The Marriage Bargain Read online

  Even clean-shaven he had a faint shadow of a beard. Darker, coarser, than it was when he was a teenager. She remembered the feel of it then—just a little scratchy against her face—and knew that now it would be more harsh to the touch. If they ever got that close. Which, of course, she hoped they didn’t.

  It was an incredible profile, though. Chiseled and fine, angular and perfect, beneath the raven-black hair that covered a head so well-shaped he could have been bald and would still have been striking. She couldn’t help even admiring the shape of his ears and the way they eased into the side of his face on lobes that were somehow so sexy she could imagine herself taking a little nibble of them.

  He caught her staring at him then and turned that handsome head to look her straight in the eye with those piercing, steely gray ones of his.

  “Do you have a problem?” he asked.

  Only as far as those stomach flutters were concerned. And they were going wild by then.

  “No,” she answered, pulling her glance away and forcing herself to look out the side window at the gently rolling land they were passing through.

  But even without staring at him she was still so intensely aware of him that she couldn’t get him out of her mind.

  And she couldn’t stop those flutters, either.

  Which caused her some serious concern.

  This was a man who had forced her to marry him, she reminded herself. Forced her. A man who had only contempt for her. She didn’t want to have these kinds of thoughts about him. She certainly didn’t want to have the flutters in her stomach that the thoughts brought with them.

  And she wouldn’t, she vowed. She just plain wouldn’t allow herself to be so acutely aware of him. To think about him in anything more than a passing, incidental way.

  That’s all there was to it.

  But as the smell of citrus after-shave swirled around her and the pure sense of his masculinity filled the truck cab so completely that she was enveloped in it, she wasn’t too sure how she was going to go about keeping that vow.

  She didn’t doubt that she could resist him on the surface.

  But keeping him out of her thoughts, keeping herself from noticing things about him that seemed to have a way of seeping into her consciousness all on their own?

  That was something else again.

  It took about an hour to get to Adam’s ranch. It sat at the foot of the Crazy Mountains, just off the same road that led to the Laughing Horse Reservation a few miles farther into the hills.

  The house came into view within minutes of turning from the main road onto the rutted one that led to it. It was a small log cabin with a covered front porch and a steep roof with one dormer window jutting out of its center.

  An old-fashioned red barn dwarfed the house from behind. There was a small lake to the right with a huge elm tree whose branches arched over it to drop golden autumn leaves into the pool, and open fields stretched from there as far as Victoria could see.

  It looked like a cozy place but it was definitely smaller and more rustic than she’d expected.

  An old, dilapidated, rusted-out red truck loaded with saddles and suitcases was parked in front of the house. Other than that, there were no signs of anyone else anywhere around.

  The sound of their approach brought a bow-legged man Victoria guessed to be about sixty out onto the porch. He leaned a brawny shoulder against one of the gnarled wood posts that stretched from the cross-buck railing to the overhang. That was where the man stayed as Adam pulled up beside the other truck. He only pushed off the post and came down the three steps when Adam got out.

  “Hey, Sherm.” Adam greeted him with the same kind of friendliness he’d used at the Hip Hop for everyone but Victoria and Jordan Baxter.

  “Adam,” the other man answered with a nod, not removing the matchstick he was chewing but just maneuvering it to the corner of his mouth.

  “You all set to go?”

  Victoria heard Adam ask that as she got out of the truck herself, realizing by then that her new husband had no intention of showing her the courtesy of opening her door.

  “Yep,” the other man answered, casting her a curious look as she came to stand near the right fender. “Figured I’d get you unloaded, let you know where things stand, and get outta here.”

  “You don’t have to unload the truck. She’ll do it,” Adam said with a scant nod over his shoulder in Victoria’s direction.

  She’ll do it? Victoria wondered if she’d heard correctly.

  While she was still wondering, she heard Adam add, “That’s why I brought her. She’ll be doing all your work.”

  The older man raised an eyebrow but only said, “That so?”

  “It is,” Adam confirmed, not seeming to notice the surprise and disbelief in the other man’s expression. “You can bring me up to date on what needs to be done while she hauls things in.”

  Victoria decided to keep as much of her dignity as she could by not showing her own shock at this dictate, raising her chin high and introducing herself. “I’m Victoria.”

  “I’m Sherman Broser. I usually run this here place for Adam, but he’s sendin’ me off to visit my daughter and grandkids. Thought it was so he could have the place to hisself for a time.”

  Adam didn’t explain anything, even though it was clear both Victoria and his ranch foreman weren’t sure what was going on. Instead he turned only slightly toward Victoria and said, “Unloading the truck is your first job as a ranch hand. Might as well get started.”

  And then he crossed the distance to the house, climbed the stairs and went inside.

  The older man looked from Victoria to the loaded bed of the black truck to the house into which Adam had just disappeared. Victoria could tell he wasn’t sure whether to follow Adam, as seemed to be indicated, or help her with the unloading.

  Then, from the interior of the house, came Adam’s voice. “Sherm. Let’s get this done so you can be on your way.”

