed from his mouth as if he’d been destined to say them, full of emotion, full of energy.
Full of love.
“Yes,” she said, smiling through her tears. “Yes. I’ll marry you.”
He kissed her, a long, lingering kiss that made her practically melt into the chair. Then she looked at the crumpled phone message.
“Cole, the clinic. We have to know.”
“No. Not until after the wedding.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want there ever to be any question in your mind why I married you. I’m not doing it because of a pregnancy. I’m not doing it because I feel responsible for you or any baby you might be carrying. I’m doing it because I love you.”
She kissed him, then traced her fingertip along his cheek. “I love you, too.”
“So do I get to be the matron of honor?”
They whipped around to see Rhonda standing at the kitchen door.
“Rhonda!” Ginny said. “Were you eavesdropping?”
“Only a little. I’m sorry, Ginny. I just had to make sure what this guy was up to. But, you know, as it turns out, he finally got things right.”
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