Married by Accident Read online

  But accusations would get her nowhere. She knew the fault belonged as much to her as to him. And he really was being so helpful and, well, just plain nice about this.

  No, let the insurance companies deal with placing blame. Right now, she needed to call a cab and pray that it showed up in time to get her to Evelyn Erikson’s Bel Air mansion within—she glanced at her Rolex—fifteen minutes?

  She’d never make it. And Evelyn Erikson was as famed for her temper as for her beauty and her talent. The legendary star would not appreciate being kept waiting by a salesperson.

  My big opportunity, Melinda thought with equal parts irony and despair.

  She really did need this sale. And she’d only gotten a chance at it because she was the one who took the call from Evelyn Erikson’s personal assistant. Melinda had turned on the charm during that call. And she’d managed to convince the star’s assistant that she should be the one to bring the merchandise to the mansion.

  The cowboy was still waiting there. She needed to deal with him and send him and his girlfriend on their way. “I suppose we’d better exchange insurance information.” The cowboy was staring at her again, those wonderful eyes soft as velvet with concern—and something was sliding down the side of her face. A tear. God. How pitiful. She dashed the thing away. “You do have insurance?”

  “I sure do.”

  She swiped at another idiotic tear, silently praying that her mascara wouldn’t run. Just what she needed, to show up at Evelyn Erikson’s mansion with red eyes and smeared makeup. “I’ll get my purse.”

  The cowboy shook his head. “Hey. Maybe you oughtta take it a little easy here. Sit yourself down, take a few deep—”

  “I said, I’ll get my purse.” She bit off each word crisply and firmly.

  The cowboy shook his head again, but he gave her no more arguments. She hustled over to her still-open driver’s door, ordering her mind to focus on what to do next.

  The cab. Yes. She’d call for it first. Then, while she waited for her ride, she and the cowboy could exchange insurance numbers.

  With an impatient shove at the bulky, interfering mass of the collapsed air bag, Melinda leaned across the driver’s seat looking for her shoulder bag. Terrific. It had been thrown off the seat during the accident. The contents were strewn all over the passenger side floor.

  She let out a tiny groan and leaned farther into the car, stretching across the seat and the console, grabbing the bottom of the purse and giving it a good, strong shake. Everything left inside went tumbling out: her compact and her wallet, her checkbook and her order-form tablet, a little packet of travel tissues, her magnifying mirror, three Bic pens. Everything but the cell phone she needed.

  With a grunt, she tossed the purse into the back seat and began fumbling through the mess on the floor.

  The phone wasn’t there. Muttering under her breath in frustration, she wiggled farther into the car and put her head down, so that she could peer under the passenger seat.

  “Ma’am. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  The cowboy. Wonderful. She cast a grim glance back over her shoulder. He stood right outside the door, making a clear effort not to stare at the mortifying amount of thigh her hitched-up skirt revealed.

  “I told you. I’m fine. I just—I’m looking for my phone.” Melinda lowered her head again and shot one more angry glance under the seat. Then she stuck her hand in there, groping. She came up with a lipstick and a container of Tic-Tacs, but no phone.

  And the cowboy still stood a foot or two from her backside, no doubt enjoying the view.

  More frazzled by the second, Melinda slithered out of the car and pushed herself up straight. Then she yanked her skirt back down over her thighs, straightened her trim little jacket and smoothed the sides of her neatly pulled-back hair.

  The cowboy just stood there, waiting politely for her to pull herself together.

  Then she remembered that she was supposed to have been getting the number of her insurance company—which was still on the floor in the car somewhere, along with everything else. She closed her eyes, mentally counted to five, then opened them again. “I’m sorry. I’m just...I really need to call a cab. And my phone...it seems to have disappeared.”

  “You need a ride,” he said. The smile came back, lighting up that open, handsome face. “That’s no problem. Annie and I can take you.”

  She shot a glance at the pickup again, saw the form of the young woman whose name was apparently Annie, the young woman who still sat there so patiently, waiting for the cowboy to drive her wherever they were going before they—literally—ran into Melinda. “You’re not serious.”

