The Marriage Season

by Linda Lael Miller

  Not exactly a marriage proposal.

  But what he’d just asked her—to have his baby but not to marry him?

  It was a little hard to absorb.

  Bex said nothing. Her vocal cords seemed to have gone on vacation.

  Tate went on, reading who-knew-what in her expression. “In case I wasn’t clear about it, I mean together. You and me. My child, your child… You know I’d be there every step of the way. That’s not in question, is it? I hope you know me better than that. I’m the one asking, remember? I’ll be at the ranch so I could be the caregiver a lot of the time… You might have noticed, I’m kind of used to that. And you could bring the baby to work.” He looked at her, his expression half serious, half humorous. “Am I rambling? Am I making sense?”

  She still couldn’t speak.

  He touched her chin, tilting her face up so their eyes met. “Bex?”

  She was relieved that she didn’t have to say yes or no to marriage at the moment, but a baby?

  She thought of Hadleigh and Mel. She did want children, but she wasn’t ready, any more than she was ready for a marriage proposal.

  *

  MAYBE HE WAS acting like a fool.

  Wouldn’t be the first time.

  His moratorium on marriage was part of a past life, and perhaps he should just get down on bended knee.

  But no one else, not even Tripp, understood that when Sandra got pregnant, he’d been denied the simple joy of impending fatherhood because of all the flotsam that had risen to the surface about her past. With Ben he’d suspected, but with Adam, he’d known what a mistake he’d made. And while he would sacrifice anything for them, he wanted a different kind of experience if he had a third chance at fatherhood.

  None of that—his poor judgment as a much younger man—had anything to do with Bex or his relationship with her.

  “I realize the usual sequence is to get married first, but—”

  He stopped short. Now there was the most tactless thing he could say. He tried to start over and give it a better shot. “I meant—”

  “Tate, be quiet.”

  He stopped talking. She was looking at the mountains, her expression unreadable. The mare had begun to graze nearby, the sound of it soothing.

  He had no doubt that he was supposed to spend the rest of his life with this woman.

  So he waited.

  She didn’t speak for an excruciatingly long minute. “I know what you meant. You had a really bad experience the first time and don’t want to try again. But…don’t you think that whenever you get into a car and drive away—or a plane—I’m going to be petrified that you’ll have a fatal accident? I care, too, and I don’t want to care. I can’t go through that again.”

  “We’re good together, and not just in bed.” His smile was obviously intended to be persuasive. “Though I admit to a great fondness for that part of our relationship. We enjoy the same things, very rarely disagree, give each other space and quite frankly, we’ve already proven that we make a good team when it comes to parenting.”

  The charms on her bracelet caught the fading light as she lifted a hand to sweep back her hair.

  “We both have a lot going on in our lives right now,” she said with the hint of a tremor in her voice. Her cheeks held a hint of pink from the brisk autumn breeze.

  “Do you think that’ll change?” He shook his head. “There’s never that perfect time, that perfect day, when you say to yourself everything’s settled, and I have time for a baby. It just doesn’t exist.”

  Her smile was tremulous. “And here I thought maybe you wanted to break it off.”

  He frowned. Was that the cause of the apprehensive look on her face earlier? “Why the hell would I want to do that?”

  The way you rejected even the idea of any kind of commitment, you idiot.

  “We could always decide to get married later. Plenty of couples go that route.”

  “Not usually in Mustang Creek.” She averted her face and looked at the Tetons instead. “Sure, everyone knows I’m living here, so the fact that we’re sleeping together isn’t a secret. But a baby is different.”

  He leaned a shoulder against the fence and experienced a twinge of anger—though not at her. His first marriage wasn’t the total problem. The words prenuptial agreement were the least romantic in the world. They translated to: I don’t really trust that this will work out. The odds of success weren’t all that wonderful to begin with, when it came to marriage. Luckily, Bex was successful in her own right, so she should probably ask him to do the same thing. But his trust fund was in the millions and when he’d balked at asking Sandra to sign one, his father had threatened to eliminate it. All that money didn’t mean much to him—he could make his own way and always had—but finally he’d caved and informed her she’d have to agree for the sake of any children they might have.

