The Marriage Charm (Bliss County 2) (31 page)

She sure did.

“I owe both you and him.” Spence stroked the mare’s silky mane. “This is a perfect wedding gift.”

“Hadleigh’s pregnant.”

Spence turned and rested an arm on the fence rail. “Am I supposed to be surprised? I’m pretty sure I know what you do together in your spare time. Just sayin’. Congratulations.”

Tripp grinned. “Thanks.”

He didn’t mention that he’d seen the charm Melody was working on, the mare with a foal, and had immediately guessed who it was for.

After writing Tripp a check, he loaded the mare in the trailer he’d brought and took her home. She and Reb greeted each other with caution at first, but quickly came to an understanding. A muzzle touch and some communal grazing went a long way.

What he wanted to do was craft the perfect evening. He wasn’t sure how to do that, so he just sent Melody a text.

How do you feel about running out to the ranch? Harley misses you.

If nothing else, she was a sucker for the dog. Why not shamelessly exploit that weakness?

She sent back

See you in a few. I’ve got a couple of deliveries to make.

Casual dress code tonight. Jeans and boots.

He hoped that didn’t give too much away, but he was really looking forward to an evening ride, and occasionally Melody wore shorts or a sundress to show off those long legs he admired.

Especially when they were wrapped around him, he thought with an inner smile.

He sat on the front porch and called his aunt while he waited. “I’m engaged, Aunt Libby.”

“Spence, this is Mustang Creek. I’ve been waiting for you to tell me, but if you think I didn’t already know, think again. About time if you ask me. How does she like the horse?”

“How did...” He trailed off with a sigh. “I’m giving the mare to her this evening. I sure hope everyone isn’t as well-informed as you are. I was planning a surprise.”

“I ran into Pauline at the grocery. No one will tell Melody. Don’t worry.”

“My mother sent me a card.” It was a terse declaration. “Out of the blue.”

“That I did not know.” There was a brief silence before she asked, “What did it say?”

“That she was sorry. She included a phone number.”

“Interesting.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

“Spence, I haven’t seen her or talked to her in twenty-seven years, either. I always wondered if she’d have regrets. But there’s one thing I can tell you for sure—I don’t. Even when you were your most cantankerous teenage self, raising you was my greatest joy. I got a little frustrated now and then, make no mistake, but you turned out to be a fine man, and I’m proud of you.” She paused. “Are you going to call her?”

There was a reason he loved this woman so much.

“I haven’t decided.”

“Either way, you have my support. I hear Lettie Arbuckle is going to plan your wedding.”

He barely managed to contain a groan. Gossip in Mustang Creek really caught fire if there was anything to talk about; he figured that between the thefts and his engagement, he’d given them lots. “Well, I’ll leave that to her and Mel.”

They were
definitely
eloping.

Just as he ended the call, he saw Melody’s little yellow car pull into the long drive, and if he hadn’t, Harley would have alerted him, leaping up and barking excitedly.

She didn’t make it to the house, braking to an abrupt halt by the pasture. In two seconds flat she was out of the car and leaning over the fence. She’d put the car in Park, but had neglected to turn the engine off, so he bent and did that for her.

The look on her face was priceless. He didn’t have to say a word.

The mare trotted over, just as inquisitive, and of course, Reb followed.

“Spence.” Melody’s eyes were alight. “She’s so beautiful.”

“You suit each other,” he said softly.

“What’s her name?”

“That’s for you to decide. Her former owner has separation anxiety. She didn’t want to say. She wanted the mare to have a brand-new start with a brand-new name.”

“That’s easy. Charm.”

He approved, but again, it wasn’t his call.

“Boots and jeans. I wondered about that.” She rubbed the palomino’s velvet nose. “Can we go for a ride?”

“That’s the general idea. I’ll saddle the horses. Meanwhile, you’d better pet Harley. He’s feeling neglected.”

Half an hour later, they were in the meadow by the stream, walking the horses. The trail ride had helped, since Melody seemed more comfortable in the saddle now. And the mare had the smooth gait and gentle disposition Tate had promised, which helped, too.

