Kitabı oku: «The Virgin Bride Said, 'Wow!'»

“I’m talking about a marriage of convenience here, a business arrangement.”

Brady gave her a hard look that challenged her veracity as he settled back against the headboard.

“We’re partners,” Kelsey continued stubbornly.

“And man and wife,” he muttered in a low tone that carried no farther than their bed, “who—thanks to your impulsiveness—are now sharing a bed for the night.”

“What choice did we have?” Still holding on to the covers, she clamped her arms in front of her and stared straight ahead. “I am not giving up this ranch.”

“Well, there we agree, anyway,” Brady said, lying down and stretching out beside her.

Was it her imagination, Kelsey wondered, or was this bedroom getting smaller and more intimate by the minute? Beside her, Brady shifted around and sighed loudly. Kelsey rolled her eyes. “Now what’s wrong?”

“This bed is awfully small….”

Dear Reader,

Spring is the perfect time to celebrate the joy of romance. So get set to fall in love as Harlequin American Romance brings you four new spectacular books.

First, we’re happy to welcome New York Times bestselling author Kasey Michaels to the Harlequin American Romance family. She inaugurates TEXAS SHEIKHS, our newest in-line continuity, with His Innocent Temptress. This four-book series focuses on a Texas family with royal Arabian blood who must fight to reunite their family and reclaim their rightful throne.

Also, available this month, The Virgin Bride Said, “Wow!” by Cathy Gillen Thacker, a delightful marriage-of-convenience story and the latest installment in THE LOCKHARTS OF TEXAS miniseries. Kara Lennox provides fireworks as a beautiful young woman who’s looking for Mr. Right sets out to Tame an Older Man following the advice of 2001 WAYS TO WED, a book guaranteed to provide satisfaction! And Have Baby, Need Beau says it all in Rita Herron’s continuation of her wonderful THE HARTWELL HOPE CHESTS series.

Enjoy April’s selections and come back next month for more love stories filled with heart, home and happiness from Harlequin American Romance.

Wishing you happy reading,

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin American Romance

The Virgin Bride Said, “Wow!”
Cathy Gillen Thacker

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cathy Gillen Thacker is a full-time wife/mother/author who began typing stories for her own amusement during “nap time” when her children were toddlers. Twenty years and more than fifty published novels later, Cathy is almost as well-known for her witty romantic comedies and warm family stories as she is for her ability to get grass stains and red clay out of almost anything, her triple-layer brownies and her knack for knowing what her three grown and nearly grown children are up to almost before they do! Her books have made numerous appearances on bestseller lists and are now published in seventeen languages and thirty-five countries around the world.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter One

“They turned us down again, didn’t they?” Brady Anderson guessed, as Kelsey Lockhart strode across the sunny pasture toward him, her cheeks pink with temper, her tousled hair glowing as cinnamon-red as the leaves in the maple trees around them.

Kelsey’s long slender legs continued eating up the ground until she reached his side. Tipping her flat-brimmed hat back off her forehead, she met his searching gaze and reported unhappily, “Yep, they sure did. That’s the fifteenth bank that’s said no to us because we didn’t have enough collateral.”

Brady grinned, trying, as always, when he was this close to her, not to notice how very pretty Kelsey was in an outdoorsy, lady rancher sort of way. Personally, he’d never been much for redheads. They were a bit too temperamental for his taste. And Kelsey Lockhart, the youngest of the four delectable Lockhart sisters of Laramie, Texas, was that, for sure. But there was something about the pale gold freckles dotting her smooth golden skin, the lusciousness of her full lips that had his gaze returning to her face again and again. Chuckling, he looked into her dark green eyes, which were now flashing with both frustration and impatience, as he commiserated humorously, “You’d think we’d get the hint, wouldn’t you?”

Kelsey leaned against the part of the aging wooden fence he hadn’t yet treated with wood preservative. Unlike him, she refused to take this latest rejection in stride. She folded her arms in front of her contentiously and glared at him, wanting answers. Now. This instant. “What are we going to do?” Her expressive red brows slammed down over her long-lashed eyes. “We can’t buy the rest of the horses and cattle unless we get a loan. And since no bank will give it to us, and we haven’t had the resources to make a killing in the stock market again…” Kelsey’s voice trailed off in discouragement.

