The Marriage Bargain

by Victoria Pade

  But the point was, she reminded herself as she tried to get her head of steam back, she had not purposely set him up for that incident all those years ago. And she certainly hadn’t been making fun of him.

  She’d been jealous that her friends were getting a glimpse of what she’d been secretly spying on all summer and didn’t want to share.

  Adam appeared out of the darkness just then, hunkering down beside the stream to perform the same chore with his own plate, silverware and the frying pan.

  “Feel better?” he asked without a bit of remorse but with a whole lot of condescension.

  Victoria considered pushing him into the stream, but she didn’t. She also didn’t answer him. If he could give her the silent treatment when it suited him, she could give him the silent treatment when it suited her.

  She shook the water off her plate, letting droplets fly every which way, including at Adam, and then she returned to the campsite to take off her shoes and crawl into her sleeping bag.

  The sooner this day was over, the better.

  Besides, it was getting very cold. But when she tried to zip the sleeping bag, the zipper got stuck about midway up the side.

  She didn’t know much about camping but she could tell just from the cold air seeping into the downy interior of the bedroll that her only chance of keeping warm throughout the night was to have the thing zipped all the way.

  She sat up to assess what the problem was, thinking she’d probably caught some of the flannel lining. But there wasn’t anything stuck in the zipper’s teeth. It was just much like the stallion that had clamped his jaws around the halter earlier and refused to let go. She couldn’t make the thing budge.

  “Need some help?” Adam asked sardonically as he walked by on his return from the stream.

  Again, Victoria didn’t answer. She just went on tugging at the zipper, trying to move it in either direction and failing.

  She didn’t think she could find her way back to Adam’s ranch in the dark or at that moment she would have gotten up, saddled the mare and ridden out of there as fast as she could. She was just so angry. So frustrated. So irritated.

  A small, high-pitched shriek escaped her throat as she put everything she had into forcing the zipper.

  But it still didn’t move.

  “Lie back.”

  The order came from overhead before Victoria realized Adam had retraced his steps around the fire from his own sleeping bag to stand beside her.

  “Just go away,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Lie back,” he repeated in a tone that held as much threat as command.

  She decided that, rather than argue, it was quicker and easier to do what he said, hope he could get the zipper up and that then he’d leave her alone.

  So she laid back.

  He knelt down next to her without another word and went to work on the stuck zipper.

  Victoria tried not to look at him, staring up at the sky through the canopy of tree branches. But somehow she couldn’t keep her gaze there. It went all on its own to Adam.

  The fire glow gilded his face, no longer amused or even complacent-looking. He was frowning again, and too deeply for it to be merely due to the problem with her zipper.

  Yet he was still so astonishingly handsome, he almost didn’t seem real.

  He finally got the zipper to move, sliding it closed then open again past the spot where it had stuck.

  With that accomplished he said, “Lift your head,” and reached for her saddle where she’d put it beside the sleeping bag. “Lift your head,” he repeated when curiosity kept her from doing it immediately.

  Victoria lifted her head and he put the saddle beneath it, like a pillow.

  It did make her more comfortable but she couldn’t bring herself to thank him.

  Maybe he was waiting for her to, though, since even after he’d done that he didn’t move.

  Instead he stayed there, looming over her with one hand on the ground on either side of her shoulders as if he were going to do a push-up over her.

  “You’re wrong, you know,” he said then in a low, solemn voice that sounded as if he were confiding something in her. “I don’t want you to hate me.”

  Victoria still didn’t say anything. She just went on watching him so close above her.

  “And my real problem,” he continued, “is that I don’t hate you anymore, either.”

  She raised her chin and had just begun to open her mouth to ask how that could be when he kissed her. A kiss that seemed to claim her, that seemed driven to claim her.

  A kiss that went rapidly from almost being fierce to more tender. More engaging. More enticing. More intriguing.

  At first Victoria was going to pull her hands out of the sleeping bag, turn her head and push him away. But somehow that wasn’t what she did.

  She kissed him back.

  Initially just as fiercely as he kissed her. Then just as tenderly.

  Before she knew it, she was lost in that kiss more than either of the two that had preceded it. Lost in warm lips that opened over hers. Lost in expertise that urged her to relax, to savor that moment and that kiss and the tiny charges of light that were going off inside her in response.

  His hands found their way underneath her, underneath even the sleeping bag, pulling her up only enough so that her spine arched and her breasts pressed against his chest as her head fell further back, letting him deepen the kiss even more.

  Out came her arms from the bedroll, though not to push him away. They snaked around him until she could fill her palms with the hardness of his back, powerful even through leather and chambray, holding him as tightly as he held her.

  A part of Victoria knew she’d lost her mind to be doing this. Worse than doing it, enjoying it. Reveling in the feel of his mouth over hers, his arms around her, her arms around him. But that didn’t seem to be the part that mattered at that moment.

