The Marriage Bargain Read online

  Crystal did just that, although it didn’t take long because there weren’t any particular landmarks to distinguish what she’d seen.

  About the time she was finishing, their first two customers of the day arrived.

  “Why don’t you go take care of them? It’ll help get your mind off your vision,” Winona said. “And don’t worry. As soon as I can, I’ll go see the sheriff.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  Winona had barely turned to go before Crystal said, “Aunt Winona?”

  Winona stopped short and glanced over her shoulder at her niece with a quizzical lift to her eyebrows.

  “Thank you,” Crystal said.

  Winona just waved away her niece’s thanks with both hands fluttering like bird’s wings and left.

  “How’s Daddy?”

  The first thing Victoria did when she woke up was call her mother in Denver and apologize for not telephoning the night before.

  But Victoria had needed to think about what she was going to say to her parents. About whether or not she was going to tell them what had gone on the previous day.

  “He had a bad night,” her mother told her in response to the question about her father. “He’s sleeping now but he was up until almost five this morning. Did everything go all right with the closing of the ranch?” Unfortunately a bad night was nothing unusual for her father since his health had deteriorated and so her mother didn’t dwell on it.

  “The closing was fine.”

  “Did you meet the buyer?”

  “Yes.” Victoria didn’t offer more than that.

  “Was it a family?”

  “No. Just a single man.”

  Victoria had her fingers crossed that her mother wouldn’t delve any deeper than that.

  Apparently it worked because after a moment her mother said, “And now you’ll be packing up what we left behind so he can move in?”

  “Right,” Victoria confirmed. Her mother knew she’d taken a semester’s leave of absence from the University to do just that and the decision she’d come to during the night was to leave it at that. Adam had said this marriage wasn’t a forever thing, that when he was satisfied it would end, so why burden her parents with the turn the sale of the ranch had taken? It would only upset them and what Victoria hoped was that Adam’s satisfaction would come before too long, this sham of a marriage would be dissolved and she really could get down to packing up the ranch without her folks ever knowing what she’d had to do to accomplish it all.

  “I’m worried about your taking time off work,” her mother said then.

  “You have enough to worry about, don’t give that another thought. I told you it’s all taken care of.” Which was the truth and a lucky thing since she wouldn’t have been able to return to Boston after all.

  There was a click on the other end of the line just then and her mother said, “Oh, that’s another call. Do you want to hang on while I see who it is?”

  “No, why don’t we go ahead and say goodbye. I’ll talk to you again in a day or so. I love you. And Daddy, too.”

  “We love you, too. Don’t work too hard. You have plenty of time to do all that packing.”

  They said their goodbyes and Victoria hung up.

  But it wasn’t packing what remained at her old family home that was on her mind when she did.

  Instead she was hoping that she was right and this so-called marriage would be over before too long so she really could make good on her word.

  “The Stop-n-Swap is where we’re getting the clothes I’ll need at your ranch?” Victoria whispered in disbelief as Adam led her into the junk shop on the outskirts of town. She didn’t want the woman behind the counter to overhear her and be insulted, but she just had to make sure she wasn’t mistaken. Even though the Stop-n-Swap carried some used clothing, it wasn’t a place she’d ever shopped before.

  “Not everyone has a personal shopper at a designer store,” Adam seemed to enjoy answering. “Now you get to see what it’s like to dress the way I had to when I was a kid.”

  “I didn’t know you had to wear used clothes as a kid.”

  “The Stop-n-Swap and the church thrift shop—that’s where nearly everything I ever wore came from.”

  “And you blame me for that, too?”

  He shrugged the broad shoulders that her eyes had been caressing since he’d knocked on her door an hour before and unceremoniously told her to get her rear in gear. “I just want you to know what it was like on the other side of the tracks.”

  “May I help you?” The woman came out from behind the counter and approached them.

  Victoria might not have frequented the Stop-n-Swap when she’d lived in Whitehorn before, but she knew it well enough to know it was owned by Winona Cobbs and that this much younger woman was not Winona.