Brady shared Kelsey’s frustration about that, since it was a talent for investing that had drawn them together initially and enabled them both to come up with the cash for the down payment on their ranch the previous summer. If they had another six months and enough seed money to get started, maybe they could do it again. Maybe. But they didn’t have either the time or the seed money. Which left them fewer options. Brady put down his brush and wiped his hands with the cloth he had looped into his belt. The rest of the painting would have to wait. “Then we look for a venture capitalist to underwrite the rest of our setup expenses,” Brady said, having already anticipated just such a move being necessary. He put the lid back on the bucket of wood preservative, picked up his brush and gave Kelsey a confidence-inspiring look. “And I know just the one.”

An hour later, Kelsey and Brady were sitting in Wade McCabe’s office on the Golden Slipper ranch that he shared with his wife, Josie.

A stellar businessman himself, Wade listened patiently to their plans for expanding Kelsey’s horse-riding stables and Brady’s cattle operation, and reviewed their business plans, which Brady knew full well were solid as a rock. And then Wade zeroed in on the same thing all the bankers had. “Unfortunately, the two of you aren’t married,” Wade said, with a disapproving frown.

“So?” Kelsey said, spoiling for a fight about that—one of many they’d had with literally everyone who had learned how they’d impulsively pooled their resources so they could make their individual dreams of owning their own ranch come true, sooner rather than later.

“That’s true,” Brady interrupted coolly, putting up a hand before Kelsey could go all contentious and argumentative on them. He looked Wade straight in the eye. “But we did buy back the ranch that belonged to her folks. We’ve been in partnership for four months now. That ought to count for something.” Especially since most people in Laramie hadn’t thought he and Kelsey would last more than a few weeks together, at most.

Wade sighed and handed back their business plan. “Look, Brady, I know you’re a good man and a talented cowboy—otherwise my brother Travis wouldn’t have hired you to work on his ranch—but that doesn’t mean I approve of what you’re doing with Kelsey here.”

Brady had an idea what Wade was hinting at—that he was somehow taking advantage of the six-year age difference and Kelsey’s youth to get what he wanted. “We’re business partners, Wade,” Brady told him. “Pure and simple.”

Wade nodded. “Yeah, I heard you’ve been sleeping in the tack room in the stables since you moved out to the ranch, and have even rigged up a little bathroom and outdoor shower for yourself there.”

“Nothing untoward has gone on between us,” Kelsey interrupted, beginning to look very ticked off that anyone could even suspect there had been. “Not that it would be any business of yours or anyone else’s if there had been!” she finished angrily.

Wade lifted a brow in a way that said “The lady doth protest too much.”

Brady knew how Wade felt. If he didn’t know better, he’d think by Kelsey’s defensive reaction and the blush in her cheeks that there was something going on between them. Not that it would have been surprising if there had been, from a strictly physical perspective. Kelsey was one very sexy woman. She was half a foot shorter than Brady, with a slender, athletic body that curved in all the right places. Very much a tomboy. Notoriously fickle. But somehow very innocent, nevertheless. She had a way about her that somehow made her everybody’s kid sister. And yet there was nothing siblinglike about the increasingly lustful feelings he was beginning to have for her, Brady knew.

Was that what Wade McCabe was picking up on? Was that what had Wade, and everyone else who knew them, concerned about the partnership between him and the black sheep of the Lockhart family? Brady wondered, his glance taking in Kelsey’s snug-fitting jeans and red cowgirl boots. The man’s denim work shirt she wore knotted at her hips was loose enough to conceal the abundant curves of her breasts and her slender waist—the figure-hugging tank top she wore beneath was not.

“Kelsey,” Brady finally said, before Kelsey could make the two of them look even guiltier with her hot-tempered protests, “Wade is not interested in our love life or lack thereof. Not that there is one, you understand,” Brady finished firmly, looking at Wade. Regardless of how much he desired Kelsey, he had never once so much as tried to kiss her. For one thing, he didn’t want to be another notch on Kelsey’s belt. He figured to date and then be dumped by her, as she apparently dumped every man sooner or later, would be the kiss of death for their partnership. Because he doubted he could ever get over that. For another, he didn’t think he should get involved with her when he still had some very sticky problems of his own to deal with—a secret debt of his own that was coming due in two weeks. A debt that could change the way she felt about him, permanently, once she realized all he had been keeping from her and everyone else in Laramie. She might understand him not telling everyone about the rash promises he had made and the debt he owed. A debt he still had no way to effectively settle, without a loan from a venture capitalist like Wade McCabe. But she wouldn’t understand him not telling her. Not when his earlier actions could leave her partnerless in another two weeks.

