Scarlet Lady (22 page)

She sat up in the bed and leaned back against the padded headboard, pulling the sheet over her bare breasts and tucking it beneath her arms. “But we’re not married yet.”

“We will be, just soon as you and Cat can shop for a dress.”

“Does it have to be red?” she asked seriously.

“Come to think of it, forget the dress, just open your present so we can get back to the honeymoon.”

Katie opened the envelope, unfolded the legal document inside, and felt her eyes fill with tears. “A clear title to Carithers’ Chance? You paid off Jonah? How did you do that?”

“Well, I do have a little problem with that. I’m going to need your signature.”

“On what?”

“On a bill of sale?”

“What bill of sale?” she asked.

“For the
Scarlet Lady
.”

Katie leaned forward, allowing the sheet to fall to her waist. “You can’t sell the
Lady
.”

“Why not?”

“Because—because I own her, or did you forget?”

Montana took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. “No you don’t, Katie. We own her.”

“I’m telling you one last time, Rhett Butler Montana Stewart, I didn’t cheat.”

“I know. But I opened the paper, your collateral on the bet. You signed the boat over to me, win or lose. This will just make everything nice and legal. Open the little box.”

She looked at the box, wrapped in red foil and tied with a glittery bow. “You knew?”

“I know you didn’t cheat. You may be the best poker player I know and I’m never going to play with you again—at least not poker.”

Katie slipped the ribbon off the package and the paper fell to the bed. She removed the top and gasped. Inside the tissue was a small fluff of white. “Cotton? This is cotton.”

“Yep, the kind of cotton we’re going to grow on Carithers’ Chance, once we sell the boat and buy back the land.”

“You want to grow cotton?” She couldn’t hide her surprise.

“Yes, ma’am. I always did. I just wanted to do it for the wrong reasons. Now I want to sit on my veranda with a baby on each knee, a mint julep in my hand, and my beautiful wife at my side.”

Katie looked at her wicked lover and smiled. She
reached into the drawer of her night table and pulled out a deck of cards. “I’m not sure I trust you, Montana. Cut the cards. High card decides how many children we have.”

He took the deck and shuffled the cards, letting them fly into the air. “I told you, no more gambling, Katie. I love you. To me, forever is a sure thing.”

She reached out and put her hand on his leg. “You really mean it, don’t you?”

“I do. You’ve filled all the dark places in my life and given me a future. Tell me that you love me, Katie. I want to hear the words.”

“I do. I love you. You’ve given me my past and a future I never expected. I’ll marry you whenever and wherever you want. We’ll drink mint juleps, grow cotton, and make babies.” Her hand began to move forward. “What do you say to that?”

“Ah, my lady in red, I can say with certainty that the South’s going to rise again.”

EPILOGUE

Lincoln McAllister rarely left Shangri-la. But no one was more surprised than he when he decided to attend Montana and Katie’s wedding at Carithers’ Chance.

His decision seemed more and more improbable as he drove his rented car up River Road toward the plantation. For years he’d had an assistant, but thus far, he’d never left him completely in charge. To relieve his guilt, Mac turned on his portable phone, though he genuinely hoped it wouldn’t ring.

It was late November. He’d called Sterling, just to check on Conner and his new bride, and casually inquired, “Are you going to the wedding?”

“Oh, no,” she’d answered. “I can’t.”

“Please come,” he’d said. “After all, you’re partially responsible for the wedding. I’m certain they’d love it if you came.”

“Perhaps,” she said softly. “We’ll see.”

“Perhaps,” he repeated now, out loud. Such an old-fashioned
word. He wondered what she looked like, this woman who rarely went out. Well, perhaps he’d know soon. If she came.

According to the map, he was almost there. Then the phone rang.

“Mac, here.”

“Mac? This is Conner. I’ve got a problem.”

“What is it?”

“It’s Sterling,” he said.

Mac felt his chest contract. “Sterling? What’s wrong?”

“She’s disappeared.”

Welcome to Loveswept!

Whether you’re on the beach, in the park, or sitting pool side, there’s nothing like spending a warm summer day reading a good book – especially one that has romance, sizzling passion, and deeply felt emotion. Luckily, we have just the thing to make your summer even more sweltering – in the very best way.

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TEMPTING THE DEVIL
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THE STORY GUY
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We also have some classics that you won’t want to miss:

Sandra Chastain’s exceptional stories,
SILVER BRACELETS
and
DANNY’S GIRL
, Ruth Owen’s riveting
AND BABIES MAKE FOUR
, Jean Stone’s moving
SINS OF INNOCENCE
, Iris Johansen’s thrilling
TIL THE END OF TIME
, and Katie Rose’s irresistible
A HINT OF MISCHIEF
.

If you love romance … then you’re ready to be
Loveswept!

