Duncan's Bride

  Pursing her lips, Madelyn considered it, then said, “No, I think it would come more under ‘falling on deaf ears’ than ‘wasting your breath.’ I’m getting married. I’d like you to be there.”

  “Of course I’ll be there! Nothing could keep me away. I have to see this paragon of manly virtues.”

  “I never said he was virtuous.”

  In complete understanding, they looked at each other and smiled.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THEY WERE MARRIED in Billings twelve days later. Madelyn was exhausted by the time of the wedding, which was performed in the judge’s chambers. She had gotten only a few hours of sleep each night since Reese’s phone call, because it had taken so much time to pack up a lifetime of belongings, sorting through and discarding what she wasn’t taking, and packing what she couldn’t bear to do without. She had also gotten the required physical and expressed the results to Reese, and hadn’t been surprised when she had received his results by express mail the same day.

  She had shipped numerous boxes containing books, albums, tapes, CDs, stereo equipment and winter clothes to the ranch, wondering what Reese would have to say about having his home taken over by the paraphernalia of a stranger. But when she’d spoken to him during two brief telephone calls he hadn’t mentioned it. Before she knew it she was flying to Billings again, but this time she wasn’t coming back.

  Reese didn’t kiss her when he met her at the airport, and she was glad. She was tired and on edge, and the first self-doubts were creeping in. From the look on his face, when he started kissing her again he didn’t intend to stop, and she wasn’t ready for that. But her heart leaped at the sight of him, reassuring her that she was doing the right thing.

  She planned to stay at a motel in Billings for the five days until their marriage; Reese scowled at her when she told him her plan.

  “There’s no point in paying for a motel when you can stay at the ranch.”

  “Yes, there is. For one thing, most of my New York clothes are useless and will just stay packed up. I have to have Montana clothing—jeans, boots and the like. There’s no point in making an extra trip later on to buy it when I’m here already. Moreover, I’m not staying alone with you right now, and you know why.”

  He put his hands on her waist and pulled her up against him. His narrowed eyes were dark green. “Because I’d have you under me as soon as we got in the house.”

  She swallowed, her slender hands resting on his chest. She could feel the heavy beat of his heart under her palms, a powerful pumping that revealed the sexual tension he was holding under control. “Yes. I’m not ready to start that part of our relationship. I’m tired, and nervous, and we really don’t know each other that well—”

  “We’re getting married in five days. We won’t know each other much better by then, baby, but I don’t plan on spending my wedding night alone.”

  “You won’t,” she whispered.

  “So one of the conditions for getting you in bed is to put a ring on your finger first?” His voice was getting harsher.

  He was angry, and she didn’t want him to be; she just wanted him to understand. She said steadily, “That isn’t it at all. If the wedding were two months away, or even just a month, I’m certain we’d…we’d make love before the ceremony, but it isn’t. I’m just asking you for a little time to rest and recuperate first.”

  He studied her upturned face, seeing the translucent shadows under her eyes and the slight pale cast to her skin. She was resting against him, letting his body support hers, and despite his surging lust he realized that she really was tired. She had uprooted her entire life in just one week, and the emotional strain had to be as exhausting as the physical work.

  “Then sleep,” he said in a slow, deep voice. “Get a lot of sleep, baby, and rest up. You’ll need it. I can wait five days—just barely.”

  She did get some sleep, but the emotional strain was still telling on her. She was getting married; it was natural to be nervous, she told herself.

  The day they signed the prenuptial agreement at the lawyer’s office was another day of stress. Reese was in a bad mood when he picked her up at the motel, growling and snapping at everything she said, so she lapsed into silence. She didn’t think it was a very good omen for their marriage.

  The prenuptial agreement was brief and easily understood. In case of divorce, they both kept the property and assets they had possessed prior to their marriage, and Madelyn gave up all rights to alimony in any form. She balked, however, at the condition that he retain custody of any children that should result from their union.

  “No,” she said flatly. “I’m not giving up my children.”

  Reese leaned back in the chair and gave her a look that would have seared metal. “You’re not taking my children away from me.”

  “Calm down,” the lawyer soothed. “This is all hypothetical. Both of you are talking as if a divorce is inevitable, and if that’s the case, I would suggest that you not get married. Statistics say that half of new marriages end in divorce, but that means that half don’t. You may well be married to each other for the rest of your lives, and there may not be any children anyway.”

  Madelyn ignored him. She looked only at Reese. “I don’t intend to take our children away from you, but neither do I intend to give them up. I think we should share custody, because children need both parents. Don’t try to make me pay for what April did,” she warned.

  “But you’d want them to live with you.”

  “Yes, I would, just as you’d want them to live with you. We aren’t going to change that by negotation. If we did divorce, I’d never try to turn our children against you, nor would I take them out of the area, but that’s something you’ll just have to take on trust, because I’m not signing any paper that says I’ll give up my children.”