“That’s good to hear,” Wade continued with a warning look at Brady, picking up their conversation where Brady had left off, “because Kelsey is like a kid sister to me and I wouldn’t want to think you or anyone else had taken advantage of her.”

“Wade, could you please just forget about my personal life and concentrate on business. I’m trying to get a loan from you here—not advice to the not necessarily lovelorn.”

Brady grinned at her cute play on words.

Wade was amused, but he didn’t grin. “Kelsey, I am a businessman, pure and simple,” he told her firmly, standing to signal the meeting was over. “I don’t make bad investments. If I had I never would have been a millionaire by the time I was thirty. And the bottom line is, this partnership of yours and Brady’s does not look like something that is going to stand the test of time to me.”

“Thanks, anyway.” Brady stood, too, and held out his hand, to let Wade know there were no hard feelings. Maybe the trick here was to go to a venture capitalist who didn’t know them personally. Someone who didn’t feel so protective of Kelsey.

Ignoring Brady’s hint that they cut the meeting short and make a dignified exit, Kelsey glared at Brady, who was still shaking hands with Wade McCabe. She slipped her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “Oh, really, and how do you figure that, Wade?” She lifted her chin, the look she gave Wade as contentious as the rising tenor of her voice. “Do you have some sort of businessman’s crystal ball?”

“No,” Wade returned evenly, abruptly looking as if he were an exasperated father talking to a wayward child. He clamped his lips together. “But I do know your history with men and jobs, Kelsey.”

Oh, man, Brady thought, having heard this same spiel or something like it from everyone in Laramie County.

“And you never stay with either very long,” Wade continued flatly, not about to back down from his stance any more than Kelsey was. “The bottom line? The only way I’d loan you and Brady money is if you were married.”

“WELL, THAT’S IT THEN,” Kelsey said as she and Brady walked back out to the Lockhart-Anderson Ranch pickup truck. She thrust out her chin defiantly. “We’ll just get married. Today.”

Brady rolled his eyes. “Kelse, be serious.”

“I am.” She stomped closer. “We need the money to expand. You need more cattle, fence and feed to start turning a profit on your side of the ranch. And I need more horses, another stable to house them, and the money to hire some instructors so I can teach all those kids and adults who want riding lessons from me. The only way that will happen is if we get a loan.”

“I agree we need more money as soon as possible,” Brady said. He opened the passenger door for Kelsey.

Instead of getting in, she leaned against the side of the truck. “Then let’s get hitched and get it,” she suggested in her usual carefree manner.

Brady frowned. As much as he hated to admit it, he could see himself married to Kelsey. He could also see them in bed. Making love. And doing any number of things that would lead to nothing but trouble. He had just sworn to Wade McCabe he would keep Kelsey out of trouble. Not lead her into it. “Marriage is serious business, Kelse,” he reminded her sternly.

A mixture of curiosity and devilry sparkled in her dark green eyes. “You say that as if you know,” Kelsey taunted.

Brady hated being the responsible one in any relationship. But when he was with Kelsey, that was exactly what role he usually found himself playing. “Well, I do,” he retorted evenly.

Kelsey’s lips parted slightly in an “oh” of surprise as she continued to study him carefully. “Have you ever been married?”

“No.” Deliberately, Brady pushed aside the memory of his near-miss. “You?”

“No,” Kelsey replied rapidly, the look she gave him letting him know she had never been anywhere close. Which wasn’t a surprise, given her notoriously fickle history with men. “But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t be if it were necessary for business reasons,” Kelsey continued. “And let’s face it, it is.” She stood, legs braced, heels dug into the gravel driveway beneath her feet. “The only way anyone, whether it be bank or venture capitalist, is going to give us any money is if we first demonstrate enough stability to prove to them it will be a sound investment, either by cohabiting on our ranch for a very long time, like a matter of years, or going the traditional route and already being happily married. Besides—” she shrugged “—it will get everyone who thinks I shouldn’t be partnering with you, because it will prevent my ever falling in love and/or getting married to anyone else, off my back.”

She had a point there, Brady admitted reluctantly to himself. He braced a hand on the roof of the pickup, next to her head. “I thought the wedding fever that had swept town last summer had sort of died down,” he countered, looking down at her.

