His Shotgun Proposal

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  Now, there was a scary thought. How easily she might have duped him, if only Gillian hadn’t taught him all he ever needed to learn about women and their private agendas. Well, he’d be damned if he’d break Abbie’s declared truce of silence. Cold shoulder was more like it, but sooner or later on this four-hour trip to Dallas, a pregnant lady would need to stop to refresh herself. He’d bide his time, wait for her to ask him to stop, see how she felt about his very generous offer of a real truce then.

  Hannah called for a halt at the next rest station and, without a word, Abbie slid out of the truck. Fifteen minutes later, Alex climbed into the truck cab and slammed the door. “Abbie and Hannah sent me to ride with you, said they want to talk ‘girl talk’ for a while.”

  Mac didn’t say a word, just ground the gears as he shifted into drive and led the convoy back onto the highway.

  AT FIRST, MAC WAS TOO BUSY to notice the sly looks and quickly averted grins, but gradually, as the horses were settled into their stalls, as the equipment was unpacked and squared away, and the empty trailers rattled off to the parking area, he became aware that he was the object of a playful speculation. He dismissed it as the sportive hijinks of athletes who were revved for competition, but when Alex slapped him on the back and said, “Quick work, brother. I didn’t think you liked her, but my wife tells me she figured out days ago that there was something going on between you two. Hannah is amazing, huh?” Alex looked like a man who’d stumbled blindly into paradise. It was a look that had descended on him at his wedding, as he watched Hannah, in bridal white, walk up the aisle toward him. Mac had been awed at the time, but since then, he found himself growing a little impatient with all this newlywed bliss mumbo jumbo. Days like today he felt sure it had garbled his brother’s brain cells. “What are you talking about?” he asked, pulling out a can of leather oil as he straddled a stool and prepared to give his saddle a touch-up. “You don’t think just because Abbie rode with me for part of the trip that she and I, that the two of us are a…a couple, do you?”

  “Well, I didn’t think so, but when I heard about the sleeping arrangements, I figured maybe Hannah was right.”

  “What sleeping arrangements?” Mac sat straighter, his nerves on instant alert.

  “Word is, you requested a double room and put Abbie down as the person who’d be sharing it with you. Everybody’s talking about it.”

  Mac controlled his annoyance with considerable effort. He couldn’t trust Abbie to act as if she had a grain of common sense. Apparently, he wasn’t going to be able to let her out of his sight for fifteen minutes this whole weekend. “If she’s registered as my roommate, then someone made a mistake. I hardly know the woman, why would I want to share a room with her? Plus she’s pregnant.”

  Alex shrugged. “Hannah says women can have sex during pregnancy, right up till the final few weeks. And she is a doctor, so I guess she knows.”

  “She’s a veterinarian,” Mac said. “And I’m not having sex with Abbie. The room situation is a mixup, one I intend to straighten out right now.”

  “Give me that brush.” Alex took over the task of polishing the saddle. “If it turns out the hotel’s overbooked and there’s not another room available, you might be able to bunk with Stanley, providing he doesn’t already have a roommate. If worse comes to worst, I guess you can sleep on the floor in our room.”

  “I’m sure Hannah would not be thrilled with that arrangement,” Mac said, grabbing his hat.

  “Hannah, hell. I only offered because I knew you wouldn’t take me up on it. This way I can still get credit for being a nice guy.”

  “If it comes to that, I’ll sleep in my truck,” Mac assured him, and headed out to see what Abbie had done now to further screw up his life.

  WHEN HE FINALLY TRACKED her down, she was in the hotel restaurant with Livy, Hannah and a handful of other women, most of whom boarded horses at the Desert Rose and were here to ride in the show. “May I speak to you?” He leaned in to speak to Abbie, but spread his smile among the women assembled around the table. “In private, please?”

  Abbie barely looked at him. “You heard about the mixup with the room, I take it.”

