The Marriage Bargain

by Victoria Pade

  It might be worth it not to so she could borrow his, she thought as she hugged the leather jacket around her and snuggled deep inside it.

  Neither of them said much of anything else through the rest of the walk. Only the chirp of autumn crickets serenaded them.

  But it was a soothing sound that seemed to emphasize that they were alone. Together. And even though Victoria tried not to admit to herself that she liked it, she did.

  They approached the house again and before Victoria knew it they were climbing the steps that led to the porch. Something about that made it seem very much as if he’d just walked her home.

  “Well, thank you for a lovely evening,” she joked, in keeping with that.

  Adam picked up on her joke. When they reached the front door he acted as if he didn’t have the right to go in.

  “We’ll have to do it again sometime,” he said, playing along.

  “That would be nice, but I’m being kept awfully busy.”

  They’d left the door open and the light coming through the screen door cast a golden glow on him as Victoria looked up into his amused and terribly handsome face.

  “Are you trying to give me the brush-off here?” he asked, sounding much the way he had when they’d flirted as teens.

  “The brush-off? You?” she answered in mock disbelief. “Why would I do that?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that same question for years now.”

  “I’d have to be crazy. Or a huge coward.”

  One well-shaped eyebrow rose. “Which is it?”

  She pretended to think about it. “Both. But I’m not proud of either.”

  He nodded his head and she had the sense that he was closer to accepting this banter as an apology than he had been to accepting the one she’d delivered their first night there. The one she’d given in all seriousness.

  Their gazes seemed to lock then and Victoria searched his pewter-gray eyes.

  Maybe for forgiveness.

  Maybe for something more.

  Maybe for a sign that somewhere beneath it all he might still have a trace of the warmer feelings for her that he’d had all those years ago.

  And at that moment she knew that the reason for going along with his marriage ultimatum hadn’t only been to help her parents.

  There was a tiny, secret part of her that also wanted him to feel the way he had before. A part of her that wanted to know if she could reach him the way she had then. If she could wipe away the damage she’d done. And maybe start over again….

  He seemed to be looking for something, too. His eyes delved deeply into hers, penetrating them, holding them. Then she saw his brows take an almost imperceptible dip together just before he leaned in and kissed her.

  Not a kiss like the previous night, which had almost been like a schoolboy snatching a smooch on a dare.

  This was a real kiss with lips that were smooth, and parted only slightly, and unhurried.

  Lips she couldn’t help responding to. Answering. Letting them have their way with her own mouth….

  But then it was over. Maybe not as quickly or as frantically as the kiss the evening before, but still much too soon.

  Much, much too soon.

  Victoria was almost afraid to open her eyes. Afraid she’d find the same look of self-disgust in Adam’s features. The same look of abhorrence. The same drive to get away from her, as if she were the devil incarnate tempting him to evil.

  But she couldn’t just stand there with her eyes closed forever.

  She had to face the music if there was music to face.

  When she finally cast a glance up at him she didn’t find any of what had been there the previous night. Instead she found him staring down at her quizzically.

  For only a moment, though. Then he opened the screen and swept an arm in front of him to let her know he was holding it for her, as if they were still playing the game that had started when they’d reached the porch.

  Victoria went inside, holding his coat closed around herself as if it were his arms. Arms that hadn’t reached out to take her into them when he’d kissed her. Arms her body had a powerful yen to feel.

  But when she turned, expecting to see that he’d followed her inside, she discovered him standing on the other side of the closed screen door, as if he really had brought her home from a date and wasn’t coming in.

  “Another early morning tomorrow,” was all he said. “See you then.”

  There was nothing antagonistic in his words or in his tone. It was a simple statement. A simple good-night.

  From outside looking in.

  Victoria wondered if it was just in keeping with the game, or if he was reminding himself of how things had been twenty years earlier—her in one place, him only an observer from afar.

  If that was the case, she couldn’t feel much hope for a fresh start.

  Except that there was still that kiss lingering on her lips and helping to strike a tiny ember of hope, anyway.

  “’Night,” she said quietly, slipping out of his coat and laying it lovingly over the back of the sofa before she climbed the stairs to the attic room, taking confusion to bed with her.

  Confusion about him.

  Confusion about herself and her own feelings, too.

  Five

  Victoria placed a call to her mother first thing the next morning just to check in. She pretended that packing up the ranch was going well and then learned that her father was having less trouble sleeping before ending the call to take on the day. Mucking out a barn wasn’t something Victoria had ever had to do as the daughter of Charles Rutherford.

  But it wasn’t so bad, she thought as she did the chore after Adam repeated the order—the only thing he’d said to her before she’d left the cabin.

  Of course the job was less trouble than it might have been. It helped that no animals had been housed in the stable for the summer, and mice and vermin hadn’t yet found their way inside to get out of the cold. Mainly she just had a whole lot of sweeping to do before she hosed out troughs and stalls and then the floor.

  The good thing about it was that Adam hadn’t opted to help, so she had time to think without him as a distraction.

