The Marriage Pact (Hqn) (9 page)

So it was up to Tripp to keep things going. “Maybe you’ve got marriage on your mind,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean
I
do.” He took the lid off the Crock-Pot, ladled a healthy portion into one of the bowls and brought it to Jim.

“Hmm,” Jim said.

Outside the back door, Ridley yelped companionably and Tripp let him in, then gave him his kibble ration and a fresh bowl of water.

“Hmm yourself,” Tripp told his dad, dishing up some stew for himself. One thing about ranch work and fresh September air—the combination made a man hungry as all get-out.

“You’d sure make some dandy babies, the two of you,” Jim ruminated between bites of stew.

Tripp pictured Hadleigh in his bed. He wasn’t proud of it, but this was nothing new, since, on some level, he’d been fantasizing about her for ten years—or more. In the vision, she was warm and flushed and impishly willing. He imagined conceiving a child with her, the two of them bringing up a son or a daughter or better yet, several of each, raising them to be good people, right here in this venerable old house, where he’d grown up.

And his need for her slammed into him, all but doubled him over.

“She’s not exactly my biggest fan,” he said in a reasonable voice, and this was a reminder directed to himself as much as it was to Jim.

Jim smiled, his spoon poised halfway between his mouth and the bowl. “Oh, I bet you could win her over if you tried,” he said. “Why do you think a beauty like Hadleigh is still single after all this time? You think she let you haul her out of that church like a sack of potatoes way back when, and right in the middle of the wedding of the year, no less, because she didn’t like you? If you do, you’re not as bright as I’ve always bragged you up to be.”

Tripp realized, with incredulity, that he’d never once thought of the event from that particular angle. Then he decided it was too good to be true.

“Because she was unarmed, so she couldn’t shoot off my kneecaps on the spot?” he ventured.

This time, Jim laughed out loud. “Because she didn’t want to marry Oakley Smyth in the first place, you damn fool. She must have thought you’d come to claim her for your own.”
The old man spooned up some more stew, chewed thoughtfully, swallowed. “Women are romantic, son, in case you didn’t get the memo. It must have come as a nasty shock to Hadleigh when you told her you’d already been roped in by that Danielle woman.”

That
couldn’t
have been the reason she hadn’t put up the fight of her life to stay at the church—could it? Sure, she’d kicked and fussed the whole way down the aisle and out to the truck, but if she’d really
wanted
to escape, she would have.

Wouldn’t she?

And why in hell would she have let things go so far—the dress, the flowers, the invited guests and the ceremony itself—if she
didn’t
want to become Mrs. Smyth?

All those questions ran through Tripp’s mind as he remembered the hurt in those golden-brown eyes when he’d told Hadleigh the stone-cold truth about Oakley and his ongoing relationship with the mother of the two children she hadn’t known about. He remembered how she’d asked him to take her with him when he left Mustang Creek, and her wounded surprise when he’d told her he was married.

Even now, years later, he felt guilty—not because he’d tied the knot with Danielle, but because he hadn’t told Hadleigh sooner.

Hell, he hadn’t told anybody in Mustang Creek, including Jim, until weeks after the fact.

Why was that?

Given a second chance, he wouldn’t have dropped the news on her like that, but what exactly could he have told her instead? That he’d thought he loved Danielle, the sophisticated jet-setter he’d met at a friend’s party? That he’d married her in haste and repented at leisure, as the old saying went? That the marriage had been over before it began, for all practical intents and purposes, if only because, once the initial heat had subsided, he and Danielle had promptly discovered that they had nothing whatsoever in common?

Oh, yeah. He would’ve sounded like the original asshole, a cheating husband looking for a little side action.

And explaining that Danielle had already had one foot out the door wouldn’t have improved matters, either. Didn’t men always
say stuff like that, to justify selling out a person who had every right under heaven to trust them?

Tripp ran the splayed fingers of one hand through his hair.