  There were times, he noted, when those sleepy gray eyes could become sharp and clear. She was all but baring her teeth at him. It seemed there were some things that mattered enough to rouse her from her habitual lazy amusement, and it was oddly reassuring that the subject of their children, hypothetical though they were, was one of them. If he and April had had a child, she would have wanted custody of it only as a way to get back at him, not because she really wanted the child itself. April hadn’t wanted to have children at all, a fact for which he was now deeply grateful. Madelyn not only appeared to want children, she was ready to fight for them even before they existed.

  “All right,” he finally said, and nodded to the lawyer. “Strike that clause from the agreement. If there’s ever a divorce, we’ll hash that out then.”

  Madelyn felt drained when they left the lawyer’s office. Until then, she hadn’t realized the depth of Reese’s bitterness. He was so determined not to let another woman get the upper hand on him that it might not be possible for her to reach him at all. The realization that she could be fighting a losing battle settled on her shoulders like a heavy weight.

  “When do your stepbrother and best friend get here?” he asked curtly. He hadn’t liked the idea of Robert and Christine being at their wedding, and now Madelyn knew why. Having friends and relatives there made it seem more like a real wedding than just a business agreement, and a business agreement, with bed privileges, was all Reese wanted, all he could accept.

  “The day before the wedding. They won’t be able to stay afterward, so we’re going out to a restaurant the night before. You can be here, can’t you?”

  “No. There’s no one at the ranch to put the animals up for the night and do the chores for me. Even if I left immediately afterward, it’s almost a three-hour drive, so there’s no point in it.”

  She flushed. She should have thought of the long drive and how hard he had to work. It was a sign of how much she had to learn about ranching. “I’m sorry, I should have thought. I’ll call Robert—”

  He interrupted her. “There’s no reason why you should cancel just because I can’t be here. Go out with them and enjoy it. We won’t have much cha
nce to eat out after we’re married.”

  If he’d expected her to react with horror at that news, he was disappointed. She’d already figured that out on her own, and she didn’t care. She intended to be his partner in rebuilding the ranch; maybe when it was prosperous again he could let go of some of his bitterness. She would gladly forgo restaurant meals to accomplish that.

  “If you’re certain…”

  “I said so, didn’t I?” he snapped.

  She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “I’d like to know just what your problem is! I’ve seen men with prostate problems and women with terminal PMS who aren’t as ill-tempered as you. Have you been eating gunpowder or something?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s wrong!” he roared. “I’m trying to quit smoking!” Then he strode angrily to the truck, leaving her standing there.

  She blinked her eyes, and slowly a smile stretched her lips. She strolled to the truck and got in. “So, are you homicidal or merely as irritable as a wounded water buffalo?”

  “About halfway in between,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  His eyes were narrow and intense. “It isn’t just the cigarettes. Take off your panties and lock your legs around me, and I’ll show you.”

  She didn’t want to refuse him. She loved him, and he needed her, even if it was only in a sexual way. But she didn’t want their first time to be a hasty coupling in a motel room, especially when she was still jittery from stress and he was irritable from lack of nicotine. She didn’t know if it would be any better by their wedding day, but she hoped she would be calmer.

  He saw the answer in her eyes and cursed as he ran his hand around the back of his neck. “It’s just two damn days.”

  “For both of us.” She looked out the window. “I admit, I’m trying to put it off. I’m nervous about it.”

  “Why? I don’t abuse women. If I don’t have the control I need the first time, I will the second. I won’t hurt you, Maddie, and I’ll make certain you enjoy it.”

  “I know,” she said softly. “It’s just that you’re still basically a stranger.”

  “A lot of women crawl into bed with men they’ve just met in a bar.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Evidently you don’t crawl into bed with the man you’re going to marry, either.”

  She rounded on him. “That’s unfair and you know it, because we aren’t getting married under the usual circumstances. If you’re not going to do anything but snap at me and try to pressure me into bed, maybe we shouldn’t see each other until the wedding.”

  His teeth came together with a snap. “That sounds like a damn fine idea to me.”

  So she spent the last two days before her wedding alone, at least until Robert and Christine arrived the afternoon before. She hadn’t expected Reese to drive to Billings every day, and in fact he hadn’t, except to meet her at the airport and to go to the lawyer’s office, but it disturbed her that they had already quarreled. If their marriage survived, it looked like it would be a tempestuous one.

  When she met Christine and Robert at the airport, Christine looked around impatiently. “Well, where is he?”

  “At the ranch, working. He doesn’t have anyone to look after the animals, so he isn’t coming in tonight.”

  Christine frowned, but to Madelyn’s surprise Robert took it in stride. It only took a moment’s thought to realize that if there was anything Robert understood, it was work coming before everything else.

  She hooked her arms through theirs and hugged both of them. “I’m so glad you’re here. How was the flight?”

  “Exciting,” Christine said. “I’ve never traveled with the boss before. He gets red-carpet treatment, did you know?”

  “Exasperating,” Robert answered smoothly. “She makes smartmouth comments, just like you do. I kept hearing those sotto voce remarks in my ear every time a flight attendant came by.”

  “They didn’t just come by,” Christine explained. “They stopped, they lingered, they swooned.”