  She’d haggled over it, and that almost made him back out of the wedding; it was the first warning bell. But because he was in love with that perfect body and seductive smile, he’d told himself he would’ve been insulted, too.

  The hell of it was his father had been dead-on right.

  Tate wasn’t a coward, or he sure didn’t think so, but he didn’t want to have that argument with his father again. He didn’t want to ask Bex to sign one, and the thought of that painful visit from the lawyers—his father’s lawyers had come to the house—with all the paperwork made him sick to his stomach.

  Bex was nothing like Sandra. She was honest and giving and warm. Still, his father would force him to do it if they were to get married. Because of Ben and Adam he would, but it would be like injecting poison into a vein.

  A marriage proposal might ruin everything.

  He couldn’t let that happen. He loved her, his sons loved her and as much as he didn’t want to ask her to sign a prenup, he also didn’t want to explain why. His thoughts circled around and around.

  His first marriage had been to a woman he couldn’t trust, although of course he hadn’t initially known that. He did trust Bex and hated to suggest, via a prenup, that he didn’t. Yet he couldn’t risk losing his sons’ inheritance, either. No, to him, status quo was the best and safest option. Especially when the status quo was so…satisfying. “I didn’t expect you to agree without taking some time to reflect.” He said the words quietly. “I love you, so I want you to be happy. I think we are happy now. Maybe that explains my fear of changing anything.”

  Her eyes looked pure gold in the light. “Tate, you don’t think a baby would change everything?”

  She was right; what he’d meant, though, was that marriage would change what they had.

  The card he wanted to play was to point out that if they managed to get pregnant fairly soon, she and Mel and Hadleigh would all have children close in age, kids who could play together, but he figured that had already crossed her mind.

  He’d also made a conscious decision not to have this conversation while they were in bed. It wasn’t fair to try to persuade her that way, and he refused to do it.

  “Children are the most incredible thing that can happen to two people.” He straightened but didn’t reach for her, though he wanted to. Badly. “Yes, they do change everything, but—granted, I can only speak for myself—in the best possible way. I’m hoping for a girl,” he added.

  She smacked him on the shoulder. “That was a low-down tactic right there.”

  At least there was laughter in her eyes.

  He pulled her to him and kissed her lightly. “I’m just asking you to consider it.”

  “If you think I’m not going to have this stuck in my mind, you’re really selling me short. I mean, most women wouldn’t file this in the category of don’t forget to scrub the kitchen floor, pay the electric bill and, oh, by the way, we’re out of milk.”

  He kissed her again and murmured against her lips, “I hope not.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  LONG DAY…VERY long day, and the last thing Bex needed was to run into Greg a
s she was locking up the fitness center. Her manager had gone home sick, and she’d stayed for the duration, twelve hours, and wanted nothing more than to go home.

  At least she was out on the sidewalk and not inside alone. Her brother-in-law had a grim look on his face.

  He didn’t offer a greeting, but she didn’t expect one. His shoulders were hunched under his jacket. “I want to know exactly where she is, Bex. Don’t put me off.”

  She stood there, trying to figure out how to handle it. “Are you threatening me?”

  “Maybe. Not physically—don’t worry about that. Your friend Spencer Hogan would have me in jail in a heartbeat if I did. I could take Josh. He’s my son.”

  A light rain had started to fall, more a mist than anything, and she put up her hood. “You haven’t been too interested in him so far,” she said as her throat tightened. “What’s different now?”

  “I got a letter from her damned lawyer, that’s what.”

