The Bride Price

by Ginna Gray

  Asa’s comment drew Wyatt’s attention to the younger man. His lips thinned as he watched Philip stagger over to Maggie and sling an arm around her shoulders, nearly toppling her. He murmured something in her ear and took advantage of the opportunity to nibble her neck at the same time.

  Wyatt was about to go over and jerk him off her, when Maggie started leading her inebriated friend their way. Philip leaned heavily on her. She nearly went down under his weight twice before they reached them.

  “Philip isn’t feeling too well, I’m afraid,” she announced with a rueful grimace when she drew near.

  Wobbling on his feet, Philip gave them a sloppy smile and held up one hand, his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “Had a leeetle too mussh of the bu-bubbly.”

  “As you can see, he’s in no shape to drive, so I’m takin’ him home. With the hangover he’s going to have, he wouldn’t enjoy the rest of the weekend anyway.”

  “Issch been one...hic...one he-helluva party.”

  Wyatt shot Philip a disgusted glare and had to clench his fist to keep from punching the goofy grin off his face. “Surely one of the ranch hands could drive him,” he said tightly. “It’s a long way to Houston and back, and it’s late already.”

  “Oh, I’m not coming back. I was going home tonight, anyway. I only came for the party.”

  “I suppose I should be grateful you stayed as long as you did,” Asa grumbled. “All right, all right. Go on with you. But you drive careful, girl, you hear? And tell Philip I’ll have one of my men drive his car home tomorrow. That is, if he’s sober enough to understand when you get him home.”

  “Have him drive my truck instead. I’m driving Philip’s Jag.” She wrinkled her nose and grinned. “You don’t think I’d risk having him throw up in my truck, do you? Now, come along, Philip, you jughead. Let’s go pour you into the car.”

  “‘Night all. Wonnerful par...hic...ty.”

  “You mean you’re just going to let her go off with him? Alone?” Wyatt demanded. “The man’s skunk drunk, for God’s sake. What if he gets violent.”

  “Philip? Naw, he gets sloppy and mushy, but there’s not a mean bone in his body. Besides, if anyone can handle him, it’s Maggie. They’ve been pals since they were fourteen. Don’t worry about it. Maggie knows what she’s doing.”

  Wyatt’s gaze followed the bright curls as the pair wove an erratic path through the room. For all he knew, they could be lovers. It was none of his business.

  His jaw clenched and a muscle jumped in his cheek. The hell it wasn’t.

  Chapter Four

  There had to be some mistake. Maggie couldn’t live here.

  Wyatt brought his Aston-Martin to a halt by the curb and stared at the number on the building. It was the correct address, all right. But it was a warehouse, for Pete’s sake.

  He looked around, scowling. An old warehouse in a rundown part of downtown Houston. Hell, nobody lived downtown—nobody in their right mind, at any rate.

  Oh, he’d heard about the latest trend among the yuppie crowd of buying a loft apartment in a converted warehouse, but that was a recent brainstorm of a slick developer who didn’t seem to realize that Houston wasn’t New York.

  After the offices and stores closed there was a mass exodus for the suburbs, and except for a few exclusive restaurants, hotels and theaters, the downtown area of Houston shut down tighter than a drum. There were no little neighborhood stores or bars or restaurants in the heart of town. Hell, there were no neighborhoods. Except for theatergoers and concertgoers, about the only people on the streets after dark were winos, perverts, crooks and cops.

  Even all those fashionable converted warehouses were congregated together a mile or so away on the perimeter of the downtown area. This cavernous old dinosaur appeared to still be a working warehouse.

  A wino lay curled up on the sidewalk down the block. In the alley beside the building a half dozen scrawny cats meowed indignantly at a bag lady poking through a Dumpster.

  Wyatt’s lips curled at one corner. Dammit, didn’t that woman have a lick of sense? And what the hell was the matter with Asa, letting her live here?

  Wyatt cut the engine and started to open the car door, then paused with his hand on the handle, his gaze skimming the street once again. Damn, he hated to leave his car parked in this neighborhood. He’d probably find it gutted and sitting on its axles when he got back. Hell, what he ought to do was just drive away and forget about the aggravating woman.

