by Andre, Bella
“Definitely not. But I do want you to explain a few things to me. How are you going to buy the ranch? You don’t have that kind of money.”
“People buy property without money all the time. That’s how Grandfather bought this place to begin with. He borrowed every dime.”
“But you have to have a down payment to get a loan—”
“I’m asking Grandfather to carry the paper for five years.
But I’m giving him his purchase price, which is more than fair, and I’m paying a good rate of interest.”
“What about operating expenses?” she asked. “I think I’ve got that covered.”
“How?”
The Hill brothers were his ace in the hole, but Conner wasn’t willing to reveal that information yet. He knew his mother meant well, but he couldn’t afford to have anything slip out in front of Stephen, Dwight or Jonathan. Not when his uncles’ opposition would increase with his chances of success.
“You’ll see,” he said. “Just make sure Grandfather looks at my offer before Stephen can deep-six it.”
WHERE WAS DELANEY?
Conner sat at the kitchen table, eating the chicken and polenta salad she’d made them for dinner, pretending to be completely absorbed by the simple act of lifting his fork to his mouth. But he kept listening for movement elsewhere in the house, kept expecting Delaney to return to the kitchen and start cleaning up while they ate, like she usually did. When she didn’t come, he wondered if she’d gotten sick again. She seemed to be doing so much better, but—
“What’s on your mind?” Roy asked. Conner shook his head.
“Come on, what is it?”
“It’s nothing,” Conner said to stop Roy from jumping to the conclusion that the Hills had backed out of the deal or something. Though they still had a lot to do before the resort became a reality, everything was on track.
What was bothering Conner had nothing to do with business. This was personal. He’d asked Delaney to marry him, and she’d agreed, but they’d barely spoken in the past week. He couldn’t help looking for some indication that she wasn’t actually dreading the prospect of becoming Mrs. Conner Armstrong.
He continued eating, trying to wait long enough that no one would connect his question with Roy’s expression of concern. Then he asked, “Anyone know where Delaney went? Is she sick?”
“No, she’s gone.” It was Isaiah, her not-so-secret admirer.
“Where?” Conner asked.
“Millie and Rebecca are giving her a bridal shower.”
“They are?”
Isaiah glanced up from his plate. “Yeah. Didn’t you know?”
Conner didn’t answer. He hadn’t known. And it irritated him that Isaiah did. “She’s engaged,” he said, suddenly losing his appetite.
“That’s why I thought you’d know.”
There was something challenging in Isaiah’s words, and his stare accused Conner of not treating Delaney right, which bothered him, too. Maybe because he felt a little guilty. He hadn’t done anything unkind to Delaney; that was how he’d justified his behavior. But he certainly hadn’t gone out of his way to speak to her, either.
“Mind your own business,” he growled, and headed back to his office. But even as he worked, he kept one ear trained for the sound of a car pulling into the drive. When he didn’t hear anything for over an hour, he returned to the kitchen to find Isaiah wiping off the kitchen table.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Cleaning up so Delaney won’t have to come home to dishes,” he said. “I guess that never occurred to you.”
It hadn’t. Conner had been too preoccupied with listening for her car and wondering if a bridal shower resembled a bachelor party—or whether Delaney’s shower might include a finale at the Honky Tonk. But Isaiah didn’t know anything. Conner opened his mouth to tell him so, to tell him that Delaney had wronged Conner, not the other way around. But then he realized Isaiah was probably smarter than he’d thought, which didn’t make him feel any better, so he trudged back to his office and slouched behind his desk. If he’d been nicer to Delaney, she might’ve told him that her friends were giving her a bridal shower....
An hour later, the crunch of gravel on the drive told him she was home. Dropping the pencil he’d been twirling in agitation, he hurried to the front door, but she barely looked up when she came in. Buried beneath the boxes and gift bags she carried in her arms, she brushed right by him and started down the hall.
