Wyoming Wildflowers: The Beginning (17 page)

If you particularly enjoy connected books – as I do! – try these:

A Place Called Home Trilogy

Bardville, Wyoming Trilogy

The Wedding Series

Explore a complete list of all Patricia’s books

Dear Reader, This novella is the result of requests by readers to discover more about the background of the Currick family. I’m delighted to have shared with you the romance of Donna and Ed Currick. Their love is the foundation for all the Wyoming Wildflowers stories that follow, beginning with their son, Dave, in “Almost a Bride.”

To celebrate “Wyoming Wildflowers: The Beginning” I commissioned the lovely painting of snowberry you see on the cover, done in oils by talented Catherine E. Batka.

Look for more stories, more paintings, and more wildflowers, in the future!

Happy reading,

USA Today bestselling author Patricia McLinn’s novels -- cited by reviewers for warmth, wit and vivid characterization – have won numerous regional and national awards and have been on national bestseller lists.

In addition to her romance and women’s fiction books, Patricia is the author of the “Caught Dead in Wyoming” mystery series, which adds a touch of humor and romance to figuring out whodunit.

Patricia received BA and MSJ degrees from Northwestern University. She was a sports writer (Rockford, Ill.), assistant sports editor (Charlotte, N.C.) and -- for 20-plus years -- an editor at the Washington Post. She has spoken about writing from Honolulu to Washington, D.C., including being a guest-speaker at the Smithsonian Institute.

She is now living in Northern Kentucky, and writing full-time. Patricia loves to hear from readers through her website, Facebook and Twitter.

Matty Brennan has thought of one last, long shot to save her family’s Wyoming ranch when she runs into the one man who might could make the long shot work – the same man who broke her heart six years ago
. ….

“This is business,” she informed Dave Currick with every scrap of dignity she could muster. “Sort of a...a business proposition.”

“Well, I’d be happy to talk to you about business, but I’m heading for an appointment right now.

“It’s just that my business is important,” she said stiffly. “Very important.”

“I could come see you tomorrow–”

“No!” Twenty-four hours? No way. If she thought about this too much–if she thought about it at
all
–she’d lose her nerve. Or regain her pride. “It’s, well, it’s real important to me. It’s urgent.”

“Urgent?” Now he was frowning. “Are you okay, Matty? Is something wrong?”

“No. I mean, yes, but not the way you mean.”

She took a deep breath and looked around. A young couple was coming up the steps at one end of the sidewalk, probably heading toward the real estate office next to Taylor’s. Matty grabbed the rolled back cuff of Dave’s white shirt and tugged him toward the opposite end, where they’d have more privacy.

“What is it, Matty? You’re worrying me. Is it that Cal Ruskoff you’ve got working for you?”

She stared up into his narrowed hazel eyes in astonishment. “Cal? No. Why would you think that? He’s great. Works like five men and never complains.”

Dave’s frown didn’t ease, but some of the tension went out of his broad shoulders. “Then what is it?”

“Give me a second here,” she said irritably.

She tried to think of a way to say this, a way to make it more palatable, and couldn’t. It was like going into the swimming hole on a spring day when they were kids. There was no edging into it, inch by inch, or you’d never do it. The only way to go was to take the plunge.

She took a breath and leaped.

“I want to marry you.”

For a second, she could almost believe she’d really jumped into the swimming hole. She felt the same shock of cold surround her and the same sensation that all sound in the world was muffled and distant. The only thing she could hear clearly was the beating of her own heart.

Then a single word from Dave brought her back.

“Pardon?”

He hadn’t moved an inch and his expression hadn’t changed. He sounded as if he was certain–as only Dave could be certain–that he’d heard wrong.

Of course he was going to make her repeat it. Dave had never made anything easy on her. Not since he’d told her, then all of five years old, that if she couldn’t keep up, she should go back and play with dolls.

“I want to marry you. In fact, I
have
to marry you.”

He seemed to come out of a trance. He pushed his cowboy hat back off his forehead, and leaned against the pole that held up the roof over the sidewalk, crossing one leg over the other with an air of total nonchalance.

“Have to? You sure it’s me you’re thinking of?” The amusement was back in his voice. At least she thought it was amusement. It had an edge to it and the look he was giving her didn’t strike her as a laughing matter, but maybe that’s how he showed amusement these days. After all, she hadn’t been around him for years. “Darlin’, either I missed something in the past few weeks that I’d truly hate to think I’d missed or you’re setting to make medical history. Unless there’s someone else more, let’s say, recent?”

“Don’t be an idiot, Dave. I’m not pregnant.”

“That’s a relief. I’d hate to have you be the subject of all those tabloid newspapers for bearing a child six years after the fact. As for the more usual time frame, well a gentleman doesn’t like to think he’s forgotten things like that. And if someone else–”

“Oh, shut up, Dave. It’s nothing like that.”

“Nothing to do with oh, say, an affair of the heart?”

“Why would it have to do with an affair of the heart?”

“Well,” he drawled, “marriage sometimes does.”

“Not this time. I told you, it’s business.”

“Business?” he asked politely. “I’m sorry. I’m not following this. Call me stupid, but I associate marriage with romance, not business.”

“Yeah, right. You’ve had enough romances to make Don Juan look like Barney Fife, and I’ve never heard anything about you getting married.”

“Been paying attention to my social life, have you?”

“It’s like the wind around here–it’s only remarkable when it’s not making its presence felt.”

“Matty, if this is the way you ask all the men to marry you, I can see why you’re still single. I thought I taught you better than that.”

“
You
taught– Why you...”

She swallowed the words with the greatest of effort. He’d gotten under her skin from their earliest days. Even when she’d thought she was in love with him, he’d been able to yank her chain with the flick of his finger. But no more. And certainly not now. She couldn’t afford it. The Flying W couldn’t afford it.

“This is all beside the point.” She barely gritted her teeth at all; she was proud of that.

“And what is the point, Matty?” His mouth twitched.

“The point–” She figured she couldn’t be blamed for a little teeth-gritting now. “–is that I want us to get married. Right away. But only temporarily.”

“Temporarily?”

“Of course, temporarily.” She was miffed. “You don’t think I’d ask you to get married for good, do you?”

“I didn’t mean any disrespect. But not having been proposed to before, at least not by you–” She glared at him. Because of the mock humble tone; not, definitely not, because of his intimation that he might have been proposed to by other women. “–I want to keep this all straight. Orderly. Since it’s business. Isn’t that what you said?”

“That’s what I said. We’d get married, then after a while, we’d get divorced. Uncontested. Nice and clean.”

He raised one eyebrow. “Not sure I’ve ever heard of a clean divorce, much less a nice one.”

“That’s because all those other divorces were between people who were married.”

“You got me there, Matty, That’s a fact.”

“Oh, quit with the Gary Cooper act, Currick. You know what I mean. We would be
pretending
to be married. I mean, we’d
get
married, but we wouldn’t
be
married. We wouldn’t–” She shot him a glowering look to be sure he got her point. “–do
things
married couples do. So the divorce would be no big deal.”

He rubbed his chin. God, he’d gone from Gary Cooper to Gabby Hayes. If he said
Well, Goooolllleeee
, she’d belt him.

“Uh-huh. Okay, so we get married–without really
being
married–and then we get divorced. I have that right?”