  Madelyn nodded. “Typical.” She was pleased that Christine wasn’t intimidated by Robert, as so many people were. Christine would never have been so familiar in the office, and in fact Madelyn doubted that the two had ever met before, but in this situation he was merely the bride’s brother and she was the bride’s best friend, and she had treated him as such. It also said something about Robert’s urbanity that Christine did feel at ease with him; when he chose, her stepbrother could turn people to stone with his icy manner.

  Now if only her two favorite people in the world would like the man she loved. She hoped he’d recovered from his nicotine fit by the morning, or it could be an interesting occasion.

  They took a cab to the motel where she was staying, and Robert got a room, but Madelyn insisted that Christine stay in the room with her. On this last night as a single woman, her nerves were frayed, and she wanted someone to talk to, someone she could keep up all night if she couldn’t sleep herself. After all, she reasoned, what were friends for if not to share misery?

  They shared a pleasant meal and enjoyed themselves, though Madelyn wished Reese could have been there. By ten o’clock Christine was yawning openly and pointed out that it was midnight in New York. Robert signaled for the check; he looked as fresh as he had that morning, but he was used to working long hours and usually only slept four hours a night anyway.

  “Will you sleep tonight?” he asked Madelyn when they got back to the motel, having noticed her shadowed eyes.

  “Probably not, but I don’t think a bride is supposed to sleep the night before she gets married.”

  “Honey, it’s the night she gets married that she isn’t supposed to sleep.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “Then either. I’m tired, but I’m too nervous and excited to sleep. It’s been that way since he called.”

  “You aren’t having second thoughts?”

  “Second, third and fourth thoughts, but it always comes back to the fact that I can’t let this chance pass.”

  “You could always postpone it.”

  She thought of how impatient Reese was and wryly shook her head. “No, I couldn’t, not one more day.”

  He hugged her close, resting his cheek on her bright head. “Then give it all you’ve got, honey, and he’ll never know what hit him. But if it doesn’t work out, don’t punish yourself. Come home.”

  “I’ve never heard such a bunch of doubting Thomases before,” she chided. “But thanks for the concern. I love you, too.”

  By the time she went inside, Christine was already crawling into bed. Madelyn picked up the pillow and hit her with it. “You can’t sleep tonight. You have to hold my hand and keep me calm.”

  Christine yawned. “Buy some beer, get wasted and go to sleep.”

  “I’d have a hangover on my wedding day. I need sympathy, not alcohol.”

  “The most I can offer you is two aspirin. I’m too tired to offer sympathy. Besides, why are you nervous? You want to marry him, don’t you?”

  “Very much. Just wait until you see him, then you’ll know why.”

  One of Christine’s eyes opened a crack. “Intimidating?”

  “He’s very…male.”

  “Ah.”

  “Eloquent comment.”

  “It covered a lot of ground. What did you expect at—” she stopped to peer at her watch “—one o’clock in the morning? Shakespearean sonnets?”

  “It’s only eleven o’clock here.”

  “My body may be here, but my spirit is on Eastern Daylight Time. Good night, or good morning, whichever the case may be.”

  Laughing, Madelyn let Christine crash in peace. She got ready for bed herself, then lay awake until almost dawn, both mind and body tense.

  THE DRESS SHE had bought for the wedding was old-fashioned in design, almost to her ankles, with eyelet lace around the hem and neckline. She pinned up her hair in a modified Gibson girl, and put on white lace hosiery and wh
ite shoes. Even though it was just going to be a civil ceremony, she was determined to look like a bride. Now that the day had actually arrived she felt calm, and her hands were steady as she applied her makeup. Maybe she had finally gotten too tired for nervousness.

  “You look gorgeous,” said Christine, who looked pretty good herself in an ice-blue dress that did wonders for her olive complexion. “Cool and old-fashioned and fragile.”

  Fragile was a word Madelyn had never used to describe herself, and she turned to Christine in disbelief.

  “I didn’t say you were fragile, I said you looked fragile, which is just the way you’re supposed to look on your wedding day.”

  “You have some interesting ideas. I know the something borrowed, something blue routine, but I always thought a bride was supposed to look radiant, not fragile.”

  “Pooh. Radiance is easy. Just a few whisks with a blusher brush. Fragile is much harder to achieve. I’ll bet you stayed up nights perfecting it.”

  Madelyn sighed and looked at herself in the mirror again. “I didn’t think it showed.”

  “Did you sleep any?”

  “An hour or so.”

  “It shows.”

  When Reese knocked on the door, Madelyn froze. She knew it was Reese, and not Robert. Her heart began that slow, heavy beat as she crossed the room to open the door.

  Reese looked down at her, his expression shadowed by his gray dress Stetson. With his boots on he stood over six-four, closer to six-five, and he filled the doorway. Behind her Madelyn heard Christine gasp, but Reese didn’t even glance at her; he kept his eyes on Madelyn. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I’m completely packed.”

  “I’ll put your suitcases in the car.”

  He was wearing a charcoal pin-striped suit with a spotlessly white shirt. Madelyn recognized both the cut and fabric as being expensive, and knew this must be a suit he’d had before his divorce. He was breathtaking in it. She glanced at Christine, who still wasn’t breathing.