“How was it?” he asked, rushing to catch up with her. “Great,” she muttered. “Everyone’s excited but us.” Her words felt amazingly like a left hook. “Nice one,” he said, rubbing his jaw. “What?”
“Never mind. Want some help?” he asked, trying again. “No, thanks.”
“What’d you ladies do?”
She cast him a glance over her shoulder. “Nothing much.”
“It doesn’t look like nothing much.” They’d reached her bedroom, and he flipped on the light. “What’d you get?”
“Stuff.”
He needed to ask her a question she had to answer with more than one or two words, he thought as she dropped everything on her dresser.
“I’ll get to the dishes in a minute,” she said, obviously misunderstanding his reason for bothering her.
Conner felt a twinge of guilt. “Uh, they’re done.”
“They are?”
“Yeah.”
“Who... Oh, Isaiah! Did he do them for me?”
She’d known immediately that it wasn’t him. Conner frowned. “Yeah. Isn’t he sweet?”
She ignored his sarcasm.
“If you see him on your way out, would you tell him I brought him a piece of cake? It’s still in the car.”
Her words sounded a lot like a dismissal, but Conner wasn’t ready to leave. “Is there a piece of cake in the car for me?” he asked.
She blinked up at him. “You want cake?”
“Yeah, I like cake. Everybody likes cake.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I figured you’d be busy—working in your office.”
He’d spent a lot of time there lately. But he had big plans. She knew that.
The telephone rang. She waited for a minute, as though she wanted to shoo him out before she answered it, but there wasn’t time to do it politely, and one thing he’d learned about Delaney was that she was almost always polite. Turning at the last second, she grabbed the receiver.
“Hi, Beck,” she said, facing away from him.
That left him free to poke through the presents. If they were bridal shower gifts, they were ultimately for him, too, right?
Massage cream...bath soaps...edible underwear—edible underwear? Who gave her that? Probably Rebecca...
“I did?” she was saying. “Okay, I’ll pick it up this weekend. Yeah, it was fun and I got a lot of great stuff, but what I really wanted was one of those bunnies Hal over at the feed store has leftover from Easter.... So? I could get Isaiah to build me a cage out by the chicken coop...”
Conner frowned. Isaiah again.
“Maybe I should buy one myself.” She gave a quick shrug. “Nah, there’s too much going on right now. Maybe next year... What?...I think so, too. Wasn’t that awkward with Aunt Millie there? Who thought of the...the you know.”
She turned and saw him going through her gifts and her eyes widened meaningfully as she waved him away.
“The what?” he asked. Ignoring her unspoken directive to leave the presents alone, he rifled through some red tissue paper to get to the perfume beneath.
She covered the phone. “This is a private conversation.
And that belongs to me.”
She whipped the bottle from his grasp before he could even open it.
“It’s not as though these things belong exclusively to you,” he said. “You only got them because you’re getting married. And you’re marrying me.” He pulled out a black bustier, imagined Delaney in it and grinned. Maybe this marriage stuff wasn’t so bad, after all
.
“Rebecca, I gotta go,” Delaney said. “No, nothing’s wrong... What?”
Conner’s fingers encountered something voluminous and soft, fabric that felt as sheer as the bustier but much more flowing. Removing it from its box, he held up a diaphanous ivory negligee that was probably the most elegant piece of lingerie he’d ever seen. What struck him as even more significant was that it looked exactly like something Delaney might choose.
“This is beautiful,” he started to say, but she slammed the phone down, ripped the nightgown from his hands and shoved it back in the box.
“Don’t,” she said. “I’m returning it.”
“Why?” he asked, but he already knew the answer. She didn’t want to wear it for him. It wasn’t that kind of wedding.
“There’s no need to pretend.”
“Pretend. Right.” Somehow his interest in the presents disappeared just that quickly, and he wondered what he’d been doing following her around, digging through her things. “Sorry to intrude,” he said. “I’ll tell Isaiah about his cake.”