Hadleigh had been a very smart girl, and she was a smart woman. What little respect she might have had for him after the thwarted wedding would have evaporated on the spot. And, while a man and a woman might well make a relationship work without money, without a place to call home, even without love, no union stood a chance in hell without respect.

“We’ll see,” Tripp said evasively, since he knew Jim wouldn’t drop the subject if he flat-out rejected the idea of pursuing Hadleigh..

Jim’s eyes sparkled again. “Yes,” he agreed. “I believe we will.”

* * *

H
ADLEIGH
CALLED
THE
local hospital every day for almost a week to ask about Earl, and each time she was told he was holding his own but still in intensive care and still not up to having visitors.

The rest of the time, she kept busy, running the shop, working on one quilt or another, brainstorming ideas for a new online class. With the growth of the internet, cyber-instruction had become a major source of income, and sell her one-of-a-kind quilts to customers all over the world. The profits far exceeded what she brought in selling fabric and thread and patterns over the counter.

Muggles, thankfully, was her constant companion.

She might have been lonely without the dog to keep her company, since Bex and Melody were both busy with their own projects, Bex meeting with lawyers in Cheyenne as she finalized her plans to franchise the workout studio, Melody working long hours to fill a special jewelry order for a major retailer.

Despite all that, the three women kept in touch via text and email, and the marriage pact remained the hot topic, though Hadleigh would have preferred to discuss something else—the weather, maybe. Even politics or religion.

Anything but marriage, because if she thought along those lines, she had to think about Tripp Galloway and, damn it, she didn’t
want
to think about him.

He was a sore spot, to say the least.

So she stayed as crazy-busy as possible.

When Earl was finally moved out of intensive care and into a regular hospital room, she went to visit him, bringing flowers and showing him phone pictures of Muggles, who was waiting patiently in the station wagon.

Earl smiled at the photos, but he seemed smaller, thinner, somehow less substantial than before his heart attack. He wouldn’t be coming home after his release, he confided sadly—it was Shady Pines Nursing Home for him. The sooner he turned up his toes, as he put it, the better.

Although she kept a smile plastered on her face, Hadleigh was thoroughly depressed by the time she kissed Earl’s wrinkled forehead and said goodbye, after promising she’d be back again soon.

She was at the store, reopening after the lunch break, the faithful Muggles at her side as always, when a familiar truck pulled up at the curb.

Tripp, being the last person Hadleigh wanted to run into just then, was at the wheel.
Murphy’s Law strikes again.

“Oh, hell,” she told Muggles in an undertone. Her breath quickened, and she fumbled with the shop key as she struggled to work the lock, her heart kicking hard at the back of her breastbone.

Muggles gave a happy bark, maybe because Tripp’s dog—she’d forgotten his name—was along for the ride and therefore visible through the respectably dusty windshield.

Tripp was grinning as he got out of the truck, stepped up onto the sidewalk and came toward Hadleigh. “At least one of you is glad to see me,” he said, bending to pat Muggles on the head.

Hadleigh felt her cheeks start to burn, and that was
really
irritating, because Tripp was bound to notice and to misunderstand, think he’d rattled her, gotten under her skin, by showing up unexpectedly.

Again.

“I think,” she replied coolly, “that you’re flattering yourself. Muggles is glad to see another dog, not you.”
You vain, ridiculously, unfairly hot jerk.

Tripp looked cowboy-perfect, wearing jeans, a white shirt, a denim jacket and all that effortless sex appeal. “My mistake,” he said with a little bow.

Hadleigh practically fell through the shop door when it opened, and that made her blush even more, because she’d forgotten, for a moment, where she was and what she was doing. Busy recovering her dignity, she said nothing.

He followed her into the shop, obviously enjoying her discomfort.

The bastard.

“Taking up quilting?” she asked, moving behind the counter, putting her purse away beneath it and shouldering out of her coat.

Still grinning, Tripp shook his head. “Not in this lifetime,” he answered drily.