“Hah!” New color swept Kelsey’s cheeks, making the golden splattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose stand out all the more. “It’s only gotten worse since Sam McCabe and Kate Marten got married last week. John and Lilah McCabe are dropping hints about me marching down the aisle.” She looked at Brady, her frustration as evident as her determination to do something about it, something reckless, something they wouldn’t want her to do. “My sisters make no secret about how much they want me to marry,” she continued hotly.

“But you’ve told everyone under the sun you are never getting married, ever, no matter what.” As far as Brady was concerned, that should settle it. But it didn’t. Not for the Lockhart sisters, the McCabes, or even, it seemed, Kelsey herself, who had seemed to get more and more antsy about the subject as time went by, Brady noted.

Kelsey bent her knee and propped the sole of one boot against the side of the pickup. “So?” she shot back mischievously. “I’m notoriously fickle, remember? I change my mind all the time. I’ve had several dozen different jobs in the past six years, and many, many more boyfriends. This will be just another indication of my flightiness.”

Brady regarded her in exasperation. He couldn’t deny being involved with Kelsey—even as merely business partners—brought an endless array of surprises. But there was a limit as to what he was willing to do, even to achieve his dreams of being a successful rancher and self-made man. With a great deal more patience than he felt, he explained, “Kelse, we can’t just say ‘I do’ and then move in together and live under the same roof and have everything magically work out.”

Kelsey looked shocked. Abruptly, she moved away from him. “Who said anything about living under the same roof?” she spouted, looking abruptly as irritated with him as he was with her. She poked a finger against his chest. “I’m talking about a marriage of convenience here, a business arrangement, Brady. I just want to get hitched long enough to get our money.”

Brady released his breath in a whoosh of frustration. “Doing something purely for the sake of money is always a bad thing, Kelse.” He knew, having already done so himself. In fact, it was the agreement he’d made two years ago that was likely to be the end of life as he wanted it, yet.

“But building up our business isn’t.” Kelsey turned pleading eyes to his. She grabbed both his hands and squeezed them in hers. “Please, Brady.” She looked up at him in a way he was hard-pressed to deny. “Let’s get hitched. Now. Today.”

“YOU DID WHAT?” Wade McCabe asked two hours later.

“We got married at city hall,” Kelsey announced, still carrying the bouquet of Texas wildflowers Brady’d gotten her before they’d gone into the courthouse.

“This isn’t funny,” Wade said, after studying the marriage certificate they’d handed him, for proof. Wade glared at Brady.

“Believe me, it’s no joke to us, either,” Brady replied. He was pretty sure it was the overbearing, intensely protective nature of all those around her that had pushed Kelsey to be the wildly reckless woman she was.

“So let’s talk money,” Kelsey said, grabbing Brady’s hand and plopping herself down in a chair in front of Wade’s desk. “Brady and I were thinking prime plus one, in terms of interest rates.”

“Payable in six months, max,” Brady added firmly, as he took the chair next to Kelsey’s. He didn’t want them beholden to Wade any longer than possible.

“There’s no way you can do that,” Wade argued.

Actually, Brady thought silently, there was. Although even Kelsey didn’t know about the way he was going to do that….

“By then, we figure we’ll have established enough of a history and a business to be able to get another loan, from either a venture capitalist or a bank,” Kelsey said seriously, looking and acting like the top-notch business-woman she was.

“Okay. I’ll give you the money you want,” Wade said, “but I’ve got some conditions, too.”

Although he wasn’t anxious to learn what they were, Brady had expected as much.

“Such as…?” Kelsey prodded.

“If this marriage of yours proves to be a fraud, I get the deed to your ranch, free and clear.” Wade gave that a moment to sink in, then continued, even more seriously, “It’s not too late to back out. Because unless I miss my guess,” Wade continued, looking from one of them to the other, “this is still at the stage where it can all quietly be undone, maybe without even an annulment if you’re lucky enough. People will know what happened, of course—since you went to city hall—but the mistake won’t be a permanent or long-lasting kind of thing, and you’ll still have your ranch.”

“Just not the loan money from you,” Brady guessed quietly.

Wade nodded. He looked at Brady as if he thought Brady should have known better than to get sucked into one of Kelsey’s wild ideas. Unfortunately, Brady knew that was true.

