The Cowboy's Bride

Cody stomped upstairs to the private reading room where his mail-order bride was waiting. Uncle Max had always been unconventional to the extreme. But this time he had outdone himself, linking Cody to a woman he’d never even met, never mind wanted to marry. Well, he’d get things straightened out quick enough, Cody thought with a determined scowl as he strode hell-bent for leather toward the Louis L’Amour room. He’d explain the situation to the desperate woman, pay her if he had to and send her on her way, and that would be that. Then he’d go out and get a loan, buy the land he should have inherited and continue on as he had been. Alone. Temper still simmering, mind made up, he pulled his Stetson low over his brow and knocked on the door.

The door opened a crack. Cody stared into a pair of familiar emerald green eyes and felt as if every bit of wind had been blown right out of him.

“Hi, there.” The woman Max had designated as his bride-to-be smiled up at him officiously, even as she stepped back and away. “I knew you were going to be here this afternoon,” she said as she set her book aside. “But I wasn’t sure exactly when you’d arrive, or even what your name was, so I...” She glanced at the way he was gripping the doorjamb on either side of him, paused and wet her lips. “Is something the matter?”

I’ll say, Cody thought, still feeling shaken to the core.

Cautiously, she edged toward him. Looking a tad nervous at the way he was bracing his weight against the door, she said, “Look. I know this is awkward—”

“Awkward?” Cody gasped. Try insane!

Continuing with her innocent act, she wet her lips and tried again. “I don’t know what you were expecting, but—”

“Not this,” Cody growled, inclining his head toward her smaller, trimmer form, with the soft, delectable curves. A man would have to be a saint not to desire her, and he was no saint. Damn it all to hell anyway, Cody thought. If this was what Max had had up his sleeve, why hadn’t he forewarned him, like he had Trace?

“Well, if you want to be blunt, you are not exactly what I had in mind, either,” she retorted hotly, self-conscious color sweeping into her pretty cheeks. “I definitely asked for someone clean-shaven. But here we are anyway. So...” she clasped her hands in front of her. “Would you like to come in?”

Unable to believe she didn’t recognize him—surely he hadn’t changed that much, had he?—Cody continued gripping the doorjamb and staring at her.

Evidently realizing something was very wrong, she cautiously moved closer, not stopping until she was right under him. And it was then, as she tipped her head back to look directly up into his face, that the significance of the moment hit her, too. Just that quickly the color left her face. She began to tremble from head to toe.

“Cody?” she choked out in her deep, throaty voice, looking as if she couldn’t believe it, either.

The loathing, shock and fear she was doing little to hide had a galvanizing impact on him.

“Callie Sheridan.” Cody finally recovered enough to spit out the words. There was no welcome in his low voice. “I should have known.” She always had been full of unpleasant surprises.

“Well, I didn’t!” The color came back into her cheeks with a vengeance, and Callie started to slam the door in his face. Cody caught it in midslam and held it firmly open. “I wanted to be set up with a prospective husband!” she cried, upset.

“Not,” Cody said as he let go of the door and shouldered his way into the room, “a husband you’d already dumped!”

Callie tossed the sexily cut layers of her shoulder-length sunflower blond hair and squared off with him, looking prettier and more enraged than he had ever seen her. “Let’s get something straight here, cowboy. I did not dump you.”

“What do you call running away on our wedding night, then?” Cody demanded as he let his gaze drift over her sensual curves in a manner meant to incense her.

Callie might be something of a tomboy at heart—as was indicated by the dark blue blazer, plain white T-shirt, snug-fitting jeans and red cowgirl boots she wore—but there was nothing the least bit unfeminine about her. She was slender in all the right places, curved just so in all the others. Looking at her made his mouth water and his heart race. He remembered all too well what it had been like to kiss her and hold her in his arms, as well as the crushing guilt that had followed. Seven years his junior, Callie was too young for him and always had been. It was just too bad he hadn’t known that when he was twenty-four and she was seventeen. Instead, he’d let the fact she was somehow older than her years fool him into thinking they could make their relationship work. What a damn fool he had been!

For a long moment, Callie looked as if she wanted to confess something to him. Then she shook her head. “I call my leaving you coming to my senses,” she retorted. Looking more agitated than ever, she roamed the small, wood-paneled room and came to a halt beside the high-backed leather reading chair and matching footstool.

“Or bringing me to mine,” Cody muttered, stepping even closer and dwarfing her by a good ten inches. “That was one expensive expedition for a honeymoon that never happened.”

Cody noted he’d struck gold again with his insult.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Callie planted her hands on her slender hips and tilted her head back to better see into his face. Her green eyes sparkled indignantly. “You didn’t spend any money on me.”

“Just the entire trust fund my parents had left me upon their death,” Cody corrected. Which had amounted to a cool twenty-five thousand dollars.

Callie’s thick-lashed eyes widened. “What are you talking about?” she demanded warily.

Finding the floral-and-spice scent of her perfume a bit too distracting, Cody swung away from her. Shoving his hands in the pockets of his denim jacket, he focused on a Remington painting of a cowboy and his cutting horse, hard at work herding cattle across a dusty plain. “Never mind. I am not getting into all that again,” he replied. The fiasco had already turned his heart to stone.

Balling his hands into fists, Cody paced back and forth. Before anything worse happened, they needed to get to the bottom of this to discover if they had any more surprises waiting for them. Cody was betting they did, unfortunately. “How did Uncle Max find you?” he demanded irritably.

Callie regarded Cody with a surly impatience of her own. She did not look of a mind to cooperate with him in his quest for answers.

“What does your Uncle Max have to do with anything?” When he didn’t answer right away, she jammed an interrogating finger at his chest. “And what are you doing here anyway?”

Cody caught her wrist before she could jab that finger at him again and held it tight, wishing all the while he was not so aware of the warmth and softness of her skin, or the sweet innocence of her kisses. “You might as well know. I didn’t come to see you of my own accord.”

She arched a brow. Outside in the corridor voices rose and fell, and footsteps neared and receded. “I’m supposed to believe that?” she challenged, looking as if there weren’t a chance in the West she would. “When I knew you, you were such an independent hellion no one got you to do anything you didn’t want to do.”

“Well, this time it’s different,” Cody said gruffly. “Max sent me here. The circumstances being what they were — are, I couldn’t refuse.”