  Good to know. Tara called every couple of days to check on Josh, but Bex hadn’t been convinced she’d go through with the divorce. She looked Greg in the eye. “If you’d been faithful to her, you wouldn’t be standing here on a wet sidewalk having this conversation with me. This is your fault, and if you care for your son at all, you’ll leave him alone. I will do this much—I’ll talk to Tara and relay the message that you want to speak to her. What happens after that is up to the two of you.”

  She’d lent Tara the money for legal assistance. It had better be worth it.

  “Okay. I just need to talk to her.”

  Bex was afraid Tara would give in to him again…but she’d keep her word and give her sister the message. “I’ll tell her.”

  “If she doesn’t call me within two days, Josh is coming back to live with me.”

  When he walked away, she felt a wash of relief. Bex practically ran to her car, slid in—double-checking the locks—and negotiated the main drag of Mustang Creek, pretty much on autopilot.

  She called Tate via her hands-free phone in the car. “I’m finally headed back. You have Josh, right?”

  “Of course. They’re all out in the yard with Ace, Joker and King. What’s going on? You sound upset.”

  She loved the names the boys had chosen. They’d come up with them during another game of Old Maid—the night after Mrs. A. dropped off the pups—after chortling happily that Tate was, once again, the Old Maid. “Not really upset,” she replied. “I ran into Greg. This is a small town, so I knew it would happen.”

  She couldn’t restrain a small sob.

  “I assume that means she filed,” Tate said.

  “She did.”

  “That’s progress.”

  Bex braked for a light. “He’s going to use Josh to try and get her back. He said he’d take him, and I’m so afraid he will. I agreed to call Tara, tell her she has to talk to him. Was that a mistake?”

  “No,” Tate said firmly. “This is their problem, but Josh needs to come first with both of them. If you think it makes sense, we can fly him out to Denver at any time. By law, Tara has to tell Greg where he is, even though he hasn’t made any effort to see his son.”

  She didn’t want to take Josh to Denver, but it was a generous offer. Josh would be better off with Tara than Greg—that wasn’t in question. But her sister needed to get her life in order first.

  “Thank you. I’ll be home soon. Then we can talk about all of this.”

  “I hope spaghetti is okay. One of my limited number of specialties, remember? Don’t expect gourmet or anything. Oh,” he added, “the boys have had carrot sticks and cheese to tide them over.”

  It was a lot later than she’d intended. She appreciated that he’d waited so he could eat with her. Was this what it was like to be married? Shared responsibilities and the privilege of relying on someone else to pick up the slack when you couldn’t?

  “Spaghetti sounds just fine to me.”

  When she’d driven down the rutted lane, the puppies rushed out, dashing around in greeting, followed by the three boys trying to corral them. As she got out of the car, three pairs of muddy front paws left marks all over her tailored slacks. The dogs leaped around in joy until she was laughing, and she would’ve sworn that was impossible after her stressful day.

  Ben did try to control the pack. “No!” he shouted.

  Tate was much more effective when he came out and whistled. “Down,” he ordered in a deceptively calm voice.

  The puppies all sat obediently, apparently contrite. Bex brushed at her pants then gave up. She wanted to put on jeans, anyway. As she went up the steps, she asked, “How do you do that?”

  “They know I mean it. I poured you a glass of wine.” He fixed the boys with a pointed look. “In fifteen minutes, it’s bath time. You’re muddy and it’s getting colder by the minute. I don’t care who goes first, but take off your shoes before you come inside and wipe off the dogs’ paws.”

  He was such a natural at being in charge, and tonight she was going to let him handle all the chaos.

  “I’m going to change. The wine’s a wonderful idea.” She hurried to the bedroom; most of her clothes were still at her place, so it only took a minute to choose comfortable jeans plus her favorite gray shirt from her suitcase. There were so many decisions she still had to make. One of them was what to do with her house if she stayed at the ranch permanently. She wouldn’t sell it, but maybe rent it out? She stopped over regularly to pick up clothes and other personal things, check the locks and so on.

  She was looking forward to relaxing, but it seemed that every single time she and Tate sat down, there was a puppy or child incident, and then relaxation went out the window.

