The Lawman's Convenient Bride Read online

  Mirabelle’s, on Grandview Drive, was exactly as advertised, intimate and so pretty, each table a little oasis of candlelight. The glassware sparkled, the silver gleamed, and a single, perfect orchid on a delicate stem grew from a tiny green ceramic pot. It was still daylight when they got there. Their table had a view of the pale moon suspended above the mountains. The moon glowed brighter as the sky darkened.

  Jody had a glass of white wine in honor of the occasion, and they shared an appetizer of poached shrimp with avocado, cilantro and lime. Seth looked way too handsome in his crisp white shirt and gray jacket.

  He said, “I like that red dress.”

  It was simply cut, sleeveless and formfitting. “I was lucky I managed to get it zipped up.”

  The gold streaks in his eye glowed warmer than ever. “You only had to ask. I would’ve helped.”

  Her breath got all tangled up in her throat, and she felt the blush as it colored her cheeks. “You really are flirting with me, aren’t you?”

  He leaned closer. The light from the antique chandelier overhead cast his eyes into shadow. “You want me to stop?”

  It seemed a bad idea to be too truthful. But she did it anyway. “No. No, I don’t want you to stop.”

  He raised his glass of very old whiskey. She tapped it with her wineglass.

  The waiter came back a little while later. They ordered salads and entrées. It was all delicious. He wanted to know about her spa day. She said she’d had everything—hair, nails, hot rock massage. She didn’t mention the full-out Brazilian. They were only at the flirting stage, after all, and she hadn’t been freed up for sex from her doctor yet, anyway. At this point, her going Hollywood was definitely TMI.

  However, that she even teased herself with the thought of mentioning it over dinner said a lot more about where this thing with him was going than she was strictly comfortable admitting to herself.

  In so many ways he was so rigid, so...traditional. Would he be that way in bed, too? Stiff in a bad way.

  She grinned to herself at her little private joke.

  And he was watching. “Tell me?”

  She shook her head slowly. He had the grace not to push.

  When the waiter offered dessert, Jody shook her head. “This dress is tight enough as it is, thank you.”

  But Seth ordered the chocolate mousse cake anyway and then insisted she have a bite. Or three.

  “Will you ride out to the ranch with me?” he asked as they crossed the dark parking lot toward the waiting limousine.

  She realized that she wanted to go with him out to the Bar-Y. She wanted it a lot, which kind of surprised her. It wasn’t as if she’d never been there before.

  Mentally, she calculated how much time she had. They’d spent an hour and a half over dinner, so she had three and a half hours left, max, before she would have to nurse or pump again. So there was time. And Clara should be okay with it. Her sister had urged her to stay out for as long as she wanted; Dalton was looking after their little girl, Kiera, and expected Clara to be gone late.

  “I’ll have you back with Marybeth by eleven,” he promised.

  She had her arm in his, and she leaned a little closer to him, into all that heat and strength. “Sure. I’d like to go out to the ranch.”

  * * *

  The ride to the Bar-Y took under twenty minutes. It was almost full dark by the time they arrived.

  Someone had turned on the porch light of the main house. As the limo rolled to a stop in the light’s golden glow, a black Lab ran across the yard from the foreman’s cottage. The dog sat obediently by the rear door until the driver pulled it open and Jody got out.

  “His name’s Toby,” said Seth, coming around from the other side of the limo as she bent to pet the dog. “But it looks like you and Toby have already met.”

  “Once or twice.” She let Toby swipe a few kisses on her chin as Seth told the driver what time to come back for them.

  The limo sailed off back down the driveway, and Roman Califano, tall, white-haired and whipcord lean, in faded Wranglers and a worn chambray shirt, came out the front door of the cottage. “Seth!” He waved.

  Seth waved back and Roman started for them, so Jody and Seth met him in the middle of the yard. She greeted Roman.

  He gave her his shy smile. “Good to see you, Jody.”

  Seth said, “Dad’ll be here Monday.”

  “We’re looking forward to it. Mae’ll fix his room up nice and make sure the fridge is full.” Roman congratulated Jody on her baby and added, “Don’t be a stranger. You bring that little one out to meet Mae soon, you hear me?”

  “I promise,” she said.

  With Toby at his heels, Roman headed back to his place. Seth led Jody up the steps of the two-story ranch house.

  Inside, it was as she remembered, the rooms large, the furniture of good quality, but worn. The formal dining room and living room flanked the entry from which stairs led up to the bedrooms on the second floor.

  “Nicky ever show you around the upstairs?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “We always hung out down here.”

  “Come on. I’ll give you the tour. All this will be Marybeth’s someday. You might as well have a look at what belongs to your little girl.” He started up the stairs.

  Jody was too stunned to move. “You’re not serious.”

  He stopped three steps up and faced her again. “What? You don’t want to see the second floor?”

  “No—I mean, yes, I do want to see the upstairs. But...you’re leaving the ranch to Marybeth? Seriously?”

  “Who else would we leave it to?”

  “I, well, I just had no idea, that’s all.”

  Looking down from the third step, his hand on the polished wood banister, he studied her face. “Sorry. I guess I just assumed you knew.”

