by Amelia Autin
She sat frozen for a moment, then said, “It was a test?”
Gideon nodded.
“A test,” she repeated. He nodded again, though it hadn’t been a question. “Oh, God, I didn’t know what to think. I thought you might—”
“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have said it if I’d known how you’d react, but I wouldn’t have known otherwise, now, would I?” His convoluted explanation seemed to help. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her eyes closing briefly.
“Are you okay now?” Gideon felt like a first-class heel. Hell, he’d insulted her and scared her half to death, as well. Good going, Lowell. She probably thought you were going to drag her upstairs and rape her. The one decent prospect you’ve had and now she’ll probably tell you to get lost. And could you blame her?
Her dark eyes were fixed on his face. “I’m fine,” she assured him quietly.
“Are you sure? I feel terrible.”
She laughed, a little shakily. “I can’t say I’m sorry to hear it. I’d hate to think you could say something like that and not feel terrible afterward.”
“Yeah, well...” Gideon wished he could do something to make it up to her. “Can I get you anything? A glass of water? A can of soda?”
She shook her head. “No, thanks, I’m fine now, really. But would you answer a question for me?”
Those eyes again. Gideon felt something tug inside him. “Of course.”
“Why did you place that ad?”
Although expecting the question at some time, Gideon felt a rush of emotion at her words. He choked it off ruthlessly, then rose and moved to the porch rail, leaning against the sturdy post and staring with unseeing eyes into the hazy distance.
“I already told you my wife died. Johanna was almost eight months’ pregnant, visiting her parents outside Los Angeles with our two daughters. I was supposed to be with them but something came up. No one really knows what happened. There was a car accident. Our girls were okay, but my wife was badly hurt. Andrew was delivered by C-section. Johanna went into cardiac arrest. She didn’t make it.” The choppy little sentences were the best he could manage.
She didn’t say anything, for which Gideon was grateful. He struggled to regain his composure, unwilling to face her again until he had himself sternly under control. “Andrew spent the first month of his life in the hospital,” he continued finally, his hand clenching the railing in remembered anguish. “I had to leave him there alone in order to bring my wife home to be buried. He doesn’t remember it, but I do. And Nicki, my oldest daughter, hasn’t spoken a word since her mother died. It’s been more than two years now. In that time we’ve been through three housekeepers. Each left for different reasons, but—”
“Why? Why did they leave?”
He frowned at the interruption. “The first left to get married, the second just couldn’t take the isolation, and the last one quit about two seconds before I could fire her.” Gideon moved impatiently. “The reasons aren’t important as far as I’m concerned. The bottom line is that they all left. My children...” He stopped and hunted for the right words.
“Your children,” she prompted.
“Yeah, my kids. I love them so much, it tears me up inside to be separated from them, but I have no choice. This ranch is our livelihood, and I can’t take care of them and run the ranch, too. And I don’t have a lot of options. My parents are both dead. My wife’s parents live in a southern California retirement community, and aren’t in the best of health, anyway, especially my mother-in-law. That’s why my wife was visiting them two years ago. And I’ve imposed on my sister-in-law too much as it is—she has her own family to take care of. I could get another housekeeper, but who’s to say she won’t leave? My kids have already been through enough, lost far too much for me to put them through that again. So I decided to find a mother for them.”
“A mother, but not a wife?”
Gideon sighed, shaking his head. “You can’t have one without the other.”
“I see.”
“Do you?”
“I think so.” She stood and came to his side, close enough for him to catch just the faintest hint of her delicate perfume. “But I’ll ask you the same question you asked me. Why not look for someone you can fall in love with? Why go this route?”
“You want the truth?” At her nod he said, “I’m not looking for a woman to love. My wife is dead, but in my heart she’ll always be my real wife. There aren’t a lot of women out there who can accept that. At least, not ones I’d care to marry,” he finished, using her own words.
She nodded thoughtfully. “So what do you get out of this marriage?”