  With a sigh, he climbed out and activated the car alarm.

  He entered the small door beside the wide bay doors on the loading dock and found himself in a tiny vestibule. Straight ahead a flight of metal stairs went up at a sharp angle. Through the glass-paneled wall at the back a cluttered office was visible. A quick look through the barred window in the steel door to the right revealed the ground floor of the warehouse. A freight elevator was to his left.

  On Sunday no one was there, but the place was stacked high with crates and boxes and several forklifts sat in the aisles. In one corner, Wyatt spotted Philip’s fire engine red Jaguar parked beside a motor home. His mouth tightened.

  The guy could be in Maggie’s bed at that very moment. What would he do if he was? Grim-faced, Wyatt took the stairs two at a time. Throw him the hell out, that’s what.

  As he suspected, the freight elevator opened onto the small landing at the top of the stairs. Directly across from the open shaft was a windowless metal door with a brass knocker in the center and a tiny nameplate above it inscribed M. M. Muldoon.

  Wyatt banged the knocker hard three times. He tapped his foot and counted to ten, then banged the knocker again as hard as he could without letup.

  It seemed he’d been rapping for five minutes before the door finally opened. Through the inch-and-a-half crack a bleary blue eye peered out. “Yes? Oh. It’s you.”

  Her tone prickled, and he was suddenly furious. “Do you always answer the door without checking first to see who’s on the other side? Good Lord, woman, this is a dangerous part of town. Haven’t you any sense at all?”

  “I know everyone around here and they know me. I’m perfectly safe,” she mumbled over a yawn.

  “Even the wino down the street and the bag lady pawing through your garbage?”

  “Fred and Agnes? Sure. Mmm, I hope she finds that blouse I put out there for her.”

  “You leave handouts for the bag lady to find? Why am I not surprised? Look, I’d rather not carry on this conversation out here. I have this uneasy feeling I’m going to be mugged at any moment.”

  The bleary eye narrowed. “What’re you doing here, anyway? You’re suppose to be at Asa’s. The engagement party isn’t over until tomorrow evening.”

  “I told your grandfather an urgent business matter needed my attention. He understood.”

  She grunted. “Asa would.”

  “Let me in, Maggie.”

  “Oh, all right.” Sighing, she pulled the door open.

  Wyatt stepped inside and found himself in a small raised entryway, separated from the rest of the apartment by an iron railing. Three steps down, the cavernous apartment seemed to stretch away forever. Curious, he scanned the open space.

  Windows wrapped around the apartment on two sides and massive skylights dotted the high ceiling, flooding the space with sunlight. Several groupings of furniture rested on colorful rugs, which formed small islands on the great expanse of polished hardwood floors. At the far end of the loft, a set of stairs led up to a raised platform, which Wyatt assumed was Maggie’s bedroom. The wall of the bedroom overlooking the rest of the apartment was only about six feet high and was made up entirely of stacked aquariums.

  Wyatt stared at the wavering images coming through the sunlit water.

  “What’re you doing here, anyway, Your Nibs?”

  “I want to talk to you—” He swung to face her, as she turned from closing the door, and froze in his tracks.

  “About what? I can’t imagine what you would need to sp
eak to me about.”

  Wyatt gaped, speechless. She was wearing bunny slippers! Big, fuzzy things with glass eyes and whiskers and gigantic floppy ears!

  Slowly, his stunned gaze rose from her feet up over a pair of shapely calves, but just above her knees he received another shock. Her nightgown was an enormous blue-and-white Houston Oiler football jersey. It wasn’t one you buy at souvenir stands, either. This was the real thing.

  The neck opening drooped over one shoulder, exposing an expanse of creamy white skin covering incredibly delicate bones. The hem came down to the top of her knees, and the short sleeves hung almost to her wrists. Made for a two-hundred-fifty-pound-plus football player, the shirt could have wrapped around Maggie twice with material left over.