  “Um, no. I had no clue. I, well... It’s wonderful. Thank you—I mean, on behalf of Marybeth.”

  “Nothing to thank me for.” He ran his palm downward along the banister and then back up, as though enjoying the smooth surface of the polished wood. “My father already turned the place over to Nick and me equally back when he moved to Florida, so as of now, with Nick gone, half of the Bar-Y is already Marybeth’s. When I go, Marybeth will be the sole Yancy heir. My father’s completely on board with that. It’s what Nick would have wanted, and it’s what I want, too—and you’re looking at me like I just sprouted horns and possibly a forked tail.”

  She laughed at that, the sound a little tight, uncomfortable to her own ears. “It’s a surprise, that’s all.”

  He came back down to stand with her at the foot of the stairs. “I suppose you want to know what, exactly, your daughter will be inheriting.”

  She stared up at him and realized she was happy in that moment, glad that he’d insisted they should have their night out. “Yes. I would love to hear all about the Bar-Y.”

  He launched into the particulars, his voice rich with pride. “The Bar-Y is 3,500 acres. We’ve got 1,530 cow-calf pairs, fifty other cows and eleven bulls. We have six horses right now, quarter horses, mostly. There’s the ranch house, the bunkhouse, the foreman’s cottage, plus a number of outbuildings in good repair and several corrals. We maintain our equipment and our roads. We also own water rights, irrigation systems and 112 miles of fence.”

  “Well,” she said, for lack of anything better. “Marybeth will be so pleased.”

  He gazed at her steadily, his expression thoughtful now. “Kind of sprung it on you, huh?”

  “Yeah. But I’ll manage to get over the shock somehow.”

  “You’re not upset with me?”

  “For what? My daughter’s the heir to a working ranch. It’s a lot to take in, but in a very good way.”

  There was a moment. They gazed at each other.
She had the strangest sense that she belonged right here. In this house. With this man.

  “The upstairs?” he asked.

  She put away her crazy fantasy and replied, “Absolutely. Can’t wait to see it.”

  Up the stairs they went. He showed her the rooms. The master had a walk-in closet, a good-size bathroom and big windows looking out over the backyard. The three other bedrooms shared the hall bath, which was bigger than the master bath, with subway tiles running halfway up the walls and a gorgeous old claw-foot tub.

  Downstairs, he took her back through the family room and into the kitchen, where he pulled open the door of the old white fridge. “I have apple juice, Dr Pepper and beer.”

  “Water?” she asked, her throat gone suddenly scratchy, her eyes burning a little as she thought of Nick, of the first time she’d stopped by to visit him here. He’d offered her the same choices: juice, pop or beer.

  Seth shut the refrigerator door and turned to her. He saw her face, and his mouth tipped down in concern. “What is it? What’d I do now?”

  “Nothing. You’ve been wonderful.” She bit her trembling lip. “It’s just... I haven’t been here since a couple of days before Nick died.”

  His craggy face softened. “It’s hard sometimes, huh?”

  “Mmm-hmm. And a lot harder for you than for me, I’m guessing.”

  A floor plank creaked once, a strangely lonely sound, as he closed the distance between them. He put his hands on her shoulders. Her breath caught at the contact. “I’m glad you were with him, that you were his friend. It used to make me mad, that he was so crazy about you and you didn’t feel the same.”

  “I noticed that—and used to, meaning you don’t feel that way anymore?”

  His gaze held hers, steady. Sure. “Now I want you. And I’m a guy. A possessive guy. I like it better if I don’t have to deal with the possibility that you’re still carrying a torch for my brother.”

  Now I want you...

  She stared up at him, not sure how she felt. Was this thing with him moving too fast? Probably. Confusion tangled her thoughts. She should tell him to back off. But what she should do and what her heart and body yearned for were two completely different things. “I’m not in love with Nick.” It came out slightly breathless. “I never was.”

  “I know. You made that painfully clear that first day I cornered you at your flower shop. And as of now, well, even if you were in love with Nicky, I would get past it.”

  She wasn’t following, exactly. “Past it?”

  “I would learn to deal with it if I had to, if you had loved Nicky that way—even if you still loved him, I would accept that. I would get over it and move on.” His hands glided inward, until his rough palms rested in the twin curves where her neck met her shoulders. A rush of heat blew through her, settling low. “Because I think we could be good together, you and me.” His thumbs caressed her, burning twin paths of sensation on either side of her throat.

  His brushing touch felt so good. She had to swallow a moan—and then he swooped close and kissed her, a long kiss, slow and deep. Her knees went to jelly. She was lucky she didn’t melt to the floor.

  By the time he came up for air, all she could do was gape at him, stunned. And then she made herself ask, “What about Irene?”

  He answered without pause, his voice rough as a stretch of bad road. “Irene is gone. Same as Nicky’s gone. Deal with it.”

  “It’s not the same. You just said it yourself. I was never in love with Nick. I haven’t spent seven years not even letting myself look at another man.”