Standing on the other side of the counter—which was entirely too close, even with a barrier between them—he didn’t speak again. No, he just watched Hadleigh, making nerves jump under her skin wherever his gaze happened to land—which was on her mouth, then the hollow of her throat, followed by a quick dip to her breasts, and finally back to her face and directly into her eyes.

“What?” she demanded, angry because she couldn’t seem to look away no matter how she tried. What was the guy, some kind of hypnotist?

“Will you go out to dinner with me?” Tripp asked, as though that was a perfectly ordinary request to make, and never mind all that water under the bridge. Oceans of it.

“Why would I do that?” she countered, furious to discover that she wanted to accept his invitation, audacious and presumptuous as it was.

She needed her head examined.

Tripp’s comeback was immediate and typically smooth. “Because you have to eat, like everybody else?” he suggested.

What was she supposed to say now? Nothing came to her, except “Yes, of course I’ll have dinner with you” and she was damned if she’d say
that.

Tripp’s expression turned solemn, probably a ruse. “Or maybe because your brother was the best friend I ever had, and it seems wrong that you and I can’t at least be civil to each other?”

Hadleigh managed to drag her gaze free of his, only to look back. She swallowed, and her eyes scalded at the mere mention of Will because, for her, grief was like that. It lay in wait, despite all the years that had passed, and pounced when she least expected.

“Hadleigh,” Tripp prodded gently. “It’s okay. We’re talking about a burger and fries at Billy’s, that’s all. Just a friendly meal—no obligations on either side.”

She stifled a sigh, folded her arms across her chest, classic body language for “back off, buddy,” but her next words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. Before she even saw them coming.

“Why are you pushing this, Tripp?”

He braced his hands against the counter and leaned forward slightly. “Partly because I think Will would want it,” he said, his delivery calm and earnest and damnably convincing. “And partly because I’ve finally noticed that you’re not a gawky kid anymore. You’re a woman, and a beautiful one at that.”

Was there the slightest hint of a caress in the way he’d said the words
a woman?
The “beautiful” part was probably flattery—so why had it touched her so deeply?

“I was a woman when you ruined my wedding.” She bristled, hoping Tripp wouldn’t guess how shaken she was.

The flattery theory lost some of its zip when he shook his head. “No,” he said. “You were an eighteen-year-old girl with stars in her eyes and a lot of naive fantasies about what it would mean to be married.” A pause, during which Hadleigh struggled to catch her breath. She wasn’t sure just then
what
she was feeling. Then he went on, so gently, so seriously. “But the promise was there all along. There were glimpses of the woman you’d be one day—the woman you are now.”

Hadleigh opened her mouth, found herself wordless and closed it again as more heat surged into her face.

Tripp chuckled gravely. Then he lifted his right hand, cupped it under her chin, ran a surprisingly calloused thumb across her mouth. “One dinner,” he said. “That’s all I’m asking for, Hadleigh.”

Her lips tingled from his touch, and she couldn’t help imagining what would happen inside her if he ever actually kissed her.

She was reluctant.

She was eager.

She was wary, and she was intrigued.

“One dinner,” she agreed in a near whisper.

Chapter Five

B
ECAUSE
H
ADLEIGH
NEVER
got away with much of anything, Melody blew in like a spring breeze just as Tripp was turning to leave the store.

“Hey,” Melody greeted him, after catching Hadleigh’s eye briefly and then shifting her gaze to Tripp’s face. “Nice to see you again.”

“Melody,” he acknowledged with a cordial nod.

With that, Tripp Galloway went around Melody, stepped out onto the sidewalk and closed the door behind him. The bell above gave a merry little jingle. Muggles drooped with evident dog-despondency at his departure, plopping down beneath a table display of quilting-related gift items with a soulful sigh.

Hadleigh might have found the retriever’s response depressing if she hadn’t been busy pretending not to watch out of the corner of one eye as Tripp opened the door of his truck, the bright September sun catching in his wheat-gold hair, swung up behind the wheel and reached over to ruffle his dog’s ears before starting the engine.