  “We’ll be needing some jeans, shirts, sweaters and boots, Crystal. For the lady,” Adam answered with a negligent nod toward Victoria.

  He didn’t appear to have any intention of introducing them, so Victoria said, “Hi. I’m Victoria Rutherford…well, Victoria Benson now, I guess. Anyway, I used to live around here a long time ago but you don’t look familiar to me. Did you take over for Winona?”

  “I’m Crystal Cobbs, Winona’s niece. I work with her most of the time, but she had an errand to run.”

  “So you’re new to Whitehorn?”

  “I’ve only been here since the summer. What about you? Are you back for a visit?”

  “I thought I was just coming to take care of some business. But there was a…change of plans.”

  Victoria’s involuntary glance in Adam’s direction drew the other woman’s attention. It was to Adam that Crystal said, “I didn’t know you had a wife.”

  “Only since yesterday,” he answered, clearly not meaning to expound on that, either.

  “So you’re newlyweds,” Crystal said in a lazy drawl, as if that amused her for some reason. “Well, congratulations. I think,” she added with a little laugh.

  Victoria wasn’t sure if it was the other woman’s warm smile or just the pure relief of meeting up with someone who didn’t treat her as though she had the plague, but Victoria felt an almost-instant connection with Crystal Cobbs. So much so that she decided to ignore Adam in favor of a little camaraderie with the other woman to help ease this unusual shopping trip.

  “I’m apparently going to have a rustic honeymoon,” Victoria confided as if she weren’t as uneasy about it as she actually was. “Can you help me with a few things?”

  “Probably not with what you really need help with,” Crystal said with another glance cast at Adam. “But I’d be happy to help you find some of the clothes you need.”

  Victoria didn’t understand, but Crystal looked from her to Adam and back again and seemed on the verge of full-blown laughter, as if she knew what was going on between them.

  She contained her delight, though, and linked her elbow with Victoria’s in a way that two old friends might join forces against a bully who was more bluster than anything.

  “Come on,” she said. “I’ll show you what we have.”

  Victoria spent the remainder of the morning in town, following Adam as he ordered supplies to take with them to his ranch. The frugality he’d exhibited in regard to her purchases was nowhere in sight when it came to ordering pig chow, chicken feed, oats for horses, roof shingles, nails and various other hardware items, as well as a full stock of groceries.

  Some of the stores weren’t ordinarily open on Sunday but Adam had apparently arranged for special concessions and everywhere they went he was catered to as if he’d gained some kind of celebrity status.

  While the big black truck Adam was driving in lieu of the limo from the day before was loaded with his purchases, he pointed at the Hip Hop Café and said, “We’ll get some lunch and then head out.”

  The Hip Hop Café had been the meeting place in Whitehorn for as long as Victoria could remember. It was a dinerlike establishment with old-fashioned ceiling fans inste
ad of air-conditioning, chrome counters that dated back to the fifties, a jukebox that could really get the joint jumping, and generally good, if not fancy, food.

  Even at one o’clock on a Sunday afternoon nearly all the tables and counter space were occupied, but Adam motioned for Victoria to precede him to a corner table in the back that had just been cleared off.

  Victoria’s appearance in the restaurant caused quite a stir. Since arriving in town the morning before, when she’d gone straight to the real estate office, she hadn’t seen many of the folks she’d known growing up in Whitehorn. But a fair share of the people eating all around her wore familiar faces.

  It was suddenly like old home week with folks coming over to the table or just chatting from their seats, asking how her parents were, wishing her father the best, letting her know the family was missed around town.

  But more than her own reception, Victoria was interested in Adam’s. Or actually in the way he responded to the warm hellos and how-are-yous that greeted him.

  He was nice. Open. Friendly. Charming. Funny.

  He didn’t dish out any of the icy treatment he continued to serve up to Victoria. Instead he was as pleasant as she remembered him being as a teenager.

