Marriage By Necessity Read online

  The doctor coughed into his hand. “Miss Kane. Most couples don’t even contact a fertility specialist until they’ve been trying to conceive a child for at least a year.”

  “I understand that,” Meggie replied carefully. “And I...respect that. I do. But Nate and I really want to know ahead of time if anything is going to keep us from being parents. It’s just...terribly important to us.”

  The doctor frowned. “My dear young woman, even if I found no contraindications of fertility in either of you, there could still be a-number of reasons conception might not occur. I am simply not in the business of providing guarantees.”

  Meggie rushed to reassure him. “Doctor, really. We aren’t asking for a guarantee. Not at all. We just want help in ruling out the obvious.”

  “The obvious?”

  “I mean, if either of us can absolutely never have children, we want to know.”

  The doctor looked at Nate. “And just where do you stand in this, Mr. Bravo?”

  Nate slid a glance at Meggie and saw her smile grow tight. He knew she didn’t feel she could count on him to back her up. And that inspired a perverse desire to prove her wrong.

  He reached out and took her hand. She stiffened at the contact, but only a little—not enough that the doctor would notice. Nate brought her fingers to his lips and looked over her knuckles into her slightly panicked eyes. “Meggie wants me to give her a baby,” he said to the doctor, though he didn’t break contact with those wide brown eyes. “And I want Meggie to have what she wants.”

  “Do you want children yourself, Mr. Bravo?” the doctor inquired.

  He lowered Meggie’s hand, but he didn’t let go of it. Instead, he twined his fingers with hers. “Absolutely.” He rested their clasped hands in his lap and gave the doctor a big smile. “I want a whole houseful of kids. It’s my major dream in life, to tell you the truth.”

  The doctor beamed back at him. “A real family man.”

  “I’m afraid you’ve found me out.”

  The doctor beamed some more. And then he coughed again. “Well then. All right. I think we can perform a few basic tests, though of course you’ll each have to sign a release stating your understanding of the issues we’ve just discussed.”

  “Thank you,” Nate said. He squeezed Meggie’s hand, and she immediately tried to tug free. He didn’t let her go. Instead, he smiled at her adoringly. “Say thank-you to the doctor, darling.”

  He saw the confusion in her eyes. He had surprised her, by playing along so well. And she wasn’t sure if she liked it. But she didn’t let him throw her. “Yes, Doctor. Thank you,” she said with great sincerity. “Really. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

  They went to separate rooms for their physicals. Nate’s was strictly routine. The doctor measured his blood pressure and heart rate. He thumped Nate’s chest and back, checked his reflexes with a little steel hammer, poked at his stomach and prodded his privates. As soon as the doctor left the examining room, a nurse came in and drew blood.

  And then the nurse led Nate to the rest room at the end of the hall. She handed him a plastic cup. “We’ll need a semen sample.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “We have a selection of men’s magazines, if you think they might help.”

  “No, thanks. I’ll manage.”

  Nate took his cup and entered the rest room, where he conjured up a nice little fantasy—centering around Meggie, as a matter of fact. It worked out fine.

  The doctor spoke to them once more before they left, informing them that the lab results should be back within forty-eight hours. They should make an appointment for another consultation.

  The one hundred fifty—mile drive home didn’t take that long, since Nate had the wheel and Montana had no speed limits. Meggie was silent for half of the ride. She stared out the window at the rolling land and the rows of drift fences positioned at a slant on the rises near the road, to catch the snow and control where it piled up.

  Finally, she turned to him. “You were very convincing, with the doctor.”

  He shot her a single glance. “You’re mad at me.”

  He saw her shrug in his side vision. “No,” she said. “I admit you confused me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so enthusiastic about anything, in all the years I’ve known you.” She smiled out the windshield. “Actually, I kind of liked it.”

  Irritation rose in him. “It was only an act.”

  “I know that.” She gave a soft little sigh and said no more.

