The Cowboy's Bride

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  He leaned over her, staring down at her with glittering eyes. “Just as long as you understand you do it at your own risk,” he warned softly as he ran a hand contemplatively down her thigh.

  Ignoring the tingles of awareness his touch generated, Callie smiled at him sweetly. “As do you.” She brought her leg back in the cab. Bent it at the knee. Squared her shoulders stubbornly, even as she continued to go head to head with him. “And I meant what I said earlier. Our being thrown together now does not give you the right to boss me around.”

  He shot her an angry stare as he circled around the front of the truck and climbed behind the wheel. He slapped the key in the ignition. “Darlin’, that is exactly what this means!”

  “And don’t call me darlin’.” Callie had to shout to be heard above the roar of the engine.

  Cody paused and slid his hand along the back of the seat behind her. He looked her up and down. “You used to like it, as I recall.”

  Callie reminded herself how she had hurt him, years past. She could see he wanted to hurt her in return. And there was no point to that. Just as there was no point to this. She didn’t care what Max had planned. “I’m different now, Cody,” Callie told him quietly. Different in some ways. More vulnerable in others, especially where he was concerned.

  “And yet you signed up for this lunacy,” Cody allowed as he thrust the truck roughly in gear and backed out of the parking space. “I didn’t.”

  Callie was slammed forward and then back as he stomped on the brakes. Recovering her balance, she sent him a withering glare to let him know she was neither impressed nor frightened by his incredibly bad driving. “I was looking for a rancher to go in on a homestead with, not you.”

  Assuming he would continue to drive as poorly as possible simply in order to irk her, she held on to the door with her right hand, the seat with her left.

  Cody shifted the truck back into drive and spun out onto the road. “A rancher to con, you mean,” he corrected, as they headed out of town. “Or more specifically, someone who wasn’t on to your tricks.”

  Callie stared at Cody, unable to believe the change in him. When she had known him seven years ago, he had been a clean-cut twenty-four-year-old cattleman. Gentle and gallant to the core. Now, seven years later, he looked dark and dangerous. His wheat blond hair, though sparkling clean and tied back with a rawhide strip, was shoulder-length. A sexy brown beard, a shade or two darker than his hair, lined the handsome suntanned contours of his face. But it was his eyes that registered the most change. Oh, they were still the same wild blue of the ocean on a sunny day, rimmed with a wealth of short, thick lashes. But there was a cynical guardedness in his gaze. And a rough economy to his actions that had not been there before. “What happened to you?”

  Cody’s eyes glimmered with unchecked hurt as he confided hoarsely, “You. You happened to me, Callie. And you taught me a lesson I’m never gonna forget.”

  Then she would just have to undo it. And the only way to handle Cody was to stand up to him completely. Callie set her chin. “That, wild man, goes both ways.”

  His interest was caught, as she knew it would be, by her made-up term, and she watched as he cocked a brow. “Wild man?” he echoed.

  She gave him another dramatic once-over, this one more disapproving than her last. “You want the truth, Cody McKendrick? Well, here it is. You look like Robert Redford in that Jeremiah Johnson movie. Minus the buffalo coat.”

  To her irritation, Cody looked pleased—not insulted, as she had intended—with the comparison. “I’ll get a buffalo coat if it’d make you happy.”

  Callie sighed, rolled her eyes and settled back into her seat as he turned the truck onto McKendrick land. The only thing to do with an outdoorsy hellion like Cody was ignore him, and considering the dazzling scenery, that was pretty easy to do. She’d forgotten how beautiful Montana was in early June. The vast grassland rolled out on either side of them like a rich green carpet. Mountains were visible in the distance beneath the beautiful blue of the sky. Stands of trees—ash and box elder here—rimmed the edge of every fenced pasture, while bands of white-faced Herefords grazed.

  “Perhaps I could wear it to the public wedding ceremony Max has planned for us,” Cody continued in an obvious effort to recapture her attention and increase her irritation. Which was also, she hated to admit, pretty darn easy for him to do.