  Even though she wasn’t the recipient of any of it, Victoria took heart. Maybe the younger Adam Benson was lurking somewhere beneath the surface, after all.

  But Victoria realized she wasn’t the only person to bring out the icy side of Adam when Jordan Baxter walked into the café.

  Jordan Baxter was not only someone she’d known from around town when she’d lived in Whitehorn as a child. He was also someone her parents had talked about since she’d left. He was not particularly well liked but he was well known as a poor boy who grew to be a success.

  He was also known for his long-standing feud with the Kincaids and the moment he spotted Adam at the corner table, he made his way to it, ignoring everyone else in the Hip Hop.

  “Well, well, well. If it isn’t one of the new Kincaids,” he said as he drew near.

  “Baxter,” Adam said in greeting, his tone and stony expression something Victoria had begun to think he reserved for her alone.

  “I’ve been wondering when we’d get to meet again,” Jordan continued, seemingly undisturbed by Adam’s frigid welcome. “I have to say that ever since I found out who your real daddy was I’ve been torn about you, of all the Kincaid bastards. Over the years I’ve followed your rise through the ranks of the businessworld, you know. Admired and respected you. Thought we were two of a kind, you and I—both from Whitehorn, both from hard-scrabble upbringings, both sloughing off the stink of poverty, scrambling and working hard to get where we are. Imagine my disappointment at finding out you’re a Kincaid.” He nearly spat the name. “A Kincaid,” he repeated as if he hadn’t put quite enough hatred into it the first time.

  “That’s right, I’m a Kincaid,” Adam confirmed, sounding proud of it.

  Jordan nodded his head, never taking his eyes off Adam, as if Adam were an adversary worth watching. “Well, you may like your new family ties but don’t think they’re actually going to get you anything. Especially not that ranch you all wallowed in for months. That prime piece of property is rightfully mine and I’m going to see to it that that’s how it ends up. Come hell or high water.”

  “I’ve heard you’re giving it a try, anyway,” was all Adam answered, obviously unintimidated.

  “Oh, I’m giving it more than just a try. You may be used to winning out against weaker foes, but I’m not one of them. Make no mistake about it—that ranch is mine.”

  Adam merely shrugged one shoulder.

  “But no hard feelings,” Baxter added. “In fact, once I’m set up at the ranch, you and I might even be able to do a little business.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you telling me you don’t always need investors for your little coups?”

  “I’m telling you you’ll never be one of those investors.”

  The bill for lunch had been set on the table just before Jordan Baxter arrived and now Adam picked it up as if the other man weren’t still standing there. He glanced at the total, tossed a twenty-dollar bill on the table and stood. Then he pulled Victoria’s chair out to let her know they were leaving.

  Victoria wasn’t exactly sure what to do. She’d never been rude enough to just get up and walk away from someone, without so much as an I-have-to-be-going.

  But Jordan Baxter hadn’t even glanced at her or acknowledged her in any way, so she wasn’t the likeliest candidate for bidding him goodbye. And Adam was making it clear he wasn’t staying for more of this goading chitchat.

  She finally opted for muttering an, “Excuse me,” as she maneuvered around Jordan to get away from the table and follow Adam toward the door.

  “I’ll have the last laugh on the lot of you,” Jordan said in a loud voice to their backs as they left the café. “That ranch will never belong to you and your bastard half brothers. Count on it.”

  But he might have been shouting at a brick wall for all the response he got from Adam.

  Adam had instructed that the truck be loaded and left out front of the Hip Hop with the keys in the ignition, and that was where they found it once they were outside. Without saying a word to Victoria, Adam got in behind the wheel.

  It flashed through Victoria’s mind, as it had just before the wedding the day before, to just walk away rather than to willingly get in the passenger side of that vehicle and go with him.

  But, again, she remembered her parents and knew she had no choice, so she climbed into the truck.

  Adam had started the engine and pulled away from the curb before she got her seat belt on.