  He drove faster. They crossed into Wyoming. From the border, it didn’t take long before he was pulling into the yard in front of the Double-K ranch house.

  Meggie turned to him. “Monday, then? Early?”

  “I’ll be here to get you at eight. Is that early enough?”

  “That’s fine.” She leaned on her door, climbed out and then paused before she shut it. “Nate?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks. You were great. You really were.”

  A ridiculous flush of pleasure washed through him. He scowled at her. “You’re welcome.”

  Still smiling that wide, gorgeous smile, she shut the door.

  The next day was Friday. Nate spent it and the weekend that followed helping Zach out around the Rising Sun and avoiding his cousin’s probing, suspicious glances. Zach knew something was up. But he’d never been a man who would pry. He’d wait for the right opening before he’d ask any questions. Nate made sure he got no openings.

  Edna, however, never required openings. She considered the private lives of the Bravo cousins her own personal territory. And as soon as she learned that Nate had appeared at the Rising Sun, she insisted he and Zach must come to her place in town for Sunday dinner. Edna’s housemate, Tess DeMarley, would cook.

  The last time Nate had come home, over Christmas, Tess had cooked all the meals out at the ranch. Each one had been excellent. Nate looked forward to sampling her cooking again.

  He did not, however, look forward to Edna’s questions, which started the minute he and Zach walked in the door.

  “Nathan.” She hugged him and kissed him. “Come in. Sit down. And tell me. What’s brought you home to us when it isn’t even a holiday?”

  “I just felt like a visit.”

  “Are you sure that’s all? You were seen driving through town this past Thursday. With Megan May Kane.”

  “He was?” Zach glowered.

  “Who saw me?” Nate demanded.

  Edna patted his arm. “I’m sorry, Nathan. But I can’t tell you that. Everyone knows about your temper. If someone was hurt because I opened my big mouth, well I simply could not live with myself.”

  “I’m not going to hurt anyone, Edna.”

  “I just don’t think it’s wise for me to say any more.”

  “Well, your source is mistaken,” Nate lied—with authority, he hoped.

  Edna smiled indulgently. “My source is not mistaken. And here’s Tess with that wonderful cheese ball of hers. You boys help yourselves, now.”

  They sat down to eat half an hour later. With Zach glaring at him and Edna watching him like a hawk, Nate found it hard to give the great food the attention it deserved. Tess’s little daughter, Jobeth, eased the situation somewhat. She’d been out to the ranch a number of times and fallen in love with the place. She had a thousand questions for Zach—everything from how all the barn cats were doing to whether he’d seen her favorite bull snake in the cake shack lately. At least Zach stopped giving Nate dirty looks long enough to answer Jobeth’s questions.

  But the ride home was grim and deathly silent.

  Once they got in the house, Zach turned to him. “You got anything you want to say to me?”

  Now, how the hell could a man answer that? Nate lifted a shoulder in a careless shrug. “Not a thing.”

  Zach looked at him, a long look full of pained disapproval. And then he turned for the stairs.

  Nate watched his cousin go, still wondering what he should have told hi
m. It would have been jumping the gun to say that he and Meggie were getting married. She wanted to know the results of those tests they’d taken before they told anyone. And besides, at its core, the marriage was hardly the kind of arrangement Zach would approve of. Nate realized that he and Meggie had to talk; they had to decide exactly how much everyone would know about this marriage of theirs.

  As agreed, they drove to Billings early the next day. There they learned that Nate was perfectly capable of fathering a child and that all of Megan’s equipment appeared to be in working order, as well.

  On the ride home, Meggie told Nate that the next step should be explaining the situation to her cousin Sonny. “He doesn’t understand why I keep taking off with you.”

  Nate grunted. “He’s heard about how bad I am, right?”

  She sighed. “Oh, Nate...”

  “Hey. It’s no big deal. I am bad. And you shouldn’t be hanging around with me.”

  “You are not bad.”

  “Am so.”