  But the wedding ceremony Max had more or less ordered them to attend was not something Callie wanted to think about. Or even actually do. It had been hard enough leaving Cody once, just hours after their wedding ceremony in Acapulco. Never mind the idea of marrying him again....

  Aware Cody was waiting for her answer, Callie advised dryly, “Forget the buffalo coat, Cody. I’d settle for a haircut,” Callie murmured. Anything to make Cody into the man he had been, and not the man he apparently was now. Anything so she wouldn’t have to look at him and feel so damn guilty, when she knew deep inside she’d only had his best interests at heart. “Or maybe just a shave...”

  Oblivious to the depth of her private regrets, Cody hit the brakes and brought them to a skidding halt. With his hand behind her seat, be came right up in her face. “You want to try shaving me?”

  “No,” Callie admitted truthfully. The whole idea of it was too sensual to be borne. “But I will if it will keep Max from being humiliated posthumously,” she qualified frankly. “Obviously, you have taken this rough-hewn attitude of yours too far. Although I suppose there’s some comfort to be found in the fact you apparently bathe,” she continued with a bluntness meant to shame him into behaving in a more gentlemanly manner.

  Although she was fudging a bit there, too.

  The fact of the matter was he smelled almost too good, like pine and winter and sunshine all rolled into one. As for the way he dressed... The soft cotton of his western shirt gleamed snowy white against the suntanned hue of his skin, the worn Levi’s gloved his long legs and lean hips with distracting snugtress, just as the taupe suede vest he’d left open drew her eyes to his broad shoulders and the muscled contours of his chest. His boots were made of handcrafted, dark brown leather. So was the belt, with the rodeo buckle, at his waist. A creased, bone-colored Stetson was on the bench seat between them.

  Cody slanted her an unrepentant smile and continued to drive like a maniac. “That, too, could be remedied. I don’t have to bathe prior to the wedding. After, either.”

  Callie hadn’t had much time to think about Max’s proposition, but she had already decided she wanted the independence that the bull’s-eye property and small herd of cattle would afford her. She wasn’t going to let Cody get in the way of her building a new life for herself, even if she had to marry him to come into her unexpected inheritance from his Uncle Max. Nor was she planning to put up with any untoward behavior on his part. She was not the helpless teenager he’d run off to Mexico with seven years ago. If he was fool enough to challenge her, he was going to get a taste of his own medicine. Max probably had known that would be the case, too. He’d treated her like one of his own kids and had been more of a father to her than her own. No doubt Max was counting on her to recivilize his nephew. And perhaps after all the grief and heartache she had reluctantly caused Cody, she even owed him that, Callie thought.

  Holding on to the dash and door to keep from being rocked about the cab, she drew a deep breath. “Cody, I’m warning you. Slow down. Straighten up. Or suffer the consequence.”

  He shot her a cockeyed grin and recklessly turned to face her, veering off the road and hitting a rock in the process before he recovered his grip on the wheel and swung them back onto the road again. “Is that a threat I hear from you, Callie dear?”

  “No, it’s a promise.” Callie accented her words with a long, level look. “Thanks to the terms of Max’s will, we’re going to be sharing quarters for the next two days and two nights. And I am not—I repeat, not—going to spend the whole time either correcting you or holding my nose.” He may have started this tough-guy stuff
to keep others at bay and ease his suffering, but it wasn’t working. It was time the wall he’d built around himself came down. And Callie knew exactly where to start. “So bathe or I’ll do it for you.”

  Her warning only served to make Cody step on the accelerator even harder. “Try and I won’t be the only one getting naked and wet,” he warned.

  Callie couldn’t help it; losing her composure, she flushed at the mental image his words evoked. Nevertheless, she stubbornly held her ground as she folded her arms in front of her. “You’re not only rude, you’re incorrigible,” she scolded.

  Cody’s grin grew smugger while the look in his blue eyes grew darker. “Well, don’t worry. You only have to put up with me for the next two days. Then you can go your way and I can go mine. ’Cause Uncle Max’s will didn’t say anything about us staying under the same roof once the vows were said, only until then.”

