The Bridal Contract. Susan Fox P.

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СКАЧАТЬ but impossible to see through the windshield. Wary of running her over, Chase levered the door open a little and leaned out in time to see Fay rise to her hands and knees.

      The little idiot was alive.

      Fay managed to stay conscious but couldn’t breathe. She instinctively rolled to her side then to her stomach to pull in enough air to relieve the pressure in her chest. Her head was spinning and she was nauseous, but she made it to her hands and knees and panted while she waited for more strength. Her clothes were soaked, her shoulder, hip and knee were throbbing, and she had the headache of her life. She tried to get up, but couldn’t do it yet, so she settled for moving a hand around until her fingers came in contact with the brim of her Stetson and dragged it close.

      She thought she heard a pickup engine over the sound of the storm, but her ears were ringing so she wasn’t sure. Anxiety went through her at the idea that she was still hearing things that weren’t there, and the chill the thought left in its wake made her tremble. She didn’t hear the heavy tread of man-size boots until just before someone caught her around the waist and lifted her to her feet.

      Fay cried out against the pain and surprise of the sudden move, helpless to do anything but bite her lip to stifle another embarrassing cry as she was all but dragged to the open door of a white pickup. At least this was real, and her anxiety eased. Her rescuer gathered her up and lifted her to the driver’s seat so suddenly that she had to close her eyes against the dizziness. She tried to move across the bench seat under her own power, but a pair of strong hands shifted her out of the way as easily as if she was a child.

      Her rescuer climbed in after her, his big body bumping solidly against her bruised side, but Fay was too rattled and disoriented to move even an inch away from it. Besides, the heat of the shoulder to knee contact felt good, though the warmth set off another wave of the icy shivers that racked her.

      A volley of hail hit the pickup roof, and the truck door banged shut. The engine revved as the pickup lurched backward, swinging around and nearly pitching her off the seat. The driver’s hard arm kept her from falling.

      Fay reflexively reached for it, but the arm jerked down to shift gears as the pickup abruptly stopped then shot forward into a bumpy, fishtailing ride. Her nausea came back in direct proportion and she grabbed urgently for the driver’s arm.

      “Slow down!” she panted, too weak to do more than hang on to him with her good right hand. She was so dizzy she had to close her eyes again.

      The low voice that shot back was blunt and offensively descriptive.

      “We gotta funnel cloud about to blow up the tailpipe.”

      Fay felt a fresh surge of nausea as she recognized the voice. She made herself let go of his arm as he went on.

      “Not that you’d care if a tornado dropped down on your head, but some of us would rather die of old age.”

      The sarcasm cleared her brain and she managed to focus briefly on Chase Rafferty’s grim profile before she faced forward, her insides twisting with shame. And resentment.

      Rafferty. Chase Rafferty, the biggest bull in the pasture, who regularly charged in where she didn’t want him to be. Good fences and closed doors meant nothing to him. In all these months he’d been the one person she hadn’t been able to keep away, the one person who hadn’t allowed her to come to grips with the loss of her brothers in solitude.

      Everyone else had gotten the message that she needed time alone and didn’t feel like seeing anyone she didn’t have to, but Chase always found a reason to butt in. The worst had been during those first weeks after the double funeral, when he’d come over at 7:00 a.m. four mornings in a row, pounding on her bedroom door to inform her that it was a workday and she had men standing around waiting for her say-so.

      And of course he’d hung around in her kitchen long enough to see her after she’d got dressed and come down for a quick breakfast. He’d been able to tell she had a hangover, but he’d waited until she’d finished eating to lecture her about the dangers of crawling into a bottle to numb her grief.

      On the third morning, she’d come down to the kitchen after another loud awakening and threatened to do him bodily harm if he said anything more to her than “Good morning.” That was the last hangover she’d had though, because she’d stopped drinking herself to sleep. When he’d come by at 7:00 a.m. on the fourth morning, she’d already gone out, working away from the headquarters so she wouldn’t have to see him.

      A few weeks later, he’d taken to phoning at the noon meal, wanting to know if she was going to show up for a cattlemen’s meeting that night or if she had plans to go to some local event or social gathering that weekend. His message was clear: Get back to living. Her message to him, after she got a caller ID and stopped answering his calls or returning them, was: Leave me alone.

      After that, he’d gone back to stopping by from time to time, only he’d started asking if she had thoughts about selling out. Short of that, he was looking for land to lease, and since she’d sold off part of her herd, would she want to work out a deal to let him run some of his cattle on her range?

      Those were the times that had annoyed her the most. As if she was some wimpy female who’d never be able to hang on to her heritage by herself. His offer had stung her pride at the time, but later that sting had begun to undermine her confidence and make her feel like a failure. After all, Rafferty/Keenan was a huge operation, and the man who ran it had a knack for spotting problems.

      And the fact that it had been Rafferty who’d seen her get thrown off her horse just now, Rafferty who’d picked her up and stuffed her into his truck, and Rafferty who was racing across the range to outrun a dangerous storm, was bitter comeuppance for her foolishness with the lightning.

      Even more bitter was the idea that he’d seen her moments of self-destructive daring before her fall, and would no doubt soon let her know he had. That’s why she’d started to hate the sight of him, and heartily wished she could target his Achilles’ heel as mercilessly as he had hers this past year. She hated even more that men like him didn’t seem to have any.

      It was hard to remember now that there’d been a time—years actually—when she’d had a huge crush on Chase Rafferty. Even the idea that she might see him somewhere had given her a thrill. She would have loved to have his attention back then, though he’d seemed to be only marginally aware of her.

      He’d had too many girlfriends, and she’d been a neighbor kid seven years younger, and far too inexperienced for an earthy man of the world like him. She’d worried for years that he’d marry one of his glamorous girlfriends, and when he hadn’t, her hope that he’d finally notice her and ask her out had become acute.

      Then the boys had been killed and she’d lost interest in Chase along with everything else. Though he was still as ruggedly handsome as ever and remained the most sought after bachelor in their part of Texas, Fay was immune to him now.

      And she was still nauseous from the rough ride. The longer the trip went, the more aches and pains made themselves felt, but she’d bite her tongue off before she’d complain. She couldn’t let herself get sick, either; that would be the ultimate shame if it happened with Rafferty around. Surely they’d reach the main house at her place soon.

      They finally drove out of the rain and were now ahead of it. Chase turned onto one of the better pasture roads and the ride smoothed out. Soon the big pecan trees at the Sheridan headquarters came into sight, then the corrals and ranch buildings. Chase drove past them all as if he did it every day, then steered the pickup onto the СКАЧАТЬ