The Marriage Bargain

by Victoria Pade

  Gavin had known the mayor’s daughter had an eye for him. She’d made it obvious.

  But he’d been in love with Patricia and had taken Christina’s attentions in stride.

  Until Christina had hit at just the right moment. A moment when he was so low, so lost in his own rejection by Patricia, that he’d given in to the ego-soothing balm of Christina’s admiration. Her seduction.

  Just one night. Just that one time.

  And she’d gotten pregnant.

  He hadn’t had any idea.

  She hadn’t told him. She hadn’t told anyone. And after that single night he’d kept such a distance from her that he certainly hadn’t seen enough of her to guess.

  But as she’d neared the end of her pregnancy she’d felt desperate enough to finally contact him.

  She’d wanted his help. More help than the unexpected delivery in the woods when he’d gone to meet her.

  Deep in the woods, too far from the hospital or help or even from the truck he’d had to leave out on the road, he had had no option but to deliver the baby right there.

  Once he had, he’d been in a terrible bind. He hadn’t been able to carry both mother and child out of the woods together.

  Christina had pleaded with him to leave her there for the time being, to take the baby to safety first on the reservation, which was nearer than Whitehorn, and then come back for her.

  Gavin hadn’t wanted to do that but he’d had no choice. So he’d made her as warm and comfortable as he could, promised he’d return as quickly as possible and left her there.

  In the woods.

  Alone.

  That was the last he’d seen of her, because when he’d rushed back she’d been gone.

  That was the last anyone had seen of her.

  Except maybe someone who might have done her harm.

  That was what the sheriff was thinking now—that harm had come to Christina.

  But finding her wasn’t what plagued Gavin at that moment as he approached Lettie Brownbear’s house. Finding Christina was out of his hands. It was the sheriff’s business now. Gavin had so much more to worry about.

  No, what was uppermost in his mind was that baby no one but him and Lettie knew about, and Blake Remmington, the pediatrician he’d taken her to on the sly.

  That baby who had changed everything.

  He’d left the baby with Lettie Brownbear, knowing she would take good care of the infant.

  Lettie, an old friend of his grandmother’s, wasn’t the easiest person in the world to get along with and she wasn’t any more fond of most people than most people were of her. So there weren’t many visitors to her remote corner of the reservation.

  But she’d always liked Gavin and Gavin had always liked her. Liked and trusted her. Enough so that he felt sure she would keep the secret of the baby for as long as he needed her to. For as long as it took him to figure out what was best for himself and for the child.

  He’d been out to visit nearly every day in the two months since the birth and so Lettie was expecting him when he pulled up in front of her house and walked to her front door.

  She called “Come in” before he’d even knocked and when he entered, he found her in the living room, sitting in a rocking chair with the baby.

  Alyssa.

  That’s what Gavin had named the tiny baby girl, after his grandmother.

  Lettie stood the moment she was sure Gavin was her visitor, nodding toward the rocking chair to let him know she expected him to take her place.

  When he had, she leaned over and set the baby gently in his arms.

  “She’s fussy today,” Lettie announced, although the infant was quiet at that moment and ordinarily had a very calm disposition. “Rock her.”

  Gavin did as he was told, gazing down at the cherub with her straight dark hair to match his and the chubby cheeks that were so like the baby-faced beauty of her mother.

  It was obvious at one glance that Alyssa was half-white but Lettie had never commented on that fact. An odd bit of tact for the usually outspoken old woman who was known to voice her negative feelings about Anglos at the drop of a hat.

  “How long are you going to leave her out here?” Lettie asked bluntly and without any preamble.

  “I don’t know,” Gavin snapped, tired of the question she posed every time he came.

  But the old, white-haired woman didn’t deserve that and he curbed his temper in a hurry.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I just need to figure out a few things, Lettie. I need to make the right decision.”

  “Looks to me like you already made one wrong one.”

  “For myself. But now I have to think of Alyssa, too, and make the right decision for her.”

  “It isn’t that I don’t like having her,” Lettie said then. “It’s nice to have a baby in the house again. The checks my children send aren’t the same as a warm body. But sooner or later somebody’s likely to show up out here and then what? Nobody’ll believe she’s mine.”

  That was as close as Lettie ever came to making a joke, and Gavin smiled, looking her over as if her squat, matronly figure was something to behold. “Oh, I don’t know. You could claim just about anything living all the way out here. Who is there to say they never saw you with any male company?” he teased.

  Lettie narrowed her dark eyes at him to let him know how ridiculous she thought that was, and he conceded, returning to the subject at hand.

  “I’m still just trying to get it through my head that I’m a father,” Gavin confessed then, wondering how he was even functioning outside that room because he’d been so rocked by his sudden fatherhood.

  “You’ll find the answers,” Lettie assured him, sounding very much like his late grandmother. “You’re a good man, even if that face of yours does bring too many women to hang on your coattails and get you into trouble. The right way will show itself to you.”

  “Think so?”