  He spoke with grim confidence, as if in the short time that had transpired since the will had been read, he already had their course charted out. The only problem was, he hadn’t bothered to take her feelings into consideration. Unable to help herself, Callie decided to put him in his place. “Of course, I could opt out now,” she threatened softly, watching his face.

  “But you won’t,” Cody shot back intrepidly, recklessly guiding the truck through another stand of trees—pines this time—and off the road, across an unfenced pasture.

  As she bounced around, Callie held even more tightly on to the seat. “What makes you so sure?”

  “The loot at the end of the rainbow.” Cody flashed her another insufferable smirk. “The day you pass up money you didn’t have to work for is the day the world comes to an end.”

  Little did he know... Callie shook her head.

  Cody guided the truck into another clearing and parked on the other side of what looked like a small, very weathered barn.

  “You think you know me so well,” she remarked as he cut the motor and they were left with the silence of the Montana countryside on a warm June day.

  Cody pocketed the keys and avoided her eyes altogether. “I learned the hard way,” he announced cavalierly.

  From what Callie had seen thus far, he hadn’t learned anything about her at all. Their honeymoon had been a disaster, with—unbeknownst to him—her family showing up almost from the get-go.

  Furthermore, she had been suffering, too, since the demise of their very short-lived marriage, and she didn’t have to bulldoze everyone in her path because life had been unfair to her.

  “What?” Cody prodded when she continued staring straight at the barn in front of them. “No smart remark?” He grabbed his Stetson and jumped out of the truck.

  Callie hopped out on her own side, watching as he settled the Stetson squarely on his head. “I don’t have the audience for it.”

  He folded his arms in front of him and squinted over at her. “You’re right. I stopped appreciating your sense of humor in Acapulco.”

  Their abruptly-cut-short honeymoon again. Pushing her own heartbreak and sense of loss aside—there was so much they hadn’t had a chance to experience!—Callie lifted her chin. “I don’t want to talk about that,” she replied, forcing the words through clenched teeth. She had tried to do what was best and let Cody down easily in the note she’d left him. Obviously, it hadn’t worked.

  “I’ll just bet you don’t,” Cody shot right back. He grabbed her arm and whirled her around. For a tantalizingly brief second, he looked as if he didn’t know whether to scream at her or kiss her. “But we will get around to it, when the time is right.”

  Callie could not imagine that. Not now, not ever. Hadn’t they both suffered enough? Did he have to rub her nose in it? She had no control over who she was related to! That was pure biology!

  She yanked loose of him. “As far as I’m concerned,” Callie predicted tightly, backing up until she hit the tailgate, “the time will never be right.”

  He stepped around in front of her and boxed her in. “I I got that message, too,” he drawled in a low, sexy voice, “loud and clear.”

  Callie blinked, confused, then realized he was talking about their honeymoon again. About what should have happened but hadn’t. But not because she hadn’t wanted to make their marriage a real and lasting one. Pressing her lips together, she tilted her head back and looked up into his face. And that was when she saw it. The determination, and the desire. To set things to right between them? Or simply to even the score? Cody obviously thought he owed her something in way of revenge for running out on him. If only he knew, Callie thought, how much she had wanted to stay. But she hadn’t been able to then, and she wouldn’t be able to now, since he wasn’t about to forgive her, so there was no use thinking about it, Callie thought morosely as she sidestepped stiffly past him. Even worse, in their anger and disillusionment, they could end up hurting each other even more than they already had. And that she didn’t want for either of them. And neither would Max, she knew. “Cody... maybe this is a mistake.”

  “Try telling me something I don’t know.” Cody strode past her, knocking into her a little as he paused to study a small weathered barn and a corral that contained several horses before he pivoted abruptly back to face her. “But Uncle Max’s will is ironclad,” Cody reminded her grimly. “I marry you in two days or I don’t inherit.” They faced off, glowering at each other, like two fighters about to enter the ring. “So for the next forty-eight hours, Callie,” Cody decreed as he grabbed her arm and propelled her toward a lone cabin at the end of the gravel path, “we stick to each other like glue.”