  “I sure am.”

  “No. Really, I couldn’t—”

  “Wait right here. Let me check with Annie. See how she’s holdin’ up.”

  “Holding up?” Melinda parroted foolishly. But the cowboy was already striding toward the truck.

  He spoke briefly to the person named Annie then strode right back. “Come on. We’ll take you wherever you have to go.”

  “But that isn’t right. Surely you can’t—”

  “Why not? Just climb on in my truck and let’s get a move on.”

  She shouldn’t, she knew it. She’d be taking total advantage of the poor man. And really, what did she know about him? He could be some highway kidnapper for all she could tell.

  But no. Not with those eyes. And she couldn’t help thinking that if they left right away, they just might make it on time. “I’ve...got a lot of boxes. They have to go with me.”

  He gestured at the pickup. “See that camper shell? It’s nice and clean under there. Your boxes’ll be fine in the back. And your car’s out of traffic. It should be safe enough right here for a while.”

  “I...I don’t even know your name.”

  “Cole Yuma.” He stuck out his big rough hand.

  Melinda took that hand for the second time. It was just as warm as before. Warm and comforting and strong.

  Warning buzzers sounded in her head. Get real, Melinda, she said to herself. Don’t go letting some cowboy lure you into false feelings of security. No man is going to solve your problems for you. And you certainly ought to know that by now.

  She gave that strong hand a firm shake. “I’m Melinda. Melinda Bravo.” Quickly she let go.

  “Let’s get those boxes,” he said.

  “Good idea.”

  Together, they gathered them all up and stowed them safely under the camper shell of the pickup truck. Then Melinda raced back to her own car, hauled her purse from the back seat and shoved as much as she could find of its scattered contents back inside. She yanked the keys from the ignition, shut the door and locked it—an action that struck her as vaguely absurd. It would take a tow truck to steal the poor thing. But it was a valuable car, after all. And you never could tell.

  She hustled over to the pickup, where Cole was already inside, with the engine running. The girl, Annie, had pushed open the door for her and scooted across the bench seat toward him, to make room.

  Melinda put her hand on the door, to boost herself up—and met Annie’s wide, sweet hazel eyes. The girl was heartbreakingly young, eighteen or nineteen at the most. And very, very pregnant. Her left hand, on which she wore a thin wedding band, rested on the huge proud mound of her stomach.

  Melinda let go of the door.

  Down inside, where the emptiness was, she felt a hurtful tug.

  And she remembered what she’d been trying all day to forget. Today, July 8, was her due date. Or it would have been her due date, if her baby hadn’t—

  “Well, come on, girl,” Annie said, cutting into a train of thought best not pursued anyway. “Didn’t you say you had to get somewhere in a hurry?”

  A rather scary possibility occurred to Melinda. “Dear God. Please don’t tell me you were on your way to the hospital.”

  From behind the wheel, Cole Yuma laughed. It was a warm, deep sound. “All right, Ms. Melinda Bravo. We won’t tell you that.”


  “Cole, don’t tease.” Annie poked the cowboy in the ribs and smiled wider at Melinda. “I’m not due for three weeks yet. Cole and me, we were just goin’ shopping, to pick up a few things—for the baby, you know?”

  Melinda cast a doubtful glance at the big Spanish-style houses and sloping lawns that surrounded them. And Annie laughed. “Well, all right, we were checkin’ out the sites, too. Seein’ how the movie stars live.”

  “—And you better come on,” Cole said. “We can’t get you where you need to go if you’re standin’ there on the sidewalk.”

  Melinda hesitated a moment longer, feeling dazed. None of this seemed real. None of it. Not the stunningly mild and gorgeous July day. Not her ruined Beamer, huddled against the curb a few yards away. Not this nice cowboy and the sweet, hugely pregnant child-woman at his side. And certainly not the idea of her jumping in beside them so that they could drive her in their pickup to sell expensive lingerie to a famous movie star.