  “I heard,” he said, careful to school any trace of annoyance out of his voice and expression. “And I’d like to talk to you about it.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” she said, her smile tight, her eyes refusing to meet his. “I handled it.”

  His temper flared, but he held on to his manners by sheer willpower. “Yes, I’m sure you did, which is why I’d prefer to have this discussion in private. If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Mac,” Livy said brightly, missing the underlying thread of tension altogether. “Settle a bet. Do people in Balahar wear clothes like the costumes we wear in the Costume Class or not?”

  He frowned and Livy apparently thought he didn’t understand the question. “What I mean,” she tried to clarify, “is do desert sheikhs really wear flowing robes and headpieces and glittery outfits when they ride their horses?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask someone who’s actually been there? Serena, for instance. Or my mother?” He turned a more purposeful look to his quarry. “Abbie? Could you come with me, please?”

  Seated next to Olivia was a lanky brunette—Mac couldn’t remember her name—who gave him a brilliant smile and scooted her chair over in invitation. “We just ordered lunch,” she said. “Why don’t you join us?”

  It would serve Abbie right if he joined the circle and made her uncomfortable for a change, but he didn’t have the time or the inclination. “I’ll only steal her away from you for a few minutes.” With a display of charm, he included every one of the women at the table in his flashing grin. “I promise to return her long before the food arrives. Now, if you’ll excuse us…?”

  He put his hand on the back of Abbie’s chair, deciding he’d pick her up in it and carry her out to the lobby, if necessary. But she pushed away from the table with undisguised irritation. “If I’m not back in ten minutes, you can all share my French fries, providing you make certain Mac picks up the check.” They responded as if she’d made a joke, but there was an uncertain note in their laughter, as if the situation had just now struck them as odd. Mac didn’t care what they thought. He reached a hand out to take her elbow, but she stiffened and swung away to avoid the touch. Then she walked ahead of him out of the restaurant and into the hotel lobby.

  “You want to tell me what you think you’re doing?” The question was out of his mouth almost before she wheeled to face him.

  “I was about to have lunch before you so rudely interrupted. What do you think you’re doing?” Her voice was quiet but deadly, and her eyes harbored a chill in which a snowflake would feel right at home.

  “I intend to find out exactly what happened with the room.”

  “What happened is that someone registered us as roommates,” she said matter-of-factly.

  He was irritated all over again, mainly because her hair was attractively tousled and her cheeks were flushed with color and the soft pink overalls she was wearing over a flowered T-shirt made her look petite and feminine and as if she could use a man to protect her. The rounded bump of her pregnancy was hardly even noticeable. Her aggravation with him, however, would be clear as a bell to anyone who chanced to look in their direction. “How could anyone make that big a mistake?” he asked.

  “I suppose it could have been a clerical error, but my best guess is that whoever made the reservations set it up that way.”

  “Funny,” he said without humor. “That’s exactly what I would have guessed.”

  “Imagine that. We agree on something.”

  “Only if you’re being honest for a change and actually admitting you’re responsible for the mixup.”

  Her lips tightened and her eyes glistened with true-blue disgust. “I knew you’d jump to that conclusion, Mac. That’s why I didn’t want to have this discussion. I told you I handled the situation. Why couldn’t you just leav
e it at that and leave me alone?”

  “Because next up on your scheming little agenda, I expect you’re going to tell me the hotel is overbooked and we really have no choice except to share the room. After that, I’m guessing you’ll be all blushes when anyone suggests we enjoyed our night together. From there, I’m not sure where you’d head, but I can assure you I’m not going to be tricked into marrying you no matter how many underhanded schemes you dream up.”

  Her eyebrows rose and he thought for a second her gaze would burn a hole in his forehead. “What makes you think I would ever want to marry you?”

  Something in her voice cooled his temper, sent an icy chill skating along his spine. “Why else would you have shown up on my ranch in your condition?”