  “I know so. You’re coming out here, taking care of that baby, aren’t you? You didn’t abandon it or deny it. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing, to give you the time you need. But I know you’ll do right by her. Whatever it takes.”

  Maybe Alyssa wasn’t as sure because she chose that moment to open her blue eyes, take one look at her father and start crying.

  “Fussy. I told you she was fussy today,” Lettie said. “I’ll get a bottle.”

  But as the old woman left him alone with his daughter, Gavin wished he were as confident as Lettie that he’d come to the best decision over what to do about the baby.

  Because at that moment he didn’t have any idea how he was going to fix the mess he’d made of his life.

  Adam showered first when they came in at the end of the day and by the time Victoria had finished her own shower, shampoo and had dressed again, he’d put together a pasta primavera, several slices of bruschetta and set the table for two.

  He even smiled and said a friendly hello over his shoulder when she came up behind him in the kitchen.

  And Victoria thought, Here we go again…

  Just as they were sitting down to eat—with Adam holding her chair for her as if he were a maître d’ in a five-star restaurant—the telephone rang.

  “I have to get this,” he said apologetically. “And if it’s the conference call I should have gotten this morning, I’ll have to take it. But this won’t happen again.”

  And with that they once more ate while he was on the phone.

  It was just as well, as far as Victoria was concerned. She was aware that the tension that had been swirling around them since Wednesday night had somehow diffused and she knew what that meant—all aboard the roller coaster for the next ride.

  She didn’t relish it. Not that she’d enjoyed the tension, either. She’d felt as if her stomach were tied into knots since their camp-out. She’d barely slept Wednesday night or Thursday, and even though she knew it was safer for her when he was showing his cold, aloof side, she couldn’t help longing for the mor
e charming Adam to reemerge.

  It was just that for every time it did, she also knew there would be another time when he reversed the process, and back would come the snide, cutting, un-charming side again when she least expected it.

  But one thing was certain this time, she told herself, charming or not, she wasn’t going to let him get too close.

  She’d meant what she’d said Wednesday night and she just would not allow herself to be sucked in by him anymore. Regardless of his mood, she was determined that she would remain on an even keel herself and keep her distance from him.

  No matter what.

  As the last time Adam had talked on the telephone through dinner, when he was finished eating he moved to the desk in the living room to continue his call while Victoria cleared the table.

  He was still talking when she’d cleaned the kitchen and she didn’t particularly want to plop down onto the couch and eavesdrop. But she also wasn’t ready to go to bed, so she opted for going up to the attic for a heavy cardigan before heading out onto the porch.

  It seemed as if each night was a little colder than the one before, but the brisk temperature felt good as she stepped up to the railing much as she had on her first night there.

  There was something very calming about merely staring out at the lake in the distance where the nearly full moon cast its snowy reflection on the glassy surface. As she enjoyed the view, she breathed deeply of the crystal-clear air.

  She hadn’t been out there more than a few seconds when she realized the night wasn’t exactly silent. She could hear the sorrowful mews of a cat coming from the direction of the lake.

  Adam’s phone call must have ended right after she’d left the cabin because he joined her then, stepping to the railing, too. He’d had on only jeans and a white polo shirt before, but now he wore that leather jacket he’d shared with her on her walk around the lake.

  “I would have thought you had enough fresh air today,” he said congenially.

  Victoria didn’t respond, instead she held up a hand that told him to be quiet and listened more intently for the mewing.

  “I think there’s a cat in trouble out there,” she said.

  Adam listened for a moment, too. “It’ll be fine. Probably the barn cat.”

  “Maybe it’s hurt.”

  “It sounds pitiful but not in pain.”

  Even pitiful was enough to make Victoria investigate. She pushed herself away from the railing and headed off the porch.

  “I’m going to see if it needs help.”

  She expected Adam to pooh-pooh that notion, to make fun of it, to sling a sarcastic comment or two. But he just followed her as she crossed the yard in the direction of the lake.

  The closer they got to it, the louder the cat’s lament until they reached the shore and could see the tabby perched on a rock that protruded through the surface of the water at least ten yards out, just below the farthest stretch of the tree branches that arched overhead.

  “I’ll bet she crawled out on one of those limbs and fell,” Victoria concluded. “And now she can’t get back.”

  “Cats are pretty smart. She’ll find her way to dry ground,” Adam assured.

  As if the tabby understood Adam’s lack of concern, it increased the volume of its cries, sounding to Victoria as if it were pleading for assistance.

  “Could we use a board or something as a ramp for her to get back?”

  “No, she’s too far out. I’m telling you, the way she got there, she’ll get back.”

  “I don’t think she can,” Victoria insisted.

  “Cats can do anything.”

  Victoria wanted to believe the tabby would be all right but she just didn’t see how it was possible.

  “Cats don’t like water,” she informed him.

  “She liked it enough to get out there. And like it or not, if swimming is what it takes and she wants back on dry land bad enough, she’ll swim.”

  “I don’t think so,” Victoria repeated.

  “Well, I don’t have a better suggestion. We’re too far from the fire department to call them out to get a cat off a rock.”