Velvet blue sky, darkening above. Warm breeze.

He pulled up Reb, and the mare halted on cue as Melody sent him an inquiring look. “Do you see that grassy bank right there?” he asked in a teasing tone. “I was just wondering, if...well, it’s a nice night, and the horses could graze...”

“Outside?”

“Could there be a better setting?”

*

S
PENCE HAD A
valid point.

He dismounted and then lifted her out of the saddle. Melody didn’t object as he placed her on the grass and eased off her boots then unbuttoned her blouse, unhooking her lacy bra to expose her breasts. She made an involuntary sound as he took a taut nipple in his mouth, and he settled comfortably over her, his weight braced.

He tasted every inch of her, from head to toe, finally moving to her most intimate part, the pleasure so intense she shuddered. She would have cried out except that the sound was locked in her throat. She couldn’t breathe enough to let it escape.

Then he did it again.

Not until she was utterly limp did he move inside her, sliding in fully, his eyes half-closed as he exhaled.

There was only so much a girl could take, she thought later, lost in a haze of sensual pleasure, the tickle of grass at her back.

He proved her wrong. Twice.

*

Read on for an extract from THE MARRIAGE PACT by Linda Lael Miller.

Present-day Mustang Creek, Wyoming
Mid-September

“
W
ELL, DOG
,” Tripp Galloway said, addressing his sidekick, a cross-eyed black Lab he’d bought as a pup out of the back of a beat-up pickup alongside a Seattle highway the year before, “we’re almost home.”

Ridley glanced over at him and yawned expansively.

Tripp sighed. “Truth is, I’m not all that excited about it, either,” he confided.

Ridley gave a sympathetic whimper, then turned away to press his muzzle against the well-smudged passenger-side window—his way of saying he’d like to stick his head out, if it was all the same to Tripp, and let his ears flap in the wind like a pair of furry flags.

Tripp chuckled and hit the button on his armrest to open Ridley’s window halfway, and the inevitable roar filled the extended cab of the truck. The dog was in hog heaven, while his master wondered, not for the first time, how the hell the critter could breathe with all that air coming at him.

Tripp sighed again. Another of life’s little mysteries, he thought.

He could see the ragged outskirts of Mustang Creek just ahead—a convenience store/gas station here and there, a few lone trailers rusting in weedy lots, their best days far behind them, and more storage units than any community ought to need, especially one the size of his hometown.

It was a sign of the times, Tripp supposed, a mite glumly, that people had so damn much
stuff
that their houses and garages were overflowing. Instead of taking a good long look at themselves and figuring out what kind of interior hole they were trying to fill, they bought
more
stuff and rented a place to stash the excess. At this rate, the whole planet would be clogged with boxes and bins full of forgotten belongings in no time at all.

He shook his head, resigned. He was a wealthy man, but he believed in owning
one
of most things, from watches and pairs of boots to houses and cars. He did make certain exceptions, of course—dogs, horses and cattle, to name a few, but, then, of course, animals weren’t
things.

Tripp shifted his attention back to coming home. He’d been there intermittently, over the years, returning for the odd Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday, the usual funerals and weddings—one of them particularly memorable—and a class reunion or two at the high school. It had been a long time, though, since he’d been a resident.

In the off-season, Mustang Creek was a sleepy little burg nestled in a wide valley, with mountains towering on all sides, but in the summer, when folks came through in campers and minivans on family vacations, taking in the Grand Tetons as they made their way either to or from Yellowstone, things livened up considerably. The second big season, of course, was winter, when visitors from all over the world came to ski, enjoy some of the most magnificent scenery to be found anywhere and, to the irritated relief of the locals, spend plenty of money.

As it happened, he and Ridley were arriving during the brief lull between the sizable influxes of outsiders, that being September, October and part of November, and Tripp was looking forward to living quietly on his stepdad’s ranch for a while, doing
real
work of the hard physical variety. After several years spent running his small but profitable charter-jet service out of Seattle—ironically, he’d put in most of his hours behind a desk instead of in the cockpit, where he would have preferred to be—Tripp hankered for the sweat-soaked, sore-muscle satisfaction that came with putting in a long day on the range.

