A Daring Proposal (5 page)

“Nothing in particular. I’ve been thinking about it for a while.” Your father dying helped a lot in making it a possibility he wanted to say, but kept it to himself. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that McBride kept his part in Jed’s unexpected disappearance a secret.

“The people here are good, with the exception of a few,” he added seeing Chaney look over to where Billy was already pawing another woman at the bar. “I’m thinking about opening up a shop.”

“What kind of shop?”

“Handmade furniture, woodworking, and restoration.”

“You still do that?”

Pleased that she remembered, he smiled and nodded. He wondered if she still had the cowgirl he’d carved for her. No, she probably threw it in the fire years ago.

“Yeah,” he said, stretching his legs out under the table. “I had an offer to sell the one I have back east. Coming out to the wedding gave me the idea I might just do that.”

He watched Chaney pick up the pieces of napkin she’d dropped and start shredding the shreds. He covered her hands with one of his. Hers instantly stilled. “You don’t care for the idea?”

She pulled her hands away. “Why would I care what you do?”

“You hate me, remember?”

“Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten.”

“So it wouldn’t bother you if I moved back?” As the question left his lips, Jed knew her answer mattered more to him than it should. His uncle’s words of a week ago rang in his head.
Go for it.

“Nope,” Chaney replied without looking at him.

Jed didn’t believe her. If her present behavior was any indication, his presence bothered her. It bothered her a lot.

“Well, nothing is settled yet.” He heard her release a loud breath. “But I’m pretty set on the notion.”

He almost laughed as her posture stiffened again. He had always been able to read Chaney. From the time he first came to town and she followed him and Steve around, he knew exactly how she felt about everything. Unfortunately, knowing she didn’t like the idea of him moving back didn’t make him feel better. The thought that she might not hate him as much as he believed had been short lived. Oh, she was aware of him. There could even still be chemistry between them. He knew that didn’t mean she would have anything to do with him.

“I’m sure Steve will be thrilled.”

“I hope so,” he said, wanting to drop the subject. “Now, about Billy.”

“Drop it, Jed. Billy was a bad idea. If I wasn’t so--never mind.”

“Weren’t so what, Chaney?”

She was silent a long time. So long, Jed thought she was giving him the silent treatment again. Then she turned in the seat so she was more or less facing him. He could almost see the proverbial wheels turning behind her beautiful eyes.

“Is your dare still open?”

Jed cocked his head. “Dare?”

“Yeah, the dare you gave me at the wedding.”

He had to think for a minute. She had to be kidding. It was Jed’s turn to spin some wheels. Where was she taking this? She couldn’t possibly be serious. She hated him. Unless of course it was just to see if she could still get him
riled.

“The one about getting married?”

“That’s the one.”

“You want to marry me?” Could it be this e
asy? Hope bloomed in his chest.

“Not exactly.”

And withered just as fast. “Explain.”

She turned back toward the table then glanced at the bar. “You blew my only other chance at keeping the ranch.”

Looking at Billy and his new flavor of the night, Jed tried to decipher what Chaney meant. He couldn’t.

“What could Billy, or I for that matter, possibly have to do with you keeping the ranch? I’m no rancher and he’s even less of one.”

“That’s the point. The ranch is mine. I don’t want or need a man to run it.”

“Okaaaay, if you don’t want a man to run the ranch, what do you want to get married for? Not that there aren’t other reasons,
but the scuttlebutt is you haven’t been out for a while.”

“Checking up on me, Jed?”

“I didn’t have to. Your display on the dance floor had every tongue at the bar wagging.” It had caused his blood pressure to rise into the stratosphere that was for sure.

“Sorry I embarrassed you. Though, what I do shouldn’t matter to you,” she told him.

“You didn’t embarrass me, just confused me. As to the dare, like I said there are other reasons than needing help with the ranch, but considering you’re asking me, I doubt love has much to do with it.”

She wadded the torn napkin into a ball and threw it across the table. “Never mind. Forget it. Chalk this conversation up to another one of Chaney’s stupid ideas. May I go now?”

Her jaw clenched tight with the request. When she started to rise, Jed pressed his hand to her shoulder. “I didn’t say the conversation was stupid, just perplexing. You hate me. Why would you want to marry me?”

“I’m desperate.”

Well, he had asked. Not that he believed her. “You and desperate have never occupied the same time zone. Try again.”

Her bangs puffed out with an exasperated breath. “Okay, look. I’ll explain this once then I’m gone.”

“Fair enough.”

“My thirtieth birthday is next Thursday.”