  Adam hadn’t said that unkindly. In fact he seemed amused by her alarm.

  But that amusement dissolved when Victoria took off her sweater and handed it to him. “I’m going in after her.”

  “You can’t do that. It’s too damn cold and you’re hardly dressed for a swim.”

  “It’s just water. My clothes will dry,” she said as she took off her shoes and socks.

  “This is crazy—” he started to say, but by the time the words were out of his mouth, Victoria had waded into the lake up to her knees.

  Adam was right about the water being cold. Her teeth chattered, but she ignored it and continued, carefully making her way toward the cat, assuring the animal in a soothing voice that everything would be all right and hoping the lake was shallow enough to walk all the way out to the tabby and carry her back by holding her overhead.

  The lake bottom was rocky and slippery so Victoria’s progression was slow as she went from knee-level to hip-level to waist-level to shoulder-level. Once the water hit her chin, she didn’t seem to be going any deeper as long as she stayed on the tips of her toes.

  “I’m almost there,” she cooed to the cat.

  The mewing had stopped when she’d entered the water and the tabby had been watching Victoria’s approach with interest. Victoria took that to mean that the animal knew it was about to be rescued.

  But just as she was near enough to actually reach for the cat, the cat leaped almost straight up into the air, landing adeptly on the lowest tree branch, and skittered off to the ground at the base of the trunk.

  Victoria closed her eyes and sighed.

  From behind her she heard Adam clear his throat and she didn’t have to see him to know he was trying not to laugh.

  “Okay, say it. You told me so,” she said as she began to turn in the water to face him once more so she could retrace her steps back to shore.

  But she couldn’t complete the turn.

  Apparently when she’d lunged for the tabby her hair had caught on something just below the surface of the water and whatever it was was holding on tight.

  “Terrific,” she muttered, reaching around as best she could to free herself.

  She kept at it until all the blood had drained out of both arms, and still, no matter what she did, she couldn’t get loose.

  “Uh, I seem to be stuck,” she finally called back to Adam, wishing she could do anything but admit to him that she’d once again mishandled something.

  “Your clothes?” he asked. “Just take them off.”

  Oh, wouldn’t he like that!

  Victoria was only too happy to disappoint him. “It’s my hair that’s caught.”

  Even as she answered, she tried yanking her head hard, but that didn’t help, either.

  “Do you mean that I’m going to have to come in there after you?” Adam asked, clearly not thrilled with the idea.

  “I’m sorry. But I really am tangled up on something.”

  “Maybe your cat friend will come back out there and save you.”

  “Very funny.”

  “How can I be sure this isn’t a trick to get even with me for being right about the cat?”

  “Do you really think I’d stay out here freezing to death just for that?”

  “I think it’s possible, yeah.”

  “Well, you’re wrong. If I could get out of here I’d be back in that warm cabin getting into dry clothes.”

  Silence greeted her for a moment as he seemed to weigh that reasoning.

  Then he said, “If I get out there and you aren’t caught on something there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “Could you just hurry?”

  “You’re going to owe me big for this, you know.”

  From the sound of his voice Victoria had the impression that he was removing his own jacket, shoes and socks as he spoke.

  “Put it on my ta
b,” she called back facetiously, although she realized when she did that she was the only one of them being snide. Adam was actually taking it all in stride.

  She heard him come into the water and exclaim over the cold as he seemed to follow the same route she had.

  “All right, let’s see what kind of trouble you’re in now,” he said when he reached her.

  She was shivering all over by then and her teeth were making a terrible clatter. But having him close by seemed to help some. It was almost as if his big body gave off so much heat, it even warmed the lake water.

  Or maybe that was just the effect he had on her.

  But one way or the other she was eager for him to release her hair so they could both get out of there.

  “It looks like you’re caught on a tree root,” he said as he went to work on the task at hand. “I’m going to have to do some pulling.”

  “Okay. Just do it.”

  He did, being as careful as he could and actually not hurting her as much as she’d hurt herself. But still it took him several minutes before he finally pronounced her free.

  “Thanks,” she said, genuinely grateful.

  “Oh, sure. What’s a little late night swim in our clothes in water almost cold enough to start icing over? Maybe you’re hoping I’ll catch my death and make you a young widow,” he joked.

  “That was my plan all along,” she agreed as they both waded to the lake’s edge where they’d started from—all under the watchful eye of the barn cat.

  Once they were out of the water, they grabbed their discarded clothing and ran back to the cabin as if someone were chasing them.

  “And now for the rest of this evening’s entertainment…” Adam joked once they’d reached the indoors again.

  Victoria was relieved to hear him make light of the incident as the heat of the cabin began to take what little effect it could under the circumstances.

  They were both standing just inside the door, dripping onto the cabin’s planked floor. Victoria went from assessing the puddle she was leaving to letting her gaze travel up the length of Adam—from big, squarish bare feet to long, thick legs and narrow hips hugged by wet denim that bulged in a spot she had no business looking.