DELANEY SIGHED when she heard Conner’s steps retreat. She knew she’d hurt him in some way, but she didn’t know what to do about it. She’d come home overwhelmed by the attention she’d received at the shower, already embarrassed because everyone in town seemed to think she’d met her Prince Charming—and yet she and Conner were barely speaking to each other. She was marrying him to make amends, as far as she could, for what she’d done, but she wasn’t sure marriage was very wise in the long run, for either one of them. And just when all these thoughts and feelings seemed to be colliding inside her, he appeared out of nowhere and began examining these stupid gifts, things that felt too personal to share with him. And she’d... Well, she hadn’t reacted in the best manner.
She slumped down on her bed, started to call Rebecca back, then hung up. She’d talk to Conner instead, open communications between them, try to gain some understanding of his confusing behavior.
Leaving her presents behind, including the embarrassing memory of unwrapping edible underwear in front of Aunt Millie—thanks to Katie, another stylist at the salon—she walked silently to the other side of the house. But Conner’s office was, for once, dark.
Was he in his bedroom? Continuing around the corner, she came face-to-face with his closed door, hesitated, then raised her hand to knock.
The door opened a second later and Conner stood there, wearing jeans but no shirt. The sight of his bare chest brought their night in Boise back to her—the steam from the shower, the smell of his soap and shampoo, the intimacy of talking to him and getting to know him. She tried to tell herself this wasn’t the same man she’d met that night, that this Conner had good reason to hate her, but it was difficult to get beyond a very basic desire to touch him again.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
Delaney opened her mouth to apologize, to try to explain why she’d behaved the way she had a few minutes ago. But once more, he looked so composed and remote that she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She must have imagined the hurt, she decided. Conner didn’t care enough about her to feel hurt. “Um...Aunt Millie wanted me to tell you that she thinks you’re doing your grandfather proud by taking responsibility for the baby.”
He studied her but said nothing.
“And I...” She cleared her throat. “I wanted to thank you for not telling anyone about how I...you know, how we met. I’ve tried to take as much of the blame as possible, but for the baby’s sake, I haven’t told the exact truth. I’d rather not have something that could embarrass our child flying around a community this size, because Dundee never forgets, you know? Do you understand?”
Conner nodded. “I understand,” he said, and shut the door.
CONNER CAUGHT DELANEY by the arm just as she was about to get out of the Suburban they’d taken to Boise to pick up his mother. According to Conner, Vivian Armstrong had decided to fly in a day before the wedding to have some time to meet Delaney; however, Delaney felt less than excited about this aspect of marrying Conner. She felt as though she’d wronged his mother and the rest of his family as much as she’d wronged him.
“At least pretend to like me,” he said. “She’s not stupid.”
Delaney nodded and tried to calm the butterflies in her stomach. She’s going to hate me. They’re going to know I’ve ruined Conner’s life, and they’re all going to hate me. Fortunately she didn’t have to meet the entire family today. Conner’s grandfather and uncles were flying in tomorrow, just in time for the ceremony, and would stay at the ranch overnight. Then they’d all fly back to California together.
Two days had never sounded so long. How were she and Conner going to keep up appearances for such an extended period? Even the ranch hands knew their engagement wasn’t exactly typical.
She put a palm to the small bulge in her stomach, knowing the baby would be a focal point over the next few days, and threw her shoulders back as Conner came around the car.
“Are you feeling sick?” he asked, looking concerned when he saw her.
“No.” She let her hand fall and started moving woodenly toward the terminal.
He stopped her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you scared?”
“No,” she lied.
Maybe he could see through her, or maybe he was just practicing their act, because he took her hand, and Delaney was surprised at how much the warmth and strength of that contact helped her.
“She’ll think you’re lovely,” he said as they walked. “How do you know?” she asked.
He didn’t look at her. He was too busy navigating across the loading and unloading zones so they could enter the airport. “Because you are.”