  His hand moved down her arm in a slow caress. He caught her fingers. “Let’s go outside.”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

  Was he right? Was she making a big deal out of nothing? She didn’t think so. But...

  She pulled her hand from his.

  His amber gaze turned pleading. “Jody. Don’t say no without hearing me out.”

  “I don’t remember there being a question.”

  “I’m getting there.”

  She closed her eyes, swallowed. Her mouth and throat were dry as dust. “Water. Please.”

  He seemed to shake himself. “Yeah. All right.” He took a glass from a cupboard and filled it from a pitcher of ice water in the fridge. She drank it down. “More?”

  “No, thanks. That’ll do it.”

  He took the glass and put it on the counter by the sink. She watched him move around the empty kitchen, and a strange calm settled over her.

  She wanted him, too. She wanted him with her, wanted him at her side, helping her raise her daughter, his niece—and his heir, of all impossible things. She wanted him in the living room at night, waiting for her on the couch while she put Marybeth down to sleep. She wanted him across the table from her in the morning. And at night for dinner, the two of them sharing the events of their separate days.

  And while she was adding up all she wanted from him, she might as well be honest with herself. She wanted him in her bed, too. She wanted him in all the ways a woman can want a man.

  And she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted any man before.

  Was this love, then? Had love found her for real at last?

  Of course not. Talk about getting ahead of herself. And what did she know about real love, anyway?

  She’d thought she’d loved Dean, the high school sweetheart who walked out on her. And Brent, who married someone else as soon as they broke up. She’d been so wrong. On both counts.

  “Outside?” Seth’s hand brushed hers again.

  She realized she wanted that, the feel of his hand around hers, encompassing. Undeniable. She accepted his touch, weaving their fingers together that time.

  “This way.” He took her out the glass doors in the family room, down the back steps to the unfenced backyard, pulling her onward beneath the brightening stars, across the open space, into the trees. It wasn’t long before the trees gave way to a clearing, where the crescent of moon shone down and the stars were a million pinpricks in the dark fabric of the night.

  A large, flat-topped boulder poked up from the tall, silvery grass in the center of the treeless space. Seth led her to it and pulled her down beside him.

  “It’s a pretty spot,” she said. Beyond the tops of the surrounding trees, in the far distance, the mountains reached for the moon. Everything was silvered in starlight.

  “It’s my spot, my secret place, the place I used to come to be alone. To think. To plan my life. To get over the hard things.”

  “Hard things like...?”

  He turned her hand over and idly traced the lines of her palm with his index finger, his touch warm, gentle. Right. “My mom left when I was still in diapers, ran off with some drifter who came through looking for work. My dad used to tell me that she would come back. She never did. For years after that, until my dad met Darlene, he was a distant man. He took care of business, went through the motions of living, but something was missing. The sadness in him went clear to the bone.”

  “You were lonely as a boy,” she whispered.

  “Yeah.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “I was five or six when I wandered out here for the first time. From then on, I spent a lot of time here, sitting on this rock.” He tipped his head back and stared up at the stars. “Until I was ten or so, when I came here I would wish for my mom to come home like my dad kept promising she would. And then I heard the hands talking one day, about how my dad wouldn’t give up waiting for a woman who was never coming back. I finally accepted that the hands had it right. By then, I just wanted to get away, be a lawman, fight for right and justice.” He chuckled, a sound without much humor in it. “I didn’t know how I would do that, exactly. My dad expected me to follow in his footsteps. Being the only Yancy
after him, it was my duty eventually to run the Bar-Y. But then along came my stepmom, and my dad was happy again. Plus, there was Nicky, a Yancy to run the ranch...”

  “So you got to go live your dream, after all.”

  He raised his hand, palm out. She pressed hers against it, palm to palm. A delicious shiver traveled up the inside of her arm, into her chest and straight to her heart.

  “I’m talking too much,” he said.

  She slipped her fingers between his and held on. “No, you’re not. I like it, sitting here on your special rock in your secret place, learning more about you.”

  He shifted then. Moving with surprising grace for such a big man and still holding her hand, he slid off the rock and sank to his knees in front of her.

  Jody blinked down at him. There was only one reason she could think of for him to take a knee. “What’s going on, Seth?”

  “I want you, Jody.”

  Omigod. Had she had any idea he would do this? No. Not a clue. She needed to slow him down. “Seth, I don’t think—”

  “Wait. Let me finish.”

  She almost objected again. But then she didn’t.

  Because deep in her wild and still-hopeful heart, she wanted him to finish.

  “I want everything with you,” he said. Her heart pounded so hard, and her blood raced through her veins. She thought she would faint.

  But she didn’t faint.

  And he had more to say. “I want to take care of you, make things good for you, help you raise Marybeth.”

  A sound escaped her, not a word, more of an audible sigh.

  And he kept on. “I’ve been so sure for so long that I would never have a family of my own. But I was wrong. You did that, Jody. You and Marybeth. You gave me hope again. You gave me something so good to come home to at night. I’m like my dad—I get that. I need family or I’m dead inside. And you, Jody, you and Marybeth, you are my family. I want to marry you, Jody. I want the world to know that you’re mine and I’m yours.”