  The foreman inclined his head slightly and issued a confused-sounding chuckle before he said, “Nice meetin’ ya.”

  “Same here,” Victoria added.

  And then they both went their separate ways to do Adam Benson’s bidding.

  “You can take the attic room. It’s up those stairs there.”

  Victoria’s suitcase had been the first thing loaded onto the truck that morning so it was the last thing she hauled into the house. By then Adam’s foreman had taken his leave and Adam and Victoria were alone.

  Since he’d already had her bring his bags into the bedroom to the left of the living room on the main floor, that announcement let her know she was again being dispatched to a separate bedroom.

  Happy and relieved for at least that, she climbed the wooden stairs against the right wall of the living area.

  The layout of the place was simple enough.

  The living room and kitchen were one large room, divided only by the small rectangular table and two ladder-backed chairs that stood behind the sofa while appliances and cupboards lined the back wall.

  There was a bedroom and bathroom downstairs, along with a combination mudroom-laundryroom off the kitchen with a door that opened to the backyard. Upstairs within the steeply sloped sides of the roof was the attic bedroom Victoria had been allotted, a plain, serviceable space with a double bed, a nightstand and lamp, and a single bureau.

  At least there wouldn’t be much to clean, she thought as she set her suitcase on the bed, having no doubt that housekeeping would also be among the duties she’d apparently been brought to perform.

  On the other hand, it wouldn’t be easy to keep her distance from Adam in such close quarters, the way she was hoping to do.

  Once they were both unpacked, they shared a silent meal of sandwiches and by the time that was finished the sun had set outside and Victoria was beginning to feel weighted down with Adam’s studied indifference to her.

  The front door was open, although it was getting too cold to be, and the night air coming throu
gh the screen and the sound of crickets seemed to beckon her outside.

  It wasn’t an entirely good idea, though.

  Because being out in the chilly autumn air suddenly reminded her of another night. Long ago. In her father’s barn. When she’d felt as if the world were her oyster, as if nothing in her life could ever go wrong, as if she could even play with fire and not get burned.

  And the fire she’d decided to play with that particular night had been Adam Benson.

  The son of one of her father’s ranch hands. A senior in high school when she’d only been a sophomore. Tall. Dark. Heart-stoppingly handsome. But not in the same social circle as she and her friends. After all, they were Whitehorn’s elite, the children of the land owners, and he was only the hired help’s boy.

  Victoria wasn’t proud of that attitude she’d since grown out of. But that was how it was then. And in its way, it had made Adam Benson forbidden fruit.

  Adam Benson, whom she’d flirted with whenever no one was looking. Whom she’d spent hours and hours secretly watching from her bedroom window as he’d worked beside his father all summer long. Adam Benson, whom she’d kept her eye on in school. Whose every move she knew, even if she didn’t admit it.

  Adam Benson, whom she’d found herself alone with in the barn that autumn night.

  Not that he hadn’t done his part.

  He’d flirted right back. He’d done some showing off, the way boys do. He’d nearly singed her with deep looks that dared her to come closer.

  And so, that night, when teasing and flirting and toying with each other had finally brought her to the barn to see him when she knew no one else was around, she’d let him kiss her.

  Oh, had she let him kiss her…

  A kiss that was not only unlike any she’d ever experienced before that—which wasn’t all that much at fifteen—but a kiss that was also unlike any she’d had since.

  A kiss that had ended up with them lying together in a pile of hay, clinging to each other, oblivious to anything but that kiss that had gone on and on and on…

  Until her father had walked into the barn and caught them.

  Never had she seen him so mad.

  He’d accused Adam of all sorts of things that were much more than that simple kiss, ranting and raving and acting as if Adam were no better than a rapist, as if that’s exactly what he’d have been had her father not come in when he had.

  Who did Adam think he was to be pawing his daughter? her father had shouted to the rafters, enraged, appalled, red-faced with indignation and fuming more intensely than Victoria had ever seen him before.

  And she hadn’t had the courage to stand up to him to claim her part in that kiss.

  She hadn’t had the courage to stand up for Adam.

  Instead she’d let her father believe the worst of him. Let her father believe she’d been the unwilling innocent young thing whom the ranch hand’s son had had the audacity to maul.

  It was an indefensible act of cowardice and even as it had happened, even as she’d told herself to speak up, to not let her father go on and on reaming Adam out, she’d been too afraid to do anything. Too afraid of what her father might think of her if she admitted she was every bit as responsible for the kiss as Adam had been. That Daddy’s sweet little girl had courted a man—a man who was beneath her—in a barn. That she’d wanted him to kiss her. Encouraged it. Invited it. That it had only been a kiss.

  But all the while she’d just stood there, a frozen audience to the spectacle.

  And then it had gotten worse.

  The whole time her father had been screaming at Adam and accusing him of all sorts of things he wasn’t guilty of, she’d countered her guilt over not speaking up by telling herself that the tirade would blow over and she’d apologize to Adam later. That she’d make it up to him somehow. She hadn’t even considered that her father would do anything as drastic as order Adam’s entire family off the ranch.