  Her mane of red curls stuck out wildly in all directions. Scrubbed free of makeup, her face was rosy from sleep and shiny in the morning sun coming through the wraparound windows and skylights. Amber freckles dotted the bridge of her nose and her cheeks still bore pillow marks.

  Standing there disheveled and half-asleep, wearing that enormous jersey and bunny slippers, she should have looked ridiculous.

  What she looked was adorable...and sexy as hell.

  Lust slammed through Wyatt. His nostrils flared and his jaws clenched. He had to knot his hands into fists to keep from snatching her up and carrying her back to bed.

  He frowned. “Where did you get that jersey?”

  “A friend gave it to me. He used to play on the team.” Running her fingers through her tangled hair, she turned and trudged down the steps and headed for the open kitchen area, bunny ears flopping. The name A. Petrantonio was stenciled across the back. Wyatt followed on her heels, his jaw clenched and his gaze flicking back and forth between the name and the enticing movement of her derriere beneath the jersey.

  “This had better be important, to get me up so early.”

  “It’s ten after nine. What’s this friend’s name?”

  “Anthony Petrantonio. And nine is early when you didn’t get to bed until dawn.”

  What had she been doing all night? Remembering the sports car down stairs, his mouth tightened.

  He shot a look around. “Where is Townsend, by the way?”

  “Philip? By now, probably hanging over a toilet wishing he were dead.” She rounded the end of the counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the loft, crossed to the refrigerator and stuck her head inside. “I hope you’re not expecting coffee, because I don’t have any” came the muffled announcement from inside the fridge.

  “I phoned his apartment. He wasn’t there.”

  “Who? Oh, you mean Philip. I know.” She straightened with an apple in her hand and shot him an inquiring look. “Wanna apple? I’ve got two.”

  “No, thanks,” he replied tightly.

  Shrugging, Maggie bit into the apple and munched.

  “So where is Philip?”

  “I took him to his mother’s house. She’ll scold him when he wakes up, but then she’ll fuss over him and wait on him hand and foot until he’s feeling better.”

  She cocked her head. “What do you want with Philip?”

  “Nothing. I just wanted to know where he was.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought he might be here.”

  “Here? Why would I bring him— Oh. I see.”

  “Are you lovers?”

  “Philip and me?” She laughed. “Of course not. Where’d you get an idea like that?”

  “I heard him propose to you.”

  “Oh, that. ‘Twas nothing.” She bit off another chunk of apple and munched. A drop of juice escaped her lips and she caught it with her fingertip and licked it off.

  Wyatt nearly ground his back teeth off.

  When she’d swallowed the bite she grinned at him. “Philip is always proposing to me. It stops his mother from nagging him about getting married. He told her he would only marry for love, and as long as she thinks he’s in love with me she leaves him alone. She’s too scared of pushing him into marrying me to do otherwise.”

  Wyatt studied her guileless face. She really believed that nonsense, but he didn’t. He’d seen the way Philip looked at her. “She disapproves of a match between you and Philip?”

  “Disapproves? Och, the poor woman gets heart palpitation at the thought.” Maggie’s dimples deepened and she said sotto voce, “I’m not a’tall suitable, don’t you know. Given the circumstances of my birth an’ all.”

  “That’s absurd.” He experienced a surprising flash of anger. Philip’s mother was the biggest snob he’d ever met. The woman never missed an opportunity to let everyone know that her ancestry could be traced back to the Mayflower. Normally he ignored her, but somehow the thought of her looking down her nose at Maggie made him burn.

  “But ’tis true. Asa’s a successful man, but he’s still considered a bit of an upstart by Houston society. The only reason many of them tolerate him is his money. His bastard granddaughter is just a bit too much for Emaline to stomach.”

  She finished the apple, tossed the core into a trash can and licked the juice off her fingers.

  Wyatt nearly groaned. Was the woman deliberately trying to drive him nuts?

  Maggie yawned and stretched, arching her back, arms reaching high over her head. He watched the hem of the jersey ride to the tops of her thighs and his mouth went dry. For such a little thing, she had legs that went on forever.