  Time to remind herself that she shouldn’t be giving in to her attraction to him. To her feelings for him.

  Because, yes, she did have feelings for him.

  Much as she didn’t want to. Much as she didn’t understand exactly what those feelings were.

  And in spite of the fact that she’d tried to keep herself from having any feelings toward him at all.

  There were just so many things going on with her.

  There were the remnants of the crush she’d had on him as a girl. They cropped up at the oddest moments, in flashbacks so vivid it seemed as if she were right back on her father’s ranch, the belle of the ball, unable to keep her mind off the help.

  There was the part of her that still couldn’t keep her mind off Adam. Or her eyes. The part that feasted on every glimpse of him. That put him in her thoughts day and night. That made everything inside her come to life whenever he walked into the room.

  And then there was a part of her that wanted to make up to him the wrong she’d done so long ago.

  That was the part that worried her.

  She wanted so badly to make amends for what she’d done that she was willing to overlook some of the negative things he dished out. She turned the other cheek when, never in her life, had she allowed anyone to treat her the way he did when he wasn’t being civil. Never in her life had she complied so docilely with gruff orders. Never in her life had she ignored snide comments about herself or her abilities.

  Yet she was accepting it all from him because she considered it part of those amends she was making.

  What if, on the flip side of that, she was viewing any crumb of kindness or pleasantry as a banquet? What if she was reading more than she should into those moments when he treated her less harshly?

  What if her reaction to them was just as out
of proportion?

  Such as when she melted the minute he turned the heat of his eyes on her. Or when she got weak-kneed at nothing more than the sight or smell of him. And then there was the fact that she actually had feelings that came to life when all he was offering was common courtesy.

  Was she that desperate?

  She didn’t know. She wished she had answers to her own questions, but she didn’t.

  “The whole thing is just too confusing,” she said out loud in the empty stable as she swept with more fury.

  She was married to a man who resented her on one level and seemed to be attracted to her on another.

  She was attracted to him and leery of him at the same time.

  She felt as if she almost deserved some of his bad attitude toward her. And then she was walking on cloud nine anytime he smiled at her.

  Plus, she seemed incapable of controlling her own impulses just because he pressed his lips to hers.

  There was something off kilter about this whole thing.

  Something definitely off kilter about two short, silly little kisses knocking her socks off and leaving her dazed and churned up inside and wanting to melt into arms that hadn’t even wrapped around her. She’d been so starved for more that she had actually gone to bed both of the two previous nights listening, hoping for sounds of Adam climbing the stairs to the attic. She imagined what it would be like for him to come to her room wearing nothing but his jeans, with that glorious chest bare. He’d sit on the edge of her bed and bend to kiss her again, longer, deeper, holding her so close to him her breasts would be flattened against his hard, hot chest. His hands would roam—

  Oh, no, she was doing it again—somehow going from merely thinking about him to losing herself in a fantasy.

  “See,” she said as if she’d just proved her point to someone else.

  It was crazy that so little could lead to so much.

  But it kept happening. Again and again.

  Just the way it had when she was a girl.

  But she wasn’t a girl anymore. She was a grown woman. A grown woman who shouldn’t have been so overly susceptible to any man, regardless of what misdeed she might have committed against him.

  She just didn’t understand why it was happening now. In the worst of circumstances. When she knew better. When she was trying to not let it happen.

  Confusing. The whole thing was just so confusing.

  As she dragged the hose into the barn she told herself all over again that she had to protect herself. The only way to do that was to not give in to this weakness she seemed to have for him. To not give in to the feelings for him. The fantasies of him. The desires and cravings for him.

  She couldn’t trust where they were coming from. She couldn’t trust herself. And she certainly couldn’t trust Adam. Or his intentions. Or where this all might lead.

  It just wasn’t a time to be falling for the guy.

  Okay, so it made her life more pleasant when he was being nice, when they could talk or work side by side or share a meal or take a walk.

  But that didn’t mean she had to end up kissing him. Or let a simple kiss or the sight of him or thought of him catapult her into so much more. Even if it was only in her mind.

  Although the desires and cravings were in her body, too.

  The fact was, she was getting carried away, and that was never smart.

  Especially when this was not a normal situation.

  She had to remember that. And she had to keep in mind that it was possible that none of her feelings were normal, either. They were a combination of the past, of being under whatever his current influence was, of reality and fantasy, all tangled up together.

  Nothing good was likely to come out of that tangle.

  “So quit taking chances,” she ordered herself.

  Because that was what she was doing—taking a huge risk every time she let her guard drop. Every time she gave in to enjoying being with him or let her mind fill with images of him. Every time she let him kiss her or kissed him back.

  It had to stop.

  The trouble was, even though she was determined to keep her perspective, she knew that it was the most difficult thing she’d ever had to do.

  So far, she hadn’t been able to do it, despite her best intentions.

  “But that doesn’t mean you can’t start today,” she told herself, sounding like a motivational speaker.