  Still, she had to acknowledge that she was really experiencing family life, and it felt…right.

  When she joined him in the kitchen, Tate said with humor in his voice, “You do realize that they’ll all come piling in the minute we sit down to eat, and they’ll have a million questions. Then someone won’t be able to find something he can’t live without, and wet puppies will race around the entire time. A Tate Calder version of a romantic evening.”

  She picked up her glass of wine. “I like the sound of that. This wasn’t the best day of my life. There’ve been worse, but there sure have been better. Hmm, that sauce smells great. What did you do?”

  “Opened a jar and poured the contents into a pan.” He grinned. “I do admit to splurging on the good stuff to impress you. Plus, there’s my secret ingredient. Nothing like Italian sausage to win a girl’s heart, right?”

  “That’ll do it every time. Throw in garlic bread and I’m yours for life.”

  “I was kind of hoping that was true, anyway.” He poured the drained pasta into the sauce and his tone was casual, but his body language was not.

  Then she did it. She just said it. “Yes to the baby.”

  *

  TATE WAS SURE his hearing was faulty.

  She’d said yes.

  He stared at Bex, who looked tempting in just about anything. This evening it was jeans and a plain shirt that somehow managed to emphasize how fantasy-perfect her breasts were—at least in his fantasies. She said yes. He was at a loss for words.

  Since the initial discussion, she’d said nothing about it.

  “You’re dripping sauce on the floor,” she pointed out, and he glanced down to discover that the spoon in his hand was no longer over the pot.

  He set it on the counter, ignoring the mess it made. “Since I brought it up, you haven’t been interested in talking about it.”

  “I haven’t had time to talk,” she said reasonably, “and besides, you must know me well enough by now to figure out I was thinking about it. There’s a stipulation, though. Do not ask me to marry you.”

  He gazed at her in puzzlement. He couldn’t help feeling confused, since he knew those charms signified marriage and commitment; not only that, she never took her bracelet off. After his relationship with Sandra he’d sworn off marriage—which wasn’t exactly a se
cret—and yet, this threw him.

  The sauce bubbled away merrily. He spoke slowly, weighing his response. “I don’t understand why that’s your position, since you agreed to move in here and now we’re going to try to expand our family. But if that’s what you want, I’m fine with it. Clarification would help, though. I’m not prying—your feelings are your feelings—but I do want to hear your reasons.”

  She took a sip of merlot before answering. “You proposed to Sandra and it was a disaster, correct?”

  What an understatement. “Aside from Ben and Adam, yes, it was.” He felt he needed some of that wine himself for this conversation. He reached for a glass.

  She crossed her arms under those tempting breasts. “Will proposed to me, and that ended up being an entirely different kind of disaster. I mean it, I do not want a proposal.”

  So he’d fallen in love with the only woman on the planet who didn’t want a ring and a proposal on bended knee?

  “You’re superstitious,” he said. “Because of what happened to Will.”

  “I guess so.”

  It was ironic, since he’d told himself over and over that he didn’t want to get married again, that now that he might actually change his mind, he didn’t have that option. She seemed dead serious, too, straight up Bex-style. He had to acknowledge that his reasons for being marriage shy were also based on past fears and a degree of superstition. Because Bex wasn’t Sandra.

  “Just putting my cards on the table. Take it or leave it, Old Maid.”

  The touch of levity helped. “That’s downright mean. I’m still convinced you cheat.”

  “Prove it.” Bex got out a couple of plates from one of the cupboards. She knew her way around the kitchen better than he did. “Now, please give me some pasta before I faint. Lunch was an apple at one o’clock.”

  Predictably, the crowd swarmed in right then, and not one of the boys remembered to wipe a single puppy paw, so the floor was immediately a mess. He could yell, but it wouldn’t solve the problem and besides, all six of them had come in on time and on command, so that alone was a victory. The muddy paws were just fallout.