“What are you talking about?” Wrenching her wrist from his staying grip, Callie stepped back a pace. “Max sent you here, to see me?”

“Yes.” With effort, Cody quelled the urge to grab her again and, this time, pull her close.

“Why?” Callie demanded suspiciously.

“Because he was a hopeless romantic and a fool that didn’t know any better, that’s why!” Cody retorted, completely exasperated with the situation he found himself in and his own unexpectedly emotional reaction to it. First he had to deal with his grief at losing Max. And now this on top of it? Uncle Max had really laid one on him this time.

Feeling he was going to explode if he didn’t do something physical to abate the powerful emotions erupting within him, Cody wheeled away from Callie. It was either grab her and kiss that disbelieving smirk off her face or—What was he thinking?

More irritated with himself than ever, Cody yanked off his hat, threw it against the wall, picked it up and threw it again. Unhappily, the violence did little to curb the storm of emotions roiling around inside him. It did, however, bend the brim of his hat at an untoward angle.

“Well, that’ll fix that,” Callie said dryly as Cody picked up his hat, bent it back and swung around to face her.

Realizing she had recovered from the shock of seeing each other again, much more swiftly than he had, Cody glared at her.

She mimicked his look facetiously.

Much more, Cody thought, and he really would kiss her.

But for now...

Steadfastly ignoring her reaction to what he already knew had been a childish display of temper, he watched her breeze past him toward the built-in bookcases filled with western novels, classic literature and how-to ranch books. For a moment, she stared down at the portable TV and VCR that had been wheeled into the room and set in a corner. Whirling back to him, she asked with provoking foolishness, “So, if we’re all through with the hat bashing, how did Max know I was here?”

Cody continued working on the brim of his hat. Giving up, he slapped it on his head and sat on the arm of the chair. He was curious to see her reaction to this. “Apparently, one of the agents at the company recognized your name and alerted Max to the fact you had filled out an application and were looking for a husband.”

Callie looked as if she wanted to find an escape hatch and fall through it. “Then you knew he had ties to the WRW videomatchmaking service?” She bit the words out, dragging a distracting hand through the soft, silky layers of her hair.

“No,” Cody replied shortly, exasperated by that turn of events, too. “Finding out he owned it was news to me, too. Apparently, Max has been up to a lot my siblings and I knew nothing about.”

But she had no pity for him, then or now, Cody noticed unhappily. “How sad for you,” Callie remarked.

That said, she marched past him toward the door. Hand on the doorknob, she yanked it open. “Now. If you’ll excuse me. I think you should get out of here, pronto, Cody. Max’s plan to reconcile us has failed,” she continued loftily. “And seeing as how I’m still expecting my prospective husband to appear at any moment, I—”

Effectively cutting her off in midsentence, Cody reached over and slammed the door shut with the flat of his hand. This was nobody’s business but their own. “You don’t get it, do you?” Cody towered over her. “There is no other man. There’s only a will with some mighty peculiar instructions that Max left upon his death a few days ago. I’m your prospective husband, Callie.”

A heartrending silence fell between them. Had Cody not already known what a little con artist Callie was at heart, he would’ve been convinced she hadn’t known anything about Max’s demise. The will, either.

Finally Callie put a hand to her throat. Her green eyes gleaming moistly, she gasped, “Max is—”

“Yes,” Cody answered harshly.

Callie drew in another breath. Her eyes glimmered even more. “So you’re not—”

“No.”

“And the rest — ”

“Is true, too,” Cody admitted, fighting the debilitating sadness that threatened to overtake him any second.

Callie regarded him like the straight man in a comedy act. Not tearing her eyes from his, she blew out a long, exasperated breath and appeared not to believe a single word he said. “I don’t know what kind of game you are playing with me, Cody, but this is not funny.”

His own gaze grew colder. “Notice I’m not laughing, either,” he replied hoarsely.

His blunt statement, coupled with the simmering intensity in his gaze, captured her attention. They stared at each other in a silence that seemed to go on forever and made Cody all the more aware of her.

“I’m sorry, about Max,” Callie said finally.

Cody nodded.

“But that doesn’t... When was the last time you had a shave and a haircut?” Callie demanded, as if seeing him for the first time.

Cody touched his beard self-consciously, wondering if he really looked as bad as she, and Max, had seemed to think. Not that it mattered to him one darn bit, anyway. “Don’t know and don’t care,” he spit out laconically. What in blue blazes did that have to do with anything?

Callie turned up her pert little nose at him and made a provoking face. “No wonder your uncle had to advertise for a wife for you, then.”

Cody lifted a dissenting brow. His pulse racing, he leaned treacherously close. “Let’s get something straight, Callie. I didn’t ask for this. Max arranged this little tête-à-tête of ours all on his own. I had nothing to do with it!”

“Ha! Like I’m supposed to believe that,” Callie countered as a knock sounded on the other side of the door. Her temper still flaring, she shouldered past him and yanked it open once again.

Cody was not surprised to see Max’s attorney, Cisco Kidd, standing on the other side. He gave them both a long look, as if he were wondering how they were doing, then handed over a duffel bag to Callie. “This is for you. It’s got a change of clothes or two, and a toothbrush, your basic toiletries.” Cisco gave Cody a videotape marked Last Will and Testament of Max McKendrick, Part Two. “You’ll want to listen to this right away,” Cisco said. Not waiting for a reply, Cisco tipped his hat at them and quietly took his leave.

“I wondered why there was a VCR and television in here,” Callie murmured. Looking more ready for the next surprising turn of events than he was, she sank down on the edge of the leather chair.

Cody shut the door, closeting them in together once again. “Knowing Max, it’s only the first of many surprises,” Cody grumbled recalcitrantly, as he started the tape and then pulling the footstool as far away from Callie as possible, sat down beside her to view it.

As they stared at the TV with trepidation, Uncle Max appeared on the screen. “Hello, Callie and Cody. Guess you had your reunion, bittersweet as it may have been. And you’re probably anxious for me to quit jawin’ and cut to the chase, so here’s the deal. Cody, I am leaving you the entire Silver Spur cattle ranching operation—all quarter million acres and ten thousand head of cattle. Except for one bull’s-eye parcel of land, twenty head of cattle and the original homestead—all of which are to go to Callie.”