“What was
that
about?” Melody asked.

As if she—knowing Hadleigh as well as she knew herself—hadn’t already guessed what “that was about.”

“I might as well tell you,” Hadleigh said without enthusiasm.

“Yep,” Melody agreed, grinning. “You might as well. If nothing else, it’ll save me some arm-twisting.”

“He asked me out,” Hadleigh admitted.

Tripp, meanwhile, backed the truck onto the street and drove away.

Hadleigh wondered fretfully if he was gloating right now. Congratulating himself on getting his way. Didn’t he
always
get his way?

Melody gave a shrill whistle through her front teeth. She’d been the envy of every other girl on the playground, back in grade school, when it was commonly believed that only boys could make that ear-piercing sound. At the moment, she was just irritating. “And you said yes,” she guessed, although it was obvious that she already knew.

Hadleigh felt her shoulders sag as she nodded. “Like a fool,” she confirmed.

Melody beamed. “Hardly,” she told her brightly. “A
fool
would have said no. Surely you’ve noticed, my friend, that the man is one finely manufactured cowboy?”

Hadleigh’s color flared again, mainly because she privately agreed and she was furious with herself for it. “If you think Tripp’s so great,” she snapped, “why don’t
you
go out with him?”

“I would,” Melody replied, still grinning, “except for two tiny facts. One, he didn’t ask me, and, two, even if he had, I’d be honor-bound to turn him down, since I happen to be a very loyal friend.”

Sudden and totally embarrassing tears flooded Hadleigh’s eyes. She came out from behind the counter and stood facing Melody. “What’s the matter with me?” she asked. “Am I self-destructive or stupid or what?”

Melody immediately put her arms around Hadleigh and hugged her hard before taking her by the shoulders and holding her at a distance so she could look straight into her eyes. “Oh, honey,” she said, tearing up herself, “
nothing
is the matter with you. Tripp’s hot, you’ve always had a thing for him, whether you’re willing to admit it or not, and you haven’t had a real date in—what? Two years?”

“Longer,” Hadleigh confessed. Melody and Bex hadn’t had a “‘real date”—which meant something more than meeting some guy for coffee—in a month of Sundays, either. Pointing that out would not only have been unnecessary but unkind, too.

“Where’s he taking you?” Melody asked, smiling again, looking as twinkly as Disneyland on a December evening.

Hadleigh knuckled away her tears and straightened her spine. “We’re going to Billy’s,” she said. “It’s just a friendly dinner—Tripp said so himself—nothing fancy. No strings, no obligations.”

Melody looked both skeptical and delighted. She tilted her head to one side as she studied Hadleigh’s face. “It’s a start,” she insisted.

“It’s an
ending,
” Hadleigh said, for the sake of clarity. “Tripp and I have an agreement.
One dinner.
Nothing more.”

“Why all the resistance?” Melody asked, her voice soft now and a little sad. “Tell me the truth. Are you afraid of him—or of yourself?
Because you’re sure as heck scared of something
,
any idiot could see that, so kindly don’t insult me by saying you’re not.”

Sure, she was scared, Hadleigh reasoned silently, privately.

She was
terrified,
actually. Why? Because Tripp had single-handedly broken her heart, a heart she’d spent a decade mending, without even knowing what he’d done. And he had the power to do it all over again.

She’d felt close to him as a child, regarded him as
her
friend, too, and not just Will’s, because he’d treated
her that way. She’d grieved with Tripp after Will’s death, cried on his shoulder, held on to the happy memories he’d shared and the wise, even tender, counsel he’d given her, drying her tears, urging her not to let her brother’s life be all about the tragic, senseless way he’d died. Moreover, Will’s time on earth, however brief, was worth celebrating.

And after all that, Tripp had
gotten married,
without so much as telling her—
her,
Will’s sister, the orphaned child he’d charmed and teased and protected. If Tripp had felt pity for her, he’d never let it show. No, he’d nourished her as she grew, simply by accepting her as she was, joking with her, including
her even when Will would have preferred that she make herself scarce.