“I know.” He hadn’t forgotten a single detail about Chaney in all the year’s he’d been gone. For a moment, she paused in her explanation to look at him. Her disbelief shone clear in the way she rolled her eyes.

“Anyway,” she said, waving her hand as if to clear away a distracting thought, “I have to get married before then or I lose the ranch.”

“What?”

“I told you I was only saying it once.”

“But why?”

“Because it is too embarrassing to say twice.”

Jed took a deep breath. She was being deliberately obtuse. “I got that. I mean, why would you lose the ranch?”

“My father made marriage a condition of my inheritance.”

“You’re kidding.” He regretted the comment the moment he said it. The pain filled glare she turned on him made it clear this was no joke. “Why?”

She shrugged and looked away. “Because he didn’t think a woman could run a ranch? Because he didn’t think I could get a man on my own? Because he hated me? Because he wanted to punish me? Take your pick. It doesn’t matter.”

Misery rang clear in her voice. She honestly believed what she said. As much as Jed detested Travis McBride, he knew the man had loved his daughter. If anyone knew how much, it was Jed. He covered her hands now clasped tightly together on the table.

“Chaney, you can’t believe that. Your father loved you.”

She pulled her hands from under his and shook her head. “You’re starting to sound like Martha, but you are both wrong. My father regretted my birth from my first breath to his last. He was always looking for ways to make me pay for being a girl. This was just his last chance to prove it.”

“Chaney--”

She held up her hand, halting his words. “Don’t bother. Now, either accept my proposal or let me leave. My ego can’t take much more tonight.”

Jed considered her. Chaney didn’t love him, or even like him. She had told him moments ago, she hated him, and he believed her. However, she needed a marriage certificate to satisfy a ridiculous demand in her father’s will. In the same breath, she showed her lawyer the proof of their marriage, she would probably tell him to file for divorce. He wondered if he could convince her to stay married long enough to win custody of his daughter.

“Let’s say I accept. Do you run and get a divorce as soon as the lawyer sees your proof?” Saying it was harder than he expected.

Chaney fidgeted in her seat and refused to meet his gaze. “Not exactly.”

“Meaning?”

“I have to stay married for a year.”

A year? He couldn’t believe it. McBride had really set her up. If Jed could just figure out why.

Does it matter? You’d have a year to win custody.

He felt her push against his thigh.

“Never mind, I didn’t think you would go for it.”

Before he could think of all the reasons to walk away from what would undoubtedly be trouble, he held out his hand. “I accept.”

Chapter
Three

“Do you have the rings?” the judge asked.

Chaney panicked. She knew she’d forgotten something. Rings. She was having a hard enough time believing she was standing in front of a judge marrying Jed Sampson. But she’d only had seven days to find a husband and he’d banished her only other real option.

“Right here,” Jed answered the judge as he patted his suit pocket. He reached his hand in and withdrew two gold bands. He handed her one.

Amazed that he had remembered, and fearful that she would drop it, Chaney closed her fingers around the golden circle.

“Do you, Jedidiah Sampson take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

“I do.”

Jed’s long tapered fingers slipped the ring onto hers. It felt warm as if the sun’s rays shining through the window of the judge’s chambers were heating it. Chaney knew that was ridiculous, but she prayed it was a good omen. An omen that meant this wasn’t the most difficult, stupid, unbelievable thing she’d ever done.

“Do you, Chaney McBride, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

She hesitated. Could she really do this? Marry Jed and survive watching him walk away in a year?

Do you want the ranch?

“I do.” Chaney wasn’t sure if she was answering the judge or the voice in her head. Taking Jed’s strong, warm hand in hers, she slipped the ring on his finger. Before she could pull away he wrapped his fingers around hers causing her to look up into his eyes.

What was it she saw there? Sympathy? Pity? Concern? It didn’t really matter. He was doing her a favor by agreeing to this sham. She would take whatever was necessary to keep the ranch.

“Now by the power vested in me by the State of Colorado, I pronounce you husband and wife.” The judge leaned forward. “It’s customary to kiss your bride.”

Chaney’s pulse quickened along with her breathing. She was sure her knees were going to give out any moment. How could she have pos
sibly forgotten about the kiss?

First, he pulled her hand, still clasped by his, to his lips. His gaze never left Chaney’s eyes. The brush of his lips on her knuckles caused her heart to flip-flop. The intensity of his gaze scorched her like the sun as he pulled the rest of her to him.

Jed’s lips brushed across her mouth in a whisper before taking her lips firmly with his. Chaney tried to resist the temptation, but it was impossible. Kissing Jed was like, well, it was like skinny-dipping in Miller’s Pond. Decadent, invigorating, exciting and plain wonderful.