“I don’t believe this,” Cody muttered.

“Yeah, weli, if your ego can stand the news, you are not currently on my dance card, either, Cody McKendrick,” Callie muttered beneath her breath.

“I suppose you’re both wondering why I am willing the land to Callie,” Max said.

Cody glared at Callie. “No doubt another scheme.”

“I checked with the agency, which, by the way, I own and operate, and the only reason Callie signed up with the video matchmaking service was to find a hubby to go in on a little homestead with her. I don’t imagine this news will sit with you too well, Cody, but you bear in mind that she’s been working hard just like you have. And since you’ve been outta touch some with polite society, don’t forget your manners.” Max added sternly.

“Amen to that,” Callie agreed wholeheartedly.

A muscle working in his jaw, Cody glared at her. Again, Callie glared right back. Only she looked a little more exasperated.

“’Course, I know how stubborn you are, Cody,” Uncle Max continued from the screen as, outside in the corridor, voices rose and fell again. Not wanting to miss a word of his late uncle’s message, Cody leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

“So I put a few conditions on this inheritance of yours. Should you refuse to marry Callie, the situation will reverse, and you will inherit the bull’s-eye parcel of land and she will inherit the entire two hundred and fifty thousand acre cattle operation. Now, I imagine that wouldn’t sit well with you, her being the primary landowner, so I’d advise you to forget the heartache of the past—”

“Not very damn likely,” Cody muttered.

“And get on with the courtship and wedding. ‘Cause either way, Callie is going to inherit some land of mine, and one way or another, the two of you are going to be stuck together for all eternity.

“Unless of course,” Uncle Max continued, “Callie refuses to marry you, Cody. In that case, she gets nothing from my estate. I don’t think that will happen, either. Callie’s a smart girl. She knows if she just sticks with my plan, she’ll be set for life. And what are forty-eight hours and a wedding, after all?”

“Plenty,” Callie muttered beneath her breath as she glared at Cody.

“My feelings exactly,” Cody retorted as the videotape continued.

“I’ll see you at the wedding forty-eight hours from now. Meantime, although the two of you are free to roam wherever you want or need to go, I expect the two of you to stay together under the same roof twenty-four hours a day, with no more than three thirty-minute breaks apart. You break the rules and the deal is off. I don’t imagine you’ll like that much, either.”

“An understatement if I ever heard one,” Cody muttered.

“Ditto for me,” Callie snapped right back.

“But I want you two young’uns to listen up and listen good anyway. In my rodeo days, when I took to riding buckin’ horses and bulls, I was given a bit of priceless advice by an old hand. He told me, ‘You got eight seconds to ride, and a lifetime to think about it.’” Max smiled his encouragement. “So make the most of your eight seconds, kids. You already blew it once. You don’t want to do it again.” Max gave them a two-fingered salute. “Happy trails,” he said huskily. “And know I’ll always be thinking of you.”

There was a lump in Cody’s throat the size of a walnut and an ache in his heart just as bad as Uncle Max’s picture faded to a endless vista of blue Montana sky, then to black.

Fighting another onslaught of tears, Cody switched off the VCR. It took every bit of fortitude he had, but finally he regained control of his emotions, and with that control came a very bad mood.

Anxious to get out of there before that self-imposed control, already stretched hopelessly thin, snapped, he let his glance flicker to the duffel bag on the floor next to Callie. Figuring he’d already done enough for Callie in years past, he made no move to pick it up for her. “Get your gear,” he said gruffly, already striding to the door. “We’re getting out of here.”

“I’M SORRY ABOUT MAX, really I am. I’ll miss him, too. But don’t think this will of his means you can boss me around,” Callie warned Cody.

Still working to put her grief over Max’s death aside, she climbed unassisted into the passenger side of the battered Silver Spur Ranch pickup truck. Prior to her meeting with Cody, she’d had no idea Max was gone, and in fact was still reeling inwardly from the unexpected news of his death, but she’d be damned if she would look to Cody McKendrick for comfort. Not that he was likely to give her any, after the way she had run out on him in Acapulco seven years ago, leaving only a note full of lies behind. She’d meant to protect him in doing what she had. Obviously, he didn’t see it that way. She wondered if he ever would.

“You can save the sad-eyed look for someone who cares.” Cody leaned in the cab, planted a hand on either side of her and caged her against the seat. “You may have fooled my uncle into thinking you were a helpless waif in need of protection. When it came to women and kids, Max always was too softhearted for his own good. But you damn well won’t fool me.”

Not about to be outdone in the physical intimidation department, Callie grabbed Cody by the shirtfront and tugged him even nearer, though they were already nose to nose. “To borrow a phrase from your Uncle Max, Cody, you listen up and listen good. Your Uncle Max was one of the kindest, most understanding men I have ever met. Just because you don’t have a heart gives you no right to badmouth him, Cody.”

Cody grabbed her wrist and pried her fingers from his shirtfront. “Perhaps we better get something straight,” he retorted, holding her right hand aloft. “I don’t want or need you in my life. Nor do I want to listen to any hypocritical speeches a heartless woman like you might be moved to give. Got it?” Not waiting for her reply, he shoved her hand away and stepped back against the open truck door.

Callie shot one long leg out to bar his way. “There’s something you should understand, Cody.” She kept the sole of her cowboy boot flat against the door. “I am no longer the shrinking violet you ran away with. When I feel the urge to speak my mind, I do. Got that, cowboy?” These days she fought her own battles. And even stood up to an injustice or two....

He leaned over her, staring down at her with glittering eyes. “Just as long as you understand you do it at your own risk,” he warned softly as he ran a hand contemplatively down her thigh.

Ignoring the tingles of awareness his touch generated, Callie smiled at him sweetly. “As do you.” She brought her leg back in the cab. Bent it at the knee. Squared her shoulders stubbornly, even as she continued to go head to head with him. “And I meant what I said earlier. Our being thrown together now does not give you the right to boss me around.”

He shot her an angry stare as he circled around the front of the truck and climbed behind the wheel. He slapped the key in the ignition. “Darlin’, that is exactly what this means!”

“And don’t call me darlin’.” Callie had to shout to be heard above the roar of the engine.

Cody paused and slid his hand along the back of the seat behind her. He looked her up and down. “You used to like it, as I recall.”