Had Will lived, he would’ve known his closest friend had fallen in love, way off in some faraway city, known that Tripp had asked some strange woman to marry him. Will would have served as best man at the wedding, in fact, and Hadleigh, while there was no denying that she’d have been hurtin’-for-certain, wouldn’t have been blindsided, sideswiped,
crushed
by the discovery.

Melody, still grasping Hadleigh’s shoulders, gave her a gentle shake. “You’re not thinking of begging off, are you?” she asked. “Give Tripp a chance, Hadleigh. He deserves that much.”

Hadleigh nodded, her patched-together heart aching, afraid of being shattered again. If that happened, there would be no putting the pieces back together. No matter how many good and decent men she met after that, men she might have loved, married and had children with, her ability to trust, let alone love, would be gone. She’d have nothing to offer as a wife and mother.

“I’d be risking so much if I let myself care,” she finally choked out. It was something she hadn’t meant to say, even to one of her two closest friends, but it was out there now and she couldn’t take it back.

Melody pulled a ruefully affectionate face, squeezed Hadleigh’s shoulders lightly and let go, her hands falling to her sides. “It’s
always
a risk, caring deeply for another person, it’s a risk for
everybody—
that’s how the game is played, kiddo. Sorry, but you don’t get to be the exception, the one with a written contract from on high, happily-ever-after guaranteed. No one gets that.”

“I know,” Hadleigh whispered, after biting her lower lip. “But I’d like to go on record: I wish there
were
guarantees.”

Melody laughed, even as her own eyes glistened with sympathetic tears. “If you want a guarantee, sweetie, buy a major appliance.”

Hadleigh choked out a moist chuckle. “Gee,” she said. “Thanks for that.”

Melody’s face softened again. “Know what’s worse than getting your heart broken? Playing small, staying safe, hiding from life. Get a clue, Hadleigh—you’re beautiful, you’re smart and you’re one damn fine human being.” She sucked in a breath, then huffed it out, causing her bangs to flutter slightly. “If Tripp’s putting the moves on you, it shows that he’s nobody’s fool.”

Hadleigh was moved by what Melody had said, and a little saddened, too, because for all that positive reinforcement, there’d been a hint of wistfulness running beneath her words. Had Melody, who never failed to champion the marriage pact, even when Hadleigh and Bex expressed doubts, secretly stopped believing that true love would ever come her way?

“We’re making a very big deal out of this,” Hadleigh said in an effort to lighten the moment. “Tripp’s taking me out for burgers and fries, not sweeping me away to Paris so we can kiss on bridges and hold hands in sidewalk cafés. Billy’s, as you very well know, is not exactly a romantic setting.”

Melody’s response made Hadleigh wonder if her friend had heard a single word she’d said.

“When?” she asked, straight out of left field.

“When what?”

“When is this not-a-date date supposed to happen?”

As easily as that, Hadleigh was a nervous wreck again. “Tonight,” she said, with a small quaver in her voice.

“Close up the shop,” Melody commanded, linking her arm with Hadleigh’s and steering her toward the counter. “Right now. We need time to decide what you’re going to wear, girlfriend, because you can’t go like that.”

Hadleigh looked down at her jeans and rust-colored pullover sweater. “What’s wrong with—”

“I swear,” Melody said, shaking her head.

“I thought I’d change into jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt when I got home,” Hadleigh offered weakly. After all, Billy’s wasn’t a black-tie kind of joint.

Though she
had
gone there in a wedding dress once.

Better not to remember that, especially when she’d be sitting across the table from the same man she’d been with back then.

Besides, she had things to do here at Patches, and closing time was hours away. All the same, she knew when she was beaten. She collected her bag from its place under the counter, rummaged through it for her key ring, then snatched up her coat from the top of the nearby glass display cabinet, where she’d tossed it after Tripp had followed her into the store.