The judge cleared his throat. “Well, it doesn’t appear I’ll have to remind you to do that again,” he chided. “Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Sampson, my very best wishes for a long and fruitful life together.”

The judge’s words sobered Chaney in the same way a bucket of cold water thrown at her would. A long life together, not a chance. Chaney was sure Jed wasn’t interested in spending any more time married than necessary as witnessed by the fact that before he had accepted her proposal he had asked how long before she would file for a divorce. Which was fine, she didn’t want to be married either.

“Thank you,” Chaney heard Jed reply. Her mind still clouded with too many other things, she was happy to let him take the lead.

Jed’s hand at the small of her back, guided her out the door. The heat of that hand reminded her of the judge’s comment. The fruitful part.

Having already lost Jed’s baby once, she was terrified of becoming pregnant again. Her father knew that. This was probably why her father had added the part about her expecting before her first anniversary. Chaney had to face it. Her father wanted a male heir and this was his way of forcing her to help him to that end. The fact that Belle might have a
son obviously skipped his mind.

Chaney didn’t expect Jed to be thrilled about this part of the deal, so she hadn’t said anything yet. Besides, maybe she couldn’t get pregnant.

Then this marriage would be for nothing
. She wouldn’t think about that possibility. This had to work. I have to succeed. I have to prove to Father that I can be a woman, a mother, and run a ranch.

“Chaney?”

Coming out of her fog, she realized they were standing on the sidewalk in front of Jed’s car. “Hmmm?”

“What do you want to do?”

Run, her mind screamed. “I guess we go home.”

Jed opened the passenger door and handed her in. He always had been a gentleman that way. Chaney remembered how he used to help her up into the old truck he drove. He had to wrestle the door open and slam it closed, but he always handed her up as if it was a royal coach or something. Even before they’d been dating, he’d been that way.

Shaking her head as she watched his firm, trim body walk around the front of the car she chastised herself. If she was going to keep her sanity, she couldn’t go all google-eyed every time he was near her. She also couldn’t keep making him out to be wonderful.

He wasn’t wonderful. He’d left her. Walked away without a backward glance. Discarded her like scraps on the table. Tossed and forgotten like litter out a car’s window.

The litany of clichés fired her anger, replacing the warm glow that had wrapped around her moments earlier. “That’s better.”

“Pardon?” Jed asked sliding in behind the wheel.

Chaney cringed at the realization that she had spoken out loud. “I said the lawyer’s office would be better.”

“We wouldn’t want to chance missing that deadline.”

Was that sarcasm in his tone? Okay, so maybe she deserved it. It was their wedding day, such as it was. The lawyer could wait until tomorrow. She would call him and tell him she would be in with proof in the morning.

“I’m sorry. We don’t have to go to the lawyer’s office. It’s only Monday and my birthday isn’t until Thursday. I’m pretty sure I can get into town before then. I guess we should do something special.”

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and raised an eyebrow.

“Go out to eat or something. People are going to ask questions when we show up married when you’ve only been back a week or so. We need to work on a story.”

“You do know lies have a nasty habit of sneaking up and biting you when you’re not looking.”

“So does the truth,” Chaney countered. “Besides, I didn’t say we had to lie. I meant, work on making a wedding day to tell about.”

“Sure you did, Chaney.”

She turned in her seat as far as the seatbelt would allow. “If you’re going to challenge my every thought and word, this is going to be an extremely long year.”

Jed’s hands gripped the wheel tightly for a moment. Then he let out a long slow breath and eased his hold. “You’re right. We both went into this with our eyes open. I’m doing you a favor; you’re doing me a favor.”

Oh, she’d forgotten that, too. They had spent Friday night talking about the shop he wanted to open. She had given him some suggestions of where he might find a place for it. Chaney had offered the old barn on the ranch until he could find something better. He had accepted and not asked for anything more, though she could have sworn something else had been on the tip of his tongue. Right now, she counted her blessings and took the hand he held out in truce or renewal of their agreement.

Taking that hand was a mistake. She released it quickly, faced forward in the seat again, closed her eyes, and rested her head back. With her eyes closed, she avoided confrontation with the flesh and blood Jed beside her. Unfortunately, her mind brought forth another memory of a younger Jed stripped to the waist again. Only this time, his sweat slick skin had sawdust sprinkled on it as his hand glided over a piece of wood he’d just pushed through the lathe.

