Michelle Garrison’s perfectly made-up face smiled eerily back at the four of them.
“Lee, that’s you. You’re Michelle Garrison? You’re a writer. Why on earth are you pretending to be my wife? I don’t get it?”
“She’s out here researching cowboys,” Coop sneered. “How’s it feel to be a research project, Tag? I’m sorry, boy, she put one over on all of us.”
“How can you say that? That’s not true,” Michelle said. She turned to Tag, but his face was set and unreadable. “I didn’t know who I was, not at first. I was in a car accident.” She swung around to face Coop. “That must have been my car you pulled out of the river. Most of my memories have come back, but I don’t recall a thing from the time the car went off the road until just before you picked me up during that storm. You have to believe me.”
Coop snorted. Gramma Lenore didn’t say a word.
“When did you know?” Tag asked. He leaned casually against the stack of hay and folded his arms across his chest. His stance might have appeared relaxed to someone who didn’t know him.
Michelle knew him much too well. His hands gripped his elbows so tightly his knuckles turned white and the muscles in his arms bulged in protest. His midnight-blue eyes glinted darkly, the dimple she loved was nowhere in sight. His jaw could have been cast in granite.
“Not until that night,” Michelle whispered. She swallowed, blushing. Her gaze flickered from Coop to Lenore, then back to Tag.
“What night?” Tag demanded.
He was relentless. He knew what night. How could he do this? “The night we made love,” she said. The words caught in her throat, threatened to choke her. “That first night you made love to me I remembered everything. Most of all, I remembered I came from New York. I’m a city girl, Tag. Exactly what you told me you don’t want.”
“You’re damned right,” he snarled. “I don’t want a city girl and I certainly don’t want a woman who’d lie to me.”
“Well, you were lying too,” she said, finding her backbone and facing his implacable anger. She turned to Gramma Lenore, standing off to one side with a stricken look on her face. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I guess you know we’re not really married. I never would have agreed to this charade if I’d known he was trying to do something illegal. Right after the wedding I started remembering little bits of my past. Which I immediately told Tag,” she added, jerking her head around to glare at him.
His expression didn’t change. She wondered if he was thinking of that first night in the cabin, when they’d shared a bottle of champagne and tried to figure out exactly who she was.
“Anyway,” she said, turning back to Lenore, “we were trying to figure out my identity when I mentioned to Tag I’d heard you were . . .” She automatically turned to Tag for help. His stony expression didn’t change a bit. “When I told him you didn’t have much time left, well, Tag was really upset. He convinced me we had to keep up the deception to make you happy.”
She clenched her fists, realizing now he’d duped her just as he’d fooled his own grandmother. “Please forgive me. You have enough to worry about without all of this horrible mess.”
This time it was Lenore who blanched and looked away. “I, um, didn’t realize you knew about my, uh, impending demise,” she said. She glanced at Coop out of the corner of her eye. Michelle almost cried again at the look of sadness on the old man’s face.
“The truth is,” Lenore said. Everyone waited. “The, uh, truth is, well, we’re all dyin’, you know. Every last one of us, from the moment we’re born, we’re dyin’. If you want to look at it that way.” She fidgeted, folding and unfolding her hands. Tag stared at her, his expression one of anger and hope.
Coop just looked furious. “Are you tellin’ me, woman, you are not dying? Are you tellin’ me you’re as healthy as a horse?”
“I’m as healthy as a seventy-eight-year-old horse, for what it’s worth.” She held her head high and smiled beseechingly at Coop.
He flushed a deep red. His eyes narrowed under his busy white brows and he clenched his fists. “That’s it. I’ve had it! I have gosh-danged had it with all the lyin’, the pretendin’, the . . . why, I don’t even know what to call it!” Coop stalked out of the tack room, spun around and stomped back inside.
He pointed one bony finger at Tag, then at Michelle. “For the record, that was a real weddin’, with a real preacher and you two signed a real marriage license. Duly witnessed and recorded, I might add. So you’d better quit your bickerin’ and act like adults, or figure out how to file for a divorce in the great state of Colorado, because for all intents and purposes, you two are legally married.
“And you,” he shook his finger under Lenore’s nose. “You take the cake, woman. I have loved you all my life without really knowing you. Maybe we were better off when it stayed unrequited.” He carefully enunciated each syllable. “I can’t believe you would tell me you were dyin’ when you weren’t. I can’t believe if you really loved me, you would treat me like that, put me through that kind of pain, all to get your own way. I am tired of being manipulated, I am tired of being used, I am fed up with playing your games and I am out. Of. Here.”
When Coop stalked out of the small tack room, he took the air and the energy with him. Lenore stared after his retreating figure, her hand pressed to her mouth, tears streaming down her face.