Delaney was beginning to think she’d never understand him. One minute he ignored her, the next he was angry, the next he actually seemed to like her. But she didn’t have much time to ponder their unusual relationship, because they’d reached the gate and the passengers were already filing into the arrivals lounge.
Delaney curled her fingers more tightly through Conner’s and waited. She’d survive the next two days somehow, she told herself, just as Conner waved at a tall dark-haired woman dressed in a stylish black pantsuit that highlighted her still-trim figure. At the same time, he raised their clasped hands and kissed Delaney’s knuckles, and the action seemed so spontaneous, Delaney almost believed it had come naturally to him.
With that type of acting, even his mother would be convinced.
“There you are,” the woman said as soon as they’d threaded their way through the crowd and managed to get close enough to take a good look at each other. “This must be Delaney.”
Delaney smiled, but her smile shook, and she’d never felt more vulnerable than she did during the next few seconds when Conner’s mother stared into her face, then slowly returned her smile.
“She’s beautiful, Con.” Tears filled her eyes and she pulled Delaney into her arms. “I’m so happy he’s found you,” she whispered, and Delaney didn’t know what to say. She blinked rapidly to avoid tears of her own and clung to this stranger she immediately knew she’d rather die than disappoint.
“Delaney, this is Vivian,” Conner said.
Vivian relaxed her hug a little, looked over at her son, then back at Delaney. “Would you rather call me something other than Vivian?”
Delaney was still fighting back tears and had a difficult time speaking. “I’m happy to call you anything you like.”
Vivian smiled and kissed Delaney’s temple. “Then, call me Mom, dear.”
Oh God! Delaney felt as though she were wearing a scarlet letter L on her chest for liar, or a U for unworthy. But after Conner kissed his mother’s cheek and picked up her carry-on, he slung an arm around Delaney and she thought she heard him murmur, “It’s okay.”
Vivian kept one hand on her arm as though they’d known each other for years. “I want to take you both out to breakfast,” she said. “Where should we g
o?”
Chapter Twenty
CONNER WAS SO NERVOUS he could hardly breathe. It had been an awkward twenty-four hours with his mother in town, and now he’d reached the point of no return. Already. He was going to be married today to a woman who didn’t want to marry him, a woman whom—if he were being completely honest—he had yet to forgive. But that wasn’t all. Roy had just picked up his grandfather and uncles from the airport and they were waiting in the office to talk to him about his offer on the ranch. The next fifteen minutes would tell whether his dream had any chance.
Though he’d just gotten dressed, Conner unraveled the bow tie on his tux so it hung limply around his neck and unfastened the top button of his white pleated shirt as he made his way down the hall. He’d spent so many hours in the office that he now thought of it as his own domain and not his grandfather’s, but it wasn’t a sanctuary for him today.
Wiping a hand across his forehead as though it were ninety degrees in the house instead of a cool seventy, he opened the door and strode across the carpet to greet his grandfather and uncles. His mother wasn’t part of this little gathering. Along with Dwight’s wife and four children, Jonathan’s son and Stephen’s wife, she was in the south wing, getting ready for the wedding, which was scheduled to start in less than an hour.
Less than an hour...
“Grandfather,” he said.
“Conner.” His grandfather nodded and shook his hand, and Conner noticed that the firmness of his grip hadn’t changed. Never a large man to begin with, he’d lost weight and looked even smaller since the surgery. But his presence still filled the whole room and commanded respect.
“In spite of everything, you’re looking fit,” Conner told him. “You must be bouncing right back.”
“Fit as a man can look after open-heart surgery at eighty-four,” he said with a smile.
The way he greased his hair straight off his forehead was hardly the fashion of the day, but it suited him almost as much as his light blue polyester suit. His cowboy boots had been polished, Conner noticed, but they were the same pair he wore day in and day out, whether he was traveling, meeting with business associates or heading out to the vineyards. There wasn’t a pretentious bone in his body. A glance at his uncles told Conner they were wearing Armani suits and Italian leather, and carrying themselves as though they were mighty proud of the fact.