  So not only had her silence cost Adam his pride and a vicious, degrading berating he hadn’t deserved, it had also cost both his parents their jobs.

  And still Victoria hadn’t stepped up to tell the truth.

  It was a shame she’d lived with every day since, knowing she’d cost a man and woman their livelihoods to save herself.

  “You’re going to need to get an early start in the morning, in case you hadn’t guessed.”

  Adam’s deep voice came from behind her, from inside the house, startling her slightly from thoughts she’d been lost in.

  She was hugging herself against the chilly air, staring out at the road in the distance from the front porch railing, and she didn’t turn to look at him. At that moment, reliving her shame of all those years ago, she couldn’t have faced him if she wanted to.

  “I’ll need to get an early start being the ranch hand,” she said, referring to his comment to the foreman when they’d arrived.

  “Ranch hand. Maid. Cook. Housecleaner. You name it, you’re it.”

  “To put me in my place.” From the lofty one she’d thought she was perched on before.

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. He’d made it clear already, with his “comeuppance” comment and his remark that morning about seeing what it was like to be from the wrong side of the tracks.

  And even though it was incredibly feeble at that point, she felt the need to say, “You know, I’ve always regretted that night in my father’s barn.”

  “The kiss?” Adam asked derisively.

  Not the kiss. She’d never regretted the kiss.

  He came to stand beside her at the porch railing, but still she didn’t look at him. She kept on staring out at the countryside.

  “I know—I knew even then—that I shouldn’t have let my father think what he thought. That I should have told him the truth. I’ve always been ashamed of myself for not doing it.”

  “And now you think by telling me that that I’ll let you off the hook? Please, spare me your apologies. Do you have any idea what you did to my family by keeping your mouth shut? It was more than getting my father fired as a ranch hand or my mother fired as your mother’s maid.”

  “’More’?” she parroted.

  “My father was a drinker. He’d dried out to get on at your place and was so happy to have a good job for a change that he was staying completely away from the booze. But after that night he went on a bender that never ended. He couldn’t hold another job. Then he couldn’t even get a job to lose. My mother and I had to support us. He ended up drinking himself into the grave. And all because of you. Because you thought you were too good to let your father know you were kissing me.”

  “I didn’t know…” Victoria said with a catch in her voice. “I never imagined… I knew your family left Whitehorn right after that—”

  “Or face your father spreading it around town that I’d attacked his daughter. He even threatened to press charges against me if we didn’t. He said the only way he wouldn’t ruin me for life was if we got the hell out of town.”

  Every bit of Adam’s fury over being misjudged rang in his voice.

  No matter how lame it was, all Victoria could think to say was, “I’m so sorry.”

  “You missed the best part that night,” he went on, anyway. “After your old man sent you to the house you missed getting to see my dad grovel. Beg for another chance for us both. That wasn’t pretty, let me tell you. Especially standing there knowing the whole damn time that I wasn’t guilty of anything. That my family was getting raked over the coals for nothing. For something you had as much a part in as I did.”

  “I know,” she whispered miserably.

  “I swore then that I’d make you pay. Someday. Somehow.”

  “And now is that someday.” She knew, in her heart, that she deserved his retribution. Deserved it even more than she’d realized before because she hadn’t had any idea just how far-reaching were the consequences of that one act of cowardice on her part.

  “And the somehow is that I’m going to work you
like one of those lower-class people you thought you were better than. You’re going to do every lousy chore I can come up with, every lousy chore you thought was beneath you—just the way you thought I was beneath you and not good enough to admit you’d been kissing willingly.”

  Chores. At the moment it didn’t seem like much punishment for all she’d wreaked on him and his family.

  “I’ll do whatever work you want me to do,” she told him, knowing another man might have exacted worse. Much worse than ranch-and housework. In fact, there was a part of her that welcomed whatever tasks he set so she could prove to him that she really did have more character than she’d exhibited so many years ago. So she could make amends. So she could show him—and maybe herself, too—that she was made of stronger stuff.

  “I know you won’t believe this, but I’m not the same person I was twenty years ago,” she said then, quietly. “I hated myself for being too weak to stand up to my father.”

  “Sure you did,” Adam said facetiously.

  Victoria finally got up the nerve to look at him, directly at eyes that were shadowed and yet still seemed able to bore right through her.

  “I really am sorry. Truly, truly sorry.”

  They stood there, staring at each other in the autumn moonlight, and Victoria could see a muscle in Adam’s jaw clenching and unclenching in long-held anger.

  But even so, somewhere along the line, the air around them seemed to change. Seemed to charge with the same kind of electrical energy that had been between them so many years ago. On a night like this one. When he’d kissed her.

  And Victoria suddenly remembered that kiss much, much too vividly.

  She remembered big, strong arms coming around her. Powerful hands gently pressing against her back to bring her nearer. That handsome face slowly easing downward. Warm lips meeting hers in a split second that ended almost before she knew it had begun. Testing the waters to see if he was welcome.

  And he had been welcome. So welcome she’d raised her chin to let him know it, allowing easier access to a mouth that was eager for the real thing. For a real kiss. From him.