  The only thing that mattered was that she was there, being soundly, resoundingly kissed by him. The way she’d longed to be both times before, with mouths suddenly open and tongues getting to know each other in torrid abandon that brought things to life within her. Things that had long lain dormant. Things that cried out for fewer barriers between them. Things that shrieked for the feel of flesh against flesh. Things that wiped away all other thoughts and left her straining to be even closer to him….

  But then he ended the kiss.

  He lay her back down with as much care as if she were made of china.

  He didn’t leave even then, though. He searched her eyes with his and there was a look of disbelief in them before he shook his head.

  “No, I definitely don’t want you to hate me. Damn it all to hell,” he said almost more to himself than to her.

  Then he got up and walked in the direction of the stream again, disappearing into the darkness.

  There was only one thing that was certain in Victoria’s mind: this whole thing was insane, including maybe Adam.

  But she was no better. Because as mad as she’d been at him, as mad as part of her still was, there was also that part of her—the same part that had responded to his kiss—that wished he would come back and join her in her sleeping bag to make love to her right out there under the stars.

  The way she’d dreamed of since she was a girl.

  A dream that no amount of anger or frustration or irritation or annoyance seemed able to wipe away.

  Six

  Adam didn’t say more than six sentences to Victoria all day Thursday. He had her break camp just after dawn and each of them led two horses back home. She brushed down all four stallions and got them settled in, while he spent the remainder of the day and into the evening on the telephone and at the computer and fax machine conducting business.

  He managed to not succumb to the urge to talk to her once he finally finished work, the way he had every other night they’d been at the ranch.

  And he resisted the even stronger urge to repeat any of those three kisses they�
�d shared in evenings past—something he considered quite a feat.

  But by Friday he didn’t feel any better than he had since their argument Wednesday night.

  Of course it didn’t brighten his spirits that Victoria wasn’t speaking to him, either, except out of necessity. But still the things she’d said to him in the heat of anger kept gnawing at him and by Friday when he decided the chore of the day would be for her to repair the cabin roof, he also decided that some hard physical labor might help clear his own head.

  The trouble was, once they’d both climbed the ladder and gone to work pounding nails through loose shingles into the rooftop, each beat of the hammer seemed to echo Victoria’s last words when she’d told him off Wednesday night.

  I’m beginning to hate you right back….

  The sentiment shouldn’t have come as a surprise. But it had. A surprise he didn’t like much.

  Not that it didn’t make sense. This wasn’t a popularity contest, after all. He hadn’t started it to win her heart any more than he started takeovers to win friends.

  But somehow he’d never factored into the equation that she’d end up hating him.

  And he’d sure as hell never guessed it would bother him if she did.

  But there he’d been Wednesday night, telling her he didn’t want her to hate him. And meaning it.

  Why should that be the case? That was the question that had been gnawing at him ever since. Why should it matter if she was beginning to hate him?

  Shouldn’t he count it as a sign that he was exacting his revenge? Shouldn’t she hate him and resent him and feel all the things he’d felt during those years after her silence had nearly put his family on the streets?

  Her getting to hate him was an indication that he was succeeding at what he’d set out to do. So, great. Terrific. Hate away!

  That was what he should have been thinking. But it wasn’t.

  How could it be when he didn’t hate her anymore?

  That had been a revelation to him.

  It hadn’t even been something he’d realized until the words had come out of his mouth Wednesday night.

  My real problem is that I don’t hate you anymore, either.

  That’s what he’d said. And he’d meant it, too.

  But it was just as tough to accept.

  He didn’t hate her anymore….

  If that wasn’t bad enough, all he had to do to find something worse was to think about just how far from hating her he was these days.

  Because not only was he physically attracted to her, not only did he enjoy her company more than he’d ever enjoyed the company of any woman, not only did he want to spend every minute concentrating on her and nothing but her, not only did he go to sleep every night with images of her in his mind’s eye, but he also couldn’t help admiring the way she was dealing with everything he inflicted upon her. He couldn’t help being impressed by how hard she was trying to adapt to everything he threw at her. He couldn’t help but appreciate the fact that she was doing every job he told her to do—no matter how loathsome or menial—without complaint. That she was working just the way she was at that moment—stoically and without so much as a trace of martyrdom.

  He hadn’t expected any of that from her.

  The Victoria Rutherford he’d known before had been a spoiled, pampered princess who never would have endured a fraction of what she was now.

  He’d been so sure he’d find her balking at every order, whining and moaning and groaning and trying to wheedle out of any work at all.

  Yet here she was, breaking her back without a peep.

  And weakening his defenses at the same time because of it.

  Without a peep? Was that what he’d thought?

  What had Wednesday night’s diatribe been if not a peep? A real big peep.

  Of course he had to admit that that particular monologue hadn’t been about the work. It had been about him. About him running hot and cold. About him being a jerk.

  If the shoe fits, a voice in the back of his head taunted.