When the image in her mind of Jed stroking a piece of wood changed to an image of him stroking her body, her eyes popped open and she jerked bolt upright. Damn she was going to have to keep a tighter rein on her memories. She would also have to stay away from the barn when he was working. Glancing at his strong, matured body across the seat from her, she had no doubt the older vision of Jed would be even more devastating to her libido.

“Where would you like to go? It’s early for dinner,” Jed said.

“Not the Low Down, that’s for sure.”

He chuckled. “I think I can do better than that. Do you still like those fancy biscuit things and tea?”

“Scones?”

“That’s it. Sounds like a disease to me.”

It was Chaney’s turn to chuckle. “It’s just a fancy biscuit, Jed. You said so yourself.”

“Then they should call it a biscuit. Anyway, do you still like them? I noticed a tearoom when I was looking around town for shop sights last week. That sound like a good place to start a memorable wedding day story?”

Chaney felt a real smile on her face for the first time in days. Months. “Yes, that sounds like a great place to start a wedding story.”

***

What in the world am I doing here, was Jed’s first thought when they walked through the door of the tearoom. His second, the furniture’s going to break. Then Chaney looked up at him and smiled. Really smiled. Jed decided then and there that he would do anything to give her a wedding day to remember.

To that end, he steered the conversation away from any hot topics, ordered high tea, and pretended all was right with the world, even though finger sandwiches and biscuits didn’t come close to filling his stomach. Jed concentrated on the effort Chaney had put into making the day special as well.

Jed had picked her up at the ranch and been amazed when he saw her waiting at the front door. All he saw of her soft brown hair were the bangs and soft tendrils at the sides of her face. She’d tucked a sprig of lavender to one side, a delicate touch he would never have associated with Chaney, but liked. What had totally thrown him was her dress. He half expected her to show up in her jeans and work shirt, telling him to hurry so she could be back before evening chores.

He’d been wrong.

The dress she wore he remembered from a big dance they’d gone to just before he’d left town for good. It looked even better on her now with her more womanly curves. Soft crocheted lace over a pale lavender slip swished around her calves and clung to other parts of her. Jed had tugged at his collar from the immediate rise in his body temperature. Oh, yeah, he remembered this dress.

Unfortunately, the afternoon had to end. The way they both kept dawdling over the last cup of tea told Jed that Chaney wasn’t looking forward to going back to the ranch and breaking the news to everyone. When the hostess started aiming subtle but meaningful glances their way, Jed knew it was time to face the music. He paid the bill.

“So, now what?” he asked into the silence enveloping the car.

Chaney didn’t respond.

“We didn’t discuss many particulars, Chaney. I’m just asking if I should stop and pick up my things from my uncle’s or drop you off.” He heard her inhale deeply and saw her fingers twist around each other in her lap.

“Your uncle’s. It would look pretty strange if we didn’t live in the same house.”

Jed wanted to know about the rest of the living arrangements but decided this wasn’t the time to push. Chaney was wired again. The tearoom had been like when they were young. They’d laughed and talked about old friends. She had been the girl he remembered.

Now she was the woman he’d lost again. The woman who hated him.

“It won’t take long. I only have what I brought from back east for Steve’s wedding. I’ll have to have the rest of my things shipped.”

“You’re going to have all your things shipped out here?” she asked seemingly amazed. “You’re giving up your place back there?”

Jed cast a considering glance her way. “I would have had to anyway since my plan was to move and open up a shop. I’ll just do it a little sooner than expected.”

“Are you sure you want to give up everything you had back there?”

There was only one reason he would stay back east, his daughter. Nothing else there mattered. He could buy a house or rent an apartment anywhere. Starting a new shop would be a challenge but again, he could do it anywhere. Here was where he had his best memories, except for the ones about Chaney’s father, not back east. He’d been stationed there, leaving him little choice about where he lived. This was as close to a home as Jed got.

“Yeah, it’s not a problem.”

“What about your shop? Your customers?”

“I was working on a deal to sell it before I left, remember? I signed the papers and faxed them to him this morning. The guy’s a quality woodworker, so I know he’ll do right by my regular customers. Some of them are buyers for other shops and they want mostly smaller items. Those I can do anywhere and ship. Why, were you hoping this would be a long distance marriage?”

“No,” she answered quickly. A little too quickly Jed thought. “I mean--”

“That’s all right,” Jed interrupted her, covering her fidgeting hands with one of his. “I know I’m not your first choice for a husband. I imagine that to convince your father’s attorney we’re really married and for you to keep the ranch we’ll need to keep up appearances. If I was gone all the time, selling him that bill of goods would be difficult to say the least.” Her hands were still beneath his but they weren’t relaxed. He gave them a squeeze trying to will some hope into her then released them.