Callie reminded herself how she had hurt him, years past. She could see he wanted to hurt her in return. And there was no point to that. Just as there was no point to this. She didn’t care what Max had planned. “I’m different now, Cody,” Callie told him quietly. Different in some ways. More vulnerable in others, especially where he was concerned.

“And yet you signed up for this lunacy,” Cody allowed as he thrust the truck roughly in gear and backed out of the parking space. “I didn’t.”

Callie was slammed forward and then back as he stomped on the brakes. Recovering her balance, she sent him a withering glare to let him know she was neither impressed nor frightened by his incredibly bad driving. “I was looking for a rancher to go in on a homestead with, not you.”

Assuming he would continue to drive as poorly as possible simply in order to irk her, she held on to the door with her right hand, the seat with her left.

Cody shifted the truck back into drive and spun out onto the road. “A rancher to con, you mean,” he corrected, as they headed out of town. “Or more specifically, someone who wasn’t on to your tricks.”

Callie stared at Cody, unable to believe the change in him. When she had known him seven years ago, he had been a clean-cut twenty-four-year-old cattleman. Gentle and gallant to the core. Now, seven years later, he looked dark and dangerous. His wheat blond hair, though sparkling clean and tied back with a rawhide strip, was shoulder-length. A sexy brown beard, a shade or two darker than his hair, lined the handsome suntanned contours of his face. But it was his eyes that registered the most change. Oh, they were still the same wild blue of the ocean on a sunny day, rimmed with a wealth of short, thick lashes. But there was a cynical guardedness in his gaze. And a rough economy to his actions that had not been there before. “What happened to you?”

Cody’s eyes glimmered with unchecked hurt as he confided hoarsely, “You. You happened to me, Callie. And you taught me a lesson I’m never gonna forget.”

Then she would just have to undo it. And the only way to handle Cody was to stand up to him completely. Callie set her chin. “That, wild man, goes both ways.”

His interest was caught, as she knew it would be, by her made-up term, and she watched as he cocked a brow. “Wild man?” he echoed.

She gave him another dramatic once-over, this one more disapproving than her last. “You want the truth, Cody McKendrick? Well, here it is. You look like Robert Redford in that Jeremiah Johnson movie. Minus the buffalo coat.”

To her irritation, Cody looked pleased—not insulted, as she had intended—with the comparison. “I’ll get a buffalo coat if it’d make you happy.”

Callie sighed, rolled her eyes and settled back into her seat as he turned the truck onto McKendrick land. The only thing to do with an outdoorsy hellion like Cody was ignore him, and considering the dazzling scenery, that was pretty easy to do. She’d forgotten how beautiful Montana was in early June. The vast grassland rolled out on either side of them like a rich green carpet. Mountains were visible in the distance beneath the beautiful blue of the sky. Stands of trees—ash and box elder here—rimmed the edge of every fenced pasture, while bands of white-faced Herefords grazed.

“Perhaps I could wear it to the public wedding ceremony Max has planned for us,” Cody continued in an obvious effort to recapture her attention and increase her irritation. Which was also, she hated to admit, pretty darn easy for him to do.

But the wedding ceremony Max had more or less ordered them to attend was not something Callie wanted to think about. Or even actually do. It had been hard enough leaving Cody once, just hours after their wedding ceremony in Acapulco. Never mind the idea of marrying him again....

Aware Cody was waiting for her answer, Callie advised dryly, “Forget the buffalo coat, Cody. I’d settle for a haircut,” Callie murmured. Anything to make Cody into the man he had been, and not the man he apparently was now. Anything so she wouldn’t have to look at him and feel so damn guilty, when she knew deep inside she’d only had his best interests at heart. “Or maybe just a shave...”

Oblivious to the depth of her private regrets, Cody hit the brakes and brought them to a skidding halt. With his hand behind her seat, be came right up in her face. “You want to try shaving me?”

“No,” Callie admitted truthfully. The whole idea of it was too sensual to be borne. “But I will if it will keep Max from being humiliated posthumously,” she qualified frankly. “Obviously, you have taken this rough-hewn attitude of yours too far. Although I suppose there’s some comfort to be found in the fact you apparently bathe,” she continued with a bluntness meant to shame him into behaving in a more gentlemanly manner.

Although she was fudging a bit there, too.

The fact of the matter was he smelled almost too good, like pine and winter and sunshine all rolled into one. As for the way he dressed... The soft cotton of his western shirt gleamed snowy white against the suntanned hue of his skin, the worn Levi’s gloved his long legs and lean hips with distracting snugtress, just as the taupe suede vest he’d left open drew her eyes to his broad shoulders and the muscled contours of his chest. His boots were made of handcrafted, dark brown leather. So was the belt, with the rodeo buckle, at his waist. A creased, bone-colored Stetson was on the bench seat between them.

Cody slanted her an unrepentant smile and continued to drive like a maniac. “That, too, could be remedied. I don’t have to bathe prior to the wedding. After, either.”

Callie hadn’t had much time to think about Max’s proposition, but she had already decided she wanted the independence that the bull’s-eye property and small herd of cattle would afford her. She wasn’t going to let Cody get in the way of her building a new life for herself, even if she had to marry him to come into her unexpected inheritance from his Uncle Max. Nor was she planning to put up with any untoward behavior on his part. She was not the helpless teenager he’d run off to Mexico with seven years ago. If he was fool enough to challenge her, he was going to get a taste of his own medicine. Max probably had known that would be the case, too. He’d treated her like one of his own kids and had been more of a father to her than her own. No doubt Max was counting on her to recivilize his nephew. And perhaps after all the grief and heartache she had reluctantly caused Cody, she even owed him that, Callie thought.

Holding on to the dash and door to keep from being rocked about the cab, she drew a deep breath. “Cody, I’m warning you. Slow down. Straighten up. Or suffer the consequence.”

He shot her a cockeyed grin and recklessly turned to face her, veering off the road and hitting a rock in the process before he recovered his grip on the wheel and swung them back onto the road again. “Is that a threat I hear from you, Callie dear?”

“No, it’s a promise.” Callie accented her words with a long, level look. “Thanks to the terms of Max’s will, we’re going to be sharing quarters for the next two days and two nights. And I am not—I repeat, not—going to spend the whole time either correcting you or holding my nose.” He may have started this tough-guy stuff to keep others at bay and ease his suffering, but it wasn’t working. It was time the wall he’d built around himself came down. And Callie knew exactly where to start. “So bathe or I’ll do it for you.”