  “Because my friend invited me to visit her, I had no place else to go, and this is the condition I’m in. I had no more idea it was also your ranch than you had that I was friends with your cousin.” She stopped, pressed her lips together, as if to keep in words that still threatened to tumble out. “I think we’ve covered this ground before, so I’ll just go on back and have my lunch.”

  “Whoa, there,” he said as she started to turn and retreat. “There’s still the little matter of where we’ll be sleeping to clear up.”

  She paused, squared her shoulders and faced him once again. “Where I sleep is none of your business and I have absolutely no interest in where you sleep as long as it isn’t in a bed with me. Been there, done that. Big mistake. It is true that the hotel had us booked into the same room, but I took care of it. They moved you to another room and put Livy in with me. Let’s label it a clerical error and forget about it.”

  Her forceful denial was not only articulate but believable. He came within a split second of apologizing, but then he snapped to his senses. “But it wasn’t a clerical error, Abbie, was it?”

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out a cell phone no bigger than the palm of her hand. “Here.” She thrust it toward him. “Call Jessica right now and let’s get to the bottom of this great mystery. She’ll be in the office. She was there when the reservations were made. Call her.”

  He wanted to back away from the phone, as if it were a time bomb set to explode. Which was silly. Jessica wouldn’t lie to cover for Abbie. Jess was a Coleman and family was the bottom line. When push came to shove, she would be on his side. So why was he hesitating? “And what do you think she’s going to tell me? That she set up the whole thing?”

  Abbie’s chin came up. “Call her,” she challenged. “The phone’s on. Punch in the office number and let’s find out what she has to say.”

  She seemed so confident, so eager to prove he was in the wrong. He wanted to be suspicious of that, too, but now that he thought about it, he could see how his cousin might have engineered the roommate situation in the flawed hope something might come of it. Jessica was nothing if not a romantic at heart. “What exactly do you propose I ask her?”

  Abbie shrugged. “Ask her why she’s trying to throw us together. Ask her what she’s hoping to accomplish. Ask her if she’s having delusions of being Cupid. Ask her anything you want. Just ask her and stop badgering me.”

  Mac was on the fence, just about to jump off on the side of calling her bluff, when the phone vibrated in his hand and played a jangling snippet of a song. Startled, he looked at the electronic gadget tunefully requesting attention, but before he could hand the phone to Abbie, she snatched it out of his hand and took several hurried steps away from him before she stopped the ringing and put the phone to her ear. “Hello?” she said. With a turn and a lift of her shoulder, she signaled privacy, probably unaware she’d done so.

  Mac was moving toward the registration desk, thinking he’d just make sure the rooms and roommates had been shuffled as she’d claimed, when he overheard her side of the conversation and caught her in a flat-out lie.

  “Brad,” he heard her say. “Didn’t I ask you not to call me until tonight?” A pause. A strangled, gay little laugh. “Of course, I’m still in the mountains. Yes, at the camp. Where else would I be?” She glanced at Mac, and for a moment he held her gaze, but she quickly ducked her head, lowered her voice and shielded the rest of the conversation from him.

  Brad. A man. Who wasn’t supposed to call at this time of day. Who believed she was somewhere a long way from where she was. The Desert Rose was nestled right in the heart of Texas’s hill country, but there wasn’t a mountain within miles. And to his knowledge, no one had ever referred to the ranch as a camp. Abbie was lying to Brad, whoever he was. It was concrete proof that she was a liar, as he’d known from the start. He had every right to feel vindicated, justified and self-righteous.

  So why was it he felt only sick at heart?

  A HORSE SHOW WAS MORE WORK than Abbie could ever have imagined. The prelude to and aftermath of each individual event depended heavily on teamwork, and over the course of the weekend, she was surprised several times by the continuity of spirit that united the Desert Rose team. Never once did she see anyone shirk a responsibility, nor did she hear a note of complaint about doing what had to be done. Not that she did any of it. Mac made sure of that. True to his word, he banished her to a ringside seat, and although Olivia offered to sneak her behind the scenes, Abbie stayed where she was. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t have loved to do her part and take some small credit for the wins—and by Sunday, there were blue and purple ribbons all over the Desert Rose stalls—but she was so fascinated by the showmanship of all the horses and riders in the ring that she was almost grateful Mac had forced her to be merely an observer. Horses might represent a whole new world to her, but already she knew she would miss it terribly when she had to leave. And much as she hated to think about it, she knew her time at the Desert Rose ranch was nearly at an end.