“I get a mother for my children. Someone to care for them and love them, to be there when they need it. Someone to do all those things a mother does for children she loves.” Gideon rubbed his face, the late afternoon stubble of his beard grating a little, and wondered how to delicately say what needed to be said. “And if things work out the way I hope, I get a woman to share my bed at night.”
Warm color suffused her face. It touched something in Gideon. Before he’d met her, when was the last time he’d seen a woman blush?
“So, it would be a real marriage, then. Not a marriage in name only, as they say.”
“Yeah.” Funny, but in all this time he’d never once thought about this arranged marriage from the woman’s point of view. Never until now had he wondered how she’d feel about sleeping with a man who didn’t love her.
Gideon knew he was no prize as far as appearances went. His face was too angular to be considered handsome, and his body, while honed to fitness from years of hard work, would dwarf hers, especially in bed. Add to that a well-deserved reputation for bluntness, and the whole picture did not add up to a man likely to sweep a woman off her feet.
She was speaking and Gideon forced himself to concentrate.
“So, you’d expect to...to...sleep with me.”
“Yeah, but not right away,” he quickly reassured her. “I wouldn’t expect that. Despite what I said earlier, I haven’t made a habit of jumping into bed with strange women. But I’m a normal man, with normal desires. Living together in such close proximity, the subject is bound to come up at some time, so I figure it’s best to have it out in the open now.”
Gideon watched with near fascination as her delicately pink cheeks deepened to rose. Unable to bear his steady gaze she looked away. “You’re right, of course. It would be unnatural to expect either of us to remain celibate for the rest of our lives.” She cleared her throat, darted a quick glance at his face, then looked at her hands. “And I don’t think I’d want my husband looking elsewhere for...”
He touched her tightly clenched hands briefly, drawing her gaze back to him. Their eyes caught and held. “It’s been more than two years for me,” he said honestly. “There hasn’t been anyone since my wife...and there was never anyone else while we were married.”
“You don’t have to tell me this.”
“I think I do. I think it’s important for you to know. I don’t want you to have any romantic illusions about our life together. This is a business arrangement as far as I’m concerned. But I’ll be good to you, as good as I know how. I’ll treat you with respect, I won’t ever lie to you, and I won’t ever deliberately hurt you. And I’ll be faithful to my marriage vows because that’s my nature. But that’s all I have to offer.”
A pregnant pause followed his words. Finally she said, “I can accept that.”
“After hearing all this, you’re still interested, then?” Gideon couldn’t quite believe it.
“Yes, I...I think I am.”
He quickly made a decision. “Then I’d like you to meet my kids right away.” He glanced at his watch and frowned. “It’s too late to set it up today,” he said. “But I was already planning to go over there tomorrow night. I can take you then.”
At her puzzled look he explained, “My kids are staying with my sister-in-law right now. That’s my wife’s sister, Emily Ho
lden. The Holden place is about an hour’s drive from here.”
“I see.”
“There’s a motel in Carter’s Junction where you can stay tonight. It’s not fancy, but it’s clean.”
“I passed it when I came through town. I’m sure it will be fine. Do I...should I come here tomorrow or—”
“I’ll pick you up. It’s on the way.”
“All right. What time?”
“I’ll have to let you know.”
“Fine.” She gazed solemnly up at Gideon, her dark eyes having the strangest effect on him. He dragged his attention back to the matter at hand with an effort.
“If the visit with my kids works out and you’re still willing afterward, we can get our blood tests and a license immediately. We can probably be married by the end of next week.”
“So soon?”
“I want my children home with me where they belong. Do you have any reason to wait that’s more important than that?”
“No, of course not. But don’t you want...I don’t know...references, or something? For all you know, I could be anyone.”
He gave her a long, considering look, then shook his head. “No. I don’t need references. For some reason, I believe you’re exactly what you say you are. But if you’re lying,” he warned, his voice hardening, “walk away now. Hurt my kids in any way, any way, then God help you, because nothing else will.”