Tag looked equally shell-shocked. Michelle couldn’t tell whether it was anger at her, relief that his grandmother was all right, astonishment at Coop’s violent response, or absolute disbelief over the whole situation.
Somehow, some way, she had to get out of here with her dignity intact. “Don’t worry,” she said, swallowing her tears and facing Tag. “It can’t possibly be a real marriage. I signed the license with a false name. There is no Lee Stetson. She’s merely a character in a book I wrote. A book, I might add, that my editor chose to reject. No, there’s just a romance author named Michelle Garrison, out here researching the great American West.”
She might be shattering inside, her heart splintering into a million tiny pieces, but damned if she was going to let this hardheaded cowboy know how she felt. She brushed a few bits of straw off her jeans and looked directly into Tag’s dark, unreadable eyes. “Maybe I should thank you for your excellent instruction.”
She held his gaze, knowing she still loved him, would always love him. Knowing he felt nothing more than hatred and disgust for her.
Tag didn’t try to stop her when she turned away and left the tack room. She could feel him watching her, feel his dark eyes boring into her back. The pain kept her tears at bay. She held her head high as she walked the length of the barn, then out into the pouring rain.
The thought flashed through her mind that she could cry now, if she wanted. The rain would hide her tears. But she didn’t cry a single tear, not until a nondescript rental car skidded into the driveway and a very familiar, handsome blond man climbed out.
There were tears on his face. She tried to smile but couldn’t control her trembling lips. Mark opened his arms to Michelle. Sobbing, she tumbled into his embrace.
Chapter 12
TAG WATCHED in disbelief, stunned as his worst nightmare materialized right in front of his eyes. He’d followed Lee, or Michelle, or whoever the hell she was, not quite sure what he intended to say, but knowing he couldn’t let her leave like this.
Not until they resolved a lot of things between them. Now she was hanging on to some good-looking guy in a suit, both of them hugging and crying like they were a couple of rediscovered long-lost lovers.
Damn. She had been hiding a husband. Tag slumped against the barn, unable to take his eyes off the pair even though the sight of his woman in another man’s arms just about tore him to shreds.
A terrible thought occurred: she said her memory had returned two weeks ago. That meant she’d known about this guy when she and Tag . . . no, not that. The image of himself undressing Lee the last time they made love, the smooth silk of her skin beneath his rough hands, the cute way her butt had looked covered in his plaid boxer shorts.
How it felt to slowly peel those worn cotton shorts down her unbelievable legs.
The rain fell unabated, the two of them stood out there hugging and crying, and Tag couldn’t get that image of Lee out of his mind. Knowing she wore his flannel boxers instead of her own little silky things when they were working had kept him hot most of every day. Watching her now, knowing she wore another pair of his shorts under her tight-fitting jeans . . . watching her hang on to another man . . . damn! Tag didn’t know if he wanted to kick something or give thanks for getting out of this mess before he got in too deep.
Who the hell was he kidding? Any deeper he’d be comin’ out the other side of something.
He felt a warm hand on his shoulder. Expecting Coop, he was startled to see his grandmother standing beside him. “His name’s Mark Connor. He’s her editor from New York. Coop talked to him earlier, said he’s been worried sick about Michelle. From the look of things, they’re a lot more than just business associates, if you get my drift,” Lenore said. “The blurb on the jacket said she was single, but it was an old book.”
“What’re you talking about?” Tag couldn’t take his eyes off the pair. “What blurb?”
“The paragraph about Michelle Garrison on the back of her book. It says she’s single and lives alone in a New York high-rise apartment over Central Park. It was written about five years ago. She may have gotten married since then.”
Tag thought about that a moment, about the woman who, over the course of the past couple of weeks, had taken his simple existence and turned it upside down and inside out. That woman would never cheat on a husband. He was certain of it.
She wasn’t married, because she would have told him.
All evidence to the contrary, he wanted to believe she didn’t love the man she was hugging so tightly. In fact, Tag was almost certain she loved Tag himself.
What he wasn’t certain of was what to do about it. When he thought of marriage and commitment, his blood ran cold. When he considered spending the rest of his life with Lee . . . Michelle, his temperature shot up a good ten degrees.
Grinning self-consciously at his own foolishness, Tag covered Gramma Lenore’s hand with his own. “She’s not married,” he said. “To him, anyway.” He studied his grandmother for a long moment. “For what it’s worth, even if it means I’ve lost the ranch, I’m sure glad you’re okay. It was awful, thinking you were sick, that you might be dyin’.” His eyes stung and he recognized tears not so far away, but at least he’d told her how he felt. “C’mon, Gramma. Don’t you think we ought to go meet our visitor?”
