The Bridal Promise. Virginia Dove

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СКАЧАТЬ gentle into a faint smile. As always, it softened the fierceness of his features to a surprising degree.

      “Gannie said she promised your grandmother Anne to always look out for you and your mother.” Matt and Perri both displayed a momentary lack of composure at the mention of Peni’s grandmother, Anne. “She said it was time for the Stone/Marlowe women to stop running—mat you, in particular, needed to come home. That even later,” he added, “and divorced from Matt, you’d be accepted as a member of the community and not as an outsider. She said: ‘Perri needs to have her home restored. The Ransoms took it from her and they can damn well give it back.”

      Matt sat silently, his mind racing around all the angles as John continued. “So folks, here’s the bottom line. Number one, you two have ninety days to accept or decline the terms of the will. If you marry, you stay married for at least six months before entertaining the possibility of a divorce—all the while, you must live together in the Gledhill place.”

      Matt stirred indignantly at that. “I don’t have the time to be driving back and forth to the farm,” he said. “I’ve got horses to see to. I’ve—”

      “Oh, please. It’s down the road, not even a mile,” Perri interjected. “I live 2,000-something miles away and you have the nerve to whine about how—”

      “Number two,” Deepwater’s rich, courtroom voice filled the little office. “You come up with a plan to use the land she’s donated to Spirit in a way that will benefit the area. From the way she described it to me, what she wanted from y’all . . .”

      John’s eyes were drawn to a photograph on the wall behind his clients’ chairs. His voice trailed off. Matt could almost feel him looking back to a time before the sound of the starting gun for the Run of ’89. The day the town of Spirit Valley sprung up overnight.

      “Well,” John continued, “it was as if she wanted you two to homestead and make the improvements necessary to maintain a claim. I think that’s how she saw it, as a claim. I think it was important to her that the two of you were the ones to find some way to bring people and commerce into the area.” John looked from Perri to Matt, letting his words sink in.

      “But I don’t want to bring people into the area,” Matt pointed out politely. “I want them to stay out.”

      “Well, then you’re going to have them in your lap, Matt,” his friend replied just as politely as you please. “The house and the land will be sold to the developers and you’ll have a condominium resting up by your east pasture.” The thought of that left all three of them breathless.

      “Gary Kell is the attorney for the developers and he is just about beside himself, he wants that deal so bad,” John stated grimly. “So unless you put your back into this project, not only will you lose the inheritance of that land, you’re going to have people just about up your nose.

      “Perri.” John continued, “I’ve seen the plans. They are trying to be sensitive and tasteful about it, but the condo will surround the old graveyard. Some of your family is buried there.”

      Perri looked away.

      “Of course, maybe that’s your preference,” he added with studied carelessness.

      Well, that brought her head back around to stare him down. The tears in her eyes had dried in an instant and the green glints flashed with a renewed show of spirit.

      Good, Matt thought. Whatever else had happened, the woman had acquired some grit along the way.

      “Take the money,” John continued in the same indifferent vein, “and let us become even more of a bedroom community for Oklahoma City than we already are.”

      “So, is that all?” The simmer and sizzle of Ransom’s slow burn could probably be detected all the way to Oklahoma City.

      “No.” Deepwater replied soberly. “No.”

      “Well?” Matt was in no mood to be strung along. And he still wasn’t fooled John had been looking forward to this. “What else did she say?”

      Deepwater’s gaze fell upon Perri. “She said “Tell Perri I said it was time she stopped running and came home.’” Perri looked deeply into John’s eyes, as if she were trying to see Gannie’s face emerge from their onyxlike surface. “Tell her I said for her to just trust me.’”

      “Don’t make me drag it out of you, John. What else?” Matt demanded.

      A surprisingly boyish grin lit Deepwater’s face as he looked at Ransom. “She said: ‘And Johnnie, when Matthew starts to squawk, you just tell him he should have paid more attention. Back when I was trying to teach him how to play chess.’”

      

      Just trust me.

      Out in the parking lot, Perri fumbled with the car keys and the copies of Gannie’s will. She had excused herself and gotten out quick. From the look of the sky, Spirit was caught between two opposing weather patterns, one to the norh, the other to the east. The light had turned that clear, lovely shade of pale, apple green that Perri associated with soon-to-follow destructive weather.

      The weather had been as good an excuse as any to make a graceful exit The ex-Mrs. Gary Kell, the lovely Lida, had been lying in wait in the outer office when the three of them had emerged. She had immediately draped herself all over Matt like a cheap suit, the better to pump him for details. It took a stronger stomach than Perri had possessed at the moment to witness that.

      Strong wind blew her hair into her eyes as she tried to get it straight which key on the unfamiliar ring fit the car door. A large, bronzed hand took the ring from her, inserting the proper key and holding open the door. “Thank you, Matt,” she said formally.

      He was wearing a suit, his hair just curling around the collar of his shirt. And cologne. She could sort of halfway deal with him when he was in boots and jeans, but not in a suit. Perri fought the urge to hang her head and not look at the man. He looked too good, too solid, his presence too comforting.

      “I’ve asked John to dig out whatever boilerplate he’s got on hand for prenuptial agreements,” Matt said. “You have an appointment tomorrow morning at 9 a.m., right after mine,” he added rapidly upon her glare, “for a medical checkup.”

      Jolted out of the notion of a “comforting” Matt Ransom, Perri stared at him. “What?” she cried.

      “Doc Berkka is leaving for Tenkiller,” Matt said as if that settled it.

      It did. “Of course. Silly me,” she said dryly. “Whatever was I thinking?”

      Trips to the lake were sacred to the Berkkas. Back when the current Dr. Berkka’s grandfather was in practice, every cesarean birth in June had been scheduled to accommodate the fish.

      “So, do we sign a prenup?” Matt demanded. “Book the church? Get a jump on the next thing that lawyer is going to tell us to do?”

      She had to ask. “Just when did Johnnie Deepwater become ‘that lawyer’?”

      “When he told me I had to marry you, that’s when,” Matt roared.

      Perri’s face tilted up toward his as they squared off. “Thank you so very much for announcing that at the top of your lungs,” СКАЧАТЬ