Wild Enough For Willa. Ann Major

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СКАЧАТЬ oddly enough, greatly pleased Willa.

      “Don’t even think about her,” said McKade. “She’s mine.”

      The kid’s smile thinned sardonically. “Really? She doesn’t look to me like she belongs to anybody.”

      The kid, Little Red, with the crazily spiked orange-red hair, was growing on her fast.

      “Where’s the gun?” McKade demanded.

      She notched her nose up defiantly. “I said, you don’t have to shout. The last thing you two need is a gun.”

      “I like her sass,” Little Red said.

      “Shut up.” McKade scowled at Willa. “Is it out here?”

      “Do you ever listen?” she demanded.

      “No, he does not,” said Little Red. “What’s a nice girl like you doing shacked up with a rude jerk like him?”

      “We’re not shacked up,” said Willa huffily.

      “Good for you,” said Little Red.

      “Not yet,” growled McKade.

      “You didn’t shoot Brand, did you?” she asked, batting her lashes at the kid, mainly because it had such a powerful effect on McKade. His face had gone as dark as a prune.

      Little Red looked sullen…until he caught on she was flirting with him to bedevil McKade.

      “I bet you’re a good shot,” she said to the boy.

      McKade swore in an undertone. “He missed, didn’t he?”

      “The asshole stole my rented car,” explained Little Red.

      Which meant Brand could and would come after her. Which meant that she had to get out of here fast.

      “Sorry to break up this little party,” said McKade. “But I’m taking you back to New Mexico, kid.”

      “Can I come, too?” Willa asked.

      The men were too wrapped up in their own war to answer her.

      “Nobody, especially not you, is gonna tell me what to do—you—you bastard,” the kid whispered.

      McKade grabbed the boy by the collar, shook him and then shoved him roughly out the door.

      Bastard. Willa made a mental note. That particular word really got to McKade.

      They slammed the door in her face. She opened it and rushed outside into the hall after them. “Don’t you two dare leave without me.”

      McKade shot her an insulting grin over his wide shoulder. “So, get that cute polka-dotted fanny of yours in gear, girl. You’ve yet to earn your keep.”

      Her keep! The nerve! But she rushed back into the room, grabbed the thousand dollars off the table, came outside, and stuck it between her breasts, while both men watched her little maneuver so appreciatively that the elevator door closed and the elevator went down without them.

      “You’re really paying her? You’re really that hard up?” asked Little Red with lewd interest. He lowered his voice. “How much?”

      Willa pulled out the bills and flapped them saucily. “A thousand dollars.”

      “Would you choose me…if I gave you more?”

      “Butt out,” growled McKade.

      “Sure. I’ll go to auction. Go ahead. Make me an offer,” Willa snapped sassily, not because she was serious, but because this game might have possibilities, because she felt afraid and chose to mask her fear with an air of bravado. McKade’s scowl had gone as black as a prune again. As always, the dramatic held appeal.

      The madder McKade got, the slower he would think. And why couldn’t she amuse herself? Why shouldn’t she distract herself from the very real terrors of last night? After all, she knew she had no intention of sleeping with either of them. So, why not play their silly little male game and pretend she was a slave, up for grabs on an auction block?

      “Money, lots of it. And me,” said McKade.

      “Marriage,” said Little Red without missing a beat.

      Marriage. One little word. Willa felt breathless.

      Marriage.

      Suddenly, the stakes had changed.

      7

      “Marriage,” Little Red had said.

      McKade studied her, his gaze alert. “Don’t even think about it.” His low tone was suddenly brusque, strange. “Marriage? A girl like you…” He laughed, but uneasily.

      He can’t compete with that offer. He’s a little scared she thought, pleased. Too pleased…because he cared.

      Because Brand had not cared.

      But still…

      Marriage. The word reverberated in that tender, dark corner of Willa’s heart, that hopeless, unfurnished corner where she’d longed to hang curtains, that forlorn corner she’d been afraid to visit ever since Brand had set her straight about how he intended to handle her accidental pregnancy.

      Marriage.

      To an unwed mother-to-be, a terrified mother-to-be, the word and all it implied—respectability, a nest to raise her precious child…and it, not it, a human being, her child, he or she, would be so precious.…Ah, respectability…in New Mexico…far, far from Laredo…far, far from Brandon Baines, who had designed a sordid role for her in his life…a role she did not want to play. With a new name, she might be safe in New Mexico.

      She saw a darling house. Yellow. Yes. A yellow cottage with white shutters and a picket fence. Vivid bright, her yellow. And on that picket fence she would grow sweet peas. She could see those delicate, pastel blossoms aflutter in a cool evening breeze, while she rocked her baby. No. New Mexico was all red rock. Desert and dirt. Like Laredo.

      Not like Laredo. Not so hot, hopefully. Far away from Laredo. Far from her aunt, Mrs. Brown, whose scandalous reputation would sully the baby’s name…as it had hers. Not that she was ungrateful to her aunt, who’d given her a home, if you could call it that. But Willa wanted to give her darling baby the kind of childhood she’d had before that desperate stormy night that had left her an orphan.

      Never would her baby stand on a porch with a shabby suitcase and a door open and a scarlet-haired woman stare at him in wonder and say, “A child? What on earth will a woman like me do with a child?”

      Her parents had been reckless. As a result, she’d grown up in an inappropriate environment. Willa was determined to settle down, to provide a loving, respectable home for her baby.

      Marriage. Her baby needed a father.

      “Tell me more,” СКАЧАТЬ