“What I have to do there is probably going to take more than a few minutes,” Gillian continued, her chin set with customary stubbornness, “but if you want to take our first break apart now, and meet me there in thirty minutes, it’s fine with me.”
And let her ditch him already? Especially after that odd run-in with Pete Lloyd? Cisco didn’t even have to think about the options. “No, I’ll go with you.”
“You’re sure now?” Gillian replied, looking as though she wanted more than anything for him to change his mind.
Which in turn made him all the more certain she was running from something or someone. It was up to him to figure out what or who that was, and then fix things via legal means so she would never have anything to fear again.
“Positive,” Cisco said with a firm smile, the pro tectiveness he felt for the vulnerable woman in front of him growing as swiftly as his mystification. “Where you go, I go. That’s the way Max wants it, at least for the next forty-eight hours, and that’s the way it’s going to be.”
Chapter Three
“You’re awfully quiet,” Cisco noted as he parked his luxury sports car in front of the logging camp dining hall and cut the motor.
And then some, Gillian knew as she worked the veil and tiara out of her hair and laid them across the back seat. She’d barely said two words to Cisco since they had slipped away from the wedding reception, ducking out on, among other things, the buffet dinner, the bouquet toss, the garter removal and the cake cutting.
Her only regret was that they’d been unable to quickly and quietly find the clothes they’d had on before the wedding. So, rather than risk detection— and possible delay, they’d given up and fled as they were, in wedding gown and tux.
But the trade-off was worth it, she figured. If they’d stayed at the celebration much longer, she might’ve begun to feel as though she really had gotten married tonight. And that, as she well knew, was ridiculous! She and Cisco barely knew each other. Plus, they were only in this for reasons that had nothing to do with the love that should exist between two married people. She wanted—needed—a new but legal identity, a family and a home to call her own. And if she went through with this, she would have all that. Whereas Cisco wanted to please—and placate—the always-far-too-generous Max as well as prove he was every bit as adventurous as the other McKendrick men.
Of course, Gillian thought wryly, aware her heart was still beating too fast, and had been since their vows had been exchanged, she and Cisco still had to convince Max they were all wrong for each other. The only way she and Cisco could possibly do that was to literally show him that they were most definitely not a match made in heaven! There was no better time to do that than in the next forty-six hours. She just hoped the process of demonstrating their incompatibility would not prove too painful for either of them.
“You feeling okay?” Cisco continued as he shot her yet another quietly concerned look.
Gillian nodded and tried not to notice how much of the interior of the car his broad shoulders and tall, brawny frame took up. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind,” she confided as she turned her attention to the logging camp dining hall. The large square building was out in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by dense, forbidding woods that might have unnerved her if the parking lot had not been lit by soft yellow lights that illuminated the area with a peaceful, romantic glow.
Cisco shot Gillian an interested glance. What lay ahead of them was a challenge. They both knew it, understood it. “I guess you do have a lot to think about,” he murmured. As inherently gallant as ever, he circled around to open her door and put out a hand to help her out of the car. “Figure out yet how Pete Lloyd knew you?” he asked casually as he took her hand, assisting her from the passenger seat.
No, Gillian thought, as her pulse picked up another notch and a guilty flush flowed into her cheeks. But I have a good idea how it might’ve happened. And that, in turn, could lead to trouble if Pete ever put two and two together. Cisco was still waiting for an answer, but she didn’t dare tell him anything but a smidgen of the truth. Knowing this was one question she was not going to be able to duck, she paused to look at Cisco and spoke as much of the truth as she could. “Pete’s a very nice man, but he’s mistaken. The two of us have never met.”
A skeptical look on his face, Cisco released Gillian’s hand. He then thrust both hands in the front pockets of his tuxedo trousers as he strolled by her side up the front walk. At the entrance to the dining hall, he braced a shoulder against the doorframe and watched as Gillian used her keys to unlock the door. His shoulders and. chest looked hard and sinewy beneath the handsome tuxedo jacket. “You’ve never been to Kansas, then?”