  Mac was suspicious of every move she made. Her brothers were growing restless with her continued insistence on being away for the whole summer. Even the baby was making his or her presence known, with unsettling kicks to remind her she couldn’t keep postponing the decision to face her family and the future. When she got back to the ranch, she’d explain to Jessica that she couldn’t stay, that she would, in fact, leave at the end of next week. Provided Mac didn’t provoke her into an earlier departure.

  A ripple of excitement swept the arena as the mare and foal competition began its final round. Abbie, and Hannah beside her, clapped long and loudly as Olivia entered the ring with Khalahari and Khalid. As if he believed the applause could only be for him, the dusky colt arched his neck proudly and pranced like a champion. “Look at him,” Hannah said with a laugh. “Obviously, he believes the prize is his, even before the rest of the contestants have entered the ring. You’ve got to love his attitude. Seems to be prevalent in the Coleman men, as well.”

  “Do they always win?” Abbie asked, her eyes on Jabbar’s prancing son, even if her question was basically about Mac.

  “Well, ‘always’ is a hazy term, but they win far more often than not. When Alex, Cade or Mac is riding one of the Desert Rose stallions, it’s practically written in the stars that they’ll sweep the costume classes. There’s something a little mystical about seeing any one of the brothers, garbed in the flashy costumes, astride a beautiful black Arabian.” Hannah inhaled soulfully. “The first time I saw Alex on Jabar, I fell in love. I was probably eight at the time. One look and that was it for me. It took him considerably longer to realize I was even in the world, but he finally came around and realized I was a match made in heaven especially for him.” She smiled, happiness shining like a vein of gold in her blue eyes.

  Abbie felt a fleeting pang of regret that she’d missed out on such obvious bliss, but she dismissed it and agreed with Hannah’s observation. “The Coleman brothers are very handsome and the Desert Rose horses are exceptionally gorgeous.”

  “It’s more than that,” Hannah said. “I can’t describe it, but it’s really something to see. Wait until this afternoon when you can watch Mac. I wish you could see him riding Tex
as Heat or Dakar, but he’s showing a young stallion called Sultan, this weekend. Not that the two of them won’t be incredible to watch, but there’s a big difference when the horse and trainer have worked together for years and have built up their rapport and trust in each other. Mac is a gifted trainer, though, and Sultan is coming along nicely. I expect they’ll easily win their division.” Hannah laughed. “As you can tell, I’m not the slightest bit prejudiced in my predictions. Although, I’ll confess, I wish Alex were riding. It’s shameless of me, I know, but he really is the handsomest of the brothers.”

  “I’d never argue with a new bride,” Abbie said diplomatically. But when Mac rode into the showring a couple of hours later, she decided Hannah was wrong. Mac looked so handsome and sat the blueblack stallion with such confidence and pride, Abbie couldn’t have said if there even were any other contestants in the arena. She couldn’t tear her gaze from the sight of him, riding the circle of the ring on the beautiful horse. The costume was red and flowing, glittering with silvery designs. The headdress set off his dark Arabic features, and only the firm line of his jaw bespoke his fierce concentration on the spirited stallion he rode. When he urged Sultan forward to claim the grand prize, Abbie was surprised only to realize she was still breathing in and breathing out at a regular rhythm.

  “Flat steals your breath away, doesn’t it?” Hannah nudged her and Abbie nodded, still mesmerized as Mac and Sultan took a victory lap around the ring. “I know how you feel. It’s hard to keep in mind that he’s just a man on a horse.”