  She just had to quit hanging on his every word, his every nuance.

  She just had to quit noticing every detail about him.

  She just had to quit letting him get to her.

  Victoria turned on the nozzle to the hose full-blast and braced herself against the jolt as a forceful spray shot out.

  In her mind she pictured herself bracing against the power of Adam. Keeping him and his effect on her at bay.

  From now on she was going to put whatever she had into resisting him.

  Making amends was one thing, but letting him into her heart was something else again.

  She wasn’t going to let it happen.

  She really, really wasn’t.

  Victoria and Adam headed out on horseback that afternoon. Adam was still barely speaking to her, giving orders but not much more. And once he’d mounted his big black stallion, he’d set off without waiting for her, leaving her to ride several yards behind him.

  She could have caught up—her chestnut mare was young and energetic—but she chose not to. What was the point when he was ignoring her, anyway?

  Not that she understood why he’d been more mellow the day after the first kiss but back to sullen and aloof the day after the second. But since his standoffishness aided her most recent plans to keep her own distance, she just decided to let him be and enjoy the ride.

  It had been a long time since she’d been up on a horse. Even visits home to her folks on the ranch hadn’t occasioned many horseback rides.

  But the mare was gentle and Victoria got the feel for it again before long, leaving her free to concentrate on the scenery.

  Because the mountains were so nearby, the ground they traveled was anything but flat. Hills large and small rose up to be climbed and then dipped into valleys where the grass was still fairly green even if the wildflowers had gone out of bloom.

  The closer they got to the mountains the bigger the hills that would eventually become the taller, jagged peaks of the Crazy Mountains. The sky was a crystal-clear blue, the sun was high and had lost its blistering heat, a slight autumn breeze brought with it the scent of fresh pine and spruce, and if Victoria had to be sentenced to roughing it, she couldn’t have asked for a better day.

  Of course not every glance took in only nature’s splendor. A fair share of them fell on Adam up ahead of her.

  No one would guess from looking at him that he was anything but a cowboy today.

  The jeans he had on underneath his old leather chaps were saddle-worn. His chambray shirt looked as if it had seen any number of cattle drives, as did the leather vest he wore over it and the sturdy brown cowboy boots that were wedged into the stirrups. He even had a sweat-stained Stetson atop his head and Victoria had never seen anyone who sat a horse better than he did—tall, straight-backed, so easy in the saddle it was as if he and the horse were one.

  It was something to see.

  But she fought the urge to simply watch him ride, determined not to succumb to that temptation and where she knew it would take her.

  As afternoon turned into early evening, they reached the pasture where Adam’s four horses had spent the summer. There were fences far off in the distance, but for the most part it was a wide-open space at the very foot of the mountains.

  All four horses were Thoroughbred stallions. Two Victoria guessed to be not much more than two-year-olds and still had some immaturity to them. One was a beautiful blood bay and the other a sorrel.

  Their companions were both a liver-chestnut color and had clearly reached full growth at probably fifteen to sixteen hands each. It didn’t take a h
orse expert to see that what Adam had out there was prime stock that would earn him a pretty penny in stud fees.

  He reined his horse to a stop under a stand of three oaks whose leaves were turning gold and bronze and just beginning to fall into the stream that ran several feet to the north of them.

  Victoria pulled up next to him.

  “You can make camp here under the trees, while I get the horses haltered and tethered for the night. That way we can break camp first thing in the morning and be able to head home without having to catch them then.”

  A bit of pique over his previous silence caused her to say, “You mean I’m not assigned both chores?”

  He arched an eyebrow at her cheeky tone. “As if you know how to do either,” he said sarcastically.

  “I was raised on a ranch, you know,” she countered the same way. She didn’t know why she was pushing this but apparently something about his switch in attitudes again had set her off and she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

  “You were raised on a ranch all right. But you never got your hands dirty. I was there to see it, remember?”

  Every word out of his mouth only seemed to increase her indignation and determination to prove to him that she hadn’t been merely a spoiled little rich girl. Even though that was actually what she had been.

  “I’ll get the horses and make camp,” she heard herself say, thinking even as she did that maybe she’d gone a little crazy.

  His arched eyebrow went higher still. “Is that so?”

  “And I don’t want you to lift a finger. Not a single finger. No matter what,” her bluster continued, ignoring the little voice in the back of her mind that reminded her that she hadn’t a clue how to either build a campsite or gather the horses.

  “Careful or I might take you at your word,” he warned.

  “I expect you to.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “You can’t do it,” he said fatalistically but without any challenge in his voice.

  Which only added fuel to the fire of her foolish temper.

  “I can do it and I will do it, and don’t you dare butt in.”

  Oh dear, she really had gone out of her mind.

  He chuckled slightly, closed his eyes and scratched the highest curve of his cheekbone with one index finger. Then he opened his eyes again and looked at her with pure amusement. “Okay,” he finally conceded. “I’ll just sit and watch unless you ask for my help.”