“Well,
of course
jeans,” Melody chirped, all business. “I’m not
completely
fashion-deficient. The question is,
which
jeans? What color? How tight? With or without fancy stitching or rhinestones?”

All the while, Melody was shuffling Hadleigh toward the door.

Muggles, of course, followed.

“Rhinestones?” Hadleigh echoed, a beat or two behind.

“Do you want to impress Tripp or not?” Melody opened the door, extended a hand for the keys once both of them, plus the dog, were on the sidewalk, standing under the faded, green-striped awning with the name
Patches
scripted across the ruffled part.

“Actually,” Hadleigh replied, “no. I
don’t
want to impress him.”

He’d said she was beautiful. Did he really think so, or was he playing some kind of game?

Back in her junior high days, when she was all teeth and knees and elbows, Tripp had often tugged lightly at one of her braids and told her she’d be a looker someday, but there was no rush to grow up, so she ought to just “be a kid” while she still could.

“Well,” Melody retorted, “that’s why you need a little friendly guidance.”

And that was that.

The next thing Hadleigh knew, the shop was locked, and she and Muggles were on their way home in the station wagon. Normally, she walked to work, since she lived only six blocks from the store, but that day, because she’d finally gotten permission to visit Earl in the hospital, she’d brought the car.

Melody’s spiffy little BMW was on her rear bumper, sort of shooing her along. If Hadleigh so much as let up on the gas pedal, Melody honked her horn.

Two or three minutes after they’d left Mustang Creek’s main street, which was seriously touristy except for Patches and one or two other small businesses, Hadleigh turned into her driveway, looked over at Muggles and sighed.

“I guess I’m not getting out of this one,” she told the attentive dog. “But one thing’s for sure. I am
not
wearing rhinestones.”

Muggles whined softly in response.

Melody whipped in behind Hadleigh’s car, blocking the driveway, just in case there was an escape attempt in the offing, apparently.

Five minutes later, the three of them, two women and a golden retriever, were in Hadleigh’s bedroom, closet doors wide-open, dresser drawers pulled out. Melody was flipping through Hadleigh’s limited sweater collection, looking for something with, as she phrased it, “a bit of pizzazz.”

“Don’t you own anything but turtlenecks, men’s sweatshirts and sweet little twinsets?” Melody demanded at one point, growing more frustrated with every passing moment.

“I
like
turtlenecks,” Hadleigh protested. She felt swept along by strong currents, just as she had on Snake River once, when she’d fallen out of a rubber raft and Will and Tripp had had to jump in after her, nearly drowning themselves before they got her to shore.

The raft was a total loss.

“So I see,” Melody fretted, continuing to ransack Hadleigh’s dresser drawers. “Honestly, Hadleigh—
turtlenecks?
If that isn’t symbolic, I don’t know what is. And, I might add, I had no idea you were so wardrobe-challenged. Why, I remember some of this stuff from college. Don’t you ever
shop?
”

Hadleigh gaped at her frenzied friend, feeling helpless and more than a little indignant. “Yes,” she said testily. Her closet, after all, was packed with clothes. “I do.”

Melody shook her head in tolerant dismay. “Anywhere besides the Western-wear place and the discount heaven out on the highway?” she asked. Then she answered her own question. “I think not.”

“Melody,” Hadleigh said. “I love you dearly, but isn’t it time you went home or back to your studio or perhaps jumped into the nearest lake?”

“You’ll thank me for this someday,” Melody replied, finally settling on a clingy pink T-shirt with long sleeves and a V-neck.

“That ‘someday,’” Hadleigh answered, “is a long way off.”

Melody flung the pink T-shirt in Hadleigh’s direction and began rooting through stacks of jeans neatly arranged on shelves inside the closet. Hadleigh had meant to toss the T-shirt ages ago—it was a remnant of a long-ago girlie-girl phase, around the time she’d finished college. Fortunately, she’d gotten over the pink penchant as quickly as she’d gotten over the guy she’d been trying to please at the time.