Wishing he didn’t look so sexy with the moonlight glinting off his dark hair, Gillian shrugged and opened the door to the dining hall. “Another lifetime ago, maybe,” she murmured absently.
Simmering with frustration, Cisco gave her a narrow glance. “What does that mean?” he demanded as he followed Gillian into the hall and watched as she routinely switched on the lights.
“That I don’t have either the time or the inclination for your third degree, Cisco.” Her skirt swishing softly as she moved, Gillian swept past the adjacent kitchen and storeroom containing pantry shelves, commercial refrigerator and freezer.
Aware he was right behind her, she moved briskly through the vast dining hall, to the cafeteria office. “And you are about to see why,” Gillian finished autocratically as she flipped on the last set of lights.
Cisco stared in amazement at the heavy tree limb, surrounded by a circle of broken glass, jutting into the center of the room. A bookcase filled with cookbooks had been upended. Glass fragments, bits of bark and leaves and what was left of the miniblinds that had once covered the window lay scattered across the desk, file cabinets and tile floor.
“This happen in the storm last night?” Cisco guessed, already righting the bookshelves for her.
Gillian nodded. The worst thunderstorm the area had seen in ages had knocked out power and phone lines, caused a flash flood of the Silver River and the loss of one of the horse barns to fire. She shoved her hands through her hair and released a beleaguered sigh. “It was this way when I got here midmorning,” she said, already picking up several cookbooks that had been knocked to the floor; carefully reshelving them in the specific order she wanted—general cookbooks in one place, low-cal in another.
Cisco didn’t have to ask why it hadn’t been cleaned up yet. He knew as well as she the ranch crews had been stretched thin trying to attend to all the stormgenerated calamities, in order of importance, and prepare for the huge wedding celebration Max had arranged.
He picked up several cookbooks and handed them to her one at a time.
“I would have tended to this whole mess earlier,” Gillian continued, carefully checking and sorting each title before she put it away, “but because the roads were practically impassable, I was the only person able to get here today. And once here, I had my hands full trying to make coffee and sandwiches to take out to the crews. I worked right up ‘til the time I was due for the wedding, which I didn’t want to miss for obvious reasons.” And then had dressed in such a mad rush, she’d arrived with the back of her dress buttoned all wrong. “But now I’m back where I left off.” Gillian sighed and shook her head as she finished reshelving the cookbooks.
And the destruction was so overwhelming, she barely knew where to start, Gillian thought as she turned to study the long jagged splinters of bark, scattered twigs and leafy green leaves, and dangerously sharp glass shards.
“Let me give you a hand with the rest of this,” Cisco said.
Though she would’ve welcomed the aid under other circumstances, Gillian did not want to be any more beholden to Cisco than absolutely necessary when this was all over. It was enough she was accepting the inheritance from Max.
She turned to Cisco as she slipped on a heavy white waist-to-knee chef’s apron over her wedding dress and tied it snugl
y around her waist. “Thanks, but I think I can handle the rest of this myself,” she said casually, knowing by the faint darkening of his irises she had irked him with what some men had referred to as her damnable independence. “There’s no need to mess up your tuxedo.”
Cisco folded his arms in front of him and raked her with a glance that had heat pouring through every inch of her. “What about your dress?”
Gillian shrugged, no more willing than him to be dissuaded. “I admit it’s not my choice of work garments, but it’s no more awkward than some of the themed costumes I used to wear when I worked for a catering service years ago.” Back then she’d cooked and served in everything from full medieval dress to a pumpkin costume. “Besides, I doubt I’ll ever be wearing this dress again.”
“And meantime you don’t want to take time to go back to your quarters and change,” he guessed.
Gillian nodded in the affirmative. “You read that right.” She felt she had already wasted enough time in taking care of this. Because in the end this business was going to be what mattered to her most.