He’d made some heavy-duty changes in his life, most of them recent, selling his company and all six jets, leasing out his penthouse condo with its breathtaking view of Elliott Bay and points beyond, including the snow-covered Olympic mountain range.

He didn’t miss the city traffic, the honking horns and other noise, or jostling through crowds everywhere he went.

Oh, yeah. Tripp Galloway was ready for a little un-urban renewal.

More than ready.

There were some things in his past he needed to come to terms with, now that he’d shifted gears and left his fast-track life, with its pie-charts and spreadsheets, three-piece suits and meetings, not to mention the constant barrage of texts, emails and telephone calls and the decisions that had to be made

Now
. Or better yet, yesterday.

Out here, in the open country, he wouldn’t be able to dodge the stuff that prodded at the underside of his conscious mind 24/7. Losing his mom when he was just sixteen, for instance. Sitting by helplessly while his best friend died, thousands of miles from home. And then there was his short-term marriage, over for some eight years now—he and Danielle were better off without each other, no doubt about it, but the divorce had hurt, and hurt badly, just the same.

He’d dated a lot of women since then, but he’d always been careful not to get too involved. Once the lady in question started bringing up topics like kids and houses—and leaving bridal magazines around, with pages showing spectacular wedding gowns or knock-out engagement rings—he was out of there, and quick. It wasn’t that Tripp didn’t
want
a home and family. He did.

He’d been led to believe that Danielle did, too.

Wrong.

When they’d finally called it quits over that disagreement and numerous others, it wasn’t Danielle’s departure that grieved him for months, even years, afterward, it was the death of the dream. The failure.

Tripp banished his dejection—no sense getting sucked into the past if he could avoid it—just as he and the dog rolled on, into the heart of town. By then, Ridley had pulled his head back inside the truck and was checking out their surroundings, tongue lolling.

Mustang Creek proper was something to see, all right. The main street was outfitted to look like an Old West town, with wooden facades on all the buildings, board sidewalks and hitching posts and even horse troughs in front of a few of the businesses. While a number of the local establishments had saloonlike names—the Rusty Bucket, the Diamond Spur and so on—there was only one genuine bar among the lot of them, the Moose Jaw Tavern. The Bucket housed an insurance agency, and the Spur was a dentist’s office.

Tripp supposed the whole setup was pretty tacky, but the fact was, he sort of liked it. Sometimes, at odd moments, it gave him the uncharacteristically fanciful feeling that he’d slipped through a time warp and ended up in the 1800s, where life was simpler, if less convenient.

Once they’d left the main street behind, the town began to look a little more modern, if the 1950s could be called modern. Here, there were tidy shingled houses with painted porches and picket-fenced yards bursting with the last and heartiest flowers of summer. The sidewalks were buckled in places, mostly by tree roots, and dogs wandered loose, clean and well fed, safe because they belonged, because everybody knew them by name and finding their way home was easy.

Ridley made a whining sound, probably born of envy, as they passed yet another meandering canine.

Tripp chuckled and reached over to pat the Lab’s glossy ruff. “Easy, now,” he said. “Once we get to the ranch, you’ll have more freedom than you’ll know what to do with.”

Ridley rested his muzzle on the dashboard, rolled his eyes balefully in Tripp’s direction and sighed heavily, as if to say,
Promises, promises.

And then, just like that, there it was, the redbrick church, as unchanged as the rest of the town. Looking at the place, remembering how he’d crashed Hadleigh Stevens’s wedding, called a halt to the proceedings and then carried her out of there like a sack of grain made his stomach twitch.

It wasn’t that Tripp regretted what he’d done; time had proven him right. That pecker-head she’d been about to marry, Oakley Smyth, was on his third divorce at last report, due to a persistent gambling habit and an aversion to monogamy. Moreover, his trust fund had seized up like a tractor left out in the weather to rust, courtesy of a clause in his parents’ wills that allowed for any adjustments the executrix might deem advisable, pinching the cash flow from a torrent to a trickle.