This Perfect Stranger. Barbara Ankrum

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Standing up to his ankles in the horse dung and straw he’d swept out of the stables, he nearly sat down where he was.

      “Not a real marriage, of course. Don’t look at me that way. I know how this sounds.”

      Cain snorted, thinking it sounded like he’d been transported into some weird alternative universe while he wasn’t looking. “You do?”

      “I-I said it all wrong. Actually,” she said, wrinkling her brow, “there is no right way to ask a complete stranger to marry you.”

      He let the pitchfork’s handle thunk against the silvery old wood of the stall door. “Stranger being the operative word.”

      “I know.” Maggie turned and paced to the other side of the barn’s main hallway. “I know. Don’t you think this sounds crazy to me, too?”

      He shook his head, still not comprehending. “Then why—?”

      “Because I need a husband, Cain. Technically. I need a husband or I’m going to lose this place.”

      The gears began to lock in place in his brain. “Look,” he began, “I’m sorry to hear that. But I don’t see what that has to do with me.”

      “Believe me,” she said, pacing from one side of the hallway to the other, “no one is more surprised by what I’m suggesting than I am.”

      “Really.” Cain tore off one work glove and slapped it against his knee. Fragrant bits of straw dust swirled in the air between them. “I don’t think I want to know…but what exactly are you suggesting?”

      She stopped pacing. “An arrangement.”

      “Arrangement.” Even his voice sounded odd. And was it suddenly hotter in here?

      “Yes. It would be strictly a business arrangement. With a contract. Guidelines. That sort of thing.”

      “Guidelines.”

      “You’re horrified.”

      Cain rubbed his temple. “Horrified isn’t exactly—”

      “Because I’d be horrified if I were you. I mean, after all, all you did was ride onto my place and innocently ask for a job and here I am—”

      “Speechless is more the word I’d go for.”

      “Right. I understand. But this could benefit us both.”

      This he had to hear. “How?”

      “Well, first of all, there’s the obvious. I need a husband to qualify for the loan I need to save this place. You seem to need a place to be. I just thought, since you weren’t heading anywhere in particular—”

      “Did I say that?”

      Her lips parted in surprise and he cursed himself for snapping at her.

      “I…I—” she stammered, “maybe not.”

      “I never said that.”

      She nodded. “All right. At any rate, I wouldn’t ask you to do me this favor without compensation. I’m prepared to offer you—“she swallowed hard “—five hundred acres of my land in exchange for posing as my husband.”

      Five hundred—! Cain nearly choked.

      “To be delivered after our arrangement is terminated.”

      Cain was still stuck on the five hundred acres of prime cattle country she’d offered. Something old and rusty lurched back to life inside him. A dream he’d thought long dead. Land.

      Land that he could call his own. Maybe the old dream wasn’t as dead as he’d thought it was.

      “Cain? Did you hear me?”

      He dragged himself back. “What?”

      “I said, you’d have to promise to stay—play my husband that whole time. If you broke your end of the bargain, or if we fail to make this place work…I’ll lose the ranch. And your part with it.”

      She was right. It was a gamble. If she lost, he’d be out six months and the prospect of a place to start over. If she won, though…what? He’d settle down? Build a house and a picket fence and pretend he could ever have go back to the life he’d walked away from?

      He reached for the pitchfork again, and just for the hell of it, asked, “How far do you mean to take this little fantasy of yours?”

      “What do you mean?”

      He turned back to her. “You and me. How far do you intend to take this marriage charade?”

      “I told you. It’s a business arrangement. You will, of course, sleep in the tack room.”

      “The tack room. You want me to play your husband from the tack room.”

      She cleared her throat. “Yes. No one needs to know.”

      Images of another wedding and another time clicked through his brain. Pictures that turned like a Rolodex in his mind whenever the hell they wanted to. He turned away from Maggie. Hell, what was he thinking? That he could ever start over? Be that man he’d been once? That anyone would ever let him forget where he’d been?

      “No,” he said, shoving the pitchfork into the last of the soiled bedding in the stall.

      Maggie let her arms drop to her sides. “No…as in you won’t sleep in the barn? Or—”

      “No…as in I won’t marry you.” He dumped the load of dirty straw at Maggie’s feet and turned back to toss the fresh flake of straw around the clean floor.

      Behind him, Maggie was silent for the space of ten heartbeats. But that didn’t last.

      “You could…think about it.” Her voice was small and sounded thin. “We could…discuss—”

      “I don’t need to think about it. I’m not in the market. I told you. I’m just passin’ through.”

      “I could even pay you a small salary when I get the loan. Enough to get you started—”

      “Not interested.”

      Maggie studied one of her palms. “Right. Okay.”

      Cain leaned against the pitchfork, staring at the dirt floor. He should’ve left this morning. Early. He didn’t want to hear the need in her voice or ponder what it meant to leave her alone here on this place when she was begging him to stay. The flash of anger her offer had set off in him subsided. He wasn’t sure where it had even come from. All he knew was that it was time to get out of here.

      He combed a hand through his hair. “It’s probably best if I go now. I’ve stayed too long already.”

      Straightening her shoulders, she started backing out of the barn. “Right. You have to do what you have to do. I’d, uh, better get back to the horses. Please, say goodbye СКАЧАТЬ