If he hadn’t been watching her so closely, he would have missed the faint tremor that shook her body in reaction to his threat, and his tone gentled. “But if you give my children the love and care they need, I’ll give you everything that’s in my power to give.” Gideon paused for a moment, then, almost diffidently added, “I didn’t think to ask. Do you need references from me?”
“No, I...” She seemed flustered, and a little embarrassed. “I already asked about you in town.”
Gideon cocked his head. “No kidding? What did they say?”
“You’re honest, hard-working, a bad man to cross but a good man to have on your side, a loving father and a true friend.”
“All that, huh?” He grinned, feeling inexplicably young again, almost lighthearted. “Well, well. The things we never hear about ourselves.” He held out his hand, still grinning. “So, do we have a deal?”
She didn’t respond immediately, and Gideon found himself holding his breath for her answer. Then she let his hand swallow hers. “Deal.”
As if his smile were contagious, one escaped and flitted across her face. Something long dormant stirred to life within him. Why, she’s more than pretty when she does that, he thought, gazing down at her, until a sudden realization chased the errant notion away.
“Hey!”
“Hey, what?”
His grin deepened. “You’ve all but agreed to marry me, and I don’t even know your name.”
She hesitated a moment. Standing this close to her, Gideon saw her pupils dilate with an odd emotion he couldn’t put a name to, and it intrigued him. He filed that bit of data away in the back of his mind.
“Rennie,” she said finally, almost defiantly, throwing her head back and looking him straight in the eye. “Rennie Fortier.”
Chapter 2
At five minutes to five the next evening, Rennie walked into the motel lobby to wait for Gideon. There was no one at the front desk, but she didn’t ring the bell on the counter. She had no wish to encounter the curious clerk who’d checked her in the night before, and who by now had probably heard all about Rennie.
She’d forgotten how quickly news could spread around a small town. She had a casual conversation at breakfast with the waitress in the motel coffee shop regarding the reason for Rennie’s presence in town, and by dinnertime it seemed as if everyone knew she was Gideon Lowell’s mail-order bride.
The gossip itself didn’t really bother her because she knew there was no harm intended. Anything out of the ordinary was news in a small town, and when it was something as interesting as a mail-order bride, well!
She’d almost enjoyed herself today, strolling up and down Main Street in Carter’s Junction, making a couple of purchases, and meeting a few of the town’s 304 residents, as the town sign proclaimed. But every time someone was bold enough to mention Gideon’s name to her, fear-induced adrenaline shot into her bloodstream, kicking her pulse into overdrive.
Rennie checked her watch, then picked up an outdated magazine from a table in the corner and sat down on one of the two upholstered chairs facing the front window. She idly leafed through the magazine, hoping to avoid conversation should the desk clerk wander in, but her thoughts drifted back to the man who would arrive at any minute.
Gideon Lowell. When she’d read his ad for a wife, the wild idea of answering it had occurred to her and she hadn’t been able to shake it. Every time she’d pored over the rest of the report prepared by the discreet and expensive private investigator she’d hired to find out about the Lowell family, her mind would jump back to Gideon’s ad. She’d read such need in those few, simple words, a need she couldn’t help but respond to. So she’d come to Wyoming with the very definite intention of meeting him, and possibly, just possibly, marrying him.
But reading about someone in an impersonal private detective’s report is far different from meeting him in person. And nothing she’d felt while reading that report even came close to the impact Gideon had made on her in person.
She really liked him. And despite everything, she was strongly attracted to him. She hadn’t counted on that. Would it make the situation easier or harder to deal with?
Tossing the unread magazine on the chair beside her, Rennie rose and began pacing. She had to stop second-guessing herself. Everything Gideon had told her yesterday only reinforced her belief that he and his children needed what she could give them. And she’d already made her decision. What was the use of rehashing it now?