  “So what was it you wanted to talk to me about?” she asked, knuckling her eyes and stifling another yawn. “It must be important. You had to have left Asa’s at the crack of dawn to get here at this hour.”

  She didn’t know the half of it. After a sleepless night he’d dragged Eric out of bed before daybreak and made his brother drive him to Lester’s house in Magnolia. The mechanic hadn’t been any more pleased than Eric had been about being rousted out of bed just so Wyatt could retrieve his car.

  She stopped mid-yawn and gave him a sharp look. “Come to think of it, how did you get my address?”

  “I got it from Daphne.”

  “You did what? Ah, saints preserve us, you might as well have asked Asa for it, because she’s sure to have told him.”

  “So?”

  “Och, man, you’ve no idea what you done. Asa will think you’re interested in me.” She groaned and ran her hand through her wild mane. “Holy Mary and Joseph, the man’s probably orderin’ wedding invitations as we speak.”

  Wyatt chuckled. “I doubt that. Anyway, so what if he is? It’ll do him no good.”

  “I know that and you know that, but try telling that to Asa. One of his main goals in life is to see me married and settled, perish the thought.”

  Maggie made a face and shuddered eloquently and Wyatt laughed outright this time. “Look, forget about Asa. If he gets any ideas in that direction I’ll set him straight. Right now, why don’t you get dressed and I’ll take you out to breakfast and we’ll talk.”

  “No, thanks. I just had breakfast.”

  “An apple isn’t breakfast.”

  “‘Tis for me. Anyway, I don’t have time to go out. I’ve work to do, and since I’m up, I might as get to it. So why don’t you just tell me what it is you want to discuss.”

  “I want to talk to you about Daphne and Eric.”

  “What about them?”

  “The truth is, I’m not entirely sure I’m in favor of this marriage. I consented to the engagement only to stall for time. But now they’re talking about getting married soon. I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “You consented? Eric’s a grown man. He doesn’t need your permission to get married.”

  “No he doesn’t. However, I do control his trust fund until he’s thirty-five. I also run Sommersby Enterprises. Eric has a job there only because I allow him to have one.”

  “So you control him with the purse strings, is that it?”

  “When it’s for his own good, yes. My brother tends to be impulsive. A case in point is this engagement.
<
br />   “He and Daphne have known each other a grand total of two months. I think it would be wise if they got to know each other better before they take that leap. I want you to talk to them, especially Daphne. Help me convince them to wait.”

  “Sorry, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  He looked stunned. Clearly he had not expected her to refuse. Wyatt was a man accustomed to getting his way.

  Biting back a grin, Maggie wandered over and sat down on the high stool before the drafting table located beneath a skylight along the north wall of windows. She studied the sketch pinned to the surface, her eyebrows drawing together in a frown of concentration.

  “Why not?”

  “What? Oh. Because I make it a rule never to interfere in anyone else’s life.”

  “Sometimes we have no choice.”

  “Sure you do. You just butt out and leave people to their own devices. You should try it sometimes.”

  “Don’t you want your sister to be happy? What if it turns out this isn’t the real thing? What if they marry, then later divorce. How would you feel then?”

  “Sad for them, of course, but not responsible, so you can quit trying to make me feel guilty. Of course I want my sister to be happy, but not enough to stick my nose into her business. Live and let live, I always say.”

  She picked up a broad-nibbed pen, dipped it into a bottle of ink and stroked it over the paper on the drafting board.

  Wyatt paced the room. She glanced at him once, and her lips twitched. He seemed to be counting under his breath. Poor man. He was going to pop a blood vessel if he didn’t calm down.

  “That’s fine for strangers, but this is your sister, for Pete’s sake.” Maggie shot him an ironic look and he spread his hands wide. “All right, all right, she’s your half sister, and maybe you’re not all that close, but she’s still your family.”

  Before he’d finished, Maggie’s attention had drifted back to the drawing. She heard Wyatt’s words but they didn’t truly register. She dipped her pen into the ink again, and with a few quick strokes gave the knobby-kneed crane a comically shocked expression.

  “...understand that you have an obligation to— Are you listening to me?”