Her warning only served to make Cody step on the accelerator even harder. “Try and I won’t be the only one getting naked and wet,” he warned.

Callie couldn’t help it; losing her composure, she flushed at the mental image his words evoked. Nevertheless, she stubbornly held her ground as she folded her arms in front of her. “You’re not only rude, you’re incorrigible,” she scolded.

Cody’s grin grew smugger while the look in his blue eyes grew darker. “Well, don’t worry. You only have to put up with me for the next two days. Then you can go your way and I can go mine. ’Cause Uncle Max’s will didn’t say anything about us staying under the same roof once the vows were said, only until then.”

He spoke with grim confidence, as if in the short time that had transpired since the will had been read, he already had their course charted out. The only problem was, he hadn’t bothered to take her feelings into consideration. Unable to help herself, Callie decided to put him in his place. “Of course, I could opt out now,” she threatened softly, watching his face.

“But you won’t,” Cody shot back intrepidly, recklessly guiding the truck through another stand of trees—pines this time—and off the road, across an unfenced pasture.

As she bounced around, Callie held even more tightly on to the seat. “What makes you so sure?”

“The loot at the end of the rainbow.” Cody flashed her another insufferable smirk. “The day you pass up money you didn’t have to work for is the day the world comes to an end.”

Little did he know... Callie shook her head.

Cody guided the truck into another clearing and parked on the other side of what looked like a small, very weathered barn.

“You think you know me so well,” she remarked as he cut the motor and they were left with the silence of the Montana countryside on a warm June day.

Cody pocketed the keys and avoided her eyes altogether. “I learned the hard way,” he announced cavalierly.

From what Callie had seen thus far, he hadn’t learned anything about her at all. Their honeymoon had been a disaster, with—unbeknownst to him—her family showing up almost from the get-go.

Furthermore, she had been suffering, too, since the demise of their very short-lived marriage, and she didn’t have to bulldoze everyone in her path because life had been unfair to her.

“What?” Cody prodded when she continued staring straight at the barn in front of them. “No smart remark?” He grabbed his Stetson and jumped out of the truck.

Callie hopped out on her own side, watching as he settled the Stetson squarely on his head. “I don’t have the audience for it.”

He folded his arms in front of him and squinted over at her. “You’re right. I stopped appreciating your sense of humor in Acapulco.”

Their abruptly-cut-short honeymoon again. Pushing her own heartbreak and sense of loss aside—there was so much they hadn’t had a chance to experience!—Callie lifted her chin. “I don’t want to talk about that,” she replied, forcing the words through clenched teeth. She had tried to do what was best and let Cody down easily in the note she’d left him. Obviously, it hadn’t worked.

“I’ll just bet you don’t,” Cody shot right back. He grabbed her arm and whirled her around. For a tantalizingly brief second, he looked as if he didn’t know whether to scream at her or kiss her. “But we will get around to it, when the time is right.”

Callie could not imagine that. Not now, not ever. Hadn’t they both suffered enough? Did he have to rub her nose in it? She had no control over who she was related to! That was pure biology!

She yanked loose of him. “As far as I’m concerned,” Callie predicted tightly, backing up until she hit the tailgate, “the time will never be right.”

He stepped around in front of her and boxed her in. “I I got that message, too,” he drawled in a low, sexy voice, “loud and clear.”

Callie blinked, confused, then realized he was talking about their honeymoon again. About what should have happened but hadn’t. But not because she hadn’t wanted to make their marriage a real and lasting one. Pressing her lips together, she tilted her head back and looked up into his face. And that was when she saw it. The determination, and the desire. To set things to right between them? Or simply to even the score? Cody obviously thought he owed her something in way of revenge for running out on him. If only he knew, Callie thought, how much she had wanted to stay. But she hadn’t been able to then, and she wouldn’t be able to now, since he wasn’t about to forgive her, so there was no use thinking about it, Callie thought morosely as she sidestepped stiffly past him. Even worse, in their anger and disillusionment, they could end up hurting each other even more than they already had. And that she didn’t want for either of them. And neither would Max, she knew. “Cody... maybe this is a mistake.”

“Try telling me something I don’t know.” Cody strode past her, knocking into her a little as he paused to study a small weathered barn and a corral that contained several horses before he pivoted abruptly back to face her. “But Uncle Max’s will is ironclad,” Cody reminded her grimly. “I marry you in two days or I don’t inherit.” They faced off, glowering at each other, like two fighters about to enter the ring. “So for the next forty-eight hours, Callie,” Cody decreed as he grabbed her arm and propelled her toward a lone cabin at the end of the gravel path, “we stick to each other like glue.”

CALLIE LET CODY GUIDE HER as far as the front door of the small log cabin with the haphazardly patched roof before she finally dug in her heels and refused to go any farther. She was tired of playing games with him, she thought as she pried her arm from his resolute grip. “What’s this?”

Cody stepped back and, looking as if he expected her to bolt in either terror or disgust at any moment, announced smugly, “It’s home sweet home, for the moment.”

Callie blinked in surprise, not sure what she thought. Did she feel sorry for him? Or just disgusted? And annoyed. Greatly annoyed that he would even think of bringing her here. “You live here?” Callie gasped. No wonder his uncle was so concerned! The turn-of-the-century cabin was a disgrace. The floorboards on the front porch were uneven and rotting. Cobwebs hung from the roof to the door. The single window to the left of the front door was grimy and uncurtained.

Cody gave her a curt nod. “And so will you for the next two days,” he predicted, tucking his thumbs into the belt loops on either side of his fly. He regarded her with a challenging air that quickly let her know he intended to make her as miserable as possible for ever running out on him. “Got a problem with that?”

Callie had never considered herself a snob. But the cabin couldn’t have been more than twelve by eighteen feet in its entirety. That would not give them much room to maneuver within.

Cody rocked back on his heels and continued to look at her. “You’re not afraid to be alone with me, are you?”

Callie tossed her head. Her hair flew in every direction. “Should I be?”

Cody leaned toward her until she could feel the warmth of his breath on her face. “Depends,” he taunted brusquely.

“On what?” Callie asked.