Gina Wachtel

P.S. Watch for these terrific Loveswept titles coming soon: August heats up with three e-originals: Stacey Kennedy’s intoxicating
CLAIMED
, Elisabeth Barrett’s blazing
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, Katie Rose’s unforgettable
COURTING TROUBLE
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CRESCENDO
, Iris Johansen’s tantalizing
YORK, THE RENEGADE
and Ruth Owen’s ultra-sexy
BODY HEAT
. September arrives with more timeless stories for you – Three enticing stories from Sandra Chastain,
THE JUDGE AND THE GYPSY, FIREBRAND
, and
THE LAST DANCE
, beloved author Iris Johansen’s
THE DELANEY’S OF KILLAROO
, Fran Baker’s enchanting
SEEING STARS
, as well as two original stories: Lauren Layne’s seductive
AFTER THE KISS
, and Mira Lyn Kelly’s sexy and sweet
TRUTH OR DARE
. Don’t miss any of these extraordinary reads. I promise that you’ll fall in love and treasure these stories for years to come.…

“Yes,” Katie said, gripping the steering wheel harder. “Uh-huh, yes, I get it.” She glanced in the rearview mirror, signaled left, and changed lanes. The traffic was getting thicker as they approached Louisville.

Her brother kept talking, his voice robbed of its customary power by the cheap speakers of her cell phone, which sat in a cup-holder mount and broadcast Caleb’s warnings upward at her head. “If you have the slightest indication that there’s danger attached to this threat, you’re going to call me, and—”

“Yesssssss,” she droned.

The drama was wasted on Caleb, who was going to give her this lecture for the seventeenth time whether she wanted to hear it or not.

It was wasted on Katie’s traveling companion, too. Sean didn’t react to anything she did. Ever.

Katie glanced at the man in the passenger seat of her Jetta, just to be sure. His expression as he stared out the windshield matched the bleak, featureless expanse of southbound I-71. He was like a human wall of granite, completely impervious to everything about her.

A stern, gorgeous cliff face.

Suppressing a sigh, she tuned back in to Caleb’s speech. “—you to be in charge of anything along those lines, Sean. This is a trial run for Katie. I’m only letting her go because Judah insists she’s the one he wants to work with. You got that, Katie? It’s Sean’s show. I need you to play nice and stay out of his way.”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “I know the deal. I agreed to the deal. I am on board with the deal. Now can we stop talking about it, please?”

She flinched at the way her voice came out, sharper than she’d meant to sound. It was only because she was nervous about this trip. Her palms had gone clammy and slimed the leather
wheel cover, so uncomfortable did it make her to venture into an unknown city to do an unfamiliar job with a man who didn’t like her.

She had a tendency to bristle when nervous.

One more bad habit she needed to make an effort to tame. Better to be professional. What Katie really needed to figure out was how to act cool and icy like some kind of Bond Girl assassin, slinking around and poisoning people by slipping strychnine into their drinks.

Except without the poisoning. Her goal was to win herself a promotion from office manager to agent for Caleb’s security company, not to become an assassin. Not unless her ex-husband strolled into town needing assassinating.

“We’ll stop talking about it when I’m positive you’re going to cooperate,” Caleb said. “Right now, you sound like you’re blowing smoke up my ass.”

“I’m not,” she replied levelly. “I promise. I understand that this is your company and Sean’s assignment, and I’m just a companion on this trip. I promise I’ll be quiet and helpful and learn things, okay?”

“I need you to be safe.”

She made a face, then immediately regretted it. Wrinkling her nose and pursing her lips in response to Caleb’s babying only proved she deserved to be babied. Not the way she wanted Sean to see her.

She flicked another glance in his direction. If he saw her at all, he gave no sign.

“I’m safe,” she said.

“I care about you, Katelet.”

“I know you do,” she replied. “I care about you, too.”

“And it’s only because I care about you that I’m going to say this again …”

Katie tapped her fingertips against the steering wheel and stopped listening.

She understood his worry. Ever since she’d confessed that she was married and needed to locate her spouse so she could get divorced, Caleb had become all concerned and brotherly. She kept waiting for him to go back to the way he’d been before, but so far, no luck.

Five years older than her, her brother was a born nice guy who had spent most of his adulthood in the Military Police before moving home a year ago to help take care of their parents after their dad had a stroke. Katie had been living in his house rent-free at the time, working as a bartender nights and spending her days in elastic-waist pants, moping and watching daytime TV. Her husband, Levi, had cleaned her out and dropped her like a bad habit, and she’d returned from the life they’d built in Alaska in defeat. She’d practically regressed to adolescence by the time Caleb pulled her out of her self-pity slump.

He gave her a job running the office of his new company, Camelot Security, and after the first month or so, Katie had started to feel useful again. Competent. She’d discovered she had some get-up-and-go left in her after all. That she actually wanted to
do
something with herself.

Caleb was also the one who’d encouraged her to enroll in a couple of online classes. He’d even appointed himself her personal trainer, helping her whip her body into its best shape in years.

He was a great brother, but Katie was done with the coddling. She’d turned over a new leaf. He needed to get with the program.

“Sean, are you hearing all this?” he asked.

Sean nodded. He was invisible to Caleb, but the two of them apparently had a man-telepathy thing going, because Caleb said, “Great. Give me a call after you’ve talked to Pratt. I want to hear the details of these threats he’s supposedly getting. And if you can, find out why he’s brought this case to us instead of giving it to his security team from Palmerston, because—”