At that moment, a battered tan pickup truck swung into view. It parked, and Gideon got out, slamming the door shut behind him. Rennie hurried outside.
“Hi.” She stopped short, smiling hesitantly.
He removed his Stetson and combed his fingers through golden-brown hair that was still damp from a recent shower. “Sorry I’m late.” The corner of his mouth twitched into a rueful grin. “I couldn’t find a clean shirt, so I had to run a load of laundry through the machine.”
“Oh.” His honesty made her smile, a real smile this time. “You look fine to me.” He looked more than fine, actually, he looked the quintessential cowboy from his scuffed, freshly polished boots to his gray felt cowboy hat.
He was wearing jeans again, less worn than yesterday but just as snug-fitting. A clean white shirt with pearlized snaps and fancy stitching was tucked neatly into his jeans, but the top snap had been left open, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of his throat. And he’d just shaved—the breeze carried the woodsy scent of his after-shave. Had he dressed to impress her, Rennie wondered, or for his children?
“You look nice yourself.” The compliment was delivered in Gideon’s deep rumble, and though it wasn’t much as compliments went, Rennie heard the sincerity behind it.
“I wasn’t quite sure what to wear. You said casual on the phone this morning, but I wanted to make a good impression.” So she’d worn jeans, not nearly as snug-fitting as his, and had topped them with a bright pink cotton sweater that was soft and comfortable. And she’d worn the brown cowboy boots she’d purchased just that afternoon.
His hazel eyes were openly appreciative of the picture she made, and Rennie felt the oddest sensation in the pit of her stomach. Men had looked at her with admiration before, but somehow this was different. Gideon made it different. And that scared her.
Rennie was the first to turn away, and Gideon’s smile faded. “We’d better get moving,” he said. “Emily’s expecting us for dinner.”
During the drive out to the Holden ranch Gideon prepared Rennie for the reception she was likely to receive.
“It’ll be tough-going at first, I�
�m afraid. My daughters don’t want a new mother. That is, Nicki doesn’t, and her attitude has Trina expecting the worst. I’ve told them about you, but they don’t understand why I’m doing this.”
The truck jounced over a bump in the road, and Rennie winced when her elbow hit the door. “And your little boy?”
“Andrew doesn’t understand, either, but then, he’s only two. And since he doesn’t have any memories of his mother, that’s one less thing to overcome.”
“You’re right.” But an ache lodged in her heart. It wasn’t right for a little boy to never know his mother.
“He’s gotten pretty attached to Emily, though,” Gideon said. “Especially these past few months since I fired the last housekeeper.”
“It’s understandable. Two’s an impressionable age. He probably considers Emily his mother.”
Gideon glanced over at her. “It doesn’t sound too promising, does it?”
“I don’t expect it will be easy.”
He hesitated, then added, “I hate to say it, but there’s one other problem. Emily doesn’t approve, either.”
“Since she hasn’t met me yet, I won’t take it personally.” The dry tone in which this was delivered made Gideon laugh.
“It’s not you she disapproves of. It’s this arrangement. She thinks it’s a big mistake to marry without love, and she certainly didn’t pull any punches when she told me.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later Emily Holden was escorting Rennie into her living room while Gideon went in search of his children. Gideon was right, Rennie thought to herself. Emily definitely didn’t approve, and her polite manner didn’t quite disguise it. When Emily excused herself to check on dinner, leaving Rennie alone, she heaved a sigh of relief.
She wandered nervously around the room, wondering what was taking Gideon so long. To distract herself she studied the framed photographs lining the walls. Some of them were from the previous century, men and women stiff and unsmiling, frozen in a time long gone by. But many of the photos were more recent. One in particular caught her eye and she moved closer for a better look. It was a casual pose of two women standing with their arms around each other, laughing. One of the women was Emily Holden. The other, she decided, noting the strong resemblance, must be Johanna.