Cody sensually traced the curve of her cheekbone with the back of his hand, the hurt and bitter disillusionment he still felt reflected in his eyes. “How you feel about giving me that wedding night you owe me.”

The next thing Callie knew she was swept into the warm cage of his arms, every soft inch of her slender body firmly aligned against every hard, muscular inch of him. The heat of him was every bit as electrifying as his sheer physical strength. But even that was nothing compared to his lips. Soft, sensual, seductive, they wrenched a response from her that had her trembling. She wrapped her arms about his neck and kissed him back. Kissed him until the years they’d spent apart faded to a distant, inconsequential memory. She kissed him until she felt him tremble, too. Until her hands were in his hair... until she was caught against his hard chest... until the world was tilting on its axis and to continue would be very, very dangerous indeed....

Realizing what she was allowing to happen, Callie moaned, low in her throat. “Damn you, Cody,” she whispered shakily, gathering her resolve and pushing him away. He obviously felt nothing but loathing for her now. His kiss, however seductively delivered, was nothing but a punishment.

Determined not to let him make something meaningful of something that wasn’t, Callie remained motionless in his arms. “Get this straight, Cody McKendrick—I do not owe you a wedding night,” she said, enunciating her words clearly. Even if, his hostility aside, she still wanted very much to give him one.

“So you once indicated by running away, but I beg to differ with you there, darlin’. ’Cause you very much owe me a wedding night,” he finished in a soft, deadly voice that let her know he would not be satisfied until he had thoroughly and completely wreaked his revenge in the most sensual, devastating way possible.

Callie leaned forward, stepping on his toe with all her might. “Hold your horses there, cowboy. We aren’t married yet!”

He winced, grew very still and just as stubbornly refused to release her. The silence between them stretched out dangerously. Callie wondered what he was thinking. “You’re telling me you got an annulment?” he asked finally.

Callie tilted her head back. The tense look on his face told her the idea of that was as loathsome to him as it was to her. Trying hard to ignore the warmth of his hands on her, she volleyed back her reply as cavalierly as possible. “You’re the one with the rich uncle. I always just assumed you got one.”

“Nope.”

“You don’t mean—” Hope rose in Callie. Was it possible Cody hadn’t given up on them entirely after all?

“Yep. I do.” Never taking his eyes from her face, he released a long, slow breath and kept the rest of his emotions on the subject, whatever they were, strictly unreadable. “We’re still married.” And at the moment, Callie thought, it appeared to her that he wasn’t regretting the overlooked technicality all that much.

Nor, to her growing dissatisfaction, was she. If she wasn’t careful, if she let Cody move too fast or for all the wrong reasons, she might get her heart broken again, too.

Callie swallowed and flattened her hands over the hardness of his chest. “Maybe we are still technically married, but since that marriage was never consummated, it can’t possibly be valid.” Could it? And how could he be affecting her this way, after all this time, when she knew he didn’t want her here? He hadn’t kissed her because he loved her and wanted her back. He had kissed her to put her in her place.

Cody’s hand slid down her spine, eliciting tingles of awareness wherever he touched. Lower still, there was a peculiar weakness in her knees, a melting ache.

“Fortunately for us that’s something that’s easy enough to remedy,” Cody drawled.

Like heck it was. If he thought she was going to sleep with him and consummate their marriage now, after the way he had just treated her, and thereby forever ruin any slim chance they had of ever getting back together, he had another thing coming. “Dream on.” Her pulse skittering with reaction, Callie pushed him aside. If and when Cody ever made love to her, it was going to be because he loved her and wanted her back in his life, from this day forward. It would not be to collect on his inheritance.

Deciding the best thing to do was to stay busy, she did an about-face and marched back toward the pickup truck.

“You can’t run away from me forever,” Cody predicted, dogging her every step of the way. “Sooner or later we’re going to have to settle the score, Callie.”

She regarded his he-man expression with a defiant one of her own. “Now you are really deluding yourself.” Callie yanked open the door on the passenger side, reached behind the seat and brought out her duffel bag.

“I’m not going to be used again, Callie. If I put myself on the line for you again, I expect to get something out of it this time. Something I want.”

CALLIE STARED AT CODY, her heart pounding. “Which is?” she taunted.

“For starters, our marriage certificate,” Cody plainly specified.

She stared at him. “I don’t have it!”

His shock turned to dismay. He leaned forward urgently. “You must have it.”

Callie shook her head. Suddenly, she didn’t like the way he was looking at her. As if he didn’t believe her. Didn’t want to believe her.

“If you’re playing a game with me,” Cody growled, “hoping to get even more out of this than Max offered—by holding that over my head—”

“Oh, stop,” Callie cut him off, completely exasperated by his continuing and utterly groundless, as far as she was concerned, suspicions. “As if I would. And as for you, Cody McKendrick, you stand to get plenty out of this arrangement. You stand to get the ranch, all quarter million acres of it. So don’t you stand there and lecture me.” Callie slammed the door and tossed the duffel bag over her shoulder in one jaunty motion.

He stepped to block her way, all tough, indomitable male. “I’ve already earned the ranch.” His voice dropped a husky notch that reverberated with sexual undertones. “And as for what I want, aside from the marriage certificate, which should probably be burned or at least somehow nullified so it doesn’t show up later and muck up or otherwise complicate our eventual divorce, let’s just say I’m thinking about something infinitely more satisfying.”

And they both knew what that was. “Trust me.” Cutting a wide swath around him, Callie lugged her duffel bag all the way to the front porch. She tossed it down with all the fire of an activist making a hugely political statement. “Making love to me —” for any reason other than that you love me desperately, Callie amended silently “—would not fall into that category, Cody.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Stepping back, he regarded her with a smug look. Apparently deciding he was doing an excellent job of getting under her skin, he drawled, “Come to think of it, seems like I might enjoy the next two days more than I thought.”

Don’t count on it, Callie thought. But not wanting to give him the satisfaction of a comeback, she remained silent. “What happens after that?” she asked finally.

Cody shrugged. “We get married, just as Uncle Max willed that we must, we divorce as soon as his will allows, and then we go our separate ways.”

Callie tossed her hair. There was no way she was letting him get away with such a lame proposal. “I think I’ll pass. Now, if you don’t mind I’m tired, and I’d like to go inside.” She pushed on the door. It swung open with a creak. “Where’s the light?”