  They were headed out of town when she gathered the courage to say, “So what was all that about with Jordan Baxter?”

  Adam let so much time elapse in silence that she’d just about given up hope of an answer when he finally said, “You know Baxter hates the Kincaids, that he has a grudge against them for the affair Jeremiah Kincaid had with his mother when he was a boy.”

  “He thinks Jeremiah Kincaid set the fire in her apartment that killed her,” Victoria confirmed.

  “Right. And it’s always stuck in his craw that just before his uncle Cameron died—when Cameron needed money—he sold off the old Baxter place to Jeremiah Kincaid, of all people. At the time he swore his uncle had given him the first right of refusal in the event of any sale, but he couldn’t prove it, so the deal with Jeremiah went through and the old Baxter place became part of the overall Kincaid ranch.”

  “I remember hearing about that.”

  “When Jeremiah died, the property passed into trust for his illegitimate baby daughter, Jennifer McCallum, which is the way it’s been until now. But just recently it was decided that the place should be sold and—like I told you before—when my grandfather heard about it he decided he wanted to buy it as a legacy for my half brothers and me. He wants it to be a home base where any of us can live or work or just visit when we want. Some place we can all own jointly to have the kind of unity we didn’t have growing up, scattered to the wind the way we were. It’s his way of bringing us all together as a family now.”

  “That’s awfully nice of him.”

  “He’s a nice man,” Adam said simply. “Anyway, the sale was just about to go through, so we all met there this spring and moved in—to get to know each other. But about the time we did, Baxter says he received a letter from his uncle’s lawyer, George Sawyer. Seems that after Sawyer’s death, as his family went through all his papers, they found the document giving Baxter that first right of refusal, after all. They sent it along to Jordan and he filed suit, claiming that first right of refusal on his uncle’s spread gave him first right of refusal on the whole Kincaid ranch because they’re one and the same now. He has the whole thing tied up in court.”

  “Have you had dealings with him before this?”

  Adam cast her a glance that said he couldn’t believe she’d
asked such a thing. “No. Why would I have?”

  “From the way he talked at the Hip Hop, I assumed the two of you had crossed paths along the line.”

  “Yeah, we’ve crossed paths along the line. I met up with him at a business conference in New York a few years ago, before either of us knew I was a Kincaid. But even then I didn’t like him, and I don’t like him now. He keeps harping on that bit about all the two of us have in common.”

  Adam’s tone made it clear he didn’t agree and didn’t appreciate the comparison. So much so that he didn’t even seem to want to talk about it anymore because he reached out and turned on the radio, suddenly filling the truck cab with loud country music from Whitehorn’s own radio station as they headed into the countryside.

  Victoria got the hint and didn’t attempt more conversation. Not that she could even if she’d wanted to over the loud radio.

  Being alone with him in the enclosed space, without distraction, wasn’t easy for her. It made her too aware of him, of every detail about him, every nuance.

  Such as the way his hands rested on the steering wheel, mastering it with a steady, sure, relaxed grip. Big, hard hands that still looked as if he could put in a long day of ranch work without gloves. Hands that hadn’t been softened by his current, less manual lifestyle.

  His wrists were powerful-looking and lightly covered with hair as dark as that on his head, running up forceful, sinewy forearms before disappearing into the rolled-up sleeves of a denim work shirt.

  She couldn’t help noticing his thighs, too. Massive, muscular thighs encased in worn blue jeans, spread against the seat and making her remember the way they’d looked straddling a horse years ago. Making her flash on an uninvited image of those thighs straddling other things….

  Her.

  Victoria didn’t know where that had come from, but she yanked her eyes up and away from him, yanked her thoughts from anything so ridiculous. She tried to calm the unwanted fluttering in the pit of her stomach.

  But once the fluttering got started it was difficult to quiet. Especially when she found her gaze rolling to those broad shoulders and a chest that stretched the denim fabric taut, up a thick column of neck to that jawline that was sharp enough to slice bread.