  They shared a glance, then he turned his gaze toward the road again. She said, “Seriously. Lately, it seems that every time I look at Sonny, I see worry in his eyes. And he does have a right to know what’s going on.”

  “Fine. So tell him.”

  She shifted in her seat a little, and he knew she was building up to laying something new on him.

  “Go on, spit it out,” he said.

  For a moment, she didn’t say anything. He shot her another glance and saw she was looking out the passenger window, in the direction of a flock of blackbirds perched in close-packed rows on a drift fence that ran along a rise above the highway. It was rare to see so many of them together, this time of year. Usually, they spread out in the spring and didn’t gather again until time for the fall migration. And yet, there they were, in the middle of summer, a whole flock of them. Before the car passed them, the birds took flight, like a hundred tiny ink spots scattered on the wind.

  “Meggie. Speak.”

  “I’m trying. I’ve just, well, I’ve been thinking, that’s all.”

  “Sounds dangerous.”

  “Don’t tease.”

  “Sorry. ‘You’ve been thinking...’”

  “Well, I think we should let Sonny—and everyone else, too—believe this is a real marriage, not one with a built-in divorce at the end of it. I think it’ll be easier on everyone if we just play it out as if we plan for it to last forever.”

  “And when the time comes to call it quits?”

  “We’ll just say it didn’t work out.”

  Nate thought of Edna and the disapproving stares she could lay on a man. And he thought of Zach, so moral and upright. And Cash, who until pretty recently had been a lot like Nate—determined never to let some woman get control of his heart. But now Cash and Abby were as good as joined at the hip, and Cash had suddenly developed a lot of respect for the state of matrimony.

  Nate could read the writing on the bathroom wall, all right. He would get no peace from anyone in his entire family if they knew he was playing temporary husband and sperm donor to Meggie May Kane.

  “Nate?” Meggie asked nervously. “What do you say?”

  “That I’ve been thinking along the same lines myself.”

  “Really?” She sounded genuinely relieved. “Terrif ic.” She laid her arm along the back of the seat. “What do you think about the will?”

  “What do you mean, what do I think?”

  “I mean, should I tell Sonny and Farrah about it?”

  “What for?”

  “Well, they have a right to know, don’t they, that I may lose the Double-K? It is their livelihood, too, after all.”

  “Hell. I suppose so.”

  “Good, then.” She leaned toward him a little, across the seat. He got a whiff of that scent of hers—and he knew another request was coming at him.

  “What else?” he demanded bleakly.

  “I think you should be there when I tell them. You know. As my fiancé, it’s only logical that you would be there at my side, giving me the love and support I need at a time like this.”

  “Right.”

  “I think you should come for dinner. About six tonight. Oh, and I want to give them a percentage of the Double-K, too—in the end, I mean, if everything works out. I thought I’d tell them about that tonight, along with everything else.”

  “It’s your ranch.”

  “So that means you’ll be there?”

  He glared at the road ahead.

  “Nate? Will you be there?”

  Grudgingly, he muttered, “All right.”

  That night, in the old-fashioned kitchen of the Double-K ranch house, after dinner had been served and cleared off, Lev Jarvis returned to his quarters in the homesteader’s cabin out beyond the corrals and the horse pasture. Farrah took her little son and daughter back across the yard to the old bunkhouse, which Sonny had fixed up into a home for his family.

  Twenty minutes later, Farrah returned alone. She took the chair beside her husband, across the table from Meggie and Nate.

  “Okay,” Sonny said. “Suppose you tell us what is going on around here.”

  Meggie had the will ready. She stood and laid it before her cousin and his wife. “Read that section there.”

  Sonny and Farrah bent over the page. Then, after a few minutes, Sonny looked up. “This is some kind of condition that you have to fulfill to keep the Double-K, right?”

  Meggie nodded. “I have to marry and have a baby within two years—or we lose the ranch.”