Cisco made a show of studying the offending tree limb, some six inches in diameter and fifteen feet long. “You’re sure you don’t want my assistance?” he asked with a look that said she was going to be sorry if she didn’t accept his gentlemanly offer of aid.
“Positive.” Gillian forced a polite smile. “Thanks anyway.”
Cisco shrugged his broad shoulders laconically. “Suit yourself.” He pulled up a chair from the adjacent dining hall, placed it just inside the office doorway and sank into it backward, his long legs straddling the seat.
Gillian’s green eyes widened in surprise. Since he was clearly not needed here, she had expected him to busy himself elsewhere. Not stay underfoot. “What are you doing?” she demanded, forcing herself to meet his subtly challenging gaze.
“Watching.” Cisco unknotted his black bow tie and unbuttoned the first two buttons on his shirt. “Unless I miss my guess—” his silver-gray eyes gleamed as he flashed her a sexy grin “—this ought to be quite a show.”
As Cisco had hoped, his words immediately had the desired effect. Unable to thoroughly and promptly discount him, as she had obviously hoped to be able to do, Gillian whirled back around, muttering something he couldn’t quite catch but was quite sure was derogatory anyway.
“Singing my praises again?” Cisco teased, eager to see how she planned to accomplish this alone. If anything was likely to yield a few easy clues about her, and give him ideas how to help her out whether she wanted him to or not, it was spending time together. And thanks to Max, with the exception of their three short thirty-minute breaks, during the forty-eight-hour period they wouldn’t be doing anything but sticking to each other like glue.
“You just wish I was singing your praises, Counselor,” Gillian responded temperamentally as she caught the flowing skirt of her wedding dress in both hands, gathered it over her apron, just above the knee and—to his complete surprise—tied the ends in a staying bow just above her knees.
Her freedom of movement thusly assured, she knelt down to pick up large triangles of broken glass and lay them in the metal waste can. Once those were out of the way, she also moved the swivel chair that went with the desk.
“Okay, here goes,” she said.
She lifted both arms above her head. The motion lifted the fitted lace and satin bodice of her highnecked dress against the soft jutting curves of her breasts. Cisco watched as Gillian wrapped both hands around the six-inch-thick limb and pushed. And pushed. And pushed.
“Far as I can see, that limb did not move at all,” Cisco pointed out dryly, forcing himself to ignore the way each gargantuan effort caused her breasts to lift and lower with delicious abandon.
“That’s because the other end of the limb is stuck in the mud outside.” Gillian scooted the chair over, climbed on the desk, the higher vantage point putting her just about on par with the high-cut office window, and giving him a spectacular view of her shapely, stocking-clad legs.
Leaning over, she peered at the ground below. Looking at the alluring curve of her slender hips, it was all Cisco could do to suppress a groan. “Ready to give up yet?” he asked, knowing he couldn’t sit idly by and watch much more of this.
“Not on your life,” Gillian tossed back, her soft lips pursed together thoughtfully. “I’ll just try this—” She marched militantly back down from the desk and, still being careful not to mess up the dress she was wearing, wrapped both hands around the top of the branch and tried to pull the protruding end of the limb down so it would lay levelly across the windowsill.
“And—” She continued to huff and puff in obvious frustration. To no avail. The limb did not budge.
If it was this hard to get her to accept help on something this mundane, what would it be like to get her to take his help on something really important? Cisco wondered.
“What about now?” he queried dryly, folding his arms across the ladder-back of the chair.
“Nope,” Gillian retorted with a determined scowl.
She moved this way and that as she tried to find a position that would give her better leverage. Finally finding a place to her liking, she drew a deep breath, swiveled her hips like a golfer preparing for a shot, relaxed her upper body with a similar sinuous wiggle and lifted her arms once again. Her efforts nearly pulled her off her feet, but did nothing to so much as budge the heavy limb, never mind give her the leverage she needed to move it out of the building. Stepping back to reevaluate, she released an exasperated breath and frowned.