Almost as an afterthought, Cody picked up her duffel and tossed it inside. “The candles are inside.”

Callie took a quick look around. The interior of the cabin appeared to be divided neatly in two, one half acting as a living area and kitchen, the other the bedroom. Unlike the outside, it was clean and neat. But very, very spare.

“You’re joking, right?” If he wasn’t, he was definitely taking this revenge kick too far. “C’mon, Cody. It’s going to be dark soon,” Callie pointed out.

He flashed her an unrepentant grin, determined, it seemed, to be as difficult and rascally as possible. “Then we’d better find those candles, hadn’t we?”

Callie drew a tranquilizing breath. “Surely you have a flashlight,” she persisted.

“Only for emergencies,” Cody allowed.

Obviously, to his frame of mind, this wasn’t one of them.

She looked around, her displeasure growing. “There’s no refrigerator.”

Cody nodded, feigning surprise. “So there isn’t.”

Callie silently counted to ten and back down again. Keeping her eyes locked with his, she inquired, “No bathroom?”

Cody shrugged in a way she was sure he meant to irritate her. “Nature’s right outdoors.”

She exhaled brusquely. “I am not amused, Cody.”

He nodded, not the least surprised. “Then you better use the powder room out back.” Jerking a thumb over his shoulder, he pointed to a dilapidated building that most certainly did not come equipped with any plumbing.

“Surely you jest,” Callie muttered, as she spun around to see where he was pointing. She hadn’t used a latrine since the summer she’d been sent to camp. Never mind one that looked rickety and unkempt.

Cody shrugged his broad shoulders. “Suit yourself, but if you don’t use it you might be getting a mite uncomfortable after two days.”

CALLIE FOLDED HER ARMS in front of her. “I can’t believe Max wanted this for me.”

Neither could he, Cody thought.

Only a few hours had passed since they’d met up with each other again, and he’d already done what he’d silently sworn he would not do in the forty-eight hours before their wedding. He’d taken Callie in his arms again and held her and kissed her as if she were, and always would be, the only woman in his life.

He’d tried everything to finally get her out of his system — with little or no success—the past seven years. Which was, no doubt, why Uncle Max had ordered up something this crazy. Max had probably figured that more time together would be the only way they’d ever know in their hearts that this relationship of theirs was not meant to be. Heck, maybe if he made Callie’s life miserable enough, Cody thought, she would even let him buy her out. And then she could go and settle elsewhere and he could live his life in peace.

Either that, Cody scoffed inwardly, or they’d find out they were madly in love after all and meant to spend the rest of their days together, just as Max, he and Callie had all once hoped.

Aware Callie was studying him curiously, as if wondering just what he was ruminating on for so long, Cody remained stone-faced as they looked around at the stiff velvet love seat, the shade of canned peas, and the rough-hewn table for two, complete with straight-backed chairs. Aside from a supplies shelf, which contained a bag of self-rising flour, a bottle of real maple syrup, a can of shortening, box of powdered milk, salt, coffee and two tins of canned vegetables, plus a cast-iron skillet, coffeepot and set of tin camp-style dishes and cutlery, there was nothing else in the place. It was spare and efficient to the extreme, just the way he liked it. Seeing Callie’s displeasure, Cody asked, “What’s the matter? This place not fancy enough for you?”

His temper simmering, he still couldn’t get over the way she had run out on him without so much as even a note or a word of goodbye. Cody reminded himself of his promise to proceed with caution where Callie was concerned. “I thought you were dying to be a rancher’s wife.”

“I am.”

“Good.” Cody forced a tight smile. He was very interested to see just how far Callie would or would not take her quest for a buck. “Then like a good little ranch wife, you’ll be rustling us up some supper.”

Callie’s chin slid out in an unruly pout. Her green eyes shimmered with temper, too. “Thanks, I’ll pass. Besides, we’re not completely married yet, Cody. And considering the fact neither of us have the wedding certificate, we may not even have an in-name-only marriage, either. So you have no right to try and act like a husband to me, even an unruly, surly one. So put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

So, Callie was already laying out the con. Giving precious little herself and expecting a lot in return. Cody regarded her steadily. He couldn’t believe how easily he had almost been suckered in. Again. Of course, Callie responding so passionately to his kisses and then looking up at him all misty-eyed had been a nice touch. Had he not been at the receiving end of her innocent act before, and landed in a heap of trouble because he’d allowed himself to be taken in by the vulnerability beneath her typically feisty attitude, he might even have believed she had waited all this time for him.

But these days, he was older and wiser and he knew better.

Callie had saved her most convincing display of passion yet for the time when she needed it most. In other words, the big con. The one that would set her up for life. And she was here with him for one reason only, Cody reminded himself sternly. To collect on the land that Uncle Max had left her in his will. Pretending to be falling for him all over again was only a means to distract him, while she and her kin tried to con him out of everything.

Well, it wasn’t going to work this time, Cody swore silently to himself. He was going to keep her at arm’s length emotionally, even if he had to be mean as a rattlesnake to do so.

“Don’t worry,” he said dryly. “We can get another copy of the marriage certificate from the judge who married us in Mexico.” Which would maybe, if he was lucky, save him from having to marry her again. “In the meantime, consider this a trial run,” he advised succinctly, wishing she didn’t look so all-fired beautiful or vulnerable in the fading daylight.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, Cody?” Callie stepped forward to confront him toe-to-toe, quickly letting him know he wasn’t the only one who could dish it out. “If I leave, you lose everything.”

So what? Cody thought. Because, unlike Callie, he could not be bought. He was only going through with this lunatic exercise of his dear departed uncle because he wanted to see where all this would lead. As far as the Silver Spur cattle operation went, Cody thought, he had already earned that through seven years of unrelenting hard and devoted labor. This marriage business was merely the paperwork and bureaucracy he had to suffer through to cement the deal.

“If I lose, so do you,” Cody pointed out matter-of-factly to Callie. “Is that what you want?” he asked as he towered over her. “To walk away from this windfall empty-handed?”

They stared each other down in an age-old battle of the sexes.

Eventually, Cody won as he knew he would, and Callie gave a resigned sigh. “Fine. Point me to the kitchen, wherever it is.”