“Fine. Draw up the papers,” Kelsey said heatedly.

“I mean it, Kelsey.” Wade frowned all the more. “If you insist on doing this…on trying to pull something over on me and everyone else, I’ll take your ranch,” Wade warned.

Brady had only to look at Wade to believe him. This was the only way Wade thought he could protect Kelsey from herself. Not surprisingly, Kelsey kept her hold on Brady’s hand. “I married this man. I’m staying married to him,” she announced boldly. “Now, draw up the papers, Wade. ’Cause as soon as you do, we’re signing on the dotted line.”

KELSEY AND BRADY WENT straight to the bank, then headed back to the ranch. They were still wearing the boots, jeans, denim work shirts and hats they’d had on earlier in the day. The only difference were the matching dime-store wedding rings on their left ring fingers. “See,” Kelsey said after a while, trying not to worry about what she’d recklessly insisted they get themselves into, “I told you it’d be fine.”

Brady’s black brows drew together. To Kelsey’s consternation, he didn’t exactly look as if he agreed with her.

“Absolutely nothing has changed,” Kelsey continued, as she studied Brady’s strong, six-foot frame. Although he tended to be a little mysterious—he never talked to anyone about the life he’d had before he had landed in Laramie, Texas—there wasn’t a finer-looking cowboy or more capable cattleman around, as far as she was concerned. He was solidly muscled from head to toe and had shoulders that were broad enough to lean on. Not that she’d ever really done so. A suntanned face, and a smile that was sexy and reckless enough to make her heart skip a beat. And he made a good partner, too.

Brady turned his pickup truck into the lane, the fading afternoon sunlight casting shadows along their path. “Well, I wouldn’t say that, exactly,” he said, nodding at the proliferation of cars and trucks in their drive. As she turned her gaze in the direction of his, it was all Kelsey could do not to groan out loud. It looked like a convention of the Lockharts and the McCabes. He turned to Kelsey expectantly. “Are we having a party I didn’t know about?” he asked.

Kelsey frowned, then allowed hesitantly, “Maybe a wedding reception.”

Brady’s lips came together firmly. He slanted her a glance. “What?”

“Well, you know my sisters.” Kelsey shrugged off the concern in Brady’s midnight-blue eyes. “And now that the word is out, they probably want to throw us a party or something to welcome you to the family.” As well as chew her out, big time, for not inviting them to witness the ceremony when they were all right there in town and could easily have attended and or tried to talk her out of doing such a reckless and impulsive thing in the first place.

Brady cut the motor on the pickup. “Sounds like fun,” he said unenthusiastically.

Judging by the surly look on his face, Kelsey guessed, the duplicity of what they had done was beginning to get to Brady, too. But knowing there was no going back and undoing anything, especially now that they had the money they needed sitting in the bank, Kelsey pushed open her door and jumped down from the truck. “I just hope they don’t have our family minister in there,” Kelsey said. If she had to say her vows in front of clergy, she’d really feel married. And she didn’t want to feel linked to Brady in that way. It was going to be hard enough as it was, pretending to one and all they were truly head over heels in love when they were in public. Noting Brady looked as alarmed about that prospect as she was feeling, Kelsey quickly reassured him. “They probably just have a cake or a wedding dress from my sister Jenna’s shop that they want me to wear for pictures. I’m sure we won’t have to say our vows again.” It had been hard enough rushing through the words the first time, without really meaning or even concentrating on the promises they were making to each other.

“Good.” Brady released a short sigh of relief. He lifted his hat and ran his hand through the inky-black layers of his hair, straightening the tousled layers as best he could. “’Cause, uh…”

“I understand perfectly,” Kelsey said, cutting him off and letting him know with a quick, decisive look that it wasn’t necessary to say more, as he slammed his hat back on his head and circled around the truck to join her. She knew he didn’t want to have to fib to people about the nature of their relationship any more than she did. “And I quite agree.” She linked hands with him—as much for moral support as show—and drew a deep breath, still holding her bouquet of Texas wildflowers and their certificate of marriage close to her chest. “There’s only so much pretending a body can take in one day.” Drawing strength from both his touch and the look in his eyes, she said, “Ready to go in and face the music?”

“Sure.” Brady grinned, abruptly looking as determined and devil-may-care as Kelsey had felt earlier. He shrugged and tightened his hand on hers. “Why not?”