  “Melinda, get in,” Cole said, authority edging his voice for the first time, making her think that there was more than Mr. Nice Guy under that Stetson he wore. He added one word, “Now.” Those kind eyes brooked no arguments.

  Melinda hoisted herself up onto the seat next to Annie and pulled the door shut.

  “Left or right?” Cole asked.

  “Right.”

  The cowboy eased the pickup out onto the street and turned in the direction she’d given him. They rolled past her wrecked Bearner.

  They were on their way. With a minimum of luck, they might even make it on time.

  Chapter Two

  A few minutes later, they turned off the wide residential street and onto a long private driveway lined with palm trees. Soon enough, a high stucco wall loomed before them. There was a black iron gate across the road, with E and E, twin letters in gold, woven into the black.

  “Lordy,” breathed Annie. “Who lives in there?”

  “Evelyn Erikson.”

  “No. You’re kiddin’ me. Not the movie star?”

  “Yes.” Melinda suppressed a smile at the awestruck look in those wide, innocent eyes. “The one and only. I’m here to sell her some beautiful lingerie.”

  “I can hardly believe it. Evelyn Erikson, the Evelyn Erikson.” Annie caressed her hard belly and whispered in amazement. “Wonders never do cease.” Watching her, Melinda felt again that sad, quick flash of emptiness inside.

  Just outside the gate stood a pillared structure that looked a little like a Greek Revival-style gazebo.

  “That’s the gatehouse,” Melinda said. “Just pull up beside the window there.”

  Cole followed her instructions. When he saw the uniformed guard inside, he rolled down his window so Melinda could speak to him. She stated her name and her business and the guard scribbled something on the printed sheet in front of him. “All right, Ms. Bravo. Once you get inside the gates, just follow the road until you can turn right. Go past the tennis courts and the garages, around to the service entrance in back.”

  The iron gates swung open. Cole drove through them. They sped up the winding driveway, past emerald expanses of lawn dotted here and there with stone statuary and spurting fountains, with palms and waxy-leaved magnolias and pretty lemon trees. Cole turned right when the road branched, and they rolled by the tennis courts and a long stucco building with twenty-two garage doors ranged down the front of it. Melinda knew there were twenty-two because Annie counted them aloud.

  Then Cole swung the wheel to the left as the road turned again. They saw the main house then. It was huge, of white stone that blindingly cast back the early afternoon sun. Tall columns held up the massive gallery that ran across the façade.

  “My, oh my,” whispered Annie reverently.

  Cole drove on, until he could pull to a stop by a door at the back. Even this, the service entrance, seemed to insist on being grand, with its own miniature pillared portico. Nearby, another fountain bubbled and splashed. Statues of a fig-leafed David and an armless Venus flanked the short walk.

  Personally Melinda found it all a bit much. She could almost hear her mother’s voice now. “Melinda. One never flaunts mere things,” Elaine Houseman Bravo would say.

  Apparently Cole’s thoughts echoed her own. “You know,” he drawled, “I’m gettin’ the feeling that we’re supposed to be impressed.”

  “Welcome to L.A.,” Melinda drawled right back, meeting his eyes over Annie’s head.

  Annie puffed out a small, impatient breath. “Well, you two can make fun. But I am impressed.”

  “We noticed.” Cole grinned at the young woman beside him. She poked him in the ribs, the way she had back on the street where they’d left Melinda’s car.

  “Hey,” he grumbled playfully. “Watch it with that elbow.”

  “Then don’t be such an old snob.”

  Melinda watched the teasing, intimate exchange and felt a little like an intruder—and maybe just a tiny bit jealous, as well. But jealous of what exactly, she refused to consider.

  She had a big sale to make. The dashboard clock said she was only two minutes late. The situation really might be salvageable, after all. But she had to gather up her boxes and hurry inside.

  Right then, a stocky, aggressively plain older woman emerged from the door beneath the miniature portico. She wore a gray maid’s dress complete with white apron, duty shoes and frilled cap. Briskly she strode down the walk past the statues and the fountain. She spoke through Cole’s window, which was already down. “Ms. Erikson is expecting you. I understand you’ll have boxes. Where are they? I’m to help you carry them in.”