With a grin, Cody inclined his head to the left. He couldn’t wait to see her reaction to that. “You’re looking at it,” he said.

CALLIE KNEW Cody was giving her a hard time on purpose. No doubt he was angry at his Uncle Max for attaching such a ridiculously provincial stipulation to his inheritance. But that was not her fault and she’d be damned if she’d be the outlet for his frustration. “That’s a fireplace, Cody, not a stove.”

Cody tugged the brim of the Stetson low across his brow. “A pity,” he sighed. “If you can’t figure out how to cook on it, you’ll probably have to go hungry, then.”

Callie edged closer, aware it was getting darker with every second that passed. She knew how to cook over an open fire but saw no reason to tell him that, lest he find yet another way to make her miserable just so she would be hurting as much as he was. “Don’t you mean we’ll both go hungry?”

“No,” Cody announced with complete disregard to her comfort and well-being, “’cause I know how to cook over an open fire.”

Too nervous to eat earlier, Callie had merely picked at her breakfast and had forgone lunch altogether. Now her stomach was growling hungrily. “Meaning what exactly, Cody?” Callie prodded, balling her hands into fists at her side.

“Meaning I can cook for myself.”

Callie fought to contain her growing exasperation. “Would you at least carry in some firewood so I can build a fire in here?” she asked with a sweet gentleness that would have done any Southern belle proud.

Cody sprawled on the love seat and stretched his long, jean-clad legs out in front of him. “Nope.”

Callie could tell by the gleam in his eyes that he was up to something again. She might as well know what it was. Falling for the bait, she asked politely, “Why not?”

Cody pointed a thumb at his chest. “’Cause I won’t be needing a fire in here. I’m sleeping in the bedroom.”

Callie glanced at the love seat, which would barely accommodate the two of them sitting down, and then back at him. “Where am I sleeping?” she asked curiously. Was there a loft in the bedroom beyond?

Cody shrugged and glanced around thoughtfully. “On the floor?”

“That’s not funny!” Darn his ungallant soul, he was really going to make her sleep on the sofa, while he took the bed!

“Probably won’t be, come tomorrow morning,” Cody agreed as he pushed lazily to his feet. “By the way, we get up early around here. Ranch life starts at dawn. Perhaps even a little before.”

Callie folded her arms in front of her. “Rest assured, cowboy, I have no illusions that you’ll do anything but try and make my life hell.”

Cody’s eyes gleamed with vengeful lights. “Just returning the favor. You made my life miserable the last seven years. It’s my turn to do the same for you, for at least the next—” he glanced at his watch “—forty-five hours.”

She really had hurt him, Callie thought. “Can you at least loan me a pillow and blanket?” she said.

Again, to her frustration, Cody refused to be even the least bit accommodating. “Sorry, no can do,” he allowed calmly as she walked over to the bedroom and peered in. There was a very comfortable-looking double bed, with two pillows and a wealth of blankets, a dresser, and a fireplace, and nothing else. Still, for him not to share...

Doing his best to rile her up, he patted her shoulder condescendingly. “Look at it this way, Callie. At least you’ve got a piece of furniture to sleep on.” He inclined his head toward the love seat. “We ranchers don’t always even have that.”

He wanted to give her a hard time. He thought she couldn’t take it. He was dead wrong about that. She pivoted to face him and regarded him impatiently. “I need matches.”

“Let’s see.” He searched around without any particular energy.

Though the afternoon had been warm, the June evening looked as if it were going to be dipping down into the fifties. There was no way she’d be able to sleep without some source of warmth. “I’ll buy them from you,” she said desperately.

The mention of money made him frown. “No need for that,” Cody said brusquely as he swiftly located a canister on the top of the supply shelf, opened the lid and tossed her a pack. “Have it.”

Determined to show him what a trooper she could be, Callie asked, “Where is the water?”

“In the pump out front.”

They had to pump their own water, too? Damn. Callie looked around with a sigh. It was going to be a long night.

43:47

No WONDER Max had summoned her via his will, Callie thought long minutes later. She couldn’t believe the changes in his nephew Cody, either. Okay, so seven years had passed since she’d seen Cody, she acknowledged as she tossed off her blue blazer and rolled up the sleeves on her long-sleeved white T-shirt and got down to work building a fire. But when she had known him he had been easygoing, generous to a fault and gallant beyond belief. The Cody who’d confronted her at the Fort Benton Gentlemen’s Club was tough, suspicious, intense. Not at all like the Cody she had once known and loved with all her heart.

As if on cue, Cody came in with an armload of wood and unceremoniously took it into the bedroom. “Doesn’t look like you’re doing too good,” he drawled as he strode past.

“I’ll get it,” Callie vowed meditatively as she lit the long twig that was going to serve as kindling. Just as I’ll eventually get you back on track or die trying.

“Let’s hope so,” Cody called over his shoulder. “Otherwise you’ll be a mite chilly tonight.”

Callie sat back on her haunches. Cody always had a touch of hellion in him, just as she did in her, but in the past his disorderly, reckless side of him had always had a playful quality lurking underneath. Always before, she had known if he teased her he would also be sweet and loving. Now as she studied him she wondered if, beneath the bad-boy persona that had always been Cody’s best defense, at heart he was still the deeply sensitive, innately gallant man she’d fallen in love with, or if he’d become someone else. Someone she didn’t want to know. Not surprisingly, she found herself hoping for the first alternative. If only there was some surefire way to bring the goodness out in him again, she thought. “You could give me a hand with the fire in here, you know,” she suggested gently. Maybe simple kindness, in continual doses, and some tender loving care were all Cody really needed to get himself back on track. But to her disappointment, her efforts fell on deaf ears.

Cody tipped the brim of his hat back with the tip of his finger and mocked her with cynical blue eyes. “And deprive you of your chance to show me what a good ranch wife you’d make me?” he retorted softly. “I don’t think so. Unless...” Cody gave her a slow, lazy once-over that set her pulse to racing.

Not about to let him intimidate her that way, whether she still loved him or not, and she was beginning to think maybe she did, Callie brushed off her hands and stood. She lifted her brow. “Unless what?” she asked impatiently.

Cody manacled her wrist with his strong fingers and tugged her against his chest. Their bodies collided, head to toe, and suddenly he looked very much willing to barter with her for very high stakes. “You’ve changed your mind about that wedding night you owe me.”