  CALLIE LET CODY GUIDE HER as far as the front door of the small log cabin with the haphazardly patched roof before she finally dug in her heels and refused to go any farther. She was tired of playing games with him, she thought as she pried her arm from his resolute grip. “What’s this?”

  Cody stepped back and, looking as if he expected her to bolt in either terror or disgust at any moment, announced smugly, “It’s home sweet home, for the moment.”

  Callie blinked in surprise, not sure what she thought. Did she feel sorry for him? Or just disgusted? And annoyed. Greatly annoyed that he would even think of bringing her here. “You live here?” Callie gasped. No wonder his uncle was so concerned! The turn-of-the-century cabin was a disgrace. The floorboards on the front porch were uneven and rotting. Cobwebs hung from the roof to the door. The single window to the left of the front door was grimy and uncurtained.

  Cody gave her a curt nod. “And so will you for the next two days,” he predicted, tucking his thumbs into the belt loops on either side of his fly. He regarded her with a challenging air that quickly let her know he intended to make her as miserable as possible for ever running out on him. “Got a problem with that?”

  Callie had never considered herself a snob. But the cabin couldn’t have been more than twelve by eighteen feet in its entirety. That would not give them much room to maneuver within.

  Cody rocked back on his heels and continued to look at her. “You’re not afraid to be alone with me, are you?”

  Callie tossed her head. Her hair flew in every direction. “Should I be?”

  Cody leaned toward her until she could feel the warmth of his breath on her face. “Depends,” he taunted brusquely.

  “On what?” Callie asked.

  Cody sensually traced the curve of her cheekbone with the back of his hand, the hurt and bitter disillusionment he still felt reflected in his eyes. “How you feel about giving me that wedding night you owe me.”

  The next thing Callie knew she was swept into the warm cage of his arms, every soft inch of her slender body firmly aligned against every hard, muscular inch of him. The heat of him was every bit as electrifying as his sheer physical strength. But even that was nothing compared to his lips. Soft, sensual, seductive, they wrenched a response from her that had her trembling. She wrapped her arms about his neck and kissed him back. Kissed him until the years they’d spent apart faded to a distant, inconsequential memor
y. She kissed him until she felt him tremble, too. Until her hands were in his hair... until she was caught against his hard chest... until the world was tilting on its axis and to continue would be very, very dangerous indeed....

  Realizing what she was allowing to happen, Callie moaned, low in her throat. “Damn you, Cody,” she whispered shakily, gathering her resolve and pushing him away. He obviously felt nothing but loathing for her now. His kiss, however seductively delivered, was nothing but a punishment.

  Determined not to let him make something meaningful of something that wasn’t, Callie remained motionless in his arms. “Get this straight, Cody McKendrick—I do not owe you a wedding night,” she said, enunciating her words clearly. Even if, his hostility aside, she still wanted very much to give him one.

  “So you once indicated by running away, but I beg to differ with you there, darlin’. ’Cause you very much owe me a wedding night,” he finished in a soft, deadly voice that let her know he would not be satisfied until he had thoroughly and completely wreaked his revenge in the most sensual, devastating way possible.

  Callie leaned forward, stepping on his toe with all her might. “Hold your horses there, cowboy. We aren’t married yet!”

  He winced, grew very still and just as stubbornly refused to release her. The silence between them stretched out dangerously. Callie wondered what he was thinking. “You’re telling me you got an annulment?” he asked finally.

  Callie tilted her head back. The tense look on his face told her the idea of that was as loathsome to him as it was to her. Trying hard to ignore the warmth of his hands on her, she volleyed back her reply as cavalierly as possible. “You’re the one with the rich uncle. I always just assumed you got one.”

  “Nope.”

  “You don’t mean—” Hope rose in Callie. Was it possible Cody hadn’t given up on them entirely after all?

  “Yep. I do.” Never taking his eyes from her face, he released a long, slow breath and kept the rest of his emotions on the subject, whatever they were, strictly unreadable. “We’re still married.” And at the moment, Callie thought, it appeared to her that he wasn’t regretting the overlooked technicality all that much.