“We could just leave it where it is,” Cisco offered, turning his head slightly to the side as he studied the offending branch. “It might make a nice coatrack. Though I dare say it’d get a little chilly in the winter, what with the cold Montana wind whipping through and all.”
His facetious suggestion was rewarded with a temperamental flash of her emerald green eyes. “Don’t you have something better to do?” Gillian snapped.
Enjoying the twin spots of color in her pretty cheeks, Cisco shrugged and kept his eyes on hers. “Can’t think of a thing.”
Gillian’s luscious lips thinned into a belligerent line. “Have it your own way, then.”
Pausing only long enough to exchange her heels for a pair of tennis shoes, she strode past him, snatched up a flashlight and a large serving spoon from the kitchen, headed out the back door, around the building and into the dark.
Curious to see what she was up to next, Cisco followed her and watched as she squatted next to the splintery end of the fallen branch and. began to dig a trench in the mud around it. Finished, she tried to lift the limb again, to no avail.
Cisco figured they’d done things her way long enough.
Afraid she was going to strain her back if she kept it up, he caught her hands and brought her to him before she could lift again. “C’mon, now. Let me help you before you hurt yourself,” he urged softly.
She glared at him, her wrists trembling in his staying grip. “I told you I don’t need your help.”
“Don’t need it, or are afraid to take it for fear you might then be relying on someone other than yourself?” Cisco questioned as her breasts rose and fell with every agitated breath.
“And I don’t want you dogging my every step,” she said, shaking free from his hold.
Grabbing her flashlight, she cleaned the mud off her shoes as best she could and stomped back inside, Cisco close behind. Across the dining hall. To the office. Once there, she climbed back onto the desk, lifted a leg, and to his growing amazement, swung it over the log so she was seated atop it seesaw fashion.
Realizing her behavior had taken a dangerous turn, Cisco gave her a narrow, warning glance. “That is not going to work,” he told her flatly. In fact, he was sure of it.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Gillian tossed back haughtily. Ignoring his warning, she pushed up with her toes, then down again as hard as she could.
The log shifted slightly, all right,
just enough to throw her off balance. Gillian gasped as the slippery soles of her shoes slid across the surface of the desk.
Braced for just such a calamity, Cisco stepped forward, arms outstretched just as Gillian lost her grip on the branch, went flying backward and landed in his arms. Holding her dainty weight against his chest, he tightened his grip on the headstrong waif who was now his bride. “Now do you want my help?” he asked softly, looking down at her and wondering what it would take to get her to rely on him just a little bit.
Gillian bit her lip as he slowly righted her and lowered her gently back down to the ground. “Maybe I—”
“We can do this if we work together.” In fact, they could accomplish a lot of things if they trusted each other—even a little bit.
Gillian flushed in embarrassment. “Fine. Have it your way, then.”
“Thanks. I will.” Ignoring the way she rolled her eyes at him in response, he positioned her at one end of the fallen limb and, after shrugging out of his tuxedo jacket and rolling up the sleeves on his heavily starched white shirt, took his place closest to the broken-out window. “When I say three, pull down toward you,” Cisco instructed. “Okay. One, two, three…”
The branch shifted with a groan. Cisco pulled down until the opposite end was up and out of the mud; then, with the branch still balanced on the windowsill, he began to push. As he had predicted, five minutes later, they had the branch clear of the windowsill. It hit the ground with a satisfying thunk that had them both smiling.
“Thanks,” Gillian said, dusting off her hands and looking pleased despite herself. “You can make yourself comfortable while I clean up the rest.” Her manner brisk, she started to brush by him.
He caught her arm, pulling her to a stop. Her stubbornness was costing them both a lot of time, and he for one did not want to be here all night. But she apparently did. For fear they’d be tempted to share another kiss?
Spur-Of-The-Moment Marriage Page 4