“Are you sure, Tag? Don’t do this for me.” Lenore grabbed a handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped her streaming eyes. “I have to tell you something important. Tag,” she said and grabbed his wrist to stop him.
He waited while she seemed to search for the words. “I love you,” she said. Words, he knew, that didn’t come easy to either one of them. “You’ve been more a son to me than your father ever was. The ranch is already yours,” she said, very quietly. Then Lenore held her head up, the grandmother he remembered from his youth reappearing, defiant even as she apologized. “I had the title switched months ago. It’s always been yours, if you’d just thought about it. You’ve given more sweat and love to this place than either your grandfather or your father. I am sorry, though, for the mess I’ve made.”
The earth should have moved when his grandmother told him the ranch was his. It didn’t. He smiled at her, then gave her a quick hug. “I’m not doing this for you, Gramma. I’m not doing it for the ranch, either. In fact, I’m not really sure just what I’m doing, but whatever it is, I’m doin’ it for me . . . for me and,” he hesitated over the strange name, “Michelle.”
His grandmother studied him silently for a moment. Her blue eyes glistened with tears, but she looked hopeful when she smiled back at him.
She looked hopeful until Coop stormed out of the ranch house with a beat-up leather case slung over his shoulder. He paused for a moment and stared at Michelle and her editor, still entwined in a rain-soaked embrace, tipped his hat briefly to Michelle, then approached Tag.
He didn’t spare so much as a glance for Lenore. “I’d like to borrow the truck, if you don’t mind,” he said. “Will’s got a place for me at Columbine Camp. I’ll fetch my stock in a day or two, once the weather settles. You can hang on to Goldie until the colt’s ready to wean.”
Tag wrapped his arm protectively around his grandmother. He felt her trembling, her brief flash of defiance gone. What he really wanted to do was knock some sense into his stubborn foreman, but instead he merely nodded his head. “Take the truck,” he said. “I won’t be needing it.”
Coop spun around and left. In less than a minute he was wheeling the old pickup out of the yard, flinging a rooster tail of mud and water as he raced away from the Double Eagle.
Lenore let out an anguished cry, pulled free of Tag’s embrace and ran for the house. Michelle glanced up with a stricken look on her face and spun out of her editor’s arms to chase after Lenore.
Tag and the tall blond stranger faced each other through the pouring rain. The other man made the first move. “I’m Mark Connor, Michelle’s editor,” he said, holding out his perfectly manicured hand. “I hope you can tell me what’s going on here.”
He’d introduced himself as her editor, not her husband, not even her boyfriend, certainly not her lover. Tag couldn’t help himself. He laughed, loudly, and shook hands with the man. “Tag Martin,” he said. “I run . . .” He paused, suddenly aware of the implications of his grandmother’s act of generosity. The Double Eagle really was his. The ranch he’d been willing to lie and cheat for belonged to him.
“Actually,” he said, correcting himself, “I own the Double Eagle.”
The earth still didn’t move, even though he’d waited what felt like a lifetime to say those words. Instead, they left him feeling empty. Later, he thought. Later when he had time to really think about what this would mean to his future.
Maybe then he’d feel more like celebrating. “Let’s get inside out of the rain,” he said, clapping Mark on the shoulder. “If you’ve got time for a pretty unbelievable story, I’ve got one to tell you.”
“Oh, I’m always up for a good story.” Mark glanced in the direction Michelle had run. “Always.”
They hung their wet coats on the rack by the door, Mark’s suit jacket looking very out of place next to Tag’s oiled canvas greatcoat. In the kitchen, Tag handed Mark a dry towel then grabbed the bottle of sipping whiskey from the cupboard. He held the bottle out in a silent offer. Mark nodded and Tag poured each of them a glass of the amber liquid.
It was barely noon, but Tag couldn’t think of a time when he’d needed a drink more than now.
The two men had just taken their seats across from one another at the kitchen table when Michelle walked into the room. She’d slicked her wet hair back into a ponytail tied with a rubber band. Tag thought she looked about fourteen . . . and even though she’d obviously been crying, absolutely beautiful.
“I’ve got your grandmother settled down,” she said. “She’s very upset about Coop. You should probably check on her before long.” Tag noticed Michelle was avoiding eye contact, staring instead at her hands. He wondered if she realized she was spinning her wedding ring?
“Thank you for helping her,” Tag said. Michelle gave him a quick nod then turned to Mark. “I’ll get my things together. It should only take a few minutes. I want to get at least as far as Montrose before it gets too late.”
“You want to leave already?” Mark gazed longingly at the drink Tag had just set in front of him. “I just got here.”
“Well, I’ve definitely overstayed my welcome. I’d like to leave as soon as possible.”