  So, okay, maybe from her perspective he had been a pretty big jerk.

  But he was entitled to some of that.

  Maybe not quite as much as he’d been dishing out, but still….

  But still nothing, that contrary voice countered. You’ve been dishing out so much it’s no wonder she’s beginning to hate you.

  Beginning to hate him.

  He just couldn’t find a way for that to sit well.

  And maybe the fact that it kept niggling at him was telling him something.

  Like, you should stop being such a jerk, the voice suggested.

  What did that mean? That he should stop seeking reparations? No way he was going to do that. Those reparations were his due.

  But do you have to extract that due the way you have been? the voice asked. With an iron fist and a foul disposition?

  Maybe not.

  What if he did soften the tone of things somewhat? he asked himself. What would happen then?

  Because every time he softened his tone, she softened hers, too. She responded to him and they ended up kissing.

  Of course those were also the moments he felt the most alive. The most connected to himself, to the way he’d been once upon a time.

  Those were the moments he was closer to being happy than he could remember being in a long, long while.

  Those were the moments he wanted never to end.

  But who knew where that might lead? Probably nowhere good.

  As he slammed home nail after nail with one blow of the hammer he started to think about the alternative. About what would happen if he didn’t put a moratorium on the bad attitude.

  If he didn’t, he concluded, before long Victoria would hate him full-bore.

  And that wasn’t a proposition he could live with.

  So cool it and let things take their own course, that little voice in his head told him.

  But would he be shortchanging his own revenge if he did?

  Maybe not, if he still meted out the comeuppance sentence but just did it with more of an even temper.

  After all, she’d still be there as his own private ranch hand, learning what it was like to be on the working end of things.

  But she might not grow to hate him in the process. And for some reason that suddenly seemed very important.

  Besides, he admitted to himself, he was tired of fighting whatever it was that was happening between them during those good moments. Tired of fighting his own natural inclinations. Tired of fighting the present because of the past.

  A past that was somehow beginning to seem farther and farther away.

  But what if it meant he discovered his feelings for Victoria were something other than he’d originally thought they were? If now that he knew he didn’t hate her, he discovered he felt something he didn’t want to feel?

  He supposed that was just a chance he’d have to take. A conflict of interest he’d just have to deal with.

  Because it wasn’t his feelings for her that had him worried at that moment.

  It was her feelings for him.

  If he could keep her from hating him full-bore by softening the tone of things and not seesawing back and forth, then it was worth it.

  “Is someone coming?” Victoria said into his thoughts just then.

  Adam stopped what he was doing to follow her line of vision out to the main road where so little traffic passed that the sound of an engine drew attention.

  The approaching truck didn’t turn onto the dirt road that led to the house. Instead it went on.

  “Looks like Gavin Nighthawk on his way to the reservation,” Adam said, the first civil words he’d spoken to her since their camp-out.

  “He’s a doctor now, isn’t he? Maybe someone is sick,” she responded, also for the first time without a razor’s edge to her tone.

  “Could be,” Adam agreed.

  It was strange, but that simple exchange broke the tension between them and left Adam feeling as i
f a tenton weight had just been lifted from his shoulders.

  They both went back to work and he started pounding each nail in with two or three blows of the hammer rather than a single one. Victoria began to hum a sweet, soft little ditty that was a blessed improvement over the silence of the previous day and night.

  Although Adam didn’t know where this thing between them was headed, he did know that it was going in a different direction than he’d ever intended. For him and for her.

  Something had changed in him and suddenly peace between them seemed almost as vital as vengeance.

  Dr. Gavin Nighthawk was not headed for the Laughing Horse Reservation to pay a house call. He was going there for a much more troubling reason.

  Or, at least, for a reason that was troubling him.

  He was on his way to the isolated home of Lettie Brownbear, to visit his infant daughter.

  The baby he’d fathered by Christina Montgomery.

  The baby he’d delivered when he’d met Christina in the woods at her request so she could tell him only moments before she’d gone into labor that he was about to become a father.

  A baby whose existence he was still having trouble coming to grips with.

  One night of passion and everything had changed.

  He’d been so careful up to that point, so goal-oriented. Early on he’d set his sights on finding a better life than the poverty-ridden world on the reservation where he’d grown up. Going away to college, being accepted into medical school, those had been dreams come true for him. And for his parents, who had encouraged him to reach for more.

  When he’d returned to Whitehorn to do his surgical residency, he’d thought he was coming home a new man. A man with a future. A good future. Holding his own in the white world so he could obliterate his past as the Native American from the wrong side of the tracks.

  It was that desire to fit into the white world that led him to make what he considered some fatal errors in judgment. Beginning with his affair with Patricia Winthrop. Pretty, popular, socially elite Patricia Winthrop—who had turned right around and spurned him.

  He’d been so hurt, so angry. Such easy prey for Christina Montgomery.