  Cole spoke before Melinda had a chance to reply “They’re in the back. Just give us a second.” He took off his hat and dropped it on the dashboard, then turned to Annie. “You’ll be all right here?”

  Melinda realized that he intended to go in with her. She couldn’t let him do that. She opened her mouth to protest, but Annie spoke first.

  “I’ll be just fine.” The young woman smiled her charming, guileless smile.

  Melinda fumbled in her purse for her business card case and a pen. “Oh, no. You two have been wonderful, but I can handle things from here.” She found the case and the pen. She pulled a card free. “You are going to go ahead and do that shopping you were planning.” Quickly she scribbled on the back of the card, writing down her home phone number and her address. “I’ll get a cab when I’m finished.” She dropped the card case and the pen back into her purse, reached around the barrier of Annie’s big stomach and handed Cole the card she’d just written on. “Here. Call me. About the accident. We can handle everything then. And thank you so much for the ride. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”

  Cole took the card and tossed it on the dashboard next to his hat. Then he leaned on his door. “Let’s get the boxes.” He jumped down and headed for the back of the pickup as Melinda tried to protest.

  “But I—”

  Annie shook her head. “He won’t leave you here alone with that mean-looking maid and all those boxes you got. Better just give in and let him help you carry them.”

  “It truly is not necessary.”

  “Well, it’s the right thing to do and Cole is going to do it. So you just go on now. Evelyn Erikson, the movie star, is waitin’ for you.”

  When Melinda reached the rear of the pickup, the stony-faced maid was already there, her lips thinner than ever and her back ramrod-straight. Cole was stacking boxes onto her outstretched arms, his expression almost as grim as the maid’s.

  At the sight of his clenched jaw, Melinda heaved a weary sigh. She could see that Annie had been right. He would help her with this, no matter what she said.

  Heeding Annie’s suggestion, she gave in gracefully and put on a smile. “Here. I’ll take some of those.”

  His clenched jaw relaxed and he smiled in return. He gestured at her shoulder bag. “Better put that thing back here. It’ll just be in the way.” That made sense. After taking out a pen and the orde
r-form tablet Rudy had provided, she set her purse inside the camper. Cole said, “Here you go.” He handed over four boxes and took the rest himself.

  They made a little caravan, each laden with a stack of pink and gold offerings. The maid took the lead and Cole brought up the rear as they marched along the walk and beneath the portico. The maid had left the door unlatched. She gave it a push with her toe. It swung open.

  They entered some sort of servants’ foyer. “Essie!” the maid called. Another, younger maid appeared. If possible, she was even less attractive than the older one, with a long, sad-looking face and no chin at all. She shut the door and took the stack of boxes from the older maid.

  Melinda thought to ask for Evelyn Erikson’s personal secretary, the one who had called to request this private showing of the newest Forever Eve designs. “I wonder, is David Devereaux here?”

  “David will be along,” the older maid replied disdainfully. “Come this way.” She started walking again.

  Now they were a caravan of four. The older maid led them through a restaurant-size kitchen, down two hallways, and up a set of wide back stairs. On the second floor, they walked down three more hallways, which became wider and more opulent as they progressed. Tapestries of gamboling nymphs and leering fauns covered the walls. More statuary watched them through blind stone eyes from niches carved at intervals along their way. The floors were of marble, a never-ending checkerboard of white and black. All the furniture was on a grand scale, intricately carved, much of it ebony veined with gold.

  At last they reached their destination: a huge pair of carved black doors. The older maid knocked discreetly. After a moment, the doors swung open.

  A third maid confronted them, this one older than the first, and harder on the eyes than either of the other two. Beyond that maid’s starched shoulder, Melinda could see a marble foyer. And farther in, some sort of huge sitting room, every wall draped in gold silk, with plush gold carpet covering the floor. It looked like some desert sheikh’s tent in there. All the furniture was as soft and sumptuous as the walls, and upholstered in similar gold fabric, but embroidered with glimmering threads of eggshell-blue.