The kitchen door opened and Coop stepped into the room. “You’re not going anywhere, missy. Not for a while, anyway.” He took his hat off and shook the water from the brim. “Road’s washed out, that entire low section across from the front gate. The river must’a come up real fast. The way this storm is blowing in, I doubt county crews’ll even get to it a’fore Monday.” Coop shoved the hat back on his head. “If’n you don’t mind, I’ll be out in the bunkhouse. In my old room.” He glared at Tag, as if in challenge, then tipped his hat to the three of them and left.
Tag bit his lips to keep from smiling. Not only was Coop back where he belonged, everyone was stuck here until Monday. He figured he could put up with Mark Connor that long, especially since it gave him at least four days to figure out what he wanted to do about Lee . . . er, Michelle. He’d have to get used to that name! When Tag was certain he could keep his elation to himself, he chanced a glance at her.
She was looking uncertainly down at Connor. Tag might as well not have been in the room.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Mark said. “I’m sure Tag’s got someplace we can stay.”
“I don’t want to stay, Mark. You have no idea what I’ve gone through in the past few weeks. I want to go home.”
“C’mon, now, Michelle.” Tag might have been addressing Michelle, but he aimed every word at Mark Connor. “It hasn’t been that bad. You said you came out here to learn about cowboys and the west. You’ve been here barely three weeks and you can already ride a horse, you’ve worked a roundup, spent quality time with a real cowboy . . .”
He let that one just hang there while he grinned at Michelle, knowing full well she loved his smile. She’d told him exactly how much, often enough. Generally somewhere in the context of their lovemaking.
It pleased him no end to see her blush a deep shade of crimson.
It also pleased Tag to see the questioning look on Mark Connor’s face. The man wasn’t certain, but he knew something was going on, knew there was a conversation taking place on another level, one that didn’t include him.
Tag had always thought of himself as a straightforward, honest man. He knew that was why all the subterfuge with the fake wedding had bothered him so. The next few days, though . . . well, this was different.
He’d always been a man who appreciated a challenge. He grinned, suddenly aware of a streak of deviousness he’d never expected of himself.
Of course, the stakes had never been quite so high before. Tag met Michelle’s curious gaze with a level stare of his own. Her green eyes narrowed, as if she tried to figure out his game plan. Then she rested her hands on Mark’s shoulders with disconcerting familiarity and nodded her head.
“I guess we don’t have much choice,” she said. “If you gentlemen will excuse me, I’m going to my room.” She patted Mark’s shoulder, turned and left the kitchen.
Tag studied Mark as the editor turned and watched Michelle leave. The frankly appraising look in the other man’s eyes was enough to make Tag want to punch him right in that perfectly straight nose of his. When the door closed behind Michelle, Mark turned around in his chair and grinned knowingly at Tag.
“She’s something, isn’t she? I adore that woman. Thanks for taking such good care of her for me.” He took a sip of his drink. “Now, about that story.” He paused, his expression suddenly sober, and stared into the whiskey glass he held at eye level. When Mark finally spoke, his voice was so low Tag wondered if the words were actually meant to be heard. “You have no idea what the past few days have been like, receiving that phone call from the state police that Michelle’s car was found in the river, waiting to find out if they’d located her body. I wasn’t certain she was actually alive until I held her in my arms.”
He closed his eyes and shuddered. Tag almost sympathized with the man. Suddenly Mark seemed to pull himself together. He raised his head, took a deep breath and grinned at Tag. “I hope you’re going to explain why my favorite author literally dropped off the face of the earth three weeks ago.”
“Yeah,” Tag said. “It’s a little involved.” He gazed at Mark Connor with a new perspective. Tag didn’t think Michelle was in love with this guy, but she trusted him, might even have some kind of history with him. Obviously, though, she didn’t have a clue how her editor felt about her. Tag took a long swallow of his whiskey and told himself it didn’t matter.
If only his feelings for her weren’t so confused.
She was gorgeous, she was intelligent and tough and sexy as hell and she had a great sense of humor. She was also a city girl who’d lied to him more than once. He didn’t need the kind of aggravation a woman like Michelle was certain to cause in his life.
Of course, life with Michelle Garrison would never be dull.
An author! Hell, why would an author want to live in the middle of Colorado? Why would a famous, probably wealthy woman, want to tie herself down to a stubborn cowboy in the middle of nowhere?
Because she loved him? He’d never put much stock in the emotion, not since his parents’ untimely death. They’d loved hating each other more than they’d loved him. Tag knew he had some serious thinking to do. Of course, he had until Monday to figure out what he really wanted.
He took another sip of his whiskey. “Well,” he said. Mark gave him an encouraging smile and took a swallow of his drink. “It all started with a marriage of convenience, the deed to a huge cattle ranch and a beautiful redhead with amnesia.”