  Sonny and Farrah both frowned, then bent over the page again. At last, Sonny shoved the will away. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Why the hell would he do a thing like that?”

  Farrah put her hand over his. “Sonny...” she murmured soothingly.

  “He’s lucky he’s dead,” Sonny muttered. “If he wasn’t, I’d kill him myself.”

  “Hush, now.” Farrah squeezed his hand. “Don’t speak ill of the dead.”

  “I’m sorry, Sonny,” Meggie said. “I know I should have told you sooner. I just...I didn’t know how to break it to you.”

  Sonny met her eyes. “What could have been in his mind? You meant everything to him. How could he do this to you?”

  “He wanted me to get married. And have a family.”

  “Well, this is sure one crazy way to make that happen.”

  “I agree.”

  “We’ll have to see a lawyer. We’ll have to—”

  Meggie was shaking her head. “I’ve checked into it. There’s no breaking that will. Dad was sane. And he had a right to do whatever he wanted with what belonged to him. He had a lawyer draw that will up, and it’s properly witnessed, too.”

  “So that means...”

  “I fulfill the conditions—or we lose the ranch. Period.”

  Sonny groaned. “So what happens now?” And then his eyes shifted to Nate. The truth dawned. He looked at his cousin again. “Him?” he breathed in complete disbelief. “You’re marrying Nate Bravo?”

  Nate, who’d been pointedly ignoring the other man’s dirty looks all evening, had to remind himself to keep cool. This was Meggie’s show, after all. And he would let her run it however she saw fit. He would not lose his temper just because her uptight cousin considered him a bad marriage risk.

  Hell, he was a bad marriage risk! So what was there to get offended about?

  Meggie jumped right in to defend her choice. She reached for his hand and when she found it, she held on tight. “The truth is, I’ve always loved Nate.”

  Across the table, Sonny let out a snort of disbelief. He focused narrowed blue eyes on Nate. “You’re some kind of detective in L.A., aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So I don’t get it. You live in L.A. Meggie lives here. How are you gonna get together to...uh...” His face turned as red as his hair.

  Meggie swiftly explained that Nate would stay at the Double-K until fall. “And this winter, I’ll
have to ask you and Farrah to handle things here while I go to L.A.”

  Sonny looked totally unconvinced. “Right. And what about after that? Are you trying to tell us that every year the two of you will disappear to L.A.? You’re planning to be a part-time rancher—is that what you’re trying to say? There’s no such thing, and we all know it.”

  Meggie’s face turned red. “No. Of course I don’t mean that, Sonny.”

  “Well, then, what do you mean?”

  “I mean that... well, after this year, we’ll have a better grip on everything. And we can...decide what to do next.”

  Meggie’s half-baked, stammered explanation didn’t convince Sonny of anything—except exactly what they’d been trying to keep him from figuring out. “I get it. You’ve made some deal with him. He’ll marry you and try to give you...what you,need. And after that, it won’t matter who lives where, because you won’t be together anyway.”

  “Oh, Sonny, no. You don’t understand.” Meggie looked miserable.

  “What are you paying him?” Sonny demanded. “Your twenty thousand from Granny Kane?”

  Nate decided it was time he stepped in. He held Meggie’s hand tighter. “She’s not paying me a damn thing.”

  Sonny blinked. “I’m not talking to you.”

  “Fine. But I’m talking to you. And I’m telling you that this is a real marriage.” He spoke with outraged conviction, managing to sound as if he meant every word. “And Meggie and I plan for it to last the rest of our lives.”

  Sonny gaped, but still tried to keep up the cynicism. “Right. Sure.”

  “Bet on it. Come next spring, Meggie and I will be moving back here to stay.” Where were all these lies coming from? Nate wondered vaguely—and then lied some more. “The truth is, this winter, while Meggie and I are in L.A., I’ll be closing up my business there for good.” As if there were a damn thing to close up, besides a two-bedroom apartment and a few utility bills.

  Sonny took the bait. “You will?”